Test Automation Job Trends

Automated Testing
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Test Automation skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 78 94 98
Rank change year-on-year +16 +4 -27
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 2,372 1,572 2,001
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.11% 3.17% 2.55%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.89% 3.58% 3.16%
Number of salaries quoted 1,298 748 1,043
10th Percentile £41,250 £38,200 £38,750
25th Percentile £48,750 £50,000 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £64,085 £63,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +1.72% +5.00% -4.38%
75th Percentile £80,000 £82,751 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £93,100
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -4.35%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Test Automation falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 82,210 43,908 63,272
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.10% 88.55% 80.74%
Number of salaries quoted 57,176 24,796 36,704
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,875
25th Percentile £41,500 £36,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £80,000 £75,000 £76,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +15.79% -9.52% -2.78%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Test Automation relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Test Automation job vacancy trend in the UK

Test Automation
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Test Automation.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Test Automation over the 6 months to 9 September 2026.

Salary histogram for Test Automation in the UK

Test Automation
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Test Automation within the UK over the 6 months to 9 September 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +7 1,922 £65,000 - 2,147
UK excluding London +15 1,510 £60,000 +4.35% 1,280
Work from Home +16 872 £67,500 +8.00% 920
London +1 696 £80,000 - 1,189
North of England +15 373 £60,000 - 264
South East +5 270 £60,000 +4.35% 275
South West +13 252 £60,000 +14.29% 213
Midlands 0 213 £55,000 -9.47% 137
North West -5 188 £62,500 - 157
Northern Ireland +10 164 £80,000 +45.45% 47
Wales +6 126 £55,000 +4.76% 23
West Midlands -5 119 £55,500 -3.48% 85
North East +13 104 £55,000 +57.14% 36
East Midlands -22 94 £55,000 -12.00% 52
Yorkshire -13 81 £72,500 +45.00% 71
East of England -37 74 £50,000 -14.53% 142
Scotland -37 52 £62,500 -10.71% 196

Test Automation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 53 (2.23%) Confluence
2 29 (1.22%) Apache Spark
3 25 (1.05%) SharePoint
4 24 (1.01%) Apache
5 19 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.72%) Jupyter
7 14 (0.59%) Anypoint
7 14 (0.59%) Mule
8 13 (0.55%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 12 (0.51%) CMS
10 6 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
11 5 (0.21%) Cloud Foundry
11 5 (0.21%) nginx
11 5 (0.21%) Umbraco
12 4 (0.17%) Camunda
12 4 (0.17%) IIS
12 4 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
12 4 (0.17%) SAS
12 4 (0.17%) WinCC
13 3 (0.13%) WordPress
Applications
1 72 (3.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (0.55%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (0.55%) Simulink
3 8 (0.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.21%) Lightworks
4 5 (0.21%) Moqups
5 3 (0.13%) CANalyzer
5 3 (0.13%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.13%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.084%) PlantUML
7 1 (0.042%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.042%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.042%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 67 (2.82%) Dynamics CRM
2 27 (1.14%) Dynamics GP
3 11 (0.46%) SAP S/4HANA
4 5 (0.21%) Visualfiles
5 3 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
5 3 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
5 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.084%) FLEXCUBE
6 2 (0.084%) Magento
6 2 (0.084%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.084%) Towers Watson Igloo
6 2 (0.084%) Workday HCM
7 1 (0.042%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.042%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.042%) Endur
7 1 (0.042%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.042%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.042%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.042%) Oracle Assets
7 1 (0.042%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 809 (34.11%) AWS
2 684 (28.84%) Azure
3 302 (12.73%) SaaS
4 259 (10.92%) Azure DevOps
5 252 (10.62%) GCP
6 199 (8.39%) GitHub
7 187 (7.88%) Serverless
8 103 (4.34%) AWS CloudFormation
8 103 (4.34%) GitHub Actions
9 81 (3.41%) AWS Lambda
10 78 (3.29%) Amazon EKS
11 75 (3.16%) Amazon S3
12 62 (2.61%) Power Platform
13 51 (2.15%) Azure Logic Apps
13 51 (2.15%) Azure Service Bus
13 51 (2.15%) Google Ads
13 51 (2.15%) Meta Ads
14 48 (2.02%) Azure Monitor
15 39 (1.64%) Azure Functions
16 38 (1.60%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 65 (2.74%) Broadband
2 28 (1.18%) TCP/IP
3 26 (1.10%) Firewall
4 24 (1.01%) DNS
5 17 (0.72%) SSL
6 16 (0.67%) Wireless
7 13 (0.55%) DMARC
7 13 (0.55%) Wi-Fi
8 12 (0.51%) DHCP
8 12 (0.51%) HTTP
8 12 (0.51%) MQTT
9 11 (0.46%) Modbus
9 11 (0.46%) WAN
10 10 (0.42%) 5G
10 10 (0.42%) LTE
11 9 (0.38%) 3GPP
11 9 (0.38%) Network Security
12 7 (0.30%) GSM
12 7 (0.30%) Radio Access Network
12 7 (0.30%) UMTS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 135 (5.69%) PostgreSQL
2 126 (5.31%) NoSQL
3 92 (3.88%) MongoDB
4 79 (3.33%) SQL Server
5 64 (2.70%) Relational Database
6 47 (1.98%) DynamoDB
7 39 (1.64%) MySQL
8 36 (1.52%) Data Warehouse
9 35 (1.48%) Power BI
10 34 (1.43%) Redis
11 28 (1.18%) BigQuery
12 27 (1.14%) Data Lake
13 20 (0.84%) Amazon RDS
13 20 (0.84%) Semantic Layer
14 19 (0.80%) Metadata
15 18 (0.76%) Amazon Athena
15 18 (0.76%) Spark SQL
16 13 (0.55%) Elasticsearch
17 12 (0.51%) Azure SQL Database
17 12 (0.51%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 350 (14.76%) Git
2 233 (9.82%) GitLab
3 218 (9.19%) Jenkins
4 169 (7.12%) Selenium
5 147 (6.20%) JIRA
6 109 (4.60%) Cypress.io
7 105 (4.43%) Cucumber
8 96 (4.05%) Postman
9 61 (2.57%) TeamCity
10 53 (2.23%) JMeter
11 48 (2.02%) REST Assured
12 47 (1.98%) JUnit
13 37 (1.56%) Zephyr
14 35 (1.48%) Gatling
15 31 (1.31%) SonarQube
16 28 (1.18%) TestRail
17 25 (1.05%) Bitbucket
17 25 (1.05%) LabVIEW
18 23 (0.97%) Maven
18 23 (0.97%) Robot Framework
General
1 662 (27.91%) Social Skills
2 564 (23.78%) Finance
3 342 (14.42%) Analytical Skills
4 257 (10.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 229 (9.65%) Public Sector
6 197 (8.31%) Banking
7 196 (8.26%) Law
8 152 (6.41%) Marketing
9 145 (6.11%) Legal
10 108 (4.55%) Retail
11 102 (4.30%) Manufacturing
12 82 (3.46%) Electronics
13 75 (3.16%) Financial Institution
14 57 (2.40%) Back Office
15 45 (1.90%) Games
16 43 (1.81%) Aerospace
17 41 (1.73%) Telecoms
18 30 (1.26%) Documentation Skills
19 25 (1.05%) Front Office
20 24 (1.01%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 668 (28.16%) Senior
2 348 (14.67%) Software Engineer
3 344 (14.50%) Lead
4 335 (14.12%) Developer
5 254 (10.71%) Test Engineer
6 129 (5.44%) Senior Developer
7 114 (4.81%) Java Engineer
8 103 (4.34%) Senior Software Engineer
9 101 (4.26%) DevOps Engineer
10 98 (4.13%) QA Engineer
11 85 (3.58%) Test Automation Engineer
12 83 (3.50%) Full-Stack Engineer
13 71 (2.99%) Data Engineer
14 69 (2.91%) Analyst
14 69 (2.91%) Lead Software Engineer
15 64 (2.70%) Architect
16 63 (2.66%) Senior Manager
16 63 (2.66%) Software Developer
16 63 (2.66%) Tester
17 60 (2.53%) Principal Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 327 (13.79%) Terraform
2 241 (10.16%) REST
3 238 (10.03%) React
4 219 (9.23%) .NET
5 209 (8.81%) Playwright
6 199 (8.39%) Spring
7 196 (8.26%) Node.js
8 195 (8.22%) RESTful
9 146 (6.16%) Spring Boot
10 132 (5.56%) Kafka
11 115 (4.85%) AngularJS
12 114 (4.81%) CSS
13 107 (4.51%) HTML
14 71 (2.99%) OAuth
15 67 (2.82%) Middleware
16 65 (2.74%) OAuth2
17 59 (2.49%) JSON
18 50 (2.11%) Next.js
18 50 (2.11%) PySpark
18 50 (2.11%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 413 (17.41%) Cloud Native
2 290 (12.23%) Product Ownership
3 207 (8.73%) Distributed Systems
4 116 (4.89%) Mobile App
5 96 (4.05%) Enterprise Software
6 91 (3.84%) Onboarding
7 87 (3.67%) Public Cloud
8 78 (3.29%) Blog
8 78 (3.29%) Virtual Team
9 65 (2.74%) Legacy Systems
10 64 (2.70%) Marketing Technology
11 59 (2.49%) Algorithms
12 53 (2.23%) Cyber Threat
12 53 (2.23%) Low-Code
13 47 (1.98%) Self-Motivation
14 44 (1.85%) Data Structures
14 44 (1.85%) Embedded Systems
15 43 (1.81%) Management Information System
16 39 (1.64%) e-Learning
17 37 (1.56%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 190 (8.01%) Linux
2 102 (4.30%) Windows
3 66 (2.78%) Android
4 64 (2.70%) Apple iOS
5 53 (2.23%) Unix
6 11 (0.46%) Windows Server
7 9 (0.38%) CentOS
7 9 (0.38%) Embedded Linux
8 6 (0.25%) FreeRTOS
9 5 (0.21%) Kali Linux
10 4 (0.17%) AIX
10 4 (0.17%) Debian
10 4 (0.17%) VMS
11 3 (0.13%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.084%) OpenWrt
13 1 (0.042%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 1 (0.042%) ThreadX
13 1 (0.042%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.042%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.042%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,325 (55.86%) CI/CD
2 1,019 (42.96%) Agile
3 856 (36.09%) DevOps
4 762 (32.12%) Software Engineering
5 708 (29.85%) Continuous Improvement
6 617 (26.01%) Mentoring
7 572 (24.11%) AI
8 529 (22.30%) Problem-Solving
9 434 (18.30%) Microservices
10 412 (17.37%) Software Testing
11 399 (16.82%) Infrastructure as Code
12 336 (14.17%) Test Strategy
13 295 (12.44%) Observability
14 289 (12.18%) Validation
15 286 (12.06%) Code Quality
16 285 (12.02%) Full-Stack Development
17 281 (11.85%) Coaching
18 275 (11.59%) Containerisation
19 258 (10.88%) Technical Leadership
20 257 (10.83%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 686 (28.92%) Python
2 586 (24.70%) Java
3 426 (17.96%) SQL
4 421 (17.75%) JavaScript
5 340 (14.33%) TypeScript
6 329 (13.87%) C#
7 127 (5.35%) C++
8 109 (4.60%) PowerShell
9 103 (4.34%) Go
10 87 (3.67%) Bash
11 82 (3.46%) C
12 41 (1.73%) Kotlin
13 33 (1.39%) PHP
14 32 (1.35%) Rust
15 29 (1.22%) Ruby
16 27 (1.14%) Swift
17 25 (1.05%) Bicep
18 24 (1.01%) Groovy
19 23 (0.97%) MATLAB
20 16 (0.67%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 332 (14.00%) Security Cleared
2 250 (10.54%) Degree
3 200 (8.43%) SC Cleared
4 109 (4.60%) Computer Science Degree
5 84 (3.54%) ISTQB
6 64 (2.70%) DV Cleared
7 58 (2.45%) CISSP
8 55 (2.32%) AWS Certification
8 55 (2.32%) CISM
9 54 (2.28%) ITIL Certification
10 45 (1.90%) Master's Degree
11 39 (1.64%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 35 (1.48%) HNC
13 32 (1.35%) BPSS Clearance
14 30 (1.26%) HND
15 19 (0.80%) ISEB
16 16 (0.67%) DBS Check
17 14 (0.59%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
17 14 (0.59%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
18 11 (0.46%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 553 (23.31%) QA
2 211 (8.90%) Accessibility
3 76 (3.20%) Data Quality
4 65 (2.74%) WCAG
5 58 (2.45%) NIST
6 49 (2.07%) ISO 22301
7 43 (1.81%) GDPR
8 14 (0.59%) GRC
8 14 (0.59%) SLA
9 11 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 10 (0.42%) Software Quality Assurance
11 9 (0.38%) SOC 2
12 8 (0.34%) MISRA
13 7 (0.30%) COBIT
13 7 (0.30%) JTAG
14 6 (0.25%) PMO
15 5 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials
15 5 (0.21%) NCSC
15 5 (0.21%) PCI DSS
16 4 (0.17%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 327 (13.79%) Docker
2 42 (1.77%) Firmware
3 16 (0.67%) Active Directory
3 16 (0.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
5 11 (0.46%) Embedded Firmware
6 7 (0.30%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.21%) KVM
8 2 (0.084%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.042%) IAG
9 1 (0.042%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.042%) QEMU
9 1 (0.042%) Terminal Server
9 1 (0.042%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.042%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 336 (14.17%) Kubernetes
2 142 (5.99%) Grafana
3 82 (3.46%) Ansible
4 60 (2.53%) Prometheus
5 28 (1.18%) Argo
6 17 (0.72%) Kibana
7 15 (0.63%) Puppet
8 14 (0.59%) CloudHub
9 10 (0.42%) logstash
10 9 (0.38%) HP Fortify
10 9 (0.38%) Microsoft Intune
11 8 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
12 7 (0.30%) vCenter Server
13 6 (0.25%) Functional Safety
13 6 (0.25%) Progress Chef
14 5 (0.21%) Packer
14 5 (0.21%) Rancher
15 4 (0.17%) SCCM
15 4 (0.17%) SCOM
16 3 (0.13%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 251 (10.58%) Microsoft
2 118 (4.97%) Google
3 64 (2.70%) Databricks
4 57 (2.40%) Salesforce
5 54 (2.28%) Oracle
6 46 (1.94%) SAP
7 38 (1.60%) ServiceNow
7 38 (1.60%) Splunk
8 28 (1.18%) Dynatrace
9 25 (1.05%) Pega
9 25 (1.05%) VMware
10 20 (0.84%) AppDynamics
11 18 (0.76%) MuleSoft
12 17 (0.72%) Atlassian
12 17 (0.72%) IBM
13 16 (0.67%) OpenAI
13 16 (0.67%) Red Hat
14 15 (0.63%) Allen-Bradley
15 14 (0.59%) Adobe
16 13 (0.55%) SendGrid