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 6 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 101 76 92
Rank change year-on-year -25 +16 -60
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 1,470 1,714 2,423
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.04% 3.74% 3.06%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.59% 4.00% 3.49%
Number of salaries quoted 899 874 1,712
10th Percentile £42,500 £41,250 £36,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £47,563 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £62,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year - +4.17% -4.00%
75th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £76,250
90th Percentile £105,000 £105,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,600 £57,500 £53,000
% change year-on-year -3.30% +8.49% -7.83%

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 56,699 42,799 69,454
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 78.53% 93.38% 87.82%
Number of salaries quoted 34,103 21,982 53,104
10th Percentile £29,250 £32,500 £29,288
25th Percentile £38,750 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,350 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.86% +9.73% -12.00%
75th Percentile £76,250 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -9.09%

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 6 March 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 6 March 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 -28 1,221 £62,500 - 659
UK excluding London -59 754 £55,600 -3.30% 598
Work from Home +9 625 £65,000 +4.00% 404
London +36 583 £80,000 +6.67% 183
South East -70 178 £55,000 - 154
North of England -75 139 £60,000 +9.09% 150
South West -11 130 £55,000 -8.33% 81
Scotland +8 128 £76,109 +26.85% 65
Midlands -67 92 £55,000 -8.33% 73
North West -37 79 £60,000 +14.29% 80
East of England -52 53 £50,000 -28.57% 66
East Midlands -57 47 £55,000 - 28
West Midlands -52 46 £55,100 -8.17% 44
Yorkshire -68 42 £55,000 -7.93% 47
Wales -9 29 £57,500 +17.91% 17
North East -28 18 £55,100 -9.30% 23
Northern Ireland -45 7 £78,609 +23.31% 7

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 32 (2.18%) Confluence
2 25 (1.70%) Apache Airflow
3 19 (1.29%) Apache Spark
4 16 (1.09%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 15 (1.02%) Appian
6 13 (0.88%) Apache
7 10 (0.68%) Palantir Foundry
8 9 (0.61%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.61%) SharePoint
9 8 (0.54%) CMS
10 6 (0.41%) IIS
10 6 (0.41%) WordPress
11 4 (0.27%) Apache Solr
12 3 (0.20%) JBoss
12 3 (0.20%) Microsoft Exchange
12 3 (0.20%) nginx
12 3 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
13 2 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 2 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
13 2 (0.14%) SAS
Applications
1 19 (1.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.95%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.68%) MS Visio
4 9 (0.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.27%) Fusion 360
5 4 (0.27%) PlantUML
6 3 (0.20%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.14%) Sketch
8 1 (0.068%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.068%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.068%) Trello
Business Applications
1 35 (2.38%) Oracle ERP
2 30 (2.04%) SAP S/4HANA
3 20 (1.36%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
4 4 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 4 (0.27%) Shopify
5 3 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
5 3 (0.20%) SAP CX
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
6 2 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.068%) Hyperion Planning
7 1 (0.068%) NEC Housing
7 1 (0.068%) Oracle Assets
7 1 (0.068%) Oracle General Ledger
7 1 (0.068%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.068%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.068%) Oracle SCM
7 1 (0.068%) Postilion
7 1 (0.068%) SAP Hybris
7 1 (0.068%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 494 (33.61%) Azure
2 417 (28.37%) AWS
3 278 (18.91%) Azure DevOps
4 218 (14.83%) GitHub
5 168 (11.43%) GCP
6 122 (8.30%) SaaS
7 90 (6.12%) Serverless
8 73 (4.97%) GitHub Copilot
9 72 (4.90%) GitHub Actions
10 68 (4.63%) Amazon EKS
10 68 (4.63%) Power Platform
11 67 (4.56%) PaaS
12 50 (3.40%) dbt
13 49 (3.33%) Azure Data Factory
14 41 (2.79%) Datadog
15 40 (2.72%) Snowflake
16 39 (2.65%) AWS Lambda
17 37 (2.52%) Amazon S3
17 37 (2.52%) AWS CloudFormation
17 37 (2.52%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.43%) DNS
2 19 (1.29%) HTTP
3 18 (1.22%) TCP/IP
4 16 (1.09%) WAN
5 15 (1.02%) SD-WAN
6 12 (0.82%) 5G
7 10 (0.68%) CHAP
7 10 (0.68%) VPN
8 8 (0.54%) Firewall
9 5 (0.34%) Broadband
10 4 (0.27%) 3G
10 4 (0.27%) GPRS
10 4 (0.27%) GSM
10 4 (0.27%) Modbus
10 4 (0.27%) Multicast
10 4 (0.27%) RS-232
10 4 (0.27%) RS-485
10 4 (0.27%) SMTP
10 4 (0.27%) SSL
11 3 (0.20%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 89 (6.05%) PostgreSQL
2 80 (5.44%) NoSQL
2 80 (5.44%) SQL Server
3 53 (3.61%) Relational Database
4 48 (3.27%) MySQL
5 41 (2.79%) Data Warehouse
6 40 (2.72%) MongoDB
7 39 (2.65%) Power BI
8 20 (1.36%) DynamoDB
9 18 (1.22%) Tableau
10 15 (1.02%) Metadata
11 14 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
11 14 (0.95%) Elasticsearch
12 13 (0.88%) DB2
13 12 (0.82%) Pinecone
13 12 (0.82%) Snowflake Schema
14 11 (0.75%) BigQuery
15 10 (0.68%) Data Lake
15 10 (0.68%) Oracle Database
16 9 (0.61%) Redis
Development Applications
1 184 (12.52%) Selenium
2 155 (10.54%) Git
3 148 (10.07%) JIRA
4 136 (9.25%) Jenkins
5 80 (5.44%) Cypress.io
6 69 (4.69%) Cucumber
7 67 (4.56%) GitLab
8 61 (4.15%) TeamCity
9 49 (3.33%) Postman
10 44 (2.99%) JMeter
11 32 (2.18%) Oracle Forms
12 30 (2.04%) SpecFlow
13 27 (1.84%) Robot Framework
14 25 (1.70%) CircleCI
14 25 (1.70%) eCATT
15 24 (1.63%) JUnit
15 24 (1.63%) MLflow
16 22 (1.50%) REST Assured
17 21 (1.43%) Snyk
17 21 (1.43%) WebDriver
General
1 471 (32.04%) Finance
2 437 (29.73%) Social Skills
3 153 (10.41%) Analytical Skills
3 153 (10.41%) Banking
4 115 (7.82%) Law
5 108 (7.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 87 (5.92%) Retail
7 72 (4.90%) Marketing
7 72 (4.90%) Public Sector
8 61 (4.15%) Financial Institution
9 46 (3.13%) Manufacturing
10 40 (2.72%) Back Office
11 36 (2.45%) Front Office
12 30 (2.04%) Electronics
13 27 (1.84%) Legal
14 25 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
15 22 (1.50%) Influencing Skills
16 20 (1.36%) Documentation Skills
17 19 (1.29%) Games
18 17 (1.16%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 405 (27.55%) Senior
2 229 (15.58%) Lead
3 223 (15.17%) Developer
4 170 (11.56%) Software Engineer
5 136 (9.25%) Test Engineer
6 103 (7.01%) Senior Developer
7 85 (5.78%) QA Engineer
8 80 (5.44%) Test Leader
9 73 (4.97%) Tester
10 70 (4.76%) Analyst
10 70 (4.76%) Java Engineer
10 70 (4.76%) Test Automation Engineer
11 59 (4.01%) Automation Engineer
12 55 (3.74%) Senior Software Engineer
13 51 (3.47%) Applications Engineer
14 50 (3.40%) QA Automation Engineer
15 48 (3.27%) Python Developer
16 47 (3.20%) Automation Tester
17 44 (2.99%) Cloud Engineer
18 41 (2.79%) Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 159 (10.82%) React
2 148 (10.07%) RESTful
3 136 (9.25%) .NET
4 113 (7.69%) Playwright
5 107 (7.28%) REST
6 84 (5.71%) Spring
7 73 (4.97%) Node.js
8 63 (4.29%) JSON
8 63 (4.29%) Kafka
9 60 (4.08%) CSS
9 60 (4.08%) HTML
9 60 (4.08%) Spring Boot
10 55 (3.74%) OAuth
11 53 (3.61%) pytest
12 51 (3.47%) SOAP
13 42 (2.86%) OAuth2
14 37 (2.52%) Elastic Stack
14 37 (2.52%) XML
15 32 (2.18%) AngularJS
15 32 (2.18%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 253 (17.21%) Cloud Native
2 111 (7.55%) Product Ownership
3 54 (3.67%) Enterprise Software
3 54 (3.67%) Self-Motivation
4 52 (3.54%) Management Information System
4 52 (3.54%) Mobile App
5 44 (2.99%) Legacy Systems
6 36 (2.45%) Distributed Systems
6 36 (2.45%) Onboarding
7 29 (1.97%) Algorithms
8 28 (1.90%) Data Structures
8 28 (1.90%) Low-Code
9 27 (1.84%) Hedge funds
10 25 (1.70%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 25 (1.70%) Greenfield Project
11 24 (1.63%) Equities
12 22 (1.50%) GNSS
12 22 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
13 21 (1.43%) Satnav
14 19 (1.29%) Blog
Operating Systems
1 139 (9.46%) Linux
2 75 (5.10%) Windows
3 48 (3.27%) Apple iOS
4 44 (2.99%) Android
5 36 (2.45%) Unix
6 9 (0.61%) Windows Server
7 8 (0.54%) CentOS
8 5 (0.34%) Debian
8 5 (0.34%) Embedded Linux
8 5 (0.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.27%) FreeRTOS
10 3 (0.20%) Windows 10
10 3 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.14%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.14%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.068%) AIX
12 1 (0.068%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 747 (50.82%) CI/CD
2 614 (41.77%) Agile
3 507 (34.49%) DevOps
4 334 (22.72%) Continuous Improvement
5 328 (22.31%) Mentoring
6 321 (21.84%) Problem-Solving
7 318 (21.63%) Software Engineering
8 241 (16.39%) AI
9 233 (15.85%) Coaching
9 233 (15.85%) Microservices
10 190 (12.93%) Observability
11 185 (12.59%) Infrastructure as Code
12 183 (12.45%) Software Testing
13 182 (12.38%) Clean Code
14 163 (11.09%) Test Strategy
15 151 (10.27%) Analytics
16 149 (10.14%) Containerisation
17 139 (9.46%) Full-Stack Development
18 129 (8.78%) Validation
19 128 (8.71%) Deployment Automation
Programming Languages
1 436 (29.66%) Python
2 376 (25.58%) Java
3 306 (20.82%) SQL
4 199 (13.54%) JavaScript
5 175 (11.90%) TypeScript
6 149 (10.14%) C#
7 82 (5.58%) PowerShell
8 62 (4.22%) C++
9 50 (3.40%) Bash
10 41 (2.79%) Go
10 41 (2.79%) PL/SQL
11 38 (2.59%) Shell Script
12 29 (1.97%) PHP
13 28 (1.90%) Bicep
13 28 (1.90%) C
14 27 (1.84%) Apex Code
15 21 (1.43%) Kotlin
16 20 (1.36%) Rust
17 13 (0.88%) MATLAB
18 12 (0.82%) VBA
Qualifications
1 187 (12.72%) Degree
2 136 (9.25%) Security Cleared
3 91 (6.19%) SC Cleared
4 69 (4.69%) Computer Science Degree
5 65 (4.42%) ISTQB
6 33 (2.24%) DV Cleared
7 32 (2.18%) Master's Degree
8 24 (1.63%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 22 (1.50%) AWS Certification
10 16 (1.09%) CISSP
10 16 (1.09%) HND
11 15 (1.02%) DBS Check
11 15 (1.02%) ISEB
12 14 (0.95%) Azure Certification
12 14 (0.95%) CEH
12 14 (0.95%) PhD
13 11 (0.75%) CISA
14 10 (0.68%) CGEIT
14 10 (0.68%) CISM
14 10 (0.68%) FFIEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 335 (22.79%) QA
2 102 (6.94%) Accessibility
3 62 (4.22%) Data Quality
4 46 (3.13%) NIST
5 42 (2.86%) GDPR
6 35 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 25 (1.70%) WCAG
8 16 (1.09%) SLA
9 14 (0.95%) ISO 22301
9 14 (0.95%) NCSC
10 11 (0.75%) ISO 9001
11 10 (0.68%) COBIT
12 6 (0.41%) Software Quality Assurance
13 5 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 4 (0.27%) IEC 61508
14 4 (0.27%) ISO 13485
14 4 (0.27%) ISO 26262
14 4 (0.27%) MISRA
15 3 (0.20%) Section 508
15 3 (0.20%) SEPA
System Software
1 211 (14.35%) Docker
2 37 (2.52%) Active Directory
3 16 (1.09%) Firmware
4 13 (0.88%) Embedded Firmware
4 13 (0.88%) VMware Infrastructure
5 10 (0.68%) Hyper-V
6 9 (0.61%) KVM
7 4 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.14%) Terminal Server
9 1 (0.068%) vSphere
9 1 (0.068%) Xen
Systems Management
1 256 (17.41%) Terraform
2 253 (17.21%) Kubernetes
3 116 (7.89%) Grafana
4 63 (4.29%) Ansible
5 41 (2.79%) Single Sign-On
6 39 (2.65%) Prometheus
7 28 (1.90%) HP ALM
8 8 (0.54%) Argo
9 6 (0.41%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.34%) logstash
11 3 (0.20%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.20%) Rancher
11 3 (0.20%) SCCM
11 3 (0.20%) SCOM
12 2 (0.14%) Control-M
12 2 (0.14%) Kibana
12 2 (0.14%) Nessus
12 2 (0.14%) Progress Chef
13 1 (0.068%) Puppet
13 1 (0.068%) Rundeck
Vendors
1 112 (7.62%) Microsoft
2 89 (6.05%) Oracle
3 55 (3.74%) Salesforce
4 48 (3.27%) SAP
5 40 (2.72%) VMware
6 38 (2.59%) Databricks
7 33 (2.24%) Google
8 29 (1.97%) HP
9 20 (1.36%) Commvault
10 19 (1.29%) OpenAI
11 18 (1.22%) Black Duck
11 18 (1.22%) Coverity
12 17 (1.16%) Okta
12 17 (1.16%) Splunk
13 15 (1.02%) ServiceNow
13 15 (1.02%) UiPath
14 14 (0.95%) Ab Initio
14 14 (0.95%) Palantir
15 13 (0.88%) Foundry
16 12 (0.82%) Automation Anywhere