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 23 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 89 86 74
Rank change year-on-year -3 -12 -37
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 1,583 1,970 2,196
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 3.21% 2.85% 3.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.64% 3.46% 4.21%
Number of salaries quoted 750 889 1,752
10th Percentile £39,856 £40,600 £41,250
25th Percentile £51,250 £47,500 £47,688
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £62,500 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% - +4.17%
75th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £105,000 £105,000 £97,290
UK excluding London median annual salary £57,750 £57,500 £57,500
% change year-on-year +0.43% - +4.55%

All Process and 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 43,536 56,936 52,211
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 88.40% 82.37% 94.05%
Number of salaries quoted 24,785 30,358 39,972
10th Percentile £28,250 £33,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £35,854 £45,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £46,500 £54,000 £53,000
% change year-on-year -13.89% +1.89% +0.95%

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 23 October 2025.

Salary histogram for Test Automation in the UK

Test Automation
Top 18 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 23 October 2025. 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 -6 1,338 £65,000 +2.73% 1,177
UK excluding London -16 959 £57,750 +0.43% 958
Work from Home +20 692 £63,000 +0.80% 698
London +26 522 £82,500 +6.45% 496
North of England -33 243 £60,000 +20.60% 189
South East -29 236 £55,000 - 444
North West -18 193 £60,000 +17.07% 111
Midlands +9 157 £61,500 +2.50% 84
Scotland +9 146 £73,648 +40.28% 51
South West -4 87 £52,500 -16.00% 99
West Midlands +13 85 £61,500 +2.50% 54
East Midlands +2 75 £61,250 +2.08% 30
East of England -45 70 £57,500 +4.55% 78
Yorkshire -35 36 £55,000 +11.11% 49
Wales +10 22 £53,750 +17.29% 12
North East -3 14 £40,375 -31.55% 30
Northern Ireland -11 7 £67,500 +20.00% 12
Isle of Man - 1 £52,500 -

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
1 187 (11.81%) Confluence
2 31 (1.96%) Apache Spark
3 26 (1.64%) Apache Airflow
4 20 (1.26%) Apache
4 20 (1.26%) SharePoint
5 13 (0.82%) Appian
5 13 (0.82%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 9 (0.57%) Headless CMS
7 7 (0.44%) Apache Solr
7 7 (0.44%) CMS
7 7 (0.44%) Jupyter
7 7 (0.44%) nginx
8 5 (0.32%) IIS
9 3 (0.19%) Umbraco
10 2 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.13%) WordPress
11 1 (0.063%) BizTalk Server
11 1 (0.063%) JBoss
11 1 (0.063%) Mendix
11 1 (0.063%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 14 (0.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.76%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.51%) Blender
4 7 (0.44%) Chatbot
5 6 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.32%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.25%) Oracle Smart View
8 3 (0.19%) Simulink
9 2 (0.13%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
9 2 (0.13%) Photoshop
9 2 (0.13%) Sketch
10 1 (0.063%) Doxygen
10 1 (0.063%) SOLIDWORKS
10 1 (0.063%) Trello
Business Applications
1 33 (2.08%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.77%) Dynamics CRM
3 27 (1.71%) Oracle ERP
4 12 (0.76%) Dynamics NAV
5 8 (0.51%) Elite 3E
5 8 (0.51%) Shopify
6 4 (0.25%) Hyperion Planning
6 4 (0.25%) Oracle Assets
6 4 (0.25%) Oracle Financials
6 4 (0.25%) Oracle General Ledger
6 4 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
6 4 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.19%) Aladdin
7 3 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
7 3 (0.19%) Unit4 Business World
8 1 (0.063%) Oracle BPM
8 1 (0.063%) Postilion
8 1 (0.063%) SAP CX
8 1 (0.063%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 668 (42.20%) Azure
2 630 (39.80%) AWS
3 272 (17.18%) GCP
4 249 (15.73%) Azure DevOps
5 165 (10.42%) GitHub
6 101 (6.38%) SaaS
7 81 (5.12%) Serverless
8 68 (4.30%) PaaS
9 66 (4.17%) Power Platform
10 64 (4.04%) GitHub Actions
11 54 (3.41%) Amazon S3
12 47 (2.97%) AWS Lambda
13 43 (2.72%) Datadog
14 41 (2.59%) Dynamics 365
15 32 (2.02%) Azure Logic Apps
16 31 (1.96%) Amazon EKS
17 29 (1.83%) Entra ID
17 29 (1.83%) GitHub Copilot
18 28 (1.77%) Snowflake
19 27 (1.71%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.39%) DNS
2 21 (1.33%) 5G
3 20 (1.26%) SD-WAN
3 20 (1.26%) WAN
4 15 (0.95%) HTTP
5 12 (0.76%) TCP/IP
6 10 (0.63%) Firewall
6 10 (0.63%) VLAN
7 9 (0.57%) Network Security
7 9 (0.57%) VPN
8 8 (0.51%) SSL
8 8 (0.51%) Wi-Fi
9 6 (0.38%) DHCP
9 6 (0.38%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 6 (0.38%) Modbus
10 4 (0.25%) 3G
10 4 (0.25%) Broadband
10 4 (0.25%) Cisco ISE
10 4 (0.25%) GPRS
10 4 (0.25%) GSM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 320 (20.21%) SQL Server
2 95 (6.00%) Relational Database
3 89 (5.62%) NoSQL
4 74 (4.67%) PostgreSQL
5 45 (2.84%) MySQL
6 36 (2.27%) Data Warehouse
7 32 (2.02%) MongoDB
8 30 (1.90%) DynamoDB
8 30 (1.90%) Power BI
9 21 (1.33%) Amazon RDS
9 21 (1.33%) RDBMS
10 20 (1.26%) Big Data
11 12 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
12 11 (0.69%) Tableau
13 10 (0.63%) Amazon Athena
13 10 (0.63%) Snowflake Schema
14 9 (0.57%) Apache Iceberg
14 9 (0.57%) MariaDB
14 9 (0.57%) Redis
15 8 (0.51%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 435 (27.48%) Selenium
2 402 (25.39%) JIRA
3 300 (18.95%) Cucumber
4 297 (18.76%) GitLab
5 271 (17.12%) Maven
6 260 (16.42%) Bitbucket
7 259 (16.36%) SonarQube
8 250 (15.79%) Sonatype Nexus
9 170 (10.74%) Git
10 126 (7.96%) Jenkins
11 72 (4.55%) Cypress.io
12 56 (3.54%) Postman
13 41 (2.59%) JMeter
14 33 (2.08%) JUnit
15 31 (1.96%) TeamCity
16 28 (1.77%) eCATT
17 27 (1.71%) Appium
17 27 (1.71%) Snyk
18 26 (1.64%) Robot Framework
19 25 (1.58%) Oracle Forms
General
1 701 (44.28%) Finance
2 422 (26.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 377 (23.82%) Social Skills
4 349 (22.05%) Banking
5 181 (11.43%) Law
6 152 (9.60%) Analytical Skills
7 134 (8.46%) Marketing
8 124 (7.83%) Retail
9 97 (6.13%) Investment Banking
10 90 (5.69%) Corporate Banking
11 80 (5.05%) Public Sector
12 75 (4.74%) Manufacturing
13 44 (2.78%) Back Office
14 40 (2.53%) Front Office
14 40 (2.53%) Legal
15 36 (2.27%) Electronics
16 30 (1.90%) Financial Institution
16 30 (1.90%) Presentation Skills
17 22 (1.39%) Documentation Skills
17 22 (1.39%) Games
Job Titles
1 385 (24.32%) Software Engineer
2 350 (22.11%) Senior
3 320 (20.21%) Developer
4 252 (15.92%) Lead
5 124 (7.83%) Senior Developer
6 96 (6.06%) Test Engineer
7 67 (4.23%) Analyst
8 66 (4.17%) DevOps Engineer
9 61 (3.85%) Python Developer
10 60 (3.79%) QA Engineer
11 56 (3.54%) Java Developer
11 56 (3.54%) Java Engineer
12 53 (3.35%) Full-Stack Developer
13 51 (3.22%) Test Automation Engineer
14 50 (3.16%) Test Leader
15 44 (2.78%) Lead Developer
16 42 (2.65%) Test Analyst
17 40 (2.53%) Python Engineer
18 39 (2.46%) Quality Engineer
19 37 (2.34%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 393 (24.83%) React
2 344 (21.73%) Kafka
3 340 (21.48%) CSS
3 340 (21.48%) HTML
4 320 (20.21%) Spring
5 298 (18.83%) Spring Boot
6 260 (16.42%) JPA
7 253 (15.98%) Redux
8 213 (13.46%) RESTful
9 192 (12.13%) REST
10 168 (10.61%) Hibernate
11 134 (8.46%) .NET
12 109 (6.89%) Jest
13 104 (6.57%) Playwright
14 101 (6.38%) CSS3
15 100 (6.32%) HTML5
16 97 (6.13%) Sass
17 72 (4.55%) Node.js
18 52 (3.28%) JSON
19 47 (2.97%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 317 (20.03%) Product Ownership
2 287 (18.13%) Enterprise Software
3 183 (11.56%) Cloud Native
4 57 (3.60%) Onboarding
5 54 (3.41%) Self-Motivation
6 52 (3.28%) Management Information System
7 50 (3.16%) Mobile App
8 49 (3.10%) e-Learning
9 48 (3.03%) Data Structures
10 43 (2.72%) Algorithms
11 42 (2.65%) Hybrid Cloud
12 33 (2.08%) Hedge funds
13 31 (1.96%) Public Cloud
13 31 (1.96%) Security Posture
14 28 (1.77%) Distributed Systems
14 28 (1.77%) Equities
15 23 (1.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 23 (1.45%) Virtual Team
16 22 (1.39%) Client/Server
17 21 (1.33%) GNSS
Operating Systems
1 107 (6.76%) Linux
2 54 (3.41%) Windows
3 34 (2.15%) Unix
4 21 (1.33%) Windows Server
5 15 (0.95%) Apple iOS
6 9 (0.57%) Android
7 5 (0.32%) Embedded Linux
7 5 (0.32%) FreeRTOS
7 5 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
8 3 (0.19%) Debian
8 3 (0.19%) VMS
9 2 (0.13%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.13%) Solaris
9 2 (0.13%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.063%) CentOS
10 1 (0.063%) Kali Linux
10 1 (0.063%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 983 (62.10%) Agile
2 900 (56.85%) CI/CD
3 752 (47.50%) DevOps
4 507 (32.03%) Software Engineering
5 460 (29.06%) SDLC
6 417 (26.34%) Containerisation
7 416 (26.28%) Microservices
8 391 (24.70%) Mentoring
9 362 (22.87%) Full-Stack Development
10 356 (22.49%) Continuous Improvement
11 342 (21.60%) Problem-Solving
12 310 (19.58%) Front End Development
13 280 (17.69%) TDD
14 273 (17.25%) Performance Optimisation
15 269 (16.99%) Clean Code
16 216 (13.64%) User Experience
17 192 (12.13%) AI
18 180 (11.37%) Coaching
19 165 (10.42%) Migration
20 153 (9.67%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 560 (35.38%) SQL
2 554 (35.00%) Java
3 456 (28.81%) JavaScript
4 383 (24.19%) Python
5 208 (13.14%) TypeScript
6 184 (11.62%) C#
7 85 (5.37%) C++
8 74 (4.67%) PowerShell
9 48 (3.03%) Go
10 40 (2.53%) C
10 40 (2.53%) Shell Script
11 39 (2.46%) PHP
12 30 (1.90%) PL/SQL
13 24 (1.52%) MATLAB
14 22 (1.39%) Kotlin
15 21 (1.33%) Bicep
16 18 (1.14%) Bash
17 13 (0.82%) Groovy
18 11 (0.69%) Scala
19 10 (0.63%) Swift
Qualifications
1 193 (12.19%) Degree
2 101 (6.38%) Security Cleared
3 97 (6.13%) Computer Science Degree
4 77 (4.86%) ISTQB
5 74 (4.67%) SC Cleared
6 44 (2.78%) Master's Degree
7 31 (1.96%) AWS Certification
8 30 (1.90%) DV Cleared
9 23 (1.45%) DBS Check
10 20 (1.26%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 17 (1.07%) HND
12 15 (0.95%) ISEB
13 9 (0.57%) BPSS Clearance
14 8 (0.51%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 8 (0.51%) ITIL Certification
15 6 (0.38%) Azure Certification
15 6 (0.38%) CCNA
15 6 (0.38%) CCNP
15 6 (0.38%) Cisco Certification
15 6 (0.38%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 532 (33.61%) QA
2 157 (9.92%) Accessibility
3 65 (4.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 39 (2.46%) NIST
5 31 (1.96%) NCSC
6 29 (1.83%) Data Quality
7 19 (1.20%) ISO 9001
7 19 (1.20%) WCAG
8 17 (1.07%) GDPR
9 10 (0.63%) SLA
10 5 (0.32%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials
11 4 (0.25%) MISRA
12 3 (0.19%) GRC
12 3 (0.19%) ISO 22301
12 3 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.19%) Section 508
12 3 (0.19%) SEPA
13 2 (0.13%) GxP
13 2 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 12207
System Software
1 427 (26.97%) Docker
2 40 (2.53%) Active Directory
3 19 (1.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (0.95%) Firmware
5 13 (0.82%) Embedded Firmware
6 7 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.44%) vSphere
7 5 (0.32%) HDFS
7 5 (0.32%) zsh
8 4 (0.25%) Terminal Server
9 2 (0.13%) KVM
9 2 (0.13%) Xen
Systems Management
1 439 (27.73%) Kubernetes
2 175 (11.05%) Terraform
3 54 (3.41%) Ansible
4 45 (2.84%) Grafana
5 28 (1.77%) HP ALM
6 25 (1.58%) Single Sign-On
7 24 (1.52%) Prometheus
8 10 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
9 6 (0.38%) Mesos
10 5 (0.32%) Progress Chef
10 5 (0.32%) SCCM
10 5 (0.32%) SCOM
11 4 (0.25%) Control-M
11 4 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
12 3 (0.19%) HP Quality Center
12 3 (0.19%) Kubeflow
12 3 (0.19%) Puppet
13 2 (0.13%) CFEngine
13 2 (0.13%) Functional Safety
13 2 (0.13%) HP Fortify
Vendors
1 247 (15.60%) Solace
2 153 (9.67%) Microsoft
3 69 (4.36%) Oracle
4 57 (3.60%) Google
5 56 (3.54%) Salesforce
6 49 (3.10%) SAP
7 46 (2.91%) IBM
8 39 (2.46%) Red Hat
9 36 (2.27%) Databricks
10 32 (2.02%) VMware
11 28 (1.77%) HP
12 25 (1.58%) Guidewire
13 21 (1.33%) Black Duck
14 16 (1.01%) Apple
14 16 (1.01%) Coverity
14 16 (1.01%) Siebel
15 15 (0.95%) Splunk
16 13 (0.82%) UiPath
17 12 (0.76%) Okta
18 11 (0.69%) BiZZdesign