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 12 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 79 97
Rank change year-on-year -4 +18 -64
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 1,834 1,613 2,696
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.98% 3.64% 2.52%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.72% 3.93% 3.06%
Number of salaries quoted 1,137 783 1,718
10th Percentile £41,250 £39,200 £36,250
25th Percentile £48,289 £47,750 £44,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £62,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year - +8.70% -11.54%
75th Percentile £82,500 £82,751 £72,322
90th Percentile £97,500 £100,000 £87,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £59,750 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +3.91% +9.52% -8.70%

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 67,454 41,012 87,985
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 72.86% 92.64% 82.31%
Number of salaries quoted 46,240 21,844 62,402
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,000 £29,500
25th Percentile £41,250 £40,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.69%
75th Percentile £78,750 £77,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -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 12 June 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 12 June 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 +4 1,609 £62,500 -0.79% 462
UK excluding London -25 1,009 £59,750 +3.91% 393
Work from Home +11 745 £65,000 +8.33% 226
London +23 661 £80,000 +7.02% 132
North of England -10 282 £60,000 -0.42% 105
South East -18 210 £60,000 +9.09% 117
South West -27 177 £55,000 -8.33% 43
Midlands -13 167 £60,000 +4.35% 58
North West -2 148 £60,000 -7.69% 60
West Midlands -36 84 £61,000 -9.63% 39
East Midlands -18 82 £55,000 +25.71% 19
Yorkshire -30 69 £72,500 +44.36% 25
North East -3 65 £52,500 -8.70% 21
East of England -19 65 £52,500 -7.89% 55
Wales +2 55 £55,000 -4.35% 8
Scotland -40 55 £60,000 - 16
Northern Ireland -33 11 £80,000 +45.45% 6

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 33 (1.80%) Confluence
2 25 (1.36%) Apache Airflow
3 20 (1.09%) Apache Spark
4 19 (1.04%) Jupyter
5 18 (0.98%) Apache
6 15 (0.82%) SharePoint
7 9 (0.49%) CMS
7 9 (0.49%) IIS
7 9 (0.49%) Palantir Foundry
8 8 (0.44%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 8 (0.44%) Appian
9 5 (0.27%) Anypoint
9 5 (0.27%) Umbraco
10 4 (0.22%) Mule
10 4 (0.22%) SAS
11 3 (0.16%) nginx
11 3 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 3 (0.16%) WordPress
12 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Exchange
12 2 (0.11%) Oracle Application Server
Applications
1 16 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.65%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.44%) Simulink
4 6 (0.33%) PlantUML
5 5 (0.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 3 (0.16%) CANalyzer
7 2 (0.11%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.11%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.11%) Fusion 360
7 2 (0.11%) Lightworks
7 2 (0.11%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 11 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
2 5 (0.27%) Visualfiles
3 4 (0.22%) Dynamics AX
4 3 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.11%) Shopify
5 2 (0.11%) Towers Watson Igloo
5 2 (0.11%) Workday HCM
6 1 (0.055%) Elite 3E
6 1 (0.055%) Endur
6 1 (0.055%) Findur
6 1 (0.055%) FLEXCUBE
6 1 (0.055%) Magento
6 1 (0.055%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.055%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.055%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.055%) Oracle Financials
6 1 (0.055%) Oracle SCM
Cloud Services
1 629 (34.30%) AWS
2 561 (30.59%) Azure
3 246 (13.41%) Azure DevOps
4 217 (11.83%) GCP
5 172 (9.38%) Serverless
6 155 (8.45%) GitHub
7 130 (7.09%) SaaS
8 78 (4.25%) AWS Lambda
9 76 (4.14%) GitHub Actions
10 75 (4.09%) Amazon EKS
11 72 (3.93%) Amazon S3
12 69 (3.76%) AWS CloudFormation
13 56 (3.05%) PaaS
14 47 (2.56%) Power Platform
15 46 (2.51%) Azure Service Bus
16 41 (2.24%) dbt
17 40 (2.18%) Azure Monitor
18 39 (2.13%) Azure Logic Apps
19 38 (2.07%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 38 (2.07%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 62 (3.38%) Broadband
2 26 (1.42%) Firewall
3 13 (0.71%) CHAP
4 12 (0.65%) DNS
4 12 (0.65%) WAN
5 11 (0.60%) SD-WAN
6 10 (0.55%) 5G
7 9 (0.49%) DMARC
8 7 (0.38%) Wireless
9 6 (0.33%) HTTP
9 6 (0.33%) MQTT
10 5 (0.27%) Bluetooth
10 5 (0.27%) SMS
10 5 (0.27%) VPN
10 5 (0.27%) Wi-Fi
10 5 (0.27%) ZigBee
11 4 (0.22%) DHCP
11 4 (0.22%) LTE
11 4 (0.22%) SSL
12 3 (0.16%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 131 (7.14%) NoSQL
2 116 (6.32%) PostgreSQL
3 97 (5.29%) MongoDB
4 69 (3.76%) SQL Server
5 40 (2.18%) DynamoDB
6 31 (1.69%) MySQL
7 29 (1.58%) Data Warehouse
7 29 (1.58%) Relational Database
8 26 (1.42%) Power BI
9 21 (1.15%) Amazon RDS
10 18 (0.98%) Redis
10 18 (0.98%) Spark SQL
11 17 (0.93%) BigQuery
12 16 (0.87%) Oracle Database
13 15 (0.82%) Metadata
14 13 (0.71%) Semantic Layer
15 11 (0.60%) Amazon Athena
15 11 (0.60%) Data Lake
16 10 (0.55%) Pinecone
17 9 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 214 (11.67%) Git
2 157 (8.56%) Jenkins
3 144 (7.85%) GitLab
4 142 (7.74%) Selenium
5 110 (6.00%) JIRA
6 86 (4.69%) Cypress.io
7 74 (4.03%) Cucumber
8 66 (3.60%) Postman
9 59 (3.22%) TeamCity
10 45 (2.45%) JMeter
11 37 (2.02%) REST Assured
12 29 (1.58%) JUnit
12 29 (1.58%) SpecFlow
13 23 (1.25%) CircleCI
13 23 (1.25%) LabVIEW
13 23 (1.25%) TestRail
13 23 (1.25%) Zephyr
14 20 (1.09%) Crashlytics
15 19 (1.04%) Gatling
16 18 (0.98%) fastlane
General
1 461 (25.14%) Social Skills
2 422 (23.01%) Finance
3 192 (10.47%) Banking
4 187 (10.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 157 (8.56%) Public Sector
6 156 (8.51%) Analytical Skills
7 115 (6.27%) Law
8 95 (5.18%) Retail
9 62 (3.38%) Financial Institution
10 58 (3.16%) Manufacturing
11 53 (2.89%) Electronics
12 52 (2.84%) Games
13 48 (2.62%) Back Office
14 34 (1.85%) Front Office
15 32 (1.74%) Legal
16 31 (1.69%) Marketing
17 19 (1.04%) Documentation Skills
18 18 (0.98%) Influencing Skills
18 18 (0.98%) Investment Banking
19 17 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 482 (26.28%) Senior
2 296 (16.14%) Lead
3 272 (14.83%) Software Engineer
4 261 (14.23%) Developer
5 216 (11.78%) Test Engineer
6 119 (6.49%) Senior Developer
7 108 (5.89%) Java Engineer
8 90 (4.91%) Test Automation Engineer
9 88 (4.80%) QA Engineer
10 82 (4.47%) Tester
11 79 (4.31%) Senior Software Engineer
12 75 (4.09%) Test Leader
13 63 (3.44%) Full-Stack Engineer
14 62 (3.38%) Architect
15 61 (3.33%) Data Engineer
16 56 (3.05%) Senior Test Engineer
17 54 (2.94%) DevOps Engineer
18 53 (2.89%) Python Developer
19 49 (2.67%) Analyst
20 48 (2.62%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 195 (10.63%) .NET
2 188 (10.25%) React
3 163 (8.89%) RESTful
4 161 (8.78%) REST
5 156 (8.51%) Playwright
6 144 (7.85%) Spring
7 138 (7.52%) Node.js
8 104 (5.67%) Spring Boot
9 99 (5.40%) Kafka
10 70 (3.82%) AngularJS
11 62 (3.38%) HTML
12 61 (3.33%) CSS
13 55 (3.00%) OAuth
14 46 (2.51%) OAuth2
15 44 (2.40%) RabbitMQ
16 41 (2.24%) JSON
17 38 (2.07%) PyTorch
18 37 (2.02%) pytest
18 37 (2.02%) Vue
18 37 (2.02%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 337 (18.38%) Cloud Native
2 198 (10.80%) Product Ownership
3 139 (7.58%) Distributed Systems
4 99 (5.40%) Mobile App
5 60 (3.27%) Management Information System
6 55 (3.00%) Public Cloud
7 53 (2.89%) Enterprise Software
8 52 (2.84%) Low-Code
9 51 (2.78%) Algorithms
10 48 (2.62%) Onboarding
11 43 (2.34%) Data Structures
12 41 (2.24%) Legacy Systems
13 36 (1.96%) Greenfield Project
14 34 (1.85%) Video\Live Streaming
15 32 (1.74%) Self-Motivation
16 26 (1.42%) Embedded Systems
17 25 (1.36%) Blog
17 25 (1.36%) Hedge funds
18 23 (1.25%) Hybrid Cloud
19 22 (1.20%) e-Learning
Operating Systems
1 157 (8.56%) Linux
2 78 (4.25%) Windows
3 70 (3.82%) Apple iOS
4 58 (3.16%) Android
5 50 (2.73%) Unix
6 10 (0.55%) CentOS
7 8 (0.44%) Windows Server
8 4 (0.22%) FreeRTOS
8 4 (0.22%) Kali Linux
8 4 (0.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.16%) AIX
9 3 (0.16%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.11%) Debian
10 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.055%) ThreadX
11 1 (0.055%) VxWorks
11 1 (0.055%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.055%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,011 (55.13%) CI/CD
2 759 (41.38%) Agile
3 625 (34.08%) DevOps
4 508 (27.70%) Software Engineering
5 462 (25.19%) Continuous Improvement
6 444 (24.21%) Mentoring
7 368 (20.07%) Problem-Solving
8 339 (18.48%) Microservices
9 332 (18.10%) Infrastructure as Code
10 309 (16.85%) AI
11 285 (15.54%) Software Testing
12 254 (13.85%) Observability
13 239 (13.03%) Containerisation
14 231 (12.60%) Full-Stack Development
15 229 (12.49%) Coaching
16 227 (12.38%) Test Strategy
17 215 (11.72%) Validation
18 197 (10.74%) Clean Code
19 176 (9.60%) Technical Leadership
20 174 (9.49%) Deployment Automation
Programming Languages
1 578 (31.52%) Python
2 506 (27.59%) Java
3 302 (16.47%) SQL
4 266 (14.50%) JavaScript
5 232 (12.65%) C#
6 225 (12.27%) TypeScript
7 98 (5.34%) C++
8 86 (4.69%) Go
9 80 (4.36%) Bash
10 67 (3.65%) PowerShell
11 60 (3.27%) C
12 33 (1.80%) Kotlin
13 31 (1.69%) Rust
14 27 (1.47%) Bicep
15 26 (1.42%) Swift
16 23 (1.25%) MATLAB
16 23 (1.25%) PHP
17 19 (1.04%) Ruby
18 17 (0.93%) Groovy
19 15 (0.82%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 236 (12.87%) Degree
2 209 (11.40%) Security Cleared
3 126 (6.87%) SC Cleared
4 94 (5.13%) Computer Science Degree
5 84 (4.58%) ISTQB
6 43 (2.34%) DV Cleared
7 31 (1.69%) AWS Certification
8 30 (1.64%) Master's Degree
9 22 (1.20%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 21 (1.15%) CISSP
11 19 (1.04%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 18 (0.98%) DBS Check
13 15 (0.82%) HND
14 13 (0.71%) CGEIT
14 13 (0.71%) CISA
14 13 (0.71%) CISM
14 13 (0.71%) FFIEC
14 13 (0.71%) PhD
14 13 (0.71%) SANS
15 12 (0.65%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 412 (22.46%) QA
2 163 (8.89%) Accessibility
3 83 (4.53%) Data Quality
4 49 (2.67%) GDPR
5 33 (1.80%) WCAG
6 24 (1.31%) NIST
7 17 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 15 (0.82%) SLA
9 14 (0.76%) COBIT
10 12 (0.65%) Software Quality Assurance
11 11 (0.60%) GRC
12 8 (0.44%) ISO 22301
12 8 (0.44%) ISO 9001
13 7 (0.38%) SOC 2
14 6 (0.33%) PMO
15 5 (0.27%) JTAG
16 4 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
17 3 (0.16%) IEC 61508
17 3 (0.16%) PERC
17 3 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 248 (13.52%) Docker
2 25 (1.36%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (1.09%) Firmware
4 18 (0.98%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.87%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (0.76%) Active Directory
6 14 (0.76%) KVM
7 9 (0.49%) Embedded Firmware
8 2 (0.11%) Terminal Server
8 2 (0.11%) vSphere
9 1 (0.055%) IAG
9 1 (0.055%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.055%) Xen
Systems Management
1 302 (16.47%) Terraform
2 286 (15.59%) Kubernetes
3 135 (7.36%) Grafana
4 78 (4.25%) Ansible
5 66 (3.60%) Prometheus
6 24 (1.31%) Argo
7 15 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.76%) Kibana
9 8 (0.44%) logstash
10 5 (0.27%) HP Fortify
10 5 (0.27%) Packer
10 5 (0.27%) SCCM
10 5 (0.27%) SCOM
10 5 (0.27%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.22%) CloudHub
11 4 (0.22%) Functional Safety
11 4 (0.22%) Microsoft Intune
12 3 (0.16%) HP ALM
12 3 (0.16%) Puppet
12 3 (0.16%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 140 (7.63%) Microsoft
2 54 (2.94%) Databricks
3 53 (2.89%) Oracle
4 47 (2.56%) Salesforce
5 40 (2.18%) VMware
6 38 (2.07%) Google
7 25 (1.36%) ServiceNow
7 25 (1.36%) Splunk
8 21 (1.15%) Dynatrace
8 21 (1.15%) OpenAI
9 16 (0.87%) Braze
9 16 (0.87%) SAP
10 14 (0.76%) Amplitude
11 13 (0.71%) CrowdStrike
11 13 (0.71%) IFS
11 13 (0.71%) MuleSoft
12 12 (0.65%) AppDynamics
13 11 (0.60%) Atlassian
13 11 (0.60%) Commvault
13 11 (0.60%) Foundry