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 24 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 84 97
Rank change year-on-year +1 +13 -43
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 2,036 1,689 2,262
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.03% 3.44% 2.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.75% 3.83% 3.03%
Number of salaries quoted 1,178 824 1,432
10th Percentile £42,500 £37,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £50,000 £47,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £62,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +8.70% -11.54%
75th Percentile £81,250 £82,500 £71,991
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,528 £86,485
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £57,443 £52,500
% change year-on-year +4.45% +9.41% -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 74,007 44,123 74,573
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.62% 89.89% 81.72%
Number of salaries quoted 51,106 24,962 50,806
10th Percentile £30,500 £28,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.71%
75th Percentile £78,750 £76,250 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +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 24 July 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 24 July 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 0 1,690 £65,000 +3.17% 792
UK excluding London -2 1,242 £60,000 +4.45% 565
Work from Home +18 879 £67,500 +12.50% 321
London +6 632 £80,000 +3.23% 318
North of England +9 338 £57,500 -4.17% 146
South East -32 227 £60,000 +9.09% 161
South West -19 200 £56,250 -2.17% 92
Midlands -13 183 £62,500 +4.17% 73
North West -6 175 £61,250 -5.77% 80
Northern Ireland +5 130 £80,000 +45.45% 12
West Midlands -26 97 £62,500 -1.96% 41
North East +9 90 £52,500 +7.35% 30
East Midlands -24 85 £62,500 +31.58% 32
Yorkshire -21 73 £69,310 +41.45% 39
Wales -7 68 £55,000 - 13
East of England -28 61 £55,000 -3.51% 62
Scotland -41 48 £62,500 -10.71% 26

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 43 (2.11%) Confluence
2 29 (1.42%) Apache Airflow
2 29 (1.42%) Apache Spark
3 23 (1.13%) Apache
3 23 (1.13%) SharePoint
4 14 (0.69%) Jupyter
5 13 (0.64%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 13 (0.64%) CMS
6 12 (0.59%) Anypoint
6 12 (0.59%) Mule
7 7 (0.34%) IIS
8 5 (0.25%) Umbraco
8 5 (0.25%) WordPress
9 4 (0.20%) nginx
9 4 (0.20%) Palantir Foundry
10 3 (0.15%) Cloud Foundry
10 3 (0.15%) Headless CMS
10 3 (0.15%) JBoss
10 3 (0.15%) Microsoft Exchange
10 3 (0.15%) SAS
Applications
1 22 (1.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.59%) Simulink
3 11 (0.54%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.29%) PlantUML
6 5 (0.25%) Lightworks
7 3 (0.15%) CANalyzer
7 3 (0.15%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.098%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.098%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.098%) Moqups
9 1 (0.049%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 37 (1.82%) Dynamics CRM
2 27 (1.33%) Dynamics GP
3 5 (0.25%) Visualfiles
4 4 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
5 3 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (0.098%) FLEXCUBE
6 2 (0.098%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.098%) Towers Watson Igloo
6 2 (0.098%) Workday HCM
7 1 (0.049%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.049%) Endur
7 1 (0.049%) Findur
7 1 (0.049%) Magento
7 1 (0.049%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.049%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.049%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.049%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.049%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.049%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.049%) Oracle SCM
Cloud Services
1 756 (37.13%) AWS
2 643 (31.58%) Azure
3 242 (11.89%) Azure DevOps
4 230 (11.30%) GCP
4 230 (11.30%) SaaS
5 182 (8.94%) Serverless
6 168 (8.25%) GitHub
7 87 (4.27%) GitHub Actions
8 83 (4.08%) AWS CloudFormation
9 79 (3.88%) AWS Lambda
10 73 (3.59%) Amazon S3
11 68 (3.34%) Amazon EKS
12 55 (2.70%) Power Platform
13 53 (2.60%) Azure Service Bus
14 52 (2.55%) PaaS
15 45 (2.21%) Azure Logic Apps
16 44 (2.16%) Azure Monitor
16 44 (2.16%) dbt
17 40 (1.96%) Amazon EC2
18 35 (1.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 71 (3.49%) Broadband
2 24 (1.18%) Firewall
3 14 (0.69%) Wireless
4 13 (0.64%) DMARC
4 13 (0.64%) SSL
5 12 (0.59%) DNS
5 12 (0.59%) MQTT
6 11 (0.54%) TCP/IP
7 10 (0.49%) LTE
7 10 (0.49%) Wi-Fi
8 8 (0.39%) 3GPP
9 7 (0.34%) CHAP
9 7 (0.34%) GSM
9 7 (0.34%) HTTP
9 7 (0.34%) Radio Access Network
9 7 (0.34%) RANAP
9 7 (0.34%) SS7
9 7 (0.34%) UMTS
9 7 (0.34%) WAN
9 7 (0.34%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 136 (6.68%) NoSQL
2 132 (6.48%) PostgreSQL
3 104 (5.11%) MongoDB
4 68 (3.34%) SQL Server
5 47 (2.31%) DynamoDB
6 43 (2.11%) Relational Database
7 39 (1.92%) MySQL
8 28 (1.38%) Data Warehouse
9 27 (1.33%) Redis
10 26 (1.28%) Power BI
11 24 (1.18%) BigQuery
12 18 (0.88%) Spark SQL
13 17 (0.83%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.79%) Metadata
14 16 (0.79%) Semantic Layer
15 14 (0.69%) Amazon Athena
15 14 (0.69%) Data Lake
16 13 (0.64%) Oracle Database
17 12 (0.59%) Elasticsearch
18 10 (0.49%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 269 (13.21%) Git
2 181 (8.89%) GitLab
2 181 (8.89%) Jenkins
3 152 (7.47%) Selenium
4 128 (6.29%) JIRA
5 93 (4.57%) Cucumber
6 91 (4.47%) Cypress.io
7 79 (3.88%) Postman
8 55 (2.70%) TeamCity
9 52 (2.55%) JMeter
10 38 (1.87%) JUnit
10 38 (1.87%) REST Assured
11 32 (1.57%) Zephyr
12 25 (1.23%) Gatling
12 25 (1.23%) SpecFlow
12 25 (1.23%) TestRail
13 21 (1.03%) fastlane
14 20 (0.98%) Crashlytics
15 18 (0.88%) Bitbucket
15 18 (0.88%) Robot Framework
General
1 535 (26.28%) Social Skills
2 448 (22.00%) Finance
3 213 (10.46%) Analytical Skills
4 208 (10.22%) Public Sector
5 198 (9.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 182 (8.94%) Banking
7 173 (8.50%) Law
8 113 (5.55%) Legal
9 92 (4.52%) Retail
10 68 (3.34%) Manufacturing
11 59 (2.90%) Marketing
12 57 (2.80%) Electronics
12 57 (2.80%) Financial Institution
13 54 (2.65%) Games
14 49 (2.41%) Back Office
15 30 (1.47%) Front Office
16 27 (1.33%) Telecoms
17 24 (1.18%) Documentation Skills
18 21 (1.03%) Influencing Skills
19 19 (0.93%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 579 (28.44%) Senior
2 319 (15.67%) Lead
3 306 (15.03%) Software Engineer
4 293 (14.39%) Developer
5 216 (10.61%) Test Engineer
6 122 (5.99%) Senior Developer
7 116 (5.70%) Java Engineer
8 94 (4.62%) Senior Software Engineer
9 85 (4.17%) Test Automation Engineer
10 84 (4.13%) QA Engineer
11 82 (4.03%) Full-Stack Engineer
12 76 (3.73%) DevOps Engineer
13 70 (3.44%) Test Leader
14 68 (3.34%) Architect
15 66 (3.24%) Tester
16 62 (3.05%) Data Engineer
17 59 (2.90%) Senior Manager
18 54 (2.65%) Software Developer
19 53 (2.60%) Analyst
19 53 (2.60%) Senior Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 211 (10.36%) React
2 198 (9.72%) .NET
3 181 (8.89%) Spring
4 179 (8.79%) Playwright
5 177 (8.69%) REST
6 173 (8.50%) Node.js
7 172 (8.45%) RESTful
8 136 (6.68%) Spring Boot
9 118 (5.80%) Kafka
10 100 (4.91%) AngularJS
11 87 (4.27%) CSS
12 84 (4.13%) HTML
13 66 (3.24%) Middleware
14 65 (3.19%) OAuth
15 58 (2.85%) OAuth2
16 48 (2.36%) JSON
17 45 (2.21%) RabbitMQ
18 43 (2.11%) Vue
19 42 (2.06%) Next.js
20 39 (1.92%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 363 (17.83%) Cloud Native
2 229 (11.25%) Product Ownership
3 170 (8.35%) Distributed Systems
4 102 (5.01%) Mobile App
5 73 (3.59%) Enterprise Software
6 69 (3.39%) Virtual Team
7 65 (3.19%) Public Cloud
8 62 (3.05%) Legacy Systems
9 60 (2.95%) Cyber Threat
10 56 (2.75%) Algorithms
11 50 (2.46%) Blog
12 49 (2.41%) Low-Code
13 48 (2.36%) Management Information System
14 44 (2.16%) Data Structures
15 41 (2.01%) Onboarding
16 40 (1.96%) Greenfield Project
17 34 (1.67%) Embedded Systems
17 34 (1.67%) Self-Motivation
17 34 (1.67%) Video\Live Streaming
18 33 (1.62%) Marketing Technology
Operating Systems
1 180 (8.84%) Linux
2 92 (4.52%) Windows
3 59 (2.90%) Apple iOS
4 52 (2.55%) Unix
5 50 (2.46%) Android
6 10 (0.49%) Windows Server
7 7 (0.34%) CentOS
8 6 (0.29%) FreeRTOS
9 5 (0.25%) Embedded Linux
10 4 (0.20%) Kali Linux
11 3 (0.15%) AIX
11 3 (0.15%) Debian
12 1 (0.049%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 1 (0.049%) ThreadX
12 1 (0.049%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.049%) VMS
12 1 (0.049%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.049%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,164 (57.17%) CI/CD
2 909 (44.65%) Agile
3 785 (38.56%) DevOps
4 643 (31.58%) Software Engineering
5 580 (28.49%) Mentoring
6 578 (28.39%) Continuous Improvement
7 409 (20.09%) Problem-Solving
8 401 (19.70%) Microservices
9 391 (19.20%) AI
10 367 (18.03%) Infrastructure as Code
11 345 (16.94%) Software Testing
12 285 (14.00%) Test Strategy
13 268 (13.16%) Containerisation
14 261 (12.82%) Coaching
15 260 (12.77%) Full-Stack Development
16 258 (12.67%) Observability
17 227 (11.15%) Code Quality
18 226 (11.10%) Validation
19 212 (10.41%) Scrum
20 206 (10.12%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 644 (31.63%) Python
2 553 (27.16%) Java
3 365 (17.93%) JavaScript
4 317 (15.57%) SQL
5 301 (14.78%) TypeScript
6 297 (14.59%) C#
7 115 (5.65%) C++
8 105 (5.16%) PowerShell
9 82 (4.03%) Go
10 78 (3.83%) Bash
11 72 (3.54%) C
12 41 (2.01%) Kotlin
13 32 (1.57%) Rust
14 30 (1.47%) Swift
15 29 (1.42%) PHP
16 25 (1.23%) Ruby
17 22 (1.08%) Bicep
18 21 (1.03%) MATLAB
19 18 (0.88%) Groovy
20 16 (0.79%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 249 (12.23%) Security Cleared
2 233 (11.44%) Degree
3 155 (7.61%) SC Cleared
4 105 (5.16%) Computer Science Degree
5 81 (3.98%) ISTQB
6 61 (3.00%) CISSP
7 60 (2.95%) ITIL Certification
8 56 (2.75%) CISM
9 46 (2.26%) DV Cleared
10 39 (1.92%) AWS Certification
11 37 (1.82%) Master's Degree
12 28 (1.38%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 17 (0.83%) DBS Check
13 17 (0.83%) ISEB
14 15 (0.74%) BPSS Clearance
15 13 (0.64%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 12 (0.59%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
17 11 (0.54%) HNC
18 9 (0.44%) HND
19 7 (0.34%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 478 (23.48%) QA
2 186 (9.14%) Accessibility
3 74 (3.63%) Data Quality
4 61 (3.00%) NIST
5 54 (2.65%) WCAG
6 53 (2.60%) ISO 22301
7 45 (2.21%) GDPR
8 14 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 14 (0.69%) SLA
9 13 (0.64%) Software Quality Assurance
10 11 (0.54%) GRC
11 9 (0.44%) SOC 2
12 8 (0.39%) COBIT
13 7 (0.34%) JTAG
14 6 (0.29%) MISRA
14 6 (0.29%) PMO
15 4 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials
15 4 (0.20%) ISO 9001
15 4 (0.20%) NCSC
16 3 (0.15%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 279 (13.70%) Docker
2 29 (1.42%) Firmware
3 22 (1.08%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
5 13 (0.64%) Hyper-V
6 11 (0.54%) Active Directory
6 11 (0.54%) KVM
7 10 (0.49%) Embedded Firmware
8 2 (0.098%) vSphere
9 1 (0.049%) IAG
9 1 (0.049%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.049%) Terminal Server
9 1 (0.049%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.049%) Xen
Systems Management
1 311 (15.28%) Terraform
2 304 (14.93%) Kubernetes
3 130 (6.39%) Grafana
4 79 (3.88%) Ansible
5 60 (2.95%) Prometheus
6 25 (1.23%) Argo
7 16 (0.79%) Kibana
8 12 (0.59%) CloudHub
9 9 (0.44%) logstash
9 9 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
10 8 (0.39%) Puppet
11 7 (0.34%) HP Fortify
12 6 (0.29%) Functional Safety
12 6 (0.29%) vCenter Server
13 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Intune
13 5 (0.25%) Packer
14 4 (0.20%) SCCM
14 4 (0.20%) SCOM
15 3 (0.15%) Progress Chef
15 3 (0.15%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 156 (7.66%) Microsoft
2 57 (2.80%) Databricks
3 49 (2.41%) Google
3 49 (2.41%) Salesforce
4 48 (2.36%) Oracle
5 41 (2.01%) ServiceNow
6 35 (1.72%) VMware
7 29 (1.42%) Splunk
8 26 (1.28%) Dynatrace
9 25 (1.23%) SAP
10 21 (1.03%) Pega
11 17 (0.83%) AppDynamics
12 16 (0.79%) Braze
13 15 (0.74%) Adobe
13 15 (0.74%) MuleSoft
13 15 (0.74%) OpenAI
14 14 (0.69%) Amplitude
14 14 (0.69%) Atlassian
14 14 (0.69%) IBM
15 13 (0.64%) SendGrid