Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies with a requirement for SDET skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered in vacancies that have cited SDET over the 6 months to 14 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
14 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 690 598 603
Rank change year-on-year -92 +5 -155
Permanent jobs citing SDET 208 409 810
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.21% 0.41% 0.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.25% 0.43% 0.53%
Number of salaries quoted 170 340 410
10th Percentile £43,750 £55,000 £46,625
25th Percentile £47,500 £63,750 £54,063
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £75,000 £67,500
Median % change year-on-year - +11.11% +5.47%
75th Percentile £107,500 £95,000 £81,250
90th Percentile £112,750 £106,375 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £65,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -23.08% +8.33% +14.29%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

SDET is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 84,701 95,929 153,018
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 85.52% 95.60% 95.73%
Number of salaries quoted 59,701 56,502 82,944
10th Percentile £29,000 £34,000 £33,740
25th Percentile £40,000 £45,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £61,180 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.10% +1.97% +9.09%
75th Percentile £72,500 £81,250 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £100,000 £96,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -9.09% +4.76% +9.38%

SDET
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing SDET as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for SDET in the UK

SDET
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing SDET.

Salary trend for SDET in the UK

SDET
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing SDET over the 6 months to 14 May 2024.

Salary histogram for SDET in the UK

SDET
Top 10 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing SDET within the UK over the 6 months to 14 May 2024. 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 -83 200 £75,000 - 24
London -19 140 £95,000 +18.75% 9
Work from Home -48 114 £77,500 +3.33% 19
UK excluding London -31 67 £50,000 -23.08% 16
South East +32 51 £47,500 -32.14% 6
Yorkshire +84 7 £65,000 - 5
North of England +17 7 £65,000 - 5
East of England +5 4 £78,750 +36.96%
Scotland -51 3 £45,000 +73.08% 1
South West -33 2 £52,500 +16.67% 3

SDET
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 12 (5.77%) Apache
2 6 (2.88%) OpenStack
Cloud Services
1 48 (23.08%) SaaS
2 37 (17.79%) Azure
3 22 (10.58%) GitHub
4 21 (10.10%) AWS
5 19 (9.13%) Azure DevOps
6 6 (2.88%) IaaS
7 2 (0.96%) Power Platform
8 1 (0.48%) GCP
8 1 (0.48%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.44%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (5.77%) Relational Database
2 3 (1.44%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.48%) Apache Cassandra
3 1 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
3 1 (0.48%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 106 (50.96%) Selenium
2 86 (41.35%) Cucumber
2 86 (41.35%) Jenkins
3 66 (31.73%) Postman
4 42 (20.19%) Cypress.io
5 37 (17.79%) JUnit
6 33 (15.87%) WebDriver
7 32 (15.38%) JMeter
8 26 (12.50%) REST Assured
9 15 (7.21%) TestNG
10 12 (5.77%) JIRA
11 11 (5.29%) Appium
12 10 (4.81%) Git
12 10 (4.81%) NUnit
12 10 (4.81%) Visual Studio
13 9 (4.33%) SoapUI
14 8 (3.85%) Maven
14 8 (3.85%) SpecFlow
15 7 (3.37%) Atlassian Bamboo
16 6 (2.88%) Bitbucket Server
General
1 13 (6.25%) Finance
2 7 (3.37%) Financial Institution
3 6 (2.88%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (2.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 5 (2.40%) Pharmaceutical
4 5 (2.40%) Public Sector
5 4 (1.92%) Electronics
5 4 (1.92%) Health Technology
5 4 (1.92%) Social Skills
5 4 (1.92%) Tech for Good
6 3 (1.44%) Banking
6 3 (1.44%) Marketing
7 1 (0.48%) Games
7 1 (0.48%) Law
Job Titles
1 87 (41.83%) Lead
2 35 (16.83%) Senior
3 21 (10.10%) Tester
4 20 (9.62%) Automation Tester
5 15 (7.21%) Developer
5 15 (7.21%) Developer in Test
5 15 (7.21%) QA Engineer
5 15 (7.21%) Software Engineer
6 13 (6.25%) Software Developer
7 11 (5.29%) Development Engineer
7 11 (5.29%) Software Development Engineer
7 11 (5.29%) Test Development Engineer
8 8 (3.85%) Test Engineer
9 6 (2.88%) JavaScript Developer
10 5 (2.40%) Python Engineer
10 5 (2.40%) QA Automation Engineer
11 4 (1.92%) Automation Engineer
11 4 (1.92%) Java Automation Tester
11 4 (1.92%) QA Leader
11 4 (1.92%) Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (38.94%) REST
2 23 (11.06%) Web Services
3 22 (10.58%) Playwright
4 21 (10.10%) .NET
4 21 (10.10%) JSON
5 18 (8.65%) WireMock
6 13 (6.25%) React
7 12 (5.77%) Apache Commons
7 12 (5.77%) Guava
7 12 (5.77%) Java Concurrency
8 11 (5.29%) .NET Core
9 10 (4.81%) WebdriverIO
9 10 (4.81%) XML
10 9 (4.33%) Kafka
11 8 (3.85%) RESTful
11 8 (3.85%) Spring
12 7 (3.37%) .NET Framework
12 7 (3.37%) Apache Thrift
12 7 (3.37%) Spring Boot
13 6 (2.88%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 6 (2.88%) Client/Server
1 6 (2.88%) Greenfield Project
1 6 (2.88%) Life Science
2 5 (2.40%) Enterprise Software
3 4 (1.92%) Product Ownership
4 2 (0.96%) Hackathon
4 2 (0.96%) Virtual Team
5 1 (0.48%) Bitcoin
5 1 (0.48%) Derivative
5 1 (0.48%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (0.48%) Embedded Systems
5 1 (0.48%) Legacy Applications
5 1 (0.48%) Mobile App
5 1 (0.48%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 7 (3.37%) Linux
2 3 (1.44%) Android
3 1 (0.48%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 117 (56.25%) Test Automation
2 101 (48.56%) Software Testing
3 92 (44.23%) CI/CD
4 88 (42.31%) API Testing
5 87 (41.83%) Agile
6 72 (34.62%) BDD
7 67 (32.21%) Test Strategy
8 60 (28.85%) Clean Code
9 37 (17.79%) Fintech
10 33 (15.87%) DevOps
11 28 (13.46%) OO
11 28 (13.46%) Test Planning
12 27 (12.98%) Microservices
12 27 (12.98%) Unit Testing
13 26 (12.50%) Code Quality
14 25 (12.02%) Mentoring
15 24 (11.54%) Line Management
16 23 (11.06%) Scrum
17 21 (10.10%) Continuous Integration
18 19 (9.13%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 116 (55.77%) Java
2 55 (26.44%) JavaScript
3 33 (15.87%) C#
4 31 (14.90%) SQL
5 21 (10.10%) Python
6 12 (5.77%) TypeScript
7 6 (2.88%) Bash
7 6 (2.88%) PHP
7 6 (2.88%) Ruby
8 3 (1.44%) Kotlin
8 3 (1.44%) PL/SQL
8 3 (1.44%) Swift
9 1 (0.48%) C++
9 1 (0.48%) Go
Qualifications
1 16 (7.69%) SC Cleared
1 16 (7.69%) Security Cleared
2 13 (6.25%) Degree
3 2 (0.96%) ISTQB
4 1 (0.48%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (0.48%) ISEB
4 1 (0.48%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 81 (38.94%) QA
2 5 (2.40%) Accessibility
System Software
1 23 (11.06%) Docker
2 4 (1.92%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 21 (10.10%) Kubernetes
2 5 (2.40%) HP Quality Center
2 5 (2.40%) Terraform
3 2 (0.96%) Ansible
4 1 (0.48%) Consul
Vendors
1 14 (6.73%) Microsoft
2 5 (2.40%) HP
3 2 (0.96%) Oracle
4 1 (0.48%) CA Agile Central