Test Lead
UK

The median Test Lead salary in the UK is £55,000 per year according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months to 20 May 2024.

The first table below provides salary benchmarking and summary statistics including a comparison to same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
20 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 794 765 987
Rank change year-on-year -29 +222 -273
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Leader 90 211 258
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.090% 0.21% 0.16%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.095% 0.23% 0.16%
Number of salaries quoted 67 130 140
10th Percentile £35,750 £46,250 £42,500
25th Percentile £43,750 £50,117 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £63,750 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year -13.73% +2.00% +4.17%
75th Percentile £78,750 £85,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £93,000 £98,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -4.55% -8.33% +18.81%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
UK

The following table is for comparison with the above and includes summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 94,627 91,047 156,403
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.71% 91.54% 96.08%
Number of salaries quoted 67,562 57,571 85,106
10th Percentile £28,500 £32,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £38,500 £45,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% - +9.09%
75th Percentile £70,750 £80,000 £78,750
90th Percentile £90,000 £100,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% +5.26%

Test Leader
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Test Leader in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Test Leader in the UK

Test Leader
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing Test Leader.

Salary trend for Test Leader in the UK

Test Leader
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Test Leader over the 6 months to 20 May 2024.

Salary histogram for Test Leader in the UK

Test Leader
Top 16 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Test Leader within the UK over the 6 months to 20 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 -23 77 £57,500 -11.54% 28
UK excluding London -56 69 £52,500 -4.55% 22
Work from Home +28 47 £55,000 -18.52% 5
London +57 17 £80,000 -8.57% 9
Midlands -28 15 £38,250 -30.45% 7
South West -23 14 £85,000 +25.93% 1
South East -4 13 £47,500 -8.65% 11
North of England +25 12 £60,000 +9.09%
East Midlands -19 11 £36,500 -51.33% 1
North West -7 7 £60,000 +9.09%
East of England +1 6 - - 2
Wales - 6 £52,500 -
Yorkshire +79 5 £77,500 +67.57%
West Midlands -6 4 £44,500 -19.09% 6
Northern Ireland - 2 - -
Scotland -66 1 £35,776 -48.89% 2

Test Leader Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 20 May 2024, Test Leader job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads featuring Test Leader in the job title.

1 58 (64.44%) Test Automation
2 37 (41.11%) Test Strategy
3 35 (38.89%) QA
4 31 (34.44%) Selenium
5 21 (23.33%) DevOps
5 21 (23.33%) Social Skills
5 21 (23.33%) Software Testing
5 21 (23.33%) Azure
6 20 (22.22%) Agile
7 19 (21.11%) JavaScript
8 18 (20.00%) ISTQB
9 17 (18.89%) CI/CD
10 16 (17.78%) ISEB
11 15 (16.67%) Manual Testing
12 13 (14.44%) JIRA
12 13 (14.44%) AWS
12 13 (14.44%) Git
12 13 (14.44%) Stakeholder Management
13 11 (12.22%) Migration
13 11 (12.22%) SQL
13 11 (12.22%) SaaS
13 11 (12.22%) REST
13 11 (12.22%) Performance Testing
13 11 (12.22%) Problem-Solving
13 11 (12.22%) Line Management
13 11 (12.22%) SDLC
14 10 (11.11%) Jenkins
14 10 (11.11%) Continuous Integration
14 10 (11.11%) E-Commerce
14 10 (11.11%) Finance

Test Leader Skill Set
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 5 (5.56%) Confluence
2 2 (2.22%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 7 (7.78%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 21 (23.33%) Azure
2 13 (14.44%) AWS
3 11 (12.22%) SaaS
4 4 (4.44%) BrowserStack
4 4 (4.44%) GCP
4 4 (4.44%) Sauce Labs
5 2 (2.22%) Tricentis Tosca
6 1 (1.11%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (1.11%) Boomi
6 1 (1.11%) Dynamics 365
6 1 (1.11%) GitHub
6 1 (1.11%) GitHub Actions
6 1 (1.11%) Microsoft 365
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (7.78%) SQL Server
2 4 (4.44%) Data Lake
2 4 (4.44%) Data Warehouse
2 4 (4.44%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.11%) MariaDB
3 1 (1.11%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 31 (34.44%) Selenium
2 13 (14.44%) Git
2 13 (14.44%) JIRA
3 10 (11.11%) Jenkins
4 9 (10.00%) Cypress.io
5 7 (7.78%) JMeter
5 7 (7.78%) JUnit
5 7 (7.78%) Postman
5 7 (7.78%) Team Foundation Server
5 7 (7.78%) TestNG
6 6 (6.67%) LoadRunner
6 6 (6.67%) SpecFlow
7 4 (4.44%) Zephyr
8 3 (3.33%) Cucumber
8 3 (3.33%) NeoLoad
9 2 (2.22%) Appium
9 2 (2.22%) SoapUI
10 1 (1.11%) GitLab
10 1 (1.11%) Phabricator
10 1 (1.11%) REST Assured
General
1 21 (23.33%) Social Skills
2 10 (11.11%) Finance
3 9 (10.00%) Organisational Skills
4 6 (6.67%) Banking
4 6 (6.67%) Manufacturing
5 4 (4.44%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (2.22%) Aerospace
6 2 (2.22%) Law
6 2 (2.22%) Public Sector
6 2 (2.22%) Retail
6 2 (2.22%) Telecoms
7 1 (1.11%) Analytical Skills
7 1 (1.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.11%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (12.22%) REST
2 6 (6.67%) Swagger
3 3 (3.33%) Playwright
3 3 (3.33%) XML
4 2 (2.22%) JSON
4 2 (2.22%) SOAP
5 1 (1.11%) .NET
5 1 (1.11%) Django
5 1 (1.11%) FastAPI
5 1 (1.11%) Flask
5 1 (1.11%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 8 (8.89%) Self-Motivation
2 5 (5.56%) Product Ownership
3 2 (2.22%) Driving Licence
3 2 (2.22%) Greenfield Project
4 1 (1.11%) BBC
4 1 (1.11%) Cybercrime
4 1 (1.11%) Enterprise Software
4 1 (1.11%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.11%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 58 (64.44%) Test Automation
2 37 (41.11%) Test Strategy
3 21 (23.33%) DevOps
3 21 (23.33%) Software Testing
4 20 (22.22%) Agile
5 17 (18.89%) CI/CD
6 15 (16.67%) Manual Testing
7 13 (14.44%) Stakeholder Management
8 11 (12.22%) Line Management
8 11 (12.22%) Migration
8 11 (12.22%) Performance Testing
8 11 (12.22%) Problem-Solving
8 11 (12.22%) SDLC
9 10 (11.11%) Continuous Integration
9 10 (11.11%) E-Commerce
10 9 (10.00%) User Acceptance Testing
11 8 (8.89%) Defect Management
11 8 (8.89%) Web Testing
12 7 (7.78%) Mentoring
12 7 (7.78%) Performance Metrics
Programming Languages
1 19 (21.11%) JavaScript
2 11 (12.22%) SQL
3 8 (8.89%) C#
3 8 (8.89%) Python
4 5 (5.56%) Java
Qualifications
1 18 (20.00%) ISTQB
2 16 (17.78%) ISEB
3 9 (10.00%) Security Cleared
4 7 (7.78%) Degree
5 4 (4.44%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (4.44%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (2.22%) DBS Check
6 2 (2.22%) SC Cleared
7 1 (1.11%) AWS Certification
7 1 (1.11%) CHECK Team Leader
7 1 (1.11%) CREST Certified
7 1 (1.11%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 1 (1.11%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (38.89%) QA
2 3 (3.33%) Data Quality
3 1 (1.11%) ISO 9001
3 1 (1.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (1.11%) PMO
System Software
1 1 (1.11%) Docker
1 1 (1.11%) Embedded Firmware
1 1 (1.11%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 1 (1.11%) Ansible
1 1 (1.11%) Grafana
1 1 (1.11%) Kubernetes
1 1 (1.11%) Podman
Vendors
1 7 (7.78%) Microsoft
2 3 (3.33%) OpenAI
3 2 (2.22%) CA Agile Central
3 2 (2.22%) iManage
3 2 (2.22%) Intapp
3 2 (2.22%) Thales
4 1 (1.11%) Infor
4 1 (1.11%) SAP