Each year brings new demands to the test automation market. Test automation engineers must master their skills to stay ahead of the curve and land their dream jobs. After our last study: World’s Most Desirable Test Automation Skills, TestProject examined the best Test Automation Skills around the World to determine which Test Automation Skills and techniques are Most in demand in 2018.
Research methods:
Countries surveyed: US, India, Ukraine, Moldova, Germany, Poland, UK, Netherlands, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Russia and China.
Samples collected: 1340
Job sites: Indeed.com, Glassdoor.com, Monster.com, 51job.com, reed.co.uk, naukri.com, schwabjobs.com, stepstone.de, jouwictvacating.nl.
Key findings from test automation efforts:
1. From the data collected, it is expected that every four test automation engineers will have Jenkins experience. This is interesting because Jenkins typically runs CI frameworks rather than for test automation. This shows the close relationship between the two fields and Jenkins’ popularity in many organizations.
2. Java was the dominant language in all the countries surveyed, followed by JavaScript, C# and Python, all in second place.
3. Selenium has been rated the highest priority in the global test automation space: 36%, up from 29% last year, which means that as a test automation engineer, you should master Selenium!
4. Appium is no longer an upstart in mobile test automation: it’s only down to 4% from 8% demand last year. This could be related to library stability issues in the latest release, or due to the variety of solutions recently offered for mobile test automation.
5. Test automation engineers have a lot of knowledge in Linux (from 34% to 40% demand last year), which also significantly exceeds Microsoft’s demand (23%). This may have something to do with the fact that over the past few years, Microsoft has adopted Linux (usually as open source), and now the mission seems to be to bring Microsoft tools to any user. Beyond these two operating systems, we found close “competition” between Android (20%) and MacOS (17%).
The world’s most popular test automation tool
The chart below shows the distribution of the top 7 test automation tools globally, and concludes that QTP/UFT is the most popular among commercial tools, while Selenium is dominant in all categories. In addition, JUnit and TestNG are very popular test automation frameworks. In addition, Cucumber has built a reputation as one of the most popular BDD test automation frameworks.
In addition to these top 7 “finalists,” there are a number of other test automation tools that, although not at the top, are still in demand, as shown in the figure below:
Test automation tools and programming languages most needed in each country
A successful combination of test automation skills can improve your chances of landing your dream test automation job:
Europe – Selenium Web driver, Cucumber test automation framework (showing the popularity of the BDD approach), Java as the first priority programming language or JavaScript as the second best.
Us – In addition to the traditional demand for Selenium and Java, the US is the only country showing widespread popularity of Microsoft automation tools. This is related to the fact that C# is the second required programming language (after Java, of course).
China-robot and JUnit are the leading frameworks, while Java and Python are becoming the most needed programming languages. In addition, test automation engineers who are network automation specialists will have a greater opportunity to complete test automation work in China than mobile automation specialists.
India – Only in India QTP/UFT skips the very popular Selenium Web driver, with Java being the first priority and Python (slightly different) coming in second as the most needed programming language. In addition, TestNG is the most popular framework and KDT is the primary method. In short, those from India who want to improve their test automation job opportunities must acquire knowledge of QTP/UFT, Java/Python, TestNG and KDT.
Russia – Implementing the JUnit framework using Selenium and/or Appium is the most common, so you must stand out among these tools to achieve the desired work. In addition, the preferred programming languages are Java and JavaScript.
The most needed test automation tool
The most needed programming language in each country
The world’s most needed programming language
As the chart below shows, and based on our previous research, Java proved to be the most desirable programming language. In addition, JavaScript continues to remain popular, mainly due to the increased implementation of JavaScript development frameworks and libraries, such as ReactJS and AngularJS– two technologies that dominate the entire front-end development market!
Another popular language is Python, which has a large number of libraries and features. Python’s cross-platform, extensible, and powerful capabilities make it the best scripting language for test automation professionals.
What do you think of these results?
Give us your thoughts and tell us which skills you think are most important for test automation in 2018.
Good luck in your job search.