Software Quality Assurance Analyst and Tester
| Median wage (USD) | 104300 |
|---|---|
| Projected employment growth (%) | 6 |
| AI exposure (%) | 61 |
| Maximum exposure (%) | 91 |
| Source | eloundou |
| What AI changes in this occupation | Writing test plans, scenarios and scripts, generating test cases and filing defect reports are delegated to AI Initial debugging (logs, configuration, code snippets), compatibility testing and historical analysis of results become AI-assisted, but verification on the real product remains human Judging release readiness, setting quality standards, giving feedback to developers and coordinating user testing remain human |
| Key skills | Test automation (Selenium, Cypress, scripts) · test plans, scenarios and cases design · root-cause analysis and debugging · continuous integration and release criteria |
| Courses to get ahead | Introduction to Software Testing (University of Minnesota) · Coursera · 3 weeks · 92 · The fundamentals: test levels, case design, requirements traceability and defect reporting — the base AI now drafts and you must be able to judge before signing off. Web and Mobile Testing with Selenium (University of Minnesota) · Coursera · 2 weeks · 89 · Web and mobile test automation with Selenium: the skill that moves the job from manual clicking to writing and maintaining scripts, the part AI speeds up without replacing. Foundations of Software Testing and Validation (University of Leeds) · Coursera · 6 h · 87 · Testing and validation as a decision process: acceptance criteria, coverage and evidence of conformance — precisely the ground that stays human when test generation is delegated. Software Testing and Automation Specialization (University of Minnesota) · Coursera · 2 months · 84 Black-box and White-box Testing (University of Minnesota) · Coursera · 3 weeks · 82 Test-Driven Development Overview (LearnQuest) · Coursera · 1 week · 78 |
| Occupations to pivot toward | Computer Programmer · 100390 · -7 · 68 Information Security Analyst · 129180 · 21 · 54 Computer and Information Systems Manager · 175140 · 16 · 56 |
| Skills to acquire for the pivot | Eloundou's measured exposure is 61% (human β) and rises to 91% (human ζ): writing test plans, scenarios and scripts, building test programs (regression, negative testing, bug retests), filing defects in the tracking system, updating automated scripts, documenting procedures and maintaining known-defect databases are largely delegable to AI, but spotting and analysing real problems, giving feedback to developers, setting quality standards and release-readiness criteria, taking part in design reviews and coordinating user testing remain human. The ζ of 91% says almost the whole job is at least partly transformable; the β of 61% says that today AI does about three fifths of it without supervision. It is one of the most exposed IT occupations in the reference set, behind computer programmer (68) and ahead of database administrator (60), information security analyst (54), network and computer systems administrator (51) and software developer (45). BLS growth is 6% from 2025 to 2035 for software quality assurance analysts and testers (SOC 15-1253): their 187,600 jobs in 2025 are projected to reach 198,200 (+10,600), with about 10,700 openings a year, mostly replacing workers who leave; the BLS projections table gives the precise figure of +5.7%, which the profile rounds to 6%. The combined 'software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers' group grows 10% (1,905,400 to 2,090,800, +185,400, about 106,100 openings a year), against 3% for all occupations. BLS attributes the demand to the continued expansion of software development for AI, the Internet of Things, robotics and other automation, to investment in computer security — which increases the need to create and execute software tests — and to the growing number of products that use software (consumer electronics, connected devices, electric vehicles). The median salary is $104,300 (May 2025), from the BLS 'Software quality assurance analysts and testers' profile (SOC 15-1253); the lowest 10% earn less than $61,440 and the highest 10% more than $167,010. The best-paying industries are manufacturing ($129,930), finance and insurance ($104,260) and administrative and support services ($102,660), ahead of software publishers ($101,070) and computer systems design and related services ($99,960). The combined group shows $134,040, software developers $135,980, the computer occupations group $109,470 and all occupations $50,980. It sits just below computer systems analysts ($105,850), above computer programmers ($100,390), and well below information security analysts ($129,180) and computer and information systems managers ($175,140). Consistency note: the site's `programmeur` ($98,670, −6%) and `developpeur` ($133,080, +15%) cards still carry the previous BLS edition; this card's pivots use the current edition's figures ($100,390 / −7% and $135,980 / +10%). |
| GPT-4 exposure — beta / zeta (%) | 88 · 95 |