What part of test automation consumes most of your time?

I have worked in software testing for more than seven years, and one problem keeps appearing across different teams.

Writing the first automated test is rarely the hardest part.

The real cost appears later.

Selectors change. Test data becomes outdated. Environments behave differently. Flaky failures take time to investigate. Eventually, the team stops trusting the test suite.

I’m curious about how other teams experience this.

Which part consumes most of your QA time?

1. Writing new tests

2. Maintaining existing tests

3. Investigating flaky failures

4. Preparing test data

5. Running regression testing

6. Writing useful bug reports

For me, maintenance and failure investigation have consistently taken the most time.

What is the biggest testing bottleneck in your team?