I've done a little research and came up with two links that offer some insight in this $34B industry! 

http://www.thinksys.com/blog/software-testing-trends-that-will-rock-2016/, which says that "the role of Automation is to support the testers and not to replace them. " That article also states that "Nelson Hall predicts that by 2017, the software testing market size will be $34 Billion." And https://www.quora.com/What-is-latest-technology-trends-in-Software-testing, which mentions: "Independent Software testing (trending): With increased focus on QA, many businesses are relying on specialist QA organizations to provide testing services. This is largely due to the expertise that specialist QA organizations bring to the table, including TCoE capability. Hence partnering with them helps the business to circumvent the pain of finding skilled QA resources and setting up a mature QA, both in terms of process and technology."