Just wondering, do you guys use automated UI Testing tools like Selenium or Playwright since it is quite costly to implement? I notice also that not many jobs require this skill. In my opinion, automated unit tests and automated integration tests are sufficient but we have the source code. But there are projects which we might have the source code or the projects are written in such a way that it is not easy to create unit tests. For these types of projects, we need automated UI/E2W testing tools like Selenium or Playwright?

My opinion in the context of product company... assuming that your company doesn't skip front-end/E2E test, the question is really about comparing (A) recurring cost for manually running FE/E2E test, versus (B) cost for adopting FE/E2E test automation. The answer may differ across product, your head of engineering/QA/CTO needs to find out the answer. The other factor to consider is how good is your team in running the test manually, as manual test tends to have higher chance of human mistake in general.

To adopt automation or not is usually not a small decision and involves budgeting. Corresponding head needs to decide and give direction for the org wide strategy.

I'm not familiar with consulting based or software house that does outsourced development, can't comment for that context.