Automation Testing Framework

You can have any of these combination like

Selenium WebDriver  --  UI

Java (Core / J2EE) / C#   -- To write Utility Functions like reading file, reusable functions

TestNG or Junit / Nunit or Xunit  -- To change your Automation work flow and Verify your actual and expected results, suite creation, Cross Browser testing

Cucumber / SpecFlow   - Helpful for BDD framework

Third Party supported Tool / jar - Apache POI Excel jar (read Excel), Sikuli, AutoIt, Winium.Desktop are helpful to handle Desktop based components

Xpath / CSS  -  To locate Web Component using Firebug, firepath

UIAVerify . AutoIt / UFT - To locate window component like Authentication required dialog, save as dialog

Maven / MSbuild -- Maven (Project Management tool)  where most of the part used in Development side and but in Testing side, we are using Dependency section for downloading jar file, placing Test suite file, Reporting our test results, compiling our unit test like junit using Sure fire plugin etc.

Framework -  Hybrid / BDD

Design Pattern  - Page Object Model / Page Factory

Jenkins - Continuous integration and Continuous delivery tool

Flow

POM.xml--> TestNG.xml--> Test class--> Test Methods ( Your Test case)