Manual Testing Contract Job Trends in Manchester

Manual Testing
North West > Manchester

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Manchester requiring Manual Testing skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 12 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 74 94
Rank change year-on-year -14 +20 +21
Contract jobs citing Manual Testing 8 13 7
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 0.69% 1.25% 0.45%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.77% 1.37% 0.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 5 7 3
10th Percentile £305 £249 £312
25th Percentile £313 £288 £352
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £337 £438
Median % change year-on-year +18.69% -22.97% -7.89%
75th Percentile £530 £488 £453
90th Percentile £542 £543 £455
North West median daily rate £400 £337 £444
% change year-on-year +18.69% -24.06% -6.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £58.75
Median hourly rate - - £60.00
75th Percentile - - £61.25
90th Percentile - - -
North West median hourly rate - - £60.00

All Process & Methodology Skills
Manchester

Manual Testing falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in Manchester.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,036 947 1,348
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 89.31% 90.97% 87.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 706 567 970
10th Percentile £304 £294 £302
25th Percentile £376 £400 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.70% -7.50% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £584
90th Percentile £638 £681 £675
North West median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +2.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 33 46
10th Percentile £17.30 £15.93 £13.44
25th Percentile £19.75 £21.25 £17.72
Median hourly rate £29.60 £32.50 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.92% -10.96% -8.75%
75th Percentile £57.50 £33.75 £63.13
90th Percentile £64.75 £60.00 £79.88
North West median hourly rate £41.86 £30.95 £40.00
% change year-on-year +35.23% -22.63% +11.11%

Manual Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Manual Testing relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester.

Manual Testing job vacancy trend in Manchester

Manual Testing
Daily Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Manual Testing.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Manual Testing

Manual Testing
Daily Rate Histogram in Manchester

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Manual Testing in Manchester over the 6 months to 12 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Manual Testing in Manchester

Manual Testing
Hourly Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Manual Testing.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Manual Testing

Manual Testing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Business Applications
1 1 (12.50%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 3 (37.50%) Power Platform
2 2 (25.00%) Azure
2 2 (25.00%) PowerApps
3 1 (12.50%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (12.50%) Dynamics 365
3 1 (12.50%) Power Automate
3 1 (12.50%) Siteimprove
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (12.50%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 1 (12.50%) Cypress.io
1 1 (12.50%) Selenium
General
1 4 (50.00%) Public Sector
2 3 (37.50%) Social Skills
3 2 (25.00%) Banking
3 2 (25.00%) Documentation Skills
4 1 (12.50%) Finance
Job Titles
1 3 (37.50%) Test Engineer
1 3 (37.50%) Tester
2 2 (25.00%) Manual Tester
3 1 (12.50%) Agile Test Analyst
3 1 (12.50%) Analyst
3 1 (12.50%) Banking Analyst
3 1 (12.50%) Lead
3 1 (12.50%) Microsoft Engineer
3 1 (12.50%) Power Platform Engineer
3 1 (12.50%) Principal Engineer
3 1 (12.50%) Principal Test Engineer
3 1 (12.50%) QA Manual Tester
3 1 (12.50%) QA Tester
3 1 (12.50%) Senior
3 1 (12.50%) Senior Manual Tester
3 1 (12.50%) Senior Tester
3 1 (12.50%) SQL Analyst
3 1 (12.50%) Test Analyst
3 1 (12.50%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (12.50%) CSS
1 1 (12.50%) HTML
1 1 (12.50%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 2 (25.00%) AS400
1 2 (25.00%) iSeries
2 1 (12.50%) Legacy Applications
2 1 (12.50%) Legacy Systems
2 1 (12.50%) Mainframe
2 1 (12.50%) Mobile App
Processes & Methodologies
1 6 (75.00%) Test Automation
2 4 (50.00%) Test Strategy
3 3 (37.50%) Agile
3 3 (37.50%) Continuous Improvement
3 3 (37.50%) DevOps
3 3 (37.50%) Regression Testing
4 2 (25.00%) CI/CD
4 2 (25.00%) Defect Management
4 2 (25.00%) Risk Management
4 2 (25.00%) Test Planning
4 2 (25.00%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 1 (12.50%) Coaching
5 1 (12.50%) Digital Transformation Programme
5 1 (12.50%) Exploratory Testing
5 1 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
5 1 (12.50%) Regulatory Change
5 1 (12.50%) Scenario Testing
5 1 (12.50%) Smoke Testing
5 1 (12.50%) Strategic Thinking
5 1 (12.50%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 2 (25.00%) SQL
2 1 (12.50%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 1 (12.50%) CCA
1 1 (12.50%) ISTQB
1 1 (12.50%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (87.50%) QA
2 4 (50.00%) Accessibility
3 2 (25.00%) WCAG
Vendors
1 2 (25.00%) Microsoft
2 1 (12.50%) IBM