Manual Testing Contract Job Trends in the North West

Manual Testing
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Manual Testing skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 146 109 129
Rank change year-on-year -37 +20 +33
Contract jobs citing Manual Testing 7 15 9
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 0.26% 0.72% 0.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.30% 0.81% 0.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 5 9 5
10th Percentile £305 £273 £296
25th Percentile £313 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £355 £337 £450
Median % change year-on-year +5.34% -25.11% -5.26%
75th Percentile £400 £488 £475
90th Percentile £478 £515 -
England median daily rate £400 £425 £450
% change year-on-year -5.88% -5.56% -10.00%
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 - - -
England median hourly rate £52.55 - £50.00
% change year-on-year - - -20.00%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North West

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 the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,363 1,849 2,448
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 86.65% 88.77% 86.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,531 1,108 1,624
10th Percentile £213 £265 £306
25th Percentile £358 £380 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £572 £588
90th Percentile £650 £656 £675
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 201 98 216
10th Percentile £16.01 £17.48 £12.50
25th Percentile £22.85 £22.78 £15.50
Median hourly rate £42.69 £31.51 £29.22
Median % change year-on-year +35.46% +7.84% -22.08%
75th Percentile £61.25 £55.76 £46.18
90th Percentile £75.79 £75.58 £53.75
England median hourly rate £25.77 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -26.37% - -

Manual Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

Manual Testing job vacancy trend in the North West

Manual Testing
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Manual Testing.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Manual Testing

Manual Testing
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Manual Testing in the North West over the 6 months to 16 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Manual Testing in the North West

Manual Testing
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Manual Testing.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Manual Testing

Manual Testing
Contract Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Manual Testing within the North West region over the 6 months to 16 February 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Manchester -26 7 £355 -12.56% 3
Manual Testing
England

Manual Testing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 (14.29%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 3 (42.86%) Power Platform
2 2 (28.57%) PowerApps
3 1 (14.29%) Azure
3 1 (14.29%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (14.29%) Dynamics 365
3 1 (14.29%) Power Automate
3 1 (14.29%) Siteimprove
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (14.29%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 1 (14.29%) Cypress.io
1 1 (14.29%) Selenium
General
1 4 (57.14%) Public Sector
1 4 (57.14%) Social Skills
2 2 (28.57%) Banking
2 2 (28.57%) Documentation Skills
3 1 (14.29%) Finance
Job Titles
1 3 (42.86%) Tester
2 2 (28.57%) Manual Tester
2 2 (28.57%) Test Engineer
3 1 (14.29%) Agile Test Analyst
3 1 (14.29%) Analyst
3 1 (14.29%) Banking Analyst
3 1 (14.29%) Lead
3 1 (14.29%) Microsoft Engineer
3 1 (14.29%) Power Platform Engineer
3 1 (14.29%) QA Manual Tester
3 1 (14.29%) QA Tester
3 1 (14.29%) Senior
3 1 (14.29%) Senior Manual Tester
3 1 (14.29%) Senior Tester
3 1 (14.29%) SQL Analyst
3 1 (14.29%) Test Analyst
3 1 (14.29%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (14.29%) CSS
1 1 (14.29%) HTML
1 1 (14.29%) Playwright
1 1 (14.29%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 2 (28.57%) AS400
1 2 (28.57%) iSeries
2 1 (14.29%) Legacy Applications
2 1 (14.29%) Legacy Systems
2 1 (14.29%) Mainframe
2 1 (14.29%) Mobile App
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (71.43%) Test Automation
2 4 (57.14%) Agile
3 3 (42.86%) Continuous Improvement
3 3 (42.86%) Test Strategy
4 2 (28.57%) Defect Management
4 2 (28.57%) Regression Testing
4 2 (28.57%) Stakeholder Management
4 2 (28.57%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 1 (14.29%) Business Intelligence
5 1 (14.29%) CRM
5 1 (14.29%) Data Validation
5 1 (14.29%) Integration Testing
5 1 (14.29%) Kanban
5 1 (14.29%) Risk Assessment
5 1 (14.29%) Risk Management
5 1 (14.29%) Scrum
5 1 (14.29%) Statistics
5 1 (14.29%) TDD
5 1 (14.29%) User Acceptance Testing
5 1 (14.29%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 3 (42.86%) SQL
2 1 (14.29%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 1 (14.29%) CCA
1 1 (14.29%) ISTQB
1 1 (14.29%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (85.71%) QA
2 3 (42.86%) Accessibility
3 1 (14.29%) WCAG
Vendors
1 2 (28.57%) Microsoft
2 1 (14.29%) IBM