Manual Testing Contract Job Trends in Reading

Manual Testing
Berkshire > Reading

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Reading 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 73 82 91
Rank change year-on-year +9 +9 -2
Contract jobs citing Manual Testing 4 2 2
As % of all contract jobs in Reading 0.56% 0.22% 0.20%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.64% 0.24% 0.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 1 0 2
10th Percentile - - £303
25th Percentile £406 - £353
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £413 - £435
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.42%
75th Percentile £419 - £518
90th Percentile - - £567
Berkshire median daily rate £413 £463 £425
% change year-on-year -10.81% +8.82% -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
Median hourly rate £75.00 - -
Berkshire median hourly rate £75.00 - -

All Process & Methodology Skills
Reading

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 Reading.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 624 829 920
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Reading 87.89% 92.32% 92.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 447 455 600
10th Percentile £350 £300 £213
25th Percentile £424 £431 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £570 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.14% +8.57% -
75th Percentile £622 £648 £615
90th Percentile £664 £682 £688
Berkshire median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 7 17
10th Percentile £14.60 £27.90 £56.41
25th Percentile £58.00 £35.75 £60.82
Median hourly rate £81.00 £57.50 £63.29
Median % change year-on-year +40.87% -9.15% -2.63%
75th Percentile £95.00 £63.24 £66.00
90th Percentile £105.80 £68.78 £67.50
Berkshire median hourly rate £58.00 £59.00 £61.00
% change year-on-year -1.69% -3.28% +10.91%

Manual Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in Reading

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

Manual Testing job vacancy trend in Reading

Manual Testing
Daily Rate Trend in Reading

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

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

Manual Testing
Hourly Rate Trend in Reading

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

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

Manual Testing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Reading 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:

Applications
1 1 (25.00%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 3 (75.00%) Azure
2 2 (50.00%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (25.00%) AWS
3 1 (25.00%) GCP
3 1 (25.00%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 2 (50.00%) Internet
1 2 (50.00%) Intranet
1 2 (50.00%) Wireless
Development Applications
1 1 (25.00%) Burp Suite
1 1 (25.00%) Cucumber
1 1 (25.00%) Selenium
General
1 2 (50.00%) Social Skills
2 1 (25.00%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 3 (75.00%) Tester
2 2 (50.00%) Penetration Tester
3 1 (25.00%) Analyst
3 1 (25.00%) Automation Test Analyst
3 1 (25.00%) Digital Analyst
3 1 (25.00%) Project Analyst
3 1 (25.00%) QA Tester
3 1 (25.00%) Senior
3 1 (25.00%) Senior Analyst
3 1 (25.00%) Senior Automation Test Analyst
3 1 (25.00%) Senior Digital Analyst
3 1 (25.00%) Senior Test Analyst
3 1 (25.00%) Test Analyst
Miscellaneous
1 1 (25.00%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 1 (25.00%) Kali Linux
1 1 (25.00%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (75.00%) Software Testing
1 3 (75.00%) Test Automation
2 2 (50.00%) DevOps
2 2 (50.00%) OSINT
2 2 (50.00%) Penetration Testing
2 2 (50.00%) Problem-Solving
2 2 (50.00%) Red Team
2 2 (50.00%) SDLC
2 2 (50.00%) Social Engineering
2 2 (50.00%) Test Scripting
3 1 (25.00%) CI/CD
3 1 (25.00%) Cloud Security
3 1 (25.00%) Computer Science
3 1 (25.00%) Cybersecurity
3 1 (25.00%) Information Security
3 1 (25.00%) Knowledge Transfer
3 1 (25.00%) OWASP
3 1 (25.00%) Vulnerability Assessment
Programming Languages
1 1 (25.00%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 1 (25.00%) (ISC)2 CCSP
1 1 (25.00%) CCSP
1 1 (25.00%) Cisco Certification
1 1 (25.00%) CISSP
1 1 (25.00%) Computer Science Degree
1 1 (25.00%) Degree
1 1 (25.00%) Master's Degree
1 1 (25.00%) OSCP
1 1 (25.00%) SANS
1 1 (25.00%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (25.00%) QA
Systems Management
1 2 (50.00%) Nessus
2 1 (25.00%) Nmap