Manual Testing Contract Job Trends in the South West

Manual Testing
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South West requiring Manual Testing skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 114 126 144
Rank change year-on-year +12 +18 +25
Contract jobs citing Manual Testing 4 8 8
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 0.20% 0.32% 0.25%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.22% 0.38% 0.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 3 8 5
10th Percentile £331 £412 £396
25th Percentile £341 £489 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £363 £558 £500
Median % change year-on-year -34.98% +11.50% +11.11%
75th Percentile £406 £600 £525
90th Percentile £425 £630 -
England median daily rate £450 £425 £480
% change year-on-year +5.88% -11.46% +1.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 2
10th Percentile - - £40.18
25th Percentile - - £44.19
Median hourly rate - - £54.25
75th Percentile - - £65.19
90th Percentile - - £69.73
England median hourly rate £50.00 - £61.75
% change year-on-year - - +2.92%

All Process and Methodology Skills
South 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 South West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,821 2,087 2,809
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 90.42% 84.02% 87.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,044 1,203 1,916
10th Percentile £215 £308 £310
25th Percentile £375 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £734 £725
England median daily rate £510 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 278 192 281
10th Percentile £15.25 £22.50 £21.64
25th Percentile £18.87 £45.31 £47.75
Median hourly rate £25.15 £67.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -62.74% +12.50% -3.63%
75th Percentile £63.75 £72.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £74.00 £83.40
England median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -40.82% -5.56% +28.57%

Manual Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

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

Manual Testing job vacancy trend in the South West

Manual Testing
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

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

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

Manual Testing
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

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

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

Manual Testing
Contract Job Locations in the South 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 South West region over the 6 months to 18 October 2025. 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
Bristol 0 2 £425 -17.07% 1
Wiltshire - 2 £356 -
Manual Testing
England

Manual Testing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South 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 2 (50.00%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 2 (50.00%) Azure
1 2 (50.00%) Azure DevOps
2 1 (25.00%) AWS
Development Applications
1 2 (50.00%) Visual Studio
General
1 1 (25.00%) Aerospace
1 1 (25.00%) Social Skills
Job Titles
1 2 (50.00%) Tester
2 1 (25.00%) Analyst
2 1 (25.00%) Manual Tester
2 1 (25.00%) Senior
2 1 (25.00%) Senior Software Tester
2 1 (25.00%) Senior Tester
2 1 (25.00%) Software Tester
2 1 (25.00%) Test Analyst
2 1 (25.00%) Test Manager
Miscellaneous
1 1 (25.00%) Data Protection Act
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (75.00%) Agile
1 3 (75.00%) Software Testing
1 3 (75.00%) User Acceptance Testing
2 2 (50.00%) DevOps
2 2 (50.00%) Integration Testing
2 2 (50.00%) SDLC
2 2 (50.00%) System Integration Testing
2 2 (50.00%) Test Automation
2 2 (50.00%) Use Case
3 1 (25.00%) Analytics
3 1 (25.00%) Code Quality
3 1 (25.00%) Data Protection
3 1 (25.00%) End-to-End Testing
3 1 (25.00%) Hardware-in-the-Loop
3 1 (25.00%) Microservices
3 1 (25.00%) Project Delivery
3 1 (25.00%) Project Governance
3 1 (25.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 1 (25.00%) Test Strategy
3 1 (25.00%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 1 (25.00%) PowerShell
1 1 (25.00%) Python
Qualifications
1 3 (75.00%) SC Cleared
1 3 (75.00%) Security Cleared
2 2 (50.00%) DV Cleared
2 2 (50.00%) ISTQB
2 2 (50.00%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
3 1 (25.00%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (75.00%) QA
2 1 (25.00%) Software Quality Assurance
Vendors
1 2 (50.00%) IBM