Manual Testing Contracts in the UK excluding London

Manual Testing
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Manual Testing skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Manual Testing over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 275 339 376
Rank change year-on-year +64 +37 -10
Contract jobs citing Manual Testing 61 60 86
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.48% 0.29% 0.36%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.53% 0.34% 0.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 40 43 66
10th Percentile £263 £267 £348
25th Percentile £313 £356 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £450 £469
Median % change year-on-year -11.11% -4.00% +10.29%
75th Percentile £491 £506 £575
90th Percentile £538 £588 £640
UK median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 2 0
Median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 -
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 11,543 17,602 21,544
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 90.42% 84.74% 89.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,249 10,520 14,947
10th Percentile £235 £250 £255
25th Percentile £375 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.50% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £662 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 825 2,048 1,307
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.33 £11.00
25th Percentile £17.30 £15.28 £16.00
Median hourly rate £27.50 £37.34 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.35% +3.72% +80.00%
75th Percentile £64.50 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £72.98
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
% change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%

Manual Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing Manual Testing as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Manual Testing in the UK excluding London

Manual Testing
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Manual Testing in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Manual Testing in the UK excluding London

Manual Testing
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Manual Testing in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Manual Testing in the UK excluding London

Manual Testing
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Manual Testing in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Manual Testing in the UK excluding London

Manual Testing
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 1 May 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
South East +50 20 £438 -1.41% 70
North of England +20 20 £333 -19.39% 66
Yorkshire +10 10 £281 -29.69% 26
Midlands +18 9 £468 +28.97% 67
North West +17 9 £475 +5.56% 31
South West +43 5 £355 -39.83% 39
East Midlands +9 5 £335 -7.66% 26
West Midlands +11 4 £550 +91.30% 38
Scotland - 4 £425 - 12
East of England - 3 - - 54
North East -1 1 - - 9
Wales -2 1 £375 -26.25% 7
Manual Testing
UK

Manual Testing
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 5 (8.20%) Confluence
2 2 (3.28%) Apache
Applications
1 1 (1.64%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (1.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 1 (1.64%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (3.28%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (1.64%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 14 (22.95%) Azure
1 14 (22.95%) Azure DevOps
2 5 (8.20%) AWS
3 1 (1.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
3 1 (1.64%) Amazon S3
3 1 (1.64%) AWS Lambda
3 1 (1.64%) Bloomreach
3 1 (1.64%) SaaS
3 1 (1.64%) Serverless
3 1 (1.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 1 (1.64%) Cisco Firepower
1 1 (1.64%) Firewall
1 1 (1.64%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (3.28%) MS Access
2 1 (1.64%) Amazon Athena
2 1 (1.64%) Delta Lake
2 1 (1.64%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 27 (44.26%) Selenium
2 23 (37.70%) JIRA
3 15 (24.59%) Postman
4 11 (18.03%) Cypress.io
4 11 (18.03%) SoapUI
5 9 (14.75%) Cucumber
6 7 (11.48%) Git
7 6 (9.84%) JUnit
7 6 (9.84%) TestRail
8 5 (8.20%) Appium
8 5 (8.20%) Jenkins
8 5 (8.20%) JMeter
9 4 (6.56%) LoadRunner
9 4 (6.56%) NUnit
10 3 (4.92%) Maven
11 2 (3.28%) Eclipse
11 2 (3.28%) GitLab
11 2 (3.28%) REST Assured
11 2 (3.28%) Visual Studio
11 2 (3.28%) WebDriver
General
1 29 (47.54%) Social Skills
2 16 (26.23%) Finance
3 13 (21.31%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (11.48%) Banking
4 7 (11.48%) Public Sector
5 2 (3.28%) Electronics
5 2 (3.28%) Financial Institution
5 2 (3.28%) Investment Banking
5 2 (3.28%) Manufacturing
5 2 (3.28%) Marketing
5 2 (3.28%) Telecoms
6 1 (1.64%) Back Office
6 1 (1.64%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (1.64%) Retail
6 1 (1.64%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 20 (32.79%) Tester
2 13 (21.31%) Test Engineer
3 11 (18.03%) Senior
4 10 (16.39%) QA Tester
5 9 (14.75%) Analyst
5 9 (14.75%) Test Analyst
6 8 (13.11%) QA Engineer
7 6 (9.84%) Manual Tester
8 5 (8.20%) Senior Analyst
8 5 (8.20%) Senior Test Analyst
8 5 (8.20%) Software Tester
9 4 (6.56%) Lead
9 4 (6.56%) Product Manager
9 4 (6.56%) QA Manager
9 4 (6.56%) QA Manual Tester
9 4 (6.56%) QA Test Manager
9 4 (6.56%) Strategy Manager
9 4 (6.56%) Test Strategy Manager
10 3 (4.92%) Senior QA Engineer
10 3 (4.92%) Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (16.39%) Playwright
2 6 (9.84%) SOAP
2 6 (9.84%) XML
3 4 (6.56%) .NET
3 4 (6.56%) REST
4 2 (3.28%) AngularJS
4 2 (3.28%) Apache POI
4 2 (3.28%) JDBC
4 2 (3.28%) Middleware
4 2 (3.28%) Web Services
5 1 (1.64%) .NET Framework
5 1 (1.64%) boto
5 1 (1.64%) Gherkin
5 1 (1.64%) GraphQL
5 1 (1.64%) JSON
5 1 (1.64%) Nightwatchjs
5 1 (1.64%) WebSockets
5 1 (1.64%) WPF
5 1 (1.64%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 4 (6.56%) Product Ownership
2 2 (3.28%) Mobile App
2 2 (3.28%) Onboarding
2 2 (3.28%) Self-Motivation
3 1 (1.64%) CMDB
3 1 (1.64%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (1.64%) Data Structures
3 1 (1.64%) EPoS
3 1 (1.64%) Greenfield Project
3 1 (1.64%) IBM Mainframe
3 1 (1.64%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 3 (4.92%) Windows
2 2 (3.28%) Unix
3 1 (1.64%) Android
3 1 (1.64%) Apple iOS
3 1 (1.64%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (88.52%) Test Automation
2 33 (54.10%) Agile
3 25 (40.98%) Test Scripting
4 24 (39.34%) Test Strategy
5 19 (31.15%) DevOps
6 17 (27.87%) API Testing
7 16 (26.23%) Software Testing
8 13 (21.31%) CI/CD
8 13 (21.31%) End-to-End Testing
9 12 (19.67%) Scrum
10 11 (18.03%) Defect Management
10 11 (18.03%) Validation
11 10 (16.39%) Integration Testing
11 10 (16.39%) Non-Functional Testing
11 10 (16.39%) Problem-Solving
11 10 (16.39%) Waterfall
12 8 (13.11%) BDD
12 8 (13.11%) Performance Testing
12 8 (13.11%) User Stories
13 7 (11.48%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 19 (31.15%) SQL
2 7 (11.48%) Java
3 4 (6.56%) JavaScript
3 4 (6.56%) TypeScript
4 2 (3.28%) C#
5 1 (1.64%) JCL
5 1 (1.64%) PowerShell
5 1 (1.64%) REXX
Qualifications
1 14 (22.95%) Security Cleared
2 13 (21.31%) ISTQB
3 10 (16.39%) SC Cleared
4 3 (4.92%) Degree
4 3 (4.92%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 2 (3.28%) DV Cleared
6 1 (1.64%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (1.64%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (45.90%) QA
2 6 (9.84%) Accessibility
3 2 (3.28%) Software Quality Assurance
4 1 (1.64%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 2 (3.28%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (3.28%) HP ALM
2 1 (1.64%) Ansible
2 1 (1.64%) Control-M
2 1 (1.64%) Terraform
Vendors
1 5 (8.20%) SAP
2 3 (4.92%) Microsoft
2 3 (4.92%) ServiceNow
3 2 (3.28%) Citrix
3 2 (3.28%) HP
4 1 (1.64%) Cisco
4 1 (1.64%) IBM
4 1 (1.64%) Salesforce
4 1 (1.64%) Splunk