Manual Testing Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Manual Testing
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Manual Testing skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 22 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 325 280 338
Rank change year-on-year -45 +58 +43
Contract jobs citing Manual Testing 67 75 68
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.37% 0.51% 0.35%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.43% 0.58% 0.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 46 50 42
10th Percentile £341 £263 £326
25th Percentile £365 £313 £393
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £435 £406 £450
Median % change year-on-year +7.08% -9.72% -2.17%
75th Percentile £538 £492 £538
90th Percentile £568 £538 £575
UK median daily rate £425 £413 £475
% change year-on-year +3.03% -13.16% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 8
10th Percentile £36.04 - -
25th Percentile £45.01 - £37.50
Median hourly rate £50.00 - £50.00
75th Percentile £56.25 - £73.94
90th Percentile £67.50 - £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 - £50.00
% change year-on-year - - -16.67%

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 15,596 12,890 17,202
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 85.88% 87.23% 88.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,517 7,575 11,112
10th Percentile £220 £238 £250
25th Percentile £375 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,767 745 1,193
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.50 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.00 £17.72
Median hourly rate £23.50 £30.88 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.89% -31.39% +44.18%
75th Percentile £49.88 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £71.64 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £43.86
% change year-on-year -22.62% -25.90% +25.31%

Manual Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Manual Testing job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Manual Testing
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Manual Testing.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Manual Testing

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 22 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Manual Testing in the UK excluding London

Manual Testing
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Manual Testing.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Manual Testing

Manual Testing
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Manual Testing in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 22 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram 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 22 December 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
North of England -30 35 £463 +34.64% 12
Yorkshire -21 27 £446 +42.80% 8
Midlands -39 11 £405 +24.62% 6
South East -39 9 £413 -8.33% 17
West Midlands -28 6 £525 +87.50% 3
North West -39 6 £400 +14.78% 4
East Midlands -18 5 £360 -22.58% 3
Wales +2 4 £475 +187.78%
East of England -17 4 £400 - 9
South West -5 3 £613 +16.67% 2
North East - 2 £545 -
Scotland +3 1 - - 3
Manual Testing
UK

Manual Testing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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:

Application Platforms
1 9 (13.43%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (1.49%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 4 (5.97%) Oracle Assets
1 4 (5.97%) Oracle ERP
1 4 (5.97%) Oracle General Ledger
1 4 (5.97%) Oracle Payables
2 3 (4.48%) NetSuite
2 3 (4.48%) Oracle Receivables
3 2 (2.99%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (1.49%) Adobe Campaign
4 1 (1.49%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 28 (41.79%) Azure
2 15 (22.39%) AWS
3 10 (14.93%) Azure DevOps
3 10 (14.93%) GCP
4 7 (10.45%) GitHub
4 7 (10.45%) GitHub Actions
5 5 (7.46%) Azure Storage
5 5 (7.46%) SaaS
6 2 (2.99%) Dynamics 365
6 2 (2.99%) Power Platform
6 2 (2.99%) PowerApps
7 1 (1.49%) OCI
7 1 (1.49%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.99%) Internet
1 2 (2.99%) Intranet
1 2 (2.99%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (10.45%) SQL Server
2 6 (8.96%) MySQL
3 4 (5.97%) MongoDB
4 1 (1.49%) BigQuery
4 1 (1.49%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 25 (37.31%) Cucumber
2 22 (32.84%) Selenium
3 21 (31.34%) JIRA
4 20 (29.85%) Jenkins
5 15 (22.39%) Postman
6 12 (17.91%) GitLab
7 9 (13.43%) REST Assured
8 8 (11.94%) Cypress.io
9 7 (10.45%) TestRail
10 5 (7.46%) Git
11 2 (2.99%) Appium
11 2 (2.99%) JMeter
11 2 (2.99%) SpecFlow
11 2 (2.99%) WebDriver
11 2 (2.99%) Zephyr
12 1 (1.49%) Burp Suite
12 1 (1.49%) HP UFT
12 1 (1.49%) JUnit
12 1 (1.49%) SoapUI
12 1 (1.49%) TestNG
General
1 24 (35.82%) Social Skills
2 11 (16.42%) Finance
3 9 (13.43%) Public Sector
4 7 (10.45%) Banking
5 6 (8.96%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (8.96%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (5.97%) General Ledger
7 2 (2.99%) Military
8 1 (1.49%) Aerospace
8 1 (1.49%) Manufacturing
8 1 (1.49%) Pharmaceutical
8 1 (1.49%) Retail
Job Titles
1 25 (37.31%) Test Engineer
2 20 (29.85%) Tester
3 14 (20.90%) Test Automation Engineer
4 11 (16.42%) Lead
5 10 (14.93%) Analyst
5 10 (14.93%) Senior
5 10 (14.93%) Test Analyst
6 8 (11.94%) Manual Tester
7 6 (8.96%) Automation Test Lead
7 6 (8.96%) Test Leader
8 5 (7.46%) Lead Test Engineer
8 5 (7.46%) Quality Engineer
8 5 (7.46%) Senior Test Engineer
9 4 (5.97%) Applications Tester
9 4 (5.97%) Oracle Analyst
9 4 (5.97%) QA Engineer
9 4 (5.97%) Security Tester
9 4 (5.97%) Test Manager
10 3 (4.48%) QA Test Engineer
11 2 (2.99%) Oracle Financials Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (22.39%) Playwright
2 10 (14.93%) REST
3 8 (11.94%) SailPoint
4 7 (10.45%) LDAP
4 7 (10.45%) OpenID
5 6 (8.96%) .NET
6 5 (7.46%) JWT
6 5 (7.46%) Node.js
6 5 (7.46%) OAuth
6 5 (7.46%) SAML
7 4 (5.97%) ADO
7 4 (5.97%) Oracle Fusion
8 2 (2.99%) JSON
8 2 (2.99%) SOAP
9 1 (1.49%) Hibernate
9 1 (1.49%) Kafka
9 1 (1.49%) RESTful
9 1 (1.49%) Spring
9 1 (1.49%) WebdriverIO
9 1 (1.49%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 6 (8.96%) Product Ownership
2 2 (2.99%) AS400
2 2 (2.99%) Data Protection Act
2 2 (2.99%) iSeries
2 2 (2.99%) Self-Motivation
3 1 (1.49%) FMCG
3 1 (1.49%) Legacy Applications
3 1 (1.49%) Legacy Systems
3 1 (1.49%) Mainframe
3 1 (1.49%) Management Information System
3 1 (1.49%) Mobile App
3 1 (1.49%) NHS
3 1 (1.49%) Onboarding
3 1 (1.49%) PDA
3 1 (1.49%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 2 (2.99%) Windows
2 1 (1.49%) Android
2 1 (1.49%) Apple iOS
2 1 (1.49%) Kali Linux
2 1 (1.49%) Linux
2 1 (1.49%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (67.16%) Test Automation
2 32 (47.76%) Test Strategy
3 29 (43.28%) CI/CD
4 27 (40.30%) Agile
5 23 (34.33%) Test Scripting
6 20 (29.85%) DevOps
7 17 (25.37%) Scenario Testing
7 17 (25.37%) User Acceptance Testing
8 14 (20.90%) BDD
8 14 (20.90%) Scrum
9 13 (19.40%) System Integration Testing
10 12 (17.91%) Continuous Improvement
10 12 (17.91%) Regression Testing
10 12 (17.91%) SDLC
10 12 (17.91%) Software Testing
11 10 (14.93%) API Testing
11 10 (14.93%) Cybersecurity
11 10 (14.93%) Problem-Solving
11 10 (14.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 9 (13.43%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 21 (31.34%) Java
2 18 (26.87%) JavaScript
3 14 (20.90%) Python
4 12 (17.91%) SQL
5 6 (8.96%) PHP
5 6 (8.96%) Ruby
6 5 (7.46%) TypeScript
7 3 (4.48%) C#
8 1 (1.49%) Kotlin
8 1 (1.49%) Objective-C
8 1 (1.49%) PowerShell
8 1 (1.49%) Swift
8 1 (1.49%) XPath
Qualifications
1 15 (22.39%) Security Cleared
2 14 (20.90%) SC Cleared
3 2 (2.99%) CISA
3 2 (2.99%) CISSP
3 2 (2.99%) Computer Science Degree
3 2 (2.99%) Degree
4 1 (1.49%) (ISC)2 CCSP
4 1 (1.49%) BPSS Clearance
4 1 (1.49%) CCSP
4 1 (1.49%) Cisco Certification
4 1 (1.49%) CISM
4 1 (1.49%) DV Cleared
4 1 (1.49%) GIAC
4 1 (1.49%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
4 1 (1.49%) ISTQB
4 1 (1.49%) Master's Degree
4 1 (1.49%) OSCP
4 1 (1.49%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (41.79%) QA
2 12 (17.91%) Accessibility
3 2 (2.99%) COBIT
3 2 (2.99%) NIST
3 2 (2.99%) WCAG
4 1 (1.49%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (1.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (1.49%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 1 (1.49%) NIST 800
4 1 (1.49%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 1 (1.49%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (5.97%) Grafana
2 2 (2.99%) Nessus
3 1 (1.49%) Kubernetes
3 1 (1.49%) Nmap
3 1 (1.49%) RSA Archer
3 1 (1.49%) SCCM
3 1 (1.49%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 9 (13.43%) Splunk
2 8 (11.94%) ServiceNow
3 7 (10.45%) Microsoft
4 5 (7.46%) Oracle
5 4 (5.97%) Salesforce
6 1 (1.49%) Adobe
6 1 (1.49%) Dundas
6 1 (1.49%) Google
6 1 (1.49%) IBM
6 1 (1.49%) Rapid7