Manual Tester Contracts

Manual Tester
UK

The median Manual Tester daily rate in the UK is £350, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 506 559 688
Rank change year-on-year +53 +129 +124
Contract jobs requiring a Manual Tester 14 23 30
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.048% 0.053% 0.050%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.052% 0.057% 0.053%
Number of daily rates quoted 14 15 25
10th Percentile £263 £233 £308
25th Percentile £289 £329 £334
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £350 £358 £425
Median % change year-on-year -2.10% -15.88% +21.43%
75th Percentile £447 £417 £538
90th Percentile £503 £502 £768
UK excluding London median daily rate £350 £275 £406
% change year-on-year +27.27% -32.31% +18.18%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 27,084 40,415 56,464
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.52% 92.78% 94.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,692 26,309 39,470
10th Percentile £300 £275 £313
25th Percentile £406 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £492 £500
% change year-on-year -3.46% -1.60% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,035 2,664 1,570
10th Percentile £14.07 £12.86 £14.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.30 £19.50
Median hourly rate £29.00 £36.42 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.37% -19.07% +91.49%
75th Percentile £62.50 £60.75 £65.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £39.55 £42.50
% change year-on-year -29.20% -6.94% +117.95%

Manual Tester
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Manual Tester in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Manual Tester in the UK

Manual Tester
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Manual Tester.

Daily rate trend for Manual Tester in the UK

Manual Tester
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Manual Tester over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Manual Tester in the UK

Manual Tester
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Manual Tester.

Hourly rate trend for Manual Tester in the UK

Manual Tester
Top 9 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Manual Tester within the UK 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
England +48 12 £350 -1.75% 4
UK excluding London +68 9 £350 +27.27% 4
North of England +23 6 £425 +21.43% 1
London +25 4 £346 -5.67% 2
Yorkshire +10 4 £430 +22.86% 1
North West - 2 £425 -
South West - 2 £300 - 1
Work from Home +36 1 £241 -35.73% 3
Scotland - 1 £241 - 1

Manual Tester Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Manual Tester contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Manual Tester in the job title.

1 9 (64.29%) QA
2 8 (57.14%) Manual Testing
2 8 (57.14%) Test Automation
3 7 (50.00%) Agile
3 7 (50.00%) JIRA
4 6 (42.86%) Social Skills
5 4 (28.57%) Test Scripting
6 3 (21.43%) SDLC
6 3 (21.43%) API Testing
6 3 (21.43%) Selenium
6 3 (21.43%) SQL
6 3 (21.43%) Java
6 3 (21.43%) Finance
7 2 (14.29%) Microsoft
7 2 (14.29%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (14.29%) E-Commerce
7 2 (14.29%) Scrum
7 2 (14.29%) Banking
7 2 (14.29%) Data Analysis
7 2 (14.29%) Cypress.io
7 2 (14.29%) User Experience
7 2 (14.29%) Test Management
7 2 (14.29%) Test Planning
7 2 (14.29%) Test Strategy
7 2 (14.29%) User Stories
7 2 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
7 2 (14.29%) Postman
7 2 (14.29%) Git
7 2 (14.29%) Product Ownership
7 2 (14.29%) Defect Tracking

Manual Tester Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 1 (7.14%) CMS
1 1 (7.14%) Confluence
1 1 (7.14%) Drupal
Applications
1 1 (7.14%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (7.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 1 (7.14%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (7.14%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1 (7.14%) AWS
1 1 (7.14%) Bloomreach
1 1 (7.14%) BrowserStack
1 1 (7.14%) Power Platform
1 1 (7.14%) SaaS
1 1 (7.14%) Slack
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (14.29%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (7.14%) Data Lake
2 1 (7.14%) Data Mart
2 1 (7.14%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 7 (50.00%) JIRA
2 3 (21.43%) Selenium
3 2 (14.29%) Cypress.io
3 2 (14.29%) Git
3 2 (14.29%) Postman
4 1 (7.14%) IntelliJ
4 1 (7.14%) Jenkins
4 1 (7.14%) Maven
4 1 (7.14%) TestRail
General
1 6 (42.86%) Social Skills
2 3 (21.43%) Finance
3 2 (14.29%) Banking
4 1 (7.14%) Documentation Skills
4 1 (7.14%) Legal
4 1 (7.14%) Public Sector
4 1 (7.14%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (7.14%) .NET
1 1 (7.14%) Nightwatchjs
Miscellaneous
1 2 (14.29%) Product Ownership
2 1 (7.14%) Cloud Native
2 1 (7.14%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1 (7.14%) Android
1 1 (7.14%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 8 (57.14%) Manual Testing
1 8 (57.14%) Test Automation
2 7 (50.00%) Agile
3 4 (28.57%) Test Scripting
4 3 (21.43%) API Testing
4 3 (21.43%) SDLC
5 2 (14.29%) Data Analysis
5 2 (14.29%) Defect Tracking
5 2 (14.29%) E-Commerce
5 2 (14.29%) Exploratory Testing
5 2 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
5 2 (14.29%) Scenario Testing
5 2 (14.29%) Scrum
5 2 (14.29%) Test Management
5 2 (14.29%) Test Planning
5 2 (14.29%) Test Strategy
5 2 (14.29%) User Experience
5 2 (14.29%) User Stories
6 1 (7.14%) CRM
6 1 (7.14%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 3 (21.43%) Java
1 3 (21.43%) SQL
2 1 (7.14%) JavaScript
2 1 (7.14%) Python
Qualifications
1 1 (7.14%) Degree
1 1 (7.14%) ISTQB
1 1 (7.14%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
1 1 (7.14%) SC Cleared
1 1 (7.14%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (64.29%) QA
2 1 (7.14%) Accessibility
2 1 (7.14%) Data Quality
2 1 (7.14%) WCAG
Vendors
1 2 (14.29%) Microsoft
2 1 (7.14%) Salesforce
2 1 (7.14%) Splunk