Manual Testing Contracts

Manual Testing
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies 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 371 441 512
Rank change year-on-year +70 +71 +9
Contract jobs citing Manual Testing 152 141 207
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.52% 0.32% 0.35%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.57% 0.38% 0.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 108 97 163
10th Percentile £276 £317 £313
25th Percentile £363 £375 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -10.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £640 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £450 £469
% change year-on-year -11.11% -4.00% +10.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 2 0
Median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 26,594 37,597 53,655
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.84% 86.31% 89.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,149 24,227 37,238
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £743 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.50% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,071 2,443 1,746
10th Percentile £14.41 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.21 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
Median % change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%
75th Percentile £60.38 £59.98 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £37.34 £36.00
% change year-on-year -26.35% +3.72% +80.00%

Manual Testing
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Manual Testing as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Manual Testing in the UK

Manual Testing
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for Manual Testing in the UK

Manual Testing
Daily Rate Histogram

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

Daily rate histogram for Manual Testing in the UK

Manual Testing
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for Manual Testing in the UK

Manual Testing
Top 16 Contract Locations

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 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 +75 140 £458 +1.67% 158
London +58 84 £475 -7.32% 70
UK excluding London +64 61 £400 -11.11% 93
Work from Home +26 47 £500 +11.11% 80
South East +50 20 £438 -1.41% 19
North of England +20 20 £333 -19.39% 19
Yorkshire +10 10 £281 -29.69% 5
Midlands +18 9 £468 +28.97% 21
North West +17 9 £475 +5.56% 11
South West +43 5 £355 -39.83% 11
East Midlands +9 5 £335 -7.66% 7
West Midlands +11 4 £550 +91.30% 14
Scotland - 4 £425 - 3
East of England - 3 - - 18
North East -1 1 - - 3
Wales -2 1 £375 -26.25% 1

Manual Testing
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 7 (4.61%) Confluence
2 2 (1.32%) Apache
2 2 (1.32%) WordPress
3 1 (0.66%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.66%) CMS
3 1 (0.66%) Umbraco
Applications
1 2 (1.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.66%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (1.32%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.66%) Murex MxG2000
2 1 (0.66%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 30 (19.74%) Azure
2 20 (13.16%) Azure DevOps
3 12 (7.89%) AWS
4 8 (5.26%) GitHub
4 8 (5.26%) SaaS
5 5 (3.29%) GitHub Actions
5 5 (3.29%) IaaS
5 5 (3.29%) PaaS
6 3 (1.97%) dbt
7 2 (1.32%) AWS Lambda
7 2 (1.32%) GCP
8 1 (0.66%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 1 (0.66%) Azure Data Factory
8 1 (0.66%) BrowserStack
8 1 (0.66%) Datadog
8 1 (0.66%) Dynamics 365
8 1 (0.66%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
8 1 (0.66%) Salesforce Service Cloud
8 1 (0.66%) Sauce Labs
8 1 (0.66%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.66%) Cisco Firepower
1 1 (0.66%) Firewall
1 1 (0.66%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (4.61%) MS Access
1 7 (4.61%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.97%) Relational Database
3 2 (1.32%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (1.32%) Delta Lake
4 1 (0.66%) Amazon Athena
4 1 (0.66%) Big Data
4 1 (0.66%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.66%) Data Mart
4 1 (0.66%) DB2
4 1 (0.66%) DynamoDB
4 1 (0.66%) Oracle Database
4 1 (0.66%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 48 (31.58%) Selenium
2 33 (21.71%) JIRA
3 23 (15.13%) Postman
4 22 (14.47%) Cypress.io
5 16 (10.53%) JUnit
6 14 (9.21%) Git
6 14 (9.21%) JMeter
7 12 (7.89%) Jenkins
8 11 (7.24%) Cucumber
8 11 (7.24%) SoapUI
9 8 (5.26%) Appium
10 7 (4.61%) SpecFlow
11 6 (3.95%) LoadRunner
11 6 (3.95%) NUnit
11 6 (3.95%) TestRail
12 5 (3.29%) Maven
12 5 (3.29%) REST Assured
13 4 (2.63%) Gatling
13 4 (2.63%) QARun
13 4 (2.63%) WinRunner
General
1 65 (42.76%) Social Skills
2 49 (32.24%) Finance
3 32 (21.05%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (9.87%) Banking
5 14 (9.21%) Financial Institution
6 13 (8.55%) Front Office
7 8 (5.26%) Public Sector
8 5 (3.29%) Investment Banking
8 5 (3.29%) Legal
9 4 (2.63%) Manufacturing
9 4 (2.63%) Marketing
10 3 (1.97%) Electronics
10 3 (1.97%) Telecoms
11 2 (1.32%) Back Office
11 2 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (1.32%) Retail
12 1 (0.66%) Documentation Skills
12 1 (0.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 1 (0.66%) Pharmaceutical
12 1 (0.66%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 46 (30.26%) Tester
2 23 (15.13%) Analyst
2 23 (15.13%) QA Engineer
2 23 (15.13%) Senior
3 19 (12.50%) Test Engineer
4 18 (11.84%) Test Analyst
5 14 (9.21%) Lead
6 13 (8.55%) QA Tester
7 12 (7.89%) Business Analyst
8 10 (6.58%) Front Office Business Analyst
9 9 (5.92%) Electronic Trading Business Analyst
9 9 (5.92%) Investment Banking Business Analyst
9 9 (5.92%) Senior Analyst
9 9 (5.92%) Senior Test Analyst
10 8 (5.26%) Manual Tester
10 8 (5.26%) QA Leader
11 7 (4.61%) Automation Tester
11 7 (4.61%) Software Tester
12 6 (3.95%) Senior Tester
13 5 (3.29%) QA Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (13.82%) Playwright
2 10 (6.58%) REST
3 9 (5.92%) .NET
4 8 (5.26%) SOAP
4 8 (5.26%) XML
5 6 (3.95%) Middleware
5 6 (3.95%) Web Services
6 5 (3.29%) CSS
6 5 (3.29%) HTML
6 5 (3.29%) pytest
7 4 (2.63%) PySpark
8 3 (1.97%) JSON
8 3 (1.97%) Kafka
8 3 (1.97%) Puppeteer
8 3 (1.97%) WebSockets
8 3 (1.97%) YAML
9 2 (1.32%) AngularJS
9 2 (1.32%) ASP.NET Web API
9 2 (1.32%) JDBC
9 2 (1.32%) React
Miscellaneous
1 9 (5.92%) Fixed Income
1 9 (5.92%) Product Ownership
2 5 (3.29%) Cyber Defence
2 5 (3.29%) Cyber Kill Chain
3 4 (2.63%) Data Structures
3 4 (2.63%) Mobile App
4 2 (1.32%) Mobile Banking
4 2 (1.32%) Onboarding
4 2 (1.32%) Online Banking
4 2 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (0.66%) CMDB
5 1 (0.66%) Data Centre
5 1 (0.66%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (0.66%) EPoS
5 1 (0.66%) Hedge funds
5 1 (0.66%) IBM Mainframe
5 1 (0.66%) Mainframe
5 1 (0.66%) Public Cloud
5 1 (0.66%) Security Posture
5 1 (0.66%) Solar Panel
Operating Systems
1 7 (4.61%) Windows
2 6 (3.95%) Unix
3 5 (3.29%) Android
4 4 (2.63%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.66%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 137 (90.13%) Test Automation
2 65 (42.76%) Agile
3 47 (30.92%) Problem-Solving
4 39 (25.66%) Regression Testing
5 37 (24.34%) Test Scripting
6 36 (23.68%) Test Strategy
7 35 (23.03%) DevOps
7 35 (23.03%) User Acceptance Testing
8 34 (22.37%) Software Testing
9 30 (19.74%) API Testing
10 26 (17.11%) CI/CD
10 26 (17.11%) Validation
11 25 (16.45%) Scrum
12 21 (13.82%) End-to-End Testing
13 19 (12.50%) Performance Testing
14 18 (11.84%) Waterfall
15 16 (10.53%) Integration Testing
15 16 (10.53%) Product Management
15 16 (10.53%) Test Management
15 16 (10.53%) Test Planning
Programming Languages
1 44 (28.95%) SQL
2 30 (19.74%) Python
3 23 (15.13%) Java
4 18 (11.84%) JavaScript
5 11 (7.24%) C#
5 11 (7.24%) TypeScript
6 6 (3.95%) PHP
6 6 (3.95%) Ruby
7 4 (2.63%) PowerShell
8 2 (1.32%) RPG
8 2 (1.32%) SOQL
9 1 (0.66%) Bash
9 1 (0.66%) Go
9 1 (0.66%) Groovy
9 1 (0.66%) JCL
9 1 (0.66%) Perl
9 1 (0.66%) REXX
9 1 (0.66%) VBA
Qualifications
1 28 (18.42%) Degree
2 25 (16.45%) Security Cleared
3 23 (15.13%) ISTQB
4 21 (13.82%) SC Cleared
5 9 (5.92%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (3.95%) CEH
6 6 (3.95%) CREST Certified
6 6 (3.95%) OSCP
7 5 (3.29%) CCSAS
7 5 (3.29%) GIAC
7 5 (3.29%) GPEN
7 5 (3.29%) GWAPT
8 3 (1.97%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 2 (1.32%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (1.32%) DV Cleared
10 1 (0.66%) CISSP
10 1 (0.66%) ISEB
10 1 (0.66%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 1 (0.66%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 75 (49.34%) QA
2 8 (5.26%) Accessibility
3 3 (1.97%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.32%) PCI DSS
4 2 (1.32%) Software Quality Assurance
5 1 (0.66%) GDPR
5 1 (0.66%) GxP
5 1 (0.66%) WCAG
System Software
1 4 (2.63%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (1.97%) Ansible
1 3 (1.97%) Terraform
2 2 (1.32%) HP ALM
3 1 (0.66%) Control-M
3 1 (0.66%) Grafana
3 1 (0.66%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.66%) Nessus
3 1 (0.66%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 10 (6.58%) Microsoft
2 9 (5.92%) ION Trading
3 6 (3.95%) Citrix
3 6 (3.95%) SAP
4 5 (3.29%) Salesforce
5 4 (2.63%) Oracle
6 3 (1.97%) Databricks
6 3 (1.97%) ServiceNow
7 2 (1.32%) HP
8 1 (0.66%) Charles River
8 1 (0.66%) Cisco
8 1 (0.66%) Google
8 1 (0.66%) IBM
8 1 (0.66%) Murex
8 1 (0.66%) Splunk