Manual Testing Job Trends in England

Manual Testing
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in England requiring Manual Testing skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 491 499 518
Rank change year-on-year +8 +19 -33
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 126 186 162
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.24% 0.39% 0.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.29% 0.43% 0.37%
Number of salaries quoted 93 118 143
10th Percentile £33,750 £33,028 £35,000
25th Percentile £42,500 £42,500 £40,375
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% - -
75th Percentile £62,500 £65,000 £57,500
90th Percentile £71,000 £77,500 £74,800
UK median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - 0.00%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

Manual Testing falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in England.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 42,913 43,729 44,234
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 81.21% 90.84% 89.77%
Number of salaries quoted 25,804 21,413 34,236
10th Percentile £28,742 £35,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £37,500 £46,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £76,250 £81,250 £80,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £100,000 £98,750
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

Manual Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Manual Testing relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in England.

Manual Testing job vacancy trend in England

Manual Testing
Salary Trend in England

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing Manual Testing.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing Manual Testing

Manual Testing
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing Manual Testing in England over the 6 months to 14 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Manual Testing in England

Manual Testing
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Manual Testing within the England region over the 6 months to 14 January 2026. 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London +36 43 £55,000 -15.38% 20
South West +21 26 £45,000 -10.00% 11
South East +33 25 £53,500 +12.63% 34
Midlands +4 17 £40,000 -27.27% 10
East Midlands -6 13 £35,000 -36.36% 7
East of England +28 8 £45,000 +44.00% 18
North of England -25 6 £52,500 +18.98% 21
West Midlands +2 4 £46,750 -10.95% 3
North East +5 2 £55,000 -8.33% 2
North West 0 2 £45,000 - 7
Yorkshire -19 2 £57,500 +84.04% 12
Manual Testing
UK

Manual Testing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 5 (3.97%) Confluence
2 1 (0.79%) Apache
2 1 (0.79%) CMS
2 1 (0.79%) WordPress
Applications
1 1 (0.79%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
1 1 (0.79%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 10 (7.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (2.38%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.79%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.79%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 32 (25.40%) Azure
2 29 (23.02%) Azure DevOps
3 17 (13.49%) AWS
4 7 (5.56%) Power Platform
5 5 (3.97%) GCP
5 5 (3.97%) SaaS
6 4 (3.17%) BrowserStack
7 3 (2.38%) Adobe Analytics
7 3 (2.38%) Datadog
7 3 (2.38%) Dynamics 365
8 2 (1.59%) AWS CloudFormation
8 2 (1.59%) Tricentis Tosca
9 1 (0.79%) dbt
9 1 (0.79%) GitHub
9 1 (0.79%) Power Automate
9 1 (0.79%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.79%) Cisco IOS
1 1 (0.79%) Cisco ISE
1 1 (0.79%) Ethernet
1 1 (0.79%) FTP
1 1 (0.79%) HTTP
1 1 (0.79%) SD-WAN
1 1 (0.79%) SNMP
1 1 (0.79%) Spanning Tree
1 1 (0.79%) SSH
1 1 (0.79%) TACACS
1 1 (0.79%) WAN
1 1 (0.79%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (7.14%) Relational Database
2 3 (2.38%) Mixpanel
2 3 (2.38%) SQL Server
3 2 (1.59%) DB2
3 2 (1.59%) MongoDB
3 2 (1.59%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.79%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.79%) Metadata
4 1 (0.79%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 34 (26.98%) Selenium
2 31 (24.60%) JIRA
3 24 (19.05%) Postman
4 11 (8.73%) Cypress.io
4 11 (8.73%) Jenkins
5 9 (7.14%) eCATT
5 9 (7.14%) Git
6 6 (4.76%) SoapUI
7 5 (3.97%) Zephyr
8 4 (3.17%) SpecFlow
8 4 (3.17%) TestRail
9 3 (2.38%) Browser DevTools
9 3 (2.38%) Charles Proxy
9 3 (2.38%) Cucumber
9 3 (2.38%) Fiddler
9 3 (2.38%) GitLab
9 3 (2.38%) Katalon Studio
9 3 (2.38%) Maven
9 3 (2.38%) TestNG
9 3 (2.38%) WebDriver
General
1 24 (19.05%) Analytical Skills
1 24 (19.05%) Social Skills
2 23 (18.25%) Finance
3 16 (12.70%) Marketing
4 10 (7.94%) Manufacturing
5 9 (7.14%) Influencing Skills
5 9 (7.14%) Presentation Skills
6 7 (5.56%) Games
7 6 (4.76%) Law
8 5 (3.97%) Banking
9 4 (3.17%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (3.17%) Electronics
9 4 (3.17%) Public Sector
10 3 (2.38%) Tech for Good
11 2 (1.59%) Aerospace
11 2 (1.59%) Back Office
11 2 (1.59%) Health Technology
11 2 (1.59%) Legal
11 2 (1.59%) Retail
11 2 (1.59%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 28 (22.22%) Test Engineer
2 25 (19.84%) Analyst
2 25 (19.84%) Tester
3 23 (18.25%) Senior
4 22 (17.46%) Test Analyst
5 21 (16.67%) Lead
6 20 (15.87%) QA Engineer
7 16 (12.70%) Test Automation Engineer
8 15 (11.90%) QA Leader
9 9 (7.14%) Automation Test Analyst
9 9 (7.14%) Senior Test Engineer
10 7 (5.56%) Automation Tester
10 7 (5.56%) QA Analyst
10 7 (5.56%) Test Leader
11 6 (4.76%) Manual Tester
11 6 (4.76%) Quality Engineer
12 5 (3.97%) Graduate
12 5 (3.97%) QA Test Analyst
12 5 (3.97%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
12 5 (3.97%) Senior Quality Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (17.46%) Playwright
2 8 (6.35%) CSS
2 8 (6.35%) HTML
3 6 (4.76%) React
4 5 (3.97%) .NET
4 5 (3.97%) RESTful
4 5 (3.97%) XML
5 4 (3.17%) Elastic Stack
5 4 (3.17%) REST
6 2 (1.59%) AngularJS
6 2 (1.59%) CSS3
6 2 (1.59%) FIX Protocol
6 2 (1.59%) Gherkin
6 2 (1.59%) HTML5
6 2 (1.59%) pytest
6 2 (1.59%) Sass
7 1 (0.79%) JSON
7 1 (0.79%) Node.js
7 1 (0.79%) OAuth
7 1 (0.79%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 9 (7.14%) Product Ownership
2 5 (3.97%) Analytical Mindset
3 3 (2.38%) Derivative
3 3 (2.38%) Equities
3 3 (2.38%) Fixed Income
3 3 (2.38%) IoT
3 3 (2.38%) Mobile App
3 3 (2.38%) Virtual Team
3 3 (2.38%) W3C
4 2 (1.59%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 2 (1.59%) Greenfield Project
4 2 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (0.79%) Cyber Defence
5 1 (0.79%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (0.79%) Hedge funds
5 1 (0.79%) Low-Code
5 1 (0.79%) Operational Technology
5 1 (0.79%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 5 (3.97%) Linux
1 5 (3.97%) Windows
2 2 (1.59%) Windows Server
2 2 (1.59%) Windows Server 2019
3 1 (0.79%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (79.37%) Test Automation
2 61 (48.41%) Agile
3 48 (38.10%) Software Testing
4 47 (37.30%) CI/CD
5 39 (30.95%) Regression Testing
6 38 (30.16%) API Testing
7 33 (26.19%) DevOps
8 30 (23.81%) Test Scripting
9 29 (23.02%) Continuous Improvement
10 27 (21.43%) Scrum
11 25 (19.84%) Test Strategy
12 22 (17.46%) SDLC
13 21 (16.67%) Non-Functional Testing
13 21 (16.67%) Validation
14 20 (15.87%) End-to-End Testing
14 20 (15.87%) Integration Testing
15 19 (15.08%) Problem-Solving
15 19 (15.08%) Scenario Testing
16 17 (13.49%) Test Management
16 17 (13.49%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 41 (32.54%) SQL
2 25 (19.84%) JavaScript
3 23 (18.25%) C#
4 18 (14.29%) Python
5 17 (13.49%) Java
6 12 (9.52%) TypeScript
7 5 (3.97%) Bash
8 2 (1.59%) Groovy
8 2 (1.59%) PHP
8 2 (1.59%) PowerShell
8 2 (1.59%) RPG
Qualifications
1 37 (29.37%) ISTQB
2 20 (15.87%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
3 16 (12.70%) Security Cleared
4 14 (11.11%) Degree
5 9 (7.14%) SC Cleared
6 6 (4.76%) DV Cleared
7 5 (3.97%) ISEB
8 4 (3.17%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (2.38%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 65 (51.59%) QA
2 18 (14.29%) Accessibility
3 5 (3.97%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.59%) Section 508
4 2 (1.59%) WCAG
System Software
1 7 (5.56%) Docker
2 3 (2.38%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.79%) Terminal Server
3 1 (0.79%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 10 (7.94%) HP ALM
2 7 (5.56%) Kubernetes
3 4 (3.17%) Terraform
4 2 (1.59%) Ansible
4 2 (1.59%) Grafana
4 2 (1.59%) Nessus
4 2 (1.59%) Prometheus
4 2 (1.59%) SCCM
4 2 (1.59%) SCOM
Vendors
1 11 (8.73%) SAP
2 10 (7.94%) HP
3 5 (3.97%) Microsoft
4 4 (3.17%) Oracle
5 3 (2.38%) Adobe
5 3 (2.38%) ServiceNow
5 3 (2.38%) Tealium
6 2 (1.59%) Cisco
6 2 (1.59%) IBM
6 2 (1.59%) Siebel
6 2 (1.59%) VMware
7 1 (0.79%) Charles River
7 1 (0.79%) Genesys
7 1 (0.79%) Juniper
7 1 (0.79%) McAfee
7 1 (0.79%) Meraki
7 1 (0.79%) Murex
7 1 (0.79%) Pega
7 1 (0.79%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.79%) Splunk