QA Job Trends in Manchester

Quality Assurance (QA)
North West > Manchester

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in Manchester requiring QA 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 83 47 62
Rank change year-on-year -36 +15 -45
Permanent jobs citing QA 50 131 94
As % of all permanent jobs in Manchester 1.71% 4.91% 3.72%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 21.74% 22.35% 32.41%
Number of salaries quoted 33 64 58
10th Percentile £42,000 £25,000 £36,250
25th Percentile - £35,938 £43,188
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £44,125 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +13.31% -19.77% -6.38%
75th Percentile £64,750 £65,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £79,500 £83,375 £76,625
North West median annual salary £57,500 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +21.05% -5.00% -9.09%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
Manchester

QA falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills in Manchester.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 230 586 290
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Manchester 7.88% 21.97% 11.46%
Number of salaries quoted 143 190 213
10th Percentile £32,500 £25,000 £27,300
25th Percentile £36,250 £36,250 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -13.64% -
75th Percentile £73,908 £73,750 £65,603
90th Percentile £82,328 £84,000 £80,000
North West median annual salary £52,500 £45,500 £47,500
% change year-on-year +15.38% -4.21% -5.00%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing QA relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in Manchester.

QA job vacancy trend in Manchester

QA
Salary Trend in Manchester

Salary distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing QA.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing QA

QA
Salary Histogram in Manchester

Salary distribution for jobs citing QA in Manchester over the 6 months to 14 January 2026.

Salary histogram for QA in Manchester

QA
Job Locations in Manchester

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing QA within the Manchester 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
Bolton - 5 £50,000 - 7
Salford +3 2 £72,539 +81.35% 6
QA
North West

QA
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester 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 1 (2.00%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 4 (8.00%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (4.00%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (2.00%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 6 (12.00%) AWS
2 5 (10.00%) Azure
2 5 (10.00%) Power Platform
3 4 (8.00%) SaaS
4 2 (4.00%) GCP
5 1 (2.00%) Azure Data Factory
5 1 (2.00%) Datadog
5 1 (2.00%) dbt
5 1 (2.00%) GitHub
5 1 (2.00%) npm
5 1 (2.00%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (10.00%) HTTP
2 4 (8.00%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (10.00%) Power BI
2 3 (6.00%) Relational Database
2 3 (6.00%) Tableau
3 1 (2.00%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (2.00%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 5 (10.00%) Selenium
2 4 (8.00%) Visual Studio
3 3 (6.00%) Cypress.io
3 3 (6.00%) Postman
4 2 (4.00%) Cucumber
4 2 (4.00%) JMeter
5 1 (2.00%) Appium
5 1 (2.00%) Bitbucket
5 1 (2.00%) Gatling
5 1 (2.00%) Git
5 1 (2.00%) Jenkins
5 1 (2.00%) LoadRunner
5 1 (2.00%) Locust
5 1 (2.00%) Protractor
5 1 (2.00%) REST Assured
5 1 (2.00%) SoapUI
General
1 16 (32.00%) Finance
2 13 (26.00%) Social Skills
3 6 (12.00%) Law
4 5 (10.00%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (10.00%) Public Sector
5 4 (8.00%) Telecoms
6 3 (6.00%) Banking
6 3 (6.00%) Electronics
6 3 (6.00%) Manufacturing
6 3 (6.00%) Marketing
7 2 (4.00%) Aerospace
7 2 (4.00%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (4.00%) Military
7 2 (4.00%) Retail
8 1 (2.00%) Agriculture
8 1 (2.00%) Automotive
8 1 (2.00%) Games
8 1 (2.00%) Legal
8 1 (2.00%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (2.00%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 11 (22.00%) Lead
2 8 (16.00%) Analyst
2 8 (16.00%) QA Leader
3 6 (12.00%) Project Manager
4 5 (10.00%) Commercial Manager
4 5 (10.00%) Commercial Project Manager
4 5 (10.00%) Developer
4 5 (10.00%) QA Engineer
4 5 (10.00%) QA Team Leader
4 5 (10.00%) Senior
4 5 (10.00%) Team Leader
5 4 (8.00%) C++ Developer
5 4 (8.00%) Senior Developer
6 3 (6.00%) Automation Engineer
6 3 (6.00%) QA Automation Engineer
6 3 (6.00%) QA Manager
6 3 (6.00%) Quality Manager
6 3 (6.00%) Senior C++ Developer
6 3 (6.00%) Software Engineer
6 3 (6.00%) Technical Assistant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (8.00%) Qt
1 4 (8.00%) STL
2 3 (6.00%) QML
3 2 (4.00%) Node.js
3 2 (4.00%) React
3 2 (4.00%) RESTful
4 1 (2.00%) AngularJS
4 1 (2.00%) CSS
4 1 (2.00%) Gherkin
4 1 (2.00%) HTML
4 1 (2.00%) Jest
4 1 (2.00%) Next.js
4 1 (2.00%) pytest
4 1 (2.00%) REST
4 1 (2.00%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 5 (10.00%) Social Media
2 4 (8.00%) Client/Server
2 4 (8.00%) Product Ownership
3 3 (6.00%) Analytical Mindset
4 2 (4.00%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (2.00%) Derivative
5 1 (2.00%) Equities
5 1 (2.00%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 1 (2.00%) IoT
5 1 (2.00%) Onboarding
5 1 (2.00%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 9 (18.00%) Windows
2 1 (2.00%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (40.00%) Agile
2 14 (28.00%) Test Automation
3 10 (20.00%) Process Improvement
4 9 (18.00%) Collaborative Working
5 8 (16.00%) CI/CD
5 8 (16.00%) DevOps
6 7 (14.00%) Business Intelligence
6 7 (14.00%) Data Protection
6 7 (14.00%) Project Management
6 7 (14.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 6 (12.00%) Actionable Insight
7 6 (12.00%) Data Analysis
7 6 (12.00%) Project Delivery
8 5 (10.00%) Business Case
8 5 (10.00%) Business Transformation
8 5 (10.00%) Continuous Improvement
8 5 (10.00%) Demand Management
8 5 (10.00%) Matrix Organization
8 5 (10.00%) Project Governance
8 5 (10.00%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 5 (10.00%) C#
2 4 (8.00%) C++
2 4 (8.00%) SQL
3 3 (6.00%) Java
3 3 (6.00%) Python
3 3 (6.00%) TypeScript
4 2 (4.00%) Go
4 2 (4.00%) JavaScript
5 1 (2.00%) PHP
Qualifications
1 7 (14.00%) Degree
2 5 (10.00%) DBS Check
2 5 (10.00%) PMI Certification
2 5 (10.00%) PMP
3 4 (8.00%) Security Cleared
4 3 (6.00%) DV Cleared
5 2 (4.00%) SC Cleared
6 1 (2.00%) CISA
6 1 (2.00%) CISM
6 1 (2.00%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (6.00%) Accessibility
2 2 (4.00%) Data Quality
2 2 (4.00%) GDPR
3 1 (2.00%) FINRA
3 1 (2.00%) ISO 14001
3 1 (2.00%) ISO 9001
3 1 (2.00%) WCAG
System Software
1 3 (6.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (6.00%) Kubernetes
1 3 (6.00%) Terraform
2 2 (4.00%) Ansible
2 2 (4.00%) Progress Chef
2 2 (4.00%) Puppet
3 1 (2.00%) Grafana
Vendors
1 4 (8.00%) SAP
2 3 (6.00%) Microsoft