Software Testing Job Trends in Manchester

Software Testing
North West > Manchester

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in Manchester requiring Software Testing skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 24 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 141 144 133
Rank change year-on-year +3 -11 -25
Permanent jobs citing Software Testing 41 24 77
As % of all permanent jobs in Manchester 0.63% 0.96% 1.55%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.86% 1.04% 1.88%
Number of salaries quoted 30 21 56
10th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £32,750
25th Percentile £41,250 £42,500 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £75,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +36.36% -8.33%
75th Percentile £79,063 £77,500 £62,500
90th Percentile £84,325 £78,750 £71,875
North West median annual salary £52,500 £62,500 £52,000
% change year-on-year -16.00% +20.19% -13.33%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Manchester

Software 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 Manchester.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 4,755 2,304 4,099
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Manchester 73.49% 92.31% 82.61%
Number of salaries quoted 3,754 1,333 2,884
10th Percentile £33,500 £29,750 £30,825
25th Percentile £45,000 £37,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -7.60%
75th Percentile £78,750 £72,500 £68,750
90th Percentile £99,550 £87,700 £82,500
North West median annual salary £55,000 £50,055 £50,055
% change year-on-year +9.88% - -8.99%

Software Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

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

Software Testing job vacancy trend in Manchester

Software Testing
Salary Trend in Manchester

Salary distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Software Testing.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Software Testing

Software Testing
Salary Histogram in Manchester

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software Testing in Manchester over the 6 months to 24 July 2026.

Salary histogram for Software Testing in Manchester

Software Testing
Job Locations in Manchester

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Software Testing within the Manchester region over the 6 months to 24 July 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 +15 1 £60,000 +32.30% 1
Oldham - 1 £46,421 - 1
Software Testing
North West

Software Testing
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:

Applications
1 1 (2.44%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 14 (34.15%) AWS
2 7 (17.07%) Azure
3 6 (14.63%) GCP
4 5 (12.20%) Serverless
5 2 (4.88%) GitHub
6 1 (2.44%) AWS CodePipeline
6 1 (2.44%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (2.44%) GitHub Actions
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (4.88%) SQL Server
2 1 (2.44%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 6 (14.63%) GitLab
2 5 (12.20%) Git
2 5 (12.20%) JUnit
2 5 (12.20%) Spock
3 4 (9.76%) JIRA
4 3 (7.32%) Maven
4 3 (7.32%) Postman
5 2 (4.88%) Cypress.io
5 2 (4.88%) Jenkins
6 1 (2.44%) IntelliJ
6 1 (2.44%) REST Assured
6 1 (2.44%) Selenium
General
1 13 (31.71%) Finance
2 7 (17.07%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (14.63%) Social Skills
4 3 (7.32%) Health Technology
4 3 (7.32%) Pharmaceutical
5 2 (4.88%) Back Office
5 2 (4.88%) Retail
6 1 (2.44%) Billing
6 1 (2.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 10 (24.39%) Test Engineer
2 9 (21.95%) Software Engineer
3 7 (17.07%) Software Test Engineer
4 6 (14.63%) Lead
5 5 (12.20%) Developer
5 5 (12.20%) Firmware Engineer
5 5 (12.20%) Senior
5 5 (12.20%) Technical Leader
6 4 (9.76%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
6 4 (9.76%) Java Developer
7 3 (7.32%) Development Engineer
7 3 (7.32%) Software Development Engineer
7 3 (7.32%) Test Development Engineer
8 2 (4.88%) Control Systems Engineer
8 2 (4.88%) QA Engineer
8 2 (4.88%) Senior Developer
8 2 (4.88%) Senior Java Developer
8 2 (4.88%) Systems Engineer
8 2 (4.88%) Tester
9 1 (2.44%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (17.07%) Spring
2 4 (9.76%) LangChain
2 4 (9.76%) LlamaIndex
3 3 (7.32%) AngularJS
3 3 (7.32%) Playwright
4 2 (4.88%) CSS
4 2 (4.88%) HTML
4 2 (4.88%) React
4 2 (4.88%) REST
4 2 (4.88%) Spring Boot
4 2 (4.88%) Vue
5 1 (2.44%) .NET
5 1 (2.44%) .NET Framework
5 1 (2.44%) ASP.NET Web Forms
5 1 (2.44%) CSS3
5 1 (2.44%) Entity Framework
5 1 (2.44%) HTML5
5 1 (2.44%) Kafka
5 1 (2.44%) RabbitMQ
5 1 (2.44%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 7 (17.07%) Distributed Systems
2 5 (12.20%) AI Agents
2 5 (12.20%) Private Cloud
3 4 (9.76%) Life Science
4 3 (7.32%) Robotics
5 2 (4.88%) Product Ownership
5 2 (4.88%) SCADA
6 1 (2.44%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 3 (7.32%) Linux
1 3 (7.32%) Windows
2 1 (2.44%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (43.90%) Agile
2 15 (36.59%) Software Engineering
3 13 (31.71%) AI
4 12 (29.27%) Test Automation
5 11 (26.83%) CI/CD
5 11 (26.83%) Scrum
6 9 (21.95%) Data Pipeline
6 9 (21.95%) DevOps
7 8 (19.51%) Code Quality
7 8 (19.51%) Kanban
7 8 (19.51%) Regression Testing
8 7 (17.07%) Collaborative Culture
8 7 (17.07%) Test Scripting
9 6 (14.63%) Clean Code
9 6 (14.63%) Full-Stack Development
9 6 (14.63%) Mentoring
9 6 (14.63%) Microservices
10 5 (12.20%) Cost Optimisation
10 5 (12.20%) Design Patterns
10 5 (12.20%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 15 (36.59%) Python
2 10 (24.39%) Java
2 10 (24.39%) JavaScript
3 8 (19.51%) SQL
3 8 (19.51%) TypeScript
4 5 (12.20%) Groovy
5 3 (7.32%) C
5 3 (7.32%) C#
5 3 (7.32%) C++
5 3 (7.32%) PHP
6 2 (4.88%) Ladder Logic
7 1 (2.44%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 8 (19.51%) Degree
2 6 (14.63%) Security Cleared
3 4 (9.76%) DV Cleared
4 3 (7.32%) SC Cleared
5 1 (2.44%) BPSS Clearance
5 1 (2.44%) Chartered Engineer
5 1 (2.44%) CIPD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (14.63%) QA
2 5 (12.20%) Data Quality
3 1 (2.44%) IEC 61131
3 1 (2.44%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 7 (17.07%) Docker
2 5 (12.20%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 2 (4.88%) Kubernetes
2 1 (2.44%) Functional Safety
2 1 (2.44%) Grafana
Vendors
1 5 (12.20%) AppDynamics
1 5 (12.20%) Splunk
2 1 (2.44%) Google
2 1 (2.44%) Microsoft
2 1 (2.44%) Siemens