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 26 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 140 141 129
Rank change year-on-year +1 -12 -85
Permanent jobs citing Software Testing 41 24 90
As % of all permanent jobs in Manchester 0.66% 1.04% 1.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.91% 1.10% 1.88%
Number of salaries quoted 29 21 67
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 £57,965
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +29.39% -3.39%
75th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £86,150 £85,000 £77,000
North West median annual salary £54,636 £62,500 £53,500
% change year-on-year -12.58% +16.82% -9.32%

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 4,485 2,184 4,795
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Manchester 72.49% 94.96% 83.10%
Number of salaries quoted 3,551 1,243 3,561
10th Percentile £32,500 £29,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £45,000 £40,000 £40,988
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% +4.76% -9.48%
75th Percentile £77,500 £74,072 £68,750
90th Percentile £97,500 £91,250 £81,250
North West median annual salary £55,000 £52,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.77% +4.00% -9.09%

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 26 June 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 26 June 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 +17 1 £60,000 +282.07% 2
Oldham - 1 £46,421 - 3
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 15 (36.59%) AWS
2 8 (19.51%) Azure
3 7 (17.07%) GCP
4 5 (12.20%) Serverless
5 2 (4.88%) GitHub
6 1 (2.44%) Amazon EKS
6 1 (2.44%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (2.44%) AWS CodePipeline
6 1 (2.44%) Azure AKS
6 1 (2.44%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (2.44%) GitHub Actions
6 1 (2.44%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 1 (2.44%) OpenShift
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (4.88%) MySQL
1 2 (4.88%) SQL Server
2 1 (2.44%) DynamoDB
2 1 (2.44%) Elasticsearch
2 1 (2.44%) MongoDB
2 1 (2.44%) NoSQL
2 1 (2.44%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 6 (14.63%) GitLab
2 5 (12.20%) Git
3 4 (9.76%) JIRA
3 4 (9.76%) JUnit
3 4 (9.76%) Spock
4 2 (4.88%) Jenkins
4 2 (4.88%) Maven
4 2 (4.88%) Postman
5 1 (2.44%) Bitbucket
5 1 (2.44%) Cypress.io
5 1 (2.44%) REST Assured
5 1 (2.44%) Selenium
General
1 12 (29.27%) Finance
2 7 (17.07%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (12.20%) 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 8 (19.51%) Software Engineer
3 7 (17.07%) Software Test Engineer
4 5 (12.20%) Developer
4 5 (12.20%) Firmware Engineer
4 5 (12.20%) Lead
4 5 (12.20%) Senior
4 5 (12.20%) Technical Leader
5 4 (9.76%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 4 (9.76%) Java Developer
6 3 (7.32%) Development Engineer
6 3 (7.32%) Software Development Engineer
6 3 (7.32%) Test Development Engineer
7 2 (4.88%) Data Engineer
7 2 (4.88%) Graduate
7 2 (4.88%) Graduate Data Engineer
7 2 (4.88%) QA Engineer
7 2 (4.88%) Senior Developer
7 2 (4.88%) Senior Java Developer
7 2 (4.88%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (14.63%) Spring
2 4 (9.76%) LangChain
2 4 (9.76%) LlamaIndex
3 2 (4.88%) AngularJS
3 2 (4.88%) CSS
3 2 (4.88%) HTML
3 2 (4.88%) Playwright
3 2 (4.88%) React
3 2 (4.88%) REST
3 2 (4.88%) Spring Boot
3 2 (4.88%) Vue
4 1 (2.44%) .NET
4 1 (2.44%) .NET Framework
4 1 (2.44%) ASP.NET Web API
4 1 (2.44%) ASP.NET Web Forms
4 1 (2.44%) CSS3
4 1 (2.44%) HTML5
4 1 (2.44%) Kafka
4 1 (2.44%) RESTful
4 1 (2.44%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 6 (14.63%) Distributed Systems
2 5 (12.20%) AI Agents
3 4 (9.76%) Life Science
3 4 (9.76%) Private Cloud
3 4 (9.76%) Product Ownership
4 3 (7.32%) Robotics
5 1 (2.44%) Onboarding
5 1 (2.44%) Public Cloud
5 1 (2.44%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 4 (9.76%) Linux
2 3 (7.32%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (46.34%) Agile
2 12 (29.27%) AI
2 12 (29.27%) Software Engineering
3 11 (26.83%) Test Automation
4 10 (24.39%) CI/CD
4 10 (24.39%) Scrum
5 9 (21.95%) Data Pipeline
5 9 (21.95%) DevOps
6 7 (17.07%) Code Quality
6 7 (17.07%) Collaborative Culture
6 7 (17.07%) Kanban
6 7 (17.07%) Regression Testing
6 7 (17.07%) Test Scripting
7 6 (14.63%) Clean Code
7 6 (14.63%) Infrastructure as Code
7 6 (14.63%) Microservices
8 5 (12.20%) Data Analytics
8 5 (12.20%) Data Engineering
8 5 (12.20%) Mentoring
8 5 (12.20%) SOLID
Programming Languages
1 16 (39.02%) Python
2 10 (24.39%) Java
3 9 (21.95%) JavaScript
4 8 (19.51%) SQL
5 6 (14.63%) TypeScript
6 4 (9.76%) Groovy
7 3 (7.32%) C
7 3 (7.32%) C#
7 3 (7.32%) C++
7 3 (7.32%) PHP
8 1 (2.44%) Go
8 1 (2.44%) Ladder Logic
8 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 5 (12.20%) Data Quality
1 5 (12.20%) QA
2 1 (2.44%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 6 (14.63%) Docker
2 5 (12.20%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 3 (7.32%) Kubernetes
2 1 (2.44%) Ansible
2 1 (2.44%) Grafana
2 1 (2.44%) Rancher
2 1 (2.44%) Terraform
Vendors
1 4 (9.76%) AppDynamics
1 4 (9.76%) Splunk
2 1 (2.44%) Google
2 1 (2.44%) Microsoft