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 5 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 148 137 120
Rank change year-on-year -11 -17 +2
Permanent jobs citing Software Testing 42 22 69
As % of all permanent jobs in Manchester 0.58% 0.91% 1.67%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.78% 1.02% 2.04%
Number of salaries quoted 26 18 36
10th Percentile £40,000 £40,875 £35,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £57,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £75,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +36.36% -15.38%
75th Percentile £79,063 £77,500 £62,500
90th Percentile £91,625 £77,875 £68,125
North West median annual salary £49,700 £72,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -31.45% +45.00% -16.67%

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 5,417 2,159 3,376
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Manchester 75.33% 89.70% 81.80%
Number of salaries quoted 4,198 1,248 1,943
10th Percentile £32,500 £28,925 £31,250
25th Percentile £45,000 £34,750 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,104 £52,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +14.48% -4.55% -8.33%
75th Percentile £80,000 £71,250 £70,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £87,500 £83,500
North West median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £50,803
% change year-on-year +10.00% -1.58% -7.63%

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 5 September 2026.

Salary histogram for Software Testing in Manchester

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:

Application Platforms
1 2 (4.76%) CMS
Applications
1 1 (2.38%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 13 (30.95%) AWS
2 6 (14.29%) Azure
3 5 (11.90%) GCP
3 5 (11.90%) Serverless
4 1 (2.38%) AWS CodePipeline
4 1 (2.38%) Azure DevOps
4 1 (2.38%) GitHub
4 1 (2.38%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 2 (4.76%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.38%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 9 (21.43%) GitLab
2 8 (19.05%) JUnit
2 8 (19.05%) Spock
3 7 (16.67%) Git
4 6 (14.29%) JIRA
4 6 (14.29%) Maven
5 4 (9.52%) IntelliJ
6 3 (7.14%) Postman
7 2 (4.76%) Cypress.io
7 2 (4.76%) Jenkins
8 1 (2.38%) REST Assured
8 1 (2.38%) Selenium
General
1 16 (38.10%) Finance
2 8 (19.05%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (11.90%) Social Skills
4 2 (4.76%) Back Office
4 2 (4.76%) Health Technology
4 2 (4.76%) Pharmaceutical
5 1 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (2.38%) Retail
Job Titles
1 10 (23.81%) Test Engineer
2 8 (19.05%) Software Engineer
3 7 (16.67%) Software Test Engineer
4 6 (14.29%) Lead
5 5 (11.90%) Developer
5 5 (11.90%) Firmware Engineer
5 5 (11.90%) Technical Leader
5 5 (11.90%) Tester
6 4 (9.52%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
6 4 (9.52%) Full-Stack Engineer
6 4 (9.52%) Java Developer
6 4 (9.52%) Senior
7 3 (7.14%) Software Tester
8 2 (4.76%) Development Engineer
8 2 (4.76%) Senior Developer
8 2 (4.76%) Senior Java Developer
8 2 (4.76%) Software Development Engineer
8 2 (4.76%) Test Development Engineer
9 1 (2.38%) DV Cleared Software Engineer
9 1 (2.38%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (23.81%) Spring
2 6 (14.29%) AngularJS
3 4 (9.52%) LangChain
3 4 (9.52%) LlamaIndex
4 3 (7.14%) Gherkin
4 3 (7.14%) Playwright
5 2 (4.76%) React
5 2 (4.76%) REST
5 2 (4.76%) Spring Boot
5 2 (4.76%) Vue
6 1 (2.38%) .NET
6 1 (2.38%) .NET Core
6 1 (2.38%) .NET Framework
6 1 (2.38%) ASP.NET Web API
6 1 (2.38%) ASP.NET Web Forms
6 1 (2.38%) Entity Framework
6 1 (2.38%) HTML
6 1 (2.38%) Kafka
6 1 (2.38%) RabbitMQ
6 1 (2.38%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 10 (23.81%) Distributed Systems
2 8 (19.05%) Private Cloud
3 5 (11.90%) AI Agents
4 4 (9.52%) Life Science
5 2 (4.76%) Marketing Technology
5 2 (4.76%) Online Gambling
5 2 (4.76%) Robotics
5 2 (4.76%) Video\Live Streaming
6 1 (2.38%) Product Ownership
6 1 (2.38%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 4 (9.52%) VMS
2 3 (7.14%) Linux
2 3 (7.14%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (42.86%) Agile
1 18 (42.86%) AI
2 17 (40.48%) Software Engineering
3 14 (33.33%) CI/CD
3 14 (33.33%) Test Automation
4 12 (28.57%) DevOps
4 12 (28.57%) Scrum
5 10 (23.81%) Kanban
6 9 (21.43%) Data Pipeline
6 9 (21.43%) Full-Stack Development
6 9 (21.43%) Microservices
7 8 (19.05%) Code Quality
8 7 (16.67%) Collaborative Culture
8 7 (16.67%) Regression Testing
9 6 (14.29%) Clean Code
9 6 (14.29%) Continuous Improvement
9 6 (14.29%) Test Scripting
10 5 (11.90%) Cost Optimisation
10 5 (11.90%) Data Analysis
10 5 (11.90%) Design Patterns
Programming Languages
1 14 (33.33%) Python
2 12 (28.57%) Java
2 12 (28.57%) JavaScript
3 11 (26.19%) TypeScript
4 8 (19.05%) Groovy
5 7 (16.67%) SQL
6 3 (7.14%) C
6 3 (7.14%) C++
7 2 (4.76%) C#
7 2 (4.76%) PHP
8 1 (2.38%) Ladder Logic
8 1 (2.38%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 6 (14.29%) Degree
2 4 (9.52%) DV Cleared
2 4 (9.52%) Security Cleared
3 1 (2.38%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (11.90%) Data Quality
1 5 (11.90%) QA
2 2 (4.76%) Accessibility
3 1 (2.38%) IEC 61131
System Software
1 10 (23.81%) Docker
2 5 (11.90%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 2 (4.76%) Kubernetes
2 1 (2.38%) Functional Safety
2 1 (2.38%) Grafana
Vendors
1 8 (19.05%) AppDynamics
1 8 (19.05%) Splunk
2 1 (2.38%) Microsoft
2 1 (2.38%) Siemens