Manual Testing Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Manual Testing
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Manual Testing skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 416 429 414
Rank change year-on-year +13 -15 +19
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 81 150 120
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.19% 0.39% 0.43%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.24% 0.45% 0.46%
Number of salaries quoted 56 97 107
10th Percentile £32,500 £30,000 £33,250
25th Percentile £37,188 £36,250 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,000 £47,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.37% +5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £61,563 £57,500 £53,750
90th Percentile £63,750 £67,500 £61,500
UK median annual salary £52,500 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +5.00% -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

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 the UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 33,620 33,684 26,372
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 80.81% 87.57% 93.66%
Number of salaries quoted 19,188 15,784 19,726
10th Percentile £27,500 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £32,617 £41,250 £38,591
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £48,720 £55,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -11.42% +4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £83,000 £81,250
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -2.60%

Manual Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Manual Testing job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Manual Testing
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Manual Testing.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Manual Testing

Manual Testing
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Manual Testing in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 18 December 2025.

Salary histogram for Manual Testing in the UK excluding London

Manual Testing
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Manual Testing within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 18 December 2025. 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
South East +39 30 £52,500 +10.53% 15
South West +25 25 £40,000 -11.11% 3
Midlands +1 13 £40,000 -30.43% 8
East Midlands -11 8 £48,750 -11.36% 3
North of England -2 6 £52,500 +21.39% 14
East of England +30 5 £60,000 +92.00% 9
West Midlands +21 5 £40,000 -30.43% 5
North West +11 2 £45,000 - 4
North East -2 2 £55,000 -8.33% 1
Yorkshire -15 2 £57,500 +84.04% 9
Scotland -4 1 - - 3
Northern Ireland -4 1 £52,500 -
Manual Testing
UK

Manual Testing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 (1.23%) Apache
1 1 (1.23%) CMS
1 1 (1.23%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 9 (11.11%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (1.23%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.23%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 22 (27.16%) Azure DevOps
2 19 (23.46%) Azure
3 8 (9.88%) AWS
4 2 (2.47%) AWS CloudFormation
5 1 (1.23%) dbt
5 1 (1.23%) Dynamics 365
5 1 (1.23%) Power Platform
5 1 (1.23%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 4 (4.94%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (8.64%) Relational Database
2 3 (3.70%) MongoDB
3 1 (1.23%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.23%) Metadata
3 1 (1.23%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 22 (27.16%) JIRA
2 19 (23.46%) Selenium
3 14 (17.28%) Postman
4 10 (12.35%) Jenkins
5 9 (11.11%) eCATT
6 8 (9.88%) Cypress.io
7 7 (8.64%) Git
8 4 (4.94%) JMeter
8 4 (4.94%) TestRail
9 3 (3.70%) LoadRunner
9 3 (3.70%) Subversion
10 2 (2.47%) CircleCI
10 2 (2.47%) Gatling
10 2 (2.47%) GitLab
10 2 (2.47%) Locust
10 2 (2.47%) Robot Framework
10 2 (2.47%) SoapUI
10 2 (2.47%) Zephyr
11 1 (1.23%) Katalon Studio
11 1 (1.23%) TestNG
General
1 16 (19.75%) Social Skills
2 14 (17.28%) Analytical Skills
3 13 (16.05%) Finance
4 9 (11.11%) Influencing Skills
4 9 (11.11%) Manufacturing
4 9 (11.11%) Marketing
4 9 (11.11%) Presentation Skills
5 4 (4.94%) Documentation Skills
6 3 (3.70%) Law
6 3 (3.70%) Tech for Good
7 2 (2.47%) Aerospace
7 2 (2.47%) Health Technology
7 2 (2.47%) Public Sector
8 1 (1.23%) Automotive
8 1 (1.23%) Games
8 1 (1.23%) Legal
Job Titles
1 23 (28.40%) Tester
2 22 (27.16%) Analyst
2 22 (27.16%) Senior
3 18 (22.22%) Test Analyst
4 15 (18.52%) QA Engineer
5 11 (13.58%) Test Engineer
6 9 (11.11%) Automation Test Analyst
7 8 (9.88%) Senior Test Engineer
8 7 (8.64%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
8 7 (8.64%) Test Automation Engineer
8 7 (8.64%) Test Specialist
9 6 (7.41%) Automation Tester
9 6 (7.41%) Manual Tester
9 6 (7.41%) Software Tester
10 5 (6.17%) Lead
10 5 (6.17%) Senior Test Automation Engineer
11 4 (4.94%) QA Analyst
12 3 (3.70%) Automation Engineer
12 3 (3.70%) QA Automation Engineer
12 3 (3.70%) QA Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (16.05%) Playwright
2 4 (4.94%) RESTful
2 4 (4.94%) XML
3 3 (3.70%) REST
4 2 (2.47%) .NET
4 2 (2.47%) AngularJS
4 2 (2.47%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (2.47%) React
4 2 (2.47%) SOAP
5 1 (1.23%) CSS
5 1 (1.23%) HTML
5 1 (1.23%) JWT
5 1 (1.23%) OAuth
5 1 (1.23%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 4 (4.94%) Product Ownership
2 3 (3.70%) Analytical Mindset
3 2 (2.47%) IoT
3 2 (2.47%) Virtual Team
4 1 (1.23%) AS400
4 1 (1.23%) Cyber Defence
4 1 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
4 1 (1.23%) Low-Code
4 1 (1.23%) Operational Technology
4 1 (1.23%) Security Posture
4 1 (1.23%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 6 (7.41%) Windows
2 5 (6.17%) Windows Server
2 5 (6.17%) Windows Server 2019
3 3 (3.70%) Linux
4 1 (1.23%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 62 (76.54%) Test Automation
2 45 (55.56%) Agile
3 30 (37.04%) Software Testing
4 27 (33.33%) Test Scripting
5 26 (32.10%) CI/CD
6 25 (30.86%) Regression Testing
7 22 (27.16%) Continuous Improvement
8 20 (24.69%) API Testing
8 20 (24.69%) DevOps
9 19 (23.46%) End-to-End Testing
9 19 (23.46%) Test Strategy
10 17 (20.99%) Scenario Testing
11 14 (17.28%) Scrum
12 13 (16.05%) Integration Testing
12 13 (16.05%) Test Management
13 11 (13.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 10 (12.35%) Exploratory Testing
14 10 (12.35%) Performance Testing
14 10 (12.35%) Risk Management
14 10 (12.35%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 32 (39.51%) SQL
2 19 (23.46%) C#
3 15 (18.52%) JavaScript
4 9 (11.11%) Java
5 6 (7.41%) Python
5 6 (7.41%) TypeScript
6 2 (2.47%) Bash
7 1 (1.23%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 26 (32.10%) ISTQB
2 19 (23.46%) Security Cleared
3 14 (17.28%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 12 (14.81%) SC Cleared
5 9 (11.11%) Degree
6 6 (7.41%) DV Cleared
7 4 (4.94%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (3.70%) Master's Degree
9 1 (1.23%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (43.21%) QA
2 6 (7.41%) Accessibility
3 1 (1.23%) Data Quality
System Software
1 6 (7.41%) Active Directory
2 5 (6.17%) Docker
3 4 (4.94%) Terminal Server
3 4 (4.94%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 9 (11.11%) HP ALM
2 5 (6.17%) Kubernetes
2 5 (6.17%) SCCM
2 5 (6.17%) SCOM
3 2 (2.47%) Grafana
3 2 (2.47%) Nessus
3 2 (2.47%) Prometheus
3 2 (2.47%) Terraform
Vendors
1 9 (11.11%) HP
1 9 (11.11%) SAP
2 5 (6.17%) VMware
3 4 (4.94%) Cisco
3 4 (4.94%) Juniper
3 4 (4.94%) McAfee
3 4 (4.94%) Oracle
4 3 (3.70%) ServiceNow
5 1 (1.23%) Genesys
5 1 (1.23%) Siebel
5 1 (1.23%) Splunk