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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 472 522 407
Rank change year-on-year +50 -115 -3
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 81 129 180
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.24% 0.23% 0.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.27% 0.30% 0.54%
Number of salaries quoted 62 69 143
10th Percentile £27,875 £30,000 £34,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £36,250 £38,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,000 £45,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +13.33% -5.26% +5.56%
75th Percentile £59,125 £57,500 £55,000
90th Percentile £63,750 £65,250 £72,500
UK median annual salary £52,250 £51,250 £50,000
% change year-on-year +1.95% +2.50% +5.26%

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 29,726 43,366 33,273
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 86.66% 78.46% 94.51%
Number of salaries quoted 16,010 23,501 23,769
10th Percentile £26,748 £30,000 £29,440
25th Percentile £32,500 £40,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £52,500 £54,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% -2.78% +2.86%
75th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £68,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £81,250
UK median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -4.35% -4.17% -

Manual Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing Manual Testing as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Manual Testing 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 16 September 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 16 September 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 +58 29 £46,000 -12.38% 15
South West +56 16 £40,000 -11.11% 7
East of England +9 16 £53,000 +24.71% 6
North of England +30 7 £40,000 -11.11% 5
Midlands +48 6 £55,500 +8.29% 7
Scotland +43 4 £47,500 +18.75% 2
West Midlands +38 4 £43,000 -21.82% 2
Yorkshire +20 3 £35,000 -6.67% 2
East Midlands +21 2 £57,500 +76.92% 5
Northern Ireland +18 2 - - 2
North East +13 2 £45,000 -18.18%
North West -16 2 £45,000 +9.09% 3
Wales +17 1 £60,000 -36.84% 4
Manual Testing
UK

Manual Testing
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 1 (1.23%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 1 (1.23%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 11 (13.58%) Azure
2 6 (7.41%) AWS
3 5 (6.17%) Azure DevOps
3 5 (6.17%) SaaS
4 3 (3.70%) BrowserStack
4 3 (3.70%) Sauce Labs
5 2 (2.47%) Tricentis Tosca
6 1 (1.23%) dbt
6 1 (1.23%) Dynamics 365
6 1 (1.23%) Power Platform
6 1 (1.23%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 4 (4.94%) Cisco ISE
2 1 (1.23%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.70%) MongoDB
2 2 (2.47%) Relational Database
3 1 (1.23%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.23%) MySQL
3 1 (1.23%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 26 (32.10%) Selenium
2 20 (24.69%) JIRA
3 18 (22.22%) Git
4 13 (16.05%) Postman
5 11 (13.58%) Jenkins
6 8 (9.88%) Cypress.io
7 5 (6.17%) SoapUI
8 3 (3.70%) Appium
8 3 (3.70%) CircleCI
8 3 (3.70%) Gatling
8 3 (3.70%) JMeter
8 3 (3.70%) LoadRunner
8 3 (3.70%) Locust
8 3 (3.70%) TestRail
8 3 (3.70%) Zephyr
9 2 (2.47%) Katalon Studio
9 2 (2.47%) Subversion
10 1 (1.23%) JUnit
10 1 (1.23%) NUnit
10 1 (1.23%) Visual Studio
General
1 22 (27.16%) Social Skills
2 12 (14.81%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (13.58%) Law
4 10 (12.35%) Legal
5 8 (9.88%) Aerospace
6 5 (6.17%) Finance
7 3 (3.70%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (2.47%) Automotive
8 2 (2.47%) Digital Healthcare
8 2 (2.47%) Games
8 2 (2.47%) Public Sector
9 1 (1.23%) Banking
9 1 (1.23%) Electronics
9 1 (1.23%) Health Technology
9 1 (1.23%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (1.23%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 31 (38.27%) Senior
2 18 (22.22%) Tester
3 16 (19.75%) QA Engineer
4 10 (12.35%) Analyst
4 10 (12.35%) Senior QA Engineer
4 10 (12.35%) Test Engineer
5 8 (9.88%) Senior Test Engineer
5 8 (9.88%) Software Tester
6 7 (8.64%) QA Analyst
6 7 (8.64%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
6 7 (8.64%) Test Specialist
7 5 (6.17%) Manual Tester
7 5 (6.17%) Senior Test Automation Engineer
7 5 (6.17%) Test Analyst
7 5 (6.17%) Test Automation Engineer
8 4 (4.94%) Developer
8 4 (4.94%) Junior
8 4 (4.94%) Junior Analyst
8 4 (4.94%) Junior QA Analyst
8 4 (4.94%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (12.35%) Playwright
2 7 (8.64%) Qt
3 4 (4.94%) REST
3 4 (4.94%) RESTful
3 4 (4.94%) SOAP
3 4 (4.94%) XML
4 2 (2.47%) CSS
4 2 (2.47%) HTML
5 1 (1.23%) .NET
5 1 (1.23%) .NET Framework
5 1 (1.23%) AngularJS
5 1 (1.23%) WebGL
5 1 (1.23%) WebGPU
Miscellaneous
1 8 (9.88%) Embedded Systems
2 2 (2.47%) Analytical Mindset
2 2 (2.47%) AS400
2 2 (2.47%) Operational Technology
2 2 (2.47%) Self-Motivation
3 1 (1.23%) CAN bus
3 1 (1.23%) Cyber Defence
3 1 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
3 1 (1.23%) FMCG
3 1 (1.23%) IoT
3 1 (1.23%) Low-Code
3 1 (1.23%) Mobile App
3 1 (1.23%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 6 (7.41%) Windows
2 5 (6.17%) Windows Server
2 5 (6.17%) Windows Server 2019
3 2 (2.47%) Linux
4 1 (1.23%) Kali Linux
4 1 (1.23%) Ubuntu
4 1 (1.23%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 59 (72.84%) Test Automation
2 52 (64.20%) Agile
3 47 (58.02%) Software Testing
4 27 (33.33%) Test Scripting
5 21 (25.93%) CI/CD
6 17 (20.99%) Regression Testing
7 14 (17.28%) Process Improvement
7 14 (17.28%) Test Strategy
8 13 (16.05%) DevOps
9 11 (13.58%) API Testing
9 11 (13.58%) Defect Management
9 11 (13.58%) User Acceptance Testing
10 10 (12.35%) End-to-End Testing
10 10 (12.35%) Exploratory Testing
10 10 (12.35%) Scrum
10 10 (12.35%) Validation
11 9 (11.11%) Project Management
11 9 (11.11%) Scenario Testing
11 9 (11.11%) V-Model
11 9 (11.11%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 23 (28.40%) SQL
2 14 (17.28%) Java
2 14 (17.28%) Python
3 13 (16.05%) JavaScript
4 10 (12.35%) C#
5 7 (8.64%) C
5 7 (8.64%) C++
6 6 (7.41%) TypeScript
7 1 (1.23%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 23 (28.40%) ISTQB
2 16 (19.75%) Security Cleared
3 13 (16.05%) SC Cleared
4 6 (7.41%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 5 (6.17%) DV Cleared
6 1 (1.23%) CHECK Team Leader
6 1 (1.23%) CHECK Team Member
6 1 (1.23%) Degree
6 1 (1.23%) HNC
6 1 (1.23%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (44.44%) QA
2 6 (7.41%) Accessibility
3 1 (1.23%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (1.23%) Data Quality
3 1 (1.23%) NCSC
3 1 (1.23%) SLA
System Software
1 5 (6.17%) Active Directory
2 4 (4.94%) Terminal Server
2 4 (4.94%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (3.70%) Docker
4 1 (1.23%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (1.23%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 5 (6.17%) SCCM
1 5 (6.17%) SCOM
2 3 (3.70%) Kubernetes
3 1 (1.23%) Nessus
Vendors
1 5 (6.17%) VMware
2 4 (4.94%) Cisco
2 4 (4.94%) Juniper
2 4 (4.94%) McAfee
3 2 (2.47%) ServiceNow
4 1 (1.23%) Atlassian
4 1 (1.23%) EMC
4 1 (1.23%) Microsoft
4 1 (1.23%) Pega
4 1 (1.23%) Siebel