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

6 months to
26 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 466 448 544
Rank change year-on-year -18 +96 -148
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 164 97 147
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.22% 0.28% 0.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.32% 0.32% 0.29%
Number of salaries quoted 79 72 113
10th Percentile £26,750 £31,250 £31,500
25th Percentile £41,250 £32,500 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £40,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% -11.11% -
75th Percentile £57,500 £52,625 £52,500
90th Percentile £64,000 £55,000 £59,500
UK median annual salary £50,000 £46,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year +8.70% -3.16% -5.00%

All Process & 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 51,636 29,972 50,737
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.56% 87.95% 79.26%
Number of salaries quoted 36,305 16,272 33,672
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £28,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,851 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £66,200 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.33%

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 26 July 2026.

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 26 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
Northern Ireland -25 47 - -
South West -43 38 £45,000 +12.50% 9
South East -37 30 £52,500 +27.27% 12
North of England -27 22 £50,000 +42.86% 10
North West +11 15 £50,000 +17.65% 6
Midlands -31 13 £43,750 +2.94% 11
East of England -24 9 £55,000 +3.77% 1
East Midlands -25 9 £40,000 -13.51% 3
North East -51 5 £50,000 +44.93% 3
Wales -52 5 £32,000 -46.67% 1
West Midlands -23 4 £56,250 +32.35% 8
Yorkshire -37 2 £50,000 +42.86% 2
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 4 (2.44%) Confluence
2 1 (0.61%) SharePoint
Applications
1 10 (6.10%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (3.05%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (3.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.61%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 52 (31.71%) SaaS
2 39 (23.78%) Azure
2 39 (23.78%) Azure DevOps
3 7 (4.27%) GitHub
4 6 (3.66%) Power Platform
5 4 (2.44%) AWS
6 2 (1.22%) BrowserStack
6 2 (1.22%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (0.61%) Amazon ECS
7 1 (0.61%) Amazon EKS
7 1 (0.61%) AWS CodePipeline
7 1 (0.61%) Azure AKS
7 1 (0.61%) Copilot Studio
7 1 (0.61%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (0.61%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.44%) 5G
1 4 (2.44%) SD-WAN
1 4 (2.44%) WAN
2 3 (1.83%) HTTP
3 1 (0.61%) Cisco ISE
3 1 (0.61%) Internet
3 1 (0.61%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.61%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (3.05%) Power BI
2 1 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (0.61%) Flink
2 1 (0.61%) Metadata
2 1 (0.61%) Oracle Database
2 1 (0.61%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 34 (20.73%) Selenium
2 20 (12.20%) Cypress.io
3 18 (10.98%) Postman
4 17 (10.37%) JIRA
5 14 (8.54%) Git
6 11 (6.71%) Jenkins
7 6 (3.66%) Zephyr
8 5 (3.05%) LabVIEW
9 4 (2.44%) GitLab
10 3 (1.83%) Bugzilla
10 3 (1.83%) SpecFlow
11 2 (1.22%) JMeter
11 2 (1.22%) JUnit
11 2 (1.22%) SoapUI
11 2 (1.22%) TestRail
12 1 (0.61%) Appium
12 1 (0.61%) Browser DevTools
12 1 (0.61%) Ranorex
12 1 (0.61%) REST Assured
12 1 (0.61%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 75 (45.73%) Social Skills
2 49 (29.88%) Legal
3 27 (16.46%) Law
4 21 (12.80%) Finance
5 18 (10.98%) Analytical Skills
6 12 (7.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 11 (6.71%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (4.27%) Electronics
9 5 (3.05%) Aviation
10 4 (2.44%) Public Sector
11 3 (1.83%) Aerospace
11 3 (1.83%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (1.83%) Retail
12 2 (1.22%) Back Office
12 2 (1.22%) Games
12 2 (1.22%) Military
13 1 (0.61%) Advertising
13 1 (0.61%) Health Technology
13 1 (0.61%) iGaming
13 1 (0.61%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 60 (36.59%) Senior
2 49 (29.88%) Senior Manager
2 49 (29.88%) Testing Manager
3 28 (17.07%) Test Engineer
4 21 (12.80%) Lead
5 20 (12.20%) Analyst
6 16 (9.76%) QA Engineer
7 14 (8.54%) QA Leader
7 14 (8.54%) Test Analyst
8 12 (7.32%) Tester
9 11 (6.71%) Test Leader
10 8 (4.88%) Senior Test Engineer
11 7 (4.27%) Head of Testing
12 6 (3.66%) Junior
12 6 (3.66%) Software Test Engineer
13 5 (3.05%) Applications Specialist
13 5 (3.05%) Applications Support
13 5 (3.05%) Applications Support Specialist
13 5 (3.05%) Manual Tester
13 5 (3.05%) Support Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (15.85%) Playwright
2 7 (4.27%) CSS
3 6 (3.66%) HTML
4 5 (3.05%) pytest
5 4 (2.44%) Node.js
6 3 (1.83%) REST
7 2 (1.22%) Gherkin
7 2 (1.22%) Laravel
7 2 (1.22%) Vue
8 1 (0.61%) .NET
8 1 (0.61%) .NET Core
8 1 (0.61%) .NET Framework
8 1 (0.61%) ADO
8 1 (0.61%) Blazor
8 1 (0.61%) GStreamer
8 1 (0.61%) Kafka
8 1 (0.61%) Microsoft Graph
8 1 (0.61%) React Native
8 1 (0.61%) Spring
8 1 (0.61%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 49 (29.88%) Virtual Team
2 17 (10.37%) Product Ownership
3 5 (3.05%) Mobile App
4 4 (2.44%) Embedded Systems
4 4 (2.44%) Self-Driving Car
5 3 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (1.22%) Hackathon
6 2 (1.22%) Video\Live Streaming
7 1 (0.61%) Cloud Native
7 1 (0.61%) Digital Signage
7 1 (0.61%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (0.61%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.61%) PKI
7 1 (0.61%) Robotics
7 1 (0.61%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 14 (8.54%) Windows
2 5 (3.05%) Linux
3 4 (2.44%) Unix
4 1 (0.61%) Android
4 1 (0.61%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.61%) Ubuntu
4 1 (0.61%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 150 (91.46%) Test Automation
2 106 (64.63%) DevOps
3 97 (59.15%) Software Testing
4 96 (58.54%) Continuous Improvement
5 80 (48.78%) Test Strategy
6 67 (40.85%) Mentoring
7 59 (35.98%) Agile
8 57 (34.76%) Software Engineering
9 55 (33.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 51 (31.10%) Project Delivery
11 50 (30.49%) CI/CD
11 50 (30.49%) Data Management
12 49 (29.88%) Budget Management
12 49 (29.88%) Change Advisory Board
12 49 (29.88%) Enterprise Architecture
12 49 (29.88%) Performance Management
12 49 (29.88%) Programme Management
12 49 (29.88%) Strategic Planning
12 49 (29.88%) Virtual Team Management
13 36 (21.95%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 70 (42.68%) Python
2 60 (36.59%) JavaScript
3 58 (35.37%) C#
4 54 (32.93%) TypeScript
5 49 (29.88%) PowerShell
6 26 (15.85%) SQL
7 8 (4.88%) MATLAB
8 6 (3.66%) Java
9 2 (1.22%) PHP
10 1 (0.61%) Bash
10 1 (0.61%) C++
Qualifications
1 20 (12.20%) ISTQB
2 16 (9.76%) Degree
3 7 (4.27%) Security Cleared
4 5 (3.05%) Computer Science Degree
4 5 (3.05%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 5 (3.05%) SC Cleared
5 4 (2.44%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (2.44%) HND
6 3 (1.83%) Chartered Engineer
7 2 (1.22%) DV Cleared
8 1 (0.61%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 118 (71.95%) QA
2 9 (5.49%) Accessibility
3 5 (3.05%) Software Quality Assurance
4 3 (1.83%) ISO/IEC 12207
5 2 (1.22%) GDPR
5 2 (1.22%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 2 (1.22%) Active Directory
1 2 (1.22%) Docker
1 2 (1.22%) Firmware
2 1 (0.61%) Terminal Server
2 1 (0.61%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 1 (0.61%) Ansible
1 1 (0.61%) Kubernetes
1 1 (0.61%) SCCM
1 1 (0.61%) SCOM
1 1 (0.61%) Terraform
Vendors
1 19 (11.59%) Microsoft
2 7 (4.27%) Salesforce
3 6 (3.66%) ServiceNow
4 4 (2.44%) Oracle
5 1 (0.61%) Atlassian
5 1 (0.61%) Cisco
5 1 (0.61%) Juniper
5 1 (0.61%) McAfee
5 1 (0.61%) VMware