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 13 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 422 444 429
Rank change year-on-year +22 -15 +14
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 82 153 129
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.21% 0.36% 0.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.25% 0.42% 0.47%
Number of salaries quoted 58 99 115
10th Percentile £31,250 £30,000 £33,750
25th Percentile £35,313 £36,250 £37,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £48,750 £47,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% +5.56% -5.26%
75th Percentile £62,188 £57,500 £54,375
90th Percentile £64,875 £65,700 £66,500
UK median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £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 32,488 36,200 27,265
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.80% 84.59% 93.81%
Number of salaries quoted 18,839 17,533 20,384
10th Percentile £27,500 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £32,500 £40,625 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £55,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% +4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £81,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -0.83%

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 13 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 13 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 +50 33 £52,500 +10.53% 12
South West +28 24 £40,000 -11.11% 4
Midlands +18 13 £40,000 -30.43% 5
East Midlands +12 8 £48,750 -11.36% 4
East of England +24 5 £60,000 +50.00% 4
West Midlands +19 5 £40,000 -30.43% 1
North of England -5 4 £50,000 +15.61% 10
North West +23 2 £45,000 - 1
Northern Ireland -3 2 £52,500 -
Yorkshire -13 2 £57,500 +84.04% 8
Scotland -8 1 - - 3
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 (1.22%) Apache
1 1 (1.22%) CMS
1 1 (1.22%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 9 (10.98%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (1.22%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.22%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 22 (26.83%) Azure DevOps
2 19 (23.17%) Azure
3 8 (9.76%) AWS
4 2 (2.44%) AWS CloudFormation
5 1 (1.22%) dbt
5 1 (1.22%) Dynamics 365
5 1 (1.22%) Power Platform
5 1 (1.22%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 4 (4.88%) Cisco ISE
2 1 (1.22%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (8.54%) Relational Database
2 3 (3.66%) MongoDB
3 1 (1.22%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.22%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 23 (28.05%) JIRA
2 19 (23.17%) Selenium
3 14 (17.07%) Postman
4 10 (12.20%) Jenkins
5 9 (10.98%) eCATT
6 8 (9.76%) Cypress.io
7 7 (8.54%) Git
8 4 (4.88%) JMeter
8 4 (4.88%) TestRail
9 3 (3.66%) LoadRunner
9 3 (3.66%) Subversion
10 2 (2.44%) CircleCI
10 2 (2.44%) Gatling
10 2 (2.44%) GitLab
10 2 (2.44%) Locust
10 2 (2.44%) Robot Framework
10 2 (2.44%) SoapUI
10 2 (2.44%) Zephyr
11 1 (1.22%) Bitbucket
11 1 (1.22%) Katalon Studio
General
1 19 (23.17%) Social Skills
2 14 (17.07%) Analytical Skills
3 13 (15.85%) Finance
4 9 (10.98%) Influencing Skills
4 9 (10.98%) Manufacturing
4 9 (10.98%) Marketing
4 9 (10.98%) Presentation Skills
5 4 (4.88%) Documentation Skills
6 3 (3.66%) Aerospace
6 3 (3.66%) Law
6 3 (3.66%) Public Sector
6 3 (3.66%) Tech for Good
7 2 (2.44%) Automotive
7 2 (2.44%) Health Technology
8 1 (1.22%) Electronics
8 1 (1.22%) Games
8 1 (1.22%) Legal
Job Titles
1 24 (29.27%) Analyst
1 24 (29.27%) Tester
2 22 (26.83%) Senior
3 18 (21.95%) Test Analyst
4 13 (15.85%) QA Engineer
5 11 (13.41%) Test Engineer
6 9 (10.98%) Automation Test Analyst
7 8 (9.76%) Senior Test Engineer
8 7 (8.54%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
8 7 (8.54%) Test Automation Engineer
8 7 (8.54%) Test Specialist
9 6 (7.32%) Automation Tester
9 6 (7.32%) Manual Tester
9 6 (7.32%) QA Analyst
9 6 (7.32%) Software Tester
10 5 (6.10%) Lead
10 5 (6.10%) Senior Test Automation Engineer
11 4 (4.88%) Junior
11 4 (4.88%) Junior Analyst
12 3 (3.66%) QA Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (14.63%) Playwright
2 4 (4.88%) RESTful
2 4 (4.88%) XML
3 3 (3.66%) REST
4 2 (2.44%) .NET
4 2 (2.44%) AngularJS
4 2 (2.44%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (2.44%) React
4 2 (2.44%) SOAP
5 1 (1.22%) CSS
5 1 (1.22%) HTML
5 1 (1.22%) JWT
5 1 (1.22%) OAuth
5 1 (1.22%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 4 (4.88%) Product Ownership
2 3 (3.66%) Analytical Mindset
2 3 (3.66%) IoT
3 2 (2.44%) Operational Technology
3 2 (2.44%) Virtual Team
4 1 (1.22%) AS400
4 1 (1.22%) CAN bus
4 1 (1.22%) Cyber Defence
4 1 (1.22%) Embedded Systems
4 1 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
4 1 (1.22%) FMCG
4 1 (1.22%) Low-Code
4 1 (1.22%) Security Posture
4 1 (1.22%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 7 (8.54%) Windows
2 5 (6.10%) Windows Server
2 5 (6.10%) Windows Server 2019
3 4 (4.88%) Linux
4 1 (1.22%) Embedded Linux
4 1 (1.22%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 61 (74.39%) Test Automation
2 45 (54.88%) Agile
3 32 (39.02%) Software Testing
4 27 (32.93%) Test Scripting
5 25 (30.49%) CI/CD
6 24 (29.27%) Continuous Improvement
6 24 (29.27%) Regression Testing
7 20 (24.39%) API Testing
7 20 (24.39%) DevOps
8 19 (23.17%) End-to-End Testing
8 19 (23.17%) Scenario Testing
8 19 (23.17%) Test Strategy
9 14 (17.07%) Scrum
10 13 (15.85%) Integration Testing
10 13 (15.85%) Test Management
11 11 (13.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 10 (12.20%) ERP
12 10 (12.20%) Exploratory Testing
12 10 (12.20%) Problem-Solving
12 10 (12.20%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 33 (40.24%) SQL
2 18 (21.95%) C#
3 15 (18.29%) JavaScript
4 9 (10.98%) Java
5 6 (7.32%) Python
5 6 (7.32%) TypeScript
6 2 (2.44%) Bash
7 1 (1.22%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 26 (31.71%) ISTQB
2 19 (23.17%) Security Cleared
3 14 (17.07%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 12 (14.63%) SC Cleared
5 10 (12.20%) Degree
6 6 (7.32%) DV Cleared
7 4 (4.88%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (3.66%) Master's Degree
9 1 (1.22%) CHECK Team Leader
9 1 (1.22%) CHECK Team Member
9 1 (1.22%) HNC
9 1 (1.22%) HND
9 1 (1.22%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (42.68%) QA
2 5 (6.10%) Accessibility
3 1 (1.22%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (1.22%) Data Quality
3 1 (1.22%) NCSC
System Software
1 6 (7.32%) Active Directory
2 5 (6.10%) Docker
3 4 (4.88%) Terminal Server
3 4 (4.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (1.22%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (1.22%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 9 (10.98%) HP ALM
2 5 (6.10%) Kubernetes
2 5 (6.10%) SCCM
2 5 (6.10%) SCOM
3 3 (3.66%) Nessus
4 2 (2.44%) Grafana
4 2 (2.44%) Prometheus
4 2 (2.44%) Terraform
Vendors
1 9 (10.98%) HP
1 9 (10.98%) SAP
2 5 (6.10%) VMware
3 4 (4.88%) Cisco
3 4 (4.88%) Juniper
3 4 (4.88%) McAfee
3 4 (4.88%) Oracle
4 3 (3.66%) ServiceNow
5 1 (1.22%) Atlassian
5 1 (1.22%) EMC
5 1 (1.22%) Genesys
5 1 (1.22%) Siebel
5 1 (1.22%) Splunk