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 1 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 450 457 425
Rank change year-on-year +7 -32 -6
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 81 131 136
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.23% 0.27% 0.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.27% 0.34% 0.46%
Number of salaries quoted 60 73 123
10th Percentile £27,500 £30,000 £33,750
25th Percentile £35,000 £35,000 £37,885
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,000 £45,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +13.33% - -
75th Percentile £59,750 £58,750 £55,000
90th Percentile £63,750 £69,050 £68,500
UK median annual salary £52,500 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.55% +10.00% -

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 30,058 38,304 29,268
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 85.58% 79.87% 94.03%
Number of salaries quoted 17,093 18,852 21,756
10th Percentile £26,750 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £32,000 £40,000 £39,085
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £46,500 £54,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -13.89% +2.86% -
75th Percentile £63,750 £68,750 £67,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £81,250
UK median annual salary £54,441 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -9.27% - -

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 1 November 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 1 November 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 +41 32 £46,000 -16.36% 34
South West +27 17 £37,500 -25.00% 4
Midlands +36 12 £40,000 -27.27% 4
East of England +24 10 £53,000 +92.73% 9
East Midlands +14 7 £40,000 +3.23% 3
West Midlands +28 5 £40,000 -30.43% 1
North of England -23 5 £45,000 - 11
Yorkshire +9 3 £46,250 +42.37% 4
Northern Ireland +6 2 £52,500 -
North West -7 2 £45,000 - 7
Scotland -22 2 £50,000 +25.00% 4
Wales +2 1 £60,000 -36.84%
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%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 9 (11.11%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (1.23%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 16 (19.75%) Azure DevOps
2 13 (16.05%) Azure
3 7 (8.64%) AWS
4 2 (2.47%) SaaS
5 1 (1.23%) AWS CloudFormation
5 1 (1.23%) BrowserStack
5 1 (1.23%) dbt
5 1 (1.23%) Dynamics 365
5 1 (1.23%) Power Platform
5 1 (1.23%) Sauce Labs
5 1 (1.23%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 4 (4.94%) Cisco ISE
2 1 (1.23%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (4.94%) Relational Database
2 3 (3.70%) MongoDB
3 1 (1.23%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.23%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 28 (34.57%) JIRA
2 21 (25.93%) Selenium
3 14 (17.28%) Postman
4 11 (13.58%) Jenkins
5 9 (11.11%) eCATT
5 9 (11.11%) Git
6 8 (9.88%) Cypress.io
7 4 (4.94%) SoapUI
8 3 (3.70%) JMeter
8 3 (3.70%) TestRail
9 2 (2.47%) CircleCI
9 2 (2.47%) Gatling
9 2 (2.47%) Katalon Studio
9 2 (2.47%) LoadRunner
9 2 (2.47%) Locust
9 2 (2.47%) Subversion
9 2 (2.47%) Zephyr
10 1 (1.23%) Appium
10 1 (1.23%) GitLab
10 1 (1.23%) Robot Framework
General
1 21 (25.93%) Social Skills
2 14 (17.28%) Analytical Skills
2 14 (17.28%) Finance
3 10 (12.35%) Presentation Skills
4 9 (11.11%) Influencing Skills
4 9 (11.11%) Manufacturing
4 9 (11.11%) Marketing
5 8 (9.88%) Law
6 7 (8.64%) Legal
7 4 (4.94%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (3.70%) Public Sector
9 2 (2.47%) Aerospace
9 2 (2.47%) Automotive
10 1 (1.23%) Digital Healthcare
10 1 (1.23%) Electronics
10 1 (1.23%) Games
10 1 (1.23%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 28 (34.57%) Senior
2 24 (29.63%) Analyst
3 19 (23.46%) Tester
4 18 (22.22%) Test Analyst
5 16 (19.75%) QA Engineer
6 10 (12.35%) Test Engineer
7 9 (11.11%) Automation Test Analyst
7 9 (11.11%) Software Tester
8 8 (9.88%) Senior Test Engineer
9 7 (8.64%) QA Analyst
9 7 (8.64%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
9 7 (8.64%) Senior QA Engineer
9 7 (8.64%) Test Specialist
10 5 (6.17%) Junior
10 5 (6.17%) Junior Analyst
10 5 (6.17%) Lead
10 5 (6.17%) Senior Test Automation Engineer
10 5 (6.17%) Test Automation Engineer
11 4 (4.94%) Developer
11 4 (4.94%) Junior QA Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (11.11%) Playwright
2 5 (6.17%) XML
3 4 (4.94%) RESTful
3 4 (4.94%) SOAP
4 3 (3.70%) REST
5 2 (2.47%) AngularJS
5 2 (2.47%) CSS
5 2 (2.47%) HTML
6 1 (1.23%) .NET
6 1 (1.23%) Elastic Stack
6 1 (1.23%) JWT
6 1 (1.23%) OAuth
6 1 (1.23%) React
6 1 (1.23%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 3 (3.70%) Analytical Mindset
2 2 (2.47%) AS400
2 2 (2.47%) IoT
2 2 (2.47%) Operational Technology
2 2 (2.47%) Product Ownership
2 2 (2.47%) Self-Motivation
3 1 (1.23%) CAN bus
3 1 (1.23%) Cyber Defence
3 1 (1.23%) Embedded Systems
3 1 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
3 1 (1.23%) FMCG
3 1 (1.23%) Low-Code
3 1 (1.23%) Security Posture
3 1 (1.23%) Virtual Team
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%) Embedded Linux
4 1 (1.23%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 63 (77.78%) Test Automation
2 51 (62.96%) Agile
3 38 (46.91%) Software Testing
4 32 (39.51%) Test Scripting
5 21 (25.93%) CI/CD
5 21 (25.93%) Continuous Improvement
5 21 (25.93%) Scenario Testing
6 19 (23.46%) End-to-End Testing
7 18 (22.22%) Regression Testing
8 16 (19.75%) Test Strategy
9 14 (17.28%) API Testing
9 14 (17.28%) DevOps
10 13 (16.05%) Integration Testing
10 13 (16.05%) Test Management
10 13 (16.05%) User Acceptance Testing
11 12 (14.81%) Defect Management
12 11 (13.58%) ERP
12 11 (13.58%) Process Improvement
12 11 (13.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 11 (13.58%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 28 (34.57%) SQL
2 13 (16.05%) JavaScript
3 12 (14.81%) C#
4 10 (12.35%) Java
5 6 (7.41%) Python
5 6 (7.41%) TypeScript
6 1 (1.23%) Bash
6 1 (1.23%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 24 (29.63%) ISTQB
2 19 (23.46%) Security Cleared
3 15 (18.52%) SC Cleared
4 9 (11.11%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 6 (7.41%) DV Cleared
6 4 (4.94%) Degree
7 1 (1.23%) CHECK Team Leader
7 1 (1.23%) CHECK Team Member
7 1 (1.23%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (1.23%) HNC
7 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%) Docker
2 4 (4.94%) Terminal Server
2 4 (4.94%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (1.23%) Embedded Firmware
3 1 (1.23%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 9 (11.11%) HP ALM
2 5 (6.17%) SCCM
2 5 (6.17%) SCOM
3 4 (4.94%) Kubernetes
4 2 (2.47%) Nessus
5 1 (1.23%) Grafana
5 1 (1.23%) Prometheus
5 1 (1.23%) 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%) Atlassian
5 1 (1.23%) EMC
5 1 (1.23%) Genesys
5 1 (1.23%) Pega
5 1 (1.23%) Siebel
5 1 (1.23%) Splunk