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 9 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 434 426 432
Rank change year-on-year -8 +6 0
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 82 149 129
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.19% 0.41% 0.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.25% 0.46% 0.43%
Number of salaries quoted 58 96 107
10th Percentile £32,125 £31,375 £32,500
25th Percentile £36,563 £37,500 £36,932
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £47,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £61,250 £58,750 £55,000
90th Percentile £63,750 £67,500 £65,000
UK median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -1.96%

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 33,312 32,109 29,712
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 78.70% 88.77% 88.63%
Number of salaries quoted 19,114 14,485 22,061
10th Percentile £27,750 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £33,250 £41,250 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £66,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £83,750 £80,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

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 9 January 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 9 January 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
South West +13 26 £45,000 -10.00% 17
South East +21 24 £54,500 +14.74% 42
Midlands +9 16 £40,000 -27.27% 19
East Midlands -4 12 £36,250 -34.09% 12
East of England +22 8 £45,000 +44.00% 23
North of England -21 6 £52,500 +18.98% 26
West Midlands +6 4 £46,750 -10.95% 7
North West +3 2 £45,000 - 7
North East +2 2 £55,000 -8.33% 3
Yorkshire -14 2 £57,500 +84.04% 16
Scotland -4 1 - - 5
Northern Ireland -9 1 £52,500 - 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 25 (30.49%) Azure DevOps
2 22 (26.83%) Azure
3 7 (8.54%) 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 1 (1.22%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (8.54%) Relational Database
2 2 (2.44%) MongoDB
3 1 (1.22%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.22%) Metadata
3 1 (1.22%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 21 (25.61%) Selenium
2 19 (23.17%) JIRA
3 12 (14.63%) Postman
4 10 (12.20%) Cypress.io
5 9 (10.98%) eCATT
6 7 (8.54%) Jenkins
7 5 (6.10%) Git
8 4 (4.88%) TestRail
9 3 (3.66%) JMeter
9 3 (3.66%) LoadRunner
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%) Subversion
10 2 (2.44%) Zephyr
11 1 (1.22%) JUnit
11 1 (1.22%) Katalon Studio
11 1 (1.22%) TestNG
General
1 13 (15.85%) Analytical Skills
2 12 (14.63%) Finance
2 12 (14.63%) Social Skills
3 9 (10.98%) Influencing Skills
3 9 (10.98%) Manufacturing
3 9 (10.98%) Marketing
3 9 (10.98%) Presentation Skills
4 4 (4.88%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (3.66%) Law
5 3 (3.66%) Tech for Good
6 2 (2.44%) Aerospace
6 2 (2.44%) Health Technology
6 2 (2.44%) Public Sector
7 1 (1.22%) Automotive
7 1 (1.22%) Games
7 1 (1.22%) Legal
Job Titles
1 22 (26.83%) Tester
2 20 (24.39%) Analyst
3 18 (21.95%) Test Engineer
4 17 (20.73%) Test Analyst
5 16 (19.51%) Senior
6 14 (17.07%) QA Engineer
7 10 (12.20%) Test Automation Engineer
8 9 (10.98%) Automation Test Analyst
9 8 (9.76%) Lead
10 7 (8.54%) Senior Test Engineer
11 6 (7.32%) Automation Tester
11 6 (7.32%) Manual Tester
12 5 (6.10%) QA Leader
12 5 (6.10%) Software Tester
13 4 (4.88%) Graduate
13 4 (4.88%) Graduate Test Engineer
13 4 (4.88%) Senior Test Automation Engineer
13 4 (4.88%) Software Test Engineer
14 3 (3.66%) Automation Engineer
14 3 (3.66%) QA Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (18.29%) Playwright
2 3 (3.66%) RESTful
3 2 (2.44%) .NET
3 2 (2.44%) AngularJS
3 2 (2.44%) Elastic Stack
3 2 (2.44%) React
3 2 (2.44%) REST
3 2 (2.44%) XML
4 1 (1.22%) CSS
4 1 (1.22%) HTML
4 1 (1.22%) JWT
4 1 (1.22%) OAuth
4 1 (1.22%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 4 (4.88%) Product Ownership
2 3 (3.66%) Analytical Mindset
3 2 (2.44%) IoT
3 2 (2.44%) Virtual Team
4 1 (1.22%) Cyber Defence
4 1 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
4 1 (1.22%) Low-Code
4 1 (1.22%) Operational Technology
4 1 (1.22%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 3 (3.66%) Linux
1 3 (3.66%) Windows
2 2 (2.44%) Windows Server
2 2 (2.44%) Windows Server 2019
3 1 (1.22%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 64 (78.05%) Test Automation
2 37 (45.12%) Agile
3 27 (32.93%) CI/CD
3 27 (32.93%) Regression Testing
3 27 (32.93%) Software Testing
4 23 (28.05%) DevOps
5 22 (26.83%) API Testing
6 21 (25.61%) Continuous Improvement
7 20 (24.39%) Test Scripting
8 19 (23.17%) Test Strategy
9 16 (19.51%) End-to-End Testing
10 15 (18.29%) Scenario Testing
11 14 (17.07%) Scrum
12 13 (15.85%) Integration Testing
12 13 (15.85%) Test Management
12 13 (15.85%) User Acceptance Testing
13 11 (13.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 10 (12.20%) Risk Management
14 10 (12.20%) SDLC
15 9 (10.98%) Programme Management
Programming Languages
1 27 (32.93%) SQL
2 17 (20.73%) C#
3 14 (17.07%) JavaScript
4 8 (9.76%) Java
5 6 (7.32%) Python
6 5 (6.10%) TypeScript
7 2 (2.44%) Bash
8 1 (1.22%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 22 (26.83%) ISTQB
2 14 (17.07%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
2 14 (17.07%) Security Cleared
3 9 (10.98%) Degree
4 7 (8.54%) SC Cleared
5 4 (4.88%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (4.88%) DV Cleared
6 3 (3.66%) Master's Degree
7 1 (1.22%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (42.68%) QA
2 9 (10.98%) Accessibility
3 1 (1.22%) Data Quality
System Software
1 4 (4.88%) Docker
2 3 (3.66%) Active Directory
3 1 (1.22%) Terminal Server
3 1 (1.22%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 9 (10.98%) HP ALM
2 4 (4.88%) Kubernetes
3 2 (2.44%) Grafana
3 2 (2.44%) Nessus
3 2 (2.44%) Prometheus
3 2 (2.44%) SCCM
3 2 (2.44%) SCOM
3 2 (2.44%) Terraform
Vendors
1 9 (10.98%) HP
1 9 (10.98%) SAP
2 4 (4.88%) Oracle
3 3 (3.66%) ServiceNow
4 2 (2.44%) VMware
5 1 (1.22%) Cisco
5 1 (1.22%) Genesys
5 1 (1.22%) Juniper
5 1 (1.22%) McAfee
5 1 (1.22%) Siebel
5 1 (1.22%) Splunk