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 10 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 475 456 538
Rank change year-on-year -19 +82 -138
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 171 95 129
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.22% 0.27% 0.22%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.32% 0.31% 0.28%
Number of salaries quoted 83 71 94
10th Percentile £26,750 £31,250 £30,375
25th Percentile £41,250 £32,500 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £42,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +17.65% -5.56% -5.26%
75th Percentile £57,500 £53,000 £54,688
90th Percentile £65,000 £61,250 £65,000
UK median annual salary £50,000 £46,000 £48,500
% change year-on-year +8.70% -5.15% -3.00%

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 54,267 30,278 46,796
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.56% 87.43% 78.66%
Number of salaries quoted 38,117 16,567 29,647
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £48,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +14.58% -4.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £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% - -8.71%

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 10 August 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 10 August 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 -26 50 - - 1
South West -42 39 £45,000 +12.50% 11
South East -34 30 £52,500 +20.00% 18
North of England -33 24 £50,000 +42.86% 4
North West +3 16 £48,750 +23.42% 1
Midlands -28 14 £42,500 - 13
East Midlands -14 11 £40,000 -30.43% 2
East of England -37 9 £55,000 +3.77% 1
North East -57 6 £50,000 +42.86% 2
Wales -48 5 £32,000 -46.67%
West Midlands -30 3 £55,000 +29.41% 11
Yorkshire -40 2 £50,000 +42.86% 1
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 (2.34%) Confluence
2 1 (0.58%) SharePoint
Applications
1 10 (5.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (2.92%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (2.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.58%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 55 (32.16%) SaaS
2 37 (21.64%) Azure
2 37 (21.64%) Azure DevOps
3 7 (4.09%) GitHub
4 6 (3.51%) Power Platform
5 4 (2.34%) AWS
6 2 (1.17%) BrowserStack
6 2 (1.17%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (0.58%) Amazon ECS
7 1 (0.58%) Amazon EKS
7 1 (0.58%) AWS CodePipeline
7 1 (0.58%) Azure AKS
7 1 (0.58%) Copilot Studio
7 1 (0.58%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (0.58%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.34%) 5G
1 4 (2.34%) SD-WAN
1 4 (2.34%) WAN
2 3 (1.75%) HTTP
3 1 (0.58%) Cisco ISE
3 1 (0.58%) Internet
3 1 (0.58%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.58%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.92%) Power BI
2 1 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (0.58%) Flink
2 1 (0.58%) Metadata
2 1 (0.58%) Oracle Database
2 1 (0.58%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 34 (19.88%) Selenium
2 18 (10.53%) Cypress.io
2 18 (10.53%) Postman
3 16 (9.36%) JIRA
4 13 (7.60%) Git
5 11 (6.43%) Jenkins
6 5 (2.92%) LabVIEW
6 5 (2.92%) Zephyr
7 4 (2.34%) SpecFlow
8 3 (1.75%) Bugzilla
8 3 (1.75%) GitLab
8 3 (1.75%) JMeter
9 2 (1.17%) JUnit
9 2 (1.17%) SoapUI
9 2 (1.17%) TestRail
10 1 (0.58%) Appium
10 1 (0.58%) Browser DevTools
10 1 (0.58%) Gatling
10 1 (0.58%) REST Assured
10 1 (0.58%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 78 (45.61%) Social Skills
2 52 (30.41%) Legal
3 27 (15.79%) Law
4 21 (12.28%) Finance
5 19 (11.11%) Analytical Skills
6 12 (7.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 11 (6.43%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (4.09%) Electronics
9 5 (2.92%) Aviation
9 5 (2.92%) Public Sector
10 3 (1.75%) Aerospace
10 3 (1.75%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (1.75%) Retail
11 2 (1.17%) Back Office
11 2 (1.17%) Games
11 2 (1.17%) Military
12 1 (0.58%) Advertising
12 1 (0.58%) Health Technology
12 1 (0.58%) iGaming
12 1 (0.58%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 64 (37.43%) Senior
2 52 (30.41%) Senior Manager
2 52 (30.41%) Testing Manager
3 29 (16.96%) Test Engineer
4 24 (14.04%) Analyst
5 21 (12.28%) Lead
6 17 (9.94%) QA Engineer
6 17 (9.94%) Test Analyst
7 12 (7.02%) QA Leader
7 12 (7.02%) Tester
8 9 (5.26%) Senior Test Engineer
8 9 (5.26%) Test Leader
9 7 (4.09%) Head of Testing
9 7 (4.09%) Junior
10 6 (3.51%) Automation Engineer
10 6 (3.51%) QA Automation Engineer
10 6 (3.51%) Software Test Engineer
11 5 (2.92%) Applications Support Specialist
11 5 (2.92%) Lead DevOps
11 5 (2.92%) Manual Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (15.20%) Playwright
2 8 (4.68%) CSS
3 7 (4.09%) HTML
4 5 (2.92%) Node.js
4 5 (2.92%) pytest
5 3 (1.75%) Gherkin
5 3 (1.75%) REST
6 2 (1.17%) Laravel
6 2 (1.17%) Vue
7 1 (0.58%) .NET
7 1 (0.58%) .NET Core
7 1 (0.58%) .NET Framework
7 1 (0.58%) ADO
7 1 (0.58%) Blazor
7 1 (0.58%) GStreamer
7 1 (0.58%) Kafka
7 1 (0.58%) Microsoft Graph
7 1 (0.58%) React Native
7 1 (0.58%) Swagger
7 1 (0.58%) WebAssembly
Miscellaneous
1 52 (30.41%) Virtual Team
2 17 (9.94%) Product Ownership
3 5 (2.92%) Mobile App
4 4 (2.34%) Embedded Systems
4 4 (2.34%) Self-Driving Car
5 3 (1.75%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (1.17%) Hackathon
6 2 (1.17%) Video\Live Streaming
7 1 (0.58%) Cloud Native
7 1 (0.58%) Digital Signage
7 1 (0.58%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (0.58%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.58%) PKI
7 1 (0.58%) Robotics
7 1 (0.58%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 14 (8.19%) Windows
2 6 (3.51%) Linux
3 4 (2.34%) Unix
4 1 (0.58%) Android
4 1 (0.58%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.58%) Ubuntu
4 1 (0.58%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 156 (91.23%) Test Automation
2 109 (63.74%) DevOps
3 100 (58.48%) Continuous Improvement
4 99 (57.89%) Software Testing
5 82 (47.95%) Test Strategy
6 71 (41.52%) Mentoring
7 61 (35.67%) Software Engineering
8 60 (35.09%) Agile
9 58 (33.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 54 (31.58%) Project Delivery
11 53 (30.99%) Data Management
12 52 (30.41%) Budget Management
12 52 (30.41%) Change Advisory Board
12 52 (30.41%) Enterprise Architecture
12 52 (30.41%) Performance Management
12 52 (30.41%) Programme Management
12 52 (30.41%) Strategic Planning
12 52 (30.41%) Virtual Team Management
13 51 (29.82%) CI/CD
14 36 (21.05%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 74 (43.27%) Python
2 65 (38.01%) JavaScript
3 62 (36.26%) C#
4 57 (33.33%) TypeScript
5 52 (30.41%) PowerShell
6 28 (16.37%) SQL
7 8 (4.68%) MATLAB
8 6 (3.51%) Java
9 2 (1.17%) PHP
10 1 (0.58%) Bash
10 1 (0.58%) C++
Qualifications
1 19 (11.11%) ISTQB
2 17 (9.94%) Degree
3 8 (4.68%) Security Cleared
4 6 (3.51%) SC Cleared
5 5 (2.92%) Computer Science Degree
5 5 (2.92%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 4 (2.34%) HND
7 3 (1.75%) BPSS Clearance
7 3 (1.75%) Chartered Engineer
8 2 (1.17%) DV Cleared
9 1 (0.58%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 121 (70.76%) QA
2 6 (3.51%) Accessibility
3 5 (2.92%) Software Quality Assurance
4 3 (1.75%) ISO/IEC 12207
5 2 (1.17%) GDPR
5 2 (1.17%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 2 (1.17%) Active Directory
1 2 (1.17%) Docker
1 2 (1.17%) Firmware
2 1 (0.58%) Terminal Server
2 1 (0.58%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 1 (0.58%) Ansible
1 1 (0.58%) Kubernetes
1 1 (0.58%) SCCM
1 1 (0.58%) SCOM
1 1 (0.58%) Terraform
Vendors
1 19 (11.11%) Microsoft
2 7 (4.09%) Salesforce
3 6 (3.51%) Oracle
4 5 (2.92%) ServiceNow
5 1 (0.58%) Atlassian
5 1 (0.58%) Cisco
5 1 (0.58%) Juniper
5 1 (0.58%) McAfee
5 1 (0.58%) VMware