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 31 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 490 422 535
Rank change year-on-year -68 +113 -127
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 94 105 221
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.14% 0.36% 0.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.20% 0.39% 0.37%
Number of salaries quoted 64 76 186
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,250 £33,750
25th Percentile £41,250 £34,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £42,500 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year +11.76% - -5.56%
75th Percentile £57,500 £53,000 £52,500
90th Percentile £62,125 £56,250 £64,318
UK median annual salary £47,500 £47,000 £45,000
% change year-on-year +1.06% +4.44% -10.00%

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 47,912 26,786 59,320
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 71.11% 91.90% 81.73%
Number of salaries quoted 31,345 13,282 42,145
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £27,117
25th Percentile £38,000 £35,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £51,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% +2.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £77,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.69%

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 31 May 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 31 May 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 -37 32 £47,500 +18.75% 5
South East -20 23 £51,250 +17.14% 15
North of England -38 16 £50,000 +42.86% 9
Midlands -39 14 £30,000 -27.71% 7
North West +3 12 £50,000 +14.29% 8
East Midlands -21 11 £30,000 -45.45% 1
East of England -27 7 £45,000 -15.09% 3
West Midlands -41 3 £57,500 +41.98% 6
Wales -37 2 £25,000 -58.33% 1
Yorkshire -40 2 £50,000 +42.86% 1
North East -51 2 £55,000 +59.42%
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 (1.06%) Confluence
1 1 (1.06%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (4.26%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (3.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (2.13%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 35 (37.23%) Azure
1 35 (37.23%) Azure DevOps
2 4 (4.26%) Power Platform
3 3 (3.19%) SaaS
4 2 (2.13%) AWS
4 2 (2.13%) BrowserStack
4 2 (2.13%) GitHub
5 1 (1.06%) AWS CodePipeline
5 1 (1.06%) Copilot Studio
5 1 (1.06%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (1.06%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 3 (3.19%) Cisco ISE
2 2 (2.13%) 5G
2 2 (2.13%) HTTP
2 2 (2.13%) SD-WAN
2 2 (2.13%) WAN
3 1 (1.06%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.19%) Metadata
1 3 (3.19%) Power BI
2 1 (1.06%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (1.06%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 24 (25.53%) Selenium
2 18 (19.15%) Cypress.io
3 15 (15.96%) JIRA
4 14 (14.89%) Postman
5 8 (8.51%) Git
6 6 (6.38%) Jenkins
6 6 (6.38%) Zephyr
7 3 (3.19%) GitLab
7 3 (3.19%) Subversion
8 2 (2.13%) JUnit
8 2 (2.13%) LabVIEW
8 2 (2.13%) SoapUI
9 1 (1.06%) Appium
9 1 (1.06%) Browser DevTools
9 1 (1.06%) JMeter
9 1 (1.06%) REST Assured
9 1 (1.06%) SpecFlow
9 1 (1.06%) TestRail
General
1 16 (17.02%) Finance
1 16 (17.02%) Social Skills
2 12 (12.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 6 (6.38%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (5.32%) Documentation Skills
4 5 (5.32%) Electronics
5 3 (3.19%) Aerospace
5 3 (3.19%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (2.13%) Back Office
6 2 (2.13%) Law
6 2 (2.13%) Military
7 1 (1.06%) Advertising
7 1 (1.06%) Aviation
7 1 (1.06%) Games
7 1 (1.06%) Health Technology
7 1 (1.06%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 26 (27.66%) Test Engineer
2 21 (22.34%) Lead
3 15 (15.96%) QA Leader
4 14 (14.89%) QA Engineer
5 12 (12.77%) Test Leader
6 11 (11.70%) Senior
7 10 (10.64%) Software Test Engineer
8 7 (7.45%) Head of Testing
8 7 (7.45%) Tester
9 6 (6.38%) Analyst
9 6 (6.38%) Graduate
9 6 (6.38%) Graduate Test Engineer
9 6 (6.38%) Test Automation Engineer
10 5 (5.32%) Automation Engineer
10 5 (5.32%) QA Automation Engineer
10 5 (5.32%) Test Analyst
11 4 (4.26%) Senior Test Engineer
11 4 (4.26%) Software Tester
12 3 (3.19%) Applications Support Specialist
12 3 (3.19%) Principal Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (22.34%) Playwright
2 3 (3.19%) CSS
2 3 (3.19%) pytest
3 2 (2.13%) HTML
3 2 (2.13%) Laravel
3 2 (2.13%) REST
3 2 (2.13%) Vue
4 1 (1.06%) .NET
4 1 (1.06%) .NET Core
4 1 (1.06%) .NET Framework
4 1 (1.06%) ADO
4 1 (1.06%) Blazor
4 1 (1.06%) GStreamer
4 1 (1.06%) Microsoft Graph
4 1 (1.06%) React Native
4 1 (1.06%) Spring
4 1 (1.06%) Swagger
4 1 (1.06%) WebAssembly
Miscellaneous
1 13 (13.83%) Product Ownership
2 3 (3.19%) Embedded Systems
2 3 (3.19%) Enterprise Software
3 2 (2.13%) Hackathon
3 2 (2.13%) Mobile App
3 2 (2.13%) Self-Driving Car
3 2 (2.13%) Video\Live Streaming
4 1 (1.06%) Robotics
4 1 (1.06%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 8 (8.51%) Windows
2 3 (3.19%) Linux
2 3 (3.19%) Windows Server
2 3 (3.19%) Windows Server 2019
3 2 (2.13%) Unix
4 1 (1.06%) Android
4 1 (1.06%) Apple iOS
4 1 (1.06%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (89.36%) Test Automation
2 44 (46.81%) DevOps
3 41 (43.62%) Agile
4 40 (42.55%) Software Testing
5 38 (40.43%) CI/CD
6 28 (29.79%) Regression Testing
7 27 (28.72%) API Testing
8 26 (27.66%) Test Strategy
9 25 (26.60%) Continuous Improvement
10 22 (23.40%) SDLC
11 19 (20.21%) Scrum
12 18 (19.15%) Test Scripting
12 18 (19.15%) User Acceptance Testing
13 17 (18.09%) Acceptance Criteria
14 16 (17.02%) Customer Service
15 13 (13.83%) Continuous Integration
16 12 (12.77%) Problem-Solving
16 12 (12.77%) Root Cause Analysis
17 11 (11.70%) Defect Management
17 11 (11.70%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 14 (14.89%) SQL
2 9 (9.57%) Python
3 7 (7.45%) C#
4 6 (6.38%) JavaScript
5 5 (5.32%) MATLAB
6 4 (4.26%) TypeScript
7 2 (2.13%) Java
7 2 (2.13%) PHP
8 1 (1.06%) C++
Qualifications
1 17 (18.09%) ISTQB
2 13 (13.83%) Degree
3 7 (7.45%) Security Cleared
4 6 (6.38%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 5 (5.32%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (4.26%) BPSS Clearance
7 3 (3.19%) Chartered Engineer
7 3 (3.19%) DV Cleared
8 2 (2.13%) HND
8 2 (2.13%) SC Cleared
9 1 (1.06%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 1 (1.06%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 48 (51.06%) QA
2 17 (18.09%) Accessibility
3 3 (3.19%) ISO/IEC 12207
4 2 (2.13%) GDPR
4 2 (2.13%) PCI DSS
5 1 (1.06%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 3 (3.19%) Active Directory
1 3 (3.19%) Terminal Server
1 3 (3.19%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (1.06%) Docker
2 1 (1.06%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 3 (3.19%) SCCM
1 3 (3.19%) SCOM
Vendors
1 12 (12.77%) Microsoft
2 7 (7.45%) Salesforce
3 6 (6.38%) ServiceNow
4 3 (3.19%) Cisco
4 3 (3.19%) Juniper
4 3 (3.19%) McAfee
4 3 (3.19%) VMware