Test Manager Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Test Manager
UK > UK excluding London

The median Test Manager salary in the UK excluding London is £55,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 11 January 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 489 523 516
Rank change year-on-year +34 -7 +164
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Manager 21 36 44
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.050% 0.100% 0.13%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.055% 0.11% 0.13%
Number of salaries quoted 11 25 31
10th Percentile £40,000 £55,000 £42,500
25th Percentile £47,125 £60,000 £51,875
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £64,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -14.06% +6.67% -7.69%
75th Percentile £60,875 £72,500 £76,250
90th Percentile £70,000 £77,500 £78,750
UK median annual salary £65,000 £64,250 £67,500
% change year-on-year +1.17% -4.81% +2.27%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK excluding London with a recognized job title 37,951 33,588 32,956
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.41% 92.94% 95.36%
Number of salaries quoted 23,133 16,400 24,992
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £27,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £36,743
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £78,750
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -4.17%

Test Manager
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Test Manager' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Test Manager job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Test Manager
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for Test Manager job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Salary distribution trend for Test Manager job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Test Manager
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Test Manager in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 11 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Test Manager in the UK excluding London

Test Manager
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 Test Manager within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 11 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 East +29 12 £55,000 -14.06% 8
Midlands +22 5 - - 6
West Midlands +34 4 - - 3
North of England +10 2 £65,000 - 1
East of England +16 1 - -
North West +15 1 £65,000 -3.70% 1
South West +5 1 £70,000 +16.67% 1
Yorkshire -15 1 - -
East Midlands - 1 - - 3
Test Manager
UK

Test Manager Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 11 January 2026, Test Manager job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring Test Manager in the job title.

1 10 (47.62%) Test Management
2 7 (33.33%) QA
2 7 (33.33%) Stakeholder Management
2 7 (33.33%) Test Strategy
3 6 (28.57%) Agile
3 6 (28.57%) Software Testing
3 6 (28.57%) Test Automation
3 6 (28.57%) Validation
4 5 (23.81%) ISTQB
4 5 (23.81%) Security Cleared
5 4 (19.05%) Azure
5 4 (19.05%) Continuous Improvement
5 4 (19.05%) End-to-End Testing
5 4 (19.05%) Problem-Solving
6 3 (14.29%) ERP
6 3 (14.29%) Functional Testing
6 3 (14.29%) Integration Testing
6 3 (14.29%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
6 3 (14.29%) SC Cleared
6 3 (14.29%) ServiceNow
6 3 (14.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 2 (9.52%) Agile Testing
7 2 (9.52%) Business Continuity
7 2 (9.52%) Disaster Recovery
7 2 (9.52%) Entra ID
7 2 (9.52%) JIRA
7 2 (9.52%) Manual Testing
7 2 (9.52%) Mentoring
7 2 (9.52%) Operational Acceptance Testing
7 2 (9.52%) Resilience Testing

Test Manager Skill Set
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:

Business Applications
1 1 (4.76%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 4 (19.05%) Azure
2 2 (9.52%) Entra ID
3 1 (4.76%) AWS
3 1 (4.76%) Azure Monitor
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.76%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (4.76%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 2 (9.52%) JIRA
2 1 (4.76%) Gatling
2 1 (4.76%) GitLab
2 1 (4.76%) LoadRunner
2 1 (4.76%) SoapUI
2 1 (4.76%) Zephyr
General
1 10 (47.62%) Finance
2 5 (23.81%) Social Skills
3 3 (14.29%) Electronics
4 2 (9.52%) Analytical Skills
4 2 (9.52%) Documentation Skills
4 2 (9.52%) Influencing Skills
4 2 (9.52%) Public Sector
5 1 (4.76%) Automotive
5 1 (4.76%) Manufacturing
5 1 (4.76%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (4.76%) Playwright
1 1 (4.76%) SOAP
1 1 (4.76%) Spring
1 1 (4.76%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 2 (9.52%) Enterprise Software
2 1 (4.76%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 1 (4.76%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 10 (47.62%) Test Management
2 7 (33.33%) Stakeholder Management
2 7 (33.33%) Test Strategy
3 6 (28.57%) Agile
3 6 (28.57%) Software Testing
3 6 (28.57%) Test Automation
3 6 (28.57%) Validation
4 4 (19.05%) Continuous Improvement
4 4 (19.05%) End-to-End Testing
4 4 (19.05%) Problem-Solving
5 3 (14.29%) ERP
5 3 (14.29%) Functional Testing
5 3 (14.29%) Integration Testing
5 3 (14.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 2 (9.52%) Manual Testing
6 2 (9.52%) Risk Management
6 2 (9.52%) Scrum
6 2 (9.52%) Test Scripting
6 2 (9.52%) User Acceptance Testing
6 2 (9.52%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 1 (4.76%) Java
1 1 (4.76%) SQL
Qualifications
1 5 (23.81%) ISTQB
1 5 (23.81%) Security Cleared
2 3 (14.29%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
2 3 (14.29%) SC Cleared
3 1 (4.76%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
3 1 (4.76%) PMI Certification
3 1 (4.76%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (33.33%) QA
System Software
1 1 (4.76%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 1 (4.76%) Grafana
1 1 (4.76%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 3 (14.29%) ServiceNow
2 2 (9.52%) Workday
3 1 (4.76%) Dynatrace
3 1 (4.76%) IBM
3 1 (4.76%) Microsoft
3 1 (4.76%) Oracle
3 1 (4.76%) Splunk