Tester Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Tester
UK > UK excluding London

The median Tester salary in the UK excluding London is £41,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 1 January 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 427 398 389
Rank change year-on-year -29 -9 -93
Permanent jobs requiring a Tester 90 183 163
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.21% 0.49% 0.53%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.24% 0.53% 0.56%
Number of salaries quoted 59 66 126
10th Percentile £31,000 £26,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £32,750 £32,750 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £41,500 £45,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -7.78% -5.26% +0.53%
75th Percentile £57,500 £52,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £65,000 £59,375 £75,000
UK median annual salary £49,250 £48,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +1.55% -11.82% -

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 37,897 34,703 29,304
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.34% 93.14% 95.30%
Number of salaries quoted 22,949 17,250 22,189
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £34,750 £40,000 £37,500
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 £66,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £80,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -

Tester
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Tester job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Tester
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Salary distribution trend for Tester job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Tester
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Tester in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Tester in the UK excluding London

Tester
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 Tester within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 1 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 +31 36 £41,500 -14.87% 33
South West +13 22 £37,500 +27.12% 4
Midlands -32 12 £40,000 -11.11% 8
North of England -14 10 £40,000 - 15
West Midlands -15 7 £40,000 -7.51% 8
Wales +6 5 £45,000 -7.22%
North West -2 5 £40,000 - 10
East Midlands -27 5 £40,000 -11.11%
East of England +20 4 £65,000 - 3
Yorkshire -8 3 - - 3
North East +2 2 - - 2
Scotland +5 1 - -
Tester
UK

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

For the 6 months to 1 January 2026, Tester 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 Tester in the job title.

1 41 (45.56%) Test Automation
2 36 (40.00%) Software Testing
3 30 (33.33%) Agile
4 26 (28.89%) SQL
5 23 (25.56%) DevOps
5 23 (25.56%) Manual Testing
6 22 (24.44%) Degree
7 21 (23.33%) Azure
7 21 (23.33%) ISTQB
7 21 (23.33%) Selenium
8 20 (22.22%) C#
8 20 (22.22%) QA
9 18 (20.00%) API Testing
10 16 (17.78%) Azure DevOps
10 16 (17.78%) Python
10 16 (17.78%) Security Cleared
10 16 (17.78%) Test Strategy
11 15 (16.67%) Test Scripting
12 14 (15.56%) CI/CD
12 14 (15.56%) Java
12 14 (15.56%) JavaScript
13 13 (14.44%) Computer Science
13 13 (14.44%) JIRA
13 13 (14.44%) Playwright
13 13 (14.44%) Problem-Solving
13 13 (14.44%) Scrum
13 13 (14.44%) Test Management
14 12 (13.33%) Performance Testing
15 11 (12.22%) Penetration Testing
15 11 (12.22%) Regression Testing

Tester 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:

Application Platforms
1 1 (1.11%) Apache
1 1 (1.11%) Confluence
1 1 (1.11%) IIS
Business Applications
1 1 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 21 (23.33%) Azure
2 16 (17.78%) Azure DevOps
3 6 (6.67%) AWS
4 3 (3.33%) GitHub
5 2 (2.22%) AWS CloudFormation
5 2 (2.22%) GCP
5 2 (2.22%) OpenShift
6 1 (1.11%) Dynamics 365
6 1 (1.11%) IaaS
6 1 (1.11%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.22%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (7.78%) Relational Database
2 6 (6.67%) SQL Server
3 3 (3.33%) Oracle Database
4 2 (2.22%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 21 (23.33%) Selenium
2 13 (14.44%) JIRA
3 9 (10.00%) Postman
4 7 (7.78%) Cypress.io
4 7 (7.78%) Team Foundation Server
4 7 (7.78%) WebDriver
5 6 (6.67%) SoapUI
5 6 (6.67%) TestRail
6 5 (5.56%) Burp Suite
6 5 (5.56%) Git
6 5 (5.56%) Jenkins
7 4 (4.44%) Metasploit
7 4 (4.44%) Robot Framework
8 3 (3.33%) Visual Studio
9 2 (2.22%) Cucumber
9 2 (2.22%) GitLab
9 2 (2.22%) JMeter
9 2 (2.22%) LoadRunner
9 2 (2.22%) Ranorex
9 2 (2.22%) SpecFlow
General
1 17 (18.89%) Social Skills
2 12 (13.33%) Finance
3 8 (8.89%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (4.44%) Aerospace
4 4 (4.44%) Public Sector
5 3 (3.33%) Law
5 3 (3.33%) Marketing
6 2 (2.22%) Banking
6 2 (2.22%) Public Speaking
6 2 (2.22%) Telecoms
7 1 (1.11%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (1.11%) Health Technology
7 1 (1.11%) Legal
7 1 (1.11%) Manufacturing
7 1 (1.11%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (14.44%) Playwright
2 10 (11.11%) .NET
3 6 (6.67%) SOAP
4 5 (5.56%) HTML
5 4 (4.44%) Elastic Stack
6 3 (3.33%) ASP.NET
7 2 (2.22%) REST
7 2 (2.22%) Web Services
7 2 (2.22%) XML
7 2 (2.22%) XSL
8 1 (1.11%) .NET Framework
8 1 (1.11%) AngularJS
8 1 (1.11%) JWT
8 1 (1.11%) OAuth
8 1 (1.11%) pytest
8 1 (1.11%) React
8 1 (1.11%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 5 (5.56%) Security Posture
2 4 (4.44%) Enterprise Software
2 4 (4.44%) Mobile App
3 2 (2.22%) Analytical Mindset
3 2 (2.22%) Client/Server
3 2 (2.22%) Product Ownership
3 2 (2.22%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (1.11%) Cyber Threat
4 1 (1.11%) Cyberattack
4 1 (1.11%) Embedded Systems
4 1 (1.11%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 7 (7.78%) Linux
2 6 (6.67%) Windows
3 2 (2.22%) CentOS
3 2 (2.22%) Kali Linux
4 1 (1.11%) FreeRTOS
4 1 (1.11%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (45.56%) Test Automation
2 36 (40.00%) Software Testing
3 30 (33.33%) Agile
4 23 (25.56%) DevOps
4 23 (25.56%) Manual Testing
5 18 (20.00%) API Testing
6 16 (17.78%) Test Strategy
7 15 (16.67%) Test Scripting
8 14 (15.56%) CI/CD
9 13 (14.44%) Computer Science
9 13 (14.44%) Problem-Solving
9 13 (14.44%) Scrum
9 13 (14.44%) Test Management
10 12 (13.33%) Performance Testing
11 11 (12.22%) Penetration Testing
11 11 (12.22%) Regression Testing
12 10 (11.11%) Cybersecurity
12 10 (11.11%) Non-Functional Testing
13 9 (10.00%) Mentoring
13 9 (10.00%) Security Testing
Programming Languages
1 26 (28.89%) SQL
2 20 (22.22%) C#
3 16 (17.78%) Python
4 14 (15.56%) Java
4 14 (15.56%) JavaScript
5 9 (10.00%) Bash
5 9 (10.00%) TypeScript
6 4 (4.44%) PowerShell
7 2 (2.22%) Perl
7 2 (2.22%) Ruby
8 1 (1.11%) C
8 1 (1.11%) C++
8 1 (1.11%) Go
8 1 (1.11%) PHP
Qualifications
1 22 (24.44%) Degree
2 21 (23.33%) ISTQB
3 16 (17.78%) Security Cleared
4 9 (10.00%) Computer Science Degree
4 9 (10.00%) SC Cleared
5 8 (8.89%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 8 (8.89%) OSCP
6 6 (6.67%) DV Cleared
7 5 (5.56%) CHECK Team Member
8 4 (4.44%) CREST Certified
8 4 (4.44%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 3 (3.33%) CHECK Team Leader
10 2 (2.22%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 2 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
10 2 (2.22%) CEH
10 2 (2.22%) CISA
10 2 (2.22%) CISSP
11 1 (1.11%) GPEN
11 1 (1.11%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (22.22%) QA
2 6 (6.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (3.33%) Accessibility
3 3 (3.33%) GDPR
4 2 (2.22%) GRC
4 2 (2.22%) NIST
5 1 (1.11%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 4 (4.44%) Docker
2 1 (1.11%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 4 (4.44%) Grafana
1 4 (4.44%) Kubernetes
1 4 (4.44%) Nmap
2 3 (3.33%) Nessus
3 2 (2.22%) Prometheus
3 2 (2.22%) Terraform
4 1 (1.11%) CA Service Virtualization
Vendors
1 5 (5.56%) Oracle
2 4 (4.44%) Splunk
3 3 (3.33%) Microsoft
4 2 (2.22%) Red Hat
5 1 (1.11%) Dynatrace
5 1 (1.11%) Tenable