Manual Testing Job Trends

Manual Testing
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Manual Testing skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 24 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 542 558 504
Rank change year-on-year +16 -54 -62
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 129 202 239
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.26% 0.29% 0.43%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.30% 0.36% 0.46%
Number of salaries quoted 95 113 213
10th Percentile £31,250 £30,000 £37,500
25th Percentile £40,775 £37,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £53,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.64% +10.00% -
75th Percentile £63,125 £65,250 £65,000
90th Percentile £72,750 £78,000 £75,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,250 £46,250 £45,000
% change year-on-year +12.97% +2.78% -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

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.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 43,671 56,801 52,380
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 88.34% 82.43% 94.05%
Number of salaries quoted 24,895 30,230 40,176
10th Percentile £28,250 £33,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £35,750 £45,000 £44,804
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £54,625 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.96% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £46,000 £54,000 £53,000
% change year-on-year -14.81% +1.89% +0.95%

Manual Testing
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Manual Testing relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Manual Testing job vacancy trend in the UK

Manual Testing
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Manual Testing.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Manual Testing

Manual Testing
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Manual Testing over the 6 months to 24 October 2025.

Salary histogram for Manual Testing in the UK

Manual Testing
Top 16 Job Locations

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 over the 6 months to 24 October 2025. 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
England +49 122 £53,000 -3.64% 96
UK excluding London +14 83 £52,250 +12.97% 83
Work from Home +45 47 £52,500 - 61
London +42 42 £58,750 -9.62% 38
South East +45 33 £46,000 -16.36% 42
South West +46 17 £40,000 -20.00% 4
East of England +26 13 £53,000 +92.73% 7
Midlands +32 11 £40,000 -27.27% 4
East Midlands +18 6 £38,750 - 3
West Midlands +30 5 £40,000 -30.43% 1
North of England -23 4 £50,000 +11.11% 18
Yorkshire +14 3 £46,250 +42.37% 9
Northern Ireland +10 2 £52,500 -
Scotland -4 2 £50,000 +25.00% 7
Wales +8 1 £60,000 -36.84% 2
North West -8 1 £50,000 +11.11% 9

Manual Testing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 3 (2.33%) Confluence
2 1 (0.78%) Office Communications Server
2 1 (0.78%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (1.55%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (1.55%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 10 (7.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (1.55%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (1.55%) Elite 3E
3 1 (0.78%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 19 (14.73%) Azure
1 19 (14.73%) Azure DevOps
2 13 (10.08%) AWS
3 7 (5.43%) Power Platform
3 7 (5.43%) SaaS
4 3 (2.33%) Adobe Analytics
4 3 (2.33%) Datadog
4 3 (2.33%) Dynamics 365
5 2 (1.55%) BrowserStack
6 1 (0.78%) Algolia
6 1 (0.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 1 (0.78%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (0.78%) Azure Service Bus
6 1 (0.78%) dbt
6 1 (0.78%) GitHub
6 1 (0.78%) Power Automate
6 1 (0.78%) Sauce Labs
6 1 (0.78%) Snowflake
6 1 (0.78%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 4 (3.10%) Cisco ISE
2 1 (0.78%) Ethernet
2 1 (0.78%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (4.65%) Relational Database
2 3 (2.33%) Mixpanel
2 3 (2.33%) MongoDB
3 2 (1.55%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.78%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.78%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 48 (37.21%) JIRA
2 42 (32.56%) Selenium
3 25 (19.38%) Postman
4 15 (11.63%) Git
5 14 (10.85%) Jenkins
6 10 (7.75%) Cypress.io
7 9 (6.98%) eCATT
8 8 (6.20%) SoapUI
9 6 (4.65%) Katalon Studio
9 6 (4.65%) TestRail
9 6 (4.65%) Zephyr
10 5 (3.88%) TestNG
11 3 (2.33%) CircleCI
11 3 (2.33%) Fiddler
11 3 (2.33%) Gatling
11 3 (2.33%) JMeter
11 3 (2.33%) LoadRunner
11 3 (2.33%) Maven
11 3 (2.33%) SpecFlow
11 3 (2.33%) WebDriver
General
1 36 (27.91%) Social Skills
2 26 (20.16%) Analytical Skills
2 26 (20.16%) Finance
3 17 (13.18%) Legal
4 15 (11.63%) Law
5 14 (10.85%) Marketing
6 10 (7.75%) Presentation Skills
7 9 (6.98%) Influencing Skills
7 9 (6.98%) Manufacturing
8 6 (4.65%) Games
9 4 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (3.10%) Electronics
9 4 (3.10%) Public Sector
10 3 (2.33%) Aerospace
10 3 (2.33%) Automotive
10 3 (2.33%) Banking
11 2 (1.55%) Back Office
12 1 (0.78%) Publishing
12 1 (0.78%) Retail
12 1 (0.78%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 40 (31.01%) Senior
2 31 (24.03%) Analyst
3 24 (18.60%) QA Engineer
3 24 (18.60%) Test Analyst
4 22 (17.05%) Tester
5 18 (13.95%) Test Engineer
6 14 (10.85%) Lead
7 12 (9.30%) QA Analyst
8 11 (8.53%) Test Automation Engineer
9 10 (7.75%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
9 10 (7.75%) Senior QA Engineer
9 10 (7.75%) Senior Test Engineer
10 9 (6.98%) Automation Test Analyst
10 9 (6.98%) QA Leader
10 9 (6.98%) Software Tester
11 7 (5.43%) Test Specialist
12 6 (4.65%) Junior
12 6 (4.65%) QA Test Analyst
12 6 (4.65%) Quality Engineer
12 6 (4.65%) Senior Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (11.63%) Playwright
2 11 (8.53%) CSS
2 11 (8.53%) HTML
3 7 (5.43%) XML
4 4 (3.10%) JSON
4 4 (3.10%) REST
4 4 (3.10%) RESTful
4 4 (3.10%) SOAP
5 3 (2.33%) .NET
6 2 (1.55%) FIX Protocol
6 2 (1.55%) Node.js
6 2 (1.55%) pytest
6 2 (1.55%) React
7 1 (0.78%) AngularJS
7 1 (0.78%) CSS3
7 1 (0.78%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.78%) JWT
7 1 (0.78%) Material-UI
7 1 (0.78%) OAuth
7 1 (0.78%) Sass
Miscellaneous
1 9 (6.98%) Product Ownership
2 3 (2.33%) Analytical Mindset
2 3 (2.33%) Derivative
2 3 (2.33%) Equities
2 3 (2.33%) Fixed Income
2 3 (2.33%) W3C
3 2 (1.55%) AS400
3 2 (1.55%) Embedded Systems
3 2 (1.55%) FMCG
3 2 (1.55%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 2 (1.55%) IoT
3 2 (1.55%) Low-Code
3 2 (1.55%) Mobile App
3 2 (1.55%) Operational Technology
3 2 (1.55%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (0.78%) Cyber Defence
4 1 (0.78%) Hedge funds
4 1 (0.78%) Onboarding
4 1 (0.78%) Security Posture
4 1 (0.78%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 8 (6.20%) Windows
2 5 (3.88%) Windows Server
2 5 (3.88%) Windows Server 2019
3 4 (3.10%) Linux
4 1 (0.78%) Android
4 1 (0.78%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.78%) Embedded Linux
4 1 (0.78%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 101 (78.29%) Test Automation
2 83 (64.34%) Agile
3 59 (45.74%) Software Testing
4 49 (37.98%) Test Scripting
5 35 (27.13%) CI/CD
6 32 (24.81%) Regression Testing
7 26 (20.16%) API Testing
8 25 (19.38%) Scenario Testing
8 25 (19.38%) Test Strategy
9 24 (18.60%) Continuous Improvement
9 24 (18.60%) DevOps
10 23 (17.83%) End-to-End Testing
10 23 (17.83%) Problem-Solving
11 21 (16.28%) Scrum
11 21 (16.28%) Test Management
11 21 (16.28%) User Acceptance Testing
12 18 (13.95%) Defect Management
12 18 (13.95%) Integration Testing
13 17 (13.18%) Non-Functional Testing
14 16 (12.40%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 41 (31.78%) SQL
2 26 (20.16%) Java
3 23 (17.83%) JavaScript
4 21 (16.28%) Python
5 17 (13.18%) C#
6 9 (6.98%) TypeScript
7 2 (1.55%) Groovy
7 2 (1.55%) PHP
8 1 (0.78%) Bash
8 1 (0.78%) C
8 1 (0.78%) C++
Qualifications
1 40 (31.01%) ISTQB
2 21 (16.28%) Security Cleared
3 17 (13.18%) SC Cleared
4 13 (10.08%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 11 (8.53%) Degree
6 8 (6.20%) DV Cleared
7 4 (3.10%) ISEB
8 1 (0.78%) CHECK Team Leader
8 1 (0.78%) CHECK Team Member
8 1 (0.78%) HNC
8 1 (0.78%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 67 (51.94%) QA
2 10 (7.75%) Accessibility
3 5 (3.88%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.55%) Section 508
4 2 (1.55%) WCAG
5 1 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.78%) GDPR
5 1 (0.78%) NCSC
5 1 (0.78%) SLA
System Software
1 5 (3.88%) Active Directory
1 5 (3.88%) Docker
2 4 (3.10%) Terminal Server
2 4 (3.10%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.78%) Embedded Firmware
3 1 (0.78%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 10 (7.75%) HP ALM
2 5 (3.88%) Kubernetes
2 5 (3.88%) SCCM
2 5 (3.88%) SCOM
3 2 (1.55%) Grafana
3 2 (1.55%) Nessus
4 1 (0.78%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.78%) Terraform
Vendors
1 10 (7.75%) HP
1 10 (7.75%) SAP
2 8 (6.20%) Microsoft
3 5 (3.88%) VMware
4 4 (3.10%) Cisco
4 4 (3.10%) Juniper
4 4 (3.10%) McAfee
4 4 (3.10%) Oracle
5 3 (2.33%) Adobe
5 3 (2.33%) ServiceNow
5 3 (2.33%) Tealium
6 2 (1.55%) Pega
6 2 (1.55%) Workday
7 1 (0.78%) Charles River
7 1 (0.78%) EMC
7 1 (0.78%) Murex
7 1 (0.78%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.78%) Siebel
7 1 (0.78%) Sitecore
7 1 (0.78%) Splunk