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 11 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 515 497 527
Rank change year-on-year -18 +30 -29
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 128 213 202
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.22% 0.40% 0.36%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.27% 0.44% 0.40%
Number of salaries quoted 93 130 175
10th Percentile £33,925 £31,925 £33,750
25th Percentile £42,500 £41,625 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -1.96%
75th Percentile £62,500 £65,000 £57,500
90th Percentile £71,000 £77,500 £72,950
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £47,500 £45,000
% change year-on-year - +5.56% -10.00%

All Process & 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 48,096 48,629 50,303
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 81.07% 90.53% 89.95%
Number of salaries quoted 28,289 23,726 38,360
10th Percentile £28,500 £35,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £78,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £52,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +5.77% -5.45%

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 11 January 2026.

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 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
England +15 124 £52,000 +4.00% 127
UK excluding London -15 82 £47,500 - 117
London +29 43 £55,000 -15.38% 22
Work from Home +35 40 £50,000 -11.11% 33
South West +13 26 £45,000 -10.00% 15
South East +26 24 £54,500 +14.74% 36
Midlands +3 16 £40,000 -27.27% 17
East Midlands -7 12 £36,250 -34.09% 11
East of England +20 8 £45,000 +44.00% 17
North of England -13 6 £52,500 +18.98% 23
West Midlands +16 4 £46,750 -10.95% 6
North West +6 2 £45,000 - 6
North East 0 2 £55,000 -8.33% 2
Yorkshire -23 2 £57,500 +84.04% 15
Scotland -7 1 - - 4
Northern Ireland -10 1 £52,500 - 2

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 5 (3.91%) Confluence
2 1 (0.78%) Apache
2 1 (0.78%) CMS
2 1 (0.78%) WordPress
Applications
1 1 (0.78%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
1 1 (0.78%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 10 (7.81%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (2.34%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.78%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.78%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 33 (25.78%) Azure
2 29 (22.66%) Azure DevOps
3 17 (13.28%) AWS
4 7 (5.47%) Power Platform
5 5 (3.91%) GCP
5 5 (3.91%) SaaS
6 4 (3.13%) BrowserStack
7 3 (2.34%) Adobe Analytics
7 3 (2.34%) Datadog
7 3 (2.34%) Dynamics 365
8 2 (1.56%) AWS CloudFormation
8 2 (1.56%) Tricentis Tosca
9 1 (0.78%) Algolia
9 1 (0.78%) Azure Service Bus
9 1 (0.78%) dbt
9 1 (0.78%) GitHub
9 1 (0.78%) Power Automate
9 1 (0.78%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.78%) Cisco IOS
1 1 (0.78%) Cisco ISE
1 1 (0.78%) Ethernet
1 1 (0.78%) FTP
1 1 (0.78%) HTTP
1 1 (0.78%) SD-WAN
1 1 (0.78%) SNMP
1 1 (0.78%) Spanning Tree
1 1 (0.78%) SSH
1 1 (0.78%) TACACS
1 1 (0.78%) WAN
1 1 (0.78%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (7.81%) Relational Database
2 3 (2.34%) Mixpanel
2 3 (2.34%) SQL Server
3 2 (1.56%) DB2
3 2 (1.56%) MongoDB
3 2 (1.56%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.78%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.78%) Metadata
4 1 (0.78%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 36 (28.13%) Selenium
2 32 (25.00%) JIRA
3 24 (18.75%) Postman
4 11 (8.59%) Cypress.io
4 11 (8.59%) Jenkins
5 9 (7.03%) eCATT
5 9 (7.03%) Git
6 6 (4.69%) SoapUI
7 5 (3.91%) Zephyr
8 4 (3.13%) SpecFlow
8 4 (3.13%) TestNG
8 4 (3.13%) TestRail
9 3 (2.34%) Browser DevTools
9 3 (2.34%) Charles Proxy
9 3 (2.34%) Fiddler
9 3 (2.34%) JMeter
9 3 (2.34%) Katalon Studio
9 3 (2.34%) LoadRunner
9 3 (2.34%) Maven
9 3 (2.34%) WebDriver
General
1 27 (21.09%) Social Skills
2 25 (19.53%) Analytical Skills
2 25 (19.53%) Finance
3 16 (12.50%) Marketing
4 10 (7.81%) Manufacturing
5 9 (7.03%) Influencing Skills
5 9 (7.03%) Presentation Skills
6 7 (5.47%) Games
7 6 (4.69%) Banking
7 6 (4.69%) Law
8 4 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (3.13%) Electronics
8 4 (3.13%) Public Sector
9 3 (2.34%) Back Office
9 3 (2.34%) Legal
9 3 (2.34%) Tech for Good
10 2 (1.56%) Aerospace
10 2 (1.56%) Health Technology
10 2 (1.56%) Retail
10 2 (1.56%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 27 (21.09%) Test Engineer
1 27 (21.09%) Tester
2 25 (19.53%) Analyst
3 23 (17.97%) Senior
4 22 (17.19%) Test Analyst
5 21 (16.41%) Lead
5 21 (16.41%) QA Engineer
6 16 (12.50%) Test Automation Engineer
7 15 (11.72%) QA Leader
8 9 (7.03%) Automation Test Analyst
8 9 (7.03%) Senior Test Engineer
9 8 (6.25%) QA Analyst
10 7 (5.47%) Automation Tester
10 7 (5.47%) Manual Tester
10 7 (5.47%) Test Leader
11 6 (4.69%) QA Test Analyst
11 6 (4.69%) Quality Engineer
12 5 (3.91%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
12 5 (3.91%) Senior Quality Engineer
12 5 (3.91%) Senior Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (17.97%) Playwright
2 9 (7.03%) CSS
2 9 (7.03%) HTML
3 7 (5.47%) React
4 6 (4.69%) .NET
5 5 (3.91%) RESTful
5 5 (3.91%) XML
6 4 (3.13%) Elastic Stack
6 4 (3.13%) REST
7 3 (2.34%) FIX Protocol
8 2 (1.56%) AngularJS
8 2 (1.56%) CSS3
8 2 (1.56%) Gherkin
8 2 (1.56%) HTML5
8 2 (1.56%) pytest
8 2 (1.56%) Sass
9 1 (0.78%) JWT
9 1 (0.78%) Node.js
9 1 (0.78%) OAuth
9 1 (0.78%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 9 (7.03%) Product Ownership
2 5 (3.91%) Analytical Mindset
3 4 (3.13%) Derivative
3 4 (3.13%) Equities
3 4 (3.13%) Fixed Income
4 3 (2.34%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 3 (2.34%) IoT
4 3 (2.34%) Mobile App
4 3 (2.34%) Virtual Team
4 3 (2.34%) W3C
5 2 (1.56%) Greenfield Project
5 2 (1.56%) Low-Code
5 2 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.78%) Cyber Defence
6 1 (0.78%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (0.78%) Hedge funds
6 1 (0.78%) Operational Technology
6 1 (0.78%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 6 (4.69%) Linux
1 6 (4.69%) Windows
2 2 (1.56%) Windows Server
2 2 (1.56%) Windows Server 2019
3 1 (0.78%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 102 (79.69%) Test Automation
2 62 (48.44%) Agile
3 49 (38.28%) Software Testing
4 47 (36.72%) CI/CD
5 39 (30.47%) Regression Testing
6 38 (29.69%) API Testing
7 34 (26.56%) DevOps
8 32 (25.00%) Test Scripting
9 30 (23.44%) Continuous Improvement
10 27 (21.09%) Test Strategy
11 26 (20.31%) Scrum
12 22 (17.19%) Non-Functional Testing
12 22 (17.19%) SDLC
13 21 (16.41%) End-to-End Testing
13 21 (16.41%) Validation
14 20 (15.63%) Integration Testing
14 20 (15.63%) Problem-Solving
15 19 (14.84%) Scenario Testing
16 18 (14.06%) User Acceptance Testing
17 17 (13.28%) Test Management
Programming Languages
1 41 (32.03%) SQL
2 26 (20.31%) JavaScript
3 23 (17.97%) C#
4 20 (15.63%) Python
5 19 (14.84%) Java
6 13 (10.16%) TypeScript
7 5 (3.91%) Bash
8 2 (1.56%) Groovy
8 2 (1.56%) PHP
8 2 (1.56%) PowerShell
8 2 (1.56%) RPG
Qualifications
1 39 (30.47%) ISTQB
2 21 (16.41%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
3 16 (12.50%) Security Cleared
4 14 (10.94%) Degree
5 9 (7.03%) SC Cleared
6 6 (4.69%) DV Cleared
6 6 (4.69%) ISEB
7 4 (3.13%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (2.34%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (51.56%) QA
2 18 (14.06%) Accessibility
3 5 (3.91%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.56%) Section 508
4 2 (1.56%) WCAG
System Software
1 7 (5.47%) Docker
2 3 (2.34%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.78%) Terminal Server
3 1 (0.78%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 10 (7.81%) HP ALM
2 7 (5.47%) Kubernetes
3 4 (3.13%) Terraform
4 2 (1.56%) Ansible
4 2 (1.56%) Grafana
4 2 (1.56%) Nessus
4 2 (1.56%) Prometheus
4 2 (1.56%) SCCM
4 2 (1.56%) SCOM
Vendors
1 11 (8.59%) SAP
2 10 (7.81%) HP
3 5 (3.91%) Microsoft
4 4 (3.13%) Oracle
5 3 (2.34%) Adobe
5 3 (2.34%) ServiceNow
5 3 (2.34%) Tealium
6 2 (1.56%) Cisco
6 2 (1.56%) IBM
6 2 (1.56%) Siebel
6 2 (1.56%) VMware
7 1 (0.78%) Charles River
7 1 (0.78%) Genesys
7 1 (0.78%) Juniper
7 1 (0.78%) McAfee
7 1 (0.78%) Meraki
7 1 (0.78%) Pega
7 1 (0.78%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.78%) Sitecore
7 1 (0.78%) Splunk