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 17 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 581 522 614
Rank change year-on-year -59 +92 -143
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 183 160 275
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.33% 0.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.25% 0.36% 0.34%
Number of salaries quoted 103 121 233
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,000 £34,000
25th Percentile £41,625 £36,250 £36,365
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £46,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.70% +2.22% -10.00%
75th Percentile £57,500 £63,750 £60,000
90th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £85,800
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £40,000 £42,500
% change year-on-year +25.00% -5.88% -5.56%

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 72,896 44,261 80,626
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.68% 90.09% 82.12%
Number of salaries quoted 50,426 24,863 55,989
10th Percentile £30,250 £28,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £38,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +3.64% -8.84%
75th Percentile £78,750 £77,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £98,750 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%

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 17 July 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 17 July 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
UK excluding London -30 140 £50,000 +25.00% 35
England -94 135 £50,000 +11.11% 35
Work from Home 0 91 £50,000 - 19
Northern Ireland -27 35 - - 3
South West -34 33 £45,000 +12.50% 6
London -49 32 £50,000 -20.32% 8
South East -32 30 £52,500 +31.25% 8
North of England -21 20 £50,000 +42.86% 8
North West +4 14 £51,250 +20.59% 2
Midlands -28 10 £55,000 +37.50% 7
East of England -19 9 £55,000 +3.77%
East Midlands -8 6 £30,000 -14.29% 4
West Midlands -22 4 £56,250 +32.35% 3
North East -60 4 £50,000 +44.93% 3
Wales -49 3 £25,000 -58.33% 1
Yorkshire -35 2 £50,000 +42.86% 3

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 (2.73%) Confluence
2 3 (1.64%) SharePoint
Applications
1 12 (6.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (4.92%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (3.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (1.09%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.55%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 1 (0.55%) FLEXCUBE
1 1 (0.55%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 62 (33.88%) Azure
2 43 (23.50%) Azure DevOps
3 41 (22.40%) SaaS
4 19 (10.38%) AWS
5 9 (4.92%) GCP
5 9 (4.92%) Power Platform
6 8 (4.37%) BrowserStack
6 8 (4.37%) GitHub
7 4 (2.19%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (1.09%) Azure Service Bus
8 2 (1.09%) PowerApps
9 1 (0.55%) Algolia
9 1 (0.55%) AWS CodePipeline
9 1 (0.55%) Azure Data Factory
9 1 (0.55%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 1 (0.55%) BlazeMeter
9 1 (0.55%) Copilot Studio
9 1 (0.55%) Microsoft 365
9 1 (0.55%) Microsoft Copilot
9 1 (0.55%) SonarCloud
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.19%) 5G
1 4 (2.19%) SD-WAN
1 4 (2.19%) WAN
2 2 (1.09%) HTTP
3 1 (0.55%) Broadband
3 1 (0.55%) Cisco ISE
3 1 (0.55%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (3.28%) Power BI
2 3 (1.64%) SQL Server
3 2 (1.09%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (1.09%) Oracle Database
3 2 (1.09%) Relational Database
4 1 (0.55%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.55%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.55%) Metadata
4 1 (0.55%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.55%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.55%) Power Query
4 1 (0.55%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 44 (24.04%) Selenium
2 27 (14.75%) Cypress.io
3 26 (14.21%) JIRA
4 25 (13.66%) Postman
5 17 (9.29%) Jenkins
6 15 (8.20%) Git
7 11 (6.01%) Zephyr
8 7 (3.83%) SpecFlow
8 7 (3.83%) TestRail
9 6 (3.28%) JMeter
9 6 (3.28%) REST Assured
10 5 (2.73%) GitLab
10 5 (2.73%) LabVIEW
11 4 (2.19%) JUnit
12 3 (1.64%) SoapUI
13 2 (1.09%) Gatling
13 2 (1.09%) Katalon Studio
13 2 (1.09%) LoadRunner
14 1 (0.55%) Browser DevTools
14 1 (0.55%) SonarQube
General
1 78 (42.62%) Social Skills
2 37 (20.22%) Legal
3 27 (14.75%) Finance
3 27 (14.75%) Law
4 26 (14.21%) Analytical Skills
5 17 (9.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 11 (6.01%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (4.37%) Public Sector
8 7 (3.83%) Electronics
9 5 (2.73%) Digital Healthcare
10 4 (2.19%) Advertising
11 3 (1.64%) Aerospace
11 3 (1.64%) Aviation
11 3 (1.64%) Back Office
11 3 (1.64%) Banking
11 3 (1.64%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (1.64%) Retail
12 2 (1.09%) Games
12 2 (1.09%) Military
13 1 (0.55%) Corporate Banking
Job Titles
1 54 (29.51%) Senior
2 37 (20.22%) Senior Manager
2 37 (20.22%) Testing Manager
3 30 (16.39%) Test Engineer
4 24 (13.11%) QA Engineer
5 21 (11.48%) Tester
6 19 (10.38%) Analyst
6 19 (10.38%) Lead
7 15 (8.20%) QA Leader
8 14 (7.65%) Test Analyst
9 12 (6.56%) Test Leader
10 11 (6.01%) Junior
11 9 (4.92%) Automation Engineer
11 9 (4.92%) QA Automation Engineer
12 8 (4.37%) Software Engineer
13 7 (3.83%) Automation Tester
13 7 (3.83%) Head of Testing
13 7 (3.83%) Infrastructure Tester
13 7 (3.83%) Quality Engineer
13 7 (3.83%) Senior Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (19.67%) Playwright
2 8 (4.37%) CSS
3 7 (3.83%) HTML
4 5 (2.73%) pytest
5 4 (2.19%) .NET
5 4 (2.19%) REST
6 3 (1.64%) Kafka
6 3 (1.64%) Node.js
6 3 (1.64%) React
6 3 (1.64%) Swagger
7 2 (1.09%) Gherkin
7 2 (1.09%) Laravel
7 2 (1.09%) Vue
8 1 (0.55%) .NET Framework
8 1 (0.55%) ADO
8 1 (0.55%) GStreamer
8 1 (0.55%) RabbitMQ
8 1 (0.55%) React Native
8 1 (0.55%) RESTful
8 1 (0.55%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 37 (20.22%) Virtual Team
2 15 (8.20%) Product Ownership
3 6 (3.28%) Mobile App
4 4 (2.19%) Embedded Systems
4 4 (2.19%) Self-Driving Car
5 3 (1.64%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (1.64%) Hackathon
5 3 (1.64%) Housing Association
6 2 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
6 2 (1.09%) NHS
6 2 (1.09%) Onboarding
6 2 (1.09%) Video\Live Streaming
7 1 (0.55%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (0.55%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (0.55%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.55%) Low-Code
7 1 (0.55%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.55%) PKI
7 1 (0.55%) PropTech
7 1 (0.55%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 15 (8.20%) Windows
2 4 (2.19%) Linux
2 4 (2.19%) Unix
3 1 (0.55%) Android
3 1 (0.55%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.55%) Ubuntu
3 1 (0.55%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 166 (90.71%) Test Automation
2 103 (56.28%) DevOps
3 101 (55.19%) Software Testing
4 97 (53.01%) Continuous Improvement
5 76 (41.53%) Test Strategy
6 72 (39.34%) CI/CD
7 71 (38.80%) Agile
8 69 (37.70%) Mentoring
9 52 (28.42%) Regression Testing
10 45 (24.59%) Software Engineering
10 45 (24.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 39 (21.31%) Data Management
11 39 (21.31%) Project Delivery
12 37 (20.22%) API Testing
12 37 (20.22%) Budget Management
12 37 (20.22%) Change Advisory Board
12 37 (20.22%) Enterprise Architecture
12 37 (20.22%) Performance Management
12 37 (20.22%) Programme Management
12 37 (20.22%) Strategic Planning
Programming Languages
1 60 (32.79%) Python
2 56 (30.60%) JavaScript
3 51 (27.87%) C#
4 49 (26.78%) TypeScript
5 41 (22.40%) PowerShell
6 32 (17.49%) SQL
7 13 (7.10%) Java
8 8 (4.37%) MATLAB
9 4 (2.19%) Bash
10 3 (1.64%) C++
11 2 (1.09%) COBOL
11 2 (1.09%) PHP
12 1 (0.55%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 32 (17.49%) ISTQB
2 21 (11.48%) Degree
3 11 (6.01%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 8 (4.37%) Security Cleared
5 6 (3.28%) Computer Science Degree
5 6 (3.28%) SC Cleared
6 4 (2.19%) BPSS Clearance
6 4 (2.19%) HND
7 3 (1.64%) Chartered Engineer
8 2 (1.09%) DV Cleared
9 1 (0.55%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 122 (66.67%) QA
2 19 (10.38%) Accessibility
3 4 (2.19%) Software Quality Assurance
4 3 (1.64%) GDPR
4 3 (1.64%) ISO/IEC 12207
5 2 (1.09%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.55%) Data Quality
System Software
1 2 (1.09%) Active Directory
1 2 (1.09%) Docker
1 2 (1.09%) Firmware
2 1 (0.55%) Terminal Server
2 1 (0.55%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 4 (2.19%) Ansible
1 4 (2.19%) Terraform
2 1 (0.55%) Grafana
2 1 (0.55%) Kibana
2 1 (0.55%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.55%) SCCM
2 1 (0.55%) SCOM
Vendors
1 24 (13.11%) Microsoft
2 8 (4.37%) Salesforce
3 6 (3.28%) ServiceNow
4 5 (2.73%) Oracle
5 2 (1.09%) Databricks
5 2 (1.09%) HP
6 1 (0.55%) Cisco
6 1 (0.55%) Dynatrace
6 1 (0.55%) Juniper
6 1 (0.55%) McAfee
6 1 (0.55%) Pega
6 1 (0.55%) VMware