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 7 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 541 545 518
Rank change year-on-year +4 -27 -70
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 125 199 225
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.25% 0.29% 0.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.28% 0.35% 0.45%
Number of salaries quoted 91 113 204
10th Percentile £31,250 £30,000 £35,225
25th Percentile £40,000 £37,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +10.00% -
75th Percentile £63,125 £65,250 £62,500
90th Percentile £71,250 £78,000 £74,700
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £45,000 £45,000
% change year-on-year +11.11% - -

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 44,012 56,127 49,891
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 86.78% 82.46% 93.88%
Number of salaries quoted 26,595 29,580 38,351
10th Percentile £28,250 £33,750 £32,500
25th Percentile £35,500 £45,000 £43,871
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £54,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £98,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £46,625 £54,383 £52,500
% change year-on-year -14.26% +3.59% -

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 7 November 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 7 November 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 +48 118 £52,500 -4.55% 196
UK excluding London +11 79 £50,000 +11.11% 171
London +25 43 £56,250 -13.46% 85
Work from Home +26 40 £50,000 -9.09% 122
South East +45 32 £46,000 -16.36% 82
South West +32 18 £37,500 -25.00% 11
Midlands +41 12 £40,000 -27.27% 9
East of England +35 7 £56,500 +105.45% 14
East Midlands +31 7 £40,000 +3.23% 7
West Midlands +32 5 £40,000 -30.43% 2
North of England -17 5 £45,000 - 31
Yorkshire +11 3 £46,250 +42.37% 9
North West +4 2 £45,000 - 22
Northern Ireland +1 2 £52,500 - 7
Scotland -13 2 £50,000 +25.00% 12
Wales +4 1 £60,000 -36.84% 4

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 (2.40%) Confluence
2 1 (0.80%) Office Communications Server
2 1 (0.80%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (1.60%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (1.60%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.80%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 10 (8.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (1.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (1.60%) Elite 3E
3 1 (0.80%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.80%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 21 (16.80%) Azure
1 21 (16.80%) Azure DevOps
2 13 (10.40%) AWS
3 7 (5.60%) Power Platform
3 7 (5.60%) SaaS
4 3 (2.40%) Adobe Analytics
4 3 (2.40%) Datadog
4 3 (2.40%) Dynamics 365
5 2 (1.60%) BrowserStack
5 2 (1.60%) Tricentis Tosca
6 1 (0.80%) Algolia
6 1 (0.80%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 1 (0.80%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (0.80%) Azure Service Bus
6 1 (0.80%) dbt
6 1 (0.80%) GitHub
6 1 (0.80%) Power Automate
6 1 (0.80%) Sauce Labs
6 1 (0.80%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 4 (3.20%) Cisco ISE
2 1 (0.80%) Ethernet
2 1 (0.80%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (4.80%) Relational Database
2 3 (2.40%) Mixpanel
2 3 (2.40%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.80%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.80%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.80%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 43 (34.40%) JIRA
2 36 (28.80%) Selenium
3 28 (22.40%) Postman
4 13 (10.40%) Git
4 13 (10.40%) Jenkins
5 11 (8.80%) Cypress.io
6 9 (7.20%) eCATT
6 9 (7.20%) SoapUI
7 6 (4.80%) Katalon Studio
8 5 (4.00%) TestNG
8 5 (4.00%) TestRail
8 5 (4.00%) Zephyr
9 3 (2.40%) Browser DevTools
9 3 (2.40%) Charles Proxy
9 3 (2.40%) Fiddler
9 3 (2.40%) JMeter
9 3 (2.40%) Maven
9 3 (2.40%) SpecFlow
9 3 (2.40%) WebDriver
10 2 (1.60%) Locust
General
1 37 (29.60%) Social Skills
2 28 (22.40%) Analytical Skills
3 27 (21.60%) Finance
4 15 (12.00%) Marketing
5 11 (8.80%) Legal
6 10 (8.00%) Law
6 10 (8.00%) Manufacturing
6 10 (8.00%) Presentation Skills
7 9 (7.20%) Influencing Skills
8 6 (4.80%) Games
9 5 (4.00%) Electronics
9 5 (4.00%) Public Sector
10 4 (3.20%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (2.40%) Automotive
11 3 (2.40%) Banking
12 2 (1.60%) Aerospace
12 2 (1.60%) Back Office
13 1 (0.80%) Publishing
13 1 (0.80%) Retail
13 1 (0.80%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 35 (28.00%) Senior
2 32 (25.60%) Analyst
3 25 (20.00%) Test Analyst
4 24 (19.20%) Tester
5 20 (16.00%) QA Engineer
6 18 (14.40%) Test Engineer
7 14 (11.20%) Lead
8 12 (9.60%) QA Analyst
9 11 (8.80%) Test Automation Engineer
10 10 (8.00%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
10 10 (8.00%) Senior Test Engineer
11 9 (7.20%) Automation Test Analyst
11 9 (7.20%) QA Leader
11 9 (7.20%) Software Tester
12 7 (5.60%) Test Specialist
13 6 (4.80%) Automation Engineer
13 6 (4.80%) Junior
13 6 (4.80%) QA Test Analyst
13 6 (4.80%) Quality Engineer
13 6 (4.80%) Senior Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (13.60%) Playwright
2 11 (8.80%) CSS
2 11 (8.80%) HTML
3 8 (6.40%) XML
4 4 (3.20%) .NET
4 4 (3.20%) JSON
4 4 (3.20%) REST
4 4 (3.20%) RESTful
4 4 (3.20%) SOAP
5 3 (2.40%) React
6 2 (1.60%) AngularJS
6 2 (1.60%) FIX Protocol
6 2 (1.60%) Node.js
6 2 (1.60%) pytest
7 1 (0.80%) CSS3
7 1 (0.80%) HTML5
7 1 (0.80%) OAuth
7 1 (0.80%) SAML
7 1 (0.80%) Sass
7 1 (0.80%) WebGL
Miscellaneous
1 9 (7.20%) Product Ownership
2 3 (2.40%) Analytical Mindset
2 3 (2.40%) Derivative
2 3 (2.40%) Equities
2 3 (2.40%) Fixed Income
2 3 (2.40%) IoT
2 3 (2.40%) W3C
3 2 (1.60%) AS400
3 2 (1.60%) FMCG
3 2 (1.60%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 2 (1.60%) Low-Code
3 2 (1.60%) Mobile App
3 2 (1.60%) Operational Technology
3 2 (1.60%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (0.80%) 3D Graphics
4 1 (0.80%) Cyber Defence
4 1 (0.80%) Enterprise Software
4 1 (0.80%) Onboarding
4 1 (0.80%) Security Posture
4 1 (0.80%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 8 (6.40%) Windows
2 5 (4.00%) Windows Server
2 5 (4.00%) Windows Server 2019
3 4 (3.20%) Linux
4 1 (0.80%) Embedded Linux
4 1 (0.80%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (76.80%) Test Automation
2 79 (63.20%) Agile
3 54 (43.20%) Software Testing
4 46 (36.80%) Test Scripting
5 37 (29.60%) CI/CD
6 31 (24.80%) Regression Testing
7 29 (23.20%) API Testing
8 27 (21.60%) Scenario Testing
9 26 (20.80%) DevOps
9 26 (20.80%) Test Strategy
10 25 (20.00%) Continuous Improvement
11 24 (19.20%) End-to-End Testing
11 24 (19.20%) Problem-Solving
12 22 (17.60%) Scrum
13 20 (16.00%) Test Management
14 19 (15.20%) Defect Management
14 19 (15.20%) Non-Functional Testing
15 18 (14.40%) Integration Testing
16 15 (12.00%) User Acceptance Testing
16 15 (12.00%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 40 (32.00%) SQL
2 24 (19.20%) Java
2 24 (19.20%) JavaScript
3 20 (16.00%) C#
4 18 (14.40%) Python
5 10 (8.00%) TypeScript
6 2 (1.60%) Groovy
6 2 (1.60%) PHP
7 1 (0.80%) Bash
Qualifications
1 37 (29.60%) ISTQB
2 21 (16.80%) Security Cleared
3 17 (13.60%) SC Cleared
4 13 (10.40%) Degree
4 13 (10.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 8 (6.40%) DV Cleared
6 4 (3.20%) ISEB
7 2 (1.60%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.80%) CHECK Team Leader
8 1 (0.80%) CHECK Team Member
8 1 (0.80%) HNC
8 1 (0.80%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (51.20%) QA
2 11 (8.80%) Accessibility
3 5 (4.00%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.60%) Section 508
4 2 (1.60%) WCAG
5 1 (0.80%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.80%) GDPR
5 1 (0.80%) NCSC
5 1 (0.80%) SLA
System Software
1 5 (4.00%) Active Directory
1 5 (4.00%) Docker
2 4 (3.20%) Terminal Server
2 4 (3.20%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.80%) Embedded Firmware
3 1 (0.80%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 10 (8.00%) HP ALM
2 5 (4.00%) Kubernetes
2 5 (4.00%) SCCM
2 5 (4.00%) SCOM
3 2 (1.60%) Grafana
3 2 (1.60%) Nessus
4 1 (0.80%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.80%) Terraform
Vendors
1 11 (8.80%) SAP
2 10 (8.00%) HP
3 8 (6.40%) Microsoft
4 5 (4.00%) VMware
5 4 (3.20%) Cisco
5 4 (3.20%) Juniper
5 4 (3.20%) McAfee
5 4 (3.20%) Oracle
6 3 (2.40%) Adobe
6 3 (2.40%) ServiceNow
6 3 (2.40%) Tealium
7 2 (1.60%) Pega
7 2 (1.60%) Siebel
7 2 (1.60%) Workday
8 1 (0.80%) Atlassian
8 1 (0.80%) Charles River
8 1 (0.80%) EMC
8 1 (0.80%) Genesys
8 1 (0.80%) Murex
8 1 (0.80%) Salesforce