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 10 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 569 545 613
Rank change year-on-year -24 +68 -104
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 215 147 202
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.20% 0.29% 0.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.28% 0.33% 0.30%
Number of salaries quoted 118 111 155
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,000 £34,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,375 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £46,000 £48,500
Median % change year-on-year +8.70% -5.15% -3.00%
75th Percentile £58,563 £62,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £70,375 £67,500 £84,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £42,500 £45,000
% change year-on-year +17.65% -5.56% -5.26%

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 77,887 44,584 67,368
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.57% 89.31% 81.13%
Number of salaries quoted 53,644 25,395 43,808
10th Percentile £30,750 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,170 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.71%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £48,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +14.58% -4.00% -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 10 August 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 10 August 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 -19 171 £50,000 +17.65% 80
England -75 150 £50,000 +8.70% 109
Work from Home +18 104 £50,000 +2.04% 51
Northern Ireland -26 50 - - 5
South West -42 39 £45,000 +12.50% 13
London -73 33 £52,500 -16.67% 44
South East -34 30 £52,500 +20.00% 20
North of England -33 24 £50,000 +42.86% 12
North West +3 16 £48,750 +23.42% 6
Midlands -28 14 £42,500 - 19
East Midlands -14 11 £40,000 -30.43% 3
East of England -37 9 £55,000 +3.77% 4
North East -57 6 £50,000 +42.86% 4
Wales -48 5 £32,000 -46.67%
West Midlands -30 3 £55,000 +29.41% 16
Yorkshire -40 2 £50,000 +42.86% 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 (2.33%) Confluence
2 4 (1.86%) SharePoint
Applications
1 13 (6.05%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (4.19%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (3.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.93%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.47%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 1 (0.47%) FLEXCUBE
1 1 (0.47%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 61 (28.37%) Azure
2 57 (26.51%) SaaS
3 44 (20.47%) Azure DevOps
4 16 (7.44%) AWS
5 10 (4.65%) Power Platform
6 9 (4.19%) GitHub
7 5 (2.33%) BrowserStack
7 5 (2.33%) GCP
8 4 (1.86%) GitHub Actions
9 3 (1.40%) PowerApps
10 2 (0.93%) Azure Service Bus
11 1 (0.47%) Amazon ECS
11 1 (0.47%) Amazon EKS
11 1 (0.47%) Azure AKS
11 1 (0.47%) Azure Data Factory
11 1 (0.47%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 1 (0.47%) BlazeMeter
11 1 (0.47%) Copilot Studio
11 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Copilot
11 1 (0.47%) SonarCloud
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.86%) 5G
1 4 (1.86%) SD-WAN
1 4 (1.86%) WAN
2 3 (1.40%) HTTP
3 1 (0.47%) Broadband
3 1 (0.47%) Cisco ISE
3 1 (0.47%) Internet
3 1 (0.47%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.47%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.79%) Power BI
2 3 (1.40%) SQL Server
3 2 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (0.93%) Oracle Database
3 2 (0.93%) Relational Database
4 1 (0.47%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.47%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.47%) Flink
4 1 (0.47%) Metadata
4 1 (0.47%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.47%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.47%) Power Query
4 1 (0.47%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 51 (23.72%) Selenium
2 28 (13.02%) JIRA
3 27 (12.56%) Postman
4 24 (11.16%) Cypress.io
5 19 (8.84%) Jenkins
6 15 (6.98%) Git
7 11 (5.12%) Zephyr
8 8 (3.72%) SpecFlow
9 7 (3.26%) JMeter
9 7 (3.26%) TestRail
10 6 (2.79%) REST Assured
11 5 (2.33%) GitLab
11 5 (2.33%) JUnit
11 5 (2.33%) LabVIEW
12 3 (1.40%) Appium
12 3 (1.40%) Bugzilla
12 3 (1.40%) Katalon Studio
12 3 (1.40%) SoapUI
13 2 (0.93%) Gatling
13 2 (0.93%) LoadRunner
General
1 99 (46.05%) Social Skills
2 52 (24.19%) Legal
3 32 (14.88%) Analytical Skills
4 29 (13.49%) Finance
5 27 (12.56%) Law
6 20 (9.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (5.58%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (4.65%) Public Sector
9 7 (3.26%) Electronics
10 5 (2.33%) Aviation
11 4 (1.86%) Advertising
11 4 (1.86%) Retail
12 3 (1.40%) Aerospace
12 3 (1.40%) Back Office
12 3 (1.40%) Banking
12 3 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
13 2 (0.93%) Digital Healthcare
13 2 (0.93%) Games
13 2 (0.93%) Military
14 1 (0.47%) Corporate Banking
Job Titles
1 78 (36.28%) Senior
2 53 (24.65%) Testing Manager
3 52 (24.19%) Senior Manager
4 35 (16.28%) Test Engineer
5 27 (12.56%) Analyst
5 27 (12.56%) QA Engineer
5 27 (12.56%) Tester
6 21 (9.77%) Lead
7 20 (9.30%) Test Analyst
8 12 (5.58%) Automation Engineer
8 12 (5.58%) QA Automation Engineer
8 12 (5.58%) QA Leader
9 10 (4.65%) Senior Test Engineer
10 9 (4.19%) Junior
10 9 (4.19%) Test Leader
11 8 (3.72%) Manual Tester
12 7 (3.26%) Automation Tester
12 7 (3.26%) Head of Testing
12 7 (3.26%) Senior QA Engineer
13 6 (2.79%) Infrastructure Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (17.21%) Playwright
2 13 (6.05%) CSS
3 12 (5.58%) HTML
4 5 (2.33%) Node.js
4 5 (2.33%) pytest
4 5 (2.33%) REST
5 4 (1.86%) .NET
5 4 (1.86%) Kafka
6 3 (1.40%) Gherkin
6 3 (1.40%) React
6 3 (1.40%) Swagger
7 2 (0.93%) Laravel
7 2 (0.93%) Vue
8 1 (0.47%) .NET Framework
8 1 (0.47%) ADO
8 1 (0.47%) GraphQL
8 1 (0.47%) GStreamer
8 1 (0.47%) RabbitMQ
8 1 (0.47%) React Native
8 1 (0.47%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 52 (24.19%) Virtual Team
2 19 (8.84%) Product Ownership
3 11 (5.12%) Mobile App
4 4 (1.86%) Embedded Systems
4 4 (1.86%) Self-Driving Car
5 3 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (1.40%) Hackathon
5 3 (1.40%) Housing Association
6 2 (0.93%) Low-Code
6 2 (0.93%) Management Information System
6 2 (0.93%) NHS
6 2 (0.93%) Onboarding
6 2 (0.93%) Video\Live Streaming
7 1 (0.47%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.47%) Digital Signage
7 1 (0.47%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (0.47%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (0.47%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.47%) PropTech
7 1 (0.47%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 17 (7.91%) Windows
2 6 (2.79%) Linux
3 4 (1.86%) Unix
4 1 (0.47%) Android
4 1 (0.47%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.47%) Ubuntu
4 1 (0.47%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 193 (89.77%) Test Automation
2 125 (58.14%) DevOps
3 116 (53.95%) Software Testing
4 114 (53.02%) Continuous Improvement
5 92 (42.79%) Test Strategy
6 85 (39.53%) Mentoring
7 82 (38.14%) Agile
8 75 (34.88%) CI/CD
9 62 (28.84%) Software Engineering
10 60 (27.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 54 (25.12%) Data Management
11 54 (25.12%) Project Delivery
12 52 (24.19%) Budget Management
12 52 (24.19%) Change Advisory Board
12 52 (24.19%) Enterprise Architecture
12 52 (24.19%) Performance Management
12 52 (24.19%) Programme Management
12 52 (24.19%) Strategic Planning
12 52 (24.19%) Virtual Team Management
13 48 (22.33%) Regression Testing
Programming Languages
1 78 (36.28%) Python
2 74 (34.42%) JavaScript
3 69 (32.09%) C#
4 61 (28.37%) TypeScript
5 55 (25.58%) PowerShell
6 41 (19.07%) SQL
7 13 (6.05%) Java
8 8 (3.72%) MATLAB
9 4 (1.86%) Bash
10 3 (1.40%) C++
11 2 (0.93%) COBOL
11 2 (0.93%) PHP
12 1 (0.47%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 30 (13.95%) ISTQB
2 22 (10.23%) Degree
3 13 (6.05%) Security Cleared
4 11 (5.12%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 11 (5.12%) SC Cleared
5 6 (2.79%) BPSS Clearance
5 6 (2.79%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.86%) HND
7 3 (1.40%) Chartered Engineer
8 2 (0.93%) DV Cleared
9 1 (0.47%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (67.44%) QA
2 15 (6.98%) Accessibility
3 5 (2.33%) Software Quality Assurance
4 4 (1.86%) GDPR
5 3 (1.40%) ISO/IEC 12207
5 3 (1.40%) WAI
5 3 (1.40%) WAI-ARIA
5 3 (1.40%) WCAG
6 2 (0.93%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.47%) Data Quality
System Software
1 3 (1.40%) Docker
2 2 (0.93%) Active Directory
2 2 (0.93%) Firmware
3 1 (0.47%) Terminal Server
3 1 (0.47%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 4 (1.86%) Ansible
1 4 (1.86%) Terraform
2 2 (0.93%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.47%) Grafana
3 1 (0.47%) Kibana
3 1 (0.47%) SCCM
3 1 (0.47%) SCOM
Vendors
1 26 (12.09%) Microsoft
2 10 (4.65%) Oracle
3 8 (3.72%) Salesforce
4 5 (2.33%) ServiceNow
5 3 (1.40%) Databricks
6 2 (0.93%) HP
7 1 (0.47%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.47%) Cisco
7 1 (0.47%) Dynatrace
7 1 (0.47%) Juniper
7 1 (0.47%) McAfee
7 1 (0.47%) Pega
7 1 (0.47%) VMware