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 12 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 528 511 538
Rank change year-on-year -17 +27 -63
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 144 196 281
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.22% 0.39% 0.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.27% 0.43% 0.43%
Number of salaries quoted 105 124 250
10th Percentile £33,750 £32,150 £33,625
25th Percentile £42,500 £41,531 £36,365
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,500 £47,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.42% +5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £61,250 £65,000 £56,250
90th Percentile £69,500 £72,500 £73,775
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £47,500 £41,000
% change year-on-year - +15.85% -13.68%

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 53,044 45,908 65,136
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 79.73% 92.10% 88.26%
Number of salaries quoted 31,514 22,467 50,521
10th Percentile £29,000 £35,000 £29,500
25th Percentile £38,000 £46,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £76,250 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £101,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -8.90%

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 12 February 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 12 February 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 -4 136 £51,500 +8.42% 52
UK excluding London -5 92 £47,500 - 39
London +15 45 £55,000 -15.38% 19
Work from Home -3 42 £50,000 -9.09% 28
South West +8 32 £47,500 - 4
South East +12 28 £52,500 +10.53% 18
Midlands -18 17 £37,500 -26.83% 8
East Midlands -14 12 £32,500 -40.91% 2
East of England +16 8 £45,000 +44.00% 4
West Midlands +2 5 £53,500 +15.05% 6
North of England -36 5 £50,000 +15.61% 7
North West -2 2 £45,000 - 5
North East -10 2 £55,000 +11.11%
Scotland -16 1 - -
Northern Ireland -18 1 £52,500 -
Yorkshire -41 1 - - 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 (3.47%) Confluence
2 1 (0.69%) Apache
2 1 (0.69%) CMS
2 1 (0.69%) WordPress
Applications
1 1 (0.69%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (0.69%) Microsoft Project
1 1 (0.69%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 10 (6.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (2.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.69%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.69%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 43 (29.86%) Azure
2 36 (25.00%) Azure DevOps
3 19 (13.19%) AWS
4 10 (6.94%) GCP
5 8 (5.56%) BrowserStack
6 6 (4.17%) Power Platform
7 4 (2.78%) SaaS
8 2 (1.39%) Adobe Analytics
8 2 (1.39%) AWS CloudFormation
8 2 (1.39%) Datadog
8 2 (1.39%) Dynamics 365
8 2 (1.39%) Tricentis Tosca
9 1 (0.69%) Algolia
9 1 (0.69%) Azure Service Bus
9 1 (0.69%) GitHub
9 1 (0.69%) Power Automate
9 1 (0.69%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.39%) Cisco ISE
2 1 (0.69%) Cisco IOS
2 1 (0.69%) Ethernet
2 1 (0.69%) FTP
2 1 (0.69%) HTTP
2 1 (0.69%) SD-WAN
2 1 (0.69%) SNMP
2 1 (0.69%) Spanning Tree
2 1 (0.69%) SSH
2 1 (0.69%) TACACS
2 1 (0.69%) WAN
2 1 (0.69%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (6.94%) Relational Database
2 3 (2.08%) SQL Server
3 2 (1.39%) DB2
3 2 (1.39%) Metadata
3 2 (1.39%) Mixpanel
3 2 (1.39%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.69%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.69%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 36 (25.00%) Selenium
2 33 (22.92%) JIRA
3 21 (14.58%) Postman
4 16 (11.11%) Cypress.io
5 9 (6.25%) eCATT
5 9 (6.25%) Jenkins
6 7 (4.86%) Git
7 5 (3.47%) SoapUI
8 4 (2.78%) GitLab
8 4 (2.78%) SpecFlow
8 4 (2.78%) Zephyr
9 3 (2.08%) Cucumber
9 3 (2.08%) Subversion
9 3 (2.08%) TestNG
9 3 (2.08%) TestRail
10 2 (1.39%) JMeter
10 2 (1.39%) LoadRunner
10 2 (1.39%) Maven
10 2 (1.39%) TeamCity
10 2 (1.39%) Visual Studio
General
1 32 (22.22%) Social Skills
2 23 (15.97%) Analytical Skills
2 23 (15.97%) Finance
3 15 (10.42%) Marketing
4 10 (6.94%) Manufacturing
5 9 (6.25%) Influencing Skills
5 9 (6.25%) Presentation Skills
6 6 (4.17%) Banking
6 6 (4.17%) Games
7 5 (3.47%) Law
8 4 (2.78%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (2.08%) Back Office
9 3 (2.08%) Digital Healthcare
9 3 (2.08%) Electronics
9 3 (2.08%) Legal
9 3 (2.08%) Public Sector
9 3 (2.08%) Tech for Good
10 2 (1.39%) Aerospace
10 2 (1.39%) Retail
10 2 (1.39%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 28 (19.44%) Test Engineer
1 28 (19.44%) Tester
2 25 (17.36%) Analyst
2 25 (17.36%) Lead
3 22 (15.28%) QA Engineer
3 22 (15.28%) Test Analyst
4 21 (14.58%) Senior
5 17 (11.81%) QA Leader
6 16 (11.11%) Test Automation Engineer
7 14 (9.72%) Test Leader
8 9 (6.25%) Automation Test Analyst
9 8 (5.56%) Quality Engineer
10 7 (4.86%) Automation Tester
10 7 (4.86%) Development Engineer
10 7 (4.86%) Manual Tester
10 7 (4.86%) QA Analyst
10 7 (4.86%) Senior Test Engineer
10 7 (4.86%) Software Development Engineer
10 7 (4.86%) Software Engineer
10 7 (4.86%) Test Development Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (21.53%) Playwright
2 9 (6.25%) CSS
2 9 (6.25%) HTML
3 7 (4.86%) React
4 6 (4.17%) .NET
5 5 (3.47%) XML
6 4 (2.78%) Elastic Stack
6 4 (2.78%) RESTful
7 3 (2.08%) FIX Protocol
7 3 (2.08%) REST
8 2 (1.39%) AngularJS
8 2 (1.39%) CSS3
8 2 (1.39%) Gherkin
8 2 (1.39%) HTML5
8 2 (1.39%) pytest
8 2 (1.39%) Sass
9 1 (0.69%) GraphQL
9 1 (0.69%) JWT
9 1 (0.69%) OAuth
9 1 (0.69%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 10 (6.94%) Product Ownership
2 6 (4.17%) Analytical Mindset
3 4 (2.78%) Derivative
3 4 (2.78%) Equities
3 4 (2.78%) Fixed Income
4 3 (2.08%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 3 (2.08%) IoT
4 3 (2.08%) Low-Code
4 3 (2.08%) Mobile App
4 3 (2.08%) Virtual Team
5 2 (1.39%) Greenfield Project
5 2 (1.39%) Self-Motivation
5 2 (1.39%) W3C
6 1 (0.69%) Cyber Defence
6 1 (0.69%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (0.69%) Operational Technology
6 1 (0.69%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 7 (4.86%) Windows
2 6 (4.17%) Linux
3 3 (2.08%) Windows Server
3 3 (2.08%) Windows Server 2019
4 1 (0.69%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 118 (81.94%) Test Automation
2 61 (42.36%) Agile
3 58 (40.28%) CI/CD
4 56 (38.89%) Software Testing
5 49 (34.03%) Regression Testing
6 41 (28.47%) API Testing
6 41 (28.47%) DevOps
7 36 (25.00%) Test Scripting
8 35 (24.31%) Continuous Improvement
9 31 (21.53%) SDLC
10 28 (19.44%) Scrum
11 27 (18.75%) Test Strategy
12 26 (18.06%) Non-Functional Testing
13 22 (15.28%) User Acceptance Testing
14 20 (13.89%) Defect Management
14 20 (13.89%) End-to-End Testing
15 19 (13.19%) Problem-Solving
15 19 (13.19%) Scenario Testing
15 19 (13.19%) Validation
16 18 (12.50%) Performance Testing
Programming Languages
1 40 (27.78%) SQL
2 30 (20.83%) JavaScript
3 22 (15.28%) C#
4 19 (13.19%) Python
5 18 (12.50%) TypeScript
6 17 (11.81%) Java
7 6 (4.17%) Bash
8 3 (2.08%) PowerShell
9 2 (1.39%) RPG
10 1 (0.69%) Groovy
10 1 (0.69%) PHP
Qualifications
1 44 (30.56%) ISTQB
2 21 (14.58%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
3 19 (13.19%) Security Cleared
4 14 (9.72%) Degree
5 9 (6.25%) SC Cleared
6 7 (4.86%) DV Cleared
7 6 (4.17%) ISEB
8 5 (3.47%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (2.08%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.69%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (48.61%) QA
2 30 (20.83%) Accessibility
3 3 (2.08%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.39%) Section 508
4 2 (1.39%) WCAG
System Software
1 6 (4.17%) Docker
2 4 (2.78%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.39%) Terminal Server
3 2 (1.39%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 10 (6.94%) HP ALM
2 6 (4.17%) Kubernetes
3 5 (3.47%) Terraform
4 3 (2.08%) Ansible
4 3 (2.08%) SCCM
4 3 (2.08%) SCOM
5 2 (1.39%) Grafana
5 2 (1.39%) Nessus
5 2 (1.39%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 11 (7.64%) SAP
2 10 (6.94%) HP
3 5 (3.47%) Microsoft
4 4 (2.78%) Oracle
4 4 (2.78%) ServiceNow
5 3 (2.08%) Cisco
5 3 (2.08%) VMware
6 2 (1.39%) Adobe
6 2 (1.39%) IBM
6 2 (1.39%) Juniper
6 2 (1.39%) McAfee
6 2 (1.39%) Siebel
6 2 (1.39%) Tealium
7 1 (0.69%) Charles River
7 1 (0.69%) Genesys
7 1 (0.69%) Meraki
7 1 (0.69%) Pega
7 1 (0.69%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.69%) Sitecore
7 1 (0.69%) Splunk