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 25 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 605 554 572
Rank change year-on-year -51 +18 -80
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 208 127 208
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.26% 0.27%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.24% 0.29% 0.33%
Number of salaries quoted 111 98 121
10th Percentile £32,000 £31,250 £33,750
25th Percentile £42,483 £42,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £53,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% -3.64% +10.00%
75th Percentile £61,018 £63,750 £65,250
90th Percentile £77,500 £73,750 £78,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £45,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +16.67% -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 85,591 43,838 62,686
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.02% 88.74% 81.52%
Number of salaries quoted 59,105 24,621 34,654
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £41,750 £36,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,560
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -4.45% -4.07%
75th Percentile £80,000 £75,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +15.79% -9.52% -2.78%

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 25 September 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 25 September 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 -48 168 £50,000 -4.76% 95
England -103 144 £50,000 -5.66% 138
Work from Home -2 100 £50,000 -5.66% 70
Northern Ireland -46 53 - - 8
South West -60 34 £50,000 +25.00% 8
South East -51 30 £52,500 +14.13% 21
London -61 30 £58,009 -3.32% 59
North of England -47 26 £50,000 +11.11% 29
North West -18 12 £47,500 +5.56% 9
East of England -25 11 £52,500 -0.94% 7
Midlands -38 11 £43,750 -21.17% 14
North East -61 10 £50,000 -9.09% 10
East Midlands -26 8 £42,500 -26.09% 1
Yorkshire -34 4 - - 10
West Midlands -46 3 £47,500 +10.47% 12
Wales -67 3 £32,000 -46.67% 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 6 (2.88%) SharePoint
2 5 (2.40%) Confluence
3 2 (0.96%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 13 (6.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (4.33%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (3.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.96%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.96%) Simulink
5 1 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.48%) FLEXCUBE
1 1 (0.48%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 61 (29.33%) SaaS
2 45 (21.63%) Azure
3 33 (15.87%) Azure DevOps
4 15 (7.21%) AWS
5 12 (5.77%) GitHub
6 10 (4.81%) Power Platform
7 6 (2.88%) BrowserStack
8 5 (2.40%) GitHub Actions
9 4 (1.92%) GCP
10 3 (1.44%) PowerApps
11 1 (0.48%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 1 (0.48%) Amazon ECS
11 1 (0.48%) Amazon EKS
11 1 (0.48%) AWS Lambda
11 1 (0.48%) Azure AKS
11 1 (0.48%) Azure Service Bus
11 1 (0.48%) Copilot Studio
11 1 (0.48%) GitHub Copilot
11 1 (0.48%) Microsoft Copilot
11 1 (0.48%) SonarCloud
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.92%) 5G
1 4 (1.92%) SD-WAN
1 4 (1.92%) WAN
2 1 (0.48%) Broadband
2 1 (0.48%) HTTP
2 1 (0.48%) Internet
2 1 (0.48%) TCP/IP
2 1 (0.48%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.88%) Power BI
2 2 (0.96%) Oracle Database
2 2 (0.96%) Relational Database
2 2 (0.96%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
3 1 (0.48%) Flink
3 1 (0.48%) Metadata
3 1 (0.48%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.48%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 47 (22.60%) Selenium
2 21 (10.10%) JIRA
2 21 (10.10%) Postman
3 18 (8.65%) Jenkins
4 15 (7.21%) Cypress.io
5 13 (6.25%) Git
6 9 (4.33%) JMeter
7 8 (3.85%) SpecFlow
8 7 (3.37%) Zephyr
9 6 (2.88%) LabVIEW
9 6 (2.88%) REST Assured
10 5 (2.40%) JUnit
10 5 (2.40%) TestRail
11 4 (1.92%) Appium
11 4 (1.92%) Gatling
11 4 (1.92%) GitLab
11 4 (1.92%) TestNG
12 3 (1.44%) Bugzilla
12 3 (1.44%) Katalon Studio
13 2 (0.96%) Maven
General
1 106 (50.96%) Social Skills
2 55 (26.44%) Legal
3 40 (19.23%) Analytical Skills
4 28 (13.46%) Law
5 24 (11.54%) Finance
6 19 (9.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 15 (7.21%) Public Sector
8 11 (5.29%) Documentation Skills
9 9 (4.33%) Retail
10 8 (3.85%) Electronics
11 5 (2.40%) Aviation
12 4 (1.92%) Advertising
12 4 (1.92%) Organisational Skills
13 3 (1.44%) Aerospace
13 3 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
14 2 (0.96%) Automotive
14 2 (0.96%) Back Office
14 2 (0.96%) Military
14 2 (0.96%) Publishing
15 1 (0.48%) Games
Job Titles
1 83 (39.90%) Senior
2 57 (27.40%) Testing Manager
3 55 (26.44%) Senior Manager
4 39 (18.75%) Test Engineer
5 32 (15.38%) Analyst
6 29 (13.94%) QA Engineer
7 23 (11.06%) Tester
8 20 (9.62%) Test Analyst
9 15 (7.21%) Automation Engineer
9 15 (7.21%) QA Automation Engineer
10 13 (6.25%) Lead
11 11 (5.29%) Senior QA Engineer
11 11 (5.29%) Senior Test Engineer
12 7 (3.37%) DevOps Engineer
12 7 (3.37%) Lead DevOps
12 7 (3.37%) Lead DevOps Engineer
12 7 (3.37%) Test Automation Engineer
13 6 (2.88%) Automation Tester
13 6 (2.88%) Junior
13 6 (2.88%) Software Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (17.79%) Playwright
2 15 (7.21%) CSS
3 14 (6.73%) HTML
4 9 (4.33%) Node.js
5 7 (3.37%) REST
6 5 (2.40%) pytest
7 4 (1.92%) .NET
7 4 (1.92%) Gherkin
7 4 (1.92%) Kafka
7 4 (1.92%) React
7 4 (1.92%) Terraform
8 3 (1.44%) Swagger
9 2 (0.96%) Flutter
9 2 (0.96%) JSON
10 1 (0.48%) ADO
10 1 (0.48%) GraphQL
10 1 (0.48%) GStreamer
10 1 (0.48%) Middleware
10 1 (0.48%) RabbitMQ
10 1 (0.48%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 55 (26.44%) Virtual Team
2 20 (9.62%) Product Ownership
3 16 (7.69%) Mobile App
4 6 (2.88%) Embedded Systems
5 4 (1.92%) Self-Driving Car
6 3 (1.44%) Greenfield Project
6 3 (1.44%) Hackathon
6 3 (1.44%) Housing Association
6 3 (1.44%) Management Information System
6 3 (1.44%) Onboarding
7 2 (0.96%) Client/Server
7 2 (0.96%) FMCG
7 2 (0.96%) Low-Code
7 2 (0.96%) NHS
8 1 (0.48%) Arduino
8 1 (0.48%) Cloud Native
8 1 (0.48%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.48%) IoT
8 1 (0.48%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (0.48%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 20 (9.62%) Windows
2 8 (3.85%) Linux
3 5 (2.40%) Android
4 4 (1.92%) Unix
5 3 (1.44%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.96%) Windows Server
7 1 (0.48%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 192 (92.31%) Test Automation
2 116 (55.77%) DevOps
3 114 (54.81%) Software Testing
4 113 (54.33%) Continuous Improvement
5 88 (42.31%) Test Strategy
6 80 (38.46%) Agile
7 78 (37.50%) Mentoring
8 69 (33.17%) CI/CD
9 64 (30.77%) Software Engineering
10 62 (29.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 57 (27.40%) Project Delivery
12 56 (26.92%) Data Management
13 55 (26.44%) Budget Management
13 55 (26.44%) Change Advisory Board
13 55 (26.44%) Enterprise Architecture
13 55 (26.44%) Performance Management
13 55 (26.44%) Programme Management
13 55 (26.44%) Strategic Planning
13 55 (26.44%) Virtual Team Management
14 51 (24.52%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 86 (41.35%) Python
2 82 (39.42%) JavaScript
3 71 (34.13%) C#
4 63 (30.29%) TypeScript
5 58 (27.88%) PowerShell
6 45 (21.63%) SQL
7 17 (8.17%) Java
8 9 (4.33%) MATLAB
9 4 (1.92%) Bash
10 1 (0.48%) C
10 1 (0.48%) C++
10 1 (0.48%) Groovy
10 1 (0.48%) Ruby
10 1 (0.48%) Scala
Qualifications
1 23 (11.06%) ISTQB
2 19 (9.13%) Security Cleared
3 17 (8.17%) Degree
4 16 (7.69%) SC Cleared
5 9 (4.33%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 6 (2.88%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (2.40%) HND
8 3 (1.44%) Chartered Engineer
8 3 (1.44%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.48%) DV Cleared
9 1 (0.48%) HNC
9 1 (0.48%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (70.19%) QA
2 11 (5.29%) Accessibility
3 5 (2.40%) Software Quality Assurance
4 3 (1.44%) ISO/IEC 12207
4 3 (1.44%) WAI
4 3 (1.44%) WAI-ARIA
4 3 (1.44%) WCAG
5 2 (0.96%) GDPR
System Software
1 4 (1.92%) Docker
2 3 (1.44%) Firmware
3 1 (0.48%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 4 (1.92%) Ansible
1 4 (1.92%) Grafana
2 3 (1.44%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.48%) Kibana
3 1 (0.48%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 24 (11.54%) Microsoft
2 10 (4.81%) Oracle
3 7 (3.37%) Salesforce
4 3 (1.44%) Databricks
4 3 (1.44%) ServiceNow
5 2 (0.96%) Google
6 1 (0.48%) Atlassian
6 1 (0.48%) Dynatrace
6 1 (0.48%) EMC
6 1 (0.48%) Pega