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 21 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 598 479 602
Rank change year-on-year -119 +123 -103
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 134 187 298
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.15% 0.43% 0.31%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.20% 0.46% 0.36%
Number of salaries quoted 91 139 262
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,500 £35,075
25th Percentile £42,500 £37,500 £36,365
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £47,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £57,500 £62,500 £57,500
90th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £86,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £42,500 £42,500
% change year-on-year +11.76% - -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 67,989 40,970 82,440
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.70% 93.29% 84.80%
Number of salaries quoted 43,964 22,120 59,644
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,750 £41,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £58,033 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.39% +5.51% -10.10%
75th Percentile £78,750 £78,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £51,887 £50,000
% change year-on-year +1.18% +3.77% -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 21 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Manual Testing in the UK

Manual Testing
Top 15 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 21 May 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 -110 121 £50,000 +5.26% 53
UK excluding London -86 92 £47,500 +11.76% 45
Work from Home -21 33 £48,750 -8.02% 29
South West -40 32 £47,500 +18.75% 6
London -56 30 £55,000 -14.06% 16
South East -37 23 £48,750 +2.63% 14
North of England -38 16 £50,000 +16.62% 10
Midlands -38 13 £30,000 -31.03% 5
North West +8 12 £50,000 +13.31% 7
East Midlands -21 11 £30,000 -47.83% 1
East of England -23 6 £45,000 -15.09% 4
Wales -31 2 £25,000 - 3
Yorkshire -40 2 £50,000 +58.73% 2
North East -44 2 £55,000 +59.42% 1
West Midlands -52 2 £56,250 +35.54% 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 (2.24%) Confluence
2 1 (0.75%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (2.24%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.49%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.75%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 57 (42.54%) Azure
2 41 (30.60%) Azure DevOps
3 19 (14.18%) AWS
4 13 (9.70%) GCP
5 11 (8.21%) BrowserStack
6 3 (2.24%) SaaS
7 2 (1.49%) Azure Service Bus
7 2 (1.49%) Power Platform
8 1 (0.75%) Algolia
8 1 (0.75%) AWS CodePipeline
8 1 (0.75%) Azure Data Factory
8 1 (0.75%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 1 (0.75%) BlazeMeter
8 1 (0.75%) Copilot Studio
8 1 (0.75%) GitHub
8 1 (0.75%) Microsoft 365
8 1 (0.75%) Microsoft Copilot
8 1 (0.75%) SonarCloud
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.24%) Cisco ISE
2 2 (1.49%) HTTP
2 2 (1.49%) SD-WAN
2 2 (1.49%) WAN
3 1 (0.75%) 5G
3 1 (0.75%) Broadband
3 1 (0.75%) Cisco IOS
3 1 (0.75%) Ethernet
3 1 (0.75%) FTP
3 1 (0.75%) SNMP
3 1 (0.75%) Spanning Tree
3 1 (0.75%) SSH
3 1 (0.75%) TACACS
3 1 (0.75%) VoIP
3 1 (0.75%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.99%) SQL Server
2 3 (2.24%) Metadata
2 3 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (2.24%) Relational Database
3 2 (1.49%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (1.49%) DB2
4 1 (0.75%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.75%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.75%) Oracle Database
4 1 (0.75%) Power BI
4 1 (0.75%) Power Query
4 1 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 36 (26.87%) Selenium
2 23 (17.16%) JIRA
3 21 (15.67%) Cypress.io
4 18 (13.43%) Postman
5 11 (8.21%) Jenkins
6 8 (5.97%) Zephyr
7 7 (5.22%) Git
8 6 (4.48%) SpecFlow
9 4 (2.99%) Cucumber
9 4 (2.99%) JUnit
9 4 (2.99%) Subversion
9 4 (2.99%) TestRail
10 3 (2.24%) Bitbucket
10 3 (2.24%) GitLab
10 3 (2.24%) REST Assured
10 3 (2.24%) SoapUI
10 3 (2.24%) TeamCity
11 2 (1.49%) JMeter
11 2 (1.49%) webpack
12 1 (0.75%) LabVIEW
General
1 31 (23.13%) Social Skills
2 19 (14.18%) Finance
3 14 (10.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 12 (8.96%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (3.73%) Digital Healthcare
6 4 (2.99%) Advertising
6 4 (2.99%) Banking
7 3 (2.24%) Aerospace
7 3 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
7 3 (2.24%) Public Sector
7 3 (2.24%) Retail
8 2 (1.49%) Back Office
8 2 (1.49%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (1.49%) Electronics
8 2 (1.49%) Law
8 2 (1.49%) Military
9 1 (0.75%) Aviation
9 1 (0.75%) Games
9 1 (0.75%) Tech for Good
9 1 (0.75%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 29 (21.64%) Test Engineer
2 23 (17.16%) Lead
3 21 (15.67%) QA Engineer
4 18 (13.43%) Tester
5 17 (12.69%) Senior
6 16 (11.94%) QA Leader
7 14 (10.45%) Test Leader
8 10 (7.46%) Software Engineer
9 9 (6.72%) Automation Engineer
9 9 (6.72%) QA Automation Engineer
9 9 (6.72%) Software Test Engineer
10 8 (5.97%) Analyst
10 8 (5.97%) Development Engineer
10 8 (5.97%) Graduate
10 8 (5.97%) Software Development Engineer
10 8 (5.97%) Test Development Engineer
11 7 (5.22%) Junior
11 7 (5.22%) Quality Engineer
11 7 (5.22%) Test Analyst
11 7 (5.22%) Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (23.88%) Playwright
2 4 (2.99%) .NET
2 4 (2.99%) CSS
2 4 (2.99%) HTML
2 4 (2.99%) Swagger
3 3 (2.24%) React
3 3 (2.24%) REST
3 3 (2.24%) RESTful
4 2 (1.49%) CSS3
4 2 (1.49%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (1.49%) Gherkin
4 2 (1.49%) HTML5
4 2 (1.49%) Kafka
4 2 (1.49%) Laravel
4 2 (1.49%) pytest
4 2 (1.49%) Sass
4 2 (1.49%) Vue
5 1 (0.75%) .NET Framework
5 1 (0.75%) RabbitMQ
5 1 (0.75%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 13 (9.70%) Product Ownership
2 3 (2.24%) Enterprise Software
2 3 (2.24%) Housing Association
2 3 (2.24%) Self-Motivation
3 2 (1.49%) Analytical Mindset
3 2 (1.49%) Embedded Systems
3 2 (1.49%) Greenfield Project
3 2 (1.49%) Hackathon
3 2 (1.49%) NHS
3 2 (1.49%) Onboarding
4 1 (0.75%) Distributed Systems
4 1 (0.75%) Low-Code
4 1 (0.75%) Management Information System
4 1 (0.75%) Mobile App
4 1 (0.75%) Reinsurance
4 1 (0.75%) Self-Driving Car
4 1 (0.75%) Video\Live Streaming
4 1 (0.75%) Virtual Team
4 1 (0.75%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 9 (6.72%) Windows
2 4 (2.99%) Windows Server
2 4 (2.99%) Windows Server 2019
3 2 (1.49%) Linux
4 1 (0.75%) Ubuntu
4 1 (0.75%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 118 (88.06%) Test Automation
2 70 (52.24%) CI/CD
3 60 (44.78%) Agile
3 60 (44.78%) Software Testing
4 53 (39.55%) DevOps
5 40 (29.85%) Regression Testing
6 39 (29.10%) Continuous Improvement
7 37 (27.61%) Test Strategy
8 33 (24.63%) API Testing
8 33 (24.63%) SDLC
9 28 (20.90%) User Acceptance Testing
10 27 (20.15%) Scrum
11 25 (18.66%) Acceptance Criteria
11 25 (18.66%) Test Scripting
12 23 (17.16%) Defect Management
13 20 (14.93%) Mentoring
14 15 (11.19%) Coaching
14 15 (11.19%) Continuous Integration
14 15 (11.19%) Customer Service
15 14 (10.45%) Performance Testing
Programming Languages
1 22 (16.42%) SQL
2 19 (14.18%) JavaScript
3 16 (11.94%) TypeScript
4 14 (10.45%) C#
5 11 (8.21%) Python
6 6 (4.48%) Java
7 4 (2.99%) MATLAB
8 3 (2.24%) Bash
9 2 (1.49%) C++
9 2 (1.49%) COBOL
9 2 (1.49%) PHP
9 2 (1.49%) PowerShell
9 2 (1.49%) RPG
10 1 (0.75%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 35 (26.12%) ISTQB
2 18 (13.43%) Degree
3 16 (11.94%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 9 (6.72%) Security Cleared
5 6 (4.48%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (2.99%) BPSS Clearance
7 3 (2.24%) Chartered Engineer
7 3 (2.24%) DV Cleared
8 2 (1.49%) Master's Degree
8 2 (1.49%) SC Cleared
9 1 (0.75%) HND
9 1 (0.75%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 60 (44.78%) QA
2 29 (21.64%) Accessibility
3 3 (2.24%) ISO/IEC 12207
4 2 (1.49%) GDPR
4 2 (1.49%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.75%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.75%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 5 (3.73%) Active Directory
2 3 (2.24%) Docker
2 3 (2.24%) Terminal Server
2 3 (2.24%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 4 (2.99%) SCCM
1 4 (2.99%) SCOM
2 3 (2.24%) Kubernetes
3 2 (1.49%) Ansible
3 2 (1.49%) Terraform
4 1 (0.75%) Grafana
4 1 (0.75%) Kibana
Vendors
1 12 (8.96%) Microsoft
2 8 (5.97%) Salesforce
3 5 (3.73%) ServiceNow
4 4 (2.99%) Cisco
4 4 (2.99%) VMware
5 3 (2.24%) Juniper
5 3 (2.24%) McAfee
6 2 (1.49%) HP
6 2 (1.49%) IBM
7 1 (0.75%) Dynatrace
7 1 (0.75%) Meraki
7 1 (0.75%) Oracle
7 1 (0.75%) Pega