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 4 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 604 537 581
Rank change year-on-year -67 +44 -106
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 209 133 204
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.27% 0.27%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.24% 0.30% 0.34%
Number of salaries quoted 114 96 117
10th Percentile £30,425 £31,250 £33,750
25th Percentile £42,475 £41,575 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,750 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.21% -4.09% +10.00%
75th Percentile £60,764 £63,750 £65,250
90th Percentile £77,500 £72,500 £78,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,000 £45,000
% change year-on-year -3.85% +15.56% -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 86,432 44,324 60,758
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.12% 89.10% 81.90%
Number of salaries quoted 59,358 24,582 33,017
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,250 £32,500
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £59,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -6.78% -1.67%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £96,250
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 4 October 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 4 October 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 -55 167 £50,000 -3.85% 156
England -116 143 £50,000 -4.76% 205
Work from Home +8 104 £50,000 -5.66% 123
Northern Ireland -34 53 - - 10
South West -54 35 £50,000 +25.00% 14
London -77 30 £52,500 -4.55% 79
South East -54 29 £52,500 +14.13% 36
North of England -41 26 £50,000 +25.00% 44
North East - 12 £50,000 - 16
Midlands -40 11 £43,750 -18.22% 18
North West -12 10 £47,500 +5.56% 14
East of England -39 10 £48,250 -8.96% 13
East Midlands -40 8 £42,500 -26.09% 4
Yorkshire -42 4 - - 14
West Midlands -40 3 £47,500 +10.47% 14
Wales -70 3 £32,000 -46.67% 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 7 (3.35%) SharePoint
2 6 (2.87%) Confluence
3 3 (1.44%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 13 (6.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (4.78%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (3.35%) 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
Cloud Services
1 62 (29.67%) SaaS
2 41 (19.62%) Azure
3 29 (13.88%) Azure DevOps
4 15 (7.18%) AWS
5 13 (6.22%) GitHub
6 10 (4.78%) Power Platform
7 5 (2.39%) BrowserStack
7 5 (2.39%) GitHub Actions
8 3 (1.44%) GCP
8 3 (1.44%) PowerApps
9 2 (0.96%) GitHub Copilot
10 1 (0.48%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 1 (0.48%) Amazon ECS
10 1 (0.48%) Amazon EKS
10 1 (0.48%) AWS Lambda
10 1 (0.48%) Azure AKS
10 1 (0.48%) Azure Service Bus
10 1 (0.48%) Copilot Studio
10 1 (0.48%) Entra ID
10 1 (0.48%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.91%) 5G
1 4 (1.91%) SD-WAN
1 4 (1.91%) WAN
2 2 (0.96%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.48%) Broadband
3 1 (0.48%) HTTP
3 1 (0.48%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.87%) Power BI
2 2 (0.96%) Metadata
2 2 (0.96%) MongoDB
2 2 (0.96%) Relational Database
3 1 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
3 1 (0.48%) Flink
3 1 (0.48%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.48%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.48%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 46 (22.01%) Selenium
2 20 (9.57%) JIRA
3 18 (8.61%) Postman
4 17 (8.13%) Jenkins
5 15 (7.18%) Cypress.io
6 14 (6.70%) Git
7 9 (4.31%) JMeter
8 7 (3.35%) SpecFlow
9 6 (2.87%) LabVIEW
9 6 (2.87%) REST Assured
9 6 (2.87%) Zephyr
10 5 (2.39%) GitLab
10 5 (2.39%) JUnit
11 4 (1.91%) Appium
11 4 (1.91%) Gatling
11 4 (1.91%) TestNG
11 4 (1.91%) TestRail
12 3 (1.44%) Bugzilla
12 3 (1.44%) Katalon Studio
13 2 (0.96%) Maven
General
1 106 (50.72%) Social Skills
2 55 (26.32%) Legal
3 42 (20.10%) Analytical Skills
4 28 (13.40%) Law
5 22 (10.53%) Finance
6 17 (8.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 17 (8.13%) Public Sector
7 11 (5.26%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (4.78%) Retail
9 7 (3.35%) Electronics
10 5 (2.39%) Aviation
11 4 (1.91%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (1.44%) Advertising
12 3 (1.44%) Aerospace
12 3 (1.44%) Automotive
12 3 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (1.44%) Publishing
13 2 (0.96%) Back Office
13 2 (0.96%) Military
14 1 (0.48%) Games
Job Titles
1 84 (40.19%) Senior
2 57 (27.27%) Testing Manager
3 55 (26.32%) Senior Manager
4 40 (19.14%) Test Engineer
5 33 (15.79%) Analyst
6 31 (14.83%) QA Engineer
7 24 (11.48%) Tester
8 20 (9.57%) Test Analyst
9 16 (7.66%) Automation Engineer
9 16 (7.66%) QA Automation Engineer
10 12 (5.74%) Lead
10 12 (5.74%) Senior QA Engineer
10 12 (5.74%) Senior Test Engineer
11 7 (3.35%) DevOps Engineer
11 7 (3.35%) Junior
11 7 (3.35%) Lead DevOps
11 7 (3.35%) Lead DevOps Engineer
11 7 (3.35%) Test Automation Engineer
12 6 (2.87%) Automation Tester
12 6 (2.87%) Junior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (18.18%) Playwright
2 16 (7.66%) CSS
3 15 (7.18%) HTML
4 11 (5.26%) Node.js
5 7 (3.35%) REST
6 4 (1.91%) Gherkin
6 4 (1.91%) Kafka
6 4 (1.91%) pytest
6 4 (1.91%) React
6 4 (1.91%) Terraform
7 3 (1.44%) .NET
7 3 (1.44%) Swagger
8 2 (0.96%) Flutter
8 2 (0.96%) JSON
9 1 (0.48%) GraphQL
9 1 (0.48%) Lightning Web Components
9 1 (0.48%) Microsoft Graph
9 1 (0.48%) Spring Boot
9 1 (0.48%) WebdriverIO
9 1 (0.48%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 55 (26.32%) Virtual Team
2 20 (9.57%) Product Ownership
3 16 (7.66%) Mobile App
4 4 (1.91%) Embedded Systems
4 4 (1.91%) Self-Driving Car
5 3 (1.44%) Client/Server
5 3 (1.44%) FMCG
5 3 (1.44%) Greenfield Project
5 3 (1.44%) Hackathon
5 3 (1.44%) Housing Association
5 3 (1.44%) Management Information System
5 3 (1.44%) Onboarding
6 2 (0.96%) Life Science
6 2 (0.96%) Low-Code
6 2 (0.96%) NHS
7 1 (0.48%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (0.48%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.48%) Operational Technology
7 1 (0.48%) PropTech
7 1 (0.48%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 22 (10.53%) Windows
2 9 (4.31%) Linux
3 5 (2.39%) Android
4 4 (1.91%) Unix
5 3 (1.44%) Apple iOS
5 3 (1.44%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.48%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 191 (91.39%) Test Automation
2 115 (55.02%) Continuous Improvement
3 114 (54.55%) Software Testing
4 112 (53.59%) DevOps
5 85 (40.67%) Test Strategy
6 79 (37.80%) Agile
7 78 (37.32%) Mentoring
8 68 (32.54%) CI/CD
9 63 (30.14%) Software Engineering
10 62 (29.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 57 (27.27%) Project Delivery
12 56 (26.79%) Data Management
13 55 (26.32%) Budget Management
13 55 (26.32%) Change Advisory Board
13 55 (26.32%) Enterprise Architecture
13 55 (26.32%) Performance Management
13 55 (26.32%) Programme Management
13 55 (26.32%) Strategic Planning
13 55 (26.32%) Virtual Team Management
14 52 (24.88%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 86 (41.15%) Python
2 85 (40.67%) JavaScript
3 70 (33.49%) C#
4 63 (30.14%) TypeScript
5 59 (28.23%) PowerShell
6 47 (22.49%) SQL
7 17 (8.13%) Java
8 9 (4.31%) MATLAB
9 5 (2.39%) Bash
10 1 (0.48%) Apex Code
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
10 1 (0.48%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 21 (10.05%) ISTQB
2 20 (9.57%) Security Cleared
3 17 (8.13%) SC Cleared
4 16 (7.66%) Degree
5 8 (3.83%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 6 (2.87%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (2.39%) HND
8 3 (1.44%) Chartered Engineer
9 1 (0.48%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.48%) DV Cleared
9 1 (0.48%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (70.33%) QA
2 11 (5.26%) Accessibility
3 5 (2.39%) 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
6 1 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (0.48%) IASME
6 1 (0.48%) NCSC
System Software
1 4 (1.91%) Docker
2 3 (1.44%) Firmware
3 2 (0.96%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 4 (1.91%) Ansible
1 4 (1.91%) Grafana
2 3 (1.44%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.48%) Kibana
3 1 (0.48%) Nessus
3 1 (0.48%) Nmap
3 1 (0.48%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 24 (11.48%) Microsoft
2 9 (4.31%) Oracle
3 5 (2.39%) 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
6 1 (0.48%) Qualys