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 13 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 539 470 536
Rank change year-on-year -69 +66 -43
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 146 191 307
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.20% 0.44% 0.37%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.25% 0.47% 0.42%
Number of salaries quoted 104 144 277
10th Percentile £30,750 £32,150 £33,750
25th Percentile £39,375 £37,500 £36,365
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £47,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £57,625 £65,000 £57,500
90th Percentile £65,000 £70,125 £80,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £44,500 £42,500
% change year-on-year +6.74% +4.71% -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 57,551 40,867 73,360
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 78.05% 93.60% 87.39%
Number of salaries quoted 34,815 22,139 55,867
10th Percentile £29,750 £32,500 £29,000
25th Percentile £39,860 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.41%
75th Percentile £76,299 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £94,006
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 13 March 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 13 March 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 -49 134 £50,000 +5.26% 64
UK excluding London -53 97 £47,500 +6.74% 51
Work from Home -12 40 £45,000 -10.00% 35
London -8 39 £55,000 -15.38% 20
South West -4 33 £47,500 +18.75% 7
South East -32 26 £52,500 +10.53% 19
Midlands -30 20 £36,250 -19.44% 10
East Midlands -28 16 £32,500 -40.91% 2
North of England -55 8 £50,000 +17.65% 9
East of England -1 7 £45,000 +20.00% 4
West Midlands -18 4 £47,500 +11.76% 8
North West -22 4 £50,000 +13.31% 6
Wales -13 2 £25,000 - 2
North East -27 2 £55,000 +61.76% 1
Yorkshire -57 2 £50,000 +61.33% 2
Northern Ireland - 1 £52,500 -

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 (2.05%) Confluence
2 1 (0.68%) Apache
2 1 (0.68%) CMS
2 1 (0.68%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (2.05%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.68%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 9 (6.16%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (2.05%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.68%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.68%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 51 (34.93%) Azure
2 42 (28.77%) Azure DevOps
3 18 (12.33%) AWS
4 12 (8.22%) GCP
5 10 (6.85%) BrowserStack
6 5 (3.42%) Power Platform
6 5 (3.42%) SaaS
7 2 (1.37%) AWS CloudFormation
7 2 (1.37%) Dynamics 365
8 1 (0.68%) Algolia
8 1 (0.68%) Azure Data Factory
8 1 (0.68%) Azure Service Bus
8 1 (0.68%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 1 (0.68%) Power Automate
8 1 (0.68%) Snowflake
8 1 (0.68%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.05%) Cisco ISE
2 2 (1.37%) HTTP
3 1 (0.68%) Cisco IOS
3 1 (0.68%) Ethernet
3 1 (0.68%) FTP
3 1 (0.68%) SD-WAN
3 1 (0.68%) SNMP
3 1 (0.68%) Spanning Tree
3 1 (0.68%) SSH
3 1 (0.68%) TACACS
3 1 (0.68%) WAN
3 1 (0.68%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (5.48%) Relational Database
2 3 (2.05%) SQL Server
3 2 (1.37%) DB2
3 2 (1.37%) Metadata
3 2 (1.37%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.68%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.68%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.68%) Oracle Database
4 1 (0.68%) Power BI
4 1 (0.68%) Power Query
4 1 (0.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 33 (22.60%) Selenium
2 31 (21.23%) JIRA
3 22 (15.07%) Cypress.io
4 15 (10.27%) Postman
5 9 (6.16%) eCATT
5 9 (6.16%) Jenkins
6 5 (3.42%) Git
6 5 (3.42%) GitLab
7 4 (2.74%) SoapUI
7 4 (2.74%) Subversion
7 4 (2.74%) TestRail
8 3 (2.05%) Cucumber
8 3 (2.05%) SpecFlow
8 3 (2.05%) Zephyr
9 2 (1.37%) Bitbucket
9 2 (1.37%) REST Assured
9 2 (1.37%) Robot Framework
9 2 (1.37%) TeamCity
9 2 (1.37%) Visual Studio
9 2 (1.37%) webpack
General
1 35 (23.97%) Social Skills
2 22 (15.07%) Finance
3 21 (14.38%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (8.90%) Marketing
5 10 (6.85%) Manufacturing
6 9 (6.16%) Influencing Skills
6 9 (6.16%) Presentation Skills
7 8 (5.48%) Banking
8 5 (3.42%) Digital Healthcare
9 4 (2.74%) Back Office
9 4 (2.74%) Tech for Good
10 3 (2.05%) Health Technology
10 3 (2.05%) Public Sector
10 3 (2.05%) Retail
11 2 (1.37%) Aerospace
11 2 (1.37%) Documentation Skills
11 2 (1.37%) Games
11 2 (1.37%) Law
11 2 (1.37%) Legal
11 2 (1.37%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 28 (19.18%) Lead
2 27 (18.49%) Analyst
3 26 (17.81%) Tester
4 24 (16.44%) Test Analyst
5 21 (14.38%) QA Engineer
5 21 (14.38%) Test Engineer
6 20 (13.70%) QA Leader
7 16 (10.96%) Test Leader
8 13 (8.90%) Senior
9 12 (8.22%) Test Automation Engineer
10 10 (6.85%) Software Engineer
11 9 (6.16%) Automation Test Analyst
12 8 (5.48%) Automation Engineer
12 8 (5.48%) Development Engineer
12 8 (5.48%) Graduate
12 8 (5.48%) Junior
12 8 (5.48%) Manual Tester
12 8 (5.48%) QA Analyst
12 8 (5.48%) Software Development Engineer
12 8 (5.48%) Test Development Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (26.03%) Playwright
2 9 (6.16%) CSS
2 9 (6.16%) HTML
3 7 (4.79%) React
4 6 (4.11%) .NET
5 5 (3.42%) XML
6 4 (2.74%) Elastic Stack
7 3 (2.05%) FIX Protocol
8 2 (1.37%) AngularJS
8 2 (1.37%) CSS3
8 2 (1.37%) Gherkin
8 2 (1.37%) HTML5
8 2 (1.37%) Laravel
8 2 (1.37%) pytest
8 2 (1.37%) REST
8 2 (1.37%) RESTful
8 2 (1.37%) Sass
8 2 (1.37%) Vue
9 1 (0.68%) GraphQL
9 1 (0.68%) React Native
Miscellaneous
1 9 (6.16%) Product Ownership
2 4 (2.74%) Analytical Mindset
2 4 (2.74%) Derivative
2 4 (2.74%) Equities
2 4 (2.74%) Fixed Income
3 3 (2.05%) Enterprise Software
3 3 (2.05%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 3 (2.05%) IoT
3 3 (2.05%) Mobile App
3 3 (2.05%) Self-Motivation
3 3 (2.05%) Virtual Team
4 2 (1.37%) Greenfield Project
4 2 (1.37%) Low-Code
5 1 (0.68%) Management Information System
5 1 (0.68%) Security Posture
5 1 (0.68%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 8 (5.48%) Windows
2 7 (4.79%) Linux
3 4 (2.74%) Windows Server
3 4 (2.74%) Windows Server 2019
4 1 (0.68%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 123 (84.25%) Test Automation
2 63 (43.15%) CI/CD
3 58 (39.73%) Software Testing
4 54 (36.99%) Agile
5 52 (35.62%) Regression Testing
6 43 (29.45%) Continuous Improvement
6 43 (29.45%) DevOps
7 41 (28.08%) Test Scripting
8 40 (27.40%) API Testing
9 33 (22.60%) SDLC
10 27 (18.49%) User Acceptance Testing
11 26 (17.81%) Test Strategy
12 25 (17.12%) Acceptance Criteria
13 22 (15.07%) Scrum
14 19 (13.01%) Non-Functional Testing
14 19 (13.01%) Performance Testing
15 18 (12.33%) Defect Management
15 18 (12.33%) End-to-End Testing
15 18 (12.33%) Scenario Testing
16 17 (11.64%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 36 (24.66%) SQL
2 30 (20.55%) JavaScript
3 21 (14.38%) TypeScript
4 18 (12.33%) C#
5 14 (9.59%) Python
6 8 (5.48%) Java
7 6 (4.11%) Bash
8 3 (2.05%) PHP
8 3 (2.05%) PowerShell
9 2 (1.37%) C++
9 2 (1.37%) COBOL
9 2 (1.37%) RPG
Qualifications
1 42 (28.77%) ISTQB
2 20 (13.70%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
3 17 (11.64%) Degree
4 12 (8.22%) Security Cleared
5 7 (4.79%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (3.42%) DV Cleared
6 5 (3.42%) ISEB
7 4 (2.74%) SC Cleared
8 3 (2.05%) Master's Degree
9 1 (0.68%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (46.58%) QA
2 30 (20.55%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.37%) Data Quality
3 2 (1.37%) Section 508
3 2 (1.37%) WCAG
4 1 (0.68%) GDPR
4 1 (0.68%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 5 (3.42%) Active Directory
1 5 (3.42%) Docker
2 3 (2.05%) Terminal Server
2 3 (2.05%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 10 (6.85%) HP ALM
2 5 (3.42%) Kubernetes
2 5 (3.42%) Terraform
3 4 (2.74%) SCCM
3 4 (2.74%) SCOM
4 3 (2.05%) Ansible
5 2 (1.37%) Grafana
5 2 (1.37%) Nessus
5 2 (1.37%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 12 (8.22%) HP
2 10 (6.85%) SAP
3 5 (3.42%) Microsoft
4 4 (2.74%) Cisco
4 4 (2.74%) Oracle
4 4 (2.74%) VMware
5 3 (2.05%) Juniper
5 3 (2.05%) McAfee
6 2 (1.37%) IBM
6 2 (1.37%) ServiceNow
6 2 (1.37%) Siebel
7 1 (0.68%) Charles River
7 1 (0.68%) Genesys
7 1 (0.68%) Meraki
7 1 (0.68%) Murex
7 1 (0.68%) Splunk