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

6 months to
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 535 475 547
Rank change year-on-year -60 +72 -57
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 143 189 308
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.20% 0.43% 0.37%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.25% 0.46% 0.42%
Number of salaries quoted 104 140 278
10th Percentile £32,500 £32,000 £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 £64,063 £57,500
90th Percentile £65,000 £71,250 £80,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £45,000 £42,500
% change year-on-year +5.56% +5.88% -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 56,972 41,045 73,238
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 78.05% 93.61% 87.51%
Number of salaries quoted 34,330 22,188 55,854
10th Percentile £29,750 £32,500 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.31%
75th Percentile £77,419 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £94,500
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 11 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 11 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 -67 133 £50,000 +5.26% 66
UK excluding London -50 95 £47,500 +5.56% 52
Work from Home -7 39 £45,000 -10.00% 36
London -8 39 £55,000 -15.38% 21
South West +1 34 £47,500 +18.75% 8
South East -26 25 £52,500 +10.53% 20
Midlands -22 20 £37,500 -16.67% 9
East Midlands -30 15 £32,500 -40.91% 2
East of England +1 7 £45,000 +12.50% 5
North of England -51 7 £50,000 +15.61% 8
West Midlands -15 5 £53,500 +22.99% 7
North West -19 3 £50,000 +11.11% 5
North East -21 2 £55,000 +61.76% 1
Yorkshire -44 2 £50,000 +61.33% 2
Wales -12 1 £25,000 - 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 (2.10%) Confluence
2 1 (0.70%) Apache
2 1 (0.70%) CMS
2 1 (0.70%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (2.10%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.70%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.70%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 9 (6.29%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (2.10%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.70%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.70%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 52 (36.36%) Azure
2 43 (30.07%) Azure DevOps
3 18 (12.59%) AWS
4 12 (8.39%) GCP
5 10 (6.99%) BrowserStack
6 5 (3.50%) Power Platform
6 5 (3.50%) SaaS
7 2 (1.40%) AWS CloudFormation
7 2 (1.40%) Dynamics 365
8 1 (0.70%) Algolia
8 1 (0.70%) Azure Data Factory
8 1 (0.70%) Azure Service Bus
8 1 (0.70%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 1 (0.70%) Power Automate
8 1 (0.70%) Snowflake
8 1 (0.70%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.40%) Cisco ISE
1 2 (1.40%) HTTP
2 1 (0.70%) Cisco IOS
2 1 (0.70%) Ethernet
2 1 (0.70%) FTP
2 1 (0.70%) SD-WAN
2 1 (0.70%) SNMP
2 1 (0.70%) Spanning Tree
2 1 (0.70%) SSH
2 1 (0.70%) TACACS
2 1 (0.70%) WAN
2 1 (0.70%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (6.29%) Relational Database
2 3 (2.10%) SQL Server
3 2 (1.40%) DB2
3 2 (1.40%) Metadata
3 2 (1.40%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.70%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.70%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.70%) Oracle Database
4 1 (0.70%) Power BI
4 1 (0.70%) Power Query
4 1 (0.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 33 (23.08%) Selenium
2 30 (20.98%) JIRA
3 22 (15.38%) Cypress.io
4 15 (10.49%) Postman
5 9 (6.29%) eCATT
5 9 (6.29%) Jenkins
6 5 (3.50%) Git
6 5 (3.50%) GitLab
7 4 (2.80%) SoapUI
7 4 (2.80%) TestRail
8 3 (2.10%) Cucumber
8 3 (2.10%) SpecFlow
8 3 (2.10%) Subversion
8 3 (2.10%) Zephyr
9 2 (1.40%) Bitbucket
9 2 (1.40%) LoadRunner
9 2 (1.40%) Robot Framework
9 2 (1.40%) TeamCity
9 2 (1.40%) Visual Studio
9 2 (1.40%) webpack
General
1 33 (23.08%) Social Skills
2 22 (15.38%) Analytical Skills
3 21 (14.69%) Finance
4 13 (9.09%) Marketing
5 10 (6.99%) Manufacturing
6 9 (6.29%) Influencing Skills
6 9 (6.29%) Presentation Skills
7 8 (5.59%) Banking
8 5 (3.50%) Digital Healthcare
9 4 (2.80%) Tech for Good
10 3 (2.10%) Back Office
10 3 (2.10%) Health Technology
10 3 (2.10%) Law
10 3 (2.10%) Public Sector
10 3 (2.10%) Retail
11 2 (1.40%) Aerospace
11 2 (1.40%) Documentation Skills
11 2 (1.40%) Games
11 2 (1.40%) Legal
11 2 (1.40%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 28 (19.58%) Analyst
2 27 (18.88%) Lead
2 27 (18.88%) Tester
3 24 (16.78%) Test Analyst
4 21 (14.69%) QA Engineer
5 20 (13.99%) QA Leader
6 19 (13.29%) Test Engineer
7 16 (11.19%) Test Leader
8 12 (8.39%) Senior
8 12 (8.39%) Test Automation Engineer
9 9 (6.29%) Automation Test Analyst
9 9 (6.29%) Software Engineer
10 8 (5.59%) Automation Engineer
10 8 (5.59%) Development Engineer
10 8 (5.59%) Graduate
10 8 (5.59%) Manual Tester
10 8 (5.59%) QA Analyst
10 8 (5.59%) Software Development Engineer
10 8 (5.59%) Test Development Engineer
11 7 (4.90%) QA Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (26.57%) Playwright
2 9 (6.29%) CSS
2 9 (6.29%) HTML
3 7 (4.90%) React
4 6 (4.20%) .NET
5 5 (3.50%) XML
6 4 (2.80%) Elastic Stack
7 3 (2.10%) FIX Protocol
8 2 (1.40%) AngularJS
8 2 (1.40%) CSS3
8 2 (1.40%) Gherkin
8 2 (1.40%) HTML5
8 2 (1.40%) pytest
8 2 (1.40%) REST
8 2 (1.40%) RESTful
8 2 (1.40%) Sass
9 1 (0.70%) .NET Core
9 1 (0.70%) GraphQL
9 1 (0.70%) Laravel
9 1 (0.70%) WebAssembly
Miscellaneous
1 9 (6.29%) Product Ownership
2 4 (2.80%) Analytical Mindset
2 4 (2.80%) Derivative
2 4 (2.80%) Equities
2 4 (2.80%) Fixed Income
3 3 (2.10%) Enterprise Software
3 3 (2.10%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 3 (2.10%) IoT
3 3 (2.10%) Mobile App
3 3 (2.10%) Virtual Team
4 2 (1.40%) Greenfield Project
4 2 (1.40%) Low-Code
4 2 (1.40%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (0.70%) Cyber Defence
5 1 (0.70%) Operational Technology
5 1 (0.70%) Security Posture
5 1 (0.70%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 7 (4.90%) Linux
1 7 (4.90%) Windows
2 3 (2.10%) Windows Server
2 3 (2.10%) Windows Server 2019
3 1 (0.70%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (83.92%) Test Automation
2 61 (42.66%) CI/CD
3 57 (39.86%) Software Testing
4 52 (36.36%) Regression Testing
5 51 (35.66%) Agile
6 44 (30.77%) DevOps
7 41 (28.67%) API Testing
8 40 (27.97%) Continuous Improvement
9 39 (27.27%) Test Scripting
10 33 (23.08%) SDLC
11 26 (18.18%) User Acceptance Testing
12 25 (17.48%) Test Strategy
13 24 (16.78%) Acceptance Criteria
14 22 (15.38%) Scrum
15 19 (13.29%) Non-Functional Testing
15 19 (13.29%) Performance Testing
16 18 (12.59%) Problem-Solving
16 18 (12.59%) Scenario Testing
17 17 (11.89%) Defect Management
17 17 (11.89%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 36 (25.17%) SQL
2 30 (20.98%) JavaScript
3 21 (14.69%) TypeScript
4 18 (12.59%) C#
5 14 (9.79%) Python
6 8 (5.59%) Java
7 6 (4.20%) Bash
8 3 (2.10%) PowerShell
9 2 (1.40%) C++
9 2 (1.40%) COBOL
9 2 (1.40%) PHP
9 2 (1.40%) RPG
Qualifications
1 42 (29.37%) ISTQB
2 20 (13.99%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
3 17 (11.89%) Degree
4 13 (9.09%) Security Cleared
5 7 (4.90%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (3.50%) DV Cleared
6 5 (3.50%) ISEB
6 5 (3.50%) SC Cleared
7 3 (2.10%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.70%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (47.55%) QA
2 29 (20.28%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.40%) Data Quality
3 2 (1.40%) Section 508
3 2 (1.40%) WCAG
4 1 (0.70%) GDPR
4 1 (0.70%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 5 (3.50%) Docker
2 4 (2.80%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.40%) Terminal Server
3 2 (1.40%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 10 (6.99%) HP ALM
2 5 (3.50%) Kubernetes
2 5 (3.50%) Terraform
3 3 (2.10%) Ansible
3 3 (2.10%) SCCM
3 3 (2.10%) SCOM
4 2 (1.40%) Grafana
4 2 (1.40%) Nessus
4 2 (1.40%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 12 (8.39%) HP
2 10 (6.99%) SAP
3 5 (3.50%) Microsoft
4 4 (2.80%) Oracle
5 3 (2.10%) Cisco
5 3 (2.10%) VMware
6 2 (1.40%) IBM
6 2 (1.40%) Juniper
6 2 (1.40%) McAfee
6 2 (1.40%) ServiceNow
6 2 (1.40%) Siebel
7 1 (0.70%) Charles River
7 1 (0.70%) Genesys
7 1 (0.70%) Meraki
7 1 (0.70%) Murex
7 1 (0.70%) Splunk