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

6 months to
20 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 539 476 536
Rank change year-on-year -63 +60 -26
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 151 179 306
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.20% 0.42% 0.36%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.26% 0.45% 0.41%
Number of salaries quoted 107 136 274
10th Percentile £31,500 £32,000 £33,750
25th Percentile £40,625 £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 £57,500 £63,375 £56,250
90th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £79,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £43,250 £42,500
% change year-on-year +9.83% +1.76% -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 58,555 39,559 74,495
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 77.69% 93.50% 87.13%
Number of salaries quoted 35,503 22,222 56,291
10th Percentile £29,750 £31,750 £29,035
25th Percentile £40,000 £43,910 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.29%
75th Percentile £77,500 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,410 £93,750
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 20 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 20 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 -53 139 £50,000 +5.26% 53
UK excluding London -44 102 £47,500 +9.83% 42
Work from Home -7 42 £45,000 -10.00% 30
London -21 39 £55,000 -15.38% 16
South West -12 34 £47,500 +18.75% 6
South East -30 27 £52,500 +10.53% 18
Midlands -34 21 £36,250 -19.44% 8
East Midlands -46 17 £32,500 -40.91% 2
North of England -54 10 £50,000 +47.06% 6
East of England -10 7 £45,000 +20.00% 3
North West -24 5 £46,250 +4.82% 3
West Midlands -7 4 £47,500 +11.76% 6
Yorkshire -47 3 £50,000 +69.49% 2
Wales -21 2 £25,000 - 1
North East -28 2 £55,000 +61.76% 1
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 (1.99%) Confluence
2 1 (0.66%) Apache
2 1 (0.66%) CMS
2 1 (0.66%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (1.99%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.66%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 9 (5.96%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (1.99%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.66%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.66%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 52 (34.44%) Azure
2 42 (27.81%) Azure DevOps
3 20 (13.25%) AWS
4 13 (8.61%) GCP
5 11 (7.28%) BrowserStack
6 5 (3.31%) Power Platform
6 5 (3.31%) SaaS
7 2 (1.32%) AWS CloudFormation
7 2 (1.32%) Dynamics 365
8 1 (0.66%) Algolia
8 1 (0.66%) Azure Data Factory
8 1 (0.66%) Azure Service Bus
8 1 (0.66%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 1 (0.66%) Power Automate
8 1 (0.66%) Snowflake
8 1 (0.66%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.99%) Cisco ISE
2 2 (1.32%) HTTP
3 1 (0.66%) Cisco IOS
3 1 (0.66%) Ethernet
3 1 (0.66%) FTP
3 1 (0.66%) SD-WAN
3 1 (0.66%) SNMP
3 1 (0.66%) Spanning Tree
3 1 (0.66%) SSH
3 1 (0.66%) TACACS
3 1 (0.66%) WAN
3 1 (0.66%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (5.30%) Relational Database
2 3 (1.99%) SQL Server
3 2 (1.32%) DB2
3 2 (1.32%) Metadata
3 2 (1.32%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.66%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.66%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.66%) Oracle Database
4 1 (0.66%) Power BI
4 1 (0.66%) Power Query
4 1 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 35 (23.18%) JIRA
1 35 (23.18%) Selenium
2 24 (15.89%) Cypress.io
3 16 (10.60%) Postman
4 10 (6.62%) Jenkins
5 9 (5.96%) eCATT
6 7 (4.64%) Git
7 6 (3.97%) GitLab
8 5 (3.31%) SoapUI
8 5 (3.31%) TestRail
8 5 (3.31%) Zephyr
9 4 (2.65%) Subversion
10 3 (1.99%) Cucumber
10 3 (1.99%) SpecFlow
11 2 (1.32%) Bitbucket
11 2 (1.32%) LoadRunner
11 2 (1.32%) REST Assured
11 2 (1.32%) Robot Framework
11 2 (1.32%) TeamCity
11 2 (1.32%) webpack
General
1 35 (23.18%) Social Skills
2 23 (15.23%) Finance
3 21 (13.91%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (8.61%) Marketing
5 10 (6.62%) Manufacturing
6 9 (5.96%) Influencing Skills
6 9 (5.96%) Presentation Skills
7 8 (5.30%) Banking
8 5 (3.31%) Digital Healthcare
9 4 (2.65%) Back Office
9 4 (2.65%) Tech for Good
10 3 (1.99%) Games
10 3 (1.99%) Health Technology
10 3 (1.99%) Public Sector
10 3 (1.99%) Retail
11 2 (1.32%) Aerospace
11 2 (1.32%) Law
11 2 (1.32%) Legal
11 2 (1.32%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.66%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 29 (19.21%) Lead
2 28 (18.54%) Tester
3 27 (17.88%) Analyst
4 24 (15.89%) Test Analyst
5 22 (14.57%) QA Engineer
5 22 (14.57%) Test Engineer
6 20 (13.25%) QA Leader
7 16 (10.60%) Test Leader
8 13 (8.61%) Senior
9 12 (7.95%) Test Automation Engineer
10 10 (6.62%) Software Engineer
11 9 (5.96%) Automation Test Analyst
12 8 (5.30%) Development Engineer
12 8 (5.30%) Graduate
12 8 (5.30%) Junior
12 8 (5.30%) Manual Tester
12 8 (5.30%) QA Analyst
12 8 (5.30%) Software Development Engineer
12 8 (5.30%) Test Development Engineer
13 7 (4.64%) Quality Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (25.17%) Playwright
2 9 (5.96%) CSS
2 9 (5.96%) HTML
3 7 (4.64%) React
4 6 (3.97%) .NET
5 4 (2.65%) Elastic Stack
5 4 (2.65%) XML
6 3 (1.99%) FIX Protocol
7 2 (1.32%) AngularJS
7 2 (1.32%) CSS3
7 2 (1.32%) Gherkin
7 2 (1.32%) HTML5
7 2 (1.32%) Laravel
7 2 (1.32%) REST
7 2 (1.32%) RESTful
7 2 (1.32%) Sass
7 2 (1.32%) Vue
8 1 (0.66%) JWT
8 1 (0.66%) OAuth
8 1 (0.66%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 11 (7.28%) Product Ownership
2 4 (2.65%) Derivative
2 4 (2.65%) Enterprise Software
2 4 (2.65%) Equities
2 4 (2.65%) Fixed Income
3 3 (1.99%) Analytical Mindset
3 3 (1.99%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 3 (1.99%) IoT
3 3 (1.99%) Mobile App
3 3 (1.99%) Self-Motivation
3 3 (1.99%) Virtual Team
4 2 (1.32%) Greenfield Project
5 1 (0.66%) Low-Code
5 1 (0.66%) Management Information System
5 1 (0.66%) Security Posture
5 1 (0.66%) Video\Live Streaming
5 1 (0.66%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 8 (5.30%) Windows
2 7 (4.64%) Linux
3 4 (2.65%) Windows Server
3 4 (2.65%) Windows Server 2019
4 1 (0.66%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 128 (84.77%) Test Automation
2 67 (44.37%) CI/CD
3 62 (41.06%) Software Testing
4 59 (39.07%) Agile
5 54 (35.76%) Regression Testing
6 48 (31.79%) Continuous Improvement
7 46 (30.46%) DevOps
8 43 (28.48%) Test Scripting
9 41 (27.15%) API Testing
10 35 (23.18%) SDLC
11 28 (18.54%) Test Strategy
11 28 (18.54%) User Acceptance Testing
12 26 (17.22%) Acceptance Criteria
13 24 (15.89%) Scrum
14 20 (13.25%) Defect Management
14 20 (13.25%) Performance Testing
15 19 (12.58%) Non-Functional Testing
15 19 (12.58%) Test Management
16 18 (11.92%) End-to-End Testing
16 18 (11.92%) Scenario Testing
Programming Languages
1 36 (23.84%) SQL
2 31 (20.53%) JavaScript
3 21 (13.91%) TypeScript
4 17 (11.26%) C#
5 14 (9.27%) Python
6 9 (5.96%) Java
7 6 (3.97%) Bash
8 3 (1.99%) PHP
8 3 (1.99%) PowerShell
9 2 (1.32%) C++
9 2 (1.32%) COBOL
9 2 (1.32%) RPG
Qualifications
1 44 (29.14%) ISTQB
2 21 (13.91%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
3 18 (11.92%) Degree
4 13 (8.61%) Security Cleared
5 7 (4.64%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (3.97%) DV Cleared
7 5 (3.31%) ISEB
7 5 (3.31%) SC Cleared
8 3 (1.99%) Master's Degree
9 1 (0.66%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (46.36%) QA
2 30 (19.87%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.32%) Data Quality
3 2 (1.32%) GDPR
3 2 (1.32%) PCI DSS
3 2 (1.32%) Section 508
3 2 (1.32%) WCAG
System Software
1 5 (3.31%) Active Directory
2 4 (2.65%) Docker
3 3 (1.99%) Terminal Server
3 3 (1.99%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 10 (6.62%) HP ALM
2 5 (3.31%) Terraform
3 4 (2.65%) Kubernetes
3 4 (2.65%) SCCM
3 4 (2.65%) SCOM
4 3 (1.99%) Ansible
5 2 (1.32%) Grafana
5 2 (1.32%) Nessus
5 2 (1.32%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 12 (7.95%) HP
2 10 (6.62%) SAP
3 5 (3.31%) Microsoft
4 4 (2.65%) Cisco
4 4 (2.65%) Oracle
4 4 (2.65%) VMware
5 3 (1.99%) Juniper
5 3 (1.99%) McAfee
5 3 (1.99%) ServiceNow
6 2 (1.32%) IBM
6 2 (1.32%) Siebel
7 1 (0.66%) Charles River
7 1 (0.66%) Genesys
7 1 (0.66%) Meraki
7 1 (0.66%) Murex
7 1 (0.66%) Splunk