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

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 576 553 613
Rank change year-on-year -23 +60 -100
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 215 145 205
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.20% 0.29% 0.25%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.28% 0.33% 0.30%
Number of salaries quoted 117 108 155
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,925 £34,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,438 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £45,500 £48,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.89% -6.19% -3.00%
75th Percentile £61,018 £62,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £70,500 £67,500 £84,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £42,500 £45,000
% change year-on-year +17.65% -5.56% -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 78,044 44,596 67,662
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.46% 89.30% 81.10%
Number of salaries quoted 53,720 25,240 43,624
10th Percentile £30,773 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.84%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,237 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,773 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.13% -4.45% -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 13 August 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 August 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 -24 170 £50,000 +17.65% 56
England -78 150 £50,000 +11.11% 60
Work from Home +27 105 £50,000 +4.17% 27
Northern Ireland -29 50 - - 3
South West -35 37 £45,000 +12.50% 12
London -68 33 £52,500 -16.67% 13
South East -20 30 £52,500 +16.67% 16
North of England -32 25 £50,000 +42.86% 5
North West +12 16 £48,750 +23.42% 2
Midlands -34 14 £42,500 - 12
East Midlands -20 11 £40,000 -30.43% 2
East of England -31 9 £55,000 +3.77% 2
North East -56 6 £50,000 +42.86% 2
Wales -56 5 £32,000 -46.67% 1
Yorkshire -24 3 £50,000 +42.86% 1
West Midlands -31 3 £55,000 +29.41% 10

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 5 (2.33%) Confluence
2 4 (1.86%) SharePoint
Applications
1 13 (6.05%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (4.19%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (3.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.93%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.47%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 1 (0.47%) FLEXCUBE
1 1 (0.47%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 59 (27.44%) Azure
2 58 (26.98%) SaaS
3 43 (20.00%) Azure DevOps
4 15 (6.98%) AWS
5 10 (4.65%) Power Platform
6 9 (4.19%) GitHub
7 4 (1.86%) BrowserStack
7 4 (1.86%) GCP
7 4 (1.86%) GitHub Actions
8 3 (1.40%) PowerApps
9 2 (0.93%) Azure Service Bus
10 1 (0.47%) Amazon ECS
10 1 (0.47%) Amazon EKS
10 1 (0.47%) Azure AKS
10 1 (0.47%) Azure Data Factory
10 1 (0.47%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 1 (0.47%) BlazeMeter
10 1 (0.47%) Copilot Studio
10 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Copilot
10 1 (0.47%) SonarCloud
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.86%) 5G
1 4 (1.86%) SD-WAN
1 4 (1.86%) WAN
2 3 (1.40%) HTTP
3 1 (0.47%) Broadband
3 1 (0.47%) Cisco ISE
3 1 (0.47%) Internet
3 1 (0.47%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.47%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.79%) Power BI
2 3 (1.40%) SQL Server
3 2 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (0.93%) Oracle Database
3 2 (0.93%) Relational Database
4 1 (0.47%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.47%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.47%) Flink
4 1 (0.47%) Metadata
4 1 (0.47%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.47%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.47%) Power Query
4 1 (0.47%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 51 (23.72%) Selenium
2 29 (13.49%) JIRA
3 27 (12.56%) Postman
4 22 (10.23%) Cypress.io
5 19 (8.84%) Jenkins
6 15 (6.98%) Git
7 11 (5.12%) Zephyr
8 8 (3.72%) SpecFlow
9 7 (3.26%) JMeter
9 7 (3.26%) TestRail
10 6 (2.79%) JUnit
10 6 (2.79%) REST Assured
11 5 (2.33%) GitLab
11 5 (2.33%) LabVIEW
12 3 (1.40%) Appium
12 3 (1.40%) Bugzilla
12 3 (1.40%) Katalon Studio
12 3 (1.40%) SoapUI
12 3 (1.40%) TestNG
13 2 (0.93%) Gatling
General
1 100 (46.51%) Social Skills
2 52 (24.19%) Legal
3 34 (15.81%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (13.95%) Finance
5 27 (12.56%) Law
6 20 (9.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (5.58%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (4.65%) Public Sector
9 7 (3.26%) Electronics
10 5 (2.33%) Aviation
11 4 (1.86%) Advertising
11 4 (1.86%) Retail
12 3 (1.40%) Aerospace
12 3 (1.40%) Back Office
12 3 (1.40%) Banking
12 3 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
13 2 (0.93%) Digital Healthcare
13 2 (0.93%) Games
13 2 (0.93%) Military
13 2 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 79 (36.74%) Senior
2 54 (25.12%) Testing Manager
3 52 (24.19%) Senior Manager
4 36 (16.74%) Test Engineer
5 28 (13.02%) Analyst
6 27 (12.56%) Tester
7 26 (12.09%) QA Engineer
8 21 (9.77%) Test Analyst
9 20 (9.30%) Lead
10 11 (5.12%) Automation Engineer
10 11 (5.12%) QA Automation Engineer
10 11 (5.12%) QA Leader
10 11 (5.12%) Senior Test Engineer
11 9 (4.19%) Junior
12 8 (3.72%) Manual Tester
12 8 (3.72%) Test Leader
13 7 (3.26%) Automation Tester
13 7 (3.26%) Head of Testing
13 7 (3.26%) Senior QA Engineer
14 6 (2.79%) Software Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (16.28%) Playwright
2 13 (6.05%) CSS
3 12 (5.58%) HTML
4 5 (2.33%) .NET
4 5 (2.33%) Node.js
4 5 (2.33%) pytest
4 5 (2.33%) REST
5 4 (1.86%) Kafka
6 3 (1.40%) Gherkin
6 3 (1.40%) React
6 3 (1.40%) Swagger
7 2 (0.93%) Laravel
7 2 (0.93%) Vue
8 1 (0.47%) .NET Framework
8 1 (0.47%) ADO
8 1 (0.47%) GraphQL
8 1 (0.47%) GStreamer
8 1 (0.47%) RabbitMQ
8 1 (0.47%) React Native
8 1 (0.47%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 52 (24.19%) Virtual Team
2 19 (8.84%) Product Ownership
3 11 (5.12%) Mobile App
4 4 (1.86%) Embedded Systems
4 4 (1.86%) Self-Driving Car
5 3 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (1.40%) Hackathon
5 3 (1.40%) Housing Association
5 3 (1.40%) Management Information System
6 2 (0.93%) Low-Code
6 2 (0.93%) NHS
6 2 (0.93%) Onboarding
6 2 (0.93%) Video\Live Streaming
7 1 (0.47%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.47%) Digital Signage
7 1 (0.47%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (0.47%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (0.47%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.47%) PropTech
7 1 (0.47%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 17 (7.91%) Windows
2 6 (2.79%) Linux
3 4 (1.86%) Unix
4 1 (0.47%) Android
4 1 (0.47%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.47%) Ubuntu
4 1 (0.47%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 193 (89.77%) Test Automation
2 124 (57.67%) DevOps
3 117 (54.42%) Software Testing
4 114 (53.02%) Continuous Improvement
5 92 (42.79%) Test Strategy
6 86 (40.00%) Mentoring
7 84 (39.07%) Agile
8 73 (33.95%) CI/CD
9 61 (28.37%) Software Engineering
10 60 (27.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 54 (25.12%) Data Management
11 54 (25.12%) Project Delivery
12 52 (24.19%) Budget Management
12 52 (24.19%) Change Advisory Board
12 52 (24.19%) Enterprise Architecture
12 52 (24.19%) Performance Management
12 52 (24.19%) Programme Management
12 52 (24.19%) Strategic Planning
12 52 (24.19%) Virtual Team Management
13 47 (21.86%) Regression Testing
Programming Languages
1 80 (37.21%) Python
2 72 (33.49%) JavaScript
3 69 (32.09%) C#
4 59 (27.44%) TypeScript
5 55 (25.58%) PowerShell
6 42 (19.53%) SQL
7 14 (6.51%) Java
8 8 (3.72%) MATLAB
9 4 (1.86%) Bash
10 3 (1.40%) C++
11 2 (0.93%) COBOL
11 2 (0.93%) PHP
12 1 (0.47%) Groovy
12 1 (0.47%) Scala
Qualifications
1 29 (13.49%) ISTQB
2 21 (9.77%) Degree
3 13 (6.05%) Security Cleared
4 12 (5.58%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 11 (5.12%) SC Cleared
6 6 (2.79%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (2.33%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (1.86%) HND
9 3 (1.40%) Chartered Engineer
10 2 (0.93%) DV Cleared
11 1 (0.47%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (67.91%) QA
2 14 (6.51%) Accessibility
3 5 (2.33%) Software Quality Assurance
4 4 (1.86%) GDPR
5 3 (1.40%) ISO/IEC 12207
5 3 (1.40%) WAI
5 3 (1.40%) WAI-ARIA
5 3 (1.40%) WCAG
6 2 (0.93%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.47%) Data Quality
System Software
1 3 (1.40%) Docker
2 2 (0.93%) Active Directory
2 2 (0.93%) Firmware
3 1 (0.47%) Terminal Server
3 1 (0.47%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 4 (1.86%) Ansible
1 4 (1.86%) Terraform
2 2 (0.93%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.47%) Grafana
3 1 (0.47%) Kibana
3 1 (0.47%) SCCM
3 1 (0.47%) SCOM
Vendors
1 26 (12.09%) Microsoft
2 10 (4.65%) Oracle
3 8 (3.72%) Salesforce
4 5 (2.33%) ServiceNow
5 3 (1.40%) Databricks
6 2 (0.93%) HP
7 1 (0.47%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.47%) Cisco
7 1 (0.47%) Dynatrace
7 1 (0.47%) Juniper
7 1 (0.47%) McAfee
7 1 (0.47%) Pega
7 1 (0.47%) VMware