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

6 months to
7 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 603 518 609
Rank change year-on-year -85 +91 -118
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 155 163 295
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.16% 0.34% 0.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.22% 0.37% 0.35%
Number of salaries quoted 96 123 253
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,000 £35,000
25th Percentile £42,350 £36,250 £36,365
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £45,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% - -10.00%
75th Percentile £57,500 £64,375 £60,000
90th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £85,800
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £40,000 £42,500
% change year-on-year +25.00% -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 71,870 43,651 85,354
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.67% 90.86% 82.18%
Number of salaries quoted 49,673 24,244 60,243
10th Percentile £30,250 £28,822 £29,750
25th Percentile £41,250 £38,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -8.71%
75th Percentile £78,750 £77,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £54,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +8.00% - -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 7 July 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 7 July 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 -79 128 £50,000 +11.11% 45
UK excluding London -52 115 £50,000 +25.00% 46
Work from Home -27 61 £50,000 +4.17% 31
South West -45 33 £46,250 +15.63% 8
South East -32 32 £52,500 +31.25% 13
London -51 28 £55,000 -12.70% 9
North of England -39 18 £50,000 +42.86% 8
Northern Ireland -38 14 - - 4
North West +5 13 £50,000 +17.65% 1
Midlands -23 10 £55,000 +46.67% 8
East Midlands -18 7 £30,000 -14.29% 4
East of England -28 6 £45,000 -15.09% 2
West Midlands -28 3 £57,500 +41.98% 4
North East -51 3 £50,000 +44.93% 4
Yorkshire -26 2 £50,000 +42.86% 3
Wales -48 2 £25,000 -58.33% 1

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 (3.23%) Confluence
2 1 (0.65%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (5.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (4.52%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (3.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.65%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 1 (0.65%) FLEXCUBE
1 1 (0.65%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 59 (38.06%) Azure
2 43 (27.74%) Azure DevOps
3 20 (12.90%) SaaS
4 18 (11.61%) AWS
5 10 (6.45%) BrowserStack
5 10 (6.45%) GCP
6 8 (5.16%) GitHub
7 7 (4.52%) Power Platform
8 4 (2.58%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (1.29%) Azure Service Bus
10 1 (0.65%) Algolia
10 1 (0.65%) AWS CodePipeline
10 1 (0.65%) Azure Data Factory
10 1 (0.65%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 1 (0.65%) BlazeMeter
10 1 (0.65%) Copilot Studio
10 1 (0.65%) Microsoft 365
10 1 (0.65%) Microsoft Copilot
10 1 (0.65%) SonarCloud
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.58%) 5G
1 4 (2.58%) SD-WAN
1 4 (2.58%) WAN
2 2 (1.29%) Cisco ISE
2 2 (1.29%) HTTP
3 1 (0.65%) Broadband
3 1 (0.65%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (3.87%) Power BI
2 3 (1.94%) SQL Server
3 2 (1.29%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (1.29%) Metadata
3 2 (1.29%) Oracle Database
3 2 (1.29%) Relational Database
4 1 (0.65%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.65%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.65%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.65%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.65%) Power Query
4 1 (0.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 37 (23.87%) Selenium
2 23 (14.84%) Cypress.io
2 23 (14.84%) JIRA
3 21 (13.55%) Postman
4 15 (9.68%) Git
5 13 (8.39%) Jenkins
6 10 (6.45%) Zephyr
7 6 (3.87%) REST Assured
7 6 (3.87%) SpecFlow
8 5 (3.23%) GitLab
8 5 (3.23%) LabVIEW
8 5 (3.23%) TestRail
9 4 (2.58%) JMeter
9 4 (2.58%) JUnit
10 3 (1.94%) SoapUI
11 2 (1.29%) Gatling
11 2 (1.29%) Katalon Studio
11 2 (1.29%) LoadRunner
11 2 (1.29%) Subversion
12 1 (0.65%) Maven
General
1 53 (34.19%) Social Skills
2 26 (16.77%) Finance
3 20 (12.90%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (11.61%) Law
5 17 (10.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 16 (10.32%) Legal
7 10 (6.45%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (4.52%) Electronics
8 7 (4.52%) Public Sector
9 5 (3.23%) Digital Healthcare
10 4 (2.58%) Advertising
11 3 (1.94%) Aerospace
11 3 (1.94%) Banking
11 3 (1.94%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (1.29%) Back Office
12 2 (1.29%) Military
12 2 (1.29%) Retail
13 1 (0.65%) Aviation
13 1 (0.65%) Corporate Banking
13 1 (0.65%) Games
Job Titles
1 32 (20.65%) Senior
2 28 (18.06%) Test Engineer
3 23 (14.84%) QA Engineer
4 19 (12.26%) Lead
5 17 (10.97%) Analyst
6 16 (10.32%) Senior Manager
6 16 (10.32%) Tester
6 16 (10.32%) Testing Manager
7 13 (8.39%) QA Leader
7 13 (8.39%) Test Analyst
8 12 (7.74%) Test Leader
9 9 (5.81%) Automation Engineer
9 9 (5.81%) Junior
9 9 (5.81%) QA Automation Engineer
9 9 (5.81%) Software Engineer
10 7 (4.52%) Head of Testing
10 7 (4.52%) Quality Engineer
10 7 (4.52%) Software Test Engineer
11 6 (3.87%) Software Development Engineer
11 6 (3.87%) Test Development Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (19.35%) Playwright
2 7 (4.52%) CSS
3 6 (3.87%) HTML
4 5 (3.23%) pytest
5 4 (2.58%) .NET
5 4 (2.58%) REST
6 3 (1.94%) Kafka
6 3 (1.94%) React
6 3 (1.94%) Swagger
7 2 (1.29%) Laravel
7 2 (1.29%) Node.js
7 2 (1.29%) Vue
8 1 (0.65%) .NET Framework
8 1 (0.65%) Gherkin
8 1 (0.65%) GraphQL
8 1 (0.65%) GStreamer
8 1 (0.65%) RabbitMQ
8 1 (0.65%) RESTful
8 1 (0.65%) Spring
8 1 (0.65%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 16 (10.32%) Virtual Team
2 15 (9.68%) Product Ownership
3 6 (3.87%) Mobile App
4 4 (2.58%) Embedded Systems
4 4 (2.58%) Self-Driving Car
5 3 (1.94%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (1.94%) Hackathon
5 3 (1.94%) Housing Association
6 2 (1.29%) Low-Code
6 2 (1.29%) NHS
6 2 (1.29%) Onboarding
6 2 (1.29%) Video\Live Streaming
7 1 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.65%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (0.65%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.65%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.65%) PKI
7 1 (0.65%) PropTech
7 1 (0.65%) Robotics
7 1 (0.65%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 12 (7.74%) Windows
2 4 (2.58%) Linux
2 4 (2.58%) Unix
3 2 (1.29%) Windows Server
3 2 (1.29%) Windows Server 2019
4 1 (0.65%) Android
4 1 (0.65%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.65%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 138 (89.03%) Test Automation
2 80 (51.61%) DevOps
3 78 (50.32%) Software Testing
4 69 (44.52%) Continuous Improvement
5 68 (43.87%) Agile
6 67 (43.23%) CI/CD
7 55 (35.48%) Test Strategy
8 46 (29.68%) Regression Testing
9 42 (27.10%) Mentoring
10 35 (22.58%) API Testing
10 35 (22.58%) Scrum
11 33 (21.29%) SDLC
12 31 (20.00%) Test Scripting
13 26 (16.77%) Defect Management
13 26 (16.77%) User Acceptance Testing
14 25 (16.13%) Acceptance Criteria
14 25 (16.13%) Problem-Solving
15 24 (15.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 23 (14.84%) Software Engineering
17 19 (12.26%) Data Management
Programming Languages
1 35 (22.58%) JavaScript
2 34 (21.94%) Python
3 28 (18.06%) C#
3 28 (18.06%) SQL
3 28 (18.06%) TypeScript
4 18 (11.61%) PowerShell
5 10 (6.45%) Java
6 8 (5.16%) MATLAB
7 3 (1.94%) C++
8 2 (1.29%) Bash
8 2 (1.29%) COBOL
8 2 (1.29%) PHP
9 1 (0.65%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 32 (20.65%) ISTQB
2 19 (12.26%) Degree
3 12 (7.74%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 10 (6.45%) Security Cleared
5 6 (3.87%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (3.23%) SC Cleared
7 4 (2.58%) BPSS Clearance
7 4 (2.58%) HND
8 3 (1.94%) Chartered Engineer
8 3 (1.94%) DV Cleared
9 1 (0.65%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 91 (58.71%) QA
2 25 (16.13%) Accessibility
3 3 (1.94%) GDPR
3 3 (1.94%) ISO/IEC 12207
3 3 (1.94%) Software Quality Assurance
4 2 (1.29%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.65%) Data Quality
System Software
1 3 (1.94%) Active Directory
2 2 (1.29%) Docker
2 2 (1.29%) Firmware
2 2 (1.29%) Terminal Server
2 2 (1.29%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 2 (1.29%) Ansible
1 2 (1.29%) SCCM
1 2 (1.29%) SCOM
1 2 (1.29%) Terraform
2 1 (0.65%) Grafana
2 1 (0.65%) Kibana
2 1 (0.65%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 20 (12.90%) Microsoft
2 8 (5.16%) Salesforce
3 6 (3.87%) ServiceNow
4 3 (1.94%) Oracle
5 2 (1.29%) Cisco
5 2 (1.29%) HP
5 2 (1.29%) Juniper
5 2 (1.29%) McAfee
5 2 (1.29%) VMware
6 1 (0.65%) Dynatrace
6 1 (0.65%) Pega