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 27 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 533 526 499
Rank change year-on-year -7 -27 -19
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 128 229 212
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.24% 0.34% 0.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.28% 0.40% 0.45%
Number of salaries quoted 91 140 190
10th Percentile £31,250 £30,000 £35,000
25th Percentile £38,750 £39,375 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £51,250 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% +2.50% -
75th Percentile £63,750 £65,000 £58,750
90th Percentile £73,750 £77,500 £72,575
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £47,500 £45,000
% change year-on-year +5.26% +5.56% -

All Process and 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 45,724 57,096 47,568
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 84.81% 85.02% 93.78%
Number of salaries quoted 27,947 29,808 36,597
10th Percentile £28,250 £34,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £36,250 £45,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £98,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £54,714 £52,500
% change year-on-year -13.18% +4.22% -0.94%

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 27 November 2025.

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 27 November 2025. 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 +16 122 £52,250 -5.00% 42
UK excluding London +17 82 £50,000 +5.26% 40
London +34 43 £54,250 -16.54% 14
Work from Home +57 41 £50,000 -9.09% 17
South East +54 32 £52,500 +10.53% 16
South West +22 23 £37,500 -16.67% 9
Midlands +30 13 £40,000 -28.89% 3
East Midlands +27 8 £48,750 +8.33% 2
West Midlands +46 5 £40,000 -30.43%
East of England +33 5 £60,000 +50.00% 4
North of England +21 5 £45,000 +1.98% 3
Yorkshire -1 3 £46,250 +48.04% 1
North West +34 2 £45,000 - 1
Northern Ireland +3 2 £52,500 -
Wales 0 1 £60,000 -36.84% 2
Scotland -1 1 - - 3

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 (2.34%) Confluence
2 1 (0.78%) Apache
2 1 (0.78%) CMS
2 1 (0.78%) Office Communications Server
2 1 (0.78%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (1.56%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.78%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 10 (7.81%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (2.34%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.78%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.78%) Elite 3E
3 1 (0.78%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 26 (20.31%) Azure
2 25 (19.53%) Azure DevOps
3 15 (11.72%) AWS
4 7 (5.47%) Power Platform
4 7 (5.47%) SaaS
5 3 (2.34%) Adobe Analytics
5 3 (2.34%) Datadog
5 3 (2.34%) Dynamics 365
6 2 (1.56%) AWS CloudFormation
6 2 (1.56%) Tricentis Tosca
7 1 (0.78%) Algolia
7 1 (0.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (0.78%) Azure Service Bus
7 1 (0.78%) BrowserStack
7 1 (0.78%) dbt
7 1 (0.78%) GCP
7 1 (0.78%) GitHub
7 1 (0.78%) Power Automate
7 1 (0.78%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.34%) Cisco ISE
2 2 (1.56%) Ethernet
3 1 (0.78%) Cisco IOS
3 1 (0.78%) FTP
3 1 (0.78%) HTTP
3 1 (0.78%) SD-WAN
3 1 (0.78%) SNMP
3 1 (0.78%) Spanning Tree
3 1 (0.78%) SSH
3 1 (0.78%) TACACS
3 1 (0.78%) WAN
3 1 (0.78%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (7.03%) Relational Database
2 3 (2.34%) Mixpanel
2 3 (2.34%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.78%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.78%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.78%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 38 (29.69%) JIRA
2 34 (26.56%) Selenium
3 31 (24.22%) Postman
4 13 (10.16%) Cypress.io
4 13 (10.16%) Git
5 12 (9.38%) Jenkins
6 9 (7.03%) eCATT
7 8 (6.25%) SoapUI
8 6 (4.69%) TestRail
9 5 (3.91%) Katalon Studio
9 5 (3.91%) TestNG
9 5 (3.91%) Zephyr
10 4 (3.13%) JMeter
11 3 (2.34%) Charles Proxy
11 3 (2.34%) Fiddler
11 3 (2.34%) GitLab
11 3 (2.34%) LoadRunner
11 3 (2.34%) Maven
11 3 (2.34%) SpecFlow
11 3 (2.34%) WebDriver
General
1 35 (27.34%) Social Skills
2 29 (22.66%) Analytical Skills
3 27 (21.09%) Finance
4 16 (12.50%) Marketing
5 10 (7.81%) Manufacturing
6 9 (7.03%) Influencing Skills
6 9 (7.03%) Presentation Skills
7 7 (5.47%) Games
7 7 (5.47%) Law
8 6 (4.69%) Legal
9 5 (3.91%) Electronics
9 5 (3.91%) Public Sector
10 4 (3.13%) Banking
10 4 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (2.34%) Aerospace
11 3 (2.34%) Automotive
11 3 (2.34%) Back Office
11 3 (2.34%) Tech for Good
12 2 (1.56%) Health Technology
12 2 (1.56%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 33 (25.78%) Analyst
2 32 (25.00%) Senior
3 29 (22.66%) Tester
4 25 (19.53%) Test Analyst
5 20 (15.63%) QA Engineer
6 19 (14.84%) Test Engineer
7 15 (11.72%) Lead
8 13 (10.16%) QA Analyst
9 12 (9.38%) Test Automation Engineer
10 11 (8.59%) QA Leader
11 10 (7.81%) Senior Test Engineer
12 9 (7.03%) Automation Test Analyst
12 9 (7.03%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
13 8 (6.25%) Software Tester
14 7 (5.47%) Manual Tester
15 6 (4.69%) Automation Tester
15 6 (4.69%) QA Test Analyst
15 6 (4.69%) Quality Engineer
15 6 (4.69%) Senior Test Automation Engineer
15 6 (4.69%) Test Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (14.84%) Playwright
2 8 (6.25%) CSS
2 8 (6.25%) HTML
3 7 (5.47%) XML
4 6 (4.69%) .NET
5 5 (3.91%) React
5 5 (3.91%) REST
6 4 (3.13%) RESTful
7 3 (2.34%) FIX Protocol
8 2 (1.56%) AngularJS
8 2 (1.56%) Elastic Stack
8 2 (1.56%) JSON
8 2 (1.56%) pytest
8 2 (1.56%) SOAP
9 1 (0.78%) GraphQL
9 1 (0.78%) JWT
9 1 (0.78%) Node.js
9 1 (0.78%) OAuth
9 1 (0.78%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 11 (8.59%) Product Ownership
2 4 (3.13%) Analytical Mindset
2 4 (3.13%) Derivative
2 4 (3.13%) Equities
2 4 (3.13%) Fixed Income
2 4 (3.13%) IoT
3 3 (2.34%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 3 (2.34%) W3C
4 2 (1.56%) FMCG
4 2 (1.56%) Low-Code
4 2 (1.56%) Mobile App
4 2 (1.56%) Operational Technology
4 2 (1.56%) Virtual Team
5 1 (0.78%) CAN bus
5 1 (0.78%) Cyber Defence
5 1 (0.78%) Embedded Systems
5 1 (0.78%) Hedge funds
5 1 (0.78%) Onboarding
5 1 (0.78%) Security Posture
5 1 (0.78%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 9 (7.03%) Windows
2 7 (5.47%) Linux
3 4 (3.13%) Windows Server
3 4 (3.13%) Windows Server 2019
4 1 (0.78%) Embedded Linux
4 1 (0.78%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (75.00%) Test Automation
2 73 (57.03%) Agile
3 55 (42.97%) Software Testing
4 45 (35.16%) Test Scripting
5 42 (32.81%) CI/CD
6 37 (28.91%) Regression Testing
7 34 (26.56%) API Testing
8 31 (24.22%) DevOps
9 29 (22.66%) Continuous Improvement
10 28 (21.88%) Test Strategy
11 26 (20.31%) Scenario Testing
12 25 (19.53%) End-to-End Testing
12 25 (19.53%) Problem-Solving
13 24 (18.75%) Scrum
14 20 (15.63%) Non-Functional Testing
14 20 (15.63%) Test Management
15 19 (14.84%) Integration Testing
15 19 (14.84%) Validation
16 17 (13.28%) Defect Management
17 14 (10.94%) Functional Testing
Programming Languages
1 44 (34.38%) SQL
2 25 (19.53%) JavaScript
3 22 (17.19%) Java
4 21 (16.41%) C#
4 21 (16.41%) Python
5 11 (8.59%) TypeScript
6 4 (3.13%) Bash
7 2 (1.56%) Groovy
7 2 (1.56%) PHP
8 1 (0.78%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 39 (30.47%) ISTQB
2 20 (15.63%) Security Cleared
3 17 (13.28%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 15 (11.72%) Degree
5 13 (10.16%) SC Cleared
6 7 (5.47%) DV Cleared
7 6 (4.69%) ISEB
8 4 (3.13%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.78%) CHECK Team Leader
9 1 (0.78%) CHECK Team Member
9 1 (0.78%) HNC
9 1 (0.78%) HND
9 1 (0.78%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (51.56%) QA
2 10 (7.81%) Accessibility
3 5 (3.91%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.56%) Section 508
4 2 (1.56%) WCAG
5 1 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.78%) NCSC
System Software
1 6 (4.69%) Docker
2 5 (3.91%) Active Directory
3 3 (2.34%) Terminal Server
3 3 (2.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.78%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.78%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 10 (7.81%) HP ALM
2 6 (4.69%) Kubernetes
3 4 (3.13%) SCCM
3 4 (3.13%) SCOM
4 3 (2.34%) Grafana
4 3 (2.34%) Nessus
4 3 (2.34%) Terraform
5 2 (1.56%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.78%) Ansible
Vendors
1 11 (8.59%) SAP
2 10 (7.81%) HP
3 6 (4.69%) Microsoft
4 4 (3.13%) Cisco
4 4 (3.13%) Oracle
4 4 (3.13%) VMware
5 3 (2.34%) Adobe
5 3 (2.34%) Juniper
5 3 (2.34%) McAfee
5 3 (2.34%) ServiceNow
5 3 (2.34%) Tealium
6 2 (1.56%) Pega
6 2 (1.56%) Siebel
6 2 (1.56%) Workday
7 1 (0.78%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.78%) Charles River
7 1 (0.78%) EMC
7 1 (0.78%) Genesys
7 1 (0.78%) Murex
7 1 (0.78%) Salesforce