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

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 604 482 616
Rank change year-on-year -122 +134 -110
Permanent jobs citing Manual Testing 133 170 295
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.14% 0.40% 0.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.19% 0.43% 0.35%
Number of salaries quoted 94 124 257
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,500 £35,000
25th Percentile £42,500 £37,500 £36,365
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £47,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +1.06% +4.44% -10.00%
75th Percentile £57,500 £63,375 £57,500
90th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £86,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £42,500 £42,500
% change year-on-year +11.76% - -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 68,838 39,983 83,789
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.88% 93.25% 83.85%
Number of salaries quoted 44,890 21,039 60,407
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,750 £29,250
25th Percentile £41,000 £40,903 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £58,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% +5.45% -9.84%
75th Percentile £78,750 £78,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £101,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £51,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +2.94% +2.00% -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 29 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Manual Testing in the UK

Manual Testing
Top 15 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 29 May 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 -110 120 £50,000 +7.53% 35
UK excluding London -80 92 £47,500 +11.76% 33
Work from Home -22 34 £51,250 -3.30% 22
South West -41 31 £47,500 +18.75% 6
London -51 29 £55,000 -12.70% 4
South East -42 23 £51,250 +17.14% 16
North of England -46 16 £50,000 +42.86% 2
Midlands -34 14 £30,000 -27.71% 7
North West +2 12 £50,000 +14.29% 1
East Midlands -28 11 £30,000 -45.45% 1
East of England -30 6 £45,000 -15.09% 3
West Midlands -44 3 £57,500 +41.98% 6
Wales -34 2 £25,000 -58.33% 1
North East -41 2 £55,000 +59.42%
Yorkshire -54 2 £50,000 +42.86% 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 3 (2.26%) Confluence
2 1 (0.75%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (3.01%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (3.01%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.75%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 57 (42.86%) Azure
2 41 (30.83%) Azure DevOps
3 19 (14.29%) AWS
4 13 (9.77%) GCP
5 11 (8.27%) BrowserStack
6 4 (3.01%) Power Platform
7 3 (2.26%) GitHub
7 3 (2.26%) SaaS
8 2 (1.50%) Azure Service Bus
9 1 (0.75%) Algolia
9 1 (0.75%) AWS CodePipeline
9 1 (0.75%) Azure Data Factory
9 1 (0.75%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 1 (0.75%) BlazeMeter
9 1 (0.75%) Copilot Studio
9 1 (0.75%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (0.75%) Microsoft 365
9 1 (0.75%) Microsoft Copilot
9 1 (0.75%) SonarCloud
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.26%) Cisco ISE
2 2 (1.50%) 5G
2 2 (1.50%) HTTP
2 2 (1.50%) SD-WAN
2 2 (1.50%) WAN
3 1 (0.75%) Broadband
3 1 (0.75%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.26%) Metadata
1 3 (2.26%) Power BI
1 3 (2.26%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.50%) Azure SQL Database
2 2 (1.50%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (1.50%) Relational Database
3 1 (0.75%) Data Lake
3 1 (0.75%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.75%) DB2
3 1 (0.75%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.75%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.75%) Power Query
3 1 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 35 (26.32%) Selenium
2 23 (17.29%) JIRA
3 21 (15.79%) Cypress.io
4 18 (13.53%) Postman
5 11 (8.27%) Jenkins
6 10 (7.52%) Git
7 9 (6.77%) Zephyr
8 6 (4.51%) SpecFlow
9 5 (3.76%) REST Assured
9 5 (3.76%) TestRail
10 4 (3.01%) GitLab
10 4 (3.01%) JUnit
11 3 (2.26%) Cucumber
11 3 (2.26%) SoapUI
11 3 (2.26%) Subversion
12 2 (1.50%) Bitbucket
12 2 (1.50%) JMeter
12 2 (1.50%) LabVIEW
12 2 (1.50%) TeamCity
13 1 (0.75%) Maven
General
1 35 (26.32%) Social Skills
2 20 (15.04%) Finance
3 16 (12.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 14 (10.53%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (3.76%) Digital Healthcare
5 5 (3.76%) Electronics
6 4 (3.01%) Advertising
6 4 (3.01%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (3.01%) Public Sector
7 3 (2.26%) Aerospace
7 3 (2.26%) Banking
7 3 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (1.50%) Back Office
8 2 (1.50%) Law
8 2 (1.50%) Military
8 2 (1.50%) Retail
9 1 (0.75%) Aviation
9 1 (0.75%) Games
9 1 (0.75%) Health Technology
9 1 (0.75%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 29 (21.80%) Test Engineer
2 23 (17.29%) Lead
3 22 (16.54%) QA Engineer
4 16 (12.03%) Senior
4 16 (12.03%) Tester
5 15 (11.28%) QA Leader
6 13 (9.77%) Test Leader
7 11 (8.27%) Software Engineer
8 10 (7.52%) Software Test Engineer
9 9 (6.77%) Analyst
9 9 (6.77%) Automation Engineer
9 9 (6.77%) QA Automation Engineer
10 8 (6.02%) Development Engineer
10 8 (6.02%) Graduate
10 8 (6.02%) Software Development Engineer
10 8 (6.02%) Test Analyst
10 8 (6.02%) Test Development Engineer
11 7 (5.26%) Head of Testing
11 7 (5.26%) Junior
11 7 (5.26%) Quality Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (24.06%) Playwright
2 4 (3.01%) .NET
2 4 (3.01%) CSS
2 4 (3.01%) HTML
2 4 (3.01%) REST
2 4 (3.01%) Swagger
3 3 (2.26%) Kafka
3 3 (2.26%) pytest
3 3 (2.26%) React
4 2 (1.50%) Laravel
4 2 (1.50%) RESTful
4 2 (1.50%) Vue
5 1 (0.75%) CSS3
5 1 (0.75%) Elastic Stack
5 1 (0.75%) Gherkin
5 1 (0.75%) GraphQL
5 1 (0.75%) GStreamer
5 1 (0.75%) HTML5
5 1 (0.75%) RabbitMQ
5 1 (0.75%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 14 (10.53%) Product Ownership
2 3 (2.26%) Embedded Systems
2 3 (2.26%) Enterprise Software
2 3 (2.26%) Housing Association
2 3 (2.26%) Mobile App
3 2 (1.50%) Analytical Mindset
3 2 (1.50%) Hackathon
3 2 (1.50%) NHS
3 2 (1.50%) Onboarding
3 2 (1.50%) Self-Driving Car
3 2 (1.50%) Self-Motivation
3 2 (1.50%) Video\Live Streaming
4 1 (0.75%) Distributed Systems
4 1 (0.75%) Greenfield Project
4 1 (0.75%) Low-Code
4 1 (0.75%) Management Information System
4 1 (0.75%) Reinsurance
4 1 (0.75%) Robotics
4 1 (0.75%) Virtual Team
4 1 (0.75%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 8 (6.02%) Windows
2 3 (2.26%) Linux
2 3 (2.26%) Windows Server
2 3 (2.26%) Windows Server 2019
3 2 (1.50%) Unix
4 1 (0.75%) Android
4 1 (0.75%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.75%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 119 (89.47%) Test Automation
2 69 (51.88%) CI/CD
3 61 (45.86%) Software Testing
4 60 (45.11%) Agile
5 56 (42.11%) DevOps
6 44 (33.08%) Continuous Improvement
7 41 (30.83%) Regression Testing
8 38 (28.57%) Test Strategy
9 33 (24.81%) API Testing
9 33 (24.81%) SDLC
10 28 (21.05%) Scrum
10 28 (21.05%) User Acceptance Testing
11 25 (18.80%) Test Scripting
12 24 (18.05%) Acceptance Criteria
12 24 (18.05%) Defect Management
13 22 (16.54%) Mentoring
14 16 (12.03%) Continuous Integration
15 15 (11.28%) Coaching
15 15 (11.28%) Customer Service
16 14 (10.53%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 22 (16.54%) SQL
2 17 (12.78%) JavaScript
3 15 (11.28%) TypeScript
4 12 (9.02%) C#
4 12 (9.02%) Python
5 6 (4.51%) Java
6 5 (3.76%) MATLAB
7 3 (2.26%) C++
8 2 (1.50%) Bash
8 2 (1.50%) COBOL
8 2 (1.50%) PHP
8 2 (1.50%) PowerShell
9 1 (0.75%) Groovy
9 1 (0.75%) RPG
Qualifications
1 34 (25.56%) ISTQB
2 18 (13.53%) Degree
3 14 (10.53%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 8 (6.02%) Security Cleared
5 6 (4.51%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (3.01%) BPSS Clearance
7 3 (2.26%) Chartered Engineer
7 3 (2.26%) DV Cleared
7 3 (2.26%) SC Cleared
8 2 (1.50%) HND
9 1 (0.75%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 1 (0.75%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (46.62%) QA
2 30 (22.56%) Accessibility
3 3 (2.26%) ISO/IEC 12207
4 2 (1.50%) GDPR
4 2 (1.50%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.75%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.75%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 3 (2.26%) Active Directory
1 3 (2.26%) Docker
1 3 (2.26%) Terminal Server
1 3 (2.26%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (0.75%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 3 (2.26%) SCCM
1 3 (2.26%) SCOM
2 2 (1.50%) Ansible
2 2 (1.50%) Kubernetes
2 2 (1.50%) Terraform
3 1 (0.75%) Grafana
3 1 (0.75%) Kibana
Vendors
1 14 (10.53%) Microsoft
2 8 (6.02%) Salesforce
3 6 (4.51%) ServiceNow
4 3 (2.26%) Cisco
4 3 (2.26%) Juniper
4 3 (2.26%) McAfee
4 3 (2.26%) VMware
5 2 (1.50%) HP
6 1 (0.75%) Dynatrace
6 1 (0.75%) IBM
6 1 (0.75%) Oracle
6 1 (0.75%) Pega