Release Manager Job Trends

Release Manager
UK

The median Release Manager salary in the UK is £69,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 31 December 2025.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 630 680 673
Rank change year-on-year +50 -7 +261
Permanent jobs requiring a Release Manager 14 36 28
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.024% 0.065% 0.055%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.026% 0.070% 0.058%
Number of salaries quoted 10 23 26
10th Percentile £54,250 £42,500 £39,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £46,250 £45,813
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £69,000 £52,500 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +31.43% -19.23% -
75th Percentile £92,813 £63,750 £74,875
90th Percentile £102,250 £76,500 £75,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,500 £51,250 £63,124
% change year-on-year +8.29% -18.81% +5.21%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 53,514 51,675 48,695
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.46% 93.18% 95.25%
Number of salaries quoted 32,893 27,368 37,623
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,173 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £44,750 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £77,715
90th Percentile £93,750 £97,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%

Release Manager
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Release Manager' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Release Manager job vacancy trend in the UK

Release Manager
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Release Manager job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Release Manager job vacancies in the UK

Release Manager
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Release Manager over the 6 months to 31 December 2025.

Salary histogram for Release Manager in the UK

Release Manager
Top 10 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Release Manager within the UK over the 6 months to 31 December 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 +49 14 £69,000 +31.43% 59
UK excluding London +46 11 £55,500 +8.29% 60
South East +35 6 £55,250 -7.92% 15
London +45 3 £100,000 +66.67% 6
East of England - 3 - - 8
Work from Home +63 1 £90,000 +50.00% 5
West Midlands +26 1 - - 9
Midlands +22 1 - - 15
North of England +13 1 £82,500 +10.00% 13
Yorkshire -3 1 £82,500 +10.00% 7

Release Manager Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 31 December 2025, Release Manager job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads featuring Release Manager in the job title.

1 5 (35.71%) Release Management
2 3 (21.43%) Test Strategy
3 2 (14.29%) Capacity Planning
3 2 (14.29%) Confluence
3 2 (14.29%) Continuous Improvement
3 2 (14.29%) Decision-Making
3 2 (14.29%) JIRA
3 2 (14.29%) Migration
3 2 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
3 2 (14.29%) Product Management
3 2 (14.29%) Programme Management
3 2 (14.29%) QA
3 2 (14.29%) Roadmaps
3 2 (14.29%) Software Testing
3 2 (14.29%) Stakeholder Management
3 2 (14.29%) Test Management
4 1 (7.14%) Agile
4 1 (7.14%) Ansible
4 1 (7.14%) Application Security
4 1 (7.14%) AWS
4 1 (7.14%) Azure
4 1 (7.14%) Azure DevOps
4 1 (7.14%) CI/CD
4 1 (7.14%) CISSP
4 1 (7.14%) Coaching
4 1 (7.14%) Collaborative Culture
4 1 (7.14%) Containerisation
4 1 (7.14%) Continuous Improvement Process
4 1 (7.14%) Culture Change
4 1 (7.14%) Defect Management

Release Manager Skill Set
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 2 (14.29%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 1 (7.14%) AWS
1 1 (7.14%) Azure
1 1 (7.14%) Azure DevOps
1 1 (7.14%) GCP
Development Applications
1 2 (14.29%) JIRA
2 1 (7.14%) GitLab
2 1 (7.14%) Jenkins
General
1 7 (50.00%) Finance
2 6 (42.86%) Social Skills
3 2 (14.29%) Marketing
4 1 (7.14%) Automotive
Miscellaneous
1 1 (7.14%) Onboarding
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (35.71%) Release Management
2 3 (21.43%) Test Strategy
3 2 (14.29%) Capacity Planning
3 2 (14.29%) Continuous Improvement
3 2 (14.29%) Decision-Making
3 2 (14.29%) Migration
3 2 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
3 2 (14.29%) Product Management
3 2 (14.29%) Programme Management
3 2 (14.29%) Roadmaps
3 2 (14.29%) Software Testing
3 2 (14.29%) Stakeholder Management
3 2 (14.29%) Test Management
4 1 (7.14%) Collaborative Culture
4 1 (7.14%) DevSecOps
4 1 (7.14%) Infrastructure as Code
4 1 (7.14%) Process Improvement
4 1 (7.14%) Regression Testing
4 1 (7.14%) Secrets Management
4 1 (7.14%) Static Application Security Testing
Qualifications
1 1 (7.14%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (14.29%) QA
2 1 (7.14%) GDPR
2 1 (7.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (7.14%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1 (7.14%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (7.14%) Ansible
1 1 (7.14%) Kubernetes
1 1 (7.14%) Terraform
Vendors
1 1 (7.14%) Salesforce