Tester
UK

The median Tester salary in the UK is £47,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 30 May 2025.

The table below provides salary benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 606 504 326
Rank change year-on-year -102 -178 +174
Permanent jobs requiring a Tester 103 452 1,030
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.19% 0.44% 1.06%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.21% 0.46% 1.16%
Number of salaries quoted 64 333 411
10th Percentile £31,825 £30,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £50,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% +10.53%
75th Percentile £63,750 £70,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £73,750 £82,500 £80,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £45,000 £42,500 £47,500
% change year-on-year +5.88% -10.53% +11.76%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
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 50,066 97,923 88,829
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.36% 94.81% 91.43%
Number of salaries quoted 26,124 69,761 56,179
10th Percentile £28,750 £28,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £40,750 £38,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -12.50% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £70,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £90,000 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £51,000 £50,000 £53,500
% change year-on-year +2.00% -6.54% +6.63%

Tester
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Tester in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Tester in the UK

Tester
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing Tester.

Salary trend for Tester in the UK

Tester
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Tester over the 6 months to 30 May 2025.

Salary histogram for Tester in the UK

Tester
Top 15 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Tester within the UK over the 6 months to 30 May 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 -98 88 £46,500 -11.43% 684
Work from Home -37 57 £46,000 -8.00% 673
UK excluding London -10 54 £45,000 +5.88% 713
London -2 37 £51,250 -26.79% 50
Midlands +74 24 £42,500 -5.56% 139
West Midlands +54 21 £42,500 -5.56% 72
North of England -2 10 £55,000 +29.41% 151
South East +29 7 £31,000 -31.87% 193
South West +78 6 £55,000 +39.78% 86
North West -25 6 £55,000 +29.41% 74
Scotland +85 5 £50,000 +24.22% 30
Yorkshire +40 3 £42,500 - 60
East Midlands +38 3 £47,500 +3.26% 59
Northern Ireland +44 2 - - 11
North East +47 1 - - 18

Tester Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 30 May 2025, Tester job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads featuring Tester in the job title.

1 46 (44.66%) Test Automation
2 37 (35.92%) Agile
3 35 (33.98%) QA
4 34 (33.01%) Software Testing
5 29 (28.16%) JavaScript
5 29 (28.16%) Cybersecurity
6 26 (25.24%) SQL
6 26 (25.24%) Social Skills
7 25 (24.27%) Selenium
8 24 (23.30%) Azure
8 24 (23.30%) Manual Testing
9 23 (22.33%) Penetration Testing
10 20 (19.42%) Test Scripting
10 20 (19.42%) API Testing
11 19 (18.45%) Security Testing
11 19 (18.45%) Python
11 19 (18.45%) Telecoms
12 18 (17.48%) Java
12 18 (17.48%) ISTQB
12 18 (17.48%) Postman
13 16 (15.53%) JIRA
13 16 (15.53%) C#
13 16 (15.53%) Test Strategy
13 16 (15.53%) DevOps
14 15 (14.56%) Playwright
15 14 (13.59%) Test Management
15 14 (13.59%) SC Cleared
15 14 (13.59%) Security Cleared
16 13 (12.62%) Finance
17 12 (11.65%) Mobile App

Tester Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Applications
1 2 (1.94%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.97%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.97%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.97%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 24 (23.30%) Azure
2 12 (11.65%) Azure DevOps
3 11 (10.68%) AWS
4 7 (6.80%) GCP
5 6 (5.83%) Power Platform
6 5 (4.85%) SaaS
7 3 (2.91%) Tricentis Tosca
8 2 (1.94%) Amazon SQS
8 2 (1.94%) IaaS
8 2 (1.94%) PaaS
9 1 (0.97%) Azure Monitor
9 1 (0.97%) Azure Sentinel
9 1 (0.97%) BrowserStack
9 1 (0.97%) Dynamics 365
9 1 (0.97%) GitHub
9 1 (0.97%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (0.97%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 9 (8.74%) 3GPP
1 9 (8.74%) 5G
2 5 (4.85%) Wi-Fi
3 3 (2.91%) Network Security
3 3 (2.91%) Wireless
4 2 (1.94%) Firewall
4 2 (1.94%) Internet
4 2 (1.94%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (6.80%) MySQL
2 6 (5.83%) Power BI
3 4 (3.88%) Relational Database
3 4 (3.88%) SQL Server
4 2 (1.94%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (1.94%) Microsoft Analysis Services
4 2 (1.94%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (1.94%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 2 (1.94%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 25 (24.27%) Selenium
2 18 (17.48%) Postman
3 16 (15.53%) JIRA
4 9 (8.74%) Appium
4 9 (8.74%) JMeter
4 9 (8.74%) SoapUI
5 8 (7.77%) Cypress.io
6 6 (5.83%) Burp Suite
6 6 (5.83%) WebDriver
7 5 (4.85%) LoadRunner
8 4 (3.88%) Fiddler
8 4 (3.88%) Git
8 4 (3.88%) Jenkins
8 4 (3.88%) Metasploit
8 4 (3.88%) REST Assured
9 3 (2.91%) Gatling
9 3 (2.91%) Mocha
9 3 (2.91%) Protractor
9 3 (2.91%) TestRail
10 2 (1.94%) GitLab
General
1 26 (25.24%) Social Skills
2 19 (18.45%) Telecoms
3 13 (12.62%) Finance
4 12 (11.65%) Law
5 11 (10.68%) Analytical Skills
6 9 (8.74%) Public Sector
7 4 (3.88%) Cantonese Language
7 4 (3.88%) Financial Institution
7 4 (3.88%) Legal
7 4 (3.88%) Mandarin Language
8 2 (1.94%) Aerospace
8 2 (1.94%) Banking
8 2 (1.94%) Games
9 1 (0.97%) Digital Healthcare
9 1 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.97%) Marketing
9 1 (0.97%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.97%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.97%) Private Banking
9 1 (0.97%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (14.56%) Playwright
2 8 (7.77%) .NET
2 8 (7.77%) CSS
2 8 (7.77%) HTML
3 4 (3.88%) AngularJS
3 4 (3.88%) JSON
3 4 (3.88%) REST
4 3 (2.91%) JWT
4 3 (2.91%) OAuth
4 3 (2.91%) SOAP
4 3 (2.91%) Web Services
4 3 (2.91%) XML
5 2 (1.94%) Kafka
5 2 (1.94%) LAMP
5 2 (1.94%) Laravel
5 2 (1.94%) Node.js
5 2 (1.94%) pytest
5 2 (1.94%) RabbitMQ
5 2 (1.94%) SAML
5 2 (1.94%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 12 (11.65%) Mobile App
2 3 (2.91%) Security Posture
3 2 (1.94%) Client/Server
3 2 (1.94%) Cyber Threat
3 2 (1.94%) Data Protection Act
3 2 (1.94%) Legacy Systems
3 2 (1.94%) Low-Code
3 2 (1.94%) Management Information System
3 2 (1.94%) Product Ownership
4 1 (0.97%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (0.97%) Cloud Security Posture
4 1 (0.97%) Cyber Security Posture
4 1 (0.97%) Distributed Architecture
4 1 (0.97%) Enterprise Software
4 1 (0.97%) Greenfield Project
4 1 (0.97%) IoT
4 1 (0.97%) NHS
4 1 (0.97%) SCADA
4 1 (0.97%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (0.97%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 7 (6.80%) Android
1 7 (6.80%) Apple iOS
2 5 (4.85%) Linux
3 4 (3.88%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (44.66%) Test Automation
2 37 (35.92%) Agile
3 34 (33.01%) Software Testing
4 29 (28.16%) Cybersecurity
5 24 (23.30%) Manual Testing
6 23 (22.33%) Penetration Testing
7 20 (19.42%) API Testing
7 20 (19.42%) Test Scripting
8 19 (18.45%) Security Testing
9 16 (15.53%) DevOps
9 16 (15.53%) Test Strategy
10 14 (13.59%) Test Management
11 12 (11.65%) CI/CD
12 11 (10.68%) SDLC
13 10 (9.71%) Continuous Improvement
13 10 (9.71%) Functional Testing
13 10 (9.71%) Non-Functional Testing
13 10 (9.71%) Problem-Solving
14 9 (8.74%) Red Team
14 9 (8.74%) Regression Testing
Programming Languages
1 29 (28.16%) JavaScript
2 26 (25.24%) SQL
3 19 (18.45%) Python
4 18 (17.48%) Java
5 16 (15.53%) C#
6 10 (9.71%) TypeScript
7 4 (3.88%) PHP
8 3 (2.91%) Bash
8 3 (2.91%) Ruby
9 2 (1.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 2 (1.94%) Go
9 2 (1.94%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 18 (17.48%) ISTQB
2 14 (13.59%) SC Cleared
2 14 (13.59%) Security Cleared
3 7 (6.80%) CREST Certified
3 7 (6.80%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 6 (5.83%) BPSS Clearance
4 6 (5.83%) CHECK Team Leader
5 5 (4.85%) Degree
6 4 (3.88%) CHECK Team Member
6 4 (3.88%) OSCP
7 2 (1.94%) CCNA
7 2 (1.94%) CCNP
7 2 (1.94%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (1.94%) Cyber Scheme
7 2 (1.94%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.97%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.97%) CEH
8 1 (0.97%) CISSP
8 1 (0.97%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (33.98%) QA
2 10 (9.71%) NCSC
3 5 (4.85%) Accessibility
3 5 (4.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (2.91%) Actionable Recommendations
4 3 (2.91%) Data Quality
4 3 (2.91%) WCAG
5 2 (1.94%) GDPR
5 2 (1.94%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.97%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.97%) MiFID
6 1 (0.97%) NIST
6 1 (0.97%) PSD2
System Software
1 3 (2.91%) Docker
2 1 (0.97%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 4 (3.88%) Nessus
2 3 (2.91%) Kubernetes
3 2 (1.94%) Nmap
4 1 (0.97%) HP ALM
4 1 (0.97%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 6 (5.83%) Oracle
2 5 (4.85%) Microsoft
3 2 (1.94%) Cisco
3 2 (1.94%) F5
3 2 (1.94%) Fortinet
3 2 (1.94%) Palo Alto
3 2 (1.94%) Splunk
4 1 (0.97%) Google
4 1 (0.97%) HP
4 1 (0.97%) MuleSoft
4 1 (0.97%) Siebel
4 1 (0.97%) UiPath