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Manual QA testing vs Automation QA testing. Why does a manual QA tester need automated testing skills?

Job Market
Jul 20, 2020

Having additional skills is always a bonus, no matter where you are in life or what job you have. In the ever-changing and rapidly growing world of IT it’s imperative that IT professionals, who work in the testing field, keep on working on their skills in order to keep up with the latest developments and advances.

Manual QA testing is at its height and will continue to play a vital role in software development for years to come, but for those of you who wish to further develop your skills or plan on changing direction with your career in the field of testing, Automated QA testing is the next step for you!

Check out our list below that explains why acquiring automated QA testing skills will benefit you in the long term.

Benefits of having automated QA testing skills

Computer programs 20-30 years ago weren’t half as powerful as the ones we have today. Literally, they had a primitive interface, could perform several functions and worked with bytes of data. They could be handled quite well but often simple tasks would take an age! Now we have computers that have complex interfaces, can perform hundreds of functions, have cross-platform solutions, and can house terabytes of data — these are a world away from the good old computers of 30 years ago.

What becomes clear is, as computers step up their game and become society's masterminds,  humans need to ramp up their testing skills to keep up. Acquiring both manual QA skills and automated QA skills is one way of ensuring you can keep up with IT advancements. 

Check out our benefits list below:

  • In some cases the use of manual QA work just isn’t appropriate for the task. For example, if you have a task that needs repeating multiple times, auto testing is better because you’ll be able to set the auto test up and it’ll do the repetitive work for you. For you this means that you won’t have to sit and manually repeat tasks for days on end. 
  • In large organizations sometimes huge amounts of data need to be tested and processed in a small amount of time. In this case manual testing would be difficult to do because you’d soon become bogged down with work and it would be confusing trying to keep track of all the work. Automatic testing is therefore used by large companies because the auto test can sift through the tests extremely quickly, it can take the stress of individual manual testers, and it can monitor the testing effectively.
  • Efficiency. Time is a very valuable asset, especially when it comes to developing software products, as information technologies become obsolete very quickly. Therefore, automatic testing is used to minimize the development time of a new program thus freeing you, the manual tester up, for other outstanding tasks.
  • Better defect detection. As a manual tester you might be subjected to a few late nights, and for all the coffee in the world, there is only so much your body and brain can do. And generally, the more tired we get the more errors we’re likely to make. A robot, on the other hand, doesn’t get tired,doesn't miss things out by accident, and doesn’t need lots of coffee to function all night and day. By acquiring auto QA skills you can basically fool-proof yourself against tiredness. By knowing how to auto QA you can set the tests to run while you recuperate in the background, plus you’ll be preventing yourself from making obvious errors. Data from the World Quality Report confirm this.
  • Higher incomes can be obtained when you have automated QA testing skills. If a QA specialist has some scripting skills for automated testing, they can claim a much higher salary, up to $115,000 per year in some parts of the USA. The difference in salary between a manual QA tester and an automated QA tester is down to the fact that automated testers must have special technical knowledge of the programming basics and the corresponding frameworks.

As you can see, there are numerous reasons why you should acquire automated testing skills. 

But, one thing you should remember, for all the auto QA’s perks, you can’t beat a human when it comes to certain tests. And let’s face it manual QA isn’t going anywhere — just check out our article “Will QA Manual Testing Disappear in 5 years” if you don’t believe us!

If you want to learn about automated testing, you will need specialized training and our courses are here to help you acquire the necessary skills to get your next big break in IT.

Apply for your course today, complete your training, and you’ll only pay for your training course once you get a job in IT.

Apply for the QA Automation


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