Can someone build a career in QA with only manual testing skills or automation is also needed?

Yes, you can absolutely build a career with manual testing alone, especially in areas like:

• Exploratory Testing
• User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
• Accessibility and Usability Testing
• Functional Testing
• Mobile App Testing (esp. on real devices)

There are also domains where deep domain knowledge matters more than automation — e.g., healthcare, finance, ERP systems — where businesses rely on experienced manual testers to understand complex workflows.

Long-term career growth, higher salaries, and access to more job opportunities increasingly demand automation skills — especially for:

• CI/CD pipelines
• Regression testing
• Performance/load testing
• DevOps environments (where testing is part of deployment cycles)

Automation isn't all or nothing

You don’t need to become a full-fledged developer. But basic scripting (like Python, JavaScript, or Java) and experience with frameworks like Selenium, Cypress, or Playwright can massively boost your career trajectory.

Career growth paths with manual + automation:

• QA Analyst → QA Engineer → Sr. QA / SDET
• QA Lead → QA Manager
• Specialized roles: Performance Tester, API Tester, Security QA, etc.

Conclusion:

• Short-term: Yes, manual testing is enough to start and grow.
• Long-term: Automation becomes important to stay competitive and grow into senior or high-paying roles.
• Pro tip: Start learning automation gradually while working as a manual tester.