A tale of two cities.
I flew from Liverpool on 25th May and went through security at about 6am. There was a long queue which was snaking around the lines and moving. When I got to the search area there were 4 x-ray machines and frames operating and I counted just over 30 security staff. Total time waiting was 7 minutes.
Fast forward to 27th May and I was flying from Manchester's Terminal 3 and went through security at about 5:30am. The queue (2 lines) stretched back to the bridge to the car park by the VLM check-in desk. Eventually got to the search area and there were just 2 x-ray machines and frames operating and just over half the staff that Liverpool had. Total time waiting was 35 minutes. Although at least that was better than Heathrow's Terminal 4 but don't get me on to that.
Terminal 3 used to be a nice terminal to fly from until they added BMI Baby. The check-in queues were horrendous as well.