Cheshire QA Contracts

This section looks at the demand for Quality Assurance (QA) skills within the Cheshire region with a comparison to our Quality Assurance & Compliance category. Included is a guide to the contractor rates offered in IT job ads that have cited QA over the 3 months to 18 July 2008 with a comparison to the same period last year.

Quality Assurance (QA)
Location Barnsley Basildon Basingstoke Bath Berkshire Bicester Birmingham Blackpool Bournemouth Bracknell Bridgend Brighton Bristol Buckinghamshire Camberley Cambridge Cambridgeshire Canary Wharf Cardiff Chatham Chelmsford Cheltenham Cheshire City of London Clapham Corsham Coventry Crawley Croydon Derbyshire Docklands, London Dorset Durham East Anglia East Midlands East of England East Sussex Eastleigh Edinburgh England Epsom Essex Fareham Farnborough Flintshire Glasgow Gloucester Gloucestershire Godalming Guildford Halifax Hammersmith Hampshire Harlow Harrogate Harrow Hartlepool Havant Hayes Hertfordshire High Wycombe Home Counties Horsham Hounslow Kent Knutsford Lancashire Leamington Spa Leatherhead Leeds Leicestershire Liverpool Livingston London M4 Corridor Maidstone Manchester Marlow Merseyside Middlesex Midlands Milton Keynes Newbury Newcastle Upon Tyne Newport Newton-le-Willows North East North Wales North West North Yorkshire Nottingham Nottinghamshire Oxford Oxfordshire Peterborough Poole Portsmouth Reading Sale Sandwich Scotland Sheffield Shropshire Slough Somerset South East South Wales South West South Yorkshire Southampton St Albans Staffordshire Stevenage Stirling Stockport Street Sunbury-on-Thames Surrey Swadlincote Swindon Telford Thames Valley Tyne and Wear UK Uxbridge Wales Walsall Ware Warrington Warwick Warwickshire Watford West Lothian West Midlands West Sussex West Wales West Yorkshire Wilmslow Wiltshire Windsor Worcestershire Worthing Yorkshire	3 months to 18 Jul 2008	Same period last year
Rank	62	48
Rank change on same period last year	-14
Matching contract IT job ads	17	12
As % of all UK contract IT job ads sampled	0.023 %	0.012 %
As % of the category below	38.64 %	19.67 %
Daily rates quoted	4	4
Average minimum daily rate	£349	£363
Average daily rate	£364	£388
% change on same period last year	-6.16 %
Average maximum daily rate	£379	£413
UK excluding London average daily rate	£334	£344
% change on same period last year	-2.89 %
Hourly rates quoted	2	2
Average minimum hourly rate	£42.00	£12.00
Average hourly rate	£45.00	£13.50
% change on same period last year	+233.33 %
Average maximum hourly rate	£48.00	£15.00
UK excluding London average hourly rate	£28.80	£31.55
% change on same period last year	-8.72 %
Quality Assurance & Compliance Cheshire
Matching contract IT job ads	44	61
As % of all UK contract IT job ads sampled	0.058 %	0.063 %
Daily rates quoted	11	17
Average minimum daily rate	£336	£351
Average daily rate	£349	£369
% change on same period last year	-5.39 %
Average maximum daily rate	£362	£387
UK excluding London average daily rate	£366	£372
% change on same period last year	-1.50 %
Hourly rates quoted	5	4
Average minimum hourly rate	£22.36	£13.50
Average hourly rate	£23.36	£14.75
% change on same period last year	+58.35 %
Average maximum hourly rate	£24.36	£16.00
UK excluding London average hourly rate	£23.95	£24.98
% change on same period last year	-4.12 %
QA North West

We calculate average IT contractor rates directly from the figures quoted and do not attempt to derive hourly rates from daily rates or vice versa.

QA
Demand Trend

The chart provides a 3-month moving total beginning in 2004 of IT contractor jobs citing QA across the Cheshire region as a proportion of the total demand within the Quality Assurance & Compliance category.

QA
Daily Rate Trend

The chart provides the 3-month moving average for daily rates quoted in IT contract jobs citing QA across the Cheshire region.

QA
Daily Rate Histogram

The chart provides a histogram of daily rates quoted in contract IT jobs citing QA across the Cheshire region over the 3 months to 18 July 2008.

QA
Hourly Rate Trend

The chart provides the 3-month moving average for hourly rates quoted in IT contractor jobs citing QA across the Cheshire region.

QA
Hourly Rate Histogram

The chart provides a histogram of hourly rates quoted in contract IT jobs citing QA across the Cheshire region over the 3 months to 18 July 2008.

QA
Contract Locations

This section looks at the demand and provides a guide to the average contractor rates quoted in IT job ads citing QA within the Cheshire region over the 3 months to 18 July 2008. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 3 month period last year. A positive number indicates a relative increase in demand.

Location	Rank Change on Same Period Last Last	Matching Contract IT Job Ads	Average Daily Rate Last 3 Months	Average Daily Rate % Change on Same Period Last Year
Warrington	+3	8	-	-
Knutsford	-	5	£430	-
Wilmslow	-3	1	-	-

QA North West

QA
Top 30 Related IT Skills

For the 6 months to 18 July 2008, IT contractor jobs across the Cheshire region citing QA also mentioned the following IT skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the number of jobs and their proportion against the total number of contract IT job ads sampled that cited QA.

1 8 (26.67 %) ISEB 2 7 (23.33 %) SQL 2 7 (23.33 %) Windows 3 6 (20.00 %) Software Testing 4 5 (16.67 %) Project Management 4 5 (16.67 %) ITIL 4 5 (16.67 %) PRINCE2 5 4 (13.33 %) CMMI 5 4 (13.33 %) Change Management 6 3 (10.00 %) Exchange Server 2000 6 3 (10.00 %) Exchange Server 2003 6 3 (10.00 %) Telecoms 6 3 (10.00 %) Finance 6 3 (10.00 %) UNIX 6 3 (10.00 %) CSS

6 3 (10.00 %) HTML 6 3 (10.00 %) Java 6 3 (10.00 %) PL/SQL 6 3 (10.00 %) J2EE 6 3 (10.00 %) Oracle 6 3 (10.00 %) E-Commerce 6 3 (10.00 %) Oracle 10g 7 2 (6.667 %) HP 7 2 (6.667 %) Intel 7 2 (6.667 %) Windows NT 7 2 (6.667 %) Cisco 7 2 (6.667 %) Eclipse 7 2 (6.667 %) Windows 2000 7 2 (6.667 %) UML 7 2 (6.667 %) OO

QA
Top Related IT Skills by Category

For the 6 months to 18 July 2008, IT contractor jobs across the Cheshire region citing QA also mentioned the following IT skills grouped by category. The figures indicate the number of jobs and their proportion against the total number of contract IT job ads sampled that cited QA. Up to 20 skills are shown per category.

Application Development 1 3 (10.00 %) HTML 1 3 (10.00 %) J2EE 1 3 (10.00 %) CSS 2 2 (6.667 %) JDBC 2 2 (6.667 %) JSP 2 2 (6.667 %) Servlets 2 2 (6.667 %) XML 2 2 (6.667 %) Hibernate 2 2 (6.667 %) AJAX 3 1 (3.333 %) UIQ 3 1 (3.333 %) WebServices 3 1 (3.333 %) ASP.NET 3 1 (3.333 %) .NET	Application Platforms 1 3 (10.00 %) Exchange Server 2000 1 3 (10.00 %) Exchange Server 2003 2 1 (3.333 %) SharePoint Server 2007 2 1 (3.333 %) SharePoint 2 1 (3.333 %) eRoom
Applications 1 1 (3.333 %) MS Excel	Communications & Networking 1 2 (6.667 %) Internet 1 2 (6.667 %) Firewall 1 2 (6.667 %) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence 1 3 (10.00 %) Oracle 10g 2 1 (3.333 %) Oracle 9i	Development Applications 1 2 (6.667 %) Ant 1 2 (6.667 %) Eclipse 2 1 (3.333 %) PVCS 2 1 (3.333 %) VSS/SourceSafe
General 1 3 (10.00 %) Telecoms 1 3 (10.00 %) Finance 2 2 (6.667 %) Construction 2 2 (6.667 %) Electric 2 2 (6.667 %) Health 2 2 (6.667 %) Advertising 3 1 (3.333 %) Publishing 3 1 (3.333 %) Retail 3 1 (3.333 %) Auditing 3 1 (3.333 %) Pharmaceutical	Job Titles 1 6 (20.00 %) QA Manager 2 4 (13.33 %) Technical Manager 2 4 (13.33 %) Developer 3 3 (10.00 %) Architect 4 2 (6.667 %) Test Manager 4 2 (6.667 %) Technical Support 4 2 (6.667 %) Java Developer 4 2 (6.667 %) Delivery Manager 4 2 (6.667 %) Service Manager 4 2 (6.667 %) Quality Manager 4 2 (6.667 %) Technical Services Manager 5 1 (3.333 %) SAP Developer 5 1 (3.333 %) Oracle Team Leader 5 1 (3.333 %) Web Analyst 5 1 (3.333 %) SharePoint Developer 5 1 (3.333 %) Database Manager 5 1 (3.333 %) Web Test Analyst 5 1 (3.333 %) Coordinator 5 1 (3.333 %) Software Tester 5 1 (3.333 %) Database Team Leader
Miscellaneous 1 1 (3.333 %) Management Information System	Operating Systems 1 7 (23.33 %) Windows 2 3 (10.00 %) UNIX 3 2 (6.667 %) Windows 2000 3 2 (6.667 %) Windows NT 3 2 (6.667 %) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies 1 6 (20.00 %) Software Testing 2 5 (16.67 %) ITIL 2 5 (16.67 %) PRINCE2 2 5 (16.67 %) Project Management 3 4 (13.33 %) Change Management 3 4 (13.33 %) CMMI 4 3 (10.00 %) E-Commerce 5 2 (6.667 %) UML 5 2 (6.667 %) OO 5 2 (6.667 %) Technical Architecture 5 2 (6.667 %) Performance Testing 5 2 (6.667 %) QMS 6 1 (3.333 %) Service Delivery 6 1 (3.333 %) System Testing 6 1 (3.333 %) Performance Management 6 1 (3.333 %) ISMS 6 1 (3.333 %) Information Security Management 6 1 (3.333 %) Security Management 6 1 (3.333 %) Validation 6 1 (3.333 %) Information Security	Programming Languages 1 7 (23.33 %) SQL 2 3 (10.00 %) Java 2 3 (10.00 %) PL/SQL 3 1 (3.333 %) ABAP 3 1 (3.333 %) SAPscript 3 1 (3.333 %) C#
Qualifications 1 8 (26.67 %) ISEB 2 2 (6.667 %) ISEB Practitioner	Quality Assurance & Compliance 1 1 (3.333 %) ISO9001
System Software 1 1 (3.333 %) Active Directory	Systems Management 1 2 (6.667 %) Norton AntiVirus
Vendors 1 3 (10.00 %) Oracle 2 2 (6.667 %) Cisco 2 2 (6.667 %) HP 2 2 (6.667 %) Intel 2 2 (6.667 %) Symantec 3 1 (3.333 %) Microsoft 3 1 (3.333 %) SAP 3 1 (3.333 %) Symbian