England QA Contracts

This section looks at the demand for Quality Assurance (QA) skills within the England 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 4 July 2008 with a comparison to the same period last year.

Quality Assurance (QA)
Location Amersham Aylesbury Barnsley Basildon Basingstoke Bath Bedfordshire Berkshire Bicester Birmingham Bishop's Stortford Blackpool Bournemouth Bridgend Brighton Bristol Buckinghamshire Camberley Cambridge Cambridgeshire Canary Wharf Cardiff Chatham Chelmsford Cheltenham Cheshire City of London Clapham Coventry Crawley Croydon Docklands, London Dorset Durham East Anglia East Midlands East of England East Sussex Eastleigh Edinburgh England Epsom Essex Fareham Farnborough Glasgow Gloucester Gloucestershire Godalming Guildford Halifax Hammersmith Hampshire Harrogate Harrow Havant Hayes Hemel Hempstead Herefordshire Hertfordshire Home Counties 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 West North Yorkshire Northumberland Nottingham Nottinghamshire Oxford Oxfordshire Peterborough Poole Portsmouth Reading Sale Sandwich Scotland Sheffield Shropshire Slough Somerset South Coast South East South Wales South West South Yorkshire Southampton St Albans Staffordshire Stevenage Stirling Stockport Street Sunbury-on-Thames Surrey Swindon Telford Thames Valley Tyne and Wear UK Uxbridge Wales Walsall Walton-on-Thames Ware Warrington Warwick Warwickshire Watford West Lothian West Midlands West Sussex West Wales West Yorkshire Wiltshire Windsor Woking Worcestershire Worthing Yorkshire	3 months to 4 Jul 2008	Same period last year
Rank	125	113
Rank change on same period last year	-12
Matching contract IT job ads	930	1272
As % of all UK contract IT job ads sampled	1.226 %	1.349 %
As % of the category below	32.89 %	30.64 %
Daily rates quoted	327	394
Average minimum daily rate	£354	£365
Average daily rate	£386	£388
% change on same period last year	-0.58 %
Average maximum daily rate	£417	£411
UK excluding London average daily rate	£335	£341
% change on same period last year	-1.80 %
Hourly rates quoted	71	104
Average minimum hourly rate	£28.63	£29.61
Average hourly rate	£30.29	£31.64
% change on same period last year	-4.28 %
Average maximum hourly rate	£31.95	£33.68
UK excluding London average hourly rate	£27.90	£30.52
% change on same period last year	-8.59 %
Quality Assurance & Compliance England
Matching contract IT job ads	2828	4151
As % of all UK contract IT job ads sampled	3.729 %	4.403 %
Daily rates quoted	964	1469
Average minimum daily rate	£377	£396
Average daily rate	£405	£422
% change on same period last year	-4.23 %
Average maximum daily rate	£432	£449
UK excluding London average daily rate	£373	£376
% change on same period last year	-0.88 %
Hourly rates quoted	288	424
Average minimum hourly rate	£22.81	£23.87
Average hourly rate	£24.44	£25.46
% change on same period last year	-3.98 %
Average maximum hourly rate	£26.08	£27.05
UK excluding London average hourly rate	£23.52	£24.90
% change on same period last year	-5.54 %
QA UK

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 England 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 England region.

QA
Daily Rate Histogram

The chart provides a histogram of daily rates quoted in contract IT jobs citing QA across the England region over the 3 months to 4 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 England region.

QA
Hourly Rate Histogram

The chart provides a histogram of hourly rates quoted in contract IT jobs citing QA across the England region over the 3 months to 4 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 England region over the 3 months to 4 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
London	-8	451	£423	+1.42 %
South East	-5	194	£328	+0.16 %
North West	+13	63	£333	+28.09 %
Yorkshire	+18	57	£303	-19.64 %
East of England	-26	45	£367	+3.58 %
South West	+17	44	£337	-13.83 %
West Midlands	-27	37	£365	+17.30 %
East Midlands	-15	14	£316	-0.44 %
Midlands	-17	13	£388	-0.51 %
North East	+7	6	£300	+20.00 %
South Coast	+3	1	-	-

QA UK

QA
Top 30 Related IT Skills

For the 6 months to 4 July 2008, IT contractor jobs across the England 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.

1 440 (20.73 %) Finance 2 347 (16.34 %) SQL 3 256 (12.06 %) Oracle 4 233 (10.98 %) Banking 5 207 (9.750 %) Project Management 5 207 (9.750 %) Java 6 206 (9.703 %) Windows 7 190 (8.950 %) Unix 8 185 (8.714 %) User Acceptance Testing 9 170 (8.008 %) PRINCE2 10 165 (7.772 %) ISEB 11 154 (7.254 %) .NET 12 149 (7.018 %) Test Scripting 13 148 (6.971 %) Government 14 146 (6.877 %) Microsoft

15 141 (6.642 %) TestDirector 16 139 (6.547 %) HTML 16 139 (6.547 %) MS Office 17 138 (6.500 %) XML 17 138 (6.500 %) Security Cleared 18 130 (6.123 %) Investment Banking 19 128 (6.029 %) Software Testing 20 126 (5.935 %) Automated Testing 21 125 (5.888 %) UML 22 121 (5.699 %) C# 23 117 (5.511 %) SQL Server 24 109 (5.134 %) Degree 25 105 (4.946 %) Agile Software Development 25 105 (4.946 %) MS Excel 26 99 (4.663 %) J2EE

QA
Top Related IT Skills by Category

For the 6 months to 4 July 2008, IT contractor jobs across the England 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 1 154 (7.254 %) .NET 2 139 (6.547 %) HTML 3 138 (6.500 %) XML 4 99 (4.663 %) J2EE 5 64 (3.015 %) CSS 5 64 (3.015 %) WebServices 6 44 (2.073 %) ASP.NET 7 34 (1.602 %) ASP 8 33 (1.554 %) AJAX 9 28 (1.319 %) XSLT 10 26 (1.225 %) JSP 11 20 (0.942 %) Middleware 12 18 (0.848 %) .NET Framework 13 15 (0.707 %) WebSphere 13 15 (0.707 %) JDBC 14 13 (0.612 %) Servlets 14 13 (0.612 %) XHTML 14 13 (0.612 %) Hibernate 15 10 (0.471 %) Application Packaging 15 10 (0.471 %) WCF	Application Platforms 1 43 (2.025 %) CMS 2 25 (1.178 %) JBoss 3 23 (1.083 %) SharePoint 4 22 (1.036 %) IIS 5 19 (0.895 %) Exchange Server 2007 6 17 (0.801 %) Tomcat 7 16 (0.754 %) Oracle Workflow 8 14 (0.659 %) BizTalk Server 9 13 (0.612 %) SharePoint Server 2007 10 11 (0.518 %) WebSphere Application Server 10 11 (0.518 %) Oracle Application Server 11 10 (0.471 %) Lotus Notes 11 10 (0.471 %) Apache 12 9 (0.424 %) MS Exchange 12 9 (0.424 %) SAS 12 9 (0.424 %) Content Management Server 13 8 (0.377 %) Exchange Server 2003 14 7 (0.330 %) WebLogic 14 7 (0.330 %) ArcSDE 15 6 (0.283 %) Exchange Server 2000
Applications 1 139 (6.547 %) MS Office 2 105 (4.946 %) MS Excel 3 76 (3.580 %) MS Project 4 41 (1.931 %) MS Visio 5 35 (1.649 %) MS PowerPoint 6 16 (0.754 %) Photoshop 7 6 (0.283 %) RoboHelp 7 6 (0.283 %) AutoCAD 7 6 (0.283 %) FrameMaker 8 3 (0.141 %) InfoPath 8 3 (0.141 %) 3ds Max 8 3 (0.141 %) DOC1 9 2 (0.094 %) Adobe Illustrator 9 2 (0.094 %) Acrobat 10 1 (0.047 %) FreeHand 10 1 (0.047 %) Fireworks 10 1 (0.047 %) Adobe Premiere 10 1 (0.047 %) CA Clarity 10 1 (0.047 %) Paint Shop Pro 10 1 (0.047 %) MATLAB	Business Applications 1 24 (1.130 %) Oracle Applications 2 19 (0.895 %) Oracle EBS 3 12 (0.565 %) Oracle 11i 3 12 (0.565 %) Loan IQ 3 12 (0.565 %) SAP IS-U 4 10 (0.471 %) BASE24 5 8 (0.377 %) Oracle iRecruitment 5 8 (0.377 %) Teamcenter 5 8 (0.377 %) Oracle ERP 6 7 (0.330 %) Summit 7 6 (0.283 %) Microsoft CRM 7 6 (0.283 %) SAP HR 8 4 (0.188 %) SAP R/3 8 4 (0.188 %) Oracle HRMS 8 4 (0.188 %) RMDS 8 4 (0.188 %) ADP Wilco Gloss 8 4 (0.188 %) SAP ERP 9 3 (0.141 %) Hyperion Enterprise 9 3 (0.141 %) SAP CO 9 3 (0.141 %) SAP FI/CO
Communications & Networking 1 78 (3.674 %) Internet 2 27 (1.272 %) SAN 3 26 (1.225 %) TCP/IP 4 16 (0.754 %) Wireless 5 12 (0.565 %) LDAP 6 11 (0.518 %) DNS 6 11 (0.518 %) Intranet 7 9 (0.424 %) WINS 7 9 (0.424 %) X.25 8 8 (0.377 %) Broadband 8 8 (0.377 %) PSTN 9 7 (0.330 %) Firewall 10 6 (0.283 %) SMS 11 5 (0.236 %) DHCP 11 5 (0.236 %) LAN 11 5 (0.236 %) HTTP 12 4 (0.188 %) ATM 12 4 (0.188 %) GSM 12 4 (0.188 %) WAN 12 4 (0.188 %) UMTS	Database & Business Intelligence 1 117 (5.511 %) SQL Server 2 42 (1.978 %) RDBMS 3 41 (1.931 %) Oracle Reports 4 37 (1.743 %) BusinessObjects 5 36 (1.696 %) Oracle 10g 5 36 (1.696 %) SQL Server 2005 6 32 (1.507 %) Datawarehouse 7 29 (1.366 %) SQL Server 2000 8 25 (1.178 %) ETL 9 20 (0.942 %) Oracle Discoverer 9 20 (0.942 %) DB2 10 19 (0.895 %) Crystal Reports 10 19 (0.895 %) MS Access 11 17 (0.801 %) Oracle 9i 11 17 (0.801 %) TOAD 12 15 (0.707 %) MySQL 12 15 (0.707 %) GIS 13 14 (0.659 %) Oracle 8/8i 13 14 (0.659 %) Reference Data 14 13 (0.612 %) Data Cleansing
Development Applications 1 141 (6.642 %) TestDirector 2 69 (3.250 %) QuickTest Pro 3 44 (2.073 %) WinRunner 4 42 (1.978 %) LoadRunner 5 37 (1.743 %) ClearQuest 6 32 (1.507 %) Ant 7 24 (1.130 %) PVCS 7 24 (1.130 %) Selenium 8 23 (1.083 %) Visual Studio 9 22 (1.036 %) Flash 10 21 (0.989 %) Eclipse 11 20 (0.942 %) ClearCase 12 17 (0.801 %) Oracle Forms 12 17 (0.801 %) QARun 12 17 (0.801 %) QALoad 13 14 (0.659 %) TestPartner 13 14 (0.659 %) RequisitePro 14 13 (0.612 %) NUnit 15 10 (0.471 %) Dreamweaver 16 9 (0.424 %) MSI	General 1 440 (20.73 %) Finance 2 233 (10.98 %) Banking 3 148 (6.971 %) Government 4 130 (6.123 %) Investment Banking 5 88 (4.145 %) Front Office 6 51 (2.402 %) Retail 7 48 (2.261 %) Health 8 46 (2.167 %) Pharmaceutical 9 44 (2.073 %) Telecoms 10 37 (1.743 %) Back Office 11 33 (1.554 %) Pensions 12 32 (1.507 %) Education 13 31 (1.460 %) Financial Institution 13 31 (1.460 %) Insurance 13 31 (1.460 %) Games 14 27 (1.272 %) Automotive 14 27 (1.272 %) Manufacturing 15 24 (1.130 %) Marketing 16 21 (0.989 %) Auditing 17 20 (0.942 %) Aerospace
Job Titles 1 571 (26.90 %) Analyst 2 217 (10.22 %) Tester 3 204 (9.609 %) Test Analyst 4 194 (9.138 %) Developer 5 166 (7.819 %) Business Analyst 6 153 (7.207 %) Test Manager 7 131 (6.171 %) Project Manager 8 106 (4.993 %) QA Analyst 9 97 (4.569 %) Consultant 10 74 (3.486 %) Architect 10 74 (3.486 %) QA Manager 11 69 (3.250 %) Senior Analyst 12 66 (3.109 %) Test Engineer 12 66 (3.109 %) QA Tester 13 63 (2.967 %) QA Engineer 14 50 (2.355 %) Coordinator 15 49 (2.308 %) Senior Tester 16 44 (2.073 %) Team Leader 17 43 (2.025 %) Quality Analyst 18 42 (1.978 %) QA Test Analyst	Miscellaneous 1 67 (3.156 %) Derivative 2 62 (2.920 %) Equities 3 46 (2.167 %) NHS 4 44 (2.073 %) Fixed Income 5 43 (2.025 %) Asset Management 6 26 (1.225 %) Client/Server 7 22 (1.036 %) Management Information System 8 18 (0.848 %) Computer Science 9 16 (0.754 %) Interactive TV 10 15 (0.707 %) Equity Derivative 11 13 (0.612 %) Mathematics 11 13 (0.612 %) Mainframe 12 12 (0.565 %) IPTV 13 11 (0.518 %) DTV 13 11 (0.518 %) STB 13 11 (0.518 %) Clustering 14 10 (0.471 %) AS400 14 10 (0.471 %) Foreign Exchange (FX) 15 9 (0.424 %) N-Tier 16 8 (0.377 %) PMI
Operating Systems 1 206 (9.703 %) Windows 2 190 (8.950 %) Unix 3 93 (4.381 %) Linux 4 30 (1.413 %) Solaris 5 25 (1.178 %) Windows XP 6 24 (1.130 %) Windows 2000 7 22 (1.036 %) Windows Server 2003 8 19 (0.895 %) Windows NT 9 6 (0.283 %) AIX 10 4 (0.188 %) zOS 11 3 (0.141 %) VME 11 3 (0.141 %) Windows Mobile 11 3 (0.141 %) HPUX 11 3 (0.141 %) NetWare 12 2 (0.094 %) FreeBSD 13 1 (0.047 %) Mac OS X 13 1 (0.047 %) Windows Vista 13 1 (0.047 %) Windows CE 13 1 (0.047 %) Ubuntu	Processes & Methodologies 1 207 (9.750 %) Project Management 2 185 (8.714 %) User Acceptance Testing 3 170 (8.008 %) PRINCE2 4 149 (7.018 %) Test Scripting 5 138 (6.500 %) Security Cleared 6 128 (6.029 %) Software Testing 7 126 (5.935 %) Automated Testing 8 125 (5.888 %) UML 9 105 (4.946 %) Agile Software Development 10 92 (4.333 %) Business Analysis 11 78 (3.674 %) Migration 11 78 (3.674 %) Change Management 12 69 (3.250 %) Performance Testing 13 66 (3.109 %) Test Management 14 64 (3.015 %) Risk Management 14 64 (3.015 %) Validation 15 63 (2.967 %) RUP 16 62 (2.920 %) System Testing 17 61 (2.873 %) ITIL 17 61 (2.873 %) Regression Testing
Programming Languages 1 347 (16.34 %) SQL 2 207 (9.750 %) Java 3 121 (5.699 %) C# 4 83 (3.910 %) JavaScript 5 82 (3.862 %) C++ 6 79 (3.721 %) C 7 59 (2.779 %) Perl 8 58 (2.732 %) PL/SQL 9 51 (2.402 %) VB 10 41 (1.931 %) VBScript 11 26 (1.225 %) PHP 12 22 (1.036 %) Shell Script 13 21 (0.989 %) VBA 14 20 (0.942 %) Python 15 19 (0.895 %) VB.NET 16 11 (0.518 %) VB6 17 10 (0.471 %) ActionScript 18 8 (0.377 %) DHTML 19 6 (0.283 %) Delphi 19 6 (0.283 %) Transact-SQL	Qualifications 1 165 (7.772 %) ISEB 2 109 (5.134 %) Degree 3 19 (0.895 %) PRINCE2 Practitioner 4 15 (0.707 %) PRINCE2 Certification 5 13 (0.612 %) Microsoft Certification 6 10 (0.471 %) ISEB Practitioner 7 9 (0.424 %) HND 7 9 (0.424 %) MCSE 7 9 (0.424 %) ISTQB 8 6 (0.283 %) HNC 8 6 (0.283 %) ITIL Certification 9 5 (0.236 %) CIMA 10 4 (0.188 %) MBA 10 4 (0.188 %) ACCA 11 3 (0.141 %) CISA 11 3 (0.141 %) MCSD 11 3 (0.141 %) Citrix Certification 12 2 (0.094 %) Sun Certification 12 2 (0.094 %) IRCA 12 2 (0.094 %) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance 1 25 (1.178 %) ISO9001 2 20 (0.942 %) Sarbanes-Oxley 3 18 (0.848 %) SLA 3 18 (0.848 %) 21 CFR Part 11 4 17 (0.801 %) GMP 5 13 (0.612 %) GLP 5 13 (0.612 %) GCP 6 9 (0.424 %) ISO9000 6 9 (0.424 %) GxP 7 4 (0.188 %) WAI 7 4 (0.188 %) MiFID 7 4 (0.188 %) CESG Infosec 8 2 (0.094 %) COBIT 8 2 (0.094 %) ISO14001 8 2 (0.094 %) EFQM 8 2 (0.094 %) Basel II 8 2 (0.094 %) TickIT 8 2 (0.094 %) ISO12207 9 1 (0.047 %) ISO15504 9 1 (0.047 %) ISO27001	System Software 1 46 (2.167 %) Active Directory 2 8 (0.377 %) NetBackup 3 5 (0.236 %) VMware Infrastructure 4 3 (0.141 %) MSMQ 5 2 (0.094 %) AquaLogic 5 2 (0.094 %) Squid 5 2 (0.094 %) VMware Workstation 5 2 (0.094 %) VMware Server 6 1 (0.047 %) Oracle RMAN 6 1 (0.047 %) Xen 6 1 (0.047 %) Oracle RAC 6 1 (0.047 %) NFS 6 1 (0.047 %) ISA Server 6 1 (0.047 %) VMware ESX
Systems Management 1 7 (0.330 %) Systems Management Server (SMS) 2 5 (0.236 %) Unicenter 2 5 (0.236 %) Tivoli 2 5 (0.236 %) Tivoli Storage Manager 3 4 (0.188 %) OpenView 3 4 (0.188 %) OVSD 3 4 (0.188 %) Oracle Statspack 4 3 (0.141 %) OpenView Configuration Management 5 2 (0.094 %) Norton AntiVirus 5 2 (0.094 %) SCOM 5 2 (0.094 %) WSUS 5 2 (0.094 %) BMC Marimba 5 2 (0.094 %) Oracle Enterprise Manager 6 1 (0.047 %) SCCM 6 1 (0.047 %) AutoSys	Vendors 1 256 (12.06 %) Oracle 2 146 (6.877 %) Microsoft 3 75 (3.533 %) SAP 4 40 (1.884 %) Citrix 5 38 (1.790 %) HP 6 37 (1.743 %) Business Objects 7 29 (1.366 %) IBM 8 28 (1.319 %) Sybase 9 23 (1.083 %) Cisco 10 22 (1.036 %) Calypso 11 20 (0.942 %) Compuware 12 18 (0.848 %) Sun 13 16 (0.754 %) OpenTV 14 14 (0.659 %) Cognos 15 13 (0.612 %) EMC 16 10 (0.471 %) Siebel 16 10 (0.471 %) Lotus 16 10 (0.471 %) Remedy 17 9 (0.424 %) ILOG 17 9 (0.424 %) Adobe