Quality Assurance (QA)
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for QA skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited QA over the 6 months to 15 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
15 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 57 79 69
Rank change year-on-year +22 -10 +6
Contract jobs citing QA 1,449 1,712 2,994
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 3.41% 3.00% 3.42%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.90% 22.43% 25.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 977 1,244 2,085
10th Percentile £313 £313 £350
25th Percentile £400 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £509 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year +1.70% -0.99% +6.32%
75th Percentile £611 £625 £606
90th Percentile £750 £743 £694
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £450
% change year-on-year +5.26% +5.56% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 72 32 47
10th Percentile £10.82 £10.92 £19.10
25th Percentile £12.25 £12.41 £25.50
Median hourly rate £14.69 £22.49 £48.50
Median % change year-on-year -34.67% -53.64% +151.95%
75th Percentile £28.43 £28.72 £61.75
90th Percentile £72.44 £54.65 £69.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £13.52 £13.00 £49.27
% change year-on-year +4.00% -73.61% +159.29%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

QA is in the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 6,062 7,631 11,586
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 14.25% 13.36% 13.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,850 5,224 7,927
10th Percentile £282 £280 £300
25th Percentile £405 £413 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% +2.44% +7.89%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £625
90th Percentile £750 £742 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £484 £480 £450
% change year-on-year +0.83% +6.56% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 380 234 311
10th Percentile £10.95 £13.41 £12.02
25th Percentile £13.18 £18.71 £17.00
Median hourly rate £21.06 £35.00 £31.00
Median % change year-on-year -39.84% +12.90% +47.62%
75th Percentile £45.00 £62.00 £49.75
90th Percentile £68.75 £77.50 £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.27 £35.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year -47.80% +55.56% +7.14%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing QA as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for QA in the UK

QA
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing QA.

Daily rate trend for QA in the UK

QA
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA over the 6 months to 15 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for QA in the UK

QA
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing QA.

Hourly rate trend for QA in the UK

QA
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing QA over the 6 months to 15 May 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for QA in the UK

QA
Top 18 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing QA within the UK over the 6 months to 15 May 2024. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +16 1,200 £525 +3.96% 1,260
London +14 642 £538 -2.27% 358
UK excluding London +32 609 £500 +5.26% 954
Work from Home +21 501 £500 +1.27% 462
North of England +19 157 £500 - 243
South East +41 155 £488 +2.63% 209
South West +43 100 £550 +20.88% 129
Midlands +6 83 £450 +8.43% 185
North West +10 80 £500 +11.11% 130
Yorkshire +25 70 £550 +4.76% 83
West Midlands -1 58 £525 +23.53% 112
Scotland +36 56 £450 -5.26% 58
Wales +31 26 £540 -5.26% 37
East Midlands +4 23 £303 -13.57% 73
East of England -14 22 £375 -17.58% 107
Northern Ireland +13 12 £325 -12.75% 14
North East -2 7 £410 -18.00% 33
Isle of Man - 2 - -

QA
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 63 (4.35%) Confluence
2 52 (3.59%) SharePoint
3 32 (2.21%) CMS
4 14 (0.97%) IIS
5 12 (0.83%) Drupal
6 11 (0.76%) Apache
7 8 (0.55%) SAS
7 8 (0.55%) WordPress
8 6 (0.41%) Microsoft Exchange
9 5 (0.35%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.28%) Alfresco
10 4 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
10 4 (0.28%) Apache Solr
10 4 (0.28%) ArcGIS
10 4 (0.28%) nginx
11 3 (0.21%) Apache Spark
12 2 (0.14%) MQSeries
13 1 (0.069%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.069%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 103 (7.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 39 (2.69%) Microsoft Office
3 34 (2.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 27 (1.86%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.35%) Simulink
7 3 (0.21%) Acrobat
8 2 (0.14%) Mingle
8 2 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.069%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.069%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.069%) Autodesk Inventor
9 1 (0.069%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.069%) InVision
9 1 (0.069%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.069%) SPSS
9 1 (0.069%) Trello
Business Applications
1 23 (1.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (1.52%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.55%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 7 (0.48%) Endur
4 7 (0.48%) SAP ERP
5 6 (0.41%) ION MarketView
5 6 (0.41%) Magento
5 6 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
6 5 (0.35%) Dynamics AX
6 5 (0.35%) IntelliMatch
6 5 (0.35%) SAP QM
7 4 (0.28%) Adobe Campaign
7 4 (0.28%) TrackWise
8 3 (0.21%) ION Anvil
8 3 (0.21%) NEC Housing
8 3 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
8 3 (0.21%) Primavera
8 3 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.21%) SAP Payroll
9 2 (0.14%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 270 (18.63%) Azure
2 179 (12.35%) AWS
3 91 (6.28%) GitHub
4 86 (5.94%) Power Platform
5 79 (5.45%) GCP
6 73 (5.04%) Azure DevOps
7 70 (4.83%) Dynamics 365
8 33 (2.28%) SaaS
9 27 (1.86%) Serverless
10 26 (1.79%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 24 (1.66%) Entra ID
12 23 (1.59%) GitHub Actions
13 22 (1.52%) Microsoft 365
14 21 (1.45%) AWS CloudFormation
14 21 (1.45%) AWS Lambda
14 21 (1.45%) Azure Data Factory
15 20 (1.38%) Amazon EC2
15 20 (1.38%) Amazon S3
16 17 (1.17%) Azure Logic Apps
17 16 (1.10%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 28 (1.93%) Firewall
2 26 (1.79%) TCP/IP
2 26 (1.79%) VPN
3 22 (1.52%) DNS
3 22 (1.52%) Internet
3 22 (1.52%) WAN
4 17 (1.17%) LAN
5 14 (0.97%) HTTP
6 11 (0.76%) FIX Connectivity
6 11 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
7 10 (0.69%) SSL
8 8 (0.55%) 5G
8 8 (0.55%) MPLS
9 7 (0.48%) SSH
10 6 (0.41%) Ethernet
10 6 (0.41%) IPsec
11 5 (0.35%) HTTPS
12 4 (0.28%) ADSL
12 4 (0.28%) Radio Access Network
12 4 (0.28%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (8.14%) SQL Server
2 69 (4.76%) Power BI
3 65 (4.49%) Relational Database
4 49 (3.38%) MySQL
5 31 (2.14%) Oracle Database
6 29 (2.00%) Tableau
7 22 (1.52%) PostgreSQL
8 21 (1.45%) NoSQL
9 20 (1.38%) RDBMS
10 18 (1.24%) Elasticsearch
11 17 (1.17%) Data Lake
12 16 (1.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 15 (1.04%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 14 (0.97%) Microsoft Analysis Services
15 9 (0.62%) BigQuery
16 8 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
16 8 (0.55%) Big Data
16 8 (0.55%) Data Mining
16 8 (0.55%) Data Warehouse
17 7 (0.48%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 164 (11.32%) JIRA
2 85 (5.87%) Git
3 82 (5.66%) Jenkins
4 79 (5.45%) Selenium
5 60 (4.14%) Cucumber
6 57 (3.93%) Postman
7 56 (3.86%) GitLab
8 45 (3.11%) Cypress.io
9 34 (2.35%) JMeter
10 31 (2.14%) JUnit
11 26 (1.79%) Appium
11 26 (1.79%) SpecFlow
12 21 (1.45%) Visual Studio
13 20 (1.38%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
13 20 (1.38%) TeamCity
14 17 (1.17%) Maven
15 16 (1.10%) TestRail
16 15 (1.04%) REST Assured
17 13 (0.90%) WebDriver
17 13 (0.90%) webpack
General
1 503 (34.71%) Social Skills
2 301 (20.77%) Finance
3 184 (12.70%) Analytical Skills
4 109 (7.52%) Banking
5 101 (6.97%) Public Sector
6 49 (3.38%) Front Office
7 43 (2.97%) Telecoms
8 39 (2.69%) Marketing
9 34 (2.35%) Presentation Skills
10 33 (2.28%) Legal
11 32 (2.21%) Investment Banking
11 32 (2.21%) Pharmaceutical
12 30 (2.07%) Retail
13 28 (1.93%) Influencing Skills
14 26 (1.79%) Manufacturing
15 23 (1.59%) Organisational Skills
16 21 (1.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 20 (1.38%) Documentation Skills
18 18 (1.24%) Back Office
19 13 (0.90%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 213 (14.70%) Analyst
2 202 (13.94%) Developer
3 150 (10.35%) Lead
4 93 (6.42%) Architect
5 88 (6.07%) Business Analyst
6 84 (5.80%) QA Engineer
7 82 (5.66%) Senior
8 71 (4.90%) Project Manager
9 62 (4.28%) Tester
10 56 (3.86%) Consultant
11 49 (3.38%) .NET Developer
12 43 (2.97%) QA Analyst
13 42 (2.90%) Test Analyst
13 42 (2.90%) Test Manager
14 39 (2.69%) Software Engineer
15 38 (2.62%) Data Analyst
16 37 (2.55%) Test Engineer
17 36 (2.48%) QA Tester
18 34 (2.35%) QA Leader
19 32 (2.21%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 116 (8.01%) .NET
2 102 (7.04%) React
3 71 (4.90%) REST
4 70 (4.83%) XML
5 54 (3.73%) HTML
6 50 (3.45%) AngularJS
7 49 (3.38%) JSON
8 47 (3.24%) CSS
9 45 (3.11%) Node.js
10 37 (2.55%) Redux
11 35 (2.42%) Web Services
12 34 (2.35%) .NET Framework
12 34 (2.35%) Vue
13 30 (2.07%) Playwright
14 29 (2.00%) Spring
15 27 (1.86%) SailPoint
15 27 (1.86%) SOAP
16 26 (1.79%) Middleware
17 25 (1.73%) Elastic Stack
18 24 (1.66%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 113 (7.80%) Product Ownership
2 48 (3.31%) Derivative
3 42 (2.90%) Management Information System
4 39 (2.69%) Equities
4 39 (2.69%) Fixed Income
5 38 (2.62%) Data Protection Act
6 34 (2.35%) Hedge funds
7 33 (2.28%) Onboarding
8 32 (2.21%) Mobile App
9 30 (2.07%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 27 (1.86%) Public Cloud
11 19 (1.31%) Data Structures
11 19 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
12 18 (1.24%) Self-Motivation
13 15 (1.04%) Algorithms
13 15 (1.04%) Legacy Systems
14 13 (0.90%) Cloud Native
14 13 (0.90%) Life Science
14 13 (0.90%) Linux Command Line
14 13 (0.90%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 114 (7.87%) Windows
2 82 (5.66%) Linux
3 42 (2.90%) Unix
4 36 (2.48%) Windows Server
5 26 (1.79%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.52%) Android
6 22 (1.52%) Apple iOS
7 20 (1.38%) Windows Server 2016
8 19 (1.31%) Windows NT
8 19 (1.31%) Windows Server 2012
8 19 (1.31%) Windows Server 2019
9 11 (0.76%) VMS
10 6 (0.41%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.41%) OpenVMS
10 6 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 5 (0.35%) CentOS
12 3 (0.21%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.069%) Solaris
13 1 (0.069%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 446 (30.78%) Agile
2 286 (19.74%) Test Automation
3 279 (19.25%) Problem-Solving
4 236 (16.29%) DevOps
5 213 (14.70%) Project Management
6 160 (11.04%) CI/CD
7 151 (10.42%) Scrum
8 141 (9.73%) User Acceptance Testing
9 139 (9.59%) Continuous Improvement
10 134 (9.25%) Migration
11 132 (9.11%) Stakeholder Management
12 129 (8.90%) Test Strategy
13 103 (7.11%) Computer Science
13 103 (7.11%) Continuous Integration
14 101 (6.97%) Software Engineering
15 98 (6.76%) SDLC
16 96 (6.63%) Analytics
17 92 (6.35%) Validation
18 88 (6.07%) Project Delivery
19 87 (6.00%) User Stories
Programming Languages
1 231 (15.94%) SQL
2 160 (11.04%) C#
2 160 (11.04%) Python
3 145 (10.01%) Java
3 145 (10.01%) JavaScript
4 76 (5.24%) TypeScript
5 46 (3.17%) PowerShell
6 39 (2.69%) T-SQL
7 29 (2.00%) Bash
8 22 (1.52%) VB
9 21 (1.45%) PHP
9 21 (1.45%) PL/SQL
10 20 (1.38%) C
11 19 (1.31%) VBA
12 15 (1.04%) Perl
12 15 (1.04%) Swift
13 12 (0.83%) Kotlin
14 11 (0.76%) F#
15 10 (0.69%) Bicep
15 10 (0.69%) C++
Qualifications
1 204 (14.08%) Security Cleared
2 199 (13.73%) Degree
3 136 (9.39%) SC Cleared
4 66 (4.55%) Computer Science Degree
4 66 (4.55%) DV Cleared
5 45 (3.11%) ISTQB
6 27 (1.86%) BPSS Clearance
6 27 (1.86%) PMP
7 22 (1.52%) PMI Certification
8 17 (1.17%) Master's Degree
9 15 (1.04%) HNC
10 13 (0.90%) CISSP
11 12 (0.83%) ISEB
11 12 (0.83%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 11 (0.76%) NVQ Level 3
13 10 (0.69%) HND
14 9 (0.62%) Cisco Certification
15 8 (0.55%) CCNA
15 8 (0.55%) CISM
16 6 (0.41%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (4.76%) Data Quality
2 43 (2.97%) Accessibility
3 25 (1.73%) SLA
4 17 (1.17%) PMO
5 15 (1.04%) GDPR
6 11 (0.76%) Software Quality Assurance
7 10 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 9 (0.62%) ISO 9001
9 8 (0.55%) MiFID
10 7 (0.48%) Dodd-Frank
10 7 (0.48%) EMIR
10 7 (0.48%) WCAG
11 6 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 17025
11 6 (0.41%) NIST
12 5 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
12 5 (0.35%) GMP
12 5 (0.35%) HL7
12 5 (0.35%) ISO17020
13 4 (0.28%) HIPAA
13 4 (0.28%) IFRS
System Software
1 59 (4.07%) Active Directory
2 39 (2.69%) Docker
3 21 (1.45%) Firmware
4 12 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.35%) Veritas Cluster Server
5 5 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (0.28%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.28%) VMware Infrastructure
7 3 (0.21%) KVM
7 3 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.21%) VMware Workstation
8 1 (0.069%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.069%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 58 (4.00%) Kubernetes
2 53 (3.66%) Terraform
3 46 (3.17%) Ansible
4 26 (1.79%) Grafana
5 23 (1.59%) Prometheus
5 23 (1.59%) SCCM
6 19 (1.31%) Sysprep
6 19 (1.31%) WSUS
7 18 (1.24%) Progress Chef
8 17 (1.17%) Puppet
9 13 (0.90%) Graylog
9 13 (0.90%) Kibana
10 12 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
11 10 (0.69%) logstash
11 10 (0.69%) Nagios
12 9 (0.62%) Docker Swarm
13 8 (0.55%) HP Fortify
14 6 (0.41%) Nessus
14 6 (0.41%) WebInspect
15 4 (0.28%) Opsgenie
Vendors
1 213 (14.70%) Microsoft
2 114 (7.87%) Oracle
3 95 (6.56%) SAP
4 42 (2.90%) ServiceNow
5 41 (2.83%) Google
6 40 (2.76%) Salesforce
7 39 (2.69%) Adobe
8 35 (2.42%) Splunk
9 27 (1.86%) Citrix
10 24 (1.66%) CyberArk
11 20 (1.38%) Bloomberg
12 14 (0.97%) Cisco
12 14 (0.97%) ION Trading
12 14 (0.97%) Red Hat
13 12 (0.83%) CA Agile Central
13 12 (0.83%) Pega
14 11 (0.76%) MarketAxess
14 11 (0.76%) Optimizely
14 11 (0.76%) Tradeweb
15 10 (0.69%) Databricks