QA Contract Job Trends in the City of London

Quality Assurance (QA)
Central London > City of London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the City of London requiring QA skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 12 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 48 37
Rank change year-on-year +6 -11 +15
Contract jobs citing QA 112 76 102
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 4.90% 4.23% 4.88%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 24.94% 21.59% 29.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 78 54 61
10th Percentile £396 £385 £363
25th Percentile £475 £404 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £559 £551
Median % change year-on-year -1.52% +1.36% -7.39%
75th Percentile £654 £675 £675
90th Percentile £729 £850 £738
Central London median daily rate £550 £559 £551
% change year-on-year -1.52% +1.45% -8.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £34.00 -
Central London median hourly rate - £34.00 -

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
City of London

QA falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills in the City of London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 449 352 344
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 19.66% 19.61% 16.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 336 243 206
10th Percentile £373 £333 £363
25th Percentile £463 £418 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £668 £700 £675
90th Percentile £775 £825 £750
Central London median daily rate £550 £550 £560
% change year-on-year - -1.79% -6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 5 2
10th Percentile - £23.83 £16.60
25th Percentile - £26.57 £17.50
Median hourly rate - £34.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year - +70.00% -
75th Percentile - £56.75 £22.50
90th Percentile - £75.95 £23.40
Central London median hourly rate £35.82 £34.00 £25.18
% change year-on-year +5.35% +35.03% -

QA
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing QA relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London.

QA job vacancy trend in the City of London

QA
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing QA.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing QA

QA
Daily Rate Histogram in the City of London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA in the City of London over the 6 months to 12 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for QA in the City of London

QA
Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing QA.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing QA

QA
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 11 (9.82%) Confluence
2 4 (3.57%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.79%) CMS
3 2 (1.79%) IIS
4 1 (0.89%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.89%) Apache
4 1 (0.89%) MQSeries
4 1 (0.89%) nginx
4 1 (0.89%) WordPress
Applications
1 9 (8.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (2.68%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (1.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (1.79%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.89%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (2.68%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (1.79%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.89%) Advent Moxy
3 1 (0.89%) Advent Portfolio Exchange
3 1 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.89%) Magento
3 1 (0.89%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.89%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.89%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.89%) SAP HCM
3 1 (0.89%) SAP Payroll
3 1 (0.89%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.89%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 25 (22.32%) Azure
2 14 (12.50%) GitHub
3 13 (11.61%) AWS
4 10 (8.93%) Azure DevOps
4 10 (8.93%) Power Platform
5 8 (7.14%) GitHub Actions
6 7 (6.25%) Serverless
7 6 (5.36%) GitHub Copilot
8 4 (3.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 4 (3.57%) Azure Cosmos DB
8 4 (3.57%) Azure Functions
8 4 (3.57%) GCP
8 4 (3.57%) Microsoft Copilot
8 4 (3.57%) Power Automate
8 4 (3.57%) PowerApps
9 3 (2.68%) Amazon Kinesis
9 3 (2.68%) Amazon S3
9 3 (2.68%) AWS Lambda
9 3 (2.68%) OneDrive
9 3 (2.68%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.68%) Internet
2 2 (1.79%) DHCP
2 2 (1.79%) DNS
2 2 (1.79%) Firewall
2 2 (1.79%) Intranet
3 1 (0.89%) INAP
3 1 (0.89%) Intelligent Network
3 1 (0.89%) LAN
3 1 (0.89%) Multicast
3 1 (0.89%) Reverse Proxy
3 1 (0.89%) RTP
3 1 (0.89%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.89%) tcpdump
3 1 (0.89%) VoIP
3 1 (0.89%) VPN
3 1 (0.89%) WAN
3 1 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
3 1 (0.89%) Wireless
3 1 (0.89%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (11.61%) SQL Server
2 9 (8.04%) Power BI
3 7 (6.25%) NoSQL
4 6 (5.36%) Oracle Database
5 5 (4.46%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (3.57%) Amazon Athena
6 4 (3.57%) DynamoDB
6 4 (3.57%) MongoDB
6 4 (3.57%) Relational Database
7 3 (2.68%) Apache Cassandra
7 3 (2.68%) Metadata
7 3 (2.68%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 3 (2.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 3 (2.68%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 2 (1.79%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (1.79%) MySQL
8 2 (1.79%) RDBMS
8 2 (1.79%) SQLPlus
9 1 (0.89%) Amazon RDS
9 1 (0.89%) Redis
Development Applications
1 19 (16.96%) JIRA
2 11 (9.82%) Git
3 9 (8.04%) Jenkins
4 8 (7.14%) Selenium
5 6 (5.36%) GitLab
5 6 (5.36%) JMeter
6 5 (4.46%) Cypress.io
6 5 (4.46%) Maven
7 4 (3.57%) Appium
7 4 (3.57%) Gatling
7 4 (3.57%) Gradle
8 3 (2.68%) Artifactory
8 3 (2.68%) LoadRunner
8 3 (2.68%) NeoLoad
8 3 (2.68%) TeamCity
8 3 (2.68%) Zephyr
9 2 (1.79%) Bitbucket
9 2 (1.79%) Cucumber
9 2 (1.79%) JUnit
9 2 (1.79%) WebDriver
General
1 40 (35.71%) Social Skills
2 36 (32.14%) Finance
3 25 (22.32%) Banking
4 21 (18.75%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (10.71%) Public Sector
6 5 (4.46%) Military
7 4 (3.57%) Front Office
7 4 (3.57%) Influencing Skills
7 4 (3.57%) Retail
8 3 (2.68%) Investment Banking
8 3 (2.68%) Manufacturing
8 3 (2.68%) Marketing
8 3 (2.68%) Organisational Skills
8 3 (2.68%) Retail Banking
9 2 (1.79%) Back Office
9 2 (1.79%) Corporate Banking
9 2 (1.79%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.79%) Law
9 2 (1.79%) Legal
9 2 (1.79%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 27 (24.11%) Developer
2 17 (15.18%) Analyst
3 16 (14.29%) Lead
4 15 (13.39%) Senior
5 10 (8.93%) QA Engineer
6 7 (6.25%) Full-Stack Developer
6 7 (6.25%) Java Developer
7 6 (5.36%) Automation Engineer
7 6 (5.36%) C# Developer
8 5 (4.46%) Business Analyst
8 5 (4.46%) Consultant
8 5 (4.46%) Data Analyst
8 5 (4.46%) Lead Developer
8 5 (4.46%) Lead Full-Stack Developer
8 5 (4.46%) Senior Developer
8 5 (4.46%) Senior Java Developer
8 5 (4.46%) Test Engineer
8 5 (4.46%) Test Manager
9 4 (3.57%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
9 4 (3.57%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (9.82%) .NET
2 9 (8.04%) REST
3 7 (6.25%) Playwright
3 7 (6.25%) Spring
3 7 (6.25%) Spring Boot
4 6 (5.36%) .NET Framework
4 6 (5.36%) Kafka
5 5 (4.46%) GraphQL
5 5 (4.46%) RESTful
5 5 (4.46%) Terraform
6 4 (3.57%) AngularJS
6 4 (3.57%) HTML
6 4 (3.57%) Node.js
6 4 (3.57%) React
7 3 (2.68%) ASP.NET
7 3 (2.68%) CSS
7 3 (2.68%) Middleware
7 3 (2.68%) SOAP
7 3 (2.68%) Web Services
7 3 (2.68%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 11 (9.82%) Product Ownership
2 8 (7.14%) Cloud Native
3 7 (6.25%) Distributed Systems
4 5 (4.46%) Data Centre
5 4 (3.57%) AI Agents
5 4 (3.57%) Data Structures
6 3 (2.68%) Clustering
7 2 (1.79%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (1.79%) Credit Risk
7 2 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (1.79%) Life Science
7 2 (1.79%) Low-Code
7 2 (1.79%) Management Information System
7 2 (1.79%) Onboarding
7 2 (1.79%) Operational Technology
7 2 (1.79%) Replication
7 2 (1.79%) Virtual Team
8 1 (0.89%) Marketing Technology
8 1 (0.89%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 10 (8.93%) Linux
2 9 (8.04%) Windows
3 8 (7.14%) Unix
4 7 (6.25%) Windows Server
5 3 (2.68%) Android
5 3 (2.68%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.89%) CentOS
6 1 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.89%) VMS
6 1 (0.89%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 36 (32.14%) Agile
2 30 (26.79%) CI/CD
2 30 (26.79%) Test Automation
3 29 (25.89%) DevOps
3 29 (25.89%) Stakeholder Management
4 21 (18.75%) AI
5 19 (16.96%) Validation
6 17 (15.18%) Continuous Improvement
6 17 (15.18%) Test Strategy
7 15 (13.39%) Problem-Solving
8 14 (12.50%) Data Analysis
8 14 (12.50%) Scrum
9 13 (11.61%) Roadmaps
9 13 (11.61%) User Acceptance Testing
10 12 (10.71%) Analytics
10 12 (10.71%) Microservices
10 12 (10.71%) Risk Management
10 12 (10.71%) SDLC
10 12 (10.71%) Software Testing
11 11 (9.82%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 35 (31.25%) SQL
2 20 (17.86%) Python
3 17 (15.18%) Java
4 12 (10.71%) C#
5 9 (8.04%) PL/SQL
6 8 (7.14%) JavaScript
7 6 (5.36%) TypeScript
8 5 (4.46%) Korn
9 4 (3.57%) T-SQL
10 3 (2.68%) PowerShell
10 3 (2.68%) R
11 2 (1.79%) Bash
11 2 (1.79%) C
11 2 (1.79%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 2 (1.79%) ProC
12 1 (0.89%) PHP
12 1 (0.89%) RPG
12 1 (0.89%) Scala
12 1 (0.89%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.89%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 24 (21.43%) Security Cleared
2 18 (16.07%) SC Cleared
3 12 (10.71%) Degree
4 3 (2.68%) CSPO
5 2 (1.79%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (1.79%) ISTQB
5 2 (1.79%) PMI Certification
6 1 (0.89%) CBAP
6 1 (0.89%) CCIE
6 1 (0.89%) CCNP
6 1 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (0.89%) DV Cleared
6 1 (0.89%) IIBA
6 1 (0.89%) ISEB
6 1 (0.89%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.89%) Microsoft Certification
6 1 (0.89%) MOS
6 1 (0.89%) PMP
6 1 (0.89%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (8.93%) Data Quality
2 9 (8.04%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.79%) 21 CFR Part 11
3 2 (1.79%) Basel III
3 2 (1.79%) GDPR
3 2 (1.79%) GxP
3 2 (1.79%) WCAG
4 1 (0.89%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.89%) Government Security Classifications
4 1 (0.89%) GRC
4 1 (0.89%) IFRS
4 1 (0.89%) IFRS 9
4 1 (0.89%) PERC
4 1 (0.89%) PMO
4 1 (0.89%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 14 (12.50%) Docker
2 5 (4.46%) Active Directory
3 4 (3.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.89%) GridGain
4 1 (0.89%) Varnish
4 1 (0.89%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 12 (10.71%) Kubernetes
2 6 (5.36%) Grafana
2 6 (5.36%) Prometheus
3 3 (2.68%) Microsoft Clustering
3 3 (2.68%) SCOM
4 2 (1.79%) Ansible
5 1 (0.89%) Puppet
5 1 (0.89%) Salt
Vendors
1 20 (17.86%) Microsoft
2 12 (10.71%) Oracle
3 4 (3.57%) Citrix
3 4 (3.57%) Databricks
3 4 (3.57%) Google
3 4 (3.57%) Sitecore
3 4 (3.57%) VMware
4 3 (2.68%) BMC
4 3 (2.68%) Commvault
4 3 (2.68%) Remedy
4 3 (2.68%) Salesforce
4 3 (2.68%) SAP
5 2 (1.79%) Adobe
5 2 (1.79%) Cisco
5 2 (1.79%) Fortinet
5 2 (1.79%) ServiceNow
5 2 (1.79%) Workday
6 1 (0.89%) Metaswitch
6 1 (0.89%) Qualtrics
6 1 (0.89%) UiPath