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 15 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 48 39
Rank change year-on-year +1 -9 +11
Contract jobs citing QA 109 81 104
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 5.05% 4.70% 4.89%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.85% 22.88% 29.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 76 58 63
10th Percentile £349 £385 £348
25th Percentile £464 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -1.79%
75th Percentile £662 £676 £663
90th Percentile £738 £762 £730
Central London median daily rate £550 £575 £545
% change year-on-year -4.35% +5.50% -5.63%
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 457 354 357
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 21.16% 20.53% 16.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 335 251 204
10th Percentile £350 £338 £350
25th Percentile £458 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - -6.38%
75th Percentile £675 £706 £650
90th Percentile £775 £838 £750
Central London median daily rate £550 £550 £550
% change year-on-year - - -6.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 5 0
Median hourly rate - £34.00 -
Central London median hourly rate £30.41 £34.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -10.56% -2.86% -

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 15 October 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 (10.09%) Confluence
2 4 (3.67%) SharePoint
3 3 (2.75%) CMS
4 2 (1.83%) IIS
5 1 (0.92%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.92%) MQSeries
5 1 (0.92%) WordPress
Applications
1 7 (6.42%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (3.67%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (1.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (1.83%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.92%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (2.75%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (1.83%) Aladdin
2 2 (1.83%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.92%) Advent Moxy
3 1 (0.92%) Advent Portfolio Exchange
3 1 (0.92%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.92%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.92%) SAP HCM
3 1 (0.92%) SAP Payroll
3 1 (0.92%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.92%) Shopify
3 1 (0.92%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 28 (25.69%) Azure
2 16 (14.68%) Azure DevOps
3 11 (10.09%) GitHub
3 11 (10.09%) Power Platform
4 8 (7.34%) AWS
4 8 (7.34%) GitHub Actions
5 5 (4.59%) Serverless
6 4 (3.67%) Azure Functions
6 4 (3.67%) Microsoft 365
6 4 (3.67%) Microsoft Copilot
6 4 (3.67%) Power Automate
6 4 (3.67%) PowerApps
7 3 (2.75%) Azure Logic Apps
7 3 (2.75%) GCP
7 3 (2.75%) GitHub Copilot
7 3 (2.75%) OneDrive
7 3 (2.75%) SaaS
7 3 (2.75%) SuccessFactors
8 2 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
8 2 (1.83%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.75%) Internet
2 2 (1.83%) DHCP
2 2 (1.83%) DNS
2 2 (1.83%) Intranet
3 1 (0.92%) Firewall
3 1 (0.92%) INAP
3 1 (0.92%) Intelligent Network
3 1 (0.92%) LAN
3 1 (0.92%) RTP
3 1 (0.92%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.92%) tcpdump
3 1 (0.92%) VoIP
3 1 (0.92%) VPN
3 1 (0.92%) WAN
3 1 (0.92%) Wi-Fi
3 1 (0.92%) Wireless
3 1 (0.92%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (10.09%) SQL Server
2 10 (9.17%) Power BI
3 6 (5.50%) Oracle Database
4 5 (4.59%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (3.67%) Amazon Athena
5 4 (3.67%) NoSQL
5 4 (3.67%) Relational Database
6 3 (2.75%) Metadata
6 3 (2.75%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 3 (2.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 3 (2.75%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 2 (1.83%) RDBMS
7 2 (1.83%) SQLPlus
8 1 (0.92%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.92%) Data Lake
8 1 (0.92%) Elasticsearch
8 1 (0.92%) GIS
8 1 (0.92%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.92%) Star Schema
8 1 (0.92%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 21 (19.27%) JIRA
2 12 (11.01%) Selenium
3 9 (8.26%) Jenkins
4 8 (7.34%) Git
5 7 (6.42%) Cypress.io
6 6 (5.50%) JMeter
7 5 (4.59%) Appium
7 5 (4.59%) GitLab
7 5 (4.59%) Postman
8 4 (3.67%) Gatling
8 4 (3.67%) LoadRunner
8 4 (3.67%) REST Assured
8 4 (3.67%) Zephyr
9 3 (2.75%) JUnit
9 3 (2.75%) NeoLoad
10 2 (1.83%) Artifactory
10 2 (1.83%) Bitbucket
10 2 (1.83%) Cucumber
10 2 (1.83%) Gradle
10 2 (1.83%) WebDriver
General
1 42 (38.53%) Social Skills
2 37 (33.94%) Finance
3 22 (20.18%) Banking
4 21 (19.27%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (11.93%) Public Sector
6 6 (5.50%) Influencing Skills
6 6 (5.50%) Military
7 5 (4.59%) Retail
8 3 (2.75%) Manufacturing
8 3 (2.75%) Marketing
8 3 (2.75%) Organisational Skills
8 3 (2.75%) Retail Banking
9 2 (1.83%) Corporate Banking
9 2 (1.83%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.83%) Front Office
9 2 (1.83%) Investment Banking
9 2 (1.83%) Legal
9 2 (1.83%) Pharmaceutical
9 2 (1.83%) Social Housing
10 1 (0.92%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 20 (18.35%) Lead
2 19 (17.43%) Developer
3 17 (15.60%) Analyst
4 11 (10.09%) QA Engineer
5 10 (9.17%) Senior
6 8 (7.34%) Automation Engineer
7 7 (6.42%) Business Analyst
7 7 (6.42%) Test Engineer
8 6 (5.50%) C# Developer
8 6 (5.50%) QA Automation Engineer
8 6 (5.50%) QA Leader
8 6 (5.50%) Test Manager
9 5 (4.59%) Data Analyst
9 5 (4.59%) Data Engineer
9 5 (4.59%) Test Leader
10 4 (3.67%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 4 (3.67%) Consultant
10 4 (3.67%) Full-Stack Developer
11 3 (2.75%) Product Manager
11 3 (2.75%) Senior QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (10.09%) .NET
1 11 (10.09%) REST
2 9 (8.26%) Playwright
3 6 (5.50%) .NET Framework
4 5 (4.59%) Spring
4 5 (4.59%) Spring Boot
5 4 (3.67%) AngularJS
5 4 (3.67%) GraphQL
5 4 (3.67%) React
6 3 (2.75%) ASP.NET
6 3 (2.75%) ASP.NET Web Forms
6 3 (2.75%) HTML
6 3 (2.75%) Kafka
6 3 (2.75%) Node.js
6 3 (2.75%) Terraform
6 3 (2.75%) Web Services
6 3 (2.75%) XML
7 2 (1.83%) Apollo GraphQL
7 2 (1.83%) CSS
7 2 (1.83%) NgRx
Miscellaneous
1 13 (11.93%) Product Ownership
2 5 (4.59%) Cloud Native
2 5 (4.59%) Data Centre
2 5 (4.59%) Distributed Systems
3 4 (3.67%) AI Agents
3 4 (3.67%) Data Structures
4 3 (2.75%) Clustering
5 2 (1.83%) Analytical Mindset
5 2 (1.83%) Client/Server
5 2 (1.83%) Credit Risk
5 2 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (1.83%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (1.83%) Life Science
5 2 (1.83%) Low-Code
5 2 (1.83%) Management Information System
5 2 (1.83%) Marketing Technology
5 2 (1.83%) Onboarding
5 2 (1.83%) Replication
6 1 (0.92%) AS400
6 1 (0.92%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 10 (9.17%) Linux
2 9 (8.26%) Windows
3 8 (7.34%) Unix
4 7 (6.42%) Windows Server
5 3 (2.75%) Android
5 3 (2.75%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.92%) CentOS
6 1 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.92%) VMS
6 1 (0.92%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (37.61%) Agile
2 35 (32.11%) Stakeholder Management
3 32 (29.36%) Test Automation
4 31 (28.44%) DevOps
5 29 (26.61%) CI/CD
6 24 (22.02%) Test Strategy
7 21 (19.27%) User Acceptance Testing
7 21 (19.27%) Validation
8 20 (18.35%) AI
9 17 (15.60%) Continuous Improvement
10 16 (14.68%) Data Analysis
10 16 (14.68%) Problem-Solving
11 15 (13.76%) SDLC
12 14 (12.84%) End-to-End Testing
12 14 (12.84%) Scrum
13 13 (11.93%) Acceptance Criteria
13 13 (11.93%) Migration
14 12 (11.01%) Decision-Making
14 12 (11.01%) Defect Management
14 12 (11.01%) User Stories
Programming Languages
1 36 (33.03%) SQL
2 20 (18.35%) Python
3 13 (11.93%) C#
3 13 (11.93%) Java
4 9 (8.26%) PL/SQL
5 8 (7.34%) JavaScript
6 5 (4.59%) Korn
6 5 (4.59%) TypeScript
7 4 (3.67%) T-SQL
8 3 (2.75%) PowerShell
8 3 (2.75%) R
9 2 (1.83%) C
9 2 (1.83%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 2 (1.83%) ProC
10 1 (0.92%) Bash
10 1 (0.92%) RPG
10 1 (0.92%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 28 (25.69%) Security Cleared
2 21 (19.27%) SC Cleared
3 13 (11.93%) Degree
4 7 (6.42%) ISTQB
5 3 (2.75%) CSPO
6 2 (1.83%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (1.83%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.92%) CBAP
7 1 (0.92%) CCIE
7 1 (0.92%) CCNP
7 1 (0.92%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (0.92%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.92%) IIBA
7 1 (0.92%) ISEB
7 1 (0.92%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 1 (0.92%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.92%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.92%) MOS
7 1 (0.92%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (8.26%) Data Quality
2 8 (7.34%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.83%) 21 CFR Part 11
3 2 (1.83%) Basel III
3 2 (1.83%) GDPR
3 2 (1.83%) GxP
4 1 (0.92%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.92%) Government Security Classifications
4 1 (0.92%) GRC
4 1 (0.92%) IFRS
4 1 (0.92%) IFRS 9
4 1 (0.92%) PERC
4 1 (0.92%) PMO
4 1 (0.92%) Software Quality Assurance
4 1 (0.92%) WCAG
System Software
1 9 (8.26%) Docker
2 4 (3.67%) Active Directory
2 4 (3.67%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.92%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 7 (6.42%) Kubernetes
2 3 (2.75%) Microsoft Clustering
2 3 (2.75%) SCOM
3 2 (1.83%) Grafana
3 2 (1.83%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.92%) Ansible
Vendors
1 21 (19.27%) Microsoft
2 12 (11.01%) Oracle
3 5 (4.59%) Databricks
3 5 (4.59%) Salesforce
4 4 (3.67%) Citrix
4 4 (3.67%) Sitecore
4 4 (3.67%) VMware
4 4 (3.67%) Workday
5 3 (2.75%) BMC
5 3 (2.75%) Commvault
5 3 (2.75%) Google
5 3 (2.75%) Remedy
5 3 (2.75%) SAP
6 2 (1.83%) Cisco
6 2 (1.83%) ServiceNow
7 1 (0.92%) Adobe
7 1 (0.92%) Cognizant
7 1 (0.92%) HubSpot
7 1 (0.92%) IBM
7 1 (0.92%) Pardot