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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 43 38
Rank change year-on-year -4 -5 +10
Contract jobs citing QA 108 83 104
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 5.03% 4.81% 4.89%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.84% 23.58% 29.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 76 58 63
10th Percentile £335 £385 £348
25th Percentile £463 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £568 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.08% +3.18% -4.35%
75th Percentile £643 £675 £675
90th Percentile £731 £784 £736
Central London median daily rate £550 £575 £545
% change year-on-year -4.35% +5.50% -7.23%
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 453 352 358
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 21.08% 20.38% 16.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 335 249 204
10th Percentile £350 £336 £348
25th Percentile £450 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -0.05% -7.52%
75th Percentile £668 £690 £650
90th Percentile £775 £838 £751
Central London median daily rate £550 £550 £550
% change year-on-year - - -7.56%
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 £30.41 £34.00 £23.80
% change year-on-year -10.56% +42.86% -

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 9 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 (10.19%) Confluence
2 4 (3.70%) SharePoint
3 3 (2.78%) CMS
4 2 (1.85%) IIS
5 1 (0.93%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.93%) MQSeries
5 1 (0.93%) WordPress
Applications
1 7 (6.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (3.70%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (1.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (1.85%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.93%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (2.78%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (1.85%) Aladdin
2 2 (1.85%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.93%) Advent Moxy
3 1 (0.93%) Advent Portfolio Exchange
3 1 (0.93%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.93%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.93%) SAP HCM
3 1 (0.93%) SAP Payroll
3 1 (0.93%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.93%) Shopify
3 1 (0.93%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 26 (24.07%) Azure
2 14 (12.96%) Azure DevOps
3 11 (10.19%) GitHub
3 11 (10.19%) Power Platform
4 8 (7.41%) AWS
4 8 (7.41%) GitHub Actions
5 5 (4.63%) Serverless
6 4 (3.70%) Azure Functions
6 4 (3.70%) Microsoft Copilot
6 4 (3.70%) Power Automate
6 4 (3.70%) PowerApps
7 3 (2.78%) Azure Logic Apps
7 3 (2.78%) GCP
7 3 (2.78%) GitHub Copilot
7 3 (2.78%) Microsoft 365
7 3 (2.78%) OneDrive
7 3 (2.78%) SaaS
7 3 (2.78%) SuccessFactors
8 2 (1.85%) Copilot Studio
8 2 (1.85%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.78%) Internet
2 2 (1.85%) DHCP
2 2 (1.85%) DNS
2 2 (1.85%) Intranet
3 1 (0.93%) Firewall
3 1 (0.93%) INAP
3 1 (0.93%) Intelligent Network
3 1 (0.93%) LAN
3 1 (0.93%) RTP
3 1 (0.93%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.93%) tcpdump
3 1 (0.93%) VoIP
3 1 (0.93%) VPN
3 1 (0.93%) WAN
3 1 (0.93%) Wi-Fi
3 1 (0.93%) Wireless
3 1 (0.93%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (10.19%) SQL Server
2 10 (9.26%) Power BI
3 6 (5.56%) Oracle Database
4 5 (4.63%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (3.70%) Amazon Athena
5 4 (3.70%) NoSQL
5 4 (3.70%) Relational Database
6 3 (2.78%) Metadata
6 3 (2.78%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 3 (2.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 3 (2.78%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 2 (1.85%) RDBMS
7 2 (1.85%) SQLPlus
8 1 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.93%) Elasticsearch
8 1 (0.93%) GIS
8 1 (0.93%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.93%) MySQL
8 1 (0.93%) Star Schema
8 1 (0.93%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 20 (18.52%) JIRA
2 12 (11.11%) Selenium
3 8 (7.41%) Jenkins
4 7 (6.48%) Cypress.io
4 7 (6.48%) Git
5 6 (5.56%) JMeter
6 5 (4.63%) Appium
6 5 (4.63%) GitLab
7 4 (3.70%) Gatling
7 4 (3.70%) LoadRunner
7 4 (3.70%) Postman
7 4 (3.70%) Zephyr
8 3 (2.78%) JUnit
8 3 (2.78%) NeoLoad
8 3 (2.78%) REST Assured
8 3 (2.78%) TeamCity
9 2 (1.85%) Artifactory
9 2 (1.85%) Bitbucket
9 2 (1.85%) Gradle
9 2 (1.85%) TestNG
General
1 39 (36.11%) Social Skills
2 36 (33.33%) Finance
3 22 (20.37%) Banking
4 20 (18.52%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (11.11%) Public Sector
6 6 (5.56%) Influencing Skills
7 5 (4.63%) Military
7 5 (4.63%) Retail
8 3 (2.78%) Manufacturing
8 3 (2.78%) Marketing
8 3 (2.78%) Organisational Skills
8 3 (2.78%) Retail Banking
9 2 (1.85%) Corporate Banking
9 2 (1.85%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.85%) Front Office
9 2 (1.85%) Investment Banking
9 2 (1.85%) Legal
9 2 (1.85%) Pharmaceutical
9 2 (1.85%) Social Housing
10 1 (0.93%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 20 (18.52%) Developer
1 20 (18.52%) Lead
2 17 (15.74%) Analyst
3 11 (10.19%) QA Engineer
4 10 (9.26%) Senior
5 8 (7.41%) Automation Engineer
6 7 (6.48%) Business Analyst
7 6 (5.56%) C# Developer
7 6 (5.56%) QA Automation Engineer
7 6 (5.56%) QA Leader
7 6 (5.56%) Test Engineer
7 6 (5.56%) Test Manager
8 5 (4.63%) Data Analyst
8 5 (4.63%) Data Engineer
8 5 (4.63%) Full-Stack Developer
9 4 (3.70%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
9 4 (3.70%) Consultant
9 4 (3.70%) Test Leader
10 3 (2.78%) Lead Developer
10 3 (2.78%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (10.19%) .NET
2 10 (9.26%) REST
3 9 (8.33%) Playwright
4 6 (5.56%) .NET Framework
5 5 (4.63%) Spring
5 5 (4.63%) Spring Boot
6 4 (3.70%) AngularJS
6 4 (3.70%) GraphQL
6 4 (3.70%) React
7 3 (2.78%) ASP.NET
7 3 (2.78%) ASP.NET Web Forms
7 3 (2.78%) Gherkin
7 3 (2.78%) HTML
7 3 (2.78%) Kafka
7 3 (2.78%) Node.js
7 3 (2.78%) Terraform
7 3 (2.78%) Web Services
7 3 (2.78%) XML
8 2 (1.85%) DOM
8 2 (1.85%) XSL
Miscellaneous
1 12 (11.11%) Product Ownership
2 5 (4.63%) Cloud Native
2 5 (4.63%) Data Centre
2 5 (4.63%) Distributed Systems
3 4 (3.70%) AI Agents
3 4 (3.70%) Data Structures
4 3 (2.78%) Clustering
5 2 (1.85%) Analytical Mindset
5 2 (1.85%) Client/Server
5 2 (1.85%) Credit Risk
5 2 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (1.85%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (1.85%) Life Science
5 2 (1.85%) Low-Code
5 2 (1.85%) Management Information System
5 2 (1.85%) Marketing Technology
5 2 (1.85%) Onboarding
5 2 (1.85%) Replication
6 1 (0.93%) Distributed Architecture
6 1 (0.93%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 10 (9.26%) Linux
2 9 (8.33%) Windows
3 8 (7.41%) Unix
4 7 (6.48%) Windows Server
5 3 (2.78%) Android
5 3 (2.78%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.93%) CentOS
6 1 (0.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.93%) VMS
6 1 (0.93%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (36.11%) Agile
2 34 (31.48%) Stakeholder Management
3 30 (27.78%) Test Automation
4 29 (26.85%) DevOps
5 28 (25.93%) CI/CD
6 23 (21.30%) Test Strategy
7 20 (18.52%) AI
7 20 (18.52%) User Acceptance Testing
7 20 (18.52%) Validation
8 16 (14.81%) Continuous Improvement
8 16 (14.81%) Data Analysis
9 15 (13.89%) Problem-Solving
10 14 (12.96%) Scrum
10 14 (12.96%) SDLC
11 12 (11.11%) Acceptance Criteria
11 12 (11.11%) End-to-End Testing
11 12 (11.11%) Risk Management
11 12 (11.11%) Software Testing
12 11 (10.19%) Decision-Making
12 11 (10.19%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 36 (33.33%) SQL
2 21 (19.44%) Python
3 13 (12.04%) C#
3 13 (12.04%) Java
4 9 (8.33%) PL/SQL
5 8 (7.41%) JavaScript
6 5 (4.63%) Korn
6 5 (4.63%) TypeScript
7 4 (3.70%) T-SQL
8 3 (2.78%) PowerShell
8 3 (2.78%) R
9 2 (1.85%) C
9 2 (1.85%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 2 (1.85%) ProC
10 1 (0.93%) Bash
10 1 (0.93%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.93%) RPG
10 1 (0.93%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 26 (24.07%) Security Cleared
2 19 (17.59%) SC Cleared
3 13 (12.04%) Degree
4 6 (5.56%) ISTQB
5 3 (2.78%) CSPO
6 2 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (1.85%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.93%) CBAP
7 1 (0.93%) CCIE
7 1 (0.93%) CCNP
7 1 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (0.93%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.93%) IIBA
7 1 (0.93%) ISEB
7 1 (0.93%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 1 (0.93%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.93%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.93%) MOS
7 1 (0.93%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (8.33%) Data Quality
2 8 (7.41%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.85%) 21 CFR Part 11
3 2 (1.85%) Basel III
3 2 (1.85%) GDPR
3 2 (1.85%) GxP
4 1 (0.93%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.93%) Government Security Classifications
4 1 (0.93%) GRC
4 1 (0.93%) IFRS
4 1 (0.93%) IFRS 9
4 1 (0.93%) PERC
4 1 (0.93%) PMO
4 1 (0.93%) Software Quality Assurance
4 1 (0.93%) WCAG
System Software
1 9 (8.33%) Docker
2 4 (3.70%) Active Directory
2 4 (3.70%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.93%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 7 (6.48%) Kubernetes
2 3 (2.78%) Microsoft Clustering
2 3 (2.78%) SCOM
3 2 (1.85%) Grafana
3 2 (1.85%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.93%) Ansible
Vendors
1 20 (18.52%) Microsoft
2 12 (11.11%) Oracle
3 5 (4.63%) Databricks
4 4 (3.70%) Citrix
4 4 (3.70%) Salesforce
4 4 (3.70%) Sitecore
4 4 (3.70%) VMware
5 3 (2.78%) BMC
5 3 (2.78%) Commvault
5 3 (2.78%) Google
5 3 (2.78%) Remedy
5 3 (2.78%) SAP
5 3 (2.78%) Workday
6 2 (1.85%) Cisco
6 2 (1.85%) ServiceNow
7 1 (0.93%) Adobe
7 1 (0.93%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.93%) Cognizant
7 1 (0.93%) Fortinet
7 1 (0.93%) IBM