QA Contract Job Trends in the East Midlands

Quality Assurance (QA)
England > East Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the East Midlands requiring QA skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 21 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 37 48
Rank change year-on-year -12 +11 +12
Contract jobs citing QA 31 14 17
As % of all contract jobs in the East Midlands 3.27% 2.53% 2.26%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.13% 16.09% 25.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 27 11 16
10th Percentile £309 £366 £250
25th Percentile £340 £414 £255
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £402 £463 £388
Median % change year-on-year -13.08% +19.35% +1.91%
75th Percentile £541 £513 £495
90th Percentile £615 £545 £508
England median daily rate £500 £490 £525
% change year-on-year +2.04% -6.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £19.25 - -
Median hourly rate £19.50 - £35.00
75th Percentile £19.75 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £31.49 £21.50 £25.00
% change year-on-year +46.47% -14.00% -

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
East Midlands

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 East Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 134 87 67
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East Midlands 14.15% 15.73% 8.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 96 44 47
10th Percentile £313 £225 £203
25th Percentile £358 £299 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £393 £425
Median % change year-on-year +8.07% -7.47% +1.80%
75th Percentile £491 £500 £496
90th Percentile £638 £573 £585
England median daily rate £500 £500 £540
% change year-on-year - -7.41% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 3 7
10th Percentile - £16.69 £9.08
25th Percentile £12.94 £22.34 £10.76
Median hourly rate £16.28 £31.76 £17.95
Median % change year-on-year -48.74% +76.99% -1.94%
75th Percentile £22.56 £43.38 £26.88
90th Percentile £27.63 £50.35 £33.95
England median hourly rate £25.46 £30.21 £30.00
% change year-on-year -15.72% +0.70% +16.23%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend in the East Midlands

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

QA job vacancy trend in the East Midlands

QA
Daily Rate Trend in the East Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the East Midlands citing QA.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the East Midlands citing QA

QA
Daily Rate Histogram in the East Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA in the East Midlands over the 6 months to 21 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for QA in the East Midlands

QA
Hourly Rate Trend in the East Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the East Midlands citing QA.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the East Midlands citing QA

QA
Contract Job Locations in the East Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing QA within the East Midlands region over the 6 months to 21 January 2026. 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
Northamptonshire -7 17 £340 -17.87% 12
Leicestershire -4 6 £613 +64.43% 16
Nottinghamshire -13 6 £550 +0.92% 15
Derbyshire -5 1 £463 +0.82% 12
Lincolnshire -9 1 - - 14
QA
England

QA
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the East Midlands 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 8 (25.81%) Confluence
2 2 (6.45%) Apache Spark
3 1 (3.23%) Apache
3 1 (3.23%) Apache Synapse
3 1 (3.23%) Mule
3 1 (3.23%) SharePoint
Applications
1 8 (25.81%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (3.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (3.23%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (3.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (3.23%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (9.68%) Oracle Cash Management
1 3 (9.68%) Oracle General Ledger
1 3 (9.68%) Oracle Payables
1 3 (9.68%) Oracle Receivables
2 2 (6.45%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (6.45%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 7 (22.58%) Power Platform
2 4 (12.90%) Azure
3 3 (9.68%) Azure DevOps
4 2 (6.45%) Dynamics 365
4 2 (6.45%) SaaS
5 1 (3.23%) AWS
5 1 (3.23%) Azure Data Factory
5 1 (3.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 1 (3.23%) GCP
5 1 (3.23%) GitHub
5 1 (3.23%) Microsoft Purview
5 1 (3.23%) OpenShift
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (22.58%) Power BI
2 2 (6.45%) Data Lake
3 1 (3.23%) Apache Hive
3 1 (3.23%) Big Data
3 1 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (3.23%) Delta Lake
3 1 (3.23%) Hadoop
3 1 (3.23%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 13 (41.94%) JIRA
2 1 (3.23%) Jenkins
2 1 (3.23%) Postman
2 1 (3.23%) SoapUI
2 1 (3.23%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 21 (67.74%) Finance
2 12 (38.71%) Social Skills
3 10 (32.26%) Banking
4 7 (22.58%) Corporate Banking
4 7 (22.58%) Retail Banking
5 3 (9.68%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (9.68%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (9.68%) Organisational Skills
6 2 (6.45%) Retail
7 1 (3.23%) Public Sector
7 1 (3.23%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 9 (29.03%) Project Manager
2 5 (16.13%) Product Owner
3 4 (12.90%) Banking Project Manager
4 3 (9.68%) Analyst
4 3 (9.68%) Business Analyst
4 3 (9.68%) Consultant
4 3 (9.68%) Functional Consultant
4 3 (9.68%) Lead
4 3 (9.68%) Oracle Consultant
4 3 (9.68%) Oracle Functional Consultant
5 2 (6.45%) Coordinator
5 2 (6.45%) Payments Analyst
5 2 (6.45%) Payments Business Analyst
5 2 (6.45%) Project Coordinator
5 2 (6.45%) Test Leader
6 1 (3.23%) Azure Engineer
6 1 (3.23%) Data Engineer
6 1 (3.23%) Finance Manager
6 1 (3.23%) Full-Stack Engineer
6 1 (3.23%) Senior Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (9.68%) Oracle Fusion
2 2 (6.45%) Lightning Web Components
2 2 (6.45%) Middleware
2 2 (6.45%) Visualforce
Miscellaneous
1 16 (51.61%) Product Ownership
2 11 (35.48%) PMI
3 5 (16.13%) Mobile App
3 5 (16.13%) Onboarding
4 3 (9.68%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (6.45%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (3.23%) Distributed Applications
6 1 (3.23%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (3.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 1 (3.23%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 1 (3.23%) Android
1 1 (3.23%) Apple iOS
1 1 (3.23%) Linux
1 1 (3.23%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (51.61%) Agile
2 15 (48.39%) Stakeholder Management
3 13 (41.94%) Continuous Improvement
3 13 (41.94%) Scrum
3 13 (41.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 10 (32.26%) Kanban
4 10 (32.26%) Regulatory Change
5 9 (29.03%) Change Management
5 9 (29.03%) Project Management
5 9 (29.03%) Scaled Agile Framework
6 8 (25.81%) Process Improvement
7 7 (22.58%) Budgeting and Resource Allocation
7 7 (22.58%) Business Intelligence
7 7 (22.58%) DevOps
7 7 (22.58%) Fintech
7 7 (22.58%) Lean Six Sigma
7 7 (22.58%) Resource Allocation
7 7 (22.58%) Six Sigma
7 7 (22.58%) Wealth Management
8 6 (19.35%) Regulatory Compliance
Programming Languages
1 2 (6.45%) Apex Code
1 2 (6.45%) SOQL
1 2 (6.45%) SQL
2 1 (3.23%) Java
2 1 (3.23%) Python
Qualifications
1 11 (35.48%) PMI Certification
2 8 (25.81%) Degree
2 8 (25.81%) PMP
3 7 (22.58%) Master's Degree
3 7 (22.58%) MBA
3 7 (22.58%) SAFe Agilist
4 3 (9.68%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (6.45%) CBAP
6 1 (3.23%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (22.58%) Basel III
2 4 (12.90%) Data Quality
3 2 (6.45%) ISO 8583
3 2 (6.45%) PCI DSS
3 2 (6.45%) PSD2
4 1 (3.23%) PMO
Systems Management
1 1 (3.23%) Kubernetes
1 1 (3.23%) Terraform
Vendors
1 3 (9.68%) Oracle
2 2 (6.45%) Microsoft
2 2 (6.45%) Salesforce
3 1 (3.23%) Ab Initio
3 1 (3.23%) Databricks
3 1 (3.23%) Google
3 1 (3.23%) Planview