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 11 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 28 40
Rank change year-on-year -14 +12 +11
Contract jobs citing QA 47 27 23
As % of all contract jobs in the East Midlands 4.25% 4.84% 2.98%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 28.66% 30.68% 26.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 29 24 20
10th Percentile £286 £129 £200
25th Percentile £340 £168 £241
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £393 £410 £303
Median % change year-on-year -4.03% +35.37% -19.33%
75th Percentile £475 £470 £383
90th Percentile £656 £538 £495
England median daily rate £488 £481 £525
% change year-on-year +1.30% -8.33% +3.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 3
10th Percentile - - £14.00
25th Percentile - - £21.88
Median hourly rate £16.13 - £35.00
75th Percentile £20.21 - -
90th Percentile £22.66 - -
England median hourly rate £30.58 £50.00 £15.38
% change year-on-year -38.84% +225.10% -31.60%

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 164 88 87
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East Midlands 14.81% 15.77% 11.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 104 59 57
10th Percentile £307 £168 £200
25th Percentile £389 £317 £255
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £410 £443
Median % change year-on-year +9.02% -7.45% +4.24%
75th Percentile £538 £475 £600
90th Percentile £648 £529 £623
England median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 4 14
10th Percentile £12.93 £14.50 £9.95
25th Percentile £13.74 £16.88 £12.75
Median hourly rate £19.47 £20.60 £23.75
Median % change year-on-year -5.49% -13.25% -52.51%
75th Percentile £25.50 £25.19 £26.15
90th Percentile £26.05 £29.13 £34.48
England median hourly rate £31.68 £35.00 £22.75
% change year-on-year -9.49% +53.85% -40.99%

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 11 May 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 11 May 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 -4 16 £340 -21.30% 3
Nottinghamshire -21 11 £638 +50.44% 11
Leicestershire -3 10 £360 +18.03% 13
Derbyshire -7 7 £500 +197.62% 8
Lincolnshire - 2 - - 8
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 10 (21.28%) Confluence
2 3 (6.38%) CMS
3 2 (4.26%) SharePoint
3 2 (4.26%) Umbraco
Applications
1 8 (17.02%) Microsoft Project
2 2 (4.26%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (4.26%) MS Visio
3 1 (2.13%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (2.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (12.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (4.26%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 9 (19.15%) Power Platform
2 6 (12.77%) SuccessFactors
3 3 (6.38%) Azure
3 3 (6.38%) GitHub
4 2 (4.26%) Azure DevOps
4 2 (4.26%) Dynamics 365
4 2 (4.26%) GitHub Actions
4 2 (4.26%) SaaS
5 1 (2.13%) AWS
5 1 (2.13%) Lucidchart
5 1 (2.13%) OpenShift
5 1 (2.13%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 5 (10.64%) Network Security
2 2 (4.26%) HTTP
3 1 (2.13%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (19.15%) Power BI
2 2 (4.26%) Tableau
3 1 (2.13%) Aerospike
3 1 (2.13%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (2.13%) DynamoDB
3 1 (2.13%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (2.13%) Redis
Development Applications
1 16 (34.04%) JIRA
2 4 (8.51%) Git
3 3 (6.38%) JUnit
3 3 (6.38%) Postman
4 2 (4.26%) Gatling
4 2 (4.26%) GitLab
4 2 (4.26%) Gradle
4 2 (4.26%) JMeter
4 2 (4.26%) Maven
4 2 (4.26%) REST Assured
4 2 (4.26%) TestNG
5 1 (2.13%) Jenkins
5 1 (2.13%) Selenium
General
1 19 (40.43%) Finance
2 9 (19.15%) Social Skills
3 8 (17.02%) Banking
4 7 (14.89%) Corporate Banking
4 7 (14.89%) Public Sector
4 7 (14.89%) Retail Banking
5 5 (10.64%) Organisational Skills
6 3 (6.38%) Retail
7 2 (4.26%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (4.26%) Telecoms
8 1 (2.13%) Aerospace
8 1 (2.13%) Analytical Skills
8 1 (2.13%) Legal
8 1 (2.13%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 10 (21.28%) Project Manager
2 6 (12.77%) Lead
3 5 (10.64%) Analyst
3 5 (10.64%) Coordinator
4 4 (8.51%) Banking Project Manager
4 4 (8.51%) QA Manager
4 4 (8.51%) Service Manager
5 3 (6.38%) Content Coordinator
5 3 (6.38%) Web Content Coordinator
5 3 (6.38%) Workstream Lead
6 2 (4.26%) Business Analyst
6 2 (4.26%) Consultant
6 2 (4.26%) Designer
6 2 (4.26%) Developer
6 2 (4.26%) Project Coordinator
6 2 (4.26%) QA Engineer
6 2 (4.26%) Technical Designer
6 2 (4.26%) Test Analyst
7 1 (2.13%) Configuration Engineer
7 1 (2.13%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (10.64%) XML
2 4 (8.51%) Lightning Web Components
3 3 (6.38%) CSS
3 3 (6.38%) HTML
3 3 (6.38%) Middleware
3 3 (6.38%) REST
3 3 (6.38%) Visualforce
4 2 (4.26%) JSON
4 2 (4.26%) OpenAPI
4 2 (4.26%) Playwright
4 2 (4.26%) Swagger
5 1 (2.13%) Jest
5 1 (2.13%) Kafka
5 1 (2.13%) Node.js
5 1 (2.13%) pytest
5 1 (2.13%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 9 (19.15%) PMI
1 9 (19.15%) Product Ownership
2 6 (12.77%) Data Protection Act
2 6 (12.77%) Public Cloud
3 4 (8.51%) Onboarding
4 2 (4.26%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 2 (4.26%) Hedge funds
5 1 (2.13%) Cloud Native
5 1 (2.13%) Device Driver
5 1 (2.13%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (2.13%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 2 (4.26%) Windows
2 1 (2.13%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (40.43%) Stakeholder Management
2 15 (31.91%) Agile
3 14 (29.79%) Validation
4 13 (27.66%) Continuous Improvement
5 12 (25.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 11 (23.40%) Scrum
7 10 (21.28%) Change Management
7 10 (21.28%) Process Improvement
7 10 (21.28%) Project Management
8 9 (19.15%) Business Intelligence
8 9 (19.15%) Regulatory Change
8 9 (19.15%) Scaled Agile Framework
8 9 (19.15%) User Acceptance Testing
9 8 (17.02%) Kanban
9 8 (17.02%) Six Sigma
9 8 (17.02%) Workshop Facilitation
10 7 (14.89%) Analytics
10 7 (14.89%) Budgeting and Resource Allocation
10 7 (14.89%) Problem-Solving
10 7 (14.89%) Resource Allocation
Programming Languages
1 5 (10.64%) Java
2 4 (8.51%) Apex Code
2 4 (8.51%) SOQL
3 3 (6.38%) Python
3 3 (6.38%) SQL
4 1 (2.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
4 1 (2.13%) PowerShell
4 1 (2.13%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 9 (19.15%) PMI Certification
2 8 (17.02%) Degree
2 8 (17.02%) PMP
3 7 (14.89%) Master's Degree
3 7 (14.89%) MBA
3 7 (14.89%) SAFe Agilist
4 4 (8.51%) BPSS Clearance
5 3 (6.38%) Security Cleared
6 2 (4.26%) SC Cleared
7 1 (2.13%) Six Sigma Green Belt
7 1 (2.13%) Six Sigma Yellow Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (14.89%) Basel III
2 5 (10.64%) GRC
3 3 (6.38%) Data Quality
4 1 (2.13%) PMO
4 1 (2.13%) SLA
System Software
1 6 (12.77%) Active Directory
2 1 (2.13%) BitLocker
2 1 (2.13%) Firmware
2 1 (2.13%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 6 (12.77%) Single Sign-On
2 2 (4.26%) SCCM
Vendors
1 7 (14.89%) SAP
2 4 (8.51%) Databricks
2 4 (8.51%) Salesforce
3 3 (6.38%) Microsoft
4 1 (2.13%) Citrix
4 1 (2.13%) Dell
4 1 (2.13%) HP
4 1 (2.13%) JD Edwards
4 1 (2.13%) Oracle
4 1 (2.13%) Planview
4 1 (2.13%) ServiceNow