QA Contract Job Trends in the East of England

Quality Assurance (QA)
England > East of England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the East of England requiring QA skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 3 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 39 66
Rank change year-on-year +15 +27 +12
Contract jobs citing QA 128 57 34
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 5.74% 4.46% 2.25%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 33.07% 26.89% 24.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 38 37 19
10th Percentile £390 £185 £263
25th Percentile £413 £341 £303
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £375
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +33.33% -21.05%
75th Percentile £531 £575 £438
90th Percentile £600 £593 £490
England median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.26% -2.66% -7.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 71 7 3
10th Percentile £12.71 £12.28 £13.08
25th Percentile £13.86 £12.89 £14.17
Median hourly rate £17.64 £13.50 £15.98
Median % change year-on-year +30.63% -15.52% -30.52%
75th Percentile £32.79 - £17.99
90th Percentile £48.75 - £19.20
England median hourly rate £32.00 £15.96 £13.38
% change year-on-year +100.50% +19.28% -73.24%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
East of England

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 of England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 387 212 138
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East of England 17.36% 16.58% 9.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 146 94 63
10th Percentile £350 £208 £220
25th Percentile £425 £352 £306
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £506 £500 £375
Median % change year-on-year +1.20% +33.33% -23.08%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £550
90th Percentile £675 £646 £620
England median daily rate £510 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 161 42 20
10th Percentile £12.91 £13.50 £14.27
25th Percentile £15.25 £16.57 £14.85
Median hourly rate £27.96 £31.64 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.63% +26.56% +32.28%
75th Percentile £67.50 £88.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £80.00 £91.50 £68.08
England median hourly rate £36.07 £31.64 £27.50
% change year-on-year +14.00% +15.05% -21.43%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend in the East of England

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

QA job vacancy trend in the East of England

QA
Daily Rate Trend in the East of England

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

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

QA
Daily Rate Histogram in the East of England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA in the East of England over the 6 months to 3 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for QA in the East of England

QA
Hourly Rate Trend in the East of England

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

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

QA
Hourly Rate Histogram in the East of England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing QA in the East of England over the 6 months to 3 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for QA in the East of England

QA
Contract Job Locations in the East of England

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 of England region over the 6 months to 3 September 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
Hertfordshire +10 50 £450 -14.77% 33
Essex +2 28 £500 +3.36% 13
Bedfordshire +22 27 £508 -18.76% 16
Cambridgeshire +6 11 £538 +49.31% 65
Suffolk -8 9 £413 +35.25% 11
Norfolk -18 3 - - 10
QA
England

QA
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the East of England 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 (8.59%) CMS
2 3 (2.34%) Apache Airflow
2 3 (2.34%) OpenStack
3 2 (1.56%) WordPress
4 1 (0.78%) Apache
4 1 (0.78%) Confluence
4 1 (0.78%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.78%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 4 (3.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (2.34%) CATIA
3 1 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.78%) Windchill
Cloud Services
1 13 (10.16%) Azure
2 12 (9.38%) GitHub
3 8 (6.25%) AWS
4 7 (5.47%) Azure DevOps
4 7 (5.47%) GitHub Actions
5 5 (3.91%) GCP
5 5 (3.91%) SaaS
6 2 (1.56%) Azure AKS
6 2 (1.56%) Azure Data Factory
6 2 (1.56%) Entra ID
6 2 (1.56%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (0.78%) Anthropic Claude
7 1 (0.78%) Azure Logic Apps
7 1 (0.78%) Boomi
7 1 (0.78%) GitHub Copilot
7 1 (0.78%) Google Gemini
7 1 (0.78%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 4 (3.13%) 5G
1 4 (3.13%) DNS
1 4 (3.13%) HTTP
1 4 (3.13%) SSH
1 4 (3.13%) TCP/IP
2 3 (2.34%) 4G
3 1 (0.78%) MQTT
3 1 (0.78%) RTP
3 1 (0.78%) tcpdump
3 1 (0.78%) VoIP
3 1 (0.78%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (3.91%) MySQL
2 4 (3.13%) MongoDB
2 4 (3.13%) NoSQL
2 4 (3.13%) PostgreSQL
2 4 (3.13%) Redis
2 4 (3.13%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 12 (9.38%) Git
2 5 (3.91%) GitLab
2 5 (3.91%) IntelliJ
2 5 (3.91%) Jenkins
2 5 (3.91%) JIRA
2 5 (3.91%) JUnit
2 5 (3.91%) SonarQube
3 4 (3.13%) Newman
3 4 (3.13%) Postman
4 3 (2.34%) Selenium
5 2 (1.56%) MSTest
5 2 (1.56%) Ranorex
6 1 (0.78%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.78%) Claude Code
6 1 (0.78%) eggPlant
6 1 (0.78%) LabVIEW
6 1 (0.78%) ScriptRunner
General
1 24 (18.75%) Manufacturing
2 17 (13.28%) Social Skills
3 14 (10.94%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (7.81%) Aerospace
5 9 (7.03%) Finance
6 6 (4.69%) Automotive
6 6 (4.69%) Law
7 5 (3.91%) Pharmaceutical
7 5 (3.91%) Public Sector
8 4 (3.13%) Telecoms
9 3 (2.34%) Banking
9 3 (2.34%) Electronics
10 2 (1.56%) Documentation Skills
10 2 (1.56%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.78%) Legal
11 1 (0.78%) Marketing
11 1 (0.78%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 36 (28.13%) Quality Engineer
2 35 (27.34%) QA Engineer
3 18 (14.06%) Lead
4 13 (10.16%) QA Leader
5 12 (9.38%) Design Engineer
6 11 (8.59%) Administrator
6 11 (8.59%) Web Administrator
7 7 (5.47%) Data Engineer
8 5 (3.91%) Product Owner
8 5 (3.91%) Test Engineer
9 4 (3.13%) Customer Engineer
9 4 (3.13%) Developer
9 4 (3.13%) Python Developer
9 4 (3.13%) Software Engineer
10 3 (2.34%) Analyst
10 3 (2.34%) Architect
10 3 (2.34%) Product Manager
10 3 (2.34%) Support Assistant
10 3 (2.34%) Test Leader
10 3 (2.34%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (7.03%) REST
2 8 (6.25%) Pandas
3 7 (5.47%) pytest
4 5 (3.91%) Playwright
4 5 (3.91%) Spring
4 5 (3.91%) Spring Boot
5 4 (3.13%) CSS
5 4 (3.13%) FastAPI
5 4 (3.13%) Flask
5 4 (3.13%) HTML
5 4 (3.13%) Jinja
5 4 (3.13%) Node.js
5 4 (3.13%) XML
5 4 (3.13%) XML Schema
6 3 (2.34%) .NET
6 3 (2.34%) Elastic Stack
6 3 (2.34%) Great Expectations
6 3 (2.34%) Kafka
6 3 (2.34%) RabbitMQ
6 3 (2.34%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 9 (7.03%) Product Ownership
2 7 (5.47%) Life Science
3 6 (4.69%) Cloud Native
4 3 (2.34%) Analytical Mindset
4 3 (2.34%) Greenfield Project
4 3 (2.34%) Onboarding
5 2 (1.56%) CMDB
5 2 (1.56%) Low-Code
5 2 (1.56%) Management Information System
6 1 (0.78%) Analogue Electronics
6 1 (0.78%) Data Centre
6 1 (0.78%) Data Structures
6 1 (0.78%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (0.78%) IoT
6 1 (0.78%) Mainframe
6 1 (0.78%) Marketing Technology
6 1 (0.78%) Mashup
6 1 (0.78%) Media Streaming
6 1 (0.78%) NHS
6 1 (0.78%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 4 (3.13%) Linux
2 2 (1.56%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (20.31%) Validation
2 23 (17.97%) CI/CD
3 21 (16.41%) Agile
4 18 (14.06%) DevOps
5 16 (12.50%) Continuous Improvement
6 15 (11.72%) Test Automation
7 14 (10.94%) Problem-Solving
8 13 (10.16%) Customer Requirements
8 13 (10.16%) Scrum
8 13 (10.16%) Software Engineering
9 11 (8.59%) Code Quality
9 11 (8.59%) Infrastructure as Code
10 10 (7.81%) ETL
11 9 (7.03%) Roadmaps
11 9 (7.03%) Software Testing
12 8 (6.25%) Data Pipeline
12 8 (6.25%) Product Vision
13 7 (5.47%) Mentoring
13 7 (5.47%) Migration
13 7 (5.47%) Sprint Planning
Programming Languages
1 18 (14.06%) Python
2 16 (12.50%) SQL
3 7 (5.47%) Java
4 4 (3.13%) Bash
4 4 (3.13%) Shell Script
5 3 (2.34%) Go
5 3 (2.34%) PowerShell
6 2 (1.56%) C#
6 2 (1.56%) JavaScript
6 2 (1.56%) TypeScript
7 1 (0.78%) Bicep
7 1 (0.78%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 16 (12.50%) Security Cleared
2 11 (8.59%) SC Cleared
3 9 (7.03%) Degree
4 5 (3.91%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (1.56%) ISTQB
6 1 (0.78%) CSPO
6 1 (0.78%) DV Cleared
6 1 (0.78%) MOS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (7.03%) Data Quality
2 5 (3.91%) 21 CFR Part 11
2 5 (3.91%) GxP
3 1 (0.78%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.78%) ECSS
3 1 (0.78%) ISO 9001
3 1 (0.78%) SLA
System Software
1 8 (6.25%) Docker
2 2 (1.56%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 4 (3.13%) Kubernetes
2 3 (2.34%) Grafana
2 3 (2.34%) HP Quality Center
2 3 (2.34%) Prometheus
3 2 (1.56%) HP ALM
3 2 (1.56%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 5 (3.91%) Checkmarx
1 5 (3.91%) Databricks
1 5 (3.91%) Google
2 3 (2.34%) HP
2 3 (2.34%) Microsoft
3 2 (1.56%) MuleSoft
3 2 (1.56%) ServiceNow
3 2 (1.56%) Siemens
4 1 (0.78%) Atlassian
4 1 (0.78%) Fiserv
4 1 (0.78%) IBM
4 1 (0.78%) Informatica
4 1 (0.78%) Ingenico
4 1 (0.78%) Kepware
4 1 (0.78%) NCR
4 1 (0.78%) Pega
4 1 (0.78%) PTC
4 1 (0.78%) Remedy
4 1 (0.78%) Salesforce
4 1 (0.78%) SAP