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 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 59 45 70
Rank change year-on-year -14 +25 -12
Contract jobs citing QA 44 39 37
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 2.67% 3.55% 2.12%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 16.48% 21.67% 18.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 18 20 24
10th Percentile £346 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £368 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £528 £425 £406
Median % change year-on-year +24.24% +4.62% -12.16%
75th Percentile £573 £550 £488
90th Percentile £652 £778 £542
England median daily rate £500 £490 £525
% change year-on-year +2.04% -6.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 5 2
10th Percentile - £60.30 £22.93
25th Percentile £13.57 £67.50 £25.06
Median hourly rate £15.00 £72.50 £29.75
Median % change year-on-year -79.32% +143.70% -25.42%
75th Percentile £16.45 £75.00 £34.06
90th Percentile £17.19 - £35.98
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 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 267 180 205
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East of England 16.22% 16.36% 11.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 113 90 109
10th Percentile £278 £259 £298
25th Percentile £414 £324 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £638 £622 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £702
England median daily rate £500 £500 £540
% change year-on-year - -7.41% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 19 31
10th Percentile £16.10 £16.95 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £24.13 £14.16
Median hourly rate £18.50 £41.50 £15.79
Median % change year-on-year -55.42% +162.82% -10.89%
75th Percentile £20.09 £70.50 £46.75
90th Percentile £20.73 £75.00 £49.00
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 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 21 January 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
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 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
Hertfordshire -10 19 £528 +40.80% 41
Cambridgeshire +9 15 £400 - 30
Suffolk +6 4 - - 27
Bedfordshire -16 4 £650 +18.18% 20
Norfolk -22 2 £325 -12.16% 19
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 2 (4.55%) Confluence
1 2 (4.55%) WebLogic
1 2 (4.55%) WebSphere
2 1 (2.27%) CMS
2 1 (2.27%) Sitecore CMS
Business Applications
1 2 (4.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (2.27%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (2.27%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (2.27%) Oracle EBS R12
2 1 (2.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 16 (36.36%) Azure
2 12 (27.27%) Azure DevOps
3 7 (15.91%) AWS
4 3 (6.82%) GCP
5 2 (4.55%) Azure Logic Apps
5 2 (4.55%) GitHub
5 2 (4.55%) GitHub Actions
5 2 (4.55%) Power Automate
5 2 (4.55%) SaaS
6 1 (2.27%) Dynamics 365
6 1 (2.27%) OCI
6 1 (2.27%) SuccessFactors
6 1 (2.27%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.27%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (9.09%) NoSQL
2 2 (4.55%) Electronic Patient Records
2 2 (4.55%) MySQL
2 2 (4.55%) RDBMS
2 2 (4.55%) Relational Database
3 1 (2.27%) Oracle Database
3 1 (2.27%) Redis
Development Applications
1 6 (13.64%) JIRA
2 5 (11.36%) Git
3 4 (9.09%) Jenkins
4 3 (6.82%) Selenium
5 2 (4.55%) GitLab
5 2 (4.55%) MSTest
5 2 (4.55%) Team Foundation Server
6 1 (2.27%) Cypress.io
6 1 (2.27%) JMeter
6 1 (2.27%) Postman
6 1 (2.27%) TestRail
General
1 20 (45.45%) Social Skills
2 6 (13.64%) Analytical Skills
3 4 (9.09%) Finance
3 4 (9.09%) Pharmaceutical
4 3 (6.82%) Law
4 3 (6.82%) Manufacturing
5 2 (4.55%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (4.55%) Influencing Skills
5 2 (4.55%) Organisational Skills
5 2 (4.55%) Public Sector
6 1 (2.27%) Aerospace
6 1 (2.27%) Environmental Health
6 1 (2.27%) Military
6 1 (2.27%) Retail
6 1 (2.27%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 8 (18.18%) Developer
2 5 (11.36%) Test Engineer
3 4 (9.09%) Lead
3 4 (9.09%) ServiceNow Developer
3 4 (9.09%) Test Leader
4 3 (6.82%) Senior
5 2 (4.55%) Architect
5 2 (4.55%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 2 (4.55%) Consultant
5 2 (4.55%) Integration Engineer
5 2 (4.55%) QA Engineer
5 2 (4.55%) QA Leader
5 2 (4.55%) Release Manager
5 2 (4.55%) Software Test Engineer
5 2 (4.55%) Tester
6 1 (2.27%) Applications Consultant
6 1 (2.27%) Project Manager
6 1 (2.27%) Software Engineer
6 1 (2.27%) Solutions Architect
6 1 (2.27%) Trainer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (20.45%) .NET
2 4 (9.09%) Node.js
3 3 (6.82%) HTML
3 3 (6.82%) pytest
3 3 (6.82%) PyTorch
3 3 (6.82%) RESTful
3 3 (6.82%) scikit-learn
3 3 (6.82%) TensorFlow
4 2 (4.55%) Middleware
4 2 (4.55%) React
4 2 (4.55%) REST
4 2 (4.55%) SOAP
5 1 (2.27%) .NET Core
5 1 (2.27%) AngularJS
5 1 (2.27%) ASP.NET Core
5 1 (2.27%) Express.js
5 1 (2.27%) Playwright
5 1 (2.27%) RabbitMQ
5 1 (2.27%) Spring Boot
5 1 (2.27%) Spring WebFlux
Miscellaneous
1 4 (9.09%) Cloud Native
2 3 (6.82%) Product Ownership
3 2 (4.55%) Enterprise Software
3 2 (4.55%) Low-Code
4 1 (2.27%) Algorithms
4 1 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
4 1 (2.27%) IoT
4 1 (2.27%) NHS
4 1 (2.27%) Public Cloud
4 1 (2.27%) Robotics
4 1 (2.27%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 3 (6.82%) Linux
1 3 (6.82%) Windows
2 1 (2.27%) Robot Operating System
2 1 (2.27%) Unix
2 1 (2.27%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (45.45%) CI/CD
2 17 (38.64%) DevOps
3 16 (36.36%) Problem-Solving
4 13 (29.55%) Agile
4 13 (29.55%) Test Automation
5 9 (20.45%) Continuous Improvement
6 8 (18.18%) User Acceptance Testing
7 7 (15.91%) AI
7 7 (15.91%) Containerisation
7 7 (15.91%) Performance Testing
7 7 (15.91%) Software Testing
8 6 (13.64%) Customer Requirements
8 6 (13.64%) Data Science
8 6 (13.64%) Model Validation
8 6 (13.64%) Performance Metrics
8 6 (13.64%) Regression Testing
8 6 (13.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 6 (13.64%) System Testing
8 6 (13.64%) Validation
9 5 (11.36%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 7 (15.91%) Python
2 5 (11.36%) C#
3 4 (9.09%) Java
3 4 (9.09%) SQL
4 3 (6.82%) JavaScript
4 3 (6.82%) PHP
5 2 (4.55%) C
5 2 (4.55%) C++
6 1 (2.27%) PL/SQL
6 1 (2.27%) Shell Script
6 1 (2.27%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 9 (20.45%) Security Cleared
2 7 (15.91%) SC Cleared
3 5 (11.36%) Degree
4 3 (6.82%) ISTQB
5 2 (4.55%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (2.27%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
6 1 (2.27%) Master's Degree
6 1 (2.27%) PMI Certification
6 1 (2.27%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (9.09%) EU AI Act
1 4 (9.09%) NIST
2 2 (4.55%) SLA
3 1 (2.27%) Accessibility
3 1 (2.27%) Def Stans
3 1 (2.27%) HL7
3 1 (2.27%) PMO
3 1 (2.27%) SNOMED CT
3 1 (2.27%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 4 (9.09%) Docker
2 2 (4.55%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 3 (6.82%) Consul
1 3 (6.82%) HP ALM
2 2 (4.55%) HP Quality Center
3 1 (2.27%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 7 (15.91%) Microsoft
1 7 (15.91%) ServiceNow
2 4 (9.09%) SAP
3 3 (6.82%) HP
3 3 (6.82%) Oracle
3 3 (6.82%) Salesforce
4 2 (4.55%) Cerner
4 2 (4.55%) Dynatrace
4 2 (4.55%) MEDITECH
4 2 (4.55%) MuleSoft
4 2 (4.55%) Pega
4 2 (4.55%) Siemens
5 1 (2.27%) Freshdesk
5 1 (2.27%) Sitecore