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

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 41 60
Rank change year-on-year +21 +19 +15
Contract jobs citing QA 157 58 36
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 6.49% 4.37% 2.41%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 37.29% 24.58% 22.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 48 37 18
10th Percentile £313 £185 £289
25th Percentile £363 £341 £319
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £375
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +33.33% -21.05%
75th Percentile £519 £575 £472
90th Percentile £600 £593 £491
England median daily rate £475 £475 £484
% change year-on-year - -1.76% -7.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 80 7 3
10th Percentile £12.71 £12.28 £13.08
25th Percentile £14.10 £12.89 £14.17
Median hourly rate £18.43 £13.50 £15.98
Median % change year-on-year +36.50% -15.52% -30.52%
75th Percentile £48.75 - £17.99
90th Percentile £53.75 - £19.20
England median hourly rate £30.00 £15.96 £15.00
% change year-on-year +87.97% +6.40% -70.00%

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 421 236 158
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East of England 17.40% 17.77% 10.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 147 111 72
10th Percentile £308 £225 £263
25th Percentile £400 £350 £320
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £433
Median % change year-on-year - +15.61% -13.50%
75th Percentile £600 £580 £550
90th Percentile £725 £650 £611
England median daily rate £513 £500 £520
% change year-on-year +2.50% -3.85% -3.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 187 43 21
10th Percentile £13.52 £13.50 £14.42
25th Percentile £16.13 £16.45 £15.98
Median hourly rate £40.00 £31.49 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.02% +25.96% -43.82%
75th Percentile £67.50 £88.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £79.40 £91.50 £67.50
England median hourly rate £32.40 £32.74 £34.47
% change year-on-year -1.04% -5.02% -12.77%

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 October 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 October 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 October 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 +12 59 £450 -14.77% 32
Bedfordshire +20 32 £478 -23.52% 16
Essex +1 24 £480 -4.00% 29
Suffolk -4 20 £351 +14.94% 21
Cambridgeshire +5 14 £475 +26.67% 92
Norfolk -9 8 - - 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 11 (7.01%) CMS
2 3 (1.91%) Apache Airflow
2 3 (1.91%) OpenStack
3 2 (1.27%) WordPress
4 1 (0.64%) Apache
4 1 (0.64%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.64%) Confluence
4 1 (0.64%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 4 (2.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.91%) CATIA
3 2 (1.27%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.64%) Windchill
Cloud Services
1 14 (8.92%) Azure
2 9 (5.73%) GitHub
3 8 (5.10%) AWS
3 8 (5.10%) Azure DevOps
4 7 (4.46%) GitHub Actions
5 5 (3.18%) SaaS
6 2 (1.27%) Azure AKS
6 2 (1.27%) Azure Data Factory
6 2 (1.27%) Boomi
6 2 (1.27%) Entra ID
6 2 (1.27%) GCP
6 2 (1.27%) Microsoft 365
6 2 (1.27%) Power Platform
7 1 (0.64%) Anthropic Claude
7 1 (0.64%) AtomSphere
7 1 (0.64%) Azure Logic Apps
7 1 (0.64%) GitHub Copilot
7 1 (0.64%) Google Gemini
7 1 (0.64%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 11 (7.01%) 5G
2 10 (6.37%) 4G
2 10 (6.37%) Broadband
3 8 (5.10%) Wi-Fi
4 6 (3.82%) IPv4
4 6 (3.82%) IPv6
4 6 (3.82%) xDSL
5 5 (3.18%) PPP
5 5 (3.18%) UPnP
6 4 (2.55%) DNS
6 4 (2.55%) HTTP
6 4 (2.55%) SSH
6 4 (2.55%) TCP/IP
6 4 (2.55%) Wireless
7 1 (0.64%) MQTT
7 1 (0.64%) RTP
7 1 (0.64%) tcpdump
7 1 (0.64%) VoIP
7 1 (0.64%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (3.18%) MySQL
2 4 (2.55%) MongoDB
2 4 (2.55%) NoSQL
2 4 (2.55%) PostgreSQL
2 4 (2.55%) Redis
2 4 (2.55%) Relational Database
3 2 (1.27%) Power BI
4 1 (0.64%) Geospatial Data
4 1 (0.64%) GIS
4 1 (0.64%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 15 (9.55%) Git
2 11 (7.01%) GitLab
3 10 (6.37%) JIRA
4 5 (3.18%) Jenkins
5 4 (2.55%) Newman
5 4 (2.55%) Postman
6 3 (1.91%) Robot Framework
6 3 (1.91%) Selenium
7 2 (1.27%) IntelliJ
7 2 (1.27%) JUnit
7 2 (1.27%) MSTest
7 2 (1.27%) Ranorex
7 2 (1.27%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.64%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.64%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.64%) eggPlant
8 1 (0.64%) LabVIEW
8 1 (0.64%) ScriptRunner
General
1 25 (15.92%) Manufacturing
2 19 (12.10%) Social Skills
3 13 (8.28%) Telecoms
4 12 (7.64%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (7.01%) Aerospace
6 8 (5.10%) Electronics
7 6 (3.82%) Automotive
7 6 (3.82%) Finance
7 6 (3.82%) Law
8 4 (2.55%) Organisational Skills
8 4 (2.55%) Public Sector
9 3 (1.91%) Advertising
9 3 (1.91%) Banking
9 3 (1.91%) Pharmaceutical
10 2 (1.27%) Documentation Skills
10 2 (1.27%) Legal
10 2 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.64%) Marketing
11 1 (0.64%) Military
Job Titles
1 57 (36.31%) QA Engineer
2 50 (31.85%) Quality Engineer
3 24 (15.29%) Lead
4 19 (12.10%) Design Engineer
5 18 (11.46%) QA Leader
6 11 (7.01%) Administrator
6 11 (7.01%) Web Administrator
7 9 (5.73%) Data Engineer
7 9 (5.73%) Test Engineer
8 8 (5.10%) Customer Engineer
9 6 (3.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 5 (3.18%) Developer
11 4 (2.55%) Broadband Engineer
11 4 (2.55%) Python Developer
12 3 (1.91%) CAD Modeller
12 3 (1.91%) Data Entry Assistant
12 3 (1.91%) Lead Test Engineer
12 3 (1.91%) Scrum Master
12 3 (1.91%) Test Automation Engineer
12 3 (1.91%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (6.37%) REST
2 8 (5.10%) Pandas
3 7 (4.46%) pytest
4 5 (3.18%) Playwright
4 5 (3.18%) XML
5 4 (2.55%) CSS
5 4 (2.55%) FastAPI
5 4 (2.55%) Flask
5 4 (2.55%) HTML
5 4 (2.55%) Jinja
5 4 (2.55%) XML Schema
6 3 (1.91%) Elastic Stack
6 3 (1.91%) Great Expectations
6 3 (1.91%) Kafka
6 3 (1.91%) RabbitMQ
6 3 (1.91%) RESTful
6 3 (1.91%) SOAP
7 2 (1.27%) .NET
7 2 (1.27%) JSON
7 2 (1.27%) XSD
Miscellaneous
1 6 (3.82%) Product Ownership
2 5 (3.18%) Life Science
2 5 (3.18%) Wiki
3 3 (1.91%) Cloud Native
3 3 (1.91%) Greenfield Project
3 3 (1.91%) Management Information System
3 3 (1.91%) Onboarding
4 2 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
4 2 (1.27%) CMDB
4 2 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
4 2 (1.27%) Low-Code
5 1 (0.64%) Analogue Electronics
5 1 (0.64%) Mainframe
5 1 (0.64%) Manufacturing Execution System
5 1 (0.64%) Marketing Technology
5 1 (0.64%) Mashup
5 1 (0.64%) Media Streaming
5 1 (0.64%) NHS
5 1 (0.64%) Operational Technology
5 1 (0.64%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 10 (6.37%) Linux
2 5 (3.18%) VMS
3 2 (1.27%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (16.56%) Agile
1 26 (16.56%) Validation
2 24 (15.29%) Test Automation
3 22 (14.01%) CI/CD
4 19 (12.10%) Customer Requirements
5 18 (11.46%) Scrum
6 16 (10.19%) DevOps
7 14 (8.92%) Continuous Improvement
8 13 (8.28%) Problem-Solving
9 11 (7.01%) ETL
9 11 (7.01%) Root Cause Analysis
9 11 (7.01%) Software Engineering
10 10 (6.37%) Data Pipeline
10 10 (6.37%) Software Testing
11 9 (5.73%) Containerisation
12 8 (5.10%) Code Quality
12 8 (5.10%) Infrastructure as Code
12 8 (5.10%) Migration
12 8 (5.10%) Test Strategy
13 7 (4.46%) Functional Testing
Programming Languages
1 23 (14.65%) Python
2 16 (10.19%) SQL
3 4 (2.55%) Bash
3 4 (2.55%) Java
3 4 (2.55%) Shell Script
4 3 (1.91%) PowerShell
5 2 (1.27%) C#
5 2 (1.27%) JavaScript
5 2 (1.27%) TypeScript
6 1 (0.64%) Bicep
6 1 (0.64%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 18 (11.46%) Security Cleared
2 12 (7.64%) SC Cleared
3 10 (6.37%) Degree
4 5 (3.18%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (1.27%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (1.27%) DV Cleared
5 2 (1.27%) ISTQB
6 1 (0.64%) CSPO
6 1 (0.64%) MOS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (5.73%) Data Quality
2 3 (1.91%) 21 CFR Part 11
2 3 (1.91%) GxP
3 2 (1.27%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.64%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.64%) ECSS
4 1 (0.64%) ISO 9001
4 1 (0.64%) PMO
4 1 (0.64%) SLA
System Software
1 14 (8.92%) Docker
2 2 (1.27%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.64%) Embedded Firmware
3 1 (0.64%) Firmware
3 1 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 4 (2.55%) Kubernetes
2 3 (1.91%) Grafana
2 3 (1.91%) Prometheus
3 2 (1.27%) HP ALM
3 2 (1.27%) HP Quality Center
3 2 (1.27%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 7 (4.46%) Databricks
2 3 (1.91%) Microsoft
3 2 (1.27%) Checkmarx
3 2 (1.27%) Google
3 2 (1.27%) HP
3 2 (1.27%) MuleSoft
3 2 (1.27%) Salesforce
3 2 (1.27%) Siemens
4 1 (0.64%) Atlassian
4 1 (0.64%) Dell
4 1 (0.64%) ESRI
4 1 (0.64%) IBM
4 1 (0.64%) Informatica
4 1 (0.64%) Kepware
4 1 (0.64%) NCR
4 1 (0.64%) Pega
4 1 (0.64%) PTC
4 1 (0.64%) Remedy
4 1 (0.64%) SAP
4 1 (0.64%) ServiceNow