QA Test Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Quality Assurance Test Engineer
UK > England

The median Quality Assurance Test Engineer daily rate in England is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 14 December 2025.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 536 507 545
Rank change year-on-year -29 +38 +182
Contract jobs requiring a QA Test Engineer 14 6 12
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.045% 0.020% 0.032%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.049% 0.022% 0.034%
Number of daily rates quoted 7 3 11
10th Percentile £332 £432 £363
25th Percentile £370 £442 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £468 £438
Median % change year-on-year +1.60% +6.86% -1.41%
75th Percentile £506 £478 £450
90th Percentile £530 £479 £631
UK median daily rate £450 £468 £438
% change year-on-year -3.74% +6.86% -1.41%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in England. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in England with a recognized job title 28,356 27,251 35,230
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.21% 92.91% 93.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,121 16,963 24,204
10th Percentile £290 £300 £292
25th Percentile £405 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -1.69% -2.91%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,744 892 1,356
10th Percentile £14.35 £15.64 £15.29
25th Percentile £18.00 £21.25 £19.87
Median hourly rate £26.50 £37.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.38% -17.78% +38.46%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.35 £73.75 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.47 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -27.23% -21.35% +48.33%

QA Test Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'QA Test Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

QA Test Engineer job vacancy trend in England

QA Test Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for QA Test Engineer job vacancies in England.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for QA Test Engineer job vacancies in England

QA Test Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA Test Engineer in England over the 6 months to 14 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for QA Test Engineer in England

QA Test Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for QA Test Engineer job vacancies in England.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for QA Test Engineer job vacancies in England

QA Test Engineer
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing QA Test Engineer within the England region over the 6 months to 14 December 2025. 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
London +5 8 £390 -13.33%
North of England - 6 £475 -
North East - 3 £475 -
Yorkshire - 2 £525 -
North West - 1 £390 -
QA Test Engineer
UK

QA Test Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 14 December 2025, QA Test Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the England region featuring QA Test Engineer in the job title.

1 14 (100.00%) QA
2 11 (78.57%) Test Automation
3 8 (57.14%) JIRA
3 8 (57.14%) Manual Testing
4 7 (50.00%) CI/CD
5 6 (42.86%) Problem-Solving
6 5 (35.71%) Agile
6 5 (35.71%) Citrix
7 4 (28.57%) Accessibility
7 4 (28.57%) AWS
7 4 (28.57%) BDD
7 4 (28.57%) Cucumber
7 4 (28.57%) Cypress.io
7 4 (28.57%) GitLab
7 4 (28.57%) Java
7 4 (28.57%) JavaScript
7 4 (28.57%) QA Automation
7 4 (28.57%) SC Cleared
7 4 (28.57%) Scrum
7 4 (28.57%) Security Cleared
7 4 (28.57%) Security Testing
7 4 (28.57%) TypeScript
8 3 (21.43%) API Testing
8 3 (21.43%) Continuous Improvement
8 3 (21.43%) Gatling
8 3 (21.43%) Jenkins
8 3 (21.43%) JMeter
8 3 (21.43%) Performance Testing
8 3 (21.43%) Validation
9 2 (14.29%) Acceptance Criteria

QA Test Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in 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 1 (7.14%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 1 (7.14%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 4 (28.57%) AWS
2 1 (7.14%) Azure
2 1 (7.14%) BlazeMeter
2 1 (7.14%) Boomi
2 1 (7.14%) GCP
2 1 (7.14%) GitHub
2 1 (7.14%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 2 (14.29%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (14.29%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 8 (57.14%) JIRA
2 4 (28.57%) Cucumber
2 4 (28.57%) Cypress.io
2 4 (28.57%) GitLab
3 3 (21.43%) Gatling
3 3 (21.43%) Jenkins
3 3 (21.43%) JMeter
4 2 (14.29%) Selenium
4 2 (14.29%) TestRail
5 1 (7.14%) Appium
5 1 (7.14%) Postman
General
1 4 (28.57%) Analytical Skills
1 4 (28.57%) Public Sector
1 4 (28.57%) Social Skills
2 3 (21.43%) Finance
3 1 (7.14%) Military
3 1 (7.14%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (14.29%) Gherkin
1 2 (14.29%) Node.js
1 2 (14.29%) Playwright
2 1 (7.14%) Django
2 1 (7.14%) JSON
2 1 (7.14%) REST
2 1 (7.14%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 2 (14.29%) Hedge funds
1 2 (14.29%) Management Information System
1 2 (14.29%) Product Ownership
2 1 (7.14%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1 (7.14%) Android
1 1 (7.14%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 11 (78.57%) Test Automation
2 8 (57.14%) Manual Testing
3 7 (50.00%) CI/CD
4 6 (42.86%) Problem-Solving
5 5 (35.71%) Agile
6 4 (28.57%) BDD
6 4 (28.57%) QA Automation
6 4 (28.57%) Scrum
6 4 (28.57%) Security Testing
7 3 (21.43%) API Testing
7 3 (21.43%) Continuous Improvement
7 3 (21.43%) Performance Testing
7 3 (21.43%) Validation
8 2 (14.29%) DevOps
8 2 (14.29%) Functional Testing
8 2 (14.29%) Non-Functional Testing
8 2 (14.29%) Regression Testing
8 2 (14.29%) Software Testing
8 2 (14.29%) Test Management
8 2 (14.29%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 4 (28.57%) Java
1 4 (28.57%) JavaScript
1 4 (28.57%) TypeScript
2 1 (7.14%) Bicep
2 1 (7.14%) Python
2 1 (7.14%) SQL
2 1 (7.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 4 (28.57%) SC Cleared
1 4 (28.57%) Security Cleared
2 2 (14.29%) BPSS Clearance
2 2 (14.29%) ISTQB
2 2 (14.29%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (100.00%) QA
2 4 (28.57%) Accessibility
System Software
1 1 (7.14%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (14.29%) Grafana
2 1 (7.14%) Kubernetes
2 1 (7.14%) Terraform
Vendors
1 5 (35.71%) Citrix
2 2 (14.29%) Splunk
3 1 (7.14%) Checkmarx
3 1 (7.14%) Dell
3 1 (7.14%) Informatica
3 1 (7.14%) MuleSoft
3 1 (7.14%) Salesforce
3 1 (7.14%) SnapLogic