QA Contracts in the North of England

Quality Assurance (QA)
England > North of England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the North of England requiring QA skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited QA over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 63 51 71
Rank change year-on-year -12 +20 +12
Contract jobs citing QA 111 161 185
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North of England 3.37% 3.38% 3.17%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.57% 21.61% 22.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 90 118 119
10th Percentile £311 £320 £332
25th Percentile £375 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% +5.56%
75th Percentile £585 £598 £550
90th Percentile £700 £694 £588
England median daily rate £478 £516 £510
% change year-on-year -7.39% +1.18% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 10 3
10th Percentile £19.66 - £11.30
25th Percentile £30.01 £10.86 £12.13
Median hourly rate £48.13 £13.03 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year +269.35% -6.92% -77.60%
75th Percentile £67.13 £19.87 £19.13
90th Percentile £78.00 £32.85 £21.90
England median hourly rate £50.00 £15.75 £22.49
% change year-on-year +217.46% -29.95% -52.66%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
North 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 North of England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 471 745 813
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 14.29% 15.63% 13.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 323 418 493
10th Percentile £235 £320 £288
25th Percentile £371 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +11.11%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £698 £672 £650
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 85 40
10th Percentile £14.27 - £13.47
25th Percentile £22.14 £10.95 £29.30
Median hourly rate £24.67 £12.84 £38.55
Median % change year-on-year +92.15% -66.69% +106.15%
75th Percentile £39.69 £26.66 £49.08
90th Percentile £79.39 £48.75 £58.45
England median hourly rate £34.75 £22.34 £41.50
% change year-on-year +55.55% -46.17% +50.91%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

Job postings citing QA as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the North of England.

Job vacancy trend for QA in the North of England

QA
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the North of England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing QA in the North of England.

Daily rate trend for QA in the North of England

QA
Daily Rate Histogram in the North of England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA in the North of England over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for QA in the North of England

QA
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the North of England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing QA in the North of England.

Hourly rate trend for QA in the North of England

QA
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North of England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing QA in the North of England over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for QA in the North of England

QA
Contract Job Locations in the North 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 North of England region over the 6 months to 1 May 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
North West -9 58 £463 -7.50% 195
Yorkshire -15 38 £511 -5.32% 73
North East +7 15 £460 +10.84% 42
QA
England

QA
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North of England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 5 (4.50%) CICS
2 4 (3.60%) Confluence
3 2 (1.80%) WebSphere
4 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.90%) Oracle Workflow
4 1 (0.90%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (2.70%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 12 (10.81%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (5.41%) SAP PP
3 1 (0.90%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 28 (25.23%) AWS
2 25 (22.52%) Azure
3 11 (9.91%) GCP
4 9 (8.11%) GitHub
5 8 (7.21%) Azure DevOps
6 4 (3.60%) GitHub Actions
7 3 (2.70%) Microsoft 365
7 3 (2.70%) SuccessFactors
8 2 (1.80%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (1.80%) SaaS
9 1 (0.90%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 1 (0.90%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.90%) AWS CodePipeline
9 1 (0.90%) Azure Data Factory
9 1 (0.90%) Bloomreach
9 1 (0.90%) CloudBees
9 1 (0.90%) Dynamics 365
9 1 (0.90%) Power Platform
9 1 (0.90%) PowerApps
9 1 (0.90%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.90%) Cisco ASA
1 1 (0.90%) Firewall
1 1 (0.90%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (4.50%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (2.70%) MySQL
2 3 (2.70%) NoSQL
2 3 (2.70%) SAP HANA
3 2 (1.80%) Data Mining
3 2 (1.80%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (1.80%) DB2
3 2 (1.80%) DynamoDB
3 2 (1.80%) Easytrieve
3 2 (1.80%) Hadoop
3 2 (1.80%) Metadata
3 2 (1.80%) MongoDB
3 2 (1.80%) ObjectStore
3 2 (1.80%) Redis
4 1 (0.90%) Electronic Patient Records
4 1 (0.90%) GIS
4 1 (0.90%) Oracle Reports
4 1 (0.90%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 24 (21.62%) JIRA
2 23 (20.72%) Selenium
3 16 (14.41%) Git
4 12 (10.81%) Postman
5 11 (9.91%) Cucumber
6 9 (8.11%) IntelliJ
6 9 (8.11%) Maven
7 8 (7.21%) Jenkins
8 7 (6.31%) JUnit
9 5 (4.50%) Cypress.io
10 4 (3.60%) Gradle
10 4 (3.60%) HP UFT
10 4 (3.60%) REST Assured
10 4 (3.60%) SoapUI
10 4 (3.60%) TestRail
11 3 (2.70%) Visual Studio
11 3 (2.70%) Visual Studio Code
12 2 (1.80%) GitLab
12 2 (1.80%) SOAtest
13 1 (0.90%) Zephyr
General
1 35 (31.53%) Social Skills
2 26 (23.42%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (9.91%) Finance
4 9 (8.11%) Public Sector
5 8 (7.21%) Banking
5 8 (7.21%) Legal
5 8 (7.21%) Manufacturing
5 8 (7.21%) Telecoms
6 4 (3.60%) Aerospace
7 3 (2.70%) French Language
7 3 (2.70%) Pharmaceutical
8 2 (1.80%) Games
8 2 (1.80%) General Ledger
8 2 (1.80%) Retail Banking
9 1 (0.90%) Avionics
9 1 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.90%) Military
9 1 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.90%) Retail
Job Titles
1 21 (18.92%) Tester
2 15 (13.51%) Architect
3 14 (12.61%) QA Tester
4 12 (10.81%) Solutions Architect
5 10 (9.01%) Analyst
5 10 (9.01%) Test Manager
6 9 (8.11%) QA Engineer
6 9 (8.11%) Senior
7 8 (7.21%) Developer
7 8 (7.21%) Lead
8 5 (4.50%) Automation Tester
8 5 (4.50%) Consultant
8 5 (4.50%) QA Analyst
8 5 (4.50%) Test Leader
9 4 (3.60%) Manual Tester
9 4 (3.60%) SAP Architect
9 4 (3.60%) SAP Consultant
9 4 (3.60%) SAP PP Consultant
9 4 (3.60%) SAP QM Consultant
9 4 (3.60%) SAP S/4HANA Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (6.31%) Node.js
2 6 (5.41%) RESTful
3 5 (4.50%) .NET
4 4 (3.60%) React
4 4 (3.60%) Web Services
5 3 (2.70%) CSS
5 3 (2.70%) HTML
5 3 (2.70%) Middleware
5 3 (2.70%) REST
6 2 (1.80%) AngularJS
6 2 (1.80%) J2EE
6 2 (1.80%) JSON
6 2 (1.80%) Playwright
6 2 (1.80%) WireMock
6 2 (1.80%) XML
7 1 (0.90%) .NET Core
7 1 (0.90%) Lambda Expressions
7 1 (0.90%) Nightwatchjs
7 1 (0.90%) pytest
7 1 (0.90%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 6 (5.41%) Mainframe
1 6 (5.41%) Virtual Team
2 5 (4.50%) Data Centre
3 4 (3.60%) Life Science
3 4 (3.60%) Product Ownership
3 4 (3.60%) VSAM
4 3 (2.70%) Data Protection Act
4 3 (2.70%) Onboarding
4 3 (2.70%) Public Cloud
5 2 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (1.80%) Mobile Payment
5 2 (1.80%) NHS
6 1 (0.90%) Cloud Native
6 1 (0.90%) CMDB
6 1 (0.90%) Greenfield Project
6 1 (0.90%) IBM Mainframe
6 1 (0.90%) LIMS
6 1 (0.90%) Replication
6 1 (0.90%) SCADA
6 1 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 4 (3.60%) zOS
2 3 (2.70%) Unix
2 3 (2.70%) Windows
3 2 (1.80%) Apple iOS
3 2 (1.80%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (36.04%) Test Automation
2 34 (30.63%) Agile
3 30 (27.03%) Test Strategy
4 28 (25.23%) Problem-Solving
5 19 (17.12%) DevOps
6 18 (16.22%) Migration
7 17 (15.32%) CI/CD
8 16 (14.41%) API Testing
9 15 (13.51%) Continuous Improvement
10 14 (12.61%) Stakeholder Management
11 13 (11.71%) Risk Management
11 13 (11.71%) SDLC
12 12 (10.81%) Analytics
12 12 (10.81%) Code Quality
12 12 (10.81%) Project Management
13 11 (9.91%) Software Engineering
14 10 (9.01%) Manual Testing
14 10 (9.01%) Non-Functional Testing
14 10 (9.01%) User Acceptance Testing
15 9 (8.11%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 26 (23.42%) Java
2 13 (11.71%) SQL
3 10 (9.01%) JavaScript
3 10 (9.01%) Python
4 6 (5.41%) JCL
5 5 (4.50%) TypeScript
6 4 (3.60%) COBOL
7 3 (2.70%) C#
7 3 (2.70%) REXX
8 2 (1.80%) Bash
9 1 (0.90%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.90%) PowerShell
9 1 (0.90%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 31 (27.93%) Security Cleared
2 28 (25.23%) SC Cleared
3 12 (10.81%) Degree
4 9 (8.11%) AWS Certification
4 9 (8.11%) Azure Certification
5 8 (7.21%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (6.31%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 7 (6.31%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (6.31%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (2.70%) ISTQB
8 2 (1.80%) TOGAF Certification
9 1 (0.90%) CTC Cleared
9 1 (0.90%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 1 (0.90%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 1 (0.90%) Master's Degree
9 1 (0.90%) PMP
9 1 (0.90%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (6.31%) Accessibility
2 5 (4.50%) Data Quality
3 3 (2.70%) Software Quality Assurance
4 1 (0.90%) GxP
4 1 (0.90%) HIPAA
System Software
1 3 (2.70%) Docker
2 1 (0.90%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 5 (4.50%) SCCM
1 5 (4.50%) Terraform
2 4 (3.60%) Ansible
3 3 (2.70%) Kubernetes
3 3 (2.70%) Packer
4 1 (0.90%) CA Endevor
4 1 (0.90%) Control-M
4 1 (0.90%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 19 (17.12%) Microsoft
2 14 (12.61%) SAP
3 7 (6.31%) Google
3 7 (6.31%) Oracle
4 5 (4.50%) Informatica
5 4 (3.60%) Databricks
6 3 (2.70%) Concur
6 3 (2.70%) MuleSoft
6 3 (2.70%) Talend
7 2 (1.80%) Ab Initio
7 2 (1.80%) Apple
7 2 (1.80%) Citrix
7 2 (1.80%) IBM
7 2 (1.80%) New Relic
7 2 (1.80%) Parasoft
7 2 (1.80%) Workday
8 1 (0.90%) Dynatrace
8 1 (0.90%) ServiceNow
8 1 (0.90%) Virgin Media
8 1 (0.90%) Zscaler