QA Contract Job Trends in the North of England

Quality Assurance (QA)
England > North of England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North of England requiring QA skills. It covers vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 27 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 66 65 52
Rank change year-on-year -1 -13 +33
Contract jobs citing QA 143 123 193
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North of England 3.56% 2.96% 3.75%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.59% 23.93% 24.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 113 83 124
10th Percentile £285 £315 £319
25th Percentile £385 £400 £397
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £484 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.55% -3.30% +5.26%
75th Percentile £520 £575 £538
90th Percentile £575 £618 £600
England median daily rate £475 £488 £525
% change year-on-year -2.56% -7.14% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 6 7
10th Percentile £24.68 - £21.05
25th Percentile £43.71 - £43.02
Median hourly rate £63.40 £11.88 £69.59
Median % change year-on-year +433.67% -82.93% +31.48%
75th Percentile £64.60 £14.22 £78.00
90th Percentile £69.38 £16.56 £78.47
England median hourly rate £15.96 £13.26 £50.00
% change year-on-year +20.36% -73.48% +62.60%

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 633 514 790
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 15.75% 12.39% 15.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 448 299 452
10th Percentile £276 £303 £282
25th Percentile £360 £392 £393
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £485 £486
Median % change year-on-year -7.22% -0.21% -2.31%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £638 £646 £638
England median daily rate £500 £525 £539
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.60% +2.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 24 40
10th Percentile £17.48 £11.88 £16.25
25th Percentile £22.14 £14.25 £17.44
Median hourly rate £23.57 £17.03 £30.27
Median % change year-on-year +38.38% -43.73% +10.07%
75th Percentile £63.40 £27.25 £45.06
90th Percentile £69.64 £43.10 £75.30
England median hourly rate £32.50 £33.93 £36.00
% change year-on-year -4.21% -5.75% +61.22%

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
Daily Rate Trend in the North of England

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

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

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 27 September 2025.

Daily rate histogram for QA in the North of England

QA
Hourly Rate Trend in the North of England

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

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

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 27 September 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 27 September 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 +6 68 £424 +2.67% 159
Yorkshire -12 55 £470 -14.55% 53
North East +3 21 £488 +21.88% 34
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 9 (6.29%) Confluence
2 5 (3.50%) Mule
3 4 (2.80%) CICS
3 4 (2.80%) SharePoint
3 4 (2.80%) WebSphere
4 3 (2.10%) Apache
5 2 (1.40%) IIS
6 1 (0.70%) CMS
6 1 (0.70%) EPiServer
6 1 (0.70%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 4 (2.80%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.70%) Adobe XD
2 1 (0.70%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.70%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.70%) Sketch
2 1 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
2 1 (0.70%) Trello
Business Applications
1 3 (2.10%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (1.40%) Maximo
3 1 (0.70%) Loan IQ
3 1 (0.70%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 42 (29.37%) AWS
2 25 (17.48%) Azure
3 17 (11.89%) GCP
3 17 (11.89%) GitHub
4 6 (4.20%) Serverless
5 5 (3.50%) AWS Lambda
5 5 (3.50%) Power Platform
6 4 (2.80%) Amazon SQS
6 4 (2.80%) Google Tag Manager
7 3 (2.10%) Amazon S3
7 3 (2.10%) AWS CloudFormation
7 3 (2.10%) Azure DevOps
7 3 (2.10%) GitHub Actions
7 3 (2.10%) Google Analytics
8 2 (1.40%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 2 (1.40%) Dynamics 365
8 2 (1.40%) Microsoft 365
8 2 (1.40%) npm
9 1 (0.70%) Lucidchart
9 1 (0.70%) SuccessFactors
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (8.39%) PostgreSQL
2 11 (7.69%) MongoDB
3 5 (3.50%) Amazon RDS
3 5 (3.50%) NoSQL
4 4 (2.80%) BigQuery
4 4 (2.80%) DB2
4 4 (2.80%) Looker
4 4 (2.80%) Power BI
4 4 (2.80%) Redis
5 3 (2.10%) Data Warehouse
5 3 (2.10%) DocumentDB
5 3 (2.10%) DynamoDB
5 3 (2.10%) MySQL
6 2 (1.40%) Easytrieve
6 2 (1.40%) GIS
6 2 (1.40%) Hadoop
6 2 (1.40%) SQL Server
7 1 (0.70%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.70%) SAP HANA
7 1 (0.70%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 42 (29.37%) JIRA
2 31 (21.68%) Jenkins
3 29 (20.28%) Git
4 22 (15.38%) Selenium
5 20 (13.99%) Cucumber
6 18 (12.59%) GitLab
7 12 (8.39%) JUnit
8 10 (6.99%) Postman
9 7 (4.90%) Maven
9 7 (4.90%) SonarQube
9 7 (4.90%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (4.20%) REST Assured
11 5 (3.50%) Cypress.io
11 5 (3.50%) IntelliJ
11 5 (3.50%) TestNG
12 4 (2.80%) HP UFT
12 4 (2.80%) JMeter
13 3 (2.10%) Appium
13 3 (2.10%) Gradle
13 3 (2.10%) TestRail
General
1 30 (20.98%) Finance
2 29 (20.28%) Social Skills
3 26 (18.18%) Banking
4 19 (13.29%) Public Sector
5 15 (10.49%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (2.80%) Manufacturing
7 3 (2.10%) Back Office
7 3 (2.10%) Influencing Skills
7 3 (2.10%) Legal
7 3 (2.10%) Local Government
7 3 (2.10%) Military
8 2 (1.40%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (1.40%) General Ledger
8 2 (1.40%) Retail Banking
8 2 (1.40%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.70%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.70%) Avionics
9 1 (0.70%) Electronics
9 1 (0.70%) Marketing
9 1 (0.70%) Retail
Job Titles
1 24 (16.78%) Developer
2 13 (9.09%) Lead
3 12 (8.39%) Java Developer
3 12 (8.39%) Senior
4 11 (7.69%) Test Engineer
4 11 (7.69%) Test Manager
5 10 (6.99%) QA Engineer
5 10 (6.99%) Tester
6 9 (6.29%) Architect
7 8 (5.59%) Analyst
8 7 (4.90%) Consultant
9 6 (4.20%) Security Architect
9 6 (4.20%) Service Manager
10 5 (3.50%) Automation Tester
10 5 (3.50%) QA Tester
10 5 (3.50%) Senior Architect
10 5 (3.50%) Senior Security Architect
11 4 (2.80%) Designer
11 4 (2.80%) IT Manager
11 4 (2.80%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (14.69%) REST
2 18 (12.59%) Spring
3 16 (11.19%) Spring Boot
4 13 (9.09%) RESTful
5 12 (8.39%) Node.js
5 12 (8.39%) React
6 10 (6.99%) Kafka
7 8 (5.59%) Playwright
8 7 (4.90%) JMS
9 6 (4.20%) Web Services
10 5 (3.50%) HTML
11 4 (2.80%) CSS
11 4 (2.80%) CSS3
11 4 (2.80%) HTML5
11 4 (2.80%) XML
12 3 (2.10%) Bootstrap
12 3 (2.10%) Hibernate
12 3 (2.10%) pytest
13 2 (1.40%) DOM
13 2 (1.40%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 7 (4.90%) Product Ownership
1 7 (4.90%) SWIFT Messaging Network
2 6 (4.20%) Cloud Native
2 6 (4.20%) Enterprise Software
2 6 (4.20%) Onboarding
3 5 (3.50%) Data Protection Act
3 5 (3.50%) Distributed Applications
4 4 (2.80%) Mainframe
4 4 (2.80%) VSAM
5 3 (2.10%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 3 (2.10%) Management Information System
6 2 (1.40%) Data Structures
6 2 (1.40%) Mobile Payment
7 1 (0.70%) EPoS
7 1 (0.70%) Mobile App
7 1 (0.70%) NHS
7 1 (0.70%) Public Cloud
7 1 (0.70%) Renewable Energy
7 1 (0.70%) Replication
7 1 (0.70%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 7 (4.90%) Windows
2 3 (2.10%) Apple iOS
3 2 (1.40%) Unix
3 2 (1.40%) Windows Server
3 2 (1.40%) zOS
4 1 (0.70%) Android
4 1 (0.70%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 64 (44.76%) Agile
2 51 (35.66%) CI/CD
3 49 (34.27%) Test Automation
4 44 (30.77%) DevOps
5 32 (22.38%) Microservices
6 29 (20.28%) Problem-Solving
7 27 (18.88%) Continuous Improvement
7 27 (18.88%) Scrum
8 25 (17.48%) Test Strategy
9 23 (16.08%) User Acceptance Testing
10 21 (14.69%) Sprint Planning
11 19 (13.29%) TDD
12 18 (12.59%) Project Management
13 17 (11.89%) API Testing
13 17 (11.89%) Migration
14 16 (11.19%) Risk Management
15 15 (10.49%) Sprint Retrospective
16 14 (9.79%) SDLC
16 14 (9.79%) Software Testing
16 14 (9.79%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 39 (27.27%) Java
2 25 (17.48%) SQL
3 17 (11.89%) Python
4 12 (8.39%) JavaScript
5 6 (4.20%) TypeScript
6 4 (2.80%) COBOL
6 4 (2.80%) JCL
7 3 (2.10%) PHP
8 2 (1.40%) Bash
8 2 (1.40%) C#
8 2 (1.40%) REXX
9 1 (0.70%) Go
9 1 (0.70%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 23 (16.08%) Security Cleared
2 21 (14.69%) SC Cleared
3 11 (7.69%) BPSS Clearance
3 11 (7.69%) Degree
4 7 (4.90%) CISSP
5 6 (4.20%) ISTQB
6 5 (3.50%) Computer Science Degree
7 4 (2.80%) Azure Certification
7 4 (2.80%) PMP
8 2 (1.40%) AWS Certification
8 2 (1.40%) CISM
8 2 (1.40%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.70%) CBAP
9 1 (0.70%) CTC Cleared
9 1 (0.70%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 1 (0.70%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (11.19%) Accessibility
2 11 (7.69%) WCAG
3 7 (4.90%) ISO 20022
3 7 (4.90%) PSD2
3 7 (4.90%) SEPA
4 5 (3.50%) Data Quality
5 4 (2.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (1.40%) PMO
7 1 (0.70%) ISO 9001
7 1 (0.70%) PMBOK
System Software
1 14 (9.79%) Docker
Systems Management
1 17 (11.89%) Kubernetes
2 8 (5.59%) Terraform
3 3 (2.10%) Ansible
3 3 (2.10%) Grafana
4 1 (0.70%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 25 (17.48%) Microsoft
2 12 (8.39%) Google
3 11 (7.69%) Oracle
4 4 (2.80%) SAP
5 2 (1.40%) Ab Initio
5 2 (1.40%) BeyondTrust
5 2 (1.40%) CyberArk
5 2 (1.40%) Databricks
5 2 (1.40%) IBM
5 2 (1.40%) Informatica
5 2 (1.40%) Optimizely
5 2 (1.40%) Parasoft
5 2 (1.40%) Thycotic
6 1 (0.70%) Adobe
6 1 (0.70%) Citrix
6 1 (0.70%) Concur
6 1 (0.70%) Hotjar
6 1 (0.70%) MuleSoft
6 1 (0.70%) Splunk
6 1 (0.70%) UiPath