QA Contracts in the South East

Quality Assurance (QA)
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South East 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 60 66 101
Rank change year-on-year +6 +35 -45
Contract jobs citing QA 107 161 128
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 3.55% 2.90% 2.21%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 20.90% 19.40% 14.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 60 92 94
10th Percentile £168 £301 £230
25th Percentile £330 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £488 £444
Median % change year-on-year -12.82% +9.86% -1.39%
75th Percentile £500 £575 £538
90th Percentile £586 - £592
England median daily rate £478 £516 £510
% change year-on-year -7.39% +1.18% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 18 2
10th Percentile £16.57 £10.42 £24.18
25th Percentile £18.50 £10.52 £32.69
Median hourly rate £28.00 £11.13 £47.25
Median % change year-on-year +151.57% -76.44% -0.53%
75th Percentile £53.50 £21.19 £61.69
90th Percentile £53.65 £27.45 £70.13
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
South East

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 South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 512 830 886
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 17.01% 14.93% 15.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 305 435 563
10th Percentile £200 £232 £200
25th Percentile £363 £361 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £638 £700
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 65 43
10th Percentile £21.32 £10.82 £18.25
25th Percentile £24.66 £15.38 £19.00
Median hourly rate £46.30 £27.50 £31.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.36% -11.29% +47.44%
75th Percentile £62.24 £48.75 £51.94
90th Percentile £77.27 £65.00 £67.50
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 South East

Job postings citing QA as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Job vacancy trend for QA in the South East

QA
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the South East

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing QA in the South East.

Daily rate trend for QA in the South East

QA
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA in the South East over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for QA in the South East

QA
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing QA in the South East.

Hourly rate trend for QA in the South East

QA
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

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

Hourly rate histogram for QA in the South East

QA
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing QA within the South East 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
Thames Valley +2 59 £456 -8.75% 72
Berkshire -9 42 £463 -9.76% 34
Surrey +26 26 £224 -31.08% 36
Hampshire +25 17 £444 -4.11% 45
Buckinghamshire +17 14 £425 -10.53% 22
West Sussex +14 5 £550 +18.92% 20
Oxfordshire +3 3 £513 +5.13% 22
QA
England

QA
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East 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 7 (6.54%) Confluence
2 1 (0.93%) Adobe Experience Manager
Applications
1 4 (3.74%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (1.87%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.93%) Adobe Illustrator
3 1 (0.93%) MadCap Flare
3 1 (0.93%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.93%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 3 (2.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (1.87%) SAP IBP
3 1 (0.93%) Remedy AR System
3 1 (0.93%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 17 (15.89%) Azure
2 13 (12.15%) AWS
3 9 (8.41%) Azure DevOps
3 9 (8.41%) Power Platform
4 7 (6.54%) GitHub
5 6 (5.61%) AWS Lambda
5 6 (5.61%) Serverless
6 4 (3.74%) Adobe Analytics
6 4 (3.74%) GCP
7 3 (2.80%) SaaS
8 2 (1.87%) Azure Data Factory
8 2 (1.87%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 2 (1.87%) Figma
9 1 (0.93%) Asana
9 1 (0.93%) Cloud Computing
9 1 (0.93%) Google Ads
9 1 (0.93%) Google Data Studio
9 1 (0.93%) Miro
9 1 (0.93%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 5 (4.67%) Firewall
2 3 (2.80%) DNS
2 3 (2.80%) Radio Access Network
3 2 (1.87%) DHCP
3 2 (1.87%) LAN
3 2 (1.87%) Structured Cabling
3 2 (1.87%) WAN
4 1 (0.93%) ADSL
4 1 (0.93%) BGP
4 1 (0.93%) Ethernet
4 1 (0.93%) Internet
4 1 (0.93%) IPsec
4 1 (0.93%) MPLS
4 1 (0.93%) OSPF
4 1 (0.93%) PPP
4 1 (0.93%) RIP
4 1 (0.93%) SNMP
4 1 (0.93%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.93%) VoIP
4 1 (0.93%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (8.41%) Power BI
2 7 (6.54%) Tableau
3 6 (5.61%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (4.67%) SQL Server
5 4 (3.74%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (3.74%) Qlik Sense
5 4 (3.74%) Relational Database
6 3 (2.80%) BigQuery
7 2 (1.87%) Azure SQL Database
7 2 (1.87%) MySQL
7 2 (1.87%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (0.93%) Amazon Redshift
8 1 (0.93%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.93%) Impala
8 1 (0.93%) Looker
8 1 (0.93%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.93%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.93%) QlikView
8 1 (0.93%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.93%) Tableau Desktop
Development Applications
1 15 (14.02%) JIRA
2 12 (11.21%) Selenium
3 5 (4.67%) Git
3 5 (4.67%) JUnit
4 4 (3.74%) Appium
4 4 (3.74%) JMeter
4 4 (3.74%) TestRail
5 3 (2.80%) SpecFlow
5 3 (2.80%) Subversion
6 2 (1.87%) Balsamiq
6 2 (1.87%) Cypress.io
6 2 (1.87%) QARun
6 2 (1.87%) WinRunner
7 1 (0.93%) Axure RP
7 1 (0.93%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.93%) GitLab
7 1 (0.93%) Maven
7 1 (0.93%) Mocha
7 1 (0.93%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.93%) WebDriver
General
1 55 (51.40%) Social Skills
2 35 (32.71%) Analytical Skills
3 14 (13.08%) Finance
4 13 (12.15%) Telecoms
5 7 (6.54%) Manufacturing
6 6 (5.61%) Marketing
6 6 (5.61%) Public Sector
7 4 (3.74%) Retail
8 3 (2.80%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (2.80%) Electronics
9 2 (1.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (1.87%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.93%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.93%) Automotive
10 1 (0.93%) Games
10 1 (0.93%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 19 (17.76%) Analyst
2 12 (11.21%) Data Analyst
3 9 (8.41%) Tester
4 8 (7.48%) Senior
4 8 (7.48%) Support Engineer
5 7 (6.54%) AWS Engineer
5 7 (6.54%) Lead
6 6 (5.61%) Project Manager
6 6 (5.61%) QA Manager
7 5 (4.67%) Architect
7 5 (4.67%) Business Analyst
7 5 (4.67%) Data Business Analyst
7 5 (4.67%) Developer
7 5 (4.67%) QA Engineer
7 5 (4.67%) QA Test Manager
7 5 (4.67%) QA Tester
7 5 (4.67%) Server Engineer
7 5 (4.67%) Server Support
7 5 (4.67%) Server Support Engineer
8 4 (3.74%) Product Owner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (5.61%) JSON
2 2 (1.87%) CSS
2 2 (1.87%) Gherkin
2 2 (1.87%) HTML
2 2 (1.87%) Middleware
2 2 (1.87%) PySpark
2 2 (1.87%) RFC 2544
3 1 (0.93%) .NET
3 1 (0.93%) AngularJS
3 1 (0.93%) FastAPI
3 1 (0.93%) HTML5 Canvas
3 1 (0.93%) Java EE
3 1 (0.93%) Playwright
3 1 (0.93%) React
3 1 (0.93%) REST
3 1 (0.93%) SAP Fiori
3 1 (0.93%) Spring
3 1 (0.93%) Spring Boot
3 1 (0.93%) Vaadin
3 1 (0.93%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 10 (9.35%) Product Ownership
2 9 (8.41%) Data Centre
3 8 (7.48%) Algorithms
4 5 (4.67%) Cloud Native
5 3 (2.80%) CMDB
6 2 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (1.87%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.93%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.93%) Data Fabric
7 1 (0.93%) Distributed Applications
7 1 (0.93%) IoT
7 1 (0.93%) Legacy Applications
7 1 (0.93%) Life Science
7 1 (0.93%) Mainframe
7 1 (0.93%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.93%) Public Cloud
7 1 (0.93%) Renewable Energy
7 1 (0.93%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 5 (4.67%) Windows
2 3 (2.80%) Linux
2 3 (2.80%) Unix
3 2 (1.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (1.87%) Solaris
4 1 (0.93%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.93%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.93%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (38.32%) Agile
2 39 (36.45%) Problem-Solving
3 28 (26.17%) Test Automation
4 20 (18.69%) DevOps
4 20 (18.69%) Test Strategy
5 19 (17.76%) Stakeholder Management
6 18 (16.82%) Validation
7 17 (15.89%) User Stories
8 15 (14.02%) CI/CD
9 14 (13.08%) Analytics
9 14 (13.08%) Project Management
9 14 (13.08%) Scenario Testing
9 14 (13.08%) Scrum
10 12 (11.21%) Business Intelligence
10 12 (11.21%) Data Collection
10 12 (11.21%) Data Modelling
10 12 (11.21%) Exploratory Testing
10 12 (11.21%) Test Scripting
11 11 (10.28%) Continuous Improvement
11 11 (10.28%) Mathematics
Programming Languages
1 22 (20.56%) Python
2 18 (16.82%) SQL
3 8 (7.48%) Java
4 6 (5.61%) C#
5 4 (3.74%) JavaScript
5 4 (3.74%) TypeScript
6 2 (1.87%) Bash
6 2 (1.87%) Perl
6 2 (1.87%) VB
7 1 (0.93%) ABAP
7 1 (0.93%) COBOL
7 1 (0.93%) R
7 1 (0.93%) Rust
7 1 (0.93%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 17 (15.89%) Security Cleared
2 15 (14.02%) Degree
3 9 (8.41%) SC Cleared
4 6 (5.61%) Master's Degree
5 5 (4.67%) PMI Certification
5 5 (4.67%) PMP
6 3 (2.80%) DV Cleared
6 3 (2.80%) ISTQB
7 2 (1.87%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.93%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.93%) BC Cleared
8 1 (0.93%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.93%) CCDP
8 1 (0.93%) CCIP
8 1 (0.93%) CCNA
8 1 (0.93%) CCNP
8 1 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.93%) CompTIA Security+
8 1 (0.93%) CTC Cleared
8 1 (0.93%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (6.54%) SLA
2 4 (3.74%) PMO
3 3 (2.80%) Data Quality
3 3 (2.80%) Software Quality Assurance
4 2 (1.87%) GDPR
5 1 (0.93%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.93%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.93%) GLP
5 1 (0.93%) ISO 14001
5 1 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 7 (6.54%) Docker
2 2 (1.87%) VMware ESXi
2 2 (1.87%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (1.87%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 2 (1.87%) Amdocs OSS
1 2 (1.87%) Ansible
1 2 (1.87%) Red Hat Satellite
1 2 (1.87%) SELinux
Vendors
1 8 (7.48%) SAP
2 7 (6.54%) Dell
2 7 (6.54%) HP
2 7 (6.54%) IBM
3 6 (5.61%) Adobe
4 5 (4.67%) Oracle
5 4 (3.74%) Cisco
5 4 (3.74%) Databricks
5 4 (3.74%) Microsoft
6 3 (2.80%) Dynatrace
6 3 (2.80%) Google
6 3 (2.80%) Remedy
6 3 (2.80%) Splunk
7 2 (1.87%) BT
7 2 (1.87%) CheckPoint
7 2 (1.87%) Cramer
7 2 (1.87%) Red Hat
7 2 (1.87%) Symantec
7 2 (1.87%) Veritas
7 2 (1.87%) VMware