QA Contracts in the Thames Valley

Quality Assurance (QA)
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the Thames Valley 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 27 August 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Aug 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 52 58 82
Rank change year-on-year +6 +24 -3
DemandTrendContract jobs citing QA 70 64 62
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 4.23% 2.83% 2.21%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 20.65% 23.19% 16.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 44 24 36
10th Percentile £322 £240 £241
25th Percentile £405 £325 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year +0.81% -2.11% -
75th Percentile £525 £588 £575
90th Percentile £583 £638 £604
South East median daily rate £475 £413 £475
% change year-on-year +15.15% -13.16% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 2 9
10th Percentile - £22.74 £18.50
25th Percentile £15.12 £29.09 £24.50
Median hourly rate £15.29 £40.35 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -62.11% -19.30% +108.33%
75th Percentile £53.50 £51.79 -
90th Percentile £53.65 £58.25 £65.22
South East median hourly rate £15.29 £10.82 £50.00
% change year-on-year +41.31% -78.36% +127.27%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
Thames Valley

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 Thames Valley.

DemandTrendContract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 339 276 383
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 20.47% 12.21% 13.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 188 120 227
10th Percentile £314 £248 £179
25th Percentile £409 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £498 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.50% -0.50% +11.11%
75th Percentile £600 £561 £613
90th Percentile £654 £653 £769
South East median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% +3.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 18 24
10th Percentile £15.12 £21.30 £16.55
25th Percentile £15.13 £26.25 £18.50
Median hourly rate £26.50 £48.94 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -45.85% -2.13% +138.10%
75th Percentile £64.87 £65.00 £64.88
90th Percentile £88.35 £72.38 £74.05
South East median hourly rate £26.50 £31.83 £49.50
% change year-on-year -16.75% -35.69% +147.50%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Job postings citing QA as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

Job vacancy trend for QA in the Thames Valley

QA
Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing QA.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing QA

QA
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 27 August 2025.

Daily rate histogram for QA in the Thames Valley

QA
Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing QA.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing QA

QA
Hourly Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing QA in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 27 August 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for QA in the Thames Valley

QA
DemandTrendContract Job Locations in the Thames Valley

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing QA within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 27 August 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
DemandTrendContract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Berkshire +7 50 £500 -9.09% 100
Buckinghamshire +20 16 £395 +68.80% 29
Oxfordshire -13 4 £153 -61.75% 42
QA
South East

QA
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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 2 (2.86%) CMS
1 2 (2.86%) Confluence
1 2 (2.86%) SharePoint
Applications
1 6 (8.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.43%) Adobe Illustrator
2 1 (1.43%) MadCap Flare
2 1 (1.43%) MS Visio
2 1 (1.43%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 1 (1.43%) Remedy AR System
1 1 (1.43%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (1.43%) SAP QM
1 1 (1.43%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 10 (14.29%) Azure
2 9 (12.86%) AWS
3 8 (11.43%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (5.71%) Figma
5 2 (2.86%) AWS Lambda
5 2 (2.86%) GitHub
5 2 (2.86%) OCI
5 2 (2.86%) Power Platform
5 2 (2.86%) Serverless
6 1 (1.43%) Veeva
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.86%) 5G
2 1 (1.43%) 3GPP
2 1 (1.43%) Radio Access Network
2 1 (1.43%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (8.57%) NoSQL
2 4 (5.71%) SQL Server
3 2 (2.86%) BigQuery
3 2 (2.86%) Oracle Reports
3 2 (2.86%) Power BI
3 2 (2.86%) Relational Database
4 1 (1.43%) Data Mart
4 1 (1.43%) DTS
4 1 (1.43%) EDMS
4 1 (1.43%) Hadoop
4 1 (1.43%) Impala
4 1 (1.43%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (1.43%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 10 (14.29%) JIRA
2 6 (8.57%) Selenium
3 2 (2.86%) QARun
3 2 (2.86%) WinRunner
4 1 (1.43%) Git
4 1 (1.43%) Subversion
4 1 (1.43%) Team Foundation Server
4 1 (1.43%) WebDriver
General
1 32 (45.71%) Social Skills
2 17 (24.29%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (8.57%) Finance
3 6 (8.57%) Telecoms
4 4 (5.71%) Organisational Skills
5 3 (4.29%) Public Sector
6 2 (2.86%) Automotive
6 2 (2.86%) Manufacturing
6 2 (2.86%) Pharmaceutical
6 2 (2.86%) Retail
7 1 (1.43%) Agriculture
7 1 (1.43%) Law
7 1 (1.43%) Legal
7 1 (1.43%) Marketing
7 1 (1.43%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 12 (17.14%) Analyst
2 8 (11.43%) Tester
3 7 (10.00%) DevOps Engineer
3 7 (10.00%) Test Analyst
4 6 (8.57%) AWS Engineer
4 6 (8.57%) Cloud Engineer
4 6 (8.57%) Consultant
4 6 (8.57%) Desktop Engineer
4 6 (8.57%) Project Manager
4 6 (8.57%) QA Tester
5 5 (7.14%) Business Analyst
5 5 (7.14%) Senior
6 4 (5.71%) AWS DevOps
6 4 (5.71%) AWS DevOps Engineer
6 4 (5.71%) Developer
6 4 (5.71%) Lead
6 4 (5.71%) QA Consultant
6 4 (5.71%) Senior Consultant
6 4 (5.71%) Support Engineer
6 4 (5.71%) Windows Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (2.86%) CSS
1 2 (2.86%) HTML
1 2 (2.86%) JSON
2 1 (1.43%) .NET
2 1 (1.43%) .NET Core
2 1 (1.43%) AngularJS
2 1 (1.43%) NestJS
2 1 (1.43%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 6 (8.57%) Algorithms
1 6 (8.57%) Cloud Native
2 3 (4.29%) Product Ownership
3 2 (2.86%) Mobile App
3 2 (2.86%) Onboarding
4 1 (1.43%) AI Agents
4 1 (1.43%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (1.43%) CMDB
4 1 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
4 1 (1.43%) Life Science
4 1 (1.43%) Mainframe
4 1 (1.43%) Management Information System
4 1 (1.43%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 11 (15.71%) Windows
2 2 (2.86%) Linux
2 2 (2.86%) Mac OS
3 1 (1.43%) Unix
3 1 (1.43%) Windows Server
3 1 (1.43%) Windows Server 2016
3 1 (1.43%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (42.86%) Problem-Solving
2 24 (34.29%) Agile
3 23 (32.86%) Test Automation
4 20 (28.57%) DevOps
5 16 (22.86%) Scenario Testing
6 13 (18.57%) Test Scripting
7 12 (17.14%) Stakeholder Management
8 11 (15.71%) Validation
9 10 (14.29%) End-to-End Testing
9 10 (14.29%) Test Strategy
9 10 (14.29%) User Acceptance Testing
10 9 (12.86%) CI/CD
10 9 (12.86%) Project Management
10 9 (12.86%) Waterfall
11 8 (11.43%) Data Modelling
11 8 (11.43%) ITIL
11 8 (11.43%) PRINCE2
12 7 (10.00%) Analytical Thinking
12 7 (10.00%) Functional Testing
12 7 (10.00%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 14 (20.00%) Python
2 11 (15.71%) SQL
3 5 (7.14%) Java
4 4 (5.71%) C#
5 2 (2.86%) VB
6 1 (1.43%) COBOL
6 1 (1.43%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 16 (22.86%) Security Cleared
2 12 (17.14%) SC Cleared
3 11 (15.71%) Degree
4 9 (12.86%) PMP
5 7 (10.00%) PMI Certification
6 6 (8.57%) AWS Certification
7 4 (5.71%) Master's Degree
8 2 (2.86%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (1.43%) CompTIA Security+
9 1 (1.43%) CTC Cleared
9 1 (1.43%) DV Cleared
9 1 (1.43%) PgMP
9 1 (1.43%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (2.86%) Data Quality
2 1 (1.43%) Accessibility
2 1 (1.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 2 (2.86%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (5.71%) HP ALM
1 4 (5.71%) HP Quality Center
2 2 (2.86%) Amdocs OSS
Vendors
1 5 (7.14%) Oracle
2 4 (5.71%) HP
2 4 (5.71%) Remedy
2 4 (5.71%) Salesforce
3 3 (4.29%) Microsoft
4 2 (2.86%) CheckPoint
4 2 (2.86%) Cramer
4 2 (2.86%) Infoblox
4 2 (2.86%) SAP
5 1 (1.43%) Adobe
5 1 (1.43%) BMC
5 1 (1.43%) Conga
5 1 (1.43%) Ericsson
5 1 (1.43%) Virgin Media
5 1 (1.43%) Workday