QA Leader Contracts

Quality Assurance Lead
UK

The median Quality Assurance Lead daily rate in the UK is £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 493 549 675
Rank change year-on-year +56 +126 +113
Contract jobs requiring a QA Leader 27 33 43
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.092% 0.076% 0.072%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.100% 0.082% 0.076%
Number of daily rates quoted 19 17 29
10th Percentile £305 £307 £412
25th Percentile £419 £425 £516
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% -8.33% +26.32%
75th Percentile £538 £800 £666
90th Percentile £595 - £823
UK excluding London median daily rate £305 £475 £423
% change year-on-year -35.79% +12.43% -11.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £68.75 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - -

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 the UK with a recognized job title 27,084 40,415 56,464
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.52% 92.78% 94.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,692 26,309 39,470
10th Percentile £300 £275 £313
25th Percentile £406 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £492 £500
% change year-on-year -3.46% -1.60% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,035 2,664 1,570
10th Percentile £14.07 £12.86 £14.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.30 £19.50
Median hourly rate £29.00 £36.42 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.37% -19.07% +91.49%
75th Percentile £62.50 £60.75 £65.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £39.55 £42.50
% change year-on-year -29.20% -6.94% +117.95%

QA Leader
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured QA Leader in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for QA Leader in the UK

QA Leader
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing QA Leader.

Daily rate trend for QA Leader in the UK

QA Leader
Daily Rate Histogram

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

Daily rate histogram for QA Leader in the UK

QA Leader
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing QA Leader.

Hourly rate trend for QA Leader in the UK

QA Leader
Top 8 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing QA Leader within the UK 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
England +52 24 £500 -9.09% 25
London +28 17 £515 -6.36% 16
Work from Home +38 11 £450 -30.77% 15
UK excluding London +67 7 £305 -35.79% 17
Midlands - 5 £305 - 2
West Midlands - 4 £351 -
South East +47 2 £305 - 4
East Midlands - 1 £305 - 2

QA Leader Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, QA Leader contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring QA Leader in the job title.

1 27 (100.00%) QA
2 16 (59.26%) Test Automation
3 15 (55.56%) Agile
4 8 (29.63%) User Acceptance Testing
4 8 (29.63%) Scrum
4 8 (29.63%) Manual Testing
4 8 (29.63%) CI/CD
4 8 (29.63%) Social Skills
5 7 (25.93%) Test Strategy
5 7 (25.93%) Finance
6 6 (22.22%) JIRA
6 6 (22.22%) Selenium
6 6 (22.22%) Test Management
6 6 (22.22%) Test Scripting
7 5 (18.52%) Integration Testing
7 5 (18.52%) DevOps
7 5 (18.52%) Performance Testing
7 5 (18.52%) ISTQB
7 5 (18.52%) C#
7 5 (18.52%) Regression Testing
7 5 (18.52%) Defect Management
8 4 (14.81%) End-to-End Testing
8 4 (14.81%) Code Quality
8 4 (14.81%) SQL
8 4 (14.81%) Security Testing
8 4 (14.81%) Validation
8 4 (14.81%) Stakeholder Management
8 4 (14.81%) Continuous Improvement
9 3 (11.11%) Cypress.io
9 3 (11.11%) Stakeholder Engagement

QA Leader Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 (7.41%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 2 (7.41%) Azure
1 2 (7.41%) Azure DevOps
1 2 (7.41%) Dynamics 365
1 2 (7.41%) GitHub
2 1 (3.70%) AWS
2 1 (3.70%) Datadog
2 1 (3.70%) GCP
2 1 (3.70%) GitHub Actions
2 1 (3.70%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (3.70%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (7.41%) IDMS
2 1 (3.70%) DB2
2 1 (3.70%) Relational Database
2 1 (3.70%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 6 (22.22%) JIRA
1 6 (22.22%) Selenium
2 3 (11.11%) Cucumber
2 3 (11.11%) Cypress.io
2 3 (11.11%) Jenkins
2 3 (11.11%) JMeter
2 3 (11.11%) Postman
2 3 (11.11%) SpecFlow
3 2 (7.41%) Atlassian Bamboo
3 2 (7.41%) Bitbucket
3 2 (7.41%) CA Gen
3 2 (7.41%) Git
3 2 (7.41%) GitLab
3 2 (7.41%) JUnit
4 1 (3.70%) Ant
4 1 (3.70%) Gradle
4 1 (3.70%) LoadRunner
4 1 (3.70%) Maven
4 1 (3.70%) NUnit
4 1 (3.70%) TeamCity
General
1 8 (29.63%) Social Skills
2 7 (25.93%) Finance
3 3 (11.11%) Analytical Skills
4 2 (7.41%) Influencing Skills
4 2 (7.41%) Telecoms
5 1 (3.70%) Banking
5 1 (3.70%) Financial Institution
5 1 (3.70%) Games
5 1 (3.70%) Presentation Skills
5 1 (3.70%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (11.11%) Playwright
2 2 (7.41%) REST
3 1 (3.70%) .NET
3 1 (3.70%) Gherkin
3 1 (3.70%) JSON
3 1 (3.70%) Oracle Fusion
3 1 (3.70%) RFC 2544
3 1 (3.70%) SOAP
3 1 (3.70%) WebSockets
3 1 (3.70%) XML
3 1 (3.70%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 3 (11.11%) Cyber Threat
2 2 (7.41%) Greenfield Project
2 2 (7.41%) Product Ownership
3 1 (3.70%) Data Centre
3 1 (3.70%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (3.70%) Data Structures
3 1 (3.70%) Enterprise Software
3 1 (3.70%) Hedge funds
3 1 (3.70%) Online Games
3 1 (3.70%) Renewable Energy
3 1 (3.70%) Self-Motivation
3 1 (3.70%) Solar Panel
Operating Systems
1 2 (7.41%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (59.26%) Test Automation
2 15 (55.56%) Agile
3 8 (29.63%) CI/CD
3 8 (29.63%) Manual Testing
3 8 (29.63%) Scrum
3 8 (29.63%) User Acceptance Testing
4 7 (25.93%) Test Strategy
5 6 (22.22%) Test Management
5 6 (22.22%) Test Scripting
6 5 (18.52%) Defect Management
6 5 (18.52%) DevOps
6 5 (18.52%) Integration Testing
6 5 (18.52%) Performance Testing
6 5 (18.52%) Regression Testing
7 4 (14.81%) Code Quality
7 4 (14.81%) Continuous Improvement
7 4 (14.81%) End-to-End Testing
7 4 (14.81%) Security Testing
7 4 (14.81%) Stakeholder Management
7 4 (14.81%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 5 (18.52%) C#
2 4 (14.81%) SQL
3 3 (11.11%) TypeScript
4 2 (7.41%) COBOL
4 2 (7.41%) Java
4 2 (7.41%) JavaScript
4 2 (7.41%) Python
5 1 (3.70%) PowerShell
5 1 (3.70%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 5 (18.52%) ISTQB
2 3 (11.11%) ISEB
3 2 (7.41%) Computer Science Degree
3 2 (7.41%) Degree
3 2 (7.41%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
4 1 (3.70%) CEH
4 1 (3.70%) GIAC
4 1 (3.70%) GPEN
4 1 (3.70%) GXPN
4 1 (3.70%) OSCP
4 1 (3.70%) SC Cleared
4 1 (3.70%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (100.00%) QA
2 3 (11.11%) Software Quality Assurance
3 2 (7.41%) NIST
4 1 (3.70%) Accessibility
4 1 (3.70%) GDPR
4 1 (3.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (3.70%) PCI DSS
Vendors
1 2 (7.41%) Oracle
2 1 (3.70%) Cisco
2 1 (3.70%) Microsoft
2 1 (3.70%) Salesforce