QA Tester Contracts

Quality Assurance Tester
UK

The median Quality Assurance Tester daily rate in the UK is £425, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 July 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
6 Jul 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 506 549 555
Rank change year-on-year +43 +6 +199
Contract jobs requiring a QA Tester 42 36 128
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.13% 0.083% 0.23%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.14% 0.089% 0.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 34 29 113
10th Percentile £304 £310 £363
25th Percentile £364 £355 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £463 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.11% -19.57% +43.75%
75th Percentile £496 £490 £666
90th Percentile £549 £575 £810
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £380 £428
% change year-on-year +5.26% -11.21% +20.14%

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 29,294 40,276 53,656
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.97% 93.01% 94.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,671 25,908 37,253
10th Percentile £287 £285 £313
25th Percentile £400 £409 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% +1.13%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -3.65% -1.40% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,326 2,804 1,565
10th Percentile £13.75 £12.86 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.36 £16.65 £19.00
Median hourly rate £26.45 £37.50 £43.63
Median % change year-on-year -29.47% -14.05% +74.52%
75th Percentile £55.25 £62.96 £65.00
90th Percentile £73.25 £74.00 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -37.13% - +100.00%

QA Tester
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for QA Tester in the UK

QA Tester
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for QA Tester in the UK

QA Tester
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA Tester over the 6 months to 6 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for QA Tester in the UK

QA Tester
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for QA Tester in the UK

QA Tester
Top 14 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing QA Tester within the UK over the 6 months to 6 July 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 +50 31 £405 -12.43% 19
UK excluding London +62 21 £400 +5.26% 14
Work from Home +39 19 £425 -2.86% 12
London +22 11 £478 +2.19% 9
North of England +12 11 £390 +7.59% 6
Yorkshire +9 5 £288 -11.54%
North East - 5 £390 - 2
Midlands +16 4 £410 +43.86% 3
South East - 4 £400 - 1
West Midlands +9 2 £483 +154.21% 3
East Midlands +2 2 £410 +7.89%
South West +37 1 £325 -38.97% 1
North West +8 1 £380 -5.00% 4
Northern Ireland - 1 £325 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 6 July 2025, QA Tester 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 Tester in the job title.

1 42 (100.00%) QA
2 34 (80.95%) Test Automation
3 19 (45.24%) Agile
4 16 (38.10%) Selenium
5 15 (35.71%) Manual Testing
6 14 (33.33%) Java
6 14 (33.33%) Social Skills
7 12 (28.57%) JIRA
7 12 (28.57%) Analytical Skills
8 11 (26.19%) AWS
8 11 (26.19%) Non-Functional Testing
8 11 (26.19%) Test Scripting
9 10 (23.81%) Security Cleared
9 10 (23.81%) DevOps
9 10 (23.81%) API Testing
10 9 (21.43%) Azure
10 9 (21.43%) Cucumber
10 9 (21.43%) Postman
10 9 (21.43%) Azure DevOps
10 9 (21.43%) CI/CD
11 8 (19.05%) Product Ownership
11 8 (19.05%) End-to-End Testing
11 8 (19.05%) Model Validation
11 8 (19.05%) Gherkin
11 8 (19.05%) Data Validation
11 8 (19.05%) Test Management
11 8 (19.05%) SQL
11 8 (19.05%) Python
11 8 (19.05%) Validation
12 7 (16.67%) Scrum

QA Tester 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:

Applications
1 2 (4.76%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (2.38%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 11 (26.19%) AWS
2 9 (21.43%) Azure
2 9 (21.43%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (2.38%) Amazon CloudWatch
3 1 (2.38%) BlazeMeter
3 1 (2.38%) Bloomreach
3 1 (2.38%) BrowserStack
3 1 (2.38%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.38%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.38%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 16 (38.10%) Selenium
2 12 (28.57%) JIRA
3 9 (21.43%) Cucumber
3 9 (21.43%) Postman
4 7 (16.67%) Git
4 7 (16.67%) Jenkins
4 7 (16.67%) REST Assured
5 5 (11.90%) Cypress.io
5 5 (11.90%) JUnit
6 4 (9.52%) JMeter
6 4 (9.52%) WebDriver
6 4 (9.52%) Zephyr
7 3 (7.14%) TestNG
7 3 (7.14%) TestRail
8 2 (4.76%) SoapUI
9 1 (2.38%) GitLab
9 1 (2.38%) Gradle
9 1 (2.38%) IntelliJ
9 1 (2.38%) Maven
9 1 (2.38%) Ranorex
General
1 14 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 12 (28.57%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (14.29%) Public Sector
4 5 (11.90%) Documentation Skills
4 5 (11.90%) Finance
5 2 (4.76%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (2.38%) Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (19.05%) Gherkin
2 4 (9.52%) REST
2 4 (9.52%) SOAP
2 4 (9.52%) Web Services
3 3 (7.14%) RESTful
3 3 (7.14%) WireMock
4 2 (4.76%) Kafka
5 1 (2.38%) .NET
5 1 (2.38%) Node.js
5 1 (2.38%) React
Miscellaneous
1 8 (19.05%) Product Ownership
2 5 (11.90%) Legacy Systems
3 3 (7.14%) Algorithms
4 2 (4.76%) Mobile App
5 1 (2.38%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 2 (4.76%) Android
1 2 (4.76%) Apple iOS
2 1 (2.38%) Linux
2 1 (2.38%) Unix
2 1 (2.38%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 34 (80.95%) Test Automation
2 19 (45.24%) Agile
3 15 (35.71%) Manual Testing
4 11 (26.19%) Non-Functional Testing
4 11 (26.19%) Test Scripting
5 10 (23.81%) API Testing
5 10 (23.81%) DevOps
6 9 (21.43%) CI/CD
7 8 (19.05%) Data Validation
7 8 (19.05%) End-to-End Testing
7 8 (19.05%) Model Validation
7 8 (19.05%) Test Management
7 8 (19.05%) Validation
8 7 (16.67%) Scrum
9 6 (14.29%) BDD
9 6 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
9 6 (14.29%) Software Testing
10 5 (11.90%) Acceptance Criteria
10 5 (11.90%) Analytical Modelling
10 5 (11.90%) Creative Thinking
Programming Languages
1 14 (33.33%) Java
2 8 (19.05%) Python
2 8 (19.05%) SQL
3 7 (16.67%) JavaScript
4 1 (2.38%) C#
4 1 (2.38%) Ruby
4 1 (2.38%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 10 (23.81%) Security Cleared
2 6 (14.29%) SC Cleared
3 4 (9.52%) BPSS Clearance
3 4 (9.52%) ISTQB
4 2 (4.76%) DV Cleared
5 1 (2.38%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (100.00%) QA
2 7 (16.67%) Accessibility
3 5 (11.90%) Data Quality
4 1 (2.38%) SLA
4 1 (2.38%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 2 (4.76%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (2.38%) Kibana
Vendors
1 5 (11.90%) Databricks
1 5 (11.90%) Microsoft
2 3 (7.14%) Duck Creek
2 3 (7.14%) Guidewire
3 2 (4.76%) Oracle
4 1 (2.38%) ServiceNow
22 QA Tester jobs Nationwide