QA Contract Job Trends

Quality Assurance (QA)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring QA skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 61 62 55
Rank change year-on-year +1 -7 +25
Contract jobs citing QA 1,694 1,078 1,486
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.69% 3.68% 3.41%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 21.68% 23.90% 23.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,055 715 1,018
10th Percentile £313 £263 £313
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £513
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -7.32% -1.44%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £613
90th Percentile £675 £700 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £460 £500
% change year-on-year +3.26% -8.00% +5.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 101 23 73
10th Percentile £12.85 £15.93 £10.82
25th Percentile £14.02 £20.63 £12.25
Median hourly rate £30.58 £50.00 £15.38
Median % change year-on-year -38.84% +225.10% -31.60%
75th Percentile £68.75 £73.13 £28.44
90th Percentile £78.00 £75.00 £65.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.58 £57.75 £13.75
% change year-on-year -47.05% +320.00% +1.85%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 7,814 4,511 6,250
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.04% 15.40% 14.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,056 2,906 3,975
10th Percentile £336 £263 £300
25th Percentile £413 £395 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £622 £630
90th Percentile £700 £723 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% +3.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 438 173 376
10th Percentile £14.02 £17.65 £10.95
25th Percentile £18.50 £22.14 £12.96
Median hourly rate £31.25 £32.81 £20.47
Median % change year-on-year -4.75% +60.32% -45.43%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £43.75
90th Percentile £82.08 £82.92 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.50 £33.11 £17.46
% change year-on-year +7.22% +89.63% -50.11%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing QA relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

QA job vacancy trend in the UK

QA
Daily Rate Trend

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing QA

QA
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA over the 6 months to 15 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for QA in the UK

QA
Hourly Rate Trend

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing QA

QA
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing QA over the 6 months to 15 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for QA in the UK

QA
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing QA within the UK over the 6 months to 15 April 2026. 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 0 1,468 £490 +1.45% 689
London +4 756 £500 - 206
UK excluding London -1 755 £475 +3.26% 594
Work from Home +3 456 £495 -0.10% 296
North of England -21 175 £475 -5.00% 154
South East -16 169 £496 +11.84% 168
Midlands -9 160 £450 +8.70% 93
South West +18 118 £498 -0.50% 63
West Midlands -14 115 £480 +8.47% 59
North West -18 88 £425 -16.26% 79
Yorkshire -29 63 £525 +2.94% 44
Scotland +5 60 £525 +31.25% 46
East of England +7 58 £476 -7.22% 68
East Midlands -13 46 £393 -3.82% 34
North East -10 24 £488 +5.98% 33
Northern Ireland +9 16 £475 +29.69% 7
Wales -11 12 £445 -13.38% 12

QA
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 95 (5.61%) Confluence
2 33 (1.95%) SharePoint
3 24 (1.42%) CMS
4 22 (1.30%) IIS
5 13 (0.77%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 12 (0.71%) Apache
7 9 (0.53%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
8 6 (0.35%) Apache Spark
8 6 (0.35%) SAS
9 5 (0.30%) Anypoint
9 5 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
9 5 (0.30%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.24%) nginx
11 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.18%) Tomcat
12 2 (0.12%) Apache Solr
12 2 (0.12%) Apache Synapse
12 2 (0.12%) Documentum
12 2 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 69 (4.07%) Microsoft Excel
2 40 (2.36%) Microsoft Office
3 31 (1.83%) Microsoft Project
4 27 (1.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 17 (1.00%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.24%) Photoshop
7 3 (0.18%) Simulink
7 3 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.12%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.12%) Autodesk Smoke
8 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.059%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.059%) Camtasia
9 1 (0.059%) CPLEX
9 1 (0.059%) Mingle
9 1 (0.059%) Navisworks
9 1 (0.059%) Notion
9 1 (0.059%) Revit
Business Applications
1 27 (1.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
3 12 (0.71%) Oracle EBS
4 9 (0.53%) Shopify
5 8 (0.47%) Workday HCM
6 5 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
7 4 (0.24%) Adobe Campaign
7 4 (0.24%) Maximo
7 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.18%) Aladdin
8 3 (0.18%) Algo Collateral
8 3 (0.18%) NEC Housing
8 3 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 3 (0.18%) Oracle Cash Management
8 3 (0.18%) Oracle EBS R12
8 3 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
8 3 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
8 3 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
9 2 (0.12%) Advent Geneva
9 2 (0.12%) Oracle Assets
Cloud Services
1 382 (22.55%) Azure
2 266 (15.70%) AWS
3 169 (9.98%) Azure DevOps
4 129 (7.62%) GitHub
5 108 (6.38%) Power Platform
6 82 (4.84%) GitHub Actions
7 75 (4.43%) GCP
8 57 (3.36%) Serverless
9 35 (2.07%) OpenShift
10 34 (2.01%) AWS Lambda
10 34 (2.01%) Dynamics 365
10 34 (2.01%) SaaS
11 33 (1.95%) Amazon S3
12 25 (1.48%) Amazon ECS
13 24 (1.42%) AWS CloudFormation
14 23 (1.36%) Azure Data Factory
15 22 (1.30%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 21 (1.24%) OCI
17 18 (1.06%) Snowflake
18 17 (1.00%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.30%) Firewall
2 17 (1.00%) Internet
3 14 (0.83%) WAN
4 13 (0.77%) Wireless
5 12 (0.71%) LAN
5 12 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
6 11 (0.65%) HTTP
7 9 (0.53%) Network Security
8 7 (0.41%) SD-WAN
8 7 (0.41%) VPN
9 6 (0.35%) DNS
10 4 (0.24%) 5G
10 4 (0.24%) Broadband
10 4 (0.24%) SMS
10 4 (0.24%) Unified Communications
10 4 (0.24%) WebEx
11 3 (0.18%) Cisco Nexus
11 3 (0.18%) DSL
11 3 (0.18%) IPsec
11 3 (0.18%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 98 (5.79%) SQL Server
2 92 (5.43%) Power BI
3 57 (3.36%) Data Warehouse
4 49 (2.89%) Relational Database
5 47 (2.77%) PostgreSQL
6 43 (2.54%) MySQL
7 39 (2.30%) Tableau
8 38 (2.24%) NoSQL
9 37 (2.18%) Oracle Database
10 27 (1.59%) Metadata
11 23 (1.36%) Data Lake
12 22 (1.30%) Oracle Reports
13 21 (1.24%) MongoDB
14 16 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
15 15 (0.89%) Amazon RDS
15 15 (0.89%) Big Data
15 15 (0.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 14 (0.83%) BigQuery
16 14 (0.83%) DynamoDB
17 12 (0.71%) Redis
Development Applications
1 306 (18.06%) JIRA
2 144 (8.50%) Git
3 130 (7.67%) Selenium
4 121 (7.14%) Jenkins
5 109 (6.43%) GitLab
6 88 (5.19%) Postman
7 66 (3.90%) Cypress.io
8 61 (3.60%) Cucumber
9 52 (3.07%) REST Assured
10 46 (2.72%) JUnit
11 32 (1.89%) JMeter
12 31 (1.83%) Zephyr
13 30 (1.77%) SonarQube
14 21 (1.24%) WebDriver
15 20 (1.18%) TestRail
16 17 (1.00%) Gatling
17 16 (0.94%) Appium
17 16 (0.94%) TestNG
18 15 (0.89%) Gradle
18 15 (0.89%) Visual Studio
General
1 596 (35.18%) Social Skills
2 402 (23.73%) Finance
3 267 (15.76%) Analytical Skills
4 198 (11.69%) Public Sector
5 149 (8.80%) Banking
6 47 (2.77%) Retail
7 41 (2.42%) Manufacturing
8 40 (2.36%) Organisational Skills
9 39 (2.30%) Documentation Skills
10 35 (2.07%) Marketing
11 25 (1.48%) Front Office
12 24 (1.42%) Legal
13 23 (1.36%) Influencing Skills
13 23 (1.36%) Investment Banking
14 22 (1.30%) Aerospace
15 20 (1.18%) Military
16 19 (1.12%) Telecoms
17 16 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 16 (0.94%) Pharmaceutical
17 16 (0.94%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 218 (12.87%) Analyst
2 212 (12.51%) Developer
3 198 (11.69%) Lead
4 193 (11.39%) Senior
5 118 (6.97%) Business Analyst
5 118 (6.97%) QA Engineer
6 95 (5.61%) Tester
7 84 (4.96%) Project Manager
8 82 (4.84%) Test Manager
9 72 (4.25%) Test Engineer
10 66 (3.90%) Architect
11 63 (3.72%) Java Developer
12 51 (3.01%) Data Analyst
13 50 (2.95%) Test Leader
14 43 (2.54%) Senior Analyst
15 42 (2.48%) Consultant
15 42 (2.48%) Data Engineer
16 40 (2.36%) QA Leader
17 39 (2.30%) C# Developer
18 38 (2.24%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 139 (8.21%) REST
2 110 (6.49%) .NET
3 102 (6.02%) Playwright
4 82 (4.84%) RESTful
5 79 (4.66%) Spring
6 75 (4.43%) Spring Boot
7 65 (3.84%) React
8 51 (3.01%) .NET Framework
9 47 (2.77%) Node.js
10 46 (2.72%) Kafka
11 45 (2.66%) AngularJS
12 41 (2.42%) HTML
13 40 (2.36%) CSS
14 39 (2.30%) JSON
15 25 (1.48%) Gherkin
16 23 (1.36%) Oracle Fusion
17 21 (1.24%) pytest
17 21 (1.24%) XML
18 20 (1.18%) Middleware
18 20 (1.18%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 162 (9.56%) Product Ownership
2 76 (4.49%) Cloud Native
3 44 (2.60%) Legacy Systems
4 42 (2.48%) Onboarding
5 40 (2.36%) Mobile App
6 37 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
7 36 (2.13%) Distributed Systems
8 30 (1.77%) Data Structures
9 29 (1.71%) PMI
10 28 (1.65%) Management Information System
11 24 (1.42%) Enterprise Software
11 24 (1.42%) Virtual Team
12 22 (1.30%) Analytical Mindset
12 22 (1.30%) Self-Motivation
13 18 (1.06%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 18 (1.06%) SWIFT Messaging Network
14 17 (1.00%) Data Centre
14 17 (1.00%) Derivative
15 16 (0.94%) NHS
16 15 (0.89%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 90 (5.31%) Windows
2 50 (2.95%) Linux
3 29 (1.71%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.24%) Android
5 17 (1.00%) Apple iOS
6 16 (0.94%) Unix
7 4 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.18%) VMS
9 2 (0.12%) Oracle Linux
9 2 (0.12%) Solaris
10 1 (0.059%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.059%) Robot Operating System
10 1 (0.059%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.059%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.059%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.059%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 654 (38.61%) Agile
2 445 (26.27%) DevOps
3 443 (26.15%) Test Automation
4 423 (24.97%) CI/CD
5 340 (20.07%) Problem-Solving
6 301 (17.77%) Stakeholder Management
7 282 (16.65%) Continuous Improvement
8 274 (16.17%) Validation
9 254 (14.99%) User Acceptance Testing
10 236 (13.93%) Scrum
11 201 (11.87%) Migration
11 201 (11.87%) Test Strategy
12 172 (10.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 146 (8.62%) SDLC
14 145 (8.56%) Test Scripting
15 141 (8.32%) Regression Testing
16 140 (8.26%) AI
16 140 (8.26%) Project Management
17 139 (8.21%) ETL
18 133 (7.85%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 352 (20.78%) SQL
2 224 (13.22%) Java
3 216 (12.75%) Python
4 132 (7.79%) C#
5 131 (7.73%) JavaScript
6 104 (6.14%) TypeScript
7 49 (2.89%) PL/SQL
8 46 (2.72%) T-SQL
9 33 (1.95%) PowerShell
10 21 (1.24%) Kotlin
11 17 (1.00%) Bash
11 17 (1.00%) VBA
12 16 (0.94%) C++
12 16 (0.94%) VB
13 15 (0.89%) Ruby
14 13 (0.77%) Bicep
14 13 (0.77%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.71%) C
16 11 (0.65%) PHP
16 11 (0.65%) Scala
Qualifications
1 363 (21.43%) Security Cleared
2 263 (15.53%) SC Cleared
3 165 (9.74%) Degree
4 71 (4.19%) ISTQB
5 59 (3.48%) PMI Certification
6 54 (3.19%) PMP
7 51 (3.01%) Computer Science Degree
8 50 (2.95%) BPSS Clearance
9 42 (2.48%) DV Cleared
10 32 (1.89%) Master's Degree
11 12 (0.71%) AWS Certification
11 12 (0.71%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 11 (0.65%) CHECK Team Member
12 11 (0.65%) CREST Certified
12 11 (0.65%) Cyber Scheme
12 11 (0.65%) SAFe Agilist
13 10 (0.59%) CBAP
13 10 (0.59%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 10 (0.59%) MBA
13 10 (0.59%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (6.79%) Data Quality
2 79 (4.66%) Accessibility
3 49 (2.89%) GDPR
4 44 (2.60%) PMO
5 29 (1.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 22 (1.30%) PCI DSS
7 21 (1.24%) WCAG
8 19 (1.12%) NIST
9 16 (0.94%) IFRS
9 16 (0.94%) IFRS 17
10 13 (0.77%) GRC
10 13 (0.77%) SLA
11 12 (0.71%) GxP
12 11 (0.65%) SEPA
13 10 (0.59%) Basel III
13 10 (0.59%) ISO 20022
13 10 (0.59%) PSD2
14 9 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 8 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
15 8 (0.47%) COBIT
System Software
1 111 (6.55%) Docker
2 13 (0.77%) Active Directory
3 8 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
4 6 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.24%) Firmware
5 4 (0.24%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (0.18%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
7 2 (0.12%) GridGain
7 2 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.059%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.059%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
8 1 (0.059%) Varnish
8 1 (0.059%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 132 (7.79%) Kubernetes
2 81 (4.78%) Terraform
3 35 (2.07%) Grafana
4 33 (1.95%) Ansible
5 24 (1.42%) Argo
6 20 (1.18%) HP ALM
7 19 (1.12%) Prometheus
8 12 (0.71%) Nmap
9 10 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
10 7 (0.41%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.41%) Puppet
11 6 (0.35%) HP Quality Center
11 6 (0.35%) Kibana
12 4 (0.24%) CloudHub
13 3 (0.18%) Consul
13 3 (0.18%) Progress Chef
14 2 (0.12%) SCCM
15 1 (0.059%) Microsoft Intune
15 1 (0.059%) Red Hat Satellite
15 1 (0.059%) SELinux
Vendors
1 173 (10.21%) Microsoft
2 161 (9.50%) Oracle
3 101 (5.96%) SAP
4 84 (4.96%) Salesforce
5 54 (3.19%) ServiceNow
6 47 (2.77%) Citrix
7 42 (2.48%) Google
8 28 (1.65%) Adobe
9 26 (1.53%) Databricks
9 26 (1.53%) Red Hat
10 23 (1.36%) HP
11 18 (1.06%) Informatica
12 17 (1.00%) MuleSoft
12 17 (1.00%) Workday
13 14 (0.83%) Splunk
14 13 (0.77%) IBM
15 11 (0.65%) Talend
16 8 (0.47%) Guidewire
16 8 (0.47%) Infor
16 8 (0.47%) Sage