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 14 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 60 66
Rank change year-on-year +12 +6 +1
Contract jobs citing QA 2,347 1,286 1,213
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.25% 3.88% 3.24%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.79% 22.10% 24.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,372 878 708
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £382 £380 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £575
90th Percentile £656 £659 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £452 £450
% change year-on-year -0.50% +0.50% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 250 44 71
10th Percentile £13.48 £12.28 £12.00
25th Percentile £15.25 £13.50 £13.26
Median hourly rate £27.98 £28.77 £15.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.75% +91.80% -70.00%
75th Percentile £48.75 £47.63 £31.34
90th Percentile £70.00 £71.13 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.98 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +91.67% +0.93% -70.04%

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 9,867 5,820 5,017
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.85% 17.54% 13.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,182 3,725 2,914
10th Percentile £325 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £400 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £610 £612 £625
90th Percentile £724 £712 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +1.05% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 708 282 238
10th Percentile £13.70 £13.60 £13.44
25th Percentile £16.60 £16.61 £17.72
Median hourly rate £31.46 £30.00 £27.67
Median % change year-on-year +4.87% +8.42% -23.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.00 £62.66
90th Percentile £74.27 £80.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.40 £25.08 £27.50
% change year-on-year +29.19% -8.82% -29.03%

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 14 October 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 14 October 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 14 October 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 +16 2,059 £475 - 2,070
UK excluding London +27 1,197 £450 -0.50% 1,144
London +10 918 £500 - 1,038
Work from Home +5 588 £475 +5.44% 903
North of England +4 288 £453 +5.35% 293
South East +18 270 £425 -15.00% 286
Midlands +25 245 £447 -0.67% 178
West Midlands +30 204 £450 -9.27% 126
East of England +16 159 £423 -15.50% 121
South West +11 141 £530 +11.58% 102
Yorkshire +15 113 £470 +4.44% 102
North West -17 113 £475 +14.46% 145
Scotland +3 90 £425 -15.00% 77
North East -10 62 £400 -20.00% 47
East Midlands -14 40 £415 +1.22% 52
Wales +2 23 £413 +17.86% 46
Northern Ireland -1 7 £450 +50.00% 58

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
1 138 (5.88%) Confluence
2 53 (2.26%) CMS
3 43 (1.83%) SharePoint
4 16 (0.68%) Apache Spark
5 14 (0.60%) IIS
6 13 (0.55%) Apache
6 13 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
7 12 (0.51%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 9 (0.38%) SAS
8 9 (0.38%) Sitecore CMS
9 7 (0.30%) Traefik
10 5 (0.21%) Headless CMS
10 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.21%) Tuxedo
10 5 (0.21%) WordPress
11 4 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
11 4 (0.17%) Umbraco
12 3 (0.13%) Jupyter
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 83 (3.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 40 (1.70%) Microsoft Office
3 25 (1.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.89%) MS Visio
5 18 (0.77%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
7 9 (0.38%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.26%) AutoCAD
8 6 (0.26%) Navisworks
8 6 (0.26%) Revit
9 4 (0.17%) ProjectWise
10 3 (0.13%) CATIA
10 3 (0.13%) Mingle
10 3 (0.13%) Productboard
11 2 (0.085%) Adobe Premiere
11 2 (0.085%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.085%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.085%) Windchill
12 1 (0.043%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.043%) Trello
Business Applications
1 30 (1.28%) Dynamics CRM
2 29 (1.24%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (0.43%) Remedy ITSM
4 9 (0.38%) Shopify
5 7 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.30%) SAP GRC
5 7 (0.30%) Workday HCM
6 5 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
6 5 (0.21%) SAP MM
7 4 (0.17%) Aladdin
7 4 (0.17%) Maximo
7 4 (0.17%) NEC Housing
7 4 (0.17%) Primavera
7 4 (0.17%) ResourceLink
7 4 (0.17%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.13%) Infor CloudSuite
8 3 (0.13%) iTrent
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
8 3 (0.13%) SAP SD
9 2 (0.085%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 484 (20.62%) Azure
2 425 (18.11%) AWS
3 240 (10.23%) GitHub
4 218 (9.29%) Azure DevOps
5 144 (6.14%) GitHub Actions
6 115 (4.90%) GCP
7 114 (4.86%) Power Platform
8 83 (3.54%) Serverless
9 60 (2.56%) AWS Lambda
10 56 (2.39%) SaaS
11 52 (2.22%) Amazon S3
12 47 (2.00%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 45 (1.92%) Dynamics 365
14 40 (1.70%) GitHub Copilot
15 39 (1.66%) OpenShift
16 33 (1.41%) Microsoft 365
16 33 (1.41%) Snowflake
17 31 (1.32%) Amazon EKS
17 31 (1.32%) Azure Monitor
18 30 (1.28%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 29 (1.24%) Broadband
2 27 (1.15%) Firewall
3 22 (0.94%) Internet
4 21 (0.89%) DNS
4 21 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
5 18 (0.77%) 5G
5 18 (0.77%) HTTP
6 17 (0.72%) 4G
7 16 (0.68%) TCP/IP
8 15 (0.64%) VLAN
9 14 (0.60%) WAN
10 13 (0.55%) Network Security
11 11 (0.47%) DHCP
11 11 (0.47%) LAN
11 11 (0.47%) VPN
12 9 (0.38%) IPv4
12 9 (0.38%) IPv6
12 9 (0.38%) Wireless
13 8 (0.34%) Unified Communications
13 8 (0.34%) xDSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (4.69%) SQL Server
2 98 (4.18%) Power BI
3 83 (3.54%) PostgreSQL
3 83 (3.54%) Relational Database
4 63 (2.68%) Data Warehouse
5 59 (2.51%) MongoDB
6 49 (2.09%) MySQL
6 49 (2.09%) NoSQL
7 45 (1.92%) Metadata
8 38 (1.62%) Oracle Database
9 30 (1.28%) Oracle Reports
10 27 (1.15%) Tableau
11 23 (0.98%) Data Lake
12 22 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 16 (0.68%) Big Data
13 16 (0.68%) GIS
13 16 (0.68%) Redis
14 15 (0.64%) Power Query
14 15 (0.64%) RDBMS
15 13 (0.55%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 305 (13.00%) JIRA
2 267 (11.38%) Git
3 191 (8.14%) Jenkins
4 183 (7.80%) Selenium
5 156 (6.65%) GitLab
6 102 (4.35%) Cucumber
7 92 (3.92%) Postman
8 82 (3.49%) Cypress.io
9 81 (3.45%) JUnit
10 55 (2.34%) Zephyr
11 52 (2.22%) SonarQube
12 51 (2.17%) JMeter
13 50 (2.13%) Gatling
14 48 (2.05%) REST Assured
15 35 (1.49%) Maven
16 31 (1.32%) Gradle
17 29 (1.24%) WebDriver
18 28 (1.19%) TestNG
19 25 (1.07%) Appium
20 24 (1.02%) Bitbucket
General
1 719 (30.63%) Social Skills
2 426 (18.15%) Finance
3 378 (16.11%) Analytical Skills
4 302 (12.87%) Public Sector
5 175 (7.46%) Banking
6 87 (3.71%) Manufacturing
7 75 (3.20%) Retail
8 66 (2.81%) Organisational Skills
9 64 (2.73%) Marketing
10 59 (2.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 52 (2.22%) Telecoms
12 45 (1.92%) Aerospace
13 44 (1.87%) Influencing Skills
13 44 (1.87%) Legal
14 31 (1.32%) Documentation Skills
14 31 (1.32%) Military
15 24 (1.02%) Law
16 21 (0.89%) Investment Banking
17 19 (0.81%) Local Government
17 19 (0.81%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 310 (13.21%) Developer
2 295 (12.57%) Lead
3 283 (12.06%) Senior
4 265 (11.29%) QA Engineer
5 252 (10.74%) Analyst
6 140 (5.97%) Quality Engineer
7 124 (5.28%) Test Engineer
8 118 (5.03%) Tester
9 102 (4.35%) Test Manager
10 97 (4.13%) Business Analyst
11 86 (3.66%) QA Leader
12 79 (3.37%) Data Engineer
12 79 (3.37%) Java Developer
13 72 (3.07%) Test Leader
14 62 (2.64%) Consultant
15 60 (2.56%) Senior Analyst
16 57 (2.43%) Test Analyst
17 55 (2.34%) QA Tester
18 50 (2.13%) Senior Developer
19 49 (2.09%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 235 (10.01%) REST
2 160 (6.82%) Playwright
3 158 (6.73%) RESTful
4 129 (5.50%) Spring
5 111 (4.73%) Spring Boot
6 109 (4.64%) Terraform
7 104 (4.43%) React
8 99 (4.22%) .NET
9 91 (3.88%) HTML
10 90 (3.83%) Kafka
11 82 (3.49%) CSS
12 79 (3.37%) AngularJS
13 64 (2.73%) Node.js
14 61 (2.60%) SOAP
15 56 (2.39%) Middleware
16 53 (2.26%) pytest
17 46 (1.96%) JSON
18 42 (1.79%) .NET Framework
18 42 (1.79%) Gherkin
19 41 (1.75%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 229 (9.76%) Product Ownership
2 141 (6.01%) Cloud Native
3 83 (3.54%) Onboarding
4 73 (3.11%) Management Information System
5 72 (3.07%) Enterprise Software
6 63 (2.68%) Mobile App
7 59 (2.51%) Distributed Systems
8 51 (2.17%) Legacy Systems
9 50 (2.13%) AI Agents
10 42 (1.79%) Data Structures
11 41 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
12 36 (1.53%) Data Centre
13 31 (1.32%) Low-Code
14 28 (1.19%) Virtual Team
15 27 (1.15%) NHS
16 24 (1.02%) CMDB
17 20 (0.85%) Educational Technology
18 17 (0.72%) Analytical Mindset
19 16 (0.68%) Operational Technology
20 15 (0.64%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 89 (3.79%) Windows
2 77 (3.28%) Linux
3 57 (2.43%) Apple iOS
4 53 (2.26%) Android
5 34 (1.45%) Unix
6 24 (1.02%) Windows Server
7 18 (0.77%) VMS
8 7 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.21%) macOS
10 3 (0.13%) zOS
11 2 (0.085%) AIX
11 2 (0.085%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.043%) CentOS
12 1 (0.043%) Debian
12 1 (0.043%) Embedded Linux
12 1 (0.043%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 1 (0.043%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.043%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.043%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 913 (38.90%) Agile
2 683 (29.10%) Test Automation
3 626 (26.67%) CI/CD
4 568 (24.20%) DevOps
5 500 (21.30%) Stakeholder Management
6 483 (20.58%) Continuous Improvement
7 399 (17.00%) Problem-Solving
8 379 (16.15%) Validation
9 353 (15.04%) Scrum
10 348 (14.83%) AI
11 343 (14.61%) Test Strategy
12 274 (11.67%) User Acceptance Testing
13 255 (10.86%) Migration
14 224 (9.54%) SDLC
15 222 (9.46%) Microservices
16 212 (9.03%) End-to-End Testing
17 192 (8.18%) Software Engineering
18 185 (7.88%) Defect Management
18 185 (7.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 173 (7.37%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 413 (17.60%) SQL
2 332 (14.15%) Python
3 313 (13.34%) Java
4 200 (8.52%) JavaScript
5 126 (5.37%) C#
6 120 (5.11%) TypeScript
7 54 (2.30%) Bash
8 35 (1.49%) PowerShell
9 33 (1.41%) Kotlin
9 33 (1.41%) PL/SQL
10 26 (1.11%) Scala
11 25 (1.07%) Swift
11 25 (1.07%) T-SQL
12 20 (0.85%) Objective-C
12 20 (0.85%) Shell Script
13 15 (0.64%) VB
14 14 (0.60%) R
15 13 (0.55%) C
15 13 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 13 (0.55%) VBA
Qualifications
1 548 (23.35%) Security Cleared
2 425 (18.11%) SC Cleared
3 157 (6.69%) Degree
4 112 (4.77%) BPSS Clearance
5 82 (3.49%) ISTQB
6 69 (2.94%) DV Cleared
7 52 (2.22%) Computer Science Degree
8 23 (0.98%) PMP
9 22 (0.94%) AWS Certification
10 21 (0.89%) Azure Certification
10 21 (0.89%) PMI Certification
11 16 (0.68%) Master's Degree
12 14 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
13 11 (0.47%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 10 (0.43%) DBS Check
14 10 (0.43%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 10 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
15 9 (0.38%) Cisco Certification
15 9 (0.38%) IIBA
15 9 (0.38%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 166 (7.07%) Data Quality
2 140 (5.97%) Accessibility
3 41 (1.75%) WCAG
4 38 (1.62%) GDPR
5 29 (1.24%) PMO
6 25 (1.07%) GRC
7 18 (0.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 15 (0.64%) NIST
9 12 (0.51%) ISO 9001
10 11 (0.47%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 11 (0.47%) GxP
11 9 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
11 9 (0.38%) ISO 19650
12 8 (0.34%) Disclosure Scotland
12 8 (0.34%) SLA
12 8 (0.34%) Software Quality Assurance
13 7 (0.30%) IFRS
13 7 (0.30%) NCSC
14 6 (0.26%) PERC
15 5 (0.21%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 215 (9.16%) Docker
2 23 (0.98%) Active Directory
3 20 (0.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.43%) IAG
6 6 (0.26%) Firmware
7 4 (0.17%) ACF2
7 4 (0.17%) RACF
7 4 (0.17%) VirtualBox
8 3 (0.13%) KVM
8 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.043%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.043%) QEMU
9 1 (0.043%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.043%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.043%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.043%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 248 (10.57%) Kubernetes
2 64 (2.73%) Ansible
3 59 (2.51%) Grafana
4 37 (1.58%) Prometheus
5 33 (1.41%) Argo
6 11 (0.47%) HP ALM
7 10 (0.43%) SCCM
8 8 (0.34%) Microsoft Clustering
8 8 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (0.30%) HP Quality Center
9 7 (0.30%) Istio
9 7 (0.30%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 6 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
11 5 (0.21%) Progress Chef
11 5 (0.21%) Puppet
12 4 (0.17%) SCOM
13 3 (0.13%) FortiGate
14 2 (0.085%) Control-M
14 2 (0.085%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.085%) Kibana
Vendors
1 260 (11.08%) Microsoft
2 163 (6.95%) Oracle
3 117 (4.99%) Salesforce
4 75 (3.20%) SAP
5 59 (2.51%) ServiceNow
6 50 (2.13%) Google
7 47 (2.00%) Databricks
8 35 (1.49%) Dynatrace
8 35 (1.49%) Splunk
9 33 (1.41%) Red Hat
10 23 (0.98%) Citrix
10 23 (0.98%) VMware
11 21 (0.89%) Cisco
12 20 (0.85%) Adobe
13 18 (0.77%) IBM
13 18 (0.77%) Informatica
14 17 (0.72%) Sitecore
14 17 (0.72%) Talend
15 16 (0.68%) MuleSoft
15 16 (0.68%) Workday