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 4 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 60 65 64
Rank change year-on-year +5 -1 +13
Contract jobs citing QA 1,445 1,195 1,497
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.96% 3.32% 3.35%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.70% 24.08% 23.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 960 707 1,077
10th Percentile £307 £300 £350
25th Percentile £400 £374 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £489 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.89% -9.52% -
75th Percentile £584 £580 £640
90th Percentile £671 £700 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +6.67% -5.26% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 48 43
10th Percentile £12.27 £12.17 £21.50
25th Percentile £13.50 £13.26 £25.00
Median hourly rate £16.24 £15.45 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.10% -69.10% +100.00%
75th Percentile £53.75 £28.75 £71.38
90th Percentile £73.75 £63.29 £77.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £15.73 £15.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year +4.87% -70.00% +108.33%

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 6,366 4,962 6,454
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.44% 13.79% 14.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,103 2,903 4,310
10th Percentile £313 £265 £313
25th Percentile £405 £382 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £603 £624 £640
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 311 215 239
10th Percentile £13.57 £13.88 £15.11
25th Percentile £17.51 £18.27 £20.04
Median hourly rate £25.15 £27.35 £35.63
Median % change year-on-year -8.04% -23.24% +57.06%
75th Percentile £58.75 £56.40 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.00 £83.14
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.14 £26.50 £35.98
% change year-on-year -16.45% -26.34% +71.31%

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 4 December 2025.

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 4 December 2025.

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 4 December 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 +10 1,242 £500 +3.09% 708
London +10 643 £500 - 192
UK excluding London -4 620 £480 +6.67% 640
Work from Home +10 386 £461 -6.35% 717
North of England +6 172 £430 +3.30% 151
South East +19 144 £500 +21.21% 233
Midlands -14 107 £500 +7.53% 85
North West +4 84 £404 -2.12% 93
West Midlands -27 76 £511 +2.71% 60
South West -14 72 £488 - 68
East of England +7 63 £500 +25.00% 82
Yorkshire -3 56 £450 - 39
Scotland +9 55 £513 +34.87% 29
North East +10 33 £500 +21.95% 19
East Midlands +3 31 £428 +3.26% 25
Wales -15 16 £419 -20.31% 9
Northern Ireland -1 7 - - 7

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 86 (5.95%) Confluence
2 38 (2.63%) SharePoint
3 22 (1.52%) Apache
4 20 (1.38%) CMS
5 16 (1.11%) IIS
6 13 (0.90%) Apache Spark
7 11 (0.76%) SugarCRM
8 10 (0.69%) Anypoint
9 9 (0.62%) Apache Airflow
9 9 (0.62%) WebSphere
10 6 (0.42%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 6 (0.42%) Mule
10 6 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.35%) MQSeries
11 5 (0.35%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
12 4 (0.28%) Drupal
12 4 (0.28%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.28%) SAS
12 4 (0.28%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.14%) Jupyter
Applications
1 71 (4.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (2.21%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (1.66%) Microsoft Project
4 18 (1.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 17 (1.18%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.42%) Trello
7 5 (0.35%) Chatbot
7 5 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
8 4 (0.28%) Autodesk Inventor
8 4 (0.28%) Simulink
8 4 (0.28%) Stateflow
9 3 (0.21%) Revit
10 2 (0.14%) AutoCAD
10 2 (0.14%) MicroStation
10 2 (0.14%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.069%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.069%) Autodesk Smoke
11 1 (0.069%) Notion
11 1 (0.069%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 29 (2.01%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (0.62%) Oracle EBS
3 7 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
3 7 (0.48%) Temenos T24
4 6 (0.42%) Maximo
4 6 (0.42%) Oracle Cash Management
4 6 (0.42%) Oracle General Ledger
4 6 (0.42%) Oracle Payables
4 6 (0.42%) Oracle Receivables
4 6 (0.42%) SAP ERP
5 4 (0.28%) OpenText MBPM
5 4 (0.28%) Oracle BPM
5 4 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 4 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.28%) Unit4 Business World
5 4 (0.28%) Workday HCM
6 3 (0.21%) Algo Collateral
6 3 (0.21%) Endur
6 3 (0.21%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 320 (22.15%) Azure
2 279 (19.31%) AWS
3 100 (6.92%) Azure DevOps
4 97 (6.71%) GCP
5 88 (6.09%) GitHub
6 83 (5.74%) Power Platform
7 62 (4.29%) GitHub Actions
8 57 (3.94%) Serverless
9 43 (2.98%) AWS Lambda
10 39 (2.70%) Amazon S3
11 34 (2.35%) SaaS
12 25 (1.73%) Dynamics 365
13 24 (1.66%) Power Automate
14 22 (1.52%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 22 (1.52%) Amazon EC2
15 21 (1.45%) Amazon ECS
15 21 (1.45%) AWS CloudFormation
16 17 (1.18%) Snowflake
17 15 (1.04%) PowerApps
18 14 (0.97%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 20 (1.38%) Firewall
2 17 (1.18%) HTTP
2 17 (1.18%) Internet
3 6 (0.42%) 5G
3 6 (0.42%) Broadband
4 5 (0.35%) OpenLDAP
4 5 (0.35%) SMS
4 5 (0.35%) Wireless
5 4 (0.28%) Structured Cabling
5 4 (0.28%) WAN
6 3 (0.21%) HTTPS
6 3 (0.21%) Network Security
6 3 (0.21%) VPN
7 2 (0.14%) DNS
7 2 (0.14%) Remote Desktop
7 2 (0.14%) SSL
7 2 (0.14%) TCP/IP
7 2 (0.14%) WebEx
8 1 (0.069%) MQTT
8 1 (0.069%) VoWiFi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (4.98%) Power BI
2 68 (4.71%) SQL Server
3 56 (3.88%) PostgreSQL
4 53 (3.67%) Relational Database
5 43 (2.98%) MySQL
6 41 (2.84%) MongoDB
7 38 (2.63%) Data Warehouse
8 37 (2.56%) NoSQL
9 25 (1.73%) BigQuery
10 24 (1.66%) Tableau
11 22 (1.52%) Oracle Database
12 21 (1.45%) Metadata
13 19 (1.31%) Amazon RDS
14 14 (0.97%) Data Lake
15 12 (0.83%) Redis
16 11 (0.76%) Big Data
16 11 (0.76%) Looker
17 10 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
18 9 (0.62%) DB2
19 8 (0.55%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 255 (17.65%) JIRA
2 134 (9.27%) Git
3 117 (8.10%) GitLab
4 116 (8.03%) Jenkins
5 104 (7.20%) Selenium
6 75 (5.19%) Cucumber
7 65 (4.50%) Postman
8 64 (4.43%) Cypress.io
9 40 (2.77%) JUnit
10 36 (2.49%) JMeter
11 33 (2.28%) REST Assured
12 20 (1.38%) Appium
13 16 (1.11%) Bitbucket
13 16 (1.11%) Gatling
13 16 (1.11%) SonarQube
14 14 (0.97%) WebDriver
15 13 (0.90%) TestNG
16 12 (0.83%) Zephyr
17 10 (0.69%) CircleCI
17 10 (0.69%) TestRail
General
1 596 (41.25%) Social Skills
2 383 (26.51%) Finance
3 258 (17.85%) Analytical Skills
4 154 (10.66%) Public Sector
5 153 (10.59%) Banking
6 61 (4.22%) Documentation Skills
7 41 (2.84%) Legal
7 41 (2.84%) Marketing
8 37 (2.56%) Telecoms
9 33 (2.28%) Manufacturing
10 30 (2.08%) Investment Banking
11 29 (2.01%) Organisational Skills
12 28 (1.94%) Presentation Skills
13 27 (1.87%) Front Office
13 27 (1.87%) Retail
14 24 (1.66%) Back Office
15 20 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 18 (1.25%) Pharmaceutical
17 17 (1.18%) Aerospace
17 17 (1.18%) Law
Job Titles
1 204 (14.12%) Developer
2 190 (13.15%) Analyst
3 167 (11.56%) Senior
4 153 (10.59%) Lead
5 95 (6.57%) QA Engineer
6 91 (6.30%) Business Analyst
7 88 (6.09%) Tester
8 65 (4.50%) Test Engineer
9 61 (4.22%) Project Manager
10 57 (3.94%) Consultant
11 53 (3.67%) Java Developer
12 51 (3.53%) Test Manager
13 50 (3.46%) Architect
14 41 (2.84%) Test Analyst
15 38 (2.63%) QA Leader
16 36 (2.49%) QA Tester
17 35 (2.42%) Test Leader
18 33 (2.28%) DevOps Engineer
19 32 (2.21%) Java Engineer
20 29 (2.01%) Automation Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 146 (10.10%) REST
2 88 (6.09%) .NET
3 82 (5.67%) RESTful
4 79 (5.47%) Playwright
5 76 (5.26%) React
6 74 (5.12%) Spring Boot
7 72 (4.98%) Spring
8 52 (3.60%) HTML
9 51 (3.53%) SOAP
10 47 (3.25%) CSS
11 46 (3.18%) Node.js
12 42 (2.91%) AngularJS
13 41 (2.84%) Kafka
14 31 (2.15%) XML
15 29 (2.01%) .NET Framework
16 28 (1.94%) Web Services
17 27 (1.87%) JMS
18 26 (1.80%) JSON
19 24 (1.66%) Oracle Fusion
20 20 (1.38%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 144 (9.97%) Product Ownership
2 59 (4.08%) Cloud Native
3 58 (4.01%) Onboarding
4 49 (3.39%) Mobile App
5 35 (2.42%) Data Protection Act
6 29 (2.01%) Distributed Systems
7 28 (1.94%) Legacy Systems
8 27 (1.87%) Management Information System
9 26 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
9 26 (1.80%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 25 (1.73%) Analytical Mindset
11 23 (1.59%) Data Structures
12 21 (1.45%) PMI
13 19 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
14 17 (1.18%) Algorithms
14 17 (1.18%) Virtual Team
15 15 (1.04%) Derivative
16 14 (0.97%) Data Centre
17 13 (0.90%) Reinsurance
18 12 (0.83%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 76 (5.26%) Windows
2 47 (3.25%) Linux
3 23 (1.59%) Android
4 22 (1.52%) Apple iOS
5 19 (1.31%) Unix
6 17 (1.18%) Windows Server
7 8 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 6 (0.42%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.28%) CentOS
9 4 (0.28%) VMS
10 3 (0.21%) Debian
10 3 (0.21%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.14%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.14%) Solaris
12 1 (0.069%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.069%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 655 (45.33%) Agile
2 413 (28.58%) CI/CD
3 396 (27.40%) DevOps
3 396 (27.40%) Problem-Solving
4 381 (26.37%) Test Automation
5 216 (14.95%) Stakeholder Management
6 198 (13.70%) Scrum
7 192 (13.29%) Continuous Improvement
8 189 (13.08%) User Acceptance Testing
9 175 (12.11%) Validation
10 166 (11.49%) Test Strategy
11 164 (11.35%) Migration
12 158 (10.93%) Microservices
13 146 (10.10%) SDLC
14 141 (9.76%) Test Scripting
15 128 (8.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 123 (8.51%) User Experience
17 113 (7.82%) Project Management
18 108 (7.47%) Software Testing
19 107 (7.40%) AI
Programming Languages
1 264 (18.27%) SQL
2 206 (14.26%) Java
3 185 (12.80%) Python
4 123 (8.51%) JavaScript
5 105 (7.27%) C#
6 83 (5.74%) TypeScript
7 36 (2.49%) PL/SQL
8 24 (1.66%) PHP
9 23 (1.59%) T-SQL
10 21 (1.45%) PowerShell
11 20 (1.38%) Go
12 17 (1.18%) Bash
12 17 (1.18%) C++
13 15 (1.04%) Kotlin
14 13 (0.90%) C
15 12 (0.83%) Ruby
15 12 (0.83%) VBA
16 10 (0.69%) VB
17 9 (0.62%) R
18 8 (0.55%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 235 (16.26%) Security Cleared
2 197 (13.63%) SC Cleared
3 147 (10.17%) Degree
4 54 (3.74%) PMI Certification
5 49 (3.39%) Computer Science Degree
6 43 (2.98%) PMP
7 41 (2.84%) ISTQB
8 39 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
9 34 (2.35%) Master's Degree
10 19 (1.31%) AWS Certification
10 19 (1.31%) CISSP
11 17 (1.18%) DV Cleared
12 15 (1.04%) Oracle Certification
13 13 (0.90%) CBAP
14 11 (0.76%) Azure Certification
14 11 (0.76%) CISM
15 10 (0.69%) OCA
16 8 (0.55%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 7 (0.48%) CEH
18 6 (0.42%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 110 (7.61%) Accessibility
2 67 (4.64%) Data Quality
3 41 (2.84%) GDPR
4 28 (1.94%) PMO
5 23 (1.59%) WCAG
6 20 (1.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 19 (1.31%) PSD2
8 16 (1.11%) NIST
8 16 (1.11%) SEPA
9 14 (0.97%) PCI DSS
10 13 (0.90%) ISO 20022
11 12 (0.83%) SLA
11 12 (0.83%) Software Quality Assurance
12 9 (0.62%) COBIT
13 8 (0.55%) GxP
13 8 (0.55%) ISO 9001
14 7 (0.48%) IFRS
15 6 (0.42%) EU AI Act
15 6 (0.42%) ISO 8583
15 6 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 108 (7.47%) Docker
2 10 (0.69%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (0.48%) Active Directory
4 5 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
6 2 (0.14%) VirtualBox
7 1 (0.069%) Firmware
7 1 (0.069%) GridGain
7 1 (0.069%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.069%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.069%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 115 (7.96%) Kubernetes
2 66 (4.57%) Terraform
3 42 (2.91%) Ansible
4 30 (2.08%) Grafana
5 14 (0.97%) Prometheus
6 10 (0.69%) HP ALM
7 9 (0.62%) Argo
8 7 (0.48%) Puppet
9 6 (0.42%) Progress Chef
10 5 (0.35%) CloudHub
10 5 (0.35%) Control-M
11 4 (0.28%) Consul
11 4 (0.28%) Rsyslog
11 4 (0.28%) SCOM
11 4 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
12 3 (0.21%) Nagios
12 3 (0.21%) Nmap
12 3 (0.21%) PingFederate
12 3 (0.21%) RSA Archer
12 3 (0.21%) Salt
Vendors
1 168 (11.63%) Microsoft
2 117 (8.10%) Oracle
3 73 (5.05%) SAP
4 59 (4.08%) ServiceNow
5 55 (3.81%) Salesforce
6 35 (2.42%) Google
7 22 (1.52%) Citrix
8 19 (1.31%) Databricks
8 19 (1.31%) Splunk
9 17 (1.18%) HP
9 17 (1.18%) IBM
9 17 (1.18%) MuleSoft
10 15 (1.04%) Red Hat
11 14 (0.97%) Workday
12 13 (0.90%) UiPath
13 11 (0.76%) VMware
14 9 (0.62%) Adobe
14 9 (0.62%) Blue Prism
15 8 (0.55%) Pega
16 7 (0.48%) Dynatrace