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 6 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 61 65
Rank change year-on-year +10 +4 +8
Contract jobs citing QA 2,057 1,302 1,256
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.86% 3.96% 3.21%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.49% 23.32% 23.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,249 914 800
10th Percentile £313 £282 £307
25th Percentile £393 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £496
Median % change year-on-year - -4.19% -4.66%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £580
90th Percentile £675 £663 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 36 79
10th Percentile £12.81 £12.52 £10.82
25th Percentile £16.60 £13.50 £12.24
Median hourly rate £32.40 £15.96 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +102.98% +6.54% -63.50%
75th Percentile £65.00 £47.63 £36.97
90th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.40 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +114.25% +0.93% -61.65%

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 9,145 5,582 5,312
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.16% 16.96% 13.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,878 3,600 3,281
10th Percentile £329 £281 £295
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £508
Median % change year-on-year - -1.57% -3.24%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £748
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.21% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 562 251 325
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.60 £11.22
25th Percentile £19.24 £17.40 £14.48
Median hourly rate £40.00 £27.35 £25.77
Median % change year-on-year +46.25% +6.15% -34.64%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £54.36
90th Percentile £81.71 £83.41 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £24.66 £25.30
% change year-on-year +62.21% -2.53% -29.23%

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 6 August 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 6 August 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 6 August 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 +9 1,790 £486 +2.37% 1,267
UK excluding London +10 995 £450 - 848
London +6 850 £500 - 546
Work from Home -1 560 £475 - 511
North of England -1 253 £489 +8.56% 236
South East +3 232 £434 -7.36% 226
Midlands +1 199 £425 +3.66% 121
West Midlands +6 157 £425 -4.49% 87
South West 0 118 £495 +10.00% 95
North West -20 106 £463 +8.82% 138
East of England +15 105 £475 -0.78% 87
Yorkshire -14 94 £520 +3.90% 60
Scotland +8 78 £331 -27.45% 50
North East -5 53 £400 -13.04% 39
East Midlands -4 41 £425 +15.80% 34
Northern Ireland +5 16 £450 +38.46% 24
Wales -5 12 £438 -15.46% 28

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
1 115 (5.59%) Confluence
2 41 (1.99%) CMS
3 37 (1.80%) SharePoint
4 20 (0.97%) IIS
5 17 (0.83%) Apache Spark
6 15 (0.73%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 12 (0.58%) Apache
8 11 (0.53%) Apache Airflow
9 9 (0.44%) SAS
10 6 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.24%) Microsoft Exchange
11 5 (0.24%) Tuxedo
11 5 (0.24%) WordPress
12 4 (0.19%) Sitecore CMS
12 4 (0.19%) Umbraco
13 3 (0.15%) Apache Solr
13 3 (0.15%) Moodle
13 3 (0.15%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.097%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 2 (0.097%) Tomcat
Applications
1 55 (2.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (1.17%) Microsoft Office
3 20 (0.97%) MS Visio
4 19 (0.92%) Microsoft Project
5 16 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 9 (0.44%) Chatbot
7 7 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
8 4 (0.19%) Navisworks
8 4 (0.19%) Revit
8 4 (0.19%) Simulink
9 3 (0.15%) CATIA
9 3 (0.15%) CPLEX
9 3 (0.15%) Photoshop
10 2 (0.097%) AutoCAD
10 2 (0.097%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.097%) ProjectWise
11 1 (0.049%) Gliffy
11 1 (0.049%) Mingle
11 1 (0.049%) Notion
Business Applications
1 33 (1.60%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.22%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.63%) Workday HCM
4 11 (0.53%) Shopify
5 8 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.29%) NEC Housing
6 6 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
7 5 (0.24%) Aladdin
7 5 (0.24%) Infor CloudSuite
7 5 (0.24%) Maximo
7 5 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.19%) Primavera
9 3 (0.15%) Actimize
9 3 (0.15%) Adobe Campaign
9 3 (0.15%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.15%) SAP MM
10 2 (0.097%) SAP Retail
10 2 (0.097%) Summit
10 2 (0.097%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 432 (21.00%) Azure
2 354 (17.21%) AWS
3 188 (9.14%) GitHub
4 181 (8.80%) Azure DevOps
5 110 (5.35%) Power Platform
6 107 (5.20%) GitHub Actions
7 98 (4.76%) GCP
8 51 (2.48%) Serverless
9 44 (2.14%) SaaS
10 40 (1.94%) OpenShift
11 37 (1.80%) Dynamics 365
12 35 (1.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 34 (1.65%) Snowflake
14 31 (1.51%) AWS Lambda
15 28 (1.36%) GitHub Copilot
16 27 (1.31%) Microsoft 365
16 27 (1.31%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 26 (1.26%) Amazon S3
17 26 (1.26%) Azure Monitor
18 20 (0.97%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.02%) Firewall
2 20 (0.97%) Internet
3 19 (0.92%) Network Security
4 15 (0.73%) WAN
5 14 (0.68%) LAN
6 12 (0.58%) VPN
6 12 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (0.53%) DNS
7 11 (0.53%) HTTP
7 11 (0.53%) Unified Communications
7 11 (0.53%) VLAN
8 10 (0.49%) Broadband
8 10 (0.49%) SD-WAN
9 9 (0.44%) TCP/IP
10 8 (0.39%) IPsec
11 7 (0.34%) SMS
11 7 (0.34%) Wireless
12 6 (0.29%) Cisco Nexus
13 5 (0.24%) 5G
13 5 (0.24%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (5.44%) SQL Server
2 94 (4.57%) Power BI
3 79 (3.84%) Data Warehouse
4 69 (3.35%) PostgreSQL
5 61 (2.97%) Relational Database
6 42 (2.04%) NoSQL
7 40 (1.94%) Metadata
7 40 (1.94%) MongoDB
7 40 (1.94%) Oracle Reports
8 37 (1.80%) MySQL
9 36 (1.75%) Oracle Database
9 36 (1.75%) Tableau
10 29 (1.41%) Data Lake
11 26 (1.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 21 (1.02%) Big Data
13 17 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
14 15 (0.73%) BigQuery
14 15 (0.73%) RDBMS
15 14 (0.68%) Amazon Redshift
15 14 (0.68%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 292 (14.20%) JIRA
2 198 (9.63%) Git
3 148 (7.19%) Selenium
4 143 (6.95%) Jenkins
5 107 (5.20%) GitLab
6 85 (4.13%) Postman
7 65 (3.16%) Cypress.io
8 63 (3.06%) Cucumber
9 61 (2.97%) JUnit
10 57 (2.77%) Zephyr
11 52 (2.53%) SonarQube
12 45 (2.19%) REST Assured
13 36 (1.75%) JMeter
14 29 (1.41%) Gatling
15 28 (1.36%) WebDriver
16 26 (1.26%) Maven
17 23 (1.12%) Gradle
18 21 (1.02%) Appium
18 21 (1.02%) TestRail
19 20 (0.97%) TestNG
General
1 614 (29.85%) Social Skills
2 414 (20.13%) Finance
3 309 (15.02%) Analytical Skills
4 252 (12.25%) Public Sector
5 141 (6.85%) Banking
6 77 (3.74%) Retail
7 73 (3.55%) Manufacturing
8 57 (2.77%) Marketing
9 53 (2.58%) Organisational Skills
10 44 (2.14%) Aerospace
11 38 (1.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 28 (1.36%) Influencing Skills
12 28 (1.36%) Legal
13 27 (1.31%) Documentation Skills
14 24 (1.17%) Telecoms
15 21 (1.02%) Law
15 21 (1.02%) Pharmaceutical
16 20 (0.97%) Automotive
17 19 (0.92%) Military
18 16 (0.78%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 269 (13.08%) Developer
2 267 (12.98%) Lead
3 249 (12.11%) Senior
4 248 (12.06%) Analyst
5 206 (10.01%) QA Engineer
6 120 (5.83%) Business Analyst
7 106 (5.15%) Tester
8 99 (4.81%) Quality Engineer
9 90 (4.38%) Test Manager
10 78 (3.79%) Test Engineer
11 73 (3.55%) Test Leader
12 71 (3.45%) Java Developer
13 62 (3.01%) Architect
13 62 (3.01%) Data Engineer
14 55 (2.67%) Consultant
14 55 (2.67%) Senior Analyst
15 52 (2.53%) QA Leader
16 51 (2.48%) Data Analyst
17 50 (2.43%) Test Analyst
18 46 (2.24%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 156 (7.58%) REST
2 117 (5.69%) Playwright
3 116 (5.64%) RESTful
4 103 (5.01%) .NET
5 96 (4.67%) Spring
6 90 (4.38%) Spring Boot
7 74 (3.60%) React
8 73 (3.55%) HTML
9 71 (3.45%) AngularJS
10 67 (3.26%) CSS
11 60 (2.92%) Node.js
12 56 (2.72%) Kafka
13 47 (2.28%) Middleware
14 46 (2.24%) .NET Framework
15 41 (1.99%) SOAP
16 40 (1.94%) JSON
17 36 (1.75%) Quarkus
18 31 (1.51%) XML
19 30 (1.46%) pytest
20 28 (1.36%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 179 (8.70%) Product Ownership
2 105 (5.10%) Cloud Native
3 63 (3.06%) Onboarding
4 56 (2.72%) Legacy Systems
5 48 (2.33%) Management Information System
6 46 (2.24%) Distributed Systems
7 45 (2.19%) Data Protection Act
7 45 (2.19%) Mobile App
8 42 (2.04%) Enterprise Software
9 36 (1.75%) Data Centre
9 36 (1.75%) Data Structures
10 32 (1.56%) AI Agents
11 23 (1.12%) NHS
12 20 (0.97%) Virtual Team
13 18 (0.88%) Analytical Mindset
14 16 (0.78%) CMDB
15 14 (0.68%) Life Science
15 14 (0.68%) Low-Code
15 14 (0.68%) Self-Motivation
16 13 (0.63%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 93 (4.52%) Windows
2 60 (2.92%) Linux
3 42 (2.04%) Apple iOS
4 40 (1.94%) Android
5 30 (1.46%) Windows Server
6 22 (1.07%) Unix
7 6 (0.29%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.097%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.097%) VMS
8 2 (0.097%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.049%) Debian
9 1 (0.049%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.049%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.049%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.049%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 786 (38.21%) Agile
2 562 (27.32%) Test Automation
3 513 (24.94%) DevOps
4 503 (24.45%) CI/CD
5 375 (18.23%) Continuous Improvement
6 374 (18.18%) Stakeholder Management
7 359 (17.45%) Validation
8 337 (16.38%) Problem-Solving
9 290 (14.10%) Scrum
10 286 (13.90%) Test Strategy
11 273 (13.27%) User Acceptance Testing
12 267 (12.98%) AI
13 256 (12.45%) Migration
14 184 (8.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 174 (8.46%) SDLC
16 172 (8.36%) Decision-Making
17 170 (8.26%) Software Engineering
18 168 (8.17%) Microservices
19 167 (8.12%) End-to-End Testing
20 164 (7.97%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 387 (18.81%) SQL
2 265 (12.88%) Python
3 255 (12.40%) Java
4 141 (6.85%) JavaScript
5 114 (5.54%) C#
6 73 (3.55%) TypeScript
7 42 (2.04%) PowerShell
8 39 (1.90%) Bash
9 37 (1.80%) PL/SQL
10 36 (1.75%) Kotlin
10 36 (1.75%) T-SQL
11 20 (0.97%) Scala
12 18 (0.88%) Swift
13 17 (0.83%) C
14 16 (0.78%) VB
15 15 (0.73%) Apex Code
15 15 (0.73%) C++
16 14 (0.68%) VBA
17 13 (0.63%) Bicep
17 13 (0.63%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 456 (22.17%) Security Cleared
2 349 (16.97%) SC Cleared
3 124 (6.03%) Degree
4 72 (3.50%) ISTQB
5 70 (3.40%) BPSS Clearance
6 53 (2.58%) DV Cleared
7 36 (1.75%) Computer Science Degree
8 23 (1.12%) PMP
9 22 (1.07%) PMI Certification
10 17 (0.83%) AWS Certification
11 14 (0.68%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
12 10 (0.49%) Cisco Certification
12 10 (0.49%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 8 (0.39%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 8 (0.39%) Master's Degree
13 8 (0.39%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
14 7 (0.34%) IIBA
15 6 (0.29%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 6 (0.29%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 156 (7.58%) Data Quality
2 100 (4.86%) Accessibility
3 35 (1.70%) GDPR
4 30 (1.46%) PMO
5 29 (1.41%) WCAG
6 20 (0.97%) GRC
7 16 (0.78%) GxP
8 13 (0.63%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 11 (0.53%) NIST
10 10 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
10 10 (0.49%) Disclosure Scotland
10 10 (0.49%) IFRS
11 9 (0.44%) SLA
12 8 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 8 (0.39%) PCI DSS
12 8 (0.39%) Software Quality Assurance
13 7 (0.34%) IFRS 17
14 6 (0.29%) GMP
14 6 (0.29%) ISO 19650
14 6 (0.29%) NCSC
System Software
1 141 (6.85%) Docker
2 28 (1.36%) Active Directory
3 14 (0.68%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (0.34%) IAG
6 6 (0.29%) Firmware
6 6 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.15%) KVM
8 2 (0.097%) ACF2
8 2 (0.097%) GridGain
8 2 (0.097%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.097%) RACF
8 2 (0.097%) VirtualBox
9 1 (0.049%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.049%) QEMU
9 1 (0.049%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
9 1 (0.049%) Varnish
9 1 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.049%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.049%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 192 (9.33%) Kubernetes
2 82 (3.99%) Terraform
3 46 (2.24%) Ansible
3 46 (2.24%) Grafana
4 36 (1.75%) Argo
5 31 (1.51%) Prometheus
6 15 (0.73%) HP ALM
7 13 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (0.39%) HP Quality Center
9 7 (0.34%) Microsoft Clustering
9 7 (0.34%) Oracle RMAN
9 7 (0.34%) SCCM
9 7 (0.34%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 6 (0.29%) Puppet
11 5 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
11 5 (0.24%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.19%) SCOM
13 3 (0.15%) FortiGate
14 2 (0.097%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.097%) Nmap
Vendors
1 224 (10.89%) Microsoft
2 171 (8.31%) Oracle
3 108 (5.25%) Salesforce
4 92 (4.47%) SAP
5 51 (2.48%) Google
6 49 (2.38%) ServiceNow
7 40 (1.94%) Databricks
7 40 (1.94%) Red Hat
8 34 (1.65%) Citrix
9 29 (1.41%) Adobe
10 28 (1.36%) Informatica
11 22 (1.07%) Dynatrace
12 20 (0.97%) Cisco
12 20 (0.97%) Splunk
13 19 (0.92%) MuleSoft
14 18 (0.88%) HP
14 18 (0.88%) VMware
14 18 (0.88%) Workday
15 15 (0.73%) IBM
16 14 (0.68%) Talend