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

6 months to
8 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 62 64
Rank change year-on-year +8 +2 +8
Contract jobs citing QA 2,073 1,300 1,251
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.87% 3.95% 3.21%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.46% 23.19% 23.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,262 912 797
10th Percentile £313 £281 £307
25th Percentile £393 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year - -3.06% -6.22%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £578
90th Percentile £675 £663 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £480
% change year-on-year - -6.25% +1.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 180 37 78
10th Percentile £12.81 £12.57 £10.82
25th Percentile £16.56 £13.50 £12.24
Median hourly rate £32.40 £15.96 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +102.98% +6.54% -64.62%
75th Percentile £63.13 £47.50 £38.48
90th Percentile £70.00 £57.00 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.40 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +114.25% +0.93% -65.67%

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 9,228 5,605 5,263
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.22% 17.04% 13.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,928 3,610 3,258
10th Percentile £331 £280 £291
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £506
Median % change year-on-year - -1.19% -3.62%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £625
90th Percentile £700 £716 £748
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +4.21% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 564 256 322
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.60 £11.11
25th Percentile £18.92 £17.47 £14.48
Median hourly rate £39.50 £27.91 £25.77
Median % change year-on-year +41.53% +8.33% -34.79%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £54.84
90th Percentile £81.33 £85.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £24.83 £25.68
% change year-on-year +61.10% -3.32% -28.16%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 +8 1,801 £482 +1.47% 1,302
UK excluding London +12 999 £450 - 849
London +2 855 £500 - 577
Work from Home -2 564 £475 - 486
North of England -7 251 £492 +9.33% 242
South East +6 233 £437 -6.72% 234
Midlands +8 202 £425 +3.66% 120
West Midlands +11 158 £425 -4.49% 85
South West +2 120 £485 +10.86% 93
East of England +18 105 £475 -0.78% 81
North West -13 104 £475 +11.76% 138
Yorkshire -12 95 £520 +3.90% 57
Scotland +3 77 £331 -27.45% 50
North East -8 52 £400 -13.04% 48
East Midlands -4 43 £425 +15.80% 35
Northern Ireland +7 16 £450 +23.71% 18
Wales -8 12 £438 -15.46% 30

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
1 111 (5.35%) Confluence
2 41 (1.98%) CMS
3 36 (1.74%) SharePoint
4 20 (0.96%) IIS
5 17 (0.82%) Apache Spark
6 15 (0.72%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 12 (0.58%) Apache
8 11 (0.53%) Apache Airflow
9 9 (0.43%) 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 (0.14%) Apache Solr
13 3 (0.14%) Moodle
13 3 (0.14%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.096%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 2 (0.096%) Tomcat
Applications
1 57 (2.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (1.16%) Microsoft Office
3 20 (0.96%) MS Visio
4 17 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (0.82%) Microsoft Project
5 10 (0.48%) Chatbot
6 8 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.19%) Navisworks
7 4 (0.19%) Revit
7 4 (0.19%) Simulink
8 3 (0.14%) AutoCAD
8 3 (0.14%) CATIA
8 3 (0.14%) CPLEX
8 3 (0.14%) Photoshop
9 2 (0.096%) EPLAN
9 2 (0.096%) ProjectWise
10 1 (0.048%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.048%) Gliffy
10 1 (0.048%) Mingle
10 1 (0.048%) Notion
Business Applications
1 33 (1.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.25%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.53%) Shopify
4 10 (0.48%) Workday HCM
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 (0.14%) Actimize
9 3 (0.14%) Adobe Campaign
9 3 (0.14%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.14%) SAP MM
10 2 (0.096%) SAP Payroll
10 2 (0.096%) SAP Retail
10 2 (0.096%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 436 (21.03%) Azure
2 363 (17.51%) AWS
3 190 (9.17%) GitHub
4 182 (8.78%) Azure DevOps
5 109 (5.26%) GitHub Actions
5 109 (5.26%) Power Platform
6 100 (4.82%) GCP
7 52 (2.51%) Serverless
8 46 (2.22%) SaaS
9 39 (1.88%) OpenShift
10 38 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
11 35 (1.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 34 (1.64%) Snowflake
13 32 (1.54%) AWS Lambda
14 29 (1.40%) GitHub Copilot
15 28 (1.35%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 26 (1.25%) Amazon S3
16 26 (1.25%) Azure Monitor
16 26 (1.25%) Microsoft 365
17 21 (1.01%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.06%) Firewall
2 20 (0.96%) Internet
3 19 (0.92%) Network Security
4 15 (0.72%) WAN
5 14 (0.68%) LAN
6 12 (0.58%) DNS
6 12 (0.58%) VLAN
6 12 (0.58%) VPN
6 12 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (0.53%) Unified Communications
8 10 (0.48%) Broadband
8 10 (0.48%) HTTP
8 10 (0.48%) SD-WAN
8 10 (0.48%) TCP/IP
9 8 (0.39%) IPsec
10 7 (0.34%) SMS
10 7 (0.34%) Wireless
11 6 (0.29%) 5G
11 6 (0.29%) Cisco Nexus
11 6 (0.29%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (5.40%) SQL Server
2 93 (4.49%) Power BI
3 80 (3.86%) Data Warehouse
4 70 (3.38%) PostgreSQL
5 62 (2.99%) Relational Database
6 42 (2.03%) Metadata
6 42 (2.03%) NoSQL
7 41 (1.98%) Oracle Reports
8 40 (1.93%) MongoDB
9 37 (1.78%) MySQL
10 36 (1.74%) Tableau
11 35 (1.69%) Oracle Database
12 29 (1.40%) Data Lake
13 26 (1.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 21 (1.01%) Big Data
15 17 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
16 15 (0.72%) BigQuery
16 15 (0.72%) RDBMS
17 14 (0.68%) Amazon Redshift
17 14 (0.68%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 289 (13.94%) JIRA
2 201 (9.70%) Git
3 153 (7.38%) Selenium
4 144 (6.95%) Jenkins
5 108 (5.21%) GitLab
6 87 (4.20%) Postman
7 68 (3.28%) Cypress.io
8 63 (3.04%) Cucumber
9 59 (2.85%) JUnit
10 58 (2.80%) Zephyr
11 51 (2.46%) SonarQube
12 44 (2.12%) REST Assured
13 36 (1.74%) JMeter
14 29 (1.40%) Gatling
15 28 (1.35%) WebDriver
16 26 (1.25%) Maven
17 24 (1.16%) Appium
18 23 (1.11%) Gradle
19 22 (1.06%) TestRail
20 18 (0.87%) TestNG
General
1 622 (30.00%) Social Skills
2 412 (19.87%) Finance
3 314 (15.15%) Analytical Skills
4 254 (12.25%) Public Sector
5 143 (6.90%) Banking
6 77 (3.71%) Retail
7 74 (3.57%) Manufacturing
8 56 (2.70%) Marketing
9 54 (2.60%) Organisational Skills
10 44 (2.12%) Aerospace
11 39 (1.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 28 (1.35%) Influencing Skills
12 28 (1.35%) Legal
13 27 (1.30%) Documentation Skills
14 24 (1.16%) Telecoms
15 21 (1.01%) Law
15 21 (1.01%) Pharmaceutical
16 20 (0.96%) Automotive
16 20 (0.96%) Military
17 15 (0.72%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 270 (13.02%) Developer
2 269 (12.98%) Lead
3 253 (12.20%) Senior
4 244 (11.77%) Analyst
5 210 (10.13%) QA Engineer
6 120 (5.79%) Business Analyst
7 110 (5.31%) Tester
8 100 (4.82%) Quality Engineer
9 92 (4.44%) Test Manager
10 82 (3.96%) Test Engineer
11 73 (3.52%) Test Leader
12 70 (3.38%) Java Developer
13 64 (3.09%) Data Engineer
14 62 (2.99%) Architect
15 55 (2.65%) Consultant
15 55 (2.65%) Senior Analyst
16 52 (2.51%) QA Leader
17 51 (2.46%) Data Analyst
18 50 (2.41%) Test Analyst
19 49 (2.36%) QA Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 160 (7.72%) REST
2 121 (5.84%) Playwright
3 118 (5.69%) RESTful
4 104 (5.02%) .NET
5 98 (4.73%) Spring
6 92 (4.44%) Spring Boot
7 78 (3.76%) React
8 75 (3.62%) HTML
9 70 (3.38%) AngularJS
10 68 (3.28%) CSS
11 60 (2.89%) Node.js
12 58 (2.80%) Kafka
13 47 (2.27%) Middleware
14 46 (2.22%) .NET Framework
15 42 (2.03%) SOAP
16 40 (1.93%) JSON
17 35 (1.69%) Quarkus
18 31 (1.50%) pytest
18 31 (1.50%) XML
19 29 (1.40%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 181 (8.73%) Product Ownership
2 110 (5.31%) Cloud Native
3 63 (3.04%) Onboarding
4 57 (2.75%) Legacy Systems
5 50 (2.41%) Management Information System
6 47 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
6 47 (2.27%) Mobile App
7 44 (2.12%) Data Protection Act
8 42 (2.03%) Enterprise Software
9 36 (1.74%) Data Centre
9 36 (1.74%) Data Structures
10 32 (1.54%) AI Agents
11 25 (1.21%) NHS
12 20 (0.96%) Virtual Team
13 18 (0.87%) Analytical Mindset
14 16 (0.77%) CMDB
15 15 (0.72%) Low-Code
16 14 (0.68%) Educational Technology
16 14 (0.68%) Life Science
16 14 (0.68%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 93 (4.49%) Windows
2 61 (2.94%) Linux
3 44 (2.12%) Apple iOS
4 42 (2.03%) Android
5 30 (1.45%) Windows Server
6 23 (1.11%) Unix
7 6 (0.29%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.096%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.096%) VMS
8 2 (0.096%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.048%) Debian
9 1 (0.048%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.048%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.048%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.048%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 799 (38.54%) Agile
2 571 (27.54%) Test Automation
3 519 (25.04%) DevOps
4 512 (24.70%) CI/CD
5 379 (18.28%) Continuous Improvement
6 376 (18.14%) Stakeholder Management
7 358 (17.27%) Validation
8 346 (16.69%) Problem-Solving
9 297 (14.33%) Scrum
10 288 (13.89%) Test Strategy
11 273 (13.17%) User Acceptance Testing
12 271 (13.07%) AI
13 257 (12.40%) Migration
14 187 (9.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 175 (8.44%) Decision-Making
15 175 (8.44%) Microservices
15 175 (8.44%) SDLC
16 172 (8.30%) Software Engineering
17 170 (8.20%) End-to-End Testing
18 166 (8.01%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 392 (18.91%) SQL
2 268 (12.93%) Python
3 258 (12.45%) Java
4 148 (7.14%) JavaScript
5 117 (5.64%) C#
6 77 (3.71%) TypeScript
7 42 (2.03%) PowerShell
8 40 (1.93%) Bash
9 39 (1.88%) PL/SQL
10 36 (1.74%) Kotlin
10 36 (1.74%) T-SQL
11 21 (1.01%) Scala
12 18 (0.87%) Swift
13 17 (0.82%) C
14 16 (0.77%) Apex Code
14 16 (0.77%) VB
15 15 (0.72%) C++
16 14 (0.68%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 14 (0.68%) VBA
17 13 (0.63%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 457 (22.05%) Security Cleared
2 352 (16.98%) SC Cleared
3 129 (6.22%) Degree
4 75 (3.62%) ISTQB
5 70 (3.38%) BPSS Clearance
6 53 (2.56%) DV Cleared
7 39 (1.88%) Computer Science Degree
8 22 (1.06%) PMP
9 21 (1.01%) PMI Certification
10 17 (0.82%) AWS Certification
11 14 (0.68%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
12 10 (0.48%) Cisco Certification
12 10 (0.48%) 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
1 158 (7.62%) Data Quality
2 102 (4.92%) Accessibility
3 36 (1.74%) GDPR
4 29 (1.40%) PMO
4 29 (1.40%) WCAG
5 20 (0.96%) GRC
6 16 (0.77%) GxP
7 13 (0.63%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 11 (0.53%) NIST
9 10 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
9 10 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
9 10 (0.48%) IFRS
10 9 (0.43%) SLA
11 8 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 8 (0.39%) PCI DSS
11 8 (0.39%) Software Quality Assurance
12 7 (0.34%) IFRS 17
13 6 (0.29%) GMP
13 6 (0.29%) ISO 19650
13 6 (0.29%) NCSC
System Software
1 144 (6.95%) Docker
2 28 (1.35%) Active Directory
3 15 (0.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (0.34%) IAG
6 6 (0.29%) Firmware
6 6 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.14%) KVM
7 3 (0.14%) VirtualBox
8 2 (0.096%) ACF2
8 2 (0.096%) GridGain
8 2 (0.096%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.096%) RACF
9 1 (0.048%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.048%) QEMU
9 1 (0.048%) Varnish
9 1 (0.048%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.048%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.048%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 195 (9.41%) Kubernetes
2 85 (4.10%) Terraform
3 49 (2.36%) Ansible
4 47 (2.27%) Grafana
5 35 (1.69%) Argo
6 31 (1.50%) Prometheus
7 15 (0.72%) HP ALM
8 13 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.39%) HP Quality Center
10 7 (0.34%) Microsoft Clustering
10 7 (0.34%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.34%) SCCM
10 7 (0.34%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 6 (0.29%) Puppet
12 5 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
12 5 (0.24%) Progress Chef
13 4 (0.19%) SCOM
14 3 (0.14%) FortiGate
15 2 (0.096%) ITRS Geneos
15 2 (0.096%) Nmap
Vendors
1 225 (10.85%) Microsoft
2 172 (8.30%) Oracle
3 109 (5.26%) Salesforce
4 93 (4.49%) SAP
5 49 (2.36%) Google
6 48 (2.32%) ServiceNow
7 40 (1.93%) Databricks
8 39 (1.88%) Red Hat
9 34 (1.64%) Citrix
10 29 (1.40%) Adobe
11 28 (1.35%) Informatica
12 23 (1.11%) Dynatrace
13 21 (1.01%) Splunk
14 20 (0.96%) Cisco
15 19 (0.92%) MuleSoft
15 19 (0.92%) VMware
16 18 (0.87%) HP
17 15 (0.72%) Workday
18 14 (0.68%) IBM
18 14 (0.68%) Talend