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 24 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 62 63
Rank change year-on-year +14 +1 +5
Contract jobs citing QA 2,270 1,276 1,272
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.13% 3.87% 3.34%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.52% 22.48% 24.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,323 879 740
10th Percentile £313 £285 £300
25th Percentile £392 £380 £391
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £575
90th Percentile £668 £650 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £473
% change year-on-year - -4.81% -0.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 237 42 78
10th Percentile £12.85 £12.28 £11.88
25th Percentile £15.39 £13.50 £12.27
Median hourly rate £31.46 £17.66 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +78.12% +17.91% -66.16%
75th Percentile £48.75 £36.73 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £72.72 £72.51
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +108.07% +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 9,652 5,675 5,121
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.58% 17.21% 13.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,079 3,636 3,003
10th Percentile £325 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £507
Median % change year-on-year +0.10% -1.38% -3.43%
75th Percentile £600 £610 £625
90th Percentile £700 £706 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +2.63% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 636 267 249
10th Percentile £13.93 £13.60 £12.42
25th Percentile £16.60 £16.92 £15.22
Median hourly rate £32.45 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.16% +9.09% -22.54%
75th Percentile £67.50 £60.00 £61.25
90th Percentile £75.50 £81.10 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.00 £27.54 £27.50
% change year-on-year +19.85% +0.13% -25.17%

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 24 September 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 24 September 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 24 September 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 +14 1,979 £475 - 3,084
UK excluding London +21 1,130 £450 - 1,874
London +9 895 £500 - 1,445
Work from Home -1 573 £475 - 1,269
North of England +6 275 £463 +3.47% 458
South East +15 257 £425 -13.62% 421
Midlands +18 224 £450 +2.86% 326
West Midlands +26 185 £450 -9.27% 239
East of England +16 152 £450 -10.00% 183
South West +10 135 £515 +8.42% 192
Yorkshire +9 111 £500 +8.70% 120
North West -16 105 £475 +12.16% 261
Scotland -6 83 £402 -10.67% 171
North East -10 59 £400 -15.79% 79
East Midlands -14 38 £420 +12.00% 87
Wales -1 19 £406 +8.33% 67
Northern Ireland -2 7 £450 +50.00% 77

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
1 134 (5.90%) Confluence
2 51 (2.25%) CMS
3 41 (1.81%) SharePoint
4 17 (0.75%) IIS
5 16 (0.70%) Apache Spark
6 13 (0.57%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 13 (0.57%) Apache
6 13 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
7 8 (0.35%) SAS
7 8 (0.35%) Sitecore CMS
8 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.22%) Traefik
9 5 (0.22%) Tuxedo
9 5 (0.22%) WordPress
10 4 (0.18%) Headless CMS
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.18%) Umbraco
11 3 (0.13%) Appian
11 3 (0.13%) Moodle
Applications
1 79 (3.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.45%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (0.88%) MS Visio
5 17 (0.75%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
7 9 (0.40%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.26%) Navisworks
8 6 (0.26%) Revit
9 4 (0.18%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.18%) ProjectWise
10 3 (0.13%) CATIA
11 2 (0.088%) Adobe Premiere
11 2 (0.088%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.088%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.088%) Mingle
11 2 (0.088%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.088%) Simulink
11 2 (0.088%) Windchill
12 1 (0.044%) Adobe After Effects
Business Applications
1 31 (1.37%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.15%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.44%) Remedy ITSM
4 9 (0.40%) Shopify
5 7 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) SAP GRC
5 7 (0.31%) Workday HCM
6 4 (0.18%) Aladdin
6 4 (0.18%) Maximo
6 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
6 4 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
6 4 (0.18%) Primavera
6 4 (0.18%) ResourceLink
7 3 (0.13%) Infor CloudSuite
7 3 (0.13%) iTrent
7 3 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
7 3 (0.13%) SAP FI
7 3 (0.13%) SAP MM
7 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
8 2 (0.088%) SAP Retail
Cloud Services
1 462 (20.35%) Azure
2 410 (18.06%) AWS
3 220 (9.69%) GitHub
4 194 (8.55%) Azure DevOps
5 125 (5.51%) GitHub Actions
6 112 (4.93%) GCP
7 111 (4.89%) Power Platform
8 82 (3.61%) Serverless
9 58 (2.56%) AWS Lambda
10 53 (2.33%) SaaS
11 48 (2.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 47 (2.07%) Amazon S3
13 41 (1.81%) OpenShift
14 37 (1.63%) Dynamics 365
14 37 (1.63%) GitHub Copilot
15 35 (1.54%) Snowflake
16 31 (1.37%) Azure Monitor
17 30 (1.32%) Amazon EKS
18 29 (1.28%) Microsoft 365
19 28 (1.23%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.19%) Firewall
2 24 (1.06%) Internet
3 22 (0.97%) Broadband
4 18 (0.79%) DNS
4 18 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
5 15 (0.66%) 5G
5 15 (0.66%) HTTP
5 15 (0.66%) TCP/IP
6 14 (0.62%) 4G
6 14 (0.62%) VLAN
6 14 (0.62%) WAN
7 13 (0.57%) Network Security
8 12 (0.53%) LAN
8 12 (0.53%) VPN
9 9 (0.40%) DHCP
9 9 (0.40%) SD-WAN
9 9 (0.40%) Unified Communications
10 7 (0.31%) IPsec
10 7 (0.31%) SSH
11 6 (0.26%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (4.85%) SQL Server
2 98 (4.32%) Power BI
3 85 (3.74%) PostgreSQL
4 79 (3.48%) Relational Database
5 66 (2.91%) Data Warehouse
6 53 (2.33%) MongoDB
7 48 (2.11%) NoSQL
8 47 (2.07%) MySQL
9 45 (1.98%) Oracle Database
10 41 (1.81%) Metadata
11 36 (1.59%) Tableau
12 33 (1.45%) Oracle Reports
13 23 (1.01%) Data Lake
14 19 (0.84%) Big Data
14 19 (0.84%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 16 (0.70%) GIS
16 15 (0.66%) Power Query
16 15 (0.66%) RDBMS
17 14 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
17 14 (0.62%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 306 (13.48%) JIRA
2 254 (11.19%) Git
3 176 (7.75%) Selenium
4 175 (7.71%) Jenkins
5 145 (6.39%) GitLab
6 89 (3.92%) Cucumber
7 87 (3.83%) Postman
8 78 (3.44%) Cypress.io
9 69 (3.04%) JUnit
10 56 (2.47%) Zephyr
11 55 (2.42%) SonarQube
12 49 (2.16%) JMeter
13 44 (1.94%) REST Assured
14 42 (1.85%) Gatling
15 35 (1.54%) Maven
16 30 (1.32%) WebDriver
17 27 (1.19%) Gradle
18 23 (1.01%) TestNG
19 21 (0.93%) Appium
19 21 (0.93%) TestRail
General
1 688 (30.31%) Social Skills
2 426 (18.77%) Finance
3 362 (15.95%) Analytical Skills
4 281 (12.38%) Public Sector
5 173 (7.62%) Banking
6 83 (3.66%) Manufacturing
7 72 (3.17%) Retail
8 68 (3.00%) Marketing
9 59 (2.60%) Organisational Skills
10 55 (2.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 43 (1.89%) Telecoms
12 42 (1.85%) Aerospace
13 40 (1.76%) Influencing Skills
14 36 (1.59%) Legal
15 31 (1.37%) Documentation Skills
16 27 (1.19%) Military
17 25 (1.10%) Law
18 19 (0.84%) Investment Banking
19 18 (0.79%) Automotive
19 18 (0.79%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 301 (13.26%) Developer
2 286 (12.60%) Lead
3 268 (11.81%) Senior
4 251 (11.06%) Analyst
5 247 (10.88%) QA Engineer
6 130 (5.73%) Quality Engineer
7 120 (5.29%) Tester
8 107 (4.71%) Test Engineer
9 106 (4.67%) Test Manager
10 105 (4.63%) Business Analyst
11 78 (3.44%) QA Leader
12 77 (3.39%) Java Developer
13 75 (3.30%) Data Engineer
14 67 (2.95%) Test Leader
15 60 (2.64%) Consultant
16 58 (2.56%) Senior Analyst
17 56 (2.47%) QA Tester
18 55 (2.42%) Architect
19 54 (2.38%) Test Analyst
20 48 (2.11%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 208 (9.16%) REST
2 143 (6.30%) Playwright
3 141 (6.21%) RESTful
4 125 (5.51%) Spring
5 110 (4.85%) Spring Boot
6 105 (4.63%) Terraform
7 96 (4.23%) .NET
8 90 (3.96%) React
9 87 (3.83%) HTML
10 85 (3.74%) Kafka
11 77 (3.39%) CSS
12 76 (3.35%) AngularJS
13 63 (2.78%) Node.js
14 57 (2.51%) SOAP
15 54 (2.38%) pytest
16 51 (2.25%) Middleware
17 42 (1.85%) .NET Framework
18 41 (1.81%) JSON
19 38 (1.67%) Gherkin
20 37 (1.63%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 206 (9.07%) Product Ownership
2 135 (5.95%) Cloud Native
3 81 (3.57%) Onboarding
4 68 (3.00%) Enterprise Software
5 64 (2.82%) Management Information System
6 58 (2.56%) Distributed Systems
7 53 (2.33%) Mobile App
8 49 (2.16%) Legacy Systems
9 45 (1.98%) AI Agents
10 42 (1.85%) Data Structures
11 40 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
12 36 (1.59%) Data Centre
13 32 (1.41%) Low-Code
14 26 (1.15%) NHS
15 24 (1.06%) Virtual Team
16 23 (1.01%) CMDB
17 20 (0.88%) Educational Technology
18 16 (0.70%) Analytical Mindset
19 15 (0.66%) Operational Technology
20 14 (0.62%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 94 (4.14%) Windows
2 75 (3.30%) Linux
3 49 (2.16%) Apple iOS
4 45 (1.98%) Android
5 33 (1.45%) Unix
6 24 (1.06%) Windows Server
7 15 (0.66%) VMS
8 8 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.22%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.088%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.088%) zOS
11 1 (0.044%) AIX
11 1 (0.044%) CentOS
11 1 (0.044%) Debian
11 1 (0.044%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.044%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.044%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.044%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.044%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.044%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 877 (38.63%) Agile
2 640 (28.19%) Test Automation
3 589 (25.95%) CI/CD
4 549 (24.19%) DevOps
5 461 (20.31%) Stakeholder Management
6 446 (19.65%) Continuous Improvement
7 386 (17.00%) Problem-Solving
8 376 (16.56%) Validation
9 338 (14.89%) Scrum
10 331 (14.58%) AI
11 328 (14.45%) Test Strategy
12 273 (12.03%) User Acceptance Testing
13 250 (11.01%) Migration
14 211 (9.30%) SDLC
15 209 (9.21%) Microservices
16 198 (8.72%) End-to-End Testing
17 196 (8.63%) Software Engineering
18 179 (7.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 175 (7.71%) Defect Management
20 169 (7.44%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 422 (18.59%) SQL
2 327 (14.41%) Python
3 294 (12.95%) Java
4 187 (8.24%) JavaScript
5 117 (5.15%) C#
6 101 (4.45%) TypeScript
7 55 (2.42%) Bash
8 38 (1.67%) PowerShell
9 36 (1.59%) PL/SQL
10 30 (1.32%) Kotlin
11 28 (1.23%) T-SQL
12 24 (1.06%) Scala
13 20 (0.88%) Swift
14 17 (0.75%) C
14 17 (0.75%) Objective-C
14 17 (0.75%) Shell Script
14 17 (0.75%) VB
15 15 (0.66%) R
15 15 (0.66%) VBA
16 14 (0.62%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 536 (23.61%) Security Cleared
2 415 (18.28%) SC Cleared
3 149 (6.56%) Degree
4 105 (4.63%) BPSS Clearance
5 75 (3.30%) ISTQB
6 64 (2.82%) DV Cleared
7 44 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
8 26 (1.15%) PMP
9 20 (0.88%) PMI Certification
10 19 (0.84%) AWS Certification
11 18 (0.79%) Azure Certification
12 15 (0.66%) Master's Degree
13 14 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
14 11 (0.48%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 10 (0.44%) Cisco Certification
15 10 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
16 9 (0.40%) DBS Check
16 9 (0.40%) IIBA
16 9 (0.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 9 (0.40%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 162 (7.14%) Data Quality
2 126 (5.55%) Accessibility
3 38 (1.67%) GDPR
3 38 (1.67%) WCAG
4 27 (1.19%) PMO
5 25 (1.10%) GRC
6 14 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 14 (0.62%) NIST
7 10 (0.44%) 21 CFR Part 11
7 10 (0.44%) GxP
8 9 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
8 9 (0.40%) Disclosure Scotland
8 9 (0.40%) ISO 9001
8 9 (0.40%) SLA
9 8 (0.35%) ISO 19650
9 8 (0.35%) Software Quality Assurance
10 7 (0.31%) IFRS
10 7 (0.31%) NCSC
11 6 (0.26%) ISO 20022
12 4 (0.18%) GMP
System Software
1 202 (8.90%) Docker
2 24 (1.06%) Active Directory
3 18 (0.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.44%) IAG
6 6 (0.26%) Firmware
7 4 (0.18%) ACF2
7 4 (0.18%) RACF
8 3 (0.13%) KVM
8 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
8 3 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.13%) VirtualBox
9 2 (0.088%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.044%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.044%) QEMU
10 1 (0.044%) Varnish
10 1 (0.044%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.044%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.044%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 233 (10.26%) Kubernetes
2 63 (2.78%) Ansible
3 55 (2.42%) Grafana
4 39 (1.72%) Prometheus
5 35 (1.54%) Argo
6 12 (0.53%) HP ALM
7 11 (0.48%) SCCM
8 8 (0.35%) Microsoft Clustering
8 8 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (0.31%) HP Quality Center
9 7 (0.31%) Microsoft Intune
9 7 (0.31%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 5 (0.22%) Istio
10 5 (0.22%) Puppet
11 4 (0.18%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.18%) SCOM
12 3 (0.13%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.13%) Oracle RMAN
13 2 (0.088%) ITRS Geneos
13 2 (0.088%) Kibana
Vendors
1 241 (10.62%) Microsoft
2 171 (7.53%) Oracle
3 116 (5.11%) Salesforce
4 77 (3.39%) SAP
5 61 (2.69%) ServiceNow
6 52 (2.29%) Google
7 45 (1.98%) Databricks
8 36 (1.59%) Red Hat
9 34 (1.50%) Dynatrace
10 30 (1.32%) Splunk
11 27 (1.19%) Citrix
12 25 (1.10%) Adobe
13 22 (0.97%) Cisco
14 20 (0.88%) VMware
15 16 (0.70%) IBM
15 16 (0.70%) Informatica
15 16 (0.70%) Sitecore
15 16 (0.70%) Workday
16 15 (0.66%) HP
16 15 (0.66%) Talend