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

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 52 60 64
Rank change year-on-year +8 +4 +8
Contract jobs citing QA 2,080 1,303 1,254
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.90% 3.96% 3.22%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.73% 23.23% 23.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,260 912 796
10th Percentile £313 £285 £307
25th Percentile £393 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £489
Median % change year-on-year - -2.76% -6.60%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £578
90th Percentile £675 £663 £695
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 189 38 78
10th Percentile £12.81 £12.61 £11.25
25th Percentile £16.13 £13.50 £12.24
Median hourly rate £32.40 £17.66 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +83.41% +17.91% -64.62%
75th Percentile £57.50 £47.88 £38.48
90th Percentile £70.00 £64.13 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +108.07% +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 9,152 5,610 5,246
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.15% 17.03% 13.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,869 3,605 3,251
10th Percentile £329 £281 £290
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year - -0.99% -3.81%
75th Percentile £600 £604 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +4.21% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 560 262 315
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.60 £11.22
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.46 £14.46
Median hourly rate £38.72 £27.91 £26.56
Median % change year-on-year +38.73% +5.08% -29.64%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £55.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £85.07 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.00 £25.00 £25.77
% change year-on-year +56.00% -2.97% -27.42%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +10 1,803 £480 +1.05% 1,231
UK excluding London +11 1,010 £450 - 818
London +3 850 £500 - 545
Work from Home -4 557 £475 -0.52% 453
North of England +1 253 £500 +11.11% 219
South East +1 230 £437 -6.77% 233
Midlands +8 204 £425 +3.66% 119
West Midlands +13 159 £425 -4.49% 82
South West +6 122 £495 +16.47% 99
East of England +13 110 £475 -0.78% 76
North West -11 105 £500 +17.65% 123
Yorkshire -14 96 £520 +3.90% 48
Scotland +3 80 £338 -25.00% 46
North East -6 52 £400 -13.04% 49
East Midlands -7 44 £438 +17.92% 37
Northern Ireland +8 16 £450 +23.71% 22
Wales -6 13 £400 -22.71% 26

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
1 112 (5.38%) Confluence
2 43 (2.07%) CMS
3 38 (1.83%) SharePoint
4 20 (0.96%) IIS
5 17 (0.82%) Apache Spark
6 15 (0.72%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 12 (0.58%) Apache
7 12 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
8 9 (0.43%) SAS
9 6 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
10 5 (0.24%) Tuxedo
10 5 (0.24%) WordPress
11 4 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
11 4 (0.19%) Umbraco
12 3 (0.14%) Apache Solr
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.096%) nginx
13 2 (0.096%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 58 (2.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (1.25%) Microsoft Office
3 20 (0.96%) MS Visio
4 16 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
5 10 (0.48%) Chatbot
6 8 (0.38%) 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 32 (1.54%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.25%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.48%) Shopify
4 9 (0.43%) Remedy ITSM
4 9 (0.43%) Workday HCM
5 6 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
6 5 (0.24%) Aladdin
6 5 (0.24%) Infor CloudSuite
6 5 (0.24%) Maximo
6 5 (0.24%) NEC Housing
7 4 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
7 4 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
7 4 (0.19%) Primavera
8 3 (0.14%) Actimize
8 3 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
8 3 (0.14%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.14%) SAP MM
8 3 (0.14%) Teamcenter
9 2 (0.096%) SAP SD
9 2 (0.096%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 437 (21.01%) Azure
2 369 (17.74%) AWS
3 190 (9.13%) GitHub
4 182 (8.75%) Azure DevOps
5 108 (5.19%) Power Platform
6 106 (5.10%) GitHub Actions
7 98 (4.71%) GCP
8 54 (2.60%) Serverless
9 47 (2.26%) SaaS
10 40 (1.92%) OpenShift
11 37 (1.78%) Dynamics 365
12 36 (1.73%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 36 (1.73%) Snowflake
13 33 (1.59%) AWS Lambda
14 29 (1.39%) GitHub Copilot
14 29 (1.39%) Salesforce Service Cloud
15 27 (1.30%) Azure Monitor
16 26 (1.25%) Amazon S3
16 26 (1.25%) Microsoft 365
17 22 (1.06%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.11%) Firewall
2 22 (1.06%) Internet
3 19 (0.91%) Network Security
4 16 (0.77%) WAN
5 14 (0.67%) LAN
6 13 (0.63%) DNS
6 13 (0.63%) VLAN
6 13 (0.63%) VPN
7 12 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
8 11 (0.53%) Broadband
8 11 (0.53%) TCP/IP
8 11 (0.53%) Unified Communications
9 10 (0.48%) HTTP
9 10 (0.48%) SD-WAN
10 8 (0.38%) IPsec
11 7 (0.34%) DHCP
11 7 (0.34%) SMS
12 6 (0.29%) 5G
12 6 (0.29%) Cisco Nexus
12 6 (0.29%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (5.29%) SQL Server
2 94 (4.52%) Power BI
3 80 (3.85%) Data Warehouse
4 70 (3.37%) PostgreSQL
5 68 (3.27%) Relational Database
6 43 (2.07%) Metadata
7 42 (2.02%) NoSQL
8 41 (1.97%) MongoDB
9 40 (1.92%) Oracle Reports
10 37 (1.78%) MySQL
11 35 (1.68%) Oracle Database
11 35 (1.68%) Tableau
12 30 (1.44%) Data Lake
13 24 (1.15%) 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 (0.67%) Amazon Redshift
17 14 (0.67%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 289 (13.89%) JIRA
2 198 (9.52%) Git
3 150 (7.21%) Selenium
4 144 (6.92%) Jenkins
5 105 (5.05%) GitLab
6 91 (4.38%) Postman
7 66 (3.17%) Cypress.io
8 64 (3.08%) Cucumber
9 59 (2.84%) JUnit
9 59 (2.84%) Zephyr
10 49 (2.36%) SonarQube
11 43 (2.07%) REST Assured
12 36 (1.73%) JMeter
13 27 (1.30%) Gatling
13 27 (1.30%) Maven
13 27 (1.30%) WebDriver
14 24 (1.15%) Appium
15 23 (1.11%) Gradle
16 22 (1.06%) TestRail
17 18 (0.87%) TestNG
General
1 621 (29.86%) Social Skills
2 409 (19.66%) Finance
3 313 (15.05%) Analytical Skills
4 254 (12.21%) Public Sector
5 145 (6.97%) Banking
6 76 (3.65%) Retail
7 73 (3.51%) Manufacturing
8 56 (2.69%) Marketing
9 54 (2.60%) Organisational Skills
10 45 (2.16%) Aerospace
11 40 (1.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 29 (1.39%) Legal
13 28 (1.35%) Documentation Skills
13 28 (1.35%) Influencing Skills
14 25 (1.20%) Telecoms
15 23 (1.11%) Law
16 21 (1.01%) Military
16 21 (1.01%) Pharmaceutical
17 19 (0.91%) Automotive
18 16 (0.77%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 275 (13.22%) Developer
2 266 (12.79%) Lead
3 251 (12.07%) Senior
4 245 (11.78%) Analyst
5 213 (10.24%) QA Engineer
6 118 (5.67%) Business Analyst
7 113 (5.43%) Tester
8 102 (4.90%) Quality Engineer
9 91 (4.38%) Test Manager
10 82 (3.94%) Test Engineer
11 73 (3.51%) Java Developer
11 73 (3.51%) Test Leader
12 62 (2.98%) Data Engineer
13 61 (2.93%) Architect
14 55 (2.64%) QA Leader
15 54 (2.60%) Consultant
16 53 (2.55%) Data Analyst
16 53 (2.55%) Senior Analyst
17 52 (2.50%) QA Tester
18 50 (2.40%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 163 (7.84%) REST
2 119 (5.72%) Playwright
2 119 (5.72%) RESTful
3 102 (4.90%) .NET
4 93 (4.47%) Spring
5 91 (4.38%) Spring Boot
6 75 (3.61%) HTML
7 73 (3.51%) React
8 70 (3.37%) AngularJS
9 68 (3.27%) CSS
10 60 (2.88%) Kafka
10 60 (2.88%) Node.js
11 48 (2.31%) Middleware
12 45 (2.16%) .NET Framework
13 42 (2.02%) SOAP
14 39 (1.88%) JSON
15 34 (1.63%) Quarkus
16 32 (1.54%) XML
17 30 (1.44%) pytest
18 28 (1.35%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 182 (8.75%) Product Ownership
2 116 (5.58%) Cloud Native
3 64 (3.08%) Onboarding
4 56 (2.69%) Legacy Systems
5 51 (2.45%) Enterprise Software
5 51 (2.45%) Management Information System
6 47 (2.26%) Distributed Systems
7 42 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
8 41 (1.97%) Mobile App
9 37 (1.78%) Data Centre
10 36 (1.73%) Data Structures
11 32 (1.54%) AI Agents
12 25 (1.20%) NHS
13 20 (0.96%) Low-Code
14 19 (0.91%) Virtual Team
15 18 (0.87%) Analytical Mindset
16 17 (0.82%) CMDB
17 15 (0.72%) Educational Technology
18 14 (0.67%) Life Science
18 14 (0.67%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 94 (4.52%) Windows
2 63 (3.03%) Linux
3 42 (2.02%) Apple iOS
4 41 (1.97%) Android
5 30 (1.44%) Windows Server
6 26 (1.25%) Unix
7 6 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.24%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.19%) VMS
10 2 (0.096%) Oracle Linux
10 2 (0.096%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.048%) Debian
11 1 (0.048%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.048%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.048%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.048%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 798 (38.37%) Agile
2 575 (27.64%) Test Automation
3 517 (24.86%) DevOps
4 509 (24.47%) CI/CD
5 386 (18.56%) Continuous Improvement
6 375 (18.03%) Stakeholder Management
7 359 (17.26%) Validation
8 349 (16.78%) Problem-Solving
9 294 (14.13%) Scrum
10 291 (13.99%) Test Strategy
11 272 (13.08%) AI
12 269 (12.93%) User Acceptance Testing
13 258 (12.40%) Migration
14 186 (8.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 177 (8.51%) End-to-End Testing
16 176 (8.46%) SDLC
17 174 (8.37%) Microservices
18 172 (8.27%) Decision-Making
19 167 (8.03%) Software Engineering
20 165 (7.93%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 404 (19.42%) SQL
2 269 (12.93%) Python
3 252 (12.12%) Java
4 148 (7.12%) JavaScript
5 111 (5.34%) C#
6 76 (3.65%) TypeScript
7 42 (2.02%) PowerShell
8 40 (1.92%) Bash
9 39 (1.88%) PL/SQL
10 33 (1.59%) T-SQL
11 30 (1.44%) Kotlin
12 21 (1.01%) Scala
13 17 (0.82%) C
14 16 (0.77%) Apex Code
14 16 (0.77%) VB
15 15 (0.72%) C++
15 15 (0.72%) Swift
16 14 (0.67%) VBA
17 12 (0.58%) Objective-C
18 11 (0.53%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 470 (22.60%) Security Cleared
2 363 (17.45%) SC Cleared
3 126 (6.06%) Degree
4 77 (3.70%) ISTQB
5 71 (3.41%) BPSS Clearance
6 54 (2.60%) DV Cleared
7 38 (1.83%) Computer Science Degree
8 23 (1.11%) PMP
9 22 (1.06%) PMI Certification
10 17 (0.82%) AWS Certification
11 14 (0.67%) Microsoft Certification
12 13 (0.63%) Azure Certification
13 10 (0.48%) Cisco Certification
13 10 (0.48%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 9 (0.43%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 8 (0.38%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
15 8 (0.38%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 7 (0.34%) IIBA
16 7 (0.34%) ITIL Certification
16 7 (0.34%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 159 (7.64%) Data Quality
2 103 (4.95%) Accessibility
3 35 (1.68%) GDPR
4 28 (1.35%) PMO
5 27 (1.30%) WCAG
6 20 (0.96%) GRC
7 16 (0.77%) GxP
8 13 (0.63%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 10 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
9 10 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
9 10 (0.48%) NIST
9 10 (0.48%) SLA
10 8 (0.38%) IFRS
10 8 (0.38%) Software Quality Assurance
11 7 (0.34%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.29%) GMP
12 6 (0.29%) ISO 19650
12 6 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 6 (0.29%) NCSC
13 5 (0.24%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 143 (6.88%) Docker
2 27 (1.30%) Active Directory
3 17 (0.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.38%) 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
1 192 (9.23%) Kubernetes
2 86 (4.13%) Terraform
3 51 (2.45%) Ansible
4 43 (2.07%) Grafana
5 34 (1.63%) Argo
6 31 (1.49%) Prometheus
7 15 (0.72%) HP ALM
8 14 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.38%) HP Quality Center
9 8 (0.38%) Microsoft Clustering
9 8 (0.38%) SCCM
10 7 (0.34%) Oracle RMAN
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%) Kibana
Vendors
1 224 (10.77%) Microsoft
2 174 (8.37%) Oracle
3 113 (5.43%) Salesforce
4 92 (4.42%) SAP
5 50 (2.40%) ServiceNow
6 45 (2.16%) Google
7 40 (1.92%) Databricks
8 39 (1.88%) Red Hat
9 34 (1.63%) Citrix
10 28 (1.35%) Adobe
10 28 (1.35%) Informatica
11 24 (1.15%) Dynatrace
12 22 (1.06%) Cisco
13 21 (1.01%) VMware
14 19 (0.91%) MuleSoft
15 18 (0.87%) HP
16 17 (0.82%) Splunk
17 15 (0.72%) IBM
18 14 (0.67%) Sitecore
18 14 (0.67%) Talend