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

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 61 61 59
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 +11
Contract jobs citing QA 1,862 1,138 1,431
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.66% 3.79% 3.29%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 21.72% 23.19% 24.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,164 799 932
10th Percentile £322 £280 £307
25th Percentile £395 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -1.96%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £675 £663 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £455 £500
% change year-on-year -0.99% -9.10% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 139 32 102
10th Percentile £12.91 £13.47 £10.86
25th Percentile £16.07 £15.12 £12.24
Median hourly rate £31.46 £30.00 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.87% +114.29% -37.78%
75th Percentile £67.50 £62.13 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £71.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £19.37 £13.52
% change year-on-year +62.46% +43.23% -38.55%

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 8,571 4,907 5,947
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.84% 16.34% 13.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,503 3,133 3,700
10th Percentile £340 £271 £280
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 520 204 432
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.12 £11.06
25th Percentile £19.29 £19.23 £13.23
Median hourly rate £36.07 £31.70 £23.65
Median % change year-on-year +13.79% +34.04% -35.21%
75th Percentile £67.50 £67.50 £49.06
90th Percentile £82.25 £83.35 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £31.70 £19.18
% change year-on-year +26.18% +65.28% -45.97%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 +1 1,593 £481 +1.32% 613
UK excluding London +9 866 £450 -0.99% 553
London +2 790 £500 +1.01% 193
Work from Home +5 541 £481 +1.32% 245
South East +11 199 £450 -2.70% 182
North of England -23 189 £455 -4.21% 137
Midlands -8 174 £425 +13.33% 99
West Midlands -8 129 £447 +5.18% 42
South West +22 120 £495 -1.00% 62
North West -26 86 £425 -4.92% 65
Scotland +7 84 £355 -21.11% 22
East of England +3 84 £476 -0.68% 43
Yorkshire -29 67 £525 +1.01% 43
East Midlands -11 45 £402 +9.54% 57
North East -10 36 £400 -11.11% 30
Northern Ireland +4 19 £475 +46.15% 19
Wales -7 12 £450 +5.88% 8

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
1 104 (5.59%) Confluence
2 30 (1.61%) CMS
3 28 (1.50%) SharePoint
4 18 (0.97%) IIS
5 15 (0.81%) Apache Spark
6 12 (0.64%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 7 (0.38%) Apache
7 7 (0.38%) SAS
8 6 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
9 5 (0.27%) Tuxedo
9 5 (0.27%) Umbraco
10 4 (0.21%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.21%) nginx
11 3 (0.16%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.16%) Moodle
11 3 (0.16%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
11 3 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.16%) Tomcat
12 2 (0.11%) Luigi
12 2 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 55 (2.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 27 (1.45%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (1.45%) Microsoft Project
3 20 (1.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 18 (0.97%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.21%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.21%) Photoshop
7 3 (0.16%) CATIA
7 3 (0.16%) CPLEX
7 3 (0.16%) Simulink
8 2 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.11%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.11%) EPLAN
9 1 (0.054%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.054%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.054%) Camtasia
9 1 (0.054%) Navisworks
9 1 (0.054%) Notion
9 1 (0.054%) Revit
Business Applications
1 28 (1.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.91%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.43%) Shopify
4 7 (0.38%) Workday HCM
5 6 (0.32%) Maximo
5 6 (0.32%) NEC Housing
5 6 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 6 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
6 5 (0.27%) Infor CloudSuite
7 4 (0.21%) Adobe Campaign
7 4 (0.21%) Primavera
8 3 (0.16%) Actimize
8 3 (0.16%) Aladdin
8 3 (0.16%) IntelliMatch
8 3 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
8 3 (0.16%) SAP FI
9 2 (0.11%) iTrent
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle Assets
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 2 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 408 (21.91%) Azure
2 307 (16.49%) AWS
3 172 (9.24%) Azure DevOps
4 147 (7.89%) GitHub
5 104 (5.59%) Power Platform
6 92 (4.94%) GitHub Actions
7 74 (3.97%) GCP
8 46 (2.47%) Serverless
9 38 (2.04%) OpenShift
10 34 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
10 34 (1.83%) SaaS
11 30 (1.61%) AWS Lambda
12 28 (1.50%) Amazon S3
13 27 (1.45%) Snowflake
14 25 (1.34%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 22 (1.18%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 21 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
16 21 (1.13%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 19 (1.02%) AWS CloudFormation
18 18 (0.97%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 26 (1.40%) Firewall
2 19 (1.02%) Network Security
2 19 (1.02%) WAN
3 17 (0.91%) Internet
3 17 (0.91%) LAN
4 15 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
5 13 (0.70%) VPN
6 12 (0.64%) DNS
7 11 (0.59%) SD-WAN
7 11 (0.59%) Unified Communications
7 11 (0.59%) VLAN
7 11 (0.59%) Wireless
8 9 (0.48%) HTTP
9 8 (0.43%) IPsec
10 7 (0.38%) SMS
11 6 (0.32%) Cisco Nexus
11 6 (0.32%) TCP/IP
12 5 (0.27%) DHCP
13 4 (0.21%) BGP
13 4 (0.21%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (5.91%) SQL Server
2 89 (4.78%) Power BI
3 71 (3.81%) Data Warehouse
4 67 (3.60%) PostgreSQL
5 60 (3.22%) Relational Database
6 43 (2.31%) MySQL
6 43 (2.31%) NoSQL
7 37 (1.99%) Metadata
8 36 (1.93%) Tableau
9 35 (1.88%) Oracle Database
10 32 (1.72%) Oracle Reports
11 31 (1.66%) Data Lake
11 31 (1.66%) MongoDB
12 22 (1.18%) Big Data
13 19 (1.02%) DynamoDB
14 17 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
14 17 (0.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 15 (0.81%) BigQuery
15 15 (0.81%) RDBMS
16 14 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 295 (15.84%) JIRA
2 175 (9.40%) Git
3 136 (7.30%) Selenium
4 133 (7.14%) Jenkins
5 97 (5.21%) GitLab
6 85 (4.56%) Postman
7 63 (3.38%) Cucumber
8 60 (3.22%) Cypress.io
9 58 (3.11%) JUnit
10 47 (2.52%) REST Assured
11 46 (2.47%) Zephyr
12 44 (2.36%) SonarQube
13 37 (1.99%) JMeter
14 29 (1.56%) WebDriver
15 23 (1.24%) Gatling
15 23 (1.24%) Maven
16 19 (1.02%) Gradle
16 19 (1.02%) TestNG
16 19 (1.02%) TestRail
17 15 (0.81%) Appium
General
1 556 (29.86%) Social Skills
2 414 (22.23%) Finance
3 263 (14.12%) Analytical Skills
4 222 (11.92%) Public Sector
5 143 (7.68%) Banking
6 61 (3.28%) Retail
7 56 (3.01%) Manufacturing
8 54 (2.90%) Marketing
9 48 (2.58%) Organisational Skills
10 37 (1.99%) Aerospace
11 30 (1.61%) Documentation Skills
12 25 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 23 (1.24%) Influencing Skills
13 23 (1.24%) Legal
14 20 (1.07%) Investment Banking
14 20 (1.07%) Military
14 20 (1.07%) Pharmaceutical
15 16 (0.86%) Automotive
15 16 (0.86%) Front Office
16 15 (0.81%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 243 (13.05%) Developer
2 224 (12.03%) Analyst
3 219 (11.76%) Senior
4 212 (11.39%) Lead
5 167 (8.97%) QA Engineer
6 113 (6.07%) Business Analyst
7 104 (5.59%) Tester
8 89 (4.78%) Test Manager
9 69 (3.71%) Java Developer
10 68 (3.65%) Architect
10 68 (3.65%) Quality Engineer
11 66 (3.54%) Test Engineer
12 59 (3.17%) Data Engineer
13 56 (3.01%) Senior Analyst
14 54 (2.90%) Project Manager
14 54 (2.90%) Test Leader
15 52 (2.79%) Consultant
16 50 (2.69%) Data Analyst
17 46 (2.47%) Software Engineer
18 43 (2.31%) QA Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 131 (7.04%) REST
2 108 (5.80%) .NET
3 106 (5.69%) RESTful
4 102 (5.48%) Playwright
5 92 (4.94%) Spring
6 89 (4.78%) Spring Boot
7 74 (3.97%) React
8 66 (3.54%) HTML
9 62 (3.33%) AngularJS
10 60 (3.22%) CSS
11 56 (3.01%) Kafka
12 51 (2.74%) .NET Framework
13 47 (2.52%) Node.js
14 37 (1.99%) JSON
15 34 (1.83%) Quarkus
16 28 (1.50%) Middleware
17 25 (1.34%) SOAP
18 24 (1.29%) Gherkin
18 24 (1.29%) pytest
19 23 (1.24%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 166 (8.92%) Product Ownership
2 83 (4.46%) Cloud Native
3 56 (3.01%) Onboarding
4 51 (2.74%) Legacy Systems
5 46 (2.47%) Distributed Systems
6 40 (2.15%) Data Protection Act
6 40 (2.15%) Mobile App
7 39 (2.09%) Management Information System
8 30 (1.61%) Data Structures
8 30 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
9 26 (1.40%) Data Centre
10 25 (1.34%) Virtual Team
11 23 (1.24%) AI Agents
12 21 (1.13%) Analytical Mindset
13 18 (0.97%) PMI
14 17 (0.91%) NHS
14 17 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
15 14 (0.75%) Derivative
15 14 (0.75%) Life Science
16 13 (0.70%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 86 (4.62%) Windows
2 53 (2.85%) Linux
3 31 (1.66%) Apple iOS
4 29 (1.56%) Windows Server
5 28 (1.50%) Android
6 19 (1.02%) Unix
7 6 (0.32%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
9 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.054%) Debian
10 1 (0.054%) Solaris
10 1 (0.054%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.054%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.054%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 706 (37.92%) Agile
2 476 (25.56%) Test Automation
3 458 (24.60%) DevOps
4 436 (23.42%) CI/CD
5 314 (16.86%) Validation
6 304 (16.33%) Stakeholder Management
7 299 (16.06%) Continuous Improvement
8 287 (15.41%) Problem-Solving
9 268 (14.39%) User Acceptance Testing
10 249 (13.37%) Scrum
11 246 (13.21%) Test Strategy
12 233 (12.51%) Migration
13 202 (10.85%) AI
14 169 (9.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 154 (8.27%) Decision-Making
16 153 (8.22%) SDLC
17 149 (8.00%) ETL
18 145 (7.79%) Analytics
19 144 (7.73%) Data Migration
19 144 (7.73%) Test Management
Programming Languages
1 379 (20.35%) SQL
2 243 (13.05%) Java
3 227 (12.19%) Python
4 139 (7.47%) JavaScript
5 131 (7.04%) C#
6 85 (4.56%) TypeScript
7 42 (2.26%) T-SQL
8 39 (2.09%) PL/SQL
9 30 (1.61%) Kotlin
10 27 (1.45%) PowerShell
11 22 (1.18%) Bash
12 20 (1.07%) Scala
13 18 (0.97%) VB
14 17 (0.91%) Swift
15 16 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 15 (0.81%) Bicep
16 15 (0.81%) C
17 14 (0.75%) C++
17 14 (0.75%) VBA
18 11 (0.59%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 424 (22.77%) Security Cleared
2 318 (17.08%) SC Cleared
3 134 (7.20%) Degree
4 76 (4.08%) ISTQB
5 67 (3.60%) BPSS Clearance
6 49 (2.63%) DV Cleared
7 36 (1.93%) PMI Certification
8 34 (1.83%) PMP
9 33 (1.77%) Computer Science Degree
10 18 (0.97%) Master's Degree
11 14 (0.75%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 11 (0.59%) Azure Certification
12 11 (0.59%) Cisco Certification
13 9 (0.48%) AWS Certification
13 9 (0.48%) CBAP
14 8 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
15 7 (0.38%) CCNP
15 7 (0.38%) SAFe Agilist
16 6 (0.32%) CREST Certified
16 6 (0.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 124 (6.66%) Data Quality
2 85 (4.56%) Accessibility
3 34 (1.83%) GDPR
3 34 (1.83%) PMO
4 22 (1.18%) WCAG
5 17 (0.91%) GRC
5 17 (0.91%) IFRS
5 17 (0.91%) NIST
6 16 (0.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 15 (0.81%) IFRS 17
7 15 (0.81%) PCI DSS
8 14 (0.75%) GxP
8 14 (0.75%) SLA
9 11 (0.59%) Disclosure Scotland
10 9 (0.48%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 9 (0.48%) ISO 20022
11 8 (0.43%) SEPA
12 7 (0.38%) NCSC
13 6 (0.32%) PSD2
14 5 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 108 (5.80%) Docker
2 17 (0.91%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.38%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.27%) Firmware
5 5 (0.27%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.16%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
7 2 (0.11%) GridGain
7 2 (0.11%) IAG
7 2 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
7 2 (0.11%) VirtualBox
7 2 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.054%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.054%) KVM
8 1 (0.054%) QEMU
8 1 (0.054%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
8 1 (0.054%) Varnish
8 1 (0.054%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 159 (8.54%) Kubernetes
2 68 (3.65%) Terraform
3 34 (1.83%) Argo
3 34 (1.83%) Grafana
4 30 (1.61%) Ansible
5 27 (1.45%) Prometheus
6 19 (1.02%) HP ALM
7 10 (0.54%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (0.43%) HP Quality Center
9 7 (0.38%) Nmap
9 7 (0.38%) Oracle RMAN
9 7 (0.38%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 6 (0.32%) Kibana
11 4 (0.21%) Puppet
11 4 (0.21%) SCCM
12 3 (0.16%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.16%) Progress Chef
13 2 (0.11%) ITRS Geneos
13 2 (0.11%) Tivoli
14 1 (0.054%) Dell DRAC
Vendors
1 188 (10.10%) Microsoft
2 168 (9.02%) Oracle
3 103 (5.53%) Salesforce
4 90 (4.83%) SAP
5 49 (2.63%) ServiceNow
6 37 (1.99%) Citrix
6 37 (1.99%) Google
7 36 (1.93%) Red Hat
8 33 (1.77%) Databricks
9 30 (1.61%) Adobe
10 25 (1.34%) Informatica
11 21 (1.13%) Cisco
11 21 (1.13%) HP
12 18 (0.97%) MuleSoft
13 14 (0.75%) Talend
14 12 (0.64%) Atlassian
14 12 (0.64%) Splunk
14 12 (0.64%) VMware
14 12 (0.64%) Workday
15 11 (0.59%) Infor