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

6 months to
11 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 55 58 62
Rank change year-on-year +3 +4 +10
Contract jobs citing QA 1,985 1,247 1,382
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.75% 3.84% 3.21%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.06% 23.32% 23.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,234 867 886
10th Percentile £317 £290 £300
25th Percentile £396 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -3.01%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £675 £663 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £450 £478
% change year-on-year +0.67% -5.76% -2.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 152 36 99
10th Percentile £12.85 £12.52 £11.62
25th Percentile £16.37 £13.50 £12.25
Median hourly rate £31.46 £15.96 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +97.12% +6.54% -36.93%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.63 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.58 £15.12 £14.00
% change year-on-year +102.25% +8.00% -36.36%

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 8,999 5,348 5,907
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.01% 16.48% 13.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,771 3,432 3,641
10th Percentile £338 £280 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £610 £622
90th Percentile £700 £719 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £471 £475
% change year-on-year +6.15% -0.83% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 551 231 422
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.63 £11.66
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.17 £13.60
Median hourly rate £36.07 £30.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +20.23% +24.07% -38.66%
75th Percentile £68.32 £62.25 £50.00
90th Percentile £81.90 £83.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £27.44 £24.18
% change year-on-year +41.11% +13.48% -33.75%

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 11 July 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 11 July 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 11 July 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 +3 1,703 £485 +2.11% 682
UK excluding London +6 949 £453 +0.67% 549
London +3 819 £494 -0.25% 241
Work from Home +7 576 £480 +1.05% 299
North of England -10 220 £496 +5.76% 158
South East +5 216 £440 -6.13% 171
Midlands -7 185 £425 +13.33% 83
West Midlands -8 139 £442 +3.88% 47
South West +15 131 £495 -1.00% 44
North West -18 100 £463 +9.60% 94
East of England +7 95 £476 -0.68% 56
Scotland +15 87 £345 -24.38% 22
Yorkshire -23 79 £540 +4.63% 46
East Midlands -14 45 £415 +13.08% 36
North East -7 41 £400 -12.09% 21
Northern Ireland +8 19 £475 +46.15% 20
Wales -9 11 £438 +2.94% 12

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
1 118 (5.94%) Confluence
2 36 (1.81%) CMS
2 36 (1.81%) SharePoint
3 20 (1.01%) IIS
4 19 (0.96%) Apache Spark
5 11 (0.55%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 9 (0.45%) Apache
6 9 (0.45%) SAS
7 6 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
8 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
8 5 (0.25%) Tuxedo
8 5 (0.25%) Umbraco
8 5 (0.25%) WordPress
9 4 (0.20%) Apache Airflow
9 4 (0.20%) nginx
10 3 (0.15%) Moodle
10 3 (0.15%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
10 3 (0.15%) Tomcat
10 3 (0.15%) WebLogic
11 2 (0.10%) Apache Solr
Applications
1 59 (2.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (1.31%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (1.31%) Microsoft Project
3 22 (1.11%) MS Visio
4 19 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.25%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.20%) Photoshop
6 4 (0.20%) Simulink
7 3 (0.15%) CATIA
7 3 (0.15%) CPLEX
8 2 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.10%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.10%) EPLAN
8 2 (0.10%) Navisworks
8 2 (0.10%) Revit
9 1 (0.050%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.050%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.050%) Mingle
9 1 (0.050%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 32 (1.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.96%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.40%) Shopify
3 8 (0.40%) Workday HCM
4 7 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 6 (0.30%) Maximo
5 6 (0.30%) NEC Housing
5 6 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
6 5 (0.25%) Infor CloudSuite
7 4 (0.20%) Adobe Campaign
7 4 (0.20%) Aladdin
7 4 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
7 4 (0.20%) Primavera
8 3 (0.15%) Actimize
8 3 (0.15%) Oracle EBS R12
8 3 (0.15%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.15%) SAP MM
9 2 (0.10%) Advent Geneva
9 2 (0.10%) IntelliMatch
9 2 (0.10%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 428 (21.56%) Azure
2 330 (16.62%) AWS
3 180 (9.07%) Azure DevOps
4 166 (8.36%) GitHub
5 105 (5.29%) Power Platform
6 99 (4.99%) GitHub Actions
7 82 (4.13%) GCP
8 46 (2.32%) Serverless
9 41 (2.07%) SaaS
10 37 (1.86%) OpenShift
11 33 (1.66%) Dynamics 365
12 28 (1.41%) AWS Lambda
13 27 (1.36%) Amazon S3
13 27 (1.36%) Snowflake
14 25 (1.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 24 (1.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 23 (1.16%) Azure Monitor
16 23 (1.16%) GitHub Copilot
17 22 (1.11%) Azure Data Factory
17 22 (1.11%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.11%) Firewall
2 19 (0.96%) Internet
2 19 (0.96%) Network Security
3 17 (0.86%) WAN
4 15 (0.76%) LAN
5 13 (0.65%) VPN
5 13 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
6 11 (0.55%) HTTP
6 11 (0.55%) SD-WAN
6 11 (0.55%) Unified Communications
6 11 (0.55%) VLAN
7 8 (0.40%) DNS
7 8 (0.40%) IPsec
8 7 (0.35%) SMS
8 7 (0.35%) TCP/IP
8 7 (0.35%) Wireless
9 6 (0.30%) Cisco Nexus
10 5 (0.25%) DHCP
11 4 (0.20%) Broadband
11 4 (0.20%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (5.89%) SQL Server
2 90 (4.53%) Power BI
3 75 (3.78%) Data Warehouse
4 67 (3.38%) PostgreSQL
5 66 (3.32%) Relational Database
6 40 (2.02%) MySQL
7 39 (1.96%) Metadata
8 37 (1.86%) NoSQL
8 37 (1.86%) Oracle Database
8 37 (1.86%) Tableau
9 36 (1.81%) Oracle Reports
10 32 (1.61%) MongoDB
11 29 (1.46%) Data Lake
12 25 (1.26%) Big Data
13 21 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 20 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
15 16 (0.81%) Amazon Redshift
15 16 (0.81%) RDBMS
16 15 (0.76%) BigQuery
16 15 (0.76%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 312 (15.72%) JIRA
2 190 (9.57%) Git
3 148 (7.46%) Selenium
4 139 (7.00%) Jenkins
5 96 (4.84%) GitLab
6 89 (4.48%) Postman
7 67 (3.38%) Cypress.io
8 65 (3.27%) Cucumber
9 60 (3.02%) JUnit
10 54 (2.72%) REST Assured
11 47 (2.37%) Zephyr
12 45 (2.27%) SonarQube
13 38 (1.91%) JMeter
14 31 (1.56%) WebDriver
15 27 (1.36%) Gatling
16 24 (1.21%) Maven
17 20 (1.01%) Gradle
17 20 (1.01%) TestNG
18 19 (0.96%) TestRail
19 18 (0.91%) Appium
General
1 600 (30.23%) Social Skills
2 428 (21.56%) Finance
3 304 (15.31%) Analytical Skills
4 230 (11.59%) Public Sector
5 145 (7.30%) Banking
6 68 (3.43%) Retail
7 66 (3.32%) Manufacturing
8 56 (2.82%) Marketing
9 47 (2.37%) Organisational Skills
10 41 (2.07%) Aerospace
11 29 (1.46%) Documentation Skills
11 29 (1.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 25 (1.26%) Legal
13 24 (1.21%) Influencing Skills
14 21 (1.06%) Pharmaceutical
15 20 (1.01%) Automotive
15 20 (1.01%) Investment Banking
16 19 (0.96%) Military
16 19 (0.96%) Presentation Skills
17 17 (0.86%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 265 (13.35%) Developer
2 239 (12.04%) Lead
3 234 (11.79%) Analyst
3 234 (11.79%) Senior
4 189 (9.52%) QA Engineer
5 107 (5.39%) Business Analyst
5 107 (5.39%) Tester
6 90 (4.53%) Test Manager
7 78 (3.93%) Quality Engineer
8 74 (3.73%) Java Developer
8 74 (3.73%) Test Engineer
9 64 (3.22%) Architect
9 64 (3.22%) Test Leader
10 62 (3.12%) Data Engineer
11 54 (2.72%) Consultant
12 53 (2.67%) Senior Analyst
13 51 (2.57%) Data Analyst
13 51 (2.57%) Project Manager
14 49 (2.47%) Test Analyst
15 46 (2.32%) QA Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 144 (7.25%) REST
2 118 (5.94%) .NET
3 116 (5.84%) Playwright
4 109 (5.49%) RESTful
5 93 (4.69%) Spring
6 90 (4.53%) Spring Boot
7 80 (4.03%) React
8 69 (3.48%) HTML
9 65 (3.27%) AngularJS
10 64 (3.22%) CSS
11 55 (2.77%) .NET Framework
11 55 (2.77%) Node.js
12 52 (2.62%) Kafka
13 40 (2.02%) JSON
13 40 (2.02%) Middleware
14 33 (1.66%) SOAP
15 32 (1.61%) Quarkus
16 28 (1.41%) XML
17 25 (1.26%) ASP.NET
17 25 (1.26%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 176 (8.87%) Product Ownership
2 99 (4.99%) Cloud Native
3 62 (3.12%) Onboarding
4 56 (2.82%) Legacy Systems
5 47 (2.37%) Management Information System
6 46 (2.32%) Mobile App
7 43 (2.17%) Data Protection Act
8 42 (2.12%) Distributed Systems
9 35 (1.76%) Enterprise Software
10 34 (1.71%) Data Structures
11 26 (1.31%) AI Agents
11 26 (1.31%) Data Centre
12 23 (1.16%) Virtual Team
13 20 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
14 18 (0.91%) NHS
14 18 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
15 15 (0.76%) Life Science
16 13 (0.65%) Distributed Architecture
16 13 (0.65%) Low-Code
16 13 (0.65%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 91 (4.58%) Windows
2 58 (2.92%) Linux
3 33 (1.66%) Windows Server
4 32 (1.61%) Apple iOS
5 31 (1.56%) Android
6 23 (1.16%) Unix
7 6 (0.30%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.10%) Oracle Linux
9 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.050%) Debian
10 1 (0.050%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.050%) Solaris
10 1 (0.050%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 756 (38.09%) Agile
2 527 (26.55%) Test Automation
3 491 (24.74%) DevOps
4 481 (24.23%) CI/CD
5 343 (17.28%) Validation
6 342 (17.23%) Continuous Improvement
7 333 (16.78%) Problem-Solving
8 328 (16.52%) Stakeholder Management
9 279 (14.06%) User Acceptance Testing
10 275 (13.85%) Test Strategy
11 269 (13.55%) Scrum
12 248 (12.49%) Migration
13 229 (11.54%) AI
14 179 (9.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 174 (8.77%) Decision-Making
16 166 (8.36%) SDLC
17 158 (7.96%) Analytics
18 156 (7.86%) Software Engineering
19 155 (7.81%) ETL
20 154 (7.76%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 399 (20.10%) SQL
2 256 (12.90%) Java
3 252 (12.70%) Python
4 143 (7.20%) JavaScript
5 140 (7.05%) C#
6 89 (4.48%) TypeScript
7 43 (2.17%) T-SQL
8 41 (2.07%) PL/SQL
9 34 (1.71%) Kotlin
10 31 (1.56%) PowerShell
11 30 (1.51%) Bash
12 20 (1.01%) Scala
13 19 (0.96%) VB
14 17 (0.86%) C
14 17 (0.86%) C++
14 17 (0.86%) Swift
15 16 (0.81%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 15 (0.76%) Bicep
16 15 (0.76%) VBA
17 13 (0.65%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 450 (22.67%) Security Cleared
2 333 (16.78%) SC Cleared
3 130 (6.55%) Degree
4 77 (3.88%) BPSS Clearance
5 75 (3.78%) ISTQB
6 63 (3.17%) DV Cleared
7 33 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
8 27 (1.36%) PMP
9 25 (1.26%) PMI Certification
10 14 (0.71%) Master's Degree
11 12 (0.60%) Azure Certification
11 12 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (0.55%) AWS Certification
12 11 (0.55%) Cisco Certification
12 11 (0.55%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 7 (0.35%) CCNP
13 7 (0.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 6 (0.30%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 5 (0.25%) CBAP
15 5 (0.25%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (7.36%) Data Quality
2 100 (5.04%) Accessibility
3 34 (1.71%) GDPR
4 32 (1.61%) PMO
5 26 (1.31%) WCAG
6 19 (0.96%) GRC
7 17 (0.86%) GxP
8 15 (0.76%) SLA
9 14 (0.71%) IFRS
10 13 (0.65%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 12 (0.60%) IFRS 17
11 12 (0.60%) NIST
12 11 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
13 10 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
14 8 (0.40%) PCI DSS
15 7 (0.35%) GMP
15 7 (0.35%) ISO 20022
15 7 (0.35%) NCSC
16 6 (0.30%) SEPA
16 6 (0.30%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 125 (6.30%) Docker
2 21 (1.06%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.35%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.30%) Firmware
5 6 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.25%) IAG
7 3 (0.15%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 2 (0.10%) GridGain
8 2 (0.10%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.10%) VirtualBox
8 2 (0.10%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.050%) ACF2
9 1 (0.050%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.050%) KVM
9 1 (0.050%) QEMU
9 1 (0.050%) RACF
9 1 (0.050%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
9 1 (0.050%) Varnish
9 1 (0.050%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 179 (9.02%) Kubernetes
2 73 (3.68%) Terraform
3 36 (1.81%) Grafana
4 35 (1.76%) Ansible
5 32 (1.61%) Argo
6 25 (1.26%) Prometheus
7 21 (1.06%) HP ALM
8 12 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (0.55%) HP Quality Center
10 7 (0.35%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.35%) SCCM
10 7 (0.35%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 6 (0.30%) Kibana
12 4 (0.20%) Puppet
13 3 (0.15%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.15%) Nmap
13 3 (0.15%) Progress Chef
14 2 (0.10%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.10%) Microsoft Intune
14 2 (0.10%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 209 (10.53%) Microsoft
2 177 (8.92%) Oracle
3 103 (5.19%) Salesforce
4 94 (4.74%) SAP
5 51 (2.57%) ServiceNow
6 44 (2.22%) Databricks
7 38 (1.91%) Citrix
7 38 (1.91%) Google
8 36 (1.81%) Red Hat
9 29 (1.46%) Adobe
10 27 (1.36%) Informatica
11 24 (1.21%) HP
12 21 (1.06%) Cisco
13 18 (0.91%) MuleSoft
14 15 (0.76%) Workday
15 14 (0.71%) Talend
16 13 (0.65%) Splunk
17 12 (0.60%) Atlassian
17 12 (0.60%) IBM
17 12 (0.60%) VMware