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

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 59 62
Rank change year-on-year +3 +3 +10
Contract jobs citing QA 1,977 1,266 1,374
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.76% 3.90% 3.22%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.12% 23.61% 23.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,216 882 872
10th Percentile £313 £286 £301
25th Percentile £395 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £469 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.28% -6.20% -3.24%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £675 £650 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 157 36 99
10th Percentile £12.83 £12.52 £11.62
25th Percentile £16.13 £13.50 £12.25
Median hourly rate £30.58 £15.96 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +91.60% +6.54% -40.08%
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 8,937 5,362 5,886
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.98% 16.50% 13.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,721 3,436 3,626
10th Percentile £338 £277 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £619
90th Percentile £700 £717 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £475
% change year-on-year +6.38% -1.05% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 548 240 420
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.60 £11.66
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.18 £13.52
Median hourly rate £38.72 £30.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +29.07% +24.07% -38.66%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.75 £51.24
90th Percentile £82.25 £85.30 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £27.59 £24.18
% change year-on-year +45.01% +14.08% -30.91%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 +4 1,698 £480 +1.05% 617
UK excluding London +6 945 £450 - 510
London +7 816 £494 -0.20% 207
Work from Home +3 569 £475 +3.26% 263
North of England -15 217 £489 +6.20% 147
South East +2 216 £435 -7.31% 161
Midlands -5 184 £425 +13.33% 74
West Midlands -5 138 £428 +0.59% 46
South West +19 129 £495 -1.00% 41
East of England +11 99 £476 -0.68% 53
North West -27 94 £456 +8.12% 86
Scotland +3 85 £340 -24.44% 22
Yorkshire -26 82 £525 +2.69% 44
East Midlands -7 45 £415 +15.76% 27
North East -14 41 £400 -12.09% 19
Northern Ireland +5 19 £475 +46.15% 18
Wales -3 11 £438 +2.94% 11

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
1 116 (5.87%) Confluence
2 36 (1.82%) CMS
2 36 (1.82%) SharePoint
3 20 (1.01%) IIS
4 19 (0.96%) Apache Spark
5 12 (0.61%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 10 (0.51%) Apache
7 9 (0.46%) SAS
8 6 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
9 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
9 5 (0.25%) Tuxedo
9 5 (0.25%) WordPress
10 4 (0.20%) Umbraco
11 3 (0.15%) Apache Solr
11 3 (0.15%) Moodle
11 3 (0.15%) nginx
11 3 (0.15%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
11 3 (0.15%) Tomcat
11 3 (0.15%) WebLogic
Applications
1 57 (2.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (1.32%) Microsoft Project
3 23 (1.16%) Microsoft Office
4 20 (1.01%) MS Visio
5 17 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 6 (0.30%) Chatbot
7 5 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
8 4 (0.20%) Simulink
9 3 (0.15%) CATIA
9 3 (0.15%) CPLEX
9 3 (0.15%) Photoshop
10 2 (0.10%) AutoCAD
10 2 (0.10%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.10%) Navisworks
10 2 (0.10%) Revit
11 1 (0.051%) Adobe After Effects
11 1 (0.051%) Adobe Illustrator
11 1 (0.051%) Adobe Premiere
11 1 (0.051%) Mingle
11 1 (0.051%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 31 (1.57%) 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%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.15%) SAP MM
9 2 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.10%) SAP Retail
9 2 (0.10%) Summit
9 2 (0.10%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 430 (21.75%) Azure
2 327 (16.54%) AWS
3 184 (9.31%) Azure DevOps
4 176 (8.90%) GitHub
5 108 (5.46%) GitHub Actions
6 101 (5.11%) Power Platform
7 88 (4.45%) GCP
8 43 (2.18%) SaaS
8 43 (2.18%) Serverless
9 37 (1.87%) OpenShift
10 30 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
11 28 (1.42%) Snowflake
12 25 (1.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 25 (1.26%) AWS Lambda
12 25 (1.26%) GitHub Copilot
13 24 (1.21%) Amazon S3
13 24 (1.21%) Azure Monitor
14 23 (1.16%) Salesforce Service Cloud
15 22 (1.11%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 20 (1.01%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.11%) Firewall
2 19 (0.96%) Internet
2 19 (0.96%) Network Security
3 15 (0.76%) WAN
4 14 (0.71%) LAN
5 13 (0.66%) VPN
6 12 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (0.56%) HTTP
7 11 (0.56%) Unified Communications
8 10 (0.51%) SD-WAN
8 10 (0.51%) VLAN
9 8 (0.40%) DNS
9 8 (0.40%) IPsec
10 7 (0.35%) SMS
10 7 (0.35%) TCP/IP
10 7 (0.35%) Wireless
11 6 (0.30%) Cisco Nexus
12 5 (0.25%) DHCP
13 4 (0.20%) BGP
13 4 (0.20%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (5.67%) SQL Server
2 87 (4.40%) Power BI
3 74 (3.74%) Data Warehouse
4 65 (3.29%) PostgreSQL
4 65 (3.29%) Relational Database
5 39 (1.97%) Metadata
5 39 (1.97%) MySQL
6 38 (1.92%) NoSQL
7 37 (1.87%) Oracle Database
8 36 (1.82%) Oracle Reports
8 36 (1.82%) Tableau
9 32 (1.62%) MongoDB
10 28 (1.42%) Data Lake
11 24 (1.21%) Big Data
12 21 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 20 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
14 16 (0.81%) Amazon Redshift
14 16 (0.81%) BigQuery
14 16 (0.81%) RDBMS
15 15 (0.76%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 304 (15.38%) JIRA
2 191 (9.66%) Git
3 150 (7.59%) Selenium
4 139 (7.03%) Jenkins
5 94 (4.75%) GitLab
6 85 (4.30%) Postman
7 69 (3.49%) Cypress.io
8 66 (3.34%) Cucumber
9 60 (3.03%) JUnit
10 52 (2.63%) REST Assured
11 47 (2.38%) Zephyr
12 45 (2.28%) SonarQube
13 35 (1.77%) JMeter
14 30 (1.52%) WebDriver
15 25 (1.26%) Maven
16 24 (1.21%) Gatling
17 22 (1.11%) Gradle
18 21 (1.06%) Appium
19 20 (1.01%) TestNG
19 20 (1.01%) TestRail
General
1 592 (29.94%) Social Skills
2 419 (21.19%) Finance
3 295 (14.92%) Analytical Skills
4 229 (11.58%) Public Sector
5 144 (7.28%) Banking
6 72 (3.64%) Retail
7 68 (3.44%) Manufacturing
8 56 (2.83%) Marketing
9 45 (2.28%) Organisational Skills
10 41 (2.07%) Aerospace
11 29 (1.47%) Documentation Skills
12 27 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 26 (1.32%) Influencing Skills
14 23 (1.16%) Legal
15 21 (1.06%) Pharmaceutical
15 21 (1.06%) Telecoms
16 19 (0.96%) Automotive
17 18 (0.91%) Investment Banking
17 18 (0.91%) Military
18 17 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 260 (13.15%) Developer
2 240 (12.14%) Lead
3 235 (11.89%) Analyst
4 229 (11.58%) Senior
5 189 (9.56%) QA Engineer
6 111 (5.61%) Business Analyst
7 105 (5.31%) Tester
8 90 (4.55%) Test Manager
9 81 (4.10%) Quality Engineer
10 74 (3.74%) Test Engineer
11 71 (3.59%) Java Developer
12 63 (3.19%) Architect
13 62 (3.14%) Test Leader
14 61 (3.09%) Data Engineer
15 53 (2.68%) Senior Analyst
16 52 (2.63%) Consultant
17 51 (2.58%) Data Analyst
18 49 (2.48%) Project Manager
19 48 (2.43%) Test Analyst
20 47 (2.38%) QA Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 145 (7.33%) REST
2 116 (5.87%) Playwright
3 115 (5.82%) .NET
4 108 (5.46%) RESTful
5 89 (4.50%) Spring
6 86 (4.35%) Spring Boot
7 82 (4.15%) React
8 70 (3.54%) HTML
9 65 (3.29%) AngularJS
10 64 (3.24%) CSS
11 54 (2.73%) Node.js
12 52 (2.63%) .NET Framework
13 51 (2.58%) Kafka
14 42 (2.12%) Middleware
15 40 (2.02%) JSON
16 34 (1.72%) SOAP
17 32 (1.62%) Quarkus
18 28 (1.42%) XML
19 25 (1.26%) Gherkin
20 24 (1.21%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 178 (9.00%) Product Ownership
2 90 (4.55%) Cloud Native
3 62 (3.14%) Onboarding
4 56 (2.83%) Legacy Systems
5 47 (2.38%) Data Protection Act
5 47 (2.38%) Mobile App
6 45 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
6 45 (2.28%) Management Information System
7 35 (1.77%) Enterprise Software
8 34 (1.72%) Data Structures
9 27 (1.37%) AI Agents
9 27 (1.37%) Data Centre
10 22 (1.11%) Virtual Team
11 18 (0.91%) NHS
12 17 (0.86%) Analytical Mindset
12 17 (0.86%) Self-Motivation
13 15 (0.76%) Life Science
14 13 (0.66%) CMDB
14 13 (0.66%) Distributed Architecture
14 13 (0.66%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 90 (4.55%) Windows
2 56 (2.83%) Linux
3 36 (1.82%) Apple iOS
4 34 (1.72%) Android
5 32 (1.62%) Windows Server
6 22 (1.11%) 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 (0.051%) Debian
10 1 (0.051%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.051%) Solaris
10 1 (0.051%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.051%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.051%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 753 (38.09%) Agile
2 529 (26.76%) Test Automation
3 493 (24.94%) DevOps
4 484 (24.48%) CI/CD
5 347 (17.55%) Continuous Improvement
6 335 (16.94%) Validation
7 334 (16.89%) Stakeholder Management
8 328 (16.59%) Problem-Solving
9 272 (13.76%) User Acceptance Testing
10 270 (13.66%) Test Strategy
11 268 (13.56%) Scrum
12 249 (12.59%) Migration
13 240 (12.14%) AI
14 180 (9.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 174 (8.80%) Decision-Making
16 164 (8.30%) SDLC
17 161 (8.14%) Software Engineering
18 157 (7.94%) End-to-End Testing
19 156 (7.89%) Analytics
20 155 (7.84%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 390 (19.73%) SQL
2 251 (12.70%) Python
3 250 (12.65%) Java
4 142 (7.18%) JavaScript
5 134 (6.78%) C#
6 83 (4.20%) TypeScript
7 41 (2.07%) T-SQL
8 39 (1.97%) PL/SQL
9 35 (1.77%) Kotlin
10 34 (1.72%) PowerShell
11 32 (1.62%) Bash
12 19 (0.96%) VB
13 18 (0.91%) Swift
14 17 (0.86%) C
14 17 (0.86%) C++
14 17 (0.86%) Scala
15 16 (0.81%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 15 (0.76%) Bicep
16 15 (0.76%) VBA
17 13 (0.66%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 445 (22.51%) Security Cleared
2 332 (16.79%) SC Cleared
3 127 (6.42%) Degree
4 74 (3.74%) BPSS Clearance
5 71 (3.59%) ISTQB
6 61 (3.09%) DV Cleared
7 33 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
8 26 (1.32%) PMI Certification
9 25 (1.26%) PMP
10 15 (0.76%) Azure Certification
11 13 (0.66%) AWS Certification
12 12 (0.61%) Master's Degree
12 12 (0.61%) Microsoft Certification
13 11 (0.56%) Cisco Certification
14 10 (0.51%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 7 (0.35%) CCNP
15 7 (0.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 7 (0.35%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 5 (0.25%) CBAP
16 5 (0.25%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (7.33%) Data Quality
2 100 (5.06%) Accessibility
3 33 (1.67%) GDPR
4 31 (1.57%) PMO
5 26 (1.32%) WCAG
6 20 (1.01%) GRC
7 17 (0.86%) GxP
8 13 (0.66%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 13 (0.66%) SLA
9 12 (0.61%) NIST
10 11 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
10 11 (0.56%) IFRS
11 9 (0.46%) IFRS 17
11 9 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 8 (0.40%) PCI DSS
13 7 (0.35%) GMP
13 7 (0.35%) NCSC
14 6 (0.30%) Software Quality Assurance
15 5 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
15 5 (0.25%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 126 (6.37%) Docker
2 21 (1.06%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.35%) Firmware
4 7 (0.35%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.30%) IAG
5 6 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.10%) GridGain
6 2 (0.10%) Oracle RAC
6 2 (0.10%) VirtualBox
6 2 (0.10%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.051%) ACF2
7 1 (0.051%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.051%) KVM
7 1 (0.051%) QEMU
7 1 (0.051%) RACF
7 1 (0.051%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
7 1 (0.051%) Varnish
7 1 (0.051%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 178 (9.00%) Kubernetes
2 75 (3.79%) Terraform
3 39 (1.97%) Grafana
4 38 (1.92%) Ansible
5 32 (1.62%) Argo
6 27 (1.37%) Prometheus
7 20 (1.01%) HP ALM
8 12 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
9 10 (0.51%) HP Quality Center
10 8 (0.40%) SCCM
11 7 (0.35%) Oracle RMAN
11 7 (0.35%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 6 (0.30%) Puppet
13 5 (0.25%) Kibana
13 5 (0.25%) Progress Chef
14 3 (0.15%) FortiGate
14 3 (0.15%) Nmap
15 2 (0.10%) ITRS Geneos
15 2 (0.10%) Microsoft Intune
15 2 (0.10%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 212 (10.72%) Microsoft
2 175 (8.85%) Oracle
3 103 (5.21%) Salesforce
4 92 (4.65%) SAP
5 48 (2.43%) ServiceNow
6 42 (2.12%) Databricks
6 42 (2.12%) Google
7 37 (1.87%) Citrix
8 36 (1.82%) Red Hat
9 30 (1.52%) Adobe
10 28 (1.42%) Informatica
11 23 (1.16%) HP
12 20 (1.01%) Cisco
13 18 (0.91%) MuleSoft
14 15 (0.76%) Talend
14 15 (0.76%) Workday
15 14 (0.71%) Splunk
16 12 (0.61%) Atlassian
16 12 (0.61%) Dynatrace
16 12 (0.61%) VMware