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

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 62 63
Rank change year-on-year +12 +1 +5
Contract jobs citing QA 2,241 1,264 1,286
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.12% 3.87% 3.35%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.53% 22.51% 24.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,311 874 759
10th Percentile £313 £291 £300
25th Percentile £391 £380 £393
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £575
90th Percentile £668 £663 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £467
% change year-on-year - -3.54% -1.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 234 42 78
10th Percentile £12.85 £12.28 £11.88
25th Percentile £15.37 £13.50 £12.27
Median hourly rate £31.02 £17.66 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +75.63% +17.91% -63.50%
75th Percentile £48.75 £36.73 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £72.72 £72.51
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.58 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +102.25% +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 9,526 5,616 5,155
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.53% 17.20% 13.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,005 3,600 3,054
10th Percentile £325 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year +0.10% -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £610 £630
90th Percentile £700 £712 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £479
% change year-on-year +2.63% -0.73% -4.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 626 266 255
10th Percentile £13.93 £13.60 £12.39
25th Percentile £16.64 £16.61 £15.22
Median hourly rate £32.50 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% +9.09% -22.54%
75th Percentile £67.50 £60.00 £59.38
90th Percentile £76.00 £81.38 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.00 £27.02 £27.50
% change year-on-year +22.15% -1.76% -28.66%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 1,957 £475 - 3,375
UK excluding London +18 1,109 £450 - 1,973
London +10 893 £500 - 1,739
Work from Home +2 564 £475 - 1,519
North of England +5 267 £463 +3.70% 479
South East +11 252 £425 -12.10% 421
Midlands +16 221 £450 +2.86% 317
West Midlands +21 182 £450 -10.00% 229
East of England +16 148 £450 -10.00% 196
South West +13 134 £503 +5.79% 224
Yorkshire +5 107 £500 +8.70% 126
North West -17 102 £475 +12.16% 281
Scotland -7 82 £401 -10.83% 202
North East -8 58 £400 -14.44% 74
East Midlands -10 38 £420 +12.00% 88
Wales -3 18 £400 +6.67% 53
Northern Ireland -1 7 £450 +50.00% 101

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
1 129 (5.76%) Confluence
2 50 (2.23%) CMS
3 40 (1.78%) SharePoint
4 16 (0.71%) Apache Spark
4 16 (0.71%) IIS
5 13 (0.58%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 13 (0.58%) Apache
5 13 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.36%) SAS
6 8 (0.36%) Sitecore CMS
7 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
8 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
8 5 (0.22%) Tuxedo
8 5 (0.22%) WordPress
9 4 (0.18%) Headless CMS
9 4 (0.18%) Umbraco
10 3 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
10 3 (0.13%) Moodle
10 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
11 2 (0.089%) nginx
Applications
1 79 (3.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.47%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (0.89%) MS Visio
5 17 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
6 12 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
7 9 (0.40%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.27%) Navisworks
8 6 (0.27%) Revit
9 4 (0.18%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.18%) ProjectWise
10 3 (0.13%) CATIA
11 2 (0.089%) Adobe Premiere
11 2 (0.089%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.089%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.089%) Mingle
11 2 (0.089%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.089%) Simulink
11 2 (0.089%) Windchill
12 1 (0.045%) Trello
Business Applications
1 32 (1.43%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.45%) Remedy ITSM
4 9 (0.40%) Shopify
5 7 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) SAP GRC
6 6 (0.27%) Workday HCM
7 4 (0.18%) Aladdin
7 4 (0.18%) Maximo
7 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
7 4 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
7 4 (0.18%) Primavera
7 4 (0.18%) ResourceLink
8 3 (0.13%) Infor CloudSuite
8 3 (0.13%) iTrent
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
8 3 (0.13%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.13%) SAP MM
8 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
9 2 (0.089%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 456 (20.35%) Azure
2 398 (17.76%) AWS
3 216 (9.64%) GitHub
4 192 (8.57%) Azure DevOps
5 122 (5.44%) GitHub Actions
6 110 (4.91%) GCP
6 110 (4.91%) Power Platform
7 80 (3.57%) Serverless
8 56 (2.50%) AWS Lambda
9 53 (2.37%) SaaS
10 46 (2.05%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 42 (1.87%) Amazon S3
12 40 (1.78%) OpenShift
13 37 (1.65%) Dynamics 365
14 36 (1.61%) GitHub Copilot
15 35 (1.56%) Snowflake
16 30 (1.34%) Azure Monitor
17 29 (1.29%) Salesforce Service Cloud
18 28 (1.25%) Amazon EKS
19 27 (1.20%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 25 (1.12%) Firewall
2 24 (1.07%) Internet
3 20 (0.89%) Broadband
4 18 (0.80%) DNS
5 16 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
6 15 (0.67%) HTTP
6 15 (0.67%) TCP/IP
7 14 (0.62%) VLAN
7 14 (0.62%) WAN
8 13 (0.58%) 5G
8 13 (0.58%) Network Security
9 12 (0.54%) 4G
9 12 (0.54%) LAN
9 12 (0.54%) VPN
10 9 (0.40%) DHCP
10 9 (0.40%) SD-WAN
10 9 (0.40%) Unified Communications
11 7 (0.31%) IPsec
11 7 (0.31%) SSH
12 6 (0.27%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 106 (4.73%) SQL Server
2 98 (4.37%) Power BI
3 83 (3.70%) PostgreSQL
4 79 (3.53%) Relational Database
5 67 (2.99%) Data Warehouse
6 51 (2.28%) MongoDB
7 48 (2.14%) NoSQL
8 45 (2.01%) Oracle Database
9 43 (1.92%) MySQL
10 41 (1.83%) Metadata
11 36 (1.61%) Tableau
12 34 (1.52%) Oracle Reports
13 25 (1.12%) Data Lake
14 20 (0.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 19 (0.85%) Big Data
16 16 (0.71%) GIS
17 15 (0.67%) Power Query
17 15 (0.67%) RDBMS
18 14 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
18 14 (0.62%) Redis
Development Applications
1 300 (13.39%) JIRA
2 242 (10.80%) Git
3 168 (7.50%) Jenkins
4 167 (7.45%) Selenium
5 137 (6.11%) GitLab
6 85 (3.79%) Postman
7 83 (3.70%) Cucumber
8 78 (3.48%) Cypress.io
9 64 (2.86%) JUnit
10 55 (2.45%) Zephyr
11 54 (2.41%) SonarQube
12 47 (2.10%) JMeter
13 42 (1.87%) REST Assured
14 39 (1.74%) Gatling
15 35 (1.56%) Maven
16 29 (1.29%) WebDriver
17 27 (1.20%) Gradle
18 20 (0.89%) Appium
18 20 (0.89%) Bitbucket
19 19 (0.85%) TestRail
General
1 679 (30.30%) Social Skills
2 427 (19.05%) Finance
3 360 (16.06%) Analytical Skills
4 273 (12.18%) Public Sector
5 173 (7.72%) Banking
6 82 (3.66%) Manufacturing
7 74 (3.30%) Retail
8 67 (2.99%) Marketing
9 59 (2.63%) Organisational Skills
10 54 (2.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 43 (1.92%) Aerospace
12 40 (1.78%) Telecoms
13 39 (1.74%) Influencing Skills
14 36 (1.61%) Legal
15 32 (1.43%) Documentation Skills
16 27 (1.20%) Military
17 24 (1.07%) Law
18 19 (0.85%) Investment Banking
19 18 (0.80%) Automotive
19 18 (0.80%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 299 (13.34%) Developer
2 282 (12.58%) Lead
3 265 (11.83%) Senior
4 253 (11.29%) Analyst
5 243 (10.84%) QA Engineer
6 126 (5.62%) Quality Engineer
7 116 (5.18%) Tester
8 108 (4.82%) Business Analyst
9 106 (4.73%) Test Manager
10 101 (4.51%) Test Engineer
11 77 (3.44%) Java Developer
11 77 (3.44%) QA Leader
12 73 (3.26%) Data Engineer
13 65 (2.90%) Test Leader
14 59 (2.63%) Consultant
14 59 (2.63%) Senior Analyst
15 58 (2.59%) Architect
16 54 (2.41%) Test Analyst
17 53 (2.37%) QA Tester
18 46 (2.05%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 203 (9.06%) REST
2 138 (6.16%) Playwright
3 136 (6.07%) RESTful
4 123 (5.49%) Spring
5 110 (4.91%) Spring Boot
6 101 (4.51%) Terraform
7 95 (4.24%) .NET
8 88 (3.93%) React
9 86 (3.84%) HTML
10 83 (3.70%) Kafka
11 76 (3.39%) CSS
12 75 (3.35%) AngularJS
13 63 (2.81%) Node.js
14 54 (2.41%) SOAP
15 53 (2.37%) pytest
16 51 (2.28%) Middleware
17 41 (1.83%) .NET Framework
18 40 (1.78%) JSON
19 36 (1.61%) Gherkin
19 36 (1.61%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 203 (9.06%) Product Ownership
2 134 (5.98%) Cloud Native
3 79 (3.53%) Onboarding
4 63 (2.81%) Enterprise Software
5 61 (2.72%) Management Information System
6 58 (2.59%) Distributed Systems
7 53 (2.37%) Mobile App
8 49 (2.19%) Legacy Systems
9 43 (1.92%) AI Agents
10 41 (1.83%) Data Protection Act
10 41 (1.83%) Data Structures
11 35 (1.56%) Data Centre
12 30 (1.34%) Low-Code
13 26 (1.16%) NHS
14 23 (1.03%) CMDB
14 23 (1.03%) Virtual Team
15 20 (0.89%) Educational Technology
16 16 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
16 16 (0.71%) Operational Technology
17 14 (0.62%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 94 (4.19%) Windows
2 74 (3.30%) Linux
3 49 (2.19%) Apple iOS
4 45 (2.01%) Android
5 33 (1.47%) Unix
6 24 (1.07%) Windows Server
7 15 (0.67%) VMS
8 8 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.22%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.089%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.089%) zOS
11 1 (0.045%) AIX
11 1 (0.045%) CentOS
11 1 (0.045%) Debian
11 1 (0.045%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.045%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.045%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.045%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.045%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.045%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 862 (38.46%) Agile
2 620 (27.67%) Test Automation
3 574 (25.61%) CI/CD
4 542 (24.19%) DevOps
5 450 (20.08%) Stakeholder Management
6 442 (19.72%) Continuous Improvement
7 387 (17.27%) Problem-Solving
8 371 (16.56%) Validation
9 327 (14.59%) Scrum
10 324 (14.46%) AI
11 321 (14.32%) Test Strategy
12 272 (12.14%) User Acceptance Testing
13 250 (11.16%) Migration
14 206 (9.19%) SDLC
15 203 (9.06%) Microservices
16 195 (8.70%) End-to-End Testing
17 194 (8.66%) Software Engineering
18 179 (7.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 173 (7.72%) Defect Management
20 170 (7.59%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 415 (18.52%) SQL
2 317 (14.15%) Python
3 285 (12.72%) Java
4 181 (8.08%) JavaScript
5 115 (5.13%) C#
6 97 (4.33%) TypeScript
7 54 (2.41%) Bash
8 38 (1.70%) PowerShell
9 36 (1.61%) PL/SQL
10 30 (1.34%) Kotlin
11 28 (1.25%) T-SQL
12 22 (0.98%) Scala
13 20 (0.89%) Swift
14 17 (0.76%) C
14 17 (0.76%) Objective-C
14 17 (0.76%) Shell Script
14 17 (0.76%) VB
15 15 (0.67%) VBA
16 14 (0.62%) Apex Code
16 14 (0.62%) C++
Qualifications
1 531 (23.69%) Security Cleared
2 410 (18.30%) SC Cleared
3 146 (6.51%) Degree
4 98 (4.37%) BPSS Clearance
5 74 (3.30%) ISTQB
6 63 (2.81%) DV Cleared
7 44 (1.96%) Computer Science Degree
8 23 (1.03%) PMP
9 18 (0.80%) AWS Certification
9 18 (0.80%) PMI Certification
10 16 (0.71%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
12 13 (0.58%) Master's Degree
13 11 (0.49%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 10 (0.45%) Cisco Certification
14 10 (0.45%) ITIL Certification
15 9 (0.40%) IIBA
15 9 (0.40%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 8 (0.36%) DBS Check
16 8 (0.36%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 162 (7.23%) Data Quality
2 123 (5.49%) Accessibility
3 36 (1.61%) WCAG
4 35 (1.56%) GDPR
5 28 (1.25%) PMO
6 24 (1.07%) GRC
7 12 (0.54%) NIST
8 10 (0.45%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 10 (0.45%) GxP
8 10 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 9 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
9 9 (0.40%) Disclosure Scotland
10 8 (0.36%) ISO 19650
10 8 (0.36%) SLA
10 8 (0.36%) Software Quality Assurance
11 7 (0.31%) IFRS
11 7 (0.31%) ISO 9001
11 7 (0.31%) NCSC
12 6 (0.27%) ISO 20022
13 4 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 17025
System Software
1 192 (8.57%) Docker
2 24 (1.07%) Active Directory
3 18 (0.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.45%) IAG
4 10 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (0.27%) Firmware
6 4 (0.18%) ACF2
6 4 (0.18%) RACF
7 3 (0.13%) KVM
7 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
7 3 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.13%) VirtualBox
8 2 (0.089%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.045%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.045%) QEMU
9 1 (0.045%) Varnish
9 1 (0.045%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.045%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.045%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 223 (9.95%) Kubernetes
2 62 (2.77%) Ansible
3 54 (2.41%) Grafana
4 38 (1.70%) Prometheus
5 34 (1.52%) Argo
6 12 (0.54%) HP ALM
7 11 (0.49%) SCCM
8 8 (0.36%) Microsoft Clustering
9 7 (0.31%) HP Quality Center
9 7 (0.31%) Microsoft Intune
9 7 (0.31%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (0.31%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
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 (0.089%) Control-M
13 2 (0.089%) ITRS Geneos
13 2 (0.089%) Kibana
Vendors
1 242 (10.80%) Microsoft
2 168 (7.50%) Oracle
3 117 (5.22%) Salesforce
4 80 (3.57%) SAP
5 60 (2.68%) ServiceNow
6 50 (2.23%) Google
7 45 (2.01%) Databricks
8 36 (1.61%) Red Hat
9 32 (1.43%) Dynatrace
10 29 (1.29%) Splunk
11 27 (1.20%) Citrix
12 25 (1.12%) Adobe
13 22 (0.98%) Cisco
14 20 (0.89%) VMware
15 18 (0.80%) Informatica
16 16 (0.71%) IBM
16 16 (0.71%) Sitecore
17 15 (0.67%) HP
17 15 (0.67%) Talend
17 15 (0.67%) Workday