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

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 62 66
Rank change year-on-year +14 +4 +1
Contract jobs citing QA 2,359 1,286 1,220
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.27% 3.87% 3.24%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.82% 21.96% 24.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,379 873 717
10th Percentile £312 £300 £300
25th Percentile £381 £385 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £575
90th Percentile £658 £663 £701
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £460 £450
% change year-on-year -2.17% +2.22% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 252 44 71
10th Percentile £13.50 £12.28 £12.00
25th Percentile £15.25 £13.50 £13.26
Median hourly rate £27.96 £28.77 £15.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.82% +91.80% -70.00%
75th Percentile £48.75 £47.63 £31.34
90th Percentile £70.00 £71.13 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.96 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +84.92% +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 9,902 5,857 5,047
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.90% 17.60% 13.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,199 3,746 2,937
10th Percentile £325 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £400 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.10% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £613 £625
90th Percentile £725 £711 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +1.05% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 730 283 240
10th Percentile £13.69 £13.60 £13.26
25th Percentile £16.46 £16.71 £17.59
Median hourly rate £30.00 £30.00 £27.67
Median % change year-on-year - +8.42% -23.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.00 £62.88
90th Percentile £74.25 £80.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £25.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +25.84% -9.09% -29.03%

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 October 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 October 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 October 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 +17 2,074 £475 -0.91% 490
UK excluding London +26 1,202 £450 -2.17% 409
London +11 923 £500 - 146
Work from Home +6 590 £475 +5.03% 241
North of England +10 289 £460 +6.98% 93
South East +16 268 £425 -15.00% 115
Midlands +24 251 £450 - 75
West Midlands +30 209 £450 -10.00% 51
East of England +17 159 £423 -15.50% 41
South West +15 143 £535 +9.74% 62
Yorkshire +16 115 £470 +2.17% 28
North West -16 112 £492 +17.56% 51
Scotland -3 87 £425 -11.69% 17
North East -8 62 £400 -20.00% 15
East Midlands -4 41 £415 +2.22% 24
Wales +4 24 £413 +17.86% 13
Northern Ireland -2 7 £450 +50.00% 5

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
1 143 (6.06%) Confluence
2 53 (2.25%) CMS
3 43 (1.82%) SharePoint
4 16 (0.68%) Apache Spark
5 15 (0.64%) IIS
6 13 (0.55%) Apache
6 13 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
7 12 (0.51%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 10 (0.42%) SAS
9 9 (0.38%) Sitecore CMS
9 9 (0.38%) Traefik
10 5 (0.21%) Headless CMS
10 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.21%) Tuxedo
10 5 (0.21%) WordPress
11 4 (0.17%) Umbraco
11 4 (0.17%) WebLogic
12 3 (0.13%) Jupyter
12 3 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 82 (3.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.74%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (1.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.89%) MS Visio
5 18 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
6 10 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
7 9 (0.38%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.25%) AutoCAD
8 6 (0.25%) Navisworks
8 6 (0.25%) Revit
9 4 (0.17%) ProjectWise
10 3 (0.13%) CATIA
10 3 (0.13%) Mingle
10 3 (0.13%) Productboard
11 2 (0.085%) Adobe Premiere
11 2 (0.085%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.085%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.085%) Windchill
12 1 (0.042%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.042%) Trello
Business Applications
1 30 (1.27%) Dynamics CRM
2 27 (1.14%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
4 9 (0.38%) Shopify
5 7 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.30%) SAP GRC
5 7 (0.30%) Workday HCM
6 5 (0.21%) NEC Housing
6 5 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
6 5 (0.21%) SAP MM
7 4 (0.17%) Maximo
7 4 (0.17%) Primavera
7 4 (0.17%) ResourceLink
7 4 (0.17%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.13%) Aladdin
8 3 (0.13%) Infor CloudSuite
8 3 (0.13%) iTrent
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
8 3 (0.13%) SAP SD
9 2 (0.085%) Integrated Workplace Management System
Cloud Services
1 491 (20.81%) Azure
2 429 (18.19%) AWS
3 241 (10.22%) GitHub
4 224 (9.50%) Azure DevOps
5 145 (6.15%) GitHub Actions
6 114 (4.83%) GCP
6 114 (4.83%) Power Platform
7 84 (3.56%) Serverless
8 61 (2.59%) AWS Lambda
9 56 (2.37%) SaaS
10 55 (2.33%) Amazon S3
11 47 (1.99%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 45 (1.91%) Dynamics 365
13 40 (1.70%) GitHub Copilot
14 39 (1.65%) OpenShift
15 34 (1.44%) Microsoft 365
16 33 (1.40%) Snowflake
17 32 (1.36%) Azure Monitor
18 31 (1.31%) Amazon ECS
18 31 (1.31%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 29 (1.23%) Broadband
2 27 (1.14%) Firewall
3 22 (0.93%) Internet
4 21 (0.89%) DNS
5 20 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
6 18 (0.76%) 5G
6 18 (0.76%) HTTP
7 17 (0.72%) 4G
8 16 (0.68%) TCP/IP
8 16 (0.68%) VLAN
9 13 (0.55%) Network Security
9 13 (0.55%) WAN
10 11 (0.47%) DHCP
11 10 (0.42%) LAN
11 10 (0.42%) VPN
12 9 (0.38%) IPv4
12 9 (0.38%) IPv6
12 9 (0.38%) Wireless
13 8 (0.34%) xDSL
14 7 (0.30%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (4.79%) SQL Server
2 98 (4.15%) Power BI
3 83 (3.52%) PostgreSQL
3 83 (3.52%) Relational Database
4 63 (2.67%) Data Warehouse
5 59 (2.50%) MongoDB
6 52 (2.20%) MySQL
7 48 (2.03%) NoSQL
8 45 (1.91%) Metadata
9 37 (1.57%) Oracle Database
10 30 (1.27%) Oracle Reports
11 26 (1.10%) Tableau
12 25 (1.06%) Data Lake
13 23 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 17 (0.72%) Redis
15 16 (0.68%) Big Data
15 16 (0.68%) GIS
15 16 (0.68%) Power Query
16 15 (0.64%) RDBMS
17 14 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 308 (13.06%) JIRA
2 268 (11.36%) Git
3 191 (8.10%) Jenkins
4 185 (7.84%) Selenium
5 155 (6.57%) GitLab
6 102 (4.32%) Cucumber
7 92 (3.90%) Postman
8 85 (3.60%) Cypress.io
9 81 (3.43%) JUnit
10 55 (2.33%) Zephyr
11 52 (2.20%) SonarQube
12 51 (2.16%) JMeter
13 50 (2.12%) Gatling
14 48 (2.03%) REST Assured
15 35 (1.48%) Maven
16 31 (1.31%) Gradle
17 29 (1.23%) WebDriver
18 28 (1.19%) TestNG
19 27 (1.14%) Appium
20 24 (1.02%) Bitbucket
General
1 729 (30.90%) Social Skills
2 422 (17.89%) Finance
3 388 (16.45%) Analytical Skills
4 309 (13.10%) Public Sector
5 174 (7.38%) Banking
6 87 (3.69%) Manufacturing
7 73 (3.09%) Retail
8 67 (2.84%) Organisational Skills
9 63 (2.67%) Marketing
10 59 (2.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 52 (2.20%) Telecoms
12 47 (1.99%) Aerospace
12 47 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
13 46 (1.95%) Legal
14 32 (1.36%) Military
15 30 (1.27%) Documentation Skills
16 24 (1.02%) Law
17 21 (0.89%) Investment Banking
17 21 (0.89%) Local Government
18 19 (0.81%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 311 (13.18%) Developer
2 300 (12.72%) Lead
3 284 (12.04%) Senior
4 268 (11.36%) QA Engineer
5 247 (10.47%) Analyst
6 142 (6.02%) Quality Engineer
7 124 (5.26%) Test Engineer
8 117 (4.96%) Tester
9 103 (4.37%) Test Manager
10 96 (4.07%) Business Analyst
11 86 (3.65%) QA Leader
12 80 (3.39%) Java Developer
13 78 (3.31%) Data Engineer
14 72 (3.05%) Test Leader
15 64 (2.71%) Consultant
16 59 (2.50%) Senior Analyst
17 56 (2.37%) QA Tester
18 55 (2.33%) Test Analyst
19 52 (2.20%) Architect
20 51 (2.16%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 240 (10.17%) REST
2 165 (6.99%) Playwright
3 158 (6.70%) RESTful
4 134 (5.68%) Spring
5 114 (4.83%) Spring Boot
6 111 (4.71%) React
7 110 (4.66%) Terraform
8 99 (4.20%) .NET
9 91 (3.86%) Kafka
10 89 (3.77%) HTML
11 81 (3.43%) CSS
12 79 (3.35%) AngularJS
13 66 (2.80%) SOAP
14 65 (2.76%) Node.js
15 56 (2.37%) Middleware
16 53 (2.25%) pytest
17 48 (2.03%) JSON
18 42 (1.78%) .NET Framework
19 41 (1.74%) Gherkin
19 41 (1.74%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 234 (9.92%) Product Ownership
2 143 (6.06%) Cloud Native
3 84 (3.56%) Onboarding
4 78 (3.31%) Management Information System
5 76 (3.22%) Enterprise Software
6 64 (2.71%) Mobile App
7 58 (2.46%) Distributed Systems
8 51 (2.16%) AI Agents
9 50 (2.12%) Legacy Systems
10 42 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
10 42 (1.78%) Data Structures
11 36 (1.53%) Data Centre
12 31 (1.31%) Low-Code
13 30 (1.27%) Virtual Team
14 28 (1.19%) NHS
15 24 (1.02%) CMDB
16 20 (0.85%) Educational Technology
17 19 (0.81%) Analytical Mindset
18 16 (0.68%) Operational Technology
19 14 (0.59%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 90 (3.82%) Windows
2 77 (3.26%) Linux
3 58 (2.46%) Apple iOS
4 53 (2.25%) Android
5 34 (1.44%) Unix
6 23 (0.97%) Windows Server
7 18 (0.76%) VMS
8 7 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.21%) macOS
10 3 (0.13%) AIX
10 3 (0.13%) zOS
11 2 (0.085%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.042%) CentOS
12 1 (0.042%) Debian
12 1 (0.042%) Embedded Linux
12 1 (0.042%) Solaris
12 1 (0.042%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 1 (0.042%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.042%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.042%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 920 (39.00%) Agile
2 688 (29.16%) Test Automation
3 633 (26.83%) CI/CD
4 574 (24.33%) DevOps
5 504 (21.36%) Stakeholder Management
6 487 (20.64%) Continuous Improvement
7 409 (17.34%) Problem-Solving
8 384 (16.28%) Validation
9 352 (14.92%) AI
10 351 (14.88%) Scrum
11 344 (14.58%) Test Strategy
12 271 (11.49%) User Acceptance Testing
13 261 (11.06%) Migration
14 227 (9.62%) SDLC
15 223 (9.45%) Microservices
16 213 (9.03%) End-to-End Testing
17 194 (8.22%) Software Engineering
18 187 (7.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 184 (7.80%) Defect Management
20 174 (7.38%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 415 (17.59%) SQL
2 332 (14.07%) Python
3 319 (13.52%) Java
4 201 (8.52%) JavaScript
5 125 (5.30%) C#
6 122 (5.17%) TypeScript
7 53 (2.25%) Bash
8 35 (1.48%) PowerShell
9 32 (1.36%) Kotlin
10 30 (1.27%) PL/SQL
11 27 (1.14%) Scala
12 26 (1.10%) Swift
13 23 (0.97%) T-SQL
14 21 (0.89%) Objective-C
15 20 (0.85%) Shell Script
16 15 (0.64%) VB
17 14 (0.59%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 14 (0.59%) R
18 13 (0.55%) C
18 13 (0.55%) VBA
Qualifications
1 556 (23.57%) Security Cleared
2 432 (18.31%) SC Cleared
3 162 (6.87%) Degree
4 118 (5.00%) BPSS Clearance
5 83 (3.52%) ISTQB
6 69 (2.92%) DV Cleared
7 57 (2.42%) Computer Science Degree
8 24 (1.02%) Azure Certification
9 23 (0.97%) PMP
10 22 (0.93%) AWS Certification
11 21 (0.89%) PMI Certification
12 16 (0.68%) Master's Degree
13 14 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
14 12 (0.51%) DBS Check
15 11 (0.47%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 11 (0.47%) ITIL Certification
16 10 (0.42%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 9 (0.38%) IIBA
17 9 (0.38%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 8 (0.34%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 169 (7.16%) Data Quality
2 138 (5.85%) Accessibility
3 41 (1.74%) WCAG
4 39 (1.65%) GDPR
5 28 (1.19%) PMO
6 25 (1.06%) GRC
7 18 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 15 (0.64%) NIST
9 12 (0.51%) ISO 9001
10 11 (0.47%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 11 (0.47%) GxP
11 10 (0.42%) SLA
12 9 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
12 9 (0.38%) ISO 19650
13 8 (0.34%) Software Quality Assurance
14 7 (0.30%) IFRS
14 7 (0.30%) NCSC
15 6 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
15 6 (0.25%) PERC
16 5 (0.21%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 216 (9.16%) Docker
2 24 (1.02%) Active Directory
3 21 (0.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (0.51%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.42%) IAG
6 6 (0.25%) Firmware
7 4 (0.17%) ACF2
7 4 (0.17%) RACF
7 4 (0.17%) VirtualBox
8 3 (0.13%) KVM
8 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.085%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.042%) Embedded Firmware
10 1 (0.042%) QEMU
10 1 (0.042%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.042%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.042%) VMware NSX
10 1 (0.042%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 254 (10.77%) Kubernetes
2 64 (2.71%) Ansible
3 60 (2.54%) Grafana
4 36 (1.53%) Prometheus
5 33 (1.40%) Argo
6 11 (0.47%) HP ALM
7 10 (0.42%) SCCM
8 9 (0.38%) Istio
9 8 (0.34%) Microsoft Clustering
9 8 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
10 7 (0.30%) HP Quality Center
10 7 (0.30%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 6 (0.25%) Microsoft Intune
12 5 (0.21%) Progress Chef
12 5 (0.21%) Puppet
13 4 (0.17%) SCOM
14 3 (0.13%) FortiGate
15 2 (0.085%) Control-M
15 2 (0.085%) ITRS Geneos
15 2 (0.085%) Kibana
Vendors
1 264 (11.19%) Microsoft
2 167 (7.08%) Oracle
3 115 (4.87%) Salesforce
4 73 (3.09%) SAP
5 59 (2.50%) ServiceNow
6 50 (2.12%) Google
7 49 (2.08%) Databricks
8 35 (1.48%) Dynatrace
8 35 (1.48%) Splunk
9 33 (1.40%) Red Hat
10 24 (1.02%) VMware
11 21 (0.89%) Citrix
12 20 (0.85%) Adobe
12 20 (0.85%) Cisco
13 18 (0.76%) IBM
13 18 (0.76%) Informatica
14 17 (0.72%) Sitecore
15 16 (0.68%) MuleSoft
15 16 (0.68%) Talend
15 16 (0.68%) Workday