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

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 61 62
Rank change year-on-year +13 +1 +7
Contract jobs citing QA 2,269 1,267 1,259
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.14% 3.88% 3.34%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.53% 22.52% 24.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,326 875 739
10th Percentile £311 £285 £300
25th Percentile £388 £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 £650 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -
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 £31.46 £17.66 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +78.12% +17.91% -66.16%
75th Percentile £48.75 £36.73 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £72.72 £72.51
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +108.07% +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 9,644 5,626 5,052
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.58% 17.21% 13.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,076 3,605 2,983
10th Percentile £325 £300 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £507
Median % change year-on-year - -1.38% -3.43%
75th Percentile £600 £610 £625
90th Percentile £700 £710 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +2.63% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 632 265 248
10th Percentile £13.92 £13.60 £12.41
25th Percentile £16.60 £16.92 £15.24
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 £61.50
90th Percentile £75.90 £81.65 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.00 £27.53 £27.50
% change year-on-year +19.87% +0.11% -26.67%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 +16 1,980 £475 - 2,876
UK excluding London +18 1,123 £450 - 1,838
London +10 903 £500 - 1,279
Work from Home 0 568 £475 - 1,177
North of England 0 272 £463 +3.47% 450
South East +12 255 £425 -12.10% 407
Midlands +18 222 £450 +2.86% 320
West Midlands +27 183 £450 -9.26% 231
East of England +14 151 £450 -10.00% 166
South West +10 135 £500 +5.26% 190
Yorkshire -1 110 £500 +8.70% 114
North West -17 104 £475 +12.16% 255
Scotland +1 83 £402 -10.67% 164
North East -7 58 £400 -15.79% 83
East Midlands -16 38 £420 +12.00% 89
Wales -2 19 £406 +8.33% 65
Northern Ireland -2 7 £450 +50.00% 98

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
1 133 (5.86%) Confluence
2 51 (2.25%) CMS
3 40 (1.76%) SharePoint
4 17 (0.75%) IIS
5 16 (0.71%) Apache Spark
6 13 (0.57%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 13 (0.57%) Apache
6 13 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
7 8 (0.35%) SAS
7 8 (0.35%) Sitecore CMS
8 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.22%) Tuxedo
9 5 (0.22%) WordPress
10 4 (0.18%) Headless CMS
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.18%) Umbraco
11 3 (0.13%) Appian
11 3 (0.13%) Moodle
11 3 (0.13%) Traefik
Applications
1 79 (3.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.45%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (0.88%) MS Visio
5 17 (0.75%) Spreadsheet
6 12 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
7 9 (0.40%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.26%) Navisworks
8 6 (0.26%) Revit
9 4 (0.18%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.18%) ProjectWise
10 3 (0.13%) CATIA
11 2 (0.088%) Adobe Premiere
11 2 (0.088%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.088%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.088%) Mingle
11 2 (0.088%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.088%) Simulink
11 2 (0.088%) Windchill
12 1 (0.044%) Adobe After Effects
Business Applications
1 32 (1.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.15%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.44%) Remedy ITSM
4 9 (0.40%) Shopify
5 7 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) SAP GRC
5 7 (0.31%) Workday HCM
6 4 (0.18%) Aladdin
6 4 (0.18%) Maximo
6 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
6 4 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
6 4 (0.18%) Primavera
6 4 (0.18%) ResourceLink
7 3 (0.13%) Infor CloudSuite
7 3 (0.13%) iTrent
7 3 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
7 3 (0.13%) SAP FI
7 3 (0.13%) SAP MM
7 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
8 2 (0.088%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 466 (20.54%) Azure
2 404 (17.81%) AWS
3 219 (9.65%) GitHub
4 198 (8.73%) Azure DevOps
5 125 (5.51%) GitHub Actions
6 112 (4.94%) GCP
7 111 (4.89%) Power Platform
8 81 (3.57%) Serverless
9 57 (2.51%) AWS Lambda
10 53 (2.34%) SaaS
11 47 (2.07%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 44 (1.94%) Amazon S3
13 41 (1.81%) OpenShift
14 37 (1.63%) Dynamics 365
15 36 (1.59%) GitHub Copilot
16 35 (1.54%) Snowflake
17 31 (1.37%) Azure Monitor
18 29 (1.28%) Amazon EKS
18 29 (1.28%) Microsoft 365
18 29 (1.28%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.19%) Firewall
2 24 (1.06%) Internet
3 22 (0.97%) Broadband
4 18 (0.79%) DNS
4 18 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
5 15 (0.66%) 5G
5 15 (0.66%) HTTP
5 15 (0.66%) TCP/IP
6 14 (0.62%) 4G
6 14 (0.62%) VLAN
6 14 (0.62%) WAN
7 13 (0.57%) Network Security
8 12 (0.53%) LAN
8 12 (0.53%) VPN
9 9 (0.40%) DHCP
9 9 (0.40%) SD-WAN
9 9 (0.40%) Unified Communications
10 7 (0.31%) IPsec
10 7 (0.31%) SSH
11 6 (0.26%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 108 (4.76%) SQL Server
2 98 (4.32%) Power BI
3 84 (3.70%) PostgreSQL
4 79 (3.48%) Relational Database
5 67 (2.95%) Data Warehouse
6 52 (2.29%) MongoDB
7 48 (2.12%) NoSQL
8 45 (1.98%) MySQL
8 45 (1.98%) Oracle Database
9 41 (1.81%) Metadata
10 36 (1.59%) Tableau
11 34 (1.50%) Oracle Reports
12 25 (1.10%) Data Lake
13 20 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 19 (0.84%) Big Data
15 16 (0.71%) GIS
16 15 (0.66%) Power Query
16 15 (0.66%) RDBMS
17 14 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
17 14 (0.62%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 307 (13.53%) JIRA
2 250 (11.02%) Git
3 175 (7.71%) Jenkins
4 174 (7.67%) Selenium
5 142 (6.26%) GitLab
6 87 (3.83%) Cucumber
6 87 (3.83%) Postman
7 78 (3.44%) Cypress.io
8 68 (3.00%) JUnit
9 56 (2.47%) Zephyr
10 54 (2.38%) SonarQube
11 49 (2.16%) JMeter
12 44 (1.94%) REST Assured
13 40 (1.76%) Gatling
14 35 (1.54%) Maven
15 30 (1.32%) WebDriver
16 27 (1.19%) Gradle
17 23 (1.01%) TestNG
18 21 (0.93%) Appium
18 21 (0.93%) TestRail
General
1 688 (30.32%) Social Skills
2 433 (19.08%) Finance
3 360 (15.87%) Analytical Skills
4 278 (12.25%) Public Sector
5 174 (7.67%) Banking
6 83 (3.66%) Manufacturing
7 74 (3.26%) Retail
8 68 (3.00%) Marketing
9 59 (2.60%) Organisational Skills
10 54 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 43 (1.90%) Telecoms
12 42 (1.85%) Aerospace
13 40 (1.76%) Influencing Skills
14 36 (1.59%) Legal
15 32 (1.41%) Documentation Skills
16 27 (1.19%) Military
17 25 (1.10%) Law
18 19 (0.84%) Investment Banking
19 18 (0.79%) Automotive
19 18 (0.79%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 300 (13.22%) Developer
2 284 (12.52%) Lead
3 269 (11.86%) Senior
4 255 (11.24%) Analyst
5 245 (10.80%) QA Engineer
6 126 (5.55%) Quality Engineer
7 120 (5.29%) Tester
8 108 (4.76%) Business Analyst
9 107 (4.72%) Test Engineer
10 106 (4.67%) Test Manager
11 77 (3.39%) Java Developer
11 77 (3.39%) QA Leader
12 74 (3.26%) Data Engineer
13 67 (2.95%) Test Leader
14 60 (2.64%) Consultant
15 59 (2.60%) Senior Analyst
16 58 (2.56%) Architect
17 56 (2.47%) QA Tester
18 54 (2.38%) Test Analyst
19 47 (2.07%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 206 (9.08%) REST
2 141 (6.21%) Playwright
3 140 (6.17%) RESTful
4 123 (5.42%) Spring
5 110 (4.85%) Spring Boot
6 104 (4.58%) Terraform
7 97 (4.28%) .NET
8 90 (3.97%) React
9 86 (3.79%) HTML
10 84 (3.70%) Kafka
11 76 (3.35%) CSS
12 75 (3.31%) AngularJS
13 63 (2.78%) Node.js
14 55 (2.42%) SOAP
15 54 (2.38%) pytest
16 52 (2.29%) Middleware
17 42 (1.85%) .NET Framework
18 41 (1.81%) JSON
19 37 (1.63%) XML
20 36 (1.59%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 205 (9.03%) Product Ownership
2 135 (5.95%) Cloud Native
3 79 (3.48%) Onboarding
4 67 (2.95%) Enterprise Software
5 63 (2.78%) Management Information System
6 58 (2.56%) Distributed Systems
7 53 (2.34%) Mobile App
8 49 (2.16%) Legacy Systems
9 43 (1.90%) AI Agents
10 42 (1.85%) Data Structures
11 41 (1.81%) Data Protection Act
12 36 (1.59%) Data Centre
13 31 (1.37%) Low-Code
14 26 (1.15%) NHS
15 24 (1.06%) Virtual Team
16 23 (1.01%) CMDB
17 20 (0.88%) Educational Technology
18 16 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
18 16 (0.71%) Operational Technology
19 14 (0.62%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 94 (4.14%) Windows
2 75 (3.31%) Linux
3 49 (2.16%) Apple iOS
4 45 (1.98%) Android
5 33 (1.45%) Unix
6 24 (1.06%) Windows Server
7 15 (0.66%) VMS
8 8 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.22%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.088%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.088%) zOS
11 1 (0.044%) AIX
11 1 (0.044%) CentOS
11 1 (0.044%) Debian
11 1 (0.044%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.044%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.044%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.044%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.044%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.044%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 876 (38.61%) Agile
2 634 (27.94%) Test Automation
3 586 (25.83%) CI/CD
4 551 (24.28%) DevOps
5 459 (20.23%) Stakeholder Management
6 447 (19.70%) Continuous Improvement
7 389 (17.14%) Problem-Solving
8 374 (16.48%) Validation
9 336 (14.81%) Scrum
10 328 (14.46%) AI
10 328 (14.46%) Test Strategy
11 275 (12.12%) User Acceptance Testing
12 251 (11.06%) Migration
13 211 (9.30%) SDLC
14 207 (9.12%) Microservices
15 197 (8.68%) End-to-End Testing
16 196 (8.64%) Software Engineering
17 181 (7.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 176 (7.76%) Defect Management
19 171 (7.54%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 420 (18.51%) SQL
2 325 (14.32%) Python
3 291 (12.83%) Java
4 185 (8.15%) JavaScript
5 116 (5.11%) C#
6 99 (4.36%) TypeScript
7 55 (2.42%) Bash
8 38 (1.67%) PowerShell
9 36 (1.59%) PL/SQL
10 30 (1.32%) Kotlin
11 28 (1.23%) T-SQL
12 24 (1.06%) Scala
13 20 (0.88%) Swift
14 17 (0.75%) C
14 17 (0.75%) Objective-C
14 17 (0.75%) Shell Script
14 17 (0.75%) VB
15 15 (0.66%) VBA
16 14 (0.62%) Apex Code
16 14 (0.62%) C++
Qualifications
1 537 (23.67%) Security Cleared
2 417 (18.38%) SC Cleared
3 149 (6.57%) Degree
4 102 (4.50%) BPSS Clearance
5 75 (3.31%) ISTQB
6 64 (2.82%) DV Cleared
7 44 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
8 26 (1.15%) PMP
9 20 (0.88%) PMI Certification
10 19 (0.84%) AWS Certification
11 18 (0.79%) Azure Certification
12 15 (0.66%) Master's Degree
13 14 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
14 11 (0.48%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 10 (0.44%) Cisco Certification
15 10 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
16 9 (0.40%) DBS Check
16 9 (0.40%) IIBA
16 9 (0.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 9 (0.40%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 164 (7.23%) Data Quality
2 124 (5.46%) Accessibility
3 38 (1.67%) GDPR
4 36 (1.59%) WCAG
5 28 (1.23%) PMO
6 25 (1.10%) GRC
7 14 (0.62%) NIST
8 13 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 10 (0.44%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 10 (0.44%) GxP
10 9 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
10 9 (0.40%) Disclosure Scotland
10 9 (0.40%) SLA
11 8 (0.35%) ISO 19650
11 8 (0.35%) ISO 9001
11 8 (0.35%) Software Quality Assurance
12 7 (0.31%) IFRS
12 7 (0.31%) NCSC
13 6 (0.26%) ISO 20022
14 4 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 17025
System Software
1 197 (8.68%) Docker
2 24 (1.06%) Active Directory
3 18 (0.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.44%) IAG
6 6 (0.26%) Firmware
7 4 (0.18%) ACF2
7 4 (0.18%) RACF
8 3 (0.13%) KVM
8 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
8 3 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.13%) VirtualBox
9 2 (0.088%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.044%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.044%) QEMU
10 1 (0.044%) Varnish
10 1 (0.044%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.044%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.044%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 228 (10.05%) Kubernetes
2 63 (2.78%) Ansible
3 55 (2.42%) Grafana
4 39 (1.72%) Prometheus
5 35 (1.54%) Argo
6 12 (0.53%) HP ALM
7 11 (0.48%) SCCM
8 8 (0.35%) Microsoft Clustering
8 8 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (0.31%) HP Quality Center
9 7 (0.31%) Microsoft Intune
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%) Istio
12 3 (0.13%) Oracle RMAN
13 2 (0.088%) Control-M
13 2 (0.088%) ITRS Geneos
Vendors
1 245 (10.80%) Microsoft
2 171 (7.54%) Oracle
3 118 (5.20%) Salesforce
4 80 (3.53%) SAP
5 61 (2.69%) ServiceNow
6 52 (2.29%) Google
7 45 (1.98%) Databricks
8 36 (1.59%) Red Hat
9 33 (1.45%) Dynatrace
10 30 (1.32%) Splunk
11 27 (1.19%) Citrix
12 25 (1.10%) Adobe
13 22 (0.97%) Cisco
14 20 (0.88%) VMware
15 18 (0.79%) Informatica
16 16 (0.71%) IBM
16 16 (0.71%) Sitecore
16 16 (0.71%) Workday
17 15 (0.66%) HP
17 15 (0.66%) Talend