Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 29 October 2020

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for QA skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited QA over the 6 months to 29 October 2020 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Quality Assurance (QA)
UK
6 months to
29 Oct 2020		 Same period 2019 Same period 2018
Rank 74 73 70
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 -3
Contract jobs citing QA 1,015 2,603 3,638
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 3.10% 3.06% 3.51%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 29.14% 29.28% 32.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 746 1,681 2,497
Median daily rate £450 £450 £450
10th Percentile £300 £308 £300
90th Percentile £613 £613 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £425 £410
% change year-on-year - +3.66% +5.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 64 48
Median hourly rate £25.33 £30.25 £35.75
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year -16.26% -15.38% +63.24%
10th Percentile £12.92 £9.65 £10.85
90th Percentile £40.00 £54.63 £48.08
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.34 £33.75 £29.50
% change year-on-year -42.70% +14.41% +18.00%

QA is in the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills.

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK
Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 3,483 8,891 11,345
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.65% 10.45% 10.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,043 5,553 7,172
Median daily rate £468 £450 £450
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +3.89% - +2.86%
10th Percentile £260 £232 £250
90th Percentile £638 £638 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £425 £400
% change year-on-year - +6.25% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 180 405 406
Median hourly rate £26.36 £21.34 £22.00
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +23.52% -3.00% +10.00%
10th Percentile £10.75 £11.16 £11.18
90th Percentile £55.00 £56.25 £50.00
Median hourly rate £23.00 £22.65 £21.76
% change year-on-year +1.55% +4.09% +8.80%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing QA as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for QA in the UK

QA
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing QA.

Daily rate trend for QA in the UK

QA
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA over the 6 months to 29 October 2020.

Daily rate histogram for QA in the UK

QA
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing QA.

Hourly rate trend for QA in the UK

QA
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing QA over the 6 months to 29 October 2020.

Hourly rate histogram for QA in the UK

QA
Top 17 Contract 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 29 October 2020. 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
Job
Vacancies
England -7 869 £450 - 474
London +13 512 £475 -3.06% 179
UK excluding London -9 410 £425 - 334
Work from Home -2 185 £444 -11.25% 85
North of England +8 115 £450 +12.50% 91
South East -19 99 £425 -0.93% 86
North West +43 77 £450 +5.88% 53
Midlands +38 76 £355 -11.25% 53
Scotland +29 56 £425 +6.25% 25
West Midlands +56 50 £350 -12.50% 28
East of England +28 35 £493 +19.39% 30
East Midlands +13 25 £425 +9.68% 25
Yorkshire -17 21 £473 +27.70% 25
North East -14 17 £438 +16.67% 13
Wales +4 13 £475 +16.56% 11
South West -16 13 £400 -5.88% 37
Northern Ireland +14 4 £400 -20.00% 4

For the 6 months to 29 October 2020, IT contractor jobs citing QA also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads with a requirement for QA.

1 427 (42.07%) Agile Software Development
2 308 (30.34%) Test Automation
3 245 (24.14%) Java
4 198 (19.51%) Finance
5 187 (18.42%) DevOps
6 175 (17.24%) SQL
7 161 (15.86%) Scrum
8 154 (15.17%) Azure
9 147 (14.48%) Security Cleared
10 146 (14.38%) Selenium
11 139 (13.69%) JIRA
12 135 (13.30%) JavaScript
12 135 (13.30%) Python
13 133 (13.10%) SC Cleared
14 122 (12.02%) AWS
15 120 (11.82%) Oracle
16 118 (11.63%) Problem-Solving
16 118 (11.63%) Public Sector
17 113 (11.13%) BDD
18 111 (10.94%) Git (software)
19 110 (10.84%) Jenkins
20 104 (10.25%) Continuous Integration
21 103 (10.15%) Microsoft
22 102 (10.05%) TDD
23 100 (9.85%) Linux
24 96 (9.46%) Analytical Skills
25 88 (8.67%) Cucumber
26 87 (8.57%) Project Management
27 86 (8.47%) Performance Testing
27 86 (8.47%) SDLC

QA
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same job type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 48 (4.73%) Confluence
2 20 (1.97%) SharePoint
3 17 (1.67%) Apache
4 16 (1.58%) Appian
5 12 (1.18%) IIS
6 11 (1.08%) CMS
6 11 (1.08%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 11 (1.08%) Tomcat
6 11 (1.08%) WebLogic
7 10 (0.99%) Apache Spark
7 10 (0.99%) Umbraco
8 8 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
9 7 (0.69%) WebSphere
10 6 (0.59%) SharePoint 2013
11 5 (0.49%) Cloud Foundry
11 5 (0.49%) JBoss
11 5 (0.49%) Mule
11 5 (0.49%) nginx
11 5 (0.49%) Oracle Service Bus
11 5 (0.49%) SAS
Applications
1 28 (2.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 22 (2.17%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.99%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (0.99%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.39%) Figma
6 3 (0.30%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.099%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.099%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.099%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.099%) InVision
8 1 (0.099%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.099%) Sketch
8 1 (0.099%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.099%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 12 (1.18%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.99%) Magento
3 7 (0.69%) Oracle ERP
4 5 (0.49%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 4 (0.39%) BASE24
5 4 (0.39%) Oracle Assets
5 4 (0.39%) Oracle Cash Management
5 4 (0.39%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.39%) Oracle Receivables
6 3 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.30%) SAP Hybris
6 3 (0.30%) SAP S/4HANA
6 3 (0.30%) Shopify
6 3 (0.30%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 2 (0.20%) Front Arena
7 2 (0.20%) Maximo
7 2 (0.20%) OpenText Process Suite
7 2 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.20%) Oracle Manufacturing
7 2 (0.20%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 154 (15.17%) Azure
2 122 (12.02%) AWS
3 33 (3.25%) GitHub
4 26 (2.56%) GCP
4 26 (2.56%) Power Platform
4 26 (2.56%) Serverless
5 20 (1.97%) SaaS
6 18 (1.77%) AWS Lambda
7 16 (1.58%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 15 (1.48%) Amazon S3
9 14 (1.38%) AWS CloudFormation
10 13 (1.28%) Office 365
10 13 (1.28%) PaaS
11 12 (1.18%) Logic Apps
11 12 (1.18%) Slack
12 11 (1.08%) BrowserStack
12 11 (1.08%) IaaS
13 10 (0.99%) Azure Data Factory
14 9 (0.89%) Dynamics 365
15 8 (0.79%) Amazon EMR
Communications & Networking
1 36 (3.55%) HTTP
2 24 (2.36%) DNS
3 20 (1.97%) TCP/IP
4 18 (1.77%) Firewall
5 15 (1.48%) Internet
5 15 (1.48%) WAN
6 11 (1.08%) SSL
7 9 (0.89%) LAN
8 8 (0.79%) Network Security
9 7 (0.69%) Ethernet
9 7 (0.69%) MPLS
9 7 (0.69%) VPN
10 5 (0.49%) DSL
10 5 (0.49%) DVB
10 5 (0.49%) Reverse Proxy
10 5 (0.49%) SNMP
10 5 (0.49%) SSH
10 5 (0.49%) VoIP
10 5 (0.49%) Wi-Fi
11 4 (0.39%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (6.50%) Data Warehouse
2 62 (6.11%) MySQL
3 58 (5.71%) Relational Database
4 51 (5.02%) SQL Server
5 47 (4.63%) Big Data
6 28 (2.76%) Data Lake
7 26 (2.56%) Power BI
8 18 (1.77%) NoSQL
8 18 (1.77%) PostgreSQL
9 17 (1.67%) MongoDB
10 16 (1.58%) Pentaho
11 15 (1.48%) RDBMS
12 14 (1.38%) Amazon Athena
12 14 (1.38%) Redis
13 13 (1.28%) Amazon Redshift
13 13 (1.28%) Apache Cassandra
13 13 (1.28%) Oracle Database
14 11 (1.08%) Oracle Reports
14 11 (1.08%) Tableau
15 10 (0.99%) BusinessObjects
Development Applications
1 146 (14.38%) Selenium
2 139 (13.69%) JIRA
3 111 (10.94%) Git (software)
4 110 (10.84%) Jenkins
5 88 (8.67%) Cucumber
6 59 (5.81%) JMeter
7 45 (4.43%) Maven
8 40 (3.94%) JUnit
9 36 (3.55%) SoapUI
9 36 (3.55%) WebDriver
10 32 (3.15%) GitLab
11 30 (2.96%) Postman
12 27 (2.66%) LoadRunner
13 24 (2.36%) Cypress.io
14 20 (1.97%) Jasmine
14 20 (1.97%) REST Assured
15 19 (1.87%) SonarQube
15 19 (1.87%) TeamCity
16 18 (1.77%) SpecFlow
17 17 (1.67%) Gradle
General
1 198 (19.51%) Finance
2 118 (11.63%) Public Sector
3 62 (6.11%) Banking
4 26 (2.56%) Telecoms
5 25 (2.46%) Marketing
6 22 (2.17%) Legal
7 21 (2.07%) Retail
8 19 (1.87%) Manufacturing
9 15 (1.48%) Investment Banking
9 15 (1.48%) Pharmaceutical
10 14 (1.38%) Front Office
11 12 (1.18%) Advertising
12 10 (0.99%) Financial Institution
13 8 (0.79%) Law
13 8 (0.79%) Retail Banking
14 6 (0.59%) Electronics
15 5 (0.49%) Billing
16 4 (0.39%) Games
16 4 (0.39%) Local Government
16 4 (0.39%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 210 (20.69%) Developer
2 122 (12.02%) Analyst
3 90 (8.87%) QA Engineer
4 84 (8.28%) Tester
5 54 (5.32%) QA Tester
6 53 (5.22%) Test Engineer
7 44 (4.33%) Architect
8 41 (4.04%) QA Automation Engineer
9 35 (3.45%) Business Analyst
10 34 (3.35%) DevOps Engineer
11 33 (3.25%) Consultant
11 33 (3.25%) Data Engineer
11 33 (3.25%) Test Analyst
12 31 (3.05%) QA Analyst
13 30 (2.96%) Automation Engineer
13 30 (2.96%) Test Manager
14 26 (2.56%) Azure Engineer
15 25 (2.46%) Automation Tester
15 25 (2.46%) AWS Engineer
15 25 (2.46%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 85 (8.37%) REST
2 78 (7.68%) HTML
3 77 (7.59%) .NET
4 64 (6.31%) CSS
5 56 (5.52%) Web Services
6 50 (4.93%) Spring
7 45 (4.43%) JSON
8 42 (4.14%) Node.js
8 42 (4.14%) XML
9 40 (3.94%) Gherkin
10 32 (3.15%) SOAP
10 32 (3.15%) Spring Boot
11 29 (2.86%) HTML5
12 28 (2.76%) RESTful
13 27 (2.66%) React
14 26 (2.56%) AngularJS
15 23 (2.27%) ASP.NET
16 21 (2.07%) Jest
17 18 (1.77%) Kafka
18 17 (1.67%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 96 (9.46%) Analytical Skills
2 63 (6.21%) User Experience
3 45 (4.43%) Mobile App
4 40 (3.94%) Greenfield Project
5 35 (3.45%) Management Information System
6 28 (2.76%) Self-Motivation
7 17 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
8 16 (1.58%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 16 (1.58%) Linux Command Line
9 12 (1.18%) Algorithms
9 12 (1.18%) Data Structures
10 11 (1.08%) Virtual Team
11 10 (0.99%) Data Centre
12 9 (0.89%) NHS
13 8 (0.79%) Embedded Systems
13 8 (0.79%) Equities
14 7 (0.69%) Video on Demand
15 6 (0.59%) FMCG
15 6 (0.59%) Video\Live Streaming
16 5 (0.49%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 100 (9.85%) Linux
2 66 (6.50%) Unix
2 66 (6.50%) Windows
3 33 (3.25%) Android
4 31 (3.05%) Apple iOS
5 14 (1.38%) Windows 10
6 9 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 8 (0.79%) AIX
8 6 (0.59%) Windows 7
9 5 (0.49%) Windows Mobile
9 5 (0.49%) Windows Server
10 4 (0.39%) SUSE
10 4 (0.39%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.39%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (0.39%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.30%) Solaris
12 2 (0.20%) CentOS
13 1 (0.099%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.099%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.099%) Windows Vista
Processes & Methodologies
1 427 (42.07%) Agile Software Development
2 308 (30.34%) Test Automation
3 187 (18.42%) DevOps
4 161 (15.86%) Scrum
5 118 (11.63%) Problem-Solving
6 113 (11.13%) BDD
7 104 (10.25%) Continuous Integration
8 102 (10.05%) TDD
9 87 (8.57%) Project Management
10 86 (8.47%) Performance Testing
10 86 (8.47%) SDLC
11 82 (8.08%) Migration
12 81 (7.98%) Microservices
13 77 (7.59%) Test Strategy
14 76 (7.49%) Regression Testing
15 73 (7.19%) User Acceptance Testing
16 68 (6.70%) Unit Testing
17 66 (6.50%) ETL
18 63 (6.21%) Test Scripting
19 62 (6.11%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 245 (24.14%) Java
2 175 (17.24%) SQL
3 135 (13.30%) JavaScript
3 135 (13.30%) Python
4 81 (7.98%) C#
5 45 (4.43%) C++
6 37 (3.65%) Java 8
7 36 (3.55%) C
8 35 (3.45%) Bash Shell
9 28 (2.76%) PowerShell
10 26 (2.56%) Perl
11 23 (2.27%) PHP
12 22 (2.17%) Shell Script
13 19 (1.87%) Ruby
13 19 (1.87%) Scala
14 18 (1.77%) PL/SQL
15 15 (1.48%) TypeScript
16 14 (1.38%) VBA
17 11 (1.08%) Java 9
18 10 (0.99%) ES6
Qualifications
1 147 (14.48%) Security Cleared
2 133 (13.10%) SC Cleared
3 63 (6.21%) Degree
4 40 (3.94%) ISTQB
5 33 (3.25%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 32 (3.15%) BPSS Clearance
7 31 (3.05%) ISEB
8 26 (2.56%) Computer Science Degree
9 14 (1.38%) Master's Degree
10 10 (0.99%) Cisco Certification
11 9 (0.89%) DV Cleared
12 7 (0.69%) BC Cleared
12 7 (0.69%) CCNA
12 7 (0.69%) CCNP
13 6 (0.59%) AWS Certification
13 6 (0.59%) CISSP
13 6 (0.59%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
14 5 (0.49%) DBS Check
15 4 (0.39%) EnCE
15 4 (0.39%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (2.27%) Data Quality
2 20 (1.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 19 (1.87%) NIST
4 18 (1.77%) PMO
5 15 (1.48%) SLA
6 11 (1.08%) GDPR
7 9 (0.89%) PCI DSS
8 6 (0.59%) Disclosure Scotland
9 5 (0.49%) ISO 9001
10 4 (0.39%) COBIT
10 4 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
10 4 (0.39%) ISO 13485
10 4 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 17025
10 4 (0.39%) WCAG
11 3 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 3 (0.30%) NIST 800
11 3 (0.30%) Section 508
12 2 (0.20%) MiFID
12 2 (0.20%) P3O
12 2 (0.20%) WAI
System Software
1 71 (7.00%) Docker
2 20 (1.97%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.59%) Hyper-V
3 6 (0.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.49%) HDFS
5 3 (0.30%) Apache Flume
5 3 (0.30%) Firmware
5 3 (0.30%) Microsoft App-V
5 3 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.30%) Xen
6 2 (0.20%) KVM
6 2 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
6 2 (0.20%) Varnish
6 2 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.20%) XenApp
7 1 (0.099%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.099%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.099%) vSphere
7 1 (0.099%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 42 (4.14%) Terraform
2 39 (3.84%) Kubernetes
3 37 (3.65%) Opscode Chef
4 23 (2.27%) HP ALM
5 22 (2.17%) Ansible
6 19 (1.87%) Puppet
7 12 (1.18%) HP Fortify
8 11 (1.08%) HP Quality Center
9 10 (0.99%) Nagios
9 10 (0.99%) SCCM
10 5 (0.49%) Kibana
11 4 (0.39%) EnCase
11 4 (0.39%) FTK
11 4 (0.39%) Grafana
11 4 (0.39%) Rundeck
11 4 (0.39%) ZABBIX
12 3 (0.30%) OpenView
12 3 (0.30%) SCOM
13 2 (0.20%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
13 2 (0.20%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 120 (11.82%) Oracle
2 103 (10.15%) Microsoft
3 33 (3.25%) HP
4 32 (3.15%) Splunk
5 25 (2.46%) Salesforce.com
6 21 (2.07%) SAP
7 20 (1.97%) Google
8 18 (1.77%) Cisco
9 14 (1.38%) Informatica
10 13 (1.28%) Micro Focus
11 12 (1.18%) Black Duck
11 12 (1.18%) Qualys
11 12 (1.18%) Sonatype
12 11 (1.08%) IBM
12 11 (1.08%) Red Hat
13 10 (0.99%) ArcSight
13 10 (0.99%) CA Agile Central
14 9 (0.89%) AppDynamics
14 9 (0.89%) VMware
15 8 (0.79%) Apple
529 QA job vacancies Nationwide