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

6 months to
25 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 59 65
Rank change year-on-year +3 +6 +7
Contract jobs citing QA 2,013 1,301 1,310
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.80% 3.98% 3.23%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.22% 23.65% 23.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,227 911 834
10th Percentile £313 £293 £306
25th Percentile £395 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £469 £499
Median % change year-on-year +1.28% -6.01% -3.48%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £581
90th Percentile £675 £663 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 170 36 88
10th Percentile £12.81 £12.52 £11.25
25th Percentile £16.60 £13.50 £12.24
Median hourly rate £32.40 £15.96 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +102.98% +6.54% -42.93%
75th Percentile £66.88 £47.63 £34.20
90th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £15.12 £14.49
% change year-on-year +108.07% +4.35% -34.14%

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 9,059 5,502 5,589
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.10% 16.82% 13.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,810 3,549 3,462
10th Percentile £338 £281 £288
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £501
Median % change year-on-year - -0.10% -4.67%
75th Percentile £600 £604 £623
90th Percentile £700 £715 £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 548 247 359
10th Percentile £13.99 £13.56 £11.07
25th Percentile £19.49 £17.48 £14.41
Median hourly rate £38.86 £27.64 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.59% +10.56% -34.21%
75th Percentile £70.00 £61.12 £54.18
90th Percentile £82.25 £84.15 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.86 £25.08 £25.00
% change year-on-year +54.98% +0.30% -28.57%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 +5 1,734 £488 +3.94% 796
UK excluding London +6 970 £450 - 589
London +3 826 £500 +1.01% 287
Work from Home +2 565 £475 +3.26% 302
North of England -11 240 £500 +8.70% 177
South East -3 225 £445 -1.11% 169
Midlands -2 190 £425 +3.66% 91
West Midlands +4 148 £425 -5.56% 66
South West +11 122 £491 +7.97% 57
North West -28 101 £496 +17.54% 99
East of England +8 97 £488 +1.83% 62
Yorkshire -20 89 £525 +3.96% 51
Scotland 0 85 £334 -25.72% 31
North East -12 50 £400 -12.09% 28
East Midlands -12 41 £420 +12.00% 25
Northern Ireland +6 18 £475 +46.15% 8
Wales -12 11 £438 -15.66% 9

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
1 113 (5.61%) Confluence
2 39 (1.94%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.89%) CMS
4 20 (0.99%) IIS
5 19 (0.94%) Apache Spark
6 13 (0.65%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 13 (0.65%) Apache
7 9 (0.45%) SAS
8 7 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
9 6 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.25%) Tuxedo
10 5 (0.25%) WordPress
11 4 (0.20%) Umbraco
12 3 (0.15%) Apache Solr
12 3 (0.15%) Moodle
12 3 (0.15%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.099%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
13 2 (0.099%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.099%) Tomcat
Applications
1 55 (2.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (1.24%) Microsoft Project
3 23 (1.14%) Microsoft Office
4 19 (0.94%) MS Visio
5 17 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 7 (0.35%) 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%) Navisworks
9 3 (0.15%) Photoshop
9 3 (0.15%) Revit
10 2 (0.099%) AutoCAD
10 2 (0.099%) EPLAN
11 1 (0.050%) Mingle
11 1 (0.050%) Notion
11 1 (0.050%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 32 (1.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.19%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.55%) Workday HCM
4 9 (0.45%) Shopify
5 7 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.30%) NEC Housing
6 6 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
7 5 (0.25%) Aladdin
7 5 (0.25%) Infor CloudSuite
8 4 (0.20%) Maximo
8 4 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.20%) Primavera
9 3 (0.15%) Actimize
9 3 (0.15%) Adobe Campaign
9 3 (0.15%) Oracle EBS R12
9 3 (0.15%) Remedy ITSM
9 3 (0.15%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.15%) SAP MM
10 2 (0.099%) SAP EWM
10 2 (0.099%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 428 (21.26%) Azure
2 345 (17.14%) AWS
3 181 (8.99%) GitHub
4 176 (8.74%) Azure DevOps
5 109 (5.41%) GitHub Actions
5 109 (5.41%) Power Platform
6 94 (4.67%) GCP
7 49 (2.43%) Serverless
8 43 (2.14%) SaaS
9 40 (1.99%) OpenShift
10 34 (1.69%) Dynamics 365
11 30 (1.49%) Snowflake
12 29 (1.44%) AWS Lambda
13 28 (1.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 26 (1.29%) Amazon S3
15 25 (1.24%) Azure Monitor
15 25 (1.24%) GitHub Copilot
15 25 (1.24%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 23 (1.14%) Microsoft 365
17 22 (1.09%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.09%) Firewall
2 19 (0.94%) Internet
2 19 (0.94%) Network Security
3 15 (0.75%) WAN
4 14 (0.70%) LAN
5 13 (0.65%) VPN
6 12 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (0.55%) Unified Communications
8 10 (0.50%) HTTP
8 10 (0.50%) SD-WAN
8 10 (0.50%) 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%) Broadband
12 5 (0.25%) DHCP
13 4 (0.20%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (5.61%) SQL Server
2 94 (4.67%) Power BI
3 77 (3.83%) Data Warehouse
4 67 (3.33%) PostgreSQL
5 65 (3.23%) Relational Database
6 40 (1.99%) MySQL
6 40 (1.99%) NoSQL
7 39 (1.94%) Metadata
8 38 (1.89%) Oracle Reports
9 37 (1.84%) Oracle Database
9 37 (1.84%) Tableau
10 35 (1.74%) MongoDB
11 30 (1.49%) Data Lake
12 23 (1.14%) Big Data
12 23 (1.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 20 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
14 16 (0.79%) BigQuery
14 16 (0.79%) DynamoDB
15 15 (0.75%) RDBMS
16 14 (0.70%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 291 (14.46%) JIRA
2 188 (9.34%) Git
3 147 (7.30%) Selenium
4 138 (6.86%) Jenkins
5 94 (4.67%) GitLab
6 81 (4.02%) Postman
7 66 (3.28%) Cucumber
7 66 (3.28%) Cypress.io
8 60 (2.98%) JUnit
9 53 (2.63%) Zephyr
10 47 (2.33%) REST Assured
10 47 (2.33%) SonarQube
11 37 (1.84%) JMeter
12 28 (1.39%) WebDriver
13 27 (1.34%) Gatling
14 26 (1.29%) Maven
15 23 (1.14%) Gradle
16 20 (0.99%) Appium
16 20 (0.99%) TestRail
17 19 (0.94%) TestNG
General
1 598 (29.71%) Social Skills
2 425 (21.11%) Finance
3 299 (14.85%) Analytical Skills
4 241 (11.97%) Public Sector
5 143 (7.10%) Banking
6 73 (3.63%) Retail
7 72 (3.58%) Manufacturing
8 56 (2.78%) Marketing
9 50 (2.48%) Organisational Skills
10 45 (2.24%) Aerospace
11 32 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 26 (1.29%) Influencing Skills
13 25 (1.24%) Documentation Skills
14 23 (1.14%) Legal
15 21 (1.04%) Pharmaceutical
15 21 (1.04%) Telecoms
16 19 (0.94%) Automotive
16 19 (0.94%) Military
17 18 (0.89%) Law
18 15 (0.75%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 264 (13.11%) Developer
2 254 (12.62%) Lead
3 245 (12.17%) Analyst
4 235 (11.67%) Senior
5 194 (9.64%) QA Engineer
6 115 (5.71%) Business Analyst
7 104 (5.17%) Tester
8 91 (4.52%) Test Manager
9 90 (4.47%) Quality Engineer
10 74 (3.68%) Test Engineer
11 73 (3.63%) Java Developer
12 66 (3.28%) Test Leader
13 63 (3.13%) Architect
14 61 (3.03%) Data Engineer
15 54 (2.68%) Senior Analyst
16 53 (2.63%) Test Analyst
17 52 (2.58%) Consultant
18 50 (2.48%) QA Leader
19 49 (2.43%) Data Analyst
19 49 (2.43%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 153 (7.60%) REST
2 112 (5.56%) Playwright
3 110 (5.46%) RESTful
4 108 (5.37%) .NET
5 96 (4.77%) Spring
6 93 (4.62%) Spring Boot
7 75 (3.73%) React
8 68 (3.38%) AngularJS
8 68 (3.38%) HTML
9 64 (3.18%) CSS
10 57 (2.83%) Kafka
10 57 (2.83%) Node.js
11 49 (2.43%) .NET Framework
12 46 (2.29%) Middleware
13 41 (2.04%) JSON
13 41 (2.04%) SOAP
14 34 (1.69%) Quarkus
15 30 (1.49%) XML
16 27 (1.34%) Gherkin
17 24 (1.19%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 184 (9.14%) Product Ownership
2 100 (4.97%) Cloud Native
3 61 (3.03%) Onboarding
4 56 (2.78%) Legacy Systems
5 50 (2.48%) Distributed Systems
6 48 (2.38%) Data Protection Act
6 48 (2.38%) Management Information System
7 42 (2.09%) Mobile App
8 39 (1.94%) Enterprise Software
9 36 (1.79%) Data Structures
10 32 (1.59%) AI Agents
11 31 (1.54%) Data Centre
12 22 (1.09%) NHS
13 21 (1.04%) Virtual Team
14 16 (0.79%) Analytical Mindset
14 16 (0.79%) Self-Motivation
15 15 (0.75%) Life Science
16 14 (0.70%) Replication
17 13 (0.65%) CMDB
17 13 (0.65%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 87 (4.32%) Windows
2 57 (2.83%) Linux
3 36 (1.79%) Apple iOS
4 34 (1.69%) Android
5 30 (1.49%) Windows Server
6 22 (1.09%) Unix
7 6 (0.30%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.099%) Oracle Linux
9 2 (0.099%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.050%) Debian
10 1 (0.050%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.050%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.050%) VMS
10 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 776 (38.55%) Agile
2 542 (26.92%) Test Automation
3 500 (24.84%) DevOps
4 494 (24.54%) CI/CD
5 365 (18.13%) Continuous Improvement
6 358 (17.78%) Stakeholder Management
7 345 (17.14%) Validation
8 339 (16.84%) Problem-Solving
9 283 (14.06%) Scrum
10 282 (14.01%) Test Strategy
11 277 (13.76%) User Acceptance Testing
12 260 (12.92%) AI
13 258 (12.82%) Migration
14 186 (9.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 175 (8.69%) Decision-Making
16 167 (8.30%) SDLC
16 167 (8.30%) Software Engineering
17 166 (8.25%) Microservices
18 163 (8.10%) End-to-End Testing
19 161 (8.00%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 390 (19.37%) SQL
2 256 (12.72%) Python
3 255 (12.67%) Java
4 145 (7.20%) JavaScript
5 124 (6.16%) C#
6 82 (4.07%) TypeScript
7 40 (1.99%) T-SQL
8 38 (1.89%) PL/SQL
8 38 (1.89%) PowerShell
9 35 (1.74%) Bash
9 35 (1.74%) Kotlin
10 18 (0.89%) Swift
10 18 (0.89%) VB
11 17 (0.84%) C
11 17 (0.84%) C++
11 17 (0.84%) Scala
12 16 (0.79%) Bicep
12 16 (0.79%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 14 (0.70%) Apex Code
13 14 (0.70%) VBA
Qualifications
1 440 (21.86%) Security Cleared
2 337 (16.74%) SC Cleared
3 129 (6.41%) Degree
4 72 (3.58%) BPSS Clearance
5 69 (3.43%) ISTQB
6 54 (2.68%) DV Cleared
7 35 (1.74%) Computer Science Degree
8 26 (1.29%) PMP
9 25 (1.24%) PMI Certification
10 15 (0.75%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.70%) AWS Certification
11 14 (0.70%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (0.55%) Cisco Certification
12 11 (0.55%) Master's Degree
13 10 (0.50%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 8 (0.40%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 7 (0.35%) CCNP
15 7 (0.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 5 (0.25%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
16 5 (0.25%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 148 (7.35%) Data Quality
2 101 (5.02%) Accessibility
3 35 (1.74%) GDPR
4 31 (1.54%) PMO
5 26 (1.29%) WCAG
6 21 (1.04%) GRC
7 16 (0.79%) GxP
8 13 (0.65%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 11 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
9 11 (0.55%) NIST
9 11 (0.55%) SLA
10 10 (0.50%) IFRS
11 8 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
11 8 (0.40%) IFRS 17
11 8 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 8 (0.40%) PCI DSS
12 7 (0.35%) NCSC
12 7 (0.35%) Software Quality Assurance
13 6 (0.30%) GMP
14 5 (0.25%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 136 (6.76%) Docker
2 20 (0.99%) Active Directory
3 12 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
4 9 (0.45%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.30%) Firmware
5 6 (0.30%) IAG
5 6 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.099%) ACF2
6 2 (0.099%) GridGain
6 2 (0.099%) Oracle RAC
6 2 (0.099%) RACF
6 2 (0.099%) VirtualBox
7 1 (0.050%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.050%) KVM
7 1 (0.050%) QEMU
7 1 (0.050%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
7 1 (0.050%) Varnish
7 1 (0.050%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.050%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 190 (9.44%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.97%) Terraform
3 42 (2.09%) Grafana
4 38 (1.89%) Ansible
5 34 (1.69%) Argo
6 30 (1.49%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.89%) HP ALM
8 12 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.40%) HP Quality Center
9 8 (0.40%) SCCM
10 7 (0.35%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.35%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 6 (0.30%) Puppet
12 5 (0.25%) Kibana
12 5 (0.25%) Progress Chef
13 3 (0.15%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.15%) Nmap
14 2 (0.099%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.099%) Microsoft Intune
14 2 (0.099%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 218 (10.83%) Microsoft
2 174 (8.64%) Oracle
3 101 (5.02%) Salesforce
4 95 (4.72%) SAP
5 50 (2.48%) ServiceNow
6 47 (2.33%) Google
7 44 (2.19%) Databricks
8 38 (1.89%) Red Hat
9 36 (1.79%) Citrix
10 28 (1.39%) Adobe
10 28 (1.39%) Informatica
11 21 (1.04%) HP
12 20 (0.99%) Cisco
12 20 (0.99%) MuleSoft
13 16 (0.79%) IBM
13 16 (0.79%) Workday
14 15 (0.75%) Talend
15 14 (0.70%) Dynatrace
15 14 (0.70%) Splunk
16 13 (0.65%) VMware