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

6 months to
10 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 57 61 62
Rank change year-on-year +4 +1 +10
Contract jobs citing QA 1,970 1,242 1,394
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.74% 3.84% 3.23%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.04% 23.37% 23.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,224 865 897
10th Percentile £317 £285 £300
25th Percentile £395 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -2.91%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £675 £663 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £450 £480
% change year-on-year +0.67% -6.25% -1.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 152 36 100
10th Percentile £12.85 £12.52 £11.64
25th Percentile £16.37 £13.50 £12.25
Median hourly rate £31.46 £15.96 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +97.12% +6.54% -33.42%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.63 £30.05
90th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.58 £15.12 £14.00
% change year-on-year +102.25% +8.00% -36.36%

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 8,938 5,315 5,938
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.98% 16.42% 13.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,729 3,412 3,666
10th Percentile £338 £280 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £610 £622
90th Percentile £700 £719 £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 551 230 430
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.52 £11.07
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.15 £13.52
Median hourly rate £36.07 £30.00 £24.09
Median % change year-on-year +20.23% +24.53% -38.89%
75th Percentile £68.32 £62.24 £50.00
90th Percentile £81.90 £83.01 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £27.35 £24.00
% change year-on-year +41.57% +13.96% -36.00%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 +1 1,690 £488 +2.63% 896
UK excluding London +8 941 £453 +0.67% 710
London +1 814 £500 +1.01% 340
Work from Home +6 572 £480 +1.05% 377
South East +9 215 £445 -3.78% 184
North of England -16 215 £489 +4.16% 198
Midlands -10 183 £425 +13.33% 98
West Midlands -9 138 £442 +3.88% 58
South West +18 131 £495 -1.00% 122
North West -16 98 £463 +9.60% 109
East of England +2 95 £476 -0.68% 56
Scotland +7 87 £345 -23.33% 28
Yorkshire -22 77 £545 +5.59% 52
East Midlands -10 45 £415 +13.08% 40
North East -14 40 £390 -15.22% 40
Northern Ireland +7 19 £475 +46.15% 29
Wales -8 11 £438 +2.94% 13

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
1 118 (5.99%) Confluence
2 36 (1.83%) CMS
2 36 (1.83%) SharePoint
3 20 (1.02%) IIS
4 19 (0.96%) Apache Spark
5 11 (0.56%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 9 (0.46%) Apache
6 9 (0.46%) SAS
7 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
7 5 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
7 5 (0.25%) Tuxedo
7 5 (0.25%) Umbraco
7 5 (0.25%) WordPress
8 4 (0.20%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (0.20%) nginx
9 3 (0.15%) Moodle
9 3 (0.15%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
9 3 (0.15%) Tomcat
9 3 (0.15%) WebLogic
10 2 (0.10%) Apache Solr
Applications
1 59 (2.99%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (1.32%) Microsoft Project
3 22 (1.12%) MS Visio
4 19 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.25%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.20%) Photoshop
6 4 (0.20%) Simulink
7 3 (0.15%) CATIA
7 3 (0.15%) CPLEX
8 2 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.10%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.10%) EPLAN
8 2 (0.10%) Navisworks
8 2 (0.10%) Revit
9 1 (0.051%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.051%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.051%) Mingle
9 1 (0.051%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 32 (1.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.96%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.41%) Shopify
3 8 (0.41%) Workday HCM
4 7 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
5 6 (0.30%) Maximo
5 6 (0.30%) NEC Housing
5 6 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
6 5 (0.25%) Infor CloudSuite
7 4 (0.20%) Adobe Campaign
7 4 (0.20%) Aladdin
7 4 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
7 4 (0.20%) Primavera
8 3 (0.15%) Actimize
8 3 (0.15%) Oracle EBS R12
8 3 (0.15%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.15%) SAP MM
9 2 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.10%) Summit
9 2 (0.10%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 426 (21.62%) Azure
2 327 (16.60%) AWS
3 180 (9.14%) Azure DevOps
4 163 (8.27%) GitHub
5 104 (5.28%) Power Platform
6 97 (4.92%) GitHub Actions
7 81 (4.11%) GCP
8 45 (2.28%) Serverless
9 41 (2.08%) SaaS
10 37 (1.88%) OpenShift
11 33 (1.68%) Dynamics 365
12 27 (1.37%) AWS Lambda
12 27 (1.37%) Snowflake
13 26 (1.32%) Amazon S3
14 24 (1.22%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 24 (1.22%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 22 (1.12%) Azure Data Factory
15 22 (1.12%) Azure Monitor
15 22 (1.12%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 21 (1.07%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.12%) Firewall
2 19 (0.96%) Internet
2 19 (0.96%) Network Security
3 17 (0.86%) WAN
4 15 (0.76%) LAN
5 13 (0.66%) VPN
5 13 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
6 11 (0.56%) SD-WAN
6 11 (0.56%) Unified Communications
6 11 (0.56%) VLAN
7 10 (0.51%) HTTP
8 8 (0.41%) DNS
8 8 (0.41%) IPsec
9 7 (0.36%) SMS
9 7 (0.36%) TCP/IP
9 7 (0.36%) Wireless
10 6 (0.30%) Cisco Nexus
11 5 (0.25%) DHCP
12 4 (0.20%) Broadband
12 4 (0.20%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 116 (5.89%) SQL Server
2 89 (4.52%) Power BI
3 75 (3.81%) Data Warehouse
4 65 (3.30%) PostgreSQL
4 65 (3.30%) Relational Database
5 40 (2.03%) MySQL
6 39 (1.98%) Metadata
7 37 (1.88%) NoSQL
7 37 (1.88%) Oracle Database
7 37 (1.88%) Tableau
8 34 (1.73%) Oracle Reports
9 32 (1.62%) MongoDB
10 29 (1.47%) Data Lake
11 25 (1.27%) Big Data
12 21 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 20 (1.02%) Azure SQL Database
14 16 (0.81%) Amazon Redshift
14 16 (0.81%) RDBMS
15 15 (0.76%) BigQuery
15 15 (0.76%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 312 (15.84%) JIRA
2 188 (9.54%) Git
3 148 (7.51%) Selenium
4 137 (6.95%) Jenkins
5 95 (4.82%) GitLab
6 88 (4.47%) Postman
7 67 (3.40%) Cypress.io
8 65 (3.30%) Cucumber
9 60 (3.05%) JUnit
10 54 (2.74%) REST Assured
11 47 (2.39%) Zephyr
12 44 (2.23%) SonarQube
13 38 (1.93%) JMeter
14 31 (1.57%) WebDriver
15 27 (1.37%) Gatling
16 24 (1.22%) Maven
17 20 (1.02%) Gradle
17 20 (1.02%) TestNG
18 19 (0.96%) TestRail
19 18 (0.91%) Appium
General
1 595 (30.20%) Social Skills
2 424 (21.52%) Finance
3 302 (15.33%) Analytical Skills
4 226 (11.47%) Public Sector
5 143 (7.26%) Banking
6 67 (3.40%) Retail
7 66 (3.35%) Manufacturing
8 56 (2.84%) Marketing
9 47 (2.39%) Organisational Skills
10 41 (2.08%) Aerospace
11 29 (1.47%) Documentation Skills
12 28 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 25 (1.27%) Legal
14 23 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
15 21 (1.07%) Pharmaceutical
16 20 (1.02%) Automotive
16 20 (1.02%) Investment Banking
17 19 (0.96%) Military
18 18 (0.91%) Presentation Skills
19 17 (0.86%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 260 (13.20%) Developer
2 236 (11.98%) Lead
3 232 (11.78%) Analyst
4 230 (11.68%) Senior
5 187 (9.49%) QA Engineer
6 107 (5.43%) Business Analyst
7 106 (5.38%) Tester
8 90 (4.57%) Test Manager
9 76 (3.86%) Quality Engineer
10 74 (3.76%) Java Developer
11 73 (3.71%) Test Engineer
12 64 (3.25%) Architect
12 64 (3.25%) Test Leader
13 62 (3.15%) Data Engineer
14 54 (2.74%) Consultant
15 52 (2.64%) Senior Analyst
16 51 (2.59%) Project Manager
17 50 (2.54%) Data Analyst
18 49 (2.49%) Test Analyst
19 45 (2.28%) QA Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 142 (7.21%) REST
2 115 (5.84%) .NET
2 115 (5.84%) Playwright
3 108 (5.48%) RESTful
4 92 (4.67%) Spring
5 89 (4.52%) Spring Boot
6 78 (3.96%) React
7 68 (3.45%) HTML
8 65 (3.30%) AngularJS
9 63 (3.20%) CSS
10 53 (2.69%) .NET Framework
10 53 (2.69%) Node.js
11 52 (2.64%) Kafka
12 40 (2.03%) JSON
13 39 (1.98%) Middleware
14 32 (1.62%) Quarkus
14 32 (1.62%) SOAP
15 27 (1.37%) XML
16 25 (1.27%) ASP.NET
16 25 (1.27%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 174 (8.83%) Product Ownership
2 96 (4.87%) Cloud Native
3 62 (3.15%) Onboarding
4 56 (2.84%) Legacy Systems
5 46 (2.34%) Mobile App
6 45 (2.28%) Management Information System
7 43 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
8 42 (2.13%) Distributed Systems
9 35 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
10 34 (1.73%) Data Structures
11 26 (1.32%) Data Centre
12 25 (1.27%) AI Agents
13 23 (1.17%) Virtual Team
14 20 (1.02%) Analytical Mindset
15 18 (0.91%) NHS
15 18 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
16 15 (0.76%) Life Science
17 13 (0.66%) Distributed Architecture
17 13 (0.66%) Low-Code
18 12 (0.61%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 89 (4.52%) Windows
2 58 (2.94%) Linux
3 31 (1.57%) Apple iOS
3 31 (1.57%) Windows Server
4 30 (1.52%) Android
5 23 (1.17%) Unix
6 6 (0.30%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.10%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
8 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.051%) Debian
9 1 (0.051%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.051%) Solaris
9 1 (0.051%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.051%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.051%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 749 (38.02%) Agile
2 522 (26.50%) Test Automation
3 489 (24.82%) DevOps
4 474 (24.06%) CI/CD
5 338 (17.16%) Validation
6 337 (17.11%) Continuous Improvement
7 331 (16.80%) Problem-Solving
8 324 (16.45%) Stakeholder Management
9 278 (14.11%) User Acceptance Testing
10 275 (13.96%) Test Strategy
11 269 (13.65%) Scrum
12 246 (12.49%) Migration
13 224 (11.37%) AI
14 177 (8.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 173 (8.78%) Decision-Making
16 163 (8.27%) SDLC
17 155 (7.87%) End-to-End Testing
17 155 (7.87%) ETL
18 154 (7.82%) Analytics
19 152 (7.72%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 394 (20.00%) SQL
2 255 (12.94%) Java
3 253 (12.84%) Python
4 141 (7.16%) JavaScript
5 138 (7.01%) C#
6 88 (4.47%) TypeScript
7 42 (2.13%) T-SQL
8 40 (2.03%) PL/SQL
9 33 (1.68%) Kotlin
10 31 (1.57%) PowerShell
11 30 (1.52%) Bash
12 20 (1.02%) Scala
13 19 (0.96%) VB
14 17 (0.86%) C
14 17 (0.86%) C++
14 17 (0.86%) Swift
15 16 (0.81%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 15 (0.76%) Bicep
16 15 (0.76%) VBA
17 13 (0.66%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 445 (22.59%) Security Cleared
2 330 (16.75%) SC Cleared
3 128 (6.50%) Degree
4 75 (3.81%) BPSS Clearance
5 74 (3.76%) ISTQB
6 63 (3.20%) DV Cleared
7 33 (1.68%) Computer Science Degree
8 27 (1.37%) PMP
9 25 (1.27%) PMI Certification
10 14 (0.71%) Master's Degree
11 11 (0.56%) Azure Certification
11 11 (0.56%) Cisco Certification
11 11 (0.56%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 11 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
12 10 (0.51%) AWS Certification
13 7 (0.36%) CCNP
14 6 (0.30%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 6 (0.30%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 5 (0.25%) CBAP
15 5 (0.25%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (7.36%) Data Quality
2 95 (4.82%) Accessibility
3 34 (1.73%) GDPR
4 32 (1.62%) PMO
5 25 (1.27%) WCAG
6 19 (0.96%) GRC
7 16 (0.81%) GxP
8 14 (0.71%) IFRS
8 14 (0.71%) SLA
9 12 (0.61%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 12 (0.61%) IFRS 17
9 12 (0.61%) NIST
10 11 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
11 10 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 8 (0.41%) PCI DSS
13 7 (0.36%) ISO 20022
13 7 (0.36%) NCSC
14 6 (0.30%) GMP
14 6 (0.30%) SEPA
14 6 (0.30%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 123 (6.24%) Docker
2 21 (1.07%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.36%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.30%) Firmware
5 6 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.25%) IAG
7 3 (0.15%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 2 (0.10%) GridGain
8 2 (0.10%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.10%) VirtualBox
8 2 (0.10%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.051%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.051%) KVM
9 1 (0.051%) QEMU
9 1 (0.051%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
9 1 (0.051%) Varnish
9 1 (0.051%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 178 (9.04%) Kubernetes
2 72 (3.65%) Terraform
3 36 (1.83%) Grafana
4 35 (1.78%) Ansible
5 32 (1.62%) Argo
6 25 (1.27%) Prometheus
7 21 (1.07%) HP ALM
8 12 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (0.56%) HP Quality Center
10 7 (0.36%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.36%) SCCM
10 7 (0.36%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 6 (0.30%) Kibana
12 4 (0.20%) Puppet
13 3 (0.15%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.15%) Nmap
13 3 (0.15%) Progress Chef
14 2 (0.10%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.10%) Microsoft Intune
14 2 (0.10%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 207 (10.51%) Microsoft
2 174 (8.83%) Oracle
3 103 (5.23%) Salesforce
4 94 (4.77%) SAP
5 51 (2.59%) ServiceNow
6 44 (2.23%) Databricks
7 37 (1.88%) Citrix
7 37 (1.88%) Google
8 36 (1.83%) Red Hat
9 29 (1.47%) Adobe
10 27 (1.37%) Informatica
11 24 (1.22%) HP
12 21 (1.07%) Cisco
13 18 (0.91%) MuleSoft
14 15 (0.76%) Workday
15 14 (0.71%) Talend
16 13 (0.66%) Splunk
17 12 (0.61%) Atlassian
17 12 (0.61%) VMware
18 11 (0.56%) Infor