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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 59 66
Rank change year-on-year +5 +7 +7
Contract jobs citing QA 2,007 1,317 1,271
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.82% 4.01% 3.19%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.35% 23.72% 23.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,216 923 809
10th Percentile £313 £282 £307
25th Percentile £393 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £465 £498
Median % change year-on-year +2.15% -6.63% -4.23%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £580
90th Percentile £675 £663 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -1.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 175 36 84
10th Percentile £12.81 £12.52 £11.01
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% -60.34%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.63 £36.25
90th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £73.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.40 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +114.25% +0.93% -49.65%

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 8,980 5,553 5,469
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.09% 16.92% 13.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,740 3,586 3,387
10th Percentile £338 £281 £300
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £506
Median % change year-on-year - -1.19% -3.62%
75th Percentile £600 £603 £623
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £471 £475
% change year-on-year +6.27% -0.94% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 550 249 343
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.58 £11.15
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.45 £14.49
Median hourly rate £40.00 £27.35 £25.60
Median % change year-on-year +46.25% +6.84% -32.63%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £54.68
90th Percentile £82.25 £83.78 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £24.66 £25.00
% change year-on-year +62.21% -1.36% -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 29 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 29 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 29 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 +4 1,738 £488 +5.12% 831
UK excluding London +4 967 £450 - 627
London +4 828 £500 +1.01% 298
Work from Home -1 558 £475 - 311
North of England -7 242 £500 +11.11% 191
South East -1 226 £440 -4.86% 173
Midlands 0 192 £425 +3.91% 86
West Midlands -1 150 £425 -3.41% 61
South West +6 120 £486 +8.06% 67
East of England +11 99 £475 -0.78% 79
North West -22 99 £492 +16.59% 104
Yorkshire -17 91 £525 +5.00% 55
Scotland -3 82 £334 -25.72% 33
North East -11 52 £400 -12.09% 33
East Midlands -11 41 £420 +13.21% 25
Northern Ireland 0 15 £450 +38.46% 6
Wales -10 11 £438 -15.46% 11

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 (5.63%) Confluence
2 39 (1.94%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.89%) CMS
4 20 (1.00%) IIS
5 17 (0.85%) Apache Spark
6 14 (0.70%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 12 (0.60%) Apache
8 9 (0.45%) SAS
9 8 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
10 6 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
11 5 (0.25%) Tuxedo
11 5 (0.25%) WordPress
12 4 (0.20%) Umbraco
13 3 (0.15%) Apache Solr
13 3 (0.15%) Moodle
13 3 (0.15%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.15%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.100%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
14 2 (0.100%) Tomcat
Applications
1 54 (2.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (1.25%) Microsoft Project
3 22 (1.10%) Microsoft Office
4 19 (0.95%) MS Visio
5 17 (0.85%) 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 (0.100%) AutoCAD
10 2 (0.100%) 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 23 (1.15%) Dynamics CRM
3 12 (0.60%) Workday HCM
4 10 (0.50%) 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
7 5 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
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%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.15%) SAP MM
10 2 (0.100%) SAP Payroll
10 2 (0.100%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 429 (21.38%) Azure
2 349 (17.39%) AWS
3 178 (8.87%) GitHub
4 176 (8.77%) Azure DevOps
5 109 (5.43%) Power Platform
6 104 (5.18%) GitHub Actions
7 97 (4.83%) GCP
8 50 (2.49%) Serverless
9 43 (2.14%) SaaS
10 42 (2.09%) OpenShift
11 34 (1.69%) Dynamics 365
12 32 (1.59%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 31 (1.54%) Snowflake
14 29 (1.44%) AWS Lambda
15 26 (1.30%) Microsoft 365
16 25 (1.25%) Azure Monitor
16 25 (1.25%) GitHub Copilot
16 25 (1.25%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 24 (1.20%) Amazon S3
18 21 (1.05%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.05%) Firewall
2 19 (0.95%) Internet
2 19 (0.95%) Network Security
3 15 (0.75%) WAN
4 14 (0.70%) LAN
5 12 (0.60%) VPN
5 12 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
6 11 (0.55%) Unified Communications
7 10 (0.50%) SD-WAN
7 10 (0.50%) VLAN
8 9 (0.45%) HTTP
9 8 (0.40%) DNS
9 8 (0.40%) IPsec
10 7 (0.35%) SMS
10 7 (0.35%) Wireless
11 6 (0.30%) Broadband
11 6 (0.30%) Cisco Nexus
11 6 (0.30%) TCP/IP
12 5 (0.25%) DHCP
13 3 (0.15%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (5.58%) SQL Server
2 94 (4.68%) Power BI
3 77 (3.84%) Data Warehouse
4 67 (3.34%) PostgreSQL
5 61 (3.04%) Relational Database
6 38 (1.89%) Metadata
6 38 (1.89%) Oracle Reports
7 37 (1.84%) MySQL
7 37 (1.84%) NoSQL
7 37 (1.84%) Oracle Database
8 36 (1.79%) Tableau
9 35 (1.74%) MongoDB
10 29 (1.44%) Data Lake
11 25 (1.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 22 (1.10%) Big Data
13 19 (0.95%) Azure SQL Database
14 16 (0.80%) DynamoDB
15 15 (0.75%) BigQuery
15 15 (0.75%) RDBMS
16 14 (0.70%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 289 (14.40%) JIRA
2 187 (9.32%) Git
3 146 (7.27%) Selenium
4 140 (6.98%) Jenkins
5 98 (4.88%) GitLab
6 80 (3.99%) Postman
7 63 (3.14%) Cypress.io
8 62 (3.09%) Cucumber
9 59 (2.94%) JUnit
10 54 (2.69%) Zephyr
11 49 (2.44%) SonarQube
12 46 (2.29%) REST Assured
13 37 (1.84%) JMeter
14 27 (1.35%) Gatling
14 27 (1.35%) WebDriver
15 26 (1.30%) Maven
16 23 (1.15%) Gradle
17 20 (1.00%) Appium
17 20 (1.00%) TestRail
18 19 (0.95%) TestNG
General
1 593 (29.55%) Social Skills
2 423 (21.08%) Finance
3 301 (15.00%) Analytical Skills
4 238 (11.86%) Public Sector
5 143 (7.13%) Banking
6 73 (3.64%) Retail
7 70 (3.49%) Manufacturing
8 57 (2.84%) Marketing
9 51 (2.54%) Organisational Skills
10 44 (2.19%) Aerospace
11 32 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 26 (1.30%) Documentation Skills
12 26 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
13 25 (1.25%) Legal
14 21 (1.05%) Pharmaceutical
15 20 (1.00%) Law
16 19 (0.95%) Automotive
16 19 (0.95%) Military
16 19 (0.95%) Telecoms
17 15 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 263 (13.10%) Developer
2 259 (12.90%) Lead
3 245 (12.21%) Analyst
4 237 (11.81%) Senior
5 195 (9.72%) QA Engineer
6 117 (5.83%) Business Analyst
7 103 (5.13%) Tester
8 92 (4.58%) Quality Engineer
9 90 (4.48%) Test Manager
10 74 (3.69%) Test Engineer
11 73 (3.64%) Java Developer
12 67 (3.34%) Test Leader
13 63 (3.14%) Data Engineer
14 61 (3.04%) Architect
15 55 (2.74%) Senior Analyst
16 52 (2.59%) Consultant
17 51 (2.54%) QA Leader
17 51 (2.54%) Test Analyst
18 49 (2.44%) Data Analyst
18 49 (2.44%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (7.47%) REST
2 108 (5.38%) Playwright
2 108 (5.38%) RESTful
3 102 (5.08%) .NET
4 93 (4.63%) Spring
5 91 (4.53%) Spring Boot
6 73 (3.64%) React
7 71 (3.54%) AngularJS
8 70 (3.49%) HTML
9 65 (3.24%) CSS
10 60 (2.99%) Node.js
11 56 (2.79%) Kafka
12 46 (2.29%) .NET Framework
13 45 (2.24%) Middleware
14 41 (2.04%) JSON
14 41 (2.04%) SOAP
15 36 (1.79%) Quarkus
16 31 (1.54%) XML
17 27 (1.35%) Gherkin
17 27 (1.35%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 177 (8.82%) Product Ownership
2 99 (4.93%) Cloud Native
3 62 (3.09%) Onboarding
4 57 (2.84%) Legacy Systems
5 49 (2.44%) Distributed Systems
6 48 (2.39%) Data Protection Act
7 47 (2.34%) Management Information System
8 42 (2.09%) Mobile App
9 39 (1.94%) Enterprise Software
10 36 (1.79%) Data Structures
11 33 (1.64%) Data Centre
12 32 (1.59%) AI Agents
13 22 (1.10%) NHS
14 20 (1.00%) Virtual Team
15 16 (0.80%) Analytical Mindset
16 15 (0.75%) Life Science
16 15 (0.75%) Low-Code
16 15 (0.75%) Self-Motivation
17 14 (0.70%) CMDB
17 14 (0.70%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 90 (4.48%) Windows
2 58 (2.89%) Linux
3 36 (1.79%) Apple iOS
4 35 (1.74%) Android
5 29 (1.44%) Windows Server
6 22 (1.10%) Unix
7 6 (0.30%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.100%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.100%) Windows 10
8 2 (0.100%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.050%) Debian
9 1 (0.050%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.050%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.050%) VMS
9 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 774 (38.57%) Agile
2 540 (26.91%) Test Automation
3 500 (24.91%) DevOps
4 490 (24.41%) CI/CD
5 370 (18.44%) Continuous Improvement
6 355 (17.69%) Stakeholder Management
7 346 (17.24%) Validation
8 331 (16.49%) Problem-Solving
9 279 (13.90%) Test Strategy
10 278 (13.85%) Scrum
11 275 (13.70%) User Acceptance Testing
12 260 (12.95%) AI
13 257 (12.81%) Migration
14 180 (8.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 173 (8.62%) Decision-Making
16 169 (8.42%) Software Engineering
17 168 (8.37%) SDLC
18 163 (8.12%) Analytics
19 162 (8.07%) Microservices
20 159 (7.92%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 381 (18.98%) SQL
2 263 (13.10%) Python
3 254 (12.66%) Java
4 141 (7.03%) JavaScript
5 116 (5.78%) C#
6 74 (3.69%) TypeScript
7 41 (2.04%) PowerShell
8 39 (1.94%) T-SQL
9 37 (1.84%) PL/SQL
10 35 (1.74%) Bash
10 35 (1.74%) Kotlin
11 18 (0.90%) VB
12 17 (0.85%) C
12 17 (0.85%) Swift
13 16 (0.80%) C++
13 16 (0.80%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 16 (0.80%) Scala
14 15 (0.75%) Bicep
15 14 (0.70%) Apex Code
15 14 (0.70%) VBA
Qualifications
1 439 (21.87%) Security Cleared
2 337 (16.79%) SC Cleared
3 125 (6.23%) Degree
4 67 (3.34%) BPSS Clearance
4 67 (3.34%) ISTQB
5 52 (2.59%) DV Cleared
6 35 (1.74%) Computer Science Degree
7 25 (1.25%) PMP
8 24 (1.20%) PMI Certification
9 17 (0.85%) AWS Certification
10 14 (0.70%) Azure Certification
11 13 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
12 10 (0.50%) Cisco Certification
12 10 (0.50%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 9 (0.45%) Master's Degree
14 8 (0.40%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 8 (0.40%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 7 (0.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 6 (0.30%) CCNP
17 5 (0.25%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 151 (7.52%) Data Quality
2 99 (4.93%) Accessibility
3 33 (1.64%) GDPR
4 30 (1.49%) PMO
5 26 (1.30%) WCAG
6 19 (0.95%) GRC
7 16 (0.80%) 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 9 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
10 9 (0.45%) IFRS
11 8 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 8 (0.40%) PCI DSS
11 8 (0.40%) Software Quality Assurance
12 7 (0.35%) IFRS 17
13 6 (0.30%) GMP
13 6 (0.30%) NCSC
14 4 (0.20%) Solvency II
System Software
1 136 (6.78%) Docker
2 24 (1.20%) Active Directory
3 12 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
4 11 (0.55%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.30%) Firmware
5 6 (0.30%) IAG
5 6 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.100%) ACF2
6 2 (0.100%) GridGain
6 2 (0.100%) KVM
6 2 (0.100%) Oracle RAC
6 2 (0.100%) RACF
6 2 (0.100%) VirtualBox
7 1 (0.050%) BitLocker
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
1 191 (9.52%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.99%) Terraform
3 47 (2.34%) Grafana
4 41 (2.04%) Ansible
5 36 (1.79%) Argo
6 31 (1.54%) Prometheus
7 16 (0.80%) HP ALM
8 12 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.40%) SCCM
10 7 (0.35%) HP Quality Center
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 4 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
14 3 (0.15%) FortiGate
14 3 (0.15%) Microsoft Intune
14 3 (0.15%) SCOM
15 2 (0.100%) ITRS Geneos
Vendors
1 219 (10.91%) Microsoft
2 172 (8.57%) Oracle
3 105 (5.23%) Salesforce
4 95 (4.73%) SAP
5 52 (2.59%) ServiceNow
6 50 (2.49%) Google
7 41 (2.04%) Databricks
8 40 (1.99%) Red Hat
9 34 (1.69%) Citrix
10 29 (1.44%) Adobe
11 28 (1.40%) Informatica
12 20 (1.00%) MuleSoft
13 19 (0.95%) Cisco
13 19 (0.95%) Dynatrace
13 19 (0.95%) HP
13 19 (0.95%) Splunk
14 17 (0.85%) Workday
15 15 (0.75%) IBM
15 15 (0.75%) Talend
15 15 (0.75%) VMware