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 5 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 62 63
Rank change year-on-year +14 +1 +2
Contract jobs citing QA 2,275 1,275 1,239
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.18% 3.86% 3.26%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.74% 22.30% 24.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,333 867 714
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £387 £380 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.52%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £575
90th Percentile £657 £650 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 236 43 74
10th Percentile £13.25 £12.28 £11.88
25th Percentile £15.38 £13.50 £12.59
Median hourly rate £28.00 £27.54 £14.99
Median % change year-on-year +1.67% +83.72% -70.02%
75th Percentile £48.75 £45.36 £28.75
90th Percentile £69.88 £72.00 £73.36
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +98.41% +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 9,583 5,718 5,089
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.62% 17.32% 13.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,006 3,660 2,955
10th Percentile £324 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.50% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £606 £606 £625
90th Percentile £710 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +1.26% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 667 274 246
10th Percentile £13.90 £13.60 £13.13
25th Percentile £16.60 £16.61 £15.56
Median hourly rate £32.00 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% +9.09% -22.82%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.94 £62.54
90th Percentile £74.10 £78.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.40 £26.50 £27.50
% change year-on-year +22.25% -3.64% -30.56%

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 5 October 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 5 October 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 5 October 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 +13 1,989 £475 - 3,347
UK excluding London +21 1,152 £450 - 2,102
London +4 889 £500 - 1,547
Work from Home +5 569 £475 +5.03% 1,430
North of England +5 277 £453 +3.54% 525
South East +8 262 £425 -15.00% 492
Midlands +24 230 £450 +2.27% 318
West Midlands +24 192 £455 -9.08% 226
East of England +21 157 £438 -12.50% 183
South West +14 135 £525 +10.53% 190
Yorkshire +14 111 £475 +0.96% 156
North West -15 107 £463 +11.45% 267
Scotland +7 87 £420 -9.19% 217
North East -6 59 £400 -20.00% 104
East Midlands -8 37 £415 +1.22% 91
Wales 0 21 £413 +17.86% 89
Northern Ireland -3 7 £450 +50.00% 111

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
1 137 (6.02%) Confluence
2 54 (2.37%) CMS
3 42 (1.85%) SharePoint
4 16 (0.70%) Apache Spark
5 15 (0.66%) IIS
6 13 (0.57%) Apache
6 13 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
7 12 (0.53%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 9 (0.40%) SAS
9 8 (0.35%) Sitecore CMS
10 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.26%) Traefik
12 5 (0.22%) Headless CMS
12 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.22%) Tuxedo
12 5 (0.22%) WordPress
13 4 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
13 4 (0.18%) Umbraco
14 3 (0.13%) Moodle
14 3 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 82 (3.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 39 (1.71%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.92%) MS Visio
5 18 (0.79%) Spreadsheet
6 10 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
7 9 (0.40%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.26%) Revit
9 5 (0.22%) AutoCAD
9 5 (0.22%) Navisworks
10 4 (0.18%) ProjectWise
11 3 (0.13%) CATIA
11 3 (0.13%) Mingle
12 2 (0.088%) Adobe Premiere
12 2 (0.088%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.088%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.088%) Photoshop
12 2 (0.088%) Productboard
12 2 (0.088%) Windchill
13 1 (0.044%) Notion
Business Applications
1 29 (1.27%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.23%) 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%) Primavera
6 4 (0.18%) ResourceLink
6 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
6 4 (0.18%) Teamcenter
7 3 (0.13%) Infor CloudSuite
7 3 (0.13%) iTrent
7 3 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
7 3 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
7 3 (0.13%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.088%) IntelliMatch
Cloud Services
1 467 (20.53%) Azure
2 410 (18.02%) AWS
3 223 (9.80%) GitHub
4 202 (8.88%) Azure DevOps
5 130 (5.71%) GitHub Actions
6 111 (4.88%) GCP
7 110 (4.84%) Power Platform
8 82 (3.60%) Serverless
9 58 (2.55%) AWS Lambda
10 53 (2.33%) SaaS
11 50 (2.20%) Amazon S3
12 45 (1.98%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 42 (1.85%) Dynamics 365
14 36 (1.58%) OpenShift
15 35 (1.54%) GitHub Copilot
16 34 (1.49%) Snowflake
17 31 (1.36%) Amazon EKS
17 31 (1.36%) Microsoft 365
18 30 (1.32%) Azure Monitor
19 28 (1.23%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 26 (1.14%) Broadband
1 26 (1.14%) Firewall
2 21 (0.92%) Internet
3 20 (0.88%) DNS
4 19 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
5 16 (0.70%) 5G
5 16 (0.70%) TCP/IP
6 15 (0.66%) 4G
6 15 (0.66%) HTTP
6 15 (0.66%) VLAN
7 14 (0.62%) WAN
8 12 (0.53%) Network Security
9 11 (0.48%) LAN
9 11 (0.48%) VPN
10 10 (0.44%) DHCP
11 8 (0.35%) SD-WAN
11 8 (0.35%) Unified Communications
12 7 (0.31%) IPv4
12 7 (0.31%) SSH
12 7 (0.31%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 111 (4.88%) SQL Server
2 96 (4.22%) Power BI
3 80 (3.52%) Relational Database
4 79 (3.47%) PostgreSQL
5 62 (2.73%) Data Warehouse
6 54 (2.37%) MongoDB
7 47 (2.07%) MySQL
8 46 (2.02%) NoSQL
9 43 (1.89%) Metadata
10 39 (1.71%) Oracle Database
11 31 (1.36%) Oracle Reports
12 30 (1.32%) Tableau
13 23 (1.01%) Data Lake
14 20 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 16 (0.70%) Big Data
15 16 (0.70%) GIS
16 15 (0.66%) RDBMS
16 15 (0.66%) Redis
17 14 (0.62%) BigQuery
17 14 (0.62%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 301 (13.23%) JIRA
2 254 (11.16%) Git
3 180 (7.91%) Jenkins
4 172 (7.56%) Selenium
5 148 (6.51%) GitLab
6 96 (4.22%) Cucumber
7 85 (3.74%) Postman
8 76 (3.34%) Cypress.io
9 72 (3.16%) JUnit
10 54 (2.37%) Zephyr
11 50 (2.20%) SonarQube
12 48 (2.11%) JMeter
13 47 (2.07%) REST Assured
14 45 (1.98%) Gatling
15 33 (1.45%) Maven
16 30 (1.32%) WebDriver
17 26 (1.14%) Gradle
18 25 (1.10%) TestNG
19 24 (1.05%) Appium
20 23 (1.01%) TestRail
General
1 693 (30.46%) Social Skills
2 422 (18.55%) Finance
3 366 (16.09%) Analytical Skills
4 291 (12.79%) Public Sector
5 170 (7.47%) Banking
6 87 (3.82%) Manufacturing
7 74 (3.25%) Retail
8 64 (2.81%) Marketing
8 64 (2.81%) Organisational Skills
9 57 (2.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 45 (1.98%) Telecoms
11 42 (1.85%) Aerospace
11 42 (1.85%) Influencing Skills
12 40 (1.76%) Legal
13 30 (1.32%) Military
14 29 (1.27%) Documentation Skills
15 25 (1.10%) Law
16 19 (0.84%) Investment Banking
17 18 (0.79%) Automotive
17 18 (0.79%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 304 (13.36%) Developer
2 289 (12.70%) Lead
3 274 (12.04%) Senior
4 258 (11.34%) QA Engineer
5 249 (10.95%) Analyst
6 134 (5.89%) Quality Engineer
7 117 (5.14%) Test Engineer
7 117 (5.14%) Tester
8 102 (4.48%) Business Analyst
8 102 (4.48%) Test Manager
9 83 (3.65%) QA Leader
10 78 (3.43%) Data Engineer
11 76 (3.34%) Java Developer
12 66 (2.90%) Test Leader
13 61 (2.68%) Consultant
14 59 (2.59%) Senior Analyst
15 54 (2.37%) QA Tester
15 54 (2.37%) Test Analyst
16 51 (2.24%) Architect
17 47 (2.07%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 216 (9.49%) REST
2 149 (6.55%) RESTful
3 147 (6.46%) Playwright
4 127 (5.58%) Spring
5 110 (4.84%) Spring Boot
6 105 (4.62%) Terraform
7 98 (4.31%) .NET
8 96 (4.22%) React
9 88 (3.87%) HTML
10 86 (3.78%) Kafka
11 78 (3.43%) CSS
12 76 (3.34%) AngularJS
13 61 (2.68%) Node.js
14 59 (2.59%) SOAP
15 53 (2.33%) Middleware
15 53 (2.33%) pytest
16 41 (1.80%) .NET Framework
16 41 (1.80%) JSON
17 39 (1.71%) Gherkin
17 39 (1.71%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 212 (9.32%) Product Ownership
2 137 (6.02%) Cloud Native
3 83 (3.65%) Onboarding
4 70 (3.08%) Enterprise Software
4 70 (3.08%) Management Information System
5 55 (2.42%) Distributed Systems
6 52 (2.29%) Mobile App
7 48 (2.11%) AI Agents
7 48 (2.11%) Legacy Systems
8 43 (1.89%) Data Structures
9 39 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
10 34 (1.49%) Data Centre
11 32 (1.41%) Low-Code
12 28 (1.23%) NHS
13 24 (1.05%) CMDB
13 24 (1.05%) Virtual Team
14 19 (0.84%) Educational Technology
15 17 (0.75%) Analytical Mindset
16 15 (0.66%) Operational Technology
17 14 (0.62%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 89 (3.91%) Windows
2 76 (3.34%) Linux
3 49 (2.15%) Apple iOS
4 43 (1.89%) Android
5 35 (1.54%) Unix
6 24 (1.05%) Windows Server
7 16 (0.70%) VMS
8 7 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.22%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.088%) AIX
10 2 (0.088%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.088%) zOS
11 1 (0.044%) CentOS
11 1 (0.044%) Debian
11 1 (0.044%) Embedded 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
1 881 (38.73%) Agile
2 642 (28.22%) Test Automation
3 592 (26.02%) CI/CD
4 552 (24.26%) DevOps
5 475 (20.88%) Stakeholder Management
6 463 (20.35%) Continuous Improvement
7 390 (17.14%) Problem-Solving
8 373 (16.40%) Validation
9 343 (15.08%) AI
10 339 (14.90%) Scrum
11 328 (14.42%) Test Strategy
12 269 (11.82%) User Acceptance Testing
13 251 (11.03%) Migration
14 212 (9.32%) Microservices
15 211 (9.27%) SDLC
16 201 (8.84%) End-to-End Testing
17 191 (8.40%) Software Engineering
18 184 (8.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 179 (7.87%) Defect Management
20 172 (7.56%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 412 (18.11%) SQL
2 325 (14.29%) Python
3 300 (13.19%) Java
4 191 (8.40%) JavaScript
5 118 (5.19%) C#
6 105 (4.62%) TypeScript
7 56 (2.46%) Bash
8 35 (1.54%) PowerShell
9 33 (1.45%) PL/SQL
10 28 (1.23%) Kotlin
11 26 (1.14%) T-SQL
12 24 (1.05%) Scala
13 21 (0.92%) Swift
14 19 (0.84%) Shell Script
15 17 (0.75%) Objective-C
16 16 (0.70%) VB
17 15 (0.66%) C
18 14 (0.62%) R
18 14 (0.62%) VBA
19 13 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 536 (23.56%) Security Cleared
2 413 (18.15%) SC Cleared
3 145 (6.37%) Degree
4 113 (4.97%) BPSS Clearance
5 72 (3.16%) ISTQB
6 66 (2.90%) DV Cleared
7 44 (1.93%) Computer Science Degree
8 23 (1.01%) PMP
9 21 (0.92%) AWS Certification
10 19 (0.84%) PMI Certification
11 18 (0.79%) Azure Certification
12 16 (0.70%) Master's Degree
13 14 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
14 10 (0.44%) DBS Check
14 10 (0.44%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 10 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
15 9 (0.40%) Cisco Certification
15 9 (0.40%) IIBA
15 9 (0.40%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 8 (0.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 163 (7.16%) Data Quality
2 135 (5.93%) Accessibility
3 38 (1.67%) WCAG
4 34 (1.49%) GDPR
5 28 (1.23%) PMO
6 25 (1.10%) GRC
7 15 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 13 (0.57%) NIST
9 12 (0.53%) ISO 9001
10 10 (0.44%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 10 (0.44%) GxP
11 9 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
11 9 (0.40%) SLA
12 8 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
12 8 (0.35%) ISO 19650
12 8 (0.35%) Software Quality Assurance
13 7 (0.31%) IFRS
13 7 (0.31%) NCSC
14 6 (0.26%) ISO 20022
15 4 (0.18%) GMP
System Software
1 201 (8.84%) Docker
2 24 (1.05%) Active Directory
3 19 (0.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.44%) IAG
6 6 (0.26%) Firmware
7 4 (0.18%) ACF2
7 4 (0.18%) RACF
7 4 (0.18%) VirtualBox
8 3 (0.13%) KVM
8 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.088%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.044%) Embedded Firmware
10 1 (0.044%) QEMU
10 1 (0.044%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.044%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.044%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.044%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 231 (10.15%) Kubernetes
2 64 (2.81%) Ansible
3 56 (2.46%) Grafana
4 37 (1.63%) Prometheus
5 31 (1.36%) Argo
6 11 (0.48%) HP ALM
7 10 (0.44%) 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%) Istio
9 7 (0.31%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 6 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
11 5 (0.22%) Puppet
12 4 (0.18%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.18%) SCOM
13 3 (0.13%) FortiGate
14 2 (0.088%) Control-M
14 2 (0.088%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.088%) Kibana
Vendors
1 251 (11.03%) Microsoft
2 162 (7.12%) Oracle
3 114 (5.01%) Salesforce
4 74 (3.25%) SAP
5 61 (2.68%) ServiceNow
6 51 (2.24%) Google
7 46 (2.02%) Databricks
8 34 (1.49%) Dynatrace
8 34 (1.49%) Splunk
9 31 (1.36%) Red Hat
10 24 (1.05%) Citrix
11 22 (0.97%) VMware
12 21 (0.92%) Adobe
12 21 (0.92%) Cisco
13 18 (0.79%) Informatica
14 16 (0.70%) Sitecore
14 16 (0.70%) Workday
15 15 (0.66%) IBM
15 15 (0.66%) Talend
16 13 (0.57%) HP