Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 25 June 2021

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 25 June 2021 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
25 Jun 2021		 Same period 2020 Same period 2019
Rank 71 75 76
Rank change year-on-year +4 +1 +2
Contract jobs citing QA 2,035 1,233 2,828
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 3.18% 2.98% 3.10%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 26.07% 26.45% 27.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,389 809 1,837
10th Percentile £313 £300 £310
25th Percentile £382 £359 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% - -
75th Percentile £569 £550 £538
90th Percentile £656 £625 £606
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £425 £425
Number of hourly rates quoted 55 47 46
10th Percentile £12.50 £12.80 £9.65
25th Percentile £14.50 £17.71 £12.63
Median hourly rate £20.00 £20.03 £22.63
Median % change year-on-year -0.12% -11.49% +3.31%
75th Percentile £26.00 £28.23 £40.75
90th Percentile £36.75 £38.75 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £20.00 £22.36
% change year-on-year -5.00% -10.55% +42.15%

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 7,807 4,662 10,300
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.20% 11.25% 11.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,206 2,923 6,486
10th Percentile £263 £260 £250
25th Percentile £363 £356 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £463 £450
Median % change year-on-year +2.70% +2.78% +0.33%
75th Percentile £575 £563 £550
90th Percentile £675 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £425 £425
Number of hourly rates quoted 320 204 371
10th Percentile £11.36 £12.68 £10.88
25th Percentile £14.00 £17.27 £14.63
Median hourly rate £21.05 £22.52 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.54% +0.10% +7.14%
75th Percentile £39.13 £45.25 £43.75
90th Percentile £55.15 £53.75 £52.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.90 £21.00 £25.50
% change year-on-year -0.48% -17.65% +26.43%

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 25 June 2021.

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 25 June 2021.

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 25 June 2021. 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 +3 1,633 £475 +3.26% 724
London +12 962 £500 - 245
Work from Home -15 637 £488 +8.33% 149
UK excluding London -13 627 £425 - 526
North of England +2 157 £440 -2.22% 145
South East -26 144 £425 +11.48% 123
Midlands +4 131 £395 -12.22% 100
North West +1 103 £425 -5.56% 79
West Midlands +6 86 £400 -11.11% 59
South West +14 64 £450 +5.88% 48
Scotland -44 64 £400 -5.88% 31
East Midlands +4 44 £373 +6.43% 41
Yorkshire +18 40 £450 +15.38% 45
East of England -7 38 £400 -18.37% 59
Wales +11 23 £475 -13.64% 18
North East +15 14 £450 -25.00% 21
Northern Ireland -4 5 £378 -12.30% 3

For the 6 months to 25 June 2021, 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.

1 905 (44.47%) Agile Software Development
2 571 (28.06%) Test Automation
3 540 (26.54%) Social Skills
4 420 (20.64%) Finance
5 395 (19.41%) DevOps
6 382 (18.77%) Azure
7 367 (18.03%) SQL
8 352 (17.30%) Java
9 328 (16.12%) Scrum
10 297 (14.59%) JIRA
11 272 (13.37%) JavaScript
12 259 (12.73%) TDD
13 251 (12.33%) Problem-Solving
14 240 (11.79%) Python
15 235 (11.55%) Microsoft
16 227 (11.15%) BDD
17 225 (11.06%) Jenkins
17 225 (11.06%) Analytical Skills
18 223 (10.96%) AWS
19 219 (10.76%) C#
20 201 (9.88%) Selenium
21 199 (9.78%) Git (software)
21 199 (9.78%) Cucumber
22 193 (9.48%) Project Management
23 192 (9.43%) Software Engineering
24 185 (9.09%) Continuous Integration
25 178 (8.75%) Degree
26 177 (8.70%) Software Testing
27 175 (8.60%) SDLC
28 174 (8.55%) Security Cleared

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
1 135 (6.63%) Confluence
2 64 (3.14%) SharePoint
3 35 (1.72%) Apache Spark
4 34 (1.67%) CMS
5 29 (1.43%) Apache
6 22 (1.08%) IIS
7 14 (0.69%) MS Exchange
8 12 (0.59%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 10 (0.49%) Headless CMS
9 10 (0.49%) JBoss
10 9 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
11 8 (0.39%) Elasticsearch
11 8 (0.39%) Tomcat
11 8 (0.39%) WebSphere
12 7 (0.34%) Anypoint
12 7 (0.34%) WebLogic
13 6 (0.29%) Oracle Coherence
13 6 (0.29%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 5 (0.25%) Drupal
14 5 (0.25%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 87 (4.28%) Microsoft Excel
2 74 (3.64%) Microsoft Office
3 32 (1.57%) Microsoft Project
3 32 (1.57%) MS Visio
4 28 (1.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.39%) Sketch
6 7 (0.34%) AutoCAD
6 7 (0.34%) Figma
7 6 (0.29%) Revit
8 4 (0.20%) SPSS
9 3 (0.15%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 3 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
9 3 (0.15%) InDesign
9 3 (0.15%) InVision
9 3 (0.15%) Photoshop
10 2 (0.098%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.098%) Mingle
11 1 (0.049%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.049%) Simulink
11 1 (0.049%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 25 (1.23%) Dynamics CRM
2 14 (0.69%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.64%) SAP FI-CA
3 13 (0.64%) SAP PSCD
3 13 (0.64%) SAP S/4HANA
4 12 (0.59%) Dynamics NAV
5 10 (0.49%) SAP HCM
6 8 (0.39%) Oracle EBS R12
6 8 (0.39%) Oracle ERP
7 7 (0.34%) Oracle Financials
7 7 (0.34%) Salesforce.com CRM
8 6 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
8 6 (0.29%) Relativity
9 5 (0.25%) Oracle AGIS
10 4 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
10 4 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
10 4 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
10 4 (0.20%) Summit
11 3 (0.15%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 382 (18.77%) Azure
2 223 (10.96%) AWS
3 89 (4.37%) Power Platform
4 83 (4.08%) GitHub
5 71 (3.49%) GCP
6 60 (2.95%) Serverless
7 59 (2.90%) SaaS
8 47 (2.31%) Azure Active Directory
9 46 (2.26%) PaaS
10 43 (2.11%) IaaS
11 34 (1.67%) AWS Lambda
12 33 (1.62%) Datadog
12 33 (1.62%) Microsoft 365
13 25 (1.23%) Amazon S3
13 25 (1.23%) Dynamics 365
14 23 (1.13%) SuccessFactors
15 21 (1.03%) Cloud Computing
16 20 (0.98%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 18 (0.88%) Amazon EC2
18 16 (0.79%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 29 (1.43%) DNS
2 28 (1.38%) Firewall
3 25 (1.23%) HTTP
4 24 (1.18%) FTP
5 22 (1.08%) WAN
6 18 (0.88%) Internet
7 17 (0.84%) SAN
8 16 (0.79%) DHCP
8 16 (0.79%) VPN
9 15 (0.74%) LAN
9 15 (0.74%) Network Security
10 14 (0.69%) VLAN
11 13 (0.64%) ATM
11 13 (0.64%) SNMP
11 13 (0.64%) TCP/IP
12 12 (0.59%) NAS
13 10 (0.49%) Wireless
14 9 (0.44%) VoIP
15 7 (0.34%) Intranet
16 6 (0.29%) BGP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 147 (7.22%) SQL Server
2 83 (4.08%) Power BI
3 75 (3.69%) Data Warehouse
4 53 (2.60%) Big Data
5 49 (2.41%) NoSQL
6 43 (2.11%) Hadoop
7 41 (2.01%) MongoDB
8 39 (1.92%) MySQL
9 37 (1.82%) Tableau
10 36 (1.77%) PostgreSQL
11 35 (1.72%) Relational Database
12 31 (1.52%) Oracle Reports
13 30 (1.47%) Data Lake
14 28 (1.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 26 (1.28%) Azure SQL Database
16 23 (1.13%) BigQuery
17 22 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
18 21 (1.03%) Oracle Database
19 19 (0.93%) Amazon DynamoDB
20 18 (0.88%) DB2
Development Applications
1 297 (14.59%) JIRA
2 225 (11.06%) Jenkins
3 201 (9.88%) Selenium
4 199 (9.78%) Cucumber
4 199 (9.78%) Git (software)
5 115 (5.65%) Postman
6 84 (4.13%) Maven
7 65 (3.19%) SoapUI
8 53 (2.60%) JMeter
8 53 (2.60%) JUnit
9 51 (2.51%) Octopus Deploy
10 46 (2.26%) GitLab
11 44 (2.16%) SpecFlow
12 43 (2.11%) Appium
13 41 (2.01%) REST Assured
14 36 (1.77%) Cypress.io
15 35 (1.72%) TeamCity
16 33 (1.62%) Visual Studio
17 29 (1.43%) CircleCI
17 29 (1.43%) IntelliJ
General
1 540 (26.54%) Social Skills
2 420 (20.64%) Finance
3 225 (11.06%) Analytical Skills
4 167 (8.21%) Public Sector
5 150 (7.37%) Banking
6 86 (4.23%) Retail
7 61 (3.00%) Influencing Skills
8 60 (2.95%) Marketing
9 56 (2.75%) Telecoms
10 47 (2.31%) Legal
11 44 (2.16%) Presentation Skills
12 43 (2.11%) Manufacturing
13 42 (2.06%) Front Office
14 35 (1.72%) Investment Banking
15 23 (1.13%) Law
15 23 (1.13%) Publishing
16 21 (1.03%) Advertising
16 21 (1.03%) Documentation Skills
17 19 (0.93%) Electronics
18 18 (0.88%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 356 (17.49%) Developer
2 325 (15.97%) Analyst
3 159 (7.81%) Tester
4 125 (6.14%) Architect
5 119 (5.85%) Business Analyst
6 116 (5.70%) QA Engineer
7 88 (4.32%) Test Analyst
8 76 (3.73%) Consultant
9 75 (3.69%) QA Tester
10 71 (3.49%) Test Engineer
11 69 (3.39%) Automation Tester
12 66 (3.24%) Project Manager
13 55 (2.70%) Java Developer
13 55 (2.70%) Test Leader
14 50 (2.46%) Test Manager
15 49 (2.41%) QA Analyst
16 47 (2.31%) DevOps Engineer
17 46 (2.26%) Data Analyst
18 45 (2.21%) Automation Engineer
18 45 (2.21%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 173 (8.50%) .NET
2 144 (7.08%) REST
3 126 (6.19%) RESTful
4 115 (5.65%) React
5 112 (5.50%) HTML
6 107 (5.26%) AngularJS
7 106 (5.21%) CSS
8 105 (5.16%) Web Services
9 94 (4.62%) Node.js
10 88 (4.32%) JSON
11 86 (4.23%) Spring
12 81 (3.98%) XML
13 71 (3.49%) GraphQL
14 67 (3.29%) ASP.NET
15 62 (3.05%) Gherkin
15 62 (3.05%) SOAP
16 50 (2.46%) Spring Boot
17 42 (2.06%) Kafka
18 32 (1.57%) Middleware
19 30 (1.47%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 134 (6.58%) User Experience
2 73 (3.59%) Greenfield Project
3 66 (3.24%) Self-Motivation
4 59 (2.90%) Management Information System
4 59 (2.90%) Virtual Team
5 57 (2.80%) Mobile App
6 40 (1.97%) Data Structures
7 33 (1.62%) Enterprise Software
8 32 (1.57%) Algorithms
9 24 (1.18%) Data Centre
10 21 (1.03%) Cloud Native
11 19 (0.93%) NHS
12 15 (0.74%) Public Cloud
13 14 (0.69%) Fixed Income
14 13 (0.64%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 13 (0.64%) PMI
15 12 (0.59%) Data Protection Act
15 12 (0.59%) Replication
16 10 (0.49%) AS400
17 9 (0.44%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 142 (6.98%) Windows
2 127 (6.24%) Linux
3 86 (4.23%) Unix
4 77 (3.78%) Apple iOS
5 61 (3.00%) Android
6 26 (1.28%) Windows Server
7 24 (1.18%) Windows 10
8 17 (0.84%) AIX
9 11 (0.54%) CentOS
9 11 (0.54%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
11 7 (0.34%) VMS
11 7 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
12 4 (0.20%) Ubuntu
12 4 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
14 1 (0.049%) Solaris
14 1 (0.049%) Windows NT
14 1 (0.049%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 905 (44.47%) Agile Software Development
2 571 (28.06%) Test Automation
3 395 (19.41%) DevOps
4 328 (16.12%) Scrum
5 259 (12.73%) TDD
6 251 (12.33%) Problem-Solving
7 227 (11.15%) BDD
8 193 (9.48%) Project Management
9 192 (9.43%) Software Engineering
10 185 (9.09%) Continuous Integration
11 177 (8.70%) Software Testing
12 175 (8.60%) SDLC
13 168 (8.26%) Continuous Improvement
14 162 (7.96%) Microservices
15 161 (7.91%) Stakeholder Management
16 158 (7.76%) Test Strategy
17 150 (7.37%) Analytics
17 150 (7.37%) User Acceptance Testing
18 125 (6.14%) Migration
19 124 (6.09%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 367 (18.03%) SQL
2 352 (17.30%) Java
3 272 (13.37%) JavaScript
4 240 (11.79%) Python
5 219 (10.76%) C#
6 75 (3.69%) PowerShell
7 73 (3.59%) TypeScript
8 70 (3.44%) C++
9 50 (2.46%) Ruby
10 39 (1.92%) C
10 39 (1.92%) PL/SQL
11 35 (1.72%) R
11 35 (1.72%) Shell Script
12 32 (1.57%) Java 8
12 32 (1.57%) Scala
13 29 (1.43%) Bash Shell
14 24 (1.18%) T-SQL
15 22 (1.08%) Apple Swift
16 21 (1.03%) Groovy
16 21 (1.03%) VBA
Qualifications
1 178 (8.75%) Degree
2 174 (8.55%) Security Cleared
3 128 (6.29%) SC Cleared
4 94 (4.62%) ISTQB
5 71 (3.49%) ISEB
6 55 (2.70%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 45 (2.21%) Computer Science Degree
8 29 (1.43%) BPSS Clearance
9 26 (1.28%) PMP
10 20 (0.98%) PMI Certification
11 18 (0.88%) Cisco Certification
11 18 (0.88%) DV Cleared
12 16 (0.79%) Master's Degree
13 14 (0.69%) CCNP
14 13 (0.64%) CISSP
15 11 (0.54%) AWS Certification
15 11 (0.54%) CISM
16 9 (0.44%) CCNA
17 7 (0.34%) Microsoft Certification
17 7 (0.34%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 53 (2.60%) PMO
2 48 (2.36%) Accessibility
3 46 (2.26%) Data Quality
4 22 (1.08%) GDPR
5 19 (0.93%) SLA
6 17 (0.84%) GRC
7 13 (0.64%) MiFID
7 13 (0.64%) NIST
8 12 (0.59%) PCI DSS
8 12 (0.59%) WCAG
9 11 (0.54%) Disclosure Scotland
10 7 (0.34%) FATCA
11 6 (0.29%) ISO 9000
12 5 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 5 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 5 (0.25%) SEPA
13 4 (0.20%) GxP
13 4 (0.20%) ISO 20022
13 4 (0.20%) NCSC
14 3 (0.15%) GMP
System Software
1 121 (5.95%) Docker
2 72 (3.54%) Active Directory
3 20 (0.98%) Virtual Machines
4 12 (0.59%) VMware Infrastructure
5 9 (0.44%) PowerHA
6 7 (0.34%) HDFS
6 7 (0.34%) vSphere
7 5 (0.25%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.15%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.098%) KVM
9 2 (0.098%) NFS
10 1 (0.049%) Firmware
10 1 (0.049%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.049%) Varnish
10 1 (0.049%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.049%) VirtualBox
10 1 (0.049%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 82 (4.03%) Kubernetes
2 52 (2.56%) Terraform
3 35 (1.72%) Ansible
4 24 (1.18%) Grafana
5 20 (0.98%) Prometheus
6 19 (0.93%) Opscode Chef
7 17 (0.84%) Puppet
7 17 (0.84%) ZABBIX
8 14 (0.69%) HP Quality Center
9 13 (0.64%) HP ALM
10 8 (0.39%) Rancher
11 7 (0.34%) Istio
12 6 (0.29%) Control-M
12 6 (0.29%) Netcool
12 6 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
13 5 (0.25%) FortiGate
14 4 (0.20%) Packer
14 4 (0.20%) SCCM
15 3 (0.15%) Ionix
15 3 (0.15%) Nessus
Vendors
1 235 (11.55%) Microsoft
2 163 (8.01%) Oracle
3 107 (5.26%) SAP
4 83 (4.08%) Salesforce.com
5 64 (3.14%) Google
6 45 (2.21%) Splunk
7 37 (1.82%) Atlassian
8 36 (1.77%) IBM
9 33 (1.62%) Cisco
10 31 (1.52%) Adobe
11 25 (1.23%) VMware
12 24 (1.18%) CheckPoint
13 22 (1.08%) New Relic
14 21 (1.03%) HP
15 17 (0.84%) Red Hat
15 17 (0.84%) Spiceworks
16 16 (0.79%) Informatica
16 16 (0.79%) ServiceNow
17 13 (0.64%) MuleSoft
18 12 (0.59%) Databricks
809 QA job vacancies Nationwide