Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 22 January 2022

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 22 January 2022 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
22 Jan 2022		 Same period 2021 Same period 2020
Rank 72 75 80
Rank change year-on-year +3 +5 -9
Contract jobs citing QA 2,711 1,295 2,084
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 3.12% 3.10% 2.87%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.88% 25.73% 25.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,912 894 1,326
10th Percentile £330 £313 £300
25th Percentile £405 £375 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% - -
75th Percentile £588 £550 £547
90th Percentile £675 £600 £619
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £410
% change year-on-year +5.88% +3.66% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 38 60
10th Percentile £13.75 £11.15 £10.48
25th Percentile £19.00 £15.88 £12.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £19.50 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +53.85% -2.50% -44.44%
75th Percentile £49.38 £29.06 £39.26
90th Percentile £60.00 £40.75 £53.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.50 £19.34 £21.50
% change year-on-year +150.81% -10.06% -25.86%

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 11,354 5,033 8,092
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.09% 12.06% 11.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,702 3,320 5,161
10th Percentile £275 £263 £240
25th Percentile £400 £368 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +5.56% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £550
90th Percentile £700 £650 £631
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £425
% change year-on-year - +5.88% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 271 222 313
10th Percentile £11.04 £10.76 £12.10
25th Percentile £14.00 £13.96 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.09 £21.05 £20.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.94% +2.68% +1.31%
75th Percentile £49.25 £43.44 £47.50
90th Percentile £58.75 £52.50 £53.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 £21.05 £21.42
% change year-on-year -12.11% -1.70% +6.25%

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 22 January 2022.

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 22 January 2022.

Hourly rate histogram for QA in the UK

QA
Top 18 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 22 January 2022. 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 2,198 £500 +11.11% 957
London +1 1,286 £525 +10.53% 377
UK excluding London -10 869 £450 +5.88% 660
Work from Home -3 830 £500 +5.26% 192
South East +19 308 £500 +12.36% 163
North of England -14 183 £438 +0.86% 155
Midlands -34 131 £425 +7.94% 115
North West -18 94 £430 -4.44% 81
Scotland -28 88 £423 +5.63% 60
West Midlands -39 88 £425 +11.26% 74
East of England +2 85 £500 +11.11% 70
Yorkshire +4 79 £438 +5.04% 45
South West -28 51 £478 +0.53% 73
East Midlands -8 43 £438 -2.78% 40
Wales -31 14 £337 -33.82% 17
Northern Ireland +6 12 £475 +10.21% 9
North East -8 11 £508 +19.41% 29
Isle of Man -4 1 £350 -

For the 6 months to 22 January 2022, 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 1,181 (43.56%) Agile Software Development
2 740 (27.30%) Social Skills
3 670 (24.71%) Test Automation
4 570 (21.03%) SQL
5 556 (20.51%) Finance
6 512 (18.89%) DevOps
7 504 (18.59%) Azure
8 500 (18.44%) Java
9 468 (17.26%) CI/CD
10 398 (14.68%) Scrum
11 396 (14.61%) JavaScript
12 381 (14.05%) JIRA
13 363 (13.39%) Analytical Skills
13 363 (13.39%) Problem-Solving
14 333 (12.28%) Python
15 308 (11.36%) Microservices
16 305 (11.25%) User Acceptance Testing
17 301 (11.10%) Project Management
18 299 (11.03%) Microsoft
19 285 (10.51%) Selenium
19 285 (10.51%) Public Sector
20 283 (10.44%) AWS
21 259 (9.55%) Banking
21 259 (9.55%) Software Engineering
22 257 (9.48%) .NET
23 254 (9.37%) Analytics
24 249 (9.18%) Test Strategy
25 248 (9.15%) Git (software)
26 232 (8.56%) Security Cleared
27 230 (8.48%) Oracle

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
1 157 (5.79%) Confluence
2 101 (3.73%) SharePoint
3 44 (1.62%) CMS
4 42 (1.55%) Apache
4 42 (1.55%) IIS
5 37 (1.36%) Apache Spark
6 24 (0.89%) SAS
7 20 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.63%) WebLogic
9 15 (0.55%) Elasticsearch
9 15 (0.55%) Jupyter
10 12 (0.44%) Sitecore CMS
11 11 (0.41%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 11 (0.41%) Cloud Foundry
12 10 (0.37%) Drupal
13 9 (0.33%) Appian
13 9 (0.33%) nginx
14 8 (0.30%) Camunda
15 7 (0.26%) Tomcat
16 6 (0.22%) WordPress
Applications
1 161 (5.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 62 (2.29%) MS Visio
3 60 (2.21%) Microsoft Office
4 40 (1.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 23 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
6 16 (0.59%) Sketch
7 13 (0.48%) InVision
7 13 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
8 6 (0.22%) Photoshop
9 5 (0.18%) Open Workbench
10 4 (0.15%) Adobe Premiere
11 3 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 3 (0.11%) Mingle
11 3 (0.11%) ProjectWise
11 3 (0.11%) SPSS
11 3 (0.11%) Zeplin
12 2 (0.074%) Adobe XD
12 2 (0.074%) AutoCAD
12 2 (0.074%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.074%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 36 (1.33%) Dynamics CRM
2 14 (0.52%) SAP FI-CA
3 13 (0.48%) SAP PSCD
3 13 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
4 10 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
5 9 (0.33%) SAP Hybris
6 8 (0.30%) NetSuite
6 8 (0.30%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 6 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
7 6 (0.22%) Salesforce.com CRM
8 5 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
8 5 (0.18%) Endur
8 5 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
8 5 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.18%) SAP HCM
9 4 (0.15%) Adobe Campaign
9 4 (0.15%) CA PPM
9 4 (0.15%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 504 (18.59%) Azure
2 283 (10.44%) AWS
3 128 (4.72%) Power Platform
4 113 (4.17%) GitHub
5 111 (4.09%) SaaS
6 93 (3.43%) GCP
7 79 (2.91%) Serverless
8 76 (2.80%) PaaS
9 64 (2.36%) Microsoft 365
10 58 (2.14%) IaaS
11 45 (1.66%) Dynamics 365
12 35 (1.29%) BrowserStack
13 34 (1.25%) AWS Lambda
13 34 (1.25%) Azure Data Factory
14 28 (1.03%) Azure Active Directory
14 28 (1.03%) Azure Functions
15 26 (0.96%) AWS CloudFormation
16 25 (0.92%) Amazon S3
16 25 (0.92%) PowerApps
17 24 (0.89%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 51 (1.88%) Internet
2 43 (1.59%) HTTP
3 33 (1.22%) Firewall
4 32 (1.18%) DNS
5 30 (1.11%) WAN
6 25 (0.92%) SSL
7 19 (0.70%) TCP/IP
8 16 (0.59%) LAN
9 15 (0.55%) SAN
10 13 (0.48%) Network Security
11 10 (0.37%) 2G
12 9 (0.33%) 3G
12 9 (0.33%) 4G
12 9 (0.33%) FIX Connectivity
12 9 (0.33%) VLAN
12 9 (0.33%) VPN
13 8 (0.30%) Broadband
13 8 (0.30%) MGW
13 8 (0.30%) RNC
13 8 (0.30%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 182 (6.71%) SQL Server
2 97 (3.58%) Power BI
3 81 (2.99%) Data Warehouse
4 71 (2.62%) Oracle Database
5 64 (2.36%) MongoDB
6 63 (2.32%) Relational Database
7 58 (2.14%) NoSQL
8 57 (2.10%) MySQL
9 53 (1.95%) Tableau
10 49 (1.81%) PostgreSQL
11 45 (1.66%) Big Data
12 41 (1.51%) Azure SQL Database
12 41 (1.51%) Data Lake
12 41 (1.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 32 (1.18%) Hadoop
14 28 (1.03%) Amazon DynamoDB
15 26 (0.96%) Metadata
16 23 (0.85%) Oracle Reports
17 18 (0.66%) BigQuery
18 17 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 381 (14.05%) JIRA
2 285 (10.51%) Selenium
3 248 (9.15%) Git (software)
4 229 (8.45%) Jenkins
5 222 (8.19%) Cucumber
6 127 (4.68%) Postman
7 92 (3.39%) Cypress.io
8 78 (2.88%) SpecFlow
9 76 (2.80%) JMeter
9 76 (2.80%) TeamCity
10 65 (2.40%) SoapUI
11 63 (2.32%) JUnit
12 61 (2.25%) GitLab
13 57 (2.10%) Protractor
14 55 (2.03%) Maven
15 52 (1.92%) Gatling
16 48 (1.77%) WebDriver
17 47 (1.73%) REST Assured
18 44 (1.62%) Visual Studio
19 42 (1.55%) Appium
General
1 740 (27.30%) Social Skills
2 556 (20.51%) Finance
3 363 (13.39%) Analytical Skills
4 285 (10.51%) Public Sector
5 259 (9.55%) Banking
6 95 (3.50%) Retail
7 86 (3.17%) Influencing Skills
8 78 (2.88%) Front Office
9 76 (2.80%) Investment Banking
10 74 (2.73%) Marketing
11 71 (2.62%) Presentation Skills
12 57 (2.10%) Organisational Skills
13 54 (1.99%) Legal
14 48 (1.77%) Telecoms
15 46 (1.70%) Documentation Skills
16 40 (1.48%) Pharmaceutical
17 33 (1.22%) Law
18 28 (1.03%) Financial Institution
19 26 (0.96%) Publishing
20 24 (0.89%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 548 (20.21%) Analyst
2 454 (16.75%) Developer
3 208 (7.67%) Tester
4 199 (7.34%) Business Analyst
5 162 (5.98%) QA Engineer
6 152 (5.61%) Architect
7 134 (4.94%) Test Analyst
8 112 (4.13%) Consultant
9 105 (3.87%) QA Tester
10 99 (3.65%) Software Engineer
11 96 (3.54%) Test Manager
12 93 (3.43%) Data Analyst
13 91 (3.36%) Project Manager
14 88 (3.25%) Test Engineer
15 78 (2.88%) QA Analyst
16 76 (2.80%) Solutions Architect
17 72 (2.66%) Automation Tester
18 71 (2.62%) Data Engineer
19 70 (2.58%) Java Developer
20 68 (2.51%) Scala Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 257 (9.48%) .NET
2 186 (6.86%) REST
3 184 (6.79%) HTML
4 164 (6.05%) CSS
5 159 (5.86%) React
6 149 (5.50%) XML
7 143 (5.27%) Node.js
8 130 (4.80%) RESTful
9 128 (4.72%) Web Services
10 117 (4.32%) AngularJS
11 106 (3.91%) JSON
12 91 (3.36%) .NET Framework
13 83 (3.06%) Play Framework
14 77 (2.84%) Spring
15 75 (2.77%) Kafka
16 67 (2.47%) SOAP
17 60 (2.21%) Spring Boot
18 58 (2.14%) Gherkin
19 52 (1.92%) .NET Core
20 45 (1.66%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 150 (5.53%) User Experience
2 86 (3.17%) Management Information System
3 71 (2.62%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 68 (2.51%) Mobile App
5 63 (2.32%) Data Structures
6 59 (2.18%) Virtual Team
7 57 (2.10%) Self-Motivation
8 52 (1.92%) Equities
9 48 (1.77%) Greenfield Project
10 44 (1.62%) Fixed Income
11 42 (1.55%) Cloud Native
12 40 (1.48%) Hedge funds
13 38 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
14 37 (1.36%) Public Cloud
15 31 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
16 30 (1.11%) Data Protection Act
17 29 (1.07%) Data Centre
18 25 (0.92%) Derivative
18 25 (0.92%) NHS
19 20 (0.74%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 169 (6.23%) Windows
2 136 (5.02%) Linux
3 99 (3.65%) Unix
4 70 (2.58%) Android
5 58 (2.14%) Apple iOS
6 20 (0.74%) Windows 10
7 17 (0.63%) Windows Server
8 10 (0.37%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 8 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
10 7 (0.26%) VMS
10 7 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
11 6 (0.22%) Solaris
11 6 (0.22%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2003
14 3 (0.11%) Debian
15 2 (0.074%) CentOS
16 1 (0.037%) Mac OS
16 1 (0.037%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,181 (43.56%) Agile Software Development
2 670 (24.71%) Test Automation
3 512 (18.89%) DevOps
4 468 (17.26%) CI/CD
5 398 (14.68%) Scrum
6 363 (13.39%) Problem-Solving
7 308 (11.36%) Microservices
8 305 (11.25%) User Acceptance Testing
9 301 (11.10%) Project Management
10 259 (9.55%) Software Engineering
11 254 (9.37%) Analytics
12 249 (9.18%) Test Strategy
13 228 (8.41%) Stakeholder Management
14 227 (8.37%) TDD
15 224 (8.26%) Continuous Integration
16 220 (8.12%) SDLC
17 205 (7.56%) Software Testing
17 205 (7.56%) Test Scripting
18 204 (7.52%) BDD
19 201 (7.41%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 570 (21.03%) SQL
2 500 (18.44%) Java
3 396 (14.61%) JavaScript
4 333 (12.28%) Python
5 224 (8.26%) C#
6 121 (4.46%) TypeScript
7 110 (4.06%) Scala
8 58 (2.14%) VB
9 56 (2.07%) VBA
10 55 (2.03%) T-SQL
11 54 (1.99%) R
12 50 (1.84%) PowerShell
13 47 (1.73%) PL/SQL
14 45 (1.66%) C
15 44 (1.62%) PHP
16 40 (1.48%) VB.NET
17 37 (1.36%) C++
18 31 (1.14%) Bash
19 27 (1.00%) Ruby
20 26 (0.96%) Go
Qualifications
1 232 (8.56%) Security Cleared
2 199 (7.34%) SC Cleared
3 173 (6.38%) Degree
4 129 (4.76%) ISTQB
5 79 (2.91%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 72 (2.66%) ISEB
7 47 (1.73%) BPSS Clearance
8 40 (1.48%) Computer Science Degree
9 26 (0.96%) DV Cleared
10 25 (0.92%) PMP
11 19 (0.70%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 19 (0.70%) PMI Certification
12 15 (0.55%) CISSP
12 15 (0.55%) Master's Degree
13 13 (0.48%) AWS Certification
14 10 (0.37%) CEH
14 10 (0.37%) MBA
15 8 (0.30%) MBCS
15 8 (0.30%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 7 (0.26%) ISEB Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 84 (3.10%) Accessibility
2 81 (2.99%) Data Quality
3 64 (2.36%) PMO
4 48 (1.77%) GDPR
5 36 (1.33%) EMIR
5 36 (1.33%) MiFID
5 36 (1.33%) WCAG
6 20 (0.74%) SLA
7 18 (0.66%) Dodd-Frank
8 16 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 14 (0.52%) NIST
10 10 (0.37%) FATCA
11 9 (0.33%) Disclosure Scotland
12 7 (0.26%) GRC
12 7 (0.26%) HL7
12 7 (0.26%) IFRS
12 7 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 5 (0.18%) GLP
13 5 (0.18%) GMP
13 5 (0.18%) GxP
System Software
1 180 (6.64%) Docker
2 55 (2.03%) Active Directory
3 27 (1.00%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
5 11 (0.41%) HDFS
6 5 (0.18%) XenApp
7 4 (0.15%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.15%) NFS
7 4 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.037%) GeoWebCache
8 1 (0.037%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.037%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 167 (6.16%) Kubernetes
2 91 (3.36%) Terraform
3 25 (0.92%) Ansible
4 24 (0.89%) HP Quality Center
5 21 (0.77%) Grafana
5 21 (0.77%) HP ALM
6 13 (0.48%) SCCM
7 11 (0.41%) Prometheus
8 10 (0.37%) Kibana
9 8 (0.30%) MIIS
9 8 (0.30%) Nessus
9 8 (0.30%) Puppet
10 7 (0.26%) Consul
10 7 (0.26%) logstash
11 6 (0.22%) Packer
12 5 (0.18%) Nagios
12 5 (0.18%) Opscode Chef
12 5 (0.18%) QRadar
13 4 (0.15%) Rancher
13 4 (0.15%) WebInspect
Vendors
1 299 (11.03%) Microsoft
2 230 (8.48%) Oracle
3 118 (4.35%) SAP
4 65 (2.40%) Salesforce.com
5 45 (1.66%) ServiceNow
6 44 (1.62%) Citrix
7 41 (1.51%) Databricks
8 36 (1.33%) Google
9 34 (1.25%) IBM
10 31 (1.14%) Splunk
10 31 (1.14%) VMware
11 28 (1.03%) Perfecto Mobile
12 27 (1.00%) Adobe
12 27 (1.00%) HP
12 27 (1.00%) Sitecore
13 20 (0.74%) Red Hat
14 19 (0.70%) Cisco
14 19 (0.70%) Informatica
15 17 (0.63%) Cloudera
16 14 (0.52%) Palo Alto
1,090 QA job vacancies Nationwide