Quality Assurance (QA)
UK

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 27 April 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
27 Apr 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 58 77 70
Rank change year-on-year +19 -7 +3
Contract jobs citing QA 1,462 1,811 3,006
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 3.38% 3.03% 3.38%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.54% 22.66% 25.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 984 1,309 2,097
10th Percentile £313 £300 £350
25th Percentile £400 £401 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £509 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +1.75% -2.44% +7.89%
75th Percentile £611 £625 £606
90th Percentile £750 £739 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £450 £450
% change year-on-year +11.11% - +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 34 42
10th Percentile £10.82 £10.92 £16.73
25th Percentile £12.25 £11.22 £25.50
Median hourly rate £15.38 £22.49 £47.25
Median % change year-on-year -31.60% -52.41% +136.25%
75th Percentile £28.60 £23.74 £64.38
90th Percentile £70.33 £53.95 £72.07
UK excluding London median hourly rate £14.00 £13.00 £48.50
% change year-on-year +7.69% -73.20% +148.72%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 6,212 7,992 11,762
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 14.35% 13.36% 13.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,921 5,491 8,030
10th Percentile £297 £275 £292
25th Percentile £405 £410 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% +2.44% +7.89%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £619
90th Percentile £750 £738 £706
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £450
% change year-on-year +2.63% +5.56% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 381 225 302
10th Percentile £10.95 £13.16 £11.75
25th Percentile £13.18 £18.50 £17.06
Median hourly rate £20.61 £37.50 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -45.05% +31.58% +35.71%
75th Percentile £45.00 £62.00 £49.25
90th Percentile £67.38 £77.50 £67.32
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.00 £35.00 £21.05
% change year-on-year -48.57% +66.27% +0.24%

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 27 April 2024.

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 27 April 2024.

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 27 April 2024. 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 +17 1,225 £517 +0.88% 1,270
London +15 651 £535 -2.68% 373
UK excluding London +29 621 £500 +11.11% 969
Work from Home +22 517 £500 - 509
South East +33 161 £488 +11.43% 213
North of England +19 159 £500 +5.26% 256
South West +44 106 £550 +20.88% 126
North West +7 88 £500 +17.65% 128
Midlands -4 84 £450 +7.78% 178
Yorkshire +26 63 £540 +2.86% 97
West Midlands +7 59 £525 +23.97% 108
Scotland +15 49 £425 -15.00% 68
Wales +23 25 £545 -4.39% 34
East of England -12 25 £375 -23.08% 100
East Midlands +3 23 £303 -1.63% 70
Northern Ireland +17 13 £325 -12.75% 19
North East +4 8 £415 -22.65% 39
Isle of Man - 2 - - 1

QA
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 59 (4.04%) Confluence
2 52 (3.56%) SharePoint
3 34 (2.33%) CMS
4 12 (0.82%) Apache
4 12 (0.82%) IIS
5 11 (0.75%) Drupal
6 8 (0.55%) SAS
6 8 (0.55%) WordPress
7 5 (0.34%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 5 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
7 5 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (0.27%) Apache Solr
8 4 (0.27%) Apache Spark
8 4 (0.27%) ArcGIS
8 4 (0.27%) nginx
9 2 (0.14%) Alfresco
9 2 (0.14%) MQSeries
10 1 (0.068%) SharePoint 2013
10 1 (0.068%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 112 (7.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (3.21%) Microsoft Office
3 39 (2.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 32 (2.19%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.34%) Simulink
7 3 (0.21%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.14%) Mingle
8 2 (0.14%) Sketch
8 2 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.068%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.068%) Autodesk Inventor
9 1 (0.068%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.068%) InVision
9 1 (0.068%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.068%) Trello
Business Applications
1 22 (1.50%) Dynamics CRM
1 22 (1.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (0.55%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 8 (0.55%) SAP QM
3 7 (0.48%) Endur
4 6 (0.41%) ION MarketView
4 6 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
5 5 (0.34%) Adobe Campaign
5 5 (0.34%) Dynamics AX
5 5 (0.34%) IntelliMatch
5 5 (0.34%) Magento
5 5 (0.34%) SAP ERP
6 4 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
6 4 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
6 4 (0.27%) TrackWise
7 3 (0.21%) ION Anvil
7 3 (0.21%) NEC Housing
7 3 (0.21%) Primavera
7 3 (0.21%) SAP Payroll
8 2 (0.14%) WebTrends
Cloud Services
1 257 (17.58%) Azure
2 179 (12.24%) AWS
3 86 (5.88%) GitHub
4 84 (5.75%) Power Platform
5 75 (5.13%) GCP
6 70 (4.79%) Azure DevOps
7 66 (4.51%) Dynamics 365
8 39 (2.67%) SaaS
9 29 (1.98%) Serverless
10 25 (1.71%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 23 (1.57%) Entra ID
12 22 (1.50%) Amazon S3
12 22 (1.50%) AWS CloudFormation
12 22 (1.50%) AWS Lambda
13 21 (1.44%) Amazon EC2
13 21 (1.44%) Azure Data Factory
13 21 (1.44%) GitHub Actions
13 21 (1.44%) Microsoft 365
14 17 (1.16%) Azure Logic Apps
15 16 (1.09%) Azure API Management
Communications & Networking
1 28 (1.92%) Firewall
2 26 (1.78%) Internet
2 26 (1.78%) WAN
3 25 (1.71%) VPN
4 24 (1.64%) TCP/IP
5 23 (1.57%) DNS
6 19 (1.30%) LAN
7 12 (0.82%) HTTP
7 12 (0.82%) Wi-Fi
8 11 (0.75%) FIX Connectivity
9 9 (0.62%) MPLS
10 7 (0.48%) 5G
10 7 (0.48%) Ethernet
10 7 (0.48%) IPsec
10 7 (0.48%) SSL
11 5 (0.34%) HTTPS
11 5 (0.34%) SSH
11 5 (0.34%) VoIP
12 4 (0.27%) PPP
12 4 (0.27%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (7.66%) SQL Server
2 68 (4.65%) Power BI
3 58 (3.97%) Relational Database
4 52 (3.56%) MySQL
5 36 (2.46%) Oracle Database
6 29 (1.98%) Tableau
7 22 (1.50%) PostgreSQL
8 20 (1.37%) NoSQL
9 18 (1.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 17 (1.16%) Data Lake
10 17 (1.16%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 16 (1.09%) RDBMS
12 15 (1.03%) Elasticsearch
13 14 (0.96%) Microsoft Analysis Services
14 10 (0.68%) Data Warehouse
15 9 (0.62%) BigQuery
16 8 (0.55%) Data Mining
17 7 (0.48%) Ataccama
17 7 (0.48%) Big Data
17 7 (0.48%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 160 (10.94%) JIRA
2 75 (5.13%) Jenkins
2 75 (5.13%) Selenium
3 71 (4.86%) Git
4 62 (4.24%) Cucumber
5 55 (3.76%) Postman
6 52 (3.56%) GitLab
7 41 (2.80%) Cypress.io
8 31 (2.12%) JMeter
9 27 (1.85%) JUnit
10 25 (1.71%) SpecFlow
11 22 (1.50%) Appium
12 20 (1.37%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 20 (1.37%) TeamCity
13 19 (1.30%) Visual Studio
14 16 (1.09%) Maven
15 14 (0.96%) REST Assured
15 14 (0.96%) TestRail
15 14 (0.96%) webpack
16 13 (0.89%) WebDriver
General
1 506 (34.61%) Social Skills
2 303 (20.73%) Finance
3 179 (12.24%) Analytical Skills
4 105 (7.18%) Banking
5 104 (7.11%) Public Sector
6 46 (3.15%) Front Office
6 46 (3.15%) Telecoms
7 43 (2.94%) Marketing
8 36 (2.46%) Presentation Skills
9 33 (2.26%) Pharmaceutical
9 33 (2.26%) Retail
10 31 (2.12%) Investment Banking
10 31 (2.12%) Legal
11 30 (2.05%) Influencing Skills
12 25 (1.71%) Manufacturing
12 25 (1.71%) Organisational Skills
13 20 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 19 (1.30%) Documentation Skills
15 15 (1.03%) Back Office
15 15 (1.03%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 226 (15.46%) Analyst
2 202 (13.82%) Developer
3 146 (9.99%) Lead
4 99 (6.77%) Architect
5 97 (6.63%) Business Analyst
6 85 (5.81%) QA Engineer
7 76 (5.20%) Project Manager
7 76 (5.20%) Senior
8 62 (4.24%) Tester
9 54 (3.69%) Consultant
10 51 (3.49%) .NET Developer
11 45 (3.08%) Test Manager
12 42 (2.87%) Test Analyst
13 41 (2.80%) QA Analyst
14 40 (2.74%) Data Analyst
14 40 (2.74%) Software Engineer
15 35 (2.39%) QA Tester
16 33 (2.26%) QA Leader
17 30 (2.05%) C# Developer
17 30 (2.05%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (7.39%) .NET
2 101 (6.91%) React
3 67 (4.58%) XML
4 66 (4.51%) REST
5 53 (3.63%) AngularJS
5 53 (3.63%) HTML
6 46 (3.15%) CSS
6 46 (3.15%) JSON
7 45 (3.08%) Node.js
8 40 (2.74%) Redux
9 37 (2.53%) .NET Framework
10 34 (2.33%) Vue
11 30 (2.05%) Spring
12 28 (1.92%) Web Services
13 26 (1.78%) RESTful
14 24 (1.64%) SailPoint
15 22 (1.50%) Elastic Stack
15 22 (1.50%) Middleware
15 22 (1.50%) Playwright
16 21 (1.44%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 102 (6.98%) Product Ownership
2 51 (3.49%) Derivative
3 43 (2.94%) Equities
4 42 (2.87%) Fixed Income
4 42 (2.87%) Management Information System
5 37 (2.53%) Data Protection Act
6 35 (2.39%) Hedge funds
7 34 (2.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 32 (2.19%) Mobile App
9 30 (2.05%) Onboarding
9 30 (2.05%) Public Cloud
10 19 (1.30%) Enterprise Software
11 17 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
12 16 (1.09%) Data Structures
13 14 (0.96%) Algorithms
14 13 (0.89%) Cloud Native
15 11 (0.75%) Data Centre
15 11 (0.75%) Greenfield Project
15 11 (0.75%) Legacy Systems
15 11 (0.75%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 109 (7.46%) Windows
2 81 (5.54%) Linux
3 38 (2.60%) Windows Server
4 36 (2.46%) Unix
5 29 (1.98%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.50%) Windows Server 2016
7 21 (1.44%) Android
7 21 (1.44%) Apple iOS
7 21 (1.44%) Windows NT
7 21 (1.44%) Windows Server 2012
7 21 (1.44%) Windows Server 2019
8 11 (0.75%) VMS
9 7 (0.48%) OpenVMS
10 6 (0.41%) Mac OS
11 5 (0.34%) CentOS
12 4 (0.27%) Windows 7
13 2 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 1 (0.068%) Solaris
14 1 (0.068%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 435 (29.75%) Agile
2 275 (18.81%) Test Automation
3 270 (18.47%) Problem-Solving
4 235 (16.07%) DevOps
5 215 (14.71%) Project Management
6 152 (10.40%) CI/CD
7 143 (9.78%) Migration
8 142 (9.71%) Scrum
9 141 (9.64%) User Acceptance Testing
10 131 (8.96%) Continuous Improvement
11 128 (8.76%) Test Strategy
12 126 (8.62%) Stakeholder Management
13 101 (6.91%) Software Engineering
14 97 (6.63%) Computer Science
15 96 (6.57%) User Stories
16 95 (6.50%) Validation
17 91 (6.22%) Analytics
18 90 (6.16%) Continuous Integration
19 88 (6.02%) Data Analysis
20 87 (5.95%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 223 (15.25%) SQL
2 161 (11.01%) Python
3 155 (10.60%) C#
4 149 (10.19%) JavaScript
5 144 (9.85%) Java
6 72 (4.92%) TypeScript
7 42 (2.87%) PowerShell
7 42 (2.87%) T-SQL
8 26 (1.78%) PL/SQL
9 24 (1.64%) Bash
10 23 (1.57%) C
10 23 (1.57%) VBA
11 22 (1.50%) PHP
11 22 (1.50%) VB
12 14 (0.96%) Perl
12 14 (0.96%) Swift
13 13 (0.89%) VB.NET
14 11 (0.75%) F#
14 11 (0.75%) Kotlin
15 9 (0.62%) C++
Qualifications
1 218 (14.91%) Security Cleared
2 194 (13.27%) Degree
3 142 (9.71%) SC Cleared
4 70 (4.79%) DV Cleared
5 63 (4.31%) Computer Science Degree
6 51 (3.49%) ISTQB
7 28 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
7 28 (1.92%) PMP
8 24 (1.64%) PMI Certification
9 16 (1.09%) Master's Degree
10 14 (0.96%) HNC
10 14 (0.96%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 12 (0.82%) ISEB
12 11 (0.75%) Cisco Certification
12 11 (0.75%) NVQ Level 3
13 10 (0.68%) CCNA
13 10 (0.68%) HND
14 8 (0.55%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 7 (0.48%) BC Cleared
15 7 (0.48%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (5.20%) Data Quality
2 42 (2.87%) Accessibility
3 25 (1.71%) SLA
4 17 (1.16%) PMO
5 14 (0.96%) GDPR
6 11 (0.75%) Software Quality Assurance
7 10 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 9 (0.62%) ISO 9001
9 8 (0.55%) MiFID
10 7 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
10 7 (0.48%) Dodd-Frank
10 7 (0.48%) EMIR
10 7 (0.48%) WCAG
11 6 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 17025
11 6 (0.41%) NIST
12 5 (0.34%) GMP
12 5 (0.34%) IFRS
12 5 (0.34%) ISO17020
13 4 (0.27%) DO-178B
13 4 (0.27%) HIPAA
System Software
1 55 (3.76%) Active Directory
2 37 (2.53%) Docker
3 24 (1.64%) Firmware
4 14 (0.96%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.34%) Hyper-V
5 5 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (0.34%) VMware Infrastructure
6 4 (0.27%) KVM
6 4 (0.27%) Veritas Cluster Server
6 4 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
7 1 (0.068%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.068%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 56 (3.83%) Kubernetes
2 48 (3.28%) Terraform
3 44 (3.01%) Ansible
4 25 (1.71%) SCCM
5 24 (1.64%) Grafana
6 21 (1.44%) Sysprep
6 21 (1.44%) WSUS
7 20 (1.37%) Prometheus
8 15 (1.03%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.96%) Puppet
10 13 (0.89%) Graylog
11 11 (0.75%) Nagios
12 10 (0.68%) Kibana
12 10 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
13 8 (0.55%) HP Fortify
14 7 (0.48%) logstash
15 6 (0.41%) Docker Swarm
15 6 (0.41%) Nessus
15 6 (0.41%) WebInspect
16 4 (0.27%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 209 (14.30%) Microsoft
2 106 (7.25%) Oracle
3 89 (6.09%) SAP
4 45 (3.08%) ServiceNow
5 43 (2.94%) Google
6 42 (2.87%) Adobe
7 39 (2.67%) Salesforce
8 32 (2.19%) Citrix
8 32 (2.19%) Splunk
9 20 (1.37%) Bloomberg
10 18 (1.23%) CyberArk
11 17 (1.16%) Pega
12 15 (1.03%) Cisco
13 14 (0.96%) ION Trading
13 14 (0.96%) Red Hat
14 12 (0.82%) Optimizely
15 11 (0.75%) CA Agile Central
15 11 (0.75%) Databricks
15 11 (0.75%) MarketAxess
15 11 (0.75%) Tradeweb