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 26 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 63 62 59
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +11
Contract jobs citing QA 1,881 1,143 1,426
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.70% 3.78% 3.28%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 21.91% 23.12% 23.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,173 805 927
10th Percentile £323 £280 £309
25th Percentile £398 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £469 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.28% -6.20% -1.96%
75th Percentile £575 £573 £600
90th Percentile £675 £663 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 142 26 101
10th Percentile £12.91 £13.46 £10.86
25th Percentile £16.04 £15.03 £12.24
Median hourly rate £31.46 £25.00 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year +25.84% +78.57% -37.78%
75th Percentile £67.50 £52.00 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £71.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £15.12 £13.52
% change year-on-year +108.07% +11.83% -38.55%

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 8,584 4,943 5,966
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.87% 16.34% 13.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,498 3,166 3,714
10th Percentile £340 £275 £280
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £723 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £475
% change year-on-year +6.38% -1.05% -2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 522 201 432
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.09 £11.06
25th Percentile £19.24 £18.50 £13.30
Median hourly rate £36.07 £31.64 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year +14.00% +32.94% -36.53%
75th Percentile £67.50 £65.00 £50.27
90th Percentile £82.22 £83.41 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.50 £31.57 £19.50
% change year-on-year +25.14% +61.87% -45.07%

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 26 June 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 26 June 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 26 June 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 1,611 £481 +1.83% 730
UK excluding London +10 872 £450 - 621
London +8 799 £500 +1.01% 251
Work from Home +6 551 £480 +1.05% 302
South East +13 201 £450 -2.70% 206
North of England -18 189 £455 -2.31% 144
Midlands -13 177 £425 +13.33% 117
West Midlands -7 133 £444 +4.53% 54
South West +19 122 £491 -1.75% 70
East of England +9 85 £476 +0.50% 51
Scotland +8 83 £350 -22.22% 24
North West -29 82 £425 -1.05% 82
Yorkshire -25 69 £525 +1.01% 36
East Midlands -6 44 £413 +11.56% 63
North East -5 38 £390 -13.33% 28
Northern Ireland +7 19 £475 +46.15% 24
Wales -9 11 £463 +8.82% 6

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
1 106 (5.64%) Confluence
2 30 (1.59%) CMS
2 30 (1.59%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.01%) IIS
4 16 (0.85%) Apache Spark
5 12 (0.64%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 8 (0.43%) Apache
7 7 (0.37%) SAS
8 6 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
9 5 (0.27%) Microsoft Exchange
9 5 (0.27%) Tuxedo
9 5 (0.27%) Umbraco
10 4 (0.21%) nginx
11 3 (0.16%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.16%) Moodle
11 3 (0.16%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
11 3 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.16%) Tomcat
12 2 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.11%) WordPress
Applications
1 57 (3.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
3 25 (1.33%) Microsoft Project
4 20 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (1.06%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.27%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.21%) Photoshop
8 3 (0.16%) CATIA
8 3 (0.16%) CPLEX
8 3 (0.16%) Simulink
9 2 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.11%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.11%) EPLAN
10 1 (0.053%) Adobe After Effects
10 1 (0.053%) Adobe Premiere
10 1 (0.053%) Camtasia
10 1 (0.053%) Navisworks
10 1 (0.053%) Notion
10 1 (0.053%) Revit
Business Applications
1 28 (1.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.43%) Shopify
4 7 (0.37%) Workday HCM
5 6 (0.32%) Maximo
5 6 (0.32%) NEC Housing
5 6 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 6 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
6 5 (0.27%) Infor CloudSuite
7 4 (0.21%) Adobe Campaign
7 4 (0.21%) Primavera
8 3 (0.16%) Actimize
8 3 (0.16%) Aladdin
8 3 (0.16%) IntelliMatch
8 3 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
8 3 (0.16%) SAP FI
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.11%) SAP Payroll
9 2 (0.11%) Summit
9 2 (0.11%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 415 (22.06%) Azure
2 313 (16.64%) AWS
3 173 (9.20%) Azure DevOps
4 152 (8.08%) GitHub
5 103 (5.48%) Power Platform
6 92 (4.89%) GitHub Actions
7 74 (3.93%) GCP
8 46 (2.45%) Serverless
9 38 (2.02%) OpenShift
10 36 (1.91%) SaaS
11 34 (1.81%) Dynamics 365
12 30 (1.59%) AWS Lambda
13 28 (1.49%) Amazon S3
14 27 (1.44%) Snowflake
15 26 (1.38%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 23 (1.22%) Azure Data Factory
17 22 (1.17%) Salesforce Service Cloud
18 21 (1.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 19 (1.01%) Azure Monitor
19 19 (1.01%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 26 (1.38%) Firewall
2 19 (1.01%) Network Security
3 18 (0.96%) Internet
3 18 (0.96%) WAN
4 16 (0.85%) LAN
5 14 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
6 13 (0.69%) VPN
7 12 (0.64%) DNS
8 11 (0.58%) SD-WAN
8 11 (0.58%) Unified Communications
8 11 (0.58%) VLAN
8 11 (0.58%) Wireless
9 9 (0.48%) HTTP
10 8 (0.43%) IPsec
11 7 (0.37%) SMS
12 6 (0.32%) Cisco Nexus
12 6 (0.32%) TCP/IP
13 5 (0.27%) DHCP
14 4 (0.21%) BGP
14 4 (0.21%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (6.01%) SQL Server
2 88 (4.68%) Power BI
3 71 (3.77%) Data Warehouse
4 69 (3.67%) PostgreSQL
5 61 (3.24%) Relational Database
6 43 (2.29%) MySQL
6 43 (2.29%) NoSQL
7 37 (1.97%) Metadata
8 36 (1.91%) Oracle Database
8 36 (1.91%) Tableau
9 33 (1.75%) MongoDB
10 32 (1.70%) Oracle Reports
11 31 (1.65%) Data Lake
12 22 (1.17%) Big Data
13 19 (1.01%) DynamoDB
14 18 (0.96%) Azure SQL Database
15 17 (0.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 16 (0.85%) RDBMS
17 15 (0.80%) BigQuery
18 14 (0.74%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 298 (15.84%) JIRA
2 178 (9.46%) Git
3 143 (7.60%) Selenium
4 137 (7.28%) Jenkins
5 97 (5.16%) GitLab
6 85 (4.52%) Postman
7 63 (3.35%) Cucumber
7 63 (3.35%) Cypress.io
8 58 (3.08%) JUnit
9 52 (2.76%) REST Assured
10 46 (2.45%) Zephyr
11 44 (2.34%) SonarQube
12 38 (2.02%) JMeter
13 29 (1.54%) WebDriver
14 23 (1.22%) Gatling
14 23 (1.22%) Maven
15 20 (1.06%) TestNG
16 19 (1.01%) TestRail
17 18 (0.96%) Gradle
18 17 (0.90%) Appium
General
1 565 (30.04%) Social Skills
2 411 (21.85%) Finance
3 271 (14.41%) Analytical Skills
4 221 (11.75%) Public Sector
5 141 (7.50%) Banking
6 62 (3.30%) Retail
7 56 (2.98%) Manufacturing
8 55 (2.92%) Marketing
9 48 (2.55%) Organisational Skills
10 37 (1.97%) Aerospace
11 28 (1.49%) Documentation Skills
12 25 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 23 (1.22%) Influencing Skills
13 23 (1.22%) Legal
14 21 (1.12%) Investment Banking
15 20 (1.06%) Pharmaceutical
16 19 (1.01%) Military
17 17 (0.90%) Automotive
18 16 (0.85%) Front Office
19 15 (0.80%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 246 (13.08%) Developer
2 228 (12.12%) Analyst
3 220 (11.70%) Senior
4 213 (11.32%) Lead
5 171 (9.09%) QA Engineer
6 113 (6.01%) Business Analyst
7 104 (5.53%) Tester
8 90 (4.78%) Test Manager
9 69 (3.67%) Architect
9 69 (3.67%) Java Developer
9 69 (3.67%) Quality Engineer
10 66 (3.51%) Test Engineer
11 59 (3.14%) Data Engineer
12 56 (2.98%) Senior Analyst
13 55 (2.92%) Test Leader
14 52 (2.76%) Consultant
14 52 (2.76%) Project Manager
15 50 (2.66%) Data Analyst
16 46 (2.45%) Software Engineer
16 46 (2.45%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 135 (7.18%) REST
2 112 (5.95%) .NET
3 108 (5.74%) Playwright
4 107 (5.69%) RESTful
5 91 (4.84%) Spring
6 88 (4.68%) Spring Boot
7 74 (3.93%) React
8 66 (3.51%) HTML
9 63 (3.35%) AngularJS
10 60 (3.19%) CSS
11 56 (2.98%) Kafka
12 52 (2.76%) .NET Framework
13 47 (2.50%) Node.js
14 36 (1.91%) JSON
15 33 (1.75%) Quarkus
16 29 (1.54%) Middleware
17 27 (1.44%) SOAP
18 25 (1.33%) ASP.NET
18 25 (1.33%) Gherkin
18 25 (1.33%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 166 (8.83%) Product Ownership
2 85 (4.52%) Cloud Native
3 54 (2.87%) Onboarding
4 51 (2.71%) Legacy Systems
5 45 (2.39%) Distributed Systems
6 41 (2.18%) Management Information System
7 40 (2.13%) Data Protection Act
7 40 (2.13%) Mobile App
8 33 (1.75%) Enterprise Software
9 31 (1.65%) Data Structures
10 26 (1.38%) Data Centre
11 25 (1.33%) Virtual Team
12 22 (1.17%) AI Agents
13 21 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
14 18 (0.96%) NHS
15 17 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
16 16 (0.85%) PMI
17 14 (0.74%) Derivative
17 14 (0.74%) Life Science
18 13 (0.69%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 89 (4.73%) Windows
2 55 (2.92%) Linux
3 31 (1.65%) Apple iOS
4 30 (1.59%) Windows Server
5 27 (1.44%) Android
6 21 (1.12%) Unix
7 6 (0.32%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
9 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.053%) Debian
10 1 (0.053%) Solaris
10 1 (0.053%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.053%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.053%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 715 (38.01%) Agile
2 488 (25.94%) Test Automation
3 467 (24.83%) DevOps
4 443 (23.55%) CI/CD
5 318 (16.91%) Validation
6 307 (16.32%) Stakeholder Management
7 302 (16.06%) Continuous Improvement
8 294 (15.63%) Problem-Solving
9 268 (14.25%) User Acceptance Testing
10 255 (13.56%) Test Strategy
11 254 (13.50%) Scrum
12 234 (12.44%) Migration
13 211 (11.22%) AI
14 168 (8.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 155 (8.24%) Decision-Making
15 155 (8.24%) SDLC
16 149 (7.92%) ETL
17 147 (7.81%) Analytics
18 146 (7.76%) Test Management
19 144 (7.66%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 384 (20.41%) SQL
2 246 (13.08%) Java
3 236 (12.55%) Python
4 138 (7.34%) JavaScript
5 136 (7.23%) C#
6 86 (4.57%) TypeScript
7 42 (2.23%) T-SQL
8 41 (2.18%) PL/SQL
9 30 (1.59%) Kotlin
10 28 (1.49%) PowerShell
11 23 (1.22%) Bash
12 20 (1.06%) Scala
13 18 (0.96%) VB
14 17 (0.90%) Swift
15 16 (0.85%) C
15 16 (0.85%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 15 (0.80%) Bicep
16 15 (0.80%) C++
17 14 (0.74%) VBA
18 11 (0.58%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 428 (22.75%) Security Cleared
2 323 (17.17%) SC Cleared
3 136 (7.23%) Degree
4 77 (4.09%) ISTQB
5 66 (3.51%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (2.66%) DV Cleared
7 35 (1.86%) PMI Certification
8 33 (1.75%) Computer Science Degree
8 33 (1.75%) PMP
9 16 (0.85%) Master's Degree
10 14 (0.74%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 11 (0.58%) Azure Certification
11 11 (0.58%) Cisco Certification
12 10 (0.53%) AWS Certification
13 9 (0.48%) CBAP
14 8 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
15 7 (0.37%) CCNP
16 6 (0.32%) Cyber Scheme
16 6 (0.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 6 (0.32%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 125 (6.65%) Data Quality
2 87 (4.63%) Accessibility
3 36 (1.91%) GDPR
4 34 (1.81%) PMO
5 21 (1.12%) WCAG
6 18 (0.96%) NIST
7 17 (0.90%) GRC
7 17 (0.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 16 (0.85%) IFRS
9 15 (0.80%) PCI DSS
10 14 (0.74%) GxP
10 14 (0.74%) IFRS 17
10 14 (0.74%) SLA
11 11 (0.58%) Disclosure Scotland
12 9 (0.48%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 8 (0.43%) ISO 20022
14 7 (0.37%) NCSC
14 7 (0.37%) SEPA
15 5 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
15 5 (0.27%) PSD2
System Software
1 113 (6.01%) Docker
2 20 (1.06%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.37%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.32%) Firmware
5 6 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.16%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
6 3 (0.16%) IAG
7 2 (0.11%) GridGain
7 2 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
7 2 (0.11%) VirtualBox
7 2 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.053%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.053%) KVM
8 1 (0.053%) QEMU
8 1 (0.053%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
8 1 (0.053%) Varnish
8 1 (0.053%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 167 (8.88%) Kubernetes
2 68 (3.62%) Terraform
3 34 (1.81%) Grafana
4 33 (1.75%) Argo
5 31 (1.65%) Ansible
6 26 (1.38%) Prometheus
7 21 (1.12%) HP ALM
8 12 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
9 9 (0.48%) HP Quality Center
10 7 (0.37%) Nmap
10 7 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.37%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 6 (0.32%) Kibana
12 5 (0.27%) SCCM
13 4 (0.21%) Puppet
14 3 (0.16%) FortiGate
14 3 (0.16%) Progress Chef
15 2 (0.11%) ITRS Geneos
15 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Intune
15 2 (0.11%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 194 (10.31%) Microsoft
2 170 (9.04%) Oracle
3 102 (5.42%) Salesforce
4 91 (4.84%) SAP
5 49 (2.60%) ServiceNow
6 38 (2.02%) Citrix
6 38 (2.02%) Google
7 36 (1.91%) Red Hat
8 34 (1.81%) Databricks
9 30 (1.59%) Adobe
10 25 (1.33%) Informatica
11 23 (1.22%) HP
12 21 (1.12%) Cisco
13 18 (0.96%) MuleSoft
14 14 (0.74%) Talend
15 13 (0.69%) Workday
16 12 (0.64%) Atlassian
16 12 (0.64%) Splunk
16 12 (0.64%) VMware
17 11 (0.58%) Infor