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

6 months to
27 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 63 62 61
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 +9
Contract jobs citing QA 1,880 1,140 1,414
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.69% 3.76% 3.26%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 21.88% 23.02% 23.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,172 802 918
10th Percentile £322 £280 £310
25th Percentile £397 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £469 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.28% -6.20% -1.96%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £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 141 26 101
10th Percentile £12.91 £13.46 £10.86
25th Percentile £16.13 £15.03 £12.24
Median hourly rate £31.46 £24.68 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +27.46% +64.77% -33.42%
75th Percentile £67.50 £52.00 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £15.21 £13.76
% change year-on-year +106.91% +10.50% -37.45%

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 8,594 4,952 5,940
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.86% 16.33% 13.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,497 3,172 3,695
10th Percentile £340 £275 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £509
Median % change year-on-year - -1.77% -3.05%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £475
% change year-on-year +6.38% -1.05% -3.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 522 200 430
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.08 £11.07
25th Percentile £19.24 £18.50 £13.50
Median hourly rate £36.07 £31.57 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year +14.27% +32.63% -36.53%
75th Percentile £67.50 £65.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £82.22 £83.59 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.00 £30.25 £20.46
% change year-on-year +28.95% +47.83% -42.37%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 +3 1,610 £481 +1.18% 699
UK excluding London +8 872 £450 - 599
London +8 799 £500 +1.01% 233
Work from Home +9 551 £481 +1.18% 278
South East +6 198 £450 -2.70% 203
North of England -15 190 £454 -3.20% 143
Midlands -11 177 £425 +13.33% 109
West Midlands -10 132 £444 +4.53% 53
South West +16 122 £495 -1.00% 68
East of England +6 85 £476 +0.50% 53
Scotland +11 84 £350 -22.22% 20
North West -30 82 £425 -0.24% 81
Yorkshire -16 71 £525 +1.01% 33
East Midlands -8 45 £407 +10.14% 56
North East -10 37 £390 -13.33% 30
Northern Ireland +5 19 £475 +46.15% 19
Wales -10 11 £463 +8.82% 5

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
1 108 (5.74%) Confluence
2 31 (1.65%) SharePoint
3 30 (1.60%) CMS
4 19 (1.01%) IIS
5 16 (0.85%) Apache Spark
6 12 (0.64%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 8 (0.43%) Apache
8 7 (0.37%) SAS
9 6 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
10 5 (0.27%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.27%) Tuxedo
10 5 (0.27%) Umbraco
11 4 (0.21%) nginx
12 3 (0.16%) Jupyter
12 3 (0.16%) Moodle
12 3 (0.16%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
12 3 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.16%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.11%) Appian
13 2 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 56 (2.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (1.38%) Microsoft Project
4 21 (1.12%) MS Visio
5 19 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 6 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.27%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.21%) Photoshop
9 3 (0.16%) CATIA
9 3 (0.16%) CPLEX
9 3 (0.16%) Simulink
10 2 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
10 2 (0.11%) AutoCAD
10 2 (0.11%) EPLAN
11 1 (0.053%) Adobe After Effects
11 1 (0.053%) Adobe Premiere
11 1 (0.053%) Camtasia
11 1 (0.053%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.053%) Notion
11 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%) Payment Gateway
8 3 (0.16%) SAP FI
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle Assets
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 2 (0.11%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 412 (21.91%) Azure
2 311 (16.54%) AWS
3 174 (9.26%) Azure DevOps
4 152 (8.09%) GitHub
5 104 (5.53%) Power Platform
6 92 (4.89%) GitHub Actions
7 74 (3.94%) GCP
8 46 (2.45%) Serverless
9 37 (1.97%) OpenShift
9 37 (1.97%) SaaS
10 34 (1.81%) Dynamics 365
11 30 (1.60%) AWS Lambda
12 28 (1.49%) Amazon S3
13 27 (1.44%) Snowflake
14 26 (1.38%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 22 (1.17%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 21 (1.12%) Azure Data Factory
16 21 (1.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 19 (1.01%) Azure Monitor
17 19 (1.01%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.28%) 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 (0.59%) SD-WAN
8 11 (0.59%) Unified Communications
8 11 (0.59%) VLAN
9 9 (0.48%) HTTP
9 9 (0.48%) Wireless
10 8 (0.43%) IPsec
11 7 (0.37%) SMS
11 7 (0.37%) TCP/IP
12 6 (0.32%) Cisco Nexus
13 5 (0.27%) DHCP
14 4 (0.21%) BGP
14 4 (0.21%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (6.06%) SQL Server
2 89 (4.73%) Power BI
3 71 (3.78%) Data Warehouse
4 68 (3.62%) 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 32 (1.70%) MongoDB
9 32 (1.70%) Oracle Reports
10 29 (1.54%) Data Lake
11 22 (1.17%) Big Data
12 19 (1.01%) DynamoDB
13 18 (0.96%) Azure SQL Database
14 17 (0.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 16 (0.85%) RDBMS
16 15 (0.80%) BigQuery
17 14 (0.74%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 298 (15.85%) JIRA
2 175 (9.31%) Git
3 144 (7.66%) Selenium
4 139 (7.39%) Jenkins
5 96 (5.11%) GitLab
6 85 (4.52%) Postman
7 64 (3.40%) Cypress.io
8 62 (3.30%) Cucumber
9 58 (3.09%) JUnit
10 52 (2.77%) REST Assured
11 47 (2.50%) Zephyr
12 43 (2.29%) SonarQube
13 35 (1.86%) JMeter
14 30 (1.60%) WebDriver
15 23 (1.22%) Gatling
15 23 (1.22%) Maven
16 20 (1.06%) TestNG
17 19 (1.01%) TestRail
18 18 (0.96%) Gradle
19 17 (0.90%) Appium
General
1 566 (30.11%) Social Skills
2 413 (21.97%) Finance
3 271 (14.41%) Analytical Skills
4 220 (11.70%) Public Sector
5 142 (7.55%) Banking
6 62 (3.30%) Retail
7 56 (2.98%) Manufacturing
8 55 (2.93%) 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%) Legal
14 22 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
15 21 (1.12%) Investment Banking
16 20 (1.06%) Pharmaceutical
17 19 (1.01%) Military
18 17 (0.90%) Automotive
19 16 (0.85%) Front Office
20 15 (0.80%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 248 (13.19%) Developer
2 226 (12.02%) Analyst
3 218 (11.60%) Senior
4 215 (11.44%) Lead
5 172 (9.15%) QA Engineer
6 109 (5.80%) Business Analyst
7 102 (5.43%) Tester
8 89 (4.73%) Test Manager
9 70 (3.72%) Architect
9 70 (3.72%) Quality Engineer
10 68 (3.62%) Java Developer
11 65 (3.46%) Test Engineer
12 59 (3.14%) Data Engineer
13 57 (3.03%) Test Leader
14 54 (2.87%) Senior Analyst
15 52 (2.77%) Consultant
16 51 (2.71%) Project Manager
17 50 (2.66%) Data Analyst
18 47 (2.50%) Software Engineer
19 46 (2.45%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 135 (7.18%) REST
2 114 (6.06%) .NET
3 110 (5.85%) Playwright
4 105 (5.59%) RESTful
5 92 (4.89%) Spring
6 89 (4.73%) Spring Boot
7 74 (3.94%) React
8 66 (3.51%) HTML
9 64 (3.40%) AngularJS
10 61 (3.24%) CSS
11 55 (2.93%) Kafka
12 52 (2.77%) .NET Framework
13 47 (2.50%) Node.js
14 37 (1.97%) JSON
15 32 (1.70%) Quarkus
16 30 (1.60%) Middleware
17 28 (1.49%) SOAP
18 26 (1.38%) ASP.NET
19 25 (1.33%) pytest
20 24 (1.28%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 167 (8.88%) Product Ownership
2 86 (4.57%) Cloud Native
3 56 (2.98%) Onboarding
4 51 (2.71%) Legacy Systems
5 45 (2.39%) Distributed Systems
6 42 (2.23%) Management Information System
7 41 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
8 40 (2.13%) Mobile App
9 34 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
10 32 (1.70%) Data Structures
11 26 (1.38%) Data Centre
12 25 (1.33%) Virtual Team
13 22 (1.17%) AI Agents
14 20 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
15 18 (0.96%) NHS
16 17 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
17 14 (0.74%) Life Science
17 14 (0.74%) PMI
18 13 (0.69%) Derivative
18 13 (0.69%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 89 (4.73%) Windows
2 57 (3.03%) Linux
3 31 (1.65%) Apple iOS
4 30 (1.60%) Windows Server
5 27 (1.44%) Android
6 23 (1.22%) 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
1 712 (37.87%) Agile
2 485 (25.80%) Test Automation
3 468 (24.89%) DevOps
4 445 (23.67%) CI/CD
5 316 (16.81%) Validation
6 307 (16.33%) Stakeholder Management
7 303 (16.12%) Continuous Improvement
8 297 (15.80%) Problem-Solving
9 266 (14.15%) User Acceptance Testing
10 257 (13.67%) Test Strategy
11 255 (13.56%) Scrum
12 235 (12.50%) Migration
13 211 (11.22%) AI
14 168 (8.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 155 (8.24%) Decision-Making
16 154 (8.19%) SDLC
17 148 (7.87%) ETL
18 145 (7.71%) Analytics
18 145 (7.71%) Test Management
19 144 (7.66%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 385 (20.48%) SQL
2 246 (13.09%) Java
3 236 (12.55%) Python
4 136 (7.23%) C#
4 136 (7.23%) JavaScript
5 85 (4.52%) TypeScript
6 42 (2.23%) T-SQL
7 41 (2.18%) PL/SQL
8 30 (1.60%) Kotlin
9 28 (1.49%) PowerShell
10 23 (1.22%) Bash
11 19 (1.01%) Scala
12 18 (0.96%) VB
13 17 (0.90%) Swift
14 16 (0.85%) C
14 16 (0.85%) C++
14 16 (0.85%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 15 (0.80%) Bicep
16 14 (0.74%) VBA
17 11 (0.59%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 426 (22.66%) Security Cleared
2 321 (17.07%) SC Cleared
3 132 (7.02%) Degree
4 75 (3.99%) ISTQB
5 66 (3.51%) BPSS Clearance
6 51 (2.71%) DV Cleared
7 32 (1.70%) Computer Science Degree
7 32 (1.70%) PMI Certification
7 32 (1.70%) PMP
8 16 (0.85%) Master's Degree
9 12 (0.64%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 11 (0.59%) Azure Certification
10 11 (0.59%) Cisco Certification
11 10 (0.53%) AWS Certification
12 8 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
13 7 (0.37%) CBAP
13 7 (0.37%) CCNP
14 6 (0.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 6 (0.32%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 5 (0.27%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 125 (6.65%) Data Quality
2 87 (4.63%) Accessibility
3 34 (1.81%) GDPR
4 32 (1.70%) PMO
5 22 (1.17%) WCAG
6 17 (0.90%) GRC
7 16 (0.85%) IFRS
7 16 (0.85%) NIST
8 15 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 14 (0.74%) GxP
9 14 (0.74%) IFRS 17
9 14 (0.74%) PCI DSS
9 14 (0.74%) SLA
10 11 (0.59%) Disclosure Scotland
11 9 (0.48%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 8 (0.43%) ISO 20022
13 7 (0.37%) NCSC
13 7 (0.37%) SEPA
14 5 (0.27%) PSD2
14 5 (0.27%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 116 (6.17%) Docker
2 21 (1.12%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.59%) 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
1 169 (8.99%) Kubernetes
2 67 (3.56%) Terraform
3 33 (1.76%) Grafana
4 32 (1.70%) Ansible
4 32 (1.70%) Argo
5 25 (1.33%) Prometheus
6 21 (1.12%) HP ALM
7 12 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.53%) HP Quality Center
9 7 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
9 7 (0.37%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 6 (0.32%) Kibana
10 6 (0.32%) SCCM
11 5 (0.27%) Nmap
12 4 (0.21%) Puppet
13 3 (0.16%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.16%) Progress Chef
14 2 (0.11%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Intune
14 2 (0.11%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 194 (10.32%) Microsoft
2 170 (9.04%) Oracle
3 102 (5.43%) Salesforce
4 91 (4.84%) SAP
5 49 (2.61%) ServiceNow
6 38 (2.02%) Citrix
7 37 (1.97%) Google
8 35 (1.86%) Red Hat
9 34 (1.81%) Databricks
10 30 (1.60%) Adobe
11 25 (1.33%) Informatica
12 24 (1.28%) HP
13 21 (1.12%) Cisco
14 18 (0.96%) MuleSoft
15 14 (0.74%) Talend
16 13 (0.69%) Workday
17 12 (0.64%) Atlassian
17 12 (0.64%) Splunk
17 12 (0.64%) VMware
18 11 (0.59%) Infor