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

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 63 66 59
Rank change year-on-year +3 -7 +13
Contract jobs citing QA 1,833 1,105 1,452
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.64% 3.71% 3.31%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 21.67% 22.85% 24.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,148 775 944
10th Percentile £319 £281 £310
25th Percentile £397 £382 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.05% -5.00% -1.96%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 135 29 102
10th Percentile £13.02 £13.49 £10.86
25th Percentile £16.07 £15.12 £12.24
Median hourly rate £30.58 £30.00 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.93% +114.29% -37.74%
75th Percentile £67.50 £68.50 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £71.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.58 £52.50 £13.52
% change year-on-year -41.75% +288.31% -33.23%

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 8,460 4,836 6,007
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.79% 16.25% 13.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,425 3,083 3,748
10th Percentile £340 £275 £280
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £508
Median % change year-on-year - -1.53% -3.29%
75th Percentile £600 £614 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 505 202 436
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.12 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.69 £21.21 £13.18
Median hourly rate £36.00 £31.76 £23.30
Median % change year-on-year +13.35% +36.34% -37.88%
75th Percentile £67.50 £67.50 £48.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £85.07 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £32.00 £18.99
% change year-on-year +25.00% +68.55% -49.37%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 +6 1,567 £481 +1.32% 785
UK excluding London +9 853 £450 - 649
London +5 775 £500 - 289
Work from Home +9 529 £488 -1.52% 317
South East +7 197 £450 -4.00% 197
North of England -20 184 £455 -5.70% 147
Midlands -10 172 £425 +14.09% 103
West Midlands -4 127 £444 +4.53% 54
South West +29 119 £491 -1.75% 82
North West -14 84 £433 -3.24% 82
East of England +6 83 £475 -0.73% 46
Scotland +9 81 £355 -22.19% 33
Yorkshire -39 65 £525 +1.01% 35
East Midlands -12 45 £394 +9.83% 49
North East -13 35 £400 -11.11% 33
Northern Ireland +7 19 £475 +46.15% 40
Wales -8 12 £450 +5.88% 18

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
1 102 (5.56%) Confluence
2 30 (1.64%) CMS
3 27 (1.47%) SharePoint
4 18 (0.98%) IIS
5 15 (0.82%) Apache Spark
6 12 (0.65%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 7 (0.38%) Apache
7 7 (0.38%) SAS
8 6 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
9 5 (0.27%) Tuxedo
9 5 (0.27%) Umbraco
10 4 (0.22%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.22%) 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%) Apache Solr
12 2 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 54 (2.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 27 (1.47%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (1.42%) Microsoft Project
4 20 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 17 (0.93%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.33%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.22%) Photoshop
8 3 (0.16%) CATIA
8 3 (0.16%) Chatbot
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 (0.055%) Adobe After Effects
10 1 (0.055%) Adobe Premiere
10 1 (0.055%) Camtasia
10 1 (0.055%) Navisworks
10 1 (0.055%) Notion
10 1 (0.055%) Revit
Business Applications
1 28 (1.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.44%) Shopify
4 7 (0.38%) Workday HCM
5 6 (0.33%) Maximo
5 6 (0.33%) NEC Housing
6 5 (0.27%) Infor CloudSuite
6 5 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
7 4 (0.22%) Adobe Campaign
7 4 (0.22%) Primavera
7 4 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
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
1 396 (21.60%) Azure
2 300 (16.37%) AWS
3 165 (9.00%) Azure DevOps
4 146 (7.97%) GitHub
5 103 (5.62%) Power Platform
6 92 (5.02%) GitHub Actions
7 74 (4.04%) GCP
8 44 (2.40%) Serverless
9 38 (2.07%) OpenShift
10 35 (1.91%) Dynamics 365
11 33 (1.80%) SaaS
12 30 (1.64%) AWS Lambda
13 28 (1.53%) Amazon S3
13 28 (1.53%) Snowflake
14 25 (1.36%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 22 (1.20%) Azure Data Factory
16 20 (1.09%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 20 (1.09%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 19 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
18 18 (0.98%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 25 (1.36%) Firewall
2 19 (1.04%) Network Security
3 18 (0.98%) Internet
3 18 (0.98%) WAN
4 17 (0.93%) LAN
5 15 (0.82%) Wi-Fi
6 13 (0.71%) VPN
7 12 (0.65%) DNS
8 11 (0.60%) SD-WAN
8 11 (0.60%) Unified Communications
8 11 (0.60%) VLAN
8 11 (0.60%) Wireless
9 9 (0.49%) HTTP
10 8 (0.44%) IPsec
11 7 (0.38%) SMS
12 6 (0.33%) Cisco Nexus
12 6 (0.33%) TCP/IP
13 5 (0.27%) DHCP
14 4 (0.22%) MPLS
15 3 (0.16%) BGP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 105 (5.73%) SQL Server
2 89 (4.86%) Power BI
3 70 (3.82%) Data Warehouse
4 67 (3.66%) PostgreSQL
5 56 (3.06%) Relational Database
6 43 (2.35%) NoSQL
7 42 (2.29%) MySQL
8 36 (1.96%) Tableau
9 35 (1.91%) Metadata
10 34 (1.85%) Oracle Database
11 32 (1.75%) Oracle Reports
12 31 (1.69%) Data Lake
13 29 (1.58%) MongoDB
14 22 (1.20%) Big Data
15 19 (1.04%) DynamoDB
16 17 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
16 17 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 15 (0.82%) BigQuery
18 14 (0.76%) Amazon Redshift
18 14 (0.76%) Redis
Development Applications
1 292 (15.93%) JIRA
2 172 (9.38%) Git
3 132 (7.20%) Selenium
4 128 (6.98%) Jenkins
5 98 (5.35%) GitLab
6 81 (4.42%) Postman
7 60 (3.27%) Cucumber
8 57 (3.11%) Cypress.io
9 55 (3.00%) JUnit
10 45 (2.45%) REST Assured
11 44 (2.40%) Zephyr
12 43 (2.35%) SonarQube
13 36 (1.96%) JMeter
14 29 (1.58%) WebDriver
15 23 (1.25%) Gatling
16 21 (1.15%) Maven
17 18 (0.98%) Gradle
18 17 (0.93%) TestNG
18 17 (0.93%) TestRail
19 14 (0.76%) SpecFlow
General
1 545 (29.73%) Social Skills
2 414 (22.59%) Finance
3 253 (13.80%) Analytical Skills
4 221 (12.06%) Public Sector
5 140 (7.64%) Banking
6 62 (3.38%) Retail
7 53 (2.89%) Marketing
8 50 (2.73%) Manufacturing
9 48 (2.62%) Organisational Skills
10 37 (2.02%) Aerospace
11 30 (1.64%) Documentation Skills
12 25 (1.36%) Influencing Skills
13 22 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 21 (1.15%) Legal
15 20 (1.09%) Military
16 19 (1.04%) Investment Banking
17 17 (0.93%) Front Office
18 16 (0.87%) Pharmaceutical
19 15 (0.82%) Automotive
19 15 (0.82%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 237 (12.93%) Developer
2 217 (11.84%) Analyst
3 213 (11.62%) Senior
4 210 (11.46%) Lead
5 162 (8.84%) QA Engineer
6 112 (6.11%) Business Analyst
7 101 (5.51%) Tester
8 86 (4.69%) Test Manager
9 68 (3.71%) Java Developer
10 67 (3.66%) Architect
10 67 (3.66%) Test Engineer
11 66 (3.60%) Quality Engineer
12 59 (3.22%) Data Engineer
12 59 (3.22%) Project Manager
13 54 (2.95%) Senior Analyst
13 54 (2.95%) Test Leader
14 51 (2.78%) Data Analyst
15 46 (2.51%) Consultant
16 45 (2.45%) Software Engineer
17 42 (2.29%) QA Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 125 (6.82%) REST
2 107 (5.84%) .NET
3 103 (5.62%) RESTful
4 97 (5.29%) Playwright
5 89 (4.86%) Spring
6 85 (4.64%) Spring Boot
7 72 (3.93%) React
8 64 (3.49%) HTML
9 60 (3.27%) AngularJS
10 59 (3.22%) CSS
11 56 (3.06%) Kafka
12 51 (2.78%) .NET Framework
13 46 (2.51%) Node.js
14 35 (1.91%) JSON
15 33 (1.80%) Quarkus
16 27 (1.47%) Middleware
17 23 (1.25%) ASP.NET
17 23 (1.25%) Gherkin
17 23 (1.25%) pytest
17 23 (1.25%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 156 (8.51%) Product Ownership
2 80 (4.36%) Cloud Native
3 53 (2.89%) Onboarding
4 51 (2.78%) Legacy Systems
5 46 (2.51%) Distributed Systems
6 40 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
7 37 (2.02%) Mobile App
8 33 (1.80%) Management Information System
9 30 (1.64%) Data Structures
10 28 (1.53%) Enterprise Software
11 25 (1.36%) Virtual Team
12 23 (1.25%) Data Centre
13 20 (1.09%) AI Agents
14 19 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
15 18 (0.98%) PMI
16 17 (0.93%) NHS
16 17 (0.93%) Self-Motivation
17 13 (0.71%) Distributed Architecture
17 13 (0.71%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 13 (0.71%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 83 (4.53%) Windows
2 54 (2.95%) Linux
3 29 (1.58%) Apple iOS
3 29 (1.58%) Windows Server
4 26 (1.42%) Android
5 19 (1.04%) Unix
6 6 (0.33%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
8 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.055%) Debian
9 1 (0.055%) Solaris
9 1 (0.055%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.055%) VMS
9 1 (0.055%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.055%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 688 (37.53%) Agile
2 464 (25.31%) Test Automation
3 450 (24.55%) DevOps
4 424 (23.13%) CI/CD
5 305 (16.64%) Validation
6 299 (16.31%) Stakeholder Management
7 291 (15.88%) Continuous Improvement
8 278 (15.17%) Problem-Solving
9 266 (14.51%) User Acceptance Testing
10 240 (13.09%) Scrum
11 237 (12.93%) Test Strategy
12 229 (12.49%) Migration
13 189 (10.31%) AI
14 168 (9.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 155 (8.46%) Decision-Making
16 150 (8.18%) ETL
17 145 (7.91%) SDLC
18 142 (7.75%) Analytics
18 142 (7.75%) Data Migration
19 140 (7.64%) Test Management
Programming Languages
1 368 (20.08%) SQL
2 237 (12.93%) Java
3 225 (12.27%) Python
4 130 (7.09%) JavaScript
5 127 (6.93%) C#
6 80 (4.36%) TypeScript
7 42 (2.29%) T-SQL
8 39 (2.13%) PL/SQL
9 30 (1.64%) Kotlin
10 27 (1.47%) PowerShell
11 24 (1.31%) Bash
12 20 (1.09%) Scala
13 18 (0.98%) VB
14 17 (0.93%) Swift
15 16 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 15 (0.82%) Bicep
16 15 (0.82%) C
17 14 (0.76%) C++
17 14 (0.76%) VBA
18 11 (0.60%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 419 (22.86%) Security Cleared
2 310 (16.91%) SC Cleared
3 133 (7.26%) Degree
4 77 (4.20%) ISTQB
5 64 (3.49%) BPSS Clearance
6 51 (2.78%) DV Cleared
7 37 (2.02%) PMI Certification
8 36 (1.96%) PMP
9 30 (1.64%) Computer Science Degree
10 18 (0.98%) Master's Degree
11 14 (0.76%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 11 (0.60%) Cisco Certification
13 10 (0.55%) Azure Certification
14 9 (0.49%) AWS Certification
14 9 (0.49%) CBAP
15 7 (0.38%) APMP
15 7 (0.38%) CCNP
15 7 (0.38%) SAFe Agilist
16 6 (0.33%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 6 (0.33%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 126 (6.87%) Data Quality
2 83 (4.53%) Accessibility
3 36 (1.96%) PMO
4 31 (1.69%) GDPR
5 22 (1.20%) WCAG
6 17 (0.93%) IFRS
7 16 (0.87%) GRC
7 16 (0.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 15 (0.82%) IFRS 17
8 15 (0.82%) NIST
8 15 (0.82%) PCI DSS
9 14 (0.76%) SLA
10 11 (0.60%) Disclosure Scotland
10 11 (0.60%) GxP
11 8 (0.44%) ISO 20022
12 7 (0.38%) SEPA
13 6 (0.33%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 6 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
13 6 (0.33%) NCSC
13 6 (0.33%) PSD2
System Software
1 108 (5.89%) Docker
2 16 (0.87%) Active Directory
3 12 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.38%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.27%) Firmware
5 5 (0.27%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.16%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
7 2 (0.11%) GridGain
7 2 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
7 2 (0.11%) VirtualBox
7 2 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.055%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.055%) IAG
8 1 (0.055%) KVM
8 1 (0.055%) QEMU
8 1 (0.055%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
8 1 (0.055%) Varnish
8 1 (0.055%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 156 (8.51%) Kubernetes
2 68 (3.71%) Terraform
3 35 (1.91%) Grafana
4 34 (1.85%) Argo
5 30 (1.64%) Ansible
6 28 (1.53%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.98%) HP ALM
8 10 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.44%) HP Quality Center
10 7 (0.38%) Nmap
10 7 (0.38%) Oracle RMAN
11 6 (0.33%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 5 (0.27%) Kibana
12 5 (0.27%) Puppet
13 3 (0.16%) Progress Chef
14 2 (0.11%) FortiGate
14 2 (0.11%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.11%) SCCM
14 2 (0.11%) Tivoli
15 1 (0.055%) Istio
Vendors
1 183 (9.98%) Microsoft
2 167 (9.11%) Oracle
3 102 (5.56%) Salesforce
4 91 (4.96%) SAP
5 48 (2.62%) ServiceNow
6 37 (2.02%) Citrix
7 36 (1.96%) Google
8 35 (1.91%) Red Hat
9 33 (1.80%) Databricks
10 30 (1.64%) Adobe
11 24 (1.31%) Informatica
12 21 (1.15%) Cisco
12 21 (1.15%) HP
13 17 (0.93%) MuleSoft
14 14 (0.76%) Talend
15 12 (0.65%) Atlassian
15 12 (0.65%) Splunk
15 12 (0.65%) VMware
15 12 (0.65%) Workday
16 11 (0.60%) Infor