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 4 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 60 62 62
Rank change year-on-year +2 0 +10
Contract jobs citing QA 1,909 1,197 1,401
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.70% 3.79% 3.23%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 21.91% 23.23% 23.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,187 839 904
10th Percentile £321 £281 £310
25th Percentile £398 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £469 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.28% -6.20% -2.91%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £598
90th Percentile £675 £663 £746
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £488
% change year-on-year - -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 148 31 100
10th Percentile £12.89 £12.76 £10.86
25th Percentile £16.13 £13.50 £12.24
Median hourly rate £31.46 £15.96 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +97.12% +6.54% -33.42%
75th Percentile £67.50 £42.32 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £55.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £15.12 £14.00
% change year-on-year +108.07% +8.00% -36.36%

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 8,711 5,152 5,941
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.88% 16.33% 13.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,557 3,307 3,684
10th Percentile £340 £280 £284
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year - -0.99% -3.81%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £471 £475
% change year-on-year +6.15% -0.83% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 543 216 431
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.78 £11.07
25th Percentile £19.27 £18.50 £13.52
Median hourly rate £36.07 £30.00 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year +20.23% +26.05% -38.52%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.63 £50.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £83.19 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.07 £28.18 £21.69
% change year-on-year +28.00% +29.95% -42.17%

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 4 July 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 4 July 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 4 July 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 0 1,636 £481 +1.32% 959
UK excluding London +2 892 £450 - 720
London +4 805 £498 +0.51% 378
Work from Home +6 557 £480 +1.05% 450
South East +2 203 £450 -2.70% 207
North of England -15 199 £469 +0.91% 194
Midlands -6 175 £430 +14.67% 127
West Midlands -10 132 £444 +4.53% 65
South West +24 124 £495 -1.00% 80
East of England +7 92 £475 -0.73% 60
North West -19 88 £449 +6.28% 118
Scotland +7 85 £350 -22.22% 31
Yorkshire -31 73 £533 +2.45% 51
East Midlands -12 43 £415 +13.08% 62
North East -12 38 £390 -15.22% 28
Northern Ireland +5 19 £475 +46.15% 34
Wales -12 10 £475 +11.76% 11

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
1 109 (5.71%) Confluence
2 34 (1.78%) SharePoint
3 32 (1.68%) CMS
4 20 (1.05%) IIS
5 16 (0.84%) Apache Spark
6 11 (0.58%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 8 (0.42%) Apache
7 8 (0.42%) SAS
8 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Exchange
8 5 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
8 5 (0.26%) Tuxedo
8 5 (0.26%) Umbraco
9 4 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
9 4 (0.21%) nginx
10 3 (0.16%) Moodle
10 3 (0.16%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
10 3 (0.16%) Tomcat
10 3 (0.16%) WordPress
11 2 (0.10%) Apache Solr
11 2 (0.10%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 58 (3.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 27 (1.41%) Microsoft Office
3 25 (1.31%) Microsoft Project
4 22 (1.15%) MS Visio
5 18 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 6 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.26%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.21%) Photoshop
9 3 (0.16%) CATIA
9 3 (0.16%) CPLEX
9 3 (0.16%) Simulink
10 2 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
10 2 (0.10%) AutoCAD
10 2 (0.10%) EPLAN
11 1 (0.052%) Adobe After Effects
11 1 (0.052%) Adobe Premiere
11 1 (0.052%) Camtasia
11 1 (0.052%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.052%) Notion
11 1 (0.052%) Revit
Business Applications
1 32 (1.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.42%) Shopify
4 7 (0.37%) Salesforce CRM
4 7 (0.37%) Workday HCM
5 6 (0.31%) Maximo
5 6 (0.31%) NEC Housing
5 6 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 5 (0.26%) Infor CloudSuite
7 4 (0.21%) Adobe Campaign
7 4 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
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
8 3 (0.16%) SAP MM
9 2 (0.10%) iTrent
9 2 (0.10%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 412 (21.58%) Azure
2 306 (16.03%) AWS
3 177 (9.27%) Azure DevOps
4 151 (7.91%) GitHub
5 103 (5.40%) Power Platform
6 90 (4.71%) GitHub Actions
7 76 (3.98%) GCP
8 43 (2.25%) Serverless
9 39 (2.04%) SaaS
10 37 (1.94%) OpenShift
11 33 (1.73%) Dynamics 365
12 27 (1.41%) AWS Lambda
12 27 (1.41%) Snowflake
13 26 (1.36%) Amazon S3
14 24 (1.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 22 (1.15%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 22 (1.15%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 21 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
17 20 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
18 19 (1.00%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.15%) Firewall
2 19 (1.00%) Internet
2 19 (1.00%) Network Security
3 18 (0.94%) WAN
4 16 (0.84%) LAN
5 14 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
6 13 (0.68%) VPN
7 11 (0.58%) SD-WAN
7 11 (0.58%) Unified Communications
7 11 (0.58%) VLAN
8 10 (0.52%) HTTP
9 9 (0.47%) DNS
10 8 (0.42%) IPsec
11 7 (0.37%) SMS
11 7 (0.37%) TCP/IP
11 7 (0.37%) Wireless
12 6 (0.31%) Cisco Nexus
13 5 (0.26%) DHCP
14 4 (0.21%) BGP
14 4 (0.21%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 115 (6.02%) SQL Server
2 88 (4.61%) Power BI
3 72 (3.77%) Data Warehouse
4 64 (3.35%) PostgreSQL
5 61 (3.20%) Relational Database
6 41 (2.15%) MySQL
7 38 (1.99%) Metadata
7 38 (1.99%) NoSQL
8 37 (1.94%) Oracle Database
8 37 (1.94%) Tableau
9 34 (1.78%) Oracle Reports
10 32 (1.68%) MongoDB
11 28 (1.47%) Data Lake
12 22 (1.15%) Big Data
13 19 (1.00%) Azure SQL Database
14 18 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 16 (0.84%) DynamoDB
15 16 (0.84%) RDBMS
16 15 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
16 15 (0.79%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 298 (15.61%) JIRA
2 181 (9.48%) Git
3 145 (7.60%) Selenium
4 136 (7.12%) Jenkins
5 94 (4.92%) GitLab
6 85 (4.45%) Postman
7 64 (3.35%) Cypress.io
8 63 (3.30%) Cucumber
9 59 (3.09%) JUnit
10 52 (2.72%) REST Assured
11 47 (2.46%) Zephyr
12 44 (2.30%) SonarQube
13 36 (1.89%) JMeter
14 30 (1.57%) WebDriver
15 25 (1.31%) Gatling
16 23 (1.20%) Maven
17 19 (1.00%) TestNG
17 19 (1.00%) TestRail
18 18 (0.94%) Gradle
19 17 (0.89%) Appium
General
1 573 (30.02%) Social Skills
2 420 (22.00%) Finance
3 285 (14.93%) Analytical Skills
4 216 (11.31%) Public Sector
5 140 (7.33%) Banking
6 63 (3.30%) Retail
7 62 (3.25%) Manufacturing
8 56 (2.93%) Marketing
9 48 (2.51%) Organisational Skills
10 38 (1.99%) Aerospace
11 29 (1.52%) Documentation Skills
12 25 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 24 (1.26%) Legal
14 22 (1.15%) Influencing Skills
15 21 (1.10%) Investment Banking
15 21 (1.10%) Pharmaceutical
16 19 (1.00%) Automotive
16 19 (1.00%) Military
17 18 (0.94%) Presentation Skills
18 16 (0.84%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 253 (13.25%) Developer
2 229 (12.00%) Analyst
3 220 (11.52%) Lead
4 218 (11.42%) Senior
5 176 (9.22%) QA Engineer
6 106 (5.55%) Business Analyst
7 103 (5.40%) Tester
8 89 (4.66%) Test Manager
9 72 (3.77%) Quality Engineer
10 70 (3.67%) Java Developer
11 69 (3.61%) Test Engineer
12 68 (3.56%) Architect
13 61 (3.20%) Test Leader
14 59 (3.09%) Data Engineer
15 55 (2.88%) Consultant
16 51 (2.67%) Data Analyst
16 51 (2.67%) Senior Analyst
17 49 (2.57%) Project Manager
18 47 (2.46%) Test Analyst
19 45 (2.36%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 137 (7.18%) REST
2 115 (6.02%) .NET
3 112 (5.87%) Playwright
4 105 (5.50%) RESTful
5 90 (4.71%) Spring
6 87 (4.56%) Spring Boot
7 74 (3.88%) React
8 66 (3.46%) HTML
9 65 (3.40%) AngularJS
10 61 (3.20%) CSS
11 54 (2.83%) .NET Framework
12 50 (2.62%) Kafka
13 49 (2.57%) Node.js
14 38 (1.99%) JSON
15 36 (1.89%) Middleware
16 33 (1.73%) SOAP
17 32 (1.68%) Quarkus
18 27 (1.41%) XML
19 25 (1.31%) ASP.NET
19 25 (1.31%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 170 (8.91%) Product Ownership
2 86 (4.50%) Cloud Native
3 56 (2.93%) Onboarding
4 53 (2.78%) Legacy Systems
5 44 (2.30%) Management Information System
6 43 (2.25%) Mobile App
7 42 (2.20%) Data Protection Act
7 42 (2.20%) Distributed Systems
8 35 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
9 33 (1.73%) Data Structures
10 26 (1.36%) Data Centre
11 22 (1.15%) AI Agents
11 22 (1.15%) Virtual Team
12 20 (1.05%) Analytical Mindset
13 18 (0.94%) NHS
13 18 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
14 15 (0.79%) Life Science
15 13 (0.68%) Distributed Architecture
15 13 (0.68%) Low-Code
16 12 (0.63%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 89 (4.66%) Windows
2 57 (2.99%) Linux
3 32 (1.68%) Windows Server
4 31 (1.62%) Apple iOS
5 29 (1.52%) Android
6 23 (1.20%) Unix
7 6 (0.31%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.10%) Oracle Linux
9 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.052%) Debian
10 1 (0.052%) Solaris
10 1 (0.052%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.052%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.052%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 722 (37.82%) Agile
2 497 (26.03%) Test Automation
3 468 (24.52%) DevOps
4 450 (23.57%) CI/CD
5 326 (17.08%) Validation
6 320 (16.76%) Continuous Improvement
7 312 (16.34%) Stakeholder Management
8 310 (16.24%) Problem-Solving
9 269 (14.09%) User Acceptance Testing
10 262 (13.72%) Test Strategy
11 261 (13.67%) Scrum
12 239 (12.52%) Migration
13 214 (11.21%) AI
14 172 (9.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 165 (8.64%) Decision-Making
16 158 (8.28%) SDLC
17 150 (7.86%) Analytics
18 147 (7.70%) ETL
18 147 (7.70%) Test Management
19 146 (7.65%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 387 (20.27%) SQL
2 248 (12.99%) Java
3 239 (12.52%) Python
4 137 (7.18%) C#
4 137 (7.18%) JavaScript
5 84 (4.40%) TypeScript
6 42 (2.20%) T-SQL
7 41 (2.15%) PL/SQL
8 32 (1.68%) Kotlin
9 30 (1.57%) PowerShell
10 25 (1.31%) Bash
11 19 (1.00%) Scala
11 19 (1.00%) VB
12 17 (0.89%) Swift
13 16 (0.84%) C
13 16 (0.84%) C++
13 16 (0.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 15 (0.79%) Bicep
14 15 (0.79%) VBA
15 13 (0.68%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 431 (22.58%) Security Cleared
2 326 (17.08%) SC Cleared
3 126 (6.60%) Degree
4 74 (3.88%) ISTQB
5 67 (3.51%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (2.72%) DV Cleared
7 32 (1.68%) Computer Science Degree
8 29 (1.52%) PMP
9 27 (1.41%) PMI Certification
10 13 (0.68%) Master's Degree
11 11 (0.58%) Azure Certification
11 11 (0.58%) Cisco Certification
11 11 (0.58%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 10 (0.52%) AWS Certification
13 8 (0.42%) Microsoft Certification
14 7 (0.37%) CCNP
15 6 (0.31%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 6 (0.31%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 5 (0.26%) CBAP
16 5 (0.26%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 128 (6.71%) Data Quality
2 89 (4.66%) Accessibility
3 33 (1.73%) GDPR
4 31 (1.62%) PMO
5 24 (1.26%) WCAG
6 19 (1.00%) GRC
7 16 (0.84%) GxP
8 14 (0.73%) IFRS
8 14 (0.73%) SLA
9 13 (0.68%) NIST
10 12 (0.63%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 12 (0.63%) IFRS 17
11 11 (0.58%) Disclosure Scotland
11 11 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 9 (0.47%) PCI DSS
13 7 (0.37%) ISO 20022
13 7 (0.37%) NCSC
14 6 (0.31%) GMP
14 6 (0.31%) SEPA
15 5 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 114 (5.97%) Docker
2 21 (1.10%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.37%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.31%) Firmware
5 6 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (0.21%) IAG
7 3 (0.16%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 2 (0.10%) GridGain
8 2 (0.10%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.10%) VirtualBox
8 2 (0.10%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.052%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.052%) KVM
9 1 (0.052%) QEMU
9 1 (0.052%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
9 1 (0.052%) Varnish
9 1 (0.052%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 169 (8.85%) Kubernetes
2 64 (3.35%) Terraform
3 34 (1.78%) Ansible
3 34 (1.78%) Grafana
4 32 (1.68%) Argo
5 24 (1.26%) Prometheus
6 21 (1.10%) HP ALM
7 12 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.52%) HP Quality Center
9 7 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
9 7 (0.37%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 6 (0.31%) Kibana
10 6 (0.31%) SCCM
11 4 (0.21%) Puppet
12 3 (0.16%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.16%) Nmap
12 3 (0.16%) Progress Chef
13 2 (0.10%) ITRS Geneos
13 2 (0.10%) Microsoft Intune
13 2 (0.10%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 199 (10.42%) Microsoft
2 174 (9.11%) Oracle
3 106 (5.55%) Salesforce
4 95 (4.98%) SAP
5 51 (2.67%) ServiceNow
6 38 (1.99%) Citrix
7 37 (1.94%) Databricks
7 37 (1.94%) Google
8 36 (1.89%) Red Hat
9 29 (1.52%) Adobe
10 26 (1.36%) Informatica
11 24 (1.26%) HP
12 21 (1.10%) Cisco
13 18 (0.94%) MuleSoft
14 14 (0.73%) Talend
15 13 (0.68%) Splunk
15 13 (0.68%) Workday
16 12 (0.63%) Atlassian
16 12 (0.63%) VMware
17 11 (0.58%) Infor