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 17 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 62 64
Rank change year-on-year +11 +2 +8
Contract jobs citing QA 2,111 1,295 1,248
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.95% 3.91% 3.22%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.91% 22.96% 24.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,276 899 786
10th Percentile £313 £300 £307
25th Percentile £393 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year - -3.06% -6.44%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £586
90th Percentile £675 £663 £701
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £480
% change year-on-year - -6.25% +1.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 193 39 78
10th Percentile £12.81 £12.66 £11.25
25th Percentile £16.13 £13.50 £12.24
Median hourly rate £32.40 £19.37 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +67.29% +29.27% -63.50%
75th Percentile £52.34 £47.75 £38.48
90th Percentile £70.00 £62.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +108.07% +0.93% -61.65%

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 9,216 5,640 5,201
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.22% 17.04% 13.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,896 3,611 3,218
10th Percentile £326 £281 £294
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £480
% change year-on-year +3.58% -1.04% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 568 265 314
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.60 £11.18
25th Percentile £18.22 £17.48 £14.45
Median hourly rate £38.11 £28.18 £26.62
Median % change year-on-year +35.24% +5.86% -23.94%
75th Percentile £70.00 £61.25 £54.84
90th Percentile £80.00 £86.65 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £25.08 £25.77
% change year-on-year +54.42% -2.68% -26.39%

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 17 August 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 17 August 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 17 August 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 +10 1,833 £485 +2.11% 1,552
UK excluding London +12 1,033 £450 - 981
London +4 857 £500 - 748
Work from Home -2 554 £475 -1.04% 615
North of England +1 256 £500 +11.11% 257
South East 0 238 £445 -6.32% 262
Midlands +12 210 £425 +3.66% 137
West Midlands +6 164 £425 -5.56% 93
South West +7 124 £490 +15.29% 118
East of England +14 113 £475 -2.94% 95
North West -8 105 £500 +17.65% 142
Yorkshire -5 99 £514 +2.80% 63
Scotland +4 80 £334 -25.72% 80
North East -5 52 £400 -13.04% 53
East Midlands -7 45 £438 +16.67% 44
Northern Ireland +6 16 £450 +23.71% 30
Wales -7 14 £406 -21.50% 20

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
1 117 (5.54%) Confluence
2 44 (2.08%) CMS
3 38 (1.80%) SharePoint
4 19 (0.90%) IIS
5 17 (0.81%) Apache Spark
6 15 (0.71%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 12 (0.57%) Apache
7 12 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
8 8 (0.38%) SAS
9 6 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
10 5 (0.24%) Tuxedo
10 5 (0.24%) WordPress
11 4 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
11 4 (0.19%) Umbraco
12 3 (0.14%) Apache Solr
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.095%) nginx
13 2 (0.095%) Tomcat
Applications
1 61 (2.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 27 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (1.04%) MS Visio
4 18 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 16 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
6 10 (0.47%) Chatbot
6 10 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.19%) Navisworks
7 4 (0.19%) Revit
7 4 (0.19%) Simulink
8 3 (0.14%) AutoCAD
8 3 (0.14%) CATIA
8 3 (0.14%) CPLEX
8 3 (0.14%) Photoshop
9 2 (0.095%) EPLAN
9 2 (0.095%) ProjectWise
10 1 (0.047%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.047%) Gliffy
10 1 (0.047%) Mingle
10 1 (0.047%) Notion
Business Applications
1 34 (1.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.23%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.47%) Shopify
4 9 (0.43%) Remedy ITSM
4 9 (0.43%) Workday HCM
5 6 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
6 5 (0.24%) Aladdin
6 5 (0.24%) Infor CloudSuite
6 5 (0.24%) Maximo
6 5 (0.24%) NEC Housing
7 4 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
7 4 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
7 4 (0.19%) Primavera
7 4 (0.19%) SAP GRC
8 3 (0.14%) Actimize
8 3 (0.14%) iTrent
8 3 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
8 3 (0.14%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.14%) SAP MM
8 3 (0.14%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 438 (20.75%) Azure
2 374 (17.72%) AWS
3 190 (9.00%) GitHub
4 179 (8.48%) Azure DevOps
5 108 (5.12%) Power Platform
6 106 (5.02%) GitHub Actions
7 100 (4.74%) GCP
8 54 (2.56%) Serverless
9 47 (2.23%) SaaS
10 41 (1.94%) OpenShift
11 37 (1.75%) Dynamics 365
12 36 (1.71%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 36 (1.71%) Snowflake
13 34 (1.61%) AWS Lambda
14 29 (1.37%) GitHub Copilot
14 29 (1.37%) Salesforce Service Cloud
15 28 (1.33%) Azure Monitor
16 26 (1.23%) Microsoft 365
17 24 (1.14%) Amazon S3
18 23 (1.09%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.09%) Firewall
2 21 (0.99%) Internet
3 19 (0.90%) Network Security
4 16 (0.76%) WAN
5 14 (0.66%) LAN
6 13 (0.62%) Broadband
6 13 (0.62%) DNS
6 13 (0.62%) VLAN
6 13 (0.62%) VPN
7 12 (0.57%) Wi-Fi
8 11 (0.52%) TCP/IP
8 11 (0.52%) Unified Communications
9 10 (0.47%) HTTP
9 10 (0.47%) SD-WAN
10 8 (0.38%) IPsec
11 7 (0.33%) DHCP
11 7 (0.33%) SMS
12 6 (0.28%) 5G
12 6 (0.28%) Cisco Nexus
12 6 (0.28%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 108 (5.12%) SQL Server
2 95 (4.50%) Power BI
3 80 (3.79%) Data Warehouse
4 73 (3.46%) Relational Database
5 72 (3.41%) PostgreSQL
6 42 (1.99%) Metadata
6 42 (1.99%) NoSQL
7 41 (1.94%) MongoDB
8 40 (1.89%) Oracle Reports
9 37 (1.75%) MySQL
10 35 (1.66%) Tableau
11 34 (1.61%) Oracle Database
12 30 (1.42%) Data Lake
13 24 (1.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 20 (0.95%) Big Data
15 17 (0.81%) Azure SQL Database
16 15 (0.71%) BigQuery
16 15 (0.71%) RDBMS
17 14 (0.66%) Amazon Redshift
17 14 (0.66%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 294 (13.93%) JIRA
2 201 (9.52%) Git
3 154 (7.30%) Selenium
4 145 (6.87%) Jenkins
5 105 (4.97%) GitLab
6 90 (4.26%) Postman
7 67 (3.17%) Cypress.io
8 64 (3.03%) Cucumber
9 61 (2.89%) Zephyr
10 59 (2.79%) JUnit
11 48 (2.27%) SonarQube
12 42 (1.99%) REST Assured
13 37 (1.75%) JMeter
14 28 (1.33%) Gatling
14 28 (1.33%) Maven
15 27 (1.28%) WebDriver
16 24 (1.14%) Gradle
17 22 (1.04%) Appium
17 22 (1.04%) TestRail
18 18 (0.85%) TestNG
General
1 630 (29.84%) Social Skills
2 415 (19.66%) Finance
3 321 (15.21%) Analytical Skills
4 257 (12.17%) Public Sector
5 149 (7.06%) Banking
6 78 (3.69%) Retail
7 76 (3.60%) Manufacturing
8 57 (2.70%) Marketing
9 56 (2.65%) Organisational Skills
10 46 (2.18%) Aerospace
11 43 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 30 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
12 30 (1.42%) Legal
13 28 (1.33%) Documentation Skills
14 27 (1.28%) Telecoms
15 24 (1.14%) Law
16 21 (0.99%) Military
16 21 (0.99%) Pharmaceutical
17 18 (0.85%) Automotive
18 17 (0.81%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 276 (13.07%) Developer
2 274 (12.98%) Lead
3 253 (11.98%) Senior
4 249 (11.80%) Analyst
5 218 (10.33%) QA Engineer
6 118 (5.59%) Business Analyst
7 112 (5.31%) Tester
8 106 (5.02%) Quality Engineer
9 93 (4.41%) Test Manager
10 85 (4.03%) Test Engineer
11 72 (3.41%) Java Developer
11 72 (3.41%) Test Leader
12 66 (3.13%) Data Engineer
13 59 (2.79%) Architect
14 58 (2.75%) QA Leader
15 54 (2.56%) Consultant
15 54 (2.56%) Data Analyst
15 54 (2.56%) Senior Analyst
16 51 (2.42%) QA Tester
16 51 (2.42%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 164 (7.77%) REST
2 122 (5.78%) Playwright
2 122 (5.78%) RESTful
3 99 (4.69%) .NET
4 94 (4.45%) Spring
5 92 (4.36%) Spring Boot
6 79 (3.74%) HTML
7 77 (3.65%) React
8 71 (3.36%) CSS
9 69 (3.27%) AngularJS
10 63 (2.98%) Kafka
11 60 (2.84%) Node.js
12 50 (2.37%) Middleware
13 44 (2.08%) .NET Framework
14 42 (1.99%) SOAP
15 40 (1.89%) JSON
16 35 (1.66%) pytest
17 33 (1.56%) Quarkus
18 32 (1.52%) XML
19 30 (1.42%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 185 (8.76%) Product Ownership
2 117 (5.54%) Cloud Native
3 64 (3.03%) Onboarding
4 60 (2.84%) Legacy Systems
5 54 (2.56%) Management Information System
6 51 (2.42%) Enterprise Software
7 49 (2.32%) Distributed Systems
8 43 (2.04%) Mobile App
9 41 (1.94%) Data Protection Act
10 37 (1.75%) Data Centre
11 35 (1.66%) Data Structures
12 32 (1.52%) AI Agents
13 23 (1.09%) NHS
14 21 (0.99%) Low-Code
15 19 (0.90%) Virtual Team
16 18 (0.85%) Analytical Mindset
17 17 (0.81%) CMDB
18 15 (0.71%) Educational Technology
19 14 (0.66%) Life Science
19 14 (0.66%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 94 (4.45%) Windows
2 63 (2.98%) Linux
3 45 (2.13%) Apple iOS
4 42 (1.99%) Android
5 30 (1.42%) Windows Server
6 27 (1.28%) Unix
7 6 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.24%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.19%) VMS
10 2 (0.095%) Oracle Linux
10 2 (0.095%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.047%) AIX
11 1 (0.047%) Debian
11 1 (0.047%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.047%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.047%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.047%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 810 (38.37%) Agile
2 583 (27.62%) Test Automation
3 523 (24.77%) DevOps
4 512 (24.25%) CI/CD
5 395 (18.71%) Continuous Improvement
6 392 (18.57%) Stakeholder Management
7 365 (17.29%) Validation
8 356 (16.86%) Problem-Solving
9 294 (13.93%) Scrum
10 293 (13.88%) Test Strategy
11 278 (13.17%) AI
12 272 (12.88%) User Acceptance Testing
13 265 (12.55%) Migration
14 189 (8.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 183 (8.67%) SDLC
16 181 (8.57%) End-to-End Testing
17 176 (8.34%) Microservices
18 171 (8.10%) Decision-Making
19 169 (8.01%) Software Engineering
20 167 (7.91%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 413 (19.56%) SQL
2 273 (12.93%) Python
3 254 (12.03%) Java
4 156 (7.39%) JavaScript
5 107 (5.07%) C#
6 77 (3.65%) TypeScript
7 42 (1.99%) PowerShell
8 40 (1.89%) Bash
9 38 (1.80%) PL/SQL
10 32 (1.52%) T-SQL
11 29 (1.37%) Kotlin
12 21 (0.99%) Scala
13 17 (0.81%) Apex Code
13 17 (0.81%) C
13 17 (0.81%) Swift
14 16 (0.76%) C++
15 15 (0.71%) VB
16 14 (0.66%) Objective-C
17 13 (0.62%) VBA
18 12 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 486 (23.02%) Security Cleared
2 377 (17.86%) SC Cleared
3 130 (6.16%) Degree
4 79 (3.74%) ISTQB
5 72 (3.41%) BPSS Clearance
6 55 (2.61%) DV Cleared
7 40 (1.89%) Computer Science Degree
8 26 (1.23%) PMP
9 25 (1.18%) PMI Certification
10 17 (0.81%) AWS Certification
11 14 (0.66%) Microsoft Certification
12 13 (0.62%) Azure Certification
13 11 (0.52%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 10 (0.47%) Cisco Certification
15 9 (0.43%) IIBA
15 9 (0.43%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 9 (0.43%) Master's Degree
15 9 (0.43%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 8 (0.38%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
17 7 (0.33%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 162 (7.67%) Data Quality
2 105 (4.97%) Accessibility
3 36 (1.71%) GDPR
4 29 (1.37%) PMO
5 28 (1.33%) WCAG
6 24 (1.14%) GRC
7 16 (0.76%) GxP
8 13 (0.62%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 11 (0.52%) NIST
10 10 (0.47%) Disclosure Scotland
10 10 (0.47%) SLA
11 9 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
12 8 (0.38%) IFRS
12 8 (0.38%) Software Quality Assurance
13 7 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
13 7 (0.33%) PCI DSS
14 6 (0.28%) GMP
14 6 (0.28%) ISO 19650
14 6 (0.28%) NCSC
15 5 (0.24%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 148 (7.01%) Docker
2 27 (1.28%) Active Directory
3 17 (0.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.38%) IAG
6 6 (0.28%) Firmware
6 6 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.14%) KVM
7 3 (0.14%) VirtualBox
8 2 (0.095%) ACF2
8 2 (0.095%) GridGain
8 2 (0.095%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.095%) RACF
9 1 (0.047%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.047%) QEMU
9 1 (0.047%) Varnish
9 1 (0.047%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.047%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.047%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 192 (9.10%) Kubernetes
2 87 (4.12%) Terraform
3 53 (2.51%) Ansible
4 42 (1.99%) Grafana
5 34 (1.61%) Argo
6 31 (1.47%) Prometheus
7 15 (0.71%) HP ALM
8 14 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.38%) HP Quality Center
9 8 (0.38%) Microsoft Clustering
9 8 (0.38%) SCCM
10 7 (0.33%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.33%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 6 (0.28%) Puppet
12 5 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
12 5 (0.24%) Progress Chef
13 4 (0.19%) SCOM
14 3 (0.14%) FortiGate
15 2 (0.095%) ITRS Geneos
15 2 (0.095%) Kibana
Vendors
1 229 (10.85%) Microsoft
2 175 (8.29%) Oracle
3 114 (5.40%) Salesforce
4 95 (4.50%) SAP
5 52 (2.46%) ServiceNow
6 48 (2.27%) Google
7 40 (1.89%) Databricks
8 38 (1.80%) Red Hat
9 33 (1.56%) Citrix
10 29 (1.37%) Adobe
11 28 (1.33%) Informatica
12 24 (1.14%) Dynatrace
13 22 (1.04%) Cisco
14 21 (0.99%) VMware
15 19 (0.90%) MuleSoft
16 18 (0.85%) HP
16 18 (0.85%) Splunk
17 15 (0.71%) IBM
18 14 (0.66%) Sitecore
18 14 (0.66%) Talend