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

6 months to
5 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 53 58 66
Rank change year-on-year +5 +8 +7
Contract jobs citing QA 2,046 1,308 1,252
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.85% 3.98% 3.19%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.44% 23.47% 23.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,246 917 795
10th Percentile £313 £288 £307
25th Percentile £393 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year - -3.06% -5.77%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £576
90th Percentile £675 £663 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 36 80
10th Percentile £12.81 £12.52 £10.82
25th Percentile £16.60 £13.50 £12.24
Median hourly rate £32.40 £15.96 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +102.98% +6.54% -63.50%
75th Percentile £66.25 £47.63 £40.94
90th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.40 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +114.25% +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 9,117 5,573 5,325
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.14% 16.94% 13.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,858 3,591 3,291
10th Percentile £331 £282 £291
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 £606 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +4.21% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 559 250 326
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.59 £11.26
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.38 £14.49
Median hourly rate £40.00 £26.93 £25.77
Median % change year-on-year +48.56% +4.50% -34.64%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £55.00
90th Percentile £81.97 £83.59 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £24.66 £25.30
% change year-on-year +62.21% -2.53% -29.23%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 +7 1,779 £488 +2.63% 1,336
UK excluding London +7 989 £450 - 884
London +5 845 £500 - 587
Work from Home -4 561 £475 - 552
North of England 0 251 £492 +9.33% 248
South East -2 233 £437 -6.72% 226
Midlands -1 195 £425 +3.66% 127
West Midlands +2 154 £425 -4.49% 93
South West +4 118 £495 +10.00% 101
North West -17 105 £475 +12.16% 148
East of England +15 104 £475 -0.78% 90
Yorkshire -15 93 £520 +3.90% 59
Scotland +2 78 £331 -27.45% 56
North East -4 53 £400 -12.09% 42
East Midlands -6 40 £425 +15.80% 34
Northern Ireland +6 16 £450 +38.46% 25
Wales -6 12 £438 -15.46% 31

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
1 113 (5.52%) Confluence
2 40 (1.96%) CMS
3 37 (1.81%) SharePoint
4 20 (0.98%) IIS
5 17 (0.83%) Apache Spark
6 15 (0.73%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 12 (0.59%) Apache
8 10 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
9 9 (0.44%) SAS
10 6 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.24%) Microsoft Exchange
11 5 (0.24%) Tuxedo
11 5 (0.24%) WordPress
12 4 (0.20%) Sitecore CMS
12 4 (0.20%) Umbraco
13 3 (0.15%) Apache Solr
13 3 (0.15%) Moodle
13 3 (0.15%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.098%) nginx
14 2 (0.098%) Tomcat
Applications
1 55 (2.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (1.12%) Microsoft Office
3 20 (0.98%) MS Visio
4 19 (0.93%) Microsoft Project
5 16 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 8 (0.39%) Chatbot
7 7 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
8 4 (0.20%) Navisworks
8 4 (0.20%) Revit
8 4 (0.20%) Simulink
9 3 (0.15%) CATIA
9 3 (0.15%) CPLEX
9 3 (0.15%) Photoshop
10 2 (0.098%) AutoCAD
10 2 (0.098%) EPLAN
11 1 (0.049%) Gliffy
11 1 (0.049%) Mingle
11 1 (0.049%) Notion
11 1 (0.049%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 33 (1.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.22%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.64%) Workday HCM
4 11 (0.54%) Shopify
5 7 (0.34%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.29%) NEC Housing
6 6 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
7 5 (0.24%) Aladdin
7 5 (0.24%) Infor CloudSuite
7 5 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.20%) Maximo
8 4 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.20%) Primavera
9 3 (0.15%) Actimize
9 3 (0.15%) Adobe Campaign
9 3 (0.15%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.15%) SAP MM
10 2 (0.098%) SAP Payroll
10 2 (0.098%) SAP SD
10 2 (0.098%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 434 (21.21%) Azure
2 351 (17.16%) AWS
3 186 (9.09%) GitHub
4 179 (8.75%) Azure DevOps
5 113 (5.52%) Power Platform
6 106 (5.18%) GitHub Actions
7 97 (4.74%) GCP
8 53 (2.59%) Serverless
9 45 (2.20%) SaaS
10 40 (1.96%) OpenShift
11 37 (1.81%) Dynamics 365
12 35 (1.71%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 33 (1.61%) Snowflake
14 31 (1.52%) AWS Lambda
15 29 (1.42%) GitHub Copilot
16 27 (1.32%) Microsoft 365
16 27 (1.32%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 26 (1.27%) Amazon S3
17 26 (1.27%) Azure Monitor
18 21 (1.03%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.03%) Firewall
2 20 (0.98%) Internet
3 19 (0.93%) Network Security
4 15 (0.73%) WAN
5 14 (0.68%) LAN
6 12 (0.59%) VPN
6 12 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (0.54%) DNS
7 11 (0.54%) HTTP
7 11 (0.54%) Unified Communications
8 10 (0.49%) SD-WAN
8 10 (0.49%) VLAN
9 9 (0.44%) Broadband
9 9 (0.44%) TCP/IP
10 8 (0.39%) IPsec
11 7 (0.34%) SMS
11 7 (0.34%) Wireless
12 6 (0.29%) Cisco Nexus
13 5 (0.24%) 5G
13 5 (0.24%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (5.57%) SQL Server
2 97 (4.74%) Power BI
3 77 (3.76%) Data Warehouse
4 69 (3.37%) PostgreSQL
5 62 (3.03%) Relational Database
6 40 (1.96%) NoSQL
7 39 (1.91%) Metadata
7 39 (1.91%) MongoDB
8 37 (1.81%) MySQL
8 37 (1.81%) Oracle Reports
8 37 (1.81%) Tableau
9 36 (1.76%) Oracle Database
10 29 (1.42%) Data Lake
11 27 (1.32%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 21 (1.03%) Big Data
13 19 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
14 16 (0.78%) RDBMS
15 15 (0.73%) BigQuery
15 15 (0.73%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 14 (0.68%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 287 (14.03%) JIRA
2 196 (9.58%) Git
3 146 (7.14%) Selenium
4 142 (6.94%) Jenkins
5 104 (5.08%) GitLab
6 81 (3.96%) Postman
7 63 (3.08%) Cucumber
7 63 (3.08%) Cypress.io
8 61 (2.98%) JUnit
9 53 (2.59%) Zephyr
10 52 (2.54%) SonarQube
11 46 (2.25%) REST Assured
12 36 (1.76%) JMeter
13 29 (1.42%) Gatling
14 28 (1.37%) WebDriver
15 26 (1.27%) Maven
16 23 (1.12%) Gradle
17 21 (1.03%) Appium
18 20 (0.98%) TestNG
18 20 (0.98%) TestRail
General
1 609 (29.77%) Social Skills
2 416 (20.33%) Finance
3 311 (15.20%) Analytical Skills
4 252 (12.32%) Public Sector
5 143 (6.99%) Banking
6 76 (3.71%) Retail
7 72 (3.52%) Manufacturing
8 56 (2.74%) Marketing
9 53 (2.59%) Organisational Skills
10 43 (2.10%) Aerospace
11 38 (1.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 28 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
12 28 (1.37%) Legal
13 27 (1.32%) Documentation Skills
14 24 (1.17%) Telecoms
15 21 (1.03%) Law
15 21 (1.03%) Pharmaceutical
16 20 (0.98%) Automotive
17 19 (0.93%) Military
18 16 (0.78%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 269 (13.15%) Developer
2 268 (13.10%) Lead
3 250 (12.22%) Analyst
4 249 (12.17%) Senior
5 202 (9.87%) QA Engineer
6 121 (5.91%) Business Analyst
7 105 (5.13%) Tester
8 98 (4.79%) Quality Engineer
9 89 (4.35%) Test Manager
10 77 (3.76%) Test Engineer
11 72 (3.52%) Test Leader
12 71 (3.47%) Java Developer
13 64 (3.13%) Data Engineer
14 62 (3.03%) Architect
15 57 (2.79%) Senior Analyst
16 54 (2.64%) Consultant
17 53 (2.59%) QA Leader
18 51 (2.49%) Data Analyst
18 51 (2.49%) Test Analyst
19 46 (2.25%) QA Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 157 (7.67%) REST
2 116 (5.67%) RESTful
3 115 (5.62%) Playwright
4 103 (5.03%) .NET
5 96 (4.69%) Spring
6 90 (4.40%) Spring Boot
7 74 (3.62%) React
8 72 (3.52%) HTML
9 71 (3.47%) AngularJS
10 67 (3.27%) CSS
11 60 (2.93%) Node.js
12 57 (2.79%) Kafka
13 46 (2.25%) .NET Framework
13 46 (2.25%) Middleware
14 42 (2.05%) JSON
15 41 (2.00%) SOAP
16 36 (1.76%) Quarkus
17 33 (1.61%) XML
18 28 (1.37%) Gherkin
18 28 (1.37%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 179 (8.75%) Product Ownership
2 104 (5.08%) Cloud Native
3 62 (3.03%) Onboarding
4 56 (2.74%) Legacy Systems
5 47 (2.30%) Distributed Systems
5 47 (2.30%) Management Information System
6 45 (2.20%) Data Protection Act
6 45 (2.20%) Mobile App
7 42 (2.05%) Enterprise Software
8 36 (1.76%) Data Structures
9 35 (1.71%) Data Centre
10 32 (1.56%) AI Agents
11 23 (1.12%) NHS
12 20 (0.98%) Virtual Team
13 18 (0.88%) Analytical Mindset
14 16 (0.78%) CMDB
15 15 (0.73%) Low-Code
16 14 (0.68%) Life Science
16 14 (0.68%) Self-Motivation
17 13 (0.64%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 91 (4.45%) Windows
2 60 (2.93%) Linux
3 41 (2.00%) Apple iOS
4 39 (1.91%) Android
5 29 (1.42%) Windows Server
6 22 (1.08%) Unix
7 6 (0.29%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.098%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.098%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.049%) Debian
9 1 (0.049%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.049%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.049%) VMS
9 1 (0.049%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.049%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 787 (38.47%) Agile
2 553 (27.03%) Test Automation
3 512 (25.02%) DevOps
4 500 (24.44%) CI/CD
5 375 (18.33%) Continuous Improvement
6 371 (18.13%) Stakeholder Management
7 358 (17.50%) Validation
8 338 (16.52%) Problem-Solving
9 287 (14.03%) Scrum
10 283 (13.83%) Test Strategy
11 273 (13.34%) User Acceptance Testing
12 267 (13.05%) AI
13 253 (12.37%) Migration
14 185 (9.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 175 (8.55%) Decision-Making
16 172 (8.41%) SDLC
17 168 (8.21%) Microservices
17 168 (8.21%) Software Engineering
18 164 (8.02%) Analytics
19 161 (7.87%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 385 (18.82%) SQL
2 264 (12.90%) Python
3 255 (12.46%) Java
4 140 (6.84%) JavaScript
5 115 (5.62%) C#
6 72 (3.52%) TypeScript
7 43 (2.10%) PowerShell
8 39 (1.91%) Bash
9 38 (1.86%) T-SQL
10 37 (1.81%) PL/SQL
11 36 (1.76%) Kotlin
12 20 (0.98%) Scala
13 18 (0.88%) Swift
14 17 (0.83%) C
14 17 (0.83%) VB
15 16 (0.78%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 15 (0.73%) Apex Code
16 15 (0.73%) Bicep
16 15 (0.73%) C++
17 14 (0.68%) VBA
Qualifications
1 448 (21.90%) Security Cleared
2 344 (16.81%) SC Cleared
3 123 (6.01%) Degree
4 71 (3.47%) BPSS Clearance
5 67 (3.27%) ISTQB
6 52 (2.54%) DV Cleared
7 36 (1.76%) Computer Science Degree
8 23 (1.12%) PMP
9 22 (1.08%) PMI Certification
10 17 (0.83%) AWS Certification
11 14 (0.68%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
12 10 (0.49%) Cisco Certification
12 10 (0.49%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 8 (0.39%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 8 (0.39%) Master's Degree
13 8 (0.39%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
14 7 (0.34%) IIBA
15 6 (0.29%) CCNP
15 6 (0.29%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 155 (7.58%) Data Quality
2 101 (4.94%) Accessibility
3 33 (1.61%) GDPR
4 30 (1.47%) PMO
4 30 (1.47%) WCAG
5 20 (0.98%) GRC
6 16 (0.78%) GxP
7 13 (0.64%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 11 (0.54%) NIST
9 10 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
9 10 (0.49%) Disclosure Scotland
9 10 (0.49%) IFRS
10 9 (0.44%) SLA
11 8 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 8 (0.39%) PCI DSS
11 8 (0.39%) Software Quality Assurance
12 7 (0.34%) IFRS 17
13 6 (0.29%) GMP
13 6 (0.29%) NCSC
14 5 (0.24%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 142 (6.94%) Docker
2 27 (1.32%) Active Directory
3 13 (0.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (0.34%) IAG
6 6 (0.29%) Firmware
6 6 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.098%) ACF2
7 2 (0.098%) GridGain
7 2 (0.098%) KVM
7 2 (0.098%) Oracle RAC
7 2 (0.098%) RACF
7 2 (0.098%) VirtualBox
8 1 (0.049%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.049%) QEMU
8 1 (0.049%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
8 1 (0.049%) Varnish
8 1 (0.049%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.049%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 193 (9.43%) Kubernetes
2 82 (4.01%) Terraform
3 47 (2.30%) Grafana
4 45 (2.20%) Ansible
5 36 (1.76%) Argo
6 32 (1.56%) Prometheus
7 15 (0.73%) HP ALM
8 13 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (0.34%) HP Quality Center
9 7 (0.34%) Oracle RMAN
9 7 (0.34%) SCCM
9 7 (0.34%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 6 (0.29%) Microsoft Clustering
10 6 (0.29%) Puppet
11 5 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
11 5 (0.24%) Progress Chef
12 3 (0.15%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.15%) Kibana
12 3 (0.15%) SCOM
13 2 (0.098%) Nmap
Vendors
1 226 (11.05%) Microsoft
2 168 (8.21%) Oracle
3 108 (5.28%) Salesforce
4 92 (4.50%) SAP
5 51 (2.49%) Google
6 49 (2.39%) ServiceNow
7 40 (1.96%) Databricks
7 40 (1.96%) Red Hat
8 34 (1.66%) Citrix
9 29 (1.42%) Adobe
10 28 (1.37%) Informatica
11 22 (1.08%) Dynatrace
12 20 (0.98%) Splunk
13 19 (0.93%) Cisco
13 19 (0.93%) MuleSoft
14 18 (0.88%) HP
14 18 (0.88%) Workday
15 17 (0.83%) VMware
16 15 (0.73%) IBM
17 14 (0.68%) Talend