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

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 53 60 66
Rank change year-on-year +7 +6 +7
Contract jobs citing QA 2,034 1,303 1,264
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.83% 3.97% 3.18%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.37% 23.50% 23.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,233 910 803
10th Percentile £313 £281 £306
25th Percentile £391 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £465 £490
Median % change year-on-year +2.15% -5.10% -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% -2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 178 36 84
10th Percentile £12.81 £12.52 £11.01
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% -60.34%
75th Percentile £66.88 £47.63 £36.25
90th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £73.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.40 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +114.25% +0.93% -49.65%

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 9,093 5,545 5,441
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.13% 16.91% 13.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,824 3,573 3,370
10th Percentile £331 £280 £297
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 £604 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £498 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +4.74% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 560 249 339
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.58 £11.07
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.45 £14.48
Median hourly rate £40.00 £27.35 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.25% +9.40% -34.21%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £54.68
90th Percentile £82.25 £83.78 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £24.66 £25.00
% change year-on-year +62.21% -1.36% -28.57%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 +8 1,767 £485 +4.30% 904
UK excluding London +7 981 £450 - 656
London +6 840 £500 +0.76% 349
Work from Home -2 563 £475 - 317
North of England -1 247 £500 +11.11% 186
South East -4 229 £435 -6.05% 193
Midlands +2 199 £425 +6.25% 92
West Midlands -1 156 £428 -2.84% 62
South West +4 118 £490 +8.89% 70
North West -23 102 £484 +14.57% 100
East of England +12 101 £475 -0.78% 81
Yorkshire -21 93 £520 +3.90% 56
Scotland +1 80 £331 -26.44% 35
North East -8 52 £400 -12.09% 32
East Midlands -8 42 £420 +15.86% 30
Northern Ireland +1 15 £450 +38.46% 5
Wales -10 12 £438 -15.46% 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
1 111 (5.46%) Confluence
2 39 (1.92%) CMS
3 37 (1.82%) SharePoint
4 20 (0.98%) IIS
5 17 (0.84%) Apache Spark
6 14 (0.69%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 12 (0.59%) Apache
8 9 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
8 9 (0.44%) SAS
9 6 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.25%) Tuxedo
10 5 (0.25%) WordPress
11 4 (0.20%) Umbraco
12 3 (0.15%) Apache Solr
12 3 (0.15%) Moodle
12 3 (0.15%) Sitecore CMS
12 3 (0.15%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.098%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.098%) Tomcat
Applications
1 54 (2.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (1.18%) Microsoft Project
3 23 (1.13%) Microsoft Office
4 19 (0.93%) MS Visio
5 17 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 7 (0.34%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.20%) Simulink
8 3 (0.15%) CATIA
8 3 (0.15%) CPLEX
8 3 (0.15%) Navisworks
8 3 (0.15%) Photoshop
8 3 (0.15%) Revit
9 2 (0.098%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.098%) EPLAN
10 1 (0.049%) Mingle
10 1 (0.049%) Notion
10 1 (0.049%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 33 (1.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 12 (0.59%) Workday HCM
4 10 (0.49%) Shopify
5 7 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.29%) NEC Housing
6 6 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
7 5 (0.25%) Aladdin
7 5 (0.25%) Infor CloudSuite
7 5 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
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%) Oracle EBS R12
9 3 (0.15%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.15%) SAP MM
10 2 (0.098%) SAP GRC
10 2 (0.098%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 434 (21.34%) Azure
2 355 (17.45%) AWS
3 185 (9.10%) GitHub
4 177 (8.70%) Azure DevOps
5 109 (5.36%) Power Platform
6 106 (5.21%) GitHub Actions
7 98 (4.82%) GCP
8 50 (2.46%) Serverless
9 43 (2.11%) SaaS
10 42 (2.06%) OpenShift
11 34 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
12 32 (1.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 31 (1.52%) Snowflake
14 29 (1.43%) AWS Lambda
14 29 (1.43%) GitHub Copilot
15 27 (1.33%) Microsoft 365
16 25 (1.23%) Azure Monitor
16 25 (1.23%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 24 (1.18%) Amazon S3
18 21 (1.03%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.03%) Firewall
2 19 (0.93%) Internet
2 19 (0.93%) Network Security
3 15 (0.74%) WAN
4 14 (0.69%) LAN
5 12 (0.59%) VPN
5 12 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
6 11 (0.54%) Unified Communications
7 10 (0.49%) SD-WAN
7 10 (0.49%) VLAN
8 9 (0.44%) HTTP
9 8 (0.39%) DNS
9 8 (0.39%) IPsec
10 7 (0.34%) SMS
10 7 (0.34%) Wireless
11 6 (0.29%) Broadband
11 6 (0.29%) Cisco Nexus
11 6 (0.29%) TCP/IP
12 5 (0.25%) DHCP
13 3 (0.15%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (5.51%) SQL Server
2 94 (4.62%) Power BI
3 77 (3.79%) Data Warehouse
4 67 (3.29%) PostgreSQL
5 60 (2.95%) Relational Database
6 38 (1.87%) NoSQL
6 38 (1.87%) Oracle Reports
7 37 (1.82%) Metadata
7 37 (1.82%) Oracle Database
7 37 (1.82%) Tableau
8 35 (1.72%) MongoDB
8 35 (1.72%) MySQL
9 29 (1.43%) Data Lake
10 25 (1.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 22 (1.08%) Big Data
12 19 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
13 15 (0.74%) BigQuery
13 15 (0.74%) DynamoDB
13 15 (0.74%) RDBMS
14 14 (0.69%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 286 (14.06%) JIRA
2 192 (9.44%) Git
3 148 (7.28%) Selenium
4 144 (7.08%) Jenkins
5 103 (5.06%) GitLab
6 82 (4.03%) Postman
7 64 (3.15%) Cucumber
7 64 (3.15%) Cypress.io
8 62 (3.05%) JUnit
9 54 (2.65%) Zephyr
10 52 (2.56%) SonarQube
11 47 (2.31%) REST Assured
12 38 (1.87%) JMeter
13 29 (1.43%) Gatling
14 27 (1.33%) WebDriver
15 26 (1.28%) Maven
16 23 (1.13%) Gradle
17 22 (1.08%) Appium
18 21 (1.03%) TestRail
19 20 (0.98%) TestNG
General
1 601 (29.55%) Social Skills
2 428 (21.04%) Finance
3 307 (15.09%) Analytical Skills
4 247 (12.14%) Public Sector
5 145 (7.13%) Banking
6 76 (3.74%) Retail
7 71 (3.49%) Manufacturing
8 57 (2.80%) Marketing
9 53 (2.61%) Organisational Skills
10 44 (2.16%) Aerospace
11 33 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 27 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
12 27 (1.33%) Legal
13 26 (1.28%) Documentation Skills
14 21 (1.03%) Law
14 21 (1.03%) Pharmaceutical
15 20 (0.98%) Military
15 20 (0.98%) Telecoms
16 19 (0.93%) Automotive
17 15 (0.74%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 267 (13.13%) Developer
2 260 (12.78%) Lead
3 244 (12.00%) Analyst
4 242 (11.90%) Senior
5 199 (9.78%) QA Engineer
6 118 (5.80%) Business Analyst
7 104 (5.11%) Tester
8 95 (4.67%) Quality Engineer
9 90 (4.42%) Test Manager
10 79 (3.88%) Test Engineer
11 73 (3.59%) Java Developer
12 68 (3.34%) Test Leader
13 63 (3.10%) Data Engineer
14 60 (2.95%) Architect
15 54 (2.65%) Senior Analyst
16 52 (2.56%) Consultant
17 51 (2.51%) QA Leader
18 50 (2.46%) Test Analyst
19 48 (2.36%) Data Analyst
19 48 (2.36%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 154 (7.57%) REST
2 114 (5.60%) Playwright
3 111 (5.46%) RESTful
4 103 (5.06%) .NET
5 96 (4.72%) Spring
6 91 (4.47%) Spring Boot
7 76 (3.74%) React
8 71 (3.49%) AngularJS
8 71 (3.49%) HTML
9 66 (3.24%) CSS
10 63 (3.10%) Node.js
11 56 (2.75%) Kafka
12 46 (2.26%) .NET Framework
12 46 (2.26%) Middleware
13 43 (2.11%) JSON
14 41 (2.02%) SOAP
15 36 (1.77%) Quarkus
16 33 (1.62%) XML
17 28 (1.38%) Gherkin
17 28 (1.38%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 177 (8.70%) Product Ownership
2 101 (4.97%) Cloud Native
3 64 (3.15%) Onboarding
4 57 (2.80%) Legacy Systems
5 49 (2.41%) Distributed Systems
6 48 (2.36%) Data Protection Act
6 48 (2.36%) Management Information System
7 43 (2.11%) Mobile App
8 40 (1.97%) Enterprise Software
9 37 (1.82%) Data Structures
10 33 (1.62%) Data Centre
11 32 (1.57%) AI Agents
12 23 (1.13%) NHS
13 21 (1.03%) Virtual Team
14 17 (0.84%) Analytical Mindset
15 15 (0.74%) CMDB
15 15 (0.74%) Life Science
15 15 (0.74%) Low-Code
15 15 (0.74%) Self-Motivation
16 13 (0.64%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 90 (4.42%) Windows
2 58 (2.85%) Linux
3 38 (1.87%) Android
3 38 (1.87%) Apple iOS
4 29 (1.43%) Windows Server
5 22 (1.08%) Unix
6 6 (0.29%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.098%) Oracle Linux
7 2 (0.098%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.098%) Windows Server 2008
8 1 (0.049%) Debian
8 1 (0.049%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.049%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.049%) VMS
8 1 (0.049%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 784 (38.54%) Agile
2 550 (27.04%) Test Automation
3 508 (24.98%) DevOps
4 504 (24.78%) CI/CD
5 375 (18.44%) Continuous Improvement
6 362 (17.80%) Stakeholder Management
7 350 (17.21%) Validation
8 339 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
9 283 (13.91%) Scrum
10 281 (13.82%) Test Strategy
11 274 (13.47%) User Acceptance Testing
12 265 (13.03%) AI
13 258 (12.68%) Migration
14 179 (8.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 175 (8.60%) Decision-Making
16 170 (8.36%) SDLC
16 170 (8.36%) Software Engineering
17 168 (8.26%) Microservices
18 164 (8.06%) End-to-End Testing
19 163 (8.01%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 382 (18.78%) SQL
2 266 (13.08%) Python
3 258 (12.68%) Java
4 143 (7.03%) JavaScript
5 116 (5.70%) C#
6 76 (3.74%) TypeScript
7 41 (2.02%) PowerShell
8 39 (1.92%) T-SQL
9 37 (1.82%) Bash
9 37 (1.82%) PL/SQL
10 36 (1.77%) Kotlin
11 19 (0.93%) Scala
12 17 (0.84%) C
12 17 (0.84%) Swift
12 17 (0.84%) VB
13 16 (0.79%) C++
13 16 (0.79%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 15 (0.74%) Bicep
15 14 (0.69%) Apex Code
15 14 (0.69%) VBA
Qualifications
1 444 (21.83%) Security Cleared
2 341 (16.76%) SC Cleared
3 124 (6.10%) Degree
4 71 (3.49%) BPSS Clearance
5 66 (3.24%) ISTQB
6 50 (2.46%) DV Cleared
7 35 (1.72%) Computer Science Degree
8 25 (1.23%) PMP
9 24 (1.18%) PMI Certification
10 17 (0.84%) AWS Certification
11 14 (0.69%) Azure Certification
12 13 (0.64%) Microsoft Certification
13 10 (0.49%) Cisco Certification
13 10 (0.49%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 8 (0.39%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 8 (0.39%) Master's Degree
14 8 (0.39%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 6 (0.29%) CCNP
15 6 (0.29%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 5 (0.25%) CSPO
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 153 (7.52%) Data Quality
2 102 (5.01%) Accessibility
3 33 (1.62%) GDPR
4 30 (1.47%) PMO
5 29 (1.43%) WCAG
6 20 (0.98%) GRC
7 16 (0.79%) GxP
8 13 (0.64%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 11 (0.54%) NIST
9 11 (0.54%) SLA
10 10 (0.49%) Disclosure Scotland
10 10 (0.49%) IFRS
11 9 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
12 8 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 8 (0.39%) PCI DSS
12 8 (0.39%) Software Quality Assurance
13 7 (0.34%) IFRS 17
14 6 (0.29%) GMP
14 6 (0.29%) NCSC
15 4 (0.20%) Solvency II
System Software
1 140 (6.88%) Docker
2 25 (1.23%) Active Directory
3 12 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
4 11 (0.54%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.29%) Firmware
5 6 (0.29%) IAG
5 6 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.098%) ACF2
6 2 (0.098%) GridGain
6 2 (0.098%) KVM
6 2 (0.098%) Oracle RAC
6 2 (0.098%) RACF
6 2 (0.098%) VirtualBox
7 1 (0.049%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.049%) QEMU
7 1 (0.049%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
7 1 (0.049%) Varnish
7 1 (0.049%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.049%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 195 (9.59%) Kubernetes
2 81 (3.98%) Terraform
3 47 (2.31%) Grafana
4 42 (2.06%) Ansible
5 36 (1.77%) Argo
6 31 (1.52%) Prometheus
7 16 (0.79%) HP ALM
8 12 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.39%) SCCM
10 7 (0.34%) HP Quality Center
10 7 (0.34%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.34%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 6 (0.29%) Puppet
12 5 (0.25%) Kibana
12 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Intune
12 5 (0.25%) Progress Chef
13 4 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
14 3 (0.15%) FortiGate
14 3 (0.15%) SCOM
15 2 (0.098%) Nmap
Vendors
1 220 (10.82%) Microsoft
2 171 (8.41%) Oracle
3 104 (5.11%) Salesforce
4 95 (4.67%) SAP
5 53 (2.61%) ServiceNow
6 50 (2.46%) Google
7 41 (2.02%) Databricks
8 40 (1.97%) Red Hat
9 34 (1.67%) Citrix
10 29 (1.43%) Adobe
11 28 (1.38%) Informatica
12 20 (0.98%) Dynatrace
12 20 (0.98%) MuleSoft
12 20 (0.98%) Splunk
13 19 (0.93%) Cisco
13 19 (0.93%) HP
14 17 (0.84%) Workday
15 15 (0.74%) IBM
15 15 (0.74%) Talend
15 15 (0.74%) VMware