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

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 58 64
Rank change year-on-year +4 +6 +9
Contract jobs citing QA 2,016 1,309 1,286
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.81% 4.00% 3.20%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.28% 23.66% 23.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,223 920 817
10th Percentile £313 £290 £310
25th Percentile £393 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £468 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.44% -6.35% -3.85%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £581
90th Percentile £675 £663 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -1.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 176 36 85
10th Percentile £12.81 £12.52 £11.07
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% -56.58%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.63 £33.93
90th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.40 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +114.25% +0.93% -40.08%

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 9,047 5,533 5,515
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.11% 16.90% 13.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,783 3,571 3,408
10th Percentile £340 £281 £297
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year - -0.89% -3.90%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £475
% change year-on-year +6.38% -1.05% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 558 249 350
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.58 £11.07
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.45 £14.41
Median hourly rate £40.00 £27.53 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +45.30% +10.12% -29.58%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £53.56
90th Percentile £82.25 £83.78 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £25.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year +60.00% - -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 28 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 28 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 28 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 +5 1,740 £488 +4.11% 834
UK excluding London +4 976 £450 - 629
London +4 827 £500 +1.01% 296
Work from Home 0 564 £475 +1.60% 311
North of England -4 244 £500 +10.56% 192
South East -5 229 £450 -1.37% 170
Midlands 0 190 £425 +3.66% 86
West Midlands +5 148 £425 -4.49% 62
South West +10 121 £488 +7.73% 66
North West -21 101 £496 +17.54% 105
East of England +8 98 £481 +0.52% 80
Yorkshire -15 91 £525 +5.00% 54
Scotland +2 86 £338 -25.00% 32
North East -10 52 £400 -12.09% 34
East Midlands -12 41 £420 +12.00% 24
Northern Ireland +2 17 £463 +42.31% 9
Wales -11 11 £438 -15.66% 13

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
1 114 (5.65%) Confluence
2 40 (1.98%) SharePoint
3 39 (1.93%) CMS
4 20 (0.99%) IIS
5 17 (0.84%) Apache Spark
6 14 (0.69%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 12 (0.60%) Apache
8 9 (0.45%) SAS
9 8 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
10 6 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
11 5 (0.25%) Tuxedo
11 5 (0.25%) WordPress
12 4 (0.20%) Umbraco
13 3 (0.15%) Apache Solr
13 3 (0.15%) Moodle
13 3 (0.15%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.15%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.099%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
14 2 (0.099%) Tomcat
Applications
1 55 (2.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (1.24%) Microsoft Project
3 23 (1.14%) Microsoft Office
4 19 (0.94%) MS Visio
5 17 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 7 (0.35%) Chatbot
7 5 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
8 4 (0.20%) Simulink
9 3 (0.15%) CATIA
9 3 (0.15%) CPLEX
9 3 (0.15%) Navisworks
9 3 (0.15%) Photoshop
9 3 (0.15%) Revit
10 2 (0.099%) AutoCAD
10 2 (0.099%) EPLAN
11 1 (0.050%) Mingle
11 1 (0.050%) Notion
11 1 (0.050%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 32 (1.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.19%) Dynamics CRM
3 12 (0.60%) Workday HCM
4 10 (0.50%) Shopify
5 7 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.30%) NEC Housing
6 6 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
7 5 (0.25%) Aladdin
7 5 (0.25%) Infor CloudSuite
8 4 (0.20%) Maximo
8 4 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.20%) Primavera
8 4 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
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 (0.099%) SAP EWM
10 2 (0.099%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 429 (21.28%) Azure
2 349 (17.31%) AWS
3 182 (9.03%) GitHub
4 176 (8.73%) Azure DevOps
5 109 (5.41%) Power Platform
6 108 (5.36%) GitHub Actions
7 95 (4.71%) GCP
8 50 (2.48%) Serverless
9 43 (2.13%) SaaS
10 42 (2.08%) OpenShift
11 34 (1.69%) Dynamics 365
12 32 (1.59%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 31 (1.54%) Snowflake
14 29 (1.44%) AWS Lambda
15 26 (1.29%) Azure Monitor
16 25 (1.24%) Amazon S3
16 25 (1.24%) GitHub Copilot
16 25 (1.24%) Microsoft 365
16 25 (1.24%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 21 (1.04%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.04%) Firewall
2 19 (0.94%) Internet
2 19 (0.94%) Network Security
3 15 (0.74%) WAN
4 14 (0.69%) LAN
5 12 (0.60%) VPN
5 12 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
6 11 (0.55%) Unified Communications
7 10 (0.50%) SD-WAN
7 10 (0.50%) VLAN
8 9 (0.45%) HTTP
9 8 (0.40%) DNS
9 8 (0.40%) IPsec
10 7 (0.35%) SMS
10 7 (0.35%) Wireless
11 6 (0.30%) Broadband
11 6 (0.30%) Cisco Nexus
11 6 (0.30%) TCP/IP
12 5 (0.25%) DHCP
13 3 (0.15%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (5.56%) SQL Server
2 94 (4.66%) Power BI
3 77 (3.82%) Data Warehouse
4 68 (3.37%) PostgreSQL
5 64 (3.17%) Relational Database
6 40 (1.98%) MySQL
7 38 (1.88%) Metadata
7 38 (1.88%) Oracle Reports
8 37 (1.84%) NoSQL
8 37 (1.84%) Oracle Database
9 36 (1.79%) Tableau
10 35 (1.74%) MongoDB
11 29 (1.44%) Data Lake
12 24 (1.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 22 (1.09%) Big Data
14 19 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
15 16 (0.79%) DynamoDB
16 15 (0.74%) BigQuery
16 15 (0.74%) RDBMS
17 14 (0.69%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 291 (14.43%) JIRA
2 186 (9.23%) Git
3 147 (7.29%) Selenium
4 140 (6.94%) Jenkins
5 97 (4.81%) GitLab
6 80 (3.97%) Postman
7 66 (3.27%) Cypress.io
8 65 (3.22%) Cucumber
9 60 (2.98%) JUnit
10 53 (2.63%) Zephyr
11 49 (2.43%) SonarQube
12 46 (2.28%) REST Assured
13 37 (1.84%) JMeter
14 28 (1.39%) WebDriver
15 27 (1.34%) Gatling
16 26 (1.29%) Maven
17 23 (1.14%) Gradle
18 20 (0.99%) Appium
18 20 (0.99%) TestRail
19 19 (0.94%) TestNG
General
1 600 (29.76%) Social Skills
2 421 (20.88%) Finance
3 299 (14.83%) Analytical Skills
4 241 (11.95%) Public Sector
5 143 (7.09%) Banking
6 73 (3.62%) Retail
7 72 (3.57%) Manufacturing
8 57 (2.83%) Marketing
9 52 (2.58%) Organisational Skills
10 44 (2.18%) Aerospace
11 32 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 26 (1.29%) Documentation Skills
12 26 (1.29%) Influencing Skills
13 24 (1.19%) Legal
14 21 (1.04%) Pharmaceutical
15 19 (0.94%) Automotive
15 19 (0.94%) Military
15 19 (0.94%) Telecoms
16 18 (0.89%) Law
17 15 (0.74%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 264 (13.10%) Developer
2 259 (12.85%) Lead
3 244 (12.10%) Analyst
4 238 (11.81%) Senior
5 193 (9.57%) QA Engineer
6 116 (5.75%) Business Analyst
7 104 (5.16%) Tester
8 92 (4.56%) Quality Engineer
9 91 (4.51%) Test Manager
10 75 (3.72%) Java Developer
10 75 (3.72%) Test Engineer
11 67 (3.32%) Test Leader
12 62 (3.08%) Architect
12 62 (3.08%) Data Engineer
13 55 (2.73%) Senior Analyst
14 53 (2.63%) Consultant
15 51 (2.53%) QA Leader
15 51 (2.53%) Test Analyst
16 50 (2.48%) Project Manager
17 49 (2.43%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 151 (7.49%) REST
2 111 (5.51%) Playwright
3 109 (5.41%) RESTful
4 104 (5.16%) .NET
5 95 (4.71%) Spring
6 93 (4.61%) Spring Boot
7 74 (3.67%) React
8 70 (3.47%) HTML
9 69 (3.42%) AngularJS
10 65 (3.22%) CSS
11 57 (2.83%) Node.js
12 56 (2.78%) Kafka
13 47 (2.33%) .NET Framework
14 46 (2.28%) Middleware
15 41 (2.03%) SOAP
16 40 (1.98%) JSON
17 36 (1.79%) Quarkus
18 30 (1.49%) XML
19 27 (1.34%) Gherkin
20 24 (1.19%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 181 (8.98%) Product Ownership
2 99 (4.91%) Cloud Native
3 62 (3.08%) Onboarding
4 56 (2.78%) Legacy Systems
5 49 (2.43%) Distributed Systems
6 48 (2.38%) Data Protection Act
7 47 (2.33%) Management Information System
8 42 (2.08%) Mobile App
9 39 (1.93%) Enterprise Software
10 36 (1.79%) Data Structures
11 32 (1.59%) AI Agents
11 32 (1.59%) Data Centre
12 22 (1.09%) NHS
13 20 (0.99%) Virtual Team
14 16 (0.79%) Analytical Mindset
14 16 (0.79%) Self-Motivation
15 15 (0.74%) Life Science
16 14 (0.69%) CMDB
16 14 (0.69%) Low-Code
16 14 (0.69%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 88 (4.37%) Windows
2 57 (2.83%) Linux
3 35 (1.74%) Apple iOS
4 34 (1.69%) Android
5 29 (1.44%) Windows Server
6 22 (1.09%) Unix
7 6 (0.30%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.099%) Oracle Linux
9 2 (0.099%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.050%) Debian
10 1 (0.050%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.050%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.050%) VMS
10 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 776 (38.49%) Agile
2 543 (26.93%) Test Automation
3 500 (24.80%) DevOps
4 493 (24.45%) CI/CD
5 365 (18.11%) Continuous Improvement
6 355 (17.61%) Stakeholder Management
7 343 (17.01%) Validation
8 333 (16.52%) Problem-Solving
9 284 (14.09%) Test Strategy
10 279 (13.84%) Scrum
11 278 (13.79%) User Acceptance Testing
12 257 (12.75%) AI
13 256 (12.70%) Migration
14 182 (9.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 173 (8.58%) Decision-Making
16 169 (8.38%) SDLC
17 168 (8.33%) Software Engineering
18 166 (8.23%) Microservices
19 164 (8.13%) Analytics
19 164 (8.13%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 382 (18.95%) SQL
2 256 (12.70%) Java
2 256 (12.70%) Python
3 144 (7.14%) JavaScript
4 119 (5.90%) C#
5 80 (3.97%) TypeScript
6 40 (1.98%) T-SQL
7 39 (1.93%) PowerShell
8 37 (1.84%) PL/SQL
9 35 (1.74%) Kotlin
10 34 (1.69%) Bash
11 18 (0.89%) VB
12 17 (0.84%) C
12 17 (0.84%) Swift
13 16 (0.79%) C++
13 16 (0.79%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 16 (0.79%) Scala
14 15 (0.74%) Bicep
15 14 (0.69%) Apex Code
15 14 (0.69%) VBA
Qualifications
1 441 (21.88%) Security Cleared
2 338 (16.77%) SC Cleared
3 125 (6.20%) Degree
4 71 (3.52%) BPSS Clearance
5 66 (3.27%) ISTQB
6 54 (2.68%) DV Cleared
7 35 (1.74%) Computer Science Degree
8 26 (1.29%) PMP
9 25 (1.24%) PMI Certification
10 17 (0.84%) AWS Certification
11 14 (0.69%) Azure Certification
12 13 (0.64%) Microsoft Certification
13 10 (0.50%) Cisco Certification
13 10 (0.50%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 9 (0.45%) Master's Degree
15 8 (0.40%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
15 8 (0.40%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 7 (0.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 6 (0.30%) CCNP
18 5 (0.25%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 151 (7.49%) Data Quality
2 100 (4.96%) Accessibility
3 33 (1.64%) GDPR
4 30 (1.49%) PMO
5 26 (1.29%) WCAG
6 19 (0.94%) GRC
7 16 (0.79%) GxP
8 13 (0.64%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 11 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
9 11 (0.55%) NIST
9 11 (0.55%) SLA
10 9 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
10 9 (0.45%) IFRS
11 8 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 8 (0.40%) PCI DSS
11 8 (0.40%) Software Quality Assurance
12 7 (0.35%) IFRS 17
13 6 (0.30%) GMP
13 6 (0.30%) NCSC
14 5 (0.25%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 138 (6.85%) Docker
2 22 (1.09%) Active Directory
3 12 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
4 10 (0.50%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.30%) Firmware
5 6 (0.30%) IAG
5 6 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.099%) ACF2
6 2 (0.099%) GridGain
6 2 (0.099%) KVM
6 2 (0.099%) Oracle RAC
6 2 (0.099%) RACF
6 2 (0.099%) VirtualBox
7 1 (0.050%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.050%) QEMU
7 1 (0.050%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
7 1 (0.050%) Varnish
7 1 (0.050%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.050%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 192 (9.52%) Kubernetes
2 81 (4.02%) Terraform
3 46 (2.28%) Grafana
4 40 (1.98%) Ansible
5 36 (1.79%) Argo
6 30 (1.49%) Prometheus
7 17 (0.84%) HP ALM
8 12 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.40%) HP Quality Center
9 8 (0.40%) SCCM
10 7 (0.35%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.35%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 6 (0.30%) Puppet
12 5 (0.25%) Kibana
12 5 (0.25%) Progress Chef
13 3 (0.15%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.15%) Microsoft Clustering
13 3 (0.15%) Microsoft Intune
14 2 (0.099%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.099%) SCOM
Vendors
1 220 (10.91%) Microsoft
2 173 (8.58%) Oracle
3 106 (5.26%) Salesforce
4 96 (4.76%) SAP
5 52 (2.58%) ServiceNow
6 49 (2.43%) Google
7 42 (2.08%) Databricks
8 40 (1.98%) Red Hat
9 35 (1.74%) Citrix
10 29 (1.44%) Adobe
11 28 (1.39%) Informatica
12 20 (0.99%) HP
12 20 (0.99%) MuleSoft
13 19 (0.94%) Cisco
14 18 (0.89%) Dynatrace
14 18 (0.89%) Splunk
15 17 (0.84%) Workday
16 15 (0.74%) IBM
16 15 (0.74%) Talend
17 14 (0.69%) VMware