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

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 57 60 61
Rank change year-on-year +3 +1 +12
Contract jobs citing QA 1,972 1,257 1,377
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.75% 3.87% 3.22%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.12% 23.50% 23.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,214 876 880
10th Percentile £313 £289 £300
25th Percentile £398 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £469 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.28% -6.20% -3.24%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £675 £663 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 156 36 99
10th Percentile £12.85 £12.52 £11.62
25th Percentile £16.13 £13.50 £12.25
Median hourly rate £31.02 £15.96 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +94.36% +6.54% -40.08%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.63 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.58 £15.12 £14.00
% change year-on-year +102.25% +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 8,917 5,349 5,898
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.95% 16.48% 13.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,710 3,433 3,638
10th Percentile £340 £280 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £620
90th Percentile £700 £717 £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 549 235 421
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.66 £11.66
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.17 £13.52
Median hourly rate £38.72 £30.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +29.07% +24.07% -38.66%
75th Percentile £68.75 £62.25 £50.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £82.98 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £27.53 £24.18
% change year-on-year +45.30% +13.85% -30.91%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +2 1,692 £485 +2.11% 844
UK excluding London +7 939 £450 - 805
London +5 816 £498 +0.76% 228
Work from Home +4 572 £480 +4.35% 575
South East +3 214 £440 -7.37% 205
North of England -16 213 £489 +5.17% 221
Midlands 0 184 £425 +13.33% 109
West Midlands -9 138 £430 +1.18% 58
South West +17 129 £495 -1.00% 59
East of England +10 99 £476 -0.68% 96
North West -21 98 £463 +9.60% 122
Scotland +3 85 £340 -24.44% 67
Yorkshire -33 74 £525 +1.72% 73
East Midlands -6 45 £415 +12.24% 50
North East -13 41 £400 -12.09% 28
Northern Ireland +6 19 £475 +46.15% 30
Wales -6 11 £438 +2.94% 39

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
1 116 (5.88%) Confluence
2 38 (1.93%) CMS
3 36 (1.83%) SharePoint
4 20 (1.01%) IIS
5 19 (0.96%) Apache Spark
6 12 (0.61%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 10 (0.51%) Apache
8 9 (0.46%) SAS
9 6 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
10 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.25%) Tuxedo
10 5 (0.25%) Umbraco
10 5 (0.25%) WordPress
11 4 (0.20%) nginx
12 3 (0.15%) Moodle
12 3 (0.15%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
12 3 (0.15%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.15%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.10%) Apache Solr
Applications
1 58 (2.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (1.32%) Microsoft Project
3 25 (1.27%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (1.06%) MS Visio
5 18 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.25%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.20%) Photoshop
7 4 (0.20%) Simulink
8 3 (0.15%) CATIA
8 3 (0.15%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.10%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.10%) EPLAN
9 2 (0.10%) Navisworks
9 2 (0.10%) Revit
10 1 (0.051%) Adobe After Effects
10 1 (0.051%) Adobe Premiere
10 1 (0.051%) Mingle
10 1 (0.051%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 31 (1.57%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.96%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.46%) Shopify
4 8 (0.41%) Workday HCM
5 7 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.30%) Maximo
6 6 (0.30%) NEC Housing
6 6 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
7 5 (0.25%) Infor CloudSuite
8 4 (0.20%) Adobe Campaign
8 4 (0.20%) Aladdin
8 4 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.20%) Primavera
9 3 (0.15%) Actimize
9 3 (0.15%) Oracle EBS R12
9 3 (0.15%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.15%) SAP MM
10 2 (0.10%) Advent Geneva
10 2 (0.10%) IntelliMatch
10 2 (0.10%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 424 (21.50%) Azure
2 325 (16.48%) AWS
3 182 (9.23%) Azure DevOps
4 173 (8.77%) GitHub
5 105 (5.32%) GitHub Actions
6 103 (5.22%) Power Platform
7 83 (4.21%) GCP
8 44 (2.23%) Serverless
9 41 (2.08%) SaaS
10 37 (1.88%) OpenShift
11 30 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
12 28 (1.42%) Snowflake
13 26 (1.32%) AWS Lambda
14 25 (1.27%) Amazon S3
15 24 (1.22%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 23 (1.17%) Azure Monitor
16 23 (1.17%) GitHub Copilot
16 23 (1.17%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 22 (1.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 20 (1.01%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.12%) Firewall
2 19 (0.96%) Internet
2 19 (0.96%) Network Security
3 15 (0.76%) WAN
4 14 (0.71%) LAN
5 13 (0.66%) VPN
6 12 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (0.56%) HTTP
7 11 (0.56%) Unified Communications
8 10 (0.51%) SD-WAN
8 10 (0.51%) VLAN
9 8 (0.41%) DNS
9 8 (0.41%) IPsec
10 7 (0.35%) SMS
10 7 (0.35%) TCP/IP
10 7 (0.35%) Wireless
11 6 (0.30%) Cisco Nexus
12 5 (0.25%) DHCP
13 4 (0.20%) BGP
13 4 (0.20%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (5.73%) SQL Server
2 89 (4.51%) Power BI
3 74 (3.75%) Data Warehouse
4 66 (3.35%) PostgreSQL
5 65 (3.30%) Relational Database
6 39 (1.98%) Metadata
6 39 (1.98%) MySQL
7 37 (1.88%) NoSQL
7 37 (1.88%) Oracle Database
8 36 (1.83%) Oracle Reports
8 36 (1.83%) Tableau
9 31 (1.57%) MongoDB
10 28 (1.42%) Data Lake
11 24 (1.22%) Big Data
12 22 (1.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 20 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
14 16 (0.81%) Amazon Redshift
14 16 (0.81%) BigQuery
14 16 (0.81%) RDBMS
15 15 (0.76%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 306 (15.52%) JIRA
2 194 (9.84%) Git
3 148 (7.51%) Selenium
4 138 (7.00%) Jenkins
5 94 (4.77%) GitLab
6 85 (4.31%) Postman
7 67 (3.40%) Cypress.io
8 65 (3.30%) Cucumber
9 60 (3.04%) JUnit
10 53 (2.69%) REST Assured
11 47 (2.38%) Zephyr
12 45 (2.28%) SonarQube
13 35 (1.77%) JMeter
14 30 (1.52%) WebDriver
15 25 (1.27%) Maven
16 24 (1.22%) Gatling
17 22 (1.12%) Gradle
18 20 (1.01%) Appium
18 20 (1.01%) TestNG
18 20 (1.01%) TestRail
General
1 589 (29.87%) Social Skills
2 422 (21.40%) Finance
3 299 (15.16%) Analytical Skills
4 230 (11.66%) Public Sector
5 145 (7.35%) Banking
6 69 (3.50%) Retail
7 68 (3.45%) Manufacturing
8 56 (2.84%) Marketing
9 45 (2.28%) Organisational Skills
10 41 (2.08%) Aerospace
11 29 (1.47%) Documentation Skills
12 28 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 24 (1.22%) Legal
14 23 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
15 21 (1.06%) Pharmaceutical
16 19 (0.96%) Automotive
16 19 (0.96%) Investment Banking
17 18 (0.91%) Military
17 18 (0.91%) Presentation Skills
18 16 (0.81%) Law
Job Titles
1 262 (13.29%) Developer
2 239 (12.12%) Lead
3 233 (11.82%) Analyst
4 230 (11.66%) Senior
5 187 (9.48%) QA Engineer
6 107 (5.43%) Business Analyst
7 106 (5.38%) Tester
8 89 (4.51%) Test Manager
9 79 (4.01%) Quality Engineer
10 73 (3.70%) Java Developer
10 73 (3.70%) Test Engineer
11 64 (3.25%) Test Leader
12 62 (3.14%) Architect
12 62 (3.14%) Data Engineer
13 53 (2.69%) Senior Analyst
14 52 (2.64%) Consultant
14 52 (2.64%) Data Analyst
15 49 (2.48%) Test Analyst
16 48 (2.43%) Project Manager
17 47 (2.38%) QA Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 145 (7.35%) REST
2 116 (5.88%) .NET
3 113 (5.73%) Playwright
4 108 (5.48%) RESTful
5 92 (4.67%) Spring
6 89 (4.51%) Spring Boot
7 80 (4.06%) React
8 70 (3.55%) HTML
9 65 (3.30%) AngularJS
10 64 (3.25%) CSS
11 55 (2.79%) Node.js
12 53 (2.69%) .NET Framework
13 51 (2.59%) Kafka
14 42 (2.13%) Middleware
15 40 (2.03%) JSON
16 34 (1.72%) SOAP
17 32 (1.62%) Quarkus
18 28 (1.42%) XML
19 25 (1.27%) Gherkin
20 24 (1.22%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 175 (8.87%) Product Ownership
2 92 (4.67%) Cloud Native
3 61 (3.09%) Onboarding
4 56 (2.84%) Legacy Systems
5 47 (2.38%) Mobile App
6 46 (2.33%) Data Protection Act
7 44 (2.23%) Management Information System
8 43 (2.18%) Distributed Systems
9 35 (1.77%) Enterprise Software
10 34 (1.72%) Data Structures
11 27 (1.37%) Data Centre
12 25 (1.27%) AI Agents
13 22 (1.12%) Virtual Team
14 18 (0.91%) Analytical Mindset
14 18 (0.91%) NHS
14 18 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
15 15 (0.76%) Life Science
16 13 (0.66%) Distributed Architecture
16 13 (0.66%) Low-Code
16 13 (0.66%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 89 (4.51%) Windows
2 57 (2.89%) Linux
3 35 (1.77%) Apple iOS
4 33 (1.67%) Android
5 32 (1.62%) Windows Server
6 22 (1.12%) Unix
7 6 (0.30%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.25%) 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 (0.051%) Debian
10 1 (0.051%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.051%) Solaris
10 1 (0.051%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.051%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.051%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 754 (38.24%) Agile
2 526 (26.67%) Test Automation
3 488 (24.75%) DevOps
4 478 (24.24%) CI/CD
5 339 (17.19%) Continuous Improvement
6 336 (17.04%) Validation
7 330 (16.73%) Stakeholder Management
8 326 (16.53%) Problem-Solving
9 272 (13.79%) User Acceptance Testing
10 269 (13.64%) Scrum
10 269 (13.64%) Test Strategy
11 248 (12.58%) Migration
12 231 (11.71%) AI
13 176 (8.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 172 (8.72%) Decision-Making
15 165 (8.37%) SDLC
16 156 (7.91%) Analytics
16 156 (7.91%) Software Engineering
17 155 (7.86%) End-to-End Testing
18 152 (7.71%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 395 (20.03%) SQL
2 252 (12.78%) Java
3 251 (12.73%) Python
4 144 (7.30%) JavaScript
5 136 (6.90%) C#
6 84 (4.26%) TypeScript
7 42 (2.13%) T-SQL
8 39 (1.98%) PL/SQL
9 34 (1.72%) Kotlin
9 34 (1.72%) PowerShell
10 33 (1.67%) Bash
11 19 (0.96%) VB
12 18 (0.91%) Swift
13 17 (0.86%) C
13 17 (0.86%) C++
13 17 (0.86%) Scala
14 16 (0.81%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 15 (0.76%) Bicep
15 15 (0.76%) VBA
16 13 (0.66%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 449 (22.77%) Security Cleared
2 335 (16.99%) SC Cleared
3 127 (6.44%) Degree
4 76 (3.85%) BPSS Clearance
5 72 (3.65%) ISTQB
6 61 (3.09%) DV Cleared
7 33 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
8 25 (1.27%) PMI Certification
8 25 (1.27%) PMP
9 15 (0.76%) Azure Certification
10 13 (0.66%) AWS Certification
11 12 (0.61%) Master's Degree
11 12 (0.61%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (0.56%) Cisco Certification
13 10 (0.51%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 7 (0.35%) CCNP
14 7 (0.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 6 (0.30%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 5 (0.25%) CBAP
16 5 (0.25%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (7.40%) Data Quality
2 100 (5.07%) Accessibility
3 33 (1.67%) GDPR
4 31 (1.57%) PMO
5 26 (1.32%) WCAG
6 20 (1.01%) GRC
7 17 (0.86%) GxP
8 14 (0.71%) SLA
9 13 (0.66%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 12 (0.61%) IFRS
10 12 (0.61%) NIST
11 11 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
12 10 (0.51%) IFRS 17
13 9 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
14 8 (0.41%) PCI DSS
15 7 (0.35%) GMP
15 7 (0.35%) ISO 20022
15 7 (0.35%) NCSC
16 6 (0.30%) SEPA
16 6 (0.30%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 128 (6.49%) Docker
2 21 (1.06%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.35%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.30%) Firmware
5 6 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.25%) IAG
7 2 (0.10%) GridGain
7 2 (0.10%) Oracle RAC
7 2 (0.10%) VirtualBox
7 2 (0.10%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.051%) ACF2
8 1 (0.051%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.051%) KVM
8 1 (0.051%) QEMU
8 1 (0.051%) RACF
8 1 (0.051%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
8 1 (0.051%) Varnish
8 1 (0.051%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 180 (9.13%) Kubernetes
2 75 (3.80%) Terraform
3 39 (1.98%) Grafana
4 37 (1.88%) Ansible
5 32 (1.62%) Argo
6 27 (1.37%) Prometheus
7 20 (1.01%) HP ALM
8 12 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (0.56%) HP Quality Center
10 7 (0.35%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.35%) SCCM
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%) Nmap
14 2 (0.10%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.10%) Microsoft Intune
14 2 (0.10%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 209 (10.60%) Microsoft
2 177 (8.98%) Oracle
3 103 (5.22%) Salesforce
4 92 (4.67%) SAP
5 47 (2.38%) ServiceNow
6 42 (2.13%) Databricks
7 41 (2.08%) Google
8 37 (1.88%) Citrix
9 36 (1.83%) Red Hat
10 30 (1.52%) Adobe
11 28 (1.42%) Informatica
12 23 (1.17%) HP
13 20 (1.01%) Cisco
14 18 (0.91%) MuleSoft
15 15 (0.76%) Talend
15 15 (0.76%) Workday
16 14 (0.71%) Splunk
17 12 (0.61%) Atlassian
17 12 (0.61%) VMware
18 11 (0.56%) Infor