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 16 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 63 63
Rank change year-on-year +15 0 +6
Contract jobs citing QA 2,229 1,272 1,278
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.11% 3.86% 3.34%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.48% 22.55% 24.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,312 882 752
10th Percentile £313 £285 £300
25th Percentile £393 £375 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year - -1.04% -8.13%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £575
90th Percentile £662 £661 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 226 43 81
10th Percentile £12.85 £12.28 £11.66
25th Percentile £15.25 £13.50 £12.24
Median hourly rate £30.58 £19.37 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +57.91% +29.27% -68.46%
75th Percentile £48.75 £40.18 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £71.68 £71.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.58 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +102.25% +0.93% -70.04%

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 9,492 5,640 5,117
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.49% 17.12% 13.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,999 3,615 3,036
10th Percentile £325 £300 £281
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 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £480
% change year-on-year +2.63% -1.04% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 611 270 262
10th Percentile £13.88 £13.60 £12.25
25th Percentile £16.75 £17.05 £15.00
Median hourly rate £33.00 £30.00 £27.09
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% +10.74% -23.97%
75th Percentile £67.50 £59.38 £58.44
90th Percentile £77.00 £80.28 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.98 £28.18 £26.50
% change year-on-year +20.58% +6.34% -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 16 September 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 16 September 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 16 September 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 +15 1,945 £475 - 3,516
UK excluding London +17 1,094 £450 - 2,079
London +7 896 £500 - 1,748
Work from Home +3 572 £475 - 1,403
North of England +2 259 £468 +5.22% 494
South East +9 253 £430 -7.03% 479
Midlands +18 222 £450 +5.88% 317
West Midlands +14 182 £455 -2.76% 221
East of England +16 140 £450 -10.00% 227
South West +8 134 £495 +4.21% 221
Yorkshire -2 105 £500 +8.70% 127
North West -18 98 £475 +12.56% 288
Scotland 0 80 £411 -8.67% 211
North East -8 56 £400 -13.04% 81
East Midlands -4 39 £415 +10.67% 96
Wales -3 18 £400 +6.67% 51
Northern Ireland -3 8 £450 +10.43% 98

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
1 125 (5.61%) Confluence
2 47 (2.11%) CMS
3 40 (1.79%) SharePoint
4 17 (0.76%) IIS
5 16 (0.72%) Apache Spark
6 13 (0.58%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 13 (0.58%) Apache
6 13 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
7 8 (0.36%) SAS
7 8 (0.36%) Sitecore CMS
8 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.22%) Tuxedo
9 5 (0.22%) WordPress
10 4 (0.18%) Headless CMS
10 4 (0.18%) Umbraco
11 3 (0.13%) Apache Solr
11 3 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.13%) Moodle
11 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 79 (3.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.53%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (0.99%) MS Visio
4 21 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 17 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
6 12 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
7 9 (0.40%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.22%) Navisworks
8 5 (0.22%) Revit
9 4 (0.18%) AutoCAD
10 3 (0.13%) CATIA
10 3 (0.13%) Photoshop
10 3 (0.13%) ProjectWise
10 3 (0.13%) Simulink
11 2 (0.090%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.090%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.090%) Mingle
11 2 (0.090%) Windchill
12 1 (0.045%) Autodesk Inventor
12 1 (0.045%) MadCap Flare
Business Applications
1 31 (1.39%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.45%) Remedy ITSM
4 9 (0.40%) Shopify
5 7 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) SAP GRC
6 6 (0.27%) Workday HCM
7 4 (0.18%) Aladdin
7 4 (0.18%) iTrent
7 4 (0.18%) Maximo
7 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
7 4 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
7 4 (0.18%) Primavera
7 4 (0.18%) ResourceLink
8 3 (0.13%) Infor CloudSuite
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
8 3 (0.13%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.13%) SAP MM
8 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
9 2 (0.090%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 447 (20.05%) Azure
2 391 (17.54%) AWS
3 214 (9.60%) GitHub
4 190 (8.52%) Azure DevOps
5 120 (5.38%) GitHub Actions
6 112 (5.02%) Power Platform
7 107 (4.80%) GCP
8 78 (3.50%) Serverless
9 55 (2.47%) AWS Lambda
10 52 (2.33%) SaaS
11 47 (2.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 42 (1.88%) Amazon S3
13 40 (1.79%) OpenShift
14 36 (1.62%) Dynamics 365
14 36 (1.62%) GitHub Copilot
15 35 (1.57%) Snowflake
16 33 (1.48%) Azure Monitor
17 31 (1.39%) Salesforce Service Cloud
18 28 (1.26%) Power Automate
19 27 (1.21%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 25 (1.12%) Firewall
2 23 (1.03%) Internet
3 18 (0.81%) Broadband
3 18 (0.81%) DNS
4 16 (0.72%) HTTP
5 15 (0.67%) TCP/IP
6 14 (0.63%) VLAN
6 14 (0.63%) WAN
6 14 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
7 13 (0.58%) Network Security
8 12 (0.54%) LAN
8 12 (0.54%) VPN
9 11 (0.49%) 5G
10 10 (0.45%) 4G
11 9 (0.40%) DHCP
11 9 (0.40%) SD-WAN
11 9 (0.40%) Unified Communications
12 7 (0.31%) IPsec
12 7 (0.31%) SSH
13 5 (0.22%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 109 (4.89%) SQL Server
2 100 (4.49%) Power BI
3 83 (3.72%) PostgreSQL
4 80 (3.59%) Relational Database
5 68 (3.05%) Data Warehouse
6 51 (2.29%) MongoDB
7 49 (2.20%) NoSQL
8 44 (1.97%) MySQL
9 43 (1.93%) Metadata
10 42 (1.88%) Oracle Database
11 38 (1.70%) Tableau
12 34 (1.53%) Oracle Reports
13 25 (1.12%) Data Lake
14 21 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 19 (0.85%) Big Data
16 16 (0.72%) GIS
17 15 (0.67%) Power Query
17 15 (0.67%) RDBMS
18 14 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
18 14 (0.63%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 302 (13.55%) JIRA
2 235 (10.54%) Git
3 165 (7.40%) Jenkins
3 165 (7.40%) Selenium
4 132 (5.92%) GitLab
5 84 (3.77%) Postman
6 79 (3.54%) Cucumber
7 74 (3.32%) Cypress.io
8 62 (2.78%) JUnit
9 53 (2.38%) SonarQube
9 53 (2.38%) Zephyr
10 46 (2.06%) JMeter
11 42 (1.88%) REST Assured
12 37 (1.66%) Gatling
12 37 (1.66%) Maven
13 28 (1.26%) WebDriver
14 27 (1.21%) Gradle
15 21 (0.94%) Appium
15 21 (0.94%) TestRail
16 19 (0.85%) Bitbucket
General
1 671 (30.10%) Social Skills
2 432 (19.38%) Finance
3 364 (16.33%) Analytical Skills
4 278 (12.47%) Public Sector
5 168 (7.54%) Banking
6 81 (3.63%) Manufacturing
7 73 (3.28%) Retail
8 67 (3.01%) Marketing
9 62 (2.78%) Organisational Skills
10 51 (2.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 44 (1.97%) Aerospace
12 41 (1.84%) Telecoms
13 38 (1.70%) Influencing Skills
14 36 (1.62%) Legal
15 32 (1.44%) Documentation Skills
16 26 (1.17%) Military
17 24 (1.08%) Law
18 19 (0.85%) Pharmaceutical
19 18 (0.81%) Automotive
19 18 (0.81%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 296 (13.28%) Developer
2 278 (12.47%) Lead
3 263 (11.80%) Senior
4 259 (11.62%) Analyst
5 241 (10.81%) QA Engineer
6 123 (5.52%) Quality Engineer
7 111 (4.98%) Tester
8 110 (4.93%) Business Analyst
9 105 (4.71%) Test Manager
10 99 (4.44%) Test Engineer
11 79 (3.54%) Java Developer
12 72 (3.23%) Data Engineer
12 72 (3.23%) QA Leader
13 65 (2.92%) Test Leader
14 61 (2.74%) Architect
15 58 (2.60%) Senior Analyst
16 57 (2.56%) Consultant
17 55 (2.47%) Test Analyst
18 51 (2.29%) QA Tester
19 49 (2.20%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 203 (9.11%) REST
2 137 (6.15%) RESTful
3 135 (6.06%) Playwright
4 122 (5.47%) Spring
5 110 (4.93%) Spring Boot
6 100 (4.49%) Terraform
7 95 (4.26%) .NET
8 88 (3.95%) React
9 87 (3.90%) HTML
10 83 (3.72%) Kafka
11 77 (3.45%) CSS
12 76 (3.41%) AngularJS
13 64 (2.87%) Node.js
14 54 (2.42%) SOAP
15 53 (2.38%) Middleware
16 50 (2.24%) pytest
17 41 (1.84%) .NET Framework
18 39 (1.75%) JSON
19 36 (1.62%) XML
20 34 (1.53%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 203 (9.11%) Product Ownership
2 133 (5.97%) Cloud Native
3 76 (3.41%) Onboarding
4 62 (2.78%) Enterprise Software
5 60 (2.69%) Management Information System
6 59 (2.65%) Distributed Systems
7 52 (2.33%) Mobile App
8 51 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
9 41 (1.84%) Data Protection Act
10 40 (1.79%) AI Agents
10 40 (1.79%) Data Structures
11 35 (1.57%) Data Centre
12 27 (1.21%) Low-Code
13 26 (1.17%) NHS
13 26 (1.17%) Virtual Team
14 23 (1.03%) CMDB
15 19 (0.85%) Educational Technology
16 17 (0.76%) Analytical Mindset
17 16 (0.72%) Operational Technology
18 14 (0.63%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 90 (4.04%) Windows
2 71 (3.19%) Linux
3 49 (2.20%) Apple iOS
4 45 (2.02%) Android
5 35 (1.57%) Unix
6 26 (1.17%) Windows Server
7 10 (0.45%) VMS
8 6 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.22%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.090%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.090%) zOS
11 1 (0.045%) AIX
11 1 (0.045%) CentOS
11 1 (0.045%) Debian
11 1 (0.045%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.045%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.045%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.045%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.045%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.045%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 867 (38.90%) Agile
2 619 (27.77%) Test Automation
3 562 (25.21%) CI/CD
4 545 (24.45%) DevOps
5 442 (19.83%) Stakeholder Management
6 436 (19.56%) Continuous Improvement
7 389 (17.45%) Problem-Solving
8 369 (16.55%) Validation
9 330 (14.80%) Scrum
10 317 (14.22%) AI
11 316 (14.18%) Test Strategy
12 272 (12.20%) User Acceptance Testing
13 248 (11.13%) Migration
14 205 (9.20%) Microservices
14 205 (9.20%) SDLC
15 197 (8.84%) Software Engineering
16 194 (8.70%) End-to-End Testing
17 181 (8.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 176 (7.90%) Analytics
19 174 (7.81%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 419 (18.80%) SQL
2 307 (13.77%) Python
3 285 (12.79%) Java
4 181 (8.12%) JavaScript
5 111 (4.98%) C#
6 96 (4.31%) TypeScript
7 53 (2.38%) Bash
8 37 (1.66%) PowerShell
9 35 (1.57%) PL/SQL
10 29 (1.30%) Kotlin
11 27 (1.21%) T-SQL
12 22 (0.99%) Scala
13 20 (0.90%) Swift
14 18 (0.81%) C
15 17 (0.76%) Objective-C
15 17 (0.76%) Shell Script
16 16 (0.72%) VB
17 15 (0.67%) Apex Code
17 15 (0.67%) C++
17 15 (0.67%) R
Qualifications
1 531 (23.82%) Security Cleared
2 411 (18.44%) SC Cleared
3 147 (6.59%) Degree
4 96 (4.31%) BPSS Clearance
5 72 (3.23%) ISTQB
6 62 (2.78%) DV Cleared
7 44 (1.97%) Computer Science Degree
8 23 (1.03%) PMP
9 20 (0.90%) PMI Certification
10 19 (0.85%) AWS Certification
11 17 (0.76%) Azure Certification
12 14 (0.63%) Master's Degree
13 13 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
14 11 (0.49%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 10 (0.45%) Cisco Certification
15 10 (0.45%) ITIL Certification
16 9 (0.40%) IIBA
16 9 (0.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 8 (0.36%) DBS Check
17 8 (0.36%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 161 (7.22%) Data Quality
2 119 (5.34%) Accessibility
3 35 (1.57%) GDPR
4 34 (1.53%) WCAG
5 29 (1.30%) PMO
6 24 (1.08%) GRC
7 13 (0.58%) NIST
8 12 (0.54%) GxP
9 11 (0.49%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 11 (0.49%) Disclosure Scotland
10 10 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 9 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
11 9 (0.40%) Software Quality Assurance
12 8 (0.36%) SLA
13 7 (0.31%) IFRS
13 7 (0.31%) ISO 19650
13 7 (0.31%) ISO 9001
13 7 (0.31%) NCSC
14 6 (0.27%) ISO 20022
15 4 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 17025
System Software
1 188 (8.43%) Docker
2 23 (1.03%) Active Directory
3 18 (0.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.45%) IAG
4 10 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (0.27%) Firmware
6 4 (0.18%) ACF2
6 4 (0.18%) RACF
7 3 (0.13%) KVM
7 3 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.13%) VirtualBox
8 2 (0.090%) GridGain
8 2 (0.090%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.090%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.045%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.045%) QEMU
9 1 (0.045%) Varnish
9 1 (0.045%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.045%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.045%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 222 (9.96%) Kubernetes
2 60 (2.69%) Ansible
3 52 (2.33%) Grafana
4 36 (1.62%) Prometheus
5 34 (1.53%) Argo
6 11 (0.49%) HP ALM
7 10 (0.45%) SCCM
8 8 (0.36%) Microsoft Clustering
9 7 (0.31%) HP Quality Center
9 7 (0.31%) Microsoft Intune
9 7 (0.31%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (0.31%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 6 (0.27%) Puppet
11 5 (0.22%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.18%) SCOM
13 3 (0.13%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.13%) Oracle RMAN
14 2 (0.090%) Istio
14 2 (0.090%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.090%) Kibana
Vendors
1 240 (10.77%) Microsoft
2 169 (7.58%) Oracle
3 116 (5.20%) Salesforce
4 80 (3.59%) SAP
5 60 (2.69%) ServiceNow
6 49 (2.20%) Google
7 42 (1.88%) Databricks
8 35 (1.57%) Red Hat
9 30 (1.35%) Dynatrace
10 26 (1.17%) Adobe
10 26 (1.17%) Splunk
11 25 (1.12%) Citrix
12 22 (0.99%) Cisco
12 22 (0.99%) VMware
13 19 (0.85%) Informatica
14 16 (0.72%) IBM
14 16 (0.72%) Sitecore
15 15 (0.67%) Talend
16 14 (0.63%) MuleSoft
17 13 (0.58%) Workday