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

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 59 64
Rank change year-on-year +3 +5 +6
Contract jobs citing QA 1,985 1,286 1,337
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.77% 3.95% 3.24%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.16% 23.64% 23.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,209 902 846
10th Percentile £313 £285 £307
25th Percentile £393 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £469 £499
Median % change year-on-year +1.28% -6.01% -3.11%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £675 £663 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -1.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 165 36 90
10th Percentile £12.81 £12.52 £11.38
25th Percentile £16.60 £13.50 £12.24
Median hourly rate £32.00 £15.96 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +100.50% +6.54% -42.93%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.63 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £15.12 £14.00
% change year-on-year +108.07% +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 8,956 5,440 5,722
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.99% 16.69% 13.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,722 3,502 3,542
10th Percentile £336 £279 £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 £623
90th Percentile £700 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £471 £475
% change year-on-year +6.27% -0.94% -4.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 544 241 375
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.60 £11.53
25th Percentile £19.43 £17.55 £14.00
Median hourly rate £38.72 £28.18 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.40% +12.72% -35.42%
75th Percentile £69.81 £62.24 £53.38
90th Percentile £82.25 £83.41 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £25.83 £25.00
% change year-on-year +49.93% +3.30% -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 21 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 21 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 21 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 1,703 £486 +2.91% 797
UK excluding London +6 954 £450 - 548
London +5 814 £500 +1.01% 309
Work from Home 0 563 £475 - 328
North of England -5 236 £500 +8.70% 168
South East -1 218 £437 -5.46% 163
Midlands -2 183 £425 +6.25% 81
West Midlands -3 141 £425 -1.73% 51
South West +6 121 £488 -2.50% 52
North West -22 99 £484 +14.57% 97
East of England +10 97 £481 +0.52% 57
Yorkshire -20 88 £525 +2.69% 51
Scotland +2 86 £339 -24.72% 20
North East -13 49 £400 -12.09% 21
East Midlands -12 41 £415 +13.08% 29
Northern Ireland +6 19 £475 +46.15% 10
Wales -11 11 £438 -15.87% 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
1 116 (5.84%) Confluence
2 40 (2.02%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.91%) CMS
4 20 (1.01%) IIS
5 19 (0.96%) Apache Spark
6 13 (0.65%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 10 (0.50%) Apache
8 9 (0.45%) 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%) WordPress
11 4 (0.20%) Umbraco
11 4 (0.20%) WebLogic
12 3 (0.15%) Apache Solr
12 3 (0.15%) Moodle
12 3 (0.15%) nginx
12 3 (0.15%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
12 3 (0.15%) Tomcat
Applications
1 56 (2.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (1.31%) Microsoft Project
3 23 (1.16%) Microsoft Office
4 19 (0.96%) MS Visio
5 17 (0.86%) 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%) Photoshop
10 2 (0.10%) AutoCAD
10 2 (0.10%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.10%) Navisworks
10 2 (0.10%) Revit
11 1 (0.050%) Adobe After Effects
11 1 (0.050%) Adobe Illustrator
11 1 (0.050%) Adobe Premiere
11 1 (0.050%) Mingle
11 1 (0.050%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 31 (1.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (1.06%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.50%) Workday HCM
4 8 (0.40%) Shopify
5 7 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
5 7 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.30%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.25%) Aladdin
7 5 (0.25%) Infor CloudSuite
8 4 (0.20%) Adobe Campaign
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%) Oracle EBS R12
9 3 (0.15%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.15%) SAP MM
10 2 (0.10%) SAP SD
10 2 (0.10%) Summit
10 2 (0.10%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 425 (21.41%) Azure
2 334 (16.83%) AWS
3 178 (8.97%) GitHub
4 176 (8.87%) Azure DevOps
5 109 (5.49%) GitHub Actions
6 106 (5.34%) Power Platform
7 90 (4.53%) GCP
8 47 (2.37%) Serverless
9 42 (2.12%) SaaS
10 40 (2.02%) OpenShift
11 32 (1.61%) Dynamics 365
12 30 (1.51%) Snowflake
13 27 (1.36%) AWS Lambda
14 26 (1.31%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 25 (1.26%) Amazon S3
15 25 (1.26%) Azure Monitor
15 25 (1.26%) GitHub Copilot
16 23 (1.16%) Microsoft 365
17 22 (1.11%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 21 (1.06%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.11%) Firewall
2 19 (0.96%) Internet
2 19 (0.96%) Network Security
3 15 (0.76%) WAN
4 14 (0.71%) LAN
5 13 (0.65%) VPN
6 12 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (0.55%) HTTP
7 11 (0.55%) Unified Communications
8 10 (0.50%) SD-WAN
8 10 (0.50%) VLAN
9 8 (0.40%) DNS
9 8 (0.40%) 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%) Broadband
12 5 (0.25%) DHCP
13 4 (0.20%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (5.54%) SQL Server
2 92 (4.63%) Power BI
3 75 (3.78%) Data Warehouse
4 67 (3.38%) PostgreSQL
5 65 (3.27%) Relational Database
6 41 (2.07%) MySQL
7 39 (1.96%) Metadata
7 39 (1.96%) NoSQL
8 38 (1.91%) Tableau
9 37 (1.86%) Oracle Database
9 37 (1.86%) Oracle Reports
10 35 (1.76%) MongoDB
11 29 (1.46%) Data Lake
12 23 (1.16%) Big Data
13 21 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 20 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
15 16 (0.81%) BigQuery
15 16 (0.81%) DynamoDB
16 15 (0.76%) RDBMS
17 14 (0.71%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 294 (14.81%) JIRA
2 189 (9.52%) Git
3 146 (7.36%) Selenium
4 137 (6.90%) Jenkins
5 92 (4.63%) GitLab
6 79 (3.98%) Postman
7 68 (3.43%) Cucumber
8 66 (3.32%) Cypress.io
9 61 (3.07%) JUnit
10 51 (2.57%) Zephyr
11 48 (2.42%) REST Assured
12 47 (2.37%) SonarQube
13 34 (1.71%) JMeter
14 29 (1.46%) WebDriver
15 26 (1.31%) Maven
16 24 (1.21%) Gatling
17 23 (1.16%) Gradle
18 21 (1.06%) Appium
19 20 (1.01%) TestNG
19 20 (1.01%) TestRail
General
1 590 (29.72%) Social Skills
2 424 (21.36%) Finance
3 291 (14.66%) Analytical Skills
4 228 (11.49%) Public Sector
5 145 (7.30%) Banking
6 74 (3.73%) Retail
7 71 (3.58%) Manufacturing
8 57 (2.87%) Marketing
9 48 (2.42%) Organisational Skills
10 43 (2.17%) Aerospace
11 30 (1.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 28 (1.41%) Influencing Skills
13 26 (1.31%) Documentation Skills
14 23 (1.16%) Legal
15 21 (1.06%) Pharmaceutical
15 21 (1.06%) Telecoms
16 20 (1.01%) Automotive
17 18 (0.91%) Military
18 16 (0.81%) Presentation Skills
18 16 (0.81%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 266 (13.40%) Developer
2 247 (12.44%) Lead
3 238 (11.99%) Analyst
4 230 (11.59%) Senior
5 193 (9.72%) QA Engineer
6 109 (5.49%) Business Analyst
7 103 (5.19%) Tester
8 89 (4.48%) Test Manager
9 87 (4.38%) Quality Engineer
10 73 (3.68%) Java Developer
11 72 (3.63%) Test Engineer
12 65 (3.27%) Test Leader
13 63 (3.17%) Architect
14 60 (3.02%) Data Engineer
15 53 (2.67%) Senior Analyst
16 52 (2.62%) Test Analyst
17 51 (2.57%) Consultant
18 50 (2.52%) Project Manager
19 49 (2.47%) Data Analyst
19 49 (2.47%) QA Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 143 (7.20%) REST
2 113 (5.69%) Playwright
3 112 (5.64%) .NET
4 108 (5.44%) RESTful
5 92 (4.63%) Spring
6 89 (4.48%) Spring Boot
7 77 (3.88%) React
8 70 (3.53%) HTML
9 67 (3.38%) AngularJS
10 65 (3.27%) CSS
11 56 (2.82%) Node.js
12 54 (2.72%) Kafka
13 50 (2.52%) .NET Framework
14 41 (2.07%) Middleware
15 40 (2.02%) JSON
16 34 (1.71%) Quarkus
16 34 (1.71%) SOAP
17 29 (1.46%) XML
18 27 (1.36%) Gherkin
19 23 (1.16%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 178 (8.97%) Product Ownership
2 94 (4.74%) Cloud Native
3 60 (3.02%) Onboarding
4 57 (2.87%) Legacy Systems
5 48 (2.42%) Data Protection Act
6 47 (2.37%) Management Information System
7 46 (2.32%) Distributed Systems
8 45 (2.27%) Mobile App
9 37 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
10 35 (1.76%) Data Structures
11 29 (1.46%) AI Agents
12 28 (1.41%) Data Centre
13 20 (1.01%) NHS
13 20 (1.01%) Virtual Team
14 17 (0.86%) Self-Motivation
15 16 (0.81%) Analytical Mindset
16 15 (0.76%) Life Science
17 14 (0.71%) Replication
18 13 (0.65%) CMDB
18 13 (0.65%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 86 (4.33%) Windows
2 55 (2.77%) Linux
3 36 (1.81%) Apple iOS
4 34 (1.71%) Android
5 31 (1.56%) Windows Server
6 21 (1.06%) 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 (0.050%) Debian
10 1 (0.050%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.050%) Solaris
10 1 (0.050%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.050%) VMS
10 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 761 (38.34%) Agile
2 535 (26.95%) Test Automation
3 491 (24.74%) DevOps
4 486 (24.48%) CI/CD
5 355 (17.88%) Continuous Improvement
6 345 (17.38%) Stakeholder Management
7 336 (16.93%) Validation
8 328 (16.52%) Problem-Solving
9 275 (13.85%) Scrum
10 274 (13.80%) Test Strategy
11 269 (13.55%) User Acceptance Testing
12 253 (12.75%) Migration
13 244 (12.29%) AI
14 183 (9.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 173 (8.72%) Decision-Making
16 166 (8.36%) SDLC
17 164 (8.26%) Software Engineering
18 160 (8.06%) Analytics
19 158 (7.96%) End-to-End Testing
19 158 (7.96%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 384 (19.35%) SQL
2 252 (12.70%) Java
3 250 (12.59%) Python
4 145 (7.30%) JavaScript
5 128 (6.45%) C#
6 82 (4.13%) TypeScript
7 40 (2.02%) T-SQL
8 38 (1.91%) PL/SQL
9 35 (1.76%) Kotlin
9 35 (1.76%) PowerShell
10 33 (1.66%) Bash
11 18 (0.91%) C++
11 18 (0.91%) Swift
11 18 (0.91%) VB
12 17 (0.86%) C
12 17 (0.86%) Scala
13 16 (0.81%) Bicep
13 16 (0.81%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 15 (0.76%) VBA
15 12 (0.60%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 428 (21.56%) Security Cleared
2 329 (16.57%) SC Cleared
3 131 (6.60%) Degree
4 72 (3.63%) BPSS Clearance
5 68 (3.43%) ISTQB
6 53 (2.67%) DV Cleared
7 36 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
8 28 (1.41%) PMP
9 27 (1.36%) PMI Certification
10 15 (0.76%) Azure Certification
11 13 (0.65%) AWS Certification
11 13 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
12 12 (0.60%) Master's Degree
13 11 (0.55%) Cisco Certification
14 10 (0.50%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 8 (0.40%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 7 (0.35%) CCNP
16 7 (0.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 5 (0.25%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
17 5 (0.25%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (7.30%) Data Quality
2 99 (4.99%) Accessibility
3 34 (1.71%) GDPR
4 33 (1.66%) PMO
5 26 (1.31%) WCAG
6 20 (1.01%) GRC
7 16 (0.81%) GxP
8 13 (0.65%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 13 (0.65%) SLA
9 12 (0.60%) NIST
10 11 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
10 11 (0.55%) IFRS
11 9 (0.45%) IFRS 17
11 9 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 8 (0.40%) PCI DSS
13 7 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
13 7 (0.35%) NCSC
14 6 (0.30%) GMP
14 6 (0.30%) Software Quality Assurance
15 5 (0.25%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 131 (6.60%) Docker
2 20 (1.01%) Active Directory
3 12 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.35%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.30%) IAG
5 6 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.25%) Firmware
7 2 (0.10%) ACF2
7 2 (0.10%) GridGain
7 2 (0.10%) Oracle RAC
7 2 (0.10%) RACF
7 2 (0.10%) VirtualBox
7 2 (0.10%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.050%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.050%) KVM
8 1 (0.050%) QEMU
8 1 (0.050%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
8 1 (0.050%) Varnish
8 1 (0.050%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 185 (9.32%) Kubernetes
2 80 (4.03%) Terraform
3 40 (2.02%) Grafana
4 37 (1.86%) Ansible
5 34 (1.71%) Argo
6 28 (1.41%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.91%) 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%) Nmap
14 2 (0.10%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.10%) Microsoft Intune
14 2 (0.10%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 215 (10.83%) Microsoft
2 175 (8.82%) Oracle
3 99 (4.99%) Salesforce
4 94 (4.74%) SAP
5 49 (2.47%) ServiceNow
6 44 (2.22%) Google
7 40 (2.02%) Databricks
8 38 (1.91%) Red Hat
9 36 (1.81%) Citrix
10 30 (1.51%) Adobe
11 27 (1.36%) Informatica
12 21 (1.06%) HP
13 20 (1.01%) Cisco
14 18 (0.91%) MuleSoft
15 17 (0.86%) IBM
16 16 (0.81%) Workday
17 15 (0.76%) Talend
18 13 (0.65%) Splunk
19 12 (0.60%) Dynatrace
19 12 (0.60%) Pega