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

6 months to
27 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 55 59 64
Rank change year-on-year +4 +5 +9
Contract jobs citing QA 2,001 1,314 1,286
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.79% 3.99% 3.20%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.18% 23.65% 23.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,215 923 817
10th Percentile £313 £286 £310
25th Percentile £398 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £468 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.60% -6.50% -3.29%
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% -2.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 173 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 £65.00 £47.63 £33.93
90th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +108.07% +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 9,020 5,555 5,517
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.08% 16.86% 13.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,780 3,587 3,409
10th Percentile £338 £281 £296
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £504
Median % change year-on-year - -0.79% -4.00%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £625
90th Percentile £700 £714 £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 550 249 351
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.58 £11.07
25th Percentile £19.47 £17.45 £14.42
Median hourly rate £38.86 £27.53 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +41.16% +10.12% -35.42%
75th Percentile £69.67 £60.00 £53.38
90th Percentile £82.25 £83.78 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.86 £25.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year +55.44% - -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 27 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 27 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 27 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 +3 1,724 £488 +4.28% 816
UK excluding London +6 965 £450 - 616
London +5 821 £500 +1.01% 291
Work from Home +2 559 £475 +1.60% 314
North of England -8 240 £500 +10.56% 186
South East -3 222 £440 -2.22% 170
Midlands 0 189 £425 +3.66% 92
West Midlands +8 147 £425 -5.56% 66
South West +7 121 £488 +7.73% 63
North West -25 101 £496 +17.54% 102
East of England +12 98 £488 +1.83% 71
Yorkshire -21 89 £525 +5.00% 55
Scotland +10 84 £334 -25.72% 30
North East -9 50 £400 -12.09% 30
East Midlands -10 41 £420 +12.00% 26
Northern Ireland +5 18 £475 +46.15% 6
Wales -10 11 £438 -15.66% 12

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
1 113 (5.65%) Confluence
2 39 (1.95%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.90%) CMS
4 20 (1.00%) IIS
5 17 (0.85%) Apache Spark
6 13 (0.65%) 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%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.100%) nginx
14 2 (0.100%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 2 (0.100%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 55 (2.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (1.25%) Microsoft Project
3 23 (1.15%) Microsoft Office
4 19 (0.95%) MS Visio
5 17 (0.85%) 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 (0.100%) AutoCAD
10 2 (0.100%) EPLAN
11 1 (0.050%) Mingle
11 1 (0.050%) Notion
11 1 (0.050%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 32 (1.60%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.20%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.55%) Workday HCM
4 9 (0.45%) 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
9 3 (0.15%) Actimize
9 3 (0.15%) Adobe Campaign
9 3 (0.15%) Oracle EBS R12
9 3 (0.15%) Remedy ITSM
9 3 (0.15%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.15%) SAP MM
10 2 (0.100%) SAP EWM
10 2 (0.100%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 424 (21.19%) Azure
2 344 (17.19%) AWS
3 179 (8.95%) GitHub
4 174 (8.70%) Azure DevOps
5 108 (5.40%) Power Platform
6 107 (5.35%) GitHub Actions
7 92 (4.60%) GCP
8 49 (2.45%) Serverless
9 43 (2.15%) SaaS
10 40 (2.00%) OpenShift
11 34 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
12 30 (1.50%) Snowflake
13 29 (1.45%) AWS Lambda
14 28 (1.40%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 25 (1.25%) Amazon S3
15 25 (1.25%) Azure Monitor
15 25 (1.25%) GitHub Copilot
15 25 (1.25%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 23 (1.15%) Microsoft 365
17 21 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.05%) Firewall
2 19 (0.95%) Internet
2 19 (0.95%) Network Security
3 15 (0.75%) WAN
4 14 (0.70%) LAN
5 12 (0.60%) VPN
5 12 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
6 11 (0.55%) Unified Communications
7 10 (0.50%) SD-WAN
8 9 (0.45%) HTTP
8 9 (0.45%) VLAN
9 8 (0.40%) DNS
9 8 (0.40%) IPsec
10 7 (0.35%) SMS
10 7 (0.35%) Wireless
11 6 (0.30%) Cisco Nexus
11 6 (0.30%) TCP/IP
12 5 (0.25%) Broadband
12 5 (0.25%) DHCP
13 3 (0.15%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (5.60%) SQL Server
2 93 (4.65%) Power BI
3 77 (3.85%) Data Warehouse
4 68 (3.40%) PostgreSQL
5 64 (3.20%) Relational Database
6 40 (2.00%) MySQL
7 38 (1.90%) Metadata
7 38 (1.90%) NoSQL
7 38 (1.90%) Oracle Reports
8 37 (1.85%) Oracle Database
8 37 (1.85%) Tableau
9 35 (1.75%) MongoDB
10 29 (1.45%) Data Lake
11 23 (1.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 22 (1.10%) Big Data
13 20 (1.00%) Azure SQL Database
14 16 (0.80%) DynamoDB
15 15 (0.75%) BigQuery
15 15 (0.75%) RDBMS
16 14 (0.70%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 290 (14.49%) JIRA
2 186 (9.30%) Git
3 148 (7.40%) Selenium
4 137 (6.85%) Jenkins
5 94 (4.70%) GitLab
6 81 (4.05%) Postman
7 67 (3.35%) Cypress.io
8 65 (3.25%) Cucumber
9 60 (3.00%) JUnit
10 53 (2.65%) Zephyr
11 47 (2.35%) REST Assured
11 47 (2.35%) SonarQube
12 37 (1.85%) JMeter
13 28 (1.40%) WebDriver
14 27 (1.35%) Gatling
15 26 (1.30%) Maven
16 23 (1.15%) Gradle
17 20 (1.00%) Appium
17 20 (1.00%) TestRail
18 19 (0.95%) TestNG
General
1 596 (29.79%) Social Skills
2 425 (21.24%) Finance
3 299 (14.94%) Analytical Skills
4 241 (12.04%) Public Sector
5 144 (7.20%) Banking
6 73 (3.65%) Retail
7 72 (3.60%) Manufacturing
8 57 (2.85%) Marketing
9 51 (2.55%) Organisational Skills
10 44 (2.20%) Aerospace
11 32 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 26 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
13 25 (1.25%) Documentation Skills
14 23 (1.15%) Legal
15 21 (1.05%) Pharmaceutical
16 19 (0.95%) Automotive
16 19 (0.95%) Military
16 19 (0.95%) Telecoms
17 18 (0.90%) Law
18 15 (0.75%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 262 (13.09%) Developer
2 252 (12.59%) Lead
3 244 (12.19%) Analyst
4 235 (11.74%) Senior
5 194 (9.70%) QA Engineer
6 116 (5.80%) Business Analyst
7 104 (5.20%) Tester
8 91 (4.55%) Quality Engineer
8 91 (4.55%) Test Manager
9 74 (3.70%) Test Engineer
10 73 (3.65%) Java Developer
11 66 (3.30%) Test Leader
12 62 (3.10%) Architect
12 62 (3.10%) Data Engineer
13 54 (2.70%) Senior Analyst
14 52 (2.60%) Consultant
15 51 (2.55%) QA Leader
15 51 (2.55%) Test Analyst
16 49 (2.45%) Data Analyst
16 49 (2.45%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 153 (7.65%) REST
2 112 (5.60%) Playwright
3 110 (5.50%) RESTful
4 107 (5.35%) .NET
5 95 (4.75%) Spring
6 93 (4.65%) Spring Boot
7 75 (3.75%) React
8 68 (3.40%) AngularJS
8 68 (3.40%) HTML
9 64 (3.20%) CSS
10 57 (2.85%) Node.js
11 56 (2.80%) Kafka
12 49 (2.45%) .NET Framework
13 46 (2.30%) Middleware
14 41 (2.05%) SOAP
15 40 (2.00%) JSON
16 34 (1.70%) Quarkus
17 30 (1.50%) XML
18 27 (1.35%) Gherkin
19 24 (1.20%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 182 (9.10%) Product Ownership
2 99 (4.95%) Cloud Native
3 61 (3.05%) Onboarding
4 55 (2.75%) Legacy Systems
5 48 (2.40%) Data Protection Act
5 48 (2.40%) Distributed Systems
6 47 (2.35%) Management Information System
7 42 (2.10%) Mobile App
8 39 (1.95%) Enterprise Software
9 36 (1.80%) Data Structures
10 32 (1.60%) AI Agents
11 31 (1.55%) Data Centre
12 22 (1.10%) NHS
13 20 (1.00%) Virtual Team
14 16 (0.80%) Analytical Mindset
14 16 (0.80%) Self-Motivation
15 15 (0.75%) Life Science
16 14 (0.70%) Replication
17 13 (0.65%) CMDB
17 13 (0.65%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 87 (4.35%) Windows
2 57 (2.85%) Linux
3 35 (1.75%) Apple iOS
4 34 (1.70%) Android
5 30 (1.50%) Windows Server
6 22 (1.10%) Unix
7 6 (0.30%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.100%) Oracle Linux
9 2 (0.100%) 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 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 769 (38.43%) Agile
2 540 (26.99%) Test Automation
3 496 (24.79%) DevOps
4 489 (24.44%) CI/CD
5 359 (17.94%) Continuous Improvement
6 353 (17.64%) Stakeholder Management
7 340 (16.99%) Validation
8 334 (16.69%) Problem-Solving
9 280 (13.99%) Test Strategy
10 278 (13.89%) Scrum
11 276 (13.79%) User Acceptance Testing
12 256 (12.79%) AI
12 256 (12.79%) Migration
13 183 (9.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 173 (8.65%) Decision-Making
15 166 (8.30%) Microservices
15 166 (8.30%) SDLC
16 165 (8.25%) Software Engineering
17 162 (8.10%) End-to-End Testing
18 160 (8.00%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 384 (19.19%) SQL
2 254 (12.69%) Java
2 254 (12.69%) Python
3 143 (7.15%) JavaScript
4 122 (6.10%) C#
5 80 (4.00%) TypeScript
6 40 (2.00%) T-SQL
7 38 (1.90%) PL/SQL
7 38 (1.90%) PowerShell
8 35 (1.75%) Kotlin
9 34 (1.70%) Bash
10 18 (0.90%) VB
11 17 (0.85%) C
11 17 (0.85%) Swift
12 16 (0.80%) Bicep
12 16 (0.80%) C++
12 16 (0.80%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 16 (0.80%) Scala
13 14 (0.70%) Apex Code
13 14 (0.70%) VBA
Qualifications
1 436 (21.79%) Security Cleared
2 333 (16.64%) SC Cleared
3 127 (6.35%) Degree
4 71 (3.55%) BPSS Clearance
5 67 (3.35%) ISTQB
6 54 (2.70%) DV Cleared
7 35 (1.75%) Computer Science Degree
8 26 (1.30%) PMP
9 25 (1.25%) PMI Certification
10 15 (0.75%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.70%) AWS Certification
11 14 (0.70%) Microsoft Certification
12 10 (0.50%) Cisco Certification
12 10 (0.50%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 9 (0.45%) Master's Degree
14 8 (0.40%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 7 (0.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 6 (0.30%) CCNP
17 5 (0.25%) IIBA
17 5 (0.25%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 148 (7.40%) Data Quality
2 100 (5.00%) Accessibility
3 33 (1.65%) GDPR
4 30 (1.50%) PMO
5 26 (1.30%) WCAG
6 19 (0.95%) GRC
7 16 (0.80%) GxP
8 13 (0.65%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 11 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
9 11 (0.55%) NIST
9 11 (0.55%) SLA
10 9 (0.45%) IFRS
11 8 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
11 8 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 8 (0.40%) PCI DSS
12 7 (0.35%) IFRS 17
12 7 (0.35%) Software Quality Assurance
13 6 (0.30%) GMP
13 6 (0.30%) NCSC
14 5 (0.25%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 136 (6.80%) Docker
2 20 (1.00%) Active Directory
3 12 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
4 9 (0.45%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.30%) Firmware
5 6 (0.30%) IAG
5 6 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.100%) ACF2
6 2 (0.100%) GridGain
6 2 (0.100%) Oracle RAC
6 2 (0.100%) RACF
6 2 (0.100%) VirtualBox
7 1 (0.050%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.050%) KVM
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
1 188 (9.40%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.90%) Terraform
3 42 (2.10%) Grafana
4 37 (1.85%) Ansible
5 34 (1.70%) Argo
6 30 (1.50%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.90%) 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
14 2 (0.100%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.100%) Microsoft Clustering
14 2 (0.100%) Microsoft Intune
14 2 (0.100%) Nmap
Vendors
1 218 (10.89%) Microsoft
2 173 (8.65%) Oracle
3 102 (5.10%) Salesforce
4 94 (4.70%) SAP
5 49 (2.45%) ServiceNow
6 46 (2.30%) Google
7 43 (2.15%) Databricks
8 38 (1.90%) Red Hat
9 36 (1.80%) Citrix
10 28 (1.40%) Adobe
10 28 (1.40%) Informatica
11 21 (1.05%) HP
12 20 (1.00%) MuleSoft
13 19 (0.95%) Cisco
14 16 (0.80%) IBM
14 16 (0.80%) Workday
15 15 (0.75%) Talend
16 14 (0.70%) Dynatrace
16 14 (0.70%) Splunk
17 13 (0.65%) VMware