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 30 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 63 60 61
Rank change year-on-year -3 +1 +11
Contract jobs citing QA 1,890 1,160 1,401
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.68% 3.79% 3.25%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 21.86% 23.18% 23.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,178 813 905
10th Percentile £324 £280 £310
25th Percentile £398 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £469 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.28% -6.20% -2.44%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £675 £663 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £490
% change year-on-year - -8.16% +0.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 143 30 101
10th Percentile £12.91 £12.71 £10.86
25th Percentile £16.13 £13.50 £12.24
Median hourly rate £31.46 £17.66 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +78.12% +17.91% -33.42%
75th Percentile £67.50 £44.91 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £55.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £15.12 £13.76
% change year-on-year +108.07% +9.88% -37.45%

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 8,645 5,004 5,915
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.85% 16.35% 13.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,537 3,212 3,668
10th Percentile £340 £279 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £402
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £475
% change year-on-year +6.38% -1.05% -4.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 527 208 432
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.78 £11.07
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.50 £13.50
Median hourly rate £36.07 £31.57 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year +14.27% +32.63% -36.95%
75th Percentile £67.50 £64.06 £50.00
90th Percentile £82.04 £83.96 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.79 £29.00 £20.47
% change year-on-year +26.84% +41.71% -45.43%

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 30 June 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 30 June 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 30 June 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 +1 1,622 £481 +1.32% 681
UK excluding London +5 878 £450 - 571
London +3 804 £500 +1.27% 220
Work from Home +9 551 £481 +1.18% 253
South East +1 197 £450 -2.70% 196
North of England -12 195 £455 -2.99% 147
Midlands -7 179 £425 +13.33% 108
West Midlands -6 134 £444 +4.53% 55
South West +22 123 £495 -1.00% 63
East of England +5 85 £476 -0.68% 51
North West -26 84 £425 -0.24% 84
Scotland +2 83 £350 -20.00% 14
Yorkshire -24 74 £525 +1.01% 38
East Midlands -11 45 £407 +10.14% 54
North East -8 37 £390 -13.33% 28
Northern Ireland +5 19 £475 +46.15% 9
Wales -8 11 £463 +8.82% 7

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
1 109 (5.77%) Confluence
2 32 (1.69%) SharePoint
3 29 (1.53%) CMS
4 19 (1.01%) IIS
5 16 (0.85%) Apache Spark
6 11 (0.58%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 8 (0.42%) Apache
7 8 (0.42%) SAS
8 5 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
8 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Exchange
8 5 (0.26%) Tuxedo
8 5 (0.26%) Umbraco
9 4 (0.21%) nginx
10 3 (0.16%) Moodle
10 3 (0.16%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
10 3 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.16%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.11%) Appian
11 2 (0.11%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 57 (3.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (1.48%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (1.38%) Microsoft Project
4 21 (1.11%) MS Visio
5 19 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 6 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.26%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.21%) Photoshop
9 3 (0.16%) CATIA
9 3 (0.16%) CPLEX
9 3 (0.16%) Simulink
10 2 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
10 2 (0.11%) AutoCAD
10 2 (0.11%) EPLAN
11 1 (0.053%) Adobe After Effects
11 1 (0.053%) Adobe Premiere
11 1 (0.053%) Camtasia
11 1 (0.053%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.053%) Notion
11 1 (0.053%) Revit
Business Applications
1 28 (1.48%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.42%) Shopify
4 7 (0.37%) Workday HCM
5 6 (0.32%) Maximo
5 6 (0.32%) NEC Housing
5 6 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 6 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
6 5 (0.26%) Infor CloudSuite
7 4 (0.21%) Adobe Campaign
7 4 (0.21%) Primavera
8 3 (0.16%) Actimize
8 3 (0.16%) Aladdin
8 3 (0.16%) IntelliMatch
8 3 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
8 3 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
8 3 (0.16%) SAP FI
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 2 (0.11%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 413 (21.85%) Azure
2 313 (16.56%) AWS
3 175 (9.26%) Azure DevOps
4 153 (8.10%) GitHub
5 105 (5.56%) Power Platform
6 92 (4.87%) GitHub Actions
7 75 (3.97%) GCP
8 47 (2.49%) Serverless
9 37 (1.96%) OpenShift
9 37 (1.96%) SaaS
10 34 (1.80%) Dynamics 365
11 30 (1.59%) AWS Lambda
12 29 (1.53%) Amazon S3
13 27 (1.43%) Snowflake
14 26 (1.38%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 22 (1.16%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 21 (1.11%) Azure Data Factory
16 21 (1.11%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 19 (1.01%) Azure Monitor
17 19 (1.01%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.27%) Firewall
2 19 (1.01%) Network Security
3 18 (0.95%) Internet
3 18 (0.95%) WAN
4 16 (0.85%) LAN
5 14 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
6 13 (0.69%) VPN
7 12 (0.63%) DNS
8 11 (0.58%) SD-WAN
8 11 (0.58%) Unified Communications
8 11 (0.58%) VLAN
9 9 (0.48%) HTTP
9 9 (0.48%) Wireless
10 8 (0.42%) IPsec
11 7 (0.37%) SMS
11 7 (0.37%) TCP/IP
12 6 (0.32%) Cisco Nexus
13 5 (0.26%) DHCP
14 4 (0.21%) BGP
14 4 (0.21%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (6.03%) SQL Server
2 90 (4.76%) Power BI
3 71 (3.76%) Data Warehouse
4 69 (3.65%) PostgreSQL
5 61 (3.23%) Relational Database
6 44 (2.33%) MySQL
6 44 (2.33%) NoSQL
7 37 (1.96%) Metadata
8 36 (1.90%) Oracle Database
8 36 (1.90%) Tableau
9 32 (1.69%) MongoDB
9 32 (1.69%) Oracle Reports
10 29 (1.53%) Data Lake
11 22 (1.16%) Big Data
12 19 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
12 19 (1.01%) DynamoDB
13 18 (0.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 16 (0.85%) RDBMS
15 15 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
15 15 (0.79%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 299 (15.82%) JIRA
2 178 (9.42%) Git
3 144 (7.62%) Selenium
4 139 (7.35%) Jenkins
5 97 (5.13%) GitLab
6 85 (4.50%) Postman
7 64 (3.39%) Cypress.io
8 62 (3.28%) Cucumber
9 59 (3.12%) JUnit
10 52 (2.75%) REST Assured
11 47 (2.49%) Zephyr
12 43 (2.28%) SonarQube
13 35 (1.85%) JMeter
14 30 (1.59%) WebDriver
15 24 (1.27%) Gatling
16 23 (1.22%) Maven
17 20 (1.06%) TestNG
18 19 (1.01%) TestRail
19 18 (0.95%) Gradle
20 17 (0.90%) Appium
General
1 568 (30.05%) Social Skills
2 415 (21.96%) Finance
3 272 (14.39%) Analytical Skills
4 221 (11.69%) Public Sector
5 143 (7.57%) Banking
6 63 (3.33%) Retail
7 57 (3.02%) Manufacturing
8 55 (2.91%) Marketing
9 48 (2.54%) Organisational Skills
10 38 (2.01%) Aerospace
11 29 (1.53%) Documentation Skills
12 25 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 23 (1.22%) Legal
14 22 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
15 21 (1.11%) Investment Banking
16 20 (1.06%) Pharmaceutical
17 19 (1.01%) Military
18 17 (0.90%) Automotive
19 16 (0.85%) Front Office
20 15 (0.79%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 250 (13.23%) Developer
2 228 (12.06%) Analyst
3 218 (11.53%) Senior
4 217 (11.48%) Lead
5 175 (9.26%) QA Engineer
6 109 (5.77%) Business Analyst
7 102 (5.40%) Tester
8 89 (4.71%) Test Manager
9 71 (3.76%) Quality Engineer
10 70 (3.70%) Architect
11 69 (3.65%) Java Developer
12 66 (3.49%) Test Engineer
13 58 (3.07%) Data Engineer
14 57 (3.02%) Test Leader
15 54 (2.86%) Senior Analyst
16 53 (2.80%) Consultant
17 51 (2.70%) Data Analyst
17 51 (2.70%) Project Manager
18 47 (2.49%) Software Engineer
19 46 (2.43%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 137 (7.25%) REST
2 114 (6.03%) .NET
3 111 (5.87%) Playwright
4 107 (5.66%) RESTful
5 94 (4.97%) Spring
6 91 (4.81%) Spring Boot
7 74 (3.92%) React
8 67 (3.54%) HTML
9 65 (3.44%) AngularJS
10 62 (3.28%) CSS
11 55 (2.91%) Kafka
12 52 (2.75%) .NET Framework
13 47 (2.49%) Node.js
14 38 (2.01%) JSON
15 32 (1.69%) Quarkus
16 30 (1.59%) Middleware
17 28 (1.48%) SOAP
18 26 (1.38%) ASP.NET
19 25 (1.32%) pytest
20 24 (1.27%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 168 (8.89%) Product Ownership
2 88 (4.66%) Cloud Native
3 57 (3.02%) Onboarding
4 52 (2.75%) Legacy Systems
5 45 (2.38%) Distributed Systems
6 42 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
6 42 (2.22%) Management Information System
7 41 (2.17%) Mobile App
8 34 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
9 32 (1.69%) Data Structures
10 26 (1.38%) Data Centre
11 25 (1.32%) Virtual Team
12 23 (1.22%) AI Agents
13 20 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
14 18 (0.95%) NHS
15 17 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
16 14 (0.74%) Life Science
16 14 (0.74%) PMI
17 13 (0.69%) Derivative
17 13 (0.69%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 89 (4.71%) Windows
2 57 (3.02%) Linux
3 31 (1.64%) Apple iOS
4 30 (1.59%) Windows Server
5 28 (1.48%) Android
6 23 (1.22%) Unix
7 6 (0.32%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
9 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.053%) Debian
10 1 (0.053%) Solaris
10 1 (0.053%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.053%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.053%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 717 (37.94%) Agile
2 488 (25.82%) Test Automation
3 470 (24.87%) DevOps
4 448 (23.70%) CI/CD
5 317 (16.77%) Validation
6 308 (16.30%) Stakeholder Management
7 306 (16.19%) Continuous Improvement
8 298 (15.77%) Problem-Solving
9 266 (14.07%) User Acceptance Testing
10 258 (13.65%) Test Strategy
11 257 (13.60%) Scrum
12 236 (12.49%) Migration
13 211 (11.16%) AI
14 170 (8.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 158 (8.36%) Decision-Making
16 154 (8.15%) SDLC
17 148 (7.83%) ETL
18 145 (7.67%) Analytics
18 145 (7.67%) Test Management
19 144 (7.62%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 387 (20.48%) SQL
2 248 (13.12%) Java
3 235 (12.43%) Python
4 136 (7.20%) C#
4 136 (7.20%) JavaScript
5 86 (4.55%) TypeScript
6 42 (2.22%) T-SQL
7 41 (2.17%) PL/SQL
8 31 (1.64%) Kotlin
9 28 (1.48%) PowerShell
10 23 (1.22%) Bash
11 20 (1.06%) Scala
12 18 (0.95%) VB
13 17 (0.90%) Swift
14 16 (0.85%) C
14 16 (0.85%) C++
14 16 (0.85%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 15 (0.79%) Bicep
16 14 (0.74%) VBA
17 11 (0.58%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 427 (22.59%) Security Cleared
2 321 (16.98%) SC Cleared
3 134 (7.09%) Degree
4 76 (4.02%) ISTQB
5 67 (3.54%) BPSS Clearance
6 51 (2.70%) DV Cleared
7 33 (1.75%) Computer Science Degree
8 32 (1.69%) PMI Certification
8 32 (1.69%) PMP
9 16 (0.85%) Master's Degree
10 13 (0.69%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 11 (0.58%) Azure Certification
11 11 (0.58%) Cisco Certification
12 10 (0.53%) AWS Certification
13 8 (0.42%) Microsoft Certification
14 7 (0.37%) CBAP
14 7 (0.37%) CCNP
15 6 (0.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 6 (0.32%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 5 (0.26%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 126 (6.67%) Data Quality
2 88 (4.66%) Accessibility
3 34 (1.80%) GDPR
4 32 (1.69%) PMO
5 22 (1.16%) WCAG
6 18 (0.95%) GRC
7 16 (0.85%) IFRS
7 16 (0.85%) NIST
8 15 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 14 (0.74%) GxP
9 14 (0.74%) IFRS 17
9 14 (0.74%) PCI DSS
9 14 (0.74%) SLA
10 11 (0.58%) Disclosure Scotland
11 9 (0.48%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 8 (0.42%) ISO 20022
13 7 (0.37%) NCSC
13 7 (0.37%) SEPA
14 5 (0.26%) PSD2
14 5 (0.26%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 117 (6.19%) Docker
2 21 (1.11%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.37%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.32%) Firmware
5 6 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.16%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
6 3 (0.16%) IAG
7 2 (0.11%) GridGain
7 2 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
7 2 (0.11%) VirtualBox
7 2 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.053%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.053%) KVM
8 1 (0.053%) QEMU
8 1 (0.053%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
8 1 (0.053%) Varnish
8 1 (0.053%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 170 (8.99%) Kubernetes
2 69 (3.65%) Terraform
3 33 (1.75%) Grafana
4 32 (1.69%) Ansible
4 32 (1.69%) Argo
5 25 (1.32%) Prometheus
6 21 (1.11%) HP ALM
7 12 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.53%) HP Quality Center
9 7 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
9 7 (0.37%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 6 (0.32%) Kibana
10 6 (0.32%) SCCM
11 5 (0.26%) Nmap
12 4 (0.21%) Puppet
13 3 (0.16%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.16%) Progress Chef
14 2 (0.11%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Intune
14 2 (0.11%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 195 (10.32%) Microsoft
2 170 (8.99%) Oracle
3 103 (5.45%) Salesforce
4 91 (4.81%) SAP
5 50 (2.65%) ServiceNow
6 38 (2.01%) Citrix
7 36 (1.90%) Google
8 35 (1.85%) Databricks
8 35 (1.85%) Red Hat
9 29 (1.53%) Adobe
10 26 (1.38%) Informatica
11 24 (1.27%) HP
12 21 (1.11%) Cisco
13 18 (0.95%) MuleSoft
14 14 (0.74%) Talend
15 13 (0.69%) Workday
16 12 (0.63%) Atlassian
16 12 (0.63%) Splunk
16 12 (0.63%) VMware
17 11 (0.58%) Infor