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

6 months to
25 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 60 59 60
Rank change year-on-year -1 +1 +10
Contract jobs citing QA 1,875 1,134 1,434
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.68% 3.77% 3.29%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 21.85% 23.07% 24.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,171 798 936
10th Percentile £322 £280 £306
25th Percentile £396 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -1.96%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £675 £663 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 140 27 101
10th Percentile £12.91 £13.46 £10.86
25th Percentile £15.85 £15.06 £12.24
Median hourly rate £31.02 £30.00 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.40% +114.29% -37.78%
75th Percentile £67.50 £53.50 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £71.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.02 £15.21 £13.52
% change year-on-year +104.01% +12.46% -38.55%

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 8,583 4,916 5,975
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.87% 16.32% 13.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,508 3,141 3,724
10th Percentile £340 £273 £280
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
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 £473 £475
% change year-on-year +5.70% -0.42% -2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 522 199 431
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.11 £11.06
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.53 £13.28
Median hourly rate £36.07 £31.64 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year +14.00% +32.94% -34.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £65.00 £49.38
90th Percentile £82.22 £83.78 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £31.64 £19.34
% change year-on-year +26.42% +63.60% -45.52%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 +4 1,605 £479 +0.74% 651
UK excluding London +6 873 £450 - 559
London 0 794 £500 +1.01% 210
Work from Home +8 544 £481 +1.32% 252
South East +4 202 £450 -2.70% 188
North of England -22 190 £455 -2.99% 134
Midlands -14 176 £425 +13.33% 106
West Midlands -6 131 £442 +3.88% 48
South West +15 121 £491 -1.75% 65
North West -19 86 £425 -3.08% 71
Scotland +10 84 £355 -21.11% 21
East of England +7 84 £476 -0.68% 48
Yorkshire -32 68 £525 +1.01% 33
East Midlands -11 45 £407 +10.97% 58
North East -10 36 £400 -11.11% 31
Northern Ireland +5 19 £475 +46.15% 12
Wales -6 12 £450 +5.88% 5

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
1 103 (5.49%) Confluence
2 30 (1.60%) CMS
2 30 (1.60%) SharePoint
3 18 (0.96%) IIS
4 16 (0.85%) Apache Spark
5 12 (0.64%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 8 (0.43%) Apache
7 7 (0.37%) SAS
8 6 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
9 5 (0.27%) Microsoft Exchange
9 5 (0.27%) Tuxedo
9 5 (0.27%) Umbraco
10 4 (0.21%) nginx
11 3 (0.16%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.16%) Moodle
11 3 (0.16%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
11 3 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.16%) Tomcat
12 2 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.11%) WordPress
Applications
1 55 (2.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (1.39%) Microsoft Project
4 20 (1.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 18 (0.96%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.27%) 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 (1.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.91%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.43%) 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 (0.27%) 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%) SAP FI
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle Assets
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 2 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
9 2 (0.11%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 412 (21.97%) Azure
2 312 (16.64%) AWS
3 172 (9.17%) Azure DevOps
4 149 (7.95%) GitHub
5 104 (5.55%) Power Platform
6 92 (4.91%) GitHub Actions
7 73 (3.89%) GCP
8 45 (2.40%) Serverless
9 38 (2.03%) OpenShift
10 35 (1.87%) SaaS
11 34 (1.81%) Dynamics 365
12 30 (1.60%) AWS Lambda
13 28 (1.49%) Amazon S3
14 27 (1.44%) Snowflake
15 26 (1.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 22 (1.17%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 21 (1.12%) Azure Data Factory
17 21 (1.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 19 (1.01%) AWS CloudFormation
18 19 (1.01%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 26 (1.39%) Firewall
2 19 (1.01%) Network Security
2 19 (1.01%) WAN
3 17 (0.91%) Internet
3 17 (0.91%) LAN
4 15 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
5 13 (0.69%) VPN
6 12 (0.64%) DNS
7 11 (0.59%) SD-WAN
7 11 (0.59%) Unified Communications
7 11 (0.59%) VLAN
7 11 (0.59%) Wireless
8 9 (0.48%) HTTP
9 8 (0.43%) IPsec
10 7 (0.37%) SMS
11 6 (0.32%) Cisco Nexus
11 6 (0.32%) TCP/IP
12 5 (0.27%) DHCP
13 4 (0.21%) BGP
13 4 (0.21%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (5.87%) SQL Server
2 89 (4.75%) Power BI
3 71 (3.79%) Data Warehouse
4 68 (3.63%) PostgreSQL
5 60 (3.20%) Relational Database
6 43 (2.29%) MySQL
7 42 (2.24%) NoSQL
8 37 (1.97%) Metadata
9 36 (1.92%) Tableau
10 35 (1.87%) Oracle Database
11 32 (1.71%) Oracle Reports
12 31 (1.65%) Data Lake
12 31 (1.65%) MongoDB
13 22 (1.17%) Big Data
14 19 (1.01%) DynamoDB
15 17 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
15 17 (0.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 15 (0.80%) BigQuery
16 15 (0.80%) RDBMS
17 14 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 295 (15.73%) JIRA
2 177 (9.44%) Git
3 140 (7.47%) Selenium
4 136 (7.25%) Jenkins
5 97 (5.17%) GitLab
6 85 (4.53%) Postman
7 64 (3.41%) Cucumber
8 61 (3.25%) Cypress.io
9 58 (3.09%) JUnit
10 49 (2.61%) REST Assured
11 46 (2.45%) Zephyr
12 44 (2.35%) SonarQube
13 37 (1.97%) JMeter
14 29 (1.55%) WebDriver
15 23 (1.23%) Maven
16 22 (1.17%) Gatling
17 20 (1.07%) TestNG
18 19 (1.01%) TestRail
19 18 (0.96%) Gradle
20 17 (0.91%) Appium
General
1 560 (29.87%) Social Skills
2 413 (22.03%) Finance
3 265 (14.13%) Analytical Skills
4 222 (11.84%) Public Sector
5 142 (7.57%) Banking
6 62 (3.31%) Retail
7 56 (2.99%) Manufacturing
8 54 (2.88%) Marketing
9 48 (2.56%) Organisational Skills
10 37 (1.97%) Aerospace
11 30 (1.60%) Documentation Skills
12 25 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 23 (1.23%) Influencing Skills
13 23 (1.23%) Legal
14 21 (1.12%) Investment Banking
15 20 (1.07%) Military
15 20 (1.07%) Pharmaceutical
16 16 (0.85%) Automotive
16 16 (0.85%) Front Office
17 15 (0.80%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 241 (12.85%) Developer
2 225 (12.00%) Analyst
3 221 (11.79%) Senior
4 212 (11.31%) Lead
5 170 (9.07%) QA Engineer
6 113 (6.03%) Business Analyst
7 104 (5.55%) Tester
8 90 (4.80%) Test Manager
9 70 (3.73%) Architect
10 69 (3.68%) Java Developer
11 68 (3.63%) Quality Engineer
12 67 (3.57%) Test Engineer
13 59 (3.15%) Data Engineer
14 56 (2.99%) Senior Analyst
15 54 (2.88%) Test Leader
16 53 (2.83%) Project Manager
17 52 (2.77%) Consultant
18 50 (2.67%) Data Analyst
19 46 (2.45%) Software Engineer
20 43 (2.29%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 132 (7.04%) REST
2 108 (5.76%) .NET
3 106 (5.65%) RESTful
4 105 (5.60%) Playwright
5 92 (4.91%) Spring
6 89 (4.75%) Spring Boot
7 76 (4.05%) React
8 67 (3.57%) HTML
9 62 (3.31%) AngularJS
10 61 (3.25%) CSS
11 56 (2.99%) Kafka
12 51 (2.72%) .NET Framework
13 47 (2.51%) Node.js
14 36 (1.92%) JSON
15 33 (1.76%) Quarkus
16 29 (1.55%) Middleware
17 26 (1.39%) SOAP
18 25 (1.33%) Gherkin
18 25 (1.33%) pytest
19 23 (1.23%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 166 (8.85%) Product Ownership
2 85 (4.53%) Cloud Native
3 56 (2.99%) Onboarding
4 51 (2.72%) Legacy Systems
5 46 (2.45%) Distributed Systems
6 40 (2.13%) Data Protection Act
6 40 (2.13%) Management Information System
6 40 (2.13%) Mobile App
7 32 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
8 31 (1.65%) Data Structures
9 26 (1.39%) Data Centre
10 25 (1.33%) Virtual Team
11 22 (1.17%) AI Agents
12 21 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
13 17 (0.91%) NHS
13 17 (0.91%) PMI
13 17 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
14 14 (0.75%) Derivative
14 14 (0.75%) Life Science
15 13 (0.69%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 88 (4.69%) Windows
2 53 (2.83%) Linux
3 31 (1.65%) Apple iOS
4 30 (1.60%) Windows Server
5 27 (1.44%) Android
6 19 (1.01%) Unix
7 6 (0.32%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.27%) 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
1 710 (37.87%) Agile
2 483 (25.76%) Test Automation
3 463 (24.69%) DevOps
4 439 (23.41%) CI/CD
5 317 (16.91%) Validation
6 306 (16.32%) Stakeholder Management
7 302 (16.11%) Continuous Improvement
8 290 (15.47%) Problem-Solving
9 268 (14.29%) User Acceptance Testing
10 250 (13.33%) Test Strategy
11 249 (13.28%) Scrum
12 234 (12.48%) Migration
13 209 (11.15%) AI
14 170 (9.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 155 (8.27%) Decision-Making
16 154 (8.21%) SDLC
17 150 (8.00%) ETL
18 145 (7.73%) Analytics
18 145 (7.73%) Test Management
19 144 (7.68%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 379 (20.21%) SQL
2 245 (13.07%) Java
3 233 (12.43%) Python
4 140 (7.47%) JavaScript
5 133 (7.09%) C#
6 86 (4.59%) TypeScript
7 42 (2.24%) T-SQL
8 39 (2.08%) PL/SQL
9 30 (1.60%) Kotlin
10 27 (1.44%) PowerShell
11 22 (1.17%) Bash
12 20 (1.07%) Scala
13 18 (0.96%) VB
14 17 (0.91%) Swift
15 16 (0.85%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 15 (0.80%) Bicep
16 15 (0.80%) C
16 15 (0.80%) C++
17 14 (0.75%) VBA
18 11 (0.59%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 427 (22.77%) Security Cleared
2 320 (17.07%) SC Cleared
3 133 (7.09%) Degree
4 76 (4.05%) ISTQB
5 67 (3.57%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (2.67%) DV Cleared
7 35 (1.87%) PMI Certification
8 33 (1.76%) PMP
9 32 (1.71%) Computer Science Degree
10 17 (0.91%) Master's Degree
11 14 (0.75%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 11 (0.59%) Azure Certification
12 11 (0.59%) Cisco Certification
13 10 (0.53%) AWS Certification
14 9 (0.48%) CBAP
15 8 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
16 7 (0.37%) CCNP
17 6 (0.32%) CREST Certified
17 6 (0.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 6 (0.32%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 125 (6.67%) Data Quality
2 85 (4.53%) Accessibility
3 35 (1.87%) GDPR
4 34 (1.81%) PMO
5 22 (1.17%) WCAG
6 17 (0.91%) GRC
6 17 (0.91%) IFRS
6 17 (0.91%) NIST
7 16 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 15 (0.80%) IFRS 17
8 15 (0.80%) PCI DSS
9 14 (0.75%) GxP
9 14 (0.75%) SLA
10 11 (0.59%) Disclosure Scotland
11 9 (0.48%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 8 (0.43%) ISO 20022
13 7 (0.37%) NCSC
13 7 (0.37%) SEPA
14 5 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
14 5 (0.27%) PSD2
System Software
1 110 (5.87%) Docker
2 18 (0.96%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.59%) 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
1 163 (8.69%) Kubernetes
2 68 (3.63%) Terraform
3 33 (1.76%) Argo
3 33 (1.76%) Grafana
4 30 (1.60%) Ansible
5 26 (1.39%) Prometheus
6 19 (1.01%) HP ALM
7 11 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (0.43%) HP Quality Center
9 7 (0.37%) Nmap
9 7 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
9 7 (0.37%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 6 (0.32%) Kibana
11 5 (0.27%) SCCM
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
1 190 (10.13%) Microsoft
2 168 (8.96%) Oracle
3 103 (5.49%) Salesforce
4 91 (4.85%) SAP
5 50 (2.67%) ServiceNow
6 38 (2.03%) Citrix
7 37 (1.97%) Google
8 36 (1.92%) Red Hat
9 34 (1.81%) Databricks
10 30 (1.60%) Adobe
11 25 (1.33%) Informatica
12 21 (1.12%) Cisco
12 21 (1.12%) HP
13 18 (0.96%) MuleSoft
14 14 (0.75%) Talend
15 13 (0.69%) Workday
16 12 (0.64%) Atlassian
16 12 (0.64%) Splunk
16 12 (0.64%) VMware
17 11 (0.59%) Infor