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

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 62 63
Rank change year-on-year +11 +1 +5
Contract jobs citing QA 2,232 1,263 1,277
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.10% 3.83% 3.34%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.32% 22.43% 24.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,322 873 765
10th Percentile £313 £282 £300
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year - -2.56% -7.14%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £580
90th Percentile £662 £663 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -0.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 221 46 82
10th Percentile £12.85 £12.28 £11.66
25th Percentile £15.25 £13.50 £12.24
Median hourly rate £31.46 £23.45 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +34.14% +56.56% -66.16%
75th Percentile £48.75 £46.43 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £71.49
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.02 £15.21 £14.98
% change year-on-year +104.01% +1.50% -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 9,570 5,631 5,124
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.56% 17.07% 13.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,049 3,600 3,090
10th Percentile £325 £300 £285
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £508
Median % change year-on-year - -1.53% -3.29%
75th Percentile £600 £605 £627
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 612 264 264
10th Percentile £13.88 £13.60 £12.28
25th Percentile £16.88 £16.92 £15.00
Median hourly rate £33.00 £30.00 £26.68
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% +12.44% -23.77%
75th Percentile £67.89 £60.31 £57.81
90th Percentile £77.50 £82.90 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.00 £26.50 £25.60
% change year-on-year +24.53% +3.52% -24.58%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 1,943 £480 +1.05% 1,314
UK excluding London +14 1,087 £450 - 851
London +10 909 £500 - 597
Work from Home -1 576 £475 - 501
North of England +2 263 £475 +8.46% 201
South East +3 250 £425 -12.82% 239
Midlands +14 219 £450 +5.88% 145
West Midlands +19 179 £459 +0.88% 98
East of England +14 137 £475 -5.00% 97
South West +14 129 £495 +16.47% 97
North West -22 104 £492 +16.59% 99
Yorkshire -3 102 £500 +11.11% 64
Scotland -16 79 £401 -11.00% 57
North East -7 57 £400 -13.04% 39
East Midlands -10 39 £415 +10.67% 47
Wales -3 18 £400 +6.67% 23
Northern Ireland 0 11 £450 +10.43% 17

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
1 126 (5.65%) Confluence
2 47 (2.11%) CMS
3 39 (1.75%) SharePoint
4 20 (0.90%) IIS
5 16 (0.72%) Apache Spark
6 13 (0.58%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 12 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
8 10 (0.45%) Apache
9 8 (0.36%) SAS
9 8 (0.36%) Sitecore CMS
10 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.22%) Tuxedo
11 5 (0.22%) WordPress
12 4 (0.18%) Headless CMS
12 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.18%) Umbraco
13 3 (0.13%) Apache Solr
13 3 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
13 3 (0.13%) Moodle
13 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 79 (3.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (0.99%) MS Visio
5 16 (0.72%) Spreadsheet
6 13 (0.58%) Microsoft Project
7 9 (0.40%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.22%) Navisworks
8 5 (0.22%) Revit
9 4 (0.18%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.18%) Simulink
10 3 (0.13%) CATIA
10 3 (0.13%) CPLEX
10 3 (0.13%) Photoshop
10 3 (0.13%) ProjectWise
11 2 (0.090%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.090%) Mingle
12 1 (0.045%) Autodesk Inventor
12 1 (0.045%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.045%) Trello
Business Applications
1 30 (1.34%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
3 9 (0.40%) Shopify
4 7 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
4 7 (0.31%) SAP GRC
4 7 (0.31%) Workday HCM
5 6 (0.27%) Aladdin
6 5 (0.22%) Infor CloudSuite
6 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 4 (0.18%) iTrent
7 4 (0.18%) Maximo
7 4 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
7 4 (0.18%) Primavera
7 4 (0.18%) ResourceLink
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
8 3 (0.13%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.13%) SAP MM
8 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 462 (20.70%) Azure
2 387 (17.34%) AWS
3 216 (9.68%) GitHub
4 196 (8.78%) Azure DevOps
5 117 (5.24%) GitHub Actions
6 110 (4.93%) Power Platform
7 106 (4.75%) GCP
8 74 (3.32%) Serverless
9 51 (2.28%) AWS Lambda
9 51 (2.28%) SaaS
10 46 (2.06%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 42 (1.88%) OpenShift
12 38 (1.70%) Amazon S3
13 35 (1.57%) GitHub Copilot
13 35 (1.57%) Snowflake
14 34 (1.52%) Azure Monitor
14 34 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
15 32 (1.43%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 26 (1.16%) Microsoft 365
16 26 (1.16%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 25 (1.12%) Firewall
2 23 (1.03%) Internet
3 17 (0.76%) DNS
4 15 (0.67%) HTTP
5 14 (0.63%) Broadband
5 14 (0.63%) TCP/IP
5 14 (0.63%) VLAN
5 14 (0.63%) WAN
6 13 (0.58%) LAN
6 13 (0.58%) Network Security
7 12 (0.54%) VPN
8 11 (0.49%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (0.40%) DHCP
9 9 (0.40%) SD-WAN
9 9 (0.40%) Unified Communications
10 8 (0.36%) 5G
11 7 (0.31%) 4G
11 7 (0.31%) IPsec
12 6 (0.27%) SMS
12 6 (0.27%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (4.93%) SQL Server
2 98 (4.39%) Power BI
3 78 (3.49%) PostgreSQL
4 77 (3.45%) Relational Database
5 70 (3.14%) Data Warehouse
6 51 (2.28%) MongoDB
7 49 (2.20%) NoSQL
8 44 (1.97%) Metadata
8 44 (1.97%) Oracle Database
9 42 (1.88%) MySQL
10 37 (1.66%) Tableau
11 35 (1.57%) Oracle Reports
12 30 (1.34%) Data Lake
13 22 (0.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 20 (0.90%) Big Data
15 18 (0.81%) Azure SQL Database
16 16 (0.72%) GIS
17 15 (0.67%) BigQuery
17 15 (0.67%) Power Query
17 15 (0.67%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 311 (13.93%) JIRA
2 227 (10.17%) Git
3 165 (7.39%) Selenium
4 161 (7.21%) Jenkins
5 127 (5.69%) GitLab
6 85 (3.81%) Postman
7 75 (3.36%) Cucumber
8 74 (3.32%) Cypress.io
9 62 (2.78%) JUnit
10 54 (2.42%) SonarQube
11 53 (2.37%) Zephyr
12 45 (2.02%) JMeter
13 42 (1.88%) REST Assured
14 35 (1.57%) Gatling
15 30 (1.34%) Maven
16 28 (1.25%) WebDriver
17 23 (1.03%) Gradle
18 22 (0.99%) Appium
19 21 (0.94%) TestRail
20 20 (0.90%) Bitbucket
General
1 675 (30.24%) Social Skills
2 432 (19.35%) Finance
3 363 (16.26%) Analytical Skills
4 281 (12.59%) Public Sector
5 163 (7.30%) Banking
6 76 (3.41%) Manufacturing
7 74 (3.32%) Retail
8 66 (2.96%) Marketing
9 64 (2.87%) Organisational Skills
10 49 (2.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 42 (1.88%) Aerospace
12 37 (1.66%) Influencing Skills
13 36 (1.61%) Telecoms
14 35 (1.57%) Legal
15 33 (1.48%) Documentation Skills
16 26 (1.16%) Military
17 24 (1.08%) Law
18 20 (0.90%) Pharmaceutical
19 19 (0.85%) Local Government
20 18 (0.81%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 294 (13.17%) Developer
2 281 (12.59%) Lead
3 264 (11.83%) Analyst
4 263 (11.78%) Senior
5 235 (10.53%) QA Engineer
6 118 (5.29%) Quality Engineer
7 116 (5.20%) Business Analyst
8 115 (5.15%) Tester
9 105 (4.70%) Test Manager
10 94 (4.21%) Test Engineer
11 73 (3.27%) Java Developer
12 71 (3.18%) Data Engineer
13 70 (3.14%) Test Leader
14 67 (3.00%) QA Leader
15 60 (2.69%) Architect
16 57 (2.55%) Consultant
16 57 (2.55%) Senior Analyst
17 54 (2.42%) QA Tester
18 53 (2.37%) Test Analyst
19 51 (2.28%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 190 (8.51%) REST
2 138 (6.18%) RESTful
3 133 (5.96%) Playwright
4 111 (4.97%) Spring
5 103 (4.61%) .NET
6 102 (4.57%) Spring Boot
7 98 (4.39%) Terraform
8 86 (3.85%) HTML
9 84 (3.76%) React
10 80 (3.58%) Kafka
11 76 (3.41%) AngularJS
11 76 (3.41%) CSS
12 64 (2.87%) Node.js
13 56 (2.51%) Middleware
14 50 (2.24%) SOAP
15 48 (2.15%) pytest
16 45 (2.02%) .NET Framework
17 39 (1.75%) JSON
18 37 (1.66%) XML
19 34 (1.52%) Quarkus
Miscellaneous
1 204 (9.14%) Product Ownership
2 131 (5.87%) Cloud Native
3 73 (3.27%) Onboarding
4 61 (2.73%) Management Information System
5 59 (2.64%) Enterprise Software
6 56 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
7 55 (2.46%) Distributed Systems
8 50 (2.24%) Mobile App
9 43 (1.93%) Data Protection Act
9 43 (1.93%) Data Structures
10 38 (1.70%) AI Agents
11 36 (1.61%) Data Centre
12 26 (1.16%) Low-Code
12 26 (1.16%) NHS
13 23 (1.03%) Virtual Team
14 22 (0.99%) CMDB
15 19 (0.85%) Educational Technology
16 17 (0.76%) Analytical Mindset
17 16 (0.72%) Operational Technology
18 15 (0.67%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 97 (4.35%) Windows
2 64 (2.87%) Linux
3 48 (2.15%) Apple iOS
4 44 (1.97%) Android
5 31 (1.39%) Unix
6 29 (1.30%) Windows Server
7 8 (0.36%) 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
1 857 (38.40%) Agile
2 618 (27.69%) Test Automation
3 554 (24.82%) CI/CD
4 550 (24.64%) DevOps
5 442 (19.80%) Stakeholder Management
6 429 (19.22%) Continuous Improvement
7 389 (17.43%) Problem-Solving
8 376 (16.85%) Validation
9 329 (14.74%) Scrum
10 317 (14.20%) Test Strategy
11 307 (13.75%) AI
12 286 (12.81%) User Acceptance Testing
13 260 (11.65%) Migration
14 202 (9.05%) SDLC
15 198 (8.87%) Microservices
16 194 (8.69%) End-to-End Testing
17 190 (8.51%) Software Engineering
18 187 (8.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 176 (7.89%) Decision-Making
20 169 (7.57%) Defect Management
Programming Languages
1 419 (18.77%) SQL
2 300 (13.44%) Python
3 273 (12.23%) Java
4 175 (7.84%) JavaScript
5 112 (5.02%) C#
6 90 (4.03%) TypeScript
7 51 (2.28%) Bash
8 43 (1.93%) PowerShell
9 35 (1.57%) PL/SQL
10 28 (1.25%) Kotlin
11 27 (1.21%) T-SQL
12 22 (0.99%) Scala
13 19 (0.85%) Swift
14 18 (0.81%) C
15 16 (0.72%) Apex Code
15 16 (0.72%) C++
15 16 (0.72%) Objective-C
15 16 (0.72%) Shell Script
15 16 (0.72%) VB
16 15 (0.67%) R
Qualifications
1 540 (24.19%) Security Cleared
2 420 (18.82%) SC Cleared
3 144 (6.45%) Degree
4 94 (4.21%) BPSS Clearance
5 73 (3.27%) ISTQB
6 61 (2.73%) DV Cleared
7 41 (1.84%) Computer Science Degree
8 25 (1.12%) PMP
9 24 (1.08%) PMI Certification
10 16 (0.72%) AWS Certification
11 15 (0.67%) Azure Certification
12 13 (0.58%) Master's Degree
12 13 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
13 11 (0.49%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 10 (0.45%) Cisco Certification
14 10 (0.45%) ITIL Certification
15 9 (0.40%) IIBA
15 9 (0.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 8 (0.36%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
16 8 (0.36%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 165 (7.39%) Data Quality
2 119 (5.33%) Accessibility
3 35 (1.57%) GDPR
4 32 (1.43%) WCAG
5 31 (1.39%) PMO
6 25 (1.12%) GRC
7 15 (0.67%) GxP
8 13 (0.58%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 13 (0.58%) NIST
9 10 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 9 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
10 9 (0.40%) Disclosure Scotland
11 8 (0.36%) SLA
11 8 (0.36%) Software Quality Assurance
12 7 (0.31%) IFRS
12 7 (0.31%) ISO 19650
12 7 (0.31%) NCSC
13 6 (0.27%) ISO 9001
14 5 (0.22%) GMP
14 5 (0.22%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 176 (7.89%) 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
6 4 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.13%) KVM
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
1 216 (9.68%) Kubernetes
2 60 (2.69%) Ansible
3 49 (2.20%) Grafana
4 36 (1.61%) Argo
5 34 (1.52%) Prometheus
6 12 (0.54%) HP ALM
7 10 (0.45%) SCCM
8 8 (0.36%) HP Quality Center
8 8 (0.36%) Microsoft Clustering
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%) Oracle RMAN
10 6 (0.27%) Puppet
11 5 (0.22%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.18%) SCOM
13 3 (0.13%) FortiGate
14 2 (0.090%) Control-M
14 2 (0.090%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.090%) Kibana
Vendors
1 250 (11.20%) Microsoft
2 172 (7.71%) Oracle
3 119 (5.33%) Salesforce
4 81 (3.63%) SAP
5 61 (2.73%) ServiceNow
6 46 (2.06%) Google
7 38 (1.70%) Databricks
8 37 (1.66%) Red Hat
9 28 (1.25%) Citrix
10 27 (1.21%) Dynatrace
11 25 (1.12%) Adobe
11 25 (1.12%) Informatica
12 23 (1.03%) Splunk
13 22 (0.99%) Cisco
13 22 (0.99%) VMware
14 17 (0.76%) IBM
14 17 (0.76%) Sitecore
15 15 (0.67%) HP
15 15 (0.67%) MuleSoft
15 15 (0.67%) Talend