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

6 months to
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 58 59 65
Rank change year-on-year +1 +6 +8
Contract jobs citing QA 1,988 1,295 1,322
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.77% 3.96% 3.22%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.10% 23.62% 23.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,213 913 839
10th Percentile £313 £286 £307
25th Percentile £398 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £469 £498
Median % change year-on-year +1.28% -5.82% -3.30%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £675 £663 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +0.67% -5.26% -1.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 166 36 88
10th Percentile £12.81 £12.52 £11.25
25th Percentile £16.60 £13.50 £12.24
Median hourly rate £32.20 £15.96 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +101.74% +6.54% -42.93%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.63 £30.05
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 8,994 5,482 5,679
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.06% 16.78% 13.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,750 3,541 3,517
10th Percentile £338 £281 £282
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 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -4.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 543 242 367
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.60 £11.29
25th Percentile £19.48 £17.61 £14.27
Median hourly rate £39.00 £28.59 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.41% +14.36% -35.42%
75th Percentile £70.00 £62.24 £53.88
90th Percentile £82.25 £85.07 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.50 £26.50 £25.00
% change year-on-year +49.06% +6.00% -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 23 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 23 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 23 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 1,706 £488 +3.94% 858
UK excluding London +10 951 £453 +0.67% 596
London +1 817 £500 +1.01% 332
Work from Home 0 561 £475 - 331
North of England -9 237 £500 +8.70% 182
South East -6 217 £445 -1.11% 177
Midlands -5 182 £425 +3.66% 86
West Midlands -3 141 £425 -5.56% 59
South West +9 121 £488 +4.84% 54
North West -21 100 £500 +18.06% 104
East of England +8 97 £488 +1.83% 64
Yorkshire -19 88 £525 +2.94% 55
Scotland +10 85 £338 -25.00% 24
North East -9 49 £400 -12.09% 24
East Midlands -11 40 £420 +13.21% 26
Northern Ireland +9 18 £475 +46.15% 8
Wales -13 11 £438 -15.66% 15

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
1 112 (5.63%) Confluence
2 39 (1.96%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.91%) CMS
4 20 (1.01%) IIS
5 19 (0.96%) Apache Spark
6 13 (0.65%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 13 (0.65%) Apache
7 9 (0.45%) SAS
8 6 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
8 6 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
9 5 (0.25%) Tuxedo
9 5 (0.25%) WordPress
10 4 (0.20%) Umbraco
11 3 (0.15%) Apache Solr
11 3 (0.15%) Moodle
11 3 (0.15%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.10%) nginx
12 2 (0.10%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.10%) Tomcat
Applications
1 55 (2.77%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (1.26%) Microsoft Project
3 23 (1.16%) Microsoft Office
4 18 (0.91%) 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%) Mingle
11 1 (0.050%) Notion
11 1 (0.050%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 32 (1.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.50%) 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%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.15%) SAP MM
10 2 (0.10%) IntelliMatch
10 2 (0.10%) SAP GRC
10 2 (0.10%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 427 (21.48%) Azure
2 338 (17.00%) AWS
3 180 (9.05%) GitHub
4 175 (8.80%) Azure DevOps
5 108 (5.43%) GitHub Actions
5 108 (5.43%) Power Platform
6 92 (4.63%) GCP
7 47 (2.36%) Serverless
8 44 (2.21%) SaaS
9 40 (2.01%) OpenShift
10 33 (1.66%) Dynamics 365
11 29 (1.46%) Snowflake
12 28 (1.41%) AWS Lambda
13 26 (1.31%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 25 (1.26%) Amazon S3
14 25 (1.26%) Azure Monitor
14 25 (1.26%) GitHub Copilot
14 25 (1.26%) Salesforce Service Cloud
15 24 (1.21%) Microsoft 365
16 22 (1.11%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.11%) Firewall
2 19 (0.96%) Internet
2 19 (0.96%) Network Security
3 15 (0.75%) WAN
4 14 (0.70%) LAN
5 13 (0.65%) VPN
6 12 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (0.55%) Unified Communications
8 10 (0.50%) HTTP
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%) BGP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 109 (5.48%) SQL Server
2 92 (4.63%) Power BI
3 76 (3.82%) Data Warehouse
4 66 (3.32%) PostgreSQL
5 64 (3.22%) Relational Database
6 40 (2.01%) MySQL
7 39 (1.96%) Metadata
7 39 (1.96%) NoSQL
8 37 (1.86%) Oracle Database
8 37 (1.86%) Oracle Reports
8 37 (1.86%) Tableau
9 35 (1.76%) MongoDB
10 29 (1.46%) Data Lake
11 23 (1.16%) Big Data
12 21 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 20 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
14 16 (0.80%) BigQuery
14 16 (0.80%) DynamoDB
15 15 (0.75%) RDBMS
16 14 (0.70%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 292 (14.69%) JIRA
2 188 (9.46%) Git
3 145 (7.29%) Selenium
4 137 (6.89%) Jenkins
5 92 (4.63%) GitLab
6 80 (4.02%) Postman
7 66 (3.32%) Cucumber
7 66 (3.32%) Cypress.io
8 61 (3.07%) JUnit
9 53 (2.67%) Zephyr
10 47 (2.36%) REST Assured
10 47 (2.36%) SonarQube
11 35 (1.76%) JMeter
12 28 (1.41%) WebDriver
13 27 (1.36%) Maven
14 25 (1.26%) Gatling
15 24 (1.21%) Gradle
16 21 (1.06%) Appium
16 21 (1.06%) TestRail
17 20 (1.01%) TestNG
General
1 590 (29.68%) Social Skills
2 422 (21.23%) Finance
3 295 (14.84%) Analytical Skills
4 232 (11.67%) Public Sector
5 144 (7.24%) Banking
6 72 (3.62%) Retail
7 71 (3.57%) Manufacturing
8 56 (2.82%) Marketing
9 47 (2.36%) Organisational Skills
10 43 (2.16%) Aerospace
11 30 (1.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 26 (1.31%) Influencing Skills
13 25 (1.26%) Documentation Skills
14 23 (1.16%) Legal
15 21 (1.06%) Pharmaceutical
15 21 (1.06%) Telecoms
16 19 (0.96%) Automotive
17 18 (0.91%) Military
18 17 (0.86%) Law
19 15 (0.75%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 263 (13.23%) Developer
2 250 (12.58%) Lead
3 240 (12.07%) Analyst
4 231 (11.62%) Senior
5 193 (9.71%) QA Engineer
6 110 (5.53%) Business Analyst
7 106 (5.33%) Tester
8 90 (4.53%) Test Manager
9 88 (4.43%) Quality Engineer
10 72 (3.62%) Java Developer
11 71 (3.57%) Test Engineer
12 65 (3.27%) Test Leader
13 63 (3.17%) Architect
14 61 (3.07%) Data Engineer
15 53 (2.67%) Senior Analyst
16 52 (2.62%) Test Analyst
17 50 (2.52%) Consultant
17 50 (2.52%) QA Leader
18 49 (2.46%) Data Analyst
18 49 (2.46%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (7.55%) REST
2 111 (5.58%) Playwright
3 110 (5.53%) .NET
4 107 (5.38%) RESTful
5 93 (4.68%) Spring
6 90 (4.53%) Spring Boot
7 73 (3.67%) React
8 67 (3.37%) AngularJS
8 67 (3.37%) HTML
9 63 (3.17%) CSS
10 56 (2.82%) Node.js
11 54 (2.72%) Kafka
12 49 (2.46%) .NET Framework
13 45 (2.26%) Middleware
14 41 (2.06%) JSON
15 39 (1.96%) SOAP
16 34 (1.71%) Quarkus
17 30 (1.51%) XML
18 26 (1.31%) Gherkin
19 24 (1.21%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 180 (9.05%) Product Ownership
2 97 (4.88%) Cloud Native
3 59 (2.97%) Onboarding
4 56 (2.82%) Legacy Systems
5 50 (2.52%) Distributed Systems
6 49 (2.46%) Data Protection Act
7 47 (2.36%) Management Information System
8 44 (2.21%) Mobile App
9 38 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
10 35 (1.76%) Data Structures
11 32 (1.61%) AI Agents
12 29 (1.46%) Data Centre
13 21 (1.06%) NHS
13 21 (1.06%) 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 86 (4.33%) Windows
2 56 (2.82%) Linux
3 37 (1.86%) Apple iOS
4 35 (1.76%) Android
5 30 (1.51%) 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
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
1 766 (38.53%) Agile
2 537 (27.01%) Test Automation
3 494 (24.85%) DevOps
4 491 (24.70%) CI/CD
5 356 (17.91%) Continuous Improvement
6 348 (17.51%) Stakeholder Management
7 338 (17.00%) Validation
8 330 (16.60%) Problem-Solving
9 278 (13.98%) Scrum
10 276 (13.88%) Test Strategy
11 272 (13.68%) User Acceptance Testing
12 254 (12.78%) AI
13 253 (12.73%) Migration
14 182 (9.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 171 (8.60%) Decision-Making
16 166 (8.35%) SDLC
16 166 (8.35%) Software Engineering
17 162 (8.15%) Analytics
18 161 (8.10%) End-to-End Testing
19 159 (8.00%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 386 (19.42%) SQL
2 253 (12.73%) Java
2 253 (12.73%) Python
3 142 (7.14%) JavaScript
4 125 (6.29%) C#
5 81 (4.07%) TypeScript
6 40 (2.01%) T-SQL
7 37 (1.86%) PL/SQL
8 36 (1.81%) PowerShell
9 35 (1.76%) Kotlin
10 34 (1.71%) 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 (0.80%) Bicep
13 16 (0.80%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 15 (0.75%) VBA
15 14 (0.70%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 429 (21.58%) Security Cleared
2 329 (16.55%) SC Cleared
3 128 (6.44%) Degree
4 72 (3.62%) BPSS Clearance
5 68 (3.42%) ISTQB
6 54 (2.72%) DV Cleared
7 35 (1.76%) Computer Science Degree
8 26 (1.31%) PMP
9 25 (1.26%) PMI Certification
10 15 (0.75%) Azure Certification
11 13 (0.65%) AWS Certification
11 13 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (0.55%) Cisco Certification
12 11 (0.55%) Master's Degree
13 10 (0.50%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 8 (0.40%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 7 (0.35%) CCNP
15 7 (0.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 5 (0.25%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
16 5 (0.25%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (7.34%) Data Quality
2 98 (4.93%) Accessibility
3 34 (1.71%) GDPR
4 31 (1.56%) PMO
5 26 (1.31%) WCAG
6 21 (1.06%) GRC
7 16 (0.80%) GxP
8 13 (0.65%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 12 (0.60%) SLA
10 11 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
10 11 (0.55%) NIST
11 10 (0.50%) IFRS
12 8 (0.40%) IFRS 17
12 8 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 8 (0.40%) PCI DSS
13 7 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
13 7 (0.35%) NCSC
13 7 (0.35%) Software Quality Assurance
14 6 (0.30%) GMP
15 5 (0.25%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 133 (6.69%) 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
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%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.050%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 188 (9.46%) Kubernetes
2 79 (3.97%) Terraform
3 42 (2.11%) Grafana
4 38 (1.91%) Ansible
5 34 (1.71%) Argo
6 30 (1.51%) 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
1 217 (10.92%) Microsoft
2 171 (8.60%) Oracle
3 102 (5.13%) Salesforce
4 96 (4.83%) SAP
5 50 (2.52%) ServiceNow
6 46 (2.31%) Google
7 43 (2.16%) Databricks
8 38 (1.91%) Red Hat
9 36 (1.81%) Citrix
10 28 (1.41%) Adobe
11 27 (1.36%) Informatica
12 21 (1.06%) HP
13 20 (1.01%) Cisco
14 18 (0.91%) MuleSoft
15 16 (0.80%) IBM
15 16 (0.80%) Workday
16 15 (0.75%) Talend
17 14 (0.70%) Dynatrace
17 14 (0.70%) Splunk
18 12 (0.60%) Pega