Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 12 April 2021

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for QA skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited QA over the 6 months to 12 April 2021 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Quality Assurance (QA)
UK
6 months to
12 Apr 2021		 Same period 2020 Same period 2019
Rank 67 76 71
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +2
Contract jobs citing QA 1,701 1,702 3,167
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 3.25% 2.85% 3.28%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 29.54% 28.03% 30.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,191 1,109 2,118
10th Percentile £313 £300 £305
25th Percentile £387 £350 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% - +4.05%
75th Percentile £552 £550 £538
90th Percentile £638 £613 £613
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £425 £425
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 51 39
10th Percentile £12.50 £11.50 £9.65
25th Percentile £15.49 £17.71 £12.06
Median hourly rate £20.00 £21.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -16.00% +14.16%
75th Percentile £26.24 £33.89 £40.50
90th Percentile £38.75 £43.00 £45.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £20.03 £23.00
% change year-on-year -5.12% -12.93% +8.46%

QA is in the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills.

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK
Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 5,759 6,073 10,434
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.02% 10.18% 10.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,824 3,857 6,671
10th Percentile £263 £225 £250
25th Percentile £363 £350 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% - -
75th Percentile £575 £553 £556
90th Percentile £650 £638 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £425 £425
Number of hourly rates quoted 271 269 330
10th Percentile £11.36 £13.48 £10.75
25th Percentile £14.25 £17.27 £13.00
Median hourly rate £20.90 £22.55 £20.17
Median % change year-on-year -7.30% +11.76% -7.42%
75th Percentile £38.75 £47.50 £38.75
90th Percentile £52.16 £52.60 £48.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.50 £22.50 £19.66
% change year-on-year -13.33% +14.45% -12.62%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing QA as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for QA in the UK

QA
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing QA.

Daily rate trend for QA in the UK

QA
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA over the 6 months to 12 April 2021.

Daily rate histogram for QA in the UK

QA
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing QA.

Hourly rate trend for QA in the UK

QA
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing QA over the 6 months to 12 April 2021.

Hourly rate histogram for QA in the UK

QA
Top 18 Contract 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 12 April 2021. 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
Job
Vacancies
England +7 1,313 £475 +3.26% 669
London +5 765 £488 -2.50% 240
Work from Home -2 571 £475 -5.00% 139
UK excluding London +10 563 £425 - 475
North of England +36 148 £431 +2.81% 106
South East -15 123 £424 +12.93% 120
Midlands +16 106 £398 -11.67% 92
North West +15 92 £430 +2.75% 58
West Midlands +20 83 £392 -13.00% 60
Scotland -2 80 £400 -5.88% 26
South West +6 51 £504 +17.15% 54
Yorkshire +32 36 £438 +9.38% 33
East of England +26 34 £463 +5.71% 52
East Midlands -2 22 £395 +12.86% 32
North East +23 20 £438 - 15
Wales +20 18 £500 +25.00% 18
Northern Ireland +8 2 £441 +46.83% 7
Isle of Man - 1 - - 1

For the 6 months to 12 April 2021, IT contractor jobs citing QA also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads with a requirement for QA.

1 734 (43.15%) Agile Software Development
2 451 (26.51%) Test Automation
3 358 (21.05%) DevOps
4 354 (20.81%) SQL
5 331 (19.46%) Java
6 330 (19.40%) Finance
6 330 (19.40%) Azure
7 250 (14.70%) TDD
8 247 (14.52%) Scrum
9 237 (13.93%) JavaScript
10 233 (13.70%) JIRA
11 232 (13.64%) BDD
12 218 (12.82%) Python
13 198 (11.64%) Selenium
13 198 (11.64%) Jenkins
14 196 (11.52%) Problem-Solving
15 195 (11.46%) AWS
16 192 (11.29%) Security Cleared
17 186 (10.93%) C#
17 186 (10.93%) Microsoft
18 180 (10.58%) Git (software)
19 166 (9.76%) Analytical Skills
20 165 (9.70%) SDLC
21 158 (9.29%) Continuous Integration
22 157 (9.23%) Cucumber
23 155 (9.11%) SC Cleared
24 153 (8.99%) .NET
25 151 (8.88%) Public Sector
26 144 (8.47%) Project Management
27 143 (8.41%) Microservices

QA
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same job type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 109 (6.41%) Confluence
2 66 (3.88%) SharePoint
3 40 (2.35%) Apache Spark
4 35 (2.06%) Apache
4 35 (2.06%) CMS
5 19 (1.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 16 (0.94%) IIS
7 13 (0.76%) WebSphere
8 12 (0.71%) WebLogic
9 11 (0.65%) MS Exchange
10 10 (0.59%) Apache Airflow
10 10 (0.59%) Elasticsearch
11 7 (0.41%) JBoss
12 6 (0.35%) Anypoint
12 6 (0.35%) Apache Synapse
13 5 (0.29%) CICS
13 5 (0.29%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 4 (0.24%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.24%) Oracle Coherence
15 3 (0.18%) Appian
Applications
1 59 (3.47%) Microsoft Excel
2 54 (3.17%) Microsoft Office
3 30 (1.76%) Microsoft Project
4 20 (1.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 17 (1.00%) MS Visio
6 10 (0.59%) Figma
7 5 (0.29%) AutoCAD
7 5 (0.29%) Revit
7 5 (0.29%) Sketch
8 4 (0.24%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.24%) SPSS
9 3 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.12%) Adobe Illustrator
10 2 (0.12%) InDesign
10 2 (0.12%) Photoshop
10 2 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
11 1 (0.059%) Fusion 360
11 1 (0.059%) InVision
11 1 (0.059%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 16 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
2 14 (0.82%) SAP FI-CA
2 14 (0.82%) SAP PSCD
3 11 (0.65%) Dynamics NAV
4 9 (0.53%) Magento
4 9 (0.53%) Oracle ERP
5 8 (0.47%) SAP S/4HANA
6 7 (0.41%) Maximo
7 6 (0.35%) SAP HCM
8 5 (0.29%) NetSuite
8 5 (0.29%) Oracle EBS R12
8 5 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle FAH
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
9 4 (0.24%) Shopify
9 4 (0.24%) Summit
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 330 (19.40%) Azure
2 195 (11.46%) AWS
3 85 (5.00%) GCP
4 79 (4.64%) Power Platform
5 72 (4.23%) GitHub
6 46 (2.70%) Azure Active Directory
6 46 (2.70%) SaaS
7 39 (2.29%) Serverless
8 32 (1.88%) PaaS
9 31 (1.82%) Microsoft 365
10 28 (1.65%) Amazon S3
11 26 (1.53%) IaaS
12 24 (1.41%) AWS Lambda
13 21 (1.23%) Azure Data Factory
14 19 (1.12%) Slack
15 18 (1.06%) Cloud Computing
15 18 (1.06%) Dynamics 365
16 15 (0.88%) Datadog
16 15 (0.88%) OpenShift
17 14 (0.82%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 31 (1.82%) FTP
2 25 (1.47%) HTTP
3 24 (1.41%) DNS
4 21 (1.23%) Firewall
5 19 (1.12%) Internet
5 19 (1.12%) TCP/IP
6 17 (1.00%) SNMP
7 16 (0.94%) Network Security
8 15 (0.88%) WAN
9 14 (0.82%) DHCP
10 13 (0.76%) ATM
10 13 (0.76%) LAN
11 12 (0.71%) VLAN
12 11 (0.65%) SAN
12 11 (0.65%) VoIP
12 11 (0.65%) VPN
13 9 (0.53%) Wireless
14 8 (0.47%) NAS
15 7 (0.41%) Intranet
15 7 (0.41%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 126 (7.41%) SQL Server
2 112 (6.58%) Data Warehouse
3 78 (4.59%) Power BI
4 66 (3.88%) Big Data
5 54 (3.17%) MySQL
6 52 (3.06%) NoSQL
7 42 (2.47%) Azure SQL Database
8 40 (2.35%) BigQuery
9 36 (2.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 35 (2.06%) Data Lake
11 34 (2.00%) Cloud Spanner
12 33 (1.94%) Bigtable
12 33 (1.94%) Hadoop
13 32 (1.88%) MongoDB
14 27 (1.59%) Data Mart
14 27 (1.59%) Relational Database
15 24 (1.41%) PostgreSQL
16 23 (1.35%) Tableau
17 20 (1.18%) DB2
18 19 (1.12%) Amazon DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 233 (13.70%) JIRA
2 198 (11.64%) Jenkins
2 198 (11.64%) Selenium
3 180 (10.58%) Git (software)
4 157 (9.23%) Cucumber
5 91 (5.35%) Maven
6 90 (5.29%) Postman
7 67 (3.94%) JMeter
8 56 (3.29%) SoapUI
9 49 (2.88%) Octopus Deploy
10 46 (2.70%) JUnit
11 41 (2.41%) SpecFlow
12 39 (2.29%) GitLab
13 33 (1.94%) REST Assured
14 27 (1.59%) Cypress.io
14 27 (1.59%) LoadRunner
15 26 (1.53%) TeamCity
16 24 (1.41%) WebDriver
17 23 (1.35%) IntelliJ
17 23 (1.35%) Subversion
General
1 330 (19.40%) Finance
2 151 (8.88%) Public Sector
3 119 (7.00%) Banking
4 59 (3.47%) Retail
5 51 (3.00%) Marketing
6 39 (2.29%) Front Office
7 38 (2.23%) Telecoms
8 35 (2.06%) Legal
9 29 (1.70%) Manufacturing
10 27 (1.59%) Publishing
11 24 (1.41%) Investment Banking
12 20 (1.18%) Financial Institution
13 18 (1.06%) Advertising
14 16 (0.94%) Pharmaceutical
15 13 (0.76%) Law
16 12 (0.71%) Back Office
16 12 (0.71%) Electronics
17 10 (0.59%) Local Government
17 10 (0.59%) Retail Banking
18 9 (0.53%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 292 (17.17%) Developer
2 275 (16.17%) Analyst
3 136 (8.00%) Tester
4 122 (7.17%) QA Engineer
5 98 (5.76%) Business Analyst
6 97 (5.70%) Architect
7 89 (5.23%) Data Engineer
8 75 (4.41%) QA Tester
9 62 (3.64%) Test Analyst
10 61 (3.59%) Test Engineer
11 58 (3.41%) Consultant
12 52 (3.06%) DevOps Engineer
12 52 (3.06%) QA Automation Engineer
13 51 (3.00%) Automation Engineer
14 47 (2.76%) Automation Tester
14 47 (2.76%) Project Manager
15 46 (2.70%) QA Analyst
16 45 (2.65%) Test Manager
17 43 (2.53%) Java Developer
18 39 (2.29%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 153 (8.99%) .NET
2 108 (6.35%) REST
3 100 (5.88%) AngularJS
3 100 (5.88%) React
4 99 (5.82%) RESTful
5 94 (5.53%) HTML
6 93 (5.47%) Web Services
7 86 (5.06%) Node.js
8 81 (4.76%) CSS
9 74 (4.35%) JSON
10 71 (4.17%) XML
11 58 (3.41%) ASP.NET
12 52 (3.06%) SOAP
13 48 (2.82%) Spring
14 40 (2.35%) Gherkin
14 40 (2.35%) GraphQL
15 34 (2.00%) Kafka
16 30 (1.76%) Middleware
16 30 (1.76%) Spring Boot
17 29 (1.70%) FIX Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 166 (9.76%) Analytical Skills
2 117 (6.88%) User Experience
3 70 (4.12%) Greenfield Project
4 57 (3.35%) Virtual Team
5 52 (3.06%) Self-Motivation
6 44 (2.59%) Management Information System
7 41 (2.41%) Mobile App
8 36 (2.12%) Enterprise Software
9 34 (2.00%) Data Structures
10 23 (1.35%) Algorithms
11 17 (1.00%) Fixed Income
12 16 (0.94%) Public Cloud
13 15 (0.88%) Cloud Native
14 13 (0.76%) Data Centre
15 11 (0.65%) PMI
16 10 (0.59%) NHS
17 9 (0.53%) AS400
17 9 (0.53%) Equities
17 9 (0.53%) Replication
17 9 (0.53%) Smart Meter
Operating Systems
1 109 (6.41%) Windows
2 107 (6.29%) Linux
3 69 (4.06%) Unix
4 59 (3.47%) Apple iOS
5 38 (2.23%) Android
6 23 (1.35%) AIX
7 18 (1.06%) Windows Server
8 16 (0.94%) Windows 10
9 11 (0.65%) CentOS
9 11 (0.65%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.29%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 3 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
14 1 (0.059%) Solaris
14 1 (0.059%) VMS
14 1 (0.059%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.059%) Windows Vista
Processes & Methodologies
1 734 (43.15%) Agile Software Development
2 451 (26.51%) Test Automation
3 358 (21.05%) DevOps
4 250 (14.70%) TDD
5 247 (14.52%) Scrum
6 232 (13.64%) BDD
7 196 (11.52%) Problem-Solving
8 165 (9.70%) SDLC
9 158 (9.29%) Continuous Integration
10 144 (8.47%) Project Management
11 143 (8.41%) Microservices
12 141 (8.29%) Software Engineering
13 135 (7.94%) Software Testing
14 130 (7.64%) ETL
15 129 (7.58%) Test Strategy
16 122 (7.17%) Stakeholder Management
17 120 (7.05%) Business Intelligence
18 119 (7.00%) Analytics
19 116 (6.82%) Continuous Improvement
20 112 (6.58%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 354 (20.81%) SQL
2 331 (19.46%) Java
3 237 (13.93%) JavaScript
4 218 (12.82%) Python
5 186 (10.93%) C#
6 71 (4.17%) PowerShell
6 71 (4.17%) TypeScript
7 59 (3.47%) C++
8 42 (2.47%) Ruby
9 40 (2.35%) C
10 33 (1.94%) Bash Shell
11 31 (1.82%) Shell Script
12 30 (1.76%) Java 8
13 26 (1.53%) PL/SQL
13 26 (1.53%) T-SQL
14 25 (1.47%) Scala
15 23 (1.35%) VB
16 21 (1.23%) R
17 18 (1.06%) VBA
18 17 (1.00%) ES6
Qualifications
1 192 (11.29%) Security Cleared
2 155 (9.11%) SC Cleared
3 126 (7.41%) Degree
4 80 (4.70%) ISTQB
5 61 (3.59%) ISEB
6 48 (2.82%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 37 (2.18%) Computer Science Degree
8 29 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
9 22 (1.29%) Cisco Certification
10 21 (1.23%) CCNP
11 19 (1.12%) CCNA
11 19 (1.12%) PMP
12 15 (0.88%) PMI Certification
13 14 (0.82%) AWS Certification
14 10 (0.59%) CISSP
14 10 (0.59%) DV Cleared
15 9 (0.53%) CISM
15 9 (0.53%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
16 8 (0.47%) Master's Degree
17 7 (0.41%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (1.88%) PMO
2 26 (1.53%) Data Quality
3 24 (1.41%) SLA
4 18 (1.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 16 (0.94%) GDPR
6 14 (0.82%) NIST
7 13 (0.76%) PCI DSS
8 7 (0.41%) WCAG
9 6 (0.35%) MiFID
10 5 (0.29%) GRC
10 5 (0.29%) NCSC
11 3 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
11 3 (0.18%) FATCA
11 3 (0.18%) GMP
11 3 (0.18%) GxP
11 3 (0.18%) ISO 9001
11 3 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.12%) CRD IV
12 2 (0.12%) SEPA
12 2 (0.12%) TARGET2
System Software
1 89 (5.23%) Docker
2 64 (3.76%) Active Directory
3 10 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
4 9 (0.53%) HDFS
4 9 (0.53%) VMware Infrastructure
5 8 (0.47%) PowerHA
6 5 (0.29%) Time Sharing Option
7 4 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.12%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.12%) KVM
9 2 (0.12%) vSphere
10 1 (0.059%) Firmware
10 1 (0.059%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.059%) Varnish
10 1 (0.059%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.059%) Xen
Systems Management
1 60 (3.53%) Kubernetes
2 55 (3.23%) Terraform
3 33 (1.94%) Opscode Chef
4 30 (1.76%) Ansible
5 24 (1.41%) Puppet
6 16 (0.94%) HP ALM
7 13 (0.76%) Netcool
8 12 (0.71%) Grafana
9 8 (0.47%) HP Quality Center
9 8 (0.47%) Kibana
9 8 (0.47%) Prometheus
10 5 (0.29%) HP Fortify
10 5 (0.29%) Istio
10 5 (0.29%) SCCM
10 5 (0.29%) ZABBIX
11 4 (0.24%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
11 4 (0.24%) Packer
12 3 (0.18%) FortiGate
13 2 (0.12%) ITRS Geneos
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 186 (10.93%) Microsoft
2 123 (7.23%) Oracle
3 85 (5.00%) SAP
4 72 (4.23%) Google
5 48 (2.82%) Salesforce.com
6 38 (2.23%) Databricks
7 36 (2.12%) IBM
8 30 (1.76%) Adobe
8 30 (1.76%) Cisco
9 29 (1.70%) HP
10 27 (1.59%) Splunk
11 23 (1.35%) CheckPoint
12 18 (1.06%) Atlassian
13 15 (0.88%) ServiceNow
14 13 (0.76%) Informatica
15 12 (0.71%) VMware
16 11 (0.65%) New Relic
17 10 (0.59%) Red Hat
18 9 (0.53%) Apple
19 8 (0.47%) Dell
755 QA job vacancies Nationwide