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 15 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 61 67
Rank change year-on-year +13 +6 0
Contract jobs citing QA 2,355 1,288 1,221
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.26% 3.88% 3.24%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.84% 22.04% 24.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,373 880 714
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £382 £384 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £575
90th Percentile £656 £663 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 251 44 71
10th Percentile £13.50 £12.28 £12.00
25th Percentile £15.25 £13.50 £13.26
Median hourly rate £27.96 £28.77 £15.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.82% +91.80% -70.00%
75th Percentile £48.75 £47.63 £31.34
90th Percentile £70.00 £71.13 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.96 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +84.92% +0.93% -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 9,880 5,844 5,051
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.87% 17.60% 13.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,176 3,746 2,935
10th Percentile £325 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £400 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £612 £625
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +1.05% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 719 282 240
10th Percentile £13.69 £13.60 £13.49
25th Percentile £16.53 £16.61 £17.91
Median hourly rate £30.27 £30.00 £27.67
Median % change year-on-year +0.90% +8.42% -23.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.00 £62.88
90th Percentile £74.25 £80.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.73 £25.08 £27.50
% change year-on-year +26.54% -8.82% -29.03%

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 15 October 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 15 October 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 15 October 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 +17 2,066 £475 -0.39% 499
UK excluding London +25 1,197 £450 - 420
London +8 923 £500 - 146
Work from Home +7 592 £475 +5.56% 244
North of England +7 288 £453 +3.54% 97
South East +13 271 £425 -15.00% 117
Midlands +28 245 £447 -0.67% 75
West Midlands +26 203 £450 -10.00% 49
East of England +20 159 £423 -15.50% 46
South West +13 141 £530 +11.58% 64
Yorkshire +9 114 £470 +4.44% 30
North West -15 112 £475 +13.50% 54
Scotland +2 88 £425 -11.69% 16
North East -7 62 £400 -20.00% 14
East Midlands -8 41 £415 +2.22% 26
Wales +4 24 £413 +17.86% 13
Northern Ireland -3 7 £450 +50.00% 6

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
1 140 (5.94%) Confluence
2 53 (2.25%) CMS
3 43 (1.83%) SharePoint
4 16 (0.68%) Apache Spark
5 14 (0.59%) IIS
6 13 (0.55%) Apache
6 13 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
7 12 (0.51%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 9 (0.38%) SAS
8 9 (0.38%) Sitecore CMS
8 9 (0.38%) Traefik
9 5 (0.21%) Headless CMS
9 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.21%) Tuxedo
9 5 (0.21%) WordPress
10 4 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.17%) Umbraco
11 3 (0.13%) Appian
11 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 82 (3.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.74%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (1.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.89%) MS Visio
5 18 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
6 10 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
7 9 (0.38%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.25%) AutoCAD
8 6 (0.25%) Navisworks
8 6 (0.25%) Revit
9 4 (0.17%) ProjectWise
10 3 (0.13%) CATIA
10 3 (0.13%) Mingle
10 3 (0.13%) Productboard
11 2 (0.085%) Adobe Premiere
11 2 (0.085%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.085%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.085%) Windchill
12 1 (0.042%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.042%) Trello
Business Applications
1 30 (1.27%) Dynamics CRM
2 29 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
4 9 (0.38%) Shopify
5 7 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.30%) SAP GRC
5 7 (0.30%) Workday HCM
6 5 (0.21%) NEC Housing
6 5 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
6 5 (0.21%) SAP MM
7 4 (0.17%) Aladdin
7 4 (0.17%) Maximo
7 4 (0.17%) Primavera
7 4 (0.17%) ResourceLink
7 4 (0.17%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.13%) Infor CloudSuite
8 3 (0.13%) iTrent
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
8 3 (0.13%) SAP SD
9 2 (0.085%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 491 (20.85%) Azure
2 428 (18.17%) AWS
3 240 (10.19%) GitHub
4 222 (9.43%) Azure DevOps
5 144 (6.11%) GitHub Actions
6 115 (4.88%) GCP
7 112 (4.76%) Power Platform
8 83 (3.52%) Serverless
9 60 (2.55%) AWS Lambda
10 56 (2.38%) SaaS
11 54 (2.29%) Amazon S3
12 47 (2.00%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 45 (1.91%) Dynamics 365
14 40 (1.70%) GitHub Copilot
15 39 (1.66%) OpenShift
16 34 (1.44%) Microsoft 365
17 33 (1.40%) Snowflake
18 32 (1.36%) Azure Monitor
19 31 (1.32%) Amazon EKS
20 30 (1.27%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 29 (1.23%) Broadband
2 27 (1.15%) Firewall
3 22 (0.93%) Internet
4 21 (0.89%) DNS
5 20 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
6 18 (0.76%) 5G
6 18 (0.76%) HTTP
7 17 (0.72%) 4G
8 16 (0.68%) TCP/IP
8 16 (0.68%) VLAN
9 13 (0.55%) Network Security
9 13 (0.55%) WAN
10 11 (0.47%) DHCP
11 10 (0.42%) LAN
11 10 (0.42%) VPN
12 9 (0.38%) IPv4
12 9 (0.38%) IPv6
12 9 (0.38%) Wireless
13 8 (0.34%) xDSL
14 7 (0.30%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (4.76%) SQL Server
2 96 (4.08%) Power BI
3 83 (3.52%) PostgreSQL
3 83 (3.52%) Relational Database
4 62 (2.63%) Data Warehouse
5 59 (2.51%) MongoDB
6 51 (2.17%) MySQL
7 49 (2.08%) NoSQL
8 45 (1.91%) Metadata
9 38 (1.61%) Oracle Database
10 30 (1.27%) Oracle Reports
11 26 (1.10%) Tableau
12 23 (0.98%) Data Lake
13 22 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 17 (0.72%) Redis
15 16 (0.68%) Big Data
15 16 (0.68%) GIS
16 15 (0.64%) RDBMS
17 14 (0.59%) Power Query
18 13 (0.55%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 307 (13.04%) JIRA
2 269 (11.42%) Git
3 190 (8.07%) Jenkins
4 185 (7.86%) Selenium
5 155 (6.58%) GitLab
6 102 (4.33%) Cucumber
7 92 (3.91%) Postman
8 84 (3.57%) Cypress.io
9 81 (3.44%) JUnit
10 55 (2.34%) Zephyr
11 52 (2.21%) SonarQube
12 51 (2.17%) JMeter
13 50 (2.12%) Gatling
14 48 (2.04%) REST Assured
15 35 (1.49%) Maven
16 31 (1.32%) Gradle
17 29 (1.23%) WebDriver
18 28 (1.19%) TestNG
19 25 (1.06%) Appium
20 24 (1.02%) Bitbucket
General
1 725 (30.79%) Social Skills
2 427 (18.13%) Finance
3 381 (16.18%) Analytical Skills
4 305 (12.95%) Public Sector
5 175 (7.43%) Banking
6 87 (3.69%) Manufacturing
7 75 (3.18%) Retail
8 67 (2.85%) Organisational Skills
9 64 (2.72%) Marketing
10 59 (2.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 52 (2.21%) Telecoms
12 47 (2.00%) Aerospace
13 45 (1.91%) Influencing Skills
14 44 (1.87%) Legal
15 32 (1.36%) Military
16 31 (1.32%) Documentation Skills
17 24 (1.02%) Law
18 21 (0.89%) Investment Banking
19 20 (0.85%) Local Government
20 19 (0.81%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 310 (13.16%) Developer
2 296 (12.57%) Lead
3 286 (12.14%) Senior
4 265 (11.25%) QA Engineer
5 250 (10.62%) Analyst
6 140 (5.94%) Quality Engineer
7 125 (5.31%) Test Engineer
8 118 (5.01%) Tester
9 102 (4.33%) Test Manager
10 97 (4.12%) Business Analyst
11 86 (3.65%) QA Leader
12 78 (3.31%) Data Engineer
12 78 (3.31%) Java Developer
13 72 (3.06%) Test Leader
14 63 (2.68%) Consultant
15 60 (2.55%) Senior Analyst
16 56 (2.38%) QA Tester
16 56 (2.38%) Test Analyst
17 51 (2.17%) Senior Developer
18 49 (2.08%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 237 (10.06%) REST
2 162 (6.88%) Playwright
3 157 (6.67%) RESTful
4 128 (5.44%) Spring
5 110 (4.67%) Spring Boot
6 109 (4.63%) Terraform
7 105 (4.46%) React
8 99 (4.20%) .NET
9 91 (3.86%) HTML
10 90 (3.82%) Kafka
11 82 (3.48%) CSS
12 79 (3.35%) AngularJS
13 64 (2.72%) Node.js
14 63 (2.68%) SOAP
15 56 (2.38%) Middleware
16 53 (2.25%) pytest
17 46 (1.95%) JSON
18 43 (1.83%) .NET Framework
19 42 (1.78%) Gherkin
20 41 (1.74%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 234 (9.94%) Product Ownership
2 141 (5.99%) Cloud Native
3 83 (3.52%) Onboarding
4 76 (3.23%) Management Information System
5 73 (3.10%) Enterprise Software
6 64 (2.72%) Mobile App
7 58 (2.46%) Distributed Systems
8 51 (2.17%) AI Agents
8 51 (2.17%) Legacy Systems
9 42 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
9 42 (1.78%) Data Structures
10 35 (1.49%) Data Centre
11 31 (1.32%) Low-Code
12 28 (1.19%) Virtual Team
13 27 (1.15%) NHS
14 24 (1.02%) CMDB
15 20 (0.85%) Educational Technology
16 18 (0.76%) Analytical Mindset
17 16 (0.68%) Operational Technology
18 15 (0.64%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 89 (3.78%) Windows
2 76 (3.23%) Linux
3 58 (2.46%) Apple iOS
4 53 (2.25%) Android
5 34 (1.44%) Unix
6 24 (1.02%) Windows Server
7 18 (0.76%) VMS
8 7 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.21%) macOS
10 3 (0.13%) zOS
11 2 (0.085%) AIX
11 2 (0.085%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.042%) CentOS
12 1 (0.042%) Debian
12 1 (0.042%) Embedded Linux
12 1 (0.042%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 1 (0.042%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.042%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.042%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 917 (38.94%) Agile
2 687 (29.17%) Test Automation
3 631 (26.79%) CI/CD
4 571 (24.25%) DevOps
5 501 (21.27%) Stakeholder Management
6 486 (20.64%) Continuous Improvement
7 405 (17.20%) Problem-Solving
8 383 (16.26%) Validation
9 352 (14.95%) Scrum
10 350 (14.86%) AI
11 345 (14.65%) Test Strategy
12 275 (11.68%) User Acceptance Testing
13 260 (11.04%) Migration
14 225 (9.55%) SDLC
15 222 (9.43%) Microservices
16 214 (9.09%) End-to-End Testing
17 194 (8.24%) Software Engineering
18 186 (7.90%) Defect Management
19 184 (7.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
20 175 (7.43%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 414 (17.58%) SQL
2 333 (14.14%) Python
3 312 (13.25%) Java
4 201 (8.54%) JavaScript
5 126 (5.35%) C#
6 121 (5.14%) TypeScript
7 54 (2.29%) Bash
8 35 (1.49%) PowerShell
9 33 (1.40%) Kotlin
9 33 (1.40%) PL/SQL
10 27 (1.15%) Scala
11 26 (1.10%) Swift
12 25 (1.06%) T-SQL
13 21 (0.89%) Objective-C
14 20 (0.85%) Shell Script
15 15 (0.64%) VB
16 14 (0.59%) R
17 13 (0.55%) C
17 13 (0.55%) VBA
18 12 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 553 (23.48%) Security Cleared
2 430 (18.26%) SC Cleared
3 161 (6.84%) Degree
4 112 (4.76%) BPSS Clearance
5 82 (3.48%) ISTQB
6 69 (2.93%) DV Cleared
7 56 (2.38%) Computer Science Degree
8 24 (1.02%) Azure Certification
9 23 (0.98%) PMP
10 22 (0.93%) AWS Certification
11 21 (0.89%) PMI Certification
12 16 (0.68%) Master's Degree
13 14 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
14 11 (0.47%) DBS Check
14 11 (0.47%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 10 (0.42%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 10 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
16 9 (0.38%) IIBA
16 9 (0.38%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 8 (0.34%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 168 (7.13%) Data Quality
2 139 (5.90%) Accessibility
3 41 (1.74%) WCAG
4 38 (1.61%) GDPR
5 28 (1.19%) PMO
6 25 (1.06%) GRC
7 18 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 15 (0.64%) NIST
9 12 (0.51%) ISO 9001
10 11 (0.47%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 11 (0.47%) GxP
11 9 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
11 9 (0.38%) ISO 19650
11 9 (0.38%) SLA
12 8 (0.34%) Software Quality Assurance
13 7 (0.30%) IFRS
13 7 (0.30%) NCSC
14 6 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
14 6 (0.25%) PERC
15 5 (0.21%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 216 (9.17%) Docker
2 24 (1.02%) Active Directory
3 21 (0.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (0.51%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.42%) IAG
6 6 (0.25%) Firmware
7 4 (0.17%) ACF2
7 4 (0.17%) RACF
7 4 (0.17%) VirtualBox
8 3 (0.13%) KVM
8 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.085%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.042%) Embedded Firmware
10 1 (0.042%) QEMU
10 1 (0.042%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.042%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.042%) VMware NSX
10 1 (0.042%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 249 (10.57%) Kubernetes
2 64 (2.72%) Ansible
3 59 (2.51%) Grafana
4 37 (1.57%) Prometheus
5 33 (1.40%) Argo
6 11 (0.47%) HP ALM
7 10 (0.42%) SCCM
8 9 (0.38%) Istio
9 8 (0.34%) Microsoft Clustering
9 8 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
10 7 (0.30%) HP Quality Center
10 7 (0.30%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 6 (0.25%) Microsoft Intune
12 5 (0.21%) Progress Chef
12 5 (0.21%) Puppet
13 4 (0.17%) SCOM
14 3 (0.13%) FortiGate
15 2 (0.085%) Control-M
15 2 (0.085%) ITRS Geneos
15 2 (0.085%) Kibana
Vendors
1 263 (11.17%) Microsoft
2 164 (6.96%) Oracle
3 117 (4.97%) Salesforce
4 76 (3.23%) SAP
5 59 (2.51%) ServiceNow
6 50 (2.12%) Google
7 47 (2.00%) Databricks
8 35 (1.49%) Dynatrace
8 35 (1.49%) Splunk
9 33 (1.40%) Red Hat
10 24 (1.02%) VMware
11 23 (0.98%) Citrix
12 20 (0.85%) Adobe
12 20 (0.85%) Cisco
13 18 (0.76%) IBM
14 17 (0.72%) Informatica
14 17 (0.72%) Sitecore
15 16 (0.68%) MuleSoft
15 16 (0.68%) Talend
15 16 (0.68%) Workday