Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 7 April 2020

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 7 April 2020 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
7 Apr 2020		 Same period 2019 Same period 2018
Rank 77 72 72
Rank change year-on-year -5 0 -6
Contract jobs citing QA 1,741 3,215 3,422
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.86% 3.32% 3.36%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 28.41% 30.81% 26.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,123 2,145 2,318
Median daily rate £450 £450 £438
Median daily rate % change year-on-year - +2.86% +5.93%
10th Percentile £300 £305 £300
90th Percentile £613 £600 £616
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £425 £400
% change year-on-year - +6.25% +8.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 52 43
Median hourly rate £22.50 £35.00 £25.50
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year -35.71% +37.25% +2.00%
10th Percentile £12.76 £10.75 £12.52
90th Percentile £50.00 £48.70 £67.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.51 £27.50 £34.25
% change year-on-year -25.41% -19.71% +31.73%

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 6,128 10,436 12,817
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.08% 10.77% 12.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,695 6,518 8,248
Median daily rate £450 £450 £450
10th Percentile £222 £250 £259
90th Percentile £638 £650 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £425 £400
% change year-on-year - +6.25% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 286 355 362
Median hourly rate £24.44 £21.76 £22.50
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +12.29% -3.29% +4.65%
10th Percentile £13.54 £11.00 £12.25
90th Percentile £52.38 £48.75 £57.50
Median hourly rate £22.55 £20.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +11.36% -19.02% +19.22%

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 7 April 2020.

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 7 April 2020.

Hourly rate histogram for QA in the UK

QA
Top 17 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 7 April 2020. 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 -5 1,585 £450 - 594
UK excluding London -6 872 £425 - 445
London -1 814 £500 +5.26% 194
South East 0 282 £400 -13.28% 122
North of England -14 178 £425 +9.25% 127
Midlands +32 123 £450 +12.50% 65
South West +12 121 £450 +1.12% 41
North West +8 108 £390 -8.24% 75
Scotland +11 98 £425 +13.33% 20
West Midlands +21 69 £450 +12.50% 39
Work from Home +10 57 £500 - 34
East Midlands +37 54 £350 -12.50% 26
East of England -27 52 £400 - 45
Yorkshire +6 41 £450 +28.57% 33
North East -20 30 £463 +17.98% 19
Wales +5 15 £388 -8.82% 19
Northern Ireland -10 6 £300 -8.40% 7

For the 6 months to 7 April 2020, 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.

1 772 (44.34%) Agile Software Development
2 486 (27.91%) Test Automation
3 354 (20.33%) Finance
4 331 (19.01%) Java
5 303 (17.40%) JIRA
6 298 (17.12%) DevOps
7 281 (16.14%) SQL
8 280 (16.08%) Scrum
9 249 (14.30%) JavaScript
10 239 (13.73%) Selenium
11 230 (13.21%) BDD
12 225 (12.92%) Azure
13 208 (11.95%) C#
14 203 (11.66%) Analytical Skills
15 189 (10.86%) Security Cleared
16 186 (10.68%) Git (software)
16 186 (10.68%) SDLC
17 185 (10.63%) Continuous Integration
18 183 (10.51%) Problem-Solving
19 182 (10.45%) .NET
20 181 (10.40%) Jenkins
21 178 (10.22%) Microsoft
21 178 (10.22%) TDD
22 162 (9.30%) Python
23 154 (8.85%) HTML
23 154 (8.85%) AWS
24 149 (8.56%) Cucumber
25 147 (8.44%) Project Management
26 144 (8.27%) Oracle
27 141 (8.10%) Linux

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
1 124 (7.12%) Confluence
2 37 (2.13%) SharePoint
3 22 (1.26%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 21 (1.21%) CMS
4 21 (1.21%) WebSphere
5 20 (1.15%) Apache
6 17 (0.98%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 15 (0.86%) Apache Spark
8 13 (0.75%) Elasticsearch
9 12 (0.69%) IIS
9 12 (0.69%) SAS
10 9 (0.52%) JBoss
11 7 (0.40%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.34%) Magnolia
12 6 (0.34%) nginx
13 5 (0.29%) Drupal
13 5 (0.29%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.29%) Red Hat Fuse
13 5 (0.29%) Tomcat
14 4 (0.23%) OnBase
Applications
1 73 (4.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (2.70%) Microsoft Office
3 25 (1.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 18 (1.03%) Microsoft Project
5 13 (0.75%) MS Visio
6 10 (0.57%) Sketch
7 8 (0.46%) Photoshop
7 8 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.29%) SPSS
8 5 (0.29%) Zeplin
9 4 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 4 (0.23%) Figma
9 4 (0.23%) InVision
10 3 (0.17%) Adobe Captivate
11 2 (0.11%) Adobe XD
11 2 (0.11%) Lectora
12 1 (0.057%) Acrobat
12 1 (0.057%) Adobe Illustrator
12 1 (0.057%) InfoPath
12 1 (0.057%) MadCap Flare
Business Applications
1 15 (0.86%) Dynamics CRM
2 12 (0.69%) Magento
3 11 (0.63%) SAP Hybris
4 9 (0.52%) Oracle EBS
4 9 (0.52%) SAP S/4HANA
5 7 (0.40%) Oracle Retail
6 6 (0.34%) Shopify
7 5 (0.29%) Dynamics AX
8 4 (0.23%) PeopleSoft Financials
8 4 (0.23%) Workday HCM
9 3 (0.17%) BusinessWorks
9 3 (0.17%) Front Arena
9 3 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
9 3 (0.17%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.17%) Salesforce.com CRM
9 3 (0.17%) thinkFolio
10 2 (0.11%) Oracle Assets
10 2 (0.11%) SAP EWM
10 2 (0.11%) SnowdropKCS
Cloud Services
1 225 (12.92%) Azure
2 154 (8.85%) AWS
3 54 (3.10%) GitHub
4 51 (2.93%) Power Platform
5 34 (1.95%) Office 365
6 33 (1.90%) SaaS
7 31 (1.78%) GCP
7 31 (1.78%) PaaS
8 30 (1.72%) Serverless
9 28 (1.61%) AWS CloudFormation
10 19 (1.09%) AWS Lambda
10 19 (1.09%) Cloud Computing
11 15 (0.86%) IaaS
11 15 (0.86%) OpenShift
12 12 (0.69%) Apigee
12 12 (0.69%) Dynamics 365
13 11 (0.63%) Azure Data Factory
13 11 (0.63%) Boomi
14 10 (0.57%) Google Analytics
14 10 (0.57%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 36 (2.07%) DNS
2 26 (1.49%) HTTP
3 25 (1.44%) Unified Communications
4 22 (1.26%) Internet
5 19 (1.09%) TCP/IP
6 18 (1.03%) Firewall
7 17 (0.98%) VPN
7 17 (0.98%) Wireshark
8 14 (0.80%) 4G
9 13 (0.75%) LAN
10 11 (0.63%) Ethernet
10 11 (0.63%) Skype
11 9 (0.52%) Network Security
11 9 (0.52%) WAN
12 8 (0.46%) FTP
12 8 (0.46%) HTTPS
12 8 (0.46%) MPLS
12 8 (0.46%) SSH
13 7 (0.40%) PPP
13 7 (0.40%) RIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (7.12%) SQL Server
2 75 (4.31%) Relational Database
3 56 (3.22%) Data Warehouse
4 50 (2.87%) Power BI
5 38 (2.18%) Big Data
5 38 (2.18%) MySQL
6 37 (2.13%) NoSQL
7 34 (1.95%) RDBMS
8 27 (1.55%) Data Lake
8 27 (1.55%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 23 (1.32%) PostgreSQL
10 18 (1.03%) Oracle Database
11 16 (0.92%) Apache Cassandra
11 16 (0.92%) MongoDB
11 16 (0.92%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 15 (0.86%) Hadoop
13 14 (0.80%) DB2
13 14 (0.80%) Redis
14 13 (0.75%) Oracle Reports
15 12 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 303 (17.40%) JIRA
2 239 (13.73%) Selenium
3 186 (10.68%) Git (software)
4 181 (10.40%) Jenkins
5 149 (8.56%) Cucumber
6 64 (3.68%) JMeter
7 62 (3.56%) SpecFlow
8 54 (3.10%) WebDriver
9 51 (2.93%) Postman
10 47 (2.70%) JUnit
11 44 (2.53%) SoapUI
12 38 (2.18%) Visual Studio
13 33 (1.90%) Bitbucket
14 31 (1.78%) TeamCity
15 27 (1.55%) REST Assured
15 27 (1.55%) Team Foundation Server
16 24 (1.38%) GitLab
16 24 (1.38%) SonarQube
17 23 (1.32%) Mocha
17 23 (1.32%) Visual Studio Team System
General
1 354 (20.33%) Finance
2 116 (6.66%) Public Sector
3 106 (6.09%) Banking
4 79 (4.54%) Telecoms
5 65 (3.73%) Marketing
6 53 (3.04%) Retail
7 36 (2.07%) Manufacturing
8 22 (1.26%) Front Office
9 20 (1.15%) Electronics
9 20 (1.15%) Legal
10 18 (1.03%) Back Office
10 18 (1.03%) Games
11 16 (0.92%) Retail Banking
12 14 (0.80%) German Language
12 14 (0.80%) Investment Banking
12 14 (0.80%) Law
13 13 (0.75%) Pharmaceutical
14 11 (0.63%) Advertising
15 9 (0.52%) Financial Institution
16 8 (0.46%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 338 (19.41%) Developer
2 277 (15.91%) Analyst
3 152 (8.73%) Tester
4 136 (7.81%) QA Engineer
5 92 (5.28%) Test Analyst
6 83 (4.77%) QA Analyst
7 71 (4.08%) QA Tester
7 71 (4.08%) Test Engineer
8 60 (3.45%) Business Analyst
8 60 (3.45%) Project Manager
9 57 (3.27%) Automation Tester
10 55 (3.16%) DevOps Engineer
11 52 (2.99%) Architect
12 49 (2.81%) Java Developer
12 49 (2.81%) React Developer
13 46 (2.64%) Consultant
13 46 (2.64%) Senior Developer
13 46 (2.64%) Test Manager
14 38 (2.18%) QA Automation Engineer
14 38 (2.18%) QA Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 182 (10.45%) .NET
2 154 (8.85%) HTML
3 114 (6.55%) CSS
4 102 (5.86%) XML
5 91 (5.23%) REST
6 84 (4.82%) React
7 79 (4.54%) AngularJS
7 79 (4.54%) JSON
8 77 (4.42%) Web Services
9 65 (3.73%) Gherkin
10 64 (3.68%) Node.js
11 61 (3.50%) SOAP
12 59 (3.39%) HTML5
13 57 (3.27%) RESTful
14 53 (3.04%) ASP.NET
15 51 (2.93%) Redux
16 47 (2.70%) .NET Framework
17 42 (2.41%) Spring
18 32 (1.84%) jQuery
18 32 (1.84%) Twitter Bootstrap
Miscellaneous
1 203 (11.66%) Analytical Skills
2 130 (7.47%) User Experience
3 58 (3.33%) Mobile App
4 48 (2.76%) Self-Motivation
5 42 (2.41%) Enterprise Software
5 42 (2.41%) Management Information System
6 41 (2.35%) Greenfield Project
7 23 (1.32%) Virtual Team
8 22 (1.26%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 21 (1.21%) Public Cloud
10 15 (0.86%) Data Structures
10 15 (0.86%) NHS
10 15 (0.86%) W3C
11 14 (0.80%) e-Learning
12 13 (0.75%) Algorithms
13 12 (0.69%) Linux Command Line
14 11 (0.63%) Derivative
14 11 (0.63%) Driving Licence
15 10 (0.57%) FMCG
16 9 (0.52%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 141 (8.10%) Linux
2 130 (7.47%) Windows
3 82 (4.71%) Android
4 74 (4.25%) Apple iOS
5 61 (3.50%) Unix
6 50 (2.87%) Windows 10
7 22 (1.26%) Windows 7
8 19 (1.09%) Windows Server
9 15 (0.86%) Ubuntu
10 11 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 9 (0.52%) VME
12 6 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.23%) Mac OS
14 2 (0.11%) tvOS
14 2 (0.11%) Windows 8
15 1 (0.057%) AIX
15 1 (0.057%) CoreOS
15 1 (0.057%) Embedded Linux
15 1 (0.057%) VMS
15 1 (0.057%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 772 (44.34%) Agile Software Development
2 486 (27.91%) Test Automation
3 298 (17.12%) DevOps
4 280 (16.08%) Scrum
5 230 (13.21%) BDD
6 186 (10.68%) SDLC
7 185 (10.63%) Continuous Integration
8 183 (10.51%) Problem-Solving
9 178 (10.22%) TDD
10 147 (8.44%) Project Management
11 140 (8.04%) Test Scripting
12 117 (6.72%) User Acceptance Testing
13 113 (6.49%) Migration
14 107 (6.15%) Acceptance Criteria
15 104 (5.97%) Continuous Improvement
15 104 (5.97%) Manual Testing
16 102 (5.86%) Analytics
17 100 (5.74%) Software Engineering
18 98 (5.63%) Test Strategy
19 97 (5.57%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 331 (19.01%) Java
2 281 (16.14%) SQL
3 249 (14.30%) JavaScript
4 208 (11.95%) C#
5 162 (9.30%) Python
6 62 (3.56%) Bash Shell
7 58 (3.33%) Ruby
8 55 (3.16%) PowerShell
9 48 (2.76%) TypeScript
10 36 (2.07%) C
10 36 (2.07%) T-SQL
11 28 (1.61%) C++
11 28 (1.61%) PL/SQL
12 26 (1.49%) Shell Script
13 24 (1.38%) Groovy
14 23 (1.32%) Scala
14 23 (1.32%) VBA
15 21 (1.21%) Java 8
15 21 (1.21%) Perl
15 21 (1.21%) PHP
Qualifications
1 189 (10.86%) Security Cleared
2 138 (7.93%) Degree
2 138 (7.93%) SC Cleared
3 73 (4.19%) ISTQB
4 69 (3.96%) ISEB
5 30 (1.72%) BPSS Clearance
5 30 (1.72%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 29 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
7 28 (1.61%) DV Cleared
8 17 (0.98%) Master's Degree
9 15 (0.86%) PMP
10 13 (0.75%) PMI Certification
11 12 (0.69%) CCNA
11 12 (0.69%) Cisco Certification
12 9 (0.52%) Numerate Degree
13 8 (0.46%) CCNP
13 8 (0.46%) OSCP
14 7 (0.40%) CCDP
14 7 (0.40%) CCIP
14 7 (0.40%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (1.78%) PMO
2 20 (1.15%) Data Quality
3 18 (1.03%) GDPR
3 18 (1.03%) SLA
4 16 (0.92%) WCAG
5 10 (0.57%) GxP
6 8 (0.46%) ISO 9001
7 6 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (0.34%) PCI DSS
8 5 (0.29%) ISO 14001
9 4 (0.23%) EMIR
9 4 (0.23%) MiFID
9 4 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
10 3 (0.17%) NCSC
11 2 (0.11%) Def Stans
11 2 (0.11%) Disclosure Scotland
11 2 (0.11%) ISAE 3402
11 2 (0.11%) P3O
11 2 (0.11%) Section 508
System Software
1 129 (7.41%) Docker
2 25 (1.44%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (1.32%) Active Directory
3 23 (1.32%) Hyper-V
4 18 (1.03%) Microsoft App-V
5 8 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.17%) HDFS
7 3 (0.17%) vSphere
8 2 (0.11%) Firmware
8 2 (0.11%) LXC
8 2 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.057%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 1 (0.057%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 77 (4.42%) Ansible
2 68 (3.91%) Kubernetes
3 57 (3.27%) Terraform
4 50 (2.87%) Puppet
5 35 (2.01%) Opscode Chef
6 26 (1.49%) SCCM
7 22 (1.26%) Docker Swarm
8 19 (1.09%) HP Quality Center
9 14 (0.80%) AppDNA
9 14 (0.80%) HP ALM
9 14 (0.80%) Salt
10 10 (0.57%) Nagios
11 7 (0.40%) Packer
11 7 (0.40%) Prometheus
12 5 (0.29%) Kibana
12 5 (0.29%) ZABBIX
13 4 (0.23%) HP SiteScope
13 4 (0.23%) Rancher
14 3 (0.17%) Consul
14 3 (0.17%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 178 (10.22%) Microsoft
2 144 (8.27%) Oracle
3 71 (4.08%) SAP
4 39 (2.24%) HP
5 37 (2.13%) Google
6 35 (2.01%) Salesforce.com
7 34 (1.95%) Cisco
8 33 (1.90%) Adobe
9 28 (1.61%) hybris
9 28 (1.61%) VMware
10 25 (1.44%) Dell
11 23 (1.32%) IBM
12 21 (1.21%) Tableau
13 17 (0.98%) Red Hat
14 16 (0.92%) Citrix
15 14 (0.80%) Atlassian
15 14 (0.80%) Xamarin
16 11 (0.63%) Apple
16 11 (0.63%) Juniper
16 11 (0.63%) Splunk
645 QA job vacancies Nationwide