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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 61 66
Rank change year-on-year +12 +5 -2
Contract jobs citing QA 2,300 1,273 1,251
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.19% 3.84% 3.29%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.75% 22.27% 24.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,352 863 721
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £384 £380 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.52%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £575
90th Percentile £657 £650 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £460
% change year-on-year - -2.17% -3.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 235 44 75
10th Percentile £12.91 £12.28 £11.88
25th Percentile £15.39 £13.50 £12.40
Median hourly rate £30.00 £23.45 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +27.92% +56.56% -70.04%
75th Percentile £48.75 £44.28 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £71.13 £73.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +108.07% +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 9,686 5,716 5,111
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.64% 17.26% 13.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,097 3,657 2,979
10th Percentile £324 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.40% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £603 £605 £625
90th Percentile £710 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £484 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +1.79% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 664 274 248
10th Percentile £13.96 £13.60 £12.75
25th Percentile £16.60 £16.92 £15.50
Median hourly rate £32.40 £31.49 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.87% +14.51% -22.54%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.44 £62.31
90th Percentile £74.25 £80.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.40 £27.54 £27.50
% change year-on-year +17.65% +0.13% -26.67%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 +16 2,007 £475 - 3,414
UK excluding London +20 1,158 £450 - 2,057
London +11 898 £500 - 1,622
Work from Home +3 575 £475 +5.44% 1,337
North of England +6 282 £453 +1.34% 521
South East +12 264 £425 -15.00% 486
Midlands +21 231 £450 +2.56% 328
West Midlands +28 192 £450 -10.00% 235
East of England +23 158 £450 -10.00% 186
South West +12 133 £525 +10.53% 206
Yorkshire +8 114 £488 +3.72% 148
North West -18 109 £475 +12.56% 285
Scotland -5 86 £420 -9.19% 190
North East -10 59 £400 -20.00% 91
East Midlands -9 38 £420 +7.01% 93
Wales +2 21 £413 +10.00% 78
Northern Ireland 0 7 £450 +50.00% 82

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
1 137 (5.96%) Confluence
2 53 (2.30%) CMS
3 42 (1.83%) SharePoint
4 16 (0.70%) Apache Spark
4 16 (0.70%) IIS
5 13 (0.57%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 13 (0.57%) Apache
5 13 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
6 9 (0.39%) SAS
7 8 (0.35%) Sitecore CMS
8 7 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
8 7 (0.30%) Traefik
9 5 (0.22%) Headless CMS
9 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.22%) Tuxedo
9 5 (0.22%) WordPress
10 4 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.17%) Umbraco
11 3 (0.13%) Moodle
11 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 82 (3.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 39 (1.70%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.91%) MS Visio
5 18 (0.78%) Spreadsheet
6 10 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
7 9 (0.39%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.26%) Revit
9 5 (0.22%) AutoCAD
9 5 (0.22%) Navisworks
10 4 (0.17%) ProjectWise
11 3 (0.13%) CATIA
11 3 (0.13%) Mingle
12 2 (0.087%) Adobe Premiere
12 2 (0.087%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.087%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.087%) Photoshop
12 2 (0.087%) Productboard
12 2 (0.087%) Windchill
13 1 (0.043%) Notion
Business Applications
1 31 (1.35%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.22%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.43%) Remedy ITSM
3 10 (0.43%) Shopify
4 7 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
4 7 (0.30%) SAP GRC
4 7 (0.30%) Workday HCM
5 4 (0.17%) Aladdin
5 4 (0.17%) Maximo
5 4 (0.17%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.17%) Primavera
5 4 (0.17%) ResourceLink
5 4 (0.17%) SAP MM
5 4 (0.17%) Teamcenter
6 3 (0.13%) Infor CloudSuite
6 3 (0.13%) iTrent
6 3 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
6 3 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
6 3 (0.13%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.087%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 471 (20.48%) Azure
2 416 (18.09%) AWS
3 227 (9.87%) GitHub
4 203 (8.83%) Azure DevOps
5 130 (5.65%) GitHub Actions
6 113 (4.91%) GCP
7 109 (4.74%) Power Platform
8 82 (3.57%) Serverless
9 58 (2.52%) AWS Lambda
10 53 (2.30%) SaaS
11 50 (2.17%) Amazon S3
12 47 (2.04%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 41 (1.78%) Dynamics 365
14 38 (1.65%) GitHub Copilot
15 36 (1.57%) OpenShift
16 34 (1.48%) Snowflake
17 32 (1.39%) Azure Monitor
18 31 (1.35%) Amazon EKS
18 31 (1.35%) Microsoft 365
19 29 (1.26%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 26 (1.13%) Firewall
2 25 (1.09%) Broadband
3 22 (0.96%) Internet
4 20 (0.87%) DNS
5 19 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
6 16 (0.70%) 5G
6 16 (0.70%) TCP/IP
7 15 (0.65%) 4G
7 15 (0.65%) HTTP
7 15 (0.65%) VLAN
8 14 (0.61%) WAN
9 12 (0.52%) Network Security
10 11 (0.48%) LAN
10 11 (0.48%) VPN
11 10 (0.43%) DHCP
12 8 (0.35%) SD-WAN
12 8 (0.35%) Unified Communications
13 7 (0.30%) IPv4
13 7 (0.30%) IPv6
13 7 (0.30%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (4.87%) SQL Server
2 96 (4.17%) Power BI
3 82 (3.57%) PostgreSQL
4 80 (3.48%) Relational Database
5 66 (2.87%) Data Warehouse
6 56 (2.43%) MongoDB
7 49 (2.13%) NoSQL
8 48 (2.09%) MySQL
9 43 (1.87%) Metadata
10 42 (1.83%) Oracle Database
11 34 (1.48%) Oracle Reports
12 31 (1.35%) Tableau
13 23 (1.00%) Data Lake
14 20 (0.87%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 16 (0.70%) Big Data
15 16 (0.70%) GIS
16 15 (0.65%) RDBMS
16 15 (0.65%) Redis
17 14 (0.61%) BigQuery
18 13 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 313 (13.61%) JIRA
2 261 (11.35%) Git
3 181 (7.87%) Jenkins
4 178 (7.74%) Selenium
5 149 (6.48%) GitLab
6 96 (4.17%) Cucumber
7 90 (3.91%) Postman
8 79 (3.43%) Cypress.io
9 74 (3.22%) JUnit
10 58 (2.52%) Zephyr
11 51 (2.22%) SonarQube
12 49 (2.13%) JMeter
13 47 (2.04%) REST Assured
14 45 (1.96%) Gatling
15 35 (1.52%) Maven
16 30 (1.30%) WebDriver
17 28 (1.22%) Gradle
18 26 (1.13%) TestNG
19 24 (1.04%) Appium
20 23 (1.00%) Bitbucket
General
1 701 (30.48%) Social Skills
2 427 (18.57%) Finance
3 366 (15.91%) Analytical Skills
4 296 (12.87%) Public Sector
5 171 (7.43%) Banking
6 87 (3.78%) Manufacturing
7 75 (3.26%) Retail
8 64 (2.78%) Marketing
9 63 (2.74%) Organisational Skills
10 57 (2.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 44 (1.91%) Telecoms
12 41 (1.78%) Aerospace
12 41 (1.78%) Influencing Skills
13 40 (1.74%) Legal
14 30 (1.30%) Documentation Skills
14 30 (1.30%) Military
15 25 (1.09%) Law
16 20 (0.87%) Investment Banking
17 18 (0.78%) Automotive
17 18 (0.78%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 308 (13.39%) Developer
2 293 (12.74%) Lead
3 276 (12.00%) Senior
4 259 (11.26%) QA Engineer
5 251 (10.91%) Analyst
6 135 (5.87%) Quality Engineer
7 122 (5.30%) Tester
8 118 (5.13%) Test Engineer
9 104 (4.52%) Business Analyst
9 104 (4.52%) Test Manager
10 82 (3.57%) QA Leader
11 79 (3.43%) Java Developer
12 77 (3.35%) Data Engineer
13 68 (2.96%) Test Leader
14 60 (2.61%) Consultant
15 59 (2.57%) Senior Analyst
16 57 (2.48%) QA Tester
17 54 (2.35%) Test Analyst
18 52 (2.26%) Architect
19 49 (2.13%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 216 (9.39%) REST
2 152 (6.61%) RESTful
3 150 (6.52%) Playwright
4 130 (5.65%) Spring
5 113 (4.91%) Spring Boot
6 106 (4.61%) Terraform
7 98 (4.26%) .NET
7 98 (4.26%) React
8 89 (3.87%) HTML
9 88 (3.83%) Kafka
10 79 (3.43%) CSS
11 77 (3.35%) AngularJS
12 61 (2.65%) Node.js
13 59 (2.57%) SOAP
14 53 (2.30%) pytest
15 51 (2.22%) Middleware
16 42 (1.83%) .NET Framework
17 41 (1.78%) JSON
18 39 (1.70%) Gherkin
18 39 (1.70%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 215 (9.35%) Product Ownership
2 141 (6.13%) Cloud Native
3 83 (3.61%) Onboarding
4 70 (3.04%) Enterprise Software
5 68 (2.96%) Management Information System
6 57 (2.48%) Distributed Systems
7 54 (2.35%) Mobile App
8 49 (2.13%) Legacy Systems
9 47 (2.04%) AI Agents
10 43 (1.87%) Data Structures
11 41 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
12 34 (1.48%) Data Centre
13 32 (1.39%) Low-Code
14 28 (1.22%) NHS
15 25 (1.09%) Virtual Team
16 23 (1.00%) CMDB
17 19 (0.83%) Educational Technology
18 17 (0.74%) Analytical Mindset
19 15 (0.65%) Operational Technology
20 14 (0.61%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 91 (3.96%) Windows
2 77 (3.35%) Linux
3 50 (2.17%) Apple iOS
4 45 (1.96%) Android
5 35 (1.52%) Unix
6 24 (1.04%) Windows Server
7 16 (0.70%) VMS
8 7 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.22%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.087%) AIX
10 2 (0.087%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.087%) zOS
11 1 (0.043%) CentOS
11 1 (0.043%) Debian
11 1 (0.043%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.043%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.043%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.043%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.043%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 893 (38.83%) Agile
2 654 (28.43%) Test Automation
3 603 (26.22%) CI/CD
4 558 (24.26%) DevOps
5 474 (20.61%) Stakeholder Management
6 464 (20.17%) Continuous Improvement
7 394 (17.13%) Problem-Solving
8 375 (16.30%) Validation
9 342 (14.87%) AI
9 342 (14.87%) Scrum
10 331 (14.39%) Test Strategy
11 276 (12.00%) User Acceptance Testing
12 255 (11.09%) Migration
13 216 (9.39%) Microservices
14 214 (9.30%) SDLC
15 205 (8.91%) End-to-End Testing
16 194 (8.43%) Software Engineering
17 182 (7.91%) Defect Management
17 182 (7.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 172 (7.48%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 419 (18.22%) SQL
2 327 (14.22%) Python
3 303 (13.17%) Java
4 194 (8.43%) JavaScript
5 118 (5.13%) C#
6 107 (4.65%) TypeScript
7 56 (2.43%) Bash
8 36 (1.57%) PowerShell
9 34 (1.48%) PL/SQL
10 30 (1.30%) Kotlin
11 27 (1.17%) T-SQL
12 24 (1.04%) Scala
13 21 (0.91%) Swift
14 19 (0.83%) Shell Script
15 17 (0.74%) Objective-C
15 17 (0.74%) VB
16 16 (0.70%) C
17 15 (0.65%) VBA
18 14 (0.61%) C++
18 14 (0.61%) R
Qualifications
1 544 (23.65%) Security Cleared
2 422 (18.35%) SC Cleared
3 147 (6.39%) Degree
4 112 (4.87%) BPSS Clearance
5 75 (3.26%) ISTQB
6 65 (2.83%) DV Cleared
7 45 (1.96%) Computer Science Degree
8 24 (1.04%) PMP
9 21 (0.91%) AWS Certification
10 19 (0.83%) PMI Certification
11 18 (0.78%) Azure Certification
12 16 (0.70%) Master's Degree
13 14 (0.61%) Microsoft Certification
14 10 (0.43%) DBS Check
14 10 (0.43%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 10 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
15 9 (0.39%) Cisco Certification
15 9 (0.39%) IIBA
15 9 (0.39%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 8 (0.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 161 (7.00%) Data Quality
2 133 (5.78%) Accessibility
3 39 (1.70%) WCAG
4 35 (1.52%) GDPR
5 29 (1.26%) PMO
6 25 (1.09%) GRC
7 14 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 13 (0.57%) NIST
9 11 (0.48%) ISO 9001
10 10 (0.43%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 10 (0.43%) GxP
11 9 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
11 9 (0.39%) SLA
11 9 (0.39%) Software Quality Assurance
12 8 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
12 8 (0.35%) ISO 19650
13 7 (0.30%) IFRS
13 7 (0.30%) NCSC
14 6 (0.26%) ISO 20022
15 4 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 17025
System Software
1 204 (8.87%) Docker
2 24 (1.04%) Active Directory
3 19 (0.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.43%) IAG
6 7 (0.30%) 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 (0.087%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.043%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.043%) Embedded Firmware
10 1 (0.043%) QEMU
10 1 (0.043%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.043%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.043%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.043%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 233 (10.13%) Kubernetes
2 64 (2.78%) Ansible
3 58 (2.52%) Grafana
4 39 (1.70%) Prometheus
5 31 (1.35%) Argo
6 11 (0.48%) HP ALM
6 11 (0.48%) SCCM
7 8 (0.35%) Microsoft Clustering
7 8 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.30%) HP Quality Center
8 7 (0.30%) Istio
8 7 (0.30%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
9 6 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.22%) Puppet
11 4 (0.17%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.17%) SCOM
12 3 (0.13%) FortiGate
13 2 (0.087%) Control-M
13 2 (0.087%) ITRS Geneos
13 2 (0.087%) Kibana
Vendors
1 253 (11.00%) Microsoft
2 169 (7.35%) Oracle
3 119 (5.17%) Salesforce
4 76 (3.30%) SAP
5 60 (2.61%) ServiceNow
6 52 (2.26%) Google
7 46 (2.00%) Databricks
8 34 (1.48%) Dynatrace
8 34 (1.48%) Splunk
9 31 (1.35%) Red Hat
10 25 (1.09%) Citrix
11 22 (0.96%) Adobe
11 22 (0.96%) VMware
12 21 (0.91%) Cisco
13 17 (0.74%) Informatica
14 16 (0.70%) IBM
14 16 (0.70%) Sitecore
14 16 (0.70%) Workday
15 15 (0.65%) Talend
16 14 (0.61%) HP