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

6 months to
3 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 58 61 61
Rank change year-on-year +3 0 +11
Contract jobs citing QA 1,910 1,185 1,407
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.71% 3.79% 3.24%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 21.97% 23.19% 23.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,191 832 911
10th Percentile £322 £281 £310
25th Percentile £399 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -2.68%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £598
90th Percentile £675 £663 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £490
% change year-on-year - -8.16% +0.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 147 30 100
10th Percentile £12.88 £12.71 £10.86
25th Percentile £16.13 £13.50 £12.24
Median hourly rate £31.46 £17.66 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +78.12% +17.91% -33.42%
75th Percentile £67.50 £44.91 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £55.50 £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 8,694 5,111 5,953
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.88% 16.34% 13.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,558 3,278 3,694
10th Percentile £340 £278 £282
25th Percentile £413 £400 £401
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £509
Median % change year-on-year - -1.82% -3.00%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -4.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 540 213 432
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.82 £11.07
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.50 £13.52
Median hourly rate £36.07 £30.00 £23.90
Median % change year-on-year +20.23% +25.52% -38.26%
75th Percentile £67.84 £63.75 £50.27
90th Percentile £80.19 £83.32 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £28.18 £21.69
% change year-on-year +33.07% +29.95% -42.17%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 0 1,638 £481 +1.32% 959
UK excluding London +4 889 £450 - 720
London +2 810 £500 +1.01% 378
Work from Home +8 559 £480 +1.05% 450
South East +5 201 £450 -2.70% 207
North of England -15 199 £469 -0.05% 194
Midlands -7 176 £430 +14.67% 127
West Midlands -6 133 £444 +4.53% 65
South West +27 125 £495 -1.00% 80
East of England +10 90 £475 -0.73% 60
North West -19 87 £449 +6.28% 118
Scotland +11 85 £350 -22.22% 31
Yorkshire -29 73 £533 +2.45% 51
East Midlands -11 43 £415 +13.08% 62
North East -12 39 £390 -15.22% 28
Northern Ireland +7 19 £475 +46.15% 34
Wales -14 10 £475 +11.76% 11

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
1 110 (5.76%) Confluence
2 33 (1.73%) SharePoint
3 30 (1.57%) CMS
4 20 (1.05%) IIS
5 16 (0.84%) Apache Spark
6 11 (0.58%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 8 (0.42%) Apache
7 8 (0.42%) SAS
8 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Exchange
8 5 (0.26%) Tuxedo
8 5 (0.26%) Umbraco
9 4 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
9 4 (0.21%) nginx
9 4 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.16%) Moodle
10 3 (0.16%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
10 3 (0.16%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.10%) Apache Solr
11 2 (0.10%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.10%) WordPress
Applications
1 59 (3.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 29 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (1.26%) Microsoft Project
4 22 (1.15%) MS Visio
5 19 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 6 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.26%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.21%) Photoshop
9 3 (0.16%) CATIA
9 3 (0.16%) CPLEX
9 3 (0.16%) Simulink
10 2 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
10 2 (0.10%) AutoCAD
10 2 (0.10%) EPLAN
11 1 (0.052%) Adobe After Effects
11 1 (0.052%) Adobe Premiere
11 1 (0.052%) Camtasia
11 1 (0.052%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.052%) Notion
11 1 (0.052%) Revit
Business Applications
1 32 (1.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.42%) Shopify
4 7 (0.37%) Salesforce CRM
4 7 (0.37%) Workday HCM
5 6 (0.31%) Maximo
5 6 (0.31%) NEC Housing
5 6 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 5 (0.26%) Infor CloudSuite
7 4 (0.21%) Adobe Campaign
7 4 (0.21%) Primavera
8 3 (0.16%) Actimize
8 3 (0.16%) Aladdin
8 3 (0.16%) IntelliMatch
8 3 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
8 3 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
8 3 (0.16%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.16%) SAP MM
9 2 (0.10%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 2 (0.10%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 416 (21.78%) Azure
2 309 (16.18%) AWS
3 177 (9.27%) Azure DevOps
4 153 (8.01%) GitHub
5 102 (5.34%) Power Platform
6 90 (4.71%) GitHub Actions
7 76 (3.98%) GCP
8 43 (2.25%) Serverless
9 39 (2.04%) SaaS
10 38 (1.99%) OpenShift
11 32 (1.68%) Dynamics 365
12 27 (1.41%) AWS Lambda
12 27 (1.41%) Snowflake
13 26 (1.36%) Amazon S3
14 24 (1.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 22 (1.15%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 21 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
16 21 (1.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 20 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
18 19 (0.99%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.26%) Firewall
2 19 (0.99%) Internet
2 19 (0.99%) Network Security
3 18 (0.94%) WAN
4 16 (0.84%) LAN
5 14 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
6 13 (0.68%) VPN
7 11 (0.58%) SD-WAN
7 11 (0.58%) Unified Communications
7 11 (0.58%) VLAN
8 10 (0.52%) HTTP
9 9 (0.47%) DNS
9 9 (0.47%) Wireless
10 8 (0.42%) IPsec
11 7 (0.37%) SMS
11 7 (0.37%) TCP/IP
12 6 (0.31%) Cisco Nexus
13 5 (0.26%) DHCP
14 4 (0.21%) Broadband
14 4 (0.21%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 115 (6.02%) SQL Server
2 88 (4.61%) Power BI
3 72 (3.77%) Data Warehouse
4 65 (3.40%) PostgreSQL
5 61 (3.19%) Relational Database
6 41 (2.15%) MySQL
7 39 (2.04%) NoSQL
8 37 (1.94%) Metadata
8 37 (1.94%) Oracle Database
8 37 (1.94%) Tableau
9 33 (1.73%) MongoDB
9 33 (1.73%) Oracle Reports
10 29 (1.52%) Data Lake
11 22 (1.15%) Big Data
12 19 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
13 18 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 16 (0.84%) DynamoDB
14 16 (0.84%) RDBMS
15 15 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
15 15 (0.79%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 300 (15.71%) JIRA
2 183 (9.58%) Git
3 146 (7.64%) Selenium
4 136 (7.12%) Jenkins
5 95 (4.97%) GitLab
6 86 (4.50%) Postman
7 64 (3.35%) Cucumber
7 64 (3.35%) Cypress.io
8 58 (3.04%) JUnit
9 52 (2.72%) REST Assured
10 47 (2.46%) Zephyr
11 45 (2.36%) SonarQube
12 38 (1.99%) JMeter
13 30 (1.57%) WebDriver
14 25 (1.31%) Gatling
15 23 (1.20%) Maven
16 19 (0.99%) TestNG
16 19 (0.99%) TestRail
17 17 (0.89%) Appium
17 17 (0.89%) Gradle
General
1 575 (30.10%) Social Skills
2 417 (21.83%) Finance
3 284 (14.87%) Analytical Skills
4 218 (11.41%) Public Sector
5 141 (7.38%) Banking
6 63 (3.30%) Retail
7 61 (3.19%) Manufacturing
8 56 (2.93%) Marketing
9 49 (2.57%) Organisational Skills
10 38 (1.99%) Aerospace
11 28 (1.47%) Documentation Skills
12 25 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 23 (1.20%) Influencing Skills
13 23 (1.20%) Legal
14 21 (1.10%) Investment Banking
14 21 (1.10%) Pharmaceutical
15 19 (0.99%) Military
16 18 (0.94%) Automotive
16 18 (0.94%) Presentation Skills
17 16 (0.84%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 253 (13.25%) Developer
2 229 (11.99%) Analyst
3 221 (11.57%) Lead
3 221 (11.57%) Senior
4 174 (9.11%) QA Engineer
5 108 (5.65%) Business Analyst
6 105 (5.50%) Tester
7 90 (4.71%) Test Manager
8 71 (3.72%) Quality Engineer
9 70 (3.66%) Java Developer
10 69 (3.61%) Test Engineer
11 67 (3.51%) Architect
12 61 (3.19%) Test Leader
13 58 (3.04%) Data Engineer
14 55 (2.88%) Consultant
15 54 (2.83%) Senior Analyst
16 51 (2.67%) Data Analyst
17 50 (2.62%) Project Manager
18 46 (2.41%) Test Analyst
19 45 (2.36%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 137 (7.17%) REST
2 114 (5.97%) .NET
3 112 (5.86%) Playwright
4 107 (5.60%) RESTful
5 90 (4.71%) Spring
6 87 (4.55%) Spring Boot
7 75 (3.93%) React
8 66 (3.46%) AngularJS
8 66 (3.46%) HTML
9 61 (3.19%) CSS
10 53 (2.77%) .NET Framework
11 51 (2.67%) Kafka
12 49 (2.57%) Node.js
13 38 (1.99%) JSON
14 35 (1.83%) Middleware
15 33 (1.73%) Quarkus
16 32 (1.68%) SOAP
17 25 (1.31%) ASP.NET
17 25 (1.31%) Gherkin
17 25 (1.31%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 170 (8.90%) Product Ownership
2 86 (4.50%) Cloud Native
3 56 (2.93%) Onboarding
4 53 (2.77%) Legacy Systems
5 43 (2.25%) Distributed Systems
5 43 (2.25%) Management Information System
6 42 (2.20%) Data Protection Act
6 42 (2.20%) Mobile App
7 35 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
8 33 (1.73%) Data Structures
9 26 (1.36%) Data Centre
10 22 (1.15%) AI Agents
10 22 (1.15%) Virtual Team
11 21 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
12 18 (0.94%) NHS
12 18 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
13 15 (0.79%) Life Science
14 13 (0.68%) Derivative
14 13 (0.68%) Distributed Architecture
14 13 (0.68%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 90 (4.71%) Windows
2 57 (2.98%) Linux
3 31 (1.62%) Apple iOS
3 31 (1.62%) Windows Server
4 28 (1.47%) Android
5 23 (1.20%) Unix
6 6 (0.31%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.10%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
8 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.052%) Debian
9 1 (0.052%) Solaris
9 1 (0.052%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.052%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.052%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 725 (37.96%) Agile
2 501 (26.23%) Test Automation
3 471 (24.66%) DevOps
4 452 (23.66%) CI/CD
5 328 (17.17%) Validation
6 320 (16.75%) Continuous Improvement
7 312 (16.34%) Stakeholder Management
8 308 (16.13%) Problem-Solving
9 270 (14.14%) User Acceptance Testing
10 263 (13.77%) Test Strategy
11 262 (13.72%) Scrum
12 239 (12.51%) Migration
13 215 (11.26%) AI
14 171 (8.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 164 (8.59%) Decision-Making
16 158 (8.27%) SDLC
17 148 (7.75%) Analytics
17 148 (7.75%) Test Management
18 147 (7.70%) ETL
19 146 (7.64%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 386 (20.21%) SQL
2 248 (12.98%) Java
3 239 (12.51%) Python
4 139 (7.28%) JavaScript
5 136 (7.12%) C#
6 85 (4.45%) TypeScript
7 42 (2.20%) T-SQL
8 41 (2.15%) PL/SQL
9 31 (1.62%) Kotlin
10 30 (1.57%) PowerShell
11 25 (1.31%) Bash
12 20 (1.05%) Scala
13 19 (0.99%) VB
14 17 (0.89%) Swift
15 16 (0.84%) C
15 16 (0.84%) C++
15 16 (0.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 15 (0.79%) Bicep
16 15 (0.79%) VBA
17 13 (0.68%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 432 (22.62%) Security Cleared
2 327 (17.12%) SC Cleared
3 130 (6.81%) Degree
4 75 (3.93%) ISTQB
5 67 (3.51%) BPSS Clearance
6 51 (2.67%) DV Cleared
7 32 (1.68%) Computer Science Degree
8 30 (1.57%) PMI Certification
8 30 (1.57%) PMP
9 13 (0.68%) Master's Degree
10 12 (0.63%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 11 (0.58%) Azure Certification
11 11 (0.58%) Cisco Certification
12 10 (0.52%) AWS Certification
13 8 (0.42%) Microsoft Certification
14 7 (0.37%) CBAP
14 7 (0.37%) CCNP
15 6 (0.31%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 6 (0.31%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 5 (0.26%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 127 (6.65%) Data Quality
2 90 (4.71%) Accessibility
3 35 (1.83%) GDPR
4 33 (1.73%) PMO
5 24 (1.26%) WCAG
6 19 (0.99%) GRC
7 15 (0.79%) GxP
8 14 (0.73%) IFRS
8 14 (0.73%) NIST
8 14 (0.73%) SLA
9 13 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 12 (0.63%) IFRS 17
11 11 (0.58%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 11 (0.58%) Disclosure Scotland
11 11 (0.58%) PCI DSS
12 7 (0.37%) ISO 20022
12 7 (0.37%) NCSC
13 6 (0.31%) SEPA
14 5 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
14 5 (0.26%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 114 (5.97%) Docker
2 21 (1.10%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.37%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.31%) Firmware
5 6 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (0.21%) IAG
7 3 (0.16%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 2 (0.10%) GridGain
8 2 (0.10%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.10%) VirtualBox
8 2 (0.10%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.052%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.052%) KVM
9 1 (0.052%) QEMU
9 1 (0.052%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
9 1 (0.052%) Varnish
9 1 (0.052%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 170 (8.90%) Kubernetes
2 65 (3.40%) Terraform
3 35 (1.83%) Grafana
4 34 (1.78%) Ansible
5 33 (1.73%) Argo
6 25 (1.31%) Prometheus
7 21 (1.10%) HP ALM
8 12 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
9 10 (0.52%) HP Quality Center
10 7 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.37%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 6 (0.31%) Kibana
11 6 (0.31%) SCCM
12 5 (0.26%) Nmap
13 4 (0.21%) Puppet
14 3 (0.16%) FortiGate
14 3 (0.16%) Progress Chef
15 2 (0.10%) ITRS Geneos
15 2 (0.10%) Microsoft Intune
15 2 (0.10%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 198 (10.37%) Microsoft
2 172 (9.01%) Oracle
3 107 (5.60%) Salesforce
4 96 (5.03%) SAP
5 51 (2.67%) ServiceNow
6 38 (1.99%) Citrix
7 37 (1.94%) Google
7 37 (1.94%) Red Hat
8 36 (1.88%) Databricks
9 29 (1.52%) Adobe
10 26 (1.36%) Informatica
11 24 (1.26%) HP
12 21 (1.10%) Cisco
13 18 (0.94%) MuleSoft
14 14 (0.73%) Talend
15 13 (0.68%) Splunk
15 13 (0.68%) Workday
16 12 (0.63%) Atlassian
16 12 (0.63%) VMware
17 11 (0.58%) Infor