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 4 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 63 63
Rank change year-on-year +12 0 +8
Contract jobs citing QA 2,185 1,238 1,267
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.07% 3.83% 3.33%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.22% 22.51% 24.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,308 855 772
10th Percentile £313 £281 £300
25th Percentile £400 £375 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year - -2.56% -7.14%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £580
90th Percentile £668 £663 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -2.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 214 44 79
10th Percentile £12.85 £13.46 £11.62
25th Percentile £15.28 £14.63 £12.24
Median hourly rate £31.73 £28.77 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +10.29% +92.06% -66.16%
75th Percentile £48.75 £47.63 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £71.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £15.63 £14.98
% change year-on-year +101.34% +4.31% -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 9,408 5,500 5,125
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.54% 17.02% 13.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,979 3,522 3,123
10th Percentile £325 £290 £286
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £610 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £485
% change year-on-year +3.16% -2.06% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 586 257 271
10th Percentile £13.86 £13.60 £12.00
25th Percentile £17.03 £16.92 £14.73
Median hourly rate £34.49 £30.00 £26.56
Median % change year-on-year +14.97% +12.95% -23.57%
75th Percentile £68.56 £62.25 £59.38
90th Percentile £77.75 £82.98 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.07 £27.59 £25.00
% change year-on-year +30.74% +10.36% -27.54%

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 4 September 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 4 September 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 4 September 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 +14 1,898 £480 +1.05% 2,275
UK excluding London +17 1,065 £450 - 1,362
London +10 886 £500 - 1,182
Work from Home +5 576 £475 - 981
North of England +5 266 £475 +6.26% 339
South East +5 244 £430 -7.03% 319
Midlands +16 212 £447 +5.18% 190
West Midlands +21 172 £450 -2.17% 123
East of England +17 131 £475 -5.00% 150
South West +12 126 £495 +16.47% 158
North West -9 106 £492 +16.17% 183
Yorkshire -5 103 £500 +8.70% 92
Scotland +2 77 £380 -15.56% 129
North East -1 57 £400 -13.04% 66
East Midlands -14 39 £420 +12.00% 67
Wales -6 17 £400 -5.04% 26
Northern Ireland +1 11 £450 +10.43% 72

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
1 123 (5.63%) Confluence
2 47 (2.15%) CMS
3 37 (1.69%) SharePoint
4 20 (0.92%) IIS
5 16 (0.73%) Apache Spark
6 13 (0.59%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 12 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
8 10 (0.46%) Apache
9 8 (0.37%) SAS
9 8 (0.37%) Sitecore CMS
10 7 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.23%) Tuxedo
11 5 (0.23%) WordPress
12 4 (0.18%) Headless CMS
12 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.18%) Umbraco
13 3 (0.14%) Apache Solr
13 3 (0.14%) Microsoft Exchange
13 3 (0.14%) Moodle
13 3 (0.14%) WebLogic
Applications
1 75 (3.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.51%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (1.01%) MS Visio
5 14 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
6 13 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.41%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.23%) Navisworks
8 5 (0.23%) Revit
9 4 (0.18%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.18%) Simulink
10 3 (0.14%) CATIA
10 3 (0.14%) CPLEX
10 3 (0.14%) ProjectWise
11 2 (0.092%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.092%) Mingle
11 2 (0.092%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.046%) Autodesk Inventor
12 1 (0.046%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.046%) Trello
Business Applications
1 33 (1.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.10%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.46%) Shopify
4 9 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
5 7 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.32%) SAP GRC
5 7 (0.32%) Workday HCM
6 6 (0.27%) Aladdin
7 5 (0.23%) Infor CloudSuite
7 5 (0.23%) NEC Housing
8 4 (0.18%) iTrent
8 4 (0.18%) Maximo
8 4 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.18%) Primavera
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
9 3 (0.14%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.14%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.14%) Teamcenter
10 2 (0.092%) IntelliMatch
Cloud Services
1 452 (20.69%) Azure
2 377 (17.25%) AWS
3 207 (9.47%) GitHub
4 193 (8.83%) Azure DevOps
5 112 (5.13%) GitHub Actions
6 108 (4.94%) Power Platform
7 102 (4.67%) GCP
8 70 (3.20%) Serverless
9 49 (2.24%) SaaS
10 47 (2.15%) AWS Lambda
11 44 (2.01%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 42 (1.92%) OpenShift
13 35 (1.60%) Snowflake
14 34 (1.56%) Amazon S3
14 34 (1.56%) Dynamics 365
15 32 (1.46%) Azure Monitor
15 32 (1.46%) GitHub Copilot
16 31 (1.42%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 26 (1.19%) Power Automate
18 25 (1.14%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 25 (1.14%) Firewall
2 22 (1.01%) Internet
3 17 (0.78%) DNS
4 15 (0.69%) HTTP
5 14 (0.64%) Broadband
5 14 (0.64%) Network Security
5 14 (0.64%) TCP/IP
5 14 (0.64%) VLAN
5 14 (0.64%) WAN
6 13 (0.59%) LAN
7 12 (0.55%) VPN
8 11 (0.50%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (0.41%) DHCP
9 9 (0.41%) SD-WAN
9 9 (0.41%) Unified Communications
10 8 (0.37%) 5G
11 7 (0.32%) 4G
11 7 (0.32%) IPsec
12 6 (0.27%) SMS
12 6 (0.27%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 105 (4.81%) SQL Server
2 96 (4.39%) Power BI
3 76 (3.48%) Relational Database
4 73 (3.34%) PostgreSQL
5 67 (3.07%) Data Warehouse
6 47 (2.15%) NoSQL
7 46 (2.11%) MongoDB
8 45 (2.06%) Metadata
9 44 (2.01%) Oracle Database
10 39 (1.78%) MySQL
11 36 (1.65%) Tableau
12 33 (1.51%) Oracle Reports
13 30 (1.37%) Data Lake
14 21 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 19 (0.87%) Big Data
16 18 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
17 15 (0.69%) BigQuery
17 15 (0.69%) RDBMS
18 14 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
18 14 (0.64%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 302 (13.82%) JIRA
2 217 (9.93%) Git
3 161 (7.37%) Selenium
4 155 (7.09%) Jenkins
5 123 (5.63%) GitLab
6 83 (3.80%) Postman
7 74 (3.39%) Cypress.io
8 70 (3.20%) Cucumber
9 58 (2.65%) JUnit
10 54 (2.47%) SonarQube
11 52 (2.38%) Zephyr
12 44 (2.01%) JMeter
13 41 (1.88%) REST Assured
14 35 (1.60%) Gatling
15 28 (1.28%) Maven
15 28 (1.28%) WebDriver
16 22 (1.01%) Appium
16 22 (1.01%) Gradle
16 22 (1.01%) TestRail
17 20 (0.92%) Bitbucket
General
1 659 (30.16%) Social Skills
2 425 (19.45%) Finance
3 355 (16.25%) Analytical Skills
4 276 (12.63%) Public Sector
5 156 (7.14%) Banking
6 75 (3.43%) Manufacturing
7 74 (3.39%) Retail
8 64 (2.93%) Marketing
9 58 (2.65%) Organisational Skills
10 48 (2.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 42 (1.92%) Aerospace
12 36 (1.65%) Influencing Skills
13 33 (1.51%) Telecoms
14 32 (1.46%) Documentation Skills
15 31 (1.42%) Legal
16 24 (1.10%) Law
17 21 (0.96%) Military
17 21 (0.96%) Pharmaceutical
18 19 (0.87%) Local Government
19 18 (0.82%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 286 (13.09%) Developer
2 281 (12.86%) Lead
3 263 (12.04%) Analyst
4 261 (11.95%) Senior
5 231 (10.57%) QA Engineer
6 117 (5.35%) Quality Engineer
7 116 (5.31%) Business Analyst
8 111 (5.08%) Tester
9 99 (4.53%) Test Manager
10 91 (4.16%) Test Engineer
11 72 (3.30%) Java Developer
12 71 (3.25%) Data Engineer
13 70 (3.20%) Test Leader
14 66 (3.02%) QA Leader
15 57 (2.61%) Architect
16 56 (2.56%) Senior Analyst
17 55 (2.52%) Consultant
18 53 (2.43%) Test Analyst
19 51 (2.33%) QA Tester
20 50 (2.29%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 180 (8.24%) REST
2 133 (6.09%) RESTful
3 131 (6.00%) Playwright
4 106 (4.85%) Spring
5 101 (4.62%) .NET
6 98 (4.49%) Spring Boot
7 95 (4.35%) Terraform
8 83 (3.80%) HTML
9 81 (3.71%) React
10 74 (3.39%) AngularJS
10 74 (3.39%) Kafka
11 73 (3.34%) CSS
12 63 (2.88%) Node.js
13 57 (2.61%) Middleware
14 47 (2.15%) SOAP
15 45 (2.06%) pytest
16 44 (2.01%) .NET Framework
17 38 (1.74%) JSON
18 34 (1.56%) Quarkus
18 34 (1.56%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 198 (9.06%) Product Ownership
2 124 (5.68%) Cloud Native
3 71 (3.25%) Onboarding
4 60 (2.75%) Management Information System
5 57 (2.61%) Enterprise Software
6 53 (2.43%) Distributed Systems
6 53 (2.43%) Legacy Systems
7 51 (2.33%) Mobile App
8 44 (2.01%) Data Protection Act
9 41 (1.88%) Data Structures
10 36 (1.65%) Data Centre
11 35 (1.60%) AI Agents
12 27 (1.24%) NHS
13 25 (1.14%) Low-Code
14 22 (1.01%) CMDB
15 20 (0.92%) Virtual Team
16 18 (0.82%) Educational Technology
17 17 (0.78%) Analytical Mindset
18 15 (0.69%) Self-Motivation
19 14 (0.64%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 94 (4.30%) Windows
2 64 (2.93%) Linux
3 49 (2.24%) Apple iOS
4 44 (2.01%) Android
5 32 (1.46%) Unix
6 29 (1.33%) Windows Server
7 8 (0.37%) VMS
8 7 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.23%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.092%) Oracle Linux
10 2 (0.092%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.092%) zOS
11 1 (0.046%) AIX
11 1 (0.046%) CentOS
11 1 (0.046%) Debian
11 1 (0.046%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.046%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.046%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.046%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 844 (38.63%) Agile
2 605 (27.69%) Test Automation
3 541 (24.76%) DevOps
4 540 (24.71%) CI/CD
5 430 (19.68%) Stakeholder Management
6 420 (19.22%) Continuous Improvement
7 380 (17.39%) Problem-Solving
8 379 (17.35%) Validation
9 321 (14.69%) Scrum
10 309 (14.14%) Test Strategy
11 301 (13.78%) AI
12 284 (13.00%) User Acceptance Testing
13 260 (11.90%) Migration
14 196 (8.97%) SDLC
15 192 (8.79%) End-to-End Testing
16 189 (8.65%) Microservices
17 186 (8.51%) Software Engineering
18 185 (8.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 176 (8.05%) Decision-Making
20 166 (7.60%) Defect Management
Programming Languages
1 413 (18.90%) SQL
2 290 (13.27%) Python
3 265 (12.13%) Java
4 167 (7.64%) JavaScript
5 110 (5.03%) C#
6 81 (3.71%) TypeScript
7 51 (2.33%) Bash
8 42 (1.92%) PowerShell
9 33 (1.51%) PL/SQL
10 27 (1.24%) Kotlin
10 27 (1.24%) T-SQL
11 21 (0.96%) Scala
12 19 (0.87%) Swift
13 17 (0.78%) C
14 16 (0.73%) Apex Code
14 16 (0.73%) Objective-C
14 16 (0.73%) Shell Script
14 16 (0.73%) VB
15 15 (0.69%) C++
15 15 (0.69%) R
Qualifications
1 521 (23.84%) Security Cleared
2 403 (18.44%) SC Cleared
3 137 (6.27%) Degree
4 94 (4.30%) BPSS Clearance
5 72 (3.30%) ISTQB
6 60 (2.75%) DV Cleared
7 38 (1.74%) Computer Science Degree
8 24 (1.10%) PMP
9 23 (1.05%) PMI Certification
10 15 (0.69%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.64%) AWS Certification
12 13 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
13 11 (0.50%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 11 (0.50%) Master's Degree
14 10 (0.46%) Cisco Certification
14 10 (0.46%) ITIL Certification
15 9 (0.41%) IIBA
15 9 (0.41%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 8 (0.37%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
16 8 (0.37%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 161 (7.37%) Data Quality
2 115 (5.26%) Accessibility
3 34 (1.56%) GDPR
4 32 (1.46%) WCAG
5 30 (1.37%) PMO
6 26 (1.19%) GRC
7 16 (0.73%) GxP
8 14 (0.64%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 13 (0.59%) NIST
10 10 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 9 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
11 9 (0.41%) Disclosure Scotland
11 9 (0.41%) SLA
12 8 (0.37%) IFRS
12 8 (0.37%) Software Quality Assurance
13 7 (0.32%) ISO 19650
13 7 (0.32%) NCSC
14 6 (0.27%) ISO 9001
15 5 (0.23%) GMP
15 5 (0.23%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 168 (7.69%) Docker
2 23 (1.05%) Active Directory
3 18 (0.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.46%) IAG
4 10 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (0.27%) Firmware
6 4 (0.18%) ACF2
6 4 (0.18%) RACF
6 4 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.14%) KVM
7 3 (0.14%) VirtualBox
8 2 (0.092%) GridGain
8 2 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.046%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.046%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.046%) QEMU
9 1 (0.046%) Varnish
9 1 (0.046%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.046%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.046%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 209 (9.57%) Kubernetes
2 60 (2.75%) Ansible
3 48 (2.20%) Grafana
4 36 (1.65%) Argo
5 33 (1.51%) Prometheus
6 12 (0.55%) HP ALM
7 9 (0.41%) SCCM
7 9 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (0.37%) HP Quality Center
8 8 (0.37%) Microsoft Clustering
9 7 (0.32%) Oracle RMAN
9 7 (0.32%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 6 (0.27%) Microsoft Intune
10 6 (0.27%) Puppet
11 5 (0.23%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.18%) SCOM
13 3 (0.14%) FortiGate
14 2 (0.092%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.092%) Kibana
15 1 (0.046%) Salt
Vendors
1 244 (11.17%) Microsoft
2 169 (7.73%) Oracle
3 117 (5.35%) Salesforce
4 85 (3.89%) SAP
5 61 (2.79%) ServiceNow
6 46 (2.11%) Google
7 39 (1.78%) Databricks
8 37 (1.69%) Red Hat
9 27 (1.24%) Citrix
9 27 (1.24%) Dynatrace
10 25 (1.14%) Informatica
11 24 (1.10%) Adobe
12 23 (1.05%) Splunk
13 22 (1.01%) Cisco
13 22 (1.01%) VMware
14 17 (0.78%) IBM
14 17 (0.78%) Sitecore
15 15 (0.69%) HP
15 15 (0.69%) MuleSoft
15 15 (0.69%) Talend