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 11 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 61 64 57
Rank change year-on-year +3 -7 +18
Contract jobs citing QA 1,826 1,076 1,450
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.66% 3.66% 3.32%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 21.87% 22.73% 24.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,128 749 945
10th Percentile £322 £281 £313
25th Percentile £397 £384 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £509
Median % change year-on-year - -6.68% +0.20%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £601
90th Percentile £669 £675 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £460 £500
% change year-on-year -2.17% -8.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 135 27 101
10th Percentile £13.02 £13.49 £10.86
25th Percentile £15.82 £15.21 £12.24
Median hourly rate £30.58 £35.00 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.63% +150.00% -37.74%
75th Percentile £67.50 £70.50 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £71.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.58 £53.00 £13.52
% change year-on-year -42.30% +292.01% -28.84%

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 8,349 4,734 5,997
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.73% 16.12% 13.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,343 3,009 3,752
10th Percentile £344 £275 £281
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 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £717 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -2.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 495 196 428
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.12 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.50 £13.18
Median hourly rate £36.00 £32.50 £23.30
Median % change year-on-year +10.77% +39.51% -39.82%
75th Percentile £67.50 £67.50 £48.75
90th Percentile £82.11 £83.08 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £32.50 £19.17
% change year-on-year +23.08% +69.54% -50.27%

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 11 June 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 11 June 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 11 June 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 +3 1,564 £480 +1.05% 719
UK excluding London +13 845 £450 -2.17% 565
London +9 783 £500 +0.25% 233
Work from Home +3 520 £488 -1.52% 368
South East +8 196 £450 -5.26% 182
North of England -26 183 £463 -2.63% 141
Midlands -14 172 £425 +13.33% 90
West Midlands -5 127 £442 +3.88% 48
South West +25 114 £491 -1.75% 67
East of England +15 83 £475 -0.78% 58
Scotland +12 82 £380 -16.71% 18
North West -26 81 £440 +0.46% 75
Yorkshire -26 71 £520 -0.05% 45
East Midlands -17 46 £393 +6.39% 42
North East -10 31 £413 -1.79% 23
Northern Ireland +11 20 £463 +42.31% 13
Wales -9 11 £450 -14.29% 14

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 93 (5.09%) Confluence
2 32 (1.75%) SharePoint
3 28 (1.53%) CMS
4 18 (0.99%) IIS
5 15 (0.82%) Apache Spark
6 14 (0.77%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 7 (0.38%) Apache
7 7 (0.38%) SAS
8 6 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
9 5 (0.27%) Tuxedo
9 5 (0.27%) Umbraco
10 4 (0.22%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.22%) nginx
10 4 (0.22%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
11 3 (0.16%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.16%) Moodle
11 3 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.16%) Tomcat
12 2 (0.11%) Luigi
12 2 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 57 (3.12%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (1.75%) Microsoft Office
3 25 (1.37%) Microsoft Project
4 24 (1.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 21 (1.15%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.22%) Photoshop
8 3 (0.16%) CATIA
8 3 (0.16%) Simulink
9 2 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.11%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.11%) Chatbot
9 2 (0.11%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.11%) EPLAN
10 1 (0.055%) Adobe Premiere
10 1 (0.055%) Camtasia
10 1 (0.055%) Mingle
10 1 (0.055%) Navisworks
10 1 (0.055%) Notion
10 1 (0.055%) Revit
Business Applications
1 28 (1.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.44%) Shopify
4 7 (0.38%) Workday HCM
5 6 (0.33%) Maximo
5 6 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
6 5 (0.27%) Infor CloudSuite
6 5 (0.27%) NEC Housing
7 4 (0.22%) Adobe Campaign
7 4 (0.22%) Primavera
7 4 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.16%) Actimize
8 3 (0.16%) Aladdin
8 3 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
9 2 (0.11%) iTrent
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle Assets
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 2 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
9 2 (0.11%) SAP EWM
9 2 (0.11%) SAP Retail
Cloud Services
1 399 (21.85%) Azure
2 294 (16.10%) AWS
3 166 (9.09%) Azure DevOps
4 149 (8.16%) GitHub
5 105 (5.75%) Power Platform
6 95 (5.20%) GitHub Actions
7 79 (4.33%) GCP
8 48 (2.63%) Serverless
9 40 (2.19%) OpenShift
10 37 (2.03%) SaaS
11 36 (1.97%) Dynamics 365
12 32 (1.75%) AWS Lambda
13 30 (1.64%) Amazon S3
14 29 (1.59%) Snowflake
15 26 (1.42%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 23 (1.26%) Azure Data Factory
17 20 (1.10%) Amazon EKS
17 20 (1.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 19 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
18 19 (1.04%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.31%) Firewall
2 20 (1.10%) LAN
3 19 (1.04%) Network Security
3 19 (1.04%) WAN
4 18 (0.99%) Internet
4 18 (0.99%) Wi-Fi
5 13 (0.71%) VPN
6 12 (0.66%) Wireless
7 11 (0.60%) DNS
7 11 (0.60%) SD-WAN
7 11 (0.60%) Unified Communications
7 11 (0.60%) VLAN
8 9 (0.49%) HTTP
9 8 (0.44%) IPsec
10 7 (0.38%) SMS
11 6 (0.33%) Cisco Nexus
11 6 (0.33%) TCP/IP
12 5 (0.27%) DHCP
13 4 (0.22%) MPLS
14 2 (0.11%) IPv4
Database & Business Intelligence
1 111 (6.08%) SQL Server
2 91 (4.98%) Power BI
3 71 (3.89%) Data Warehouse
4 64 (3.50%) PostgreSQL
5 55 (3.01%) Relational Database
6 47 (2.57%) MySQL
7 41 (2.25%) NoSQL
8 37 (2.03%) Tableau
9 33 (1.81%) Data Lake
9 33 (1.81%) Metadata
9 33 (1.81%) Oracle Database
10 32 (1.75%) Oracle Reports
11 25 (1.37%) MongoDB
12 24 (1.31%) Big Data
13 19 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
13 19 (1.04%) DynamoDB
14 17 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 16 (0.88%) BigQuery
16 14 (0.77%) Amazon Redshift
16 14 (0.77%) Redis
Development Applications
1 292 (15.99%) JIRA
2 173 (9.47%) Git
3 140 (7.67%) Selenium
4 129 (7.06%) Jenkins
5 98 (5.37%) GitLab
6 86 (4.71%) Postman
7 65 (3.56%) Cucumber
8 56 (3.07%) Cypress.io
9 52 (2.85%) JUnit
10 50 (2.74%) REST Assured
11 44 (2.41%) Zephyr
12 41 (2.25%) SonarQube
13 35 (1.92%) JMeter
14 31 (1.70%) WebDriver
15 23 (1.26%) Gatling
16 22 (1.20%) TestRail
17 17 (0.93%) Maven
17 17 (0.93%) TestNG
18 16 (0.88%) Gradle
19 15 (0.82%) Appium
General
1 554 (30.34%) Social Skills
2 417 (22.84%) Finance
3 251 (13.75%) Analytical Skills
4 205 (11.23%) Public Sector
5 146 (8.00%) Banking
6 60 (3.29%) Retail
7 50 (2.74%) Marketing
8 49 (2.68%) Manufacturing
9 46 (2.52%) Organisational Skills
10 36 (1.97%) Aerospace
11 28 (1.53%) Documentation Skills
12 25 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
13 23 (1.26%) Investment Banking
14 22 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 22 (1.20%) Military
15 19 (1.04%) Legal
16 16 (0.88%) Pharmaceutical
17 15 (0.82%) Automotive
17 15 (0.82%) Front Office
18 14 (0.77%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 224 (12.27%) Developer
2 220 (12.05%) Analyst
3 214 (11.72%) Lead
4 209 (11.45%) Senior
5 163 (8.93%) QA Engineer
6 115 (6.30%) Business Analyst
7 100 (5.48%) Tester
8 86 (4.71%) Test Manager
9 70 (3.83%) Architect
10 67 (3.67%) Quality Engineer
11 65 (3.56%) Test Engineer
12 62 (3.40%) Project Manager
13 59 (3.23%) Data Engineer
13 59 (3.23%) Java Developer
14 53 (2.90%) Test Leader
15 52 (2.85%) Data Analyst
16 51 (2.79%) Senior Analyst
17 45 (2.46%) Software Engineer
18 42 (2.30%) Consultant
18 42 (2.30%) QA Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 131 (7.17%) REST
2 114 (6.24%) .NET
3 101 (5.53%) RESTful
4 96 (5.26%) Playwright
5 78 (4.27%) Spring
6 73 (4.00%) Spring Boot
7 70 (3.83%) React
8 64 (3.50%) HTML
9 58 (3.18%) CSS
10 57 (3.12%) AngularJS
11 53 (2.90%) Kafka
12 51 (2.79%) .NET Framework
13 49 (2.68%) Node.js
14 36 (1.97%) JSON
15 30 (1.64%) Quarkus
16 26 (1.42%) Middleware
17 24 (1.31%) Gherkin
17 24 (1.31%) pytest
18 23 (1.26%) OAuth
18 23 (1.26%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 150 (8.21%) Product Ownership
2 75 (4.11%) Cloud Native
3 52 (2.85%) Legacy Systems
4 49 (2.68%) Onboarding
5 46 (2.52%) Distributed Systems
6 41 (2.25%) Data Protection Act
7 38 (2.08%) Mobile App
8 30 (1.64%) Management Information System
9 28 (1.53%) Data Structures
10 27 (1.48%) Virtual Team
11 24 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
12 23 (1.26%) Data Centre
13 21 (1.15%) Analytical Mindset
14 19 (1.04%) PMI
15 18 (0.99%) Self-Motivation
16 17 (0.93%) AI Agents
17 14 (0.77%) Legacy Code
17 14 (0.77%) NHS
18 13 (0.71%) Derivative
18 13 (0.71%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 82 (4.49%) Windows
2 57 (3.12%) Linux
3 29 (1.59%) Windows Server
4 28 (1.53%) Android
5 27 (1.48%) Apple iOS
6 19 (1.04%) Unix
7 6 (0.33%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
9 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.055%) Debian
10 1 (0.055%) Solaris
10 1 (0.055%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.055%) VMS
10 1 (0.055%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.055%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 681 (37.29%) Agile
2 460 (25.19%) Test Automation
3 441 (24.15%) DevOps
4 428 (23.44%) CI/CD
5 300 (16.43%) Stakeholder Management
6 299 (16.37%) Validation
7 280 (15.33%) Continuous Improvement
8 273 (14.95%) Problem-Solving
9 263 (14.40%) User Acceptance Testing
10 242 (13.25%) Scrum
11 236 (12.92%) Test Strategy
12 225 (12.32%) Migration
13 177 (9.69%) AI
14 167 (9.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 156 (8.54%) ETL
16 146 (8.00%) Decision-Making
17 144 (7.89%) SDLC
18 141 (7.72%) Analytics
19 140 (7.67%) Data Migration
20 138 (7.56%) Test Management
Programming Languages
1 373 (20.43%) SQL
2 237 (12.98%) Python
3 232 (12.71%) Java
4 134 (7.34%) JavaScript
5 131 (7.17%) C#
6 86 (4.71%) TypeScript
7 42 (2.30%) T-SQL
8 40 (2.19%) PL/SQL
9 32 (1.75%) Kotlin
10 28 (1.53%) PowerShell
11 24 (1.31%) Bash
12 20 (1.10%) Scala
13 18 (0.99%) VB
14 16 (0.88%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 16 (0.88%) Swift
15 15 (0.82%) Bicep
15 15 (0.82%) C
15 15 (0.82%) C++
15 15 (0.82%) PHP
16 11 (0.60%) VBA
Qualifications
1 406 (22.23%) Security Cleared
2 296 (16.21%) SC Cleared
3 137 (7.50%) Degree
4 73 (4.00%) ISTQB
5 62 (3.40%) BPSS Clearance
6 51 (2.79%) DV Cleared
7 40 (2.19%) PMI Certification
8 37 (2.03%) PMP
9 33 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
10 19 (1.04%) Master's Degree
11 14 (0.77%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 11 (0.60%) Cisco Certification
13 9 (0.49%) AWS Certification
13 9 (0.49%) CBAP
14 8 (0.44%) Azure Certification
15 7 (0.38%) APMP
15 7 (0.38%) CHECK Team Member
15 7 (0.38%) CREST Certified
15 7 (0.38%) Cyber Scheme
15 7 (0.38%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 132 (7.23%) Data Quality
2 82 (4.49%) Accessibility
3 41 (2.25%) PMO
4 33 (1.81%) GDPR
5 21 (1.15%) WCAG
6 19 (1.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 17 (0.93%) IFRS
8 16 (0.88%) GRC
8 16 (0.88%) NIST
8 16 (0.88%) PCI DSS
9 15 (0.82%) IFRS 17
10 14 (0.77%) SLA
11 11 (0.60%) Disclosure Scotland
11 11 (0.60%) GxP
12 8 (0.44%) ISO 20022
13 7 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
13 7 (0.38%) SEPA
14 6 (0.33%) Basel III
14 6 (0.33%) PSD2
14 6 (0.33%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 112 (6.13%) Docker
2 16 (0.88%) Active Directory
3 12 (0.66%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.38%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.27%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (0.22%) Firmware
7 3 (0.16%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 2 (0.11%) GridGain
8 2 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.11%) VirtualBox
8 2 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.055%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.055%) KVM
9 1 (0.055%) QEMU
9 1 (0.055%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
9 1 (0.055%) Varnish
9 1 (0.055%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 152 (8.32%) Kubernetes
2 69 (3.78%) Terraform
3 36 (1.97%) Grafana
4 32 (1.75%) Argo
5 28 (1.53%) Ansible
5 28 (1.53%) Prometheus
6 18 (0.99%) HP ALM
7 10 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (0.44%) HP Quality Center
8 8 (0.44%) Nmap
9 7 (0.38%) Oracle RMAN
10 6 (0.33%) Puppet
11 5 (0.27%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 4 (0.22%) Kibana
13 3 (0.16%) Progress Chef
14 2 (0.11%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.11%) SCCM
15 1 (0.055%) Cisco Prime
15 1 (0.055%) Microsoft Intune
15 1 (0.055%) Salt
Vendors
1 184 (10.08%) Microsoft
2 164 (8.98%) Oracle
3 100 (5.48%) Salesforce
4 92 (5.04%) SAP
5 49 (2.68%) ServiceNow
6 37 (2.03%) Citrix
6 37 (2.03%) Google
7 34 (1.86%) Databricks
8 32 (1.75%) Adobe
8 32 (1.75%) Red Hat
9 23 (1.26%) Informatica
10 21 (1.15%) Cisco
10 21 (1.15%) HP
11 16 (0.88%) MuleSoft
12 13 (0.71%) Talend
13 12 (0.66%) VMware
13 12 (0.66%) Workday
14 11 (0.60%) Infor
15 10 (0.55%) IBM
15 10 (0.55%) Pega