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

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 60 65
Rank change year-on-year +9 +5 +8
Contract jobs citing QA 2,078 1,306 1,253
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.89% 3.97% 3.22%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.62% 23.27% 23.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,262 916 796
10th Percentile £313 £281 £309
25th Percentile £393 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year - -2.66% -6.60%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £575
90th Percentile £675 £663 £695
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £478
% change year-on-year - -5.76% +0.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 183 38 77
10th Percentile £12.81 £12.61 £11.19
25th Percentile £16.53 £13.50 £12.24
Median hourly rate £32.40 £17.66 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +83.41% +17.91% -64.62%
75th Percentile £60.00 £47.88 £40.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £64.13 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.40 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +114.25% +0.93% -65.67%

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 9,186 5,613 5,259
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.20% 17.05% 13.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,894 3,610 3,255
10th Percentile £328 £280 £290
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year - -0.99% -3.81%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £625
90th Percentile £703 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +4.21% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 559 260 315
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.59 £11.22
25th Percentile £18.56 £17.43 £14.49
Median hourly rate £40.00 £27.91 £26.56
Median % change year-on-year +43.32% +5.08% -31.39%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.31 £55.00
90th Percentile £80.38 £85.30 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £25.00 £25.77
% change year-on-year +60.00% -2.97% -27.42%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 +9 1,803 £481 +1.16% 1,299
UK excluding London +12 1,009 £450 - 845
London +4 849 £500 - 582
Work from Home -1 564 £475 - 488
North of England -3 252 £500 +11.11% 239
South East -2 231 £445 -5.07% 231
Midlands +8 209 £425 +3.66% 121
West Midlands +10 165 £425 -4.49% 83
South West +6 121 £485 +10.86% 89
East of England +11 107 £475 -0.78% 77
North West -8 105 £492 +15.76% 136
Yorkshire -12 95 £520 +3.90% 57
Scotland +1 78 £334 -26.74% 57
North East -8 52 £400 -13.04% 47
East Midlands -4 43 £438 +17.92% 38
Northern Ireland +7 16 £450 +23.71% 23
Wales -5 13 £400 -22.71% 27

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
1 111 (5.34%) Confluence
2 42 (2.02%) CMS
3 36 (1.73%) SharePoint
4 20 (0.96%) IIS
5 17 (0.82%) Apache Spark
6 15 (0.72%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 12 (0.58%) Apache
7 12 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
8 9 (0.43%) SAS
9 6 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
10 5 (0.24%) Tuxedo
10 5 (0.24%) WordPress
11 4 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
11 4 (0.19%) Umbraco
12 3 (0.14%) Apache Solr
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.096%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.096%) Tomcat
Applications
1 56 (2.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (1.20%) Microsoft Office
3 20 (0.96%) MS Visio
4 17 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (0.82%) Microsoft Project
5 10 (0.48%) Chatbot
6 8 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.19%) Navisworks
7 4 (0.19%) Revit
7 4 (0.19%) Simulink
8 3 (0.14%) AutoCAD
8 3 (0.14%) CATIA
8 3 (0.14%) CPLEX
8 3 (0.14%) Photoshop
9 2 (0.096%) EPLAN
9 2 (0.096%) ProjectWise
10 1 (0.048%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.048%) Gliffy
10 1 (0.048%) Mingle
10 1 (0.048%) Notion
Business Applications
1 33 (1.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.25%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.53%) Shopify
4 9 (0.43%) Workday HCM
5 8 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
7 5 (0.24%) Aladdin
7 5 (0.24%) Infor CloudSuite
7 5 (0.24%) Maximo
7 5 (0.24%) NEC Housing
8 4 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.19%) Primavera
9 3 (0.14%) Actimize
9 3 (0.14%) Adobe Campaign
9 3 (0.14%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.14%) SAP MM
10 2 (0.096%) SAP Retail
10 2 (0.096%) Summit
10 2 (0.096%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 435 (20.93%) Azure
2 366 (17.61%) AWS
3 190 (9.14%) GitHub
4 179 (8.61%) Azure DevOps
5 108 (5.20%) GitHub Actions
6 107 (5.15%) Power Platform
7 98 (4.72%) GCP
8 53 (2.55%) Serverless
9 45 (2.17%) SaaS
10 38 (1.83%) OpenShift
11 37 (1.78%) Dynamics 365
12 36 (1.73%) Snowflake
13 35 (1.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 33 (1.59%) AWS Lambda
15 29 (1.40%) GitHub Copilot
16 28 (1.35%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 26 (1.25%) Amazon S3
17 26 (1.25%) Azure Monitor
18 25 (1.20%) Microsoft 365
19 21 (1.01%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.15%) Firewall
2 20 (0.96%) Internet
3 19 (0.91%) Network Security
4 15 (0.72%) WAN
5 14 (0.67%) LAN
6 13 (0.63%) DNS
6 13 (0.63%) VLAN
6 13 (0.63%) VPN
7 12 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
8 11 (0.53%) TCP/IP
8 11 (0.53%) Unified Communications
9 10 (0.48%) Broadband
9 10 (0.48%) HTTP
9 10 (0.48%) SD-WAN
10 8 (0.38%) IPsec
11 7 (0.34%) DHCP
11 7 (0.34%) SMS
11 7 (0.34%) Wireless
12 6 (0.29%) 5G
12 6 (0.29%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (5.39%) SQL Server
2 91 (4.38%) Power BI
3 83 (3.99%) Data Warehouse
4 70 (3.37%) PostgreSQL
5 65 (3.13%) Relational Database
6 43 (2.07%) Metadata
7 42 (2.02%) NoSQL
8 41 (1.97%) Oracle Reports
9 40 (1.92%) MongoDB
10 37 (1.78%) MySQL
11 35 (1.68%) Oracle Database
11 35 (1.68%) Tableau
12 31 (1.49%) Data Lake
13 26 (1.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 21 (1.01%) Big Data
15 17 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
16 15 (0.72%) BigQuery
16 15 (0.72%) RDBMS
17 14 (0.67%) Amazon Redshift
17 14 (0.67%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 289 (13.91%) JIRA
2 200 (9.62%) Git
3 150 (7.22%) Selenium
4 142 (6.83%) Jenkins
5 106 (5.10%) GitLab
6 91 (4.38%) Postman
7 66 (3.18%) Cypress.io
8 64 (3.08%) Cucumber
9 60 (2.89%) Zephyr
10 59 (2.84%) JUnit
11 50 (2.41%) SonarQube
12 43 (2.07%) REST Assured
13 35 (1.68%) JMeter
14 28 (1.35%) Gatling
15 27 (1.30%) WebDriver
16 26 (1.25%) Maven
17 24 (1.15%) Appium
18 23 (1.11%) Gradle
19 22 (1.06%) TestRail
20 18 (0.87%) TestNG
General
1 625 (30.08%) Social Skills
2 411 (19.78%) Finance
3 316 (15.21%) Analytical Skills
4 254 (12.22%) Public Sector
5 144 (6.93%) Banking
6 76 (3.66%) Retail
7 74 (3.56%) Manufacturing
8 57 (2.74%) Marketing
9 55 (2.65%) Organisational Skills
10 45 (2.17%) Aerospace
11 40 (1.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 29 (1.40%) Legal
13 28 (1.35%) Documentation Skills
14 27 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
15 24 (1.15%) Telecoms
16 22 (1.06%) Law
17 21 (1.01%) Pharmaceutical
18 20 (0.96%) Automotive
18 20 (0.96%) Military
19 16 (0.77%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 270 (12.99%) Developer
1 270 (12.99%) Lead
2 248 (11.93%) Senior
3 242 (11.65%) Analyst
4 214 (10.30%) QA Engineer
5 119 (5.73%) Business Analyst
6 112 (5.39%) Tester
7 103 (4.96%) Quality Engineer
8 90 (4.33%) Test Manager
9 81 (3.90%) Test Engineer
10 72 (3.46%) Test Leader
11 69 (3.32%) Java Developer
12 64 (3.08%) Data Engineer
13 61 (2.94%) Architect
14 55 (2.65%) Consultant
15 54 (2.60%) QA Leader
16 53 (2.55%) Senior Analyst
17 52 (2.50%) Data Analyst
17 52 (2.50%) QA Tester
18 50 (2.41%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 160 (7.70%) REST
2 119 (5.73%) Playwright
3 117 (5.63%) RESTful
4 104 (5.00%) .NET
5 95 (4.57%) Spring
6 89 (4.28%) Spring Boot
7 78 (3.75%) React
8 74 (3.56%) HTML
9 69 (3.32%) AngularJS
10 67 (3.22%) CSS
11 60 (2.89%) Node.js
12 59 (2.84%) Kafka
13 48 (2.31%) Middleware
14 46 (2.21%) .NET Framework
15 42 (2.02%) SOAP
16 41 (1.97%) JSON
17 34 (1.64%) Quarkus
18 32 (1.54%) XML
19 29 (1.40%) OAuth
19 29 (1.40%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 182 (8.76%) Product Ownership
2 112 (5.39%) Cloud Native
3 64 (3.08%) Onboarding
4 56 (2.69%) Legacy Systems
5 50 (2.41%) Management Information System
6 46 (2.21%) Distributed Systems
6 46 (2.21%) Enterprise Software
7 43 (2.07%) Data Protection Act
7 43 (2.07%) Mobile App
8 36 (1.73%) Data Centre
8 36 (1.73%) Data Structures
9 32 (1.54%) AI Agents
10 25 (1.20%) NHS
11 20 (0.96%) Virtual Team
12 18 (0.87%) Analytical Mindset
13 17 (0.82%) Low-Code
14 16 (0.77%) CMDB
15 15 (0.72%) Educational Technology
16 14 (0.67%) Life Science
16 14 (0.67%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 93 (4.48%) Windows
2 62 (2.98%) Linux
3 43 (2.07%) Apple iOS
4 42 (2.02%) Android
5 30 (1.44%) Windows Server
6 24 (1.15%) Unix
7 6 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.24%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.14%) VMS
10 2 (0.096%) Oracle Linux
10 2 (0.096%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.048%) Debian
11 1 (0.048%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.048%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.048%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.048%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 797 (38.35%) Agile
2 572 (27.53%) Test Automation
3 513 (24.69%) DevOps
4 508 (24.45%) CI/CD
5 381 (18.33%) Continuous Improvement
6 378 (18.19%) Stakeholder Management
7 356 (17.13%) Validation
8 347 (16.70%) Problem-Solving
9 297 (14.29%) Scrum
10 288 (13.86%) Test Strategy
11 270 (12.99%) AI
12 268 (12.90%) User Acceptance Testing
13 257 (12.37%) Migration
14 190 (9.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 173 (8.33%) SDLC
16 172 (8.28%) Microservices
17 171 (8.23%) Decision-Making
17 171 (8.23%) End-to-End Testing
18 168 (8.08%) Software Engineering
19 164 (7.89%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 398 (19.15%) SQL
2 268 (12.90%) Python
3 253 (12.18%) Java
4 147 (7.07%) JavaScript
5 114 (5.49%) C#
6 74 (3.56%) TypeScript
7 42 (2.02%) PowerShell
8 40 (1.92%) Bash
9 39 (1.88%) PL/SQL
10 36 (1.73%) T-SQL
11 33 (1.59%) Kotlin
12 21 (1.01%) Scala
13 17 (0.82%) C
14 16 (0.77%) Apex Code
14 16 (0.77%) Swift
14 16 (0.77%) VB
15 15 (0.72%) C++
16 14 (0.67%) VBA
17 13 (0.63%) Bicep
17 13 (0.63%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 462 (22.23%) Security Cleared
2 356 (17.13%) SC Cleared
3 129 (6.21%) Degree
4 76 (3.66%) ISTQB
5 71 (3.42%) BPSS Clearance
6 54 (2.60%) DV Cleared
7 39 (1.88%) Computer Science Degree
8 23 (1.11%) PMP
9 22 (1.06%) PMI Certification
10 17 (0.82%) AWS Certification
11 14 (0.67%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.67%) Microsoft Certification
12 10 (0.48%) Cisco Certification
12 10 (0.48%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 9 (0.43%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 8 (0.38%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 8 (0.38%) Master's Degree
14 8 (0.38%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 7 (0.34%) IIBA
16 6 (0.29%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 158 (7.60%) Data Quality
2 102 (4.91%) Accessibility
3 36 (1.73%) GDPR
4 29 (1.40%) PMO
4 29 (1.40%) WCAG
5 20 (0.96%) GRC
6 16 (0.77%) GxP
7 13 (0.63%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 10 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
8 10 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
8 10 (0.48%) NIST
9 9 (0.43%) IFRS
9 9 (0.43%) SLA
10 8 (0.38%) PCI DSS
10 8 (0.38%) Software Quality Assurance
11 7 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 6 (0.29%) GMP
12 6 (0.29%) IFRS 17
12 6 (0.29%) ISO 19650
12 6 (0.29%) NCSC
System Software
1 143 (6.88%) Docker
2 26 (1.25%) Active Directory
3 16 (0.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (0.34%) IAG
6 6 (0.29%) Firmware
6 6 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.14%) KVM
7 3 (0.14%) VirtualBox
8 2 (0.096%) ACF2
8 2 (0.096%) GridGain
8 2 (0.096%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.096%) RACF
9 1 (0.048%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.048%) QEMU
9 1 (0.048%) Varnish
9 1 (0.048%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.048%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.048%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 194 (9.34%) Kubernetes
2 87 (4.19%) Terraform
3 50 (2.41%) Ansible
4 44 (2.12%) Grafana
5 34 (1.64%) Argo
6 31 (1.49%) Prometheus
7 15 (0.72%) HP ALM
8 14 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.38%) HP Quality Center
10 7 (0.34%) Microsoft Clustering
10 7 (0.34%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.34%) SCCM
10 7 (0.34%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 6 (0.29%) Puppet
12 5 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
12 5 (0.24%) Progress Chef
13 4 (0.19%) SCOM
14 3 (0.14%) FortiGate
15 2 (0.096%) ITRS Geneos
15 2 (0.096%) Nmap
Vendors
1 222 (10.68%) Microsoft
2 174 (8.37%) Oracle
3 112 (5.39%) Salesforce
4 92 (4.43%) SAP
5 48 (2.31%) ServiceNow
6 46 (2.21%) Google
7 40 (1.92%) Databricks
8 39 (1.88%) Red Hat
9 34 (1.64%) Citrix
10 29 (1.40%) Adobe
11 28 (1.35%) Informatica
12 23 (1.11%) Dynatrace
13 20 (0.96%) Cisco
13 20 (0.96%) VMware
14 19 (0.91%) MuleSoft
15 18 (0.87%) HP
15 18 (0.87%) Splunk
16 14 (0.67%) IBM
16 14 (0.67%) Sitecore
16 14 (0.67%) Talend