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

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 62 68 59
Rank change year-on-year +6 -9 +16
Contract jobs citing QA 1,821 1,065 1,436
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.67% 3.64% 3.32%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 21.84% 22.62% 24.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,129 740 936
10th Percentile £322 £281 £313
25th Percentile £398 £383 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -6.86% +0.39%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £606
90th Percentile £668 £688 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 132 26 97
10th Percentile £12.94 £14.25 £10.84
25th Percentile £15.56 £16.10 £12.24
Median hourly rate £30.58 £42.50 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.05% +203.57% -37.74%
75th Percentile £67.50 £71.50 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £71.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.58 £53.50 £13.52
% change year-on-year -42.84% +295.71% -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 8,337 4,708 5,954
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.78% 16.08% 13.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,346 2,995 3,719
10th Percentile £343 £268 £280
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 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -2.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 496 191 422
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.13 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.75 £13.18
Median hourly rate £35.00 £32.50 £23.05
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% +41.03% -39.36%
75th Percentile £67.50 £67.50 £48.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £82.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £32.50 £19.00
% change year-on-year +15.38% +71.05% -50.71%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 +5 1,560 £475 +0.05% 715
UK excluding London +13 840 £450 - 580
London +13 786 £500 +0.25% 213
Work from Home +4 512 £488 - 332
South East +2 190 £450 -4.00% 173
North of England -23 181 £463 -2.63% 141
Midlands -9 172 £425 +13.33% 107
West Midlands -11 127 £428 +0.59% 53
South West +27 118 £488 -2.50% 69
North West -19 83 £444 +3.38% 69
Scotland +16 81 £400 -11.11% 20
East of England +5 81 £475 -0.73% 53
Yorkshire -30 72 £520 +1.37% 45
East Midlands -15 46 £393 +5.60% 54
North East -12 26 £413 -8.33% 29
Northern Ireland +11 20 £463 +42.31% 14
Wales -8 11 £450 -14.29% 17

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 (5.11%) Confluence
2 31 (1.70%) SharePoint
3 28 (1.54%) CMS
4 19 (1.04%) IIS
5 15 (0.82%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 14 (0.77%) Apache Spark
7 10 (0.55%) Apache
8 7 (0.38%) SAS
9 6 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
10 5 (0.27%) Umbraco
11 4 (0.22%) Microsoft Exchange
11 4 (0.22%) nginx
11 4 (0.22%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
12 3 (0.16%) Jupyter
12 3 (0.16%) Moodle
12 3 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.16%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.16%) Tuxedo
13 2 (0.11%) Anypoint
13 2 (0.11%) Luigi
Applications
1 58 (3.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (1.76%) Microsoft Office
3 25 (1.37%) Microsoft Project
4 24 (1.32%) 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%) EPLAN
10 1 (0.055%) Adobe After Effects
10 1 (0.055%) Adobe Premiere
10 1 (0.055%) Autodesk Smoke
10 1 (0.055%) Camtasia
10 1 (0.055%) CPLEX
10 1 (0.055%) Navisworks
10 1 (0.055%) Notion
Business Applications
1 28 (1.54%) 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%) Advent Geneva
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 Retail
Cloud Services
1 407 (22.35%) Azure
2 293 (16.09%) AWS
3 171 (9.39%) Azure DevOps
4 152 (8.35%) GitHub
5 106 (5.82%) Power Platform
6 98 (5.38%) GitHub Actions
7 78 (4.28%) GCP
8 47 (2.58%) Serverless
9 37 (2.03%) Dynamics 365
10 36 (1.98%) SaaS
11 34 (1.87%) OpenShift
12 31 (1.70%) AWS Lambda
13 29 (1.59%) Amazon S3
13 29 (1.59%) Snowflake
14 26 (1.43%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 25 (1.37%) Azure Data Factory
16 20 (1.10%) Amazon EKS
16 20 (1.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 19 (1.04%) Amazon ECS
17 19 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.32%) Firewall
2 21 (1.15%) LAN
3 20 (1.10%) WAN
4 19 (1.04%) Internet
4 19 (1.04%) Network Security
4 19 (1.04%) 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 10 (0.55%) 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%) DOCSIS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (6.04%) SQL Server
2 91 (5.00%) Power BI
3 71 (3.90%) Data Warehouse
4 62 (3.40%) PostgreSQL
5 54 (2.97%) Relational Database
6 46 (2.53%) MySQL
7 40 (2.20%) NoSQL
8 37 (2.03%) Tableau
9 34 (1.87%) Oracle Database
10 33 (1.81%) Data Lake
11 32 (1.76%) Metadata
11 32 (1.76%) Oracle Reports
12 26 (1.43%) MongoDB
13 24 (1.32%) Big Data
14 19 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
14 19 (1.04%) DynamoDB
15 17 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 15 (0.82%) BigQuery
17 14 (0.77%) Amazon Redshift
18 13 (0.71%) Redis
Development Applications
1 294 (16.14%) JIRA
2 166 (9.12%) Git
3 141 (7.74%) Selenium
4 128 (7.03%) Jenkins
5 102 (5.60%) GitLab
6 85 (4.67%) Postman
7 65 (3.57%) Cucumber
8 59 (3.24%) Cypress.io
9 52 (2.86%) JUnit
10 49 (2.69%) REST Assured
11 44 (2.42%) Zephyr
12 35 (1.92%) JMeter
12 35 (1.92%) SonarQube
13 31 (1.70%) WebDriver
14 22 (1.21%) Gatling
14 22 (1.21%) TestRail
15 17 (0.93%) Gradle
15 17 (0.93%) TestNG
16 15 (0.82%) Appium
16 15 (0.82%) Maven
General
1 558 (30.64%) Social Skills
2 413 (22.68%) Finance
3 251 (13.78%) Analytical Skills
4 201 (11.04%) Public Sector
5 147 (8.07%) Banking
6 59 (3.24%) Retail
7 49 (2.69%) Manufacturing
7 49 (2.69%) Marketing
8 46 (2.53%) Organisational Skills
9 36 (1.98%) Aerospace
10 28 (1.54%) Documentation Skills
11 25 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
12 22 (1.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 22 (1.21%) Investment Banking
12 22 (1.21%) Military
13 19 (1.04%) Legal
14 16 (0.88%) Front Office
14 16 (0.88%) Pharmaceutical
15 14 (0.77%) Automotive
15 14 (0.77%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 221 (12.14%) Developer
2 217 (11.92%) Analyst
3 213 (11.70%) Lead
4 209 (11.48%) Senior
5 163 (8.95%) QA Engineer
6 116 (6.37%) Business Analyst
7 100 (5.49%) Tester
8 86 (4.72%) Test Manager
9 71 (3.90%) Architect
10 67 (3.68%) Quality Engineer
11 66 (3.62%) Test Engineer
12 64 (3.51%) Project Manager
13 59 (3.24%) Data Engineer
14 57 (3.13%) Java Developer
15 52 (2.86%) Test Leader
16 51 (2.80%) Data Analyst
17 49 (2.69%) Senior Analyst
18 44 (2.42%) Software Engineer
19 41 (2.25%) Consultant
19 41 (2.25%) QA Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 134 (7.36%) REST
2 115 (6.32%) .NET
3 99 (5.44%) RESTful
4 98 (5.38%) Playwright
5 76 (4.17%) Spring
6 71 (3.90%) Spring Boot
7 67 (3.68%) React
8 60 (3.29%) HTML
9 55 (3.02%) CSS
10 51 (2.80%) .NET Framework
10 51 (2.80%) AngularJS
10 51 (2.80%) Kafka
11 48 (2.64%) Node.js
12 39 (2.14%) JSON
13 25 (1.37%) Middleware
14 24 (1.32%) Gherkin
14 24 (1.32%) Quarkus
15 23 (1.26%) OAuth
15 23 (1.26%) OpenID
16 22 (1.21%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 149 (8.18%) Product Ownership
2 75 (4.12%) Cloud Native
3 51 (2.80%) Legacy Systems
4 48 (2.64%) Onboarding
5 42 (2.31%) Distributed Systems
6 41 (2.25%) Data Protection Act
7 37 (2.03%) Mobile App
8 29 (1.59%) Data Structures
8 29 (1.59%) Management Information System
9 27 (1.48%) Virtual Team
10 23 (1.26%) Data Centre
11 22 (1.21%) Analytical Mindset
11 22 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
12 20 (1.10%) PMI
13 18 (0.99%) Self-Motivation
14 15 (0.82%) AI Agents
15 14 (0.77%) Derivative
15 14 (0.77%) Legacy Code
16 13 (0.71%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 13 (0.71%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 85 (4.67%) Windows
2 58 (3.19%) Linux
3 28 (1.54%) Windows Server
4 27 (1.48%) Android
4 27 (1.48%) Apple iOS
5 19 (1.04%) Unix
6 6 (0.33%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
8 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.055%) Debian
9 1 (0.055%) Solaris
9 1 (0.055%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.055%) VMS
9 1 (0.055%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.055%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 669 (36.74%) Agile
2 458 (25.15%) Test Automation
3 447 (24.55%) DevOps
4 431 (23.67%) CI/CD
5 302 (16.58%) Validation
6 296 (16.25%) Stakeholder Management
7 281 (15.43%) Continuous Improvement
8 274 (15.05%) Problem-Solving
9 255 (14.00%) User Acceptance Testing
10 236 (12.96%) Scrum
11 231 (12.69%) Test Strategy
12 222 (12.19%) Migration
13 175 (9.61%) AI
14 167 (9.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 155 (8.51%) ETL
16 146 (8.02%) Decision-Making
17 141 (7.74%) Analytics
17 141 (7.74%) SDLC
18 139 (7.63%) Test Management
19 137 (7.52%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 370 (20.32%) SQL
2 242 (13.29%) Python
3 225 (12.36%) Java
4 132 (7.25%) C#
4 132 (7.25%) JavaScript
5 87 (4.78%) TypeScript
6 42 (2.31%) PL/SQL
6 42 (2.31%) T-SQL
7 32 (1.76%) Kotlin
8 31 (1.70%) PowerShell
9 22 (1.21%) Bash
10 19 (1.04%) Scala
11 17 (0.93%) Swift
11 17 (0.93%) VB
12 16 (0.88%) Bicep
12 16 (0.88%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 15 (0.82%) C++
14 14 (0.77%) C
14 14 (0.77%) PHP
15 12 (0.66%) VBA
Qualifications
1 405 (22.24%) Security Cleared
2 293 (16.09%) SC Cleared
3 143 (7.85%) Degree
4 74 (4.06%) ISTQB
5 62 (3.40%) BPSS Clearance
6 54 (2.97%) DV Cleared
7 41 (2.25%) PMI Certification
8 39 (2.14%) Computer Science Degree
9 38 (2.09%) PMP
10 19 (1.04%) Master's Degree
11 13 (0.71%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 11 (0.60%) Cisco Certification
13 10 (0.55%) AWS Certification
14 9 (0.49%) CBAP
15 8 (0.44%) Azure Certification
15 8 (0.44%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 7 (0.38%) CHECK Team Member
16 7 (0.38%) CREST Certified
16 7 (0.38%) Cyber Scheme
16 7 (0.38%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 133 (7.30%) Data Quality
2 83 (4.56%) Accessibility
3 41 (2.25%) PMO
4 34 (1.87%) GDPR
5 21 (1.15%) WCAG
6 20 (1.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 17 (0.93%) IFRS
7 17 (0.93%) NIST
8 16 (0.88%) GRC
8 16 (0.88%) PCI DSS
9 15 (0.82%) IFRS 17
10 13 (0.71%) SLA
11 11 (0.60%) Disclosure Scotland
11 11 (0.60%) GxP
12 7 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
12 7 (0.38%) ISO 20022
12 7 (0.38%) SEPA
13 6 (0.33%) PSD2
13 6 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 6 (0.33%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 111 (6.10%) 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
1 150 (8.24%) Kubernetes
2 72 (3.95%) Terraform
3 37 (2.03%) Grafana
4 30 (1.65%) Ansible
5 28 (1.54%) Prometheus
6 26 (1.43%) Argo
7 18 (0.99%) HP ALM
8 9 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.44%) HP Quality Center
9 8 (0.44%) Nmap
10 7 (0.38%) Oracle RMAN
11 6 (0.33%) Puppet
12 5 (0.27%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 4 (0.22%) Kibana
14 3 (0.16%) Progress Chef
15 2 (0.11%) ITRS Geneos
15 2 (0.11%) SCCM
16 1 (0.055%) Cisco Prime
16 1 (0.055%) Microsoft Intune
16 1 (0.055%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 184 (10.10%) Microsoft
2 163 (8.95%) Oracle
3 98 (5.38%) Salesforce
4 91 (5.00%) SAP
5 48 (2.64%) ServiceNow
6 37 (2.03%) Citrix
6 37 (2.03%) Google
7 34 (1.87%) Databricks
8 32 (1.76%) Adobe
9 29 (1.59%) Red Hat
10 23 (1.26%) Informatica
11 21 (1.15%) Cisco
11 21 (1.15%) HP
12 17 (0.93%) MuleSoft
13 13 (0.71%) Talend
14 12 (0.66%) VMware
14 12 (0.66%) Workday
15 11 (0.60%) Infor
16 10 (0.55%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
16 10 (0.55%) Splunk