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

6 months to
8 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 63 62 63
Rank change year-on-year -1 +1 +10
Contract jobs citing QA 1,932 1,222 1,398
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.70% 3.83% 3.24%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 21.90% 23.33% 23.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,199 850 900
10th Percentile £319 £285 £300
25th Percentile £394 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -2.91%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £594
90th Percentile £675 £663 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £452 £450 £482
% change year-on-year +0.33% -6.59% -1.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 150 33 100
10th Percentile £12.85 £12.90 £11.38
25th Percentile £16.21 £13.50 £12.25
Median hourly rate £31.46 £15.96 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +97.12% +6.54% -33.42%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.50 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £59.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.58 £15.12 £14.00
% change year-on-year +102.25% +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 8,821 5,238 5,932
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.91% 16.40% 13.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,650 3,360 3,670
10th Percentile £338 £281 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £611 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £475
% change year-on-year +6.38% -1.05% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 544 222 431
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.78 £11.07
25th Percentile £19.30 £18.50 £13.52
Median hourly rate £36.07 £30.00 £24.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.23% +25.00% -39.12%
75th Percentile £68.11 £63.38 £50.54
90th Percentile £81.33 £83.37 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £28.18 £24.00
% change year-on-year +33.07% +17.42% -36.00%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 +3 1,656 £485 +2.11% 821
UK excluding London +3 909 £452 +0.33% 664
London 0 810 £500 +1.01% 299
Work from Home +5 559 £475 - 596
South East -1 208 £450 -5.26% 192
North of England -23 202 £478 +1.95% 183
Midlands -8 179 £430 +14.67% 111
West Midlands -6 136 £444 +4.53% 56
South West +16 126 £495 -1.00% 64
East of England +8 93 £475 -0.73% 58
North West -28 89 £450 +6.64% 105
Scotland +5 86 £350 -23.29% 30
Yorkshire -20 74 £540 +4.63% 51
East Midlands -9 43 £415 +13.08% 55
North East -14 39 £390 -15.22% 30
Northern Ireland +8 19 £475 +46.15% 34
Wales -11 11 £438 +2.94% 12

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 (5.75%) Confluence
2 35 (1.81%) CMS
2 35 (1.81%) SharePoint
3 20 (1.04%) IIS
4 16 (0.83%) Apache Spark
5 11 (0.57%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 8 (0.41%) Apache
6 8 (0.41%) SAS
7 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Exchange
7 5 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
7 5 (0.26%) Tuxedo
7 5 (0.26%) Umbraco
8 4 (0.21%) nginx
8 4 (0.21%) WordPress
9 3 (0.16%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.16%) Moodle
9 3 (0.16%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
9 3 (0.16%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.10%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.10%) WebLogic
Applications
1 58 (3.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 27 (1.40%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (1.35%) Microsoft Project
4 22 (1.14%) MS Visio
5 19 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.26%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.21%) Photoshop
7 4 (0.21%) Simulink
8 3 (0.16%) CATIA
8 3 (0.16%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.10%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.10%) EPLAN
10 1 (0.052%) Adobe After Effects
10 1 (0.052%) Adobe Premiere
10 1 (0.052%) Camtasia
10 1 (0.052%) Navisworks
10 1 (0.052%) Notion
10 1 (0.052%) Revit
Business Applications
1 32 (1.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.41%) Shopify
3 8 (0.41%) Workday HCM
4 7 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
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%) Aladdin
7 4 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
7 4 (0.21%) Primavera
8 3 (0.16%) Actimize
8 3 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
8 3 (0.16%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.16%) SAP MM
9 2 (0.10%) Advent Geneva
9 2 (0.10%) IntelliMatch
9 2 (0.10%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 416 (21.53%) Azure
2 311 (16.10%) AWS
3 178 (9.21%) Azure DevOps
4 152 (7.87%) GitHub
5 103 (5.33%) Power Platform
6 91 (4.71%) GitHub Actions
7 77 (3.99%) GCP
8 45 (2.33%) Serverless
9 39 (2.02%) SaaS
10 37 (1.92%) OpenShift
11 32 (1.66%) Dynamics 365
12 28 (1.45%) AWS Lambda
13 27 (1.40%) Snowflake
14 26 (1.35%) Amazon S3
15 24 (1.24%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 23 (1.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 22 (1.14%) Salesforce Service Cloud
18 21 (1.09%) Azure Monitor
19 20 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
20 19 (0.98%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.14%) Firewall
2 19 (0.98%) Internet
2 19 (0.98%) Network Security
3 17 (0.88%) WAN
4 15 (0.78%) LAN
5 13 (0.67%) VPN
5 13 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
6 11 (0.57%) SD-WAN
6 11 (0.57%) Unified Communications
6 11 (0.57%) VLAN
7 10 (0.52%) HTTP
8 9 (0.47%) DNS
9 8 (0.41%) IPsec
10 7 (0.36%) SMS
10 7 (0.36%) TCP/IP
10 7 (0.36%) Wireless
11 6 (0.31%) Cisco Nexus
12 5 (0.26%) DHCP
13 4 (0.21%) BGP
13 4 (0.21%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 115 (5.95%) SQL Server
2 88 (4.55%) Power BI
3 72 (3.73%) Data Warehouse
4 64 (3.31%) PostgreSQL
5 63 (3.26%) Relational Database
6 41 (2.12%) MySQL
7 39 (2.02%) Metadata
8 38 (1.97%) NoSQL
9 37 (1.92%) Oracle Database
9 37 (1.92%) Tableau
10 34 (1.76%) Oracle Reports
11 32 (1.66%) MongoDB
12 28 (1.45%) Data Lake
13 22 (1.14%) Big Data
14 20 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
15 19 (0.98%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 16 (0.83%) DynamoDB
16 16 (0.83%) RDBMS
17 15 (0.78%) Amazon Redshift
17 15 (0.78%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 301 (15.58%) JIRA
2 182 (9.42%) Git
3 146 (7.56%) Selenium
4 137 (7.09%) Jenkins
5 95 (4.92%) GitLab
6 86 (4.45%) Postman
7 64 (3.31%) Cypress.io
8 63 (3.26%) Cucumber
9 59 (3.05%) JUnit
10 53 (2.74%) REST Assured
11 47 (2.43%) Zephyr
12 44 (2.28%) SonarQube
13 36 (1.86%) JMeter
14 30 (1.55%) WebDriver
15 25 (1.29%) Gatling
16 23 (1.19%) Maven
17 20 (1.04%) TestNG
18 19 (0.98%) TestRail
19 18 (0.93%) Appium
19 18 (0.93%) Gradle
General
1 578 (29.92%) Social Skills
2 424 (21.95%) Finance
3 289 (14.96%) Analytical Skills
4 219 (11.34%) Public Sector
5 142 (7.35%) Banking
6 65 (3.36%) Manufacturing
6 65 (3.36%) Retail
7 56 (2.90%) Marketing
8 46 (2.38%) Organisational Skills
9 40 (2.07%) Aerospace
10 29 (1.50%) Documentation Skills
11 26 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 24 (1.24%) Legal
13 22 (1.14%) Influencing Skills
14 21 (1.09%) Pharmaceutical
15 20 (1.04%) Investment Banking
16 19 (0.98%) Automotive
16 19 (0.98%) Military
17 18 (0.93%) Presentation Skills
18 16 (0.83%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 256 (13.25%) Developer
2 229 (11.85%) Analyst
3 226 (11.70%) Lead
4 219 (11.34%) Senior
5 181 (9.37%) QA Engineer
6 105 (5.43%) Business Analyst
7 103 (5.33%) Tester
8 89 (4.61%) Test Manager
9 73 (3.78%) Quality Engineer
10 72 (3.73%) Test Engineer
11 71 (3.67%) Java Developer
12 67 (3.47%) Architect
13 62 (3.21%) Test Leader
14 61 (3.16%) Data Engineer
15 54 (2.80%) Consultant
16 51 (2.64%) Senior Analyst
17 50 (2.59%) Data Analyst
18 49 (2.54%) Project Manager
19 48 (2.48%) Test Analyst
20 45 (2.33%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 137 (7.09%) REST
2 114 (5.90%) .NET
3 113 (5.85%) Playwright
4 107 (5.54%) RESTful
5 91 (4.71%) Spring
6 88 (4.55%) Spring Boot
7 74 (3.83%) React
8 67 (3.47%) HTML
9 65 (3.36%) AngularJS
10 62 (3.21%) CSS
11 53 (2.74%) .NET Framework
12 50 (2.59%) Kafka
12 50 (2.59%) Node.js
13 38 (1.97%) JSON
13 38 (1.97%) Middleware
14 33 (1.71%) SOAP
15 32 (1.66%) Quarkus
16 27 (1.40%) XML
17 25 (1.29%) ASP.NET
17 25 (1.29%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 171 (8.85%) Product Ownership
2 87 (4.50%) Cloud Native
3 59 (3.05%) Onboarding
4 53 (2.74%) Legacy Systems
5 44 (2.28%) Management Information System
6 43 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
6 43 (2.23%) Distributed Systems
6 43 (2.23%) Mobile App
7 35 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
8 34 (1.76%) Data Structures
9 26 (1.35%) Data Centre
10 24 (1.24%) AI Agents
11 23 (1.19%) Virtual Team
12 20 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
13 18 (0.93%) NHS
13 18 (0.93%) Self-Motivation
14 15 (0.78%) Life Science
15 13 (0.67%) Distributed Architecture
15 13 (0.67%) Low-Code
16 12 (0.62%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 89 (4.61%) Windows
2 58 (3.00%) Linux
3 31 (1.60%) Apple iOS
3 31 (1.60%) Windows Server
4 29 (1.50%) Android
5 23 (1.19%) 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%) Embedded Linux
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
1 728 (37.68%) Agile
2 505 (26.14%) Test Automation
3 474 (24.53%) DevOps
4 456 (23.60%) CI/CD
5 329 (17.03%) Validation
6 325 (16.82%) Continuous Improvement
7 318 (16.46%) Stakeholder Management
8 313 (16.20%) Problem-Solving
9 275 (14.23%) User Acceptance Testing
10 265 (13.72%) Test Strategy
11 264 (13.66%) Scrum
12 240 (12.42%) Migration
13 217 (11.23%) AI
14 175 (9.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 170 (8.80%) Decision-Making
16 158 (8.18%) SDLC
17 152 (7.87%) Analytics
18 150 (7.76%) End-to-End Testing
19 149 (7.71%) ETL
20 148 (7.66%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 390 (20.19%) SQL
2 249 (12.89%) Java
3 243 (12.58%) Python
4 137 (7.09%) JavaScript
5 136 (7.04%) C#
6 84 (4.35%) TypeScript
7 42 (2.17%) T-SQL
8 40 (2.07%) PL/SQL
9 32 (1.66%) Kotlin
10 31 (1.60%) PowerShell
11 25 (1.29%) Bash
12 19 (0.98%) Scala
12 19 (0.98%) VB
13 17 (0.88%) C
13 17 (0.88%) C++
13 17 (0.88%) Swift
14 16 (0.83%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 15 (0.78%) Bicep
15 15 (0.78%) VBA
16 13 (0.67%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 436 (22.57%) Security Cleared
2 326 (16.87%) SC Cleared
3 126 (6.52%) Degree
4 74 (3.83%) ISTQB
5 69 (3.57%) BPSS Clearance
6 55 (2.85%) DV Cleared
7 32 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
8 28 (1.45%) PMP
9 26 (1.35%) PMI Certification
10 13 (0.67%) Master's Degree
11 11 (0.57%) Azure Certification
11 11 (0.57%) Cisco Certification
11 11 (0.57%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 10 (0.52%) AWS Certification
13 8 (0.41%) Microsoft Certification
14 7 (0.36%) CCNP
15 6 (0.31%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 6 (0.31%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 5 (0.26%) CBAP
16 5 (0.26%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 131 (6.78%) Data Quality
2 90 (4.66%) Accessibility
3 33 (1.71%) GDPR
4 32 (1.66%) PMO
5 24 (1.24%) WCAG
6 19 (0.98%) GRC
7 16 (0.83%) GxP
8 14 (0.72%) IFRS
8 14 (0.72%) SLA
9 13 (0.67%) NIST
10 12 (0.62%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 12 (0.62%) IFRS 17
11 11 (0.57%) Disclosure Scotland
11 11 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 9 (0.47%) PCI DSS
13 7 (0.36%) ISO 20022
13 7 (0.36%) NCSC
14 6 (0.31%) GMP
14 6 (0.31%) SEPA
14 6 (0.31%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 116 (6.00%) Docker
2 21 (1.09%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.57%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.36%) 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 (8.80%) Kubernetes
2 64 (3.31%) Terraform
3 35 (1.81%) Grafana
4 34 (1.76%) Ansible
5 32 (1.66%) Argo
6 25 (1.29%) Prometheus
7 21 (1.09%) HP ALM
8 12 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (0.57%) HP Quality Center
10 7 (0.36%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.36%) SCCM
10 7 (0.36%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 6 (0.31%) Kibana
12 4 (0.21%) Puppet
13 3 (0.16%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.16%) Nmap
13 3 (0.16%) Progress Chef
14 2 (0.10%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.10%) Microsoft Intune
14 2 (0.10%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 203 (10.51%) Microsoft
2 173 (8.95%) Oracle
3 106 (5.49%) Salesforce
4 97 (5.02%) SAP
5 51 (2.64%) ServiceNow
6 38 (1.97%) Databricks
7 37 (1.92%) Citrix
7 37 (1.92%) Google
8 36 (1.86%) Red Hat
9 29 (1.50%) Adobe
10 26 (1.35%) Informatica
11 24 (1.24%) HP
12 21 (1.09%) Cisco
13 18 (0.93%) MuleSoft
14 15 (0.78%) Workday
15 14 (0.72%) Talend
16 13 (0.67%) Splunk
17 12 (0.62%) Atlassian
17 12 (0.62%) VMware
18 11 (0.57%) Infor