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

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 61 66
Rank change year-on-year +13 +5 +1
Contract jobs citing QA 2,311 1,290 1,240
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.23% 3.89% 3.27%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.82% 22.28% 24.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,349 876 720
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £387 £380 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £575
90th Percentile £660 £650 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 243 43 72
10th Percentile £13.25 £12.28 £11.93
25th Percentile £15.25 £13.50 £13.26
Median hourly rate £27.96 £27.54 £15.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.53% +83.60% -70.00%
75th Percentile £48.75 £45.36 £30.05
90th Percentile £67.50 £72.00 £73.79
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.96 £15.12 £14.98
% change year-on-year +84.92% +0.93% -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 9,700 5,789 5,088
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.77% 17.48% 13.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,068 3,693 2,953
10th Percentile £325 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £400 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £610 £606 £625
90th Percentile £713 £706 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +1.42% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 689 282 243
10th Percentile £13.70 £13.60 £13.26
25th Percentile £16.46 £16.61 £16.12
Median hourly rate £30.00 £30.00 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year - +7.76% -21.58%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.00 £63.06
90th Percentile £74.25 £79.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £25.11 £28.00
% change year-on-year +25.28% -10.31% -21.68%

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 10 October 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 10 October 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 10 October 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 +12 2,028 £475 - 3,197
UK excluding London +24 1,177 £450 - 1,800
London +6 905 £500 - 1,554
Work from Home +7 577 £475 +5.56% 1,254
North of England +5 284 £453 +3.54% 466
South East +12 263 £425 -15.00% 448
Midlands +26 240 £450 - 274
West Midlands +34 200 £450 -9.27% 186
East of England +16 157 £425 -15.00% 182
South West +10 139 £525 +10.53% 160
Yorkshire +17 112 £470 +2.17% 148
North West -18 112 £475 +14.46% 240
Scotland +8 89 £423 -15.50% 137
North East -11 60 £400 -20.00% 79
East Midlands -9 39 £415 +1.22% 88
Wales +3 22 £413 +17.86% 68
Northern Ireland -1 7 £450 +50.00% 86

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
1 138 (5.97%) Confluence
2 53 (2.29%) CMS
3 43 (1.86%) SharePoint
4 16 (0.69%) Apache Spark
5 15 (0.65%) IIS
6 13 (0.56%) Apache
6 13 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
7 12 (0.52%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 9 (0.39%) SAS
8 9 (0.39%) Sitecore CMS
9 7 (0.30%) Traefik
10 5 (0.22%) Headless CMS
10 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.22%) Tuxedo
10 5 (0.22%) WordPress
11 4 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
11 4 (0.17%) Umbraco
12 3 (0.13%) Appian
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 85 (3.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 40 (1.73%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (0.95%) MS Visio
5 18 (0.78%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
7 9 (0.39%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.26%) AutoCAD
8 6 (0.26%) Navisworks
8 6 (0.26%) Revit
9 4 (0.17%) ProjectWise
10 3 (0.13%) CATIA
10 3 (0.13%) Mingle
10 3 (0.13%) Productboard
11 2 (0.087%) Adobe Premiere
11 2 (0.087%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.087%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.087%) Windchill
12 1 (0.043%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.043%) Trello
Business Applications
1 29 (1.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.21%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.43%) Remedy ITSM
3 10 (0.43%) Shopify
4 7 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
4 7 (0.30%) SAP GRC
4 7 (0.30%) Workday HCM
5 4 (0.17%) Aladdin
5 4 (0.17%) Maximo
5 4 (0.17%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.17%) Payment Gateway
5 4 (0.17%) Primavera
5 4 (0.17%) ResourceLink
5 4 (0.17%) SAP MM
6 3 (0.13%) Infor CloudSuite
6 3 (0.13%) iTrent
6 3 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
6 3 (0.13%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.087%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.087%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 478 (20.68%) Azure
2 419 (18.13%) AWS
3 232 (10.04%) GitHub
4 213 (9.22%) Azure DevOps
5 138 (5.97%) GitHub Actions
6 114 (4.93%) GCP
7 113 (4.89%) Power Platform
8 81 (3.50%) Serverless
9 58 (2.51%) AWS Lambda
10 56 (2.42%) SaaS
11 51 (2.21%) Amazon S3
12 45 (1.95%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 44 (1.90%) Dynamics 365
14 37 (1.60%) GitHub Copilot
15 36 (1.56%) OpenShift
16 33 (1.43%) Snowflake
17 32 (1.38%) Microsoft 365
18 31 (1.34%) Amazon EKS
18 31 (1.34%) Azure Monitor
19 30 (1.30%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.17%) Broadband
1 27 (1.17%) Firewall
2 23 (1.00%) Internet
3 21 (0.91%) DNS
4 20 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
5 17 (0.74%) 5G
5 17 (0.74%) HTTP
6 16 (0.69%) 4G
6 16 (0.69%) TCP/IP
6 16 (0.69%) VLAN
7 14 (0.61%) WAN
8 13 (0.56%) Network Security
9 11 (0.48%) DHCP
9 11 (0.48%) LAN
9 11 (0.48%) VPN
10 8 (0.35%) IPv4
10 8 (0.35%) IPv6
10 8 (0.35%) SD-WAN
10 8 (0.35%) Unified Communications
10 8 (0.35%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 111 (4.80%) SQL Server
2 98 (4.24%) Power BI
3 83 (3.59%) Relational Database
4 81 (3.50%) PostgreSQL
5 62 (2.68%) Data Warehouse
6 57 (2.47%) MongoDB
7 48 (2.08%) MySQL
7 48 (2.08%) NoSQL
8 46 (1.99%) Metadata
9 39 (1.69%) Oracle Database
10 30 (1.30%) Oracle Reports
11 28 (1.21%) Tableau
12 23 (1.00%) Data Lake
13 21 (0.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 16 (0.69%) Big Data
14 16 (0.69%) GIS
14 16 (0.69%) Redis
15 15 (0.65%) Power Query
15 15 (0.65%) RDBMS
16 13 (0.56%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 303 (13.11%) JIRA
2 262 (11.34%) Git
3 188 (8.14%) Jenkins
4 182 (7.88%) Selenium
5 149 (6.45%) GitLab
6 101 (4.37%) Cucumber
7 90 (3.89%) Postman
8 82 (3.55%) Cypress.io
9 77 (3.33%) JUnit
10 55 (2.38%) Zephyr
11 50 (2.16%) JMeter
12 49 (2.12%) Gatling
12 49 (2.12%) SonarQube
13 46 (1.99%) REST Assured
14 34 (1.47%) Maven
15 29 (1.25%) Gradle
15 29 (1.25%) WebDriver
16 27 (1.17%) TestNG
17 25 (1.08%) Appium
18 24 (1.04%) Bitbucket
General
1 712 (30.81%) Social Skills
2 418 (18.09%) Finance
3 370 (16.01%) Analytical Skills
4 298 (12.89%) Public Sector
5 171 (7.40%) Banking
6 88 (3.81%) Manufacturing
7 76 (3.29%) Retail
8 65 (2.81%) Organisational Skills
9 64 (2.77%) Marketing
10 58 (2.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 49 (2.12%) Telecoms
12 45 (1.95%) Influencing Skills
13 44 (1.90%) Aerospace
14 43 (1.86%) Legal
15 31 (1.34%) Documentation Skills
15 31 (1.34%) Military
16 24 (1.04%) Law
17 20 (0.87%) Investment Banking
18 19 (0.82%) Local Government
18 19 (0.82%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 305 (13.20%) Developer
2 294 (12.72%) Lead
3 278 (12.03%) Senior
4 263 (11.38%) QA Engineer
5 251 (10.86%) Analyst
6 140 (6.06%) Quality Engineer
7 122 (5.28%) Test Engineer
8 116 (5.02%) Tester
9 101 (4.37%) Test Manager
10 98 (4.24%) Business Analyst
11 86 (3.72%) QA Leader
12 79 (3.42%) Data Engineer
13 76 (3.29%) Java Developer
14 71 (3.07%) Test Leader
15 60 (2.60%) Consultant
16 59 (2.55%) Senior Analyst
17 57 (2.47%) Test Analyst
18 54 (2.34%) QA Tester
19 49 (2.12%) Architect
20 48 (2.08%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 227 (9.82%) REST
2 157 (6.79%) Playwright
3 156 (6.75%) RESTful
4 124 (5.37%) Spring
5 107 (4.63%) Spring Boot
6 105 (4.54%) Terraform
7 102 (4.41%) React
8 100 (4.33%) .NET
9 91 (3.94%) HTML
10 87 (3.76%) Kafka
11 82 (3.55%) CSS
12 77 (3.33%) AngularJS
13 62 (2.68%) Node.js
14 60 (2.60%) SOAP
15 55 (2.38%) Middleware
16 52 (2.25%) pytest
17 43 (1.86%) .NET Framework
17 43 (1.86%) JSON
18 40 (1.73%) Gherkin
19 39 (1.69%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 225 (9.74%) Product Ownership
2 139 (6.01%) Cloud Native
3 84 (3.63%) Onboarding
4 72 (3.12%) Enterprise Software
4 72 (3.12%) Management Information System
5 58 (2.51%) Mobile App
6 56 (2.42%) Distributed Systems
7 49 (2.12%) Legacy Systems
8 48 (2.08%) AI Agents
9 42 (1.82%) Data Structures
10 40 (1.73%) Data Protection Act
11 36 (1.56%) Data Centre
12 31 (1.34%) Low-Code
13 27 (1.17%) NHS
14 24 (1.04%) CMDB
14 24 (1.04%) Virtual Team
15 19 (0.82%) Educational Technology
16 17 (0.74%) Analytical Mindset
17 16 (0.69%) Operational Technology
18 15 (0.65%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 89 (3.85%) Windows
2 76 (3.29%) Linux
3 54 (2.34%) Apple iOS
4 51 (2.21%) Android
5 34 (1.47%) Unix
6 24 (1.04%) Windows Server
7 17 (0.74%) VMS
8 7 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.22%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.087%) AIX
10 2 (0.087%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.087%) zOS
11 1 (0.043%) CentOS
11 1 (0.043%) Debian
11 1 (0.043%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.043%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.043%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.043%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.043%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 896 (38.77%) Agile
2 668 (28.91%) Test Automation
3 613 (26.53%) CI/CD
4 560 (24.23%) DevOps
5 494 (21.38%) Stakeholder Management
6 474 (20.51%) Continuous Improvement
7 393 (17.01%) Problem-Solving
8 376 (16.27%) Validation
9 346 (14.97%) Scrum
10 342 (14.80%) AI
11 337 (14.58%) Test Strategy
12 274 (11.86%) User Acceptance Testing
13 252 (10.90%) Migration
14 220 (9.52%) SDLC
15 216 (9.35%) Microservices
16 209 (9.04%) End-to-End Testing
17 189 (8.18%) Software Engineering
18 184 (7.96%) Defect Management
18 184 (7.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 173 (7.49%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 411 (17.78%) SQL
2 328 (14.19%) Python
3 303 (13.11%) Java
4 200 (8.65%) JavaScript
5 126 (5.45%) C#
6 117 (5.06%) TypeScript
7 54 (2.34%) Bash
8 35 (1.51%) PowerShell
9 34 (1.47%) PL/SQL
10 32 (1.38%) Kotlin
11 26 (1.13%) T-SQL
12 25 (1.08%) Scala
13 23 (1.00%) Swift
14 20 (0.87%) Shell Script
15 18 (0.78%) Objective-C
16 16 (0.69%) VB
17 14 (0.61%) R
17 14 (0.61%) VBA
18 13 (0.56%) C
18 13 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 541 (23.41%) Security Cleared
2 418 (18.09%) SC Cleared
3 154 (6.66%) Degree
4 111 (4.80%) BPSS Clearance
5 81 (3.50%) ISTQB
6 69 (2.99%) DV Cleared
7 50 (2.16%) Computer Science Degree
8 22 (0.95%) AWS Certification
8 22 (0.95%) PMP
9 21 (0.91%) Azure Certification
10 20 (0.87%) PMI Certification
11 16 (0.69%) Master's Degree
12 14 (0.61%) Microsoft Certification
13 10 (0.43%) DBS Check
13 10 (0.43%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 10 (0.43%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 10 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
14 9 (0.39%) Cisco Certification
14 9 (0.39%) IIBA
14 9 (0.39%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 163 (7.05%) Data Quality
2 138 (5.97%) Accessibility
3 40 (1.73%) WCAG
4 38 (1.64%) GDPR
5 28 (1.21%) PMO
6 25 (1.08%) GRC
7 18 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 15 (0.65%) NIST
9 12 (0.52%) ISO 9001
10 11 (0.48%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 11 (0.48%) GxP
11 9 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
11 9 (0.39%) ISO 19650
12 8 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
12 8 (0.35%) SLA
12 8 (0.35%) Software Quality Assurance
13 7 (0.30%) IFRS
13 7 (0.30%) NCSC
14 6 (0.26%) PERC
15 5 (0.22%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 209 (9.04%) Docker
2 23 (1.00%) Active Directory
3 20 (0.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.43%) IAG
6 6 (0.26%) Firmware
7 4 (0.17%) ACF2
7 4 (0.17%) RACF
7 4 (0.17%) VirtualBox
8 3 (0.13%) KVM
8 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.043%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.043%) QEMU
9 1 (0.043%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.043%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.043%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.043%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 242 (10.47%) Kubernetes
2 63 (2.73%) Ansible
3 57 (2.47%) Grafana
4 36 (1.56%) Prometheus
5 31 (1.34%) Argo
6 11 (0.48%) HP ALM
7 10 (0.43%) SCCM
8 8 (0.35%) Microsoft Clustering
8 8 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (0.30%) HP Quality Center
9 7 (0.30%) Istio
9 7 (0.30%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 6 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
11 4 (0.17%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.17%) Puppet
11 4 (0.17%) SCOM
12 3 (0.13%) FortiGate
13 2 (0.087%) Control-M
13 2 (0.087%) ITRS Geneos
13 2 (0.087%) Kibana
Vendors
1 254 (10.99%) Microsoft
2 164 (7.10%) Oracle
3 115 (4.98%) Salesforce
4 74 (3.20%) SAP
5 60 (2.60%) ServiceNow
6 49 (2.12%) Google
7 45 (1.95%) Databricks
8 35 (1.51%) Dynatrace
8 35 (1.51%) Splunk
9 31 (1.34%) Red Hat
10 24 (1.04%) Citrix
11 23 (1.00%) VMware
12 21 (0.91%) Cisco
13 20 (0.87%) Adobe
14 18 (0.78%) Informatica
15 17 (0.74%) IBM
15 17 (0.74%) Sitecore
15 17 (0.74%) Talend
16 16 (0.69%) Workday
17 15 (0.65%) MuleSoft