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

6 months to
9 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 59 62 63
Rank change year-on-year +3 +1 +10
Contract jobs citing QA 1,959 1,233 1,405
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.73% 3.82% 3.24%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.01% 23.30% 23.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,215 857 906
10th Percentile £315 £290 £300
25th Percentile £393 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -2.91%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £592
90th Percentile £675 £663 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £450 £482
% change year-on-year +0.67% -6.59% -1.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 151 33 100
10th Percentile £12.85 £12.90 £11.64
25th Percentile £16.29 £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 £30.05
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 8,901 5,291 5,962
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.96% 16.38% 13.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,704 3,397 3,690
10th Percentile £338 £281 £280
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £612 £623
90th Percentile £700 £725 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 549 223 432
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.78 £11.07
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.50 £13.52
Median hourly rate £36.07 £30.00 £24.09
Median % change year-on-year +20.23% +24.53% -38.89%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £81.97 £83.32 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £28.18 £24.00
% change year-on-year +37.40% +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 9 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 9 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 9 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 0 1,680 £488 +2.63% 830
UK excluding London +5 929 £453 +0.67% 649
London -1 815 £500 +1.01% 316
Work from Home +6 567 £475 - 366
South East +5 210 £450 -5.26% 180
North of England -18 210 £481 +2.61% 185
Midlands -9 182 £425 +13.33% 99
West Midlands -7 137 £442 +3.88% 56
South West +15 131 £495 -1.00% 70
East of England +10 94 £475 -0.73% 56
North West -14 94 £450 +6.64% 101
Scotland +13 87 £345 -24.38% 31
Yorkshire -26 76 £545 +5.59% 48
East Midlands -8 45 £415 +13.08% 43
North East -9 40 £390 -15.22% 39
Northern Ireland +9 19 £475 +46.15% 31
Wales -9 11 £438 +2.94% 15

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
1 117 (5.97%) Confluence
2 36 (1.84%) CMS
2 36 (1.84%) SharePoint
3 20 (1.02%) IIS
4 16 (0.82%) Apache Spark
5 11 (0.56%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 9 (0.46%) Apache
6 9 (0.46%) SAS
7 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Exchange
7 5 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
7 5 (0.26%) Tuxedo
7 5 (0.26%) Umbraco
7 5 (0.26%) WordPress
8 4 (0.20%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (0.20%) nginx
9 3 (0.15%) Moodle
9 3 (0.15%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
9 3 (0.15%) Tomcat
9 3 (0.15%) WebLogic
10 2 (0.10%) Apache Solr
Applications
1 59 (3.01%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (1.33%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (1.33%) Microsoft Project
3 22 (1.12%) MS Visio
4 19 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.26%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.20%) Photoshop
6 4 (0.20%) Simulink
7 3 (0.15%) CATIA
7 3 (0.15%) CPLEX
8 2 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.10%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.10%) EPLAN
8 2 (0.10%) Navisworks
8 2 (0.10%) Revit
9 1 (0.051%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.051%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.051%) Mingle
9 1 (0.051%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 32 (1.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.97%) 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 (0.20%) Adobe Campaign
7 4 (0.20%) Aladdin
7 4 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
7 4 (0.20%) Primavera
8 3 (0.15%) Actimize
8 3 (0.15%) Oracle EBS R12
8 3 (0.15%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.15%) SAP MM
9 2 (0.10%) Advent Geneva
9 2 (0.10%) IntelliMatch
9 2 (0.10%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 423 (21.59%) Azure
2 320 (16.33%) AWS
3 181 (9.24%) Azure DevOps
4 158 (8.07%) GitHub
5 104 (5.31%) Power Platform
6 93 (4.75%) GitHub Actions
7 77 (3.93%) GCP
8 46 (2.35%) Serverless
9 41 (2.09%) SaaS
10 37 (1.89%) OpenShift
11 33 (1.68%) Dynamics 365
12 28 (1.43%) AWS Lambda
13 27 (1.38%) Amazon S3
13 27 (1.38%) Snowflake
14 25 (1.28%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 24 (1.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 22 (1.12%) Azure Monitor
16 22 (1.12%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 21 (1.07%) Azure Data Factory
18 19 (0.97%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.12%) Firewall
2 19 (0.97%) Internet
2 19 (0.97%) Network Security
3 17 (0.87%) WAN
4 15 (0.77%) LAN
5 13 (0.66%) VPN
5 13 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
6 11 (0.56%) SD-WAN
6 11 (0.56%) Unified Communications
6 11 (0.56%) VLAN
7 10 (0.51%) HTTP
8 9 (0.46%) 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 (0.20%) Broadband
13 4 (0.20%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 116 (5.92%) SQL Server
2 89 (4.54%) Power BI
3 72 (3.68%) Data Warehouse
4 65 (3.32%) PostgreSQL
5 64 (3.27%) Relational Database
6 41 (2.09%) MySQL
7 39 (1.99%) Metadata
8 38 (1.94%) NoSQL
9 37 (1.89%) Oracle Database
9 37 (1.89%) Tableau
10 34 (1.74%) Oracle Reports
11 32 (1.63%) MongoDB
12 29 (1.48%) Data Lake
13 22 (1.12%) Big Data
14 20 (1.02%) Azure SQL Database
14 20 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 16 (0.82%) Amazon Redshift
15 16 (0.82%) DynamoDB
15 16 (0.82%) RDBMS
16 15 (0.77%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 311 (15.88%) JIRA
2 184 (9.39%) Git
3 148 (7.55%) Selenium
4 138 (7.04%) Jenkins
5 96 (4.90%) GitLab
6 88 (4.49%) Postman
7 66 (3.37%) Cypress.io
8 64 (3.27%) Cucumber
9 59 (3.01%) JUnit
10 54 (2.76%) REST Assured
11 47 (2.40%) Zephyr
12 44 (2.25%) SonarQube
13 38 (1.94%) JMeter
14 31 (1.58%) WebDriver
15 27 (1.38%) Gatling
16 24 (1.23%) Maven
17 20 (1.02%) TestNG
18 19 (0.97%) Gradle
18 19 (0.97%) TestRail
19 18 (0.92%) Appium
General
1 592 (30.22%) Social Skills
2 425 (21.69%) Finance
3 298 (15.21%) Analytical Skills
4 224 (11.43%) Public Sector
5 143 (7.30%) Banking
6 67 (3.42%) Manufacturing
7 65 (3.32%) Retail
8 56 (2.86%) Marketing
9 46 (2.35%) Organisational Skills
10 41 (2.09%) Aerospace
11 29 (1.48%) Documentation Skills
12 27 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 24 (1.23%) Legal
14 23 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
15 21 (1.07%) Pharmaceutical
16 20 (1.02%) Automotive
16 20 (1.02%) Investment Banking
17 19 (0.97%) Military
18 18 (0.92%) Presentation Skills
19 17 (0.87%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 258 (13.17%) Developer
2 236 (12.05%) Lead
3 231 (11.79%) Analyst
4 226 (11.54%) Senior
5 185 (9.44%) QA Engineer
6 106 (5.41%) Business Analyst
7 104 (5.31%) Tester
8 89 (4.54%) Test Manager
9 74 (3.78%) Quality Engineer
10 73 (3.73%) Java Developer
10 73 (3.73%) Test Engineer
11 66 (3.37%) Architect
12 64 (3.27%) Test Leader
13 62 (3.16%) Data Engineer
14 55 (2.81%) Consultant
15 53 (2.71%) Senior Analyst
16 50 (2.55%) Data Analyst
16 50 (2.55%) Project Manager
17 49 (2.50%) Test Analyst
18 46 (2.35%) QA Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 139 (7.10%) REST
2 115 (5.87%) .NET
3 114 (5.82%) Playwright
4 108 (5.51%) RESTful
5 93 (4.75%) Spring
6 90 (4.59%) Spring Boot
7 74 (3.78%) React
8 67 (3.42%) HTML
9 65 (3.32%) AngularJS
10 62 (3.16%) CSS
11 53 (2.71%) .NET Framework
11 53 (2.71%) Kafka
12 51 (2.60%) Node.js
13 39 (1.99%) JSON
13 39 (1.99%) Middleware
14 33 (1.68%) SOAP
15 32 (1.63%) Quarkus
16 27 (1.38%) XML
17 25 (1.28%) ASP.NET
17 25 (1.28%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 172 (8.78%) Product Ownership
2 90 (4.59%) Cloud Native
3 61 (3.11%) Onboarding
4 55 (2.81%) Legacy Systems
5 45 (2.30%) Management Information System
5 45 (2.30%) Mobile App
6 43 (2.19%) Data Protection Act
6 43 (2.19%) Distributed Systems
7 35 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
8 34 (1.74%) Data Structures
9 26 (1.33%) Data Centre
10 25 (1.28%) AI Agents
11 23 (1.17%) Virtual Team
12 20 (1.02%) Analytical Mindset
13 18 (0.92%) NHS
13 18 (0.92%) Self-Motivation
14 15 (0.77%) Life Science
15 13 (0.66%) Distributed Architecture
15 13 (0.66%) Low-Code
16 12 (0.61%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 89 (4.54%) Windows
2 58 (2.96%) Linux
3 31 (1.58%) Apple iOS
3 31 (1.58%) Windows Server
4 29 (1.48%) Android
5 23 (1.17%) 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 (0.051%) Debian
9 1 (0.051%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.051%) Solaris
9 1 (0.051%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.051%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.051%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 739 (37.72%) Agile
2 513 (26.19%) Test Automation
3 484 (24.71%) DevOps
4 464 (23.69%) CI/CD
5 333 (17.00%) Validation
6 332 (16.95%) Continuous Improvement
7 326 (16.64%) Problem-Solving
8 324 (16.54%) Stakeholder Management
9 279 (14.24%) User Acceptance Testing
10 274 (13.99%) Test Strategy
11 268 (13.68%) Scrum
12 242 (12.35%) Migration
13 222 (11.33%) AI
14 179 (9.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 172 (8.78%) Decision-Making
16 160 (8.17%) SDLC
17 156 (7.96%) End-to-End Testing
18 153 (7.81%) Analytics
19 151 (7.71%) ETL
20 149 (7.61%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 392 (20.01%) SQL
2 254 (12.97%) Java
3 250 (12.76%) Python
4 139 (7.10%) JavaScript
5 138 (7.04%) C#
6 84 (4.29%) TypeScript
7 42 (2.14%) T-SQL
8 40 (2.04%) PL/SQL
9 32 (1.63%) Kotlin
10 31 (1.58%) PowerShell
11 28 (1.43%) Bash
12 20 (1.02%) Scala
13 19 (0.97%) VB
14 17 (0.87%) C
14 17 (0.87%) C++
14 17 (0.87%) Swift
15 16 (0.82%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 15 (0.77%) Bicep
16 15 (0.77%) VBA
17 13 (0.66%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 443 (22.61%) Security Cleared
2 329 (16.79%) SC Cleared
3 127 (6.48%) Degree
4 75 (3.83%) ISTQB
5 72 (3.68%) BPSS Clearance
6 62 (3.16%) DV Cleared
7 32 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
8 28 (1.43%) PMP
9 26 (1.33%) PMI Certification
10 13 (0.66%) Master's Degree
11 11 (0.56%) Azure Certification
11 11 (0.56%) Cisco Certification
11 11 (0.56%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 11 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
12 10 (0.51%) AWS Certification
13 7 (0.36%) CCNP
14 6 (0.31%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 6 (0.31%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 5 (0.26%) CBAP
15 5 (0.26%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 140 (7.15%) Data Quality
2 94 (4.80%) Accessibility
3 34 (1.74%) GDPR
4 33 (1.68%) PMO
5 25 (1.28%) WCAG
6 19 (0.97%) GRC
7 16 (0.82%) GxP
8 14 (0.71%) IFRS
8 14 (0.71%) SLA
9 13 (0.66%) NIST
10 12 (0.61%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 12 (0.61%) IFRS 17
11 11 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
11 11 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 9 (0.46%) 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
1 118 (6.02%) Docker
2 21 (1.07%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.36%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.31%) Firmware
5 6 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.26%) IAG
7 3 (0.15%) 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 (0.051%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.051%) KVM
9 1 (0.051%) QEMU
9 1 (0.051%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
9 1 (0.051%) Varnish
9 1 (0.051%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 173 (8.83%) Kubernetes
2 68 (3.47%) Terraform
3 36 (1.84%) Grafana
4 35 (1.79%) Ansible
5 32 (1.63%) Argo
6 25 (1.28%) Prometheus
7 21 (1.07%) HP ALM
8 12 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (0.56%) 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 (0.20%) Puppet
13 3 (0.15%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.15%) Nmap
13 3 (0.15%) Progress Chef
14 2 (0.10%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.10%) Microsoft Intune
14 2 (0.10%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 206 (10.52%) Microsoft
2 175 (8.93%) Oracle
3 105 (5.36%) Salesforce
4 96 (4.90%) SAP
5 52 (2.65%) ServiceNow
6 40 (2.04%) Databricks
7 37 (1.89%) Citrix
7 37 (1.89%) Google
8 36 (1.84%) Red Hat
9 29 (1.48%) Adobe
10 27 (1.38%) Informatica
11 24 (1.23%) HP
12 21 (1.07%) Cisco
13 18 (0.92%) MuleSoft
14 15 (0.77%) Workday
15 14 (0.71%) Talend
16 13 (0.66%) Splunk
17 12 (0.61%) Atlassian
17 12 (0.61%) VMware
18 11 (0.56%) Infor