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

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 61 60 58
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 +14
Contract jobs citing QA 1,902 1,172 1,407
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.70% 3.78% 3.24%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 21.97% 23.13% 23.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,182 822 913
10th Percentile £320 £280 £307
25th Percentile £394 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £469 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.28% -6.20% -2.68%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £675 £663 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £490
% change year-on-year - -8.16% +0.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 146 30 99
10th Percentile £12.91 £12.71 £10.85
25th Percentile £16.13 £13.50 £12.24
Median hourly rate £31.73 £17.66 £14.98
Median % change year-on-year +79.65% +17.91% -33.42%
75th Percentile £67.50 £44.91 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £55.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £15.12 £14.00
% change year-on-year +108.07% +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 8,659 5,068 5,942
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.83% 16.37% 13.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,537 3,252 3,690
10th Percentile £340 £279 £282
25th Percentile £413 £400 £401
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 £473 £475
% change year-on-year +5.70% -0.42% -4.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 533 211 433
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.78 £11.07
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.50 £13.50
Median hourly rate £36.07 £30.00 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year +20.23% +26.05% -38.52%
75th Percentile £67.50 £63.75 £50.00
90th Percentile £81.52 £83.41 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.07 £28.18 £21.64
% change year-on-year +28.00% +30.22% -42.29%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 1,631 £477 +0.42% 1,004
UK excluding London +2 888 £450 - 736
London +3 805 £500 +1.01% 404
Work from Home +5 555 £480 +1.05% 484
South East -2 200 £450 -2.70% 205
North of England -12 199 £461 -0.70% 198
Midlands -7 177 £428 +14.00% 134
West Midlands -6 133 £444 +4.53% 66
South West +24 125 £495 -1.00% 80
East of England +11 88 £475 -0.78% 64
North West -25 86 £440 +4.27% 119
Scotland +8 85 £350 -20.00% 31
Yorkshire -20 74 £525 +1.01% 53
East Midlands -13 44 £414 +12.74% 68
North East -3 39 £390 -13.33% 29
Northern Ireland +5 19 £475 +46.15% 38
Wales -8 11 £463 +8.82% 11

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 (5.84%) Confluence
2 33 (1.74%) SharePoint
3 30 (1.58%) CMS
4 19 (1.00%) IIS
5 16 (0.84%) Apache Spark
6 11 (0.58%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 8 (0.42%) Apache
7 8 (0.42%) SAS
8 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Exchange
8 5 (0.26%) Tuxedo
8 5 (0.26%) Umbraco
9 4 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
9 4 (0.21%) nginx
10 3 (0.16%) Moodle
10 3 (0.16%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
10 3 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.16%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.11%) Apache Solr
11 2 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.11%) WordPress
Applications
1 58 (3.05%) Microsoft Excel
2 29 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
3 25 (1.31%) Microsoft Project
4 22 (1.16%) MS Visio
5 19 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 6 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.26%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.21%) Photoshop
9 3 (0.16%) CATIA
9 3 (0.16%) CPLEX
9 3 (0.16%) Simulink
10 2 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
10 2 (0.11%) AutoCAD
10 2 (0.11%) EPLAN
11 1 (0.053%) Adobe After Effects
11 1 (0.053%) Adobe Premiere
11 1 (0.053%) Camtasia
11 1 (0.053%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.053%) Notion
11 1 (0.053%) Revit
Business Applications
1 28 (1.47%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.42%) Shopify
4 7 (0.37%) Salesforce CRM
4 7 (0.37%) Workday HCM
5 6 (0.32%) Maximo
5 6 (0.32%) NEC Housing
5 6 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
6 5 (0.26%) Infor CloudSuite
7 4 (0.21%) Adobe Campaign
7 4 (0.21%) Primavera
8 3 (0.16%) Actimize
8 3 (0.16%) Aladdin
8 3 (0.16%) IntelliMatch
8 3 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
8 3 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
8 3 (0.16%) SAP FI
9 2 (0.11%) iTrent
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle Assets
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 414 (21.77%) Azure
2 308 (16.19%) AWS
3 177 (9.31%) Azure DevOps
4 152 (7.99%) GitHub
5 103 (5.42%) Power Platform
6 90 (4.73%) GitHub Actions
7 75 (3.94%) GCP
8 43 (2.26%) Serverless
9 39 (2.05%) SaaS
10 38 (2.00%) OpenShift
11 32 (1.68%) Dynamics 365
12 27 (1.42%) AWS Lambda
12 27 (1.42%) Snowflake
13 26 (1.37%) Amazon S3
14 24 (1.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 22 (1.16%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 21 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
16 21 (1.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 20 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
18 19 (1.00%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.26%) Firewall
2 19 (1.00%) Network Security
3 18 (0.95%) Internet
3 18 (0.95%) WAN
4 16 (0.84%) LAN
5 14 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
6 13 (0.68%) VPN
7 11 (0.58%) SD-WAN
7 11 (0.58%) Unified Communications
7 11 (0.58%) VLAN
8 9 (0.47%) DNS
8 9 (0.47%) HTTP
8 9 (0.47%) Wireless
9 8 (0.42%) IPsec
10 7 (0.37%) SMS
10 7 (0.37%) TCP/IP
11 6 (0.32%) Cisco Nexus
12 5 (0.26%) DHCP
13 4 (0.21%) Broadband
13 4 (0.21%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (5.99%) SQL Server
2 89 (4.68%) Power BI
3 72 (3.79%) Data Warehouse
4 65 (3.42%) PostgreSQL
5 60 (3.15%) Relational Database
6 41 (2.16%) MySQL
7 39 (2.05%) NoSQL
8 37 (1.95%) Metadata
8 37 (1.95%) Tableau
9 36 (1.89%) Oracle Database
10 33 (1.74%) MongoDB
11 32 (1.68%) Oracle Reports
12 29 (1.52%) Data Lake
13 22 (1.16%) Big Data
14 19 (1.00%) Azure SQL Database
15 18 (0.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 16 (0.84%) DynamoDB
16 16 (0.84%) RDBMS
17 15 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
17 15 (0.79%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 301 (15.83%) JIRA
2 182 (9.57%) Git
3 145 (7.62%) Selenium
4 137 (7.20%) Jenkins
5 94 (4.94%) GitLab
6 85 (4.47%) Postman
7 64 (3.36%) Cypress.io
8 63 (3.31%) Cucumber
9 58 (3.05%) JUnit
10 52 (2.73%) REST Assured
11 47 (2.47%) Zephyr
12 45 (2.37%) SonarQube
13 36 (1.89%) JMeter
14 29 (1.52%) WebDriver
15 24 (1.26%) Gatling
16 23 (1.21%) Maven
17 19 (1.00%) TestNG
17 19 (1.00%) TestRail
18 17 (0.89%) Appium
18 17 (0.89%) Gradle
General
1 576 (30.28%) Social Skills
2 417 (21.92%) Finance
3 282 (14.83%) Analytical Skills
4 218 (11.46%) Public Sector
5 143 (7.52%) Banking
6 63 (3.31%) Retail
7 59 (3.10%) Manufacturing
8 55 (2.89%) Marketing
9 49 (2.58%) Organisational Skills
10 38 (2.00%) Aerospace
11 29 (1.52%) Documentation Skills
12 25 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 23 (1.21%) Influencing Skills
13 23 (1.21%) Legal
14 21 (1.10%) Investment Banking
15 20 (1.05%) Pharmaceutical
16 19 (1.00%) Military
17 18 (0.95%) Automotive
17 18 (0.95%) Presentation Skills
18 16 (0.84%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 253 (13.30%) Developer
2 230 (12.09%) Analyst
3 220 (11.57%) Senior
4 217 (11.41%) Lead
5 174 (9.15%) QA Engineer
6 110 (5.78%) Business Analyst
7 104 (5.47%) Tester
8 88 (4.63%) Test Manager
9 71 (3.73%) Quality Engineer
10 70 (3.68%) Java Developer
11 68 (3.58%) Test Engineer
12 67 (3.52%) Architect
13 58 (3.05%) Data Engineer
13 58 (3.05%) Test Leader
14 54 (2.84%) Senior Analyst
15 53 (2.79%) Consultant
16 52 (2.73%) Project Manager
17 51 (2.68%) Data Analyst
18 46 (2.42%) Test Analyst
19 45 (2.37%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 136 (7.15%) REST
2 113 (5.94%) .NET
3 112 (5.89%) Playwright
4 106 (5.57%) RESTful
5 90 (4.73%) Spring
6 87 (4.57%) Spring Boot
7 75 (3.94%) React
8 67 (3.52%) HTML
9 66 (3.47%) AngularJS
10 62 (3.26%) CSS
11 51 (2.68%) .NET Framework
11 51 (2.68%) Kafka
12 49 (2.58%) Node.js
13 38 (2.00%) JSON
14 33 (1.74%) Quarkus
15 31 (1.63%) SOAP
16 30 (1.58%) Middleware
17 26 (1.37%) ASP.NET
18 25 (1.31%) pytest
19 24 (1.26%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 170 (8.94%) Product Ownership
2 86 (4.52%) Cloud Native
3 56 (2.94%) Onboarding
4 53 (2.79%) Legacy Systems
5 42 (2.21%) Data Protection Act
5 42 (2.21%) Distributed Systems
5 42 (2.21%) Management Information System
5 42 (2.21%) Mobile App
6 35 (1.84%) Enterprise Software
7 33 (1.74%) Data Structures
8 26 (1.37%) Data Centre
9 23 (1.21%) AI Agents
10 22 (1.16%) Virtual Team
11 20 (1.05%) Analytical Mindset
12 18 (0.95%) NHS
12 18 (0.95%) Self-Motivation
13 14 (0.74%) Life Science
14 13 (0.68%) Derivative
14 13 (0.68%) Distributed Architecture
14 13 (0.68%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 88 (4.63%) Windows
2 57 (3.00%) Linux
3 31 (1.63%) Apple iOS
4 30 (1.58%) Windows Server
5 28 (1.47%) Android
6 23 (1.21%) Unix
7 6 (0.32%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
9 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.053%) Debian
10 1 (0.053%) Solaris
10 1 (0.053%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.053%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.053%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 725 (38.12%) Agile
2 496 (26.08%) Test Automation
3 469 (24.66%) DevOps
4 449 (23.61%) CI/CD
5 320 (16.82%) Validation
6 315 (16.56%) Continuous Improvement
7 310 (16.30%) Stakeholder Management
8 306 (16.09%) Problem-Solving
9 268 (14.09%) User Acceptance Testing
10 261 (13.72%) Scrum
11 256 (13.46%) Test Strategy
12 239 (12.57%) Migration
13 214 (11.25%) AI
14 172 (9.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 164 (8.62%) Decision-Making
16 158 (8.31%) SDLC
17 148 (7.78%) ETL
18 147 (7.73%) Analytics
19 145 (7.62%) Data Migration
20 144 (7.57%) Test Management
Programming Languages
1 382 (20.08%) SQL
2 246 (12.93%) Java
3 236 (12.41%) Python
4 136 (7.15%) JavaScript
5 135 (7.10%) C#
6 85 (4.47%) TypeScript
7 41 (2.16%) T-SQL
8 40 (2.10%) PL/SQL
9 31 (1.63%) Kotlin
10 30 (1.58%) PowerShell
11 25 (1.31%) Bash
12 20 (1.05%) Scala
13 18 (0.95%) VB
14 17 (0.89%) Swift
15 16 (0.84%) C
15 16 (0.84%) C++
15 16 (0.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 15 (0.79%) Bicep
17 14 (0.74%) VBA
18 13 (0.68%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 428 (22.50%) Security Cleared
2 323 (16.98%) SC Cleared
3 130 (6.83%) Degree
4 75 (3.94%) ISTQB
5 67 (3.52%) BPSS Clearance
6 51 (2.68%) DV Cleared
7 31 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
7 31 (1.63%) PMI Certification
7 31 (1.63%) PMP
8 14 (0.74%) Master's Degree
9 12 (0.63%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 11 (0.58%) Azure Certification
10 11 (0.58%) Cisco Certification
11 10 (0.53%) AWS Certification
12 8 (0.42%) Microsoft Certification
13 7 (0.37%) CBAP
13 7 (0.37%) CCNP
14 6 (0.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 6 (0.32%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 5 (0.26%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 126 (6.62%) Data Quality
2 87 (4.57%) Accessibility
3 35 (1.84%) GDPR
4 33 (1.74%) PMO
5 23 (1.21%) WCAG
6 18 (0.95%) GRC
7 15 (0.79%) IFRS
8 14 (0.74%) SLA
9 13 (0.68%) GxP
9 13 (0.68%) IFRS 17
9 13 (0.68%) NIST
10 12 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 11 (0.58%) Disclosure Scotland
11 11 (0.58%) PCI DSS
12 9 (0.47%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 7 (0.37%) ISO 20022
13 7 (0.37%) NCSC
14 6 (0.32%) SEPA
15 5 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
15 5 (0.26%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 114 (5.99%) Docker
2 21 (1.10%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.37%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.32%) Firmware
5 6 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (0.21%) IAG
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 (0.053%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.053%) KVM
9 1 (0.053%) QEMU
9 1 (0.053%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
9 1 (0.053%) Varnish
9 1 (0.053%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 170 (8.94%) Kubernetes
2 65 (3.42%) Terraform
3 34 (1.79%) Ansible
3 34 (1.79%) Grafana
4 33 (1.74%) Argo
5 25 (1.31%) Prometheus
6 21 (1.10%) HP ALM
7 12 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.53%) HP Quality Center
9 7 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
9 7 (0.37%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 6 (0.32%) Kibana
10 6 (0.32%) SCCM
11 5 (0.26%) Nmap
12 4 (0.21%) Puppet
13 3 (0.16%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.16%) Progress Chef
14 2 (0.11%) ITRS Geneos
14 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Intune
14 2 (0.11%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 193 (10.15%) Microsoft
2 170 (8.94%) Oracle
3 107 (5.63%) Salesforce
4 92 (4.84%) SAP
5 51 (2.68%) ServiceNow
6 37 (1.95%) Citrix
6 37 (1.95%) Red Hat
7 36 (1.89%) Databricks
7 36 (1.89%) Google
8 29 (1.52%) Adobe
9 26 (1.37%) Informatica
10 24 (1.26%) HP
11 21 (1.10%) Cisco
12 18 (0.95%) MuleSoft
13 14 (0.74%) Talend
14 13 (0.68%) Workday
15 12 (0.63%) Atlassian
15 12 (0.63%) Splunk
15 12 (0.63%) VMware
16 11 (0.58%) Infor