Senior QA Tester Contracts

Senior Quality Assurance Tester
UK

The median Senior Quality Assurance Tester daily rate in the UK is £380, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 517 577 712
Rank change year-on-year +60 +135 +137
Contract jobs requiring a Senior QA Tester 3 5 6
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.010% 0.011% 0.010%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.011% 0.012% 0.011%
Number of daily rates quoted 3 3 5
10th Percentile £342 £256 -
25th Percentile £355 £303 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £380 £380 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -27.62% +40.00%
75th Percentile £381 £440 £613
90th Percentile £382 £476 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £363 - £525
% change year-on-year - - +75.00%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 27,084 40,415 56,464
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.52% 92.78% 94.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,692 26,309 39,470
10th Percentile £300 £275 £313
25th Percentile £406 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £492 £500
% change year-on-year -3.46% -1.60% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,035 2,664 1,570
10th Percentile £14.07 £12.86 £14.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.30 £19.50
Median hourly rate £29.00 £36.42 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.37% -19.07% +91.49%
75th Percentile £62.50 £60.75 £65.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £39.55 £42.50
% change year-on-year -29.20% -6.94% +117.95%

Senior QA Tester
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Senior QA Tester in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Senior QA Tester in the UK

Senior QA Tester
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Senior QA Tester.

Daily rate trend for Senior QA Tester in the UK

Senior QA Tester
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Senior QA Tester.

Hourly rate trend for Senior QA Tester in the UK

Senior QA Tester
Top 6 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Senior QA Tester within the UK over the 6 months to 1 May 2025. 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 +55 3 £380 - 1
UK excluding London - 2 £363 - 1
London +34 1 £380 -
North of England - 1 £380 -
North West - 1 £380 -
South East - 1 £345 - 1

Senior QA Tester Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Senior QA Tester contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Senior QA Tester in the job title.

1 3 (100.00%) QA
2 2 (66.67%) JIRA
2 2 (66.67%) Social Skills
2 2 (66.67%) End-to-End Testing
2 2 (66.67%) Test Automation
2 2 (66.67%) Agile
2 2 (66.67%) Confluence
3 1 (33.33%) Waterfall
3 1 (33.33%) Cucumber
3 1 (33.33%) BDD
3 1 (33.33%) SoapUI
3 1 (33.33%) Node.js
3 1 (33.33%) Test Strategy
3 1 (33.33%) GitHub
3 1 (33.33%) Jenkins
3 1 (33.33%) User Stories
3 1 (33.33%) PuTTY
3 1 (33.33%) Test Planning
3 1 (33.33%) Line Management
3 1 (33.33%) Mentoring
3 1 (33.33%) SDLC
3 1 (33.33%) TestRail
3 1 (33.33%) Acceptance Criteria
3 1 (33.33%) Scaled Agile Framework
3 1 (33.33%) Public Sector
3 1 (33.33%) Postman
3 1 (33.33%) Backlog Prioritisation
3 1 (33.33%) TDD
3 1 (33.33%) ISTQB
3 1 (33.33%) Finance

Senior QA Tester Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 2 (66.67%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 1 (33.33%) AWS
1 1 (33.33%) GitHub
1 1 (33.33%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (33.33%) PuTTY
Development Applications
1 2 (66.67%) JIRA
2 1 (33.33%) Cucumber
2 1 (33.33%) Jenkins
2 1 (33.33%) Postman
2 1 (33.33%) SoapUI
2 1 (33.33%) TestRail
2 1 (33.33%) WebDriver
General
1 2 (66.67%) Social Skills
2 1 (33.33%) Finance
2 1 (33.33%) Presentation Skills
2 1 (33.33%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (33.33%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 1 (33.33%) Onboarding
Processes & Methodologies
1 2 (66.67%) Agile
1 2 (66.67%) End-to-End Testing
1 2 (66.67%) Test Automation
2 1 (33.33%) Acceptance Criteria
2 1 (33.33%) Backlog Prioritisation
2 1 (33.33%) BDD
2 1 (33.33%) Biometrics
2 1 (33.33%) CI/CD
2 1 (33.33%) Line Management
2 1 (33.33%) Manual Testing
2 1 (33.33%) Mentoring
2 1 (33.33%) Scaled Agile Framework
2 1 (33.33%) SDLC
2 1 (33.33%) TDD
2 1 (33.33%) Test Assurance
2 1 (33.33%) Test Planning
2 1 (33.33%) Test Strategy
2 1 (33.33%) User Acceptance Testing
2 1 (33.33%) User Stories
2 1 (33.33%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 1 (33.33%) JavaScript
1 1 (33.33%) SQL
Qualifications
1 1 (33.33%) ISTQB
1 1 (33.33%) SC Cleared
1 1 (33.33%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (100.00%) QA