Software Quality Assurance Contracts

Software Quality Assurance
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Software Quality Assurance skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Software Quality Assurance over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 502 589 678
Rank change year-on-year +87 +89 +154
Contract jobs citing Software Quality Assurance 17 11 35
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.058% 0.025% 0.059%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 0.37% 0.18% 0.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 9 6 25
10th Percentile £73 £263 £274
25th Percentile £130 £288 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £195 £408 £450
Median % change year-on-year -52.15% -9.44% +2.86%
75th Percentile £475 £549 £513
90th Percentile £560 £625 £538
UK excluding London median daily rate £178 £463 £438
% change year-on-year -61.62% +5.71% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 2
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £45.00
Median hourly rate - - £50.00
75th Percentile - - £55.00
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - -

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

Software Quality Assurance 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 4,558 6,250 7,982
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.59% 14.34% 13.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,921 3,951 5,482
10th Percentile £265 £295 £275
25th Percentile £400 £402 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% +2.44%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £475
% change year-on-year -2.56% +2.63% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 383 225
10th Percentile £18.04 £10.95 £13.21
25th Percentile £22.21 £13.18 £18.70
Median hourly rate £34.50 £21.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +64.29% -44.00% +33.93%
75th Percentile £65.00 £45.00 £62.00
90th Percentile £83.01 £67.38 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.78 £18.00 £36.25
% change year-on-year +126.53% -50.34% +72.21%

Software Quality Assurance
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Software Quality Assurance as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Software Quality Assurance in the UK

Software Quality Assurance
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Software Quality Assurance.

Daily rate trend for Software Quality Assurance in the UK

Software Quality Assurance
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Quality Assurance over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Software Quality Assurance in the UK

Software Quality Assurance
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Software Quality Assurance.

Hourly rate trend for Software Quality Assurance in the UK

Software Quality Assurance
Top 12 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Software Quality Assurance within the UK over the 6 months to 30 April 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 +67 14 £195 -52.15% 25
UK excluding London +63 12 £178 -61.62% 21
Work from Home +54 5 £195 - 12
Midlands - 5 £130 - 1
South East - 3 - - 4
West Midlands - 3 £160 -
North of England - 3 £550 - 3
London +29 2 - - 14
North West - 2 £400 - 1
East Midlands - 2 £70 - 1
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 4
Yorkshire - 1 £550 -

Software Quality Assurance
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:

Business Applications
1 1 (5.88%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 6 (35.29%) Azure
2 4 (23.53%) GitHub
3 3 (17.65%) Cloud Computing
3 3 (17.65%) Dynamics 365
4 2 (11.76%) BlazeMeter
4 2 (11.76%) BrowserStack
5 1 (5.88%) AWS
5 1 (5.88%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (5.88%) CloudBees
5 1 (5.88%) GCP
Development Applications
1 5 (29.41%) JMeter
2 3 (17.65%) Cucumber
2 3 (17.65%) Cypress.io
2 3 (17.65%) Selenium
3 2 (11.76%) Eclipse
3 2 (11.76%) Git
3 2 (11.76%) GitLab
3 2 (11.76%) Jenkins
3 2 (11.76%) NetBeans
4 1 (5.88%) Browser DevTools
4 1 (5.88%) JIRA
4 1 (5.88%) JUnit
4 1 (5.88%) Newman
4 1 (5.88%) Pa11y
4 1 (5.88%) Postman
4 1 (5.88%) TestRail
General
1 5 (29.41%) Analytical Skills
1 5 (29.41%) Social Skills
2 4 (23.53%) Games
3 2 (11.76%) Telecoms
4 1 (5.88%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 6 (35.29%) QA Engineer
2 3 (17.65%) Lead
2 3 (17.65%) QA Leader
3 2 (11.76%) Senior
3 2 (11.76%) Senior QA Engineer
3 2 (11.76%) Test Manager
4 1 (5.88%) Ab Initio Developer
4 1 (5.88%) Customer Service Representative
4 1 (5.88%) Developer
4 1 (5.88%) Principal Engineer
4 1 (5.88%) Principal Systems Engineer
4 1 (5.88%) QA Tester
4 1 (5.88%) Quality Engineer
4 1 (5.88%) SAP Manager
4 1 (5.88%) SAP Test Manager
4 1 (5.88%) Software Engineer
4 1 (5.88%) Software Quality Engineer
4 1 (5.88%) Software Tester
4 1 (5.88%) Systems Engineer
4 1 (5.88%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (11.76%) Gherkin
1 2 (11.76%) POSIX
2 1 (5.88%) REST
2 1 (5.88%) RESTful
2 1 (5.88%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 3 (17.65%) Online Games
2 2 (11.76%) Algorithms
2 2 (11.76%) Self-Motivation
3 1 (5.88%) CMDB
3 1 (5.88%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (5.88%) IoT
3 1 (5.88%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 2 (11.76%) Linux
2 1 (5.88%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (100.00%) Code Quality
2 11 (64.71%) Agile
3 9 (52.94%) Test Automation
4 8 (47.06%) CI/CD
5 6 (35.29%) Problem-Solving
6 4 (23.53%) DevOps
6 4 (23.53%) Performance Testing
7 3 (17.65%) Data Analysis
7 3 (17.65%) Non-Functional Testing
7 3 (17.65%) SDLC
7 3 (17.65%) Software Engineering
7 3 (17.65%) Test Strategy
7 3 (17.65%) User Stories
8 2 (11.76%) API Testing
8 2 (11.76%) BDD
8 2 (11.76%) Continuous Improvement
8 2 (11.76%) Defect Management
8 2 (11.76%) Mentoring
8 2 (11.76%) User Experience
8 2 (11.76%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 5 (29.41%) JavaScript
2 3 (17.65%) TypeScript
3 2 (11.76%) C
3 2 (11.76%) C#
3 2 (11.76%) C++
3 2 (11.76%) Java
3 2 (11.76%) Python
4 1 (5.88%) Kotlin
4 1 (5.88%) Shell Script
4 1 (5.88%) SQL
Qualifications
1 4 (23.53%) Degree
2 2 (11.76%) Computer Science Degree
2 2 (11.76%) ISTQB
2 2 (11.76%) Security Cleared
3 1 (5.88%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (100.00%) QA
2 2 (11.76%) GDPR
2 2 (11.76%) MISRA
2 2 (11.76%) MISRA C
3 1 (5.88%) Accessibility
3 1 (5.88%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 1 (5.88%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (5.88%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 3 (17.65%) Microsoft
2 2 (11.76%) QNX
3 1 (5.88%) Ab Initio
3 1 (5.88%) Ariba
3 1 (5.88%) SAP
3 1 (5.88%) ServiceNow