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 4 August 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Aug 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 537 564 649
Rank change year-on-year +27 +85 +181
Contract jobs citing Software Quality Assurance 16 6 33
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.049% 0.015% 0.062%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 0.29% 0.11% 0.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 12 4 27
10th Percentile £98 £437 £335
25th Percentile £319 £478 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £501 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.11% +5.39% -5.00%
75th Percentile £550 £545 £594
90th Percentile - £623 £630
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £501 £588
% change year-on-year -0.24% -14.69% -2.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £43.75
Median hourly rate - - £47.50
75th Percentile - - £51.25
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 5,545 5,325 7,406
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.84% 13.58% 13.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,569 3,292 5,028
10th Percentile £281 £292 £308
25th Percentile £400 £400 £414
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.89% -3.90% -
75th Percentile £606 £625 £650
90th Percentile £713 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 252 324 250
10th Percentile £13.60 £11.18 £14.03
25th Percentile £17.43 £14.48 £18.80
Median hourly rate £26.93 £25.68 £39.51
Median % change year-on-year +4.84% -35.00% +57.77%
75th Percentile £60.00 £55.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £83.37 £70.00 £78.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.83 £25.00 £35.50
% change year-on-year -0.68% -29.58% +61.36%

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 4 August 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 11 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 4 August 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 +18 11 £500 -0.12% 27
UK excluding London +17 10 £500 -0.24% 19
Work from Home - 4 £400 - 15
East of England - 4 £500 - 4
East Midlands - 3 £75 -
Midlands - 3 £75 -
London -2 2 £550 +10.00% 12
North of England - 2 £575 - 2
North West - 1 £600 - 2
Yorkshire - 1 £550 -
Northern Ireland - 1 - -

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 (6.25%) Magento
1 1 (6.25%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 4 (25.00%) GitHub
2 3 (18.75%) AWS
2 3 (18.75%) Azure
2 3 (18.75%) Cloud Computing
3 2 (12.50%) Asana
3 2 (12.50%) GitHub Actions
4 1 (6.25%) CloudBees
4 1 (6.25%) GCP
4 1 (6.25%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
4 1 (6.25%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (6.25%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 3 (18.75%) Git
1 3 (18.75%) JIRA
1 3 (18.75%) LabVIEW
2 2 (12.50%) Eclipse
2 2 (12.50%) Jenkins
2 2 (12.50%) NetBeans
2 2 (12.50%) Selenium
2 2 (12.50%) TestRail
3 1 (6.25%) Appium
3 1 (6.25%) GitLab
3 1 (6.25%) JMeter
3 1 (6.25%) Postman
3 1 (6.25%) Visual Studio
3 1 (6.25%) Zephyr
General
1 9 (56.25%) Social Skills
2 7 (43.75%) Analytical Skills
3 2 (12.50%) Telecoms
4 1 (6.25%) Aerospace
4 1 (6.25%) Manufacturing
4 1 (6.25%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 4 (25.00%) QA Engineer
1 4 (25.00%) Software Engineer
2 2 (12.50%) Developer
2 2 (12.50%) Test Manager
3 1 (6.25%) Ab Initio Developer
3 1 (6.25%) Analyst
3 1 (6.25%) DevOps Engineer
3 1 (6.25%) Oracle Analyst
3 1 (6.25%) Principal Engineer
3 1 (6.25%) Principal Systems Engineer
3 1 (6.25%) QA Analyst
3 1 (6.25%) QA Test Analyst
3 1 (6.25%) Quality Engineer
3 1 (6.25%) SAP Manager
3 1 (6.25%) Software Test Engineer
3 1 (6.25%) Software Tester
3 1 (6.25%) Systems Engineer
3 1 (6.25%) Test Analyst
3 1 (6.25%) Test Engineer
3 1 (6.25%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (18.75%) REST
2 2 (12.50%) GraphQL
2 2 (12.50%) Playwright
2 2 (12.50%) POSIX
3 1 (6.25%) .NET
3 1 (6.25%) Lightning Web Components
3 1 (6.25%) Visualforce
3 1 (6.25%) Web Services
3 1 (6.25%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 5 (31.25%) Algorithms
2 1 (6.25%) CMDB
2 1 (6.25%) Data Protection Act
2 1 (6.25%) IoT
2 1 (6.25%) Legacy Systems
2 1 (6.25%) Management Information System
2 1 (6.25%) Mobile App
2 1 (6.25%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 2 (12.50%) Linux
2 1 (6.25%) Android
2 1 (6.25%) Apple iOS
2 1 (6.25%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (100.00%) Code Quality
2 12 (75.00%) Agile
3 8 (50.00%) Test Automation
4 7 (43.75%) Problem-Solving
5 6 (37.50%) Software Engineering
6 4 (25.00%) CI/CD
6 4 (25.00%) Design Patterns
6 4 (25.00%) Mathematics
7 3 (18.75%) Continuous Improvement
7 3 (18.75%) DevOps
7 3 (18.75%) Image Processing
7 3 (18.75%) Mathematical Modelling
7 3 (18.75%) OOP
7 3 (18.75%) SOLID
8 2 (12.50%) E-Commerce
8 2 (12.50%) ETL
8 2 (12.50%) Migration
8 2 (12.50%) Project Management
8 2 (12.50%) Software Testing
8 2 (12.50%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 3 (18.75%) MATLAB
2 2 (12.50%) C
2 2 (12.50%) C++
2 2 (12.50%) Java
2 2 (12.50%) JavaScript
2 2 (12.50%) Python
2 2 (12.50%) SQL
2 2 (12.50%) TypeScript
3 1 (6.25%) Apex Code
3 1 (6.25%) C#
3 1 (6.25%) Kotlin
3 1 (6.25%) PHP
3 1 (6.25%) PL/SQL
3 1 (6.25%) Shell Script
3 1 (6.25%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 3 (18.75%) Degree
1 3 (18.75%) ISTQB
2 1 (6.25%) SC Cleared
2 1 (6.25%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (100.00%) QA
2 2 (12.50%) GDPR
2 2 (12.50%) MISRA
2 2 (12.50%) MISRA C
3 1 (6.25%) Accessibility
3 1 (6.25%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 3 (18.75%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (6.25%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 2 (12.50%) Microsoft
1 2 (12.50%) QNX
1 2 (12.50%) Salesforce
2 1 (6.25%) Ab Initio
2 1 (6.25%) Ariba
2 1 (6.25%) Oracle
2 1 (6.25%) SAP
2 1 (6.25%) ServiceNow