Software Quality Engineer Contract Job Trends

Software Quality Engineer
UK

The median Software Quality Engineer daily rate in the UK is £650, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 January 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 586 526 590
Rank change year-on-year -60 +64 -
Contract jobs requiring a Software Quality Engineer 3 6 2
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.008% 0.019% 0.005%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.009% 0.020% 0.005%
Number of daily rates quoted 1 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £625 - -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £650 - -
75th Percentile £675 - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median daily rate - - -

All Contract IT Job Roles
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 33,434 29,568 39,993
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.32% 92.68% 93.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,144 18,103 26,697
10th Percentile £300 £291 £280
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £479 £500
% change year-on-year -0.89% -4.15% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,959 890 1,643
10th Percentile £14.37 £15.62 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.22 £18.95
Median hourly rate £26.50 £32.50 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.46% -26.97% +35.79%
75th Percentile £59.38 £62.24 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.00 £73.75 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.76 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.81% -29.42% +66.64%

Software Quality Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Software Quality Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Software Quality Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Software Quality Engineer
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Software Quality Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Software Quality Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Software Quality Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Software Quality Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Software Quality Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Software Quality Engineer
Top 5 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Software Quality Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 10 January 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 -52 3 £650 - 6
London -13 2 £650 - 3
Work from Home -6 1 - - 2
UK excluding London -59 1 - - 5
East of England - 1 - -

Software Quality Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 10 January 2026, Software Quality Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Software Quality Engineer in the job title.

1 3 (100.00%) Code Quality
2 2 (66.67%) Degree
2 2 (66.67%) QA
2 2 (66.67%) Software Quality Assurance
2 2 (66.67%) Validation
3 1 (33.33%) 21 CFR Part 11
3 1 (33.33%) Actionable Insight
3 1 (33.33%) AI
3 1 (33.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
3 1 (33.33%) Amazon ECS
3 1 (33.33%) Amazon EKS
3 1 (33.33%) Amazon S3
3 1 (33.33%) Apache Spark
3 1 (33.33%) AWS
3 1 (33.33%) AWS Lambda
3 1 (33.33%) AWS Step Functions
3 1 (33.33%) Big Data
3 1 (33.33%) CI/CD
3 1 (33.33%) Computer Science
3 1 (33.33%) Computer Science Degree
3 1 (33.33%) Data Engineering
3 1 (33.33%) Data Governance
3 1 (33.33%) Data Pipeline
3 1 (33.33%) Data Protection
3 1 (33.33%) Databricks
3 1 (33.33%) Design Patterns
3 1 (33.33%) Disaster Recovery
3 1 (33.33%) Document Management
3 1 (33.33%) ERP
3 1 (33.33%) Event-Driven

Software Quality Engineer Skill Set
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 1 (33.33%) Apache Spark
Cloud Services
1 1 (33.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
1 1 (33.33%) Amazon ECS
1 1 (33.33%) Amazon EKS
1 1 (33.33%) Amazon S3
1 1 (33.33%) AWS
1 1 (33.33%) AWS Lambda
1 1 (33.33%) AWS Step Functions
1 1 (33.33%) GitHub
1 1 (33.33%) GitHub Actions
1 1 (33.33%) Serverless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (33.33%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 1 (33.33%) Jenkins
1 1 (33.33%) QADirector
General
1 2 (66.67%) Manufacturing
1 2 (66.67%) Social Skills
2 1 (33.33%) Aerospace
2 1 (33.33%) Analytical Skills
2 1 (33.33%) Finance
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (33.33%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 1 (33.33%) Cloud Native
1 1 (33.33%) Data Protection Act
1 1 (33.33%) Distributed Systems
1 1 (33.33%) Life Science
1 1 (33.33%) Manufacturing Execution System
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (100.00%) Code Quality
2 2 (66.67%) Validation
3 1 (33.33%) Actionable Insight
3 1 (33.33%) AI
3 1 (33.33%) Computer Science
3 1 (33.33%) Data Engineering
3 1 (33.33%) Data Governance
3 1 (33.33%) Data Protection
3 1 (33.33%) Document Management
3 1 (33.33%) Event-Driven Architecture
3 1 (33.33%) Infrastructure as Code
3 1 (33.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 1 (33.33%) Machine Learning
3 1 (33.33%) Observability
3 1 (33.33%) Performance Tuning
3 1 (33.33%) Problem-Solving
3 1 (33.33%) SDLC
3 1 (33.33%) Software Engineering
3 1 (33.33%) Stakeholder Management
3 1 (33.33%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 1 (33.33%) Python
Qualifications
1 2 (66.67%) Degree
2 1 (33.33%) Computer Science Degree
2 1 (33.33%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (66.67%) QA
1 2 (66.67%) Software Quality Assurance
2 1 (33.33%) 21 CFR Part 11
System Software
1 1 (33.33%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 1 (33.33%) Terraform
Vendors
1 1 (33.33%) Databricks
1 1 (33.33%) ServiceNow