QA Job Trends in England

Quality Assurance (QA)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in England requiring QA skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 5 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 67 69
Rank change year-on-year -9 +2 -48
Permanent jobs citing QA 1,670 1,629 2,643
As % of all permanent jobs in England 2.63% 3.96% 3.81%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.10% 24.07% 26.57%
Number of salaries quoted 949 837 1,860
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,500 £31,988
25th Percentile £42,750 £44,708 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £92,500 £90,000 £100,000
UK median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -8.33%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
England

QA falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills in England.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 7,229 6,767 9,946
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 11.40% 16.47% 14.33%
Number of salaries quoted 4,360 3,360 7,402
10th Percentile £30,370 £31,250 £27,500
25th Percentile £42,500 £43,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - +9.09% -4.35%
75th Percentile £80,000 £77,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £92,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +9.09% -4.35%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing QA relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in England.

QA job vacancy trend in England

QA
Salary Trend in England

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing QA.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing QA

QA
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing QA in England over the 6 months to 5 March 2026.

Salary histogram for QA in England

QA
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing QA within the England region over the 6 months to 5 March 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London -14 492 £70,000 +7.69% 333
South East -3 312 £54,500 +9.00% 201
North of England -28 285 £50,000 -4.76% 196
Midlands +32 263 £45,000 -18.18% 106
North West -5 156 £50,000 -4.76% 107
West Midlands +33 139 £55,000 -4.35% 58
South West -3 127 £50,000 -17.79% 85
East Midlands -5 124 £35,000 -26.32% 46
East of England -3 122 £50,000 +23.46% 79
Yorkshire -17 96 £46,250 +6.32% 61
North East -48 33 £40,000 -27.27% 31
QA
UK

QA
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 25 (1.50%) Confluence
2 19 (1.14%) CMS
3 15 (0.90%) SharePoint
4 10 (0.60%) WordPress
5 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
6 7 (0.42%) nginx
7 4 (0.24%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 3 (0.18%) IIS
9 2 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
9 2 (0.12%) BizTalk Server
9 2 (0.12%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.12%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.060%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.060%) Apache
10 1 (0.060%) Jupyter
Applications
1 116 (6.95%) Microsoft Office
2 56 (3.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 21 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
4 9 (0.54%) Photoshop
5 8 (0.48%) Adobe Illustrator
6 6 (0.36%) AutoCAD
7 5 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
8 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
8 4 (0.24%) Trello
9 3 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.12%) Adobe After Effects
10 2 (0.12%) Adobe Captivate
10 2 (0.12%) Adobe Premiere
10 2 (0.12%) Elementor
11 1 (0.060%) Chatbot
11 1 (0.060%) InDesign
11 1 (0.060%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.060%) Simulink
11 1 (0.060%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 35 (2.10%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.54%) SAP ERP
4 7 (0.42%) Shopify
5 6 (0.36%) SAP Hybris
6 4 (0.24%) Academy Housing
6 4 (0.24%) SAP CX
7 3 (0.18%) Aladdin
7 3 (0.18%) Integrated Workplace Management System
7 3 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
7 3 (0.18%) Workday HCM
8 2 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
8 2 (0.12%) NetSuite
8 2 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
8 2 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
8 2 (0.12%) ResourceLink
9 1 (0.060%) IBM Planning Analytics
9 1 (0.060%) Loan IQ
9 1 (0.060%) SAP CO
9 1 (0.060%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 271 (16.23%) Azure
2 246 (14.73%) AWS
3 136 (8.14%) Microsoft 365
4 121 (7.25%) Azure DevOps
5 120 (7.19%) SaaS
6 92 (5.51%) Power Platform
7 64 (3.83%) GitHub
8 55 (3.29%) GCP
9 42 (2.51%) Serverless
10 33 (1.98%) Dynamics 365
11 31 (1.86%) AWS Lambda
12 30 (1.80%) Amazon S3
13 23 (1.38%) Power Automate
14 19 (1.14%) Amazon SQS
15 18 (1.08%) PaaS
15 18 (1.08%) PowerApps
16 12 (0.72%) AWS CloudFormation
17 11 (0.66%) Azure Logic Apps
17 11 (0.66%) IaaS
18 10 (0.60%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 30 (1.80%) Remote Desktop
2 12 (0.72%) HTTP
3 11 (0.66%) Multicast
4 9 (0.54%) VLAN
5 8 (0.48%) TCP/IP
6 7 (0.42%) MQTT
6 7 (0.42%) Wireless
7 6 (0.36%) Broadband
7 6 (0.36%) DNS
7 6 (0.36%) VPN
7 6 (0.36%) WAN
8 5 (0.30%) 5G
8 5 (0.30%) DHCP
8 5 (0.30%) VoIP
8 5 (0.30%) Wi-Fi
9 4 (0.24%) NAS
9 4 (0.24%) SD-WAN
10 3 (0.18%) LAN
10 3 (0.18%) LTE
11 2 (0.12%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 77 (4.61%) SQL Server
2 52 (3.11%) Power BI
3 39 (2.34%) MySQL
4 31 (1.86%) Relational Database
5 20 (1.20%) Data Warehouse
6 16 (0.96%) MongoDB
6 16 (0.96%) Tableau
7 14 (0.84%) NoSQL
7 14 (0.84%) PostgreSQL
8 12 (0.72%) Metadata
9 11 (0.66%) DynamoDB
10 9 (0.54%) Elasticsearch
10 9 (0.54%) GIS
11 7 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
12 6 (0.36%) BigQuery
12 6 (0.36%) Geospatial Data
12 6 (0.36%) QGIS
12 6 (0.36%) Spatial Data
13 5 (0.30%) Big Data
14 4 (0.24%) Redis
Development Applications
1 124 (7.43%) JIRA
2 97 (5.81%) Git
3 94 (5.63%) Selenium
4 76 (4.55%) Cypress.io
5 49 (2.93%) Postman
6 39 (2.34%) GitLab
7 33 (1.98%) Jenkins
8 26 (1.56%) Cucumber
9 25 (1.50%) JMeter
10 22 (1.32%) eCATT
11 19 (1.14%) Visual Studio
12 17 (1.02%) REST Assured
13 14 (0.84%) SoapUI
13 14 (0.84%) WebDriver
14 13 (0.78%) JUnit
14 13 (0.78%) SpecFlow
15 11 (0.66%) Appium
16 8 (0.48%) LoadRunner
16 8 (0.48%) Maven
16 8 (0.48%) Subversion
General
1 626 (37.49%) Social Skills
2 326 (19.52%) Finance
3 233 (13.95%) Analytical Skills
4 177 (10.60%) Manufacturing
5 101 (6.05%) French Language
6 95 (5.69%) Law
7 93 (5.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 91 (5.45%) Retail
9 83 (4.97%) Influencing Skills
10 81 (4.85%) Marketing
11 74 (4.43%) Public Sector
12 71 (4.25%) Swedish Language
13 63 (3.77%) Organisational Skills
14 59 (3.53%) Banking
15 49 (2.93%) Legal
16 41 (2.46%) Presentation Skills
17 27 (1.62%) Aerospace
18 22 (1.32%) Electronics
18 22 (1.32%) Games
19 21 (1.26%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 217 (12.99%) Lead
2 215 (12.87%) Analyst
3 195 (11.68%) Senior
4 146 (8.74%) QA Manager
5 143 (8.56%) QA Engineer
6 115 (6.89%) Developer
7 108 (6.47%) Quality Manager
8 96 (5.75%) Service Analyst
9 94 (5.63%) Service Desk Analyst
10 61 (3.65%) Quality Engineer
11 60 (3.59%) QA Leader
12 52 (3.11%) Software Engineer
13 48 (2.87%) Tester
14 47 (2.81%) Consultant
15 45 (2.69%) QA Automation Engineer
16 41 (2.46%) Test Leader
17 39 (2.34%) Test Engineer
18 37 (2.22%) Senior Developer
19 36 (2.16%) Automation Engineer
20 33 (1.98%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (6.47%) .NET
2 80 (4.79%) Playwright
3 62 (3.71%) React
4 50 (2.99%) REST
5 46 (2.75%) RESTful
6 42 (2.51%) CSS
7 41 (2.46%) HTML
8 26 (1.56%) AngularJS
9 24 (1.44%) Vue
10 23 (1.38%) Node.js
11 22 (1.32%) Kafka
11 22 (1.32%) SOAP
12 21 (1.26%) pytest
13 20 (1.20%) Spring
13 20 (1.20%) XML
14 19 (1.14%) Spring Boot
15 18 (1.08%) JSON
16 17 (1.02%) Jest
16 17 (1.02%) RabbitMQ
17 15 (0.90%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 98 (5.87%) Product Ownership
2 79 (4.73%) Onboarding
3 59 (3.53%) Self-Motivation
4 45 (2.69%) Analytical Mindset
5 37 (2.22%) Cloud Native
6 29 (1.74%) Legacy Systems
7 28 (1.68%) Management Information System
8 24 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
8 24 (1.44%) Mobile App
9 23 (1.38%) Virtual Team
10 22 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
11 21 (1.26%) Derivative
12 18 (1.08%) Low-Code
13 17 (1.02%) Equities
14 16 (0.96%) Security Posture
15 15 (0.90%) Fixed Income
16 14 (0.84%) PMI
17 13 (0.78%) Client/Server
17 13 (0.78%) Driving Licence
18 12 (0.72%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 57 (3.41%) Linux
2 48 (2.87%) Windows
3 30 (1.80%) Android
4 26 (1.56%) Apple iOS
5 6 (0.36%) Unix
5 6 (0.36%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.12%) CentOS
7 1 (0.060%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.060%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.060%) VMS
7 1 (0.060%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 423 (25.33%) Agile
2 373 (22.34%) Continuous Improvement
3 307 (18.38%) Problem-Solving
4 289 (17.31%) Test Automation
5 269 (16.11%) CI/CD
6 259 (15.51%) DevOps
7 216 (12.93%) Mentoring
8 169 (10.12%) Customer Service
9 142 (8.50%) Software Engineering
10 135 (8.08%) ITIL
10 135 (8.08%) Scrum
11 133 (7.96%) Coaching
12 120 (7.19%) Stakeholder Management
13 118 (7.07%) Decision-Making
14 117 (7.01%) AI
15 116 (6.95%) Process Improvement
15 116 (6.95%) Test Strategy
16 113 (6.77%) ITSM
17 107 (6.41%) Root Cause Analysis
18 104 (6.23%) Performance Metrics
Programming Languages
1 198 (11.86%) SQL
2 173 (10.36%) Python
3 162 (9.70%) C#
4 121 (7.25%) Java
5 111 (6.65%) JavaScript
6 90 (5.39%) TypeScript
7 34 (2.04%) Bash
7 34 (2.04%) C++
8 21 (1.26%) Delphi
8 21 (1.26%) Go
8 21 (1.26%) Pascal
9 17 (1.02%) PowerShell
10 16 (0.96%) PHP
11 14 (0.84%) C
12 11 (0.66%) Rust
13 9 (0.54%) Kotlin
14 7 (0.42%) PL/SQL
14 7 (0.42%) T-SQL
15 5 (0.30%) R
15 5 (0.30%) Swift
Qualifications
1 269 (16.11%) Degree
2 101 (6.05%) AWS Certification
3 97 (5.81%) Microsoft Certification
3 97 (5.81%) Security Cleared
4 94 (5.63%) MCSE
5 62 (3.71%) SC Cleared
6 51 (3.05%) Computer Science Degree
7 38 (2.28%) PMI Certification
8 37 (2.22%) ISTQB
9 33 (1.98%) DBS Check
10 26 (1.56%) CISSP
11 25 (1.50%) PMP
12 23 (1.38%) Master's Degree
13 21 (1.26%) IRCA
14 19 (1.14%) BPSS Clearance
15 17 (1.02%) CISM
15 17 (1.02%) DV Cleared
16 14 (0.84%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 10 (0.60%) CRISC
18 6 (0.36%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 79 (4.73%) Accessibility
2 56 (3.35%) GDPR
3 32 (1.92%) ISO 9001
4 28 (1.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 25 (1.50%) Data Quality
5 25 (1.50%) SLA
6 22 (1.32%) NIST
7 21 (1.26%) Cyber Essentials
8 18 (1.08%) PMO
9 16 (0.96%) WCAG
10 14 (0.84%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 12 (0.72%) GMP
11 12 (0.72%) P3O
11 12 (0.72%) Software Quality Assurance
12 11 (0.66%) GRC
12 11 (0.66%) PCI DSS
13 9 (0.54%) NIST 800
14 7 (0.42%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 7 (0.42%) GxP
15 5 (0.30%) PERC
System Software
1 64 (3.83%) Docker
2 24 (1.44%) Active Directory
3 12 (0.72%) Hyper-V
3 12 (0.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.36%) KVM
5 4 (0.24%) IAG
6 3 (0.18%) Firmware
7 2 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.12%) vSphere
8 1 (0.060%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.060%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.060%) Squid
Systems Management
1 61 (3.65%) Kubernetes
2 35 (2.10%) Terraform
3 26 (1.56%) Grafana
4 22 (1.32%) HP ALM
5 17 (1.02%) Ansible
6 12 (0.72%) Prometheus
7 11 (0.66%) Microsoft Intune
8 8 (0.48%) Argo
9 7 (0.42%) Rancher
10 6 (0.36%) yum
11 4 (0.24%) HP Fortify
12 2 (0.12%) FTK
12 2 (0.12%) Nagios
12 2 (0.12%) Netcool
12 2 (0.12%) Netcool/OMNIbus
12 2 (0.12%) Puppet
12 2 (0.12%) SCCM
12 2 (0.12%) VxRail
13 1 (0.060%) Kibana
13 1 (0.060%) WSUS
Vendors
1 251 (15.03%) Microsoft
2 114 (6.83%) ServiceNow
3 83 (4.97%) SAP
4 52 (3.11%) Oracle
5 27 (1.62%) Salesforce
6 22 (1.32%) HP
7 21 (1.26%) Google
8 12 (0.72%) VMware
9 11 (0.66%) Splunk
10 9 (0.54%) Pega
11 8 (0.48%) MuleSoft
12 7 (0.42%) Citrix
12 7 (0.42%) IBM
13 6 (0.36%) ESRI
13 6 (0.36%) Veeam
14 5 (0.30%) Adobe
14 5 (0.30%) Foundry
14 5 (0.30%) Siemens
14 5 (0.30%) Workday
15 4 (0.24%) Databricks