QA Job Trends in the North of England

Quality Assurance (QA)
England > North of England

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the North of England requiring QA skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 55 95 54
Rank change year-on-year +40 -41 +31
Permanent jobs citing QA 570 311 511
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 2.57% 3.22% 3.38%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 30.46% 25.12% 26.57%
Number of salaries quoted 368 130 276
10th Percentile £30,000 £35,000 £25,750
25th Percentile £32,688 £45,000 £31,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +22.22% -18.18%
75th Percentile £60,000 £71,250 £62,200
90th Percentile £75,000 £86,250 £69,375
England median annual salary £52,500 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -8.70% +9.52% -12.50%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
North of 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 the North of England.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 1,871 1,238 1,923
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 8.44% 12.82% 12.70%
Number of salaries quoted 1,356 587 1,170
10th Percentile £30,000 £25,480 £25,475
25th Percentile £39,542 £32,500 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £50,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £67,500 £63,750 £61,250
90th Percentile £83,750 £75,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £57,500 £55,360 £55,000
% change year-on-year +3.87% +0.65% -8.33%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

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

QA job vacancy trend in the North of England

QA
Salary Trend in the North of England

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing QA.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing QA

QA
Salary Histogram in the North of England

Salary distribution for jobs citing QA in the North of England over the 6 months to 14 August 2026.

Salary histogram for QA in the North of England

QA
Job Locations in the North of England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing QA within the North of England region over the 6 months to 14 August 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
North West +37 335 £45,000 -18.18% 123
North East +7 121 £52,500 +10.53% 44
Yorkshire +21 114 £40,000 -31.80% 47
QA
England

QA
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North of 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 11 (1.93%) Apache Airflow
2 7 (1.23%) Apache Spark
2 7 (1.23%) CMS
2 7 (1.23%) SharePoint
2 7 (1.23%) WordPress
3 6 (1.05%) Apache
3 6 (1.05%) Jupyter
4 3 (0.53%) IIS
5 2 (0.35%) Confluence
5 2 (0.35%) WebLogic
6 1 (0.18%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 30 (5.26%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (4.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.58%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.88%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.35%) Navisworks
6 1 (0.18%) Revit
Business Applications
1 5 (0.88%) SAP PM
2 4 (0.70%) Sage 200
2 4 (0.70%) SAP Business One
2 4 (0.70%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.53%) Shopify
4 2 (0.35%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 65 (11.40%) AWS
2 60 (10.53%) Azure
3 36 (6.32%) Power Platform
4 32 (5.61%) Microsoft 365
5 26 (4.56%) Azure DevOps
6 16 (2.81%) Serverless
7 15 (2.63%) GCP
8 14 (2.46%) Amazon S3
9 13 (2.28%) SaaS
10 12 (2.11%) Amazon EC2
11 11 (1.93%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 10 (1.75%) AWS Lambda
12 10 (1.75%) GitHub
13 9 (1.58%) Power Automate
14 7 (1.23%) Amazon ECR
14 7 (1.23%) Amazon EKS
15 6 (1.05%) Amazon EMR
15 6 (1.05%) dbt
15 6 (1.05%) GitHub Actions
15 6 (1.05%) Google Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.70%) HTTP
2 3 (0.53%) HTTPS
2 3 (0.53%) Structured Cabling
3 2 (0.35%) Broadband
3 2 (0.35%) DNS
3 2 (0.35%) VoIP
4 1 (0.18%) ADSL
4 1 (0.18%) Firewall
4 1 (0.18%) ISDN
4 1 (0.18%) LAN
4 1 (0.18%) Network Security
4 1 (0.18%) Remote Desktop
4 1 (0.18%) RIP
4 1 (0.18%) SSL
4 1 (0.18%) VDSL
4 1 (0.18%) WAN
4 1 (0.18%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (5.26%) Power BI
2 16 (2.81%) SQL Server
3 8 (1.40%) MySQL
4 7 (1.23%) BigQuery
4 7 (1.23%) DynamoDB
5 6 (1.05%) Amazon Athena
5 6 (1.05%) Relational Database
6 4 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
6 4 (0.70%) Data Lake
6 4 (0.70%) MongoDB
7 3 (0.53%) Big Data
7 3 (0.53%) Data Warehouse
7 3 (0.53%) DocumentDB
7 3 (0.53%) PostgreSQL
7 3 (0.53%) Redis
7 3 (0.53%) Tableau
8 2 (0.35%) Data Mining
8 2 (0.35%) EDRMS
8 2 (0.35%) Looker
8 2 (0.35%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 35 (6.14%) Git
2 24 (4.21%) JIRA
3 21 (3.68%) GitLab
4 9 (1.58%) Jenkins
5 8 (1.40%) Cypress.io
6 6 (1.05%) Postman
7 5 (0.88%) Cucumber
8 4 (0.70%) JUnit
8 4 (0.70%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.53%) Artifactory
9 3 (0.53%) NUnit
10 2 (0.35%) Claude Code
10 2 (0.35%) JMeter
10 2 (0.35%) Selenium
10 2 (0.35%) SpecFlow
10 2 (0.35%) TestRail
11 1 (0.18%) Gatling
11 1 (0.18%) Locust
11 1 (0.18%) REST Assured
11 1 (0.18%) Xcode
General
1 174 (30.53%) Social Skills
2 104 (18.25%) Manufacturing
3 93 (16.32%) Analytical Skills
4 66 (11.58%) Finance
5 65 (11.40%) Pharmaceutical
6 38 (6.67%) Public Sector
7 29 (5.09%) Legal
8 22 (3.86%) Organisational Skills
9 19 (3.33%) Law
10 18 (3.16%) Marketing
11 14 (2.46%) Aerospace
11 14 (2.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 12 (2.11%) Retail
12 12 (2.11%) Swedish Language
13 8 (1.40%) Automotive
13 8 (1.40%) Banking
13 8 (1.40%) Games
13 8 (1.40%) Telecoms
14 5 (0.88%) Legal Technology
14 5 (0.88%) Military
Job Titles
1 61 (10.70%) Analyst
2 55 (9.65%) QA Engineer
2 55 (9.65%) Senior
3 54 (9.47%) QA Manager
4 49 (8.60%) QA Officer
5 44 (7.72%) Developer
6 43 (7.54%) Quality Manager
7 42 (7.37%) Quality Engineer
8 35 (6.14%) Lead
9 33 (5.79%) Head of QA
10 19 (3.33%) Business Analyst
11 18 (3.16%) Service Analyst
11 18 (3.16%) Service Desk Analyst
11 18 (3.16%) Software Engineer
11 18 (3.16%) Test Engineer
12 16 (2.81%) Tester
13 13 (2.28%) Administrator
14 12 (2.11%) Senior Developer
14 12 (2.11%) Software Developer
15 11 (1.93%) QA Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (7.37%) .NET
2 33 (5.79%) HTML
3 30 (5.26%) CSS
4 17 (2.98%) Playwright
4 17 (2.98%) REST
5 16 (2.81%) Node.js
6 11 (1.93%) RESTful
7 10 (1.75%) .NET Framework
8 9 (1.58%) ASP.NET Web API
8 9 (1.58%) OAuth
9 8 (1.40%) AngularJS
9 8 (1.40%) ASP.NET
9 8 (1.40%) Entity Framework
9 8 (1.40%) React
10 7 (1.23%) .NET Core
10 7 (1.23%) JSON
10 7 (1.23%) OAuth2
10 7 (1.23%) Vue
11 6 (1.05%) JWT
12 5 (0.88%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 33 (5.79%) Analytical Mindset
2 22 (3.86%) Product Ownership
3 18 (3.16%) Life Science
4 13 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
5 12 (2.11%) Cloud Native
6 10 (1.75%) Management Information System
6 10 (1.75%) Onboarding
7 6 (1.05%) AI Agents
7 6 (1.05%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (0.88%) Data Centre
8 5 (0.88%) PMI
8 5 (0.88%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (0.70%) Animation
9 4 (0.70%) Driving Licence
9 4 (0.70%) Mobile App
9 4 (0.70%) Online Games
10 3 (0.53%) Blog
10 3 (0.53%) FMCG
10 3 (0.53%) Legacy Applications
10 3 (0.53%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 12 (2.11%) Windows
2 5 (0.88%) Android
2 5 (0.88%) Apple iOS
2 5 (0.88%) Linux
2 5 (0.88%) Windows 10
3 3 (0.53%) VME
4 2 (0.35%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.18%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.18%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 139 (24.39%) Continuous Improvement
2 120 (21.05%) Agile
3 95 (16.67%) CI/CD
4 82 (14.39%) Problem-Solving
5 77 (13.51%) Test Automation
6 66 (11.58%) DevOps
7 64 (11.23%) Mentoring
8 57 (10.00%) Analytics
9 53 (9.30%) Validation
10 51 (8.95%) Quality Management
11 48 (8.42%) Software Engineering
12 46 (8.07%) Decision-Making
12 46 (8.07%) Stakeholder Management
13 45 (7.89%) Root Cause Analysis
13 45 (7.89%) Software Testing
14 44 (7.72%) Change Management
15 42 (7.37%) PRINCE2
15 42 (7.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 41 (7.19%) Actionable Insight
17 38 (6.67%) Customer Experience
Programming Languages
1 62 (10.88%) SQL
2 49 (8.60%) JavaScript
3 48 (8.42%) C#
4 42 (7.37%) Python
5 28 (4.91%) Java
6 24 (4.21%) TypeScript
7 9 (1.58%) Bash
8 6 (1.05%) Go
8 6 (1.05%) PHP
9 4 (0.70%) PowerShell
10 3 (0.53%) COBOL
10 3 (0.53%) Groovy
11 2 (0.35%) Bicep
11 2 (0.35%) C++
11 2 (0.35%) Kotlin
11 2 (0.35%) R
11 2 (0.35%) VB.NET
12 1 (0.18%) C
12 1 (0.18%) Scala
12 1 (0.18%) Swift
Qualifications
1 66 (11.58%) Degree
2 37 (6.49%) Security Cleared
3 33 (5.79%) SC Cleared
4 31 (5.44%) IRCA
5 19 (3.33%) Microsoft Certification
6 16 (2.81%) AWS Certification
6 16 (2.81%) MCSE
7 12 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
8 8 (1.40%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (1.40%) Postgraduate
9 7 (1.23%) DBS Check
10 6 (1.05%) PMI Certification
11 5 (0.88%) ISTQB
11 5 (0.88%) PMP
12 4 (0.70%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 3 (0.53%) HNC
13 3 (0.53%) RIBA
14 2 (0.35%) CHECK Team Member
14 2 (0.35%) City & Guilds
14 2 (0.35%) CREST Certified
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (7.72%) ISO 9001
2 40 (7.02%) GDPR
3 23 (4.04%) Accessibility
4 13 (2.28%) GMP
5 11 (1.93%) Data Quality
6 7 (1.23%) PMO
7 4 (0.70%) PCI DSS
7 4 (0.70%) Software Quality Assurance
8 3 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.53%) WCAG
9 2 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.35%) ISO 14001
9 2 (0.35%) ISO 19650
10 1 (0.18%) AQAP
10 1 (0.18%) NCSC
10 1 (0.18%) NEBOSH
10 1 (0.18%) NIST
10 1 (0.18%) SLA
System Software
1 28 (4.91%) Docker
2 4 (0.70%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 17 (2.98%) Terraform
2 14 (2.46%) Kubernetes
3 5 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.53%) Ansible
4 3 (0.53%) Packer
5 2 (0.35%) Grafana
6 1 (0.18%) Cisco CUCM
6 1 (0.18%) Fluentd
6 1 (0.18%) Kibana
Vendors
1 68 (11.93%) Microsoft
2 22 (3.86%) ServiceNow
3 18 (3.16%) SAP
4 12 (2.11%) Google
5 8 (1.40%) Aderant
5 8 (1.40%) iManage
5 8 (1.40%) Intapp
6 5 (0.88%) Databricks
6 5 (0.88%) Sage
7 4 (0.70%) Dynatrace
8 3 (0.53%) Adobe
8 3 (0.53%) AppDynamics
8 3 (0.53%) Confluent
8 3 (0.53%) IBM
8 3 (0.53%) Planon
8 3 (0.53%) Salesforce
8 3 (0.53%) Splunk
9 2 (0.35%) Alteryx
9 2 (0.35%) DevExpress
9 2 (0.35%) F5