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 2 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 102 55 88
Rank change year-on-year -47 +33 -56
Permanent jobs citing QA 195 423 242
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 2.08% 3.70% 3.39%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.65% 25.51% 22.53%
Number of salaries quoted 120 166 161
10th Percentile £28,475 £25,000 £40,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £32,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £45,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +22.22% -18.18% -
75th Percentile £71,250 £57,500 £71,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £73,625 £83,750
England median annual salary £57,500 £55,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year +4.55% -15.38% +8.33%

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 861 1,658 1,074
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 9.20% 14.50% 15.03%
Number of salaries quoted 482 691 790
10th Percentile £28,571 £26,250 £28,250
25th Percentile £33,125 £34,875 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £47,500 £50,803
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -6.50% +1.61%
75th Percentile £64,875 £63,180 £67,070
90th Percentile £78,750 £78,750 £82,500
England median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% - +4.35%

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 2 December 2025.

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 2 December 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
North West -40 93 £57,500 +27.78% 128
Yorkshire -22 78 £53,750 +19.44% 70
North East -15 24 £35,000 -33.33% 28
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 2 (1.03%) Apache Airflow
1 2 (1.03%) Apache Spark
1 2 (1.03%) HCL Notes
1 2 (1.03%) IIS
1 2 (1.03%) Oracle SOA Suite
1 2 (1.03%) SAS
1 2 (1.03%) SharePoint
2 1 (0.51%) Confluence
2 1 (0.51%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.51%) nginx
Applications
1 10 (5.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (4.62%) Microsoft Project
3 6 (3.08%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (1.54%) AutoCAD
4 3 (1.54%) Chatbot
5 2 (1.03%) MS Visio
5 2 (1.03%) Trello
Business Applications
1 7 (3.59%) Dynamics CRM
1 7 (3.59%) Shopify
2 2 (1.03%) Oracle BPM
2 2 (1.03%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 41 (21.03%) Azure
2 33 (16.92%) AWS
3 21 (10.77%) Power Platform
4 18 (9.23%) SaaS
5 8 (4.10%) GCP
5 8 (4.10%) GitHub
6 7 (3.59%) Microsoft Copilot
7 5 (2.56%) Entra ID
7 5 (2.56%) Microsoft 365
8 4 (2.05%) AWS Lambda
8 4 (2.05%) GitHub Actions
8 4 (2.05%) Google Ads
8 4 (2.05%) Serverless
9 3 (1.54%) Amazon ECS
9 3 (1.54%) Amazon S3
9 3 (1.54%) AWS CloudFormation
9 3 (1.54%) Datadog
9 3 (1.54%) PaaS
10 2 (1.03%) Apigee
10 2 (1.03%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.54%) HTTP
2 2 (1.03%) PuTTY
2 2 (1.03%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.51%) Broadband
3 1 (0.51%) Modbus
3 1 (0.51%) MQTT
3 1 (0.51%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (8.21%) Power BI
2 10 (5.13%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (4.10%) NoSQL
3 8 (4.10%) SQL Server
4 7 (3.59%) MongoDB
5 6 (3.08%) Relational Database
6 5 (2.56%) Metadata
6 5 (2.56%) Tableau
7 4 (2.05%) DynamoDB
7 4 (2.05%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 3 (1.54%) Geospatial Data
8 3 (1.54%) GIS
8 3 (1.54%) Looker
8 3 (1.54%) MySQL
8 3 (1.54%) QGIS
8 3 (1.54%) Qlik Sense
8 3 (1.54%) Spatial Data
9 2 (1.03%) BigQuery
9 2 (1.03%) Impala
9 2 (1.03%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 15 (7.69%) JIRA
2 10 (5.13%) Jenkins
3 9 (4.62%) Git
4 8 (4.10%) Cypress.io
4 8 (4.10%) Selenium
5 7 (3.59%) GitLab
6 6 (3.08%) Cucumber
6 6 (3.08%) JMeter
7 5 (2.56%) Postman
8 4 (2.05%) Appium
9 3 (1.54%) Maven
9 3 (1.54%) SonarQube
10 2 (1.03%) Gatling
10 2 (1.03%) Locust
10 2 (1.03%) REST Assured
10 2 (1.03%) SpecFlow
10 2 (1.03%) Visual Studio
11 1 (0.51%) Bitbucket
11 1 (0.51%) ESLint
11 1 (0.51%) Storybook
General
1 59 (30.26%) Social Skills
2 36 (18.46%) Manufacturing
3 32 (16.41%) Finance
4 26 (13.33%) Analytical Skills
5 15 (7.69%) Public Sector
6 12 (6.15%) Influencing Skills
6 12 (6.15%) Organisational Skills
7 10 (5.13%) Law
7 10 (5.13%) Legal
8 9 (4.62%) Marketing
9 5 (2.56%) Advertising
9 5 (2.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (2.05%) Military
10 4 (2.05%) Retail
10 4 (2.05%) Telecoms
11 3 (1.54%) Electronics
11 3 (1.54%) Games
11 3 (1.54%) Pharmaceutical
11 3 (1.54%) Welsh Language
12 2 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 34 (17.44%) Lead
2 32 (16.41%) Senior
3 29 (14.87%) Developer
4 16 (8.21%) Analyst
5 14 (7.18%) Project Manager
6 13 (6.67%) QA Manager
7 12 (6.15%) QA Engineer
8 11 (5.64%) Lead Developer
8 11 (5.64%) Senior Developer
9 9 (4.62%) Quality Manager
10 8 (4.10%) Automation Engineer
10 8 (4.10%) Backend Developer
10 8 (4.10%) QA Automation Engineer
10 8 (4.10%) Software Developer
10 8 (4.10%) Tester
11 7 (3.59%) Consultant
12 6 (3.08%) Commercial Manager
12 6 (3.08%) Commercial Project Manager
12 6 (3.08%) Lead Software Developer
12 6 (3.08%) QA Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (7.69%) .NET
1 15 (7.69%) Node.js
2 13 (6.67%) React
3 8 (4.10%) AngularJS
4 7 (3.59%) RESTful
5 5 (2.56%) Jest
5 5 (2.56%) Spring
5 5 (2.56%) Spring Boot
6 4 (2.05%) ASP.NET
6 4 (2.05%) Bootstrap
6 4 (2.05%) CSS
6 4 (2.05%) Gherkin
6 4 (2.05%) HTML
6 4 (2.05%) Playwright
7 3 (1.54%) Kafka
7 3 (1.54%) Next.js
7 3 (1.54%) PySpark
7 3 (1.54%) Redux
8 2 (1.03%) Apache NiFi
8 2 (1.03%) MassTransit
Miscellaneous
1 11 (5.64%) Product Ownership
2 10 (5.13%) IoT
2 10 (5.13%) Self-Motivation
3 8 (4.10%) Cloud Native
4 7 (3.59%) Social Media
5 6 (3.08%) NHS
5 6 (3.08%) Onboarding
6 4 (2.05%) AI Agents
6 4 (2.05%) Analytical Mindset
6 4 (2.05%) Driving Licence
6 4 (2.05%) Mobile App
6 4 (2.05%) Renewable Energy
7 3 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (1.03%) CCTV
8 2 (1.03%) Client/Server
8 2 (1.03%) Distributed Systems
8 2 (1.03%) EPoS
8 2 (1.03%) Management Information System
8 2 (1.03%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 16 (8.21%) Windows
2 7 (3.59%) Unix
3 6 (3.08%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 63 (32.31%) Agile
2 61 (31.28%) Mentoring
3 40 (20.51%) DevOps
4 39 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
5 35 (17.95%) CI/CD
6 33 (16.92%) Continuous Improvement
7 31 (15.90%) Test Automation
8 26 (13.33%) Project Delivery
9 23 (11.79%) Process Improvement
9 23 (11.79%) Software Engineering
10 22 (11.28%) Project Management
11 18 (9.23%) Business Intelligence
11 18 (9.23%) Roadmaps
12 14 (7.18%) Coaching
12 14 (7.18%) User Experience
13 13 (6.67%) Budget Management
13 13 (6.67%) Stakeholder Management
14 12 (6.15%) Collaborative Working
14 12 (6.15%) Data Protection
15 11 (5.64%) Security Testing
Programming Languages
1 24 (12.31%) SQL
2 23 (11.79%) JavaScript
3 22 (11.28%) Java
4 19 (9.74%) C#
5 15 (7.69%) Python
6 14 (7.18%) TypeScript
7 10 (5.13%) Go
8 8 (4.10%) Elixir
8 8 (4.10%) Ruby
9 6 (3.08%) Bash
10 4 (2.05%) C++
11 3 (1.54%) PHP
11 3 (1.54%) PowerShell
11 3 (1.54%) T-SQL
12 2 (1.03%) Groovy
12 2 (1.03%) PROC SQL
12 2 (1.03%) R
13 1 (0.51%) Dart
Qualifications
1 24 (12.31%) Degree
2 15 (7.69%) Security Cleared
3 13 (6.67%) SC Cleared
4 10 (5.13%) PMI Certification
4 10 (5.13%) PMP
5 6 (3.08%) BPSS Clearance
5 6 (3.08%) DBS Check
6 5 (2.56%) HND
7 4 (2.05%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 3 (1.54%) AWS Certification
8 3 (1.54%) DV Cleared
8 3 (1.54%) PRINCE2 Certification
9 2 (1.03%) Azure Certification
10 1 (0.51%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 1 (0.51%) Chartered Engineer
10 1 (0.51%) CISA
10 1 (0.51%) CISSP
10 1 (0.51%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (0.51%) HNC
10 1 (0.51%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (10.77%) Accessibility
2 5 (2.56%) Data Quality
2 5 (2.56%) GDPR
3 4 (2.05%) PCI DSS
3 4 (2.05%) PMO
4 2 (1.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.03%) WCAG
5 1 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.51%) FINRA
5 1 (0.51%) GRC
5 1 (0.51%) ISO 14001
5 1 (0.51%) ISO 9001
5 1 (0.51%) NIST
5 1 (0.51%) SOC 2
System Software
1 12 (6.15%) Docker
2 5 (2.56%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.03%) Apache Flume
3 2 (1.03%) HDFS
4 1 (0.51%) Squid
Systems Management
1 8 (4.10%) Kubernetes
2 7 (3.59%) Grafana
2 7 (3.59%) Terraform
3 3 (1.54%) Ansible
3 3 (1.54%) Kibana
4 2 (1.03%) HP Fortify
4 2 (1.03%) logstash
4 2 (1.03%) Oozie
4 2 (1.03%) Progress Chef
4 2 (1.03%) Prometheus
4 2 (1.03%) Puppet
5 1 (0.51%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 33 (16.92%) Microsoft
2 9 (4.62%) SAP
3 6 (3.08%) Google
4 3 (1.54%) ESRI
4 3 (1.54%) Oracle
5 2 (1.03%) Databricks
5 2 (1.03%) Informatica
5 2 (1.03%) Lotus
5 2 (1.03%) MicroStrategy
6 1 (0.51%) AppDynamics
6 1 (0.51%) AVEVA
6 1 (0.51%) New Relic
6 1 (0.51%) Nimble Storage
6 1 (0.51%) Rockwell
6 1 (0.51%) Sage
6 1 (0.51%) ServiceNow
6 1 (0.51%) Siemens
6 1 (0.51%) Splunk