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 26 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 61 98 60
Rank change year-on-year +37 -38 -23
Permanent jobs citing QA 522 311 510
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 2.47% 3.27% 3.20%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 28.95% 24.92% 25.32%
Number of salaries quoted 333 120 289
10th Percentile - £36,575 £26,000
25th Percentile £30,000 £45,000 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +22.22% -18.18%
75th Percentile £58,750 £71,250 £62,500
90th Percentile £74,813 £86,250 £70,000
England median annual salary £53,784 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -6.46% +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 1,803 1,248 2,014
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 8.52% 13.13% 12.63%
Number of salaries quoted 1,300 585 1,287
10th Percentile £30,000 £25,500 £25,400
25th Percentile £37,500 £33,125 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £50,000 £48,000
Median % change year-on-year - +4.17% -4.00%
75th Percentile £65,629 £65,000 £62,500
90th Percentile £83,750 £77,500 £82,000
England median annual salary £57,500 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +4.55% -5.17%

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 26 July 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 26 July 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 +33 310 £45,000 -18.18% 99
Yorkshire +23 111 £40,000 -37.25% 53
North East -4 101 £50,000 -4.76% 31
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 (2.11%) Apache Airflow
1 11 (2.11%) CMS
2 10 (1.92%) WordPress
3 7 (1.34%) SharePoint
4 6 (1.15%) Apache Spark
5 5 (0.96%) Apache
5 5 (0.96%) Jupyter
6 3 (0.57%) IIS
7 2 (0.38%) Confluence
7 2 (0.38%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.19%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 29 (5.56%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (4.60%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (1.92%) MS Visio
4 7 (1.34%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 5 (0.96%) SAP PM
2 4 (0.77%) Sage 200
2 4 (0.77%) SAP Business One
2 4 (0.77%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.57%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 59 (11.30%) AWS
2 53 (10.15%) Azure
3 34 (6.51%) Power Platform
4 30 (5.75%) Microsoft 365
5 20 (3.83%) Azure DevOps
6 15 (2.87%) Serverless
7 14 (2.68%) GCP
8 12 (2.30%) Amazon S3
9 11 (2.11%) Amazon EC2
9 11 (2.11%) SaaS
10 9 (1.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 9 (1.72%) AWS Lambda
10 9 (1.72%) Google Analytics
11 8 (1.53%) GitHub
12 7 (1.34%) dbt
12 7 (1.34%) Power Automate
13 6 (1.15%) Amazon EKS
14 5 (0.96%) Amazon ECR
14 5 (0.96%) Azure Monitor
14 5 (0.96%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.77%) HTTP
2 3 (0.57%) HTTPS
2 3 (0.57%) Structured Cabling
3 2 (0.38%) Broadband
3 2 (0.38%) VoIP
4 1 (0.19%) ADSL
4 1 (0.19%) DNS
4 1 (0.19%) Firewall
4 1 (0.19%) ISDN
4 1 (0.19%) LAN
4 1 (0.19%) Network Security
4 1 (0.19%) VDSL
4 1 (0.19%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (5.75%) Power BI
2 14 (2.68%) SQL Server
3 8 (1.53%) BigQuery
3 8 (1.53%) MySQL
4 6 (1.15%) DynamoDB
4 6 (1.15%) Relational Database
5 5 (0.96%) Amazon Athena
6 4 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.57%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.57%) Data Warehouse
7 3 (0.57%) MongoDB
7 3 (0.57%) PostgreSQL
7 3 (0.57%) Tableau
8 2 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.38%) Data Mining
8 2 (0.38%) DocumentDB
8 2 (0.38%) EDRMS
8 2 (0.38%) Looker
8 2 (0.38%) Metadata
8 2 (0.38%) Redis
Development Applications
1 34 (6.51%) Git
2 24 (4.60%) JIRA
3 19 (3.64%) GitLab
4 9 (1.72%) Jenkins
5 7 (1.34%) Cypress.io
5 7 (1.34%) Postman
6 5 (0.96%) Cucumber
7 4 (0.77%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.57%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.57%) JUnit
9 2 (0.38%) Claude Code
9 2 (0.38%) JMeter
9 2 (0.38%) NUnit
9 2 (0.38%) Selenium
9 2 (0.38%) SpecFlow
9 2 (0.38%) TestRail
10 1 (0.19%) Gatling
10 1 (0.19%) Locust
10 1 (0.19%) REST Assured
10 1 (0.19%) TeamCity
General
1 165 (31.61%) Social Skills
2 86 (16.48%) Manufacturing
3 83 (15.90%) Analytical Skills
4 67 (12.84%) Pharmaceutical
5 60 (11.49%) Finance
6 32 (6.13%) Public Sector
7 28 (5.36%) Legal
8 22 (4.21%) Marketing
9 18 (3.45%) Law
9 18 (3.45%) Organisational Skills
10 12 (2.30%) Swedish Language
11 11 (2.11%) Aerospace
11 11 (2.11%) Retail
12 10 (1.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 8 (1.53%) Games
13 8 (1.53%) Telecoms
14 7 (1.34%) Banking
14 7 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
15 5 (0.96%) Legal Technology
15 5 (0.96%) Military
Job Titles
1 55 (10.54%) Analyst
2 51 (9.77%) QA Manager
2 51 (9.77%) Senior
3 48 (9.20%) QA Officer
4 44 (8.43%) Quality Manager
5 37 (7.09%) Developer
5 37 (7.09%) QA Engineer
6 33 (6.32%) Head of QA
7 27 (5.17%) Lead
8 26 (4.98%) Quality Engineer
9 20 (3.83%) Software Engineer
10 19 (3.64%) Business Analyst
11 18 (3.45%) Service Analyst
11 18 (3.45%) Service Desk Analyst
12 17 (3.26%) Test Engineer
13 15 (2.87%) Tester
14 13 (2.49%) Administrator
15 11 (2.11%) QA Tester
15 11 (2.11%) Senior Developer
15 11 (2.11%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (6.51%) .NET
2 32 (6.13%) HTML
3 29 (5.56%) CSS
4 15 (2.87%) REST
5 13 (2.49%) Playwright
6 11 (2.11%) Node.js
7 10 (1.92%) RESTful
8 9 (1.72%) .NET Framework
8 9 (1.72%) ASP.NET Web API
9 8 (1.53%) ASP.NET
9 8 (1.53%) OAuth
9 8 (1.53%) React
10 7 (1.34%) AngularJS
10 7 (1.34%) Entity Framework
10 7 (1.34%) JSON
10 7 (1.34%) OAuth2
11 6 (1.15%) .NET Core
11 6 (1.15%) JWT
11 6 (1.15%) Vue
12 5 (0.96%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 33 (6.32%) Analytical Mindset
2 17 (3.26%) Product Ownership
3 16 (3.07%) Life Science
4 11 (2.11%) Onboarding
5 9 (1.72%) Cloud Native
6 8 (1.53%) Distributed Systems
6 8 (1.53%) Management Information System
7 6 (1.15%) AI Agents
8 5 (0.96%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (0.96%) PMI
8 5 (0.96%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (0.77%) Animation
9 4 (0.77%) Mobile App
9 4 (0.77%) Online Games
10 3 (0.57%) CCTV
10 3 (0.57%) Driving Licence
10 3 (0.57%) FMCG
10 3 (0.57%) Legacy Applications
10 3 (0.57%) Mainframe
10 3 (0.57%) Photography
Operating Systems
1 10 (1.92%) Windows
2 5 (0.96%) Windows 10
3 4 (0.77%) Android
3 4 (0.77%) Apple iOS
4 3 (0.57%) Linux
4 3 (0.57%) VME
5 1 (0.19%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (22.99%) Continuous Improvement
2 104 (19.92%) Agile
3 84 (16.09%) CI/CD
4 68 (13.03%) Problem-Solving
5 61 (11.69%) Test Automation
6 60 (11.49%) Analytics
7 57 (10.92%) DevOps
8 55 (10.54%) Mentoring
9 47 (9.00%) Quality Management
10 45 (8.62%) Change Management
10 45 (8.62%) Validation
11 43 (8.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 42 (8.05%) PRINCE2
13 41 (7.85%) Decision-Making
14 40 (7.66%) Actionable Insight
15 39 (7.47%) Root Cause Analysis
15 39 (7.47%) Stakeholder Management
16 38 (7.28%) Software Engineering
17 37 (7.09%) Customer Experience
17 37 (7.09%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 54 (10.34%) SQL
2 41 (7.85%) C#
3 39 (7.47%) Python
4 38 (7.28%) JavaScript
5 25 (4.79%) Java
6 21 (4.02%) TypeScript
7 7 (1.34%) Go
8 6 (1.15%) Bash
8 6 (1.15%) PHP
9 3 (0.57%) COBOL
9 3 (0.57%) Groovy
9 3 (0.57%) PowerShell
10 2 (0.38%) Bicep
10 2 (0.38%) R
10 2 (0.38%) VB.NET
11 1 (0.19%) C
11 1 (0.19%) C++
11 1 (0.19%) Kotlin
11 1 (0.19%) Objective-C
11 1 (0.19%) Perl
Qualifications
1 62 (11.88%) Degree
2 30 (5.75%) IRCA
3 28 (5.36%) Security Cleared
4 26 (4.98%) SC Cleared
5 19 (3.64%) Microsoft Certification
6 16 (3.07%) AWS Certification
6 16 (3.07%) MCSE
7 11 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
8 8 (1.53%) Postgraduate
9 7 (1.34%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (1.34%) DBS Check
10 6 (1.15%) PMI Certification
11 5 (0.96%) ISTQB
11 5 (0.96%) PMP
12 4 (0.77%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 3 (0.57%) RIBA
14 2 (0.38%) CHECK Team Member
14 2 (0.38%) CREST Certified
15 1 (0.19%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 1 (0.19%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (7.09%) GDPR
1 37 (7.09%) ISO 9001
2 22 (4.21%) Accessibility
3 12 (2.30%) GMP
4 11 (2.11%) Data Quality
5 7 (1.34%) PMO
6 4 (0.77%) PCI DSS
6 4 (0.77%) Software Quality Assurance
7 3 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.57%) WCAG
8 2 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.38%) ISO 14001
9 1 (0.19%) AQAP
9 1 (0.19%) NCSC
9 1 (0.19%) NEBOSH
9 1 (0.19%) NIST
9 1 (0.19%) SLA
System Software
1 26 (4.98%) Docker
2 3 (0.57%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 16 (3.07%) Terraform
2 12 (2.30%) Kubernetes
3 4 (0.77%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.57%) Ansible
4 3 (0.57%) Packer
5 2 (0.38%) Grafana
6 1 (0.19%) Fluentd
6 1 (0.19%) Kibana
Vendors
1 61 (11.69%) Microsoft
2 23 (4.41%) ServiceNow
3 14 (2.68%) Google
4 13 (2.49%) SAP
5 9 (1.72%) Aderant
5 9 (1.72%) iManage
5 9 (1.72%) Intapp
6 5 (0.96%) Databricks
7 4 (0.77%) Sage
8 3 (0.57%) Adobe
8 3 (0.57%) AppDynamics
8 3 (0.57%) Dynatrace
8 3 (0.57%) IBM
8 3 (0.57%) Planon
8 3 (0.57%) Salesforce
8 3 (0.57%) Splunk
9 2 (0.38%) Confluent
9 2 (0.38%) DevExpress
9 2 (0.38%) F5
9 2 (0.38%) Palo Alto