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 9 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 67 71 64
Rank change year-on-year +4 -7 -50
Permanent jobs citing QA 447 367 598
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 2.27% 4.58% 3.15%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 27.11% 28.78% 24.76%
Number of salaries quoted 277 104 364
10th Percentile £28,500 £38,600 £26,075
25th Percentile £30,750 £46,250 £34,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +22.22% -14.29%
75th Percentile £65,000 £76,250 £60,000
90th Percentile £77,500 £86,250 £70,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +14.29% -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 1,649 1,275 2,415
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 8.38% 15.91% 12.71%
Number of salaries quoted 1,159 557 1,652
10th Percentile £30,000 £25,492 £25,500
25th Percentile £37,500 £33,125 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £46,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +12.90% -7.00%
75th Percentile £65,820 £66,250 £62,500
90th Percentile £83,750 £81,250 £82,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +4.35% +9.52% -8.70%

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 9 June 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 9 June 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 +31 258 £45,000 -18.18% 70
Yorkshire +14 114 £40,000 -38.46% 43
North East -33 75 £47,500 -13.64% 27
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 10 (2.24%) Apache Airflow
1 10 (2.24%) CMS
1 10 (2.24%) WordPress
2 5 (1.12%) Apache
2 5 (1.12%) Jupyter
3 4 (0.89%) IIS
3 4 (0.89%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.67%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.22%) Confluence
5 1 (0.22%) WebLogic
Applications
1 22 (4.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (4.03%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (2.01%) MS Visio
4 7 (1.57%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 7 (1.57%) SAP ERP
2 5 (1.12%) SAP PM
3 4 (0.89%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.67%) Shopify
5 2 (0.45%) Academy Housing
5 2 (0.45%) Sage 200
5 2 (0.45%) SAP Business One
6 1 (0.22%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 42 (9.40%) Azure
2 41 (9.17%) AWS
3 32 (7.16%) Power Platform
4 23 (5.15%) Microsoft 365
5 12 (2.68%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (2.46%) GCP
7 10 (2.24%) Amazon S3
7 10 (2.24%) SaaS
8 9 (2.01%) Amazon EC2
8 9 (2.01%) Google Analytics
8 9 (2.01%) Serverless
9 6 (1.34%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 6 (1.34%) AWS Lambda
9 6 (1.34%) dbt
10 5 (1.12%) Amazon ECR
10 5 (1.12%) Amazon EMR
10 5 (1.12%) Azure Monitor
10 5 (1.12%) Entra ID
10 5 (1.12%) GitHub
10 5 (1.12%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.12%) HTTP
2 3 (0.67%) HTTPS
2 3 (0.67%) Structured Cabling
3 2 (0.45%) Broadband
3 2 (0.45%) VoIP
4 1 (0.22%) ADSL
4 1 (0.22%) Firewall
4 1 (0.22%) ISDN
4 1 (0.22%) LAN
4 1 (0.22%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.22%) VDSL
4 1 (0.22%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (6.26%) Power BI
2 9 (2.01%) SQL Server
3 7 (1.57%) BigQuery
3 7 (1.57%) MySQL
4 6 (1.34%) DynamoDB
4 6 (1.34%) Relational Database
5 5 (1.12%) Amazon Athena
6 4 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.67%) Data Lake
8 2 (0.45%) Big Data
8 2 (0.45%) Data Mining
8 2 (0.45%) EDRMS
8 2 (0.45%) Looker
8 2 (0.45%) PostgreSQL
8 2 (0.45%) Tableau
9 1 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
9 1 (0.22%) DocumentDB
9 1 (0.22%) Metadata
9 1 (0.22%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.22%) Redis
Development Applications
1 28 (6.26%) Git
2 20 (4.47%) GitLab
3 19 (4.25%) JIRA
4 11 (2.46%) Jenkins
5 7 (1.57%) Cypress.io
5 7 (1.57%) Postman
6 6 (1.34%) SonarQube
7 5 (1.12%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.67%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.67%) Selenium
9 2 (0.45%) JMeter
9 2 (0.45%) JUnit
9 2 (0.45%) NUnit
9 2 (0.45%) SpecFlow
9 2 (0.45%) TestRail
10 1 (0.22%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.22%) Locust
10 1 (0.22%) REST Assured
10 1 (0.22%) TestComplete
10 1 (0.22%) Zephyr
General
1 143 (31.99%) Social Skills
2 70 (15.66%) Analytical Skills
2 70 (15.66%) Finance
3 66 (14.77%) Manufacturing
4 45 (10.07%) Pharmaceutical
5 30 (6.71%) Public Sector
6 21 (4.70%) Marketing
7 20 (4.47%) Legal
7 20 (4.47%) Organisational Skills
8 14 (3.13%) Law
9 10 (2.24%) Aerospace
10 9 (2.01%) Banking
10 9 (2.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 9 (2.01%) Influencing Skills
11 8 (1.79%) Telecoms
12 7 (1.57%) Retail
13 5 (1.12%) Documentation Skills
13 5 (1.12%) Military
13 5 (1.12%) Swedish Language
14 4 (0.89%) Games
Job Titles
1 50 (11.19%) QA Manager
2 45 (10.07%) Senior
3 39 (8.72%) Quality Manager
4 35 (7.83%) QA Officer
5 34 (7.61%) Analyst
6 33 (7.38%) Head of QA
6 33 (7.38%) Lead
7 29 (6.49%) QA Engineer
8 28 (6.26%) Developer
9 17 (3.80%) Software Engineer
10 16 (3.58%) Quality Engineer
11 15 (3.36%) Tester
12 14 (3.13%) Administrator
12 14 (3.13%) Business Analyst
12 14 (3.13%) Test Engineer
13 12 (2.68%) QA Tester
13 12 (2.68%) Senior Manager
14 11 (2.46%) QA Leader
14 11 (2.46%) Technical Assistant
15 10 (2.24%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (5.15%) .NET
1 23 (5.15%) HTML
2 22 (4.92%) CSS
3 15 (3.36%) REST
4 9 (2.01%) Playwright
4 9 (2.01%) RESTful
5 8 (1.79%) ASP.NET Web API
5 8 (1.79%) React
6 7 (1.57%) .NET Core
6 7 (1.57%) .NET Framework
6 7 (1.57%) ASP.NET
6 7 (1.57%) Entity Framework
6 7 (1.57%) JSON
7 5 (1.12%) AngularJS
7 5 (1.12%) CSS3
7 5 (1.12%) HTML5
7 5 (1.12%) JWT
7 5 (1.12%) OAuth
7 5 (1.12%) OAuth2
7 5 (1.12%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 34 (7.61%) Analytical Mindset
2 14 (3.13%) Onboarding
3 11 (2.46%) Product Ownership
4 10 (2.24%) PMI
5 9 (2.01%) Life Science
6 8 (1.79%) Cloud Native
6 8 (1.79%) Distributed Systems
6 8 (1.79%) Management Information System
7 7 (1.57%) CCTV
7 7 (1.57%) Driving Licence
8 6 (1.34%) AI Agents
9 4 (0.89%) Mobile App
9 4 (0.89%) Online Games
9 4 (0.89%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (0.67%) Animation
10 3 (0.67%) Enterprise Software
10 3 (0.67%) Legacy Applications
10 3 (0.67%) Mainframe
10 3 (0.67%) Photography
11 2 (0.45%) Client/Server
Operating Systems
1 8 (1.79%) Windows
2 7 (1.57%) Android
2 7 (1.57%) Apple iOS
3 3 (0.67%) Linux
3 3 (0.67%) VME
3 3 (0.67%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (22.37%) Continuous Improvement
2 81 (18.12%) Agile
3 60 (13.42%) CI/CD
3 60 (13.42%) Mentoring
4 55 (12.30%) Analytics
5 54 (12.08%) Problem-Solving
6 50 (11.19%) Test Automation
7 47 (10.51%) DevOps
8 44 (9.84%) Stakeholder Management
9 41 (9.17%) Quality Management
10 39 (8.72%) Actionable Insight
10 39 (8.72%) Change Management
10 39 (8.72%) PRINCE2
11 38 (8.50%) Root Cause Analysis
11 38 (8.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 37 (8.28%) Coaching
13 35 (7.83%) Decision-Making
14 33 (7.38%) Customer Experience
15 32 (7.16%) AI
15 32 (7.16%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 41 (9.17%) SQL
2 32 (7.16%) C#
3 31 (6.94%) Python
4 26 (5.82%) JavaScript
5 24 (5.37%) Java
6 15 (3.36%) TypeScript
7 8 (1.79%) Go
8 6 (1.34%) Bash
8 6 (1.34%) PHP
9 4 (0.89%) Groovy
10 3 (0.67%) COBOL
11 2 (0.45%) Bicep
11 2 (0.45%) C++
11 2 (0.45%) VB.NET
12 1 (0.22%) C
12 1 (0.22%) Objective-C
12 1 (0.22%) Perl
12 1 (0.22%) PowerShell
12 1 (0.22%) R
12 1 (0.22%) Swift
Qualifications
1 47 (10.51%) Degree
2 30 (6.71%) IRCA
3 14 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
4 13 (2.91%) Security Cleared
5 12 (2.68%) Microsoft Certification
6 11 (2.46%) PMI Certification
6 11 (2.46%) SC Cleared
7 9 (2.01%) AWS Certification
7 9 (2.01%) MCSE
8 6 (1.34%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (1.34%) DBS Check
9 4 (0.89%) ISTQB
10 3 (0.67%) CCEA
10 3 (0.67%) Citrix Certification
10 3 (0.67%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 3 (0.67%) PMP
10 3 (0.67%) Postgraduate
10 3 (0.67%) RIBA
11 2 (0.45%) CHECK Team Member
11 2 (0.45%) CREST Certified
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (8.28%) GDPR
2 34 (7.61%) ISO 9001
3 15 (3.36%) Accessibility
4 11 (2.46%) Data Quality
5 8 (1.79%) P3O
6 7 (1.57%) GMP
6 7 (1.57%) PMO
7 4 (0.89%) PCI DSS
7 4 (0.89%) Software Quality Assurance
8 3 (0.67%) WCAG
9 2 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.45%) ISO 14001
10 1 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.22%) NEBOSH
10 1 (0.22%) SLA
System Software
1 20 (4.47%) Docker
2 1 (0.22%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 13 (2.91%) Terraform
2 7 (1.57%) Kubernetes
3 3 (0.67%) Ansible
3 3 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
3 3 (0.67%) Packer
4 2 (0.45%) Grafana
5 1 (0.22%) HP Fortify
Vendors
1 44 (9.84%) Microsoft
2 18 (4.03%) SAP
3 13 (2.91%) Google
3 13 (2.91%) ServiceNow
4 10 (2.24%) Intapp
5 9 (2.01%) Aderant
5 9 (2.01%) iManage
6 4 (0.89%) Planon
6 4 (0.89%) Siemens
7 3 (0.67%) Adobe
7 3 (0.67%) AppDynamics
7 3 (0.67%) IBM
7 3 (0.67%) Splunk
8 2 (0.45%) Apple
8 2 (0.45%) DevExpress
8 2 (0.45%) Draytek
8 2 (0.45%) Foundry
8 2 (0.45%) Sage
9 1 (0.22%) CheckPoint
9 1 (0.22%) Dynatrace