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 3 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 51 84
Rank change year-on-year -35 +33 -69
Permanent jobs citing QA 277 312 405
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 2.07% 4.32% 3.02%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 25.09% 23.34% 22.38%
Number of salaries quoted 125 122 252
10th Percentile £26,000 £32,750 £26,375
25th Percentile £31,250 £41,344 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £67,625 £63,590 £65,000
90th Percentile £81,250 £82,500 £81,250
England median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -4.17% +4.35% -4.17%

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 1,104 1,337 1,810
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 8.24% 18.50% 13.51%
Number of salaries quoted 611 560 1,324
10th Percentile £29,000 £29,500 £26,750
25th Percentile £35,000 £37,662 £34,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,000 £51,782 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -1.51% +3.56% -
75th Percentile £65,000 £66,250 £63,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £81,250 £83,750
England median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +9.09% -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 3 March 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 3 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
North West +6 151 £50,000 -4.76% 100
Yorkshire -17 94 £46,250 +6.32% 73
North East -46 32 £40,000 -27.27% 32
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 4 (1.44%) CMS
1 4 (1.44%) WordPress
2 2 (0.72%) Confluence
2 2 (0.72%) nginx
3 1 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.36%) IIS
3 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.36%) SharePoint
Applications
1 5 (1.81%) Microsoft Excel
1 5 (1.81%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.44%) Spreadsheet
3 3 (1.08%) AutoCAD
4 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.36%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 9 (3.25%) SAP ERP
2 2 (0.72%) Academy Housing
3 1 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.36%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.36%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.36%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 31 (11.19%) Azure
2 17 (6.14%) SaaS
3 15 (5.42%) AWS
3 15 (5.42%) Power Platform
4 9 (3.25%) Microsoft 365
5 6 (2.17%) GCP
6 5 (1.81%) Amazon S3
6 5 (1.81%) AWS CloudFormation
6 5 (1.81%) AWS Lambda
6 5 (1.81%) Google Analytics
6 5 (1.81%) Serverless
7 4 (1.44%) Amazon ECR
7 4 (1.44%) Amazon ECS
7 4 (1.44%) Apigee
7 4 (1.44%) AWS Step Functions
8 3 (1.08%) Datadog
8 3 (1.08%) dbt
8 3 (1.08%) PaaS
9 2 (0.72%) Azure AKS
9 2 (0.72%) Sentry
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.17%) HTTP
2 5 (1.81%) Broadband
3 4 (1.44%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.36%) SAN
4 1 (0.36%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (2.89%) Power BI
2 5 (1.81%) DynamoDB
3 4 (1.44%) Relational Database
3 4 (1.44%) SQL Server
4 3 (1.08%) Geospatial Data
4 3 (1.08%) GIS
4 3 (1.08%) Metadata
4 3 (1.08%) QGIS
4 3 (1.08%) Spatial Data
5 2 (0.72%) BigQuery
5 2 (0.72%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.72%) MongoDB
5 2 (0.72%) PostHog
5 2 (0.72%) Redis
5 2 (0.72%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 1 (0.36%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (0.36%) Azure SQL Database
6 1 (0.36%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.36%) SAP Data Services
6 1 (0.36%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 11 (3.97%) Jenkins
2 9 (3.25%) GitLab
3 7 (2.53%) Cypress.io
3 7 (2.53%) JIRA
4 6 (2.17%) Postman
5 5 (1.81%) Cucumber
5 5 (1.81%) Selenium
5 5 (1.81%) SonarQube
6 4 (1.44%) Git
6 4 (1.44%) JMeter
6 4 (1.44%) Maven
6 4 (1.44%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.72%) Appium
7 2 (0.72%) Locust
7 2 (0.72%) SpecFlow
8 1 (0.36%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.36%) JUnit
8 1 (0.36%) Protractor
8 1 (0.36%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.36%) TestRail
General
1 98 (35.38%) Social Skills
2 54 (19.49%) Finance
3 51 (18.41%) Manufacturing
4 37 (13.36%) Analytical Skills
5 24 (8.66%) Influencing Skills
6 22 (7.94%) Organisational Skills
7 18 (6.50%) Public Sector
8 12 (4.33%) Law
8 12 (4.33%) Legal
9 11 (3.97%) Marketing
10 8 (2.89%) Pharmaceutical
11 7 (2.53%) Games
11 7 (2.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (1.81%) Retail
13 4 (1.44%) Banking
13 4 (1.44%) Documentation Skills
14 3 (1.08%) Electronics
14 3 (1.08%) Military
15 2 (0.72%) Aerospace
15 2 (0.72%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 38 (13.72%) Lead
2 36 (13.00%) QA Manager
3 31 (11.19%) Senior
4 25 (9.03%) Quality Manager
5 24 (8.66%) QA Engineer
6 15 (5.42%) Developer
6 15 (5.42%) Head of QA
7 14 (5.05%) Analyst
8 12 (4.33%) QA Leader
9 10 (3.61%) Automation Engineer
9 10 (3.61%) QA Automation Engineer
10 9 (3.25%) Team Leader
11 8 (2.89%) Portfolio Manager
11 8 (2.89%) QA Officer
11 8 (2.89%) Senior Manager
11 8 (2.89%) Senior Portfolio Manager
12 7 (2.53%) Administrator
12 7 (2.53%) QA Team Leader
12 7 (2.53%) Quality Engineer
13 6 (2.17%) Lead Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (3.97%) .NET
2 8 (2.89%) AngularJS
2 8 (2.89%) CSS
2 8 (2.89%) HTML
3 7 (2.53%) React
3 7 (2.53%) RESTful
3 7 (2.53%) Spring
3 7 (2.53%) Spring Boot
4 6 (2.17%) Gherkin
4 6 (2.17%) Jest
5 4 (1.44%) Playwright
5 4 (1.44%) Qt
5 4 (1.44%) STL
6 3 (1.08%) Node.js
6 3 (1.08%) QML
7 2 (0.72%) .NET Core
7 2 (0.72%) Entity Framework
7 2 (0.72%) MassTransit
7 2 (0.72%) RabbitMQ
7 2 (0.72%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 19 (6.86%) Analytical Mindset
2 10 (3.61%) Self-Motivation
2 10 (3.61%) Social Media
3 9 (3.25%) Product Ownership
4 8 (2.89%) Cloud Native
4 8 (2.89%) Driving Licence
4 8 (2.89%) Onboarding
4 8 (2.89%) PMI
5 6 (2.17%) AI Agents
5 6 (2.17%) CCTV
5 6 (2.17%) NHS
6 5 (1.81%) Client/Server
7 4 (1.44%) Distributed Systems
7 4 (1.44%) Management Information System
8 3 (1.08%) Mobile App
8 3 (1.08%) Renewable Energy
9 2 (0.72%) Derivative
9 2 (0.72%) EPoS
9 2 (0.72%) IoT
10 1 (0.36%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 15 (5.42%) Windows
2 5 (1.81%) Linux
2 5 (1.81%) Unix
3 4 (1.44%) Android
3 4 (1.44%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (24.19%) Continuous Improvement
2 65 (23.47%) Agile
2 65 (23.47%) Mentoring
3 43 (15.52%) Problem-Solving
4 40 (14.44%) CI/CD
5 39 (14.08%) Test Automation
6 36 (13.00%) DevOps
7 32 (11.55%) Quality Management
8 31 (11.19%) Stakeholder Management
9 27 (9.75%) Process Improvement
10 26 (9.39%) Change Management
11 24 (8.66%) PRINCE2
11 24 (8.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 23 (8.30%) Analytics
12 23 (8.30%) Root Cause Analysis
13 21 (7.58%) Software Engineering
14 20 (7.22%) Customer Experience
15 19 (6.86%) Coaching
15 19 (6.86%) Project Management
16 18 (6.50%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 18 (6.50%) C#
2 17 (6.14%) Java
3 15 (5.42%) Python
4 12 (4.33%) TypeScript
5 11 (3.97%) SQL
6 9 (3.25%) JavaScript
7 6 (2.17%) Bash
8 4 (1.44%) C++
8 4 (1.44%) Go
8 4 (1.44%) Groovy
8 4 (1.44%) PowerShell
9 2 (0.72%) PHP
10 1 (0.36%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 26 (9.39%) Degree
2 17 (6.14%) PMI Certification
3 15 (5.42%) IRCA
4 13 (4.69%) BPSS Clearance
5 9 (3.25%) PMP
6 7 (2.53%) DBS Check
7 5 (1.81%) Security Cleared
8 4 (1.44%) HND
8 4 (1.44%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 3 (1.08%) CCEA
9 3 (1.08%) Citrix Certification
9 3 (1.08%) PRINCE2 Certification
9 3 (1.08%) SC Cleared
10 2 (0.72%) DV Cleared
10 2 (0.72%) ISTQB
11 1 (0.36%) CISA
11 1 (0.36%) CISM
11 1 (0.36%) CISSP
11 1 (0.36%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (7.22%) GDPR
2 15 (5.42%) ISO 9001
3 11 (3.97%) Accessibility
4 8 (2.89%) P3O
5 6 (2.17%) PCI DSS
6 4 (1.44%) PMO
7 3 (1.08%) Data Quality
7 3 (1.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.72%) GRC
8 2 (0.72%) NIST
8 2 (0.72%) SOC 2
8 2 (0.72%) WCAG
9 1 (0.36%) FINRA
9 1 (0.36%) SLA
System Software
1 11 (3.97%) Docker
2 1 (0.36%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.36%) Firmware
2 1 (0.36%) Squid
Systems Management
1 7 (2.53%) Grafana
1 7 (2.53%) Kubernetes
2 5 (1.81%) Terraform
3 4 (1.44%) HP Fortify
4 2 (0.72%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.36%) Ansible
5 1 (0.36%) Kibana
5 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 26 (9.39%) Microsoft
2 13 (4.69%) SAP
3 7 (2.53%) Google
4 4 (1.44%) Siemens
5 3 (1.08%) ESRI
6 2 (0.72%) Foundry
6 2 (0.72%) Intapp
7 1 (0.36%) Aderant
7 1 (0.36%) AppDynamics
7 1 (0.36%) iManage
7 1 (0.36%) New Relic
7 1 (0.36%) Nimble Storage
7 1 (0.36%) Oracle
7 1 (0.36%) Planon
7 1 (0.36%) ServiceNow
7 1 (0.36%) Splunk
7 1 (0.36%) Veracode