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 1 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 99 54
Rank change year-on-year +49 -45 +22
Permanent jobs citing QA 650 293 487
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 2.70% 3.07% 3.58%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 31.23% 26.93% 27.53%
Number of salaries quoted 421 120 178
10th Percentile £27,500 £32,375 £25,000
25th Percentile £32,750 £42,281 £28,875
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £41,250
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +33.33% -25.00%
75th Percentile £57,500 £71,250 £56,250
90th Percentile £72,500 £85,125 £73,575
England median annual salary £50,000 £57,500 £54,500
% change year-on-year -13.04% +5.50% -12.80%

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 2,081 1,088 1,769
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 8.65% 11.40% 13.00%
Number of salaries quoted 1,470 458 791
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £25,000
25th Percentile £37,750 £33,125 £31,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £50,000 £46,000
Median % change year-on-year - +8.70% -8.00%
75th Percentile £67,500 £64,875 £60,991
90th Percentile £86,250 £76,075 £77,500
England median annual salary £57,500 £57,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +0.88% -0.87% -4.17%

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 1 October 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 1 October 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 +35 379 £45,000 -18.18% 265
Yorkshire +30 141 £40,000 -27.27% 134
North East +13 130 £52,500 +16.67% 86
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 (1.54%) Apache Airflow
2 7 (1.08%) Apache
2 7 (1.08%) Apache Spark
2 7 (1.08%) Jupyter
2 7 (1.08%) SharePoint
3 5 (0.77%) CMS
4 4 (0.62%) WebLogic
4 4 (0.62%) WordPress
5 3 (0.46%) IIS
6 2 (0.31%) Confluence
7 1 (0.15%) Apache Superset
7 1 (0.15%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 30 (4.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (4.00%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (1.38%) Revit
4 8 (1.23%) MS Visio
5 7 (1.08%) Microsoft Project
6 6 (0.92%) AutoCAD
7 4 (0.62%) Navisworks
8 3 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 4 (0.62%) Sage 200
1 4 (0.62%) SAP Business One
1 4 (0.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.46%) SystmOne
3 1 (0.15%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 72 (11.08%) AWS
2 60 (9.23%) Azure
3 28 (4.31%) Azure DevOps
4 27 (4.15%) Microsoft 365
4 27 (4.15%) Power Platform
5 22 (3.38%) Serverless
6 21 (3.23%) Amazon S3
7 18 (2.77%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 17 (2.62%) AWS Lambda
9 16 (2.46%) Amazon EC2
9 16 (2.46%) SaaS
10 14 (2.15%) GitHub
11 11 (1.69%) GCP
12 10 (1.54%) Amazon ECR
12 10 (1.54%) Amazon EKS
12 10 (1.54%) GitHub Actions
13 9 (1.38%) Power Automate
14 7 (1.08%) Amazon ECS
14 7 (1.08%) AWS Fargate
15 6 (0.92%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.08%) DNS
2 6 (0.92%) Remote Desktop
3 5 (0.77%) SSL
3 5 (0.77%) TCP/IP
4 4 (0.62%) Internet
4 4 (0.62%) VPN
5 3 (0.46%) HTTPS
5 3 (0.46%) Structured Cabling
6 2 (0.31%) Broadband
6 2 (0.31%) HTTP
6 2 (0.31%) LAN
6 2 (0.31%) SMS
6 2 (0.31%) VoIP
6 2 (0.31%) WAN
7 1 (0.15%) ADSL
7 1 (0.15%) DHCP
7 1 (0.15%) Intranet
7 1 (0.15%) ISDN
7 1 (0.15%) RIP
7 1 (0.15%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (3.08%) Power BI
2 15 (2.31%) SQL Server
3 8 (1.23%) MongoDB
4 7 (1.08%) DynamoDB
4 7 (1.08%) MySQL
4 7 (1.08%) Relational Database
5 6 (0.92%) Amazon Athena
5 6 (0.92%) DocumentDB
6 4 (0.62%) BigQuery
6 4 (0.62%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (0.62%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (0.62%) Redis
7 3 (0.46%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.46%) Big Data
7 3 (0.46%) Data Lake
8 2 (0.31%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.31%) EDRMS
9 1 (0.15%) EDMS
9 1 (0.15%) OLTP
9 1 (0.15%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 37 (5.69%) Git
2 26 (4.00%) GitLab
3 25 (3.85%) JIRA
4 15 (2.31%) Cypress.io
5 11 (1.69%) Jenkins
6 10 (1.54%) Postman
7 7 (1.08%) Selenium
8 4 (0.62%) Cucumber
8 4 (0.62%) JMeter
8 4 (0.62%) JUnit
8 4 (0.62%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.46%) Artifactory
9 3 (0.46%) Claude Code
9 3 (0.46%) RStudio
10 2 (0.31%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.31%) NUnit
10 2 (0.31%) REST Assured
11 1 (0.15%) Rational DOORS
11 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio
11 1 (0.15%) Xcode
General
1 152 (23.38%) Social Skills
2 112 (17.23%) Manufacturing
3 67 (10.31%) Analytical Skills
4 63 (9.69%) Pharmaceutical
5 56 (8.62%) Finance
6 54 (8.31%) Public Sector
7 31 (4.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 31 (4.77%) Legal
8 25 (3.85%) Aerospace
9 22 (3.38%) Law
10 21 (3.23%) Organisational Skills
11 16 (2.46%) Marketing
12 15 (2.31%) Retail
13 12 (1.85%) Swedish Language
14 11 (1.69%) Electronics
15 10 (1.54%) Local Government
16 9 (1.38%) Banking
17 7 (1.08%) Automotive
17 7 (1.08%) Games
18 6 (0.92%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 87 (13.38%) QA Engineer
2 78 (12.00%) Senior
3 73 (11.23%) Analyst
4 66 (10.15%) QA Officer
4 66 (10.15%) Quality Engineer
5 58 (8.92%) Lead
6 54 (8.31%) QA Manager
7 50 (7.69%) Developer
8 45 (6.92%) Quality Manager
9 26 (4.00%) QA Leader
10 23 (3.54%) Tester
11 22 (3.38%) Automation Engineer
11 22 (3.38%) QA Automation Engineer
12 21 (3.23%) Test Engineer
13 18 (2.77%) Business Analyst
14 17 (2.62%) QA Tester
15 16 (2.46%) Service Analyst
15 16 (2.46%) Service Desk Analyst
16 15 (2.31%) Software Engineer
17 14 (2.15%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (6.46%) .NET
2 34 (5.23%) HTML
3 32 (4.92%) CSS
4 28 (4.31%) Node.js
5 26 (4.00%) Playwright
6 24 (3.69%) REST
7 18 (2.77%) RESTful
7 18 (2.77%) Terraform
8 10 (1.54%) .NET Framework
8 10 (1.54%) AngularJS
8 10 (1.54%) OAuth
9 8 (1.23%) ASP.NET Web API
9 8 (1.23%) React
10 7 (1.08%) .NET Core
10 7 (1.08%) Entity Framework
10 7 (1.08%) Jest
10 7 (1.08%) JWT
10 7 (1.08%) Middleware
10 7 (1.08%) Spring Boot
10 7 (1.08%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 33 (5.08%) Product Ownership
2 20 (3.08%) Life Science
3 17 (2.62%) Cloud Native
4 14 (2.15%) Distributed Systems
5 12 (1.85%) Driving Licence
6 11 (1.69%) Management Information System
7 9 (1.38%) Onboarding
8 7 (1.08%) Data Centre
8 7 (1.08%) Enterprise Software
8 7 (1.08%) Mobile App
9 6 (0.92%) AI Agents
10 5 (0.77%) Blog
10 5 (0.77%) PMI
10 5 (0.77%) Security Posture
10 5 (0.77%) Self-Motivation
11 4 (0.62%) Cyber Kill Chain
11 4 (0.62%) Legacy Systems
12 3 (0.46%) Online Games
12 3 (0.46%) Renewable Energy
12 3 (0.46%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 20 (3.08%) Windows
2 14 (2.15%) Linux
3 8 (1.23%) Android
4 7 (1.08%) Apple iOS
5 6 (0.92%) Mac OS
5 6 (0.92%) Unix
6 5 (0.77%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.31%) Windows Server
8 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 146 (22.46%) Agile
2 132 (20.31%) Continuous Improvement
3 111 (17.08%) CI/CD
4 107 (16.46%) Test Automation
5 99 (15.23%) Problem-Solving
6 77 (11.85%) Mentoring
7 76 (11.69%) DevOps
8 63 (9.69%) Validation
9 56 (8.62%) Software Testing
10 48 (7.38%) Software Engineering
10 48 (7.38%) Stakeholder Management
11 43 (6.62%) Customer Service
11 43 (6.62%) Decision-Making
12 38 (5.85%) AI
13 36 (5.54%) Collaborative Working
14 35 (5.38%) Coaching
14 35 (5.38%) Scrum
14 35 (5.38%) SDLC
15 32 (4.92%) Microservices
16 31 (4.77%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 66 (10.15%) JavaScript
1 66 (10.15%) SQL
2 47 (7.23%) C#
3 36 (5.54%) Python
4 32 (4.92%) TypeScript
5 31 (4.77%) Java
6 9 (1.38%) Bash
7 5 (0.77%) PHP
7 5 (0.77%) PowerShell
7 5 (0.77%) R
8 4 (0.62%) Go
8 4 (0.62%) Kotlin
9 3 (0.46%) C++
9 3 (0.46%) Groovy
10 2 (0.31%) VB.NET
11 1 (0.15%) Bicep
11 1 (0.15%) Objective-C
11 1 (0.15%) Perl
11 1 (0.15%) Scala
11 1 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 78 (12.00%) Degree
2 63 (9.69%) Security Cleared
3 52 (8.00%) SC Cleared
4 18 (2.77%) BPSS Clearance
5 17 (2.62%) Microsoft Certification
6 14 (2.15%) AWS Certification
6 14 (2.15%) MCSE
7 8 (1.23%) Postgraduate
7 8 (1.23%) RIBA
8 7 (1.08%) DBS Check
8 7 (1.08%) HNC
9 6 (0.92%) Computer Science Degree
9 6 (0.92%) CREST Certified
9 6 (0.92%) DV Cleared
9 6 (0.92%) HND
10 5 (0.77%) PMI Certification
11 4 (0.62%) PMP
12 2 (0.31%) APMP
12 2 (0.31%) Chartered Engineer
12 2 (0.31%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (4.46%) ISO 9001
2 24 (3.69%) Accessibility
3 13 (2.00%) Data Quality
4 12 (1.85%) GMP
5 11 (1.69%) PMO
6 10 (1.54%) GDPR
7 3 (0.46%) ISO 19650
7 3 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.31%) ECSS
8 2 (0.31%) Good Clinical Practice
8 2 (0.31%) P3O
8 2 (0.31%) Software Quality Assurance
9 1 (0.15%) AQAP
9 1 (0.15%) GRC
9 1 (0.15%) NCSC
9 1 (0.15%) NIST
9 1 (0.15%) WCAG
System Software
1 31 (4.77%) Docker
2 3 (0.46%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 19 (2.92%) Kubernetes
2 4 (0.62%) Microsoft Intune
3 3 (0.46%) Ansible
3 3 (0.46%) Packer
4 2 (0.31%) Kibana
5 1 (0.15%) Cisco CUCM
5 1 (0.15%) Fluentd
5 1 (0.15%) Grafana
Vendors
1 63 (9.69%) Microsoft
2 20 (3.08%) ServiceNow
3 17 (2.62%) SAP
4 9 (1.38%) Autodesk
5 8 (1.23%) Aderant
6 7 (1.08%) Dynatrace
6 7 (1.08%) iManage
6 7 (1.08%) Intapp
7 6 (0.92%) Confluent
7 6 (0.92%) Databricks
7 6 (0.92%) Sage
8 5 (0.77%) Salesforce
9 4 (0.62%) Google
9 4 (0.62%) IBM
10 3 (0.46%) AppDynamics
10 3 (0.46%) Splunk
10 3 (0.46%) YouTube
11 2 (0.31%) Alteryx
11 2 (0.31%) F5
11 2 (0.31%) Palo Alto