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 31 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 78 74 70
Rank change year-on-year -4 -4 -57
Permanent jobs citing QA 444 367 567
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 2.22% 4.64% 3.18%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 26.97% 28.90% 24.05%
Number of salaries quoted 261 107 359
10th Percentile £28,500 £37,800 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,650 £46,250 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +15.79% -9.52%
75th Percentile £65,640 £76,250 £60,000
90th Percentile £77,500 £86,250 £70,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £58,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -5.98% +11.43% -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 1,646 1,270 2,358
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 8.23% 16.05% 13.22%
Number of salaries quoted 1,134 559 1,647
10th Percentile £30,000 £25,496 £25,500
25th Percentile £38,756 £34,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,250 £52,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% +10.53% -5.00%
75th Percentile £67,500 £66,250 £62,500
90th Percentile £83,750 £81,500 £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 31 May 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 31 May 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 +15 249 £45,000 -16.28% 55
Yorkshire +21 123 £40,000 -36.00% 39
North East -37 72 £46,250 -19.92% 16
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 (2.25%) Apache Airflow
1 10 (2.25%) CMS
1 10 (2.25%) WordPress
2 5 (1.13%) Apache
2 5 (1.13%) Jupyter
3 4 (0.90%) IIS
4 3 (0.68%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.45%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.23%) Confluence
6 1 (0.23%) nginx
6 1 (0.23%) WebLogic
Applications
1 22 (4.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (3.83%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (2.03%) MS Visio
4 7 (1.58%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (1.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 7 (1.58%) SAP ERP
2 5 (1.13%) SAP PM
3 4 (0.90%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.68%) Shopify
5 2 (0.45%) Academy Housing
6 1 (0.23%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.23%) Sage 200
6 1 (0.23%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 44 (9.91%) Azure
2 40 (9.01%) AWS
3 32 (7.21%) Power Platform
4 21 (4.73%) Microsoft 365
5 12 (2.70%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (2.48%) GCP
7 10 (2.25%) Amazon S3
7 10 (2.25%) SaaS
8 9 (2.03%) Amazon EC2
8 9 (2.03%) Google Analytics
8 9 (2.03%) Serverless
9 6 (1.35%) AWS Lambda
9 6 (1.35%) dbt
10 5 (1.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 5 (1.13%) Amazon ECR
10 5 (1.13%) Amazon EMR
10 5 (1.13%) Azure Monitor
10 5 (1.13%) Entra ID
10 5 (1.13%) GitHub
10 5 (1.13%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.58%) Broadband
2 6 (1.35%) HTTP
3 3 (0.68%) HTTPS
4 2 (0.45%) Structured Cabling
4 2 (0.45%) TCP/IP
4 2 (0.45%) VoIP
5 1 (0.23%) ADSL
5 1 (0.23%) Firewall
5 1 (0.23%) ISDN
5 1 (0.23%) LAN
5 1 (0.23%) VDSL
5 1 (0.23%) WAN
5 1 (0.23%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (6.31%) Power BI
2 11 (2.48%) SQL Server
3 7 (1.58%) BigQuery
3 7 (1.58%) DynamoDB
4 6 (1.35%) MySQL
4 6 (1.35%) Relational Database
5 5 (1.13%) Amazon Athena
6 4 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.68%) Data Lake
8 2 (0.45%) Big Data
8 2 (0.45%) Data Mining
8 2 (0.45%) Looker
8 2 (0.45%) PostgreSQL
8 2 (0.45%) Redis
8 2 (0.45%) Tableau
9 1 (0.23%) Data Warehouse
9 1 (0.23%) Metadata
9 1 (0.23%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.23%) PostHog
Development Applications
1 28 (6.31%) Git
2 20 (4.50%) GitLab
3 19 (4.28%) JIRA
4 12 (2.70%) Jenkins
5 8 (1.80%) Cypress.io
6 7 (1.58%) Postman
6 7 (1.58%) SonarQube
7 5 (1.13%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.68%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.68%) Selenium
8 3 (0.68%) TestRail
9 2 (0.45%) JMeter
9 2 (0.45%) JUnit
9 2 (0.45%) Maven
9 2 (0.45%) NUnit
9 2 (0.45%) SpecFlow
9 2 (0.45%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.23%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.23%) TestComplete
10 1 (0.23%) Zephyr
General
1 149 (33.56%) Social Skills
2 71 (15.99%) Analytical Skills
3 70 (15.77%) Finance
3 70 (15.77%) Manufacturing
4 38 (8.56%) Pharmaceutical
5 27 (6.08%) Public Sector
6 26 (5.86%) Organisational Skills
7 21 (4.73%) Marketing
8 18 (4.05%) Legal
9 15 (3.38%) Law
10 14 (3.15%) Influencing Skills
11 9 (2.03%) Banking
11 9 (2.03%) Games
12 8 (1.80%) Aerospace
12 8 (1.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 7 (1.58%) Retail
13 7 (1.58%) Telecoms
14 5 (1.13%) Documentation Skills
14 5 (1.13%) Military
15 4 (0.90%) French Language
Job Titles
1 51 (11.49%) QA Manager
2 44 (9.91%) Senior
3 38 (8.56%) Quality Manager
4 34 (7.66%) Lead
5 33 (7.43%) Analyst
5 33 (7.43%) Head of QA
6 29 (6.53%) QA Officer
7 28 (6.31%) QA Engineer
8 27 (6.08%) Developer
9 17 (3.83%) Software Engineer
10 15 (3.38%) Quality Engineer
10 15 (3.38%) Test Engineer
10 15 (3.38%) Tester
11 14 (3.15%) Administrator
11 14 (3.15%) Business Analyst
12 12 (2.70%) QA Tester
13 11 (2.48%) QA Leader
13 11 (2.48%) Technical Assistant
14 10 (2.25%) Software Developer
15 9 (2.03%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (5.18%) HTML
2 22 (4.95%) .NET
2 22 (4.95%) CSS
3 13 (2.93%) REST
4 10 (2.25%) Playwright
5 9 (2.03%) RESTful
6 8 (1.80%) .NET Framework
6 8 (1.80%) Entity Framework
6 8 (1.80%) React
7 7 (1.58%) .NET Core
7 7 (1.58%) ASP.NET
7 7 (1.58%) ASP.NET Web API
7 7 (1.58%) JSON
8 5 (1.13%) AngularJS
8 5 (1.13%) CSS3
8 5 (1.13%) HTML5
8 5 (1.13%) JWT
8 5 (1.13%) OAuth2
8 5 (1.13%) Spring Boot
8 5 (1.13%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 35 (7.88%) Analytical Mindset
2 13 (2.93%) Onboarding
3 10 (2.25%) Product Ownership
4 9 (2.03%) Cloud Native
4 9 (2.03%) PMI
5 8 (1.80%) Distributed Systems
6 7 (1.58%) Life Science
6 7 (1.58%) Management Information System
7 6 (1.35%) AI Agents
7 6 (1.35%) CCTV
7 6 (1.35%) Driving Licence
7 6 (1.35%) Social Media
8 5 (1.13%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (0.90%) Mobile App
9 4 (0.90%) Online Games
10 3 (0.68%) Animation
10 3 (0.68%) Client/Server
10 3 (0.68%) Legacy Applications
10 3 (0.68%) Mainframe
10 3 (0.68%) Photography
Operating Systems
1 10 (2.25%) Windows
2 7 (1.58%) Android
2 7 (1.58%) Apple iOS
3 3 (0.68%) Linux
3 3 (0.68%) VME
3 3 (0.68%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (21.62%) Continuous Improvement
2 84 (18.92%) Agile
3 61 (13.74%) CI/CD
3 61 (13.74%) Mentoring
4 60 (13.51%) Problem-Solving
5 55 (12.39%) Analytics
6 52 (11.71%) Test Automation
7 48 (10.81%) DevOps
8 44 (9.91%) Quality Management
9 42 (9.46%) Stakeholder Management
10 39 (8.78%) Actionable Insight
10 39 (8.78%) PRINCE2
11 38 (8.56%) Change Management
11 38 (8.56%) Root Cause Analysis
12 37 (8.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 35 (7.88%) Coaching
14 32 (7.21%) AI
14 32 (7.21%) Customer Experience
14 32 (7.21%) Decision-Making
14 32 (7.21%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 40 (9.01%) SQL
2 32 (7.21%) C#
3 31 (6.98%) Python
4 25 (5.63%) Java
5 23 (5.18%) JavaScript
6 15 (3.38%) TypeScript
7 8 (1.80%) Go
8 7 (1.58%) Bash
9 6 (1.35%) PHP
10 5 (1.13%) Groovy
11 3 (0.68%) C++
11 3 (0.68%) COBOL
12 2 (0.45%) Bicep
12 2 (0.45%) VB.NET
13 1 (0.23%) C
13 1 (0.23%) Objective-C
13 1 (0.23%) Perl
13 1 (0.23%) PowerShell
13 1 (0.23%) R
13 1 (0.23%) Swift
Qualifications
1 43 (9.68%) Degree
2 30 (6.76%) IRCA
3 13 (2.93%) BPSS Clearance
4 12 (2.70%) Security Cleared
5 11 (2.48%) Microsoft Certification
5 11 (2.48%) PMI Certification
6 10 (2.25%) SC Cleared
7 8 (1.80%) AWS Certification
7 8 (1.80%) MCSE
8 7 (1.58%) DBS Check
9 6 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
10 5 (1.13%) ISTQB
11 3 (0.68%) CCEA
11 3 (0.68%) Citrix Certification
11 3 (0.68%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 3 (0.68%) PMP
12 2 (0.45%) CHECK Team Member
12 2 (0.45%) CREST Certified
13 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 1 (0.23%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (8.33%) GDPR
2 32 (7.21%) ISO 9001
3 12 (2.70%) Accessibility
4 11 (2.48%) Data Quality
5 8 (1.80%) P3O
6 6 (1.35%) PMO
7 5 (1.13%) GMP
7 5 (1.13%) PCI DSS
8 4 (0.90%) Software Quality Assurance
9 3 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.68%) WCAG
10 2 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.45%) ISO 14001
10 2 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 1 (0.23%) GRC
11 1 (0.23%) NEBOSH
11 1 (0.23%) NIST
11 1 (0.23%) SLA
11 1 (0.23%) SOC 2
System Software
1 21 (4.73%) Docker
2 1 (0.23%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.23%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 12 (2.70%) Terraform
2 7 (1.58%) Kubernetes
3 3 (0.68%) Ansible
3 3 (0.68%) Grafana
3 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Intune
3 3 (0.68%) Packer
4 2 (0.45%) HP Fortify
Vendors
1 43 (9.68%) Microsoft
2 17 (3.83%) SAP
3 13 (2.93%) Google
4 12 (2.70%) ServiceNow
5 10 (2.25%) Intapp
6 9 (2.03%) Aderant
6 9 (2.03%) iManage
7 4 (0.90%) Planon
7 4 (0.90%) Siemens
8 3 (0.68%) Adobe
8 3 (0.68%) AppDynamics
8 3 (0.68%) IBM
8 3 (0.68%) Splunk
9 2 (0.45%) Apple
9 2 (0.45%) DevExpress
9 2 (0.45%) Draytek
9 2 (0.45%) Foundry
10 1 (0.23%) CheckPoint
10 1 (0.23%) Sage
10 1 (0.23%) Veracode