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

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 102 53
Rank change year-on-year +53 -49 +26
Permanent jobs citing QA 647 288 477
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 2.68% 3.00% 3.56%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 31.33% 26.69% 27.26%
Number of salaries quoted 416 118 168
10th Percentile £29,250 £32,125 £25,000
25th Percentile £33,250 £43,125 £28,375
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 £54,375
90th Percentile £70,500 £85,000 £70,925
England median annual salary £50,000 £58,250 £55,000
% change year-on-year -14.16% +5.91% -12.00%

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 2,065 1,079 1,750
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 8.56% 11.25% 13.05%
Number of salaries quoted 1,440 458 757
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,700 £25,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £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 £65,000 £60,991
90th Percentile £85,000 £76,250 £77,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £56,500 £58,465
% change year-on-year -2.65% -3.36% -2.56%

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 6 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 6 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 +36 373 £45,000 -21.74% 277
Yorkshire +26 140 £40,000 -27.27% 162
North East +18 134 £52,500 +20.00% 110
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 (1.55%) 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%) Confluence
5 3 (0.46%) IIS
6 1 (0.15%) Apache Superset
6 1 (0.15%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.15%) SAS
Applications
1 27 (4.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (4.02%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.55%) Revit
4 7 (1.08%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.93%) AutoCAD
6 5 (0.77%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.77%) Navisworks
7 3 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
8 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 69 (10.66%) AWS
2 58 (8.96%) Azure
3 28 (4.33%) Azure DevOps
4 27 (4.17%) Microsoft 365
5 24 (3.71%) Power Platform
6 18 (2.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 18 (2.78%) Amazon S3
6 18 (2.78%) Serverless
7 15 (2.32%) SaaS
8 14 (2.16%) AWS Lambda
8 14 (2.16%) GitHub
9 13 (2.01%) Amazon EC2
10 10 (1.55%) Amazon ECR
10 10 (1.55%) GCP
10 10 (1.55%) GitHub Actions
11 9 (1.39%) Power Automate
12 7 (1.08%) Amazon ECS
12 7 (1.08%) Amazon EKS
12 7 (1.08%) AWS Fargate
13 6 (0.93%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.24%) DNS
2 6 (0.93%) Remote Desktop
2 6 (0.93%) SSL
2 6 (0.93%) TCP/IP
3 5 (0.77%) Internet
3 5 (0.77%) VPN
4 3 (0.46%) HTTPS
4 3 (0.46%) Structured Cabling
5 2 (0.31%) Broadband
5 2 (0.31%) HTTP
5 2 (0.31%) LAN
5 2 (0.31%) SMS
5 2 (0.31%) VoIP
5 2 (0.31%) WAN
6 1 (0.15%) ADSL
6 1 (0.15%) DHCP
6 1 (0.15%) Firewall
6 1 (0.15%) Intranet
6 1 (0.15%) ISDN
6 1 (0.15%) RIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.63%) Power BI
2 15 (2.32%) SQL Server
3 8 (1.24%) MongoDB
4 7 (1.08%) DynamoDB
4 7 (1.08%) MySQL
4 7 (1.08%) Relational Database
5 6 (0.93%) Amazon Athena
5 6 (0.93%) 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%) Big Data
7 3 (0.46%) Data Lake
8 2 (0.31%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.31%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.31%) EDRMS
8 2 (0.31%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.15%) EDMS
9 1 (0.15%) OLTP
Development Applications
1 34 (5.26%) Git
2 23 (3.55%) GitLab
2 23 (3.55%) JIRA
3 15 (2.32%) Cypress.io
4 10 (1.55%) Postman
5 8 (1.24%) Jenkins
6 7 (1.08%) Selenium
7 4 (0.62%) JMeter
7 4 (0.62%) JUnit
8 3 (0.46%) Claude Code
8 3 (0.46%) RStudio
9 2 (0.31%) REST Assured
10 1 (0.15%) Appium
10 1 (0.15%) NUnit
10 1 (0.15%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.15%) TeamCity
10 1 (0.15%) TestComplete
10 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.15%) Xcode
10 1 (0.15%) Zephyr
General
1 150 (23.18%) Social Skills
2 111 (17.16%) Manufacturing
3 66 (10.20%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (9.27%) Pharmaceutical
5 58 (8.96%) Finance
5 58 (8.96%) Public Sector
6 33 (5.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 29 (4.48%) Legal
8 24 (3.71%) Aerospace
9 23 (3.55%) Law
9 23 (3.55%) Organisational Skills
10 17 (2.63%) Marketing
11 15 (2.32%) Retail
12 12 (1.85%) Swedish Language
13 11 (1.70%) Electronics
14 10 (1.55%) Banking
14 10 (1.55%) Local Government
15 7 (1.08%) Automotive
16 6 (0.93%) Games
16 6 (0.93%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 91 (14.06%) QA Engineer
2 82 (12.67%) Senior
3 69 (10.66%) Analyst
4 67 (10.36%) Quality Engineer
5 63 (9.74%) QA Officer
6 60 (9.27%) Lead
7 56 (8.66%) QA Manager
8 48 (7.42%) Developer
9 47 (7.26%) Quality Manager
10 27 (4.17%) QA Leader
11 26 (4.02%) Automation Engineer
11 26 (4.02%) QA Automation Engineer
12 24 (3.71%) Tester
13 20 (3.09%) Test Engineer
14 18 (2.78%) QA Tester
15 16 (2.47%) Service Analyst
15 16 (2.47%) Service Desk Analyst
16 15 (2.32%) Business Analyst
17 14 (2.16%) Senior Developer
17 14 (2.16%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (6.34%) .NET
2 36 (5.56%) HTML
3 34 (5.26%) CSS
4 30 (4.64%) Node.js
5 25 (3.86%) Playwright
6 21 (3.25%) REST
7 17 (2.63%) RESTful
8 15 (2.32%) Terraform
9 9 (1.39%) .NET Framework
9 9 (1.39%) AngularJS
9 9 (1.39%) OAuth
10 8 (1.24%) ASP.NET Web API
10 8 (1.24%) React
11 7 (1.08%) .NET Core
11 7 (1.08%) Jest
11 7 (1.08%) Middleware
11 7 (1.08%) Spring
11 7 (1.08%) Spring Boot
11 7 (1.08%) Vue
12 6 (0.93%) MIDP
Miscellaneous
1 33 (5.10%) Product Ownership
2 20 (3.09%) Life Science
3 16 (2.47%) Cloud Native
4 12 (1.85%) Driving Licence
4 12 (1.85%) Management Information System
5 11 (1.70%) Distributed Systems
6 9 (1.39%) Data Centre
7 8 (1.24%) Enterprise Software
7 8 (1.24%) Onboarding
8 6 (0.93%) AI Agents
8 6 (0.93%) Mobile App
8 6 (0.93%) Security Posture
9 5 (0.77%) Blog
9 5 (0.77%) Cyber Kill Chain
9 5 (0.77%) PMI
9 5 (0.77%) Self-Motivation
10 4 (0.62%) Legacy Systems
11 3 (0.46%) CCTV
11 3 (0.46%) FMCG
11 3 (0.46%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 21 (3.25%) Windows
2 12 (1.85%) Linux
3 7 (1.08%) Android
4 6 (0.93%) Apple iOS
4 6 (0.93%) Mac OS
4 6 (0.93%) Unix
5 5 (0.77%) Windows 10
6 2 (0.31%) Windows Server
7 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 148 (22.87%) Agile
2 136 (21.02%) Continuous Improvement
3 109 (16.85%) CI/CD
4 106 (16.38%) Test Automation
5 99 (15.30%) Problem-Solving
6 77 (11.90%) Mentoring
7 71 (10.97%) DevOps
8 64 (9.89%) Validation
9 55 (8.50%) Software Testing
10 46 (7.11%) Software Engineering
10 46 (7.11%) Stakeholder Management
11 43 (6.65%) Customer Service
12 41 (6.34%) Decision-Making
13 37 (5.72%) AI
14 36 (5.56%) Collaborative Working
14 36 (5.56%) Scrum
14 36 (5.56%) SDLC
15 35 (5.41%) Coaching
16 32 (4.95%) Test Strategy
17 29 (4.48%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 67 (10.36%) JavaScript
2 63 (9.74%) SQL
3 47 (7.26%) C#
4 32 (4.95%) Python
5 31 (4.79%) TypeScript
6 28 (4.33%) Java
7 9 (1.39%) Bash
8 5 (0.77%) PHP
8 5 (0.77%) PowerShell
8 5 (0.77%) R
9 4 (0.62%) Go
9 4 (0.62%) Kotlin
10 3 (0.46%) C++
11 2 (0.31%) VB.NET
12 1 (0.15%) Objective-C
12 1 (0.15%) Scala
12 1 (0.15%) Swift
12 1 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 80 (12.36%) Degree
2 63 (9.74%) Security Cleared
3 53 (8.19%) SC Cleared
4 17 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
4 17 (2.63%) Microsoft Certification
5 14 (2.16%) AWS Certification
5 14 (2.16%) MCSE
6 8 (1.24%) Postgraduate
6 8 (1.24%) RIBA
7 7 (1.08%) CREST Certified
7 7 (1.08%) DBS Check
7 7 (1.08%) HNC
8 6 (0.93%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (0.93%) DV Cleared
8 6 (0.93%) HND
9 5 (0.77%) PMI Certification
10 4 (0.62%) PMP
11 2 (0.31%) APMP
11 2 (0.31%) Chartered Engineer
11 2 (0.31%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (4.64%) ISO 9001
2 24 (3.71%) Accessibility
3 13 (2.01%) Data Quality
4 12 (1.85%) GMP
4 12 (1.85%) PMO
5 9 (1.39%) GDPR
6 4 (0.62%) 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 30 (4.64%) Docker
2 3 (0.46%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 16 (2.47%) Kubernetes
2 4 (0.62%) Microsoft Intune
3 2 (0.31%) Kibana
4 1 (0.15%) Cisco CUCM
4 1 (0.15%) Fluentd
4 1 (0.15%) Grafana
Vendors
1 61 (9.43%) Microsoft
2 20 (3.09%) ServiceNow
3 17 (2.63%) SAP
4 10 (1.55%) Autodesk
5 7 (1.08%) Dynatrace
6 6 (0.93%) Confluent
6 6 (0.93%) Databricks
6 6 (0.93%) Sage
7 5 (0.77%) Aderant
7 5 (0.77%) Salesforce
8 4 (0.62%) iManage
8 4 (0.62%) Intapp
9 3 (0.46%) Google
9 3 (0.46%) Splunk
9 3 (0.46%) YouTube
10 2 (0.31%) Alteryx
10 2 (0.31%) Apple
10 2 (0.31%) Citrix
10 2 (0.31%) Draytek
10 2 (0.31%) F5