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 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 99 53 85
Rank change year-on-year -46 +32 -54
Permanent jobs citing QA 209 422 240
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 2.15% 3.83% 3.38%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.89% 25.53% 22.35%
Number of salaries quoted 121 169 157
10th Percentile £28,750 £25,000 £40,750
25th Percentile £37,500 £32,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £45,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +22.22% -18.18% -
75th Percentile £71,250 £57,500 £71,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £73,550 £83,750
England median annual salary £57,500 £56,250 £65,000
% change year-on-year +2.22% -13.46% +8.33%

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 875 1,653 1,074
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 8.99% 15.01% 15.12%
Number of salaries quoted 483 694 788
10th Percentile £28,607 £26,325 £28,175
25th Percentile £33,125 £35,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £49,274 £51,514
Median % change year-on-year +1.47% -4.35% +3.03%
75th Percentile £64,875 £63,750 £67,070
90th Percentile £79,750 £80,000 £82,500
England median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% - +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 6 December 2025.

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 December 2025. 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 -39 100 £57,500 +27.78% 190
Yorkshire -17 84 £52,500 +16.67% 167
North East -17 25 £35,000 -36.36% 37
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 2 (0.96%) Apache Airflow
1 2 (0.96%) Apache Spark
1 2 (0.96%) HCL Notes
1 2 (0.96%) IIS
1 2 (0.96%) nginx
1 2 (0.96%) Oracle SOA Suite
1 2 (0.96%) SAS
1 2 (0.96%) SharePoint
2 1 (0.48%) Confluence
2 1 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 10 (4.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (4.31%) Microsoft Project
3 6 (2.87%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (1.44%) AutoCAD
4 3 (1.44%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.96%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.96%) Trello
Business Applications
1 7 (3.35%) Dynamics CRM
1 7 (3.35%) Shopify
2 2 (0.96%) Oracle BPM
2 2 (0.96%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 42 (20.10%) Azure
2 33 (15.79%) AWS
3 21 (10.05%) Power Platform
4 18 (8.61%) SaaS
5 8 (3.83%) GCP
5 8 (3.83%) GitHub
6 7 (3.35%) Microsoft Copilot
7 6 (2.87%) Microsoft 365
8 5 (2.39%) AWS Lambda
8 5 (2.39%) Entra ID
8 5 (2.39%) Serverless
9 4 (1.91%) Amazon ECS
9 4 (1.91%) Amazon S3
9 4 (1.91%) AWS CloudFormation
9 4 (1.91%) GitHub Actions
9 4 (1.91%) Google Ads
10 3 (1.44%) Apigee
10 3 (1.44%) AWS Step Functions
10 3 (1.44%) Datadog
10 3 (1.44%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.39%) Broadband
2 4 (1.91%) HTTP
3 3 (1.44%) TCP/IP
4 2 (0.96%) PuTTY
5 1 (0.48%) Modbus
5 1 (0.48%) MQTT
5 1 (0.48%) SAN
5 1 (0.48%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (7.66%) Power BI
2 10 (4.78%) SQL Server
3 9 (4.31%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (3.35%) MongoDB
4 7 (3.35%) NoSQL
5 6 (2.87%) Relational Database
6 5 (2.39%) DynamoDB
6 5 (2.39%) Metadata
6 5 (2.39%) Tableau
7 4 (1.91%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 3 (1.44%) Geospatial Data
8 3 (1.44%) GIS
8 3 (1.44%) Looker
8 3 (1.44%) MySQL
8 3 (1.44%) QGIS
8 3 (1.44%) Qlik Sense
8 3 (1.44%) Spatial Data
9 2 (0.96%) Amazon Athena
9 2 (0.96%) Metadata Repository
9 2 (0.96%) PostHog
Development Applications
1 16 (7.66%) JIRA
2 11 (5.26%) Jenkins
3 9 (4.31%) Cypress.io
3 9 (4.31%) Git
4 8 (3.83%) GitLab
4 8 (3.83%) Selenium
5 6 (2.87%) Cucumber
5 6 (2.87%) JMeter
6 5 (2.39%) Postman
7 4 (1.91%) Appium
7 4 (1.91%) Maven
7 4 (1.91%) SonarQube
8 3 (1.44%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.96%) Gatling
9 2 (0.96%) Locust
9 2 (0.96%) REST Assured
9 2 (0.96%) SpecFlow
10 1 (0.48%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.48%) ESLint
10 1 (0.48%) Storybook
General
1 66 (31.58%) Social Skills
2 38 (18.18%) Manufacturing
3 34 (16.27%) Finance
4 28 (13.40%) Analytical Skills
5 17 (8.13%) Organisational Skills
6 15 (7.18%) Public Sector
7 13 (6.22%) Influencing Skills
8 10 (4.78%) Law
8 10 (4.78%) Legal
9 9 (4.31%) Marketing
10 7 (3.35%) Games
11 5 (2.39%) Advertising
11 5 (2.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 4 (1.91%) Electronics
12 4 (1.91%) Military
12 4 (1.91%) Retail
12 4 (1.91%) Telecoms
13 3 (1.44%) Pharmaceutical
13 3 (1.44%) Welsh Language
14 2 (0.96%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 36 (17.22%) Lead
2 34 (16.27%) Senior
3 29 (13.88%) Developer
4 16 (7.66%) Analyst
5 14 (6.70%) Project Manager
5 14 (6.70%) QA Manager
6 12 (5.74%) QA Engineer
6 12 (5.74%) Senior Developer
7 10 (4.78%) Lead Developer
7 10 (4.78%) Quality Manager
8 8 (3.83%) Automation Engineer
8 8 (3.83%) Backend Developer
8 8 (3.83%) Consultant
8 8 (3.83%) QA Automation Engineer
8 8 (3.83%) Tester
9 7 (3.35%) Software Developer
10 6 (2.87%) Commercial Manager
10 6 (2.87%) Commercial Project Manager
10 6 (2.87%) QA Leader
11 5 (2.39%) Sales Executive
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (7.66%) .NET
2 14 (6.70%) Node.js
2 14 (6.70%) React
3 9 (4.31%) AngularJS
4 7 (3.35%) RESTful
5 6 (2.87%) Jest
5 6 (2.87%) Spring
5 6 (2.87%) Spring Boot
6 5 (2.39%) Gherkin
6 5 (2.39%) Playwright
7 4 (1.91%) ASP.NET
7 4 (1.91%) Bootstrap
7 4 (1.91%) CSS
7 4 (1.91%) HTML
7 4 (1.91%) Next.js
8 3 (1.44%) Kafka
8 3 (1.44%) MassTransit
8 3 (1.44%) PySpark
8 3 (1.44%) QML
8 3 (1.44%) STL
Miscellaneous
1 11 (5.26%) IoT
1 11 (5.26%) Product Ownership
1 11 (5.26%) Self-Motivation
1 11 (5.26%) Social Media
2 10 (4.78%) Cloud Native
3 6 (2.87%) NHS
3 6 (2.87%) Onboarding
4 5 (2.39%) Analytical Mindset
5 4 (1.91%) AI Agents
5 4 (1.91%) Driving Licence
5 4 (1.91%) Mobile App
5 4 (1.91%) Renewable Energy
6 3 (1.44%) Client/Server
6 3 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
6 3 (1.44%) Distributed Systems
6 3 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
6 3 (1.44%) Management Information System
7 2 (0.96%) CCTV
7 2 (0.96%) EPoS
7 2 (0.96%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 17 (8.13%) Windows
2 7 (3.35%) Unix
3 6 (2.87%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 69 (33.01%) Agile
2 65 (31.10%) Mentoring
3 46 (22.01%) Problem-Solving
4 42 (20.10%) DevOps
5 37 (17.70%) CI/CD
6 36 (17.22%) Continuous Improvement
7 34 (16.27%) Test Automation
8 27 (12.92%) Project Delivery
9 26 (12.44%) Software Engineering
10 24 (11.48%) Project Management
11 23 (11.00%) Process Improvement
12 18 (8.61%) Business Intelligence
12 18 (8.61%) Roadmaps
13 15 (7.18%) User Experience
14 14 (6.70%) Coaching
14 14 (6.70%) Collaborative Working
14 14 (6.70%) Stakeholder Management
15 13 (6.22%) Budget Management
15 13 (6.22%) Microservices
16 12 (5.74%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 23 (11.00%) SQL
2 22 (10.53%) Java
2 22 (10.53%) JavaScript
3 21 (10.05%) C#
4 16 (7.66%) TypeScript
5 15 (7.18%) Python
6 10 (4.78%) Go
7 8 (3.83%) Elixir
7 8 (3.83%) Ruby
8 7 (3.35%) Bash
9 5 (2.39%) C++
10 3 (1.44%) Groovy
10 3 (1.44%) PHP
10 3 (1.44%) PowerShell
10 3 (1.44%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.96%) PROC SQL
11 2 (0.96%) R
12 1 (0.48%) Dart
Qualifications
1 24 (11.48%) Degree
2 14 (6.70%) Security Cleared
3 12 (5.74%) SC Cleared
4 10 (4.78%) PMI Certification
4 10 (4.78%) PMP
5 7 (3.35%) BPSS Clearance
6 6 (2.87%) DBS Check
7 5 (2.39%) HND
8 4 (1.91%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 3 (1.44%) AWS Certification
9 3 (1.44%) DV Cleared
9 3 (1.44%) PRINCE2 Certification
10 2 (0.96%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.96%) ISTQB
11 1 (0.48%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 1 (0.48%) Chartered Engineer
11 1 (0.48%) CISA
11 1 (0.48%) CISSP
11 1 (0.48%) Computer Science Degree
11 1 (0.48%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (10.05%) Accessibility
2 5 (2.39%) Data Quality
2 5 (2.39%) GDPR
2 5 (2.39%) PCI DSS
3 4 (1.91%) PMO
4 3 (1.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.96%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (0.96%) GRC
5 2 (0.96%) NIST
5 2 (0.96%) SOC 2
5 2 (0.96%) WCAG
6 1 (0.48%) FINRA
6 1 (0.48%) ISO 14001
6 1 (0.48%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 14 (6.70%) Docker
2 5 (2.39%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.96%) Apache Flume
3 2 (0.96%) HDFS
4 1 (0.48%) Firmware
4 1 (0.48%) Squid
Systems Management
1 9 (4.31%) Kubernetes
2 8 (3.83%) Grafana
3 7 (3.35%) Terraform
4 3 (1.44%) Ansible
4 3 (1.44%) HP Fortify
4 3 (1.44%) Kibana
5 2 (0.96%) logstash
5 2 (0.96%) Oozie
5 2 (0.96%) Progress Chef
5 2 (0.96%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.96%) Puppet
6 1 (0.48%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 35 (16.75%) Microsoft
2 9 (4.31%) SAP
3 6 (2.87%) Google
4 3 (1.44%) ESRI
4 3 (1.44%) Oracle
5 2 (0.96%) Databricks
5 2 (0.96%) Informatica
5 2 (0.96%) Lotus
5 2 (0.96%) MicroStrategy
6 1 (0.48%) AppDynamics
6 1 (0.48%) AVEVA
6 1 (0.48%) New Relic
6 1 (0.48%) Nimble Storage
6 1 (0.48%) Rockwell
6 1 (0.48%) Sage
6 1 (0.48%) ServiceNow
6 1 (0.48%) Siemens
6 1 (0.48%) Splunk