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 12 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 57 97 55
Rank change year-on-year +40 -42 +30
Permanent jobs citing QA 557 309 506
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 2.52% 3.22% 3.33%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 30.12% 24.96% 26.26%
Number of salaries quoted 362 129 280
10th Percentile £30,000 £35,000 £25,750
25th Percentile £32,563 £45,000 £31,688
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +22.22% -18.18%
75th Percentile £60,000 £71,250 £62,200
90th Percentile £75,000 £86,250 £70,000
England median annual salary £52,500 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -8.70% +9.52% -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 1,849 1,238 1,927
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 8.37% 12.91% 12.69%
Number of salaries quoted 1,345 584 1,180
10th Percentile £30,000 £25,480 £25,475
25th Percentile £38,984 £32,688 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £50,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £67,500 £63,750 £62,200
90th Percentile £83,750 £75,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £57,500 £56,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +2.68% +1.82% -8.33%

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 12 August 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 12 August 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 +36 327 £45,000 -18.18% 189
Yorkshire +28 115 £40,000 -33.11% 79
North East +8 115 £52,500 +10.53% 59
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 (1.80%) Apache Airflow
2 7 (1.26%) CMS
2 7 (1.26%) SharePoint
2 7 (1.26%) WordPress
3 6 (1.08%) Apache Spark
4 5 (0.90%) Apache
4 5 (0.90%) Jupyter
5 3 (0.54%) IIS
6 2 (0.36%) Confluence
6 2 (0.36%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.18%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 30 (5.39%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (4.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.62%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.90%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.36%) Navisworks
6 1 (0.18%) Revit
Business Applications
1 5 (0.90%) SAP PM
2 4 (0.72%) Sage 200
2 4 (0.72%) SAP Business One
2 4 (0.72%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.54%) Shopify
4 2 (0.36%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 65 (11.67%) AWS
2 59 (10.59%) Azure
3 36 (6.46%) Power Platform
4 32 (5.75%) Microsoft 365
5 25 (4.49%) Azure DevOps
6 16 (2.87%) Serverless
7 15 (2.69%) GCP
8 13 (2.33%) Amazon S3
9 12 (2.15%) SaaS
10 11 (1.97%) Amazon EC2
11 10 (1.80%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 10 (1.80%) AWS Lambda
11 10 (1.80%) GitHub
12 9 (1.62%) Power Automate
13 7 (1.26%) Amazon EKS
14 6 (1.08%) Amazon ECR
14 6 (1.08%) dbt
14 6 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
14 6 (1.08%) Google Analytics
15 5 (0.90%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.72%) HTTP
2 3 (0.54%) HTTPS
2 3 (0.54%) Structured Cabling
3 2 (0.36%) Broadband
3 2 (0.36%) DNS
3 2 (0.36%) VoIP
4 1 (0.18%) ADSL
4 1 (0.18%) Firewall
4 1 (0.18%) ISDN
4 1 (0.18%) LAN
4 1 (0.18%) Network Security
4 1 (0.18%) Remote Desktop
4 1 (0.18%) RIP
4 1 (0.18%) SSL
4 1 (0.18%) VDSL
4 1 (0.18%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (5.39%) Power BI
2 16 (2.87%) SQL Server
3 8 (1.44%) MySQL
4 7 (1.26%) BigQuery
5 6 (1.08%) DynamoDB
5 6 (1.08%) Relational Database
6 5 (0.90%) Amazon Athena
7 4 (0.72%) Azure SQL Database
7 4 (0.72%) MongoDB
8 3 (0.54%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.54%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (0.54%) DocumentDB
8 3 (0.54%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (0.54%) Redis
8 3 (0.54%) Tableau
9 2 (0.36%) Big Data
9 2 (0.36%) Data Mining
9 2 (0.36%) EDRMS
9 2 (0.36%) Looker
9 2 (0.36%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 35 (6.28%) Git
2 23 (4.13%) JIRA
3 20 (3.59%) GitLab
4 9 (1.62%) Jenkins
5 8 (1.44%) Cypress.io
6 6 (1.08%) Postman
7 5 (0.90%) Cucumber
8 4 (0.72%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.54%) Artifactory
9 3 (0.54%) JUnit
9 3 (0.54%) NUnit
10 2 (0.36%) Claude Code
10 2 (0.36%) JMeter
10 2 (0.36%) Selenium
10 2 (0.36%) SpecFlow
10 2 (0.36%) TestRail
11 1 (0.18%) Bitbucket
11 1 (0.18%) Gradle
11 1 (0.18%) TeamCity
11 1 (0.18%) TestComplete
General
1 170 (30.52%) Social Skills
2 102 (18.31%) Manufacturing
3 88 (15.80%) Analytical Skills
4 65 (11.67%) Pharmaceutical
5 63 (11.31%) Finance
6 36 (6.46%) Public Sector
7 28 (5.03%) Legal
8 22 (3.95%) Organisational Skills
9 18 (3.23%) Law
9 18 (3.23%) Marketing
10 13 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 12 (2.15%) Aerospace
11 12 (2.15%) Swedish Language
12 11 (1.97%) Retail
13 8 (1.44%) Automotive
13 8 (1.44%) Games
13 8 (1.44%) Telecoms
14 7 (1.26%) Banking
15 5 (0.90%) Legal Technology
15 5 (0.90%) Military
Job Titles
1 57 (10.23%) Analyst
2 54 (9.69%) QA Manager
3 53 (9.52%) Senior
4 52 (9.34%) QA Engineer
5 48 (8.62%) QA Officer
6 43 (7.72%) Developer
6 43 (7.72%) Quality Manager
7 39 (7.00%) Quality Engineer
8 33 (5.92%) Head of QA
9 32 (5.75%) Lead
10 19 (3.41%) Business Analyst
10 19 (3.41%) Software Engineer
11 18 (3.23%) Service Analyst
11 18 (3.23%) Service Desk Analyst
12 17 (3.05%) Test Engineer
13 15 (2.69%) Tester
14 14 (2.51%) Administrator
15 12 (2.15%) Software Developer
16 11 (1.97%) QA Tester
16 11 (1.97%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (7.36%) .NET
2 31 (5.57%) HTML
3 28 (5.03%) CSS
4 17 (3.05%) REST
5 16 (2.87%) Playwright
6 14 (2.51%) Node.js
7 11 (1.97%) RESTful
8 10 (1.80%) .NET Framework
9 9 (1.62%) ASP.NET Web API
10 8 (1.44%) AngularJS
10 8 (1.44%) ASP.NET
10 8 (1.44%) Entity Framework
10 8 (1.44%) OAuth
10 8 (1.44%) React
11 7 (1.26%) .NET Core
11 7 (1.26%) JSON
11 7 (1.26%) OAuth2
11 7 (1.26%) Vue
12 6 (1.08%) JWT
13 5 (0.90%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 32 (5.75%) Analytical Mindset
2 21 (3.77%) Product Ownership
3 17 (3.05%) Life Science
4 11 (1.97%) Distributed Systems
5 10 (1.80%) Cloud Native
5 10 (1.80%) Management Information System
5 10 (1.80%) Onboarding
6 6 (1.08%) AI Agents
6 6 (1.08%) Enterprise Software
7 5 (0.90%) PMI
7 5 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
8 4 (0.72%) Animation
8 4 (0.72%) Data Centre
8 4 (0.72%) Driving Licence
8 4 (0.72%) Mobile App
8 4 (0.72%) Online Games
9 3 (0.54%) FMCG
9 3 (0.54%) Legacy Applications
9 3 (0.54%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (0.54%) Photography
Operating Systems
1 12 (2.15%) Windows
2 5 (0.90%) Linux
2 5 (0.90%) Windows 10
3 4 (0.72%) Android
3 4 (0.72%) Apple iOS
4 3 (0.54%) VME
5 2 (0.36%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.18%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.18%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 132 (23.70%) Continuous Improvement
2 114 (20.47%) Agile
3 91 (16.34%) CI/CD
4 79 (14.18%) Problem-Solving
5 72 (12.93%) Test Automation
6 64 (11.49%) DevOps
7 61 (10.95%) Mentoring
8 57 (10.23%) Analytics
9 51 (9.16%) Quality Management
10 50 (8.98%) Validation
11 48 (8.62%) Software Engineering
12 45 (8.08%) Decision-Making
13 44 (7.90%) Change Management
13 44 (7.90%) Root Cause Analysis
13 44 (7.90%) Stakeholder Management
14 42 (7.54%) PRINCE2
14 42 (7.54%) Software Testing
14 42 (7.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 41 (7.36%) Actionable Insight
16 38 (6.82%) Customer Experience
Programming Languages
1 60 (10.77%) SQL
2 47 (8.44%) C#
2 47 (8.44%) JavaScript
3 39 (7.00%) Python
4 26 (4.67%) Java
5 24 (4.31%) TypeScript
6 7 (1.26%) Bash
7 6 (1.08%) Go
7 6 (1.08%) PHP
8 4 (0.72%) PowerShell
9 3 (0.54%) COBOL
9 3 (0.54%) Groovy
10 2 (0.36%) Bicep
10 2 (0.36%) C++
10 2 (0.36%) R
10 2 (0.36%) VB.NET
11 1 (0.18%) C
11 1 (0.18%) Kotlin
11 1 (0.18%) Objective-C
11 1 (0.18%) Swift
Qualifications
1 64 (11.49%) Degree
2 34 (6.10%) Security Cleared
3 31 (5.57%) IRCA
4 30 (5.39%) SC Cleared
5 19 (3.41%) Microsoft Certification
6 16 (2.87%) AWS Certification
6 16 (2.87%) MCSE
7 10 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
8 8 (1.44%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (1.44%) Postgraduate
9 7 (1.26%) DBS Check
10 6 (1.08%) PMI Certification
11 5 (0.90%) ISTQB
11 5 (0.90%) PMP
12 4 (0.72%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 3 (0.54%) RIBA
14 2 (0.36%) CHECK Team Member
14 2 (0.36%) City & Guilds
14 2 (0.36%) CREST Certified
15 1 (0.18%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (7.54%) ISO 9001
2 40 (7.18%) GDPR
3 22 (3.95%) Accessibility
4 13 (2.33%) GMP
5 11 (1.97%) Data Quality
6 7 (1.26%) PMO
7 4 (0.72%) PCI DSS
7 4 (0.72%) Software Quality Assurance
8 3 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.54%) WCAG
9 2 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.36%) ISO 14001
9 2 (0.36%) ISO 19650
10 1 (0.18%) AQAP
10 1 (0.18%) NCSC
10 1 (0.18%) NEBOSH
10 1 (0.18%) NIST
10 1 (0.18%) SLA
System Software
1 27 (4.85%) Docker
2 4 (0.72%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 16 (2.87%) Terraform
2 14 (2.51%) Kubernetes
3 5 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.54%) Ansible
4 3 (0.54%) Packer
5 2 (0.36%) Grafana
6 1 (0.18%) Fluentd
6 1 (0.18%) Kibana
Vendors
1 67 (12.03%) Microsoft
2 22 (3.95%) ServiceNow
3 16 (2.87%) SAP
4 12 (2.15%) Google
5 8 (1.44%) Aderant
5 8 (1.44%) iManage
5 8 (1.44%) Intapp
6 5 (0.90%) Databricks
6 5 (0.90%) Sage
7 4 (0.72%) Dynatrace
8 3 (0.54%) Adobe
8 3 (0.54%) AppDynamics
8 3 (0.54%) Confluent
8 3 (0.54%) IBM
8 3 (0.54%) Planon
8 3 (0.54%) Salesforce
8 3 (0.54%) Splunk
9 2 (0.36%) Apple
9 2 (0.36%) Citrix
9 2 (0.36%) F5