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 23 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 79 74 70
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -57
Permanent jobs citing QA 382 278 535
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 2.15% 3.97% 3.24%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 26.36% 24.09% 23.40%
Number of salaries quoted 193 134 352
10th Percentile £28,500 £38,600 £26,250
25th Percentile £32,500 £42,500 £36,167
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £52,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +10.53% -13.64%
75th Percentile £65,640 £64,000 £62,200
90th Percentile £81,250 £86,250 £71,250
England median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £53,500
% change year-on-year -4.35% +7.48% -10.83%

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 1,449 1,154 2,286
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 8.16% 16.48% 13.85%
Number of salaries quoted 922 628 1,639
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,000 £26,750
25th Percentile £38,825 £34,939 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £50,375 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +4.22% +6.05% -5.00%
75th Percentile £65,640 £65,000 £62,500
90th Percentile £83,750 £81,250 £82,548
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 23 April 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 23 April 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 +24 211 £45,000 -14.29% 84
Yorkshire -7 114 £44,447 -11.11% 42
North East -44 57 £40,000 -27.27% 29
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 7 (1.83%) CMS
1 7 (1.83%) WordPress
2 2 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (0.52%) nginx
3 1 (0.26%) Confluence
3 1 (0.26%) IIS
3 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.26%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.26%) WebLogic
Applications
1 17 (4.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (3.40%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (2.09%) MS Visio
4 7 (1.83%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (1.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.26%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 9 (2.36%) SAP ERP
2 5 (1.31%) SAP PM
3 3 (0.79%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.79%) Shopify
4 2 (0.52%) Academy Housing
5 1 (0.26%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 34 (8.90%) Azure
2 26 (6.81%) Power Platform
3 23 (6.02%) AWS
4 16 (4.19%) Microsoft 365
5 15 (3.93%) SaaS
6 10 (2.62%) Serverless
7 9 (2.36%) GCP
7 9 (2.36%) Google Analytics
8 8 (2.09%) Amazon S3
8 8 (2.09%) AWS Lambda
9 6 (1.57%) Apigee
10 4 (1.05%) Amazon ECR
10 4 (1.05%) Amazon ECS
10 4 (1.05%) Amazon EKS
10 4 (1.05%) AWS CloudFormation
10 4 (1.05%) AWS Step Functions
11 3 (0.79%) Amazon EC2
11 3 (0.79%) Azure DevOps
11 3 (0.79%) dbt
11 3 (0.79%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.57%) HTTP
2 5 (1.31%) Broadband
3 4 (1.05%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.26%) SAN
4 1 (0.26%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (6.02%) Power BI
2 6 (1.57%) SQL Server
3 5 (1.31%) DynamoDB
4 4 (1.05%) BigQuery
5 3 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
5 3 (0.79%) Data Lake
5 3 (0.79%) Relational Database
5 3 (0.79%) Tableau
6 2 (0.52%) Data Mining
6 2 (0.52%) Looker
6 2 (0.52%) Metadata
6 2 (0.52%) MongoDB
6 2 (0.52%) MySQL
6 2 (0.52%) PostHog
6 2 (0.52%) Redis
7 1 (0.26%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.26%) Geospatial Data
7 1 (0.26%) GIS
7 1 (0.26%) PostgreSQL
7 1 (0.26%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 14 (3.66%) JIRA
2 12 (3.14%) GitLab
2 12 (3.14%) Jenkins
3 11 (2.88%) Git
4 9 (2.36%) SonarQube
5 8 (2.09%) Cypress.io
6 7 (1.83%) Cucumber
6 7 (1.83%) Postman
7 5 (1.31%) Selenium
8 4 (1.05%) Maven
8 4 (1.05%) Visual Studio
9 3 (0.79%) Artifactory
9 3 (0.79%) JMeter
9 3 (0.79%) SpecFlow
9 3 (0.79%) TestRail
10 2 (0.52%) JUnit
10 2 (0.52%) NUnit
11 1 (0.26%) Appium
11 1 (0.26%) Gatling
11 1 (0.26%) LSMW
General
1 140 (36.65%) Social Skills
2 72 (18.85%) Finance
3 71 (18.59%) Manufacturing
4 69 (18.06%) Analytical Skills
5 24 (6.28%) Organisational Skills
6 21 (5.50%) Pharmaceutical
6 21 (5.50%) Public Sector
7 20 (5.24%) Marketing
8 19 (4.97%) Influencing Skills
9 17 (4.45%) Law
10 13 (3.40%) Legal
11 9 (2.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 8 (2.09%) Games
13 7 (1.83%) Aerospace
13 7 (1.83%) Retail
13 7 (1.83%) Telecoms
14 6 (1.57%) Banking
14 6 (1.57%) Military
15 4 (1.05%) Documentation Skills
15 4 (1.05%) French Language
Job Titles
1 47 (12.30%) QA Manager
2 37 (9.69%) Lead
3 34 (8.90%) Quality Manager
4 33 (8.64%) Analyst
4 33 (8.64%) Head of QA
4 33 (8.64%) Senior
5 25 (6.54%) QA Engineer
6 18 (4.71%) QA Officer
7 16 (4.19%) Developer
8 14 (3.66%) QA Leader
9 13 (3.40%) Business Analyst
10 12 (3.14%) Administrator
11 11 (2.88%) QA Tester
11 11 (2.88%) Software Engineer
11 11 (2.88%) Tester
12 10 (2.62%) Quality Engineer
13 8 (2.09%) Portfolio Manager
13 8 (2.09%) QA Automation Engineer
13 8 (2.09%) Senior Manager
13 8 (2.09%) Senior Portfolio Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (3.66%) .NET
1 14 (3.66%) HTML
2 13 (3.40%) CSS
3 9 (2.36%) Playwright
4 8 (2.09%) React
5 7 (1.83%) AngularJS
5 7 (1.83%) REST
5 7 (1.83%) Spring
5 7 (1.83%) Spring Boot
6 6 (1.57%) Gherkin
7 5 (1.31%) .NET Framework
7 5 (1.31%) Entity Framework
7 5 (1.31%) RabbitMQ
7 5 (1.31%) RESTful
8 4 (1.05%) Flutter
8 4 (1.05%) Jest
8 4 (1.05%) JSON
8 4 (1.05%) Qt
8 4 (1.05%) STL
8 4 (1.05%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 36 (9.42%) Analytical Mindset
2 12 (3.14%) Onboarding
2 12 (3.14%) Product Ownership
3 9 (2.36%) Cloud Native
4 8 (2.09%) Driving Licence
4 8 (2.09%) PMI
4 8 (2.09%) Social Media
5 7 (1.83%) Distributed Systems
6 5 (1.31%) Client/Server
6 5 (1.31%) Management Information System
6 5 (1.31%) Mobile App
6 5 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
7 4 (1.05%) CCTV
7 4 (1.05%) NHS
8 3 (0.79%) Animation
8 3 (0.79%) Legacy Applications
8 3 (0.79%) Mainframe
8 3 (0.79%) Online Games
8 3 (0.79%) Photography
9 2 (0.52%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 13 (3.40%) Windows
2 7 (1.83%) Linux
3 6 (1.57%) Android
3 6 (1.57%) Apple iOS
4 5 (1.31%) Unix
5 3 (0.79%) VME
6 1 (0.26%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (24.35%) Continuous Improvement
2 73 (19.11%) Agile
3 64 (16.75%) Mentoring
4 56 (14.66%) Problem-Solving
5 52 (13.61%) Analytics
6 49 (12.83%) Quality Management
7 47 (12.30%) CI/CD
8 46 (12.04%) Test Automation
9 43 (11.26%) DevOps
10 41 (10.73%) Stakeholder Management
11 40 (10.47%) PRINCE2
12 39 (10.21%) Actionable Insight
12 39 (10.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 36 (9.42%) Change Management
13 36 (9.42%) Root Cause Analysis
14 33 (8.64%) Service Delivery
15 30 (7.85%) Anti-Money Laundering
15 30 (7.85%) Customer Experience
16 28 (7.33%) Coaching
16 28 (7.33%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 24 (6.28%) C#
2 22 (5.76%) Python
2 22 (5.76%) SQL
3 18 (4.71%) Java
4 13 (3.40%) TypeScript
5 10 (2.62%) JavaScript
6 7 (1.83%) Groovy
7 6 (1.57%) Go
8 4 (1.05%) Bash
8 4 (1.05%) C++
9 3 (0.79%) COBOL
10 2 (0.52%) Bicep
10 2 (0.52%) PHP
10 2 (0.52%) PowerShell
11 1 (0.26%) C
11 1 (0.26%) Perl
11 1 (0.26%) R
11 1 (0.26%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 34 (8.90%) Degree
2 30 (7.85%) IRCA
3 13 (3.40%) BPSS Clearance
4 12 (3.14%) PMI Certification
5 7 (1.83%) Microsoft Certification
6 6 (1.57%) AWS Certification
6 6 (1.57%) MCSE
6 6 (1.57%) Security Cleared
7 5 (1.31%) Computer Science Degree
7 5 (1.31%) DBS Check
8 4 (1.05%) ISTQB
8 4 (1.05%) PMP
9 3 (0.79%) CCEA
9 3 (0.79%) Citrix Certification
9 3 (0.79%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 2 (0.52%) DV Cleared
10 2 (0.52%) SC Cleared
11 1 (0.26%) PRINCE2 Certification
11 1 (0.26%) RIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (9.95%) GDPR
2 32 (8.38%) ISO 9001
3 8 (2.09%) Data Quality
3 8 (2.09%) P3O
4 7 (1.83%) Accessibility
4 7 (1.83%) PCI DSS
5 3 (0.79%) GMP
5 3 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (0.79%) PMO
5 3 (0.79%) Software Quality Assurance
5 3 (0.79%) WCAG
6 2 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (0.52%) GRC
6 2 (0.52%) ISO 14001
6 2 (0.52%) NIST
6 2 (0.52%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.26%) FINRA
7 1 (0.26%) NEBOSH
7 1 (0.26%) SLA
System Software
1 13 (3.40%) Docker
2 1 (0.26%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.26%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 8 (2.09%) Kubernetes
2 7 (1.83%) Terraform
3 5 (1.31%) Grafana
4 4 (1.05%) HP Fortify
5 3 (0.79%) Ansible
5 3 (0.79%) Packer
6 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.26%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 34 (8.90%) Microsoft
2 20 (5.24%) SAP
3 13 (3.40%) Google
4 9 (2.36%) Intapp
5 8 (2.09%) Aderant
5 8 (2.09%) iManage
5 8 (2.09%) ServiceNow
6 4 (1.05%) Planon
6 4 (1.05%) Siemens
7 3 (0.79%) Adobe
7 3 (0.79%) AppDynamics
7 3 (0.79%) IBM
8 2 (0.52%) DevExpress
8 2 (0.52%) Foundry
9 1 (0.26%) CheckPoint
9 1 (0.26%) ESRI
9 1 (0.26%) Nimble Storage
9 1 (0.26%) Veracode