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

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 104 54
Rank change year-on-year +55 -50 +23
Permanent jobs citing QA 593 303 508
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 2.65% 3.15% 3.37%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 31.33% 24.75% 26.86%
Number of salaries quoted 378 130 275
10th Percentile £30,000 £35,000 £25,300
25th Percentile £32,500 £45,000 £30,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +22.22% -18.18%
75th Percentile £59,688 £71,250 £60,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £86,250 £68,750
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 1,893 1,224 1,891
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 8.46% 12.72% 12.54%
Number of salaries quoted 1,373 583 1,151
10th Percentile £30,000 £25,500 £25,500
25th Percentile £39,000 £32,500 £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 £60,991
90th Percentile £84,750 £75,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £57,500 £55,043 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.46% +0.08% -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 18 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 18 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 +41 352 £45,000 -18.18% 96
North East +15 122 £53,750 +13.16% 40
Yorkshire +28 119 £40,000 -30.43% 42
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 11 (1.85%) Apache Airflow
2 7 (1.18%) Apache Spark
2 7 (1.18%) CMS
2 7 (1.18%) SharePoint
2 7 (1.18%) WordPress
3 6 (1.01%) Apache
3 6 (1.01%) Jupyter
4 3 (0.51%) IIS
5 2 (0.34%) Confluence
5 2 (0.34%) WebLogic
6 1 (0.17%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 29 (4.89%) Microsoft Office
2 28 (4.72%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.52%) MS Visio
4 6 (1.01%) Revit
4 6 (1.01%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.84%) AutoCAD
5 5 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.84%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.34%) Navisworks
Business Applications
1 5 (0.84%) SAP PM
2 4 (0.67%) Sage 200
2 4 (0.67%) SAP Business One
2 4 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.51%) Shopify
3 3 (0.51%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 66 (11.13%) AWS
2 60 (10.12%) Azure
3 36 (6.07%) Power Platform
4 33 (5.56%) Microsoft 365
5 26 (4.38%) Azure DevOps
6 16 (2.70%) Serverless
7 15 (2.53%) GCP
8 14 (2.36%) Amazon S3
8 14 (2.36%) SaaS
9 12 (2.02%) Amazon EC2
10 11 (1.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 10 (1.69%) AWS Lambda
11 10 (1.69%) GitHub
12 9 (1.52%) Power Automate
13 7 (1.18%) Amazon ECR
13 7 (1.18%) Amazon EKS
14 6 (1.01%) Amazon EMR
14 6 (1.01%) dbt
14 6 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
15 5 (0.84%) Google Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.67%) HTTP
2 3 (0.51%) HTTPS
2 3 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
3 2 (0.34%) Broadband
3 2 (0.34%) DNS
3 2 (0.34%) Remote Desktop
3 2 (0.34%) VoIP
4 1 (0.17%) ADSL
4 1 (0.17%) Firewall
4 1 (0.17%) ISDN
4 1 (0.17%) LAN
4 1 (0.17%) Network Security
4 1 (0.17%) RIP
4 1 (0.17%) SSL
4 1 (0.17%) VDSL
4 1 (0.17%) WAN
4 1 (0.17%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (5.06%) Power BI
2 16 (2.70%) SQL Server
3 8 (1.35%) MySQL
4 7 (1.18%) DynamoDB
5 6 (1.01%) Amazon Athena
5 6 (1.01%) BigQuery
5 6 (1.01%) Relational Database
6 4 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
6 4 (0.67%) Data Lake
6 4 (0.67%) MongoDB
7 3 (0.51%) Big Data
7 3 (0.51%) Data Warehouse
7 3 (0.51%) DocumentDB
7 3 (0.51%) PostgreSQL
7 3 (0.51%) Redis
7 3 (0.51%) Tableau
8 2 (0.34%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.34%) Data Mining
8 2 (0.34%) EDRMS
8 2 (0.34%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 36 (6.07%) Git
2 24 (4.05%) JIRA
3 21 (3.54%) GitLab
4 9 (1.52%) Jenkins
5 8 (1.35%) Cypress.io
6 6 (1.01%) Postman
7 5 (0.84%) Cucumber
8 4 (0.67%) JUnit
8 4 (0.67%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.51%) Artifactory
9 3 (0.51%) NUnit
10 2 (0.34%) Claude Code
10 2 (0.34%) JMeter
10 2 (0.34%) Selenium
10 2 (0.34%) SpecFlow
10 2 (0.34%) TestRail
11 1 (0.17%) Gatling
11 1 (0.17%) Locust
11 1 (0.17%) REST Assured
11 1 (0.17%) Xcode
General
1 179 (30.19%) Social Skills
2 113 (19.06%) Manufacturing
3 94 (15.85%) Analytical Skills
4 68 (11.47%) Finance
5 65 (10.96%) Pharmaceutical
6 42 (7.08%) Public Sector
7 29 (4.89%) Legal
8 23 (3.88%) Organisational Skills
9 19 (3.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 19 (3.20%) Law
10 18 (3.04%) Marketing
11 15 (2.53%) Aerospace
12 12 (2.02%) Retail
12 12 (2.02%) Swedish Language
13 9 (1.52%) Local Government
14 8 (1.35%) Automotive
14 8 (1.35%) Banking
14 8 (1.35%) Games
14 8 (1.35%) Telecoms
15 5 (0.84%) Military
Job Titles
1 60 (10.12%) Analyst
1 60 (10.12%) Senior
2 57 (9.61%) QA Engineer
3 55 (9.27%) QA Manager
4 53 (8.94%) QA Officer
5 45 (7.59%) Developer
5 45 (7.59%) Quality Engineer
6 43 (7.25%) Quality Manager
7 39 (6.58%) Lead
8 33 (5.56%) Head of QA
9 19 (3.20%) Business Analyst
10 18 (3.04%) Service Analyst
10 18 (3.04%) Service Desk Analyst
10 18 (3.04%) Software Engineer
10 18 (3.04%) Test Engineer
11 16 (2.70%) Tester
12 13 (2.19%) Administrator
13 12 (2.02%) Senior Developer
13 12 (2.02%) Software Developer
14 11 (1.85%) QA Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (7.08%) .NET
2 33 (5.56%) HTML
3 30 (5.06%) CSS
4 18 (3.04%) REST
5 17 (2.87%) Playwright
6 16 (2.70%) Node.js
7 11 (1.85%) RESTful
8 10 (1.69%) .NET Framework
9 9 (1.52%) ASP.NET Web API
9 9 (1.52%) OAuth
10 8 (1.35%) AngularJS
10 8 (1.35%) ASP.NET
10 8 (1.35%) Entity Framework
10 8 (1.35%) React
11 7 (1.18%) .NET Core
11 7 (1.18%) JSON
11 7 (1.18%) OAuth2
11 7 (1.18%) Vue
12 6 (1.01%) JWT
13 5 (0.84%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 33 (5.56%) Analytical Mindset
2 22 (3.71%) Product Ownership
3 18 (3.04%) Life Science
4 13 (2.19%) Distributed Systems
5 12 (2.02%) Cloud Native
6 11 (1.85%) Management Information System
7 10 (1.69%) Onboarding
8 6 (1.01%) AI Agents
8 6 (1.01%) Data Centre
8 6 (1.01%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (0.84%) Driving Licence
9 5 (0.84%) PMI
9 5 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
10 4 (0.67%) Animation
10 4 (0.67%) Mobile App
10 4 (0.67%) Online Games
11 3 (0.51%) Blog
11 3 (0.51%) FMCG
11 3 (0.51%) Photography
11 3 (0.51%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 13 (2.19%) Windows
2 6 (1.01%) Linux
3 5 (0.84%) Android
3 5 (0.84%) Apple iOS
3 5 (0.84%) Windows 10
4 3 (0.51%) VME
5 2 (0.34%) Mac OS
5 2 (0.34%) Unix
5 2 (0.34%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 140 (23.61%) Continuous Improvement
2 126 (21.25%) Agile
3 96 (16.19%) CI/CD
4 84 (14.17%) Problem-Solving
5 78 (13.15%) Test Automation
6 67 (11.30%) DevOps
7 66 (11.13%) Mentoring
8 57 (9.61%) Analytics
9 54 (9.11%) Validation
10 52 (8.77%) Quality Management
11 49 (8.26%) Software Engineering
12 47 (7.93%) Decision-Making
12 47 (7.93%) Stakeholder Management
13 46 (7.76%) Root Cause Analysis
13 46 (7.76%) Software Testing
14 44 (7.42%) Change Management
15 42 (7.08%) PRINCE2
15 42 (7.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 40 (6.75%) Actionable Insight
17 38 (6.41%) Customer Experience
Programming Languages
1 63 (10.62%) SQL
2 50 (8.43%) JavaScript
3 48 (8.09%) C#
4 42 (7.08%) Python
5 29 (4.89%) Java
6 24 (4.05%) TypeScript
7 9 (1.52%) Bash
8 6 (1.01%) Go
8 6 (1.01%) PHP
9 4 (0.67%) PowerShell
10 3 (0.51%) C++
10 3 (0.51%) COBOL
10 3 (0.51%) Groovy
10 3 (0.51%) R
11 2 (0.34%) Bicep
11 2 (0.34%) Kotlin
11 2 (0.34%) VB.NET
12 1 (0.17%) C
12 1 (0.17%) Perl
12 1 (0.17%) Swift
Qualifications
1 73 (12.31%) Degree
2 37 (6.24%) Security Cleared
3 33 (5.56%) SC Cleared
4 31 (5.23%) IRCA
5 19 (3.20%) Microsoft Certification
6 18 (3.04%) BPSS Clearance
7 16 (2.70%) AWS Certification
7 16 (2.70%) MCSE
8 8 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (1.35%) Postgraduate
8 8 (1.35%) RIBA
9 7 (1.18%) DBS Check
10 6 (1.01%) PMI Certification
11 5 (0.84%) ISTQB
11 5 (0.84%) PMP
12 4 (0.67%) HNC
12 4 (0.67%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 3 (0.51%) HND
14 2 (0.34%) CHECK Team Member
14 2 (0.34%) CREST Certified
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (7.76%) ISO 9001
2 41 (6.91%) GDPR
3 22 (3.71%) Accessibility
4 13 (2.19%) GMP
5 11 (1.85%) Data Quality
6 7 (1.18%) PMO
7 4 (0.67%) PCI DSS
7 4 (0.67%) Software Quality Assurance
8 3 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.51%) WCAG
9 2 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.34%) ISO 14001
9 2 (0.34%) ISO 19650
10 1 (0.17%) AQAP
10 1 (0.17%) NCSC
10 1 (0.17%) NEBOSH
10 1 (0.17%) NIST
10 1 (0.17%) SLA
System Software
1 29 (4.89%) Docker
2 4 (0.67%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 17 (2.87%) Terraform
2 15 (2.53%) Kubernetes
3 5 (0.84%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.51%) Ansible
4 3 (0.51%) Packer
5 2 (0.34%) Grafana
6 1 (0.17%) Cisco CUCM
6 1 (0.17%) Fluentd
6 1 (0.17%) Kibana
Vendors
1 68 (11.47%) Microsoft
2 22 (3.71%) ServiceNow
3 19 (3.20%) SAP
4 11 (1.85%) Google
5 8 (1.35%) Aderant
5 8 (1.35%) iManage
5 8 (1.35%) Intapp
6 6 (1.01%) Autodesk
7 5 (0.84%) Databricks
7 5 (0.84%) Sage
8 4 (0.67%) Dynatrace
9 3 (0.51%) Adobe
9 3 (0.51%) AppDynamics
9 3 (0.51%) Confluent
9 3 (0.51%) IBM
9 3 (0.51%) Planon
9 3 (0.51%) Salesforce
9 3 (0.51%) Splunk
10 2 (0.34%) Alteryx
10 2 (0.34%) F5