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 29 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 47 75
Rank change year-on-year -34 +28 -60
Permanent jobs citing QA 255 401 359
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 2.20% 4.54% 3.27%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 26.26% 26.09% 24.36%
Number of salaries quoted 125 135 231
10th Percentile £26,000 £26,550 £30,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £39,000 £41,875
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £60,000 £66,250
90th Percentile £79,000 £81,250 £81,250
England median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% - -

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 971 1,537 1,474
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 8.38% 17.41% 13.43%
Number of salaries quoted 539 593 1,109
10th Percentile £28,250 £30,000 £26,750
25th Percentile £33,000 £36,750 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% - -
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £63,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £81,250 £82,548
England median annual salary £58,750 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -2.08% +9.09% -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 29 January 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 29 January 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 -22 131 £57,500 +15.00% 85
Yorkshire -11 99 £50,000 +14.94% 66
North East -47 25 £55,000 -5.17% 19
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 (0.78%) Confluence
1 2 (0.78%) IIS
1 2 (0.78%) nginx
2 1 (0.39%) CMS
2 1 (0.39%) HCL Notes
2 1 (0.39%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 1 (0.39%) SharePoint
2 1 (0.39%) WordPress
Applications
1 10 (3.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (2.75%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (2.75%) Microsoft Project
3 3 (1.18%) AutoCAD
4 1 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (3.53%) SAP ERP
2 7 (2.75%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (2.75%) Shopify
3 2 (0.78%) Academy Housing
4 1 (0.39%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.39%) Oracle BPM
4 1 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 35 (13.73%) Azure
2 22 (8.63%) Power Platform
3 19 (7.45%) AWS
4 17 (6.67%) SaaS
5 8 (3.14%) Microsoft 365
6 7 (2.75%) Microsoft Copilot
7 6 (2.35%) GCP
8 5 (1.96%) Amazon S3
8 5 (1.96%) AWS CloudFormation
8 5 (1.96%) AWS Lambda
8 5 (1.96%) Serverless
9 4 (1.57%) Amazon ECR
9 4 (1.57%) Amazon ECS
9 4 (1.57%) Apigee
9 4 (1.57%) AWS Step Functions
10 3 (1.18%) Datadog
10 3 (1.18%) Google Ads
10 3 (1.18%) PaaS
11 2 (0.78%) Entra ID
11 2 (0.78%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.96%) Broadband
1 5 (1.96%) HTTP
2 4 (1.57%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.39%) SAN
3 1 (0.39%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (5.49%) Power BI
2 6 (2.35%) SQL Server
3 5 (1.96%) DynamoDB
4 4 (1.57%) Relational Database
5 3 (1.18%) Geospatial Data
5 3 (1.18%) GIS
5 3 (1.18%) Looker
5 3 (1.18%) Metadata
5 3 (1.18%) QGIS
5 3 (1.18%) Spatial Data
5 3 (1.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 2 (0.78%) Data Lake
6 2 (0.78%) MongoDB
6 2 (0.78%) PostHog
6 2 (0.78%) Redis
6 2 (0.78%) Tableau
7 1 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
7 1 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.39%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.39%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 11 (4.31%) Jenkins
2 9 (3.53%) GitLab
3 8 (3.14%) Cypress.io
4 7 (2.75%) JIRA
5 6 (2.35%) Postman
5 6 (2.35%) Selenium
5 6 (2.35%) SonarQube
6 5 (1.96%) Cucumber
6 5 (1.96%) JMeter
6 5 (1.96%) Maven
7 4 (1.57%) Visual Studio
8 3 (1.18%) Appium
9 2 (0.78%) Git
9 2 (0.78%) Locust
9 2 (0.78%) SpecFlow
10 1 (0.39%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.39%) LoadRunner
10 1 (0.39%) LSMW
10 1 (0.39%) REST Assured
10 1 (0.39%) SoapUI
General
1 82 (32.16%) Social Skills
2 47 (18.43%) Finance
3 46 (18.04%) Manufacturing
4 26 (10.20%) Analytical Skills
5 23 (9.02%) Influencing Skills
5 23 (9.02%) Public Sector
6 21 (8.24%) Organisational Skills
7 12 (4.71%) Law
7 12 (4.71%) Legal
8 11 (4.31%) Marketing
9 7 (2.75%) Games
10 6 (2.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (1.96%) Retail
12 4 (1.57%) Advertising
12 4 (1.57%) Banking
12 4 (1.57%) Documentation Skills
12 4 (1.57%) Electronics
12 4 (1.57%) Military
12 4 (1.57%) Pharmaceutical
12 4 (1.57%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 38 (14.90%) Lead
2 36 (14.12%) Senior
3 31 (12.16%) QA Manager
4 21 (8.24%) Developer
5 20 (7.84%) QA Engineer
5 20 (7.84%) Quality Manager
6 17 (6.67%) Analyst
7 13 (5.10%) Project Manager
7 13 (5.10%) QA Leader
8 11 (4.31%) Automation Engineer
8 11 (4.31%) QA Automation Engineer
9 10 (3.92%) Senior Developer
10 9 (3.53%) Team Leader
11 8 (3.14%) Portfolio Manager
11 8 (3.14%) Senior Manager
11 8 (3.14%) Senior Portfolio Manager
12 7 (2.75%) QA Team Leader
13 6 (2.35%) Lead Developer
14 5 (1.96%) Consultant
14 5 (1.96%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (5.10%) .NET
2 8 (3.14%) React
3 7 (2.75%) AngularJS
3 7 (2.75%) Spring
3 7 (2.75%) Spring Boot
4 6 (2.35%) Gherkin
4 6 (2.35%) Jest
4 6 (2.35%) RESTful
5 5 (1.96%) Node.js
5 5 (1.96%) Playwright
6 4 (1.57%) Qt
6 4 (1.57%) STL
7 3 (1.18%) CSS
7 3 (1.18%) HTML
7 3 (1.18%) Next.js
7 3 (1.18%) QML
8 2 (0.78%) .NET Core
8 2 (0.78%) Entity Framework
8 2 (0.78%) Loki
8 2 (0.78%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 10 (3.92%) Product Ownership
1 10 (3.92%) Self-Motivation
1 10 (3.92%) Social Media
2 8 (3.14%) Cloud Native
2 8 (3.14%) Driving Licence
2 8 (3.14%) Onboarding
2 8 (3.14%) PMI
3 7 (2.75%) IoT
4 6 (2.35%) AI Agents
4 6 (2.35%) CCTV
4 6 (2.35%) NHS
5 5 (1.96%) Client/Server
6 4 (1.57%) Analytical Mindset
6 4 (1.57%) Distributed Systems
7 3 (1.18%) Management Information System
7 3 (1.18%) Mobile App
7 3 (1.18%) Renewable Energy
8 2 (0.78%) Derivative
8 2 (0.78%) EPoS
9 1 (0.39%) FMCG
Operating Systems
1 16 (6.27%) Windows
2 5 (1.96%) Linux
2 5 (1.96%) Unix
3 4 (1.57%) Android
3 4 (1.57%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 73 (28.63%) Mentoring
2 69 (27.06%) Agile
3 50 (19.61%) Continuous Improvement
4 45 (17.65%) DevOps
4 45 (17.65%) Problem-Solving
5 40 (15.69%) Test Automation
6 39 (15.29%) CI/CD
7 33 (12.94%) Process Improvement
8 28 (10.98%) Stakeholder Management
9 24 (9.41%) Project Management
10 23 (9.02%) Coaching
10 23 (9.02%) Software Engineering
11 22 (8.63%) Project Delivery
12 18 (7.06%) Roadmaps
13 17 (6.67%) Collaborative Working
14 16 (6.27%) Business Intelligence
15 15 (5.88%) Data Analysis
15 15 (5.88%) Quality Management
16 13 (5.10%) QMS
16 13 (5.10%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 20 (7.84%) C#
2 16 (6.27%) Java
3 13 (5.10%) Python
3 13 (5.10%) SQL
4 12 (4.71%) TypeScript
5 8 (3.14%) Go
5 8 (3.14%) JavaScript
6 6 (2.35%) Bash
7 5 (1.96%) C++
7 5 (1.96%) Elixir
7 5 (1.96%) Ruby
8 4 (1.57%) Groovy
8 4 (1.57%) PowerShell
9 2 (0.78%) PHP
9 2 (0.78%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 25 (9.80%) Degree
2 17 (6.67%) PMI Certification
3 12 (4.71%) BPSS Clearance
4 9 (3.53%) PMP
4 9 (3.53%) Security Cleared
5 7 (2.75%) DBS Check
5 7 (2.75%) SC Cleared
6 4 (1.57%) HND
6 4 (1.57%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 3 (1.18%) DV Cleared
7 3 (1.18%) PRINCE2 Certification
8 2 (0.78%) CCEA
8 2 (0.78%) Citrix Certification
9 1 (0.39%) CISA
9 1 (0.39%) CISM
9 1 (0.39%) CISSP
9 1 (0.39%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.39%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (7.84%) Accessibility
2 8 (3.14%) P3O
3 5 (1.96%) GDPR
3 5 (1.96%) PCI DSS
4 4 (1.57%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.57%) PMO
5 3 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (0.78%) GRC
6 2 (0.78%) NIST
6 2 (0.78%) SOC 2
6 2 (0.78%) WCAG
7 1 (0.39%) FINRA
7 1 (0.39%) ISO 14001
7 1 (0.39%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 12 (4.71%) Docker
2 2 (0.78%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.39%) Firmware
3 1 (0.39%) Squid
Systems Management
1 9 (3.53%) Kubernetes
2 7 (2.75%) Grafana
3 6 (2.35%) Terraform
4 4 (1.57%) HP Fortify
5 3 (1.18%) Ansible
6 2 (0.78%) Progress Chef
6 2 (0.78%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.78%) Puppet
7 1 (0.39%) Kibana
Vendors
1 35 (13.73%) Microsoft
2 14 (5.49%) SAP
3 6 (2.35%) Google
4 4 (1.57%) Siemens
5 3 (1.18%) ESRI
6 2 (0.78%) Foundry
6 2 (0.78%) Oracle
7 1 (0.39%) AppDynamics
7 1 (0.39%) Intapp
7 1 (0.39%) Lotus
7 1 (0.39%) New Relic
7 1 (0.39%) Nimble Storage
7 1 (0.39%) Planon
7 1 (0.39%) ServiceNow
7 1 (0.39%) Splunk
7 1 (0.39%) Veracode