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

6 months to
16 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 92 56 81
Rank change year-on-year -36 +25 -50
Permanent jobs citing QA 218 367 240
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 2.08% 3.72% 3.53%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 24.36% 23.69% 23.28%
Number of salaries quoted 121 160 152
10th Percentile £28,750 £25,000 £40,125
25th Percentile £37,500 £36,250 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £48,750 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +12.82% -11.36% -
75th Percentile £71,250 £63,270 £71,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,125 £82,500
England median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% -7.69% +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 895 1,549 1,031
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 8.55% 15.70% 15.18%
Number of salaries quoted 496 654 758
10th Percentile £28,750 £27,703 £27,750
25th Percentile £34,359 £35,188 £37,313
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £49,274 £51,250
Median % change year-on-year +1.47% -3.86% +2.50%
75th Percentile £64,875 £63,750 £66,944
90th Percentile £80,000 £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 16 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 16 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 -43 101 £57,500 +21.05% 111
Yorkshire -7 92 £50,750 +12.78% 76
North East -20 25 £35,000 -36.36% 27
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 (0.92%) HCL Notes
1 2 (0.92%) IIS
1 2 (0.92%) nginx
1 2 (0.92%) Oracle SOA Suite
1 2 (0.92%) SharePoint
2 1 (0.46%) Confluence
2 1 (0.46%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 10 (4.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (3.21%) Microsoft Project
3 6 (2.75%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (1.38%) AutoCAD
4 3 (1.38%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 7 (3.21%) Dynamics CRM
1 7 (3.21%) Shopify
2 3 (1.38%) SAP ERP
3 2 (0.92%) Oracle BPM
4 1 (0.46%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 40 (18.35%) Azure
2 31 (14.22%) AWS
3 19 (8.72%) Power Platform
4 18 (8.26%) SaaS
5 7 (3.21%) Microsoft Copilot
6 6 (2.75%) AWS Lambda
6 6 (2.75%) GCP
6 6 (2.75%) GitHub
6 6 (2.75%) Microsoft 365
6 6 (2.75%) Serverless
7 5 (2.29%) Amazon ECS
7 5 (2.29%) Amazon S3
7 5 (2.29%) AWS CloudFormation
7 5 (2.29%) Entra ID
8 4 (1.83%) Amazon ECR
8 4 (1.83%) Apigee
8 4 (1.83%) AWS Step Functions
8 4 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
8 4 (1.83%) Google Ads
9 3 (1.38%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.29%) Broadband
1 5 (2.29%) HTTP
2 4 (1.83%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.46%) SAN
3 1 (0.46%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (6.42%) Power BI
2 8 (3.67%) SQL Server
3 6 (2.75%) DynamoDB
3 6 (2.75%) MongoDB
3 6 (2.75%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (2.75%) Relational Database
4 4 (1.83%) NoSQL
4 4 (1.83%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 3 (1.38%) Geospatial Data
5 3 (1.38%) GIS
5 3 (1.38%) Looker
5 3 (1.38%) Metadata
5 3 (1.38%) QGIS
5 3 (1.38%) Spatial Data
5 3 (1.38%) Tableau
6 2 (0.92%) Data Lake
6 2 (0.92%) Elasticsearch
6 2 (0.92%) PostHog
6 2 (0.92%) Redis
6 2 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 14 (6.42%) JIRA
2 12 (5.50%) Jenkins
3 10 (4.59%) Cypress.io
4 9 (4.13%) GitLab
5 8 (3.67%) Selenium
6 7 (3.21%) Git
7 6 (2.75%) Cucumber
7 6 (2.75%) JMeter
8 5 (2.29%) Maven
8 5 (2.29%) Postman
8 5 (2.29%) SonarQube
9 4 (1.83%) Appium
9 4 (1.83%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.92%) Gatling
10 2 (0.92%) Locust
10 2 (0.92%) REST Assured
10 2 (0.92%) SpecFlow
11 1 (0.46%) CircleCI
11 1 (0.46%) ESLint
11 1 (0.46%) Storybook
General
1 66 (30.28%) Social Skills
2 42 (19.27%) Manufacturing
3 35 (16.06%) Finance
4 26 (11.93%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (8.26%) Influencing Skills
6 17 (7.80%) Organisational Skills
7 13 (5.96%) Public Sector
8 11 (5.05%) Law
9 10 (4.59%) Legal
10 8 (3.67%) Marketing
11 7 (3.21%) Games
12 5 (2.29%) Retail
13 4 (1.83%) Advertising
13 4 (1.83%) Electronics
13 4 (1.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (1.83%) Military
13 4 (1.83%) Telecoms
14 3 (1.38%) Welsh Language
15 2 (0.92%) Automotive
15 2 (0.92%) Banking
Job Titles
1 38 (17.43%) Lead
2 34 (15.60%) Senior
3 29 (13.30%) Developer
4 23 (10.55%) QA Manager
5 18 (8.26%) Quality Manager
6 16 (7.34%) Analyst
7 14 (6.42%) QA Engineer
8 13 (5.96%) Project Manager
9 12 (5.50%) Senior Developer
10 10 (4.59%) Automation Engineer
10 10 (4.59%) QA Automation Engineer
11 9 (4.13%) Lead Developer
12 8 (3.67%) Backend Developer
12 8 (3.67%) Consultant
12 8 (3.67%) QA Leader
12 8 (3.67%) Tester
13 6 (2.75%) Software Developer
14 5 (2.29%) Commercial Manager
14 5 (2.29%) Software Engineer
14 5 (2.29%) Support Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (7.80%) .NET
2 15 (6.88%) React
3 13 (5.96%) Node.js
4 10 (4.59%) AngularJS
5 7 (3.21%) Jest
5 7 (3.21%) RESTful
5 7 (3.21%) Spring
5 7 (3.21%) Spring Boot
6 6 (2.75%) Gherkin
6 6 (2.75%) Playwright
7 4 (1.83%) ASP.NET
7 4 (1.83%) Bootstrap
7 4 (1.83%) CSS
7 4 (1.83%) HTML
7 4 (1.83%) Next.js
7 4 (1.83%) Qt
7 4 (1.83%) STL
8 3 (1.38%) Loki
8 3 (1.38%) QML
8 3 (1.38%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 11 (5.05%) Cloud Native
1 11 (5.05%) Product Ownership
2 10 (4.59%) IoT
2 10 (4.59%) Self-Motivation
2 10 (4.59%) Social Media
3 6 (2.75%) NHS
3 6 (2.75%) Onboarding
4 5 (2.29%) Analytical Mindset
4 5 (2.29%) Client/Server
5 4 (1.83%) AI Agents
5 4 (1.83%) Distributed Systems
5 4 (1.83%) Driving Licence
5 4 (1.83%) Mobile App
6 3 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
6 3 (1.38%) Legacy Systems
6 3 (1.38%) Renewable Energy
7 2 (0.92%) CCTV
7 2 (0.92%) Derivative
7 2 (0.92%) EPoS
7 2 (0.92%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 17 (7.80%) Windows
2 6 (2.75%) Linux
3 5 (2.29%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 70 (32.11%) Agile
2 63 (28.90%) Mentoring
3 46 (21.10%) Problem-Solving
4 44 (20.18%) DevOps
5 41 (18.81%) CI/CD
6 37 (16.97%) Test Automation
7 36 (16.51%) Continuous Improvement
8 25 (11.47%) Project Delivery
8 25 (11.47%) Software Engineering
9 23 (10.55%) Process Improvement
9 23 (10.55%) Project Management
10 17 (7.80%) Roadmaps
11 16 (7.34%) Business Intelligence
11 16 (7.34%) Quality Management
12 15 (6.88%) User Experience
13 14 (6.42%) Microservices
14 13 (5.96%) Code Quality
14 13 (5.96%) Collaborative Working
14 13 (5.96%) QMS
14 13 (5.96%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 23 (10.55%) C#
2 22 (10.09%) JavaScript
3 21 (9.63%) SQL
4 20 (9.17%) Java
5 18 (8.26%) TypeScript
6 13 (5.96%) Python
7 10 (4.59%) Go
8 8 (3.67%) Elixir
8 8 (3.67%) Ruby
9 6 (2.75%) Bash
9 6 (2.75%) C++
10 4 (1.83%) Groovy
11 3 (1.38%) PHP
11 3 (1.38%) PowerShell
11 3 (1.38%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.46%) Dart
Qualifications
1 21 (9.63%) Degree
2 13 (5.96%) Security Cleared
3 11 (5.05%) SC Cleared
4 9 (4.13%) PMI Certification
4 9 (4.13%) PMP
5 7 (3.21%) BPSS Clearance
6 5 (2.29%) DBS Check
7 4 (1.83%) HND
7 4 (1.83%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 3 (1.38%) DV Cleared
8 3 (1.38%) PRINCE2 Certification
9 2 (0.92%) ISTQB
10 1 (0.46%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.46%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 1 (0.46%) CISA
10 1 (0.46%) CISM
10 1 (0.46%) CISSP
10 1 (0.46%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (9.17%) Accessibility
2 5 (2.29%) GDPR
2 5 (2.29%) PCI DSS
3 4 (1.83%) PMO
4 3 (1.38%) Data Quality
4 3 (1.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.92%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (0.92%) GRC
5 2 (0.92%) NIST
5 2 (0.92%) SOC 2
5 2 (0.92%) WCAG
6 1 (0.46%) FINRA
6 1 (0.46%) ISO 14001
6 1 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 15 (6.88%) Docker
2 5 (2.29%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.46%) Firmware
3 1 (0.46%) Squid
Systems Management
1 9 (4.13%) Kubernetes
2 8 (3.67%) Grafana
3 7 (3.21%) Terraform
4 4 (1.83%) HP Fortify
5 3 (1.38%) Ansible
6 2 (0.92%) Progress Chef
6 2 (0.92%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.92%) Puppet
7 1 (0.46%) Kibana
Vendors
1 35 (16.06%) Microsoft
2 8 (3.67%) SAP
3 6 (2.75%) Google
4 3 (1.38%) ESRI
4 3 (1.38%) Oracle
5 2 (0.92%) Lotus
6 1 (0.46%) AppDynamics
6 1 (0.46%) New Relic
6 1 (0.46%) Nimble Storage
6 1 (0.46%) Sage
6 1 (0.46%) Splunk