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

6 months to
8 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 54 70
Rank change year-on-year -31 +16 -52
Permanent jobs citing QA 231 386 285
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 2.15% 4.18% 3.51%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 25.25% 25.39% 24.51%
Number of salaries quoted 115 151 181
10th Percentile £26,000 £25,000 £35,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £37,418 £43,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -9.09% +0.92%
75th Percentile £71,250 £60,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £81,250 £81,250
England median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year -4.17% -4.00% +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 915 1,520 1,163
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 8.53% 16.46% 14.32%
Number of salaries quoted 503 614 858
10th Percentile £28,750 £29,378 £27,350
25th Percentile £32,500 £36,250 £35,579
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £47,903 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.38% -4.19% -
75th Percentile £65,000 £63,938 £64,072
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £81,172
England median annual salary £58,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -3.33% - +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 8 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 8 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 -25 115 £57,500 +17.95% 111
Yorkshire -3 95 £49,500 +13.79% 135
North East -40 21 £32,500 -40.91% 30
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 (0.87%) HCL Notes
1 2 (0.87%) IIS
1 2 (0.87%) nginx
1 2 (0.87%) Oracle SOA Suite
1 2 (0.87%) SharePoint
2 1 (0.43%) Confluence
2 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 10 (4.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (3.03%) Microsoft Project
3 6 (2.60%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (1.30%) AutoCAD
5 2 (0.87%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 8 (3.46%) SAP ERP
2 7 (3.03%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (3.03%) Shopify
3 2 (0.87%) Oracle BPM
4 1 (0.43%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 42 (18.18%) Azure
2 23 (9.96%) AWS
3 21 (9.09%) Power Platform
4 18 (7.79%) SaaS
5 8 (3.46%) Microsoft 365
6 7 (3.03%) Microsoft Copilot
7 6 (2.60%) GCP
8 5 (2.16%) Amazon S3
8 5 (2.16%) AWS CloudFormation
8 5 (2.16%) AWS Lambda
8 5 (2.16%) Entra ID
8 5 (2.16%) Serverless
9 4 (1.73%) Amazon ECR
9 4 (1.73%) Amazon ECS
9 4 (1.73%) Apigee
9 4 (1.73%) AWS Step Functions
9 4 (1.73%) Google Ads
10 3 (1.30%) Datadog
10 3 (1.30%) GitHub
10 3 (1.30%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.16%) Broadband
1 5 (2.16%) HTTP
2 4 (1.73%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.43%) SAN
3 1 (0.43%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (6.06%) Power BI
2 8 (3.46%) SQL Server
3 5 (2.16%) DynamoDB
3 5 (2.16%) Relational Database
4 4 (1.73%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 3 (1.30%) Geospatial Data
5 3 (1.30%) GIS
5 3 (1.30%) Looker
5 3 (1.30%) Metadata
5 3 (1.30%) QGIS
5 3 (1.30%) Spatial Data
5 3 (1.30%) Tableau
6 2 (0.87%) Data Lake
6 2 (0.87%) MongoDB
6 2 (0.87%) PostHog
6 2 (0.87%) Redis
6 2 (0.87%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 2 (0.87%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 1 (0.43%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.43%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 12 (5.19%) JIRA
2 11 (4.76%) Jenkins
3 10 (4.33%) Cypress.io
4 8 (3.46%) GitLab
5 6 (2.60%) Selenium
6 5 (2.16%) Cucumber
6 5 (2.16%) Git
6 5 (2.16%) JMeter
6 5 (2.16%) Maven
6 5 (2.16%) Postman
6 5 (2.16%) SonarQube
7 4 (1.73%) Appium
7 4 (1.73%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.87%) Locust
8 2 (0.87%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.87%) SpecFlow
9 1 (0.43%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.43%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.43%) Storybook
9 1 (0.43%) webpack
General
1 72 (31.17%) Social Skills
2 44 (19.05%) Manufacturing
3 35 (15.15%) Finance
4 27 (11.69%) Analytical Skills
5 19 (8.23%) Organisational Skills
6 18 (7.79%) Influencing Skills
7 15 (6.49%) Public Sector
8 12 (5.19%) Law
9 10 (4.33%) Legal
10 8 (3.46%) Marketing
11 7 (3.03%) Games
12 5 (2.16%) Retail
13 4 (1.73%) Advertising
13 4 (1.73%) Banking
13 4 (1.73%) Electronics
13 4 (1.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (1.73%) Military
13 4 (1.73%) Telecoms
14 3 (1.30%) Welsh Language
15 2 (0.87%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 36 (15.58%) Lead
2 30 (12.99%) Senior
3 27 (11.69%) QA Manager
4 24 (10.39%) Developer
5 21 (9.09%) QA Engineer
6 18 (7.79%) Analyst
7 17 (7.36%) Quality Manager
8 13 (5.63%) Project Manager
9 12 (5.19%) Senior Developer
10 11 (4.76%) Automation Engineer
10 11 (4.76%) QA Automation Engineer
11 10 (4.33%) QA Leader
12 8 (3.46%) Backend Developer
12 8 (3.46%) Consultant
13 7 (3.03%) Team Leader
14 6 (2.60%) Lead Developer
15 5 (2.16%) Commercial Manager
15 5 (2.16%) Operations Manager
15 5 (2.16%) Software Engineer
15 5 (2.16%) Support Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (7.79%) .NET
2 13 (5.63%) React
3 10 (4.33%) AngularJS
4 7 (3.03%) Jest
4 7 (3.03%) Node.js
4 7 (3.03%) Spring
4 7 (3.03%) Spring Boot
5 6 (2.60%) Gherkin
6 5 (2.16%) Playwright
6 5 (2.16%) RESTful
7 4 (1.73%) ASP.NET
7 4 (1.73%) CSS
7 4 (1.73%) HTML
7 4 (1.73%) Next.js
7 4 (1.73%) Qt
7 4 (1.73%) STL
8 3 (1.30%) .NET Core
8 3 (1.30%) Loki
8 3 (1.30%) QML
8 3 (1.30%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 12 (5.19%) Product Ownership
2 10 (4.33%) IoT
2 10 (4.33%) Self-Motivation
2 10 (4.33%) Social Media
3 9 (3.90%) Cloud Native
4 8 (3.46%) Onboarding
5 6 (2.60%) AI Agents
5 6 (2.60%) Analytical Mindset
5 6 (2.60%) Driving Licence
5 6 (2.60%) NHS
6 5 (2.16%) Client/Server
7 4 (1.73%) CCTV
7 4 (1.73%) Distributed Systems
8 3 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (1.30%) Mobile App
8 3 (1.30%) Renewable Energy
9 2 (0.87%) Derivative
9 2 (0.87%) EPoS
9 2 (0.87%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (0.87%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 17 (7.36%) Windows
2 5 (2.16%) Linux
2 5 (2.16%) Unix
3 3 (1.30%) Android
3 3 (1.30%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 72 (31.17%) Agile
2 68 (29.44%) Mentoring
3 48 (20.78%) DevOps
3 48 (20.78%) Problem-Solving
4 43 (18.61%) CI/CD
5 41 (17.75%) Test Automation
6 36 (15.58%) Continuous Improvement
7 28 (12.12%) Process Improvement
8 25 (10.82%) Project Delivery
9 24 (10.39%) Software Engineering
10 22 (9.52%) Project Management
11 18 (7.79%) Stakeholder Management
12 16 (6.93%) Business Intelligence
12 16 (6.93%) Quality Management
12 16 (6.93%) Roadmaps
13 15 (6.49%) Collaborative Working
13 15 (6.49%) User Experience
14 14 (6.06%) Collaborative Culture
14 14 (6.06%) Scrum
14 14 (6.06%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 26 (11.26%) C#
2 17 (7.36%) Java
2 17 (7.36%) SQL
3 15 (6.49%) JavaScript
3 15 (6.49%) TypeScript
4 13 (5.63%) Python
5 11 (4.76%) Go
6 8 (3.46%) Elixir
6 8 (3.46%) Ruby
7 6 (2.60%) Bash
7 6 (2.60%) C++
8 4 (1.73%) Groovy
9 3 (1.30%) PowerShell
9 3 (1.30%) T-SQL
10 2 (0.87%) PHP
Qualifications
1 25 (10.82%) Degree
2 9 (3.90%) BPSS Clearance
2 9 (3.90%) PMI Certification
2 9 (3.90%) PMP
2 9 (3.90%) Security Cleared
3 7 (3.03%) SC Cleared
4 5 (2.16%) DBS Check
5 4 (1.73%) HND
5 4 (1.73%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 3 (1.30%) DV Cleared
6 3 (1.30%) PRINCE2 Certification
7 1 (0.43%) CISA
7 1 (0.43%) CISM
7 1 (0.43%) CISSP
7 1 (0.43%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.43%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (8.66%) Accessibility
2 5 (2.16%) GDPR
2 5 (2.16%) PCI DSS
3 4 (1.73%) PMO
4 3 (1.30%) Data Quality
4 3 (1.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (0.87%) GRC
5 2 (0.87%) NIST
5 2 (0.87%) SOC 2
5 2 (0.87%) WCAG
6 1 (0.43%) FINRA
6 1 (0.43%) ISO 14001
6 1 (0.43%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 13 (5.63%) Docker
2 5 (2.16%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.43%) Firmware
3 1 (0.43%) Squid
Systems Management
1 9 (3.90%) Kubernetes
2 8 (3.46%) Grafana
3 6 (2.60%) Terraform
4 4 (1.73%) HP Fortify
5 3 (1.30%) Ansible
6 2 (0.87%) Progress Chef
6 2 (0.87%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.87%) Puppet
7 1 (0.43%) Kibana
Vendors
1 37 (16.02%) Microsoft
2 13 (5.63%) SAP
3 6 (2.60%) Google
4 3 (1.30%) ESRI
4 3 (1.30%) Oracle
5 2 (0.87%) Foundry
5 2 (0.87%) Lotus
5 2 (0.87%) Siemens
6 1 (0.43%) AppDynamics
6 1 (0.43%) New Relic
6 1 (0.43%) Nimble Storage
6 1 (0.43%) Sage
6 1 (0.43%) Splunk