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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 59 97 59
Rank change year-on-year +38 -38 -10
Permanent jobs citing QA 519 311 502
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 2.44% 3.27% 3.21%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 28.87% 24.76% 25.39%
Number of salaries quoted 334 123 288
10th Percentile £30,000 £35,350 £25,925
25th Percentile £31,125 £45,000 £31,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +22.22% -18.18%
75th Percentile £57,500 £71,250 £62,500
90th Percentile £74,720 £86,250 £70,000
England median annual salary £53,250 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -7.39% +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 1,798 1,256 1,977
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 8.45% 13.20% 12.64%
Number of salaries quoted 1,300 592 1,253
10th Percentile £30,000 £25,500 £25,250
25th Percentile £38,767 £34,500 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £50,000 £48,000
Median % change year-on-year - +4.17% -4.00%
75th Percentile £66,000 £65,000 £62,500
90th Percentile £83,750 £77,375 £80,000
England median annual salary £57,500 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +4.55% -5.17%

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 July 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 July 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 +34 307 £45,000 -18.18% 106
Yorkshire +28 110 £40,000 -36.00% 56
North East -2 102 £50,000 - 32
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 (2.12%) Apache Airflow
2 9 (1.73%) CMS
3 8 (1.54%) WordPress
4 7 (1.35%) SharePoint
5 6 (1.16%) Apache Spark
6 5 (0.96%) Apache
6 5 (0.96%) Jupyter
7 3 (0.58%) IIS
8 2 (0.39%) Confluence
8 2 (0.39%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.19%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 29 (5.59%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (4.62%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (1.93%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.96%) Spreadsheet
5 4 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.19%) Navisworks
Business Applications
1 5 (0.96%) SAP PM
2 4 (0.77%) Sage 200
2 4 (0.77%) SAP Business One
2 4 (0.77%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.58%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 60 (11.56%) AWS
2 54 (10.40%) Azure
3 35 (6.74%) Power Platform
4 30 (5.78%) Microsoft 365
5 21 (4.05%) Azure DevOps
6 15 (2.89%) Serverless
7 14 (2.70%) GCP
8 12 (2.31%) Amazon S3
9 11 (2.12%) Amazon EC2
9 11 (2.12%) SaaS
10 9 (1.73%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 9 (1.73%) AWS Lambda
11 8 (1.54%) GitHub
11 8 (1.54%) Power Automate
12 7 (1.35%) dbt
12 7 (1.35%) Google Analytics
13 6 (1.16%) Amazon EKS
14 5 (0.96%) Amazon EMR
14 5 (0.96%) Entra ID
14 5 (0.96%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.77%) HTTP
2 3 (0.58%) HTTPS
2 3 (0.58%) Structured Cabling
3 2 (0.39%) Broadband
3 2 (0.39%) VoIP
4 1 (0.19%) ADSL
4 1 (0.19%) DNS
4 1 (0.19%) Firewall
4 1 (0.19%) ISDN
4 1 (0.19%) LAN
4 1 (0.19%) Network Security
4 1 (0.19%) VDSL
4 1 (0.19%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (5.78%) Power BI
2 14 (2.70%) SQL Server
3 8 (1.54%) BigQuery
3 8 (1.54%) MySQL
4 6 (1.16%) DynamoDB
4 6 (1.16%) Relational Database
5 5 (0.96%) Amazon Athena
6 4 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.58%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.58%) Data Warehouse
7 3 (0.58%) MongoDB
7 3 (0.58%) PostgreSQL
7 3 (0.58%) Tableau
8 2 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.39%) Data Mining
8 2 (0.39%) DocumentDB
8 2 (0.39%) EDRMS
8 2 (0.39%) Looker
8 2 (0.39%) Metadata
8 2 (0.39%) Redis
Development Applications
1 34 (6.55%) Git
2 24 (4.62%) JIRA
3 19 (3.66%) GitLab
4 9 (1.73%) Jenkins
5 7 (1.35%) Cypress.io
5 7 (1.35%) Postman
6 5 (0.96%) Cucumber
7 4 (0.77%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.58%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.58%) JUnit
9 2 (0.39%) Claude Code
9 2 (0.39%) JMeter
9 2 (0.39%) NUnit
9 2 (0.39%) Selenium
9 2 (0.39%) SpecFlow
9 2 (0.39%) TestRail
10 1 (0.19%) Gatling
10 1 (0.19%) Locust
10 1 (0.19%) REST Assured
10 1 (0.19%) Zephyr
General
1 162 (31.21%) Social Skills
2 86 (16.57%) Manufacturing
3 84 (16.18%) Analytical Skills
4 66 (12.72%) Pharmaceutical
5 61 (11.75%) Finance
6 32 (6.17%) Public Sector
7 28 (5.39%) Legal
8 19 (3.66%) Marketing
9 18 (3.47%) Law
10 16 (3.08%) Organisational Skills
11 12 (2.31%) Swedish Language
12 11 (2.12%) Aerospace
12 11 (2.12%) Retail
13 10 (1.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 8 (1.54%) Games
14 8 (1.54%) Telecoms
15 7 (1.35%) Banking
16 5 (0.96%) Legal Technology
16 5 (0.96%) Military
17 4 (0.77%) French Language
Job Titles
1 55 (10.60%) Analyst
2 53 (10.21%) QA Manager
3 50 (9.63%) Senior
4 47 (9.06%) QA Officer
5 44 (8.48%) Quality Manager
6 40 (7.71%) QA Engineer
7 39 (7.51%) Developer
8 33 (6.36%) Head of QA
9 28 (5.39%) Lead
9 28 (5.39%) Quality Engineer
10 20 (3.85%) Software Engineer
11 19 (3.66%) Business Analyst
12 18 (3.47%) Service Analyst
12 18 (3.47%) Service Desk Analyst
13 17 (3.28%) Test Engineer
14 15 (2.89%) Tester
15 13 (2.50%) Administrator
16 11 (2.12%) QA Tester
16 11 (2.12%) Senior Developer
16 11 (2.12%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (6.94%) .NET
2 31 (5.97%) HTML
3 28 (5.39%) CSS
4 15 (2.89%) REST
5 13 (2.50%) Playwright
6 11 (2.12%) Node.js
7 10 (1.93%) RESTful
8 9 (1.73%) .NET Framework
8 9 (1.73%) ASP.NET Web API
9 8 (1.54%) ASP.NET
9 8 (1.54%) OAuth
9 8 (1.54%) React
10 7 (1.35%) AngularJS
10 7 (1.35%) Entity Framework
10 7 (1.35%) JSON
10 7 (1.35%) OAuth2
11 6 (1.16%) .NET Core
11 6 (1.16%) JWT
11 6 (1.16%) Vue
12 5 (0.96%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 33 (6.36%) Analytical Mindset
2 17 (3.28%) Product Ownership
3 16 (3.08%) Life Science
4 10 (1.93%) Onboarding
5 9 (1.73%) Cloud Native
5 9 (1.73%) Distributed Systems
6 8 (1.54%) Management Information System
7 6 (1.16%) AI Agents
8 5 (0.96%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (0.96%) PMI
8 5 (0.96%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (0.77%) Animation
9 4 (0.77%) Mobile App
9 4 (0.77%) Online Games
10 3 (0.58%) CCTV
10 3 (0.58%) Driving Licence
10 3 (0.58%) FMCG
10 3 (0.58%) Legacy Applications
10 3 (0.58%) Mainframe
10 3 (0.58%) Photography
Operating Systems
1 10 (1.93%) Windows
2 5 (0.96%) Windows 10
3 4 (0.77%) Android
3 4 (0.77%) Apple iOS
4 3 (0.58%) Linux
4 3 (0.58%) VME
5 1 (0.19%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (23.51%) Continuous Improvement
2 106 (20.42%) Agile
3 86 (16.57%) CI/CD
4 69 (13.29%) Problem-Solving
5 62 (11.95%) Test Automation
6 58 (11.18%) Analytics
6 58 (11.18%) DevOps
7 56 (10.79%) Mentoring
8 48 (9.25%) Quality Management
9 45 (8.67%) Change Management
9 45 (8.67%) Validation
10 43 (8.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 42 (8.09%) Decision-Making
11 42 (8.09%) PRINCE2
12 40 (7.71%) Actionable Insight
12 40 (7.71%) Root Cause Analysis
12 40 (7.71%) Software Engineering
13 39 (7.51%) Software Testing
13 39 (7.51%) Stakeholder Management
14 37 (7.13%) Customer Experience
Programming Languages
1 56 (10.79%) SQL
2 43 (8.29%) C#
3 40 (7.71%) JavaScript
4 39 (7.51%) Python
5 25 (4.82%) Java
6 21 (4.05%) TypeScript
7 7 (1.35%) Go
8 6 (1.16%) Bash
8 6 (1.16%) PHP
9 3 (0.58%) COBOL
9 3 (0.58%) Groovy
9 3 (0.58%) PowerShell
10 2 (0.39%) Bicep
10 2 (0.39%) R
10 2 (0.39%) VB.NET
11 1 (0.19%) C++
11 1 (0.19%) Kotlin
11 1 (0.19%) Objective-C
11 1 (0.19%) Perl
11 1 (0.19%) Swift
Qualifications
1 60 (11.56%) Degree
2 30 (5.78%) IRCA
3 28 (5.39%) Security Cleared
4 26 (5.01%) SC Cleared
5 19 (3.66%) Microsoft Certification
6 16 (3.08%) AWS Certification
6 16 (3.08%) MCSE
7 10 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
8 8 (1.54%) Postgraduate
9 7 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (1.35%) DBS Check
10 6 (1.16%) PMI Certification
11 5 (0.96%) ISTQB
11 5 (0.96%) PMP
12 4 (0.77%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 3 (0.58%) RIBA
14 2 (0.39%) CHECK Team Member
14 2 (0.39%) CREST Certified
15 1 (0.19%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 1 (0.19%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (7.32%) ISO 9001
2 37 (7.13%) GDPR
3 22 (4.24%) Accessibility
4 12 (2.31%) GMP
5 11 (2.12%) Data Quality
6 7 (1.35%) PMO
7 4 (0.77%) PCI DSS
7 4 (0.77%) Software Quality Assurance
8 3 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.58%) WCAG
9 2 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.39%) ISO 14001
10 1 (0.19%) AQAP
10 1 (0.19%) ISO 19650
10 1 (0.19%) NCSC
10 1 (0.19%) NEBOSH
10 1 (0.19%) NIST
10 1 (0.19%) SLA
System Software
1 26 (5.01%) Docker
2 3 (0.58%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 16 (3.08%) Terraform
2 12 (2.31%) Kubernetes
3 4 (0.77%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.58%) Ansible
4 3 (0.58%) Packer
5 2 (0.39%) Grafana
6 1 (0.19%) Fluentd
6 1 (0.19%) Kibana
Vendors
1 62 (11.95%) Microsoft
2 22 (4.24%) ServiceNow
3 13 (2.50%) SAP
4 12 (2.31%) Google
5 9 (1.73%) Aderant
5 9 (1.73%) iManage
5 9 (1.73%) Intapp
6 5 (0.96%) Databricks
7 4 (0.77%) Sage
8 3 (0.58%) Adobe
8 3 (0.58%) AppDynamics
8 3 (0.58%) Dynatrace
8 3 (0.58%) IBM
8 3 (0.58%) Planon
8 3 (0.58%) Salesforce
8 3 (0.58%) Splunk
9 2 (0.39%) Alteryx
9 2 (0.39%) DevExpress
9 2 (0.39%) Draytek
9 2 (0.39%) F5