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

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 53 94 51
Rank change year-on-year +41 -43 +31
Permanent jobs citing QA 615 305 518
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 2.62% 3.25% 3.64%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 30.98% 27.18% 28.87%
Number of salaries quoted 399 131 219
10th Percentile £28,300 £32,750 £25,000
25th Percentile £31,750 £41,250 £30,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £41,774
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +31.66% -24.05%
75th Percentile £57,500 £71,250 £56,250
90th Percentile £75,000 £86,250 £70,000
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 1,985 1,122 1,794
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 8.47% 11.95% 12.62%
Number of salaries quoted 1,432 508 914
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,250 £25,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £32,500 £32,313
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £48,750 £46,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% +5.98% -8.00%
75th Percentile £67,500 £63,750 £60,991
90th Percentile £85,000 £75,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £57,500 £56,375 £57,500
% change year-on-year +2.00% -1.96% -4.17%

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 12 September 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 12 September 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 +32 370 £45,000 -18.18% 137
Yorkshire +4 126 £40,000 -27.27% 73
North East +14 119 £55,000 +22.22% 51
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 10 (1.63%) Apache Airflow
2 7 (1.14%) Apache
2 7 (1.14%) Apache Spark
2 7 (1.14%) Jupyter
2 7 (1.14%) SharePoint
3 6 (0.98%) CMS
4 5 (0.81%) WordPress
5 3 (0.49%) IIS
6 2 (0.33%) Confluence
6 2 (0.33%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.16%) Apache Superset
7 1 (0.16%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 32 (5.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 29 (4.72%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (1.46%) MS Visio
4 8 (1.30%) Revit
5 6 (0.98%) AutoCAD
5 6 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.49%) Navisworks
Business Applications
1 5 (0.81%) SAP PM
2 4 (0.65%) Sage 200
2 4 (0.65%) SAP Business One
2 4 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.49%) Shopify
3 3 (0.49%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 68 (11.06%) AWS
2 59 (9.59%) Azure
3 35 (5.69%) Power Platform
4 31 (5.04%) Microsoft 365
5 28 (4.55%) Azure DevOps
6 20 (3.25%) Serverless
7 18 (2.93%) Amazon S3
7 18 (2.93%) SaaS
8 15 (2.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 15 (2.44%) Amazon EC2
9 14 (2.28%) AWS Lambda
10 13 (2.11%) GCP
11 12 (1.95%) GitHub
12 9 (1.46%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (1.30%) Amazon ECR
13 8 (1.30%) Amazon EKS
13 8 (1.30%) Power Automate
14 6 (0.98%) Amazon EMR
14 6 (0.98%) dbt
15 5 (0.81%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.81%) DNS
1 5 (0.81%) Remote Desktop
2 4 (0.65%) SSL
3 3 (0.49%) HTTP
3 3 (0.49%) HTTPS
3 3 (0.49%) Internet
3 3 (0.49%) Structured Cabling
3 3 (0.49%) TCP/IP
3 3 (0.49%) VPN
4 2 (0.33%) Broadband
4 2 (0.33%) VoIP
5 1 (0.16%) ADSL
5 1 (0.16%) Firewall
5 1 (0.16%) ISDN
5 1 (0.16%) LAN
5 1 (0.16%) Network Security
5 1 (0.16%) RIP
5 1 (0.16%) VDSL
5 1 (0.16%) WAN
5 1 (0.16%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (4.72%) Power BI
2 15 (2.44%) SQL Server
3 7 (1.14%) DynamoDB
3 7 (1.14%) MySQL
3 7 (1.14%) Relational Database
4 6 (0.98%) Amazon Athena
5 5 (0.81%) BigQuery
5 5 (0.81%) MongoDB
6 4 (0.65%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (0.65%) DocumentDB
6 4 (0.65%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (0.65%) Redis
7 3 (0.49%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.49%) Big Data
7 3 (0.49%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.49%) Tableau
8 2 (0.33%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.33%) Data Mining
8 2 (0.33%) EDRMS
9 1 (0.16%) EDMS
Development Applications
1 35 (5.69%) Git
2 26 (4.23%) JIRA
3 24 (3.90%) GitLab
4 14 (2.28%) Cypress.io
5 11 (1.79%) Jenkins
6 8 (1.30%) Postman
7 6 (0.98%) Cucumber
8 5 (0.81%) JMeter
8 5 (0.81%) Selenium
9 4 (0.65%) JUnit
9 4 (0.65%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.49%) Artifactory
10 3 (0.49%) RStudio
11 2 (0.33%) Bitbucket
11 2 (0.33%) Claude Code
11 2 (0.33%) NUnit
11 2 (0.33%) REST Assured
11 2 (0.33%) SpecFlow
11 2 (0.33%) TestRail
12 1 (0.16%) Locust
General
1 164 (26.67%) Social Skills
2 111 (18.05%) Manufacturing
3 78 (12.68%) Analytical Skills
4 65 (10.57%) Finance
5 62 (10.08%) Pharmaceutical
6 44 (7.15%) Public Sector
7 30 (4.88%) Legal
8 27 (4.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 24 (3.90%) Law
10 21 (3.41%) Aerospace
10 21 (3.41%) Organisational Skills
11 15 (2.44%) Marketing
12 12 (1.95%) Swedish Language
13 11 (1.79%) Retail
14 10 (1.63%) Banking
14 10 (1.63%) Local Government
15 8 (1.30%) Automotive
15 8 (1.30%) Electronics
15 8 (1.30%) Games
15 8 (1.30%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 75 (12.20%) QA Engineer
2 70 (11.38%) Analyst
3 64 (10.41%) Senior
4 62 (10.08%) Quality Engineer
5 60 (9.76%) QA Officer
6 52 (8.46%) Lead
7 51 (8.29%) QA Manager
8 46 (7.48%) Developer
9 39 (6.34%) Quality Manager
10 20 (3.25%) Test Engineer
11 19 (3.09%) Business Analyst
11 19 (3.09%) QA Leader
12 18 (2.93%) Software Engineer
13 17 (2.76%) Service Analyst
13 17 (2.76%) Service Desk Analyst
14 15 (2.44%) Tester
15 14 (2.28%) Automation Engineer
16 13 (2.11%) Head of QA
16 13 (2.11%) QA Automation Engineer
17 12 (1.95%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (6.99%) .NET
2 30 (4.88%) HTML
3 28 (4.55%) CSS
4 22 (3.58%) Playwright
5 20 (3.25%) REST
6 19 (3.09%) Node.js
7 17 (2.76%) Terraform
8 15 (2.44%) RESTful
9 9 (1.46%) .NET Framework
9 9 (1.46%) OAuth
9 9 (1.46%) React
10 8 (1.30%) AngularJS
10 8 (1.30%) ASP.NET Web API
11 7 (1.14%) .NET Core
11 7 (1.14%) ASP.NET
11 7 (1.14%) Entity Framework
11 7 (1.14%) OAuth2
11 7 (1.14%) Vue
12 6 (0.98%) JSON
12 6 (0.98%) MIDP
Miscellaneous
1 29 (4.72%) Product Ownership
2 18 (2.93%) Life Science
3 16 (2.60%) Cloud Native
4 14 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
5 12 (1.95%) Analytical Mindset
6 11 (1.79%) Management Information System
7 9 (1.46%) Onboarding
8 8 (1.30%) Driving Licence
9 7 (1.14%) Data Centre
10 6 (0.98%) AI Agents
10 6 (0.98%) Enterprise Software
11 5 (0.81%) Mobile App
11 5 (0.81%) PMI
11 5 (0.81%) Self-Motivation
12 4 (0.65%) Animation
12 4 (0.65%) Blog
12 4 (0.65%) Online Games
12 4 (0.65%) Security Posture
13 3 (0.49%) Photography
13 3 (0.49%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 18 (2.93%) Windows
2 12 (1.95%) Linux
3 5 (0.81%) Android
3 5 (0.81%) Apple iOS
3 5 (0.81%) Mac OS
3 5 (0.81%) Unix
3 5 (0.81%) Windows 10
4 3 (0.49%) VME
5 2 (0.33%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 135 (21.95%) Agile
2 134 (21.79%) Continuous Improvement
3 104 (16.91%) CI/CD
4 92 (14.96%) Problem-Solving
5 89 (14.47%) Test Automation
6 73 (11.87%) Mentoring
7 72 (11.71%) DevOps
8 58 (9.43%) Validation
9 48 (7.80%) Software Engineering
9 48 (7.80%) Software Testing
9 48 (7.80%) Stakeholder Management
10 47 (7.64%) Decision-Making
11 40 (6.50%) AI
11 40 (6.50%) Customer Service
12 37 (6.02%) Coaching
13 36 (5.85%) Analytics
14 33 (5.37%) Root Cause Analysis
14 33 (5.37%) Scrum
15 32 (5.20%) Quality Management
16 31 (5.04%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 66 (10.73%) SQL
2 56 (9.11%) JavaScript
3 50 (8.13%) C#
4 39 (6.34%) Python
5 29 (4.72%) Java
5 29 (4.72%) TypeScript
6 9 (1.46%) Bash
7 5 (0.81%) Go
7 5 (0.81%) PHP
7 5 (0.81%) R
8 4 (0.65%) PowerShell
9 3 (0.49%) C++
9 3 (0.49%) COBOL
9 3 (0.49%) Groovy
9 3 (0.49%) Kotlin
10 2 (0.33%) VB.NET
11 1 (0.16%) Bicep
11 1 (0.16%) Objective-C
11 1 (0.16%) Scala
11 1 (0.16%) Swift
Qualifications
1 76 (12.36%) Degree
2 47 (7.64%) Security Cleared
3 40 (6.50%) SC Cleared
4 18 (2.93%) BPSS Clearance
5 17 (2.76%) Microsoft Certification
6 15 (2.44%) AWS Certification
6 15 (2.44%) MCSE
7 11 (1.79%) IRCA
8 9 (1.46%) RIBA
9 8 (1.30%) Postgraduate
10 7 (1.14%) DBS Check
11 6 (0.98%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (0.98%) HNC
11 6 (0.98%) PMI Certification
12 5 (0.81%) CREST Certified
12 5 (0.81%) HND
12 5 (0.81%) PMP
13 4 (0.65%) DV Cleared
13 4 (0.65%) ISTQB
14 3 (0.49%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (5.69%) ISO 9001
2 25 (4.07%) Accessibility
3 19 (3.09%) GDPR
4 13 (2.11%) Data Quality
4 13 (2.11%) GMP
5 8 (1.30%) PMO
6 4 (0.65%) Software Quality Assurance
7 3 (0.49%) ISO 19650
7 3 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.49%) WCAG
8 2 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.33%) ISO 14001
9 1 (0.16%) AQAP
9 1 (0.16%) GRC
9 1 (0.16%) NCSC
9 1 (0.16%) NEBOSH
9 1 (0.16%) NIST
9 1 (0.16%) P3O
9 1 (0.16%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 29 (4.72%) Docker
2 3 (0.49%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 16 (2.60%) Kubernetes
2 4 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
3 3 (0.49%) Ansible
3 3 (0.49%) Grafana
3 3 (0.49%) Packer
4 2 (0.33%) Kibana
5 1 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
5 1 (0.16%) Fluentd
Vendors
1 68 (11.06%) Microsoft
2 22 (3.58%) SAP
3 21 (3.41%) ServiceNow
4 8 (1.30%) Aderant
4 8 (1.30%) Autodesk
4 8 (1.30%) iManage
4 8 (1.30%) Intapp
5 7 (1.14%) Google
6 6 (0.98%) Sage
7 5 (0.81%) Databricks
7 5 (0.81%) Dynatrace
8 4 (0.65%) Confluent
9 3 (0.49%) Adobe
9 3 (0.49%) AppDynamics
9 3 (0.49%) IBM
9 3 (0.49%) Planon
9 3 (0.49%) Salesforce
9 3 (0.49%) Splunk
9 3 (0.49%) YouTube
10 2 (0.33%) Apple