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

6 months to
19 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 69 69
Rank change year-on-year -12 0 -56
Permanent jobs citing QA 420 389 548
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 2.20% 4.93% 3.21%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 27.06% 29.69% 23.68%
Number of salaries quoted 230 132 352
10th Percentile £28,500 £40,988 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,538 £42,500 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +15.79% -12.84%
75th Percentile £65,640 £68,750 £62,200
90th Percentile £77,750 £86,250 £70,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -4.35% +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 1,552 1,310 2,314
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 8.13% 16.62% 13.57%
Number of salaries quoted 1,041 612 1,633
10th Percentile £30,000 £25,525 £26,250
25th Percentile £39,000 £34,939 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £52,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% +9.47% -5.00%
75th Percentile £66,250 £66,250 £62,500
90th Percentile £83,750 £82,375 £82,548
England median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +4.35% +9.52% -8.70%

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 19 May 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 19 May 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 +14 234 £45,000 -14.29% 76
Yorkshire +8 120 £40,000 -24.35% 55
North East -39 66 £45,000 -18.18% 17
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 9 (2.14%) CMS
1 9 (2.14%) WordPress
2 7 (1.67%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (0.95%) IIS
4 3 (0.71%) Apache
4 3 (0.71%) Jupyter
5 2 (0.48%) nginx
5 2 (0.48%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.24%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.24%) Confluence
6 1 (0.24%) WebLogic
Applications
1 21 (5.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (3.33%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (2.14%) MS Visio
4 7 (1.67%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 8 (1.90%) SAP ERP
2 5 (1.19%) SAP PM
3 4 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.71%) Shopify
5 2 (0.48%) Academy Housing
6 1 (0.24%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 37 (8.81%) Azure
2 34 (8.10%) AWS
3 30 (7.14%) Power Platform
4 17 (4.05%) Microsoft 365
5 11 (2.62%) SaaS
6 10 (2.38%) Amazon S3
6 10 (2.38%) GCP
7 9 (2.14%) Google Analytics
7 9 (2.14%) Serverless
8 7 (1.67%) AWS Lambda
8 7 (1.67%) Azure DevOps
9 6 (1.43%) Amazon EC2
9 6 (1.43%) Apigee
10 5 (1.19%) Amazon ECR
10 5 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
10 5 (1.19%) dbt
11 4 (0.95%) Amazon ECS
11 4 (0.95%) AWS CloudFormation
11 4 (0.95%) AWS Step Functions
12 3 (0.71%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.19%) Broadband
2 4 (0.95%) HTTP
3 3 (0.71%) HTTPS
4 2 (0.48%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.24%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (6.19%) Power BI
2 8 (1.90%) SQL Server
3 7 (1.67%) DynamoDB
4 6 (1.43%) BigQuery
5 5 (1.19%) MySQL
5 5 (1.19%) Relational Database
6 3 (0.71%) Amazon Athena
6 3 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
7 2 (0.48%) Data Mining
7 2 (0.48%) Looker
7 2 (0.48%) MongoDB
7 2 (0.48%) PostHog
7 2 (0.48%) Redis
7 2 (0.48%) Tableau
8 1 (0.24%) Data Lake
8 1 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.24%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 20 (4.76%) Git
2 18 (4.29%) GitLab
3 17 (4.05%) JIRA
4 12 (2.86%) Jenkins
5 9 (2.14%) SonarQube
6 8 (1.90%) Cypress.io
6 8 (1.90%) Postman
7 6 (1.43%) Cucumber
8 4 (0.95%) Maven
9 3 (0.71%) Artifactory
9 3 (0.71%) JMeter
9 3 (0.71%) Selenium
9 3 (0.71%) SpecFlow
9 3 (0.71%) TestRail
10 2 (0.48%) JUnit
10 2 (0.48%) NUnit
10 2 (0.48%) Visual Studio
11 1 (0.24%) Appium
11 1 (0.24%) Bitbucket
11 1 (0.24%) Gatling
General
1 138 (32.86%) Social Skills
2 74 (17.62%) Manufacturing
3 69 (16.43%) Finance
4 68 (16.19%) Analytical Skills
5 33 (7.86%) Pharmaceutical
6 26 (6.19%) Organisational Skills
7 24 (5.71%) Public Sector
8 19 (4.52%) Marketing
9 18 (4.29%) Influencing Skills
10 15 (3.57%) Law
10 15 (3.57%) Legal
11 10 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 9 (2.14%) Banking
12 9 (2.14%) Games
13 8 (1.90%) Aerospace
14 6 (1.43%) Retail
15 5 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
15 5 (1.19%) Military
15 5 (1.19%) Telecoms
16 4 (0.95%) French Language
Job Titles
1 53 (12.62%) QA Manager
2 40 (9.52%) Quality Manager
3 39 (9.29%) Senior
4 33 (7.86%) Head of QA
4 33 (7.86%) Lead
5 31 (7.38%) Analyst
6 28 (6.67%) QA Engineer
7 26 (6.19%) QA Officer
8 19 (4.52%) Developer
9 15 (3.57%) Software Engineer
10 14 (3.33%) Business Analyst
10 14 (3.33%) Quality Engineer
10 14 (3.33%) Tester
11 13 (3.10%) Administrator
12 12 (2.86%) QA Leader
12 12 (2.86%) QA Tester
13 11 (2.62%) Technical Assistant
13 11 (2.62%) Test Engineer
14 8 (1.90%) Portfolio Manager
14 8 (1.90%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (4.52%) HTML
2 18 (4.29%) .NET
2 18 (4.29%) CSS
3 11 (2.62%) REST
4 9 (2.14%) Playwright
5 8 (1.90%) .NET Framework
5 8 (1.90%) Entity Framework
5 8 (1.90%) React
6 7 (1.67%) AngularJS
6 7 (1.67%) JSON
6 7 (1.67%) RESTful
7 6 (1.43%) .NET Core
7 6 (1.43%) ASP.NET
7 6 (1.43%) ASP.NET Web API
7 6 (1.43%) Gherkin
7 6 (1.43%) Spring
7 6 (1.43%) Spring Boot
8 5 (1.19%) OAuth
8 5 (1.19%) OAuth2
8 5 (1.19%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 35 (8.33%) Analytical Mindset
2 11 (2.62%) Onboarding
3 10 (2.38%) Cloud Native
4 9 (2.14%) Product Ownership
5 8 (1.90%) PMI
6 7 (1.67%) Distributed Systems
7 6 (1.43%) Driving Licence
7 6 (1.43%) Life Science
7 6 (1.43%) Self-Motivation
7 6 (1.43%) Social Media
8 5 (1.19%) Management Information System
8 5 (1.19%) Mobile App
9 4 (0.95%) CCTV
9 4 (0.95%) Online Games
10 3 (0.71%) Animation
10 3 (0.71%) Client/Server
10 3 (0.71%) Legacy Applications
10 3 (0.71%) Mainframe
10 3 (0.71%) Photography
11 2 (0.48%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 9 (2.14%) Windows
2 6 (1.43%) Android
2 6 (1.43%) Apple iOS
3 5 (1.19%) Linux
4 3 (0.71%) VME
4 3 (0.71%) Windows 10
5 2 (0.48%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 92 (21.90%) Continuous Improvement
2 78 (18.57%) Agile
3 62 (14.76%) Mentoring
4 58 (13.81%) Problem-Solving
5 55 (13.10%) Analytics
6 54 (12.86%) CI/CD
7 48 (11.43%) Test Automation
8 47 (11.19%) Quality Management
9 44 (10.48%) DevOps
10 41 (9.76%) Stakeholder Management
11 39 (9.29%) Actionable Insight
12 38 (9.05%) PRINCE2
13 36 (8.57%) Change Management
13 36 (8.57%) Root Cause Analysis
13 36 (8.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 33 (7.86%) Service Delivery
15 31 (7.38%) Coaching
16 30 (7.14%) Anti-Money Laundering
16 30 (7.14%) Customer Experience
17 28 (6.67%) AI
Programming Languages
1 34 (8.10%) SQL
2 27 (6.43%) C#
2 27 (6.43%) Python
3 22 (5.24%) Java
4 15 (3.57%) JavaScript
5 12 (2.86%) TypeScript
6 7 (1.67%) Bash
6 7 (1.67%) Go
6 7 (1.67%) Groovy
7 3 (0.71%) COBOL
7 3 (0.71%) PHP
8 2 (0.48%) Bicep
8 2 (0.48%) C++
9 1 (0.24%) C
9 1 (0.24%) Perl
9 1 (0.24%) PowerShell
9 1 (0.24%) R
9 1 (0.24%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 35 (8.33%) Degree
2 30 (7.14%) IRCA
3 12 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
4 10 (2.38%) PMI Certification
5 9 (2.14%) Microsoft Certification
6 7 (1.67%) Security Cleared
7 6 (1.43%) AWS Certification
7 6 (1.43%) DBS Check
7 6 (1.43%) MCSE
8 5 (1.19%) ISTQB
8 5 (1.19%) SC Cleared
9 4 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
10 3 (0.71%) CCEA
10 3 (0.71%) Citrix Certification
10 3 (0.71%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 2 (0.48%) PMP
12 1 (0.24%) CHECK Team Member
12 1 (0.24%) CREST Certified
12 1 (0.24%) Master's Degree
12 1 (0.24%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (8.81%) GDPR
2 32 (7.62%) ISO 9001
3 11 (2.62%) Data Quality
4 10 (2.38%) Accessibility
5 8 (1.90%) P3O
6 6 (1.43%) PCI DSS
7 4 (0.95%) GMP
7 4 (0.95%) PMO
8 3 (0.71%) Software Quality Assurance
8 3 (0.71%) WCAG
9 2 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.48%) GRC
9 2 (0.48%) ISO 14001
9 2 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 2 (0.48%) NIST
9 2 (0.48%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.24%) NEBOSH
10 1 (0.24%) SLA
System Software
1 19 (4.52%) Docker
2 1 (0.24%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.24%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 9 (2.14%) Terraform
2 7 (1.67%) Kubernetes
3 4 (0.95%) Grafana
3 4 (0.95%) HP Fortify
4 3 (0.71%) Ansible
4 3 (0.71%) Packer
5 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 38 (9.05%) Microsoft
2 17 (4.05%) SAP
3 13 (3.10%) Google
4 10 (2.38%) Intapp
4 10 (2.38%) ServiceNow
5 9 (2.14%) Aderant
5 9 (2.14%) iManage
6 4 (0.95%) Planon
6 4 (0.95%) Siemens
7 3 (0.71%) Adobe
7 3 (0.71%) AppDynamics
7 3 (0.71%) IBM
7 3 (0.71%) Splunk
8 2 (0.48%) Apple
8 2 (0.48%) DevExpress
8 2 (0.48%) Draytek
8 2 (0.48%) Foundry
9 1 (0.24%) CheckPoint
9 1 (0.24%) Veracode