Quality Engineer Job Trends in the South East

Quality Engineer
England > South East

The median Quality Engineer salary in the South East is £55,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 14 January 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 241 301 228
Rank change year-on-year +60 -73 +173
Permanent jobs requiring a Quality Engineer 29 5 67
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 0.28% 0.056% 0.76%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.30% 0.061% 0.80%
Number of salaries quoted 16 4 12
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £50,000 £46,250 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £39,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% +21.79% -32.17%
75th Percentile £57,500 £48,750 £42,125
90th Percentile £60,500 - £50,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £40,000 £39,000
% change year-on-year +37.50% +2.56% -37.60%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
South East

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in the South East. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the South East with a recognized job title 9,545 8,181 8,342
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.97% 91.12% 94.76%
Number of salaries quoted 5,970 4,303 6,010
10th Percentile £28,000 £32,750 £29,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £43,911 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -13.04% +9.52% -4.55%
75th Percentile £65,000 £72,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £85,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -6.50%

Quality Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Quality Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Quality Engineer job vacancy trend in the South East

Quality Engineer
Salary Trend in the South East

Salary distribution trend for Quality Engineer job vacancies in the South East.

Salary distribution trend for Quality Engineer job vacancies in the South East

Quality Engineer
Salary Histogram in the South East

Salary distribution for jobs citing Quality Engineer in the South East over the 6 months to 14 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Quality Engineer in the South East

Quality Engineer
Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Quality Engineer within the South East region over the 6 months to 14 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
Hampshire +52 21 £55,000 - 2
Thames Valley - 6 £56,250 - 6
Berkshire - 4 £55,000 - 4
Buckinghamshire - 2 £59,500 -
Kent - 1 £50,000 - 1
Surrey - 1 £46,078 - 1
Quality Engineer
England

Quality Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East

For the 6 months to 14 January 2026, Quality Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads across the South East region featuring Quality Engineer in the job title.

1 22 (75.86%) QA
2 21 (72.41%) CI/CD
2 21 (72.41%) Test Automation
3 19 (65.52%) Acceptance Criteria
3 19 (65.52%) Agile
3 19 (65.52%) User Stories
4 2 (6.90%) BPSS Clearance
4 2 (6.90%) Internal Audit
4 2 (6.90%) Python
4 2 (6.90%) SDLC
4 2 (6.90%) Selenium
5 1 (3.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 1 (3.45%) Appium
5 1 (3.45%) Artifactory
5 1 (3.45%) AWS
5 1 (3.45%) BPMN
5 1 (3.45%) Coaching
5 1 (3.45%) Code Quality
5 1 (3.45%) Continuous Delivery
5 1 (3.45%) Continuous Integration
5 1 (3.45%) Cucumber
5 1 (3.45%) Data Analysis
5 1 (3.45%) DevOps
5 1 (3.45%) DO-254
5 1 (3.45%) Fintech
5 1 (3.45%) FMEA
5 1 (3.45%) Go
5 1 (3.45%) Infrastructure as Code
5 1 (3.45%) ISO 9001
5 1 (3.45%) Java

Quality Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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:

Applications
1 1 (3.45%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 1 (3.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
1 1 (3.45%) AWS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (3.45%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 2 (6.90%) Selenium
2 1 (3.45%) Appium
2 1 (3.45%) Artifactory
2 1 (3.45%) Cucumber
2 1 (3.45%) Postman
2 1 (3.45%) SoapUI
General
1 19 (65.52%) Social Skills
2 1 (3.45%) Aviation
2 1 (3.45%) Finance
2 1 (3.45%) Italian Language
2 1 (3.45%) Japanese Language
2 1 (3.45%) Manufacturing
2 1 (3.45%) Military
2 1 (3.45%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (3.45%) pytest
1 1 (3.45%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 1 (3.45%) Cloud Native
Processes & Methodologies
1 21 (72.41%) CI/CD
1 21 (72.41%) Test Automation
2 19 (65.52%) Acceptance Criteria
2 19 (65.52%) Agile
2 19 (65.52%) User Stories
3 2 (6.90%) Internal Audit
3 2 (6.90%) SDLC
4 1 (3.45%) BPMN
4 1 (3.45%) Coaching
4 1 (3.45%) Code Quality
4 1 (3.45%) Continuous Delivery
4 1 (3.45%) Continuous Integration
4 1 (3.45%) Data Analysis
4 1 (3.45%) DevOps
4 1 (3.45%) Fintech
4 1 (3.45%) FMEA
4 1 (3.45%) Infrastructure as Code
4 1 (3.45%) Observability
4 1 (3.45%) Project Management
4 1 (3.45%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 2 (6.90%) Python
2 1 (3.45%) Go
2 1 (3.45%) Java
2 1 (3.45%) PHP
2 1 (3.45%) SQL
Qualifications
1 2 (6.90%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (75.86%) QA
2 1 (3.45%) DO-254
2 1 (3.45%) ISO 9001
Systems Management
1 1 (3.45%) Terraform
Vendors
1 1 (3.45%) Microsoft