QA Job Trends in the South West

Quality Assurance (QA)
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South West requiring QA skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 70 72 61
Rank change year-on-year +2 -11 -35
Permanent jobs citing QA 163 92 353
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 2.12% 3.41% 3.95%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 25.83% 21.50% 28.68%
Number of salaries quoted 96 53 199
10th Percentile £30,000 £36,600 £24,600
25th Percentile £40,000 £51,250 £29,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £60,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +26.32% -
75th Percentile £62,813 £68,568 £63,750
90th Percentile £75,000 £73,750 £75,500
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
South West

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 South West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 631 428 1,231
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South West 8.22% 15.86% 13.78%
Number of salaries quoted 393 248 827
10th Percentile £31,250 £29,750 £26,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £37,000 £32,938
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £57,500 £50,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% +13.86% -3.81%
75th Percentile £75,000 £71,250 £68,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £85,000 £80,000
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 South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing QA relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the South West.

QA job vacancy trend in the South West

QA
Salary Trend in the South West

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing QA.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing QA

QA
Salary Histogram in the South West

Salary distribution for jobs citing QA in the South West over the 6 months to 16 May 2026.

Salary histogram for QA in the South West

QA
Job Locations in the South West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing QA within the South West region over the 6 months to 16 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
Devon +20 57 £47,500 -16.95% 10
Bristol -28 47 £50,000 -24.66% 18
Gloucestershire -15 18 £35,000 -12.50% 6
Dorset -4 16 £52,500 +50.00% 9
Somerset -16 13 £40,000 -30.43% 7
Wiltshire -18 6 £50,000 -11.89% 8
Cornwall -4 1 - - 1
QA
England

QA
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West 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 1 (0.61%) Apache
1 1 (0.61%) Confluence
1 1 (0.61%) Microsoft Exchange
1 1 (0.61%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (2.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (1.23%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 2 (1.23%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 2 (1.23%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 32 (19.63%) Azure
2 22 (13.50%) Azure DevOps
3 11 (6.75%) AWS
4 10 (6.13%) SaaS
5 3 (1.84%) Amazon EC2
5 3 (1.84%) Amazon S3
5 3 (1.84%) AWS Lambda
5 3 (1.84%) GCP
5 3 (1.84%) Serverless
6 2 (1.23%) Azure Pipelines
6 2 (1.23%) BlazeMeter
6 2 (1.23%) BrowserStack
6 2 (1.23%) GitHub
6 2 (1.23%) Sauce Labs
7 1 (0.61%) Entra ID
7 1 (0.61%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (0.61%) Power Platform
7 1 (0.61%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.61%) Broadband
1 1 (0.61%) Telepresence
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.45%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.84%) Amazon RDS
2 3 (1.84%) MongoDB
3 2 (1.23%) CockroachDB
4 1 (0.61%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.61%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.61%) Power BI
4 1 (0.61%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 24 (14.72%) Cypress.io
2 21 (12.88%) Selenium
3 13 (7.98%) Git
4 7 (4.29%) Jenkins
4 7 (4.29%) Subversion
5 6 (3.68%) JMeter
5 6 (3.68%) REST Assured
6 5 (3.07%) GitLab
6 5 (3.07%) Postman
7 4 (2.45%) Cucumber
7 4 (2.45%) JIRA
8 3 (1.84%) SoapUI
8 3 (1.84%) TestRail
9 2 (1.23%) Appium
9 2 (1.23%) Gatling
9 2 (1.23%) Gradle
9 2 (1.23%) JUnit
9 2 (1.23%) Maven
9 2 (1.23%) PROIV
9 2 (1.23%) TestNG
General
1 35 (21.47%) Social Skills
2 18 (11.04%) Analytical Skills
3 14 (8.59%) Finance
4 8 (4.91%) Organisational Skills
5 7 (4.29%) Retail
6 6 (3.68%) Environmental Health
6 6 (3.68%) Manufacturing
7 5 (3.07%) Influencing Skills
8 4 (2.45%) Aerospace
8 4 (2.45%) Electronics
8 4 (2.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (1.84%) Aviation
9 3 (1.84%) Games
9 3 (1.84%) Military
10 2 (1.23%) Public Sector
11 1 (0.61%) Banking
11 1 (0.61%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 22 (13.50%) Lead
2 16 (9.82%) QA Engineer
3 14 (8.59%) Analyst
4 13 (7.98%) QA Leader
4 13 (7.98%) QA Manager
5 12 (7.36%) Developer
6 11 (6.75%) Test Leader
7 8 (4.91%) Quality Engineer
7 8 (4.91%) Quality Manager
8 7 (4.29%) DevOps Engineer
8 7 (4.29%) QA Officer
8 7 (4.29%) Software Manager
8 7 (4.29%) Test Engineer
9 6 (3.68%) Head of QA
9 6 (3.68%) QA Analyst
9 6 (3.68%) QA Automation Engineer
9 6 (3.68%) Software Quality Engineer
10 5 (3.07%) Head of Engineering
10 5 (3.07%) Lead Developer
10 5 (3.07%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (15.95%) Playwright
2 17 (10.43%) .NET
3 9 (5.52%) .NET Core
3 9 (5.52%) React
4 3 (1.84%) CSS
4 3 (1.84%) Elastic Stack
4 3 (1.84%) HTML
5 2 (1.23%) ASP.NET
5 2 (1.23%) ASP.NET Core
5 2 (1.23%) pytest
5 2 (1.23%) React Native
5 2 (1.23%) REST
5 2 (1.23%) RESTful
5 2 (1.23%) Spring
5 2 (1.23%) Spring Boot
6 1 (0.61%) .NET Framework
6 1 (0.61%) HTML5
6 1 (0.61%) IDoc
6 1 (0.61%) Kafka
6 1 (0.61%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 11 (6.75%) Analytical Mindset
2 7 (4.29%) Product Ownership
3 3 (1.84%) Cloud Native
3 3 (1.84%) IoT
4 2 (1.23%) Security Posture
4 2 (1.23%) Virtual Team
5 1 (0.61%) Algorithms
5 1 (0.61%) Driving Licence
5 1 (0.61%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (0.61%) Low-Code
5 1 (0.61%) Mobile App
5 1 (0.61%) Video Conferencing
5 1 (0.61%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 8 (4.91%) Linux
2 3 (1.84%) Unix
3 2 (1.23%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (29.45%) DevOps
2 43 (26.38%) CI/CD
3 41 (25.15%) Continuous Improvement
4 40 (24.54%) Agile
4 40 (24.54%) Test Automation
5 36 (22.09%) SDLC
6 26 (15.95%) Software Engineering
7 23 (14.11%) Root Cause Analysis
8 22 (13.50%) API Testing
9 21 (12.88%) Manual Testing
10 18 (11.04%) Quality Management
11 17 (10.43%) Problem-Solving
11 17 (10.43%) Regression Testing
11 17 (10.43%) Test Strategy
12 16 (9.82%) Software Testing
12 16 (9.82%) User Acceptance Testing
13 15 (9.20%) Acceptance Criteria
13 15 (9.20%) Customer Requirements
13 15 (9.20%) Customer Service
14 14 (8.59%) Collaborative Culture
Programming Languages
1 21 (12.88%) Java
2 18 (11.04%) Python
3 17 (10.43%) SQL
4 16 (9.82%) C#
5 13 (7.98%) JavaScript
6 10 (6.13%) TypeScript
7 8 (4.91%) Bash
7 8 (4.91%) Go
8 3 (1.84%) PHP
9 2 (1.23%) Groovy
10 1 (0.61%) C++
Qualifications
1 18 (11.04%) Security Cleared
2 11 (6.75%) Degree
2 11 (6.75%) SC Cleared
3 9 (5.52%) ISTQB
4 8 (4.91%) DBS Check
5 7 (4.29%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (3.68%) DV Cleared
6 6 (3.68%) IRCA
7 4 (2.45%) Six Sigma Green Belt
8 3 (1.84%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 2 (1.23%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 2 (1.23%) PMI Certification
9 2 (1.23%) PMP
10 1 (0.61%) HND
10 1 (0.61%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (14.72%) ISO 9001
2 17 (10.43%) Accessibility
3 8 (4.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (4.29%) ISO 14001
5 6 (3.68%) GDPR
6 4 (2.45%) SLA
6 4 (2.45%) Software Quality Assurance
7 3 (1.84%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (1.23%) Def Stans
8 2 (1.23%) ISO 9000
8 2 (1.23%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 2 (1.23%) PMO
9 1 (0.61%) Data Quality
System Software
1 6 (3.68%) Docker
2 3 (1.84%) Firmware
3 1 (0.61%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 21 (12.88%) Kubernetes
2 7 (4.29%) Argo
2 7 (4.29%) Rancher
2 7 (4.29%) yum
3 4 (2.45%) Puppet
4 3 (1.84%) Terraform
5 2 (1.23%) Kibana
5 2 (1.23%) logstash
6 1 (0.61%) Ansible
6 1 (0.61%) Grafana
6 1 (0.61%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.61%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 8 (4.91%) Microsoft
2 4 (2.45%) Salesforce
3 3 (1.84%) Oracle
4 2 (1.23%) Guidewire
4 2 (1.23%) Splunk
5 1 (0.61%) Apple
5 1 (0.61%) Draytek