QA Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Quality Assurance (QA)
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the Thames Valley requiring QA skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 78 63
Rank change year-on-year +38 -15 -41
Permanent jobs citing QA 192 122 262
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 3.29% 3.61% 3.58%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 32.32% 25.21% 27.49%
Number of salaries quoted 120 17 152
10th Percentile £35,000 £29,500 £31,000
25th Percentile £50,000 £46,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £57,500 £48,925
Median % change year-on-year +8.70% +17.53% -11.05%
75th Percentile £75,000 £72,500 £56,313
90th Percentile £90,500 £89,250 £62,500
South East median annual salary £54,331 £50,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year +8.66% +5.26% -13.64%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
Thames Valley

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 Thames Valley.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 594 484 953
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 10.19% 14.33% 13.03%
Number of salaries quoted 359 203 540
10th Percentile £35,000 £26,700 £26,500
25th Percentile £43,063 £39,750 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,000 £62,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.60% +38.89% -9.23%
75th Percentile £74,375 £80,625 £61,250
90th Percentile £89,000 £84,650 £76,250
South East median annual salary £52,500 £55,000 £45,000
% change year-on-year -4.55% +22.22% -10.89%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

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

QA job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

QA
Salary Trend in the Thames Valley

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing QA.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing QA

QA
Salary Histogram in the Thames Valley

Salary distribution for jobs citing QA in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 17 June 2026.

Salary histogram for QA in the Thames Valley

QA
Job Locations in the Thames Valley

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing QA within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 17 June 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
Berkshire +58 87 £70,000 +52.17% 23
Buckinghamshire 0 66 £60,000 -36.84% 45
Oxfordshire +9 39 £62,500 +8.70% 20
QA
South East

QA
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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 4 (2.08%) SharePoint
2 2 (1.04%) CMS
3 1 (0.52%) ArchestrA
3 1 (0.52%) Confluence
3 1 (0.52%) JBoss
3 1 (0.52%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.52%) Red Hat Fuse
Cloud Services
1 57 (29.69%) Azure
2 39 (20.31%) AWS
3 26 (13.54%) SaaS
4 17 (8.85%) GCP
5 10 (5.21%) GitHub
6 7 (3.65%) Azure DevOps
7 6 (3.13%) Amazon EKS
7 6 (3.13%) Serverless
8 5 (2.60%) Amazon EC2
8 5 (2.60%) Amazon S3
8 5 (2.60%) AWS Lambda
8 5 (2.60%) Figma
8 5 (2.60%) iPaaS
9 4 (2.08%) Microsoft 365
10 3 (1.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 2 (1.04%) AWS CodePipeline
12 1 (0.52%) Amazon ECS
12 1 (0.52%) Azure Machine Learning
12 1 (0.52%) GitHub Copilot
12 1 (0.52%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.56%) DHCP
1 3 (1.56%) DNS
1 3 (1.56%) Firewall
2 1 (0.52%) Broadband
2 1 (0.52%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.08%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (1.04%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.04%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 1 (0.52%) IBM InfoSphere
3 1 (0.52%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.52%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 19 (9.90%) Git
2 18 (9.38%) JIRA
3 9 (4.69%) Cucumber
4 8 (4.17%) Jenkins
5 7 (3.65%) GitLab
5 7 (3.65%) Zephyr
6 5 (2.60%) SonarQube
7 4 (2.08%) Artifactory
7 4 (2.08%) Postman
8 2 (1.04%) Polyspace
8 2 (1.04%) Selenium
8 2 (1.04%) VectorCAST
9 1 (0.52%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.52%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.52%) JMeter
9 1 (0.52%) JUnit
9 1 (0.52%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.52%) NUnit
General
1 66 (34.38%) Social Skills
2 31 (16.15%) Analytical Skills
3 18 (9.38%) Influencing Skills
4 15 (7.81%) Manufacturing
5 13 (6.77%) Pharmaceutical
6 12 (6.25%) Legal
7 4 (2.08%) Finance
8 3 (1.56%) Marketing
8 3 (1.56%) Public Sector
9 2 (1.04%) Aerospace
9 2 (1.04%) Banking
9 2 (1.04%) Games
9 2 (1.04%) Health Technology
10 1 (0.52%) Automotive
10 1 (0.52%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.52%) Electronics
10 1 (0.52%) Law
10 1 (0.52%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.52%) Publishing
10 1 (0.52%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 41 (21.35%) Lead
2 23 (11.98%) Software Engineer
3 21 (10.94%) QA Leader
4 17 (8.85%) Test Engineer
5 15 (7.81%) Performance Engineer
6 14 (7.29%) Performance Test Engineer
6 14 (7.29%) QA Engineer
7 13 (6.77%) Architect
7 13 (6.77%) QA Manager
8 12 (6.25%) Quality Engineer
9 11 (5.73%) Analyst
9 11 (5.73%) Team Leader
10 9 (4.69%) Head of Engineering
10 9 (4.69%) Integration Architect
10 9 (4.69%) Quality Manager
11 8 (4.17%) Applications Architect
11 8 (4.17%) Auditor
11 8 (4.17%) DevOps Engineer
11 8 (4.17%) Tester
12 7 (3.65%) Senior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (12.50%) REST
2 17 (8.85%) .NET
2 17 (8.85%) JSON
3 12 (6.25%) SOAP
4 11 (5.73%) Middleware
4 11 (5.73%) XML
5 9 (4.69%) Playwright
6 8 (4.17%) RabbitMQ
7 7 (3.65%) React
8 6 (3.13%) .NET Framework
8 6 (3.13%) Blazor
8 6 (3.13%) RESTful
8 6 (3.13%) Web Services
9 5 (2.60%) Django
9 5 (2.60%) Elastic Stack
9 5 (2.60%) Twisted
9 5 (2.60%) WebSockets
10 4 (2.08%) OAuth2
10 4 (2.08%) Razor View Engine
10 4 (2.08%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 25 (13.02%) Product Ownership
2 23 (11.98%) Distributed Systems
3 16 (8.33%) Life Science
4 13 (6.77%) Pharmacovigilance
4 13 (6.77%) Self-Motivation
5 9 (4.69%) Client/Server
6 6 (3.13%) Cloud Native
7 5 (2.60%) Renewable Energy
7 5 (2.60%) Video Conferencing
7 5 (2.60%) Virtual Team
8 4 (2.08%) Onboarding
9 3 (1.56%) Private Cloud
9 3 (1.56%) Public Cloud
10 2 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (1.04%) AS400
10 2 (1.04%) Embedded Systems
10 2 (1.04%) Low-Code
10 2 (1.04%) Robotics
10 2 (1.04%) Security Posture
10 2 (1.04%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 22 (11.46%) Linux
2 5 (2.60%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (28.13%) Continuous Improvement
2 53 (27.60%) Problem-Solving
3 46 (23.96%) Test Automation
4 45 (23.44%) Agile
5 40 (20.83%) Software Engineering
6 30 (15.63%) Computer Science
7 27 (14.06%) CI/CD
8 26 (13.54%) DevOps
9 25 (13.02%) CAPA
10 21 (10.94%) Roadmaps
11 20 (10.42%) Software Testing
12 18 (9.38%) TDD
13 17 (8.85%) Code Quality
14 16 (8.33%) Scrum
14 16 (8.33%) Test Strategy
15 15 (7.81%) Containerisation
15 15 (7.81%) Customer Service
16 14 (7.29%) End-to-End Testing
16 14 (7.29%) Full-Stack Development
16 14 (7.29%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 35 (18.23%) Python
2 22 (11.46%) Java
3 19 (9.90%) SQL
4 18 (9.38%) C#
5 14 (7.29%) TypeScript
6 13 (6.77%) C
6 13 (6.77%) JavaScript
7 12 (6.25%) C++
8 9 (4.69%) Rust
9 5 (2.60%) Bash
9 5 (2.60%) Groovy
10 3 (1.56%) Perl
10 3 (1.56%) PowerShell
11 1 (0.52%) Go
11 1 (0.52%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 69 (35.94%) Degree
2 29 (15.10%) Computer Science Degree
3 9 (4.69%) ISTQB
4 7 (3.65%) DBS Check
4 7 (3.65%) Security Cleared
5 4 (2.08%) Master's Degree
5 4 (2.08%) PhD
5 4 (2.08%) SC Cleared
6 2 (1.04%) CHECK Team Leader
6 2 (1.04%) CHECK Team Member
6 2 (1.04%) CREST Certified
6 2 (1.04%) CSQA
6 2 (1.04%) Cyber Scheme
6 2 (1.04%) OSCP
6 2 (1.04%) Postgraduate
7 1 (0.52%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.52%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.52%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.52%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (14.06%) Accessibility
2 23 (11.98%) Good Clinical Practice
3 15 (7.81%) GxP
4 4 (2.08%) 21 CFR Part 11
4 4 (2.08%) GLP
4 4 (2.08%) GMP
5 3 (1.56%) SOC 2
6 2 (1.04%) Def Stans
6 2 (1.04%) IEC 61508
6 2 (1.04%) ISO 26262
6 2 (1.04%) NCSC
6 2 (1.04%) Software Quality Assurance
7 1 (0.52%) Data Quality
System Software
1 15 (7.81%) Docker
2 12 (6.25%) Hyper-V
2 12 (6.25%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (4.69%) KVM
4 5 (2.60%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (1.56%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 14 (7.29%) Kubernetes
2 13 (6.77%) Terraform
3 9 (4.69%) Ansible
4 4 (2.08%) Packer
5 3 (1.56%) Grafana
5 3 (1.56%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.52%) Functional Safety
6 1 (0.52%) Netcool
6 1 (0.52%) Netcool/OMNIbus
Vendors
1 19 (9.90%) Microsoft
2 12 (6.25%) VMware
3 6 (3.13%) IBM
3 6 (3.13%) ServiceNow
4 4 (2.08%) AppDynamics
5 3 (1.56%) Google
6 2 (1.04%) Oracle
7 1 (0.52%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.52%) Blue Prism
7 1 (0.52%) Informatica
7 1 (0.52%) Pega
7 1 (0.52%) UiPath