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 25 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 73 57
Rank change year-on-year +33 -16 -14
Permanent jobs citing QA 214 141 213
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 3.38% 3.94% 3.74%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 32.13% 25.13% 28.40%
Number of salaries quoted 128 24 120
10th Percentile £38,675 £27,000 £31,000
25th Percentile £49,688 £42,719 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £54,250 £48,213
Median % change year-on-year +10.60% +12.52% -3.58%
75th Percentile £72,188 £68,750 £55,750
90th Percentile £78,750 £74,250 £61,436
South East median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £48,925
% change year-on-year +5.00% +2.20% -11.05%

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 666 561 750
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 10.53% 15.68% 13.15%
Number of salaries quoted 417 233 425
10th Percentile £35,000 £26,250 £26,900
25th Percentile £45,000 £39,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £57,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year - +27.78% -9.98%
75th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £62,500
90th Percentile £84,250 £83,750 £78,614
South East median annual salary £52,500 £55,000 £46,500
% change year-on-year -4.55% +18.28% -7.00%

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 25 July 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 25 July 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 +50 101 £60,000 +9.09% 19
Buckinghamshire -1 70 £50,000 +81.82% 18
Oxfordshire +3 43 £62,500 +8.70% 22
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 (1.87%) SharePoint
2 2 (0.93%) CMS
3 1 (0.47%) ArchestrA
3 1 (0.47%) Confluence
3 1 (0.47%) JBoss
3 1 (0.47%) Moodle
3 1 (0.47%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.47%) Red Hat Fuse
3 1 (0.47%) WordPress
Cloud Services
1 51 (23.83%) Azure
2 36 (16.82%) AWS
3 18 (8.41%) SaaS
4 13 (6.07%) GCP
5 9 (4.21%) GitHub
6 7 (3.27%) Azure DevOps
7 6 (2.80%) Amazon EKS
7 6 (2.80%) Serverless
8 5 (2.34%) Amazon EC2
8 5 (2.34%) Amazon S3
8 5 (2.34%) AWS Lambda
8 5 (2.34%) Figma
9 4 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
10 3 (1.40%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 2 (0.93%) AWS CodePipeline
12 1 (0.47%) Adobe Creative Cloud
12 1 (0.47%) Amazon ECS
12 1 (0.47%) Azure Machine Learning
12 1 (0.47%) iPaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.40%) DHCP
1 3 (1.40%) DNS
1 3 (1.40%) Firewall
2 1 (0.47%) Broadband
2 1 (0.47%) SD-WAN
2 1 (0.47%) Software-Defined Networking
2 1 (0.47%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.40%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (0.93%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 1 (0.47%) IBM InfoSphere
3 1 (0.47%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.47%) Relational Database
3 1 (0.47%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 18 (8.41%) Git
1 18 (8.41%) JIRA
2 9 (4.21%) Cucumber
3 8 (3.74%) Jenkins
4 7 (3.27%) Zephyr
5 6 (2.80%) GitLab
6 5 (2.34%) SonarQube
7 4 (1.87%) Artifactory
7 4 (1.87%) Postman
8 2 (0.93%) Polyspace
8 2 (0.93%) Selenium
8 2 (0.93%) VectorCAST
9 1 (0.47%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.47%) JMeter
9 1 (0.47%) JUnit
9 1 (0.47%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.47%) NUnit
General
1 71 (33.18%) Social Skills
2 33 (15.42%) Analytical Skills
3 26 (12.15%) Influencing Skills
4 20 (9.35%) Pharmaceutical
5 19 (8.88%) Legal
5 19 (8.88%) Manufacturing
6 5 (2.34%) Electronics
6 5 (2.34%) Organisational Skills
7 4 (1.87%) Finance
8 3 (1.40%) Telecoms
9 2 (0.93%) Aerospace
9 2 (0.93%) Banking
9 2 (0.93%) Games
9 2 (0.93%) Health Technology
9 2 (0.93%) Law
9 2 (0.93%) Marketing
9 2 (0.93%) Public Sector
10 1 (0.47%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.47%) Local Government
10 1 (0.47%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 53 (24.77%) Lead
2 33 (15.42%) QA Leader
3 24 (11.21%) QA Engineer
4 19 (8.88%) Software Engineer
5 18 (8.41%) QA Manager
6 17 (7.94%) Test Engineer
7 16 (7.48%) Quality Engineer
8 15 (7.01%) Performance Engineer
8 15 (7.01%) Quality Manager
8 15 (7.01%) Senior
9 14 (6.54%) Performance Test Engineer
10 13 (6.07%) Team Leader
11 10 (4.67%) Analyst
11 10 (4.67%) Auditor
11 10 (4.67%) Engineering Manager
11 10 (4.67%) QA Team Leader
12 8 (3.74%) Architect
12 8 (3.74%) DevOps Engineer
12 8 (3.74%) Tester
13 7 (3.27%) C# Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (9.35%) REST
2 16 (7.48%) .NET
3 13 (6.07%) JSON
4 10 (4.67%) React
5 9 (4.21%) Playwright
6 8 (3.74%) RabbitMQ
6 8 (3.74%) SOAP
7 7 (3.27%) Blazor
7 7 (3.27%) Middleware
7 7 (3.27%) XML
8 6 (2.80%) Web Services
9 5 (2.34%) .NET Framework
9 5 (2.34%) Django
9 5 (2.34%) Elastic Stack
9 5 (2.34%) RESTful
9 5 (2.34%) Twisted
9 5 (2.34%) WebSockets
10 4 (1.87%) Kafka
10 4 (1.87%) OAuth2
10 4 (1.87%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 26 (12.15%) Product Ownership
2 19 (8.88%) Distributed Systems
3 18 (8.41%) Life Science
4 17 (7.94%) Pharmacovigilance
5 9 (4.21%) Self-Motivation
6 6 (2.80%) Cloud Native
7 5 (2.34%) Client/Server
7 5 (2.34%) Video Conferencing
8 4 (1.87%) Onboarding
8 4 (1.87%) Renewable Energy
8 4 (1.87%) Virtual Team
9 3 (1.40%) Private Cloud
9 3 (1.40%) Public Cloud
10 2 (0.93%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (0.93%) AS400
10 2 (0.93%) Driving Licence
10 2 (0.93%) Management Information System
10 2 (0.93%) Robotics
10 2 (0.93%) Security Posture
10 2 (0.93%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 18 (8.41%) Linux
2 5 (2.34%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (31.31%) Continuous Improvement
2 53 (24.77%) Problem-Solving
3 44 (20.56%) Test Automation
4 43 (20.09%) Agile
5 36 (16.82%) Software Engineering
6 35 (16.36%) CAPA
7 30 (14.02%) CI/CD
8 29 (13.55%) DevOps
9 25 (11.68%) Roadmaps
10 22 (10.28%) Computer Science
11 20 (9.35%) Software Testing
12 18 (8.41%) Customer Service
13 16 (7.48%) Containerisation
13 16 (7.48%) TDD
14 15 (7.01%) Change Management
14 15 (7.01%) Full-Stack Development
14 15 (7.01%) Infrastructure as Code
14 15 (7.01%) Scrum
14 15 (7.01%) Test Strategy
15 14 (6.54%) Code Quality
Programming Languages
1 32 (14.95%) Python
2 17 (7.94%) C#
3 16 (7.48%) Java
4 14 (6.54%) SQL
4 14 (6.54%) TypeScript
5 12 (5.61%) JavaScript
6 9 (4.21%) C
6 9 (4.21%) C++
7 5 (2.34%) Bash
7 5 (2.34%) Groovy
7 5 (2.34%) Rust
8 3 (1.40%) Perl
8 3 (1.40%) PowerShell
9 1 (0.47%) Go
9 1 (0.47%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 71 (33.18%) Degree
2 23 (10.75%) Computer Science Degree
3 9 (4.21%) ISTQB
4 7 (3.27%) DBS Check
5 6 (2.80%) Master's Degree
5 6 (2.80%) Security Cleared
6 4 (1.87%) PhD
7 3 (1.40%) Postgraduate
7 3 (1.40%) SC Cleared
8 2 (0.93%) CHECK Team Leader
8 2 (0.93%) CHECK Team Member
8 2 (0.93%) CREST Certified
8 2 (0.93%) CSQA
8 2 (0.93%) Cyber Scheme
8 2 (0.93%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (17.76%) Accessibility
2 32 (14.95%) Good Clinical Practice
3 22 (10.28%) GxP
4 8 (3.74%) 21 CFR Part 11
4 8 (3.74%) GLP
4 8 (3.74%) GMP
5 3 (1.40%) SOC 2
6 2 (0.93%) Def Stans
6 2 (0.93%) IEC 61508
6 2 (0.93%) ISO 26262
6 2 (0.93%) NCSC
6 2 (0.93%) Software Quality Assurance
7 1 (0.47%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.47%) SLA
7 1 (0.47%) WCAG
System Software
1 16 (7.48%) Docker
2 8 (3.74%) Hyper-V
2 8 (3.74%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (2.34%) KVM
3 5 (2.34%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (1.40%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 15 (7.01%) Kubernetes
1 15 (7.01%) Terraform
2 9 (4.21%) Ansible
3 4 (1.87%) Packer
4 3 (1.40%) Grafana
4 3 (1.40%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.47%) Functional Safety
5 1 (0.47%) Netcool
5 1 (0.47%) Netcool/OMNIbus
Vendors
1 19 (8.88%) Microsoft
2 8 (3.74%) VMware
3 6 (2.80%) IBM
3 6 (2.80%) ServiceNow
4 4 (1.87%) AppDynamics
5 2 (0.93%) Google
6 1 (0.47%) Adobe
6 1 (0.47%) Atlassian
6 1 (0.47%) Blue Prism
6 1 (0.47%) Cisco
6 1 (0.47%) Fortinet
6 1 (0.47%) Informatica
6 1 (0.47%) Oracle
6 1 (0.47%) Pega
6 1 (0.47%) UiPath