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 18 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
18 Apr 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 58 52 68
Rank change year-on-year -6 +16 -47
Permanent jobs citing QA 143 126 239
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 2.68% 4.45% 3.65%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 28.09% 27.81% 25.70%
Number of salaries quoted 96 28 136
10th Percentile £33,250 £45,700 £31,125
25th Percentile £50,000 £49,188 £37,875
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £48,750
Median % change year-on-year - +23.08% -11.36%
75th Percentile £75,000 £64,063 £57,500
90th Percentile £92,500 £72,025 £65,000
South East median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year +10.00% +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 509 453 930
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 9.53% 16.01% 14.20%
Number of salaries quoted 293 206 574
10th Percentile £31,625 £31,250 £26,500
25th Percentile £41,250 £50,481 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £64,250 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -10.51% +35.26% -4.95%
75th Percentile £73,750 £83,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £88,750 £90,000 £78,750
South East median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £46,000
% change year-on-year - +19.57% -8.77%

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 18 April 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 18 April 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 +30 60 £60,000 +11.63% 29
Buckinghamshire -29 53 £60,000 +9.09% 13
Oxfordshire 0 30 £60,000 -4.00% 14
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 2 (1.40%) WordPress
2 1 (0.70%) CMS
2 1 (0.70%) JBoss
2 1 (0.70%) OpenStack
2 1 (0.70%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 2 (1.40%) Adobe After Effects
1 2 (1.40%) Adobe Captivate
1 2 (1.40%) Adobe Creative Suite
1 2 (1.40%) Adobe Illustrator
1 2 (1.40%) Adobe Premiere
1 2 (1.40%) Elementor
1 2 (1.40%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 1 (0.70%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 43 (30.07%) Azure
2 36 (25.17%) AWS
3 22 (15.38%) GCP
4 19 (13.29%) SaaS
5 9 (6.29%) GitHub
6 8 (5.59%) Serverless
7 7 (4.90%) Amazon S3
7 7 (4.90%) AWS Lambda
8 6 (4.20%) Amazon EKS
9 5 (3.50%) Amazon EC2
9 5 (3.50%) Azure DevOps
9 5 (3.50%) Figma
9 5 (3.50%) iPaaS
10 3 (2.10%) Power Platform
11 2 (1.40%) Adobe Creative Cloud
11 2 (1.40%) Amazon SQS
11 2 (1.40%) AWS CloudFormation
11 2 (1.40%) AWS CodePipeline
11 2 (1.40%) Azure Service Bus
11 2 (1.40%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.40%) MQTT
1 2 (1.40%) TCP/IP
2 1 (0.70%) 4G
2 1 (0.70%) 5G
2 1 (0.70%) Broadband
2 1 (0.70%) DHCP
2 1 (0.70%) DNS
2 1 (0.70%) Firewall
2 1 (0.70%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (3.50%) PostgreSQL
2 4 (2.80%) SQL Server
3 3 (2.10%) Data Warehouse
3 3 (2.10%) MySQL
4 2 (1.40%) Azure SQL Database
4 2 (1.40%) DynamoDB
4 2 (1.40%) NoSQL
4 2 (1.40%) Relational Database
4 2 (1.40%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 1 (0.70%) IBM InfoSphere
5 1 (0.70%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.70%) Power BI
5 1 (0.70%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 18 (12.59%) Git
2 16 (11.19%) JIRA
3 8 (5.59%) Jenkins
4 7 (4.90%) GitLab
5 5 (3.50%) Cucumber
5 5 (3.50%) SonarQube
6 4 (2.80%) Artifactory
6 4 (2.80%) Zephyr
7 2 (1.40%) Claude Code
7 2 (1.40%) Cypress.io
7 2 (1.40%) git-flow
7 2 (1.40%) Polyspace
7 2 (1.40%) VectorCAST
8 1 (0.70%) JMeter
8 1 (0.70%) JUnit
8 1 (0.70%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.70%) NUnit
8 1 (0.70%) Selenium
8 1 (0.70%) WebDriver
General
1 45 (31.47%) Social Skills
2 18 (12.59%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (4.90%) Public Sector
4 6 (4.20%) Manufacturing
4 6 (4.20%) Marketing
5 5 (3.50%) Pharmaceutical
6 4 (2.80%) Finance
7 3 (2.10%) Health Technology
7 3 (2.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (2.10%) Law
8 2 (1.40%) Aerospace
8 2 (1.40%) Banking
8 2 (1.40%) Games
8 2 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (1.40%) Multimedia
8 2 (1.40%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (1.40%) Tech for Good
8 2 (1.40%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.70%) Automotive
9 1 (0.70%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 21 (14.69%) Software Engineer
2 16 (11.19%) Lead
3 14 (9.79%) QA Engineer
4 13 (9.09%) QA Manager
5 12 (8.39%) Architect
6 11 (7.69%) Analyst
6 11 (7.69%) Head of Engineering
6 11 (7.69%) Senior
7 9 (6.29%) Quality Manager
8 8 (5.59%) Applications Architect
8 8 (5.59%) Developer
8 8 (5.59%) Test Engineer
9 7 (4.90%) Integration Architect
9 7 (4.90%) QA Leader
9 7 (4.90%) Support Analyst
9 7 (4.90%) Tester
10 6 (4.20%) DevOps Engineer
10 6 (4.20%) Full-Stack Engineer
10 6 (4.20%) Performance Engineer
11 5 (3.50%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (16.08%) REST
2 14 (9.79%) .NET
2 14 (9.79%) JSON
3 12 (8.39%) SOAP
4 11 (7.69%) Middleware
5 10 (6.99%) React
6 9 (6.29%) XML
7 8 (5.59%) RabbitMQ
8 6 (4.20%) Playwright
8 6 (4.20%) Web Services
9 5 (3.50%) Django
9 5 (3.50%) Elastic Stack
9 5 (3.50%) RESTful
9 5 (3.50%) Twisted
9 5 (3.50%) WebSockets
10 4 (2.80%) HTML
10 4 (2.80%) Kafka
10 4 (2.80%) YAML
11 3 (2.10%) .NET Framework
11 3 (2.10%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 22 (15.38%) Distributed Systems
2 17 (11.89%) Product Ownership
3 12 (8.39%) Self-Motivation
4 9 (6.29%) Client/Server
4 9 (6.29%) Cloud Native
5 7 (4.90%) Life Science
6 5 (3.50%) Video Conferencing
7 4 (2.80%) Enterprise Software
8 3 (2.10%) Low-Code
8 3 (2.10%) Renewable Energy
8 3 (2.10%) Virtual Team
9 2 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
9 2 (1.40%) Embedded Systems
9 2 (1.40%) Graphic Design
9 2 (1.40%) Learning Management System
9 2 (1.40%) Onboarding
9 2 (1.40%) Operational Technology
9 2 (1.40%) Pharmacovigilance
9 2 (1.40%) Robotics
9 2 (1.40%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 22 (15.38%) Linux
2 4 (2.80%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (29.37%) Problem-Solving
2 39 (27.27%) Agile
3 35 (24.48%) Test Automation
4 34 (23.78%) Software Engineering
5 33 (23.08%) Continuous Improvement
6 28 (19.58%) Computer Science
7 24 (16.78%) CI/CD
8 23 (16.08%) DevOps
9 18 (12.59%) Software Testing
10 17 (11.89%) Code Quality
11 15 (10.49%) Test Strategy
12 14 (9.79%) End-to-End Testing
12 14 (9.79%) Microservices
13 13 (9.09%) Data Modelling
14 12 (8.39%) Full-Stack Development
14 12 (8.39%) Scrum
14 12 (8.39%) TDD
15 11 (7.69%) Containerisation
15 11 (7.69%) Infrastructure as Code
15 11 (7.69%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 35 (24.48%) Python
2 24 (16.78%) SQL
3 22 (15.38%) Java
4 15 (10.49%) C#
5 13 (9.09%) TypeScript
6 11 (7.69%) C
6 11 (7.69%) C++
6 11 (7.69%) JavaScript
7 9 (6.29%) Rust
8 5 (3.50%) Groovy
9 3 (2.10%) Bash
9 3 (2.10%) Perl
10 1 (0.70%) Go
10 1 (0.70%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.70%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 40 (27.97%) Degree
2 25 (17.48%) Computer Science Degree
3 10 (6.99%) Security Cleared
4 7 (4.90%) DBS Check
5 6 (4.20%) ISTQB
6 5 (3.50%) SC Cleared
7 4 (2.80%) Master's Degree
8 2 (1.40%) AWS Certification
8 2 (1.40%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 2 (1.40%) Azure Certification
8 2 (1.40%) CHECK Team Leader
8 2 (1.40%) CHECK Team Member
8 2 (1.40%) CREST Certified
8 2 (1.40%) CSQA
8 2 (1.40%) Cyber Scheme
8 2 (1.40%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (1.40%) OSCP
8 2 (1.40%) PhD
8 2 (1.40%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.90%) Accessibility
2 4 (2.80%) GxP
3 2 (1.40%) 21 CFR Part 11
3 2 (1.40%) Def Stans
3 2 (1.40%) Good Clinical Practice
3 2 (1.40%) IEC 61508
3 2 (1.40%) ISO 26262
3 2 (1.40%) NCSC
4 1 (0.70%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.70%) GDPR
4 1 (0.70%) SLA
4 1 (0.70%) SOC 2
4 1 (0.70%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 11 (7.69%) Docker
2 10 (6.99%) Hyper-V
2 10 (6.99%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (6.29%) KVM
4 5 (3.50%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.70%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 9 (6.29%) Kubernetes
2 8 (5.59%) Terraform
3 7 (4.90%) Ansible
4 4 (2.80%) Packer
5 1 (0.70%) Functional Safety
5 1 (0.70%) Grafana
5 1 (0.70%) Netcool
5 1 (0.70%) Netcool/OMNIbus
5 1 (0.70%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 10 (6.99%) VMware
2 8 (5.59%) Microsoft
3 6 (4.20%) IBM
4 4 (2.80%) AppDynamics
5 3 (2.10%) Google
5 3 (2.10%) ServiceNow
6 2 (1.40%) Adobe
6 2 (1.40%) Agilent
6 2 (1.40%) Oracle
7 1 (0.70%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.70%) Blue Prism
7 1 (0.70%) Foundry
7 1 (0.70%) Informatica
7 1 (0.70%) Palantir
7 1 (0.70%) Pega
7 1 (0.70%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.70%) UiPath
55 QA jobs in the Thames Valley