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

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 53 72 65
Rank change year-on-year +19 -7 -44
Permanent jobs citing QA 163 127 234
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 2.87% 3.72% 3.59%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 31.41% 26.46% 25.74%
Number of salaries quoted 112 22 134
10th Percentile £33,425 £46,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £47,563 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year - +20.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £75,000 £68,313 £56,500
90th Percentile £83,750 £82,625 £62,500
South East median annual salary £55,500 £50,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year +11.00% +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 519 480 909
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 9.15% 14.08% 13.96%
Number of salaries quoted 311 206 540
10th Percentile £33,250 £30,000 £26,725
25th Percentile £41,250 £47,500 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £65,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -11.54% +36.84% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £83,750 £63,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £87,375 £77,500
South East median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £45,000
% change year-on-year - +22.22% -11.76%

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 May 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 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
Berkshire +30 68 £62,500 +31.58% 27
Buckinghamshire -6 61 £60,000 - 19
Oxfordshire +13 34 £62,500 - 7
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 3 (1.84%) SharePoint
2 2 (1.23%) CMS
3 1 (0.61%) ArchestrA
3 1 (0.61%) Confluence
3 1 (0.61%) JBoss
3 1 (0.61%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.61%) Red Hat Fuse
Business Applications
1 1 (0.61%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 52 (31.90%) Azure
2 40 (24.54%) AWS
3 21 (12.88%) SaaS
4 20 (12.27%) GCP
5 10 (6.13%) GitHub
6 6 (3.68%) Amazon EKS
6 6 (3.68%) Azure DevOps
6 6 (3.68%) Serverless
7 5 (3.07%) Amazon EC2
7 5 (3.07%) Amazon S3
7 5 (3.07%) AWS Lambda
7 5 (3.07%) Figma
7 5 (3.07%) iPaaS
8 3 (1.84%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 3 (1.84%) Microsoft 365
8 3 (1.84%) Power Platform
9 2 (1.23%) AWS CodePipeline
9 2 (1.23%) GitHub Copilot
10 1 (0.61%) Amazon ECS
10 1 (0.61%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.84%) DHCP
1 3 (1.84%) DNS
1 3 (1.84%) Firewall
2 2 (1.23%) MQTT
2 2 (1.23%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.61%) Broadband
3 1 (0.61%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (3.07%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (1.23%) Relational Database
2 2 (1.23%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.23%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 1 (0.61%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.61%) IBM InfoSphere
3 1 (0.61%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.61%) MySQL
3 1 (0.61%) Power BI
3 1 (0.61%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 21 (12.88%) Git
2 18 (11.04%) JIRA
3 8 (4.91%) Cucumber
3 8 (4.91%) Jenkins
4 7 (4.29%) GitLab
5 5 (3.07%) SonarQube
5 5 (3.07%) Zephyr
6 4 (2.45%) Artifactory
7 3 (1.84%) Postman
8 2 (1.23%) Claude Code
8 2 (1.23%) Cypress.io
8 2 (1.23%) Polyspace
8 2 (1.23%) Selenium
8 2 (1.23%) VectorCAST
9 1 (0.61%) JMeter
9 1 (0.61%) JUnit
9 1 (0.61%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.61%) NUnit
9 1 (0.61%) WebDriver
General
1 50 (30.67%) Social Skills
2 23 (14.11%) Analytical Skills
3 10 (6.13%) Manufacturing
4 8 (4.91%) Pharmaceutical
5 6 (3.68%) Influencing Skills
6 5 (3.07%) Finance
6 5 (3.07%) Public Sector
7 4 (2.45%) Marketing
8 3 (1.84%) Health Technology
8 3 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (1.84%) Law
9 2 (1.23%) Aerospace
9 2 (1.23%) Banking
9 2 (1.23%) Games
9 2 (1.23%) Legal
9 2 (1.23%) Tech for Good
10 1 (0.61%) Automotive
10 1 (0.61%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.61%) Publishing
10 1 (0.61%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 26 (15.95%) Lead
2 22 (13.50%) Software Engineer
3 14 (8.59%) Architect
3 14 (8.59%) QA Engineer
4 13 (7.98%) Analyst
5 12 (7.36%) Test Engineer
6 11 (6.75%) Head of Engineering
7 10 (6.13%) Performance Engineer
7 10 (6.13%) QA Leader
7 10 (6.13%) QA Manager
8 9 (5.52%) Integration Architect
8 9 (5.52%) Performance Test Engineer
9 8 (4.91%) Applications Architect
9 8 (4.91%) DevOps Engineer
9 8 (4.91%) Tester
10 7 (4.29%) Support Analyst
10 7 (4.29%) Team Leader
11 6 (3.68%) Quality Engineer
11 6 (3.68%) Quality Manager
11 6 (3.68%) Software Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (15.95%) REST
2 17 (10.43%) JSON
3 16 (9.82%) .NET
4 14 (8.59%) SOAP
5 13 (7.98%) Middleware
6 11 (6.75%) XML
7 9 (5.52%) Playwright
8 8 (4.91%) RabbitMQ
8 8 (4.91%) RESTful
9 7 (4.29%) React
10 6 (3.68%) .NET Framework
10 6 (3.68%) Web Services
11 5 (3.07%) Django
11 5 (3.07%) Elastic Stack
11 5 (3.07%) Twisted
11 5 (3.07%) WebSockets
12 4 (2.45%) Blazor
12 4 (2.45%) JWT
12 4 (2.45%) Kafka
12 4 (2.45%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 24 (14.72%) Distributed Systems
2 22 (13.50%) Product Ownership
3 14 (8.59%) Self-Motivation
4 12 (7.36%) Life Science
5 9 (5.52%) Client/Server
6 7 (4.29%) Cloud Native
7 5 (3.07%) Pharmacovigilance
7 5 (3.07%) Renewable Energy
7 5 (3.07%) Video Conferencing
7 5 (3.07%) Virtual Team
8 4 (2.45%) Onboarding
9 3 (1.84%) Low-Code
9 3 (1.84%) Operational Technology
9 3 (1.84%) Private Cloud
9 3 (1.84%) Public Cloud
10 2 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (1.23%) Embedded Systems
10 2 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
10 2 (1.23%) Robotics
10 2 (1.23%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 23 (14.11%) Linux
2 5 (3.07%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (28.83%) Problem-Solving
2 44 (26.99%) Agile
2 44 (26.99%) Test Automation
3 42 (25.77%) Software Engineering
4 38 (23.31%) Continuous Improvement
5 32 (19.63%) Computer Science
6 28 (17.18%) CI/CD
7 24 (14.72%) DevOps
8 18 (11.04%) Code Quality
8 18 (11.04%) Software Testing
9 17 (10.43%) Test Strategy
10 15 (9.20%) Containerisation
10 15 (9.20%) TDD
11 14 (8.59%) End-to-End Testing
11 14 (8.59%) Roadmaps
12 13 (7.98%) CRM
12 13 (7.98%) Data Modelling
12 13 (7.98%) Full-Stack Development
12 13 (7.98%) Infrastructure as Code
12 13 (7.98%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 37 (22.70%) Python
2 25 (15.34%) SQL
3 24 (14.72%) Java
4 17 (10.43%) C#
5 14 (8.59%) JavaScript
5 14 (8.59%) TypeScript
6 12 (7.36%) C
7 11 (6.75%) C++
8 9 (5.52%) Rust
9 5 (3.07%) Bash
9 5 (3.07%) Groovy
10 3 (1.84%) Perl
10 3 (1.84%) PowerShell
11 1 (0.61%) Go
11 1 (0.61%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 52 (31.90%) Degree
2 31 (19.02%) Computer Science Degree
3 8 (4.91%) Security Cleared
4 7 (4.29%) DBS Check
4 7 (4.29%) ISTQB
5 5 (3.07%) Master's Degree
5 5 (3.07%) SC Cleared
6 3 (1.84%) PhD
7 2 (1.23%) AWS Certification
7 2 (1.23%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 2 (1.23%) Azure Certification
7 2 (1.23%) CHECK Team Leader
7 2 (1.23%) CHECK Team Member
7 2 (1.23%) CREST Certified
7 2 (1.23%) CSQA
7 2 (1.23%) Cyber Scheme
7 2 (1.23%) OSCP
7 2 (1.23%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.75%) Accessibility
2 7 (4.29%) Good Clinical Practice
2 7 (4.29%) GxP
3 3 (1.84%) SOC 2
4 2 (1.23%) 21 CFR Part 11
4 2 (1.23%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.23%) Def Stans
4 2 (1.23%) IEC 61508
4 2 (1.23%) ISO 26262
4 2 (1.23%) NCSC
4 2 (1.23%) Software Quality Assurance
5 1 (0.61%) GDPR
System Software
1 15 (9.20%) Docker
2 12 (7.36%) Hyper-V
2 12 (7.36%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (5.52%) KVM
4 5 (3.07%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (1.84%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 13 (7.98%) Kubernetes
2 12 (7.36%) Terraform
3 9 (5.52%) Ansible
4 4 (2.45%) Packer
5 3 (1.84%) Grafana
5 3 (1.84%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.61%) Functional Safety
6 1 (0.61%) Netcool
6 1 (0.61%) Netcool/OMNIbus
Vendors
1 14 (8.59%) Microsoft
2 12 (7.36%) VMware
3 6 (3.68%) IBM
4 4 (2.45%) AppDynamics
4 4 (2.45%) ServiceNow
5 3 (1.84%) Google
6 2 (1.23%) Agilent
6 2 (1.23%) Oracle
7 1 (0.61%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.61%) Blue Prism
7 1 (0.61%) Foundry
7 1 (0.61%) Informatica
7 1 (0.61%) Palantir
7 1 (0.61%) Pega
7 1 (0.61%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.61%) UiPath