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 20 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 78 81 43
Rank change year-on-year +3 -38 +8
Permanent jobs citing QA 134 132 194
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 3.52% 3.01% 5.57%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 21.51% 28.39% 33.22%
Number of salaries quoted 43 71 76
10th Percentile £26,250 £30,000 £35,500
25th Percentile £32,375 £40,250 £41,174
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £49,000 £50,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% -13.04% -
75th Percentile £59,375 £58,750 £72,010
90th Percentile £68,750 £77,500 £83,750
South East median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -5.00% -13.04% -

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 623 465 584
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 16.36% 10.59% 16.76%
Number of salaries quoted 267 222 303
10th Percentile £27,100 £31,250 £30,500
25th Percentile £38,500 £40,688 £40,947
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £54,250 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +1.38% -1.36% +10.00%
75th Percentile £69,522 £77,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £83,750 £83,750 £85,000
South East median annual salary £54,500 £54,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +0.93% +2.86% -

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 20 October 2025.

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 20 October 2025. 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 +1 75 £55,000 +10.00% 133
Buckinghamshire +36 45 £27,500 -51.67% 8
Oxfordshire -17 14 £53,750 +19.44% 33
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 8 (5.97%) Confluence
2 3 (2.24%) WinCC
3 2 (1.49%) FactoryTalk
4 1 (0.75%) ArchestrA
Applications
1 2 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.75%) AutoCAD
2 1 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.75%) Photoshop
2 1 (0.75%) Revit
Business Applications
1 25 (18.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (1.49%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.75%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.75%) Oracle Payables
Cloud Services
1 36 (26.87%) Azure
2 34 (25.37%) AWS
3 32 (23.88%) GCP
4 22 (16.42%) Azure DevOps
5 9 (6.72%) Snowflake
6 4 (2.99%) SaaS
7 3 (2.24%) Amazon S3
7 3 (2.24%) Amazon SQS
7 3 (2.24%) AWS CloudFormation
7 3 (2.24%) AWS Lambda
7 3 (2.24%) Azure Service Bus
7 3 (2.24%) GitHub
7 3 (2.24%) Serverless
8 2 (1.49%) Power Platform
9 1 (0.75%) Azure Data Factory
9 1 (0.75%) Cloudflare
9 1 (0.75%) Figma
9 1 (0.75%) Google Drive
9 1 (0.75%) IaaS
9 1 (0.75%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.24%) Firewall
1 3 (2.24%) Modbus
2 1 (0.75%) MQTT
2 1 (0.75%) Profibus
2 1 (0.75%) RFID
2 1 (0.75%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (8.96%) Data Warehouse
2 10 (7.46%) Data Lake
3 9 (6.72%) Metadata
4 7 (5.22%) SQL Server
5 4 (2.99%) MySQL
5 4 (2.99%) Relational Database
6 3 (2.24%) DynamoDB
6 3 (2.24%) NoSQL
7 2 (1.49%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (1.49%) Power BI
8 1 (0.75%) Delta Lake
8 1 (0.75%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 52 (38.81%) JIRA
2 37 (27.61%) Git
3 22 (16.42%) eCATT
3 22 (16.42%) Jenkins
4 15 (11.19%) Selenium
5 9 (6.72%) Cucumber
6 6 (4.48%) Bitbucket
6 6 (4.48%) GitLab
6 6 (4.48%) Maven
6 6 (4.48%) SonarQube
6 6 (4.48%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (3.73%) Postman
8 3 (2.24%) Cypress.io
8 3 (2.24%) git-flow
8 3 (2.24%) SoapUI
8 3 (2.24%) WebDriver
9 2 (1.49%) NUnit
10 1 (0.75%) MLflow
10 1 (0.75%) TeamCity
General
1 61 (45.52%) Social Skills
2 40 (29.85%) Marketing
3 37 (27.61%) Finance
4 28 (20.90%) Manufacturing
5 27 (20.15%) Law
6 23 (17.16%) Organisational Skills
7 20 (14.93%) Influencing Skills
7 20 (14.93%) Presentation Skills
8 9 (6.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 8 (5.97%) Banking
10 5 (3.73%) Analytical Skills
11 4 (2.99%) Public Sector
12 3 (2.24%) Documentation Skills
12 3 (2.24%) Pharmaceutical
13 2 (1.49%) Retail
13 2 (1.49%) Telecoms
14 1 (0.75%) Advertising
14 1 (0.75%) Aerospace
14 1 (0.75%) Automotive
14 1 (0.75%) Games
Job Titles
1 43 (32.09%) Lead
2 39 (29.10%) Senior
3 23 (17.16%) Analyst
4 21 (15.67%) Developer
5 20 (14.93%) Senior Developer
6 17 (12.69%) Full-Stack Developer
6 17 (12.69%) Senior Full-Stack Developer
7 14 (10.45%) Full-Stack Web Developer
7 14 (10.45%) Senior Web Developer
7 14 (10.45%) Web Developer
8 9 (6.72%) Software Engineer
9 6 (4.48%) QA Engineer
10 5 (3.73%) Applications Engineer
10 5 (3.73%) Quality Engineer
10 5 (3.73%) Support Engineer
10 5 (3.73%) Support Specialist
11 4 (2.99%) Applications Support
11 4 (2.99%) Junior
11 4 (2.99%) Junior Analyst
11 4 (2.99%) QA Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (19.40%) React
2 25 (18.66%) CSS
3 24 (17.91%) HTML
4 14 (10.45%) Node.js
4 14 (10.45%) RESTful
5 9 (6.72%) Kafka
6 6 (4.48%) Hibernate
6 6 (4.48%) JPA
6 6 (4.48%) Redux
6 6 (4.48%) Spring
6 6 (4.48%) Spring Boot
7 5 (3.73%) .NET
7 5 (3.73%) SOAP
8 4 (2.99%) Material-UI
8 4 (2.99%) Playwright
8 4 (2.99%) pytest
9 3 (2.24%) AWS CDK
9 3 (2.24%) RabbitMQ
9 3 (2.24%) REST
10 2 (1.49%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 11 (8.21%) Product Ownership
2 7 (5.22%) Self-Motivation
3 6 (4.48%) Enterprise Software
4 4 (2.99%) Cloud Native
4 4 (2.99%) Driving Licence
4 4 (2.99%) Operational Technology
5 3 (2.24%) Legacy Systems
5 3 (2.24%) Renewable Energy
5 3 (2.24%) SCADA
5 3 (2.24%) Team-Oriented Environment
6 1 (0.75%) GNSS
6 1 (0.75%) Hedge funds
6 1 (0.75%) Lidar
6 1 (0.75%) Life Science
6 1 (0.75%) LIMS
6 1 (0.75%) Management Information System
6 1 (0.75%) Mobile App
6 1 (0.75%) Online Games
6 1 (0.75%) Robotics
6 1 (0.75%) Video Editing
Operating Systems
1 5 (3.73%) Windows
2 3 (2.24%) Windows Server
3 2 (1.49%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.75%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 58 (43.28%) Continuous Improvement
2 47 (35.07%) Agile
3 35 (26.12%) Test Automation
4 34 (25.37%) CI/CD
5 33 (24.63%) Problem-Solving
6 27 (20.15%) DevOps
7 26 (19.40%) Change Management
7 26 (19.40%) Process Improvement
7 26 (19.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 25 (18.66%) Source to Pay
8 25 (18.66%) Test Management
9 24 (17.91%) Full-Stack Development
10 23 (17.16%) Strategic Thinking
10 23 (17.16%) Technical Leadership
11 22 (16.42%) Change Control
11 22 (16.42%) Containerisation
11 22 (16.42%) Customer Requirements
11 22 (16.42%) Data-Driven Decision Making
11 22 (16.42%) Defect Management
11 22 (16.42%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 29 (21.64%) SQL
2 22 (16.42%) JavaScript
3 18 (13.43%) Python
4 14 (10.45%) Java
5 9 (6.72%) C#
6 6 (4.48%) TypeScript
7 3 (2.24%) Go
7 3 (2.24%) PHP
8 1 (0.75%) C++
8 1 (0.75%) Ladder Logic
Qualifications
1 40 (29.85%) Degree
2 29 (21.64%) Security Cleared
3 6 (4.48%) Computer Science Degree
3 6 (4.48%) SC Cleared
4 1 (0.75%) DV Cleared
4 1 (0.75%) ISTQB
4 1 (0.75%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 1 (0.75%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (16.42%) Def Stans
2 15 (11.19%) Accessibility
3 9 (6.72%) Data Quality
4 5 (3.73%) SLA
5 3 (2.24%) GDPR
5 3 (2.24%) IEC 61508
6 2 (1.49%) IEC 61131
7 1 (0.75%) 21 CFR Part 11
7 1 (0.75%) GxP
7 1 (0.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.75%) WCAG
System Software
1 21 (15.67%) Docker
2 3 (2.24%) Hyper-V
2 3 (2.24%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.75%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 22 (16.42%) HP ALM
2 20 (14.93%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.75%) Netcool
3 1 (0.75%) Netcool/OMNIbus
3 1 (0.75%) Terraform
Vendors
1 25 (18.66%) SAP
2 22 (16.42%) HP
3 6 (4.48%) Solace
4 5 (3.73%) Microsoft
5 3 (2.24%) Rockwell
5 3 (2.24%) Siemens
5 3 (2.24%) VMware
6 2 (1.49%) Cognos
7 1 (0.75%) Agilent
7 1 (0.75%) Blue Prism
7 1 (0.75%) Databricks
7 1 (0.75%) Google
7 1 (0.75%) IBM
7 1 (0.75%) Oracle
7 1 (0.75%) Pega
7 1 (0.75%) Rollbar
7 1 (0.75%) UiPath