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

6 months to
23 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 80 55
Rank change year-on-year +40 -25 +22
Permanent jobs citing QA 229 141 193
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 3.33% 3.71% 3.74%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 30.90% 21.83% 29.83%
Number of salaries quoted 145 30 105
10th Percentile £40,000 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £45,000 £39,625 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £51,750 £48,925
Median % change year-on-year +15.94% +5.77% -2.15%
75th Percentile £71,250 £64,375 £55,750
90th Percentile £83,750 £72,750 £64,244
South East median annual salary £52,500 £47,500 £48,925
% change year-on-year +10.53% -2.91% -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 741 646 647
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 10.78% 17.00% 12.54%
Number of salaries quoted 494 250 347
10th Percentile £35,000 £26,200 £30,000
25th Percentile £45,000 £39,156 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,750 £55,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +1.36% +15.79% -5.00%
75th Percentile £72,500 £74,688 £66,250
90th Percentile £85,000 £83,750 £81,250
South East median annual salary £52,500 £55,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year -4.55% +15.79% -6.25%

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 23 August 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 23 August 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 +46 96 £60,000 +30.43% 23
Buckinghamshire +7 77 £50,000 +33.33% 15
Oxfordshire +13 56 £62,500 - 16
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 6 (2.62%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.31%) Moodle
2 3 (1.31%) WordPress
3 2 (0.87%) CMS
3 2 (0.87%) Confluence
4 1 (0.44%) ArchestrA
4 1 (0.44%) JBoss
4 1 (0.44%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.44%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 2 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.44%) Mathcad
2 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.44%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 3 (1.31%) SAP ERP
1 3 (1.31%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 48 (20.96%) Azure
2 36 (15.72%) AWS
3 16 (6.99%) SaaS
4 10 (4.37%) GCP
4 10 (4.37%) GitHub
5 8 (3.49%) Azure DevOps
6 7 (3.06%) Serverless
7 6 (2.62%) Amazon EKS
7 6 (2.62%) Amazon S3
7 6 (2.62%) AWS Lambda
8 5 (2.18%) Amazon EC2
8 5 (2.18%) Microsoft 365
9 4 (1.75%) Figma
10 3 (1.31%) Adobe Creative Cloud
10 3 (1.31%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 2 (0.87%) AWS CodePipeline
11 2 (0.87%) GitHub Actions
12 1 (0.44%) Amazon ECS
12 1 (0.44%) iPaaS
12 1 (0.44%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.31%) DHCP
1 3 (1.31%) DNS
1 3 (1.31%) Firewall
2 1 (0.44%) Broadband
2 1 (0.44%) RS-485
2 1 (0.44%) SD-WAN
2 1 (0.44%) Software-Defined Networking
2 1 (0.44%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.87%) Data Warehouse
1 2 (0.87%) PostgreSQL
1 2 (0.87%) SQL Server Reporting Services
2 1 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
2 1 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (0.44%) Amazon Redshift
2 1 (0.44%) IBM InfoSphere
2 1 (0.44%) Metadata
2 1 (0.44%) MongoDB
2 1 (0.44%) Power BI
2 1 (0.44%) Power Query
2 1 (0.44%) Redis
2 1 (0.44%) Relational Database
2 1 (0.44%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 19 (8.30%) Git
2 18 (7.86%) JIRA
3 9 (3.93%) Cucumber
4 8 (3.49%) GitLab
4 8 (3.49%) Jenkins
5 6 (2.62%) Zephyr
6 5 (2.18%) SonarQube
7 4 (1.75%) Artifactory
7 4 (1.75%) Postman
8 2 (0.87%) Polyspace
8 2 (0.87%) Selenium
8 2 (0.87%) VectorCAST
9 1 (0.44%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.44%) JMeter
9 1 (0.44%) JUnit
9 1 (0.44%) LoadRunner
General
1 84 (36.68%) Social Skills
2 37 (16.16%) Analytical Skills
3 28 (12.23%) Influencing Skills
4 23 (10.04%) Pharmaceutical
5 19 (8.30%) Legal
5 19 (8.30%) Manufacturing
6 13 (5.68%) Finance
7 7 (3.06%) Electronics
8 6 (2.62%) Organisational Skills
9 4 (1.75%) Banking
10 3 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (1.31%) Law
10 3 (1.31%) Multimedia
10 3 (1.31%) Public Sector
10 3 (1.31%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.87%) Aerospace
11 2 (0.87%) Games
11 2 (0.87%) Local Government
11 2 (0.87%) Military
12 1 (0.44%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 48 (20.96%) Lead
2 31 (13.54%) QA Leader
3 28 (12.23%) QA Engineer
4 22 (9.61%) QA Manager
4 22 (9.61%) Senior
5 21 (9.17%) Quality Engineer
5 21 (9.17%) Quality Manager
6 15 (6.55%) Test Engineer
7 14 (6.11%) Software Engineer
8 13 (5.68%) Performance Engineer
9 12 (5.24%) Performance Test Engineer
10 11 (4.80%) Analyst
10 11 (4.80%) Engineering Manager
11 10 (4.37%) Auditor
11 10 (4.37%) QA Team Leader
11 10 (4.37%) Team Leader
12 8 (3.49%) Developer
12 8 (3.49%) DevOps Engineer
12 8 (3.49%) Tester
13 7 (3.06%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (8.30%) REST
2 15 (6.55%) .NET
2 15 (6.55%) Terraform
3 13 (5.68%) JSON
4 12 (5.24%) React
5 8 (3.49%) Playwright
5 8 (3.49%) RabbitMQ
5 8 (3.49%) SOAP
6 7 (3.06%) Middleware
6 7 (3.06%) Node.js
6 7 (3.06%) XML
7 6 (2.62%) Blazor
8 5 (2.18%) Elastic Stack
8 5 (2.18%) RESTful
8 5 (2.18%) Web Services
9 4 (1.75%) .NET Framework
9 4 (1.75%) CSS
9 4 (1.75%) Django
9 4 (1.75%) OAuth
9 4 (1.75%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 24 (10.48%) Product Ownership
2 19 (8.30%) Life Science
2 19 (8.30%) Pharmacovigilance
3 17 (7.42%) Distributed Systems
4 8 (3.49%) Self-Motivation
5 6 (2.62%) Robotics
6 5 (2.18%) Cloud Native
7 4 (1.75%) Driving Licence
7 4 (1.75%) Onboarding
7 4 (1.75%) Video Conferencing
8 3 (1.31%) Animation
8 3 (1.31%) Client/Server
8 3 (1.31%) e-Learning
8 3 (1.31%) Learning Management System
8 3 (1.31%) Private Cloud
8 3 (1.31%) Public Cloud
8 3 (1.31%) Renewable Energy
8 3 (1.31%) SCORM
8 3 (1.31%) Virtual Team
8 3 (1.31%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 16 (6.99%) Linux
2 5 (2.18%) Windows
3 2 (0.87%) Debian
3 2 (0.87%) Robot Operating System
3 2 (0.87%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 74 (32.31%) Continuous Improvement
2 54 (23.58%) Problem-Solving
3 48 (20.96%) Test Automation
4 43 (18.78%) Agile
5 37 (16.16%) CAPA
5 37 (16.16%) Software Engineering
6 33 (14.41%) CI/CD
6 33 (14.41%) DevOps
7 24 (10.48%) Computer Science
7 24 (10.48%) Roadmaps
8 22 (9.61%) Software Testing
9 20 (8.73%) Change Management
9 20 (8.73%) Customer Service
10 18 (7.86%) AI
11 17 (7.42%) Code Quality
11 17 (7.42%) Containerisation
12 16 (6.99%) Budgeting and Resource Allocation
12 16 (6.99%) Resource Allocation
12 16 (6.99%) Test Strategy
13 15 (6.55%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 31 (13.54%) Python
2 16 (6.99%) C#
2 16 (6.99%) SQL
3 15 (6.55%) Java
4 13 (5.68%) TypeScript
5 11 (4.80%) JavaScript
6 8 (3.49%) C
7 7 (3.06%) Bash
8 6 (2.62%) C++
9 5 (2.18%) Groovy
10 3 (1.31%) Perl
10 3 (1.31%) PowerShell
10 3 (1.31%) Rust
11 1 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 1 (0.44%) Embedded C
11 1 (0.44%) Go
11 1 (0.44%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 76 (33.19%) Degree
2 25 (10.92%) Computer Science Degree
3 8 (3.49%) ISTQB
4 7 (3.06%) Security Cleared
5 6 (2.62%) Master's Degree
6 5 (2.18%) DBS Check
7 4 (1.75%) PMI Certification
7 4 (1.75%) PMP
7 4 (1.75%) SC Cleared
8 3 (1.31%) PhD
8 3 (1.31%) Postgraduate
8 3 (1.31%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 2 (0.87%) CHECK Team Leader
9 2 (0.87%) CHECK Team Member
9 2 (0.87%) CREST Certified
9 2 (0.87%) CSQA
9 2 (0.87%) Cyber Scheme
9 2 (0.87%) OSCP
10 1 (0.44%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (18.78%) Accessibility
2 34 (14.85%) Good Clinical Practice
3 24 (10.48%) GxP
4 8 (3.49%) 21 CFR Part 11
4 8 (3.49%) GLP
4 8 (3.49%) GMP
5 3 (1.31%) Data Quality
5 3 (1.31%) SOC 2
5 3 (1.31%) Software Quality Assurance
5 3 (1.31%) WCAG
6 2 (0.87%) Def Stans
6 2 (0.87%) IEC 61508
6 2 (0.87%) ISO 26262
6 2 (0.87%) NCSC
7 1 (0.44%) ISO 9001
7 1 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 1 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.44%) SLA
System Software
1 17 (7.42%) Docker
2 6 (2.62%) Hyper-V
2 6 (2.62%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (1.75%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (1.31%) Active Directory
4 3 (1.31%) KVM
Systems Management
1 15 (6.55%) Kubernetes
2 9 (3.93%) Ansible
3 4 (1.75%) Packer
4 3 (1.31%) Grafana
4 3 (1.31%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.44%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 21 (9.17%) Microsoft
2 6 (2.62%) VMware
3 5 (2.18%) IBM
3 5 (2.18%) ServiceNow
4 4 (1.75%) AppDynamics
5 3 (1.31%) Adobe
5 3 (1.31%) SAP
5 3 (1.31%) UiPath
6 2 (0.87%) NVIDIA
7 1 (0.44%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.44%) Cisco
7 1 (0.44%) EMC
7 1 (0.44%) Fortinet
7 1 (0.44%) Google
7 1 (0.44%) Informatica