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

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 74 57
Rank change year-on-year +23 -17 -36
Permanent jobs citing QA 141 95 250
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 2.93% 3.46% 4.03%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 27.59% 24.17% 27.11%
Number of salaries quoted 76 31 129
10th Percentile £28,875 £46,000 £31,000
25th Percentile £45,938 £50,000 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year - +20.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £75,000 £64,375 £57,547
90th Percentile £95,000 £77,500 £69,000
South East median annual salary £53,663 £50,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year +7.33% +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 511 393 922
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 10.61% 14.33% 14.85%
Number of salaries quoted 276 211 553
10th Percentile £28,500 £39,000 £26,500
25th Percentile £39,280 £51,375 £35,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £65,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% +36.84% -4.95%
75th Percentile £70,000 £83,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £88,125 £90,000 £78,500
South East median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £46,500
% change year-on-year - +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 24 March 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 24 March 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 +40 71 £62,500 +11.11% 28
Buckinghamshire -17 48 £55,000 - 10
Oxfordshire +10 22 £60,000 -4.00% 12
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 (1.42%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (1.42%) Adobe After Effects
1 2 (1.42%) Adobe Captivate
1 2 (1.42%) Adobe Creative Suite
1 2 (1.42%) Adobe Illustrator
1 2 (1.42%) Adobe Premiere
1 2 (1.42%) Elementor
1 2 (1.42%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 25 (17.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.71%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 37 (26.24%) Azure
2 28 (19.86%) AWS
3 26 (18.44%) Azure DevOps
4 25 (17.73%) GCP
5 20 (14.18%) SaaS
6 12 (8.51%) GitHub
7 5 (3.55%) Amazon S3
7 5 (3.55%) Amazon SQS
7 5 (3.55%) AWS CloudFormation
7 5 (3.55%) AWS Lambda
7 5 (3.55%) Azure Service Bus
7 5 (3.55%) Figma
7 5 (3.55%) Serverless
8 4 (2.84%) iPaaS
9 3 (2.13%) Power Platform
10 2 (1.42%) Adobe Creative Cloud
10 2 (1.42%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.42%) MQTT
1 2 (1.42%) TCP/IP
2 1 (0.71%) 4G
2 1 (0.71%) 5G
2 1 (0.71%) Broadband
2 1 (0.71%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (4.26%) Data Warehouse
1 6 (4.26%) MySQL
2 5 (3.55%) DynamoDB
2 5 (3.55%) NoSQL
3 4 (2.84%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (2.84%) SQL Server
4 3 (2.13%) Relational Database
5 2 (1.42%) Azure SQL Database
6 1 (0.71%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.71%) Power BI
6 1 (0.71%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 32 (22.70%) JIRA
2 22 (15.60%) eCATT
3 10 (7.09%) Git
4 5 (3.55%) git-flow
4 5 (3.55%) Selenium
5 4 (2.84%) Zephyr
6 3 (2.13%) Postman
7 2 (1.42%) Claude Code
7 2 (1.42%) Cucumber
7 2 (1.42%) Cypress.io
7 2 (1.42%) GitLab
7 2 (1.42%) NUnit
7 2 (1.42%) SoapUI
7 2 (1.42%) WebDriver
General
1 38 (26.95%) Social Skills
2 30 (21.28%) Finance
2 30 (21.28%) Marketing
3 29 (20.57%) Manufacturing
4 19 (13.48%) Influencing Skills
4 19 (13.48%) Presentation Skills
5 9 (6.38%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (4.26%) Public Sector
7 4 (2.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (2.84%) Law
7 4 (2.84%) Telecoms
8 3 (2.13%) Pharmaceutical
9 2 (1.42%) Documentation Skills
9 2 (1.42%) Games
9 2 (1.42%) Health Technology
9 2 (1.42%) Multimedia
9 2 (1.42%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (1.42%) Tech for Good
10 1 (0.71%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.71%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 26 (18.44%) Analyst
2 21 (14.89%) Software Engineer
3 17 (12.06%) Lead
3 17 (12.06%) Senior
4 12 (8.51%) QA Engineer
4 12 (8.51%) QA Manager
5 11 (7.80%) Head of Engineering
6 9 (6.38%) Developer
7 8 (5.67%) Architect
7 8 (5.67%) Quality Manager
7 8 (5.67%) Senior Developer
8 6 (4.26%) Full-Stack Developer
8 6 (4.26%) QA Leader
8 6 (4.26%) Support Analyst
9 5 (3.55%) Full-Stack Engineer
9 5 (3.55%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
9 5 (3.55%) Senior Full-Stack Developer
9 5 (3.55%) Support Specialist
10 4 (2.84%) Applications Support
10 4 (2.84%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (9.93%) .NET
2 13 (9.22%) React
3 12 (8.51%) REST
4 8 (5.67%) SOAP
5 6 (4.26%) CSS
5 6 (4.26%) HTML
5 6 (4.26%) Middleware
6 5 (3.55%) AWS CDK
6 5 (3.55%) Django
6 5 (3.55%) Kafka
6 5 (3.55%) Material-UI
6 5 (3.55%) RabbitMQ
6 5 (3.55%) Twisted
6 5 (3.55%) Web Services
6 5 (3.55%) WebSockets
7 4 (2.84%) JSON
7 4 (2.84%) Playwright
7 4 (2.84%) XML
8 3 (2.13%) .NET Framework
8 3 (2.13%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 15 (10.64%) Product Ownership
2 13 (9.22%) Distributed Systems
3 11 (7.80%) Cloud Native
3 11 (7.80%) Self-Motivation
4 9 (6.38%) Client/Server
5 5 (3.55%) Video Conferencing
6 4 (2.84%) Enterprise Software
6 4 (2.84%) Life Science
7 3 (2.13%) Low-Code
8 2 (1.42%) e-Learning
8 2 (1.42%) Graphic Design
8 2 (1.42%) Learning Management System
8 2 (1.42%) LIMS
8 2 (1.42%) N-Tier
8 2 (1.42%) Operational Technology
8 2 (1.42%) Renewable Energy
8 2 (1.42%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 2 (1.42%) Video\Live Streaming
8 2 (1.42%) Virtual Team
9 1 (0.71%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 16 (11.35%) Linux
2 3 (2.13%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (33.33%) Continuous Improvement
2 37 (26.24%) Problem-Solving
3 32 (22.70%) Agile
4 29 (20.57%) Software Engineering
5 28 (19.86%) Test Management
6 25 (17.73%) Defect Management
6 25 (17.73%) Source to Pay
6 25 (17.73%) Test Automation
7 23 (16.31%) ERP
8 22 (15.60%) Risk Management
9 21 (14.89%) Computer Science
9 21 (14.89%) Visualisation
10 17 (12.06%) Code Quality
11 15 (10.64%) CI/CD
11 15 (10.64%) DevOps
12 14 (9.93%) Full-Stack Development
12 14 (9.93%) Software Testing
13 13 (9.22%) Roadmaps
14 11 (7.80%) Data Modelling
14 11 (7.80%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 26 (18.44%) Python
2 19 (13.48%) SQL
3 15 (10.64%) C#
3 15 (10.64%) TypeScript
4 12 (8.51%) Java
5 11 (7.80%) C
5 11 (7.80%) C++
6 10 (7.09%) JavaScript
7 9 (6.38%) Rust
8 3 (2.13%) Go
9 2 (1.42%) PHP
Qualifications
1 30 (21.28%) Degree
2 19 (13.48%) Computer Science Degree
3 6 (4.26%) DBS Check
4 5 (3.55%) Security Cleared
5 4 (2.84%) ISTQB
5 4 (2.84%) Master's Degree
6 3 (2.13%) SC Cleared
7 2 (1.42%) AWS Certification
7 2 (1.42%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 2 (1.42%) Azure Certification
7 2 (1.42%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (1.42%) PhD
7 2 (1.42%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (3.55%) Accessibility
2 2 (1.42%) 21 CFR Part 11
2 2 (1.42%) GxP
3 1 (0.71%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.71%) GDPR
3 1 (0.71%) SLA
System Software
1 9 (6.38%) Hyper-V
1 9 (6.38%) KVM
1 9 (6.38%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (4.26%) Docker
3 5 (3.55%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 22 (15.60%) HP ALM
2 2 (1.42%) Netcool
2 2 (1.42%) Netcool/OMNIbus
2 2 (1.42%) Terraform
Vendors
1 25 (17.73%) SAP
2 22 (15.60%) HP
3 9 (6.38%) VMware
4 4 (2.84%) Microsoft
5 3 (2.13%) ServiceNow
6 2 (1.42%) Adobe
6 2 (1.42%) Agilent
6 2 (1.42%) Blue Prism
6 2 (1.42%) Google
6 2 (1.42%) IBM
6 2 (1.42%) Oracle
6 2 (1.42%) Pega
6 2 (1.42%) UiPath
7 1 (0.71%) Foundry
7 1 (0.71%) Palantir
7 1 (0.71%) Salesforce