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

6 months to
12 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 77 57
Rank change year-on-year +35 -20 -36
Permanent jobs citing QA 188 122 258
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 3.27% 3.62% 3.59%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 32.14% 25.52% 27.48%
Number of salaries quoted 122 17 150
10th Percentile £35,000 £39,000 £31,000
25th Percentile £50,000 £46,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £57,500 £48,213
Median % change year-on-year +8.70% +19.26% -12.34%
75th Percentile £75,000 £72,500 £56,438
90th Percentile £89,375 £89,250 £62,500
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 585 478 939
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 10.17% 14.20% 13.07%
Number of salaries quoted 356 197 538
10th Percentile £34,500 £27,600 £26,500
25th Percentile £42,500 £39,750 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,000 £64,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.53% +43.33% -9.96%
75th Percentile £73,750 £81,250 £61,250
90th Percentile £88,125 £84,200 £76,250
South East median annual salary £52,500 £55,000 £45,000
% change year-on-year -4.55% +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 12 June 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 12 June 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 +51 82 £70,000 +52.17% 12
Buckinghamshire +5 67 £60,000 -17.24% 17
Oxfordshire +17 39 £62,500 +4.17% 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 4 (2.13%) SharePoint
2 2 (1.06%) CMS
3 1 (0.53%) ArchestrA
3 1 (0.53%) Confluence
3 1 (0.53%) JBoss
3 1 (0.53%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.53%) Red Hat Fuse
Business Applications
1 1 (0.53%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 57 (30.32%) Azure
2 39 (20.74%) AWS
3 26 (13.83%) SaaS
4 17 (9.04%) GCP
5 10 (5.32%) GitHub
6 7 (3.72%) Azure DevOps
7 6 (3.19%) Amazon EKS
7 6 (3.19%) Serverless
8 5 (2.66%) Amazon EC2
8 5 (2.66%) Amazon S3
8 5 (2.66%) AWS Lambda
8 5 (2.66%) Figma
8 5 (2.66%) iPaaS
9 4 (2.13%) Microsoft 365
10 3 (1.60%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 2 (1.06%) AWS CodePipeline
12 1 (0.53%) Amazon ECS
12 1 (0.53%) Azure Machine Learning
12 1 (0.53%) GitHub Copilot
12 1 (0.53%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.60%) DHCP
1 3 (1.60%) DNS
1 3 (1.60%) Firewall
2 1 (0.53%) Broadband
2 1 (0.53%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.13%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (1.06%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.06%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 1 (0.53%) IBM InfoSphere
3 1 (0.53%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.53%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 19 (10.11%) Git
2 18 (9.57%) JIRA
3 9 (4.79%) Cucumber
4 8 (4.26%) Jenkins
5 7 (3.72%) GitLab
5 7 (3.72%) Zephyr
6 5 (2.66%) SonarQube
7 4 (2.13%) Artifactory
7 4 (2.13%) Postman
8 3 (1.60%) Selenium
9 2 (1.06%) Cypress.io
9 2 (1.06%) Polyspace
9 2 (1.06%) VectorCAST
10 1 (0.53%) Claude Code
10 1 (0.53%) JMeter
10 1 (0.53%) JUnit
10 1 (0.53%) LoadRunner
10 1 (0.53%) NUnit
10 1 (0.53%) WebDriver
General
1 63 (33.51%) Social Skills
2 29 (15.43%) Analytical Skills
3 15 (7.98%) Manufacturing
4 14 (7.45%) Influencing Skills
5 11 (5.85%) Pharmaceutical
6 9 (4.79%) Legal
7 4 (2.13%) Finance
7 4 (2.13%) Marketing
7 4 (2.13%) Public Sector
8 2 (1.06%) Aerospace
8 2 (1.06%) Banking
8 2 (1.06%) Games
8 2 (1.06%) Health Technology
8 2 (1.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.06%) Law
9 1 (0.53%) Automotive
9 1 (0.53%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.53%) Electronics
9 1 (0.53%) Publishing
9 1 (0.53%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 37 (19.68%) Lead
2 23 (12.23%) Software Engineer
3 17 (9.04%) QA Leader
3 17 (9.04%) Test Engineer
4 15 (7.98%) Performance Engineer
4 15 (7.98%) QA Engineer
5 14 (7.45%) Performance Test Engineer
6 13 (6.91%) Architect
7 12 (6.38%) Analyst
7 12 (6.38%) QA Manager
7 12 (6.38%) Quality Engineer
8 10 (5.32%) Team Leader
9 9 (4.79%) Head of Engineering
9 9 (4.79%) Integration Architect
10 8 (4.26%) Applications Architect
10 8 (4.26%) DevOps Engineer
10 8 (4.26%) Quality Manager
10 8 (4.26%) Tester
11 7 (3.72%) Auditor
11 7 (3.72%) Senior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (12.77%) REST
2 17 (9.04%) .NET
2 17 (9.04%) JSON
3 12 (6.38%) SOAP
4 11 (5.85%) Middleware
4 11 (5.85%) XML
5 10 (5.32%) Playwright
6 8 (4.26%) RabbitMQ
7 7 (3.72%) React
8 6 (3.19%) .NET Framework
8 6 (3.19%) Blazor
8 6 (3.19%) RESTful
8 6 (3.19%) Web Services
9 5 (2.66%) Django
9 5 (2.66%) Elastic Stack
9 5 (2.66%) Twisted
9 5 (2.66%) WebSockets
10 4 (2.13%) JWT
10 4 (2.13%) OAuth2
10 4 (2.13%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 25 (13.30%) Product Ownership
2 23 (12.23%) Distributed Systems
3 15 (7.98%) Life Science
4 14 (7.45%) Self-Motivation
5 11 (5.85%) Pharmacovigilance
6 9 (4.79%) Client/Server
7 6 (3.19%) Cloud Native
8 5 (2.66%) Renewable Energy
8 5 (2.66%) Video Conferencing
8 5 (2.66%) Virtual Team
9 4 (2.13%) Onboarding
10 3 (1.60%) Private Cloud
10 3 (1.60%) Public Cloud
11 2 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (1.06%) AS400
11 2 (1.06%) Embedded Systems
11 2 (1.06%) Low-Code
11 2 (1.06%) Robotics
11 2 (1.06%) Security Posture
11 2 (1.06%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 22 (11.70%) Linux
2 5 (2.66%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 52 (27.66%) Problem-Solving
2 51 (27.13%) Continuous Improvement
3 47 (25.00%) Agile
3 47 (25.00%) Test Automation
4 40 (21.28%) Software Engineering
5 31 (16.49%) Computer Science
6 27 (14.36%) CI/CD
7 26 (13.83%) DevOps
8 20 (10.64%) CAPA
8 20 (10.64%) Roadmaps
8 20 (10.64%) Software Testing
9 18 (9.57%) TDD
10 17 (9.04%) Code Quality
10 17 (9.04%) Test Strategy
11 16 (8.51%) Scrum
12 15 (7.98%) Containerisation
13 14 (7.45%) Customer Service
13 14 (7.45%) End-to-End Testing
13 14 (7.45%) Full-Stack Development
13 14 (7.45%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 35 (18.62%) Python
2 23 (12.23%) Java
3 20 (10.64%) SQL
4 19 (10.11%) C#
5 14 (7.45%) TypeScript
6 13 (6.91%) C
6 13 (6.91%) JavaScript
7 12 (6.38%) C++
8 9 (4.79%) Rust
9 5 (2.66%) Bash
9 5 (2.66%) Groovy
10 3 (1.60%) Perl
10 3 (1.60%) PowerShell
11 1 (0.53%) Go
11 1 (0.53%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 66 (35.11%) Degree
2 30 (15.96%) Computer Science Degree
3 9 (4.79%) ISTQB
4 7 (3.72%) DBS Check
4 7 (3.72%) Security Cleared
5 4 (2.13%) Master's Degree
5 4 (2.13%) PhD
5 4 (2.13%) SC Cleared
6 2 (1.06%) CHECK Team Leader
6 2 (1.06%) CHECK Team Member
6 2 (1.06%) CREST Certified
6 2 (1.06%) CSQA
6 2 (1.06%) Cyber Scheme
6 2 (1.06%) OSCP
7 1 (0.53%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.53%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.53%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.53%) Postgraduate
7 1 (0.53%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (12.23%) Accessibility
2 19 (10.11%) Good Clinical Practice
3 12 (6.38%) GxP
4 3 (1.60%) SOC 2
5 2 (1.06%) 21 CFR Part 11
5 2 (1.06%) Data Quality
5 2 (1.06%) Def Stans
5 2 (1.06%) GLP
5 2 (1.06%) GMP
5 2 (1.06%) IEC 61508
5 2 (1.06%) ISO 26262
5 2 (1.06%) NCSC
5 2 (1.06%) Software Quality Assurance
6 1 (0.53%) GDPR
System Software
1 15 (7.98%) Docker
2 12 (6.38%) Hyper-V
2 12 (6.38%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (4.79%) KVM
4 5 (2.66%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (1.60%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 14 (7.45%) Kubernetes
2 13 (6.91%) Terraform
3 9 (4.79%) Ansible
4 4 (2.13%) Packer
5 3 (1.60%) Grafana
5 3 (1.60%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.53%) Functional Safety
6 1 (0.53%) Netcool
6 1 (0.53%) Netcool/OMNIbus
Vendors
1 19 (10.11%) Microsoft
2 12 (6.38%) VMware
3 6 (3.19%) IBM
3 6 (3.19%) ServiceNow
4 4 (2.13%) AppDynamics
5 3 (1.60%) Google
6 2 (1.06%) Oracle
7 1 (0.53%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.53%) Blue Prism
7 1 (0.53%) Informatica
7 1 (0.53%) Pega
7 1 (0.53%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.53%) UiPath