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

6 months to
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 58 57 62
Rank change year-on-year -1 +5 -40
Permanent jobs citing QA 138 123 236
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 2.61% 4.37% 3.64%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 27.27% 27.46% 25.57%
Number of salaries quoted 92 28 135
10th Percentile £33,250 £45,700 £31,100
25th Percentile £48,438 £49,188 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year - +20.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £75,625 £64,063 £57,500
90th Percentile £94,500 £72,025 £66,500
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 506 448 923
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 9.57% 15.93% 14.24%
Number of salaries quoted 292 205 569
10th Percentile £30,050 £31,250 £26,500
25th Percentile £41,215 £51,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £56,000 £64,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -13.18% +35.79% -4.95%
75th Percentile £73,750 £83,750 £67,500
90th Percentile £88,625 £90,000 £79,000
South East median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £45,250
% change year-on-year - +21.55% -10.26%

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 15 April 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 15 April 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 +33 57 £60,000 +11.63% 31
Buckinghamshire -28 52 £60,000 +9.09% 11
Oxfordshire +1 29 £60,000 -4.00% 15
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 (1.45%) WordPress
2 1 (0.72%) CMS
Applications
1 2 (1.45%) Adobe After Effects
1 2 (1.45%) Adobe Captivate
1 2 (1.45%) Adobe Creative Suite
1 2 (1.45%) Adobe Illustrator
1 2 (1.45%) Adobe Premiere
1 2 (1.45%) Elementor
1 2 (1.45%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 1 (0.72%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 40 (28.99%) Azure
2 35 (25.36%) AWS
3 23 (16.67%) GCP
4 19 (13.77%) SaaS
5 10 (7.25%) GitHub
6 8 (5.80%) Amazon S3
6 8 (5.80%) AWS Lambda
6 8 (5.80%) Serverless
7 5 (3.62%) Amazon EC2
7 5 (3.62%) Amazon EKS
7 5 (3.62%) Figma
7 5 (3.62%) iPaaS
8 4 (2.90%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (2.17%) Amazon SQS
9 3 (2.17%) AWS CloudFormation
9 3 (2.17%) Azure Service Bus
9 3 (2.17%) Power Platform
10 2 (1.45%) Adobe Creative Cloud
10 2 (1.45%) AWS CodePipeline
10 2 (1.45%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.45%) MQTT
1 2 (1.45%) TCP/IP
2 1 (0.72%) 4G
2 1 (0.72%) 5G
2 1 (0.72%) Broadband
2 1 (0.72%) DHCP
2 1 (0.72%) DNS
2 1 (0.72%) Firewall
2 1 (0.72%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.90%) Data Warehouse
1 4 (2.90%) MySQL
1 4 (2.90%) PostgreSQL
1 4 (2.90%) SQL Server
2 3 (2.17%) DynamoDB
2 3 (2.17%) NoSQL
3 2 (1.45%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.72%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.72%) Power BI
4 1 (0.72%) Relational Database
4 1 (0.72%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 1 (0.72%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 17 (12.32%) Git
2 16 (11.59%) JIRA
3 7 (5.07%) GitLab
3 7 (5.07%) Jenkins
4 5 (3.62%) Cucumber
4 5 (3.62%) SonarQube
5 4 (2.90%) Artifactory
5 4 (2.90%) Zephyr
6 3 (2.17%) Cypress.io
6 3 (2.17%) git-flow
7 2 (1.45%) Claude Code
7 2 (1.45%) Polyspace
7 2 (1.45%) Selenium
7 2 (1.45%) VectorCAST
7 2 (1.45%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.72%) NUnit
General
1 45 (32.61%) Social Skills
2 15 (10.87%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (5.07%) Public Sector
4 6 (4.35%) Manufacturing
4 6 (4.35%) Marketing
5 5 (3.62%) Pharmaceutical
6 4 (2.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 4 (2.90%) Law
7 3 (2.17%) Finance
8 2 (1.45%) Aerospace
8 2 (1.45%) Games
8 2 (1.45%) Health Technology
8 2 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (1.45%) Multimedia
8 2 (1.45%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (1.45%) Tech for Good
8 2 (1.45%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.72%) Automotive
9 1 (0.72%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.72%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 21 (15.22%) Software Engineer
2 13 (9.42%) Lead
2 13 (9.42%) QA Engineer
2 13 (9.42%) QA Manager
3 12 (8.70%) Senior
4 11 (7.97%) Analyst
4 11 (7.97%) Head of Engineering
5 10 (7.25%) Architect
6 9 (6.52%) Developer
6 9 (6.52%) Quality Manager
7 7 (5.07%) Applications Architect
7 7 (5.07%) QA Leader
7 7 (5.07%) Support Analyst
7 7 (5.07%) Test Engineer
8 6 (4.35%) DevOps Engineer
8 6 (4.35%) Full-Stack Engineer
8 6 (4.35%) Integration Architect
8 6 (4.35%) Senior Developer
9 5 (3.62%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
9 5 (3.62%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (14.49%) REST
2 13 (9.42%) .NET
3 12 (8.70%) JSON
4 11 (7.97%) React
5 9 (6.52%) Middleware
5 9 (6.52%) SOAP
6 8 (5.80%) RabbitMQ
7 7 (5.07%) XML
8 6 (4.35%) Playwright
9 5 (3.62%) Django
9 5 (3.62%) HTML
9 5 (3.62%) Twisted
9 5 (3.62%) Web Services
9 5 (3.62%) WebSockets
10 4 (2.90%) CSS
10 4 (2.90%) Elastic Stack
10 4 (2.90%) Kafka
10 4 (2.90%) RESTful
10 4 (2.90%) YAML
11 3 (2.17%) Material-UI
Miscellaneous
1 20 (14.49%) Distributed Systems
2 15 (10.87%) Product Ownership
3 13 (9.42%) Self-Motivation
4 9 (6.52%) Client/Server
4 9 (6.52%) Cloud Native
5 7 (5.07%) Life Science
6 5 (3.62%) Video Conferencing
7 4 (2.90%) Enterprise Software
8 3 (2.17%) Low-Code
8 3 (2.17%) Renewable Energy
8 3 (2.17%) Virtual Team
9 2 (1.45%) Embedded Systems
9 2 (1.45%) Graphic Design
9 2 (1.45%) Learning Management System
9 2 (1.45%) N-Tier
9 2 (1.45%) Operational Technology
9 2 (1.45%) Pharmacovigilance
9 2 (1.45%) Robotics
9 2 (1.45%) Security Posture
9 2 (1.45%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 21 (15.22%) Linux
2 4 (2.90%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (28.99%) Problem-Solving
2 37 (26.81%) Agile
3 33 (23.91%) Software Engineering
3 33 (23.91%) Test Automation
4 32 (23.19%) Continuous Improvement
5 28 (20.29%) Computer Science
6 22 (15.94%) CI/CD
7 21 (15.22%) DevOps
8 18 (13.04%) Software Testing
9 17 (12.32%) Code Quality
10 13 (9.42%) Full-Stack Development
10 13 (9.42%) Microservices
11 12 (8.70%) Data Modelling
11 12 (8.70%) End-to-End Testing
11 12 (8.70%) Infrastructure as Code
11 12 (8.70%) Test Strategy
12 11 (7.97%) Migration
12 11 (7.97%) Scrum
12 11 (7.97%) System Testing
13 10 (7.25%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 35 (25.36%) Python
2 21 (15.22%) SQL
3 20 (14.49%) Java
4 16 (11.59%) C#
5 14 (10.14%) TypeScript
6 11 (7.97%) C
6 11 (7.97%) C++
6 11 (7.97%) JavaScript
7 9 (6.52%) Rust
8 5 (3.62%) Groovy
9 3 (2.17%) Bash
9 3 (2.17%) Perl
10 1 (0.72%) Go
10 1 (0.72%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.72%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 40 (28.99%) Degree
2 25 (18.12%) Computer Science Degree
3 10 (7.25%) Security Cleared
4 7 (5.07%) DBS Check
5 6 (4.35%) SC Cleared
6 5 (3.62%) ISTQB
7 4 (2.90%) Master's Degree
8 2 (1.45%) AWS Certification
8 2 (1.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 2 (1.45%) Azure Certification
8 2 (1.45%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (1.45%) PhD
8 2 (1.45%) TOGAF Certification
9 1 (0.72%) CHECK Team Leader
9 1 (0.72%) CHECK Team Member
9 1 (0.72%) CREST Certified
9 1 (0.72%) CSQA
9 1 (0.72%) Cyber Scheme
9 1 (0.72%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (5.80%) Accessibility
2 4 (2.90%) GxP
3 2 (1.45%) 21 CFR Part 11
3 2 (1.45%) Def Stans
3 2 (1.45%) Good Clinical Practice
3 2 (1.45%) IEC 61508
3 2 (1.45%) ISO 26262
4 1 (0.72%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.72%) GDPR
4 1 (0.72%) NCSC
4 1 (0.72%) SLA
4 1 (0.72%) SOC 2
4 1 (0.72%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 10 (7.25%) Hyper-V
1 10 (7.25%) VMware Infrastructure
2 9 (6.52%) Docker
2 9 (6.52%) KVM
3 5 (3.62%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.72%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 8 (5.80%) Terraform
2 7 (5.07%) Kubernetes
3 6 (4.35%) Ansible
4 4 (2.90%) Packer
5 1 (0.72%) Functional Safety
5 1 (0.72%) Grafana
5 1 (0.72%) Netcool
5 1 (0.72%) Netcool/OMNIbus
5 1 (0.72%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 10 (7.25%) VMware
2 6 (4.35%) Microsoft
3 5 (3.62%) IBM
4 4 (2.90%) AppDynamics
5 3 (2.17%) Google
5 3 (2.17%) ServiceNow
6 2 (1.45%) Adobe
6 2 (1.45%) Agilent
6 2 (1.45%) Oracle
7 1 (0.72%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.72%) Blue Prism
7 1 (0.72%) Foundry
7 1 (0.72%) Palantir
7 1 (0.72%) Pega
7 1 (0.72%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.72%) UiPath