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

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 53 60 69
Rank change year-on-year +7 +9 -47
Permanent jobs citing QA 141 123 237
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 2.65% 4.35% 3.61%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 27.65% 27.33% 25.35%
Number of salaries quoted 95 28 135
10th Percentile £33,250 £45,700 £31,100
25th Percentile £49,375 £49,188 £37,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year - +26.32% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75,000 £64,063 £57,500
90th Percentile £93,000 £72,025 £65,000
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 510 450 935
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 9.58% 15.91% 14.26%
Number of salaries quoted 294 206 574
10th Percentile £30,900 £31,250 £26,500
25th Percentile £41,250 £50,481 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,000 £64,250 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -11.28% +35.26% -4.95%
75th Percentile £73,438 £83,750 £66,875
90th Percentile £88,750 £90,000 £78,750
South East median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £45,125
% change year-on-year - +21.88% -9.91%

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 17 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 17 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 +35 59 £60,000 +11.63% 29
Buckinghamshire -26 52 £60,000 +9.09% 9
Oxfordshire 0 30 £60,000 -4.00% 14
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
2 1 (0.71%) CMS
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 1 (0.71%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 41 (29.08%) Azure
2 34 (24.11%) AWS
3 22 (15.60%) GCP
4 19 (13.48%) SaaS
5 9 (6.38%) GitHub
6 7 (4.96%) Amazon S3
6 7 (4.96%) AWS Lambda
6 7 (4.96%) Serverless
7 5 (3.55%) Amazon EC2
7 5 (3.55%) Amazon EKS
7 5 (3.55%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (3.55%) Figma
7 5 (3.55%) iPaaS
8 3 (2.13%) Power Platform
9 2 (1.42%) Adobe Creative Cloud
9 2 (1.42%) Amazon SQS
9 2 (1.42%) AWS CloudFormation
9 2 (1.42%) AWS CodePipeline
9 2 (1.42%) Azure Service Bus
9 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%) DHCP
2 1 (0.71%) DNS
2 1 (0.71%) Firewall
2 1 (0.71%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.84%) PostgreSQL
1 4 (2.84%) SQL Server
2 3 (2.13%) Data Warehouse
2 3 (2.13%) MySQL
3 2 (1.42%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (1.42%) DynamoDB
3 2 (1.42%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.71%) IBM InfoSphere
4 1 (0.71%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.71%) Power BI
4 1 (0.71%) Relational Database
4 1 (0.71%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 1 (0.71%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 17 (12.06%) Git
2 16 (11.35%) JIRA
3 7 (4.96%) GitLab
3 7 (4.96%) Jenkins
4 5 (3.55%) Cucumber
4 5 (3.55%) SonarQube
5 4 (2.84%) Artifactory
5 4 (2.84%) Zephyr
6 2 (1.42%) Claude Code
6 2 (1.42%) Cypress.io
6 2 (1.42%) git-flow
6 2 (1.42%) Polyspace
6 2 (1.42%) VectorCAST
7 1 (0.71%) JMeter
7 1 (0.71%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.71%) NUnit
7 1 (0.71%) Selenium
7 1 (0.71%) WebDriver
General
1 45 (31.91%) Social Skills
2 16 (11.35%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (4.96%) Public Sector
4 6 (4.26%) Manufacturing
4 6 (4.26%) Marketing
5 5 (3.55%) Pharmaceutical
6 4 (2.84%) Finance
7 3 (2.13%) Health Technology
7 3 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (2.13%) Law
8 2 (1.42%) Aerospace
8 2 (1.42%) Banking
8 2 (1.42%) Games
8 2 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (1.42%) Multimedia
8 2 (1.42%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (1.42%) Tech for Good
8 2 (1.42%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.71%) Automotive
9 1 (0.71%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 21 (14.89%) Software Engineer
2 16 (11.35%) Lead
3 14 (9.93%) QA Engineer
4 13 (9.22%) QA Manager
5 11 (7.80%) Analyst
5 11 (7.80%) Head of Engineering
5 11 (7.80%) Senior
6 10 (7.09%) Architect
7 9 (6.38%) Quality Manager
8 8 (5.67%) Test Engineer
9 7 (4.96%) Applications Architect
9 7 (4.96%) Developer
9 7 (4.96%) QA Leader
9 7 (4.96%) Support Analyst
9 7 (4.96%) Tester
10 6 (4.26%) DevOps Engineer
10 6 (4.26%) Full-Stack Engineer
10 6 (4.26%) Integration Architect
10 6 (4.26%) Performance Engineer
11 5 (3.55%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (14.18%) REST
2 14 (9.93%) .NET
3 12 (8.51%) JSON
4 10 (7.09%) React
5 9 (6.38%) Middleware
5 9 (6.38%) SOAP
6 7 (4.96%) RabbitMQ
6 7 (4.96%) XML
7 6 (4.26%) Playwright
8 5 (3.55%) Django
8 5 (3.55%) Twisted
8 5 (3.55%) Web Services
8 5 (3.55%) WebSockets
9 4 (2.84%) Elastic Stack
9 4 (2.84%) HTML
9 4 (2.84%) RESTful
9 4 (2.84%) YAML
10 3 (2.13%) .NET Framework
10 3 (2.13%) CSS
10 3 (2.13%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 20 (14.18%) Distributed Systems
2 16 (11.35%) Product Ownership
3 12 (8.51%) Self-Motivation
4 9 (6.38%) Client/Server
5 8 (5.67%) Cloud Native
6 7 (4.96%) Life Science
7 5 (3.55%) Video Conferencing
8 4 (2.84%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (2.13%) Low-Code
9 3 (2.13%) Renewable Energy
9 3 (2.13%) Virtual Team
10 2 (1.42%) Embedded Systems
10 2 (1.42%) Graphic Design
10 2 (1.42%) Learning Management System
10 2 (1.42%) LIMS
10 2 (1.42%) N-Tier
10 2 (1.42%) Operational Technology
10 2 (1.42%) Pharmacovigilance
10 2 (1.42%) Robotics
10 2 (1.42%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 22 (15.60%) Linux
2 4 (2.84%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (29.08%) Problem-Solving
2 36 (25.53%) Agile
3 34 (24.11%) Test Automation
4 33 (23.40%) Software Engineering
5 32 (22.70%) Continuous Improvement
6 27 (19.15%) Computer Science
7 22 (15.60%) CI/CD
8 21 (14.89%) DevOps
9 18 (12.77%) Software Testing
10 17 (12.06%) Code Quality
11 14 (9.93%) Test Strategy
12 13 (9.22%) End-to-End Testing
13 12 (8.51%) Full-Stack Development
13 12 (8.51%) Microservices
14 11 (7.80%) Data Modelling
14 11 (7.80%) Infrastructure as Code
14 11 (7.80%) Migration
14 11 (7.80%) Roadmaps
14 11 (7.80%) Scrum
14 11 (7.80%) System Testing
Programming Languages
1 35 (24.82%) Python
2 22 (15.60%) SQL
3 19 (13.48%) Java
4 15 (10.64%) C#
5 13 (9.22%) TypeScript
6 11 (7.80%) C
6 11 (7.80%) C++
6 11 (7.80%) JavaScript
7 9 (6.38%) Rust
8 5 (3.55%) Groovy
9 3 (2.13%) Bash
9 3 (2.13%) Perl
10 1 (0.71%) Go
10 1 (0.71%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.71%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 39 (27.66%) Degree
2 24 (17.02%) Computer Science Degree
3 10 (7.09%) Security Cleared
4 7 (4.96%) DBS Check
5 6 (4.26%) ISTQB
6 5 (3.55%) SC Cleared
7 4 (2.84%) Master's Degree
8 2 (1.42%) AWS Certification
8 2 (1.42%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 2 (1.42%) Azure Certification
8 2 (1.42%) CHECK Team Leader
8 2 (1.42%) CHECK Team Member
8 2 (1.42%) CREST Certified
8 2 (1.42%) CSQA
8 2 (1.42%) Cyber Scheme
8 2 (1.42%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (1.42%) OSCP
8 2 (1.42%) PhD
8 2 (1.42%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.96%) Accessibility
2 4 (2.84%) GxP
3 2 (1.42%) 21 CFR Part 11
3 2 (1.42%) Def Stans
3 2 (1.42%) Good Clinical Practice
3 2 (1.42%) IEC 61508
3 2 (1.42%) ISO 26262
3 2 (1.42%) NCSC
4 1 (0.71%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.71%) GDPR
4 1 (0.71%) SLA
4 1 (0.71%) SOC 2
4 1 (0.71%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 10 (7.09%) Hyper-V
1 10 (7.09%) VMware Infrastructure
2 9 (6.38%) Docker
2 9 (6.38%) KVM
3 5 (3.55%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.71%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 8 (5.67%) Terraform
2 7 (4.96%) Kubernetes
3 6 (4.26%) Ansible
4 4 (2.84%) Packer
5 1 (0.71%) Functional Safety
5 1 (0.71%) Grafana
5 1 (0.71%) Netcool
5 1 (0.71%) Netcool/OMNIbus
5 1 (0.71%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 10 (7.09%) VMware
2 7 (4.96%) Microsoft
3 6 (4.26%) IBM
4 4 (2.84%) AppDynamics
5 3 (2.13%) Google
5 3 (2.13%) ServiceNow
6 2 (1.42%) Adobe
6 2 (1.42%) Agilent
6 2 (1.42%) Oracle
7 1 (0.71%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.71%) Blue Prism
7 1 (0.71%) Foundry
7 1 (0.71%) Informatica
7 1 (0.71%) Palantir
7 1 (0.71%) Pega
7 1 (0.71%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.71%) UiPath