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

6 months to
30 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 75 59
Rank change year-on-year +19 -16 -38
Permanent jobs citing QA 133 90 250
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 2.73% 3.27% 3.96%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 26.34% 22.96% 27.11%
Number of salaries quoted 80 31 135
10th Percentile £30,000 £46,000 £31,100
25th Percentile £45,938 £49,375 £39,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,250 £60,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -1.25% +20.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £75,000 £64,375 £57,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £77,500 £67,500
South East median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year +5.00% +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 505 392 922
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 10.36% 14.24% 14.61%
Number of salaries quoted 282 207 562
10th Percentile £28,525 £34,750 £26,500
25th Percentile £39,366 £51,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £65,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% +36.84% -4.95%
75th Percentile £70,938 £83,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £90,000 £78,750
South East median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £45,000
% change year-on-year - +22.22% -10.00%

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 30 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 30 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 61 £60,000 +6.67% 31
Buckinghamshire -18 48 £55,000 - 11
Oxfordshire +9 24 £60,000 -4.00% 13
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 (1.50%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (1.50%) Adobe After Effects
1 2 (1.50%) Adobe Captivate
1 2 (1.50%) Adobe Creative Suite
1 2 (1.50%) Adobe Illustrator
1 2 (1.50%) Adobe Premiere
1 2 (1.50%) Elementor
1 2 (1.50%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 12 (9.02%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.75%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 38 (28.57%) Azure
2 31 (23.31%) AWS
3 25 (18.80%) GCP
4 20 (15.04%) SaaS
5 13 (9.77%) Azure DevOps
6 12 (9.02%) GitHub
7 5 (3.76%) Amazon S3
7 5 (3.76%) Amazon SQS
7 5 (3.76%) AWS CloudFormation
7 5 (3.76%) AWS Lambda
7 5 (3.76%) Azure Service Bus
7 5 (3.76%) Figma
7 5 (3.76%) Serverless
8 4 (3.01%) iPaaS
9 3 (2.26%) Power Platform
10 2 (1.50%) Adobe Creative Cloud
10 2 (1.50%) AWS CodePipeline
10 2 (1.50%) GitHub Copilot
11 1 (0.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.50%) MQTT
1 2 (1.50%) TCP/IP
2 1 (0.75%) 4G
2 1 (0.75%) 5G
2 1 (0.75%) Broadband
2 1 (0.75%) DHCP
2 1 (0.75%) DNS
2 1 (0.75%) Firewall
2 1 (0.75%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (4.51%) Data Warehouse
1 6 (4.51%) MySQL
2 5 (3.76%) DynamoDB
2 5 (3.76%) NoSQL
3 4 (3.01%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (3.01%) SQL Server
4 3 (2.26%) Relational Database
5 2 (1.50%) Azure SQL Database
6 1 (0.75%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.75%) Power BI
6 1 (0.75%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 20 (15.04%) JIRA
2 12 (9.02%) Git
3 9 (6.77%) eCATT
4 5 (3.76%) git-flow
5 4 (3.01%) Selenium
5 4 (3.01%) Zephyr
6 2 (1.50%) Claude Code
6 2 (1.50%) Cucumber
6 2 (1.50%) Cypress.io
6 2 (1.50%) GitLab
6 2 (1.50%) Jenkins
6 2 (1.50%) Polyspace
6 2 (1.50%) Postman
6 2 (1.50%) SoapUI
6 2 (1.50%) VectorCAST
6 2 (1.50%) WebDriver
7 1 (0.75%) NUnit
General
1 37 (27.82%) Social Skills
2 17 (12.78%) Manufacturing
2 17 (12.78%) Marketing
3 16 (12.03%) Finance
4 9 (6.77%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (6.77%) Influencing Skills
4 9 (6.77%) Presentation Skills
5 6 (4.51%) Public Sector
6 4 (3.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 4 (3.01%) Law
7 3 (2.26%) Pharmaceutical
7 3 (2.26%) Telecoms
8 2 (1.50%) Aerospace
8 2 (1.50%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (1.50%) Games
8 2 (1.50%) Health Technology
8 2 (1.50%) Multimedia
8 2 (1.50%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (1.50%) Tech for Good
9 1 (0.75%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 21 (15.79%) Software Engineer
2 17 (12.78%) Analyst
3 14 (10.53%) Lead
3 14 (10.53%) QA Engineer
3 14 (10.53%) Senior
4 12 (9.02%) QA Manager
5 11 (8.27%) Head of Engineering
6 9 (6.77%) Developer
7 8 (6.02%) Architect
7 8 (6.02%) Quality Manager
7 8 (6.02%) Senior Developer
8 7 (5.26%) Support Analyst
9 6 (4.51%) Full-Stack Developer
9 6 (4.51%) QA Leader
9 6 (4.51%) Test Engineer
10 5 (3.76%) Full-Stack Engineer
10 5 (3.76%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
10 5 (3.76%) Python Engineer
10 5 (3.76%) Senior Full-Stack Developer
10 5 (3.76%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (10.53%) .NET
2 13 (9.77%) React
3 12 (9.02%) REST
4 8 (6.02%) SOAP
5 6 (4.51%) CSS
5 6 (4.51%) HTML
5 6 (4.51%) Middleware
6 5 (3.76%) AWS CDK
6 5 (3.76%) Django
6 5 (3.76%) Kafka
6 5 (3.76%) Material-UI
6 5 (3.76%) Playwright
6 5 (3.76%) RabbitMQ
6 5 (3.76%) Twisted
6 5 (3.76%) Web Services
6 5 (3.76%) WebSockets
7 4 (3.01%) JSON
7 4 (3.01%) pytest
7 4 (3.01%) XML
8 3 (2.26%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 15 (11.28%) Product Ownership
2 14 (10.53%) Distributed Systems
3 12 (9.02%) Self-Motivation
4 11 (8.27%) Cloud Native
5 9 (6.77%) Client/Server
6 5 (3.76%) Life Science
6 5 (3.76%) Video Conferencing
7 4 (3.01%) Enterprise Software
8 3 (2.26%) Low-Code
8 3 (2.26%) Renewable Energy
8 3 (2.26%) Virtual Team
9 2 (1.50%) Embedded Systems
9 2 (1.50%) Graphic Design
9 2 (1.50%) Learning Management System
9 2 (1.50%) LIMS
9 2 (1.50%) N-Tier
9 2 (1.50%) Operational Technology
9 2 (1.50%) Robotics
9 2 (1.50%) Team-Oriented Environment
9 2 (1.50%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 16 (12.03%) Linux
2 4 (3.01%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 38 (28.57%) Continuous Improvement
2 36 (27.07%) Problem-Solving
3 33 (24.81%) Agile
4 30 (22.56%) Software Engineering
5 27 (20.30%) Test Automation
6 24 (18.05%) Computer Science
7 17 (12.78%) CI/CD
8 16 (12.03%) Code Quality
8 16 (12.03%) DevOps
9 15 (11.28%) Test Management
10 14 (10.53%) Full-Stack Development
10 14 (10.53%) Software Testing
11 13 (9.77%) ERP
12 12 (9.02%) Defect Management
12 12 (9.02%) Source to Pay
12 12 (9.02%) Test Strategy
12 12 (9.02%) Validation
13 11 (8.27%) Migration
13 11 (8.27%) System Testing
13 11 (8.27%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 30 (22.56%) Python
2 20 (15.04%) SQL
3 15 (11.28%) C#
3 15 (11.28%) TypeScript
4 12 (9.02%) Java
5 11 (8.27%) C
5 11 (8.27%) C++
6 10 (7.52%) JavaScript
7 9 (6.77%) Rust
8 3 (2.26%) Bash
8 3 (2.26%) Go
9 2 (1.50%) PHP
10 1 (0.75%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 33 (24.81%) Degree
2 22 (16.54%) Computer Science Degree
3 6 (4.51%) DBS Check
4 5 (3.76%) Security Cleared
5 4 (3.01%) ISTQB
5 4 (3.01%) Master's Degree
6 3 (2.26%) SC Cleared
7 2 (1.50%) AWS Certification
7 2 (1.50%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 2 (1.50%) Azure Certification
7 2 (1.50%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (1.50%) PhD
7 2 (1.50%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (3.76%) Accessibility
2 2 (1.50%) 21 CFR Part 11
2 2 (1.50%) Def Stans
2 2 (1.50%) GxP
2 2 (1.50%) IEC 61508
2 2 (1.50%) ISO 26262
3 1 (0.75%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.75%) GDPR
3 1 (0.75%) SLA
3 1 (0.75%) SOC 2
System Software
1 10 (7.52%) Hyper-V
1 10 (7.52%) VMware Infrastructure
2 9 (6.77%) KVM
3 7 (5.26%) Docker
4 5 (3.76%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.75%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 9 (6.77%) HP ALM
2 3 (2.26%) Terraform
3 2 (1.50%) Netcool
3 2 (1.50%) Netcool/OMNIbus
4 1 (0.75%) Ansible
4 1 (0.75%) Functional Safety
4 1 (0.75%) Grafana
4 1 (0.75%) Kubernetes
4 1 (0.75%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 12 (9.02%) SAP
2 10 (7.52%) VMware
3 9 (6.77%) HP
4 4 (3.01%) Microsoft
5 3 (2.26%) ServiceNow
6 2 (1.50%) Adobe
6 2 (1.50%) Agilent
6 2 (1.50%) Blue Prism
6 2 (1.50%) Google
6 2 (1.50%) IBM
6 2 (1.50%) Oracle
6 2 (1.50%) Pega
6 2 (1.50%) UiPath
7 1 (0.75%) Foundry
7 1 (0.75%) Palantir
7 1 (0.75%) Salesforce