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

6 months to
24 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 63 66 56
Rank change year-on-year +3 -10 -35
Permanent jobs citing QA 123 114 232
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 2.76% 3.70% 4.24%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 25.36% 28.57% 28.12%
Number of salaries quoted 65 38 116
10th Percentile £27,750 £32,750 £31,125
25th Percentile £43,125 £49,063 £37,875
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £60,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +20.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £71,250 £65,000 £62,813
90th Percentile £95,000 £77,500 £80,000
South East median annual salary £54,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +9.00% - -13.04%

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 485 399 825
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 10.89% 12.95% 15.06%
Number of salaries quoted 255 202 503
10th Percentile £28,200 £35,275 £27,150
25th Percentile £39,140 £51,250 £34,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £65,000 £50,500
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% +28.71% +1.00%
75th Percentile £70,000 £83,750 £67,500
90th Percentile £93,250 £90,000 £83,000
South East median annual salary £52,500 £55,000 £48,500
% change year-on-year -4.55% +13.40% -7.62%

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 February 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 February 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 +11 66 £57,500 +12.20% 24
Buckinghamshire -7 39 £59,250 +3.04% 10
Oxfordshire +9 18 £50,000 -20.00% 8
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 (1.63%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (2.44%) Photoshop
2 2 (1.63%) Adobe After Effects
2 2 (1.63%) Adobe Captivate
2 2 (1.63%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 2 (1.63%) Adobe Illustrator
2 2 (1.63%) Adobe Premiere
2 2 (1.63%) Elementor
Business Applications
1 25 (20.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (1.63%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.81%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 28 (22.76%) Azure
2 24 (19.51%) Azure DevOps
3 20 (16.26%) AWS
4 18 (14.63%) GCP
5 16 (13.01%) SaaS
6 8 (6.50%) GitHub
7 5 (4.07%) Amazon S3
7 5 (4.07%) Amazon SQS
7 5 (4.07%) AWS CloudFormation
7 5 (4.07%) AWS Lambda
7 5 (4.07%) Azure Service Bus
7 5 (4.07%) Serverless
8 4 (3.25%) iPaaS
8 4 (3.25%) Power Platform
9 2 (1.63%) Adobe Creative Cloud
9 2 (1.63%) GitHub Copilot
10 1 (0.81%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.44%) MQTT
1 3 (2.44%) TCP/IP
2 1 (0.81%) 4G
2 1 (0.81%) 5G
2 1 (0.81%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (4.88%) Data Warehouse
1 6 (4.88%) MySQL
2 5 (4.07%) DynamoDB
2 5 (4.07%) NoSQL
3 4 (3.25%) SQL Server
4 3 (2.44%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (2.44%) Relational Database
5 2 (1.63%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (1.63%) Power BI
6 1 (0.81%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 26 (21.14%) JIRA
2 22 (17.89%) eCATT
3 8 (6.50%) Selenium
4 5 (4.07%) Git
4 5 (4.07%) git-flow
5 3 (2.44%) Cypress.io
5 3 (2.44%) Postman
5 3 (2.44%) WebDriver
6 2 (1.63%) Claude Code
6 2 (1.63%) Cucumber
6 2 (1.63%) GitLab
6 2 (1.63%) NUnit
6 2 (1.63%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.81%) Zephyr
General
1 34 (27.64%) Social Skills
2 31 (25.20%) Marketing
3 30 (24.39%) Finance
4 29 (23.58%) Manufacturing
5 20 (16.26%) Presentation Skills
6 19 (15.45%) Influencing Skills
7 11 (8.94%) Analytical Skills
8 7 (5.69%) Public Sector
9 5 (4.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 5 (4.07%) Law
10 4 (3.25%) Documentation Skills
10 4 (3.25%) Pharmaceutical
10 4 (3.25%) Telecoms
11 2 (1.63%) Health Technology
11 2 (1.63%) Multimedia
11 2 (1.63%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (1.63%) Tech for Good
12 1 (0.81%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.81%) Automotive
12 1 (0.81%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 23 (18.70%) Analyst
2 19 (15.45%) Senior
3 14 (11.38%) Lead
3 14 (11.38%) Software Engineer
4 11 (8.94%) Head of Engineering
5 10 (8.13%) Developer
6 9 (7.32%) QA Engineer
7 8 (6.50%) Architect
7 8 (6.50%) Senior Developer
8 6 (4.88%) Full-Stack Developer
8 6 (4.88%) QA Manager
8 6 (4.88%) Support Specialist
9 5 (4.07%) Senior Full-Stack Developer
10 4 (3.25%) Applications Architect
10 4 (3.25%) Applications Support
10 4 (3.25%) Integration Architect
10 4 (3.25%) Solutions Architect
10 4 (3.25%) Team Leader
11 3 (2.44%) Compliance Manager
11 3 (2.44%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (12.20%) .NET
2 10 (8.13%) React
3 9 (7.32%) SOAP
4 8 (6.50%) REST
5 7 (5.69%) Middleware
6 6 (4.88%) CSS
6 6 (4.88%) HTML
7 5 (4.07%) AWS CDK
7 5 (4.07%) Kafka
7 5 (4.07%) Material-UI
7 5 (4.07%) RabbitMQ
8 4 (3.25%) JSON
8 4 (3.25%) Playwright
8 4 (3.25%) XML
9 3 (2.44%) .NET Framework
9 3 (2.44%) ASP.NET
9 3 (2.44%) RESTful
10 2 (1.63%) Blazor
10 2 (1.63%) Bootstrap
10 2 (1.63%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 11 (8.94%) Cloud Native
1 11 (8.94%) Self-Motivation
2 10 (8.13%) Distributed Systems
3 7 (5.69%) Product Ownership
4 6 (4.88%) Client/Server
5 5 (4.07%) Life Science
6 4 (3.25%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (2.44%) LIMS
7 3 (2.44%) Operational Technology
7 3 (2.44%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 2 (1.63%) e-Learning
8 2 (1.63%) Graphic Design
8 2 (1.63%) Learning Management System
8 2 (1.63%) Low-Code
8 2 (1.63%) N-Tier
8 2 (1.63%) Renewable Energy
8 2 (1.63%) Virtual Team
9 1 (0.81%) Robotics
9 1 (0.81%) Video Conferencing
9 1 (0.81%) Video Editing
Operating Systems
1 9 (7.32%) Linux
2 2 (1.63%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (31.71%) Continuous Improvement
2 36 (29.27%) Problem-Solving
3 33 (26.83%) Agile
4 27 (21.95%) Test Management
5 25 (20.33%) Source to Pay
6 23 (18.70%) Defect Management
6 23 (18.70%) ERP
7 22 (17.89%) Risk Management
7 22 (17.89%) Visualisation
8 21 (17.07%) Computer Science
9 20 (16.26%) Software Engineering
10 17 (13.82%) Test Automation
11 16 (13.01%) CI/CD
12 14 (11.38%) Roadmaps
13 11 (8.94%) DevOps
13 11 (8.94%) Migration
13 11 (8.94%) Test Strategy
14 10 (8.13%) Data Modelling
14 10 (8.13%) TDD
14 10 (8.13%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 19 (15.45%) Python
2 18 (14.63%) SQL
3 16 (13.01%) C#
4 15 (12.20%) Java
5 11 (8.94%) TypeScript
6 8 (6.50%) C
6 8 (6.50%) C++
7 6 (4.88%) JavaScript
7 6 (4.88%) Rust
8 2 (1.63%) Go
8 2 (1.63%) PHP
Qualifications
1 26 (21.14%) Degree
2 17 (13.82%) Computer Science Degree
3 8 (6.50%) Security Cleared
4 5 (4.07%) SC Cleared
5 4 (3.25%) Master's Degree
6 2 (1.63%) AWS Certification
6 2 (1.63%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 2 (1.63%) Azure Certification
6 2 (1.63%) DBS Check
6 2 (1.63%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (1.63%) TOGAF Certification
7 1 (0.81%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.81%) ISTQB
7 1 (0.81%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (6.50%) Accessibility
2 3 (2.44%) 21 CFR Part 11
2 3 (2.44%) GDPR
2 3 (2.44%) GxP
3 1 (0.81%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.81%) SLA
System Software
1 6 (4.88%) Hyper-V
1 6 (4.88%) KVM
1 6 (4.88%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (1.63%) Docker
3 1 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 22 (17.89%) HP ALM
2 2 (1.63%) Netcool
2 2 (1.63%) Netcool/OMNIbus
3 1 (0.81%) Terraform
Vendors
1 25 (20.33%) SAP
2 22 (17.89%) HP
3 6 (4.88%) Microsoft
3 6 (4.88%) VMware
4 3 (2.44%) Agilent
5 2 (1.63%) Adobe
5 2 (1.63%) Blue Prism
5 2 (1.63%) Google
5 2 (1.63%) IBM
5 2 (1.63%) Oracle
5 2 (1.63%) Pega
5 2 (1.63%) UiPath
6 1 (0.81%) Cognos
6 1 (0.81%) Foundry
6 1 (0.81%) Palantir
6 1 (0.81%) Salesforce
6 1 (0.81%) ServiceNow