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

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 61 97 44
Rank change year-on-year +36 -53 -19
Permanent jobs citing QA 132 87 196
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 3.27% 2.57% 4.95%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.66% 21.53% 31.11%
Number of salaries quoted 56 44 83
10th Percentile £27,000 £32,750 £31,250
25th Percentile £39,625 £43,875 £40,875
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -
75th Percentile £64,063 £65,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £79,250 £80,000
South East median annual salary £45,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -10.00% - -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 558 404 630
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 13.84% 11.94% 15.92%
Number of salaries quoted 240 221 368
10th Percentile £27,975 £33,125 £30,000
25th Percentile £39,280 £50,000 £41,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £62,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +8.70% +9.52%
75th Percentile £67,500 £83,750 £67,813
90th Percentile £85,000 £88,750 £85,000
South East median annual salary £52,500 £59,136 £52,397
% change year-on-year -11.22% +12.86% -0.30%

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 14 January 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 14 January 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
Buckinghamshire +47 60 £58,500 +6.36% 23
Berkshire +2 60 £55,250 +7.80% 62
Oxfordshire +12 12 £42,500 -32.00% 34
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 3 (2.27%) WinCC
2 2 (1.52%) FactoryTalk
2 2 (1.52%) WordPress
3 1 (0.76%) ArchestrA
3 1 (0.76%) Confluence
Applications
1 3 (2.27%) Photoshop
2 2 (1.52%) Adobe After Effects
2 2 (1.52%) Adobe Captivate
2 2 (1.52%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 2 (1.52%) Adobe Illustrator
2 2 (1.52%) Adobe Premiere
2 2 (1.52%) Elementor
Business Applications
1 25 (18.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (1.52%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.76%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 23 (17.42%) Azure DevOps
2 17 (12.88%) Azure
3 12 (9.09%) SaaS
4 11 (8.33%) AWS
5 10 (7.58%) GCP
6 7 (5.30%) GitHub
7 5 (3.79%) Amazon S3
7 5 (3.79%) Amazon SQS
7 5 (3.79%) AWS CloudFormation
7 5 (3.79%) AWS Lambda
7 5 (3.79%) Azure Service Bus
7 5 (3.79%) Serverless
8 4 (3.03%) Power Platform
9 3 (2.27%) iPaaS
10 2 (1.52%) Adobe Creative Cloud
10 2 (1.52%) GitHub Copilot
11 1 (0.76%) Figma
11 1 (0.76%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.27%) Firewall
1 3 (2.27%) Modbus
1 3 (2.27%) MQTT
1 3 (2.27%) TCP/IP
2 1 (0.76%) 4G
2 1 (0.76%) 5G
2 1 (0.76%) Profibus
2 1 (0.76%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (4.55%) Data Warehouse
1 6 (4.55%) MySQL
2 5 (3.79%) DynamoDB
2 5 (3.79%) NoSQL
3 4 (3.03%) Relational Database
4 3 (2.27%) Power BI
5 2 (1.52%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (1.52%) SQL Server
6 1 (0.76%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.76%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 47 (35.61%) JIRA
2 26 (19.70%) Git
3 22 (16.67%) eCATT
3 22 (16.67%) Jenkins
4 10 (7.58%) Selenium
5 5 (3.79%) git-flow
6 4 (3.03%) Cypress.io
6 4 (3.03%) Postman
6 4 (3.03%) WebDriver
7 3 (2.27%) Cucumber
7 3 (2.27%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.76%) NUnit
General
1 52 (39.39%) Social Skills
2 31 (23.48%) Finance
3 29 (21.97%) Marketing
4 27 (20.45%) Manufacturing
5 24 (18.18%) Organisational Skills
6 20 (15.15%) Presentation Skills
7 19 (14.39%) Influencing Skills
8 10 (7.58%) Analytical Skills
9 8 (6.06%) Public Sector
10 6 (4.55%) Law
11 5 (3.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 4 (3.03%) Pharmaceutical
13 3 (2.27%) Documentation Skills
13 3 (2.27%) Telecoms
14 2 (1.52%) Multimedia
15 1 (0.76%) Aerospace
15 1 (0.76%) Automotive
15 1 (0.76%) Electronics
15 1 (0.76%) Financial Institution
15 1 (0.76%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 33 (25.00%) Lead
2 23 (17.42%) Analyst
3 21 (15.91%) Senior
4 11 (8.33%) Developer
5 9 (6.82%) Head of Engineering
5 9 (6.82%) Senior Developer
6 8 (6.06%) Applications Support
6 8 (6.06%) Software Engineer
7 6 (4.55%) Applications Engineer
7 6 (4.55%) Full-Stack Developer
7 6 (4.55%) QA Engineer
7 6 (4.55%) Support Engineer
7 6 (4.55%) Support Specialist
8 5 (3.79%) Applications Support Engineer
8 5 (3.79%) Architect
8 5 (3.79%) Senior Full-Stack Developer
9 4 (3.03%) QA Automation Engineer
9 4 (3.03%) Quality Engineer
10 3 (2.27%) Supplier Manager
10 3 (2.27%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (8.33%) .NET
2 9 (6.82%) React
2 9 (6.82%) SOAP
3 6 (4.55%) CSS
3 6 (4.55%) HTML
3 6 (4.55%) Middleware
3 6 (4.55%) REST
4 5 (3.79%) AWS CDK
4 5 (3.79%) Kafka
4 5 (3.79%) Material-UI
4 5 (3.79%) RabbitMQ
5 4 (3.03%) Playwright
6 3 (2.27%) ASP.NET
6 3 (2.27%) JSON
6 3 (2.27%) pytest
6 3 (2.27%) XML
7 2 (1.52%) .NET Framework
7 2 (1.52%) Bootstrap
7 2 (1.52%) RESTful
8 1 (0.76%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 10 (7.58%) Self-Motivation
2 9 (6.82%) Cloud Native
3 6 (4.55%) Operational Technology
4 5 (3.79%) Distributed Systems
4 5 (3.79%) Product Ownership
5 4 (3.03%) Driving Licence
5 4 (3.03%) Team-Oriented Environment
6 3 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
6 3 (2.27%) Life Science
6 3 (2.27%) LIMS
6 3 (2.27%) SCADA
7 2 (1.52%) Client/Server
7 2 (1.52%) e-Learning
7 2 (1.52%) Graphic Design
7 2 (1.52%) Learning Management System
7 2 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (1.52%) N-Tier
7 2 (1.52%) Renewable Energy
8 1 (0.76%) GNSS
8 1 (0.76%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 5 (3.79%) Windows
2 3 (2.27%) Linux
2 3 (2.27%) Windows Server
3 2 (1.52%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.76%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (40.91%) Continuous Improvement
2 32 (24.24%) Agile
3 29 (21.97%) Problem-Solving
4 27 (20.45%) Test Management
5 26 (19.70%) Change Management
6 25 (18.94%) Source to Pay
6 25 (18.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 24 (18.18%) Process Improvement
7 24 (18.18%) Technical Leadership
8 22 (16.67%) Change Control
8 22 (16.67%) Configuration Management
8 22 (16.67%) Customer Requirements
8 22 (16.67%) Data-Driven Decision Making
8 22 (16.67%) Defect Management
8 22 (16.67%) ERP
8 22 (16.67%) Programme Management
8 22 (16.67%) Risk Management
8 22 (16.67%) Strategic Thinking
8 22 (16.67%) Visualisation
9 17 (12.88%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 18 (13.64%) SQL
2 13 (9.85%) C#
2 13 (9.85%) Java
2 13 (9.85%) Python
3 9 (6.82%) TypeScript
4 4 (3.03%) C
4 4 (3.03%) JavaScript
5 3 (2.27%) C++
5 3 (2.27%) Go
5 3 (2.27%) PHP
6 2 (1.52%) Rust
7 1 (0.76%) Ladder Logic
Qualifications
1 41 (31.06%) Degree
2 31 (23.48%) Security Cleared
3 12 (9.09%) Computer Science Degree
4 6 (4.55%) SC Cleared
5 3 (2.27%) Master's Degree
6 2 (1.52%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.76%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.76%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.76%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.76%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.76%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (16.67%) Def Stans
2 10 (7.58%) Accessibility
3 6 (4.55%) SLA
4 3 (2.27%) 21 CFR Part 11
4 3 (2.27%) GDPR
4 3 (2.27%) GxP
4 3 (2.27%) IEC 61508
5 2 (1.52%) IEC 61131
6 1 (0.76%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.76%) WCAG
System Software
1 5 (3.79%) Hyper-V
1 5 (3.79%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (1.52%) KVM
3 1 (0.76%) Docker
Systems Management
1 22 (16.67%) HP ALM
2 1 (0.76%) Netcool
2 1 (0.76%) Netcool/OMNIbus
Vendors
1 25 (18.94%) SAP
2 22 (16.67%) HP
3 5 (3.79%) VMware
4 4 (3.03%) Microsoft
5 3 (2.27%) Agilent
5 3 (2.27%) Rockwell
5 3 (2.27%) Siemens
6 2 (1.52%) Adobe
6 2 (1.52%) Cognos
7 1 (0.76%) Blue Prism
7 1 (0.76%) Foundry
7 1 (0.76%) IBM
7 1 (0.76%) Palantir
7 1 (0.76%) Pega
7 1 (0.76%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.76%) UiPath