QA Tester Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Quality Assurance Tester
UK > UK excluding London

The median Quality Assurance Tester salary in the UK excluding London is £60,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 9 January 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 515 561 531
Rank change year-on-year +46 -30 +151
Permanent jobs requiring a QA Tester 1 12 30
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.002% 0.033% 0.089%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.003% 0.036% 0.094%
Number of salaries quoted 1 12 29
10th Percentile - £32,000 £24,750
25th Percentile £57,500 £38,741 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £42,137 £40,000
Median % change year-on-year +42.39% +5.34% -11.11%
75th Percentile £62,500 £48,750 £47,500
90th Percentile - - £65,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £46,250 £40,000
% change year-on-year +18.92% +15.63% -11.11%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK excluding London with a recognized job title 38,285 33,619 31,967
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.45% 92.95% 95.35%
Number of salaries quoted 23,298 16,416 24,168
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £37,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £78,750
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -4.17%

QA Tester
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'QA Tester' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

QA Tester job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

QA Tester
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for QA Tester job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Salary distribution trend for QA Tester job vacancies in the UK excluding London

QA Tester
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing QA Tester within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 9 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
Midlands +26 1 £60,000 +87.50%
East Midlands -6 1 £60,000 +87.50%
QA Tester
UK

QA Tester Skill Set
Top 23 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 9 January 2026, QA Tester job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring QA Tester in the job title.

1 1 (100.00%) .NET
1 1 (100.00%) Agile
1 1 (100.00%) Agile Testing
1 1 (100.00%) Analytical Thinking
1 1 (100.00%) AngularJS
1 1 (100.00%) AWS
1 1 (100.00%) Azure
1 1 (100.00%) C#
1 1 (100.00%) CI/CD
1 1 (100.00%) Continuous Improvement
1 1 (100.00%) DevOps
1 1 (100.00%) JavaScript
1 1 (100.00%) Manual Testing
1 1 (100.00%) Microservices
1 1 (100.00%) Non-Functional Testing
1 1 (100.00%) Playwright
1 1 (100.00%) Postman
1 1 (100.00%) QA
1 1 (100.00%) React
1 1 (100.00%) Selenium
1 1 (100.00%) Software Testing
1 1 (100.00%) Strategic Thinking
1 1 (100.00%) Test Automation

QA Tester Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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:

Cloud Services
1 1 (100.00%) AWS
1 1 (100.00%) Azure
Development Applications
1 1 (100.00%) Postman
1 1 (100.00%) Selenium
General
1 1 (100.00%) Analytical Skills
1 1 (100.00%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (100.00%) .NET
1 1 (100.00%) AngularJS
1 1 (100.00%) Playwright
1 1 (100.00%) React
Processes & Methodologies
1 1 (100.00%) Agile
1 1 (100.00%) Agile Testing
1 1 (100.00%) Analytical Thinking
1 1 (100.00%) CI/CD
1 1 (100.00%) Continuous Improvement
1 1 (100.00%) DevOps
1 1 (100.00%) Manual Testing
1 1 (100.00%) Microservices
1 1 (100.00%) Non-Functional Testing
1 1 (100.00%) Software Testing
1 1 (100.00%) Strategic Thinking
1 1 (100.00%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 1 (100.00%) C#
1 1 (100.00%) JavaScript
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (100.00%) QA