Quality Assurance (QA)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring QA skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 60 67
Rank change year-on-year -11 +7 -45
Permanent jobs citing QA 2,398 1,921 3,569
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.65% 4.38% 3.69%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 25.77% 26.33% 26.80%
Number of salaries quoted 1,330 982 2,360
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £45,000 £39,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%
75th Percentile £73,750 £72,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £88,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year -5.66% +11.58% -9.52%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

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.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 9,306 7,297 13,315
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 10.29% 16.62% 13.78%
Number of salaries quoted 5,601 4,001 9,202
10th Percentile £31,250 £30,000 £27,000
25th Percentile £43,000 £42,500 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +9.52% -8.70%
75th Percentile £78,750 £76,250 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £53,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year -0.94% +11.58% -5.00%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing QA relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

QA job vacancy trend in the UK

QA
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing QA.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing QA

QA
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing QA over the 6 months to 11 May 2026.

Salary histogram for QA in the UK

QA
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing QA within the UK over the 6 months to 11 May 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
England -12 2,039 £55,000 -4.35% 747
UK excluding London -8 1,668 £50,000 -5.66% 590
Work from Home -11 654 £62,890 +9.37% 330
London -12 525 £70,000 +7.69% 242
North of England -15 415 £45,000 -18.18% 144
Midlands -6 358 £45,000 -16.18% 103
South East +11 357 £55,000 +10.00% 189
North West -2 231 £45,000 -14.29% 87
West Midlands +19 226 £47,500 -11.53% 58
East of England +3 174 £50,000 +2.04% 63
South West +4 166 £50,000 -13.04% 54
East Midlands -10 132 £41,250 -24.16% 45
Yorkshire 0 119 £40,000 -21.18% 41
Scotland -3 88 £36,000 -31.43% 37
Northern Ireland +10 78 £77,500 -6.40% 8
North East -42 65 £45,000 -18.18% 17
Wales -7 47 £65,000 +18.18% 12

QA
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 31 (1.29%) Confluence
2 27 (1.13%) SharePoint
3 20 (0.83%) ArcGIS
3 20 (0.83%) CMS
4 13 (0.54%) WordPress
5 9 (0.38%) nginx
6 8 (0.33%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
8 5 (0.21%) IIS
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 4 (0.17%) Tomcat
10 3 (0.13%) Apache
10 3 (0.13%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.13%) WebSphere
10 3 (0.13%) WebSphere Application Server
11 2 (0.083%) BizTalk Server
11 2 (0.083%) Palantir Foundry
11 2 (0.083%) SAS
12 1 (0.042%) JBoss
12 1 (0.042%) OpenStack
Applications
1 89 (3.71%) Microsoft Excel
1 89 (3.71%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (1.42%) AutoCAD
3 29 (1.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 19 (0.79%) Spreadsheet
5 12 (0.50%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.29%) Photoshop
7 6 (0.25%) Adobe Illustrator
8 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
9 2 (0.083%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 2 (0.083%) Trello
9 2 (0.083%) Windchill
10 1 (0.042%) InDesign
10 1 (0.042%) Simulink
10 1 (0.042%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 13 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (0.38%) SAP ERP
2 9 (0.38%) Shopify
3 7 (0.29%) SAP S/4HANA
4 5 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
4 5 (0.21%) SAP PM
5 4 (0.17%) Academy Housing
5 4 (0.17%) Loan IQ
6 3 (0.13%) Elite 3E
6 3 (0.13%) Integrated Workplace Management System
6 3 (0.13%) SAP CX
7 2 (0.083%) Aladdin
7 2 (0.083%) Infor SunSystems
7 2 (0.083%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.083%) Oracle Applications
7 2 (0.083%) ResourceLink
7 2 (0.083%) Salesforce CRM
8 1 (0.042%) Misys Equation
8 1 (0.042%) Misys Midas
8 1 (0.042%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 353 (14.72%) Azure
2 301 (12.55%) AWS
3 119 (4.96%) Azure DevOps
4 104 (4.34%) Power Platform
5 95 (3.96%) Microsoft 365
5 95 (3.96%) SaaS
6 76 (3.17%) GitHub
7 75 (3.13%) GCP
8 55 (2.29%) Serverless
9 41 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
10 36 (1.50%) Power Automate
11 35 (1.46%) AWS Lambda
12 28 (1.17%) Amazon S3
12 28 (1.17%) Entra ID
13 27 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
14 25 (1.04%) PowerApps
15 23 (0.96%) PaaS
16 19 (0.79%) Azure Logic Apps
17 17 (0.71%) Amazon ECS
17 17 (0.71%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 34 (1.42%) TETRA
2 29 (1.21%) Broadband
3 17 (0.71%) Multicast
4 14 (0.58%) VLAN
5 13 (0.54%) DNS
6 10 (0.42%) DHCP
7 9 (0.38%) WAN
8 8 (0.33%) HTTP
8 8 (0.33%) SD-WAN
9 7 (0.29%) VPN
10 6 (0.25%) Firewall
10 6 (0.25%) MQTT
10 6 (0.25%) TCP/IP
10 6 (0.25%) Wi-Fi
11 5 (0.21%) VoIP
12 4 (0.17%) NAS
13 3 (0.13%) LTE
13 3 (0.13%) NGN
13 3 (0.13%) Wireless
14 2 (0.083%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (2.54%) Power BI
2 55 (2.29%) SQL Server
3 33 (1.38%) MySQL
4 30 (1.25%) Relational Database
5 26 (1.08%) PostgreSQL
6 21 (0.88%) MongoDB
7 20 (0.83%) GIS
7 20 (0.83%) QGIS
7 20 (0.83%) Spatial Data
8 17 (0.71%) NoSQL
9 16 (0.67%) Tableau
10 15 (0.63%) DynamoDB
11 13 (0.54%) Metadata
12 11 (0.46%) Elasticsearch
13 10 (0.42%) Data Warehouse
14 9 (0.38%) BigQuery
15 7 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
15 7 (0.29%) Oracle Database
15 7 (0.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 6 (0.25%) Redis
Development Applications
1 149 (6.21%) Git
2 143 (5.96%) JIRA
3 102 (4.25%) Selenium
4 75 (3.13%) Cypress.io
5 61 (2.54%) GitLab
6 53 (2.21%) Postman
7 48 (2.00%) Jenkins
8 33 (1.38%) Cucumber
9 32 (1.33%) JMeter
10 22 (0.92%) REST Assured
11 18 (0.75%) SpecFlow
12 17 (0.71%) JUnit
13 16 (0.67%) SonarQube
13 16 (0.67%) TestRail
14 14 (0.58%) SoapUI
14 14 (0.58%) Zephyr
15 13 (0.54%) Appium
16 12 (0.50%) Subversion
17 10 (0.42%) LoadRunner
17 10 (0.42%) Maven
General
1 782 (32.61%) Social Skills
2 432 (18.02%) Finance
3 285 (11.88%) Analytical Skills
4 249 (10.38%) Manufacturing
5 140 (5.84%) Banking
6 120 (5.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 96 (4.00%) Retail
8 86 (3.59%) Law
9 82 (3.42%) Public Sector
10 80 (3.34%) Influencing Skills
11 73 (3.04%) Organisational Skills
12 68 (2.84%) Marketing
13 62 (2.59%) Pharmaceutical
14 59 (2.46%) French Language
14 59 (2.46%) Legal
15 39 (1.63%) Local Government
16 37 (1.54%) Documentation Skills
17 32 (1.33%) Aerospace
17 32 (1.33%) Games
18 24 (1.00%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 264 (11.01%) Senior
2 254 (10.59%) QA Manager
3 249 (10.38%) Lead
4 230 (9.59%) Analyst
5 225 (9.38%) QA Engineer
6 183 (7.63%) Quality Manager
7 120 (5.00%) Developer
8 104 (4.34%) Quality Engineer
9 88 (3.67%) Software Engineer
10 83 (3.46%) Head of QA
11 81 (3.38%) Tester
12 77 (3.21%) QA Leader
13 71 (2.96%) QA Officer
14 67 (2.79%) Consultant
14 67 (2.79%) Test Engineer
15 61 (2.54%) Service Analyst
16 60 (2.50%) QA Analyst
17 59 (2.46%) Service Desk Analyst
18 57 (2.38%) QA Specialist
19 51 (2.13%) QA Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 119 (4.96%) .NET
2 105 (4.38%) Playwright
3 93 (3.88%) REST
4 84 (3.50%) React
5 59 (2.46%) RESTful
6 44 (1.83%) HTML
7 41 (1.71%) CSS
8 35 (1.46%) SOAP
9 33 (1.38%) JSON
9 33 (1.38%) XML
10 27 (1.13%) .NET Framework
11 25 (1.04%) Node.js
11 25 (1.04%) pytest
12 24 (1.00%) Web Services
13 23 (0.96%) Middleware
14 20 (0.83%) .NET Core
14 20 (0.83%) AngularJS
14 20 (0.83%) PyTorch
15 19 (0.79%) RabbitMQ
15 19 (0.79%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 147 (6.13%) Product Ownership
2 100 (4.17%) Analytical Mindset
3 59 (2.46%) Onboarding
4 55 (2.29%) Cloud Native
4 55 (2.29%) Self-Motivation
5 50 (2.09%) Management Information System
6 48 (2.00%) Distributed Systems
7 42 (1.75%) Algorithms
8 41 (1.71%) Security Posture
9 28 (1.17%) Enterprise Software
10 27 (1.13%) Virtual Team
11 26 (1.08%) Low-Code
12 25 (1.04%) Mobile App
13 19 (0.79%) Equities
13 19 (0.79%) Life Science
14 18 (0.75%) Data Structures
14 18 (0.75%) Derivative
15 17 (0.71%) Fixed Income
16 15 (0.63%) Client/Server
16 15 (0.63%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 88 (3.67%) Linux
2 53 (2.21%) Windows
3 29 (1.21%) Android
4 28 (1.17%) Apple iOS
5 11 (0.46%) Unix
6 9 (0.38%) CentOS
7 7 (0.29%) Windows Server
8 5 (0.21%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.17%) Kali Linux
10 3 (0.13%) VME
11 2 (0.083%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.083%) Rocky
12 1 (0.042%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 1 (0.042%) VMS
12 1 (0.042%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.042%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.042%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 579 (24.15%) Continuous Improvement
2 482 (20.10%) Agile
3 397 (16.56%) Problem-Solving
4 396 (16.51%) Test Automation
5 351 (14.64%) CI/CD
6 338 (14.10%) DevOps
7 237 (9.88%) Mentoring
8 225 (9.38%) Coaching
9 191 (7.96%) Software Engineering
10 180 (7.51%) Analytics
11 179 (7.46%) AI
12 177 (7.38%) Stakeholder Management
13 168 (7.01%) Software Testing
14 165 (6.88%) Scrum
15 161 (6.71%) Test Strategy
16 155 (6.46%) Project Management
16 155 (6.46%) Quality Management
17 150 (6.26%) Validation
18 144 (6.01%) Project Delivery
19 142 (5.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 271 (11.30%) Python
2 195 (8.13%) SQL
3 162 (6.76%) Java
4 133 (5.55%) C#
5 130 (5.42%) JavaScript
6 126 (5.25%) TypeScript
7 51 (2.13%) Bash
8 43 (1.79%) C++
9 36 (1.50%) Go
10 19 (0.79%) C
11 18 (0.75%) PHP
12 17 (0.71%) PowerShell
13 14 (0.58%) Rust
14 13 (0.54%) Groovy
15 9 (0.38%) PL/SQL
15 9 (0.38%) T-SQL
16 6 (0.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 6 (0.25%) R
17 5 (0.21%) Apex Code
17 5 (0.21%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 276 (11.51%) Degree
2 109 (4.55%) Security Cleared
3 77 (3.21%) Computer Science Degree
4 72 (3.00%) IRCA
5 64 (2.67%) SC Cleared
6 62 (2.59%) AWS Certification
6 62 (2.59%) Microsoft Certification
7 59 (2.46%) MCSE
8 49 (2.04%) CISSP
9 47 (1.96%) ISTQB
10 43 (1.79%) DBS Check
11 40 (1.67%) Master's Degree
12 36 (1.50%) CISM
13 35 (1.46%) PMI Certification
14 21 (0.88%) CRISC
14 21 (0.88%) PMP
15 18 (0.75%) Cisco Certification
16 17 (0.71%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 17 (0.71%) CCSP
17 15 (0.63%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 126 (5.25%) GDPR
2 103 (4.30%) Accessibility
3 100 (4.17%) ISO 9001
4 56 (2.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 46 (1.92%) Data Quality
6 44 (1.83%) NIST
7 35 (1.46%) Cyber Essentials
7 35 (1.46%) Software Quality Assurance
8 34 (1.42%) PMO
9 28 (1.17%) GMP
10 25 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 21 (0.88%) GRC
12 18 (0.75%) NIST 800
13 17 (0.71%) WCAG
14 16 (0.67%) PCI DSS
15 14 (0.58%) SLA
16 12 (0.50%) P3O
17 10 (0.42%) GxP
18 9 (0.38%) ISO 14001
19 8 (0.33%) 21 CFR Part 11
System Software
1 112 (4.67%) Docker
2 38 (1.58%) Active Directory
3 18 (0.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (0.71%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.38%) KVM
6 6 (0.25%) Firmware
6 6 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.21%) IAG
8 1 (0.042%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.042%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.042%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 104 (4.34%) Kubernetes
2 67 (2.79%) Terraform
3 49 (2.04%) Grafana
4 36 (1.50%) Ansible
5 21 (0.88%) Prometheus
6 12 (0.50%) Argo
7 11 (0.46%) Rancher
8 9 (0.38%) Nagios
8 9 (0.38%) Puppet
8 9 (0.38%) yum
9 8 (0.33%) HP Fortify
10 7 (0.29%) Microsoft Intune
11 4 (0.17%) Packer
12 3 (0.13%) HP ALM
13 2 (0.083%) Kibana
13 2 (0.083%) logstash
13 2 (0.083%) Proxmox
13 2 (0.083%) Red Hat Satellite
14 1 (0.042%) SCCM
14 1 (0.042%) WSUS
Vendors
1 277 (11.55%) Microsoft
2 90 (3.75%) ServiceNow
3 52 (2.17%) SAP
4 35 (1.46%) Oracle
4 35 (1.46%) Salesforce
5 32 (1.33%) Google
6 18 (0.75%) VMware
7 17 (0.71%) Motorola
8 16 (0.67%) Splunk
9 14 (0.58%) Intapp
10 11 (0.46%) Aderant
11 10 (0.42%) MuleSoft
11 10 (0.42%) Red Hat
11 10 (0.42%) SolarWinds
12 9 (0.38%) IBM
12 9 (0.38%) iManage
12 9 (0.38%) Pega
13 8 (0.33%) Cisco
13 8 (0.33%) Veeam
13 8 (0.33%) Zscaler