QA Job Trends in the West Midlands

Quality Assurance (QA)
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the West Midlands requiring QA skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 67 58
Rank change year-on-year +28 -9 -28
Permanent jobs citing QA 245 118 307
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 3.06% 3.49% 3.81%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 33.29% 20.63% 26.04%
Number of salaries quoted 132 60 210
10th Percentile £30,000 £40,625 £30,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £44,269 £39,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £53,688 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -16.18% -2.39% -
75th Percentile £60,000 £59,688 £68,113
90th Percentile £70,850 £71,375 £88,750
England median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
West Midlands

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 West Midlands.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 736 572 1,179
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 9.19% 16.91% 14.62%
Number of salaries quoted 485 361 797
10th Percentile £30,848 £30,580 £27,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £53,600 £51,850 £53,500
Median % change year-on-year +3.38% -3.08% +1.90%
75th Percentile £65,000 £62,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £78,250 £75,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £57,500 £57,500 £53,750
% change year-on-year - +6.98% -6.52%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

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

QA job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

QA
Salary Trend in the West Midlands

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing QA.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing QA

QA
Salary Histogram in the West Midlands

Salary distribution for jobs citing QA in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 16 July 2026.

Salary histogram for QA in the West Midlands

QA
Job Locations in the West Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing QA within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 16 July 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
Shropshire +21 79 £45,000 -30.77% 6
Staffordshire +13 49 £57,500 +7.10% 4
Birmingham -3 43 £40,000 -27.27% 12
Warwickshire +2 21 £53,784 +0.17% 7
Herefordshire -4 16 £45,000 - 1
Coventry -14 11 £60,000 -
Dudley - 4 £35,000 - 2
Solihull +8 3 £70,000 +27.27% 2
Worcestershire - 3 £16,556 - 7
West Bromwich - 1 £45,000 - 2
Bilston - 1 £66,500 -
QA
England

QA
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands 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 7 (2.86%) Confluence
2 4 (1.63%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.82%) ArchestrA
4 1 (0.41%) CMS
4 1 (0.41%) nginx
Applications
1 15 (6.12%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (5.71%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.41%) Adobe Illustrator
3 1 (0.41%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 1 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.41%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 32 (13.06%) AWS
2 31 (12.65%) Azure
3 16 (6.53%) Azure DevOps
3 16 (6.53%) Microsoft 365
4 9 (3.67%) SaaS
5 5 (2.04%) Power Platform
6 4 (1.63%) Azure Sentinel
6 4 (1.63%) GCP
6 4 (1.63%) PaaS
7 3 (1.22%) GitHub
7 3 (1.22%) Siteimprove
7 3 (1.22%) Tricentis Tosca
8 2 (0.82%) Datadog
8 2 (0.82%) dbt
8 2 (0.82%) Entra ID
8 2 (0.82%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (0.82%) Google Analytics
8 2 (0.82%) Google Tag Manager
8 2 (0.82%) IaaS
9 1 (0.41%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.63%) SD-WAN
1 4 (1.63%) VLAN
1 4 (1.63%) WAN
2 2 (0.82%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (2.86%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.22%) Power BI
3 2 (0.82%) BigQuery
3 2 (0.82%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (0.82%) Looker
4 1 (0.41%) EDMS
4 1 (0.41%) Metadata
4 1 (0.41%) MySQL
4 1 (0.41%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.41%) Power Query
4 1 (0.41%) Star Schema
4 1 (0.41%) ZAP BI
Development Applications
1 17 (6.94%) JIRA
2 16 (6.53%) Selenium
3 11 (4.49%) Cucumber
4 10 (4.08%) GitLab
5 9 (3.67%) Git
5 9 (3.67%) Jenkins
5 9 (3.67%) JMeter
5 9 (3.67%) Postman
6 7 (2.86%) Cypress.io
7 6 (2.45%) Zephyr
8 5 (2.04%) LoadRunner
8 5 (2.04%) REST Assured
9 4 (1.63%) Burp Suite
9 4 (1.63%) Gatling
9 4 (1.63%) SoapUI
9 4 (1.63%) SonarQube
9 4 (1.63%) TestRail
10 3 (1.22%) HP UFT
10 3 (1.22%) Toad
11 2 (0.82%) JUnit
General
1 67 (27.35%) Social Skills
2 39 (15.92%) Manufacturing
3 26 (10.61%) Finance
4 18 (7.35%) Analytical Skills
5 17 (6.94%) Influencing Skills
6 15 (6.12%) Public Sector
7 12 (4.90%) Swedish Language
8 9 (3.67%) Retail
9 8 (3.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 7 (2.86%) Military
10 7 (2.86%) Pharmaceutical
11 5 (2.04%) Organisational Skills
12 4 (1.63%) Legal
13 3 (1.22%) Retail Finance
14 1 (0.41%) Automotive
14 1 (0.41%) Documentation Skills
14 1 (0.41%) Games
14 1 (0.41%) iGaming
14 1 (0.41%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 37 (15.10%) QA Specialist
2 34 (13.88%) QA Engineer
3 29 (11.84%) Lead
4 27 (11.02%) Analyst
5 24 (9.80%) Quality Engineer
6 23 (9.39%) QA Manager
6 23 (9.39%) Senior
7 15 (6.12%) Quality Manager
8 14 (5.71%) QA Leader
9 13 (5.31%) Technologist
10 12 (4.90%) Junior
10 12 (4.90%) Service Analyst
10 12 (4.90%) Service Desk Analyst
11 9 (3.67%) Programmer
11 9 (3.67%) Senior Manager
12 8 (3.27%) Developer
12 8 (3.27%) QA Analyst
12 8 (3.27%) Senior Analyst
13 7 (2.86%) Product Owner
13 7 (2.86%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (5.31%) Playwright
2 11 (4.49%) React
3 8 (3.27%) .NET
3 8 (3.27%) REST
4 6 (2.45%) AngularJS
5 4 (1.63%) .NET Framework
5 4 (1.63%) Node.js
5 4 (1.63%) React Native
6 3 (1.22%) ADO
6 3 (1.22%) Spring
6 3 (1.22%) Vue
7 2 (0.82%) Elastic Stack
7 2 (0.82%) Express.js
7 2 (0.82%) Fastify
7 2 (0.82%) Gherkin
7 2 (0.82%) JSON
7 2 (0.82%) Middleware
7 2 (0.82%) RESTful
7 2 (0.82%) SOAP
7 2 (0.82%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 11 (4.49%) Product Ownership
2 10 (4.08%) FMCG
3 8 (3.27%) Analytical Mindset
4 7 (2.86%) Enterprise Software
5 6 (2.45%) Management Information System
6 5 (2.04%) Cloud Native
7 4 (1.63%) Driving Licence
8 3 (1.22%) Credit Risk
8 3 (1.22%) SCADA
8 3 (1.22%) Self-Motivation
9 2 (0.82%) Operational Technology
9 2 (0.82%) PMI
9 2 (0.82%) Security Posture
10 1 (0.41%) Augmented Reality
10 1 (0.41%) Distributed Systems
10 1 (0.41%) N-Tier
10 1 (0.41%) Onboarding
10 1 (0.41%) Renewable Energy
10 1 (0.41%) Virtual Reality
10 1 (0.41%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 6 (2.45%) Linux
2 4 (1.63%) Kali Linux
3 2 (0.82%) Windows
4 1 (0.41%) Android
4 1 (0.41%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 62 (25.31%) Continuous Improvement
2 43 (17.55%) Agile
3 34 (13.88%) DevOps
4 28 (11.43%) Test Automation
5 25 (10.20%) Coaching
5 25 (10.20%) Problem-Solving
6 23 (9.39%) CI/CD
7 22 (8.98%) Software Testing
8 21 (8.57%) Quality Management
8 21 (8.57%) SDLC
9 19 (7.76%) AI
9 19 (7.76%) Root Cause Analysis
10 18 (7.35%) Scrum
11 17 (6.94%) Performance Metrics
12 16 (6.53%) ITSM
13 15 (6.12%) Mentoring
13 15 (6.12%) Risk Management
14 14 (5.71%) Customer Service
14 14 (5.71%) Internal Audit
14 14 (5.71%) QMS
Programming Languages
1 17 (6.94%) Java
2 10 (4.08%) C#
2 10 (4.08%) Python
2 10 (4.08%) SQL
3 7 (2.86%) JavaScript
4 3 (1.22%) TypeScript
5 2 (0.82%) Bash
5 2 (0.82%) C++
6 1 (0.41%) C
6 1 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 1 (0.41%) JCL
6 1 (0.41%) PHP
6 1 (0.41%) PowerShell
6 1 (0.41%) Scala
Qualifications
1 43 (17.55%) Degree
2 17 (6.94%) SC Cleared
2 17 (6.94%) Security Cleared
3 12 (4.90%) AWS Certification
3 12 (4.90%) MCSE
3 12 (4.90%) Microsoft Certification
4 6 (2.45%) Computer Science Degree
4 6 (2.45%) IRCA
5 4 (1.63%) HND
5 4 (1.63%) Master's Degree
6 3 (1.22%) ISTQB
7 2 (0.82%) HNC
7 2 (0.82%) ISEB
7 2 (0.82%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.41%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (5.31%) Accessibility
2 9 (3.67%) GDPR
3 6 (2.45%) ISO 9001
4 4 (1.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 3 (1.22%) Data Quality
5 3 (1.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (1.22%) NIST
5 3 (1.22%) Software Quality Assurance
6 2 (0.82%) P3O
6 2 (0.82%) WCAG
7 1 (0.41%) GMP
7 1 (0.41%) ISO 19650
7 1 (0.41%) PMO
System Software
1 5 (2.04%) Docker
2 2 (0.82%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.41%) Embedded Firmware
3 1 (0.41%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 8 (3.27%) Grafana
2 4 (1.63%) HP Fortify
2 4 (1.63%) Kubernetes
3 3 (1.22%) HP ALM
3 3 (1.22%) Terraform
4 1 (0.41%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 38 (15.51%) Microsoft
2 14 (5.71%) ServiceNow
3 4 (1.63%) Avaya
3 4 (1.63%) Calypso
3 4 (1.63%) Cisco
3 4 (1.63%) SolarWinds
3 4 (1.63%) Veracode
3 4 (1.63%) Zscaler
4 3 (1.22%) HP
4 3 (1.22%) Oracle
4 3 (1.22%) SAP
5 2 (0.82%) Google
5 2 (0.82%) Pega
5 2 (0.82%) Splunk
6 1 (0.41%) Allen-Bradley
6 1 (0.41%) AppDynamics
6 1 (0.41%) Autodesk
6 1 (0.41%) Intel
6 1 (0.41%) Perforce
6 1 (0.41%) Siemens