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 31 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 77 102 75
Rank change year-on-year +25 -27 -50
Permanent jobs citing QA 118 109 107
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 2.25% 2.51% 3.21%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 18.02% 14.46% 20.38%
Number of salaries quoted 68 54 76
10th Percentile £35,000 £37,829 £37,110
25th Percentile £40,000 £46,250 £39,306
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £58,750 £49,500
Median % change year-on-year -2.13% +18.69% -5.71%
75th Percentile £66,500 £69,313 £63,750
90th Percentile £79,875 £77,500 £70,625
England median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £63,250
% change year-on-year -4.17% -5.14% +5.42%

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 655 754 525
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 12.47% 17.33% 15.76%
Number of salaries quoted 302 393 458
10th Percentile £30,580 £28,822 £27,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £36,995 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £52,500 £53,500
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% +9.18%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £83,625 £82,500 £76,250
England median annual salary £57,750 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -3.75% - +4.35%

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 31 December 2025.

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 31 December 2025. 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
Birmingham +11 43 £61,500 +2.50% 14
Warwickshire +22 15 £54,068 -16.82% 13
Solihull +12 15 £75,000 +11.11%
Staffordshire -9 13 £62,500 +15.01% 3
Coventry +5 5 £46,250 +8.79% 4
Shropshire -18 4 £55,000 -12.00% 4
Wolverhampton - 4 - -
Herefordshire -9 2 £40,000 +53.85% 1
Bilston - 2 £66,500 - 1
Worcestershire -11 1 £62,000 -43.64% 2
Tipton - 1 - -
Walsall - 1 £45,000 -
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 6 (5.08%) WinCC
2 4 (3.39%) FactoryTalk
2 4 (3.39%) SharePoint
3 3 (2.54%) CMS
4 2 (1.69%) ArchestrA
4 2 (1.69%) Confluence
4 2 (1.69%) nginx
4 2 (1.69%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 5 (4.24%) Trello
2 3 (2.54%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (1.69%) Adobe Illustrator
3 2 (1.69%) Photoshop
4 1 (0.85%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.85%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 5 (4.24%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (1.69%) Shopify
3 1 (0.85%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 30 (25.42%) Azure
2 20 (16.95%) Azure DevOps
3 13 (11.02%) Power Platform
3 13 (11.02%) SaaS
4 10 (8.47%) AWS
5 9 (7.63%) Dynamics 365
6 6 (5.08%) PaaS
6 6 (5.08%) PowerApps
7 5 (4.24%) Azure Functions
7 5 (4.24%) Azure Service Bus
7 5 (4.24%) GitHub
7 5 (4.24%) IaaS
7 5 (4.24%) Microsoft 365
7 5 (4.24%) Power Automate
7 5 (4.24%) Serverless
8 4 (3.39%) Azure Logic Apps
8 4 (3.39%) Entra ID
9 2 (1.69%) Azure API Management
9 2 (1.69%) Figma
9 2 (1.69%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 6 (5.08%) Firewall
1 6 (5.08%) Modbus
2 2 (1.69%) Profibus
2 2 (1.69%) RFID
3 1 (0.85%) 3GPP
3 1 (0.85%) Bluetooth
3 1 (0.85%) FTP
3 1 (0.85%) SD-WAN
3 1 (0.85%) VLAN
3 1 (0.85%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (3.39%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.69%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (1.69%) MySQL
2 2 (1.69%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.85%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.85%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.85%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.85%) Power BI
3 1 (0.85%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 13 (11.02%) JIRA
2 11 (9.32%) Selenium
3 8 (6.78%) Git
4 7 (5.93%) Postman
5 3 (2.54%) Cucumber
5 3 (2.54%) JMeter
5 3 (2.54%) JUnit
5 3 (2.54%) NUnit
6 2 (1.69%) Cypress.io
6 2 (1.69%) Gatling
6 2 (1.69%) GitLab
6 2 (1.69%) Maven
6 2 (1.69%) Mockito
6 2 (1.69%) MSTest
6 2 (1.69%) TestRail
6 2 (1.69%) Vite
7 1 (0.85%) Balsamiq
7 1 (0.85%) Locust
7 1 (0.85%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.85%) WebDriver
General
1 30 (25.42%) Social Skills
2 26 (22.03%) Finance
3 15 (12.71%) Manufacturing
4 14 (11.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 12 (10.17%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (10.17%) Law
6 9 (7.63%) Public Sector
7 6 (5.08%) Legal
8 4 (3.39%) Marketing
9 3 (2.54%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (1.69%) Documentation Skills
10 2 (1.69%) Games
10 2 (1.69%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (1.69%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.85%) Banking
11 1 (0.85%) Electronics
11 1 (0.85%) Pharmaceutical
11 1 (0.85%) Police
11 1 (0.85%) Retail
11 1 (0.85%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 29 (24.58%) Lead
2 27 (22.88%) Senior
3 19 (16.10%) QA Engineer
4 11 (9.32%) Developer
5 10 (8.47%) Project Engineer
6 9 (7.63%) Analyst
6 9 (7.63%) QA Leader
7 8 (6.78%) Architect
7 8 (6.78%) Automation Engineer
7 8 (6.78%) QA Automation Engineer
8 6 (5.08%) Solutions Architect
9 5 (4.24%) Electrical Engineer
9 5 (4.24%) Mechanical Engineer
9 5 (4.24%) Product Owner
9 5 (4.24%) Senior Electrical Engineer
9 5 (4.24%) Senior Mechanical Engineer
10 4 (3.39%) CRM Developer
10 4 (3.39%) Dynamics CRM Developer
10 4 (3.39%) Full-Stack Developer
10 4 (3.39%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (9.32%) .NET
2 7 (5.93%) Playwright
2 7 (5.93%) REST
3 6 (5.08%) .NET Framework
4 4 (3.39%) Laravel
4 4 (3.39%) Vue
4 4 (3.39%) XML
4 4 (3.39%) YAML
5 3 (2.54%) .NET Core
5 3 (2.54%) ARM Templates
5 3 (2.54%) ASP.NET Web API
5 3 (2.54%) CSS
5 3 (2.54%) Entity Framework
5 3 (2.54%) HTML
6 2 (1.69%) AngularJS
6 2 (1.69%) ASP.NET
6 2 (1.69%) EDI
6 2 (1.69%) RESTful
6 2 (1.69%) SOAP
6 2 (1.69%) Tailwind CSS
Miscellaneous
1 18 (15.25%) Product Ownership
2 10 (8.47%) Driving Licence
3 9 (7.63%) SCADA
4 8 (6.78%) Cloud Native
5 7 (5.93%) Enterprise Software
6 6 (5.08%) Operational Technology
6 6 (5.08%) Virtual Team
7 5 (4.24%) Legacy Systems
8 4 (3.39%) Management Information System
8 4 (3.39%) Renewable Energy
8 4 (3.39%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (2.54%) Analytical Mindset
9 3 (2.54%) Onboarding
10 2 (1.69%) Mobile App
10 2 (1.69%) Security Posture
11 1 (0.85%) Data Centre
11 1 (0.85%) Distributed Systems
11 1 (0.85%) Greenfield Project
11 1 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
11 1 (0.85%) PACS
Operating Systems
1 10 (8.47%) Windows
2 6 (5.08%) Windows Server
3 4 (3.39%) Linux
3 4 (3.39%) Windows Server 2016
4 2 (1.69%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (38.98%) Agile
2 24 (20.34%) DevOps
2 24 (20.34%) Test Automation
3 22 (18.64%) Continuous Improvement
4 20 (16.95%) CI/CD
5 19 (16.10%) Scrum
6 18 (15.25%) Decision-Making
6 18 (15.25%) Problem-Solving
7 17 (14.41%) Mentoring
7 17 (14.41%) Roadmaps
8 14 (11.86%) SDLC
8 14 (11.86%) Software Engineering
9 13 (11.02%) Project Delivery
9 13 (11.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 12 (10.17%) Project Management
10 12 (10.17%) Technical Leadership
11 11 (9.32%) Acceptance Criteria
11 11 (9.32%) Stakeholder Management
11 11 (9.32%) Validation
12 10 (8.47%) API Testing
Programming Languages
1 22 (18.64%) C#
2 12 (10.17%) SQL
3 8 (6.78%) JavaScript
4 7 (5.93%) Java
4 7 (5.93%) TypeScript
5 4 (3.39%) Bash
5 4 (3.39%) PHP
6 3 (2.54%) Python
7 2 (1.69%) Bicep
7 2 (1.69%) C
7 2 (1.69%) Ladder Logic
7 2 (1.69%) PL/SQL
7 2 (1.69%) R
8 1 (0.85%) ActionScript
8 1 (0.85%) ActionScript 2.0
Qualifications
1 8 (6.78%) Security Cleared
2 6 (5.08%) Degree
3 5 (4.24%) SC Cleared
4 4 (3.39%) ISTQB
5 3 (2.54%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 2 (1.69%) Azure Certification
6 2 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.85%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.85%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.85%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.85%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.85%) ITIL Certification
7 1 (0.85%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.85%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (5.08%) IEC 61508
2 4 (3.39%) IEC 61131
3 3 (2.54%) Accessibility
4 2 (1.69%) Cyber Essentials
4 2 (1.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.69%) NIST
4 2 (1.69%) PCI DSS
4 2 (1.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 2 (1.69%) WCAG
5 1 (0.85%) GMP
5 1 (0.85%) ISO 9001
5 1 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 1 (0.85%) NCSC
5 1 (0.85%) PMO
System Software
1 6 (5.08%) Hyper-V
1 6 (5.08%) VMware Infrastructure
2 5 (4.24%) Docker
3 4 (3.39%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.85%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 4 (3.39%) Kubernetes
2 2 (1.69%) Grafana
2 2 (1.69%) Terraform
Vendors
1 18 (15.25%) Microsoft
2 7 (5.93%) Oracle
3 6 (5.08%) Rockwell
3 6 (5.08%) Siemens
3 6 (5.08%) VMware
4 2 (1.69%) SAP
5 1 (0.85%) Avaya
5 1 (0.85%) Cisco
5 1 (0.85%) Dynatrace
5 1 (0.85%) SolarWinds
5 1 (0.85%) Splunk
5 1 (0.85%) Workday
5 1 (0.85%) Zscaler