QA Contracts in England

Quality Assurance (QA)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England requiring QA skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited QA over the 6 months leading up to 12 June 2024, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jun 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 61 72 64
Rank change year-on-year +11 -8 +13
Contract jobs citing QA 1,202 1,518 2,485
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 3.20% 3.23% 3.54%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.72% 23.88% 27.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 813 1,106 1,751
10th Percentile £311 £325 £350
25th Percentile £400 £400 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -1.44% +9.47%
75th Percentile £611 £650 £613
90th Percentile £750 £750 £720
UK median daily rate £500 £509 £520
% change year-on-year -1.67% -2.21% +9.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 31 48
10th Percentile £10.82 £18.50 £15.75
25th Percentile £11.88 £21.24 £24.35
Median hourly rate £14.00 £22.49 £42.60
Median % change year-on-year -37.74% -47.22% +130.27%
75th Percentile £35.00 £50.63 £63.13
90th Percentile £72.38 £60.00 £69.52
UK median hourly rate £14.00 £22.49 £46.00
% change year-on-year -37.74% -51.12% +135.90%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
England

QA falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 5,067 6,357 9,159
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 13.51% 13.52% 13.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,193 4,313 6,338
10th Percentile £300 £300 £290
25th Percentile £406 £413 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - +10.53%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £760 £738
UK median daily rate £510 £525 £515
% change year-on-year -2.86% +1.94% +8.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 382 229 265
10th Percentile £10.95 £15.17 £12.56
25th Percentile £12.88 £20.50 £17.00
Median hourly rate £24.18 £42.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -43.11% +54.55% +33.92%
75th Percentile £51.31 £65.00 £49.25
90th Percentile £70.00 £80.00 £69.40
UK median hourly rate £23.80 £37.75 £27.73
% change year-on-year -36.95% +36.13% +32.05%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings citing QA as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for QA in England

QA
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing QA in England.

Daily rate trend for QA in England

QA
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA in England over the 6 months to 12 June 2024.

Daily rate histogram for QA in England

QA
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing QA in England.

Hourly rate trend for QA in England

QA
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing QA in England over the 6 months to 12 June 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for QA in England

QA
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing QA within the England region over the 6 months to 12 June 2024. 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London +3 631 £525 -4.55% 413
North of England +8 164 £500 - 242
South East +34 151 £475 - 246
South West +34 103 £550 +15.79% 136
Midlands -2 86 £450 +7.78% 185
North West +8 81 £500 +3.63% 130
Yorkshire +16 74 £550 +4.76% 69
West Midlands -3 61 £525 +5.00% 119
East of England -17 27 £375 -18.48% 120
East Midlands -3 22 £255 -32.00% 66
North East -3 9 £410 -15.03% 48
QA
UK

QA
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 58 (4.83%) Confluence
2 41 (3.41%) SharePoint
3 24 (2.00%) CMS
4 19 (1.58%) IIS
5 14 (1.16%) Apache
6 8 (0.67%) Drupal
7 7 (0.58%) SAS
8 6 (0.50%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 6 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
9 5 (0.42%) Alfresco
9 5 (0.42%) nginx
10 4 (0.33%) Apache Solr
10 4 (0.33%) ArcGIS
10 4 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.33%) WordPress
11 3 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
11 3 (0.25%) Apache Spark
12 2 (0.17%) MQSeries
13 1 (0.083%) Appian
13 1 (0.083%) Mendix
Applications
1 94 (7.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (2.91%) Microsoft Office
3 30 (2.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (1.66%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.42%) Simulink
6 3 (0.25%) Acrobat
7 2 (0.17%) Mingle
7 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.083%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.083%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.083%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.083%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.083%) InVision
8 1 (0.083%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.083%) SPSS
8 1 (0.083%) Trello
Business Applications
1 16 (1.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.83%) Endur
3 9 (0.75%) Dynamics CRM
4 8 (0.67%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 7 (0.58%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.50%) SAP ERP
7 4 (0.33%) Adobe Campaign
7 4 (0.33%) ION MarketView
7 4 (0.33%) SAP QM
7 4 (0.33%) TrackWise
8 3 (0.25%) IntelliMatch
8 3 (0.25%) ION Anvil
8 3 (0.25%) Primavera
8 3 (0.25%) SAP Payroll
8 3 (0.25%) SAP SD
9 2 (0.17%) SAP CO
9 2 (0.17%) SAP CRM
9 2 (0.17%) SAP FI
9 2 (0.17%) SAP FI/CO
9 2 (0.17%) WebTrends
Cloud Services
1 215 (17.89%) Azure
2 138 (11.48%) AWS
3 77 (6.41%) Power Platform
4 68 (5.66%) GCP
5 62 (5.16%) Azure DevOps
6 53 (4.41%) GitHub
7 50 (4.16%) Dynamics 365
8 30 (2.50%) SaaS
9 23 (1.91%) Serverless
10 20 (1.66%) Azure Data Factory
10 20 (1.66%) Entra ID
10 20 (1.66%) Microsoft 365
11 18 (1.50%) AWS Lambda
11 18 (1.50%) Power Automate
12 17 (1.41%) Amazon EC2
13 16 (1.33%) Azure API Management
13 16 (1.33%) Azure Logic Apps
14 15 (1.25%) Amazon S3
14 15 (1.25%) BrowserStack
15 14 (1.16%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 29 (2.41%) Firewall
2 24 (2.00%) Internet
3 22 (1.83%) TCP/IP
4 21 (1.75%) DNS
5 18 (1.50%) VPN
5 18 (1.50%) WAN
6 15 (1.25%) HTTP
6 15 (1.25%) LAN
7 10 (0.83%) SSL
7 10 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
8 9 (0.75%) SSH
9 8 (0.67%) FIX Connectivity
10 7 (0.58%) 5G
11 6 (0.50%) IPsec
12 5 (0.42%) HTTPS
12 5 (0.42%) MPLS
13 4 (0.33%) Ethernet
13 4 (0.33%) Radio Access Network
13 4 (0.33%) VoIP
14 3 (0.25%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 100 (8.32%) SQL Server
2 65 (5.41%) Power BI
3 45 (3.74%) Relational Database
4 29 (2.41%) Oracle Database
5 25 (2.08%) MySQL
5 25 (2.08%) Tableau
6 22 (1.83%) NoSQL
7 18 (1.50%) Elasticsearch
8 17 (1.41%) PostgreSQL
8 17 (1.41%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 16 (1.33%) Data Lake
9 16 (1.33%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 14 (1.16%) Microsoft Analysis Services
10 14 (1.16%) RDBMS
11 8 (0.67%) Big Data
11 8 (0.67%) BigQuery
11 8 (0.67%) Data Warehouse
12 7 (0.58%) Ataccama
12 7 (0.58%) Metadata
12 7 (0.58%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 146 (12.15%) JIRA
2 75 (6.24%) Jenkins
3 68 (5.66%) Git
4 65 (5.41%) Selenium
5 55 (4.58%) GitLab
6 46 (3.83%) Cucumber
6 46 (3.83%) Postman
7 32 (2.66%) JMeter
8 30 (2.50%) Cypress.io
9 28 (2.33%) JUnit
10 23 (1.91%) Appium
10 23 (1.91%) SpecFlow
11 20 (1.66%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 18 (1.50%) TeamCity
13 14 (1.16%) Visual Studio
14 13 (1.08%) TestRail
15 11 (0.92%) CircleCI
15 11 (0.92%) webpack
16 10 (0.83%) Maven
16 10 (0.83%) WebDriver
General
1 400 (33.28%) Social Skills
2 274 (22.80%) Finance
3 152 (12.65%) Analytical Skills
4 106 (8.82%) Banking
5 72 (5.99%) Public Sector
6 47 (3.91%) Front Office
7 38 (3.16%) Marketing
7 38 (3.16%) Telecoms
8 37 (3.08%) Presentation Skills
9 34 (2.83%) Retail
10 30 (2.50%) Pharmaceutical
11 28 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
12 27 (2.25%) Investment Banking
12 27 (2.25%) Legal
13 19 (1.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 19 (1.58%) Manufacturing
14 18 (1.50%) Back Office
15 15 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
16 14 (1.16%) Publishing
17 13 (1.08%) Games
Job Titles
1 179 (14.89%) Analyst
2 146 (12.15%) Developer
3 133 (11.06%) Lead
4 80 (6.66%) Architect
4 80 (6.66%) QA Engineer
5 74 (6.16%) Senior
6 72 (5.99%) Business Analyst
7 67 (5.57%) Tester
8 61 (5.07%) Project Manager
9 49 (4.08%) QA Analyst
10 36 (3.00%) QA Tester
11 35 (2.91%) Test Analyst
12 32 (2.66%) .NET Developer
12 32 (2.66%) DevOps Engineer
12 32 (2.66%) Test Engineer
13 31 (2.58%) Test Manager
14 30 (2.50%) Consultant
14 30 (2.50%) QA Leader
14 30 (2.50%) Senior Analyst
15 29 (2.41%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (7.82%) .NET
2 70 (5.82%) React
3 66 (5.49%) XML
4 51 (4.24%) REST
5 48 (3.99%) JSON
6 40 (3.33%) HTML
7 38 (3.16%) Node.js
8 36 (3.00%) CSS
9 35 (2.91%) Redux
10 34 (2.83%) Web Services
11 32 (2.66%) AngularJS
12 31 (2.58%) .NET Framework
13 27 (2.25%) Middleware
14 25 (2.08%) Spring
15 21 (1.75%) .NET Core
15 21 (1.75%) SailPoint
16 20 (1.66%) Elastic Stack
16 20 (1.66%) RESTful
17 19 (1.58%) Gherkin
17 19 (1.58%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 78 (6.49%) Product Ownership
2 39 (3.24%) Derivative
3 36 (3.00%) Management Information System
4 34 (2.83%) Data Protection Act
5 30 (2.50%) Equities
5 30 (2.50%) Fixed Income
6 29 (2.41%) Hedge funds
7 28 (2.33%) Mobile App
7 28 (2.33%) Onboarding
8 25 (2.08%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 23 (1.91%) Public Cloud
10 19 (1.58%) Enterprise Software
11 18 (1.50%) Data Structures
12 17 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
13 16 (1.33%) Algorithms
14 14 (1.16%) Linux Command Line
15 13 (1.08%) Life Science
16 9 (0.75%) Cloud Native
17 8 (0.67%) Data Centre
17 8 (0.67%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 104 (8.65%) Windows
2 60 (4.99%) Linux
3 39 (3.24%) Unix
4 31 (2.58%) Windows Server
5 25 (2.08%) Apple iOS
5 25 (2.08%) Windows 10
6 24 (2.00%) Android
7 16 (1.33%) Windows Server 2016
8 15 (1.25%) Windows NT
8 15 (1.25%) Windows Server 2012
8 15 (1.25%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.50%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.42%) VMS
11 4 (0.33%) CentOS
12 3 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 2 (0.17%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.083%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 383 (31.86%) Agile
2 231 (19.22%) Test Automation
3 201 (16.72%) Problem-Solving
4 197 (16.39%) DevOps
5 155 (12.90%) Project Management
6 152 (12.65%) Scrum
7 140 (11.65%) CI/CD
8 134 (11.15%) User Acceptance Testing
9 115 (9.57%) Stakeholder Management
10 106 (8.82%) Test Strategy
11 100 (8.32%) Continuous Improvement
12 94 (7.82%) Migration
13 89 (7.40%) Software Engineering
14 88 (7.32%) Computer Science
14 88 (7.32%) Continuous Integration
15 83 (6.91%) Analytics
16 78 (6.49%) SDLC
17 73 (6.07%) Data Analysis
17 73 (6.07%) Software Testing
18 72 (5.99%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 201 (16.72%) SQL
2 146 (12.15%) Python
3 136 (11.31%) C#
4 134 (11.15%) Java
5 114 (9.48%) JavaScript
6 51 (4.24%) TypeScript
7 49 (4.08%) PowerShell
8 41 (3.41%) T-SQL
9 29 (2.41%) Bash
10 25 (2.08%) VBA
11 24 (2.00%) PL/SQL
11 24 (2.00%) VB
12 15 (1.25%) C
12 15 (1.25%) Perl
13 13 (1.08%) Swift
14 11 (0.92%) PHP
15 10 (0.83%) F#
16 8 (0.67%) C++
16 8 (0.67%) Kotlin
17 7 (0.58%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 163 (13.56%) Degree
2 155 (12.90%) Security Cleared
3 95 (7.90%) SC Cleared
4 62 (5.16%) DV Cleared
5 53 (4.41%) Computer Science Degree
6 34 (2.83%) ISTQB
7 19 (1.58%) BPSS Clearance
8 15 (1.25%) Master's Degree
9 14 (1.16%) CISSP
9 14 (1.16%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 14 (1.16%) PMP
10 12 (1.00%) HNC
10 12 (1.00%) HND
11 10 (0.83%) CISM
11 10 (0.83%) ISEB
11 10 (0.83%) PMI Certification
12 6 (0.50%) CCNA
12 6 (0.50%) CISA
12 6 (0.50%) Cisco Certification
12 6 (0.50%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 51 (4.24%) Data Quality
2 29 (2.41%) Accessibility
3 18 (1.50%) PMO
4 16 (1.33%) GDPR
5 15 (1.25%) SLA
6 10 (0.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 10 (0.83%) Software Quality Assurance
7 8 (0.67%) ISO 9001
8 6 (0.50%) NIST
9 5 (0.42%) GMP
9 5 (0.42%) HL7
10 4 (0.33%) Dodd-Frank
10 4 (0.33%) EMIR
10 4 (0.33%) HIPAA
10 4 (0.33%) IFRS
10 4 (0.33%) MiFID
11 3 (0.25%) WCAG
12 2 (0.17%) Basel III
12 2 (0.17%) ISO 14001
12 2 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 12207
System Software
1 44 (3.66%) Active Directory
2 34 (2.83%) Docker
3 17 (1.41%) Firmware
4 6 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.42%) Veritas Cluster Server
5 5 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.25%) Microsoft App-V
7 2 (0.17%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.17%) KVM
7 2 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.17%) VMware Infrastructure
7 2 (0.17%) VMware Workstation
8 1 (0.083%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 59 (4.91%) Kubernetes
2 47 (3.91%) Ansible
3 42 (3.49%) Terraform
4 21 (1.75%) SCCM
5 19 (1.58%) Grafana
6 18 (1.50%) Prometheus
7 17 (1.41%) Puppet
8 16 (1.33%) Progress Chef
9 15 (1.25%) Sysprep
9 15 (1.25%) WSUS
10 12 (1.00%) Kibana
11 10 (0.83%) logstash
12 9 (0.75%) Docker Swarm
13 8 (0.67%) Graylog
14 7 (0.58%) HP Fortify
14 7 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
15 5 (0.42%) Microsoft Intune
15 5 (0.42%) Nessus
15 5 (0.42%) WebInspect
16 4 (0.33%) Nagios
Vendors
1 166 (13.81%) Microsoft
2 91 (7.57%) Oracle
3 76 (6.32%) SAP
4 35 (2.91%) Adobe
5 33 (2.75%) Google
5 33 (2.75%) Splunk
6 30 (2.50%) Citrix
7 28 (2.33%) Salesforce
7 28 (2.33%) ServiceNow
8 19 (1.58%) Bloomberg
9 18 (1.50%) CyberArk
10 14 (1.16%) Red Hat
11 11 (0.92%) CA Agile Central
11 11 (0.92%) Databricks
11 11 (0.92%) ION Trading
11 11 (0.92%) Optimizely
12 9 (0.75%) BT
12 9 (0.75%) Workday
13 8 (0.67%) MarketAxess
13 8 (0.67%) Tradeweb