QA Contract Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Quality Assurance (QA)
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the Thames Valley requiring QA skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 2 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 58 73
Rank change year-on-year -18 +15 +5
Contract jobs citing QA 81 60 58
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 2.67% 3.53% 2.64%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 15.40% 18.75% 21.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 48 41 20
10th Percentile £335 £223 £234
25th Percentile £363 £406 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £435 £500 £490
Median % change year-on-year -13.00% +2.04% +3.16%
75th Percentile £500 £538 £625
90th Percentile £543 £600 £639
South East median daily rate £425 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -15.00% +11.11% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 2 2
10th Percentile £16.80 - £22.74
25th Percentile £17.63 - £29.09
Median hourly rate £30.00 £15.12 £40.35
Median % change year-on-year +98.41% -62.53% -19.30%
75th Percentile £82.25 - £51.79
90th Percentile - - £58.25
South East median hourly rate £33.00 £15.12 £17.00
% change year-on-year +118.25% -11.06% -66.00%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
Thames Valley

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 the Thames Valley.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 526 320 273
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 17.35% 18.82% 12.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 320 187 113
10th Percentile £363 £276 £255
25th Percentile £434 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £543 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +8.50% - -3.57%
75th Percentile £617 £600 £573
90th Percentile £775 £656 £671
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £495
% change year-on-year +5.00% +1.01% -5.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 20 14
10th Percentile £17.50 £14.93 £23.62
25th Percentile £31.25 £15.13 £60.75
Median hourly rate £47.54 £17.06 £62.47
Median % change year-on-year +178.66% -72.69% +24.95%
75th Percentile £71.50 £84.06 £66.81
90th Percentile £83.00 £89.63 £69.38
South East median hourly rate £38.72 £17.48 £54.36
% change year-on-year +121.51% -67.84% +8.72%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing QA relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

QA job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

QA
Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing QA.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing QA

QA
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 2 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for QA in the Thames Valley

QA
Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing QA.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing QA

QA
Hourly Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing QA in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 2 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for QA in the Thames Valley

QA
Contract Job Locations in the Thames Valley

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing QA within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 2 October 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Berkshire -7 55 £456 -8.75% 89
Buckinghamshire -14 23 £430 +4.24% 51
Oxfordshire -27 3 £375 +145.10% 54
QA
South East

QA
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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 4 (4.94%) Apache Spark
2 1 (1.23%) Confluence
2 1 (1.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 3 (3.70%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (3.70%) Microsoft Office
1 3 (3.70%) Spreadsheet
2 2 (2.47%) Chatbot
2 2 (2.47%) CPLEX
2 2 (2.47%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (1.23%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (1.23%) Oracle EBS
1 1 (1.23%) Oracle EBS R12
1 1 (1.23%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 18 (22.22%) Azure
2 12 (14.81%) AWS
3 10 (12.35%) Azure DevOps
4 7 (8.64%) GCP
4 7 (8.64%) GitHub
4 7 (8.64%) Salesforce Service Cloud
5 6 (7.41%) Power Platform
6 4 (4.94%) GitHub Actions
7 3 (3.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 3 (3.70%) Amazon EKS
7 3 (3.70%) AWS CloudFormation
7 3 (3.70%) Datadog
7 3 (3.70%) Dynamics 365
7 3 (3.70%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
8 2 (2.47%) Lucidchart
9 1 (1.23%) Microsoft 365
9 1 (1.23%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 4 (4.94%) WAN
2 3 (3.70%) MPLS
3 2 (2.47%) ADSL
3 2 (2.47%) Ethernet
3 2 (2.47%) Internet
3 2 (2.47%) LAN
3 2 (2.47%) PSTN
4 1 (1.23%) DOCSIS
4 1 (1.23%) GPRS
4 1 (1.23%) GSM
4 1 (1.23%) IPv4
4 1 (1.23%) IPv6
4 1 (1.23%) LTE
4 1 (1.23%) SAN
4 1 (1.23%) UMTS
4 1 (1.23%) VPN
4 1 (1.23%) Wi-Fi
4 1 (1.23%) Wireless
4 1 (1.23%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (8.64%) Data Warehouse
2 5 (6.17%) Power BI
3 4 (4.94%) Big Data
4 3 (3.70%) Relational Database
4 3 (3.70%) Spark SQL
4 3 (3.70%) Tableau
5 2 (2.47%) MongoDB
5 2 (2.47%) NoSQL
5 2 (2.47%) Oracle Reports
5 2 (2.47%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (2.47%) SQL Server
6 1 (1.23%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (1.23%) BigQuery
6 1 (1.23%) Data Lake
6 1 (1.23%) EDMS
6 1 (1.23%) GIS
Development Applications
1 7 (8.64%) Jenkins
2 6 (7.41%) Git
3 4 (4.94%) GitLab
4 3 (3.70%) HP UFT
5 2 (2.47%) JIRA
5 2 (2.47%) Selenium
6 1 (1.23%) Bitbucket
6 1 (1.23%) Cucumber
6 1 (1.23%) Postman
6 1 (1.23%) REST Assured
6 1 (1.23%) tSQLt
6 1 (1.23%) WebDriver
General
1 24 (29.63%) Social Skills
2 17 (20.99%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (7.41%) Public Sector
4 5 (6.17%) Finance
5 3 (3.70%) Manufacturing
5 3 (3.70%) Retail
5 3 (3.70%) Telecoms
6 2 (2.47%) Billing
6 2 (2.47%) General Ledger
7 1 (1.23%) Aerospace
7 1 (1.23%) Automotive
7 1 (1.23%) Electronics
7 1 (1.23%) Law
7 1 (1.23%) Military
7 1 (1.23%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (1.23%) Social Science
Job Titles
1 12 (14.81%) Analyst
2 9 (11.11%) Developer
2 9 (11.11%) Lead
2 9 (11.11%) Senior
3 8 (9.88%) Test Manager
4 7 (8.64%) QA Engineer
4 7 (8.64%) Test Engineer
5 6 (7.41%) Business Analyst
6 5 (6.17%) QA Manager
7 4 (4.94%) Full-Stack Developer
8 3 (3.70%) Data Analyst
8 3 (3.70%) Infrastructure Manager
8 3 (3.70%) Infrastructure Test Manager
8 3 (3.70%) Lead DevOps
8 3 (3.70%) Network Infrastructure Manager
8 3 (3.70%) QA Test Manager
8 3 (3.70%) Senior Developer
8 3 (3.70%) Senior QA Engineer
8 3 (3.70%) ServiceNow Architect
8 3 (3.70%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (12.35%) REST
2 7 (8.64%) Middleware
3 6 (7.41%) SOAP
4 5 (6.17%) Lightning Web Components
4 5 (6.17%) RESTful
5 4 (4.94%) .NET
6 3 (3.70%) .NET Core
6 3 (3.70%) CSS
6 3 (3.70%) HTML
6 3 (3.70%) JSON
6 3 (3.70%) PySpark
6 3 (3.70%) React
6 3 (3.70%) Terraform
7 2 (2.47%) FastAPI
7 2 (2.47%) Flask
7 2 (2.47%) Jinja
7 2 (2.47%) OpenAPI
7 2 (2.47%) Pandas
7 2 (2.47%) pytest
7 2 (2.47%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 8 (9.88%) Product Ownership
2 6 (7.41%) Data Centre
3 4 (4.94%) Cloud Native
4 3 (3.70%) CMDB
4 3 (3.70%) Distributed Systems
4 3 (3.70%) Enterprise Software
4 3 (3.70%) SCADA
5 2 (2.47%) AI Agents
5 2 (2.47%) Algorithms
5 2 (2.47%) Data Protection Act
5 2 (2.47%) Data Structures
6 1 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (1.23%) Distributed Architecture
6 1 (1.23%) Greenfield Project
6 1 (1.23%) IVR
6 1 (1.23%) Renewable Energy
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (39.51%) Agile
2 22 (27.16%) Test Automation
3 21 (25.93%) DevOps
4 18 (22.22%) CI/CD
5 17 (20.99%) Continuous Improvement
5 17 (20.99%) Problem-Solving
6 16 (19.75%) Scrum
6 16 (19.75%) Validation
7 14 (17.28%) Test Strategy
8 11 (13.58%) Stakeholder Management
8 11 (13.58%) User Acceptance Testing
9 9 (11.11%) End-to-End Testing
9 9 (11.11%) Migration
10 8 (9.88%) Analytics
10 8 (9.88%) Data Pipeline
10 8 (9.88%) Data Validation
10 8 (9.88%) Integration Testing
10 8 (9.88%) Mentoring
10 8 (9.88%) Release Management
10 8 (9.88%) Scenario Testing
Programming Languages
1 16 (19.75%) SQL
2 6 (7.41%) JavaScript
3 5 (6.17%) Apex Code
3 5 (6.17%) C#
3 5 (6.17%) Python
4 3 (3.70%) Java
4 3 (3.70%) TypeScript
4 3 (3.70%) VBScript
5 1 (1.23%) C++
5 1 (1.23%) PowerShell
5 1 (1.23%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 19 (23.46%) Security Cleared
2 15 (18.52%) SC Cleared
3 4 (4.94%) ISTQB
3 4 (4.94%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
4 3 (3.70%) AWS Certification
4 3 (3.70%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
4 3 (3.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 2 (2.47%) BC Cleared
5 2 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (2.47%) Degree
5 2 (2.47%) DV Cleared
6 1 (1.23%) CCNP
6 1 (1.23%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (8.64%) Data Quality
2 2 (2.47%) SLA
2 2 (2.47%) Software Quality Assurance
3 1 (1.23%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 5 (6.17%) Docker
2 3 (3.70%) Virtual Machines
2 3 (3.70%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 5 (6.17%) Kubernetes
2 3 (3.70%) Ansible
2 3 (3.70%) Grafana
Vendors
1 10 (12.35%) Salesforce
2 8 (9.88%) Microsoft
3 6 (7.41%) Cisco
4 5 (6.17%) Databricks
4 5 (6.17%) Oracle
5 4 (4.94%) VMware
6 3 (3.70%) Dynatrace
6 3 (3.70%) ServiceNow
6 3 (3.70%) Splunk
7 2 (2.47%) AppDynamics
7 2 (2.47%) BT
7 2 (2.47%) Google
7 2 (2.47%) MuleSoft
7 2 (2.47%) Openreach
8 1 (1.23%) Autodesk
8 1 (1.23%) CheckPoint
8 1 (1.23%) F5
8 1 (1.23%) Fortinet
8 1 (1.23%) Juniper
8 1 (1.23%) SAP