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 8 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 69 57
Rank change year-on-year +18 -12 +2
Contract jobs citing QA 85 49 91
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 4.07% 2.68% 3.84%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 22.31% 16.12% 19.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 52 21 63
10th Percentile £315 £363 £330
25th Percentile £406 £450 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% - -5.66%
75th Percentile £591 £588 £575
90th Percentile £650 £625 -
South East median daily rate £500 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +11.11% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 1 3
10th Percentile £12.25 - £24.40
25th Percentile £29.44 £18.50 £24.63
Median hourly rate £81.00 £19.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +326.32% -24.00% -49.75%
75th Percentile - £19.50 £50.55
90th Percentile £81.50 - £65.88
South East median hourly rate £60.00 £19.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year +215.79% -24.00% -49.75%

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 381 304 468
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 18.22% 16.64% 19.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 266 141 278
10th Percentile £309 £250 £149
25th Percentile £406 £413 £335
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% +5.56%
75th Percentile £591 £600 £592
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
South East median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% +13.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 9 21
10th Percentile £15.38 £17.20 £24.00
25th Percentile £23.25 £60.75 £25.00
Median hourly rate £56.50 £61.50 £51.06
Median % change year-on-year -8.12% +20.45% +132.07%
75th Percentile £82.75 £64.73 £72.00
90th Percentile £89.63 £65.99 £79.78
South East median hourly rate £51.86 £51.00 £54.56
% change year-on-year +1.69% -6.52% +131.82%

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 8 January 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 8 January 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 8 January 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 +18 68 £550 +10.00% 55
Buckinghamshire +9 17 £394 +5.00% 34
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 11 (12.94%) SharePoint
2 8 (9.41%) Confluence
3 7 (8.24%) CMS
4 5 (5.88%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
5 3 (3.53%) Anypoint
6 1 (1.18%) Apache
Applications
1 17 (20.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (11.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (10.59%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (2.35%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 5 (5.88%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (1.18%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (1.18%) SAP QM
2 1 (1.18%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 20 (23.53%) AWS
2 19 (22.35%) Azure
3 8 (9.41%) Azure DevOps
4 7 (8.24%) OCI
5 5 (5.88%) Serverless
6 3 (3.53%) Figma
7 2 (2.35%) GCP
7 2 (2.35%) Power Platform
8 1 (1.18%) Microsoft 365
8 1 (1.18%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 10 (11.76%) Firewall
2 9 (10.59%) Wireless
3 1 (1.18%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (5.88%) NoSQL
2 2 (2.35%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (2.35%) Metadata
2 2 (2.35%) Power BI
2 2 (2.35%) Tableau
3 1 (1.18%) Data Mart
3 1 (1.18%) DTS
Development Applications
1 16 (18.82%) JIRA
2 8 (9.41%) Burp Suite
2 8 (9.41%) Metasploit
3 5 (5.88%) Git
4 3 (3.53%) HP UFT
4 3 (3.53%) Jenkins
5 2 (2.35%) Cypress.io
5 2 (2.35%) Selenium
6 1 (1.18%) Appium
6 1 (1.18%) Artifactory
6 1 (1.18%) GitLab
6 1 (1.18%) WebDriver
General
1 50 (58.82%) Social Skills
2 18 (21.18%) Analytical Skills
3 9 (10.59%) Finance
4 6 (7.06%) Public Sector
5 4 (4.71%) Automotive
5 4 (4.71%) Presentation Skills
6 3 (3.53%) Retail
7 2 (2.35%) Banking
7 2 (2.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 2 (2.35%) Law
7 2 (2.35%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (2.35%) Pharmaceutical
7 2 (2.35%) Telecoms
8 1 (1.18%) Aerospace
8 1 (1.18%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (1.18%) Legal
8 1 (1.18%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 15 (17.65%) Lead
2 13 (15.29%) Tester
3 12 (14.12%) Analyst
4 8 (9.41%) Penetration Tester
5 7 (8.24%) Project Manager
6 6 (7.06%) Senior
7 5 (5.88%) AWS Engineer
7 5 (5.88%) Cloud Engineer
7 5 (5.88%) Technical Analyst
7 5 (5.88%) Test Analyst
7 5 (5.88%) Test Engineer
8 4 (4.71%) Business Analyst
8 4 (4.71%) QA Tester
8 4 (4.71%) Salesforce Analyst
8 4 (4.71%) Test Manager
9 3 (3.53%) Consultant
9 3 (3.53%) Data Analyst
9 3 (3.53%) DevOps Engineer
9 3 (3.53%) Technical Business Analyst
9 3 (3.53%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (5.88%) Oracle Fusion
2 4 (4.71%) Node.js
2 4 (4.71%) REST
3 3 (3.53%) SOAP
4 2 (2.35%) JWT
4 2 (2.35%) OAuth
4 2 (2.35%) RFC 2544
4 2 (2.35%) SAML
5 1 (1.18%) .NET
5 1 (1.18%) .NET Core
5 1 (1.18%) AngularJS
5 1 (1.18%) Apache NiFi
5 1 (1.18%) Flutter
5 1 (1.18%) HTML
5 1 (1.18%) JSON
5 1 (1.18%) NestJS
5 1 (1.18%) Playwright
5 1 (1.18%) React
5 1 (1.18%) WebdriverIO
5 1 (1.18%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 9 (10.59%) Mobile App
2 8 (9.41%) Security Posture
3 7 (8.24%) Product Ownership
4 3 (3.53%) Onboarding
5 2 (2.35%) Algorithms
5 2 (2.35%) Data Centre
5 2 (2.35%) Distributed Systems
5 2 (2.35%) Fibre Optics
6 1 (1.18%) AI Agents
6 1 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (1.18%) Cloud Native
6 1 (1.18%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (1.18%) IoT
6 1 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.18%) Management Information System
6 1 (1.18%) PMI
6 1 (1.18%) Security Operations Centre
6 1 (1.18%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (1.18%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 12 (14.12%) Windows
2 4 (4.71%) Linux
3 2 (2.35%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 31 (36.47%) Problem-Solving
2 29 (34.12%) Agile
3 24 (28.24%) Stakeholder Management
4 21 (24.71%) Test Automation
5 20 (23.53%) DevOps
6 18 (21.18%) Validation
7 16 (18.82%) CI/CD
8 14 (16.47%) Scenario Testing
9 12 (14.12%) Test Strategy
10 11 (12.94%) Information Security
10 11 (12.94%) Security Management
10 11 (12.94%) Test Scripting
10 11 (12.94%) User Acceptance Testing
11 10 (11.76%) Decision-Making
11 10 (11.76%) Penetration Testing
11 10 (11.76%) PRINCE2
11 10 (11.76%) Waterfall
12 9 (10.59%) Commercial Awareness
12 9 (10.59%) Customer Service
12 9 (10.59%) Line Management
Programming Languages
1 9 (10.59%) Python
1 9 (10.59%) SQL
2 5 (5.88%) TypeScript
3 3 (3.53%) DataWeave
3 3 (3.53%) JavaScript
3 3 (3.53%) VBScript
4 2 (2.35%) C#
4 2 (2.35%) PowerShell
5 1 (1.18%) Java
5 1 (1.18%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 23 (27.06%) Security Cleared
2 16 (18.82%) Degree
2 16 (18.82%) SC Cleared
3 10 (11.76%) PMI Certification
4 9 (10.59%) PMP
5 8 (9.41%) CHECK Team Member
5 8 (9.41%) CREST Certified
5 8 (9.41%) Cyber Scheme
5 8 (9.41%) Postgraduate
6 5 (5.88%) AWS Certification
7 4 (4.71%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (2.35%) DV Cleared
9 1 (1.18%) CCNA
9 1 (1.18%) CCNP
9 1 (1.18%) CFCE
9 1 (1.18%) Cisco Certification
9 1 (1.18%) CISSP
9 1 (1.18%) GIAC
9 1 (1.18%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 1 (1.18%) PgMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (14.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 10 (11.76%) PMO
3 9 (10.59%) GDPR
4 8 (9.41%) PCI DSS
5 4 (4.71%) Data Quality
5 4 (4.71%) NIST
6 3 (3.53%) Accessibility
6 3 (3.53%) COBIT
7 2 (2.35%) Actionable Recommendations
7 2 (2.35%) ISO 9001
8 1 (1.18%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1 (1.18%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 8 (9.41%) Nmap
2 3 (3.53%) CloudHub
3 2 (2.35%) Kubernetes
4 1 (1.18%) Ansible
4 1 (1.18%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
4 1 (1.18%) Terraform
Vendors
1 8 (9.41%) Oracle
2 6 (7.06%) Salesforce
3 5 (5.88%) CheckPoint
4 3 (3.53%) MuleSoft
5 2 (2.35%) Cisco
5 2 (2.35%) Foundry
5 2 (2.35%) Microsoft
5 2 (2.35%) Palantir
5 2 (2.35%) SAP
6 1 (1.18%) ArcSight
6 1 (1.18%) LogRhythm
6 1 (1.18%) Planview
6 1 (1.18%) Red Hat
6 1 (1.18%) Splunk
6 1 (1.18%) Virgin Media