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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 55 67 87
Rank change year-on-year +12 +20 -4
Contract jobs citing QA 62 64 61
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 3.83% 2.89% 2.18%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 19.75% 23.53% 15.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 41 23 36
10th Percentile £223 £238 £241
25th Percentile £393 £325 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year - -5.26% -3.06%
75th Percentile £530 £600 £575
90th Percentile £586 £638 £604
South East median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -3.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 2 8
10th Percentile - £22.74 £22.70
25th Percentile - £29.09 £43.63
Median hourly rate £15.12 £40.35 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -62.53% -19.30% +127.27%
75th Percentile £34.44 £51.79 £53.13
90th Percentile £46.02 £58.25 £66.58
South East median hourly rate £15.12 £11.13 £50.00
% change year-on-year +35.85% -77.74% +181.69%

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 314 272 388
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 19.39% 12.28% 13.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 179 118 235
10th Percentile £250 £254 £166
25th Percentile £400 £385 £369
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - +11.11%
75th Percentile £588 £570 £631
90th Percentile £653 £675 £770
South East median daily rate £500 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 12 25
10th Percentile £14.93 £20.21 £16.65
25th Percentile £15.13 £54.46 £21.00
Median hourly rate £17.06 £62.47 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -72.69% +24.95% +138.10%
75th Percentile £84.06 £68.17 £72.00
90th Percentile £89.63 £76.77 £75.36
South East median hourly rate £18.87 £52.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -63.71% +4.00% +163.16%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Job postings citing QA as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

Job vacancy trend for QA 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 15 September 2025.

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 15 September 2025.

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 15 September 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Berkshire +3 43 £500 -9.09% 72
Buckinghamshire +19 16 £395 +68.80% 21
Oxfordshire -11 3 £153 -56.29% 19
QA
South East

QA
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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 2 (3.23%) CMS
1 2 (3.23%) Confluence
1 2 (3.23%) SharePoint
Applications
1 6 (9.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (3.23%) MS Visio
3 1 (1.61%) Adobe Illustrator
3 1 (1.61%) MadCap Flare
3 1 (1.61%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 1 (1.61%) Remedy AR System
1 1 (1.61%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (1.61%) SAP QM
1 1 (1.61%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 10 (16.13%) Azure
2 8 (12.90%) AWS
2 8 (12.90%) Azure DevOps
3 4 (6.45%) Figma
4 2 (3.23%) OCI
4 2 (3.23%) Power Platform
5 1 (1.61%) Veeva
Communications & Networking
1 2 (3.23%) 5G
2 1 (1.61%) 3GPP
2 1 (1.61%) Firewall
2 1 (1.61%) Radio Access Network
2 1 (1.61%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (11.29%) NoSQL
2 4 (6.45%) SQL Server
3 2 (3.23%) BigQuery
3 2 (3.23%) Data Mart
3 2 (3.23%) Oracle Reports
3 2 (3.23%) Power BI
3 2 (3.23%) Relational Database
4 1 (1.61%) DTS
4 1 (1.61%) EDMS
4 1 (1.61%) Hadoop
4 1 (1.61%) Impala
4 1 (1.61%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (1.61%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 11 (17.74%) JIRA
2 2 (3.23%) QARun
2 2 (3.23%) WinRunner
3 1 (1.61%) Subversion
3 1 (1.61%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 31 (50.00%) Social Skills
2 16 (25.81%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (8.06%) Finance
3 5 (8.06%) Telecoms
4 4 (6.45%) Organisational Skills
5 2 (3.23%) Automotive
5 2 (3.23%) Pharmaceutical
5 2 (3.23%) Public Sector
5 2 (3.23%) Retail
6 1 (1.61%) Agriculture
6 1 (1.61%) Law
6 1 (1.61%) Legal
6 1 (1.61%) Manufacturing
6 1 (1.61%) Marketing
6 1 (1.61%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 12 (19.35%) Analyst
2 7 (11.29%) Cloud Engineer
2 7 (11.29%) Test Analyst
2 7 (11.29%) Tester
3 6 (9.68%) Desktop Engineer
3 6 (9.68%) DevOps Engineer
3 6 (9.68%) QA Tester
4 5 (8.06%) AWS Engineer
4 5 (8.06%) Business Analyst
4 5 (8.06%) Consultant
4 5 (8.06%) Senior
5 4 (6.45%) Developer
5 4 (6.45%) Lead
5 4 (6.45%) Project Manager
5 4 (6.45%) QA Consultant
5 4 (6.45%) Senior Consultant
5 4 (6.45%) Support Engineer
5 4 (6.45%) Windows Engineer
6 3 (4.84%) Technical Analyst
6 3 (4.84%) Technical Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (3.23%) CSS
1 2 (3.23%) HTML
2 1 (1.61%) .NET
2 1 (1.61%) .NET Core
2 1 (1.61%) AngularJS
2 1 (1.61%) NestJS
2 1 (1.61%) Node.js
2 1 (1.61%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 3 (4.84%) Onboarding
1 3 (4.84%) Product Ownership
2 2 (3.23%) Algorithms
2 2 (3.23%) Cloud Native
2 2 (3.23%) Mobile App
3 1 (1.61%) AI Agents
3 1 (1.61%) Analytical Mindset
3 1 (1.61%) CMDB
3 1 (1.61%) Data Centre
3 1 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
3 1 (1.61%) Fibre Optics
3 1 (1.61%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 11 (17.74%) Windows
2 2 (3.23%) Linux
2 2 (3.23%) Mac OS
3 1 (1.61%) Unix
3 1 (1.61%) Windows Server
3 1 (1.61%) Windows Server 2016
3 1 (1.61%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (45.16%) Problem-Solving
2 19 (30.65%) DevOps
2 19 (30.65%) Test Automation
3 18 (29.03%) Agile
4 14 (22.58%) Test Scripting
5 13 (20.97%) Scenario Testing
6 11 (17.74%) End-to-End Testing
6 11 (17.74%) Validation
7 10 (16.13%) User Acceptance Testing
8 9 (14.52%) Stakeholder Management
8 9 (14.52%) Waterfall
9 8 (12.90%) Analytical Thinking
9 8 (12.90%) CI/CD
9 8 (12.90%) Test Strategy
10 7 (11.29%) High Availability
10 7 (11.29%) Load Testing
10 7 (11.29%) Performance Testing
10 7 (11.29%) Risk Analysis
10 7 (11.29%) SDLC
10 7 (11.29%) Verification and Validation
Programming Languages
1 13 (20.97%) SQL
2 9 (14.52%) Python
3 3 (4.84%) C#
4 2 (3.23%) VB
5 1 (1.61%) COBOL
5 1 (1.61%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 17 (27.42%) Security Cleared
2 14 (22.58%) SC Cleared
3 8 (12.90%) Degree
4 7 (11.29%) AWS Certification
4 7 (11.29%) PMP
5 5 (8.06%) PMI Certification
6 2 (3.23%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (3.23%) Master's Degree
7 1 (1.61%) CCNA
7 1 (1.61%) CCNP
7 1 (1.61%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (1.61%) CompTIA Security+
7 1 (1.61%) CTC Cleared
7 1 (1.61%) DV Cleared
7 1 (1.61%) PgMP
7 1 (1.61%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (3.23%) Data Quality
2 1 (1.61%) Accessibility
2 1 (1.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
Systems Management
1 4 (6.45%) HP ALM
1 4 (6.45%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 5 (8.06%) Oracle
2 4 (6.45%) HP
2 4 (6.45%) Salesforce
3 3 (4.84%) Microsoft
4 2 (3.23%) CheckPoint
4 2 (3.23%) Remedy
4 2 (3.23%) SAP
5 1 (1.61%) Adobe
5 1 (1.61%) BMC
5 1 (1.61%) Cisco
5 1 (1.61%) Conga
5 1 (1.61%) Ericsson
5 1 (1.61%) Virgin Media