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 4 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 59 66 53
Rank change year-on-year +7 -13 +18
Contract jobs citing QA 80 48 104
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 3.58% 2.87% 3.83%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 20.51% 16.38% 20.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 50 21 75
10th Percentile £286 £363 £325
25th Percentile £366 £450 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.31%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £575
90th Percentile £650 £625 -
South East median daily rate £500 £469 £488
% change year-on-year +6.67% -3.85% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 1 2
10th Percentile £12.25 - £24.33
25th Percentile £29.44 £18.50 £24.44
Median hourly rate £81.00 £19.00 £24.75
Median % change year-on-year +326.32% -23.23% -67.22%
75th Percentile - £19.50 £24.94
90th Percentile £81.50 - £24.98
South East median hourly rate £60.00 £19.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year +215.79% -15.56% -70.20%

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 390 293 505
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 17.43% 17.53% 18.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 287 137 295
10th Percentile £300 £249 £169
25th Percentile £406 £400 £335
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% +5.56%
75th Percentile £591 £600 £575
90th Percentile £650 £683 £673
South East median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 9 21
10th Percentile £14.93 £17.20 £18.95
25th Percentile £19.00 £60.75 £24.34
Median hourly rate £36.00 £61.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -41.46% +104.98% +25.00%
75th Percentile £82.00 £64.73 £70.50
90th Percentile £106.40 £65.99 £79.78
South East median hourly rate £40.00 £28.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +42.86% -34.12% +73.47%

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 4 February 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 4 February 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 4 February 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 +8 62 £550 +10.00% 30
Buckinghamshire +4 18 £361 -21.95% 15
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 (13.75%) SharePoint
2 8 (10.00%) Confluence
3 7 (8.75%) CMS
4 6 (7.50%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
5 3 (3.75%) Anypoint
6 1 (1.25%) Apache
Applications
1 15 (18.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (12.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (11.25%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (2.50%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (7.50%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (1.25%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 20 (25.00%) AWS
2 16 (20.00%) Azure
3 6 (7.50%) Azure DevOps
3 6 (7.50%) OCI
4 5 (6.25%) Serverless
5 2 (2.50%) GCP
5 2 (2.50%) Power Platform
6 1 (1.25%) Microsoft 365
6 1 (1.25%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 10 (12.50%) Firewall
2 9 (11.25%) Wireless
3 1 (1.25%) 5G
3 1 (1.25%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (6.25%) NoSQL
2 2 (2.50%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (2.50%) Metadata
2 2 (2.50%) Power BI
2 2 (2.50%) Tableau
3 1 (1.25%) Data Mart
Development Applications
1 15 (18.75%) JIRA
2 8 (10.00%) Burp Suite
2 8 (10.00%) Metasploit
3 5 (6.25%) Git
3 5 (6.25%) HP UFT
3 5 (6.25%) Jenkins
4 3 (3.75%) Cypress.io
4 3 (3.75%) Selenium
5 2 (2.50%) WebDriver
6 1 (1.25%) Appium
6 1 (1.25%) Artifactory
6 1 (1.25%) GitLab
General
1 47 (58.75%) Social Skills
2 21 (26.25%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (8.75%) Public Sector
4 6 (7.50%) Finance
5 3 (3.75%) Automotive
5 3 (3.75%) Banking
5 3 (3.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 3 (3.75%) Presentation Skills
6 2 (2.50%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (2.50%) Retail
6 2 (2.50%) Telecoms
7 1 (1.25%) Aerospace
7 1 (1.25%) Investment Banking
7 1 (1.25%) Law
7 1 (1.25%) Legal
7 1 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (1.25%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 16 (20.00%) Lead
2 11 (13.75%) Tester
3 8 (10.00%) Analyst
3 8 (10.00%) Penetration Tester
4 7 (8.75%) Project Manager
4 7 (8.75%) Test Engineer
5 5 (6.25%) AWS Engineer
5 5 (6.25%) Cloud Engineer
5 5 (6.25%) Senior
6 4 (5.00%) Test Analyst
6 4 (5.00%) Test Leader
6 4 (5.00%) Test Manager
7 3 (3.75%) Data Analyst
7 3 (3.75%) DevOps Engineer
8 2 (2.50%) Business Data Analyst
8 2 (2.50%) Product Owner
8 2 (2.50%) QA Tester
8 2 (2.50%) Senior Software Engineer
8 2 (2.50%) Service Manager
8 2 (2.50%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (7.50%) Oracle Fusion
2 4 (5.00%) REST
3 3 (3.75%) Node.js
3 3 (3.75%) SOAP
4 2 (2.50%) JWT
4 2 (2.50%) OAuth
4 2 (2.50%) Playwright
4 2 (2.50%) RFC 2544
4 2 (2.50%) SAML
5 1 (1.25%) Apache NiFi
5 1 (1.25%) Flutter
5 1 (1.25%) JSON
5 1 (1.25%) React
5 1 (1.25%) SwiftUI
5 1 (1.25%) WebdriverIO
5 1 (1.25%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 9 (11.25%) Mobile App
2 8 (10.00%) Security Posture
3 5 (6.25%) Product Ownership
4 2 (2.50%) Algorithms
4 2 (2.50%) Analytical Mindset
4 2 (2.50%) Data Centre
4 2 (2.50%) Distributed Systems
4 2 (2.50%) Fibre Optics
4 2 (2.50%) Onboarding
4 2 (2.50%) Self-Motivation
4 2 (2.50%) Team-Oriented Environment
5 1 (1.25%) IoT
5 1 (1.25%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (1.25%) Management Information System
5 1 (1.25%) PMI
5 1 (1.25%) SCADA
5 1 (1.25%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 10 (12.50%) Windows
2 2 (2.50%) Linux
3 1 (1.25%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (41.25%) Problem-Solving
2 28 (35.00%) Agile
3 25 (31.25%) Stakeholder Management
3 25 (31.25%) Test Automation
4 20 (25.00%) Validation
5 17 (21.25%) CI/CD
5 17 (21.25%) DevOps
6 15 (18.75%) Scenario Testing
7 14 (17.50%) Test Strategy
8 12 (15.00%) Information Security
8 12 (15.00%) Security Management
9 11 (13.75%) Test Scripting
10 10 (12.50%) Decision-Making
10 10 (12.50%) Mentoring
10 10 (12.50%) Penetration Testing
10 10 (12.50%) PRINCE2
10 10 (12.50%) User Acceptance Testing
11 9 (11.25%) Code Quality
11 9 (11.25%) Commercial Awareness
11 9 (11.25%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 9 (11.25%) Python
2 8 (10.00%) SQL
3 6 (7.50%) TypeScript
4 5 (6.25%) VBScript
5 4 (5.00%) JavaScript
6 3 (3.75%) DataWeave
7 2 (2.50%) C#
7 2 (2.50%) Java
7 2 (2.50%) PowerShell
8 1 (1.25%) Kotlin
8 1 (1.25%) Swift
Qualifications
1 24 (30.00%) Security Cleared
2 19 (23.75%) SC Cleared
3 14 (17.50%) Degree
4 9 (11.25%) PMI Certification
5 8 (10.00%) CHECK Team Member
5 8 (10.00%) CREST Certified
5 8 (10.00%) Cyber Scheme
5 8 (10.00%) PMP
5 8 (10.00%) Postgraduate
6 5 (6.25%) AWS Certification
7 4 (5.00%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (1.25%) CCNA
8 1 (1.25%) CCNP
8 1 (1.25%) CFCE
8 1 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (1.25%) CISSP
8 1 (1.25%) DV Cleared
8 1 (1.25%) GIAC
8 1 (1.25%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 1 (1.25%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (16.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 10 (12.50%) PMO
3 9 (11.25%) GDPR
4 8 (10.00%) PCI DSS
5 5 (6.25%) Data Quality
5 5 (6.25%) NIST
6 4 (5.00%) Accessibility
6 4 (5.00%) COBIT
7 3 (3.75%) Actionable Recommendations
8 2 (2.50%) ISO 9001
9 1 (1.25%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1 (1.25%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 8 (10.00%) Nmap
2 3 (3.75%) CloudHub
3 2 (2.50%) Kubernetes
4 1 (1.25%) Ansible
4 1 (1.25%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
4 1 (1.25%) Terraform
Vendors
1 7 (8.75%) Oracle
2 6 (7.50%) CheckPoint
3 4 (5.00%) Salesforce
4 3 (3.75%) MuleSoft
5 2 (2.50%) Cisco
5 2 (2.50%) Foundry
5 2 (2.50%) Microsoft
5 2 (2.50%) Palantir
5 2 (2.50%) SAP
6 1 (1.25%) Apple
6 1 (1.25%) ArcSight
6 1 (1.25%) LogRhythm
6 1 (1.25%) Planview
6 1 (1.25%) Red Hat
6 1 (1.25%) Splunk