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 9 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 49 49
Rank change year-on-year -22 0 +42
Contract jobs citing QA 83 59 104
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 2.82% 3.97% 3.93%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 15.46% 19.67% 23.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 46 32 70
10th Percentile £268 £304 £325
25th Percentile £363 £385 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.70% -7.55% +2.62%
75th Percentile £538 £500 £575
90th Percentile £639 £548 -
South East median daily rate £475 £434 £494
% change year-on-year +9.38% -12.05% +8.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 4 2
10th Percentile £16.55 £16.25 £19.08
25th Percentile £80.75 £17.70 £19.94
Median hourly rate £81.50 £35.75 £21.75
Median % change year-on-year +127.97% +64.37% -53.97%
75th Percentile £82.25 £53.56 £23.44
90th Percentile £82.55 £53.68 £24.23
South East median hourly rate £70.00 £28.00 £11.13
% change year-on-year +150.00% +151.57% -76.44%

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 537 300 443
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 18.23% 20.20% 16.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 375 160 246
10th Percentile £322 £296 £185
25th Percentile £416 £413 £318
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £505 £475
Median % change year-on-year +3.96% +6.32% -2.06%
75th Percentile £623 £600 £575
90th Percentile £700 £688 £600
South East median daily rate £520 £500 £475
% change year-on-year +4.00% +5.26% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 15 25
10th Percentile £22.68 £29.62 £18.20
25th Percentile £36.00 £46.30 £22.50
Median hourly rate £81.50 £61.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +32.53% +123.62% +25.00%
75th Percentile £83.00 £66.56 £65.00
90th Percentile £99.40 £79.50 £69.11
South East median hourly rate £60.00 £46.30 £27.50
% change year-on-year +29.59% +68.36% +12.24%

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 9 May 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 9 May 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 9 May 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 -14 59 £475 -5.00% 25
Buckinghamshire -22 24 £375 -11.76% 24
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 6 (7.23%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
2 5 (6.02%) SharePoint
3 4 (4.82%) Confluence
4 3 (3.61%) CMS
5 1 (1.20%) Apache
Applications
1 15 (18.07%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (13.25%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (12.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (2.41%) MS Visio
5 1 (1.20%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 6 (7.23%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 23 (27.71%) Azure
2 19 (22.89%) AWS
3 9 (10.84%) Azure DevOps
4 8 (9.64%) Power Platform
5 7 (8.43%) OCI
6 5 (6.02%) Serverless
7 3 (3.61%) GCP
8 1 (1.20%) GitHub
8 1 (1.20%) Microsoft 365
8 1 (1.20%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 12 (14.46%) Wireless
2 9 (10.84%) Firewall
3 4 (4.82%) LAN
3 4 (4.82%) WAN
4 2 (2.41%) DOCSIS
4 2 (2.41%) IPv4
4 2 (2.41%) IPv6
4 2 (2.41%) MPLS
4 2 (2.41%) SAN
4 2 (2.41%) Wi-Fi
5 1 (1.20%) ADSL
5 1 (1.20%) Ethernet
5 1 (1.20%) GPRS
5 1 (1.20%) GSM
5 1 (1.20%) Internet
5 1 (1.20%) LTE
5 1 (1.20%) PSTN
5 1 (1.20%) UMTS
5 1 (1.20%) VPN
5 1 (1.20%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (9.64%) Data Warehouse
1 8 (9.64%) Power BI
1 8 (9.64%) Tableau
2 1 (1.20%) Data Lake
2 1 (1.20%) Geospatial Data
2 1 (1.20%) GIS
2 1 (1.20%) Metadata
2 1 (1.20%) MongoDB
2 1 (1.20%) NoSQL
2 1 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (1.20%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 9 (10.84%) Burp Suite
1 9 (10.84%) Metasploit
2 7 (8.43%) Git
2 7 (8.43%) JIRA
3 5 (6.02%) HP UFT
3 5 (6.02%) Jenkins
4 3 (3.61%) Selenium
4 3 (3.61%) WebDriver
5 2 (2.41%) Cypress.io
6 1 (1.20%) Artifactory
6 1 (1.20%) Cucumber
6 1 (1.20%) GitLab
6 1 (1.20%) REST Assured
General
1 46 (55.42%) Social Skills
2 25 (30.12%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (14.46%) Public Sector
4 5 (6.02%) Finance
5 3 (3.61%) Aerospace
5 3 (3.61%) Pharmaceutical
6 2 (2.41%) Automotive
6 2 (2.41%) Banking
6 2 (2.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (2.41%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (2.41%) Retail
6 2 (2.41%) Telecoms
7 1 (1.20%) Investment Banking
7 1 (1.20%) Law
7 1 (1.20%) Legal
7 1 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (1.20%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 13 (15.66%) Analyst
1 13 (15.66%) Lead
2 11 (13.25%) Tester
3 9 (10.84%) Penetration Tester
4 8 (9.64%) Data Analyst
5 7 (8.43%) Test Engineer
6 6 (7.23%) Senior
6 6 (7.23%) Service Manager
7 4 (4.82%) Product Owner
7 4 (4.82%) Project Manager
7 4 (4.82%) QA Engineer
7 4 (4.82%) QA Manager
7 4 (4.82%) Technical Analyst
7 4 (4.82%) Test Leader
8 3 (3.61%) Audit Manager
8 3 (3.61%) Business Data Analyst
8 3 (3.61%) Quality Manager
8 3 (3.61%) Test Analyst
8 3 (3.61%) Test Manager
9 2 (2.41%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (7.23%) Oracle Fusion
2 4 (4.82%) React
3 3 (3.61%) JSON
3 3 (3.61%) Middleware
3 3 (3.61%) Node.js
3 3 (3.61%) REST
4 2 (2.41%) Flutter
4 2 (2.41%) Playwright
4 2 (2.41%) RESTful
4 2 (2.41%) XML
5 1 (1.20%) .NET Core
5 1 (1.20%) Apache NiFi
5 1 (1.20%) FastAPI
5 1 (1.20%) Flask
5 1 (1.20%) Jinja
5 1 (1.20%) OpenAPI
5 1 (1.20%) Pandas
5 1 (1.20%) PySpark
5 1 (1.20%) pytest
5 1 (1.20%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 9 (10.84%) Security Posture
2 8 (9.64%) Product Ownership
3 3 (3.61%) Mobile App
3 3 (3.61%) SCADA
4 2 (2.41%) Analytical Mindset
4 2 (2.41%) Self-Motivation
4 2 (2.41%) Team-Oriented Environment
5 1 (1.20%) Algorithms
5 1 (1.20%) Cloud Native
5 1 (1.20%) CMDB
5 1 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (1.20%) Data Structures
5 1 (1.20%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (1.20%) Greenfield Project
5 1 (1.20%) IoT
5 1 (1.20%) IVR
5 1 (1.20%) Life Science
5 1 (1.20%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 10 (12.05%) Windows
2 1 (1.20%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (39.76%) Agile
2 26 (31.33%) Problem-Solving
3 25 (30.12%) Stakeholder Management
4 19 (22.89%) Test Automation
4 19 (22.89%) Validation
5 17 (20.48%) DevOps
6 14 (16.87%) Information Security
6 14 (16.87%) Security Management
7 13 (15.66%) Data Modelling
7 13 (15.66%) Test Strategy
8 12 (14.46%) CI/CD
8 12 (14.46%) Continuous Improvement
8 12 (14.46%) Data Validation
9 11 (13.25%) Scrum
10 10 (12.05%) Analytics
10 10 (12.05%) Cloud Security
10 10 (12.05%) Customer Service
10 10 (12.05%) Data Cleansing
10 10 (12.05%) Line Management
10 10 (12.05%) Penetration Testing
Programming Languages
1 11 (13.25%) SQL
2 8 (9.64%) TypeScript
3 5 (6.02%) JavaScript
3 5 (6.02%) VBScript
4 4 (4.82%) Python
5 3 (3.61%) C#
6 2 (2.41%) Java
6 2 (2.41%) Kotlin
7 1 (1.20%) PowerShell
7 1 (1.20%) Swift
Qualifications
1 28 (33.73%) Security Cleared
2 20 (24.10%) SC Cleared
3 13 (15.66%) Degree
4 9 (10.84%) CHECK Team Member
4 9 (10.84%) CREST Certified
4 9 (10.84%) Cyber Scheme
4 9 (10.84%) Postgraduate
5 4 (4.82%) PMI Certification
5 4 (4.82%) PMP
6 2 (2.41%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (2.41%) DV Cleared
7 1 (1.20%) BC Cleared
7 1 (1.20%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (1.20%) CCNP
7 1 (1.20%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (1.20%) ISTQB
7 1 (1.20%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 1 (1.20%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (16.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 10 (12.05%) PMO
3 9 (10.84%) GDPR
3 9 (10.84%) PCI DSS
4 7 (8.43%) Data Quality
5 5 (6.02%) COBIT
5 5 (6.02%) NIST
6 4 (4.82%) Accessibility
7 3 (3.61%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (1.20%) ISO 9001
8 1 (1.20%) SLA
System Software
1 1 (1.20%) Docker
1 1 (1.20%) Virtual Desktop
1 1 (1.20%) Virtual Machines
1 1 (1.20%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 9 (10.84%) Nmap
2 2 (2.41%) Kubernetes
2 2 (2.41%) Terraform
3 1 (1.20%) Ansible
3 1 (1.20%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 9 (10.84%) Oracle
2 5 (6.02%) CheckPoint
3 3 (3.61%) Cisco
3 3 (3.61%) Foundry
3 3 (3.61%) Microsoft
3 3 (3.61%) Palantir
4 2 (2.41%) MuleSoft
4 2 (2.41%) Salesforce
4 2 (2.41%) SAP
4 2 (2.41%) ServiceNow
5 1 (1.20%) Apple
5 1 (1.20%) Arista
5 1 (1.20%) BT
5 1 (1.20%) ESRI
5 1 (1.20%) F5
5 1 (1.20%) Fortinet
5 1 (1.20%) Juniper
5 1 (1.20%) Openreach
5 1 (1.20%) Red Hat
5 1 (1.20%) VMware