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 13 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 74 60 68
Rank change year-on-year -14 +8 +10
Contract jobs citing QA 82 59 60
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 2.71% 3.48% 2.79%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 15.83% 18.38% 22.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 51 42 23
10th Percentile £339 £230 £238
25th Percentile £363 £407 £344
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £440 £500 £480
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +4.17% +1.05%
75th Percentile £513 £550 £563
90th Percentile £575 £634 £635
South East median daily rate £425 £500 £438
% change year-on-year -15.00% +14.29% -7.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 2 2
10th Percentile £16.10 - £22.74
25th Percentile £17.56 - £29.09
Median hourly rate £26.00 £15.12 £40.35
Median % change year-on-year +71.96% -62.53% -19.30%
75th Percentile £31.88 - £51.79
90th Percentile £53.15 - £58.25
South East median hourly rate £33.00 £15.12 £55.00
% change year-on-year +118.25% -72.51% +10.00%

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 518 321 266
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 17.09% 18.94% 12.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 313 191 112
10th Percentile £361 £305 £290
25th Percentile £431 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.50% - -
75th Percentile £610 £600 £566
90th Percentile £775 £650 £673
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £493
% change year-on-year +5.00% +1.52% -6.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 20 12
10th Percentile £16.83 £14.93 £20.21
25th Percentile £26.63 £15.13 £54.46
Median hourly rate £47.52 £17.06 £61.75
Median % change year-on-year +178.55% -72.37% +22.21%
75th Percentile £71.00 £84.06 £64.73
90th Percentile £85.00 £89.63 £67.22
South East median hourly rate £36.00 £17.48 £55.00
% change year-on-year +105.95% -68.22% +7.73%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -13 54 £463 -9.76% 58
Buckinghamshire -12 25 £430 +4.24% 20
Oxfordshire -23 3 £375 +145.10% 28
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 (4.88%) Apache Spark
2 1 (1.22%) Confluence
2 1 (1.22%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 3 (3.66%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (3.66%) Microsoft Office
1 3 (3.66%) Spreadsheet
2 2 (2.44%) Chatbot
2 2 (2.44%) CPLEX
2 2 (2.44%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (1.22%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (1.22%) Oracle EBS
1 1 (1.22%) Oracle EBS R12
1 1 (1.22%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 21 (25.61%) Azure
2 13 (15.85%) AWS
3 12 (14.63%) Azure DevOps
4 7 (8.54%) GCP
4 7 (8.54%) GitHub
4 7 (8.54%) Salesforce Service Cloud
5 4 (4.88%) GitHub Actions
5 4 (4.88%) Power Platform
6 3 (3.66%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 3 (3.66%) Amazon EKS
6 3 (3.66%) AWS CloudFormation
6 3 (3.66%) Datadog
6 3 (3.66%) Dynamics 365
6 3 (3.66%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
7 2 (2.44%) Lucidchart
8 1 (1.22%) Microsoft 365
8 1 (1.22%) SaaS
8 1 (1.22%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 4 (4.88%) WAN
2 3 (3.66%) MPLS
3 2 (2.44%) ADSL
3 2 (2.44%) Ethernet
3 2 (2.44%) Internet
3 2 (2.44%) LAN
3 2 (2.44%) PSTN
4 1 (1.22%) DHCP
4 1 (1.22%) DNS
4 1 (1.22%) DOCSIS
4 1 (1.22%) Firewall
4 1 (1.22%) GPRS
4 1 (1.22%) GSM
4 1 (1.22%) IPv4
4 1 (1.22%) IPv6
4 1 (1.22%) SAN
4 1 (1.22%) UMTS
4 1 (1.22%) VPN
4 1 (1.22%) Wi-Fi
4 1 (1.22%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (6.10%) Data Warehouse
2 4 (4.88%) Big Data
3 3 (3.66%) Power BI
3 3 (3.66%) Relational Database
3 3 (3.66%) Spark SQL
4 2 (2.44%) MongoDB
4 2 (2.44%) NoSQL
4 2 (2.44%) Oracle Reports
4 2 (2.44%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (2.44%) SQL Server
5 1 (1.22%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (1.22%) BigQuery
5 1 (1.22%) Data Lake
5 1 (1.22%) EDMS
5 1 (1.22%) GIS
5 1 (1.22%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 7 (8.54%) Jenkins
2 6 (7.32%) Git
3 4 (4.88%) GitLab
4 3 (3.66%) HP UFT
5 2 (2.44%) JIRA
5 2 (2.44%) Selenium
6 1 (1.22%) Bitbucket
6 1 (1.22%) Cucumber
6 1 (1.22%) Postman
6 1 (1.22%) REST Assured
6 1 (1.22%) tSQLt
6 1 (1.22%) WebDriver
General
1 24 (29.27%) Social Skills
2 16 (19.51%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (6.10%) Finance
4 4 (4.88%) Public Sector
5 3 (3.66%) Manufacturing
5 3 (3.66%) Retail
5 3 (3.66%) Telecoms
6 2 (2.44%) Aerospace
6 2 (2.44%) Billing
6 2 (2.44%) General Ledger
7 1 (1.22%) Automotive
7 1 (1.22%) Electronics
7 1 (1.22%) Law
7 1 (1.22%) Military
7 1 (1.22%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (1.22%) Social Science
Job Titles
1 11 (13.41%) Analyst
2 10 (12.20%) Lead
2 10 (12.20%) Senior
3 9 (10.98%) Developer
4 8 (9.76%) Test Manager
5 7 (8.54%) QA Engineer
5 7 (8.54%) Test Engineer
6 6 (7.32%) Business Analyst
7 4 (4.88%) Full-Stack Developer
7 4 (4.88%) Test Analyst
8 3 (3.66%) Architect
8 3 (3.66%) Consultant
8 3 (3.66%) Infrastructure Manager
8 3 (3.66%) Infrastructure Test Manager
8 3 (3.66%) Lead DevOps
8 3 (3.66%) QA Manager
8 3 (3.66%) Senior Developer
8 3 (3.66%) ServiceNow Architect
8 3 (3.66%) Solutions Architect
8 3 (3.66%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (12.20%) REST
2 7 (8.54%) Middleware
3 6 (7.32%) SOAP
4 5 (6.10%) Lightning Web Components
4 5 (6.10%) RESTful
5 4 (4.88%) .NET
6 3 (3.66%) .NET Core
6 3 (3.66%) CSS
6 3 (3.66%) HTML
6 3 (3.66%) JSON
6 3 (3.66%) PySpark
6 3 (3.66%) React
6 3 (3.66%) Terraform
7 2 (2.44%) FastAPI
7 2 (2.44%) Flask
7 2 (2.44%) Jinja
7 2 (2.44%) OpenAPI
7 2 (2.44%) Pandas
7 2 (2.44%) pytest
7 2 (2.44%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 10 (12.20%) Product Ownership
2 6 (7.32%) Data Centre
3 4 (4.88%) Cloud Native
4 3 (3.66%) CMDB
4 3 (3.66%) Distributed Systems
4 3 (3.66%) Enterprise Software
4 3 (3.66%) SCADA
5 2 (2.44%) AI Agents
5 2 (2.44%) Algorithms
5 2 (2.44%) Data Protection Act
5 2 (2.44%) Data Structures
5 2 (2.44%) Management Information System
6 1 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (1.22%) Distributed Architecture
6 1 (1.22%) IVR
6 1 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.22%) Operational Technology
6 1 (1.22%) Renewable Energy
Processes & Methodologies
1 31 (37.80%) Agile
2 23 (28.05%) Test Automation
3 21 (25.61%) CI/CD
3 21 (25.61%) DevOps
4 19 (23.17%) Continuous Improvement
4 19 (23.17%) Problem-Solving
5 16 (19.51%) Scrum
6 15 (18.29%) Test Strategy
7 14 (17.07%) Validation
8 13 (15.85%) User Acceptance Testing
9 12 (14.63%) Stakeholder Management
10 10 (12.20%) End-to-End Testing
10 10 (12.20%) Migration
11 9 (10.98%) Release Management
11 9 (10.98%) Scenario Testing
12 8 (9.76%) Change Management
12 8 (9.76%) Defect Management
12 8 (9.76%) Integration Testing
12 8 (9.76%) Software Testing
12 8 (9.76%) Test Management
Programming Languages
1 14 (17.07%) SQL
2 6 (7.32%) JavaScript
3 5 (6.10%) Apex Code
3 5 (6.10%) C#
3 5 (6.10%) Python
4 3 (3.66%) Java
4 3 (3.66%) TypeScript
4 3 (3.66%) VBScript
5 1 (1.22%) C++
5 1 (1.22%) PowerShell
5 1 (1.22%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 21 (25.61%) Security Cleared
2 15 (18.29%) SC Cleared
3 5 (6.10%) Degree
3 5 (6.10%) ISTQB
4 4 (4.88%) DV Cleared
4 4 (4.88%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
5 3 (3.66%) AWS Certification
5 3 (3.66%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
5 3 (3.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 2 (2.44%) Azure Certification
6 2 (2.44%) BC Cleared
6 2 (2.44%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (2.44%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (1.22%) CCNP
7 1 (1.22%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (7.32%) Data Quality
2 2 (2.44%) SLA
2 2 (2.44%) Software Quality Assurance
3 1 (1.22%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 6 (7.32%) Docker
2 4 (4.88%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (3.66%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 6 (7.32%) Kubernetes
2 3 (3.66%) Ansible
2 3 (3.66%) Grafana
Vendors
1 10 (12.20%) Microsoft
1 10 (12.20%) Salesforce
2 6 (7.32%) Cisco
3 5 (6.10%) Databricks
3 5 (6.10%) Oracle
3 5 (6.10%) VMware
4 3 (3.66%) Dynatrace
4 3 (3.66%) ServiceNow
4 3 (3.66%) Splunk
5 2 (2.44%) AppDynamics
5 2 (2.44%) BT
5 2 (2.44%) Google
5 2 (2.44%) MuleSoft
5 2 (2.44%) Openreach
6 1 (1.22%) Arista
6 1 (1.22%) Autodesk
6 1 (1.22%) CheckPoint
6 1 (1.22%) Juniper
6 1 (1.22%) Samsung
6 1 (1.22%) SAP