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 15 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 51 67 64
Rank change year-on-year +16 -3 +10
Contract jobs citing QA 80 54 77
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 3.86% 2.69% 3.08%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 20.73% 17.25% 16.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 53 22 45
10th Percentile £237 £262 £312
25th Percentile £406 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% -10.38%
75th Percentile £588 £597 £575
90th Percentile £650 £636 £586
South East median daily rate £500 £425 £475
% change year-on-year +17.65% -10.53% -4.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 2 6
10th Percentile £12.25 £22.74 £24.38
25th Percentile £29.44 £29.09 £24.63
Median hourly rate £81.00 £40.35 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +100.73% +7.61% +63.04%
75th Percentile - £51.79 £50.00
90th Percentile £81.50 £58.25 £63.05
South East median hourly rate £68.00 £23.50 £28.75
% change year-on-year +189.36% -18.26% +30.68%

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 386 313 472
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 18.64% 15.59% 18.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 259 143 262
10th Percentile £300 £260 £148
25th Percentile £406 £399 £331
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% +5.26% +5.56%
75th Percentile £591 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £690 £739
South East median daily rate £500 £500 £520
% change year-on-year - -3.85% +9.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 13 23
10th Percentile £15.28 £15.88 £24.27
25th Percentile £18.87 £35.58 £27.50
Median hourly rate £36.00 £61.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -41.46% +22.99% +138.10%
75th Percentile £81.75 £64.73 £71.25
90th Percentile £89.63 £65.44 £79.78
South East median hourly rate £36.00 £50.00 £51.06
% change year-on-year -28.00% -2.07% +143.12%

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 15 December 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 December 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 December 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 +12 65 £550 +10.00% 23
Buckinghamshire +13 14 £363 -3.33% 25
Oxfordshire -16 1 £153 -65.42% 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 9 (11.25%) Confluence
3 8 (10.00%) CMS
4 5 (6.25%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
5 3 (3.75%) Anypoint
6 1 (1.25%) Apache
Applications
1 12 (15.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (6.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (5.00%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (1.25%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 5 (6.25%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (1.25%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (1.25%) SAP QM
2 1 (1.25%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 15 (18.75%) AWS
2 12 (15.00%) Azure
3 7 (8.75%) OCI
4 5 (6.25%) Azure DevOps
5 3 (3.75%) Figma
5 3 (3.75%) Serverless
6 2 (2.50%) GCP
6 2 (2.50%) Power Platform
7 1 (1.25%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (1.25%) Veeva
Communications & Networking
1 6 (7.50%) Firewall
1 6 (7.50%) Wireless
2 3 (3.75%) 5G
3 1 (1.25%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (7.50%) 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
3 1 (1.25%) DTS
3 1 (1.25%) EDMS
Development Applications
1 18 (22.50%) JIRA
2 5 (6.25%) Git
3 4 (5.00%) Burp Suite
3 4 (5.00%) Metasploit
4 1 (1.25%) Appium
4 1 (1.25%) Artifactory
4 1 (1.25%) Cypress.io
4 1 (1.25%) GitLab
4 1 (1.25%) Selenium
General
1 47 (58.75%) Social Skills
2 16 (20.00%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (8.75%) Finance
4 5 (6.25%) Automotive
5 4 (5.00%) Presentation Skills
5 4 (5.00%) Public Sector
5 4 (5.00%) Retail
5 4 (5.00%) Telecoms
6 3 (3.75%) Organisational Skills
6 3 (3.75%) Pharmaceutical
7 2 (2.50%) Banking
8 1 (1.25%) Agriculture
8 1 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (1.25%) Law
8 1 (1.25%) Legal
8 1 (1.25%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 14 (17.50%) Lead
2 12 (15.00%) Analyst
3 9 (11.25%) Project Manager
3 9 (11.25%) Tester
4 6 (7.50%) Cloud Engineer
5 5 (6.25%) AWS Engineer
5 5 (6.25%) DevOps Engineer
5 5 (6.25%) Technical Analyst
5 5 (6.25%) Test Analyst
6 4 (5.00%) Business Analyst
6 4 (5.00%) Consultant
6 4 (5.00%) Penetration Tester
6 4 (5.00%) QA Tester
6 4 (5.00%) Salesforce Analyst
6 4 (5.00%) Senior
7 3 (3.75%) Data Analyst
7 3 (3.75%) Desktop Engineer
7 3 (3.75%) E-Commerce Project Manager
7 3 (3.75%) Test Engineer
7 3 (3.75%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (6.25%) Oracle Fusion
2 4 (5.00%) Node.js
2 4 (5.00%) REST
3 3 (3.75%) SOAP
4 2 (2.50%) JWT
4 2 (2.50%) OAuth
4 2 (2.50%) RFC 2544
4 2 (2.50%) SAML
5 1 (1.25%) .NET
5 1 (1.25%) .NET Core
5 1 (1.25%) AngularJS
5 1 (1.25%) Apache NiFi
5 1 (1.25%) CSS
5 1 (1.25%) HTML
5 1 (1.25%) NestJS
5 1 (1.25%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 10 (12.50%) Mobile App
2 6 (7.50%) Product Ownership
3 4 (5.00%) Security Posture
4 3 (3.75%) Algorithms
4 3 (3.75%) Onboarding
5 2 (2.50%) Cloud Native
5 2 (2.50%) Data Centre
5 2 (2.50%) Distributed Systems
5 2 (2.50%) Fibre Optics
6 1 (1.25%) AI Agents
6 1 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (1.25%) IoT
6 1 (1.25%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.25%) Management Information System
6 1 (1.25%) PMI
6 1 (1.25%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 10 (12.50%) Windows
2 4 (5.00%) Linux
3 2 (2.50%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 31 (38.75%) Problem-Solving
2 28 (35.00%) Agile
3 22 (27.50%) Stakeholder Management
4 18 (22.50%) DevOps
4 18 (22.50%) Validation
5 17 (21.25%) Test Automation
6 14 (17.50%) Scenario Testing
7 12 (15.00%) CI/CD
7 12 (15.00%) PRINCE2
8 11 (13.75%) Project Management
8 11 (13.75%) Test Scripting
9 10 (12.50%) CRM
10 9 (11.25%) End-to-End Testing
10 9 (11.25%) Test Strategy
10 9 (11.25%) User Acceptance Testing
10 9 (11.25%) Waterfall
11 8 (10.00%) Migration
12 7 (8.75%) Information Security
12 7 (8.75%) Risk Management
12 7 (8.75%) Security Management
Programming Languages
1 11 (13.75%) Python
2 10 (12.50%) SQL
3 3 (3.75%) DataWeave
3 3 (3.75%) TypeScript
4 2 (2.50%) PowerShell
5 1 (1.25%) C#
5 1 (1.25%) Java
5 1 (1.25%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 18 (22.50%) Security Cleared
2 14 (17.50%) Degree
3 13 (16.25%) SC Cleared
4 12 (15.00%) PMI Certification
4 12 (15.00%) PMP
5 6 (7.50%) AWS Certification
6 4 (5.00%) CHECK Team Member
6 4 (5.00%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (5.00%) CREST Certified
6 4 (5.00%) Cyber Scheme
6 4 (5.00%) Postgraduate
7 3 (3.75%) Master's Degree
8 1 (1.25%) CCNA
8 1 (1.25%) CCNP
8 1 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (1.25%) CISSP
8 1 (1.25%) GCIA
8 1 (1.25%) GCIH
8 1 (1.25%) GIAC
8 1 (1.25%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (10.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (6.25%) GDPR
2 5 (6.25%) PMO
3 4 (5.00%) NIST
3 4 (5.00%) PCI DSS
4 3 (3.75%) COBIT
4 3 (3.75%) Data Quality
5 2 (2.50%) Accessibility
5 2 (2.50%) ISO 9001
6 1 (1.25%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1 (1.25%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 4 (5.00%) 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%) HP ALM
4 1 (1.25%) HP Quality Center
4 1 (1.25%) Terraform
Vendors
1 8 (10.00%) Oracle
2 6 (7.50%) Salesforce
3 4 (5.00%) CheckPoint
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%) ArcSight
6 1 (1.25%) Ericsson
6 1 (1.25%) HP
6 1 (1.25%) LogRhythm
6 1 (1.25%) Red Hat
6 1 (1.25%) Remedy
6 1 (1.25%) Splunk
6 1 (1.25%) Virgin Media