QA Contracts in the Thames Valley

Quality Assurance (QA)
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the Thames Valley requiring QA skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited QA over the 6 months leading up to 2 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 48 44 76
Rank change year-on-year -4 +32 -28
Contract jobs citing QA 57 117 78
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 3.77% 4.16% 2.61%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 19.13% 21.63% 16.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 30 82 53
10th Percentile £302 £325 £363
25th Percentile £363 £438 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year -3.75% -3.85% +22.35%
75th Percentile £500 £575 £588
90th Percentile £586 - £625
South East median daily rate £456 £488 £485
% change year-on-year -6.41% +0.52% +7.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 2 2
10th Percentile £16.25 £24.33 £24.18
25th Percentile £17.70 £24.44 £32.69
Median hourly rate £35.75 £24.75 £47.25
Median % change year-on-year +44.44% -47.62% +81.73%
75th Percentile £53.56 £24.94 £61.69
90th Percentile £53.68 £24.98 £70.13
South East median hourly rate £28.00 £13.10 £47.25
% change year-on-year +113.74% -72.28% -0.53%

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 298 541 463
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 19.71% 19.22% 15.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 161 280 279
10th Percentile £260 £192 £230
25th Percentile £400 £345 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £466
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +1.93% +4.13%
75th Percentile £613 £575 £550
90th Percentile £688 £600 £650
South East median daily rate £500 £475 £465
% change year-on-year +5.26% +2.15% +0.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 30 11
10th Percentile £16.57 £18.86 £19.50
25th Percentile £46.30 £24.06 £20.00
Median hourly rate £53.50 £27.50 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +94.55% +19.57% +9.39%
75th Percentile £63.93 £61.27 £29.25
90th Percentile £67.50 £66.25 £45.00
South East median hourly rate £46.30 £27.50 £31.00
% change year-on-year +68.36% -11.29% +14.90%

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
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing QA in the Thames Valley.

Daily rate trend for QA in the Thames Valley

QA
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 2 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for QA in the Thames Valley

QA
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing QA in the Thames Valley.

Hourly rate trend for QA in the Thames Valley

QA
Hourly Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing QA in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 2 April 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 2 April 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 -8 44 £500 -2.44% 49
Buckinghamshire +4 11 £395 -16.84% 14
Oxfordshire 0 2 £625 +26.58% 26
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 1 (1.75%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (3.51%) MS Visio
2 1 (1.75%) MadCap Flare
2 1 (1.75%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (1.75%) Remedy AR System
1 1 (1.75%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (1.75%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 8 (14.04%) AWS
2 7 (12.28%) GitHub
3 6 (10.53%) AWS Lambda
3 6 (10.53%) Serverless
4 2 (3.51%) Azure
4 2 (3.51%) Azure Data Factory
4 2 (3.51%) Azure Synapse Analytics
4 2 (3.51%) Power Platform
5 1 (1.75%) Cloud Computing
5 1 (1.75%) Figma
5 1 (1.75%) GCP
5 1 (1.75%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 3 (5.26%) Firewall
1 3 (5.26%) Radio Access Network
2 2 (3.51%) Structured Cabling
3 1 (1.75%) ADSL
3 1 (1.75%) BGP
3 1 (1.75%) DSL
3 1 (1.75%) EIGRP
3 1 (1.75%) Ethernet
3 1 (1.75%) Internet
3 1 (1.75%) IPsec
3 1 (1.75%) LAN
3 1 (1.75%) MPLS
3 1 (1.75%) Network Security
3 1 (1.75%) OSPF
3 1 (1.75%) PPP
3 1 (1.75%) TACACS
3 1 (1.75%) Unified Communications
3 1 (1.75%) VoIP
3 1 (1.75%) WAN
3 1 (1.75%) xDSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (5.26%) Relational Database
2 2 (3.51%) Azure SQL Database
2 2 (3.51%) Power BI
2 2 (3.51%) SQL Server
2 2 (3.51%) Tableau
3 1 (1.75%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.75%) MySQL
3 1 (1.75%) NoSQL
3 1 (1.75%) Oracle Database
3 1 (1.75%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (1.75%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 7 (12.28%) Selenium
2 5 (8.77%) JIRA
3 2 (3.51%) Git
3 2 (3.51%) SpecFlow
4 1 (1.75%) Axure RP
4 1 (1.75%) DBeaver
4 1 (1.75%) GitLab
4 1 (1.75%) Subversion
4 1 (1.75%) Team Foundation Server
4 1 (1.75%) WebDriver
General
1 20 (35.09%) Social Skills
2 17 (29.82%) Telecoms
3 12 (21.05%) Analytical Skills
4 8 (14.04%) Finance
4 8 (14.04%) Retail
5 4 (7.02%) Public Sector
6 3 (5.26%) Manufacturing
7 2 (3.51%) Electronics
7 2 (3.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 2 (3.51%) Marketing
8 1 (1.75%) Automotive
8 1 (1.75%) Games
8 1 (1.75%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 9 (15.79%) Analyst
2 7 (12.28%) AWS Engineer
3 4 (7.02%) Architect
3 4 (7.02%) Project Manager
3 4 (7.02%) Test Analyst
4 3 (5.26%) Automation Tester
4 3 (5.26%) Data Analyst
4 3 (5.26%) Data Manager
4 3 (5.26%) IT Manager
4 3 (5.26%) IT Operations Manager
4 3 (5.26%) Operations Manager
4 3 (5.26%) Performance Manager
4 3 (5.26%) Senior
4 3 (5.26%) Test Engineer
4 3 (5.26%) Test Manager
4 3 (5.26%) Tester
5 2 (3.51%) OSS Project Manager
5 2 (3.51%) Senior Automation Tester
5 2 (3.51%) Senior Test Automation Engineer
5 2 (3.51%) Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (17.54%) JSON
2 4 (7.02%) Middleware
2 4 (7.02%) Web Services
2 4 (7.02%) XML
3 2 (3.51%) Gherkin
3 2 (3.51%) PySpark
3 2 (3.51%) RFC 2544
4 1 (1.75%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 8 (14.04%) Algorithms
2 5 (8.77%) Cloud Native
3 4 (7.02%) TM Forum
4 3 (5.26%) Product Ownership
5 2 (3.51%) Data Centre
6 1 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (1.75%) CMDB
6 1 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (1.75%) IoT
6 1 (1.75%) Legacy Applications
6 1 (1.75%) Life Science
6 1 (1.75%) Mainframe
6 1 (1.75%) Management Information System
6 1 (1.75%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 2 (3.51%) Windows
2 1 (1.75%) Unix
2 1 (1.75%) Windows Server
2 1 (1.75%) Windows Server 2016
2 1 (1.75%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (35.09%) Agile
2 15 (26.32%) Problem-Solving
2 15 (26.32%) Test Automation
3 12 (21.05%) Scenario Testing
4 9 (15.79%) CI/CD
4 9 (15.79%) Data Modelling
4 9 (15.79%) DevOps
4 9 (15.79%) Migration
4 9 (15.79%) Project Management
4 9 (15.79%) Stakeholder Management
4 9 (15.79%) User Acceptance Testing
5 8 (14.04%) Data Collection
5 8 (14.04%) Exploratory Testing
5 8 (14.04%) Mathematics
5 8 (14.04%) Optimization Problems
5 8 (14.04%) Project Delivery
5 8 (14.04%) Test Strategy
6 7 (12.28%) Customer Experience
6 7 (12.28%) Defect Management
6 7 (12.28%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 18 (31.58%) Python
2 8 (14.04%) SQL
3 7 (12.28%) Java
4 3 (5.26%) R
5 1 (1.75%) ABAP
5 1 (1.75%) C#
5 1 (1.75%) COBOL
5 1 (1.75%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 9 (15.79%) Security Cleared
2 8 (14.04%) Degree
3 7 (12.28%) SC Cleared
4 5 (8.77%) Master's Degree
5 3 (5.26%) PMI Certification
5 3 (5.26%) PMP
6 1 (1.75%) AWS Certification
6 1 (1.75%) BC Cleared
6 1 (1.75%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (1.75%) CCDP
6 1 (1.75%) CCIP
6 1 (1.75%) CCNA
6 1 (1.75%) CCNP
6 1 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (1.75%) CompTIA Security+
6 1 (1.75%) CTC Cleared
6 1 (1.75%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (5.26%) Data Quality
2 2 (3.51%) PMO
3 1 (1.75%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (1.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 6 (10.53%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (3.51%) Amdocs OSS
Vendors
1 3 (5.26%) CheckPoint
1 3 (5.26%) Cisco
1 3 (5.26%) Databricks
1 3 (5.26%) Dynatrace
1 3 (5.26%) Remedy
1 3 (5.26%) SAP
1 3 (5.26%) Splunk
2 2 (3.51%) BT
2 2 (3.51%) Cramer
2 2 (3.51%) Infoblox
2 2 (3.51%) Microsoft
2 2 (3.51%) Oracle
3 1 (1.75%) ADVA
3 1 (1.75%) Alcatel-Lucent
3 1 (1.75%) BMC
3 1 (1.75%) Google
3 1 (1.75%) Juniper
3 1 (1.75%) Workday