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 28 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 79 47 62
Rank change year-on-year -32 +15 +19
Contract jobs citing QA 77 71 64
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 2.45% 4.29% 2.82%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 13.37% 21.07% 22.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 48 44 24
10th Percentile £325 £322 £240
25th Percentile £379 £405 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £435 £469 £465
Median % change year-on-year -7.20% +0.81% -2.11%
75th Percentile £500 £525 £588
90th Percentile £537 £583 £638
South East median daily rate £432 £488 £413
% change year-on-year -11.38% +18.18% -13.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 5 2
10th Percentile £16.10 - £22.74
25th Percentile £17.56 £15.12 £29.09
Median hourly rate £30.00 £15.29 £40.35
Median % change year-on-year +96.21% -62.11% -19.30%
75th Percentile £82.25 £53.50 £51.79
90th Percentile - £53.65 £58.25
South East median hourly rate £56.73 £15.29 £10.82
% change year-on-year +271.01% +41.31% -78.36%

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 576 337 281
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 18.29% 20.37% 12.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 371 188 120
10th Percentile £363 £314 £248
25th Percentile £431 £409 £372
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £498
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% +0.50% -0.50%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £561
90th Percentile £750 £654 £653
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £475
% change year-on-year +5.00% +5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 25 19
10th Percentile £17.63 £15.12 £21.70
25th Percentile £33.70 £15.13 £26.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £18.87 £61.71
Median % change year-on-year +178.22% -69.42% +23.41%
75th Percentile £82.25 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £84.00 £88.78 £71.64
South East median hourly rate £48.59 £25.15 £36.17
% change year-on-year +93.19% -30.46% -27.67%

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 28 August 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 28 August 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 28 August 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 -27 51 £450 -10.00% 35
Buckinghamshire -28 23 £430 +8.86% 35
Oxfordshire -25 3 £375 +145.10% 37
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 (5.19%) Apache Spark
2 2 (2.60%) Confluence
Applications
1 3 (3.90%) CPLEX
2 2 (2.60%) Chatbot
2 2 (2.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (2.60%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (1.30%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (1.30%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (1.30%) Oracle EBS
1 1 (1.30%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 18 (23.38%) Azure
2 15 (19.48%) AWS
3 9 (11.69%) GCP
4 7 (9.09%) Azure DevOps
4 7 (9.09%) GitHub
4 7 (9.09%) Salesforce Service Cloud
5 6 (7.79%) Power Platform
6 4 (5.19%) GitHub Actions
7 3 (3.90%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 3 (3.90%) Amazon EKS
7 3 (3.90%) AWS CloudFormation
7 3 (3.90%) Datadog
7 3 (3.90%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
8 1 (1.30%) Dynamics 365
8 1 (1.30%) Microsoft 365
8 1 (1.30%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 4 (5.19%) WAN
2 3 (3.90%) LAN
2 3 (3.90%) MPLS
3 2 (2.60%) ADSL
3 2 (2.60%) Ethernet
3 2 (2.60%) Internet
3 2 (2.60%) PSTN
3 2 (2.60%) Wireless
4 1 (1.30%) DOCSIS
4 1 (1.30%) GPRS
4 1 (1.30%) GSM
4 1 (1.30%) IPv4
4 1 (1.30%) IPv6
4 1 (1.30%) LTE
4 1 (1.30%) SAN
4 1 (1.30%) UMTS
4 1 (1.30%) VPN
4 1 (1.30%) Wi-Fi
4 1 (1.30%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (11.69%) Data Warehouse
2 5 (6.49%) Power BI
2 5 (6.49%) Tableau
3 4 (5.19%) Big Data
4 3 (3.90%) MongoDB
4 3 (3.90%) NoSQL
4 3 (3.90%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (3.90%) Relational Database
4 3 (3.90%) Spark SQL
5 2 (2.60%) GIS
5 2 (2.60%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (1.30%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (1.30%) BigQuery
6 1 (1.30%) Data Lake
6 1 (1.30%) Geospatial Data
6 1 (1.30%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 8 (10.39%) Git
2 5 (6.49%) Jenkins
2 5 (6.49%) JIRA
3 4 (5.19%) GitLab
4 2 (2.60%) Selenium
5 1 (1.30%) Cucumber
5 1 (1.30%) HP UFT
5 1 (1.30%) Postman
5 1 (1.30%) REST Assured
5 1 (1.30%) tSQLt
5 1 (1.30%) WebDriver
General
1 25 (32.47%) Social Skills
2 22 (28.57%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (10.39%) Public Sector
4 3 (3.90%) Finance
4 3 (3.90%) Telecoms
5 2 (2.60%) Pharmaceutical
5 2 (2.60%) Retail
6 1 (1.30%) Aerospace
6 1 (1.30%) Automotive
6 1 (1.30%) Law
6 1 (1.30%) Legal
6 1 (1.30%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 11 (14.29%) Analyst
2 10 (12.99%) Developer
3 9 (11.69%) Senior
4 8 (10.39%) Lead
4 8 (10.39%) Test Manager
5 7 (9.09%) QA Engineer
6 6 (7.79%) QA Manager
7 5 (6.49%) Data Analyst
7 5 (6.49%) Technical Analyst
7 5 (6.49%) Test Engineer
8 4 (5.19%) Full-Stack Developer
8 4 (5.19%) Service Manager
9 3 (3.90%) Audit Manager
9 3 (3.90%) Infrastructure Manager
9 3 (3.90%) Lead DevOps
9 3 (3.90%) Python Developer
9 3 (3.90%) Quality Manager
9 3 (3.90%) Senior QA Engineer
9 3 (3.90%) ServiceNow Architect
9 3 (3.90%) Technical Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (12.99%) REST
2 8 (10.39%) Middleware
3 6 (7.79%) RESTful
3 6 (7.79%) SOAP
4 5 (6.49%) Lightning Web Components
5 4 (5.19%) Terraform
6 3 (3.90%) .NET Core
6 3 (3.90%) Django
6 3 (3.90%) FastAPI
6 3 (3.90%) Flask
6 3 (3.90%) Jinja
6 3 (3.90%) JSON
6 3 (3.90%) Kafka
6 3 (3.90%) NumPy
6 3 (3.90%) OpenAPI
6 3 (3.90%) PySpark
6 3 (3.90%) pytest
6 3 (3.90%) RabbitMQ
6 3 (3.90%) React
6 3 (3.90%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 8 (10.39%) Product Ownership
2 5 (6.49%) Cloud Native
2 5 (6.49%) SCADA
3 4 (5.19%) Data Centre
3 4 (5.19%) Distributed Systems
4 3 (3.90%) Algorithms
4 3 (3.90%) CMDB
4 3 (3.90%) Data Structures
5 2 (2.60%) AI Agents
5 2 (2.60%) Data Protection Act
5 2 (2.60%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (1.30%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (1.30%) Distributed Architecture
6 1 (1.30%) Greenfield Project
6 1 (1.30%) IVR
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (42.86%) Agile
2 19 (24.68%) Problem-Solving
2 19 (24.68%) Test Automation
3 18 (23.38%) CI/CD
3 18 (23.38%) DevOps
4 17 (22.08%) Continuous Improvement
4 17 (22.08%) Validation
5 15 (19.48%) Scrum
5 15 (19.48%) Test Strategy
6 13 (16.88%) Stakeholder Management
7 10 (12.99%) Data Validation
7 10 (12.99%) Sprint Planning
8 9 (11.69%) Analytics
8 9 (11.69%) Data Modelling
8 9 (11.69%) Data Pipeline
9 8 (10.39%) Containerisation
9 8 (10.39%) Release Management
10 7 (9.09%) Defect Management
10 7 (9.09%) End-to-End Testing
10 7 (9.09%) Test Management
Programming Languages
1 18 (23.38%) SQL
2 7 (9.09%) Python
3 6 (7.79%) JavaScript
4 5 (6.49%) Apex Code
5 4 (5.19%) C#
6 3 (3.90%) Java
6 3 (3.90%) TypeScript
7 1 (1.30%) PowerShell
7 1 (1.30%) T-SQL
7 1 (1.30%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 17 (22.08%) Security Cleared
2 12 (15.58%) SC Cleared
3 4 (5.19%) ISTQB
3 4 (5.19%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
4 3 (3.90%) AWS Certification
4 3 (3.90%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
4 3 (3.90%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 2 (2.60%) BC Cleared
5 2 (2.60%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (2.60%) Degree
6 1 (1.30%) CCNP
6 1 (1.30%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (1.30%) DV Cleared
6 1 (1.30%) PMI Certification
6 1 (1.30%) PMP
6 1 (1.30%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (10.39%) Data Quality
2 2 (2.60%) SLA
3 1 (1.30%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 6 (7.79%) Docker
2 3 (3.90%) Virtual Machines
2 3 (3.90%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (1.30%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 6 (7.79%) Kubernetes
2 3 (3.90%) Ansible
2 3 (3.90%) Grafana
3 1 (1.30%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 11 (14.29%) Salesforce
2 6 (7.79%) Cisco
2 6 (7.79%) Microsoft
3 5 (6.49%) Oracle
4 4 (5.19%) MuleSoft
4 4 (5.19%) ServiceNow
4 4 (5.19%) VMware
5 3 (3.90%) Databricks
5 3 (3.90%) Dynatrace
5 3 (3.90%) Splunk
6 2 (2.60%) AppDynamics
6 2 (2.60%) BT
6 2 (2.60%) Foundry
6 2 (2.60%) Google
6 2 (2.60%) Openreach
6 2 (2.60%) Palantir
6 2 (2.60%) SAP
7 1 (1.30%) Arista
7 1 (1.30%) Juniper
7 1 (1.30%) Samsung