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 6 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 53 60
Rank change year-on-year -31 +7 +30
Contract jobs citing QA 73 62 82
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 2.32% 3.86% 3.07%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 12.61% 18.84% 21.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 47 38 45
10th Percentile £325 £230 £313
25th Percentile £363 £334 £353
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £435 £463 £480
Median % change year-on-year -6.05% -3.65% +1.05%
75th Percentile £500 £525 £575
90th Percentile £539 £541 £609
South East median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 5 2
10th Percentile £25.05 - £22.74
25th Percentile £55.38 £15.12 £29.09
Median hourly rate £81.50 £15.29 £40.35
Median % change year-on-year +433.03% -62.11% -19.30%
75th Percentile £82.25 £53.50 £51.79
90th Percentile £82.85 £53.65 £58.25
South East median hourly rate £70.00 £15.29 £10.82
% change year-on-year +357.82% +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 579 329 373
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 18.39% 20.49% 13.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 387 176 175
10th Percentile £333 £250 £239
25th Percentile £425 £400 £351
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £625 £588 £559
90th Percentile £720 £650 £638
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £475
% change year-on-year +5.00% +5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 26 26
10th Percentile £18.32 £15.12 £18.25
25th Percentile £31.50 £15.13 £22.98
Median hourly rate £52.50 £22.69 £28.75
Median % change year-on-year +131.43% -21.10% -4.17%
75th Percentile £83.00 £60.12 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £77.38 £68.84
South East median hourly rate £48.72 £24.66 £27.50
% change year-on-year +97.57% -10.33% -42.11%

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 6 July 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 6 July 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 6 July 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 -22 46 £450 -10.00% 16
Buckinghamshire -24 26 £430 +8.86% 21
Oxfordshire -29 1 £375 +145.10% 10
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 3 (4.11%) Confluence
1 3 (4.11%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
2 1 (1.37%) Apache Spark
2 1 (1.37%) CMS
2 1 (1.37%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (5.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (4.11%) CPLEX
3 2 (2.74%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (1.37%) Chatbot
4 1 (1.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (1.37%) MS Visio
4 1 (1.37%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (4.11%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (1.37%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 14 (19.18%) Azure
2 9 (12.33%) AWS
3 8 (10.96%) Power Platform
4 6 (8.22%) Azure DevOps
5 4 (5.48%) OCI
6 3 (4.11%) GCP
6 3 (4.11%) Salesforce Service Cloud
7 2 (2.74%) GitHub
7 2 (2.74%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
8 1 (1.37%) Dynamics 365
8 1 (1.37%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (1.37%) Microsoft 365
8 1 (1.37%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 4 (5.48%) LAN
1 4 (5.48%) WAN
1 4 (5.48%) Wireless
2 2 (2.74%) DOCSIS
2 2 (2.74%) IPv4
2 2 (2.74%) IPv6
2 2 (2.74%) MPLS
2 2 (2.74%) SAN
2 2 (2.74%) Wi-Fi
3 1 (1.37%) ADSL
3 1 (1.37%) Ethernet
3 1 (1.37%) Firewall
3 1 (1.37%) GPRS
3 1 (1.37%) GSM
3 1 (1.37%) Internet
3 1 (1.37%) LTE
3 1 (1.37%) PSTN
3 1 (1.37%) UMTS
3 1 (1.37%) VPN
3 1 (1.37%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (10.96%) Data Warehouse
2 7 (9.59%) Power BI
2 7 (9.59%) Tableau
3 3 (4.11%) MongoDB
3 3 (4.11%) NoSQL
3 3 (4.11%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (4.11%) Relational Database
4 2 (2.74%) Data Lake
5 1 (1.37%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (1.37%) Big Data
5 1 (1.37%) BigQuery
5 1 (1.37%) Geospatial Data
5 1 (1.37%) GIS
Development Applications
1 7 (9.59%) Git
2 5 (6.85%) JIRA
3 3 (4.11%) Jenkins
3 3 (4.11%) Selenium
4 2 (2.74%) HP UFT
4 2 (2.74%) WebDriver
5 1 (1.37%) Burp Suite
5 1 (1.37%) Cucumber
5 1 (1.37%) Cypress.io
5 1 (1.37%) GitLab
5 1 (1.37%) Metasploit
5 1 (1.37%) Postman
5 1 (1.37%) REST Assured
General
1 29 (39.73%) Social Skills
2 21 (28.77%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (15.07%) Public Sector
4 4 (5.48%) Finance
5 2 (2.74%) Aerospace
5 2 (2.74%) Pharmaceutical
5 2 (2.74%) Retail
5 2 (2.74%) Telecoms
6 1 (1.37%) Automotive
6 1 (1.37%) Banking
6 1 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (1.37%) Investment Banking
6 1 (1.37%) Law
6 1 (1.37%) Legal
6 1 (1.37%) Manufacturing
6 1 (1.37%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 13 (17.81%) Analyst
2 8 (10.96%) Test Manager
3 7 (9.59%) Data Analyst
3 7 (9.59%) Developer
3 7 (9.59%) Lead
3 7 (9.59%) QA Engineer
4 6 (8.22%) QA Manager
4 6 (8.22%) Test Engineer
5 5 (6.85%) Service Manager
6 4 (5.48%) Full-Stack Developer
6 4 (5.48%) Senior
6 4 (5.48%) Test Analyst
7 3 (4.11%) Architect
7 3 (4.11%) Audit Manager
7 3 (4.11%) Infrastructure Manager
7 3 (4.11%) Quality Manager
7 3 (4.11%) ServiceNow Architect
7 3 (4.11%) Solutions Architect
7 3 (4.11%) Technical Analyst
7 3 (4.11%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (9.59%) REST
2 6 (8.22%) RESTful
3 5 (6.85%) Middleware
3 5 (6.85%) React
4 4 (5.48%) JSON
5 3 (4.11%) .NET
5 3 (4.11%) .NET Core
5 3 (4.11%) CSS
5 3 (4.11%) Django
5 3 (4.11%) Flask
5 3 (4.11%) HTML
5 3 (4.11%) Jinja
5 3 (4.11%) Kafka
5 3 (4.11%) NumPy
5 3 (4.11%) Oracle Fusion
5 3 (4.11%) Pandas
5 3 (4.11%) pytest
5 3 (4.11%) RabbitMQ
5 3 (4.11%) SOAP
5 3 (4.11%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 7 (9.59%) Product Ownership
2 4 (5.48%) Data Centre
2 4 (5.48%) Distributed Systems
3 3 (4.11%) Algorithms
3 3 (4.11%) Cloud Native
3 3 (4.11%) CMDB
3 3 (4.11%) Data Structures
3 3 (4.11%) SCADA
4 2 (2.74%) Analytical Mindset
4 2 (2.74%) Data Protection Act
4 2 (2.74%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (1.37%) Distributed Architecture
5 1 (1.37%) Greenfield Project
5 1 (1.37%) IVR
5 1 (1.37%) Life Science
5 1 (1.37%) Mobile App
5 1 (1.37%) Onboarding
5 1 (1.37%) Security Posture
5 1 (1.37%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (1.37%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.37%) Apple iOS
1 1 (1.37%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (36.99%) Agile
2 18 (24.66%) Problem-Solving
2 18 (24.66%) Validation
3 17 (23.29%) Stakeholder Management
4 16 (21.92%) Test Automation
5 14 (19.18%) DevOps
5 14 (19.18%) Test Strategy
6 11 (15.07%) Analytics
6 11 (15.07%) Continuous Improvement
6 11 (15.07%) Data Modelling
6 11 (15.07%) Data Validation
6 11 (15.07%) Scrum
7 10 (13.70%) CI/CD
8 9 (12.33%) Mentoring
8 9 (12.33%) Visualisation
9 8 (10.96%) Data Governance
9 8 (10.96%) Defect Management
9 8 (10.96%) Sprint Planning
10 7 (9.59%) Data Pipeline
10 7 (9.59%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 16 (21.92%) SQL
2 7 (9.59%) JavaScript
3 6 (8.22%) Python
4 5 (6.85%) C#
4 5 (6.85%) TypeScript
5 3 (4.11%) Java
6 2 (2.74%) Apex Code
6 2 (2.74%) VBScript
7 1 (1.37%) Kotlin
7 1 (1.37%) Swift
Qualifications
1 23 (31.51%) Security Cleared
2 18 (24.66%) SC Cleared
3 4 (5.48%) ISTQB
3 4 (5.48%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
4 3 (4.11%) Degree
5 2 (2.74%) PMI Certification
5 2 (2.74%) PMP
6 1 (1.37%) BC Cleared
6 1 (1.37%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (1.37%) CCNP
6 1 (1.37%) CHECK Team Member
6 1 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (1.37%) CREST Certified
6 1 (1.37%) Cyber Scheme
6 1 (1.37%) DV Cleared
6 1 (1.37%) Postgraduate
6 1 (1.37%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (8.22%) Data Quality
2 4 (5.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (4.11%) COBIT
3 3 (4.11%) NIST
4 2 (2.74%) Accessibility
5 1 (1.37%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (1.37%) GDPR
5 1 (1.37%) PCI DSS
5 1 (1.37%) PMO
5 1 (1.37%) SLA
System Software
1 3 (4.11%) Virtual Machines
1 3 (4.11%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (1.37%) Docker
2 1 (1.37%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 1 (1.37%) Kubernetes
1 1 (1.37%) Microsoft Intune
1 1 (1.37%) Nmap
1 1 (1.37%) Terraform
Vendors
1 5 (6.85%) Cisco
1 5 (6.85%) Oracle
1 5 (6.85%) Salesforce
2 4 (5.48%) ServiceNow
2 4 (5.48%) VMware
3 3 (4.11%) Microsoft
4 2 (2.74%) CheckPoint
4 2 (2.74%) Foundry
4 2 (2.74%) MuleSoft
4 2 (2.74%) Palantir
4 2 (2.74%) SAP
5 1 (1.37%) Apple
5 1 (1.37%) Arista
5 1 (1.37%) BT
5 1 (1.37%) ESRI
5 1 (1.37%) F5
5 1 (1.37%) Fortinet
5 1 (1.37%) Juniper
5 1 (1.37%) Openreach
5 1 (1.37%) Samsung