Quality Assurance (QA)
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for QA skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited QA over the 6 months to 20 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
20 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 57 76 68
Rank change year-on-year +19 -8 +7
Contract jobs citing QA 1,450 1,724 3,048
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 3.41% 3.01% 3.45%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 24.03% 22.50% 25.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 981 1,247 2,116
10th Percentile £313 £313 £350
25th Percentile £400 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £509 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year +1.70% -1.96% +7.37%
75th Percentile £611 £625 £609
90th Percentile £750 £743 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £450
% change year-on-year +5.26% +5.56% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 35 51
10th Percentile £10.82 £10.92 £16.25
25th Percentile £12.25 £12.50 £25.25
Median hourly rate £14.00 £22.49 £48.50
Median % change year-on-year -37.74% -53.64% +148.72%
75th Percentile £32.81 £33.69 £61.75
90th Percentile £72.31 £55.00 £68.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £13.52 £13.00 £51.77
% change year-on-year +4.00% -74.89% +172.45%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

QA is in the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 6,035 7,662 11,737
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 14.19% 13.38% 13.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,843 5,232 8,045
10th Percentile £280 £281 £300
25th Percentile £402 £413 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% +1.94% +8.42%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £625
90th Percentile £750 £743 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £480 £450
% change year-on-year +0.10% +6.56% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 381 242 315
10th Percentile £10.95 £13.33 £12.03
25th Percentile £13.18 £18.71 £16.50
Median hourly rate £21.00 £35.00 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -40.00% +16.67% +42.86%
75th Percentile £45.00 £61.50 £50.39
90th Percentile £68.75 £77.35 £68.93
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.27 £31.89 £22.50
% change year-on-year -42.70% +41.71% +7.14%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing QA as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for QA in the UK

QA
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for QA in the UK

QA
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA over the 6 months to 20 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for QA in the UK

QA
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for QA in the UK

QA
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing QA over the 6 months to 20 May 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for QA in the UK

QA
Top 18 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing QA within the UK over the 6 months to 20 May 2024. 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
England +16 1,204 £525 +4.27% 1,509
London +9 649 £533 -3.09% 485
UK excluding London +29 605 £500 +5.26% 1,131
Work from Home +22 496 £500 +2.04% 555
North of England +19 160 £500 - 266
South East +39 153 £488 +2.63% 301
South West +36 101 £550 +15.79% 145
North West +5 80 £500 +8.70% 127
Midlands -7 79 £450 +8.43% 207
Yorkshire +25 73 £550 +4.76% 101
Scotland +29 55 £450 -5.26% 57
West Midlands -5 55 £525 +23.09% 130
Wales +28 26 £533 -6.54% 40
East Midlands +6 22 £255 -21.54% 77
East of England -16 21 £375 -17.58% 126
Northern Ireland +10 12 £325 -12.75% 16
North East +1 7 £410 -16.33% 44
Isle of Man - 2 - -

QA
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 65 (4.48%) Confluence
2 52 (3.59%) SharePoint
3 30 (2.07%) CMS
4 15 (1.03%) IIS
5 12 (0.83%) Drupal
6 11 (0.76%) Apache
7 8 (0.55%) SAS
7 8 (0.55%) WordPress
8 6 (0.41%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 6 (0.41%) Microsoft Exchange
9 5 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.28%) Alfresco
10 4 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
10 4 (0.28%) Apache Solr
10 4 (0.28%) ArcGIS
10 4 (0.28%) nginx
11 3 (0.21%) Apache Spark
12 2 (0.14%) MQSeries
13 1 (0.069%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.069%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 103 (7.10%) Microsoft Excel
2 39 (2.69%) Microsoft Office
3 33 (2.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 26 (1.79%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.41%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.34%) Simulink
7 3 (0.21%) Acrobat
8 2 (0.14%) Mingle
8 2 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.069%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.069%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.069%) Autodesk Inventor
9 1 (0.069%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.069%) InVision
9 1 (0.069%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.069%) SPSS
9 1 (0.069%) Trello
Business Applications
1 22 (1.52%) Dynamics CRM
2 21 (1.45%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.55%) Endur
3 8 (0.55%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 7 (0.48%) SAP ERP
5 6 (0.41%) ION MarketView
5 6 (0.41%) Magento
5 6 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
6 5 (0.34%) Dynamics AX
6 5 (0.34%) IntelliMatch
6 5 (0.34%) SAP QM
7 4 (0.28%) Adobe Campaign
7 4 (0.28%) TrackWise
8 3 (0.21%) ION Anvil
8 3 (0.21%) NEC Housing
8 3 (0.21%) Primavera
8 3 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.21%) SAP Payroll
9 2 (0.14%) SAP SD
9 2 (0.14%) WebTrends
Cloud Services
1 270 (18.62%) Azure
2 176 (12.14%) AWS
3 91 (6.28%) GitHub
4 87 (6.00%) Power Platform
5 81 (5.59%) GCP
6 73 (5.03%) Azure DevOps
7 71 (4.90%) Dynamics 365
8 32 (2.21%) SaaS
9 27 (1.86%) Serverless
10 24 (1.66%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 24 (1.66%) Entra ID
11 23 (1.59%) GitHub Actions
12 22 (1.52%) Azure Data Factory
12 22 (1.52%) Microsoft 365
13 21 (1.45%) AWS Lambda
14 19 (1.31%) Amazon EC2
14 19 (1.31%) Amazon S3
14 19 (1.31%) AWS CloudFormation
15 17 (1.17%) Azure Logic Apps
15 17 (1.17%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 30 (2.07%) Firewall
2 25 (1.72%) TCP/IP
3 24 (1.66%) VPN
4 23 (1.59%) WAN
5 22 (1.52%) DNS
5 22 (1.52%) Internet
6 19 (1.31%) LAN
7 14 (0.97%) HTTP
8 11 (0.76%) FIX Connectivity
8 11 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
9 10 (0.69%) SSL
10 7 (0.48%) 5G
10 7 (0.48%) MPLS
10 7 (0.48%) SSH
11 6 (0.41%) IPsec
12 5 (0.34%) Ethernet
12 5 (0.34%) HTTPS
13 4 (0.28%) ADSL
13 4 (0.28%) VoIP
14 3 (0.21%) PSTN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (8.07%) SQL Server
2 70 (4.83%) Power BI
3 63 (4.34%) Relational Database
4 48 (3.31%) MySQL
5 31 (2.14%) Oracle Database
6 29 (2.00%) Tableau
7 22 (1.52%) PostgreSQL
8 21 (1.45%) NoSQL
9 18 (1.24%) Elasticsearch
9 18 (1.24%) RDBMS
10 17 (1.17%) Data Lake
11 16 (1.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 15 (1.03%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 14 (0.97%) Microsoft Analysis Services
14 9 (0.62%) BigQuery
14 9 (0.62%) Data Warehouse
15 8 (0.55%) Big Data
15 8 (0.55%) Data Mining
16 7 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
16 7 (0.48%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 165 (11.38%) JIRA
2 83 (5.72%) Git
2 83 (5.72%) Jenkins
3 77 (5.31%) Selenium
4 62 (4.28%) Postman
5 60 (4.14%) GitLab
6 59 (4.07%) Cucumber
7 50 (3.45%) Cypress.io
8 36 (2.48%) JMeter
9 32 (2.21%) JUnit
10 29 (2.00%) Appium
11 27 (1.86%) SpecFlow
12 21 (1.45%) Visual Studio
13 20 (1.38%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
13 20 (1.38%) TeamCity
14 15 (1.03%) Maven
14 15 (1.03%) TestRail
15 13 (0.90%) webpack
16 12 (0.83%) CircleCI
16 12 (0.83%) REST Assured
General
1 501 (34.55%) Social Skills
2 301 (20.76%) Finance
3 181 (12.48%) Analytical Skills
4 107 (7.38%) Banking
5 100 (6.90%) Public Sector
6 51 (3.52%) Front Office
7 40 (2.76%) Telecoms
8 38 (2.62%) Marketing
9 34 (2.34%) Presentation Skills
10 32 (2.21%) Legal
11 31 (2.14%) Pharmaceutical
12 30 (2.07%) Investment Banking
13 29 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
13 29 (2.00%) Retail
14 26 (1.79%) Manufacturing
15 23 (1.59%) Organisational Skills
16 22 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 19 (1.31%) Documentation Skills
18 18 (1.24%) Back Office
19 14 (0.97%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 216 (14.90%) Analyst
2 201 (13.86%) Developer
3 149 (10.28%) Lead
4 99 (6.83%) Architect
5 88 (6.07%) Business Analyst
6 86 (5.93%) QA Engineer
7 83 (5.72%) Senior
8 74 (5.10%) Project Manager
9 66 (4.55%) Tester
10 50 (3.45%) Consultant
11 47 (3.24%) .NET Developer
12 46 (3.17%) QA Analyst
13 44 (3.03%) Test Analyst
14 40 (2.76%) Test Manager
15 38 (2.62%) Data Analyst
15 38 (2.62%) QA Tester
15 38 (2.62%) Software Engineer
15 38 (2.62%) Test Engineer
16 34 (2.34%) QA Leader
17 31 (2.14%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 117 (8.07%) .NET
2 103 (7.10%) React
3 71 (4.90%) REST
4 70 (4.83%) XML
5 53 (3.66%) HTML
6 49 (3.38%) AngularJS
6 49 (3.38%) JSON
7 46 (3.17%) CSS
8 45 (3.10%) Node.js
9 36 (2.48%) Redux
10 35 (2.41%) Web Services
11 34 (2.34%) .NET Framework
11 34 (2.34%) Vue
12 31 (2.14%) Middleware
13 30 (2.07%) Playwright
14 29 (2.00%) Spring
15 27 (1.86%) SailPoint
15 27 (1.86%) SOAP
16 24 (1.66%) .NET Core
16 24 (1.66%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 112 (7.72%) Product Ownership
2 47 (3.24%) Derivative
3 41 (2.83%) Management Information System
4 37 (2.55%) Equities
4 37 (2.55%) Fixed Income
5 36 (2.48%) Data Protection Act
6 33 (2.28%) Hedge funds
6 33 (2.28%) Mobile App
7 32 (2.21%) Onboarding
8 28 (1.93%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 27 (1.86%) Public Cloud
10 19 (1.31%) Data Structures
10 19 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
10 19 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
11 15 (1.03%) Algorithms
11 15 (1.03%) Legacy Systems
12 13 (0.90%) Cloud Native
12 13 (0.90%) Life Science
12 13 (0.90%) NHS
13 12 (0.83%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 117 (8.07%) Windows
2 82 (5.66%) Linux
3 42 (2.90%) Unix
4 36 (2.48%) Windows Server
5 26 (1.79%) Windows 10
6 23 (1.59%) Android
6 23 (1.59%) Apple iOS
7 20 (1.38%) Windows Server 2016
8 19 (1.31%) Windows NT
8 19 (1.31%) Windows Server 2012
8 19 (1.31%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (0.62%) VMS
10 6 (0.41%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 5 (0.34%) CentOS
12 4 (0.28%) OpenVMS
13 3 (0.21%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.069%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 450 (31.03%) Agile
2 286 (19.72%) Test Automation
3 275 (18.97%) Problem-Solving
4 234 (16.14%) DevOps
5 211 (14.55%) Project Management
6 165 (11.38%) CI/CD
7 151 (10.41%) Scrum
8 143 (9.86%) User Acceptance Testing
9 138 (9.52%) Continuous Improvement
10 131 (9.03%) Migration
10 131 (9.03%) Stakeholder Management
11 125 (8.62%) Test Strategy
12 105 (7.24%) Computer Science
12 105 (7.24%) Continuous Integration
13 104 (7.17%) Software Engineering
14 99 (6.83%) SDLC
15 97 (6.69%) Analytics
16 93 (6.41%) Validation
17 86 (5.93%) Software Testing
17 86 (5.93%) User Stories
Programming Languages
1 228 (15.72%) SQL
2 161 (11.10%) Python
3 160 (11.03%) C#
4 147 (10.14%) Java
5 146 (10.07%) JavaScript
6 74 (5.10%) TypeScript
7 46 (3.17%) PowerShell
8 39 (2.69%) T-SQL
9 29 (2.00%) Bash
10 24 (1.66%) VB
11 22 (1.52%) PHP
12 21 (1.45%) C
12 21 (1.45%) PL/SQL
13 20 (1.38%) VBA
14 15 (1.03%) Perl
14 15 (1.03%) Swift
15 12 (0.83%) Kotlin
16 11 (0.76%) F#
17 10 (0.69%) Bicep
17 10 (0.69%) C++
Qualifications
1 202 (13.93%) Security Cleared
2 199 (13.72%) Degree
3 134 (9.24%) SC Cleared
4 66 (4.55%) Computer Science Degree
4 66 (4.55%) DV Cleared
5 45 (3.10%) ISTQB
6 26 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
6 26 (1.79%) PMP
7 22 (1.52%) PMI Certification
8 17 (1.17%) Master's Degree
9 15 (1.03%) CISSP
9 15 (1.03%) HNC
10 12 (0.83%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 11 (0.76%) ISEB
11 11 (0.76%) NVQ Level 3
12 10 (0.69%) CISM
12 10 (0.69%) HND
13 9 (0.62%) Cisco Certification
14 8 (0.55%) CCNA
15 6 (0.41%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (4.69%) Data Quality
2 44 (3.03%) Accessibility
3 25 (1.72%) SLA
4 16 (1.10%) PMO
5 15 (1.03%) GDPR
6 11 (0.76%) Software Quality Assurance
7 10 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 9 (0.62%) ISO 9001
9 8 (0.55%) MiFID
10 7 (0.48%) Dodd-Frank
10 7 (0.48%) EMIR
10 7 (0.48%) WCAG
11 6 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 17025
11 6 (0.41%) NIST
12 5 (0.34%) Disclosure Scotland
12 5 (0.34%) GMP
12 5 (0.34%) HL7
12 5 (0.34%) ISO17020
13 4 (0.28%) HIPAA
13 4 (0.28%) IFRS
System Software
1 59 (4.07%) Active Directory
2 39 (2.69%) Docker
3 21 (1.45%) Firmware
4 12 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.34%) Veritas Cluster Server
5 5 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (0.28%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.28%) VMware Infrastructure
7 3 (0.21%) KVM
7 3 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.21%) VMware Workstation
8 1 (0.069%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.069%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 58 (4.00%) Kubernetes
2 52 (3.59%) Terraform
3 45 (3.10%) Ansible
4 25 (1.72%) Grafana
5 23 (1.59%) SCCM
6 22 (1.52%) Prometheus
7 19 (1.31%) Sysprep
7 19 (1.31%) WSUS
8 18 (1.24%) Progress Chef
9 17 (1.17%) Puppet
10 13 (0.90%) Kibana
11 12 (0.83%) Graylog
11 12 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
12 10 (0.69%) logstash
13 9 (0.62%) Docker Swarm
13 9 (0.62%) Nagios
14 8 (0.55%) HP Fortify
15 6 (0.41%) Nessus
15 6 (0.41%) WebInspect
16 4 (0.28%) Opsgenie
Vendors
1 217 (14.97%) Microsoft
2 111 (7.66%) Oracle
3 94 (6.48%) SAP
4 42 (2.90%) Google
4 42 (2.90%) ServiceNow
5 39 (2.69%) Adobe
6 38 (2.62%) Salesforce
7 34 (2.34%) Splunk
8 27 (1.86%) Citrix
9 24 (1.66%) CyberArk
10 21 (1.45%) Bloomberg
11 14 (0.97%) ION Trading
11 14 (0.97%) Red Hat
12 13 (0.90%) Cisco
12 13 (0.90%) Databricks
13 12 (0.83%) CA Agile Central
13 12 (0.83%) Pega
14 11 (0.76%) MarketAxess
14 11 (0.76%) Optimizely
14 11 (0.76%) Tradeweb