QA Engineer Contracts

Quality Assurance Engineer
UK

The median Quality Assurance Engineer daily rate in the UK is £438, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 12 June 2024.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

 6 months to
12 Jun 2024		 Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 495 505 620
Rank change year-on-year +10 +115 -3
Contract jobs requiring a QA Engineer 89 194 230
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.20% 0.35% 0.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.22% 0.37% 0.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 65 177 182
10th Percentile £300 £350 £375
25th Percentile £363 £434 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £580 £500
Median % change year-on-year -24.57% +16.00% +25.00%
75th Percentile £500 £688 £575
90th Percentile £525 £798 £606
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £438 £475
% change year-on-year -5.71% -7.89% +18.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 1
10th Percentile £24.98 £44.00 -
25th Percentile £31.75 £44.38 -
Median hourly rate £44.61 £50.00 £45.20
Median % change year-on-year -10.79% +10.62% +77.25%
75th Percentile £59.02 £55.00 -
90th Percentile £66.73 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.46 - £45.20

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 40,557 52,491 83,111
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.86% 94.51% 95.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,070 36,644 58,616
10th Percentile £280 £313 £318
25th Percentile £408 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.42% +2.48% +6.06%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -2.50% +5.26% +8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,936 1,486 1,938
10th Percentile £12.86 £14.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £16.30 £19.42 £15.90
Median hourly rate £37.50 £45.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +80.00% +16.28%
75th Percentile £61.81 £65.75 £50.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £77.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £42.08 £20.00
% change year-on-year -4.94% +110.39% +7.82%

QA Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured QA Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for QA Engineer in the UK

QA Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for QA Engineer in the UK

QA Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA Engineer over the 6 months to 12 June 2024.

Daily rate histogram for QA Engineer in the UK

QA Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for QA Engineer in the UK

QA Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing QA Engineer over the 6 months to 12 June 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for QA Engineer in the UK

QA Engineer
Top 15 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing QA Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 12 June 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 -1 80 £438 -27.08% 50
London +1 55 £450 -28.29% 12
UK excluding London +19 28 £413 -5.71% 46
Work from Home +85 17 £444 -6.58% 31
North of England +10 11 £500 -2.25% 3
North West +19 7 £500 +150.00% 1
South East +19 5 £413 +3.13% 14
South West +5 5 £61 -83.96% 7
Midlands +14 3 £363 +29.46% 5
North East +3 3 £368 -34.96% 2
Scotland +42 2 £380 -13.64%
Wales - 2 £499 - 1
West Midlands - 2 £328 - 4
Yorkshire +9 1 £425 -19.05%
East Midlands +2 1 £363 +29.46% 1

QA Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 12 June 2024, QA Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring QA Engineer in the job title.

1 89 (100.00%) QA
2 58 (65.17%) Test Automation
3 35 (39.33%) Agile
4 22 (24.72%) Java
5 21 (23.60%) CI/CD
6 20 (22.47%) Python
7 19 (21.35%) Git
7 19 (21.35%) Selenium
7 19 (21.35%) Test Scripting
7 19 (21.35%) Jenkins
8 18 (20.22%) Social Skills
8 18 (20.22%) Software Testing
8 18 (20.22%) JIRA
9 16 (17.98%) Scrum
10 15 (16.85%) Regression Testing
10 15 (16.85%) Data Protection Act
10 15 (16.85%) Data Protection
11 14 (15.73%) Cucumber
11 14 (15.73%) Postman
12 13 (14.61%) Scenario Testing
12 13 (14.61%) Problem-Solving
12 13 (14.61%) Analytical Skills
12 13 (14.61%) API Testing
12 13 (14.61%) Performance Testing
12 13 (14.61%) SQL
13 12 (13.48%) JavaScript
14 11 (12.36%) BDD
14 11 (12.36%) QA Automation
14 11 (12.36%) Apple iOS
15 10 (11.24%) Non-Functional Testing

QA Engineer Skill Set
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 8 (8.99%) Confluence
2 1 (1.12%) CMS
Applications
1 2 (2.25%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 4 (4.49%) Endur
2 1 (1.12%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 9 (10.11%) AWS
1 9 (10.11%) Azure
2 7 (7.87%) GitHub
3 6 (6.74%) BrowserStack
4 5 (5.62%) GitHub Actions
5 4 (4.49%) Azure DevOps
5 4 (4.49%) SaaS
6 3 (3.37%) Sauce Labs
6 3 (3.37%) Serverless
7 2 (2.25%) AWS CloudFormation
7 2 (2.25%) AWS Lambda
7 2 (2.25%) GCP
8 1 (1.12%) Dynamics 365
8 1 (1.12%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 4 (4.49%) 5G
1 4 (4.49%) Wi-Fi
2 2 (2.25%) Internet
3 1 (1.12%) HTTP
3 1 (1.12%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.12%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 19 (21.35%) Git
1 19 (21.35%) Jenkins
1 19 (21.35%) Selenium
2 18 (20.22%) JIRA
3 14 (15.73%) Cucumber
3 14 (15.73%) Postman
4 10 (11.24%) Appium
5 8 (8.99%) Cypress.io
6 7 (7.87%) SpecFlow
7 6 (6.74%) JMeter
8 5 (5.62%) Bitbucket
8 5 (5.62%) Team Foundation Server
9 4 (4.49%) GitLab
9 4 (4.49%) XCTest
10 3 (3.37%) REST Assured
10 3 (3.37%) TeamCity
10 3 (3.37%) TestRail
11 2 (2.25%) FitNesse
11 2 (2.25%) SoapUI
11 2 (2.25%) Visual Studio
General
1 18 (20.22%) Social Skills
2 13 (14.61%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (6.74%) Banking
3 6 (6.74%) Finance
4 4 (4.49%) Back Office
5 3 (3.37%) Presentation Skills
5 3 (3.37%) Telecoms
6 2 (2.25%) Retail
7 1 (1.12%) Aerospace
7 1 (1.12%) Automotive
7 1 (1.12%) Financial Institution
7 1 (1.12%) Games
7 1 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.12%) Investment Banking
7 1 (1.12%) Legal
7 1 (1.12%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (1.12%) Public Sector
7 1 (1.12%) Wholesale Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (10.11%) Playwright
2 7 (7.87%) JSON
2 7 (7.87%) XML
3 4 (4.49%) Gherkin
3 4 (4.49%) Jest
3 4 (4.49%) React Native
3 4 (4.49%) REST
3 4 (4.49%) SOAP
3 4 (4.49%) WebdriverIO
4 3 (3.37%) AngularJS
4 3 (3.37%) Middleware
4 3 (3.37%) Node.js
5 2 (2.25%) .NET
5 2 (2.25%) CSS
5 2 (2.25%) HTML
5 2 (2.25%) pytest
5 2 (2.25%) SwiftUI
6 1 (1.12%) Next.js
6 1 (1.12%) Puppeteer
6 1 (1.12%) React
Miscellaneous
1 15 (16.85%) Data Protection Act
2 7 (7.87%) Product Ownership
3 5 (5.62%) Mobile App
4 3 (3.37%) Greenfield Project
5 2 (2.25%) Derivative
5 2 (2.25%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 1 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (1.12%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (1.12%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.12%) Public Cloud
6 1 (1.12%) Replication
6 1 (1.12%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (1.12%) Social Media
6 1 (1.12%) Team-Oriented Environment
6 1 (1.12%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 11 (12.36%) Apple iOS
2 9 (10.11%) Android
3 2 (2.25%) Mac OS
3 2 (2.25%) Unix
4 1 (1.12%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 58 (65.17%) Test Automation
2 35 (39.33%) Agile
3 21 (23.60%) CI/CD
4 19 (21.35%) Test Scripting
5 18 (20.22%) Software Testing
6 16 (17.98%) Scrum
7 15 (16.85%) Data Protection
7 15 (16.85%) Regression Testing
8 13 (14.61%) API Testing
8 13 (14.61%) Performance Testing
8 13 (14.61%) Problem-Solving
8 13 (14.61%) Scenario Testing
9 11 (12.36%) BDD
9 11 (12.36%) QA Automation
10 10 (11.24%) Non-Functional Testing
11 9 (10.11%) Test Strategy
12 8 (8.99%) Continuous Integration
12 8 (8.99%) Functional Testing
12 8 (8.99%) Kanban
13 7 (7.87%) Manual Testing
Programming Languages
1 22 (24.72%) Java
2 20 (22.47%) Python
3 13 (14.61%) SQL
4 12 (13.48%) JavaScript
5 7 (7.87%) Swift
6 6 (6.74%) TypeScript
7 5 (5.62%) Bash
7 5 (5.62%) C#
7 5 (5.62%) C++
8 3 (3.37%) C
8 3 (3.37%) Kotlin
8 3 (3.37%) PowerShell
9 2 (2.25%) Perl
9 2 (2.25%) Ruby
9 2 (2.25%) Scala
10 1 (1.12%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 6 (6.74%) Degree
2 4 (4.49%) Computer Science Degree
2 4 (4.49%) ISTQB
2 4 (4.49%) SC Cleared
2 4 (4.49%) Security Cleared
3 2 (2.25%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (100.00%) QA
2 6 (6.74%) Software Quality Assurance
3 4 (4.49%) Accessibility
4 3 (3.37%) ISO 9001
Systems Management
1 2 (2.25%) Opsgenie
2 1 (1.12%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 3 (3.37%) Oracle
1 3 (3.37%) Perfecto Mobile
2 2 (2.25%) CA Agile Central
2 2 (2.25%) Microsoft
2 2 (2.25%) PagerDuty
3 1 (1.12%) Apple
3 1 (1.12%) BT
3 1 (1.12%) Dynatrace
3 1 (1.12%) OpenLink
3 1 (1.12%) Splunk
3 1 (1.12%) Tealium
64 QA Engineer jobs Nationwide