QA Contracts in England

Quality Assurance (QA)
UK > England

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England 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 2 June 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
2 Jun 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 62 73 66
Rank change year-on-year +11 -7 +9
Contract jobs citing QA 1,195 1,504 2,496
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 3.24% 3.15% 3.53%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 23.49% 23.31% 27.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 818 1,093 1,757
10th Percentile £313 £325 £350
25th Percentile £405 £400 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £524 £513 £515
Median % change year-on-year +2.15% -0.49% +8.42%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £613
90th Percentile £750 £750 £708
UK median daily rate £509 £505 £514
% change year-on-year +0.69% -1.70% +8.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 70 29 47
10th Percentile £10.82 £18.40 £15.75
25th Percentile £11.88 £21.24 £24.35
Median hourly rate £14.00 £22.49 £45.20
Median % change year-on-year -37.74% -50.25% +151.11%
75th Percentile £32.01 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £71.94 £56.00 £69.95
UK median hourly rate £14.00 £22.49 £46.50
% change year-on-year -37.74% -51.65% +141.56%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
England

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 advertised in England with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 5,087 6,452 9,246
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 13.78% 13.51% 13.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,234 4,361 6,380
10th Percentile £300 £300 £294
25th Percentile £406 £413 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - +10.53%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £633
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK median daily rate £510 £525 £520
% change year-on-year -2.86% +0.96% +9.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 368 223 268
10th Percentile £10.95 £15.04 £12.31
25th Percentile £13.18 £20.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £23.65 £42.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -44.35% +54.55% +30.95%
75th Percentile £48.75 £64.38 £49.25
90th Percentile £70.00 £79.95 £69.07
UK median hourly rate £22.34 £37.50 £27.73
% change year-on-year -40.43% +35.23% +32.05%

QA
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

Job vacancy trend for QA in England

QA
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

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

Daily rate trend for QA in England

QA
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA in England over the 6 months to 2 June 2024.

Daily rate histogram for QA in England

QA
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

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

Hourly rate trend for QA in England

QA
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing QA in England over the 6 months to 2 June 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for QA in England

QA
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing QA within the England region over the 6 months to 2 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
London +5 627 £525 -4.55% 412
North of England +14 161 £500 - 228
South East +43 160 £488 +4.56% 247
South West +38 101 £550 +15.79% 157
North West +7 82 £500 +5.26% 122
Midlands -2 82 £450 +12.50% 183
Yorkshire +24 72 £550 +4.76% 62
West Midlands -8 58 £525 +5.00% 118
East of England -20 23 £375 -17.58% 130
East Midlands -1 22 £255 -31.54% 65
North East -2 7 £410 -15.03% 49
QA
UK

QA
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England 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 58 (4.85%) Confluence
2 41 (3.43%) SharePoint
3 24 (2.01%) CMS
4 17 (1.42%) IIS
5 13 (1.09%) Apache
6 8 (0.67%) Drupal
7 7 (0.59%) SAS
8 6 (0.50%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 6 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
9 5 (0.42%) Alfresco
9 5 (0.42%) nginx
9 5 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.33%) Apache Solr
10 4 (0.33%) ArcGIS
10 4 (0.33%) WordPress
11 3 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
11 3 (0.25%) Apache Spark
12 2 (0.17%) MQSeries
13 1 (0.084%) Sitecore CMS
13 1 (0.084%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 93 (7.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 37 (3.10%) Microsoft Office
3 30 (2.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (1.67%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.42%) Simulink
6 3 (0.25%) Acrobat
7 2 (0.17%) Mingle
7 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.084%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.084%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.084%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.084%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.084%) InVision
8 1 (0.084%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.084%) SPSS
8 1 (0.084%) Trello
Business Applications
1 14 (1.17%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.75%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.67%) Endur
3 8 (0.67%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 6 (0.50%) ION MarketView
4 6 (0.50%) Oracle EBS
4 6 (0.50%) SAP ERP
5 4 (0.33%) Adobe Campaign
5 4 (0.33%) SAP QM
5 4 (0.33%) TrackWise
6 3 (0.25%) IntelliMatch
6 3 (0.25%) ION Anvil
6 3 (0.25%) Primavera
6 3 (0.25%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.17%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.17%) SAP CRM
7 2 (0.17%) SAP SD
7 2 (0.17%) WebTrends
7 2 (0.17%) Workday HCM
8 1 (0.084%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 218 (18.24%) Azure
2 139 (11.63%) AWS
3 78 (6.53%) Power Platform
4 69 (5.77%) GCP
5 62 (5.19%) Azure DevOps
6 53 (4.44%) GitHub
7 49 (4.10%) Dynamics 365
8 31 (2.59%) SaaS
9 22 (1.84%) Azure Data Factory
10 21 (1.76%) Serverless
11 19 (1.59%) Entra ID
12 17 (1.42%) Amazon EC2
12 17 (1.42%) Azure Logic Apps
12 17 (1.42%) Microsoft 365
12 17 (1.42%) Power Automate
13 16 (1.34%) AWS Lambda
13 16 (1.34%) Azure API Management
14 15 (1.26%) Amazon S3
14 15 (1.26%) BrowserStack
15 14 (1.17%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 27 (2.26%) Firewall
2 23 (1.92%) Internet
3 22 (1.84%) TCP/IP
4 21 (1.76%) DNS
5 19 (1.59%) WAN
6 18 (1.51%) VPN
7 15 (1.26%) HTTP
7 15 (1.26%) LAN
8 10 (0.84%) FIX Connectivity
8 10 (0.84%) SSL
8 10 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (0.75%) SSH
10 7 (0.59%) 5G
11 6 (0.50%) IPsec
11 6 (0.50%) MPLS
12 5 (0.42%) Ethernet
12 5 (0.42%) HTTPS
13 4 (0.33%) ADSL
13 4 (0.33%) Radio Access Network
13 4 (0.33%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 98 (8.20%) SQL Server
2 66 (5.52%) Power BI
3 45 (3.77%) Relational Database
4 30 (2.51%) Oracle Database
5 25 (2.09%) MySQL
6 24 (2.01%) Tableau
7 22 (1.84%) NoSQL
8 18 (1.51%) Elasticsearch
9 17 (1.42%) Data Lake
9 17 (1.42%) PostgreSQL
9 17 (1.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 16 (1.34%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 14 (1.17%) Microsoft Analysis Services
11 14 (1.17%) RDBMS
12 8 (0.67%) Big Data
12 8 (0.67%) BigQuery
12 8 (0.67%) Data Warehouse
13 7 (0.59%) Ataccama
13 7 (0.59%) Metadata
13 7 (0.59%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 146 (12.22%) JIRA
2 72 (6.03%) Jenkins
3 64 (5.36%) Git
4 60 (5.02%) Selenium
5 50 (4.18%) GitLab
6 45 (3.77%) Cucumber
7 44 (3.68%) Postman
8 32 (2.68%) JMeter
9 30 (2.51%) Cypress.io
10 27 (2.26%) JUnit
11 23 (1.92%) Appium
11 23 (1.92%) SpecFlow
12 20 (1.67%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 20 (1.67%) TeamCity
13 14 (1.17%) Visual Studio
14 13 (1.09%) TestRail
15 12 (1.00%) CircleCI
16 11 (0.92%) webpack
17 10 (0.84%) WebDriver
18 9 (0.75%) Atlassian Bamboo
General
1 391 (32.72%) Social Skills
2 279 (23.35%) Finance
3 154 (12.89%) Analytical Skills
4 101 (8.45%) Banking
5 73 (6.11%) Public Sector
6 50 (4.18%) Front Office
7 42 (3.51%) Telecoms
8 37 (3.10%) Marketing
9 33 (2.76%) Presentation Skills
10 30 (2.51%) Investment Banking
11 29 (2.43%) Pharmaceutical
11 29 (2.43%) Retail
12 26 (2.18%) Influencing Skills
13 25 (2.09%) Legal
14 20 (1.67%) Manufacturing
15 19 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 18 (1.51%) Back Office
17 15 (1.26%) Organisational Skills
18 13 (1.09%) Documentation Skills
18 13 (1.09%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 175 (14.64%) Analyst
2 149 (12.47%) Developer
3 128 (10.71%) Lead
4 84 (7.03%) Architect
5 73 (6.11%) QA Engineer
6 72 (6.03%) Business Analyst
7 71 (5.94%) Senior
8 61 (5.10%) Tester
9 57 (4.77%) Project Manager
10 47 (3.93%) QA Analyst
11 35 (2.93%) QA Tester
11 35 (2.93%) Test Analyst
12 34 (2.85%) .NET Developer
12 34 (2.85%) Test Manager
13 32 (2.68%) Test Engineer
14 31 (2.59%) Consultant
15 30 (2.51%) Software Engineer
16 29 (2.43%) DevOps Engineer
16 29 (2.43%) QA Leader
16 29 (2.43%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (7.62%) .NET
2 77 (6.44%) React
3 67 (5.61%) XML
4 52 (4.35%) REST
5 47 (3.93%) JSON
6 40 (3.35%) HTML
7 39 (3.26%) AngularJS
8 38 (3.18%) Node.js
9 37 (3.10%) Redux
10 35 (2.93%) CSS
10 35 (2.93%) Web Services
11 31 (2.59%) Spring
12 30 (2.51%) .NET Framework
13 27 (2.26%) Middleware
14 21 (1.76%) .NET Core
14 21 (1.76%) SailPoint
15 20 (1.67%) Elastic Stack
16 19 (1.59%) Gherkin
16 19 (1.59%) SOAP
17 17 (1.42%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 80 (6.69%) Product Ownership
2 44 (3.68%) Derivative
3 35 (2.93%) Equities
3 35 (2.93%) Fixed Income
3 35 (2.93%) Management Information System
4 33 (2.76%) Data Protection Act
5 32 (2.68%) Hedge funds
6 29 (2.43%) Onboarding
7 27 (2.26%) Mobile App
8 26 (2.18%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 21 (1.76%) Public Cloud
10 19 (1.59%) Enterprise Software
11 18 (1.51%) Data Structures
12 17 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
13 16 (1.34%) Algorithms
14 14 (1.17%) Linux Command Line
15 13 (1.09%) Life Science
16 10 (0.84%) Cloud Native
17 9 (0.75%) Virtual Team
18 7 (0.59%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 102 (8.54%) Windows
2 63 (5.27%) Linux
3 41 (3.43%) Unix
4 33 (2.76%) Windows Server
5 25 (2.09%) Windows 10
6 24 (2.01%) Android
6 24 (2.01%) Apple iOS
7 18 (1.51%) Windows Server 2016
8 17 (1.42%) Windows NT
8 17 (1.42%) Windows Server 2012
8 17 (1.42%) Windows Server 2019
9 7 (0.59%) VMS
10 6 (0.50%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.33%) CentOS
12 3 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 2 (0.17%) OpenVMS
13 2 (0.17%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.084%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 380 (31.80%) Agile
2 218 (18.24%) Test Automation
3 203 (16.99%) Problem-Solving
4 201 (16.82%) DevOps
5 159 (13.31%) Project Management
6 141 (11.80%) Scrum
7 134 (11.21%) User Acceptance Testing
8 131 (10.96%) CI/CD
9 115 (9.62%) Stakeholder Management
10 107 (8.95%) Test Strategy
11 105 (8.79%) Continuous Improvement
12 98 (8.20%) Migration
13 92 (7.70%) Computer Science
14 88 (7.36%) Software Engineering
15 83 (6.95%) Continuous Integration
15 83 (6.95%) SDLC
16 80 (6.69%) Analytics
17 74 (6.19%) Data Analysis
17 74 (6.19%) Validation
18 73 (6.11%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 202 (16.90%) SQL
2 151 (12.64%) Python
3 132 (11.05%) C#
4 130 (10.88%) Java
5 120 (10.04%) JavaScript
6 51 (4.27%) TypeScript
7 45 (3.77%) PowerShell
8 39 (3.26%) T-SQL
9 27 (2.26%) Bash
10 22 (1.84%) PL/SQL
10 22 (1.84%) VB
11 21 (1.76%) C
11 21 (1.76%) VBA
12 15 (1.26%) Perl
13 13 (1.09%) Swift
14 11 (0.92%) PHP
15 10 (0.84%) F#
15 10 (0.84%) Kotlin
16 9 (0.75%) C++
17 7 (0.59%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 167 (13.97%) Degree
2 161 (13.47%) Security Cleared
3 101 (8.45%) SC Cleared
4 60 (5.02%) DV Cleared
5 52 (4.35%) Computer Science Degree
6 36 (3.01%) ISTQB
7 22 (1.84%) BPSS Clearance
8 15 (1.26%) Master's Degree
8 15 (1.26%) PMP
9 14 (1.17%) CISSP
10 13 (1.09%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 11 (0.92%) PMI Certification
12 10 (0.84%) CISM
12 10 (0.84%) HNC
12 10 (0.84%) HND
13 9 (0.75%) ISEB
14 7 (0.59%) Cisco Certification
15 6 (0.50%) CCNA
15 6 (0.50%) CISA
16 5 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 51 (4.27%) Data Quality
2 29 (2.43%) Accessibility
3 16 (1.34%) GDPR
3 16 (1.34%) SLA
4 14 (1.17%) PMO
5 10 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 10 (0.84%) Software Quality Assurance
6 8 (0.67%) ISO 9001
7 6 (0.50%) Dodd-Frank
7 6 (0.50%) EMIR
7 6 (0.50%) MiFID
7 6 (0.50%) NIST
8 5 (0.42%) GMP
8 5 (0.42%) HL7
9 4 (0.33%) HIPAA
9 4 (0.33%) IFRS
10 3 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 17025
10 3 (0.25%) ISO17020
10 3 (0.25%) WCAG
11 2 (0.17%) Basel III
System Software
1 46 (3.85%) Active Directory
2 32 (2.68%) Docker
3 19 (1.59%) Firmware
4 6 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.42%) Veritas Cluster Server
6 3 (0.25%) Microsoft App-V
6 3 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.17%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.17%) KVM
7 2 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.17%) VMware Infrastructure
7 2 (0.17%) VMware Workstation
8 1 (0.084%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 57 (4.77%) Kubernetes
2 41 (3.43%) Ansible
3 37 (3.10%) Terraform
4 23 (1.92%) SCCM
5 20 (1.67%) Grafana
6 18 (1.51%) Prometheus
7 17 (1.42%) Sysprep
7 17 (1.42%) WSUS
8 16 (1.34%) Progress Chef
8 16 (1.34%) Puppet
9 13 (1.09%) Kibana
10 10 (0.84%) logstash
11 9 (0.75%) Docker Swarm
12 8 (0.67%) Graylog
13 7 (0.59%) HP Fortify
13 7 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
14 5 (0.42%) Microsoft Intune
14 5 (0.42%) Nessus
14 5 (0.42%) WebInspect
15 4 (0.33%) Nagios
Vendors
1 169 (14.14%) Microsoft
2 89 (7.45%) Oracle
3 71 (5.94%) SAP
4 34 (2.85%) Adobe
5 33 (2.76%) Google
5 33 (2.76%) Splunk
6 29 (2.43%) ServiceNow
7 27 (2.26%) Salesforce
8 26 (2.18%) Citrix
9 19 (1.59%) Bloomberg
10 18 (1.51%) CyberArk
11 13 (1.09%) ION Trading
11 13 (1.09%) Red Hat
12 12 (1.00%) CA Agile Central
12 12 (1.00%) Databricks
13 11 (0.92%) Optimizely
14 10 (0.84%) BT
14 10 (0.84%) MarketAxess
14 10 (0.84%) Tradeweb
15 9 (0.75%) Cisco