QA Rates Compare

How to budget a QA team

A QA budget line is a sum of rows: each row is a role, a seniority level, a head count and an engagement model, priced at a median hourly rate (the middle value of the weighted observations for that combination) and multiplied by the hours per month.

The four inputs of a budget row

  1. Role: the eight roles on this site range from Manual QA Engineer to QA Architect; each has its own rate records.
  2. Seniority: junior (0 to 2 years), middle (2 to 5), senior (5 to 9) and lead (8 or more with a lead title).
  3. Engagement model: hourly, dedicated team (a monthly fee per engineer assigned full time), staff augmentation (an engineer placed in the client's team, billed monthly), project-based or managed service; monthly fees are converted to an hourly figure.
  4. Hours per month: the site default is 160 (8 hours x 20 days); a vendor quote on 168 or 176 hours changes the monthly figure for the same hourly rate.

Median, low band and high band

The median gives the central figure for the budget line. The p25 figure gives a low band and the p75 figure a high band; a range from p25 to p75 covers the middle half of the observations behind each record.

Rows without a published figure

A combination with fewer than 2 independent sources has no published figure. The calculator excludes it and names it; a budget that needs that row needs a quote from a vendor, not an estimate from a neighbouring country.

Worked example from published records

Median: the middle value of the weighted observations; p25 and p75: the bounds of their middle half.

One engineer per row at 160 hours per month: $44,480 per month and $533,760 per year (160 hours x 12 months).

Sources for this example

  1. job-board IT Jobs Watch. Test Analyst Contract Job Trends, Contractor Rates & Skill Sets | IT Jobs Watch. Published 2026-10-18, verified . ev-rate-united-kingdom-001
  2. vendor-rate-card Vendor rate card (delivery country: United Kingdom); vendor name and link are published only in the evidence file. Published 2026-01-26, verified . ev-rate-united-kingdom-016
  3. vendor-rate-card Vendor rate card (delivery country: United Kingdom); vendor name and link are published only in the evidence file. Published 2026-01-01, verified . ev-rate-united-kingdom-018
  4. vendor-rate-card Vendor rate card (delivery country: United Kingdom); vendor name and link are published only in the evidence file. Published 2026-01-01, verified . ev-rate-united-kingdom-023
  5. vendor-rate-card Vendor rate card (delivery country: United Kingdom); vendor name and link are published only in the evidence file. Published 2026-01-19, verified . ev-rate-united-kingdom-029
  6. fx European Central Bank. ECB euro foreign exchange reference rates (SDMX EXR). Published 2026-10-16, verified . ev-fx-2026-q4-gbp
  7. job-board IT Jobs Watch. Senior Test Analyst Contract Job Trends, Contractor Rates & Skill Sets | IT Jobs Watch. Published 2026-10-18, verified . ev-rate-united-kingdom-002
  8. vendor-rate-card Vendor rate card (delivery country: United Kingdom); vendor name and link are published only in the evidence file. Published 2026-01-26, verified . ev-rate-united-kingdom-015
  9. vendor-rate-card Vendor rate card (delivery country: United Kingdom); vendor name and link are published only in the evidence file. Published 2026-01-01, verified . ev-rate-united-kingdom-019
  10. vendor-rate-card Vendor rate card (delivery country: United Kingdom); vendor name and link are published only in the evidence file. Published 2026-01-01, verified . ev-rate-united-kingdom-024
  11. vendor-rate-card Vendor rate card (delivery country: United Kingdom); vendor name and link are published only in the evidence file. Published 2026-01-19, verified . ev-rate-united-kingdom-030
  12. job-board IT Jobs Watch. Test Manager Contract Job Trends, Contractor Rates & Skill Sets | IT Jobs Watch. Published 2026-10-18, verified . ev-rate-united-kingdom-009
  13. vendor-rate-card Vendor rate card (delivery country: United Kingdom); vendor name and link are published only in the evidence file. Published 2026-01-26, verified . ev-rate-united-kingdom-010
  14. vendor-rate-card Vendor rate card (delivery country: United Kingdom); vendor name and link are published only in the evidence file. Published 2026-01-01, verified . ev-rate-united-kingdom-021
  15. vendor-rate-card Vendor rate card (delivery country: United Kingdom); vendor name and link are published only in the evidence file. Published 2026-01-01, verified . ev-rate-united-kingdom-026
  16. vendor-rate-card Vendor rate card (delivery country: United Kingdom); vendor name and link are published only in the evidence file. Published 2026-01-19, verified . ev-rate-united-kingdom-032

The same team can be priced in the calculator, and the link it produces reproduces the inputs.

Questions

How is the cost of a QA team calculated from hourly rates?

Pick a country, an engagement model, the hours per month (default 160) and a count per role and seniority; the result is the sum of count x median x hours.

How do I convert an hourly QA rate into a monthly cost?

Example: Manual QA Engineer, Middle, United Kingdom: $79 per hour x 160 hours = $12,640 per month.

Cite this page

QA Rates Compare (2026). How to budget a QA team, data version 1.0.0. https://qaratescompare.com/guides/how-to-budget-a-qa-team/. Accessed 2026-10-20.

Figures are medians of published observations converted to USD at the quarterly ECB reference rate shown in the footer. They describe market ranges on the verification date, not quotes. Monthly and annual figures assume the hours stated on this page. Confidence grades are defined on the methodology page. This site does not recommend providers.