How to read a vendor rate card
A vendor rate card is a vendor's own published price list with an hourly or monthly figure per role or level.
Five fields to check on a rate card
- Role and level per figure: a single "from" figure without a role or level is not a rate observation on this site.
- Billing unit and hours basis: hourly, daily or monthly, and the number of hours behind a monthly figure.
- Currency and tax: the currency of the figure and whether value-added tax is included.
- Date: an undated rate card cannot be checked against the 18-month freshness limit.
- Delivery country: the country of the engineers, which can differ from the vendor's head office.
How this site uses rate cards
A rate card counts as one observation per vendor per combination and is never the only source class behind a published figure.
Worked example from published records
Median: the middle value of the weighted observations; p25 and p75: the bounds of their middle half.
- Middle Manual QA Engineer, United Kingdom, Hourly (time and materials): median $79 per hour (p25 $63, p75 $89), A: high confidence, n=5; at 160 hours per month: $12,640 per month.
Sources for this example
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- fx European Central Bank. ECB euro foreign exchange reference rates (SDMX EXR). Published 2026-10-16, verified . ev-fx-2026-q4-gbp
Cite this page
QA Rates Compare (2026). How to read a vendor rate card, data version 1.0.0. https://qaratescompare.com/guides/how-to-read-a-vendor-rate-card/. 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.