The market is selective, not stalled. Businesses took a cautious approach to hiring through 2025, but there were clear demand hotspots for specialist tech skills including AI, data, enterprise applications and cyber security Computer Weekly (tech recruitment outlook 2026). That pattern rewards employers who know exactly what a role needs and can screen for it quickly.
The wider picture is a slower one. The labour market is currently described as 'low hire, low fire', with weaker recruitment and vacancies below pre-pandemic levels Low Pay Commission Report 2025, GOV.UK. The most recent official figures show total vacancies down by 18,000 (2.5%) year on year, with professional, scientific and technical activities among the sectors that fell ONS - Vacancies and jobs in the UK. When fewer roles are open, each interview has to work harder.
Demand is concentrated at the specialist end. Demand for AI skills increased nearly 200% in a year, with London accounting for 80% of AI-related job postings and nearly two-thirds of all technology vacancies in the UK The Register (Accenture data). QA engineers who can test AI features, data pipelines or security-sensitive systems sit right in the middle of that competition.
The entry-level route is tightening at the same time. The UK tech sector cut graduate jobs by 46% in the past year, with a further 53% drop projected The Register. Adzuna has seen a 30% drop in UK entry-level job postings since ChatGPT's launch techUK – What's actually happening with entry-level and graduate jobs?. So the junior QA pool you might once have grown from is shrinking, which makes a fair, well-designed interview even more important for spotting raw potential.
There is a route worth watching. Apprenticeships have risen from 3% of AI hires in 2020 to 19% in 2025 GOV.UK / DSIT – AI Labour Market Survey 2025 report. If you want to build QA capability rather than only buy it, an interview that measures aptitude, not just experience, opens that door.
Start with the job, not the CV. Write down the three or four things a QA engineer must do well in your team: designing test cases, spotting edge cases, automating regression, communicating a bug clearly. Every interview stage should map to one of those. If a question does not test something on that list, cut it.
Then make it practical. Give a small feature and ask the person to talk through how they would test it. Watch for the questions they ask before they start: good testers probe requirements, ambiguity and risk. A short take-home or pairing exercise on a real bug tells you more than a whiteboard puzzle ever will.
Keep it fast and consistent. In a low-hire market, strong QA engineers still get snapped up, so a slow, unstructured process loses them. A shared scorecard also protects you from hiring for confidence instead of competence, which matters when so many new hires now come from the resident labour force rather than international recruitment GOV.UK - Professionals in IT and engineering.
Good interview design only pays off if the right people reach the interview. That is the part we speed up. We search a database of 15 million candidates to surface QA engineers who match your role, then handle the process end to end so your team can focus on the practical stages that reveal real testing skill. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost, through Reed.ai. Tell us what your QA role needs today, and we will start building your shortlist.
