QA salary guide: what every role pays
A mid-level QA Automation Engineer has a median of $120k a year in the US and $23k in India. Pick a role, a country and a level to see the p10, median and p90 pay. Built from 3686 pay ranges that employers posted publicly.
Gross annual base pay, estimates. How we calculate it.
Salary finder
Median $120k / year gross ($120k).
Gross, local currency, estimate. 255 live QA Automation Engineer roles in United States.
Salary guide for each of the 15 QA roles
Mid-level US median and the spread between the lowest- and highest-paying of 36 countries. Security, performance and DevOps-adjacent roles pay most; game and localization testing pay least.
Manual QA Tester
QA Automation Engineer
SDET
QA Lead / Manager
Mobile QA Engineer
Performance Test Engineer
Security / Penetration Tester
Game QA Tester
Accessibility Tester
Business / Test Analyst
Data / ETL QA Engineer
Localization QA Tester
AI / LLM Evaluation QA
Release / DevOps Engineer
Technical Writer (QA / Docs)
Where QA pays the most
Average mid-level median across all 15 roles, in USD. Switzerland and the US lead; the next tier is Canada, Ireland, Australia and Singapore. Click a country for pay by role.
| # | Country | Junior | Mid-level | Senior | Mid-level p10–p90 | vs US | Open roles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States · North America | $82k | $110k | $140k | base | 1166 | |
| 2 | Switzerland · Western Europe | $77k | $100k | $130k | -6% | 15 | |
| 3 | Canada · North America | $69k | $91k | $120k | -16% | 320 | |
| 4 | Australia · Asia-Pacific | $59k | $78k | $100k | -28% | 81 | |
| 5 | Israel · Middle East & Africa | $58k | $77k | $100k | -29% | 27 | |
| 6 | Ireland · UK & Ireland | $57k | $75k | $97k | -31% | 19 | |
| 7 | Singapore · Asia-Pacific | $56k | $73k | $95k | -32% | 94 | |
| 8 | Norway · Nordics | $50k | $66k | $86k | -38% | 4 | |
| 9 | Germany · Western Europe | $49k | $65k | $84k | -40% | 77 | |
| 10 | Netherlands · Western Europe | $49k | $65k | $84k | -40% | 93 | |
| 11 | United Kingdom · UK & Ireland | $48k | $63k | $82k | -41% | 185 | |
| 12 | Denmark · Nordics | $48k | $63k | $82k | -42% | 9 |
US-dollar equivalents of local pay. Bars show p10 to p90 with the median marked. Browse all roles.
All 36 countries
Real postings pushed our estimates up
Our first numbers were planning baselines. After checking them against 3686 posted pay ranges (collected 2026-10-20), we raised every role baseline and shifted most country indexes. We never lowered an estimate on thin evidence.
Biggest role moves (US mid-level)
- Security / Penetration Tester$110k → $181k +65%
- Performance Test Engineer$95k → $147k +55%
- AI / LLM Evaluation QA$70k → $104k +49%
- Game QA Tester$48k → $66k +38%
Smallest role moves
- SDET$118k → $131k +11%
- QA Lead / Manager$110k → $110k +0%
- Localization QA Tester$48k → $48k +0%
The sample leans on large technology employers and is thin outside the US, Canada and the UK. Where we have no data, estimates move only halfway toward the pooled result.
How a number gets on this page
Every figure comes from one formula, so the finder, the role pages and the country pages always agree.
Posted ranges in
We collect pay ranges from public employer job boards and convert them to USD. 3686 observations in this release.
Calibrate, never undercut
Role and country baselines move toward the observed median, shrunk toward the pooled result when a cell has few data points. They never drop below the earlier estimate.
One spread everywhere
p10 = median × 0.82 and p90 = median × 1.22. Levels, cities and currencies all derive from the same median.
QA salary questions
How much does a QA engineer earn?
It depends on role, level and country. In the US a mid-level QA Automation Engineer has a median of $120k, a Manual QA Tester $82k and an SDET $130k. Across 36 countries the average mid-level median runs from $17k to $110k a year.
Where do QA professionals earn the most?
Switzerland and the United States lead on our index, followed by Canada, Ireland, Australia and Singapore. Mid-level average (all 15 roles): United States $110k, Switzerland $100k, Canada $91k.
What are p10, median and p90?
p10 is the pay below which about 10% of people in the role earn, the median is the middle, and p90 is the pay that 10% exceed. PassRidge derives p10 and p90 as 0.82 and 1.22 times the median, the same spread everywhere on this site.
Where does the data come from?
The model is calibrated on 3686 pay ranges posted on public employer job boards, collected on 2026-10-20, 2479 of them in the US. It is an estimate, not a survey. See the methodology page for limits.
Are these figures gross or net?
Gross annual base pay in local currency, before tax and without bonus or equity. Each role and country page shows a rough take-home estimate.