X-ray of the QA market in Spain in 2026
Between 300 and 500 active QA openings, a 45% salary gap between manual testing and automation, and 70% of IT professionals planning to change companies. A full X-ray of the QA market in Spain with data from Glassdoor, Manfred, Hays, and Robert Walters.
I've spent weeks gathering data from job boards, salary reports, and real job postings to understand what's actually going on with the QA market in Spain. The conclusion is that we're at a turning point. It's not collapsing and it's not booming either, but it has changed so much in two years that anyone who isn't paying attention risks getting left behind without even noticing.
This article brings together data from Glassdoor (more than 597 records), Indeed, Jooble, Tecnoempleo, the Manfred 2026 Salary Guide, and reports from Hays, Robert Walters, and ManpowerGroup. Real numbers, no filter. In a second article I look at the tools, AI, and trends reshaping the tester profile.
A tech market that's growing but cooling off
Tech employment in Spain passed one million people employed in 2025, with 469,000 net jobs created since 2015. Still, the trend has reversed, and the year-over-year drop of 4.5% between 2024 and 2025 marks the first meaningful setback in a decade. The digital services sector grew 5.4% and passed 500,000 employees, but tech salaries only rose 6.2% against 15.3% cumulative CPI, which has noticeably eaten into purchasing power. The result is that 7 out of 10 IT professionals plan to change companies in 2026.
Paradox defines this market. 87% of companies admit they struggle to attract qualified talent, and 76% can't fill their tech vacancies. At the same time, for the first time it's become common to find IT professionals in temporary unemployment, something that would've been unthinkable three years ago. AI has reduced hiring pressure for junior profiles, while specialized senior talent is still very scarce.
By sector, banking and insurance lead tech hiring, with especially strong demand in cybersecurity, data analysis, and digital regulatory compliance. Next come the 427 active fintech companies in Spain, 47% more than in 2020, which already employ more than 6,500 people. Software and digital services, retail, digital health, and renewable energy round out the map of the most active sectors.
Madrid accounts for 47% of software openings and Barcelona 27%, and together they absorb three quarters of the market. Valencia and Málaga are emerging as secondary hubs with 5% each and fast growth. The hybrid model dominates the sector, since 68% of IT openings offer remote work, although only 9% of listings on specialized job boards like Tecnoempleo are fully remote.
Real QA demand
The number of active QA positions at any given time in Spain sits between 300 and 500 openings on specialized job boards. That's a modest figure compared to the thousands of development roles, but it reflects steady demand rather than a short-term spike. LinkedIn shows around 215 "QA Tester" openings, Tecnoempleo around 120, and Glassdoor around 64, with some overlap between platforms.
The biggest structural shift is the mass move toward automation. These are the most in-demand profiles by volume.
QA Automation Engineer, present in 60-70% of listings. It requires Selenium, Playwright, or Cypress combined with Java, Python, or JavaScript.
QA Manual/Functional, still in significant demand but declining, concentrated in banking, insurance, and legacy environments. Listings increasingly ask for a "hybrid" profile that combines manual execution with basic automation skills.
QA Analyst, focused on test design and coordination, with stable demand.
SDET, a niche profile but growing, sought after by international companies and consulting firms like Grupo NS. It requires a strong development component.
Performance Tester, with few openings but good pay, where JMeter is still the main tool.
Accessibility Tester, an emerging demand driven by the European Accessibility Act coming into force in June 2025.
The most universal requirements in Spanish QA listings are at least 3 years of experience (in more than 70% of mid-senior listings), B2 English or higher (50-60%), command of Selenium or an equivalent, Jira/Confluence, and experience with agile methodologies. The banking and financial sector remains the biggest employer of QA profiles in Spain, followed by telecommunications and insurance.
QA salaries in 2026
This is where things get interesting. I've consolidated data from Glassdoor, Indeed, Jooble, the Manfred 2026 Salary Guide, and reports from Hays and Robert Walters to build this salary map.
Nivel Rango bruto anual Notas
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Junior (0-2 años) 19.000€ – 25.000€ Manfred sitúa el techo en 25.000€
Mid (2-5 años) 27.000€ – 40.000€ Amplio rango según manual vs automation
Senior (5+ años) 38.000€ – 55.000€ Los senior automation superan 50.000€
QA Lead 44.000€ – 65.000€ Glassdoor, media de 51.500€
QA Manager 48.000€ – 70.000€ Michael Page, ofertas hasta 72.000€
The salary difference between manual QA and QA automation is dramatic and growing. A QA Manual Tester earns an average of 25.497€ according to Glassdoor, compared to 37.000€ for a QA Automation Engineer. That's a 45% gap, which makes automation the most profitable career investment for any tester. At the high end (90th percentile), QA Automation reaches 52.450€, while manual rarely goes above 35.000€.
Madrid and Barcelona offer practically identical salaries for QA, with averages around 37.400-37.500€. Valencia is 33-40% lower, at 22.500-25.900€ for QA Tester roles. Málaga and Bilbao sit in a middle band between 35.000 and 41.000€. The spread of remote work is blurring these geographic differences, since many companies in Madrid and Barcelona offer remote roles with similar salaries regardless of where you live.
Compared to other tech roles, QA earns between 12% and 18% less on average than Software Engineer, DevOps, or Data Engineer. The gap gets wider at the top end because the 90th percentile for QA Engineer (58.085€) is 18% below that of Software Engineer (70.875€). The Manfred 2026 Salary Guide describes QA as a profile at a "complicated point," with teams absorbing the QA function and expectations of partial replacement by AI agents pushing salaries downward.
Consultancies versus end companies
The Spanish QA job market is structurally dominated by tech consultancies. It's estimated that between 65% and 75% of QA openings come from consultancies, compared to 25-35% from end companies or product companies. This outsourcing model reflects the broader structure of the Spanish IT market, where large corporations outsource test execution while keeping a small internal core of QA leads and managers.
The consultancies hiring the most QA in Spain include Indra/Minsait (the biggest Spanish tech employer with more than 40,000 employees and around 250-300 tech hires per month), Accenture (around 14,000 employees in Spain), NTT Data (formerly Everis, with around 10,000 employees and QA salaries up to 59.184€), Capgemini, Sopra Steria, and the fast-growing Spanish company Hiberus. On top of that there are dozens of specialized consultancies like Krell Consulting, Arelance, Seltime, Serem, Grupo Digital, and Baoss, which publish most QA listings on job boards like Tecnoempleo.
The salary difference between consultancies and end companies is significant. End companies generally pay 10-25% more for the same profile and experience. A Senior QA at a bank like BBVA or Santander can earn between 45.000€ and 55.000€, while the same profile at a consultancy usually lands between 35.000€ and 45.000€.
The Spanish end companies hiring QA directly the most include BBVA, Santander, and CaixaBank in banking, Telefónica and Vodafone in telecommunications, Mapfre and Zurich in insurance, and a growing ecosystem of fintechs and tech startups. The dominant trend is still outsourcing because the shortage of qualified QA talent makes internal hiring difficult. Still, digital-native product companies and fintechs are starting to build internal QA teams embedded in their development squads, offering better remote work conditions, flexibility, and a stronger sense of ownership over the product.
What all this means
The QA market in Spain isn't shrinking, it's being reshaped. The roughly 500 active positions at any given time reflect steady demand, but the profile companies want has changed deeply. Anyone who masters automation and can work in integrated environments will find a receptive market, with salaries up to 55.000-70.000€ at senior and management levels. Anyone who stays exclusively in manual testing is facing an increasingly limited horizon.
Three career decisions stand out as decisive based on the data. The first is mastering automation, because the 45% salary gap versus manual testing speaks for itself. The second is aiming for an end company when possible, since the 10-25% salary difference compared to consultancies adds up year after year. And the third is not standing still, because a market where 70% of IT professionals plan to change companies means there are real opportunities for anyone who moves based on data instead of impulse.
If there's one thing that's clear to me after cross-checking dozens of reports and hundreds of job listings, it's that the QA who invests in automation today is playing a completely different game from the one who doesn't. The numbers don't lie.
Sources
Jose, author of the blog
QA Engineer. I write out loud about automation, AI and software architecture. If something here helped you, write to me and tell me about it.
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