United States · BLS May 2025

How much does a software quality assurance analyst make?

Also called QA engineer, test engineer. SOC 15-1253.

A software quality assurance analyst in the United States earns a median of $104,300 a year ($50.14 an hour). Figure from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey. The survey counted 186,740 of these jobs in the United States in May 2025.

Median pay · the United States

$104,300A year, or $50 an hour.
Jobs counted186,740Wage and salary jobs
What software quality assurance analysts and testers earn in the United States, May 2025
PercentileAnnualHourly
10th percentile1 in 10 earn less$61,440$30
25th percentile$80,310$39
MedianHalf earn more, half less$104,300$50
75th percentile$133,180$64
90th percentile1 in 10 earn more$167,010$80
MeanAll pay divided by all jobs$111,490$54

Wage survey · BLS May 2025

How we got this
  1. Median wage in the United StatesBLS OEWS May 2025. Half of the people in this job were paid more than this, half less.$104,300
  2. Median hourly wagePublished separately by BLS, not divided out of the annual figure.$50.14
  3. Jobs countedWage and salary jobs; the self-employed are not surveyed.186,740
What we assumed
  • Wages are BLS OEWS survey estimates for May 2025, not job postings or offers.
  • OEWS surveys wage and salary workers. The self-employed and business owners are outside it.
Technical details

Method occupation-wage-v1Data bls-oews-2025-05-v1

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Which state pays software quality assurance analysts the most?

California pays a median of $128,740, West Virginia $62,300. That is a gap of $66,440 before either state's taxes or prices are counted.

Common questions

Software Quality Assurance Analyst pay in the United States, answered

How much does a software quality assurance analyst make?

The median wage for software quality assurance analysts in the United States is $104,300 a year, or $50.14 an hour.

Half earn more than that and half earn less. The figure comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational wage survey for May 2025.

What is the average software quality assurance analyst salary?

BLS’s mean (average) wage for software quality assurance analysts in the United States is $111,490 a year. The median is $104,300.

The mean sits higher when a smaller group of high earners pulls the average up. For a typical paycheck, the median is the better middle.

What is the hourly pay for a software quality assurance analyst?

The median hourly wage is $50.14. At a full-time year that lines up with about $104,300 a year.

BLS May 2025; hourly and annual figures come from the same survey.

What is the starting salary for a software quality assurance analyst?

BLS does not publish starting pay. The closest figure it does publish is the low end of the range: in the United States, the lowest-paid 10% of software quality assurance analysts earn under $61,440 a year and a quarter earn under $80,310 ($29.54 and $38.61 an hour).

New hires often start somewhere in that band, but the May 2025 survey does not record experience, so read it as a floor to compare an offer against rather than a typical first salary.

What is the salary range for a software quality assurance analyst?

The overall salary range for software quality assurance analysts in the United States spans from $61,440 for the bottom 10% to $167,010 for top earners.

The middle 50% earn between $80,310 and $133,180 a year, with the overall median at $104,300.

What do the highest-paid software quality assurance analysts earn?

The top tenth earn $167,010 a year or more. The 10th-percentile wage is $61,440.

Experience, specialty, employer and the part of the United States someone works in all move a wage inside that range; the survey reports the spread, not the reason for it.

How many software quality assurance analysts are there in the United States?

The survey counted 186,740 of these jobs in the United States for May 2025.

It counts wage and salary jobs, so the self-employed are outside it.

Sources

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