QA hiring budget template

A QA hiring budget has seven cost lines and three totals. The lines are base salary, employer contributions, mandatory benefits, voluntary benefits, equipment and tooling, recruiting and onboarding ramp; the totals are annual, monthly and first-year cost. The table below fills every line for one published combination so the structure can be copied into a budget sheet.

Template filled from the dataset

The breakdown page also gives the date each source was checked.

How to read each line

Base salary. The median gross annual salary for the country, role and level, from at least two sources. It is the input every other line depends on.

Employer contributions. Social security and payroll taxes paid by the employer on top of salary (not deducted from it). Computed from statutory rates and caps.

Mandatory benefits. Statutory items beyond contributions, for example an extra month of salary. A country without such items shows zero on this line.

Voluntary benefits. Market survey values for health cover, pension top-ups and allowances. If the line reads "not estimated", no survey met the source rule and the total excludes it. A budget that includes these benefits needs a separate figure for that line.

Equipment and tooling. Laptop, licences and, for mobile roles, test devices, at list prices.

Recruiting. The agency fee spread over 2.5 years in the annual figure, and charged in full in the first-year figure.

Onboarding ramp. The value of output lost during ramp (the weeks before a new hire works at full productivity). Spread over 2.5 years in the annual figure, charged in full in the first-year figure.

Which total goes where

The three totals answer different questions.

• Annual is the average-year cost over the expected tenure. It suits a multi-year headcount plan.
• Monthly is the annual total divided by 12. It suits a monthly run-rate.
• First year charges recruiting and ramp in full. It suits the budget for the year the hire starts.

None of the totals includes a pay rise, inflation, or a change in statutory rates after the computed date. Each figure carries the date it was computed.

Lower and upper scenarios

Every breakdown page shows p25, median and p75 columns. The p25 and p75 columns apply the formula to each input's p25 (the value a quarter of the data falls below) and p75 (the value a quarter of the data sits above); they are scenarios, not percentiles of the total. A range for a budget can be taken from those two columns on the breakdown page.

Building a template for another combination

The calculator produces the same lines for any published country, role, level and hiring model. The computed records, with the source ids of every line, are available as CSV and JSON on the data page, and every cited source is listed in sources.json. A combination that does not meet the publication threshold is not shown; the reason is on the not-published page.

Related pages

• Calculator
• Data downloads
• Formula
• First-year cost of a QA hire