Quality Assurance vs Quality Control: Choosing the Right Career Path

Quality assurance and quality control are parts of quality management and have some similarities, but they differ in many ways. This guide outlines the job roles of quality assurance and quality control professionals along with their skills, qualifications, and salaries to help you decide between the two career paths.

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What is quality assurance?

Quality assurance (QA) is a set of activities and procedures, called quality standards, during and after product development or project management. It helps ensure you're creating a high-quality product or have a successful project outcome and seeks to solve problems experienced by consumers after a product or service hits the market. QA involves ensuring a project or product is advancing towards delivery and that an organisation or team is adhering to standards or guidelines.

What is quality control?

Quality control (QC) monitors results after a product reaches development and production. That means checking that product development or project outcomes meet quality standards. QC is a reactive process that responds to problems and aims to detect errors, such as software defects, glitches, or imperfections. This helps ensure you are producing a high-quality product before it reaches consumers. Organisations typically have a systematic approach to QCing products. 

How is quality assurance different from quality control?

Quality assurance refers to the guidelines, policies, and procedures for making a high-quality product and avoiding defects. In contrast, quality control refers to the product’s actual review during production to ensure it embodies the highest standards. While quality assurance occurs throughout the process, from planning to maintenance of a product or project, quality control happens during the inspection phase.

Another difference between QA and QC is that QA is proactive, whilst QC is reactive to any glitches or problems you find. QA focuses on the processes during development, and QC is more about the product. Lastly, QA is an organisation-wide responsibility, whilst smaller teams handle QC work testing the product. 

Why is QA important?

QA is important because it benefits an organisation to have set guidelines and standards, such as those for training, documentation, monitoring, and auditing during production. It’s a continuous effort to improve and ensure quality. QA guidelines also keep projects in scope and on track by aligning team members on collaboration practices and methods, such as code reviews in software development.

Why is QC important?

QC is important because it identifies and corrects problems and defects as they occur to ensure that the final product is of the highest quality possible. QC can involve software testing and beta or canary testing, which provide lessons applicable to future projects and products. Without QC, the organisation can’t be sure that the product works as you intend and suits the customers’ needs. A proper QC process leads to happier customers who have more incentive to be loyal to the company. 

Getting started in quality management

Whether you want to work in QA, QC, or another aspect of quality management, you can start by enroling in the education and training you need. 

Earn a bachelor’s degree.

Your first step to your quality management career is to obtain your bachelor’s degree in a field related to quality control, such as business administration or quality control management. You might also consider a degree subject relevant to the industry you want to enter. Potential industries include:

• Manufacturing

• Construction

• Pharmaceuticals

• Food and beverages

• Health care

• Information technology

Earn a master's degree. 

A master's degree enhances your resume and helps you gain access to the top jobs in quality management, making you a stronger candidate when you’re searching for a QA or QC position and helping you gain added skills and knowledge to excel in your field. Some master's degrees to consider include the following:

• Master of Science in Quality Management to help prepare you for or enhance your role as a quality manager or quality specialist in any industry.

• Master of Business Administration to understand business management principles, which can be applied to any field you are working in or want to pursue.

Earn relevant certifications.

Most quality management positions don’t require certifications, but they often help you stand out in the job market. Six Sigma certifications are amongst the most relevant and credible certifications for QA and QC roles. They can help you validate your expertise in process improvement. You can pursue five levels of Six Sigma and five levels of Lean Six Sigma certification. The latter is based on Lean project management principles, which focus on eliminating waste, increasing customer satisfaction, and elevating a company's profit margin.

Other skills and requirements for quality management roles

Quality management requires specific skills, including attention to detail, communication, organisation, leadership, and tech skills. You should also understand the legal standards in the various fields, especially the one in which you want to work. Data analysis skills are also beneficial.

Six Sigma

Six Sigma is important in quality management because it is a business management strategy that aims to improve the quality of processes by minimising and eventually removing errors and variations. Six Sigma enables quality assurance and control and helps ensure a superior product. 

Minitab

It is beneficial to have experience and knowledge of Minitab, which is a statistical software used in quality management. This software discovers and predicts patterns, uncovers hidden relationships between variables, and creates visualisations, which can help make processes more efficient.

Lean management

Another essential concept in quality management is lean management, a system of techniques that aims to eliminate all non-value-adding activities and waste from a business. As both QA and QC intend to reduce or eliminate waste, knowledge of Lean manufacturing would improve your skills.

Theory of constraints

The theory of constraints (TOC) methodology identifies bottlenecks and constraints. This is key in QA and QC processes because both aim to make development more efficient. TOC allows rapid improvement, less inventory, and higher profit.

Why pursue a career in quality management?

As a quality assurance or control professional, you’ll be sought after by companies who want to keep their customers happy and businesses efficiently running whilst producing the best possible products and services. Other reasons to pursue a career in quality:

Take organisations from good to great.

Your overall goal as a quality management professional is to improve the organisation’s work. You will have the opportunity to help it improve from good to great. The customers will be happier creating better products, and the organisation will have high satisfaction with their work. 

Move from sector to sector.

Opportunities open up in various sectors when you pursue a career in quality management. You can work in software development, customer service, hospitality, product testing, marketing, and many other industries. Your quality management skills will translate if you decide to switch fields. 

Find out what makes organisations tick (or stop ticking).

As a quality assurance professional, you help keep an organisation working toward its mission. You will look for ways to improve constantly, thus making the outcomes more favourable. You can also see what keeps an organisation from working to its full potential.

Set up your own business.

Another option for you if you go into quality assurance or quality control is to own your own business. You can work as a consultant or quality assurance, or control contractor. You can also sell your quality management training or services online or in person. This would allow you to work with various companies of all sizes. 

Salaries for QA and QC professionals

According to Glassdoor, the average annual base salary for a quality assurance manager is ₹24,08,307 [1]. This ranges from ₹15 to ₹30 Lakhs, depending on experience. A quality control manager earns an average annual base salary of ₹10,83,500, with a range of ₹8L to ₹14.4 Lakhs [2].

Where can quality assurance or quality control professionals work?

You can work in virtually any industry as a quality assurance or quality control professional. Below are some examples:

• Manufacturing: Testing goods and products to ensure they meet quality standards.

• Foodservice: Ensuring products meet FDA and other legal requirements and food safety standards.

• Health care: Ensuring the best patient outcomes by designing policies and procedures.

• Corporate retail: Preventing defective products from making it into the market.

• Information technology: Testing software and other technology and catching problems and collaborating with developers to fix them.

• Engineering: Monitoring contractors and builders to ensure performance and safety during a job.

• Transportation: Ensuring quality in the building and maintenance of roadways, curbs, sidewalks, bridges, and other structures and transportation methods.

• Education: Monitoring quality in academics, administration, and related services 

Job titles in quality management with salaries

Salaries can vary significantly in quality management roles. The following are the average base annual salaries for additional positions within the quality management field, according to Glassdoor:

• Quality auditor: ₹4,83,500 [3]

• Quality coordinator: ₹7,30,000 [4] 

• Quality assurance tester: ₹4,67,000 [5]

• Quality control supervisor: ₹3,54,154 [6]

• Quality analyst: ₹5,50,000 [7]

• Quality engineer: ₹5,90,000 [8]

Which should I choose? Quality assurance vs quality control

To choose between quality assurance or quality control, consider which part of the process you want to participate in, either preventing defects by improving the process or inspecting the product. You can find rewarding careers in each, and both are vital in quality management.

Start your journey to a QA or QC role

If you're ready to pursue a career in quality assurance and quality control, you can start your journey to your quality management job. First, you'll need education and training.

Research which programme you are interested in based on your goals. On Coursera, you can take courses from the University of Georgia on Six Sigma, including the Six Sigma Principles.

Learn about quality management in the information systems industry with The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology's Information Systems Auditing, Controls, and Assurance course. Rutgers has a course geared toward working in the healthcare industry, Quality Improvement in Healthcare Organisations. You can also make a start on your MBA through degree programmes on Coursera. One such programme is the iMBA from the University of Illinois.