Quality assurance vs regulatory affairs specialist

The differences between quality assurances and regulatory affairs specialists can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 2-4 years to become both a quality assurance and a regulatory affairs specialist. Additionally, a regulatory affairs specialist has an average salary of $70,060, which is higher than the $51,313 average annual salary of a quality assurance.

The top three skills for a quality assurance include test cases, food handling and java. The most important skills for a regulatory affairs specialist are regulatory affairs, FDA, and regulatory agencies.

Quality assurance vs regulatory affairs specialist overview

	Quality Assurance	Regulatory Affairs Specialist
Yearly salary	$51,313	$70,060
Hourly rate	$24.67	$33.68
Growth rate	-	-
Number of jobs	69,366	9,915
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 47%	Bachelor's Degree, 66%
Average age	44	46
Years of experience	4	4

What does a quality assurance do?

The primary role of quality assurance specialists is to inspect the quality system's implementation and perform quality assurance audits. They are responsible for monitoring and recording results from procedures and processes within manufacturing industries. They are also responsible for some other tasks, including keeping up-to-date manufacturing and auditing documentation, training less experienced QA team members, and creating standard operating procedures. To be a quality assurance specialist, you must have a high school diploma, organizational skills, and strong attention to detail.

What does a regulatory affairs specialist do?

A regulatory affairs specialist assists in securing and maintaining government approval for nutritional products, drugs, medical devices, and related supplies. They are often employed by medical, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology companies. They may also work in the government or law. Typically, they work on document preparation, file maintenance, information management, and coordination of tasks across various departments. They expanded their duties and responsibilities as a result of company acquisitions and restructuring, worldwide globalization of markets, and constantly evolving regulations.

Quality assurance vs regulatory affairs specialist salary

Quality assurances and regulatory affairs specialists have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Quality Assurance	Regulatory Affairs Specialist
Average salary	$51,313	$70,060
Salary range	Between $28,000 And $92,000	Between $49,000 And $99,000
Highest paying City	Cupertino, CA	Santa Rosa, CA
Highest paying state	California	California
Best paying company	Meta	Meta
Best paying industry	Finance	-

Differences between quality assurance and regulatory affairs specialist education

There are a few differences between a quality assurance and a regulatory affairs specialist in terms of educational background:

	Quality Assurance	Regulatory Affairs Specialist
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 47%	Bachelor's Degree, 66%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	Stanford University	Stanford University

Quality assurance vs regulatory affairs specialist demographics

Here are the differences between quality assurances' and regulatory affairs specialists' demographics:

	Quality Assurance	Regulatory Affairs Specialist
Average age	44	46
Gender ratio	Male, 55.8% Female, 44.2%	Male, 37.5% Female, 62.5%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 6.2% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 8.8% Asian, 12.0% White, 67.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5%	Black or African American, 10.7% Unknown, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, 15.7% Asian, 8.2% White, 60.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.8%
LGBT Percentage	11%	12%

Differences between quality assurance and regulatory affairs specialist duties and responsibilities

Quality assurance example responsibilities.

Participate in weekly scrum meetings with project leads and the QA team to track and report overall progress.
Manage the logistics requirements, handling, processing, and repairing of avionics equipment and avionics support equipment.
Champion use of detail bug tracking (JIRA) and strict release methodology to achieve field stability and maintainability.
Experience in working with product teams, product owners and scrum masters to compose and manage integrate project plans.
Manage all ALM relate issues, user requests and customize the defect templates to cater to various project needs.
Provide support for different environments including DEV, QA, UAT, staging, and production.

Regulatory affairs specialist example responsibilities.

Gather, evaluating, organizing, managing and collating information in a variety of formats.
Manage CRO (regulatory) in support of the company's approve product in Europe.
Manage and submit electronic EPA product registrations.
Manage and submit regulatory permit and notification applications to USDA to import, move and release regulate plant materials.
Support complaint handling process and screening, ensure FDA 21 CFR compliance.
Close complaints receive from external customers in compliance with FDA, ISO, QSR and other regulatory guidelines.

Quality assurance vs regulatory affairs specialist skills

Common quality assurance skills

Test Cases, 6%
Food Handling, 6%
Java, 5%
Selenium, 4%
Data Entry, 4%
Test Procedures, 4%

Common regulatory affairs specialist skills

Regulatory Affairs, 10%
FDA, 8%
Regulatory Agencies, 7%
Medical Devices, 6%
Regulatory Compliance, 5%
Regulatory Submissions, 5%

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Quality Assurance vs Regulatory Affairs Specialist

Updated January 8, 2025

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