Acceptance Criteria Contracts

Acceptance Criteria
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Acceptance Criteria skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Acceptance Criteria over the 6 months to 27 April 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
27 Apr 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 264 229 227
Rank change year-on-year -35 -2 +41
Contract jobs citing Acceptance Criteria 402 708 1,174
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.93% 1.18% 1.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.08% 1.32% 1.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 290 493 758
10th Percentile £363 £400 £380
25th Percentile £418 £463 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £500
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £605 £588
90th Percentile £625 £650 £666
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £549 £475
% change year-on-year -11.20% +15.58% +8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 8 13
10th Percentile £27.23 £50.50 £38.40
25th Percentile £31.71 £55.19 £42.00
Median hourly rate £32.36 £58.75 £53.00
Median % change year-on-year -44.93% +10.85% +82.76%
75th Percentile £57.00 £65.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £65.50 £73.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.25 £55.25 £47.50
% change year-on-year -19.91% +16.32% +76.06%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Acceptance Criteria is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 37,374 53,774 80,482
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.31% 89.91% 90.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,095 37,304 56,474
10th Percentile £300 £325 £340
25th Percentile £413 £438 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +4.76% +8.25%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £475
% change year-on-year - +5.26% +9.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,422 1,763 1,928
10th Percentile £12.75 £11.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.00 £16.25 £15.25
Median hourly rate £35.00 £37.34 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.27% +49.36% -
75th Percentile £59.44 £65.00 £49.25
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £63.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.00 £36.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year - +80.00% -8.17%

Acceptance Criteria
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Acceptance Criteria as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Acceptance Criteria in the UK

Acceptance Criteria
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Acceptance Criteria.

Daily rate trend for Acceptance Criteria in the UK

Acceptance Criteria
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Acceptance Criteria over the 6 months to 27 April 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Acceptance Criteria in the UK

Acceptance Criteria
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Acceptance Criteria.

Hourly rate trend for Acceptance Criteria in the UK

Acceptance Criteria
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Acceptance Criteria over the 6 months to 27 April 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Acceptance Criteria in the UK

Acceptance Criteria
Top 15 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Acceptance Criteria within the UK over the 6 months to 27 April 2024. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -15 352 £505 -8.18% 128
London +18 208 £533 -6.49% 54
Work from Home +5 153 £500 -8.93% 62
UK excluding London -45 150 £488 -11.20% 79
South East -13 46 £488 -7.14% 28
North of England -1 35 £456 -12.64% 16
South West -2 32 £550 -2.65% 10
Yorkshire +25 26 £438 -22.22% 6
Scotland +29 18 £463 -5.13% 3
East of England +11 12 £375 -25.00% 10
Midlands -14 8 £463 -9.76% 12
North West -20 8 £500 +1.01% 10
West Midlands -3 5 £450 -20.00% 9
East Midlands +14 3 £500 +35.14% 3
North East +16 1 £477 +0.42%

Acceptance Criteria
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 28 (6.97%) Confluence
2 6 (1.49%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 3 (0.75%) ArcGIS
4 3 (0.75%) CMS
4 3 (0.75%) Drupal
5 2 (0.50%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.25%) BizTalk Server
6 1 (0.25%) IIS
6 1 (0.25%) Joomla!
6 1 (0.25%) LiveLink
6 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.25%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.25%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.25%) WordPress
Applications
1 6 (1.49%) Microsoft Excel
1 6 (1.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 6 (1.49%) MS Visio
2 5 (1.24%) Adobe XD
2 5 (1.24%) InVision
2 5 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.24%) Sketch
2 5 (1.24%) Zeplin
3 2 (0.50%) Trello
4 1 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 12 (2.99%) Aligne
2 11 (2.74%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (2.49%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (1.74%) SAP PM
5 4 (1.00%) Shopify
5 4 (1.00%) SimCorp Dimension
6 3 (0.75%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.75%) SAP Hybris
7 2 (0.50%) VisionPLUS
8 1 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
8 1 (0.25%) SAP APO
8 1 (0.25%) SAP IBP
8 1 (0.25%) SAP MM
8 1 (0.25%) Softmar
8 1 (0.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 61 (15.17%) Azure
2 38 (9.45%) Azure DevOps
3 25 (6.22%) AWS
4 23 (5.72%) Dynamics 365
4 23 (5.72%) Power Platform
5 13 (3.23%) Power Automate
6 7 (1.74%) Figma
6 7 (1.74%) Microsoft 365
7 6 (1.49%) PowerApps
7 6 (1.49%) SaaS
8 4 (1.00%) BigCommerce
8 4 (1.00%) PaaS
8 4 (1.00%) SAP Commerce Cloud
9 3 (0.75%) Adobe Analytics
9 3 (0.75%) GCP
9 3 (0.75%) Miro
10 2 (0.50%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 2 (0.50%) Azure Sentinel
10 2 (0.50%) dbt
10 2 (0.50%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.24%) SSH
2 3 (0.75%) DNS
2 3 (0.75%) GSM
2 3 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
3 2 (0.50%) DHCP
3 2 (0.50%) Firewall
3 2 (0.50%) HTTP
4 1 (0.25%) 3GPP
4 1 (0.25%) 4G
4 1 (0.25%) 5G
4 1 (0.25%) Bluetooth
4 1 (0.25%) LAN
4 1 (0.25%) LTE
4 1 (0.25%) PuTTY
4 1 (0.25%) SMS
4 1 (0.25%) SSL
4 1 (0.25%) TETRA
4 1 (0.25%) UMTS
4 1 (0.25%) VPN
4 1 (0.25%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (4.23%) Power BI
2 12 (2.99%) Data Warehouse
3 8 (1.99%) Data Lake
4 6 (1.49%) NoSQL
5 5 (1.24%) Geospatial Data
5 5 (1.24%) GIS
6 4 (1.00%) Apache Cassandra
6 4 (1.00%) MySQL
6 4 (1.00%) Redis
6 4 (1.00%) SQL Server
6 4 (1.00%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 4 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 4 (1.00%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 2 (0.50%) Big Data
7 2 (0.50%) Data Mart
7 2 (0.50%) SAP BW
7 2 (0.50%) Tableau
8 1 (0.25%) Delta Lake
8 1 (0.25%) EDRMS
8 1 (0.25%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 47 (11.69%) JIRA
2 15 (3.73%) Selenium
3 13 (3.23%) Postman
4 11 (2.74%) JMeter
5 10 (2.49%) SoapUI
6 7 (1.74%) Cucumber
7 6 (1.49%) JUnit
8 5 (1.24%) Appium
8 5 (1.24%) Axure RP
8 5 (1.24%) Gatling
8 5 (1.24%) Git
8 5 (1.24%) LoadRunner
8 5 (1.24%) Visual Studio
8 5 (1.24%) WebDriver
9 4 (1.00%) Mockito
9 4 (1.00%) ScalaTest
10 3 (0.75%) Rational Performance Tester
10 3 (0.75%) SpecFlow
11 2 (0.50%) Team Foundation Server
11 2 (0.50%) UI Automator
General
1 138 (34.33%) Social Skills
2 76 (18.91%) Finance
3 70 (17.41%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (8.46%) Public Sector
5 27 (6.72%) Presentation Skills
6 14 (3.48%) Banking
6 14 (3.48%) Retail
7 12 (2.99%) Telecoms
8 9 (2.24%) Back Office
8 9 (2.24%) Games
8 9 (2.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 9 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (1.74%) Marketing
10 6 (1.49%) Investment Banking
11 5 (1.24%) Front Office
11 5 (1.24%) German Language
11 5 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
12 4 (1.00%) Documentation Skills
12 4 (1.00%) Manufacturing
13 3 (0.75%) Law
Job Titles
1 159 (39.55%) Analyst
2 123 (30.60%) Business Analyst
3 61 (15.17%) Senior
4 30 (7.46%) Product Owner
4 30 (7.46%) Senior Analyst
5 29 (7.21%) Developer
6 27 (6.72%) Project Manager
7 24 (5.97%) Technical Analyst
8 23 (5.72%) Service Manager
9 19 (4.73%) Consultant
9 19 (4.73%) Senior Business Analyst
9 19 (4.73%) Service Transition Manager
9 19 (4.73%) Transition Manager
10 18 (4.48%) Technical Business Analyst
10 18 (4.48%) Tester
11 16 (3.98%) Lead
12 13 (3.23%) Agile Business Analyst
13 12 (2.99%) Test Leader
14 11 (2.74%) Data Analyst
15 10 (2.49%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (3.98%) SOAP
2 14 (3.48%) REST
3 13 (3.23%) XML
4 11 (2.74%) JSON
5 10 (2.49%) Web Services
6 9 (2.24%) Hibernate
6 9 (2.24%) JPA
6 9 (2.24%) Spring
7 7 (1.74%) RESTful
7 7 (1.74%) Swagger
8 6 (1.49%) ADO
8 6 (1.49%) OpenAPI
9 5 (1.24%) .NET
9 5 (1.24%) Akka
9 5 (1.24%) HTML
9 5 (1.24%) J2EE
10 4 (1.00%) Play Framework
10 4 (1.00%) spray
10 4 (1.00%) Spring MVC
10 4 (1.00%) VML
Miscellaneous
1 77 (19.15%) Product Ownership
2 25 (6.22%) Management Information System
3 18 (4.48%) Mobile App
4 10 (2.49%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 9 (2.24%) Renewable Energy
5 9 (2.24%) Solar Panel
6 6 (1.49%) Algorithms
7 5 (1.24%) Derivative
7 5 (1.24%) Enterprise Software
7 5 (1.24%) Hybrid Cloud
7 5 (1.24%) Linux Command Line
8 4 (1.00%) Data Structures
8 4 (1.00%) Onboarding
9 3 (0.75%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (0.75%) Low-Code
9 3 (0.75%) Security Posture
9 3 (0.75%) Self-Motivation
10 2 (0.50%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (0.50%) Legacy Applications
10 2 (0.50%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 18 (4.48%) Linux
2 9 (2.24%) Unix
2 9 (2.24%) Windows
3 5 (1.24%) Android
4 3 (0.75%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.25%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 238 (59.20%) Agile
2 209 (51.99%) User Stories
3 95 (23.63%) Business Analysis
4 93 (23.13%) Problem-Solving
5 91 (22.64%) Scrum
6 67 (16.67%) DevOps
7 52 (12.94%) User Acceptance Testing
8 48 (11.94%) Project Management
9 46 (11.44%) Test Automation
10 44 (10.95%) Workshop Facilitation
11 41 (10.20%) Epics
11 41 (10.20%) Product Backlog
12 40 (9.95%) Project Delivery
13 38 (9.45%) Stakeholder Management
13 38 (9.45%) Translating Business Requirements
14 36 (8.96%) Requirements Gathering
14 36 (8.96%) Roadmaps
14 36 (8.96%) Service Design
15 35 (8.71%) Scenario Testing
16 32 (7.96%) Business Case
Programming Languages
1 33 (8.21%) SQL
2 27 (6.72%) Java
3 17 (4.23%) Python
4 11 (2.74%) JavaScript
5 9 (2.24%) C#
6 8 (1.99%) C
7 6 (1.49%) C++
7 6 (1.49%) Scala
7 6 (1.49%) VB
8 5 (1.24%) Perl
8 5 (1.24%) T-SQL
9 4 (1.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 4 (1.00%) Kotlin
9 4 (1.00%) PL/SQL
9 4 (1.00%) PowerShell
10 3 (0.75%) R
11 2 (0.50%) Go
11 2 (0.50%) Swift
11 2 (0.50%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.25%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 57 (14.18%) Security Cleared
2 42 (10.45%) Degree
3 41 (10.20%) SC Cleared
4 10 (2.49%) DV Cleared
5 6 (1.49%) BPSS Clearance
5 6 (1.49%) CSPO
6 5 (1.24%) CBAP
6 5 (1.24%) ISEB
7 4 (1.00%) Computer Science Degree
7 4 (1.00%) ISTQB
7 4 (1.00%) ITIL Certification
7 4 (1.00%) PMI Certification
8 3 (0.75%) PMP
9 2 (0.50%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.50%) ISEB Practitioner
9 2 (0.50%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.50%) MBA
10 1 (0.25%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.25%) IIBA
10 1 (0.25%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (13.68%) QA
2 21 (5.22%) Accessibility
3 14 (3.48%) WCAG
4 8 (1.99%) PMO
5 7 (1.74%) Data Quality
6 3 (0.75%) Disclosure Scotland
6 3 (0.75%) ISO 9001
6 3 (0.75%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.50%) COBIT
7 2 (0.50%) GDPR
7 2 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.50%) PSD2
7 2 (0.50%) SLA
7 2 (0.50%) Software Quality Assurance
8 1 (0.25%) NCSC
8 1 (0.25%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 8 (1.99%) Docker
2 2 (0.50%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.25%) PowerHA
Systems Management
1 8 (1.99%) Kubernetes
2 6 (1.49%) Grafana
2 6 (1.49%) Prometheus
3 3 (0.75%) HP Quality Center
4 1 (0.25%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 41 (10.20%) Microsoft
2 26 (6.47%) SAP
3 15 (3.73%) Adobe
4 8 (1.99%) Salesforce
4 8 (1.99%) ServiceNow
5 6 (1.49%) IBM
6 5 (1.24%) Atlassian
6 5 (1.24%) Google
7 4 (1.00%) HP
7 4 (1.00%) SimCorp
7 4 (1.00%) Sitecore
8 3 (0.75%) Dell
8 3 (0.75%) ESRI
8 3 (0.75%) Intel
9 2 (0.50%) Ariba
9 2 (0.50%) Civica
9 2 (0.50%) Murex
9 2 (0.50%) Oracle
10 1 (0.25%) Cisco
10 1 (0.25%) Commvault