Acceptance Criteria Contracts in England

Acceptance Criteria
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England requiring Acceptance Criteria skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Acceptance Criteria over the 6 months leading up to 27 August 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Aug 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 266 248 240
Rank change year-on-year -18 -8 -40
DemandTrendContract jobs citing Acceptance Criteria 269 325 481
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.97% 0.98% 1.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.07% 1.14% 1.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 168 222 308
10th Percentile £324 £351 £396
25th Percentile £358 £420 £448
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £528 £539
Median % change year-on-year -10.05% -2.09% +6.68%
75th Percentile £550 £589 £600
90th Percentile £638 £675 £650
UK median daily rate £463 £525 £526
% change year-on-year -11.90% -0.10% +4.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 6 11
10th Percentile - £27.88 £56.25
25th Percentile £52.50 £33.02 £60.63
Median hourly rate £55.00 £37.79 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +45.56% -46.02% -
75th Percentile £57.50 £58.75 £80.00
90th Percentile £60.51 £65.39 £86.56
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £37.79 £72.50
% change year-on-year +45.56% -47.88% +3.57%

All Process and Methodology Skills
England

Acceptance Criteria falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in England.

DemandTrendContract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 25,065 28,471 39,049
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 90.81% 85.74% 89.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,944 18,288 27,235
10th Percentile £300 £313 £325
25th Percentile £404 £422 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £663
90th Percentile £738 £753 £760
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £545
% change year-on-year -4.76% -3.67% -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,485 1,509 1,388
10th Percentile £14.20 £14.04 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.55 £18.13 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -40.82% - +54.55%
75th Percentile £50.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.65 £75.00 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -37.90% -4.71% +54.55%

Acceptance Criteria
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

Job vacancy trend for Acceptance Criteria in England

Acceptance Criteria
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Acceptance Criteria.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Acceptance Criteria

Acceptance Criteria
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Acceptance Criteria in England over the 6 months to 27 August 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Acceptance Criteria in England

Acceptance Criteria
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Acceptance Criteria.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Acceptance Criteria

Acceptance Criteria
DemandTrendContract Job Locations in England

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 England region over the 6 months to 27 August 2025. 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
DemandTrendContract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London -43 132 £525 -1.87% 64
South East +36 52 £475 +5.56% 54
North of England -12 35 £425 -17.40% 31
Midlands +5 29 £358 -28.50% 9
North West +10 26 £420 -16.33% 17
East Midlands +9 21 £350 -30.00% 5
South West +20 10 £419 -29.62% 9
East of England -1 8 £450 +20.00% 7
West Midlands -3 8 £455 -1.09% 4
Yorkshire -17 6 £483 -12.27% 11
North East -5 3 £525 +28.05% 3
Acceptance Criteria
UK

Acceptance Criteria
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England 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 52 (19.33%) Confluence
2 7 (2.60%) CMS
3 3 (1.12%) CICS
4 2 (0.74%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.37%) Apache
5 1 (0.37%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.37%) JBoss
5 1 (0.37%) Red Hat Fuse
5 1 (0.37%) Smallworld
Applications
1 14 (5.20%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (4.09%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.49%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.49%) Simulink
3 4 (1.49%) Windchill
4 3 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.74%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.74%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.37%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.37%) Moqups
Business Applications
1 7 (2.60%) Dynamics CRM
1 7 (2.60%) Endur
2 4 (1.49%) SAP PLM
3 3 (1.12%) Oracle EBS R12
3 3 (1.12%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (1.12%) Shopify
4 2 (0.74%) HFM
4 2 (0.74%) Loan IQ
4 2 (0.74%) MultiFonds
4 2 (0.74%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.37%) Advent Portfolio Exchange
5 1 (0.37%) Aligne
5 1 (0.37%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.37%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.37%) Orchestrade
5 1 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.37%) SAP CRM
5 1 (0.37%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 30 (11.15%) Azure
2 23 (8.55%) Azure DevOps
3 15 (5.58%) AWS
4 14 (5.20%) SaaS
5 9 (3.35%) Power Platform
6 8 (2.97%) GitHub
7 7 (2.60%) Dynamics 365
8 5 (1.86%) Entra ID
8 5 (1.86%) GCP
9 4 (1.49%) Tricentis Tosca
10 3 (1.12%) BigCommerce
10 3 (1.12%) Figma
10 3 (1.12%) Miro
10 3 (1.12%) Slack
11 2 (0.74%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 2 (0.74%) Azure Data Factory
11 2 (0.74%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 2 (0.74%) iPaaS
11 2 (0.74%) PaaS
11 2 (0.74%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.86%) LAN
2 4 (1.49%) Wi-Fi
3 3 (1.12%) BGP
3 3 (1.12%) DNS
3 3 (1.12%) Firewall
3 3 (1.12%) Network Security
3 3 (1.12%) OSPF
3 3 (1.12%) SD-WAN
3 3 (1.12%) VoIP
3 3 (1.12%) VPN
4 2 (0.74%) BIG-IP
4 2 (0.74%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
4 2 (0.74%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
4 2 (0.74%) WAN
4 2 (0.74%) Wireless
5 1 (0.37%) 802.11
5 1 (0.37%) DHCP
5 1 (0.37%) Intranet
5 1 (0.37%) IP Telephony
5 1 (0.37%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.23%) Power BI
1 6 (2.23%) SQL Server
1 6 (2.23%) Star Schema
2 4 (1.49%) Relational Database
3 3 (1.12%) DB2
4 2 (0.74%) BigQuery
4 2 (0.74%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (0.74%) GIS
4 2 (0.74%) MongoDB
4 2 (0.74%) Oracle Database
4 2 (0.74%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 1 (0.37%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (0.37%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.37%) BusinessObjects
5 1 (0.37%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.37%) Delta Lake
5 1 (0.37%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.37%) SAP Data Services
5 1 (0.37%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 83 (30.86%) JIRA
2 18 (6.69%) Jenkins
3 16 (5.95%) Cucumber
3 16 (5.95%) Selenium
4 14 (5.20%) Postman
5 10 (3.72%) Git
5 10 (3.72%) GitLab
6 7 (2.60%) JUnit
6 7 (2.60%) REST Assured
7 6 (2.23%) TestRail
8 5 (1.86%) Zephyr
9 4 (1.49%) Rational DOORS
9 4 (1.49%) Rational Rhapsody
9 4 (1.49%) SoapUI
10 3 (1.12%) Bitbucket
10 3 (1.12%) Eclipse
10 3 (1.12%) Gatling
10 3 (1.12%) IntelliJ
10 3 (1.12%) Maven
10 3 (1.12%) Visual Studio
General
1 131 (48.70%) Social Skills
2 65 (24.16%) Finance
3 60 (22.30%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (12.64%) Presentation Skills
5 27 (10.04%) Public Sector
6 19 (7.06%) Influencing Skills
7 18 (6.69%) Banking
8 13 (4.83%) Organisational Skills
9 11 (4.09%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (4.09%) Marketing
9 11 (4.09%) Retail
10 8 (2.97%) Telecoms
11 6 (2.23%) Back Office
11 6 (2.23%) Law
12 5 (1.86%) Publishing
13 4 (1.49%) Automotive
13 4 (1.49%) Front Office
14 3 (1.12%) Advertising
14 3 (1.12%) Legal
15 2 (0.74%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 122 (45.35%) Analyst
2 103 (38.29%) Business Analyst
3 29 (10.78%) Product Owner
4 28 (10.41%) Senior
5 23 (8.55%) Developer
6 21 (7.81%) Technical Analyst
7 20 (7.43%) Tester
8 18 (6.69%) Senior Analyst
9 16 (5.95%) Technical Business Analyst
10 12 (4.46%) Service Manager
11 11 (4.09%) Automation Tester
11 11 (4.09%) Senior Business Analyst
11 11 (4.09%) Service Transition Manager
11 11 (4.09%) Transition Manager
12 9 (3.35%) Architect
12 9 (3.35%) Lead
13 8 (2.97%) QA Engineer
14 7 (2.60%) Data Analyst
14 7 (2.60%) Digital Product Owner
15 6 (2.23%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (4.09%) RESTful
2 10 (3.72%) SOAP
3 9 (3.35%) Kafka
3 9 (3.35%) REST
4 6 (2.23%) ADO
4 6 (2.23%) Gherkin
4 6 (2.23%) Spring
5 5 (1.86%) .NET
5 5 (1.86%) Oracle Fusion
5 5 (1.86%) Spring Boot
6 4 (1.49%) React
7 3 (1.12%) HTML
7 3 (1.12%) Playwright
7 3 (1.12%) SailPoint
7 3 (1.12%) Swagger
7 3 (1.12%) VML
8 2 (0.74%) Blazor
8 2 (0.74%) CSS
8 2 (0.74%) LDAP
9 1 (0.37%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 69 (25.65%) Product Ownership
2 11 (4.09%) Management Information System
2 11 (4.09%) Onboarding
3 9 (3.35%) PMI
4 8 (2.97%) Greenfield Project
5 7 (2.60%) Data Protection Act
6 6 (2.23%) Mobile App
7 5 (1.86%) Self-Motivation
7 5 (1.86%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 4 (1.49%) Reinsurance
9 3 (1.12%) CMDB
9 3 (1.12%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (1.12%) Low-Code
9 3 (1.12%) Mainframe
9 3 (1.12%) VSAM
10 2 (0.74%) Cloud Native
10 2 (0.74%) Data Structures
10 2 (0.74%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 2 (0.74%) NHS
10 2 (0.74%) PDA
Operating Systems
1 12 (4.46%) Windows
2 4 (1.49%) Android
2 4 (1.49%) Apple iOS
3 2 (0.74%) Linux
3 2 (0.74%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.37%) VMS
4 1 (0.37%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 187 (69.52%) Agile
2 127 (47.21%) User Stories
3 93 (34.57%) Scrum
4 67 (24.91%) Problem-Solving
5 66 (24.54%) Business Analysis
6 58 (21.56%) DevOps
7 53 (19.70%) Stakeholder Management
7 53 (19.70%) User Acceptance Testing
8 44 (16.36%) Sprint Planning
9 39 (14.50%) Workshop Facilitation
10 38 (14.13%) Product Backlog
11 37 (13.75%) Test Automation
12 35 (13.01%) Continuous Improvement
12 35 (13.01%) Epics
12 35 (13.01%) Roadmaps
13 34 (12.64%) Requirements Gathering
13 34 (12.64%) Test Strategy
14 33 (12.27%) Backlog Prioritisation
14 33 (12.27%) Backlog Refinement
14 33 (12.27%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 42 (15.61%) SQL
2 17 (6.32%) Java
3 16 (5.95%) VB
4 13 (4.83%) Python
5 6 (2.23%) C#
6 4 (1.49%) MATLAB
7 3 (1.12%) COBOL
7 3 (1.12%) JavaScript
7 3 (1.12%) JCL
7 3 (1.12%) VBA
8 2 (0.74%) Korn
8 2 (0.74%) PL/SQL
8 2 (0.74%) Ruby
9 1 (0.37%) Apex Code
9 1 (0.37%) Scala
9 1 (0.37%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 39 (14.50%) Security Cleared
2 38 (14.13%) Degree
3 24 (8.92%) SC Cleared
4 11 (4.09%) CBAP
4 11 (4.09%) DV Cleared
5 10 (3.72%) PMI Certification
6 8 (2.97%) ISTQB
7 7 (2.60%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (2.60%) CSPO
8 4 (1.49%) BPSS Clearance
8 4 (1.49%) CCNP
8 4 (1.49%) Cisco Certification
8 4 (1.49%) ITIL Certification
9 3 (1.12%) IIBA
9 3 (1.12%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 3 (1.12%) Oracle Certification
10 2 (0.74%) CCIE
10 2 (0.74%) ISEB
10 2 (0.74%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.74%) OCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (13.75%) QA
2 10 (3.72%) Accessibility
3 9 (3.35%) GDPR
4 8 (2.97%) SLA
5 7 (2.60%) PSD2
6 4 (1.49%) Data Quality
6 4 (1.49%) SEPA
7 3 (1.12%) ISO 20022
7 3 (1.12%) PMO
7 3 (1.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (1.12%) WCAG
8 2 (0.74%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.74%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.37%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.37%) EMIR
9 1 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 1 (0.37%) MiFID
9 1 (0.37%) NIST
9 1 (0.37%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 4 (1.49%) Firmware
2 2 (0.74%) Active Directory
2 2 (0.74%) Docker
3 1 (0.37%) Hyper-V
3 1 (0.37%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 5 (1.86%) Ansible
1 5 (1.86%) HP ALM
2 2 (0.74%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.74%) SCCM
2 2 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
2 2 (0.74%) Terraform
3 1 (0.37%) Cilium
3 1 (0.37%) Graphite
3 1 (0.37%) Kibana
3 1 (0.37%) Progress Chef
3 1 (0.37%) Rsyslog
3 1 (0.37%) SCOM
Vendors
1 33 (12.27%) Microsoft
2 21 (7.81%) Oracle
3 14 (5.20%) ServiceNow
4 13 (4.83%) Salesforce
5 12 (4.46%) SAP
6 5 (1.86%) HP
7 4 (1.49%) Adobe
7 4 (1.49%) Cisco
8 3 (1.12%) CyberArk
8 3 (1.12%) Juniper
8 3 (1.12%) Remedy
8 3 (1.12%) Sitecore
8 3 (1.12%) Temenos
8 3 (1.12%) Workday
9 2 (0.74%) CheckPoint
9 2 (0.74%) Databricks
9 2 (0.74%) DocuSign
9 2 (0.74%) F5
9 2 (0.74%) Guidewire
9 2 (0.74%) Palantir