BDD Contract Job Trends in England

Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring BDD skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 21 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 373 296 250
Rank change year-on-year -77 -46 +3
Contract jobs citing BDD 271 222 317
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.59% 0.81% 0.95%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.70% 0.89% 1.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 166 158 236
10th Percentile £306 £359 £363
25th Percentile £400 £413 £443
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £461 £514 £540
Median % change year-on-year -10.32% -4.86% -10.00%
75th Percentile £550 £648 £650
90th Percentile £719 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £463 £500 £533
% change year-on-year -7.50% -6.19% -7.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 2
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £45.00 - £56.25
75th Percentile £46.88 - -
90th Percentile £48.00 - -
UK median hourly rate £45.00 £85.00 £56.25
% change year-on-year -47.06% +51.11% -25.00%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

BDD 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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 38,779 25,035 28,563
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.92% 90.85% 85.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,017 15,949 18,476
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £626 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,559 1,455 1,574
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.22 £14.05
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.92 £17.80
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -40.82% +3.61%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.05 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.50
% change year-on-year +67.00% -37.90% -1.22%

BDD
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing BDD relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

BDD job vacancy trend in England

BDD
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing BDD.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing BDD

BDD
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing BDD in England over the 6 months to 21 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for BDD in England

BDD
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing BDD.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing BDD

BDD
Contract 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 BDD within the England region over the 6 months to 21 August 2026. 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
London -86 114 £494 -15.96% 37
North of England -50 74 £450 -13.42% 17
Midlands -21 42 £425 -8.11% 9
West Midlands -23 41 £425 -11.69% 7
North West -30 35 £456 +8.12% 8
Yorkshire -38 23 £525 - 5
North East -20 20 £450 -2.17% 5
South East -70 17 £285 -1.04% 19
South West -47 14 £525 +27.27% 7
East of England -8 8 £510 +36.00% 3
BDD
UK

BDD
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 29 (10.70%) Confluence
2 3 (1.11%) CMS
2 3 (1.11%) Headless CMS
2 3 (1.11%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.74%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.37%) Apache
4 1 (0.37%) Camunda
Applications
1 3 (1.11%) Notion
2 2 (0.74%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.37%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 9 (3.32%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (2.95%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (1.11%) Findur
3 3 (1.11%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 88 (32.47%) Azure
2 85 (31.37%) AWS
3 65 (23.99%) GitHub
4 43 (15.87%) Azure DevOps
5 34 (12.55%) GitHub Actions
6 31 (11.44%) GCP
7 23 (8.49%) Serverless
8 18 (6.64%) Amazon SQS
9 16 (5.90%) Amazon EC2
10 15 (5.54%) Amazon S3
11 14 (5.17%) AWS Lambda
12 13 (4.80%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 10 (3.69%) Power Automate
14 9 (3.32%) Dynamics 365
15 8 (2.95%) AWS KMS
15 8 (2.95%) Route 53
16 7 (2.58%) GitHub Copilot
17 6 (2.21%) Amazon EKS
17 6 (2.21%) Azure Functions
17 6 (2.21%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.58%) RTP
1 7 (2.58%) Wireshark
2 6 (2.21%) 3GPP
3 3 (1.11%) DSL
3 3 (1.11%) Internet
4 2 (0.74%) Firewall
4 2 (0.74%) NaaS
4 2 (0.74%) WAN
5 1 (0.37%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (14.39%) MongoDB
2 34 (12.55%) PostgreSQL
3 16 (5.90%) SQL Server
4 15 (5.54%) DynamoDB
5 14 (5.17%) NoSQL
6 13 (4.80%) Amazon RDS
7 8 (2.95%) Amazon Aurora
8 6 (2.21%) Relational Database
9 5 (1.85%) Couchbase
10 4 (1.48%) Amazon Athena
11 3 (1.11%) Apache Iceberg
11 3 (1.11%) BigQuery
11 3 (1.11%) Data Warehouse
11 3 (1.11%) MySQL
12 2 (0.74%) Data Lake
12 2 (0.74%) Flink
12 2 (0.74%) InfluxDB
12 2 (0.74%) Power BI
12 2 (0.74%) Snowflake Schema
12 2 (0.74%) ZAP BI
Development Applications
1 97 (35.79%) Cucumber
2 83 (30.63%) Git
3 74 (27.31%) Selenium
4 62 (22.88%) Jenkins
5 56 (20.66%) JUnit
6 47 (17.34%) GitLab
7 46 (16.97%) JIRA
8 37 (13.65%) REST Assured
9 36 (13.28%) Postman
10 33 (12.18%) WebDriver
11 29 (10.70%) Mockito
12 23 (8.49%) SonarQube
13 21 (7.75%) Cypress.io
14 17 (6.27%) SpecFlow
15 16 (5.90%) Gatling
15 16 (5.90%) JMeter
16 15 (5.54%) Maven
16 15 (5.54%) TeamCity
17 9 (3.32%) Bitbucket
18 8 (2.95%) DbUnit
General
1 82 (30.26%) Social Skills
2 57 (21.03%) Finance
3 51 (18.82%) Public Sector
4 42 (15.50%) Analytical Skills
5 31 (11.44%) Banking
6 11 (4.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 7 (2.58%) Retail
8 5 (1.85%) Aviation
8 5 (1.85%) Fire and Rescue
8 5 (1.85%) Military
8 5 (1.85%) Organisational Skills
8 5 (1.85%) Police
9 4 (1.48%) Front Office
10 3 (1.11%) Automotive
10 3 (1.11%) Billing
10 3 (1.11%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (1.11%) Legal Technology
11 2 (0.74%) Investment Banking
11 2 (0.74%) Law
11 2 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 75 (27.68%) Developer
2 61 (22.51%) Senior
3 52 (19.19%) Java Developer
4 50 (18.45%) Test Engineer
5 31 (11.44%) Test Automation Engineer
6 29 (10.70%) Lead
7 28 (10.33%) Software Engineer
8 20 (7.38%) Senior Developer
9 19 (7.01%) Tester
10 17 (6.27%) Analyst
10 17 (6.27%) Senior Java Developer
11 16 (5.90%) Java Engineer
11 16 (5.90%) Test Leader
12 15 (5.54%) Automation Tester
13 12 (4.43%) QA Engineer
14 11 (4.06%) Automation Engineer
15 10 (3.69%) Senior Software Engineer
15 10 (3.69%) Test Analyst
16 9 (3.32%) Architect
16 9 (3.32%) Senior Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (21.77%) Spring
2 56 (20.66%) REST
3 53 (19.56%) Playwright
4 52 (19.19%) Kafka
5 49 (18.08%) Spring Boot
6 41 (15.13%) Gherkin
7 32 (11.81%) RESTful
8 29 (10.70%) .NET
9 25 (9.23%) AngularJS
10 22 (8.12%) Node.js
10 22 (8.12%) React
11 21 (7.75%) Terraform
11 21 (7.75%) WireMock
12 20 (7.38%) ActiveMQ
13 19 (7.01%) SOAP
14 14 (5.17%) HTML
14 14 (5.17%) JSON
15 12 (4.43%) CSS
15 12 (4.43%) JPA
15 12 (4.43%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 35 (12.92%) Distributed Systems
2 26 (9.59%) Cloud Native
3 25 (9.23%) Product Ownership
4 18 (6.64%) Enterprise Software
5 11 (4.06%) Legacy Systems
6 10 (3.69%) Distributed Architecture
7 6 (2.21%) Management Information System
7 6 (2.21%) Onboarding
7 6 (2.21%) Virtual Team
8 5 (1.85%) Mobile App
8 5 (1.85%) Robotics
8 5 (1.85%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (1.85%) Taxonomies
9 4 (1.48%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 3 (1.11%) AI Agents
10 3 (1.11%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (1.11%) NHS
11 2 (0.74%) Distributed Applications
11 2 (0.74%) Fixed Income
11 2 (0.74%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 41 (15.13%) Linux
2 19 (7.01%) Unix
3 6 (2.21%) Android
3 6 (2.21%) Apple iOS
3 6 (2.21%) Mac OS X
4 5 (1.85%) Windows
5 2 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.74%) VMS
6 1 (0.37%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 188 (69.37%) Agile
2 172 (63.47%) TDD
3 165 (60.89%) CI/CD
4 164 (60.52%) Test Automation
5 101 (37.27%) DevOps
6 98 (36.16%) Microservices
7 65 (23.99%) Continuous Improvement
8 57 (21.03%) Scrum
9 56 (20.66%) Problem-Solving
10 55 (20.30%) API Testing
11 53 (19.56%) Test Strategy
12 52 (19.19%) AI
13 50 (18.45%) Software Engineering
14 39 (14.39%) Continuous Integration
15 37 (13.65%) Mentoring
15 37 (13.65%) Stakeholder Management
16 35 (12.92%) SDLC
17 32 (11.81%) Software Testing
18 31 (11.44%) End-to-End Testing
19 29 (10.70%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 156 (57.56%) Java
2 71 (26.20%) SQL
3 56 (20.66%) Python
4 49 (18.08%) JavaScript
5 47 (17.34%) C#
6 26 (9.59%) TypeScript
7 7 (2.58%) Groovy
7 7 (2.58%) Kotlin
8 6 (2.21%) Apex Code
8 6 (2.21%) R
9 5 (1.85%) Bash
9 5 (1.85%) Go
10 4 (1.48%) C++
10 4 (1.48%) Ruby
10 4 (1.48%) T-SQL
11 3 (1.11%) Scala
12 2 (0.74%) Bicep
12 2 (0.74%) Cypher
12 2 (0.74%) PromQL
12 2 (0.74%) SHACL
Qualifications
1 65 (23.99%) Security Cleared
2 49 (18.08%) SC Cleared
3 18 (6.64%) Degree
4 15 (5.54%) ISTQB
5 13 (4.80%) Computer Science Degree
6 11 (4.06%) BPSS Clearance
7 9 (3.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 6 (2.21%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (1.85%) DV Cleared
10 3 (1.11%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 2 (0.74%) AWS Certification
11 2 (0.74%) Azure Certification
11 2 (0.74%) ISEB
12 1 (0.37%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 65 (23.99%) QA
2 34 (12.55%) Accessibility
3 22 (8.12%) WCAG
4 11 (4.06%) GDPR
5 3 (1.11%) ISO 20022
6 2 (0.74%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.37%) ISO 15022
7 1 (0.37%) SEPA
7 1 (0.37%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 70 (25.83%) Docker
2 6 (2.21%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 53 (19.56%) Kubernetes
2 26 (9.59%) Grafana
3 21 (7.75%) Prometheus
4 7 (2.58%) Ansible
5 4 (1.48%) Kibana
6 3 (1.11%) Istio
7 2 (0.74%) Amdocs OSS
7 2 (0.74%) Argo
7 2 (0.74%) Consul
7 2 (0.74%) Rancher
7 2 (0.74%) Zipkin
8 1 (0.37%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 24 (8.86%) Microsoft
2 16 (5.90%) Salesforce
3 11 (4.06%) Google
4 9 (3.32%) Atlassian
5 8 (2.95%) Checkmarx
5 8 (2.95%) Oracle
6 7 (2.58%) Conga
6 7 (2.58%) GoCardless
6 7 (2.58%) Jaspersoft
7 5 (1.85%) Databricks
7 5 (1.85%) Dynatrace
7 5 (1.85%) IBM
8 3 (1.11%) CA Agile Central
8 3 (1.11%) Guidewire
8 3 (1.11%) OpenAI
8 3 (1.11%) OpenLink
8 3 (1.11%) ServiceNow
8 3 (1.11%) Splunk
9 2 (0.74%) FactSet
9 2 (0.74%) Solace