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 10 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 364 268 263
Rank change year-on-year -96 -5 +11
Contract jobs citing BDD 289 262 283
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.62% 0.93% 0.88%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.74% 1.03% 1.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 196 184 188
10th Percentile £306 £357 £377
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £514 £525
Median % change year-on-year -12.39% -2.14% -4.63%
75th Percentile £538 £638 £638
90th Percentile £650 £746 £766
UK median daily rate £450 £500 £523
% change year-on-year -10.00% -4.31% -3.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £45.00 - -
75th Percentile £46.88 - -
90th Percentile £48.00 - -
UK median hourly rate £45.00 £85.00 -
% change year-on-year -47.06% - -

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 39,257 25,497 27,959
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.86% 90.90% 86.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,690 16,157 17,059
10th Percentile £325 £293 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,996 1,590 1,150
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.54 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.33 £17.87 £20.30
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -4.49%
75th Percentile £67.47 £45.00 £67.38
90th Percentile £78.88 £67.28 £74.88
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.16
% change year-on-year +49.11% -37.38% -8.38%

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 10 October 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 10 October 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 -66 137 £500 -7.41% 115
North of England -91 69 £450 -13.85% 32
Midlands -5 51 £438 -7.89% 24
West Midlands -6 50 £438 -12.50% 17
Yorkshire -42 31 £438 -17.65% 10
North West -51 25 £441 +4.56% 13
North East -43 17 £450 -6.49% 9
South East -75 15 £275 -4.51% 17
South West -31 12 £500 +17.65% 14
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 25 (8.65%) Confluence
2 3 (1.04%) CMS
2 3 (1.04%) Headless CMS
2 3 (1.04%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.35%) Apache
3 1 (0.35%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 3 (1.04%) Mingle
1 3 (1.04%) Notion
2 2 (0.69%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 12 (4.15%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (2.42%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (1.04%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 106 (36.68%) AWS
2 104 (35.99%) Azure
3 73 (25.26%) GitHub
4 43 (14.88%) Azure DevOps
5 34 (11.76%) GitHub Actions
6 25 (8.65%) Serverless
7 22 (7.61%) GCP
8 19 (6.57%) GitHub Copilot
9 15 (5.19%) Dynamics 365
10 14 (4.84%) Amazon S3
10 14 (4.84%) Amazon SQS
10 14 (4.84%) AWS Lambda
11 13 (4.50%) Amazon EC2
11 13 (4.50%) Power Automate
12 9 (3.11%) Azure Functions
12 9 (3.11%) Power Platform
13 8 (2.77%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 8 (2.77%) Amazon EKS
14 7 (2.42%) Kong
14 7 (2.42%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.08%) Internet
2 5 (1.73%) RTP
2 5 (1.73%) Wireshark
3 4 (1.38%) 3GPP
3 4 (1.38%) DNS
4 3 (1.04%) Firewall
5 2 (0.69%) DSL
5 2 (0.69%) HTTP
6 1 (0.35%) BGP
6 1 (0.35%) Intrusion Detection
6 1 (0.35%) Network Security
6 1 (0.35%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.35%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.35%) VPN
6 1 (0.35%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (13.84%) MongoDB
2 29 (10.03%) PostgreSQL
3 19 (6.57%) SQL Server
4 17 (5.88%) NoSQL
5 11 (3.81%) Amazon RDS
6 10 (3.46%) DynamoDB
7 9 (3.11%) Relational Database
8 8 (2.77%) Data Lake
9 7 (2.42%) MySQL
10 5 (1.73%) Amazon Aurora
10 5 (1.73%) Couchbase
11 4 (1.38%) Apache Iceberg
11 4 (1.38%) Big Data
11 4 (1.38%) BigQuery
11 4 (1.38%) Data Warehouse
11 4 (1.38%) Neo4j
11 4 (1.38%) Power BI
11 4 (1.38%) ZAP BI
12 3 (1.04%) Elasticsearch
12 3 (1.04%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 132 (45.67%) Cucumber
2 99 (34.26%) Git
3 97 (33.56%) Selenium
4 66 (22.84%) Jenkins
5 64 (22.15%) JUnit
6 59 (20.42%) GitLab
7 45 (15.57%) JIRA
8 44 (15.22%) REST Assured
9 41 (14.19%) Postman
10 32 (11.07%) Gatling
11 31 (10.73%) SonarQube
12 29 (10.03%) WebDriver
13 27 (9.34%) Mockito
14 26 (9.00%) Cypress.io
15 20 (6.92%) Maven
16 19 (6.57%) SpecFlow
17 13 (4.50%) Gradle
18 10 (3.46%) JMeter
18 10 (3.46%) SoapUI
18 10 (3.46%) TeamCity
General
1 112 (38.75%) Social Skills
2 62 (21.45%) Finance
3 55 (19.03%) Public Sector
4 52 (17.99%) Analytical Skills
5 41 (14.19%) Banking
6 16 (5.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 7 (2.42%) Front Office
7 7 (2.42%) Military
7 7 (2.42%) Retail
8 4 (1.38%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (1.04%) Aviation
9 3 (1.04%) Fire and Rescue
9 3 (1.04%) Investment Banking
9 3 (1.04%) Legal Technology
9 3 (1.04%) Local Government
9 3 (1.04%) Police
10 2 (0.69%) Law
10 2 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.35%) Automotive
11 1 (0.35%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 67 (23.18%) Senior
2 64 (22.15%) Developer
3 51 (17.65%) Test Engineer
4 40 (13.84%) Java Developer
5 31 (10.73%) Software Engineer
6 28 (9.69%) Lead
6 28 (9.69%) Test Automation Engineer
7 23 (7.96%) Quality Engineer
7 23 (7.96%) Senior Developer
8 20 (6.92%) Analyst
8 20 (6.92%) Java Engineer
9 19 (6.57%) QA Engineer
10 14 (4.84%) Automation Engineer
10 14 (4.84%) Senior Java Developer
10 14 (4.84%) Test Leader
11 13 (4.50%) Senior Test Engineer
11 13 (4.50%) Test Analyst
12 10 (3.46%) Senior Software Engineer
13 9 (3.11%) Architect
13 9 (3.11%) Java Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (24.91%) Playwright
2 60 (20.76%) REST
3 58 (20.07%) Spring
4 54 (18.69%) Gherkin
5 53 (18.34%) Kafka
6 47 (16.26%) Spring Boot
7 34 (11.76%) RESTful
8 30 (10.38%) .NET
9 29 (10.03%) React
10 28 (9.69%) Terraform
10 28 (9.69%) WireMock
11 24 (8.30%) Node.js
12 22 (7.61%) AngularJS
13 20 (6.92%) HTML
14 18 (6.23%) SOAP
15 17 (5.88%) pytest
15 17 (5.88%) RabbitMQ
16 16 (5.54%) ActiveMQ
17 15 (5.19%) Swagger
18 14 (4.84%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 28 (9.69%) Product Ownership
2 27 (9.34%) Cloud Native
3 25 (8.65%) Distributed Systems
4 21 (7.27%) Enterprise Software
5 13 (4.50%) Onboarding
6 11 (3.81%) Legacy Systems
7 9 (3.11%) AI Agents
7 9 (3.11%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (2.77%) Management Information System
9 7 (2.42%) Virtual Team
10 5 (1.73%) Distributed Architecture
10 5 (1.73%) Taxonomies
11 4 (1.38%) NHS
11 4 (1.38%) SWIFT Messaging Network
12 3 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
12 3 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
12 3 (1.04%) Legacy Applications
12 3 (1.04%) Robotics
13 2 (0.69%) Greenfield Project
13 2 (0.69%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 38 (13.15%) Linux
2 19 (6.57%) Unix
3 5 (1.73%) Android
3 5 (1.73%) Apple iOS
3 5 (1.73%) Mac OS X
4 3 (1.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.04%) Windows
5 1 (0.35%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 211 (73.01%) Agile
2 202 (69.90%) CI/CD
3 193 (66.78%) Test Automation
4 184 (63.67%) TDD
5 110 (38.06%) Microservices
6 109 (37.72%) DevOps
7 74 (25.61%) Scrum
8 68 (23.53%) Software Testing
9 67 (23.18%) AI
9 67 (23.18%) Continuous Improvement
10 66 (22.84%) API Testing
11 64 (22.15%) Problem-Solving
11 64 (22.15%) Test Strategy
12 61 (21.11%) Software Engineering
13 59 (20.42%) Stakeholder Management
14 46 (15.92%) Integration Testing
14 46 (15.92%) SDLC
15 45 (15.57%) Coaching
16 40 (13.84%) Continuous Integration
17 39 (13.49%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 177 (61.25%) Java
2 70 (24.22%) Python
3 69 (23.88%) JavaScript
4 67 (23.18%) SQL
5 59 (20.42%) C#
6 37 (12.80%) TypeScript
7 14 (4.84%) Bash
8 8 (2.77%) Ruby
9 7 (2.42%) Groovy
10 6 (2.08%) Apex Code
10 6 (2.08%) R
10 6 (2.08%) Scala
11 5 (1.73%) Kotlin
12 4 (1.38%) Go
13 3 (1.04%) Bicep
13 3 (1.04%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.69%) Cypher
14 2 (0.69%) PromQL
14 2 (0.69%) SHACL
15 1 (0.35%) VBA
Qualifications
1 71 (24.57%) Security Cleared
2 56 (19.38%) SC Cleared
3 22 (7.61%) BPSS Clearance
3 22 (7.61%) Degree
4 18 (6.23%) ISTQB
5 17 (5.88%) Computer Science Degree
6 10 (3.46%) DV Cleared
7 9 (3.11%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 8 (2.77%) Microsoft Certification
9 6 (2.08%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 5 (1.73%) AWS Certification
11 2 (0.69%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 2 (0.69%) Azure Certification
11 2 (0.69%) ISEB
11 2 (0.69%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 91 (31.49%) QA
2 64 (22.15%) Accessibility
3 43 (14.88%) WCAG
4 13 (4.50%) GDPR
5 4 (1.38%) Data Quality
6 3 (1.04%) ISO 20022
7 2 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.69%) SEPA
7 2 (0.69%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.35%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.35%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 87 (30.10%) Docker
2 3 (1.04%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 76 (26.30%) Kubernetes
2 18 (6.23%) Grafana
3 12 (4.15%) Prometheus
4 6 (2.08%) Ansible
5 4 (1.38%) Kibana
6 3 (1.04%) Istio
7 2 (0.69%) Argo
7 2 (0.69%) Consul
7 2 (0.69%) Zipkin
8 1 (0.35%) Control-M
8 1 (0.35%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 34 (11.76%) Microsoft
2 17 (5.88%) Databricks
3 15 (5.19%) Salesforce
4 13 (4.50%) Oracle
5 9 (3.11%) Google
6 7 (2.42%) Conga
6 7 (2.42%) GoCardless
6 7 (2.42%) IBM
7 6 (2.08%) OpenAI
8 5 (1.73%) Atlassian
8 5 (1.73%) Splunk
9 4 (1.38%) CA Agile Central
9 4 (1.38%) ION Trading
9 4 (1.38%) Jaspersoft
10 3 (1.04%) Guidewire
10 3 (1.04%) OutSystems
11 2 (0.69%) Dynatrace
11 2 (0.69%) FactSet
11 2 (0.69%) HP
11 2 (0.69%) Solace