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 19 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 347 280 270
Rank change year-on-year -67 -10 -85
Contract jobs citing BDD 246 205 293
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.60% 0.84% 0.80%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.71% 0.92% 0.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 143 139 237
10th Percentile £326 £375 £354
25th Percentile £400 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -7.32% -6.82% -8.33%
75th Percentile £559 £656 £650
90th Percentile £700 £755 £750
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £533
% change year-on-year -5.00% -6.19% -11.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 2
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £46.25 - -
Median hourly rate £47.50 - £56.25
75th Percentile £48.75 - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK median hourly rate £47.50 - £56.25
% change year-on-year - - -22.41%

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 34,728 22,194 31,472
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.62% 91.24% 86.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,149 14,504 20,626
10th Percentile £322 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £507 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -1.65% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,129 949 2,251
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.38 £12.92
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.22 £15.97
Median hourly rate £45.78 £29.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.86% -20.55% +0.29%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.40 £28.18 £36.02
% change year-on-year +50.46% -21.77% +0.06%

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 19 May 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 19 May 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 -76 99 £488 -14.47% 30
North of England -35 79 £472 +3.63% 18
North West -11 41 £431 +4.61% 9
West Midlands -35 34 £425 -8.11% 5
Midlands -42 34 £425 -7.86% 13
Yorkshire -49 29 £573 +10.15% 6
South West -18 16 £525 - 8
North East -18 12 £426 +9.10% 4
South East -69 12 £358 -28.40% 21
East of England - 8 £510 - 2
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 33 (13.41%) Confluence
2 3 (1.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
2 3 (1.22%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.81%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.41%) Camunda
4 1 (0.41%) CMS
4 1 (0.41%) nginx
4 1 (0.41%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.41%) Tomcat
Applications
1 2 (0.81%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.81%) Notion
2 1 (0.41%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.41%) Mingle
2 1 (0.41%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (3.25%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (1.22%) Findur
3 2 (0.81%) Workday HCM
4 1 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.41%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 90 (36.59%) AWS
2 71 (28.86%) Azure
3 49 (19.92%) GitHub
4 42 (17.07%) GCP
5 25 (10.16%) Azure DevOps
6 22 (8.94%) GitHub Actions
7 17 (6.91%) Amazon EC2
7 17 (6.91%) Amazon S3
8 16 (6.50%) Amazon SQS
8 16 (6.50%) Serverless
9 14 (5.69%) AWS Lambda
10 13 (5.28%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 12 (4.88%) BrowserStack
12 9 (3.66%) AWS KMS
12 9 (3.66%) Route 53
13 6 (2.44%) SaaS
14 5 (2.03%) Amazon EKS
14 5 (2.03%) AWS Step Functions
14 5 (2.03%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 5 (2.03%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.03%) 3GPP
1 5 (2.03%) RTP
1 5 (2.03%) Wireshark
2 3 (1.22%) WAN
3 2 (0.81%) NaaS
4 1 (0.41%) DSL
4 1 (0.41%) Fibre Channel
4 1 (0.41%) Firewall
4 1 (0.41%) HTTP
4 1 (0.41%) iSCSI
4 1 (0.41%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (15.45%) PostgreSQL
2 31 (12.60%) MongoDB
3 15 (6.10%) DynamoDB
3 15 (6.10%) SQL Server
4 13 (5.28%) Amazon RDS
5 9 (3.66%) Amazon Aurora
5 9 (3.66%) MySQL
5 9 (3.66%) Relational Database
6 6 (2.44%) Oracle Database
7 5 (2.03%) NoSQL
8 3 (1.22%) Amazon Athena
9 2 (0.81%) Apache Cassandra
9 2 (0.81%) Elasticsearch
9 2 (0.81%) Flink
9 2 (0.81%) InfluxDB
9 2 (0.81%) Power BI
9 2 (0.81%) Redis
9 2 (0.81%) Tableau
9 2 (0.81%) TimescaleDB
10 1 (0.41%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 89 (36.18%) Cucumber
2 68 (27.64%) Jenkins
3 67 (27.24%) Git
3 67 (27.24%) Selenium
4 56 (22.76%) JIRA
5 50 (20.33%) GitLab
6 47 (19.11%) JUnit
7 38 (15.45%) REST Assured
8 37 (15.04%) Postman
9 29 (11.79%) Mockito
10 28 (11.38%) SonarQube
11 24 (9.76%) WebDriver
12 22 (8.94%) JMeter
13 14 (5.69%) Maven
14 13 (5.28%) TeamCity
15 12 (4.88%) Cypress.io
16 11 (4.47%) Gatling
16 11 (4.47%) SpecFlow
17 9 (3.66%) DbUnit
17 9 (3.66%) jMock
General
1 66 (26.83%) Social Skills
2 52 (21.14%) Finance
3 47 (19.11%) Public Sector
4 29 (11.79%) Analytical Skills
5 20 (8.13%) Banking
6 8 (3.25%) Organisational Skills
7 4 (1.63%) Aviation
7 4 (1.63%) Fire and Rescue
7 4 (1.63%) Influencing Skills
7 4 (1.63%) Military
7 4 (1.63%) Police
8 3 (1.22%) Billing
8 3 (1.22%) Retail
9 2 (0.81%) Automotive
9 2 (0.81%) Investment Banking
9 2 (0.81%) Manufacturing
9 2 (0.81%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (0.81%) Telecoms
10 1 (0.41%) Front Office
10 1 (0.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 77 (31.30%) Developer
2 53 (21.54%) Java Developer
3 45 (18.29%) Test Engineer
4 42 (17.07%) Senior
5 38 (15.45%) Lead
6 28 (11.38%) Software Engineer
7 26 (10.57%) Test Automation Engineer
8 23 (9.35%) Tester
9 18 (7.32%) Automation Tester
10 16 (6.50%) Test Leader
11 15 (6.10%) Senior Developer
12 14 (5.69%) Java Engineer
12 14 (5.69%) Senior Java Developer
13 11 (4.47%) Automation Test Lead
13 11 (4.47%) Lead Test Engineer
14 10 (4.07%) Senior Automation Tester
14 10 (4.07%) Senior Tester
15 9 (3.66%) Analyst
15 9 (3.66%) Backend Developer
15 9 (3.66%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (29.27%) Spring
2 56 (22.76%) Spring Boot
3 47 (19.11%) Playwright
4 45 (18.29%) REST
5 38 (15.45%) Kafka
6 33 (13.41%) RESTful
7 30 (12.20%) Gherkin
8 29 (11.79%) AngularJS
9 28 (11.38%) .NET
10 24 (9.76%) React
11 23 (9.35%) Node.js
12 21 (8.54%) WireMock
13 20 (8.13%) ActiveMQ
14 18 (7.32%) Spring Cloud
15 14 (5.69%) SOAP
15 14 (5.69%) Web Services
16 12 (4.88%) Hibernate
16 12 (4.88%) JAX-RS
17 11 (4.47%) OAuth
18 10 (4.07%) JPA
Miscellaneous
1 30 (12.20%) Distributed Systems
2 20 (8.13%) Cloud Native
3 19 (7.72%) Product Ownership
4 13 (5.28%) Distributed Architecture
5 10 (4.07%) Enterprise Software
6 9 (3.66%) Mobile App
7 4 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
7 4 (1.63%) Robotics
7 4 (1.63%) Self-Motivation
8 3 (1.22%) Distributed Applications
9 2 (0.81%) AS400
9 2 (0.81%) Equities
9 2 (0.81%) Fixed Income
9 2 (0.81%) Hybrid Cloud
9 2 (0.81%) iSeries
9 2 (0.81%) NHS
9 2 (0.81%) Private Cloud
9 2 (0.81%) Public Cloud
10 1 (0.41%) Data Centre
10 1 (0.41%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 37 (15.04%) Linux
2 16 (6.50%) Unix
3 11 (4.47%) Mac OS X
4 5 (2.03%) Android
4 5 (2.03%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.81%) Mac OS
5 2 (0.81%) VMS
5 2 (0.81%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 155 (63.01%) TDD
2 149 (60.57%) Test Automation
3 147 (59.76%) Agile
4 132 (53.66%) CI/CD
5 105 (42.68%) Microservices
6 83 (33.74%) DevOps
7 57 (23.17%) API Testing
8 55 (22.36%) Test Strategy
9 51 (20.73%) Continuous Improvement
10 49 (19.92%) Problem-Solving
11 47 (19.11%) Scrum
12 43 (17.48%) Software Engineering
13 33 (13.41%) Observability
14 32 (13.01%) Mentoring
15 31 (12.60%) Containerisation
16 29 (11.79%) Continuous Integration
16 29 (11.79%) SDLC
17 28 (11.38%) Performance Testing
18 27 (10.98%) Software Testing
19 26 (10.57%) Kanban
Programming Languages
1 151 (61.38%) Java
2 63 (25.61%) SQL
3 50 (20.33%) Python
4 43 (17.48%) JavaScript
5 32 (13.01%) C#
6 24 (9.76%) TypeScript
7 11 (4.47%) Kotlin
8 7 (2.85%) PHP
9 6 (2.44%) Apex Code
10 5 (2.03%) C++
10 5 (2.03%) Go
10 5 (2.03%) Ruby
10 5 (2.03%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.81%) Bash
11 2 (0.81%) Groovy
11 2 (0.81%) Scala
12 1 (0.41%) Bicep
12 1 (0.41%) COBOL
12 1 (0.41%) Swift
12 1 (0.41%) VBA
Qualifications
1 60 (24.39%) Security Cleared
2 51 (20.73%) SC Cleared
3 17 (6.91%) Degree
4 9 (3.66%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (3.25%) ISTQB
6 5 (2.03%) BPSS Clearance
7 4 (1.63%) AWS Certification
7 4 (1.63%) Azure Certification
7 4 (1.63%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 1 (0.41%) DV Cleared
8 1 (0.41%) ISEB
8 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 52 (21.14%) QA
2 26 (10.57%) Accessibility
3 7 (2.85%) WCAG
4 2 (0.81%) HL7
5 1 (0.41%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.41%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 68 (27.64%) Docker
2 8 (3.25%) Postfix
3 1 (0.41%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 51 (20.73%) Kubernetes
2 36 (14.63%) Grafana
3 31 (12.60%) Prometheus
4 14 (5.69%) Terraform
5 4 (1.63%) Ansible
6 3 (1.22%) Kibana
7 2 (0.81%) Amdocs OSS
7 2 (0.81%) HP Fortify
7 2 (0.81%) Istio
7 2 (0.81%) Rancher
7 2 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.41%) EMC VPLEX
8 1 (0.41%) HAProxy
8 1 (0.41%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 14 (5.69%) Salesforce
2 12 (4.88%) Atlassian
2 12 (4.88%) Google
3 11 (4.47%) Oracle
4 9 (3.66%) Jaspersoft
4 9 (3.66%) ServiceNow
4 9 (3.66%) Splunk
5 8 (3.25%) Checkmarx
6 7 (2.85%) Conga
6 7 (2.85%) GoCardless
7 4 (1.63%) Dynatrace
7 4 (1.63%) Veracode
8 3 (1.22%) Adobe
8 3 (1.22%) IBM
8 3 (1.22%) OpenLink
9 2 (0.81%) Amdocs
9 2 (0.81%) Bloomberg
9 2 (0.81%) Microsoft
9 2 (0.81%) Red Hat
9 2 (0.81%) VMware