Acceptance Criteria Contract Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Acceptance Criteria
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the Thames Valley requiring Acceptance Criteria skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 91 106 123
Rank change year-on-year +15 +17 -32
Contract jobs citing Acceptance Criteria 19 19 19
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 1.11% 0.88% 0.71%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.23% 1.03% 0.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 14 10 15
10th Percentile £354 £356 £400
25th Percentile £406 £378 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £434 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.94% -13.15% +11.11%
75th Percentile £534 £528 £528
90th Percentile £546 £549 £561
South East median daily rate £488 £475 £520
% change year-on-year +2.63% -8.65% +10.64%

All Process and Methodology Skills
Thames Valley

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 the Thames Valley.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,546 1,850 2,405
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 90.36% 85.97% 90.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 954 1,047 1,614
10th Percentile £267 £300 £250
25th Percentile £400 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £515
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -0.97% +3.00%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £625
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
South East median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% +2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 108 73 92
10th Percentile £14.75 £18.71 £16.44
25th Percentile £15.91 £27.75 £25.19
Median hourly rate £25.15 £58.30 £54.47
Median % change year-on-year -56.86% +7.03% +182.97%
75th Percentile £49.28 £63.00 £68.44
90th Percentile £73.65 £75.17 £75.67
South East median hourly rate £21.02 £58.49 £54.37
% change year-on-year -64.06% +7.58% +55.83%

Acceptance Criteria
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Acceptance Criteria relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

Acceptance Criteria job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

Acceptance Criteria
Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Acceptance Criteria.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Acceptance Criteria

Acceptance Criteria
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Acceptance Criteria in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 14 October 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Acceptance Criteria in the Thames Valley

Acceptance Criteria
Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Acceptance Criteria.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Acceptance Criteria

Acceptance Criteria
Contract Job Locations in the Thames Valley

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 Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 14 October 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Berkshire +9 11 £506 +19.12% 8
Buckinghamshire +7 8 £415 -20.95%
Acceptance Criteria
South East

Acceptance Criteria
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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 3 (15.79%) Confluence
2 2 (10.53%) Smallworld
Applications
1 2 (10.53%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (10.53%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (10.53%) Oracle EBS R12
1 2 (10.53%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 2 (10.53%) Azure
1 2 (10.53%) Azure DevOps
1 2 (10.53%) Dynamics 365
1 2 (10.53%) Slack
2 1 (5.26%) PaaS
2 1 (5.26%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (5.26%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (10.53%) GIS
2 1 (5.26%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 5 (26.32%) JIRA
General
1 10 (52.63%) Social Skills
2 8 (42.11%) Analytical Skills
3 4 (21.05%) Finance
4 3 (15.79%) Influencing Skills
4 3 (15.79%) Public Sector
5 2 (10.53%) General Ledger
5 2 (10.53%) Marketing
5 2 (10.53%) Telecoms
6 1 (5.26%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (5.26%) Retail
Job Titles
1 9 (47.37%) Analyst
2 6 (31.58%) Business Analyst
2 6 (31.58%) Senior
3 5 (26.32%) Senior Analyst
4 4 (21.05%) Service Manager
4 4 (21.05%) Service Transition Manager
4 4 (21.05%) Transition Manager
5 3 (15.79%) Architect
5 3 (15.79%) Senior Service Transition Analyst
5 3 (15.79%) Service Analyst
5 3 (15.79%) Service Design Analyst
5 3 (15.79%) Service Transition Analyst
5 3 (15.79%) Transition Analyst
6 2 (10.53%) Oracle Analyst
6 2 (10.53%) Oracle Business Analyst
6 2 (10.53%) Product Owner
6 2 (10.53%) Senior Business Analyst
6 2 (10.53%) Senior Oracle Analyst
6 2 (10.53%) Transformation Analyst
7 1 (5.26%) GIS Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (5.26%) ADO
1 1 (5.26%) HTML
1 1 (5.26%) REST
1 1 (5.26%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 4 (21.05%) Onboarding
2 2 (10.53%) Data Protection Act
2 2 (10.53%) Product Ownership
3 1 (5.26%) Legacy Systems
3 1 (5.26%) Virtual Team
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (47.37%) Problem-Solving
2 8 (42.11%) Agile
3 7 (36.84%) User Stories
4 6 (31.58%) ITIL
4 6 (31.58%) Service Design
5 5 (26.32%) ITSM
6 4 (21.05%) Data Migration
6 4 (21.05%) Migration
6 4 (21.05%) Scrum
6 4 (21.05%) Service Catalogue
6 4 (21.05%) Service Management
7 3 (15.79%) Continuous Improvement
7 3 (15.79%) Performance Monitoring
7 3 (15.79%) PRINCE2
7 3 (15.79%) Programme Management
7 3 (15.79%) Project Management
7 3 (15.79%) Roadmaps
7 3 (15.79%) Stakeholder Management
7 3 (15.79%) User Experience
7 3 (15.79%) UX Design
Programming Languages
1 1 (5.26%) JavaScript
1 1 (5.26%) Magik
Qualifications
1 7 (36.84%) Security Cleared
2 3 (15.79%) DV Cleared
2 3 (15.79%) SC Cleared
3 1 (5.26%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (21.05%) SLA
2 1 (5.26%) Actionable Recommendations
2 1 (5.26%) ISO/IEC 20000
Vendors
1 5 (26.32%) ServiceNow
2 2 (10.53%) Oracle
3 1 (5.26%) ESRI
3 1 (5.26%) Fortinet
3 1 (5.26%) HubSpot
3 1 (5.26%) Juniper
3 1 (5.26%) Microsoft
3 1 (5.26%) Salesforce
3 1 (5.26%) Virgin Media
3 1 (5.26%) Workday