Unit Testing Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Unit Testing
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Unit Testing skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 247 192 170
Rank change year-on-year -55 -22 +3
Contract jobs citing Unit Testing 187 155 280
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.88% 1.21% 1.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.06% 1.34% 1.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 97 104 183
10th Percentile £358 £282 £375
25th Percentile £402 £356 £443
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £540
Median % change year-on-year - -12.04% +4.35%
75th Percentile £550 £600 £675
90th Percentile £604 £654 £703
UK median daily rate £490 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -10.91% - -7.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 9 47
10th Percentile £55.00 £26.22 £61.25
25th Percentile £60.63 £47.50 -
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.75 -
90th Percentile £72.65 £65.00 £79.75
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £58.75 £65.00
% change year-on-year +10.64% -9.62% -

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

Unit Testing 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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 17,634 11,576 18,189
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 83.07% 90.42% 85.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,689 7,236 11,136
10th Percentile £260 £230 £240
25th Percentile £400 £375 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £493 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.28% -1.50% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,862 700 1,931
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.20 £12.50
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.00 £15.38
Median hourly rate £26.55 £31.76 £31.80
Median % change year-on-year -16.40% -0.13% -9.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £58.73
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.28 £70.66
UK median hourly rate £29.61 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -8.89% - -7.14%

Unit Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Unit Testing relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Unit Testing job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Unit Testing
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Unit Testing.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Unit Testing

Unit Testing
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Unit Testing in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 10 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Unit Testing in the UK excluding London

Unit Testing
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Unit Testing.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Unit Testing

Unit Testing
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Unit Testing in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 10 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Unit Testing in the UK excluding London

Unit Testing
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Unit Testing within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 10 March 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
North of England -35 51 £450 -7.69% 23
South East -36 44 £512 -18.08% 37
North West -19 34 £447 -10.60% 12
Midlands -61 29 £470 -4.08% 14
East of England -10 28 £613 - 11
Scotland -12 20 £432 -2.87% 8
West Midlands -50 16 £600 +22.45% 5
South West -19 15 £500 -4.31% 31
East Midlands -34 13 £402 -3.42% 9
North East -6 12 £494 +47.39% 5
Wales -6 7 £725 +255.83% 3
Yorkshire -50 7 £500 -16.67% 6
Northern Ireland -2 2 £369 -32.95% 1
Unit Testing
UK

Unit Testing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 16 (8.56%) Confluence
2 9 (4.81%) Apache Spark
3 5 (2.67%) Apache
4 4 (2.14%) OpenStack
5 3 (1.60%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (1.60%) NetWeaver
5 3 (1.60%) SharePoint
6 2 (1.07%) IIS
7 1 (0.53%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.53%) Mule
7 1 (0.53%) Mule ESB
Applications
1 2 (1.07%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (1.07%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (1.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 2 (1.07%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.53%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 6 (3.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (2.14%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (2.14%) SAP HCM
2 4 (2.14%) SAP Payroll
3 3 (1.60%) Oracle ERP
3 3 (1.60%) SAP MDG
3 3 (1.60%) SAP MDG-F
3 3 (1.60%) SAP MDG-M
3 3 (1.60%) SAP MDG-S
4 2 (1.07%) NEC Housing
4 2 (1.07%) Oracle 11i
4 2 (1.07%) Oracle Assets
4 2 (1.07%) Oracle Cash Management
4 2 (1.07%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (1.07%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (1.07%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (1.07%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (1.07%) Workday HCM
5 1 (0.53%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.53%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 46 (24.60%) Azure
2 36 (19.25%) AWS
3 26 (13.90%) Azure DevOps
4 19 (10.16%) GitHub
4 19 (10.16%) Serverless
5 13 (6.95%) Amazon S3
5 13 (6.95%) OpenShift
6 10 (5.35%) AWS Lambda
6 10 (5.35%) Dynamics 365
6 10 (5.35%) GitHub Actions
6 10 (5.35%) Power Platform
7 8 (4.28%) AWS CloudFormation
7 8 (4.28%) AWS Step Functions
7 8 (4.28%) Azure Functions
7 8 (4.28%) GCP
8 7 (3.74%) Amazon ECS
8 7 (3.74%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 6 (3.21%) Azure Logic Apps
10 5 (2.67%) Azure Service Bus
11 4 (2.14%) Azure Cosmos DB
Communications & Networking
1 22 (11.76%) TCP/IP
2 17 (9.09%) Ethernet
3 3 (1.60%) Modbus
3 3 (1.60%) RS-232
3 3 (1.60%) RS-422
3 3 (1.60%) RS-485
4 1 (0.53%) DNS
4 1 (0.53%) Internet
4 1 (0.53%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (5.35%) Data Warehouse
1 10 (5.35%) NoSQL
1 10 (5.35%) SQL Server
2 9 (4.81%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (3.74%) Aerospike
3 7 (3.74%) Amazon Athena
3 7 (3.74%) MongoDB
3 7 (3.74%) Relational Database
4 6 (3.21%) DynamoDB
4 6 (3.21%) Redis
5 5 (2.67%) Delta Lake
5 5 (2.67%) SAP HANA
6 4 (2.14%) Data Lake
7 3 (1.60%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (1.60%) BigQuery
7 3 (1.60%) Oracle Database
7 3 (1.60%) Oracle Reports
7 3 (1.60%) SAP Data Services
8 2 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (1.07%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 40 (21.39%) Git
2 36 (19.25%) GitLab
3 32 (17.11%) JIRA
4 28 (14.97%) Visual Studio
5 19 (10.16%) SonarQube
6 15 (8.02%) Eclipse
7 14 (7.49%) JUnit
8 13 (6.95%) Jenkins
9 8 (4.28%) PVCS
9 8 (4.28%) Rational DOORS
10 5 (2.67%) Gradle
10 5 (2.67%) Maven
10 5 (2.67%) MLflow
10 5 (2.67%) Mockito
10 5 (2.67%) NUnit
10 5 (2.67%) Selenium
11 4 (2.14%) Cucumber
11 4 (2.14%) JMeter
11 4 (2.14%) MSTest
11 4 (2.14%) XCTest
General
1 53 (28.34%) Social Skills
2 39 (20.86%) Finance
3 27 (14.44%) Public Sector
4 19 (10.16%) Military
5 16 (8.56%) Analytical Skills
6 14 (7.49%) Presentation Skills
7 11 (5.88%) Banking
7 11 (5.88%) Electronics
8 4 (2.14%) Health Technology
8 4 (2.14%) Law
8 4 (2.14%) Marketing
8 4 (2.14%) Telecoms
9 2 (1.07%) Aerospace
9 2 (1.07%) General Ledger
10 1 (0.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.53%) Legal
Job Titles
1 84 (44.92%) Developer
2 35 (18.72%) Software Engineer
3 32 (17.11%) Senior
4 18 (9.63%) Java Developer
5 16 (8.56%) Senior Developer
6 15 (8.02%) Full-Stack Developer
7 14 (7.49%) C++ Software Engineer
8 12 (6.42%) .NET Developer
8 12 (6.42%) Consultant
9 11 (5.88%) C# Software Engineer
10 9 (4.81%) Lead
11 8 (4.28%) Azure Developer
11 8 (4.28%) Data Engineer
11 8 (4.28%) Integration Engineer
11 8 (4.28%) Java Engineer
12 7 (3.74%) AWS Engineer
12 7 (3.74%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
12 7 (3.74%) C/C++ Software Engineer
12 7 (3.74%) Embedded C Software Engineer
12 7 (3.74%) Embedded Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (18.18%) RESTful
2 29 (15.51%) .NET
3 28 (14.97%) Web Services
4 25 (13.37%) Node.js
5 22 (11.76%) React
6 20 (10.70%) REST
6 20 (10.70%) Spring
7 19 (10.16%) AngularJS
8 13 (6.95%) Jest
8 13 (6.95%) Spring Boot
9 12 (6.42%) .NET Framework
9 12 (6.42%) Quarkus
9 12 (6.42%) YAML
10 11 (5.88%) CSS
10 11 (5.88%) Kafka
10 11 (5.88%) PySpark
10 11 (5.88%) Swagger
11 10 (5.35%) .NET Core
12 9 (4.81%) HTML
12 9 (4.81%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 18 (9.63%) Cloud Native
2 16 (8.56%) Distributed Systems
3 9 (4.81%) Product Ownership
4 5 (2.67%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 4 (2.14%) NHS
6 3 (1.60%) IoT
6 3 (1.60%) Onboarding
6 3 (1.60%) Taxonomies
7 2 (1.07%) Algorithms
7 2 (1.07%) Distributed Architecture
7 2 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (1.07%) Self-Motivation
8 1 (0.53%) Contactless
8 1 (0.53%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.53%) Data Structures
8 1 (0.53%) Derivative
8 1 (0.53%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 1 (0.53%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (0.53%) Mobile App
8 1 (0.53%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 30 (16.04%) Windows
2 26 (13.90%) Linux
3 7 (3.74%) Android
4 4 (2.14%) Apple iOS
5 3 (1.60%) Unix
6 1 (0.53%) OpenVMS
6 1 (0.53%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 115 (61.50%) Agile
2 91 (48.66%) CI/CD
3 59 (31.55%) Test Automation
4 56 (29.95%) Problem-Solving
5 53 (28.34%) DevOps
6 51 (27.27%) Software Engineering
7 46 (24.60%) TDD
8 41 (21.93%) Scrum
9 39 (20.86%) Microservices
10 34 (18.18%) Validation
11 32 (17.11%) SDLC
12 30 (16.04%) Continuous Integration
12 30 (16.04%) Integration Testing
13 26 (13.90%) Data Modelling
14 25 (13.37%) Full-Stack Development
15 23 (12.30%) Containerisation
16 22 (11.76%) Code Quality
16 22 (11.76%) Verification and Validation
17 21 (11.23%) Continuous Delivery
17 21 (11.23%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 59 (31.55%) Java
2 51 (27.27%) SQL
3 48 (25.67%) C#
4 41 (21.93%) JavaScript
5 35 (18.72%) C++
6 26 (13.90%) Python
7 20 (10.70%) TypeScript
8 18 (9.63%) C
9 10 (5.35%) PL/SQL
10 8 (4.28%) ABAP
10 8 (4.28%) PowerShell
11 7 (3.74%) Embedded C
11 7 (3.74%) Embedded C++
11 7 (3.74%) Scala
12 5 (2.67%) Shell Script
13 4 (2.14%) Apex Code
13 4 (2.14%) Swift
14 2 (1.07%) Go
14 2 (1.07%) Objective-C
14 2 (1.07%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 55 (29.41%) Security Cleared
2 42 (22.46%) SC Cleared
3 13 (6.95%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (5.88%) Degree
5 4 (2.14%) AWS Certification
5 4 (2.14%) ISTQB
5 4 (2.14%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (0.53%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 1 (0.53%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (15.51%) QA
2 11 (5.88%) Data Quality
3 10 (5.35%) Accessibility
4 7 (3.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (2.67%) HMG Security Policy Framework
5 5 (2.67%) ISO 20022
5 5 (2.67%) PSD2
5 5 (2.67%) SEPA
6 4 (2.14%) HL7
7 2 (1.07%) SLA
8 1 (0.53%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.53%) GDPR
System Software
1 26 (13.90%) Docker
2 9 (4.81%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (4.28%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 28 (14.97%) Kubernetes
2 12 (6.42%) Argo
3 6 (3.21%) Terraform
4 4 (2.14%) Grafana
5 2 (1.07%) HP ALM
5 2 (1.07%) Kibana
5 2 (1.07%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (1.07%) vRealize
6 1 (0.53%) Tivoli
6 1 (0.53%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 29 (15.51%) Microsoft
2 21 (11.23%) Oracle
3 14 (7.49%) Databricks
4 12 (6.42%) Red Hat
5 10 (5.35%) SAP
5 10 (5.35%) VMware
6 9 (4.81%) IBM
6 9 (4.81%) Salesforce
7 8 (4.28%) ANSYS
8 6 (3.21%) Veracode
9 5 (2.67%) Splunk
10 4 (2.14%) Brio
11 3 (1.60%) Google
11 3 (1.60%) Pega
12 2 (1.07%) Ab Initio
12 2 (1.07%) Avaloq
12 2 (1.07%) HP
12 2 (1.07%) IFS
12 2 (1.07%) NEC
12 2 (1.07%) Workday