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 21 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 270 235 165
Rank change year-on-year -35 -70 +15
Contract jobs citing Unit Testing 185 123 266
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.71% 0.92% 1.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.87% 1.01% 1.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 101 74 175
10th Percentile £325 £284 £404
25th Percentile £393 £356 £448
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £455 £525
Median % change year-on-year +9.95% -13.38% -
75th Percentile £563 £529 £600
90th Percentile £688 £629 £688
UK median daily rate £496 £475 £525
% change year-on-year +4.42% -9.52% -7.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 14 53
10th Percentile £60.00 £55.13 £61.25
25th Percentile £62.50 £61.25 £62.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £70.00 - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

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 21,200 12,159 17,709
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.81% 90.48% 82.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,604 7,490 10,352
10th Percentile £302 £235 £250
25th Percentile £405 £368 £379
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £591 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £513 £503 £525
% change year-on-year +1.99% -4.29% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,237 976 2,229
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.33 £16.95 £15.50
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +17.29%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.99 £61.60
90th Percentile £81.24 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.40 £37.50
% change year-on-year +73.07% -32.27% +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 21 June 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 21 June 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 21 June 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
South East -14 67 £513 -4.65% 14
North of England -39 61 £460 +11.52% 16
North West -34 30 £450 +9.09% 8
North East -15 25 £511 +52.61% 5
East of England -21 17 £626 +33.44% 5
South West -24 16 £500 -13.04% 9
Midlands -60 16 £459 -0.33% 9
East Midlands -21 11 £447 +1.30% 5
Scotland -30 10 £476 +45.12% 2
Yorkshire -50 6 £522 -13.00% 3
West Midlands -55 5 £489 +6.22% 4
Wales -12 4 £700 +23.84% 1
Northern Ireland 0 2 £369 -32.95% 4
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 11 (5.95%) Confluence
2 4 (2.16%) OpenStack
2 4 (2.16%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.08%) IIS
3 2 (1.08%) Mule
3 2 (1.08%) Mule ESB
4 1 (0.54%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.54%) Camunda
4 1 (0.54%) JBoss
4 1 (0.54%) SAS
4 1 (0.54%) WebLogic
Applications
1 3 (1.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (1.08%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 2 (1.08%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.54%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 4 (2.16%) SAP Payroll
1 4 (2.16%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (1.62%) Oracle ERP
2 3 (1.62%) SAP HCM
3 2 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (1.08%) Oracle 11i
4 1 (0.54%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.54%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.54%) Oracle EBS R12
4 1 (0.54%) ProductWriter
4 1 (0.54%) SAP CRM
4 1 (0.54%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.54%) SAP Travel Management
4 1 (0.54%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 39 (21.08%) Azure
2 37 (20.00%) OpenShift
3 24 (12.97%) Azure DevOps
4 21 (11.35%) AWS
5 18 (9.73%) GitHub
6 11 (5.95%) Serverless
7 8 (4.32%) Azure Functions
8 7 (3.78%) Dynamics 365
8 7 (3.78%) GitHub Actions
8 7 (3.78%) Power Platform
8 7 (3.78%) PowerApps
9 6 (3.24%) Azure Logic Apps
9 6 (3.24%) Power Automate
10 4 (2.16%) Amazon S3
10 4 (2.16%) AWS Lambda
11 3 (1.62%) Azure Service Bus
11 3 (1.62%) GCP
11 3 (1.62%) OCI
12 2 (1.08%) Amazon EventBridge
12 2 (1.08%) Amazon Kinesis
Communications & Networking
1 18 (9.73%) TCP/IP
2 16 (8.65%) Ethernet
3 3 (1.62%) Modbus
3 3 (1.62%) RS-232
3 3 (1.62%) RS-422
3 3 (1.62%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (5.95%) SQL Server
2 9 (4.86%) DynamoDB
2 9 (4.86%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (3.78%) Relational Database
4 5 (2.70%) Aerospike
5 4 (2.16%) NoSQL
5 4 (2.16%) Power BI
5 4 (2.16%) Redis
5 4 (2.16%) SAP HANA
6 3 (1.62%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (1.62%) Data Lake
6 3 (1.62%) Data Warehouse
6 3 (1.62%) DocumentDB
6 3 (1.62%) MongoDB
6 3 (1.62%) Oracle Database
7 2 (1.08%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (1.08%) Big Data
7 2 (1.08%) Metadata
7 2 (1.08%) Oracle Reports
7 2 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 43 (23.24%) SonarQube
2 41 (22.16%) Git
3 31 (16.76%) GitLab
4 27 (14.59%) Visual Studio
5 21 (11.35%) JIRA
6 17 (9.19%) JUnit
7 16 (8.65%) Eclipse
8 13 (7.03%) Jenkins
9 8 (4.32%) NUnit
9 8 (4.32%) Selenium
10 7 (3.78%) Maven
11 6 (3.24%) Gradle
12 5 (2.70%) MSTest
13 4 (2.16%) Bitbucket
13 4 (2.16%) JMeter
14 3 (1.62%) Cucumber
14 3 (1.62%) Mockito
14 3 (1.62%) SpecFlow
14 3 (1.62%) TeamCity
14 3 (1.62%) WebDriver
General
1 34 (18.38%) Social Skills
2 23 (12.43%) Finance
3 16 (8.65%) Military
4 14 (7.57%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (5.95%) Public Sector
6 10 (5.41%) Banking
7 9 (4.86%) Presentation Skills
8 6 (3.24%) Aerospace
9 5 (2.70%) Electronics
10 3 (1.62%) Retail
11 1 (0.54%) Advertising
11 1 (0.54%) General Ledger
11 1 (0.54%) Law
11 1 (0.54%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 84 (45.41%) Developer
2 38 (20.54%) Software Engineer
3 25 (13.51%) Java Developer
4 21 (11.35%) Java Engineer
5 13 (7.03%) .NET Developer
6 12 (6.49%) Full-Stack Developer
6 12 (6.49%) SC Cleared Java Developer
6 12 (6.49%) Senior
7 11 (5.95%) C# Software Engineer
7 11 (5.95%) C++ Software Engineer
8 9 (4.86%) Consultant
8 9 (4.86%) Java Software Engineer
8 9 (4.86%) Lead
9 7 (3.78%) C# Developer
9 7 (3.78%) Salesforce Developer
10 6 (3.24%) Integration Engineer
10 6 (3.24%) Senior Developer
11 5 (2.70%) Analyst
11 5 (2.70%) SAP Consultant
11 5 (2.70%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (22.16%) AngularJS
2 36 (19.46%) Quarkus
3 31 (16.76%) .NET
4 27 (14.59%) RESTful
5 22 (11.89%) Web Services
6 20 (10.81%) Node.js
7 18 (9.73%) React
7 18 (9.73%) REST
8 15 (8.11%) .NET Framework
9 13 (7.03%) Entity Framework
9 13 (7.03%) Jest
10 12 (6.49%) CSS
10 12 (6.49%) WinForms
10 12 (6.49%) YAML
11 11 (5.95%) HTML
11 11 (5.95%) SOAP
11 11 (5.95%) Spring
11 11 (5.95%) Swagger
11 11 (5.95%) WPF
12 10 (5.41%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 13 (7.03%) Distributed Systems
2 11 (5.95%) Cloud Native
3 10 (5.41%) Product Ownership
4 4 (2.16%) Data Structures
4 4 (2.16%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (1.62%) Management Information System
5 3 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (1.08%) Distributed Architecture
6 2 (1.08%) IoT
6 2 (1.08%) Public Cloud
6 2 (1.08%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 1 (0.54%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.54%) CMDB
7 1 (0.54%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.54%) Embedded Systems
7 1 (0.54%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (0.54%) Low-Code
7 1 (0.54%) NHS
7 1 (0.54%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 29 (15.68%) Windows
2 20 (10.81%) Linux
3 2 (1.08%) Android
4 1 (0.54%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.54%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 114 (61.62%) Agile
2 74 (40.00%) Test Automation
3 73 (39.46%) CI/CD
4 67 (36.22%) Software Engineering
5 65 (35.14%) Scrum
6 51 (27.57%) SDLC
7 50 (27.03%) DevOps
8 40 (21.62%) Front End Development
8 40 (21.62%) TDD
9 38 (20.54%) Problem-Solving
9 38 (20.54%) Sprint Planning
10 36 (19.46%) DevSecOps
10 36 (19.46%) Sprint Review
11 29 (15.68%) Validation
12 24 (12.97%) User Acceptance Testing
13 23 (12.43%) Continuous Integration
13 23 (12.43%) Microservices
14 20 (10.81%) Code Quality
15 19 (10.27%) Data Modelling
16 18 (9.73%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 75 (40.54%) Java
2 60 (32.43%) C#
3 46 (24.86%) SQL
4 39 (21.08%) JavaScript
5 26 (14.05%) C++
6 19 (10.27%) Python
7 18 (9.73%) TypeScript
8 9 (4.86%) C
9 6 (3.24%) Apex Code
9 6 (3.24%) PL/SQL
9 6 (3.24%) PowerShell
10 4 (2.16%) ABAP
11 3 (1.62%) Go
11 3 (1.62%) SOQL
11 3 (1.62%) SOSL
11 3 (1.62%) X++
12 2 (1.08%) Bash
12 2 (1.08%) Embedded C
12 2 (1.08%) Scala
12 2 (1.08%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 66 (35.68%) Security Cleared
2 58 (31.35%) SC Cleared
3 11 (5.95%) BPSS Clearance
4 10 (5.41%) Degree
5 4 (2.16%) ISTQB
5 4 (2.16%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 3 (1.62%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (1.08%) Master's Degree
7 2 (1.08%) PhD
8 1 (0.54%) ACCA
8 1 (0.54%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.54%) CIMA
8 1 (0.54%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.54%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (21.62%) QA
2 6 (3.24%) Accessibility
3 5 (2.70%) Data Quality
4 4 (2.16%) HMG Security Policy Framework
4 4 (2.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (1.08%) ISO 20022
5 2 (1.08%) PSD2
5 2 (1.08%) SEPA
5 2 (1.08%) WCAG
6 1 (0.54%) GDPR
6 1 (0.54%) GRC
System Software
1 16 (8.65%) Docker
2 2 (1.08%) Virtual Machines
2 2 (1.08%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 44 (23.78%) Kubernetes
2 36 (19.46%) Argo
3 5 (2.70%) Terraform
4 2 (1.08%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.54%) Ansible
Vendors
1 34 (18.38%) Red Hat
2 29 (15.68%) Microsoft
3 16 (8.65%) Oracle
4 11 (5.95%) Salesforce
5 8 (4.32%) SAP
6 7 (3.78%) Databricks
7 6 (3.24%) Veracode
8 4 (2.16%) Avaloq
8 4 (2.16%) Splunk
9 2 (1.08%) ANSYS
9 2 (1.08%) Google
9 2 (1.08%) IBM
9 2 (1.08%) ServiceNow
9 2 (1.08%) VMware
10 1 (0.54%) Dynatrace
10 1 (0.54%) IFS
10 1 (0.54%) MuleSoft
10 1 (0.54%) NEC
10 1 (0.54%) Sybase
10 1 (0.54%) Workday