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 17 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 245 224 182
Rank change year-on-year -21 -42 -1
Contract jobs citing Unit Testing 192 118 248
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.83% 0.93% 1.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.01% 1.02% 1.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 108 78 163
10th Percentile £357 £292 £401
25th Percentile £402 £356 £443
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £476 £473 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.53% -5.40% -0.79%
75th Percentile £548 £600 £655
90th Percentile £650 £658 £688
UK median daily rate £485 £545 £525
% change year-on-year -11.01% +3.81% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 10 44
10th Percentile £57.40 £45.40 -
25th Percentile £61.25 £51.56 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.69 -
90th Percentile - £65.00 -
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% -

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 19,021 11,539 17,720
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.78% 90.52% 85.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,583 7,314 10,726
10th Percentile £281 £238 £235
25th Percentile £400 £380 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £487 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.41% -3.00% -
75th Percentile £581 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £663 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £524 £525
% change year-on-year -4.51% -0.26% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,980 787 1,999
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.69 £12.28
25th Percentile £18.87 £18.13 £15.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £28.75 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +39.13% -13.05% -7.64%
75th Percentile £65.88 £65.00 £58.88
90th Percentile £78.75 £76.25 £71.88
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £30.43 £33.07
% change year-on-year +23.25% -7.98% -8.15%

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 17 April 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 17 April 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 17 April 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 -32 59 £450 -2.70% 29
South East -35 56 £515 -17.60% 21
North West -17 34 £447 -4.64% 18
East of England -7 25 £613 - 7
Midlands -67 21 £447 -3.35% 16
North East -3 18 £513 +52.99% 7
Scotland -6 16 £432 +21.42% 1
South West -22 16 £500 -16.67% 8
East Midlands -30 15 £430 -7.08% 9
Yorkshire -45 9 £500 -16.67% 4
West Midlands -55 6 £489 +5.94% 7
Wales -10 5 £700 +228.89% 1
Northern Ireland +3 2 £369 -32.95%
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 14 (7.29%) Confluence
2 9 (4.69%) Apache Spark
3 5 (2.60%) Apache
4 4 (2.08%) OpenStack
5 3 (1.56%) NetWeaver
5 3 (1.56%) SharePoint
6 2 (1.04%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (1.04%) IIS
6 2 (1.04%) Mule
6 2 (1.04%) Mule ESB
7 1 (0.52%) Camunda
7 1 (0.52%) JBoss
7 1 (0.52%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.52%) WebLogic
Applications
1 2 (1.04%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (1.04%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 2 (1.04%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.52%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 5 (2.60%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (2.08%) SAP Payroll
3 3 (1.56%) Oracle ERP
3 3 (1.56%) SAP HCM
3 3 (1.56%) SAP MDG
3 3 (1.56%) SAP MDG-F
3 3 (1.56%) SAP MDG-M
3 3 (1.56%) SAP MDG-S
4 2 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (1.04%) NEC Housing
4 2 (1.04%) Oracle 11i
5 1 (0.52%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.52%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.52%) SAP CRM
5 1 (0.52%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 38 (19.79%) Azure
2 35 (18.23%) AWS
3 26 (13.54%) OpenShift
4 23 (11.98%) GitHub
5 22 (11.46%) Azure DevOps
5 22 (11.46%) Serverless
6 14 (7.29%) Amazon S3
7 13 (6.77%) AWS Lambda
8 11 (5.73%) GitHub Actions
9 9 (4.69%) AWS Step Functions
9 9 (4.69%) Azure Functions
10 8 (4.17%) AWS CloudFormation
11 7 (3.65%) Amazon ECS
11 7 (3.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 6 (3.13%) Dynamics 365
12 6 (3.13%) GCP
12 6 (3.13%) Power Platform
13 5 (2.60%) Azure Logic Apps
14 4 (2.08%) Amazon SageMaker
14 4 (2.08%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 22 (11.46%) TCP/IP
2 17 (8.85%) Ethernet
3 3 (1.56%) Modbus
3 3 (1.56%) RS-232
3 3 (1.56%) RS-422
3 3 (1.56%) RS-485
4 1 (0.52%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (6.25%) SQL Server
2 11 (5.73%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (5.21%) DynamoDB
4 9 (4.69%) NoSQL
4 9 (4.69%) Relational Database
5 8 (4.17%) Aerospike
6 7 (3.65%) Amazon Athena
6 7 (3.65%) Data Warehouse
7 6 (3.13%) MongoDB
8 5 (2.60%) Data Lake
8 5 (2.60%) Delta Lake
8 5 (2.60%) Redis
9 4 (2.08%) SAP HANA
10 3 (1.56%) Azure SQL Database
10 3 (1.56%) Big Data
10 3 (1.56%) BigQuery
10 3 (1.56%) Oracle Database
10 3 (1.56%) SAP Data Services
11 2 (1.04%) Amazon Redshift
11 2 (1.04%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 46 (23.96%) GitLab
2 45 (23.44%) Git
3 32 (16.67%) JIRA
4 30 (15.63%) SonarQube
5 28 (14.58%) Visual Studio
6 16 (8.33%) Eclipse
6 16 (8.33%) JUnit
7 15 (7.81%) Jenkins
8 8 (4.17%) PVCS
8 8 (4.17%) Rational DOORS
9 6 (3.13%) Gradle
9 6 (3.13%) Maven
9 6 (3.13%) Selenium
10 5 (2.60%) MLflow
10 5 (2.60%) NUnit
11 4 (2.08%) JMeter
11 4 (2.08%) Mockito
11 4 (2.08%) MSTest
11 4 (2.08%) XCTest
12 3 (1.56%) fastlane
General
1 42 (21.88%) Social Skills
2 33 (17.19%) Finance
3 19 (9.90%) Military
3 19 (9.90%) Public Sector
4 15 (7.81%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (6.77%) Presentation Skills
6 11 (5.73%) Banking
6 11 (5.73%) Electronics
7 4 (2.08%) Aerospace
7 4 (2.08%) Health Technology
7 4 (2.08%) Law
8 2 (1.04%) Retail
9 1 (0.52%) Advertising
9 1 (0.52%) Legal
9 1 (0.52%) Marketing
9 1 (0.52%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 87 (45.31%) Developer
2 43 (22.40%) Software Engineer
3 24 (12.50%) Java Developer
3 24 (12.50%) Senior
4 14 (7.29%) C++ Software Engineer
4 14 (7.29%) Full-Stack Developer
4 14 (7.29%) Java Engineer
5 12 (6.25%) Senior Developer
6 11 (5.73%) C# Software Engineer
7 10 (5.21%) .NET Developer
8 9 (4.69%) Data Engineer
9 8 (4.17%) AWS Engineer
9 8 (4.17%) Consultant
9 8 (4.17%) Integration Engineer
9 8 (4.17%) Lead
10 7 (3.65%) C# Developer
10 7 (3.65%) Embedded C Engineer
10 7 (3.65%) Embedded C Software Engineer
10 7 (3.65%) Embedded Software Engineer
10 7 (3.65%) Java Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (16.15%) RESTful
2 29 (15.10%) .NET
2 29 (15.10%) AngularJS
3 26 (13.54%) Node.js
3 26 (13.54%) Web Services
4 24 (12.50%) Quarkus
4 24 (12.50%) React
5 21 (10.94%) REST
6 19 (9.90%) Spring
7 16 (8.33%) Jest
8 15 (7.81%) Kafka
9 13 (6.77%) Swagger
10 12 (6.25%) PySpark
11 11 (5.73%) .NET Framework
11 11 (5.73%) CSS
11 11 (5.73%) Spring Boot
11 11 (5.73%) YAML
12 10 (5.21%) HTML
12 10 (5.21%) OpenAPI
12 10 (5.21%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 19 (9.90%) Cloud Native
2 17 (8.85%) Distributed Systems
3 9 (4.69%) Product Ownership
4 5 (2.60%) NHS
4 5 (2.60%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 3 (1.56%) IoT
6 2 (1.04%) Algorithms
6 2 (1.04%) Data Structures
6 2 (1.04%) Distributed Architecture
6 2 (1.04%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (0.52%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.52%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.52%) Derivative
7 1 (0.52%) Embedded Systems
7 1 (0.52%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (0.52%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.52%) Mobile App
7 1 (0.52%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 31 (16.15%) Windows
2 24 (12.50%) Linux
3 6 (3.13%) Android
4 4 (2.08%) Apple iOS
5 2 (1.04%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (62.50%) Agile
2 90 (46.88%) CI/CD
3 68 (35.42%) Test Automation
4 66 (34.38%) Software Engineering
5 52 (27.08%) Problem-Solving
6 51 (26.56%) Scrum
7 50 (26.04%) DevOps
8 44 (22.92%) TDD
9 42 (21.88%) SDLC
10 34 (17.71%) Microservices
11 33 (17.19%) Validation
12 28 (14.58%) Continuous Integration
12 28 (14.58%) Front End Development
13 26 (13.54%) Code Quality
14 25 (13.02%) Full-Stack Development
14 25 (13.02%) Sprint Planning
15 24 (12.50%) Data Modelling
15 24 (12.50%) DevSecOps
16 23 (11.98%) Integration Testing
16 23 (11.98%) Sprint Review
Programming Languages
1 73 (38.02%) Java
2 55 (28.65%) C#
3 50 (26.04%) SQL
4 37 (19.27%) JavaScript
5 34 (17.71%) C++
6 30 (15.63%) Python
7 21 (10.94%) TypeScript
8 16 (8.33%) C
9 8 (4.17%) PL/SQL
9 8 (4.17%) PowerShell
10 7 (3.65%) ABAP
10 7 (3.65%) Embedded C
10 7 (3.65%) Embedded C++
11 6 (3.13%) Apex Code
12 5 (2.60%) Shell Script
13 4 (2.08%) Swift
14 3 (1.56%) Go
14 3 (1.56%) Scala
14 3 (1.56%) SOQL
14 3 (1.56%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 65 (33.85%) Security Cleared
2 55 (28.65%) SC Cleared
3 13 (6.77%) BPSS Clearance
4 10 (5.21%) Degree
5 5 (2.60%) ISTQB
5 5 (2.60%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 4 (2.08%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.52%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.52%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (16.15%) QA
2 11 (5.73%) Data Quality
3 7 (3.65%) Accessibility
4 5 (2.60%) HMG Security Policy Framework
4 5 (2.60%) ISO 20022
4 5 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (2.60%) PSD2
4 5 (2.60%) SEPA
5 4 (2.08%) HL7
6 1 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.52%) GDPR
System Software
1 27 (14.06%) Docker
2 8 (4.17%) Virtual Machines
2 8 (4.17%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 38 (19.79%) Kubernetes
2 24 (12.50%) Argo
3 8 (4.17%) Terraform
4 3 (1.56%) Grafana
5 2 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.52%) Kibana
6 1 (0.52%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 30 (15.63%) Microsoft
2 22 (11.46%) Red Hat
3 17 (8.85%) Oracle
4 16 (8.33%) Databricks
5 11 (5.73%) Salesforce
6 9 (4.69%) SAP
7 8 (4.17%) ANSYS
7 8 (4.17%) IBM
7 8 (4.17%) VMware
8 6 (3.13%) Veracode
9 4 (2.08%) Brio
9 4 (2.08%) Splunk
10 3 (1.56%) Google
11 2 (1.04%) Avaloq
11 2 (1.04%) IFS
11 2 (1.04%) NEC
12 1 (0.52%) Ab Initio
12 1 (0.52%) Adobe
12 1 (0.52%) Dynatrace
12 1 (0.52%) ServiceNow