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

6 months to
29 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 276 227 169
Rank change year-on-year -49 -58 +15
Contract jobs citing Unit Testing 185 125 259
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.71% 0.91% 1.22%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.86% 1.01% 1.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 104 71 171
10th Percentile £333 £281 £409
25th Percentile £393 £348 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £525
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -14.29% -
75th Percentile £575 £538 £600
90th Percentile £688 £630 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £475 £526
% change year-on-year +5.26% -9.61% -8.61%
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 16 52
10th Percentile £60.00 £56.88 £61.25
25th Percentile £62.50 £61.25 £62.19
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £70.00 - -
90th Percentile - £66.00 -
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 21,402 12,396 17,548
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.87% 90.16% 82.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,688 7,601 10,310
10th Percentile £300 £235 £250
25th Percentile £405 £365 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £592 £575 £600
90th Percentile £687 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £515 £504 £525
% change year-on-year +2.23% -4.05% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,258 1,039 2,174
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.13 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.33 £16.95 £15.53
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.00 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +75.84% -34.42% +8.91%
75th Percentile £68.00 £54.38 £61.60
90th Percentile £81.05 £72.75 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +2.63%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 66 £513 -4.65% 13
North of England -34 61 £460 +15.51% 15
North West -33 30 £450 +12.99% 6
North East -16 24 £511 +52.61% 6
East of England -24 16 £626 +33.44% 6
South West -29 16 £500 -9.09% 15
Midlands -59 16 £479 +4.20% 9
Scotland -33 11 £488 +37.08% 4
East Midlands -17 10 £459 +3.91% 5
Yorkshire -42 7 £519 -13.50% 3
West Midlands -56 6 £519 +12.89% 4
Wales -15 4 £700 +23.84% 2
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 9 (4.86%) 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 36 (19.46%) OpenShift
3 24 (12.97%) Azure DevOps
4 20 (10.81%) AWS
5 17 (9.19%) GitHub
6 11 (5.95%) Serverless
7 8 (4.32%) Azure Functions
8 7 (3.78%) Dynamics 365
8 7 (3.78%) Power Platform
8 7 (3.78%) PowerApps
9 6 (3.24%) Azure Logic Apps
9 6 (3.24%) GitHub Actions
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 16 (8.65%) Ethernet
1 16 (8.65%) TCP/IP
2 3 (1.62%) Modbus
2 3 (1.62%) RS-232
2 3 (1.62%) RS-422
2 3 (1.62%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (5.95%) SQL Server
2 8 (4.32%) DynamoDB
2 8 (4.32%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (3.78%) Relational Database
4 4 (2.16%) Aerospike
4 4 (2.16%) NoSQL
4 4 (2.16%) Power BI
4 4 (2.16%) SAP HANA
5 3 (1.62%) Azure SQL Database
5 3 (1.62%) Data Lake
5 3 (1.62%) Data Warehouse
5 3 (1.62%) DocumentDB
5 3 (1.62%) MongoDB
5 3 (1.62%) Oracle Database
5 3 (1.62%) Redis
6 2 (1.08%) Amazon Redshift
6 2 (1.08%) Big Data
6 2 (1.08%) Metadata
6 2 (1.08%) Oracle Reports
6 2 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 42 (22.70%) SonarQube
2 41 (22.16%) Git
3 30 (16.22%) GitLab
4 27 (14.59%) Visual Studio
5 18 (9.73%) JIRA
6 16 (8.65%) Eclipse
6 16 (8.65%) JUnit
7 12 (6.49%) Jenkins
8 8 (4.32%) NUnit
8 8 (4.32%) Selenium
9 7 (3.78%) Maven
10 6 (3.24%) Gradle
11 5 (2.70%) MSTest
12 4 (2.16%) Bitbucket
12 4 (2.16%) JMeter
13 3 (1.62%) Cucumber
13 3 (1.62%) Mockito
13 3 (1.62%) SpecFlow
13 3 (1.62%) TeamCity
13 3 (1.62%) WebDriver
General
1 35 (18.92%) Social Skills
2 23 (12.43%) Finance
3 15 (8.11%) Military
4 14 (7.57%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (7.03%) Public Sector
6 11 (5.95%) Banking
7 9 (4.86%) Presentation Skills
8 6 (3.24%) Aerospace
9 4 (2.16%) 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 83 (44.86%) Developer
2 37 (20.00%) Software Engineer
3 24 (12.97%) Java Developer
4 22 (11.89%) Java Engineer
5 13 (7.03%) .NET Developer
6 12 (6.49%) Consultant
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
8 10 (5.41%) C++ Software Engineer
9 9 (4.86%) Java Software Engineer
9 9 (4.86%) Lead
10 7 (3.78%) C# Developer
10 7 (3.78%) Salesforce Developer
11 6 (3.24%) Senior Developer
11 6 (3.24%) Technical Consultant
12 5 (2.70%) Analyst
12 5 (2.70%) SAP Consultant
12 5 (2.70%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (21.62%) AngularJS
2 35 (18.92%) Quarkus
3 31 (16.76%) .NET
4 28 (15.14%) RESTful
5 22 (11.89%) Web Services
6 19 (10.27%) Node.js
6 19 (10.27%) REST
7 18 (9.73%) React
8 15 (8.11%) .NET Framework
9 13 (7.03%) Entity Framework
10 12 (6.49%) CSS
10 12 (6.49%) Jest
10 12 (6.49%) Spring
10 12 (6.49%) WinForms
10 12 (6.49%) YAML
11 11 (5.95%) HTML
11 11 (5.95%) SOAP
11 11 (5.95%) Swagger
11 11 (5.95%) WPF
12 9 (4.86%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 12 (6.49%) Distributed Systems
2 11 (5.95%) Product Ownership
3 10 (5.41%) Cloud Native
4 4 (2.16%) Data Structures
4 4 (2.16%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (1.62%) CMDB
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%) 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 27 (14.59%) Windows
2 18 (9.73%) Linux
3 1 (0.54%) Android
3 1 (0.54%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.54%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (60.54%) Agile
2 73 (39.46%) CI/CD
2 73 (39.46%) Test Automation
3 65 (35.14%) Software Engineering
4 64 (34.59%) Scrum
5 51 (27.57%) SDLC
6 50 (27.03%) DevOps
7 40 (21.62%) TDD
8 39 (21.08%) Front End Development
9 38 (20.54%) Sprint Planning
10 36 (19.46%) Problem-Solving
11 35 (18.92%) DevSecOps
11 35 (18.92%) Sprint Review
12 27 (14.59%) Validation
13 26 (14.05%) User Acceptance Testing
14 23 (12.43%) Continuous Integration
14 23 (12.43%) Microservices
15 20 (10.81%) Code Quality
16 18 (9.73%) Data Modelling
16 18 (9.73%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 74 (40.00%) Java
2 60 (32.43%) C#
3 47 (25.41%) SQL
4 38 (20.54%) JavaScript
5 25 (13.51%) C++
6 19 (10.27%) Python
7 18 (9.73%) TypeScript
8 8 (4.32%) C
9 7 (3.78%) PL/SQL
10 6 (3.24%) Apex Code
11 5 (2.70%) PowerShell
12 4 (2.16%) ABAP
13 3 (1.62%) Go
13 3 (1.62%) SOQL
13 3 (1.62%) SOSL
13 3 (1.62%) X++
14 2 (1.08%) Bash
14 2 (1.08%) Scala
14 2 (1.08%) Shell Script
14 2 (1.08%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 65 (35.14%) Security Cleared
2 55 (29.73%) SC Cleared
3 10 (5.41%) BPSS Clearance
3 10 (5.41%) Degree
4 4 (2.16%) ISTQB
4 4 (2.16%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 3 (1.62%) DV Cleared
5 3 (1.62%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (1.08%) Master's Degree
6 2 (1.08%) PhD
7 1 (0.54%) ACCA
7 1 (0.54%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.54%) CIMA
7 1 (0.54%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (21.08%) 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 17 (9.19%) Docker
2 1 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
2 1 (0.54%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 44 (23.78%) Kubernetes
2 35 (18.92%) Argo
3 5 (2.70%) Terraform
4 2 (1.08%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.54%) Ansible
Vendors
1 33 (17.84%) Red Hat
2 29 (15.68%) Microsoft
3 16 (8.65%) Oracle
4 11 (5.95%) Salesforce
5 8 (4.32%) SAP
6 6 (3.24%) Databricks
6 6 (3.24%) Veracode
7 5 (2.70%) Avaloq
8 4 (2.16%) ServiceNow
8 4 (2.16%) Splunk
9 2 (1.08%) Google
9 2 (1.08%) IFS
10 1 (0.54%) ANSYS
10 1 (0.54%) IBM
10 1 (0.54%) MuleSoft
10 1 (0.54%) NEC
10 1 (0.54%) Sitecore
10 1 (0.54%) Sybase
10 1 (0.54%) VMware
10 1 (0.54%) Workday