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

6 months to
15 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 279 227 166
Rank change year-on-year -52 -61 +6
Contract jobs citing Unit Testing 181 111 259
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.71% 0.83% 1.21%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.87% 0.92% 1.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 100 65 170
10th Percentile £348 £281 £398
25th Percentile £393 £340 £446
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £525
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -14.29% -
75th Percentile £563 £519 £600
90th Percentile £688 £615 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £475 £525
% change year-on-year +5.26% -9.52% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 12 50
10th Percentile £60.00 £53.38 £61.25
25th Percentile £62.50 £61.25 £61.56
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 20,897 12,116 17,665
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.65% 90.60% 82.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,438 7,483 10,353
10th Percentile £300 £235 £250
25th Percentile £404 £370 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £684 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £513 £507 £525
% change year-on-year +1.08% -3.43% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,215 939 2,201
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 £58.63 £61.50
90th Percentile £81.05 £75.00 £72.90
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £26.75 £37.18
% change year-on-year +64.34% -28.05% +6.23%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -11 65 £514 +2.75% 15
North of England -41 59 £460 +19.79% 22
North West -31 29 £450 +17.19% 10
North East -13 24 £511 +52.61% 5
South West -21 17 £500 -13.04% 7
East of England -24 16 £626 +33.44% 7
Midlands -54 16 £459 -0.86% 12
East Midlands -23 11 £447 -3.35% 6
Scotland -42 9 £476 +45.12% 1
Yorkshire -47 6 £510 -15.08% 7
West Midlands -59 5 £489 +6.22% 6
Wales -12 4 £700 +39.86% 1
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 11 (6.08%) Confluence
2 4 (2.21%) OpenStack
2 4 (2.21%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.10%) IIS
3 2 (1.10%) Mule
3 2 (1.10%) Mule ESB
4 1 (0.55%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.55%) Camunda
4 1 (0.55%) JBoss
4 1 (0.55%) SAS
4 1 (0.55%) WebLogic
Applications
1 3 (1.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (1.10%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 2 (1.10%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.55%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 4 (2.21%) SAP Payroll
1 4 (2.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (1.66%) Oracle ERP
2 3 (1.66%) SAP HCM
3 2 (1.10%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (1.10%) Oracle 11i
4 1 (0.55%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.55%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.55%) Oracle EBS R12
4 1 (0.55%) ProductWriter
4 1 (0.55%) SAP CRM
4 1 (0.55%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.55%) SAP Travel Management
4 1 (0.55%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 38 (20.99%) Azure
2 36 (19.89%) OpenShift
3 23 (12.71%) Azure DevOps
4 20 (11.05%) AWS
5 19 (10.50%) GitHub
6 12 (6.63%) Serverless
7 9 (4.97%) Azure Functions
8 8 (4.42%) GitHub Actions
9 7 (3.87%) Dynamics 365
9 7 (3.87%) Power Platform
9 7 (3.87%) PowerApps
10 6 (3.31%) Azure Logic Apps
10 6 (3.31%) Power Automate
11 4 (2.21%) Amazon S3
11 4 (2.21%) AWS Lambda
12 3 (1.66%) Azure Service Bus
12 3 (1.66%) GCP
12 3 (1.66%) OCI
13 2 (1.10%) Amazon EventBridge
13 2 (1.10%) Amazon Kinesis
Communications & Networking
1 18 (9.94%) TCP/IP
2 16 (8.84%) Ethernet
3 3 (1.66%) Modbus
3 3 (1.66%) RS-232
3 3 (1.66%) RS-422
3 3 (1.66%) RS-485
4 1 (0.55%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (6.08%) SQL Server
2 9 (4.97%) DynamoDB
2 9 (4.97%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (3.87%) Relational Database
4 5 (2.76%) Aerospike
5 4 (2.21%) NoSQL
5 4 (2.21%) Power BI
5 4 (2.21%) Redis
5 4 (2.21%) SAP HANA
6 3 (1.66%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (1.66%) Data Lake
6 3 (1.66%) Data Warehouse
6 3 (1.66%) DocumentDB
6 3 (1.66%) MongoDB
7 2 (1.10%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (1.10%) Big Data
7 2 (1.10%) Metadata
7 2 (1.10%) Oracle Database
7 2 (1.10%) Oracle Reports
7 2 (1.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 42 (23.20%) SonarQube
2 39 (21.55%) Git
3 31 (17.13%) GitLab
4 25 (13.81%) Visual Studio
5 22 (12.15%) JIRA
6 16 (8.84%) Eclipse
7 15 (8.29%) JUnit
8 12 (6.63%) Jenkins
9 8 (4.42%) NUnit
9 8 (4.42%) Selenium
10 6 (3.31%) Maven
11 5 (2.76%) Gradle
11 5 (2.76%) MSTest
12 4 (2.21%) Bitbucket
12 4 (2.21%) JMeter
13 3 (1.66%) Mockito
13 3 (1.66%) PVCS
13 3 (1.66%) SpecFlow
13 3 (1.66%) TeamCity
13 3 (1.66%) WebDriver
General
1 33 (18.23%) Social Skills
2 21 (11.60%) Finance
3 16 (8.84%) Military
4 14 (7.73%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (6.08%) Public Sector
6 9 (4.97%) Banking
6 9 (4.97%) Presentation Skills
7 6 (3.31%) Aerospace
7 6 (3.31%) Electronics
8 3 (1.66%) Retail
9 1 (0.55%) Advertising
9 1 (0.55%) General Ledger
9 1 (0.55%) Health Technology
9 1 (0.55%) Law
9 1 (0.55%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 81 (44.75%) Developer
2 40 (22.10%) Software Engineer
3 24 (13.26%) Java Developer
4 19 (10.50%) Java Engineer
5 12 (6.63%) C++ Software Engineer
5 12 (6.63%) Full-Stack Developer
5 12 (6.63%) SC Cleared Java Developer
6 11 (6.08%) .NET Developer
6 11 (6.08%) C# Software Engineer
7 10 (5.52%) Senior
8 9 (4.97%) Consultant
8 9 (4.97%) Java Software Engineer
9 7 (3.87%) Lead
9 7 (3.87%) Salesforce Developer
10 6 (3.31%) Integration Engineer
11 5 (2.76%) Analyst
11 5 (2.76%) C# Developer
11 5 (2.76%) Data Engineer
11 5 (2.76%) SAP Consultant
11 5 (2.76%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (22.10%) AngularJS
2 35 (19.34%) Quarkus
3 30 (16.57%) .NET
4 25 (13.81%) RESTful
5 20 (11.05%) Web Services
6 19 (10.50%) Node.js
7 17 (9.39%) React
7 17 (9.39%) REST
8 13 (7.18%) .NET Framework
8 13 (7.18%) Jest
9 12 (6.63%) WinForms
9 12 (6.63%) YAML
10 11 (6.08%) CSS
10 11 (6.08%) Entity Framework
10 11 (6.08%) SOAP
10 11 (6.08%) Swagger
11 10 (5.52%) Kafka
12 9 (4.97%) HTML
12 9 (4.97%) OpenAPI
12 9 (4.97%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 12 (6.63%) Distributed Systems
2 11 (6.08%) Cloud Native
3 9 (4.97%) Product Ownership
4 4 (2.21%) Data Structures
5 3 (1.66%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (1.66%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (1.10%) Distributed Architecture
6 2 (1.10%) IoT
6 2 (1.10%) Management Information System
6 2 (1.10%) NHS
6 2 (1.10%) Public Cloud
6 2 (1.10%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 1 (0.55%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.55%) CMDB
7 1 (0.55%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.55%) Embedded Systems
7 1 (0.55%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (0.55%) Low-Code
7 1 (0.55%) Mobile App
7 1 (0.55%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 27 (14.92%) Windows
2 20 (11.05%) Linux
3 2 (1.10%) Android
3 2 (1.10%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.55%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 113 (62.43%) Agile
2 73 (40.33%) CI/CD
3 70 (38.67%) Test Automation
4 66 (36.46%) Software Engineering
5 61 (33.70%) Scrum
6 50 (27.62%) SDLC
7 48 (26.52%) DevOps
8 39 (21.55%) TDD
9 38 (20.99%) Front End Development
9 38 (20.99%) Problem-Solving
10 37 (20.44%) Sprint Planning
11 35 (19.34%) DevSecOps
11 35 (19.34%) Sprint Review
12 29 (16.02%) Validation
13 23 (12.71%) Continuous Integration
13 23 (12.71%) User Acceptance Testing
14 22 (12.15%) Microservices
15 19 (10.50%) Data Modelling
15 19 (10.50%) Full-Stack Development
16 18 (9.94%) Code Quality
Programming Languages
1 72 (39.78%) Java
2 59 (32.60%) C#
3 45 (24.86%) SQL
4 38 (20.99%) JavaScript
5 27 (14.92%) C++
6 19 (10.50%) Python
6 19 (10.50%) TypeScript
7 11 (6.08%) C
8 6 (3.31%) Apex Code
8 6 (3.31%) PL/SQL
8 6 (3.31%) PowerShell
9 4 (2.21%) ABAP
10 3 (1.66%) Embedded C
10 3 (1.66%) Embedded C++
10 3 (1.66%) Go
10 3 (1.66%) SOQL
10 3 (1.66%) SOSL
10 3 (1.66%) X++
11 2 (1.10%) Bash
11 2 (1.10%) Swift
Qualifications
1 65 (35.91%) Security Cleared
2 57 (31.49%) SC Cleared
3 11 (6.08%) BPSS Clearance
4 8 (4.42%) Degree
5 4 (2.21%) ISTQB
5 4 (2.21%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 3 (1.66%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.55%) ACCA
7 1 (0.55%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.55%) CIMA
7 1 (0.55%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.55%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (21.55%) QA
2 5 (2.76%) Accessibility
2 5 (2.76%) Data Quality
3 4 (2.21%) HMG Security Policy Framework
3 4 (2.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.10%) ISO 20022
4 2 (1.10%) PSD2
4 2 (1.10%) SEPA
5 1 (0.55%) GDPR
5 1 (0.55%) GRC
5 1 (0.55%) HL7
5 1 (0.55%) WCAG
System Software
1 17 (9.39%) Docker
2 3 (1.66%) Virtual Machines
2 3 (1.66%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 43 (23.76%) Kubernetes
2 35 (19.34%) Argo
3 6 (3.31%) Terraform
4 2 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 33 (18.23%) Red Hat
2 29 (16.02%) Microsoft
3 15 (8.29%) Oracle
4 11 (6.08%) Salesforce
5 8 (4.42%) SAP
6 7 (3.87%) Databricks
7 6 (3.31%) Veracode
8 4 (2.21%) Avaloq
8 4 (2.21%) Splunk
9 3 (1.66%) ANSYS
9 3 (1.66%) IBM
9 3 (1.66%) VMware
10 2 (1.10%) ServiceNow
11 1 (0.55%) Brio
11 1 (0.55%) Dynatrace
11 1 (0.55%) Google
11 1 (0.55%) IFS
11 1 (0.55%) NEC
11 1 (0.55%) Sitecore
11 1 (0.55%) Sybase