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 27 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 273 231 160
Rank change year-on-year -42 -71 +21
Contract jobs citing Unit Testing 178 104 260
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.72% 0.82% 1.27%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.88% 0.90% 1.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 103 67 168
10th Percentile £350 £284 £393
25th Percentile £393 £348 £443
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £463 £525
Median % change year-on-year +8.11% -11.90% -
75th Percentile £559 £545 £638
90th Percentile £685 £610 £688
UK median daily rate £488 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -2.39% -4.76% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 9 48
10th Percentile £59.40 £52.25 -
25th Percentile £62.50 £61.25 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 -
90th Percentile - - -
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 20,214 11,509 17,140
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.29% 90.67% 83.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,094 7,218 10,220
10th Percentile £300 £234 £250
25th Percentile £401 £375 £376
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £676 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £512 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.14% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,144 820 2,102
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.19 £12.38
25th Percentile £18.87 £16.95 £15.29
Median hourly rate £42.69 £25.15 £37.75
Median % change year-on-year +69.72% -33.38% +7.86%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.24 £61.30
90th Percentile £80.04 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £41.94 £27.45 £36.02
% change year-on-year +52.79% -23.80% -2.64%

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 27 May 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 27 May 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 27 May 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 -17 62 £513 -10.87% 7
North of England -33 57 £450 +14.29% 19
North West -23 32 £450 +9.09% 14
North East -8 19 £513 +52.99% 2
East of England -18 18 £625 +33.33% 7
Midlands -68 18 £460 -0.54% 16
South West -24 15 £500 -18.37% 7
East Midlands -33 12 £449 -3.03% 11
Scotland -20 10 £473 +32.87% 1
Yorkshire -46 8 £500 -16.67% 3
West Midlands -57 6 £519 +12.59% 5
Wales -14 4 £700 +109.72% 3
Northern Ireland +3 2 £369 -32.95% 2
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 (6.18%) Confluence
2 4 (2.25%) OpenStack
2 4 (2.25%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.12%) IIS
3 2 (1.12%) Mule
3 2 (1.12%) Mule ESB
4 1 (0.56%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.56%) Camunda
4 1 (0.56%) JBoss
4 1 (0.56%) SAS
4 1 (0.56%) WebLogic
Applications
1 3 (1.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (1.12%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 2 (1.12%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.56%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 4 (2.25%) SAP Payroll
1 4 (2.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (1.69%) Oracle ERP
2 3 (1.69%) SAP HCM
3 2 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (1.12%) NEC Housing
3 2 (1.12%) Oracle 11i
4 1 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.56%) Oracle EBS R12
4 1 (0.56%) ProductWriter
4 1 (0.56%) SAP CRM
4 1 (0.56%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.56%) SAP Travel Management
4 1 (0.56%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 38 (21.35%) Azure
2 28 (15.73%) OpenShift
3 23 (12.92%) AWS
4 21 (11.80%) Azure DevOps
5 19 (10.67%) GitHub
6 12 (6.74%) Serverless
7 8 (4.49%) GitHub Actions
8 7 (3.93%) Azure Functions
9 6 (3.37%) AWS Lambda
9 6 (3.37%) Dynamics 365
9 6 (3.37%) Power Platform
10 5 (2.81%) Amazon S3
10 5 (2.81%) Azure Logic Apps
10 5 (2.81%) PowerApps
11 4 (2.25%) GCP
11 4 (2.25%) OCI
11 4 (2.25%) Power Automate
12 3 (1.69%) Amazon SQS
12 3 (1.69%) Azure Service Bus
13 2 (1.12%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 17 (9.55%) TCP/IP
2 15 (8.43%) Ethernet
3 3 (1.69%) Modbus
3 3 (1.69%) RS-232
3 3 (1.69%) RS-422
3 3 (1.69%) RS-485
4 1 (0.56%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (6.74%) SQL Server
2 10 (5.62%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (5.06%) DynamoDB
4 8 (4.49%) Relational Database
5 7 (3.93%) NoSQL
6 5 (2.81%) Aerospike
6 5 (2.81%) MongoDB
7 4 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
7 4 (2.25%) Redis
7 4 (2.25%) SAP HANA
8 3 (1.69%) Azure SQL Database
8 3 (1.69%) Data Lake
8 3 (1.69%) DocumentDB
8 3 (1.69%) Oracle Database
9 2 (1.12%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (1.12%) Big Data
9 2 (1.12%) BigQuery
9 2 (1.12%) Metadata
9 2 (1.12%) Oracle Reports
9 2 (1.12%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 44 (24.72%) Git
2 38 (21.35%) GitLab
3 33 (18.54%) SonarQube
4 24 (13.48%) JIRA
4 24 (13.48%) Visual Studio
5 15 (8.43%) Eclipse
5 15 (8.43%) JUnit
6 13 (7.30%) Jenkins
7 8 (4.49%) NUnit
7 8 (4.49%) Selenium
8 6 (3.37%) Gradle
8 6 (3.37%) Maven
9 5 (2.81%) MSTest
9 5 (2.81%) PVCS
9 5 (2.81%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (2.25%) Bitbucket
10 4 (2.25%) JMeter
10 4 (2.25%) XCTest
11 3 (1.69%) fastlane
11 3 (1.69%) REST Assured
General
1 31 (17.42%) Social Skills
2 21 (11.80%) Finance
3 15 (8.43%) Military
4 14 (7.87%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (6.18%) Public Sector
6 9 (5.06%) Presentation Skills
7 8 (4.49%) Banking
7 8 (4.49%) Electronics
8 3 (1.69%) Aerospace
8 3 (1.69%) Retail
9 2 (1.12%) Law
10 1 (0.56%) Advertising
10 1 (0.56%) General Ledger
10 1 (0.56%) Health Technology
10 1 (0.56%) Legal
10 1 (0.56%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 80 (44.94%) Developer
2 40 (22.47%) Software Engineer
3 21 (11.80%) Java Developer
4 17 (9.55%) Java Engineer
5 14 (7.87%) Full-Stack Developer
6 13 (7.30%) C++ Software Engineer
6 13 (7.30%) Senior
7 10 (5.62%) .NET Developer
7 10 (5.62%) C# Software Engineer
8 9 (5.06%) Consultant
8 9 (5.06%) Java Software Engineer
9 7 (3.93%) Salesforce Developer
9 7 (3.93%) SC Cleared Java Developer
9 7 (3.93%) Senior Developer
10 6 (3.37%) Azure Developer
10 6 (3.37%) Data Engineer
10 6 (3.37%) Integration Engineer
10 6 (3.37%) Lead
11 5 (2.81%) Embedded C Software Engineer
11 5 (2.81%) SAP Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (16.85%) AngularJS
2 28 (15.73%) .NET
3 26 (14.61%) Quarkus
3 26 (14.61%) RESTful
4 21 (11.80%) Node.js
4 21 (11.80%) React
4 21 (11.80%) REST
5 19 (10.67%) Web Services
6 15 (8.43%) Jest
7 14 (7.87%) Spring
8 13 (7.30%) .NET Framework
9 12 (6.74%) CSS
9 12 (6.74%) Kafka
9 12 (6.74%) WinForms
9 12 (6.74%) YAML
10 11 (6.18%) Entity Framework
10 11 (6.18%) HTML
10 11 (6.18%) SOAP
10 11 (6.18%) Swagger
11 9 (5.06%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 13 (7.30%) Distributed Systems
2 11 (6.18%) Cloud Native
3 10 (5.62%) Product Ownership
4 3 (1.69%) IoT
4 3 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
5 2 (1.12%) Data Structures
5 2 (1.12%) Distributed Architecture
5 2 (1.12%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (1.12%) NHS
5 2 (1.12%) Public Cloud
5 2 (1.12%) SWIFT Messaging Network
6 1 (0.56%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.56%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (0.56%) Derivative
6 1 (0.56%) Embedded Systems
6 1 (0.56%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 1 (0.56%) Low-Code
6 1 (0.56%) Mobile App
6 1 (0.56%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 26 (14.61%) Windows
2 19 (10.67%) Linux
3 4 (2.25%) Apple iOS
4 3 (1.69%) Android
5 1 (0.56%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 107 (60.11%) Agile
2 74 (41.57%) CI/CD
3 64 (35.96%) Test Automation
4 63 (35.39%) Software Engineering
5 54 (30.34%) Scrum
6 50 (28.09%) DevOps
7 44 (24.72%) TDD
8 43 (24.16%) SDLC
9 41 (23.03%) Problem-Solving
10 30 (16.85%) Front End Development
11 29 (16.29%) Validation
12 28 (15.73%) Sprint Planning
13 26 (14.61%) DevSecOps
13 26 (14.61%) Sprint Review
14 25 (14.04%) Microservices
15 22 (12.36%) Continuous Integration
15 22 (12.36%) Full-Stack Development
16 21 (11.80%) Code Quality
17 19 (10.67%) Data Modelling
17 19 (10.67%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 70 (39.33%) Java
2 57 (32.02%) C#
3 46 (25.84%) SQL
4 36 (20.22%) JavaScript
5 29 (16.29%) C++
6 22 (12.36%) TypeScript
7 21 (11.80%) Python
8 13 (7.30%) C
9 8 (4.49%) PL/SQL
10 6 (3.37%) Apex Code
10 6 (3.37%) PowerShell
11 5 (2.81%) Embedded C
11 5 (2.81%) Embedded C++
12 4 (2.25%) ABAP
12 4 (2.25%) Swift
13 3 (1.69%) Go
13 3 (1.69%) SOQL
13 3 (1.69%) SOSL
14 2 (1.12%) Bash
14 2 (1.12%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 59 (33.15%) Security Cleared
2 52 (29.21%) SC Cleared
3 12 (6.74%) BPSS Clearance
4 9 (5.06%) Degree
5 4 (2.25%) ISTQB
5 4 (2.25%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (0.56%) ACCA
6 1 (0.56%) Azure Certification
6 1 (0.56%) CIMA
6 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (17.98%) QA
2 9 (5.06%) Accessibility
3 5 (2.81%) Data Quality
4 4 (2.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
4 4 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (1.12%) GDPR
5 2 (1.12%) ISO 20022
5 2 (1.12%) PSD2
5 2 (1.12%) SEPA
6 1 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.56%) GRC
6 1 (0.56%) HL7
6 1 (0.56%) WCAG
System Software
1 22 (12.36%) Docker
2 5 (2.81%) Virtual Machines
2 5 (2.81%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 37 (20.79%) Kubernetes
2 26 (14.61%) Argo
3 7 (3.93%) Terraform
4 3 (1.69%) Grafana
5 2 (1.12%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 27 (15.17%) Microsoft
2 24 (13.48%) Red Hat
3 16 (8.99%) Oracle
4 11 (6.18%) Salesforce
5 8 (4.49%) SAP
6 7 (3.93%) Databricks
7 6 (3.37%) Veracode
8 5 (2.81%) ANSYS
8 5 (2.81%) IBM
8 5 (2.81%) VMware
9 4 (2.25%) Splunk
10 3 (1.69%) Avaloq
11 2 (1.12%) Google
11 2 (1.12%) IFS
11 2 (1.12%) NEC
12 1 (0.56%) Adobe
12 1 (0.56%) Brio
12 1 (0.56%) Dynatrace
12 1 (0.56%) ServiceNow
12 1 (0.56%) Workday