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 8 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 275 227 170
Rank change year-on-year -48 -57 +11
Contract jobs citing Unit Testing 191 128 259
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.71% 0.89% 1.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.87% 0.99% 1.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 105 73 170
10th Percentile £325 £283 £412
25th Percentile £394 £350 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £525
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -14.29% -
75th Percentile £598 £530 £600
90th Percentile £688 £629 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £475 £525
% change year-on-year +5.26% -9.52% -7.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 17 51
10th Percentile £60.00 £57.75 £61.25
25th Percentile £62.50 £61.25 £61.88
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £70.00 - -
90th Percentile - £65.80 -
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 21,937 12,961 17,420
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 82.09% 89.67% 83.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,023 7,925 10,281
10th Percentile £300 £235 £250
25th Percentile £405 £366 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £680 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £517 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +2.28% -3.81% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,285 1,111 2,119
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.33 £16.95 £15.62
Median hourly rate £44.50 £24.66 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +80.45% -35.31% +1.65%
75th Percentile £68.00 £52.25 £61.60
90th Percentile £81.24 £72.50 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% -6.25%

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 8 July 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 8 July 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 8 July 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 -15 68 £513 +2.50% 15
North of England -37 68 £460 +15.51% 22
North West -33 36 £460 +15.51% 14
North East -16 25 £511 +52.61% 3
East of England -25 15 £626 +33.44% 10
South West -30 15 £500 -9.09% 16
Midlands -64 14 £494 +7.46% 17
Scotland -35 13 £476 +33.71% 1
East Midlands -20 8 £485 +9.92% 11
Yorkshire -35 7 £519 -13.50% 5
West Midlands -56 6 £519 +12.89% 6
Wales -15 4 £700 +39.86% 2
Northern Ireland +6 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 7 (3.66%) Confluence
2 4 (2.09%) OpenStack
2 4 (2.09%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.05%) IIS
3 2 (1.05%) Mule
3 2 (1.05%) Mule ESB
4 1 (0.52%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.52%) Camunda
4 1 (0.52%) JBoss
4 1 (0.52%) SAS
4 1 (0.52%) WebLogic
Applications
1 3 (1.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (1.05%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 2 (1.05%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.52%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 7 (3.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (3.14%) SAP Payroll
3 5 (2.62%) SAP HCM
4 3 (1.57%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (1.05%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (1.05%) Oracle 11i
6 1 (0.52%) NEC Housing
6 1 (0.52%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.52%) Oracle EBS R12
6 1 (0.52%) ProductWriter
6 1 (0.52%) SAP CRM
6 1 (0.52%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.52%) SAP SD
6 1 (0.52%) SAP Travel Management
6 1 (0.52%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 39 (20.42%) Azure
2 37 (19.37%) OpenShift
3 24 (12.57%) Azure DevOps
4 20 (10.47%) AWS
5 16 (8.38%) GitHub
6 11 (5.76%) Serverless
7 8 (4.19%) Azure Functions
8 7 (3.66%) Dynamics 365
8 7 (3.66%) Power Platform
8 7 (3.66%) PowerApps
9 6 (3.14%) Azure Logic Apps
9 6 (3.14%) Power Automate
10 4 (2.09%) Amazon S3
10 4 (2.09%) AWS Lambda
10 4 (2.09%) GitHub Actions
11 3 (1.57%) Azure Service Bus
11 3 (1.57%) GCP
11 3 (1.57%) OCI
12 2 (1.05%) Amazon EventBridge
12 2 (1.05%) Amazon Kinesis
Communications & Networking
1 16 (8.38%) Ethernet
2 14 (7.33%) TCP/IP
3 3 (1.57%) Modbus
3 3 (1.57%) RS-232
3 3 (1.57%) RS-422
3 3 (1.57%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (5.76%) SQL Server
2 7 (3.66%) Relational Database
3 6 (3.14%) DynamoDB
3 6 (3.14%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (2.62%) SAP HANA
5 4 (2.09%) NoSQL
5 4 (2.09%) Oracle Database
5 4 (2.09%) Power BI
6 3 (1.57%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (1.57%) Data Lake
6 3 (1.57%) Data Warehouse
6 3 (1.57%) DocumentDB
6 3 (1.57%) MongoDB
7 2 (1.05%) Aerospike
7 2 (1.05%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (1.05%) Big Data
7 2 (1.05%) Metadata
7 2 (1.05%) Oracle Reports
7 2 (1.05%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 1 (0.52%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 43 (22.51%) SonarQube
2 42 (21.99%) Git
3 28 (14.66%) GitLab
4 27 (14.14%) Visual Studio
5 16 (8.38%) Eclipse
5 16 (8.38%) JUnit
6 15 (7.85%) JIRA
7 11 (5.76%) Jenkins
8 9 (4.71%) Maven
9 8 (4.19%) Gradle
9 8 (4.19%) NUnit
9 8 (4.19%) Selenium
10 5 (2.62%) MSTest
11 4 (2.09%) Bitbucket
11 4 (2.09%) JMeter
12 3 (1.57%) Cucumber
12 3 (1.57%) Mockito
12 3 (1.57%) SpecFlow
12 3 (1.57%) TeamCity
12 3 (1.57%) WebDriver
General
1 34 (17.80%) Social Skills
2 23 (12.04%) Finance
3 15 (7.85%) Analytical Skills
4 14 (7.33%) Military
4 14 (7.33%) Public Sector
5 13 (6.81%) Banking
6 9 (4.71%) Presentation Skills
7 7 (3.66%) Aerospace
8 3 (1.57%) Electronics
8 3 (1.57%) Retail
9 1 (0.52%) Advertising
9 1 (0.52%) Billing
9 1 (0.52%) General Ledger
9 1 (0.52%) Law
9 1 (0.52%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 88 (46.07%) Developer
2 36 (18.85%) Software Engineer
3 27 (14.14%) Java Developer
4 22 (11.52%) Java Engineer
5 15 (7.85%) Consultant
6 14 (7.33%) Senior
7 13 (6.81%) .NET Developer
8 12 (6.28%) Full-Stack Developer
8 12 (6.28%) SC Cleared Java Developer
9 11 (5.76%) C# Software Engineer
9 11 (5.76%) Lead
10 9 (4.71%) C++ Software Engineer
10 9 (4.71%) Java Software Engineer
10 9 (4.71%) SAP Consultant
11 8 (4.19%) Senior Developer
12 7 (3.66%) C# Developer
12 7 (3.66%) Salesforce Developer
13 6 (3.14%) Technical Consultant
14 5 (2.62%) Analyst
14 5 (2.62%) Functional Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (21.47%) AngularJS
2 36 (18.85%) Quarkus
3 31 (16.23%) .NET
4 28 (14.66%) RESTful
5 22 (11.52%) Web Services
6 20 (10.47%) REST
7 19 (9.95%) React
8 18 (9.42%) Node.js
9 15 (7.85%) .NET Framework
9 15 (7.85%) Spring
10 13 (6.81%) Entity Framework
11 12 (6.28%) CSS
11 12 (6.28%) HTML
11 12 (6.28%) WinForms
11 12 (6.28%) YAML
12 11 (5.76%) SOAP
12 11 (5.76%) Swagger
12 11 (5.76%) WPF
13 10 (5.24%) Jest
13 10 (5.24%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 12 (6.28%) Product Ownership
2 11 (5.76%) Distributed Systems
3 8 (4.19%) Cloud Native
4 4 (2.09%) Data Structures
4 4 (2.09%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (1.57%) CMDB
5 3 (1.57%) Management Information System
5 3 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (1.05%) Distributed Architecture
6 2 (1.05%) IoT
6 2 (1.05%) Public Cloud
6 2 (1.05%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 1 (0.52%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.52%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.52%) Embedded Systems
7 1 (0.52%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (0.52%) Low-Code
7 1 (0.52%) NHS
7 1 (0.52%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 25 (13.09%) Windows
2 16 (8.38%) Linux
3 1 (0.52%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.52%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (58.64%) Agile
2 74 (38.74%) Test Automation
3 73 (38.22%) CI/CD
4 66 (34.55%) Scrum
5 65 (34.03%) Software Engineering
6 52 (27.23%) SDLC
7 51 (26.70%) DevOps
8 43 (22.51%) TDD
9 41 (21.47%) Front End Development
10 39 (20.42%) Sprint Planning
11 36 (18.85%) DevSecOps
11 36 (18.85%) Sprint Review
12 34 (17.80%) Problem-Solving
13 32 (16.75%) User Acceptance Testing
14 25 (13.09%) Validation
15 24 (12.57%) Microservices
16 23 (12.04%) Continuous Integration
17 19 (9.95%) Integration Testing
18 18 (9.42%) Code Quality
18 18 (9.42%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 76 (39.79%) Java
2 60 (31.41%) C#
3 48 (25.13%) SQL
4 39 (20.42%) JavaScript
5 24 (12.57%) C++
6 19 (9.95%) Python
7 18 (9.42%) TypeScript
8 8 (4.19%) ABAP
9 7 (3.66%) C
9 7 (3.66%) PL/SQL
10 6 (3.14%) Apex Code
11 4 (2.09%) PowerShell
12 3 (1.57%) Go
12 3 (1.57%) SOQL
12 3 (1.57%) SOSL
12 3 (1.57%) X++
13 2 (1.05%) Bash
13 2 (1.05%) Scala
13 2 (1.05%) Shell Script
13 2 (1.05%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 66 (34.55%) Security Cleared
2 55 (28.80%) SC Cleared
3 10 (5.24%) Degree
4 8 (4.19%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (2.09%) ISTQB
5 4 (2.09%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 3 (1.57%) DV Cleared
6 3 (1.57%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (1.05%) Master's Degree
7 2 (1.05%) PhD
8 1 (0.52%) ACCA
8 1 (0.52%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.52%) CIMA
8 1 (0.52%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (21.47%) QA
2 6 (3.14%) Accessibility
3 5 (2.62%) Data Quality
4 4 (2.09%) HMG Security Policy Framework
4 4 (2.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (1.05%) ISO 20022
5 2 (1.05%) PSD2
5 2 (1.05%) SEPA
5 2 (1.05%) WCAG
6 1 (0.52%) GDPR
6 1 (0.52%) GRC
System Software
1 17 (8.90%) Docker
Systems Management
1 45 (23.56%) Kubernetes
2 36 (18.85%) Argo
3 5 (2.62%) Terraform
4 2 (1.05%) Ansible
4 2 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 34 (17.80%) Red Hat
2 29 (15.18%) Microsoft
3 17 (8.90%) Oracle
4 14 (7.33%) SAP
5 11 (5.76%) Salesforce
6 6 (3.14%) Avaloq
6 6 (3.14%) Veracode
7 5 (2.62%) Splunk
8 4 (2.09%) Databricks
8 4 (2.09%) ServiceNow
9 2 (1.05%) Adobe
9 2 (1.05%) Google
9 2 (1.05%) IFS
9 2 (1.05%) MuleSoft
10 1 (0.52%) Dynatrace
10 1 (0.52%) NEC
10 1 (0.52%) Sitecore
10 1 (0.52%) Sybase
10 1 (0.52%) Workday