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

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 290 215 171
Rank change year-on-year -75 -44 +5
Contract jobs citing Unit Testing 189 151 251
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.70% 1.01% 1.26%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.86% 1.14% 1.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 100 89 169
10th Percentile £312 £298 £407
25th Percentile £403 £358 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £460 £525
Median % change year-on-year +8.70% -12.38% -
75th Percentile £600 £545 £600
90th Percentile £688 £630 £660
UK median daily rate £500 £463 £525
% change year-on-year +8.11% -11.90% -6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 17 45
10th Percentile £60.63 £57.75 -
25th Percentile £62.50 £61.25 £61.25
Median hourly rate £66.25 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.92% - -
75th Percentile £70.00 - -
90th Percentile - £67.00 -
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 22,084 13,271 16,498
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.87% 89.18% 82.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,098 8,044 9,859
10th Percentile £300 £235 £250
25th Percentile £406 £365 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £590 £575 £600
90th Percentile £675 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,282 1,237 1,851
10th Percentile £14.47 £14.00 £12.79
25th Percentile £19.34 £16.95 £16.06
Median hourly rate £45.00 £24.34 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +84.88% -39.15% -1.95%
75th Percentile £68.75 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £83.00 £71.33 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -10.31%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 -13 68 £513 +2.50% 20
North of England -46 67 £461 +15.31% 33
North West -40 32 £460 +10.84% 23
North East -12 28 £510 +52.24% 7
East of England -19 16 £625 +33.33% 9
South West -32 15 £500 -9.09% 16
Scotland -41 14 £488 +37.08% 9
Midlands -61 14 £494 +6.88% 21
East Midlands -21 8 £485 +4.86% 8
Yorkshire -51 7 £519 +29.75% 4
West Midlands -53 6 £519 +12.89% 13
Wales -20 3 £700 +35.27%
Northern Ireland +5 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 5 (2.65%) SharePoint
2 4 (2.12%) Confluence
3 3 (1.59%) OpenStack
4 2 (1.06%) Mule
4 2 (1.06%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.53%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.53%) Camunda
5 1 (0.53%) IIS
5 1 (0.53%) JBoss
5 1 (0.53%) SAS
5 1 (0.53%) WebLogic
Applications
1 3 (1.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (1.06%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 2 (1.06%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.53%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 7 (3.70%) SAP Payroll
1 7 (3.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (3.17%) SAP HCM
3 3 (1.59%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (1.06%) Oracle 11i
5 1 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.53%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.53%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.53%) ProductWriter
5 1 (0.53%) SAP CRM
5 1 (0.53%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.53%) SAP SD
5 1 (0.53%) SAP Travel Management
5 1 (0.53%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 40 (21.16%) OpenShift
2 36 (19.05%) Azure
3 23 (12.17%) AWS
4 21 (11.11%) Azure DevOps
5 15 (7.94%) GitHub
6 13 (6.88%) Serverless
7 7 (3.70%) AWS Lambda
7 7 (3.70%) Azure Functions
7 7 (3.70%) Power Platform
8 6 (3.17%) PowerApps
9 5 (2.65%) Amazon S3
9 5 (2.65%) Azure Logic Apps
9 5 (2.65%) Dynamics 365
9 5 (2.65%) Power Automate
10 4 (2.12%) Amazon SQS
10 4 (2.12%) GitHub Actions
11 3 (1.59%) Amazon ECS
11 3 (1.59%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (1.59%) AWS CloudFormation
11 3 (1.59%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 16 (8.47%) Ethernet
2 13 (6.88%) TCP/IP
3 3 (1.59%) Modbus
3 3 (1.59%) RS-232
3 3 (1.59%) RS-422
3 3 (1.59%) RS-485
4 1 (0.53%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (5.82%) SQL Server
2 10 (5.29%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (4.23%) DynamoDB
4 7 (3.70%) NoSQL
5 6 (3.17%) Relational Database
5 6 (3.17%) SAP HANA
6 5 (2.65%) Power BI
7 4 (2.12%) Data Warehouse
7 4 (2.12%) MongoDB
7 4 (2.12%) Oracle Database
8 3 (1.59%) Azure SQL Database
8 3 (1.59%) Data Lake
8 3 (1.59%) DocumentDB
8 3 (1.59%) MySQL
8 3 (1.59%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 2 (1.06%) Aerospike
9 2 (1.06%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (1.06%) Big Data
9 2 (1.06%) BigQuery
9 2 (1.06%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 43 (22.75%) SonarQube
2 42 (22.22%) Git
3 26 (13.76%) Visual Studio
4 23 (12.17%) GitLab
5 16 (8.47%) Eclipse
6 14 (7.41%) JUnit
7 13 (6.88%) Jenkins
8 12 (6.35%) JIRA
9 9 (4.76%) Selenium
10 8 (4.23%) NUnit
11 7 (3.70%) Maven
12 6 (3.17%) Gradle
13 5 (2.65%) Cucumber
13 5 (2.65%) MSTest
14 4 (2.12%) Bitbucket
14 4 (2.12%) JMeter
14 4 (2.12%) REST Assured
15 3 (1.59%) Mockito
15 3 (1.59%) TeamCity
15 3 (1.59%) WebDriver
General
1 35 (18.52%) Social Skills
2 18 (9.52%) Finance
3 14 (7.41%) Analytical Skills
3 14 (7.41%) Military
4 12 (6.35%) Public Sector
5 11 (5.82%) Banking
6 9 (4.76%) Presentation Skills
7 7 (3.70%) Aerospace
8 3 (1.59%) Electronics
8 3 (1.59%) Retail
9 1 (0.53%) Advertising
9 1 (0.53%) Aviation
9 1 (0.53%) Billing
9 1 (0.53%) General Ledger
9 1 (0.53%) Law
Job Titles
1 84 (44.44%) Developer
2 38 (20.11%) Software Engineer
3 25 (13.23%) Java Developer
4 23 (12.17%) Java Engineer
5 16 (8.47%) Consultant
6 14 (7.41%) Senior
7 12 (6.35%) .NET Developer
8 11 (5.82%) C# Software Engineer
8 11 (5.82%) Java Software Engineer
8 11 (5.82%) Lead
8 11 (5.82%) SC Cleared Java Developer
9 10 (5.29%) SAP Consultant
10 9 (4.76%) C++ Software Engineer
10 9 (4.76%) Full-Stack Developer
11 8 (4.23%) Senior Developer
11 8 (4.23%) Software Developer
12 7 (3.70%) C# Developer
13 6 (3.17%) Analyst
13 6 (3.17%) Functional Consultant
13 6 (3.17%) Technical Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (22.75%) AngularJS
2 38 (20.11%) Quarkus
3 29 (15.34%) .NET
4 25 (13.23%) RESTful
5 24 (12.70%) REST
5 24 (12.70%) Web Services
6 18 (9.52%) Node.js
6 18 (9.52%) React
7 17 (8.99%) Spring
8 14 (7.41%) .NET Framework
8 14 (7.41%) Spring Boot
9 12 (6.35%) Entity Framework
9 12 (6.35%) HTML
9 12 (6.35%) WinForms
10 11 (5.82%) CSS
10 11 (5.82%) Kafka
10 11 (5.82%) WPF
11 10 (5.29%) SOAP
12 8 (4.23%) ASP.NET
12 8 (4.23%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 12 (6.35%) Distributed Systems
1 12 (6.35%) Product Ownership
2 9 (4.76%) Cloud Native
3 5 (2.65%) Data Structures
4 4 (2.12%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (1.59%) CMDB
5 3 (1.59%) Management Information System
5 3 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (1.06%) Distributed Architecture
6 2 (1.06%) Public Cloud
7 1 (0.53%) Algorithms
7 1 (0.53%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.53%) Embedded Systems
7 1 (0.53%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (0.53%) IoT
7 1 (0.53%) Low-Code
7 1 (0.53%) NHS
7 1 (0.53%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.53%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 24 (12.70%) Windows
2 16 (8.47%) Linux
3 1 (0.53%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.53%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (59.26%) Agile
2 75 (39.68%) Test Automation
3 72 (38.10%) CI/CD
4 70 (37.04%) Software Engineering
5 67 (35.45%) Scrum
6 53 (28.04%) SDLC
7 48 (25.40%) DevOps
8 42 (22.22%) Front End Development
8 42 (22.22%) Sprint Planning
9 40 (21.16%) TDD
10 38 (20.11%) DevSecOps
10 38 (20.11%) Sprint Review
11 32 (16.93%) Problem-Solving
11 32 (16.93%) User Acceptance Testing
12 25 (13.23%) Microservices
13 24 (12.70%) Continuous Integration
13 24 (12.70%) Validation
14 21 (11.11%) Code Quality
14 21 (11.11%) Integration Testing
15 18 (9.52%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 74 (39.15%) Java
2 57 (30.16%) C#
3 50 (26.46%) SQL
4 37 (19.58%) JavaScript
5 23 (12.17%) C++
6 19 (10.05%) Python
7 16 (8.47%) TypeScript
8 9 (4.76%) ABAP
9 7 (3.70%) C
9 7 (3.70%) PL/SQL
10 4 (2.12%) Apex Code
10 4 (2.12%) PowerShell
11 3 (1.59%) Go
11 3 (1.59%) X++
12 2 (1.06%) Bash
12 2 (1.06%) Scala
12 2 (1.06%) SOQL
12 2 (1.06%) SOSL
12 2 (1.06%) VBA
12 2 (1.06%) XAML
Qualifications
1 65 (34.39%) Security Cleared
2 56 (29.63%) SC Cleared
3 9 (4.76%) Degree
4 8 (4.23%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (2.12%) ISTQB
5 4 (2.12%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 3 (1.59%) DV Cleared
6 3 (1.59%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (1.06%) Master's Degree
7 2 (1.06%) PhD
8 1 (0.53%) ACCA
8 1 (0.53%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.53%) CIMA
8 1 (0.53%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (23.28%) QA
2 7 (3.70%) Accessibility
3 6 (3.17%) Data Quality
4 3 (1.59%) HMG Security Policy Framework
4 3 (1.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (1.06%) WCAG
6 1 (0.53%) GDPR
6 1 (0.53%) GRC
6 1 (0.53%) ISO 20022
6 1 (0.53%) PSD2
6 1 (0.53%) SEPA
System Software
1 20 (10.58%) Docker
Systems Management
1 49 (25.93%) Kubernetes
2 38 (20.11%) Argo
3 7 (3.70%) Terraform
4 2 (1.06%) Ansible
5 1 (0.53%) Grafana
5 1 (0.53%) Istio
5 1 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 36 (19.05%) Red Hat
2 26 (13.76%) Microsoft
3 17 (8.99%) Oracle
4 15 (7.94%) SAP
5 7 (3.70%) Salesforce
6 6 (3.17%) Avaloq
7 4 (2.12%) Databricks
7 4 (2.12%) ServiceNow
7 4 (2.12%) Splunk
7 4 (2.12%) Veracode
8 2 (1.06%) Adobe
8 2 (1.06%) Dynatrace
8 2 (1.06%) Google
8 2 (1.06%) IFS
8 2 (1.06%) MuleSoft
9 1 (0.53%) JDA
9 1 (0.53%) Sitecore
9 1 (0.53%) Sybase
9 1 (0.53%) Workday