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 18 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 241 199 169
Rank change year-on-year -42 -30 +9
Contract jobs citing Unit Testing 195 149 267
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.90% 1.17% 1.27%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.08% 1.30% 1.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 102 101 172
10th Percentile £358 £274 £369
25th Percentile £402 £356 £439
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.53% -9.52% +2.44%
75th Percentile £542 £600 £666
90th Percentile £604 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £489 £545 £550
% change year-on-year -10.22% -0.91% -7.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 9 45
10th Percentile £55.00 £26.22 £61.25
25th Percentile £61.25 £47.50 -
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.75 -
90th Percentile - £65.00 £79.25
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £58.75 £65.00
% change year-on-year +10.64% -9.62% -

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 17,984 11,505 18,052
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 82.94% 90.55% 85.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,925 7,239 11,049
10th Percentile £263 £240 £243
25th Percentile £400 £375 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,892 717 1,929
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.00 £12.47
25th Percentile £17.87 £19.97 £15.33
Median hourly rate £27.50 £31.64 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.08% +0.44% -10.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.25 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%

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 18 March 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 18 March 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 18 March 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
North of England -37 51 £450 -5.26% 30
South East -41 46 £509 -18.56% 29
North West -23 33 £447 -8.31% 14
Midlands -47 32 £450 -6.49% 20
East of England -2 27 £613 - 4
Scotland -8 20 £432 -2.87% 11
South West -15 16 £500 -4.31% 16
East Midlands -37 16 £413 -0.90% 9
West Midlands -42 16 £575 -2.13% 11
North East -3 13 £494 +47.39% 9
Wales -7 10 £713 +249.69% 5
Yorkshire -53 7 £500 -16.67% 7
Northern Ireland -1 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 16 (8.21%) Confluence
2 9 (4.62%) Apache Spark
3 5 (2.56%) Apache
4 4 (2.05%) OpenStack
5 3 (1.54%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (1.54%) NetWeaver
5 3 (1.54%) SharePoint
6 2 (1.03%) IIS
7 1 (0.51%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.51%) Mule
7 1 (0.51%) Mule ESB
Applications
1 2 (1.03%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (1.03%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 2 (1.03%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.51%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 5 (2.56%) SAP Payroll
1 5 (2.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (2.05%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (2.05%) SAP HCM
3 3 (1.54%) Oracle ERP
3 3 (1.54%) SAP MDG
3 3 (1.54%) SAP MDG-F
3 3 (1.54%) SAP MDG-M
3 3 (1.54%) SAP MDG-S
4 2 (1.03%) NEC Housing
4 2 (1.03%) Oracle 11i
4 2 (1.03%) Oracle Assets
4 2 (1.03%) Oracle Cash Management
4 2 (1.03%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (1.03%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (1.03%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (1.03%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (1.03%) Workday HCM
5 1 (0.51%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.51%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 49 (25.13%) Azure
2 38 (19.49%) AWS
3 29 (14.87%) Azure DevOps
4 24 (12.31%) GitHub
5 19 (9.74%) Serverless
6 15 (7.69%) OpenShift
7 14 (7.18%) Amazon S3
8 11 (5.64%) GitHub Actions
9 10 (5.13%) AWS Lambda
9 10 (5.13%) Dynamics 365
9 10 (5.13%) Power Platform
10 8 (4.10%) AWS CloudFormation
10 8 (4.10%) AWS Step Functions
10 8 (4.10%) Azure Functions
10 8 (4.10%) GCP
11 7 (3.59%) Amazon ECS
11 7 (3.59%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 6 (3.08%) Azure Logic Apps
13 5 (2.56%) Azure Service Bus
14 4 (2.05%) Azure Cosmos DB
Communications & Networking
1 22 (11.28%) TCP/IP
2 17 (8.72%) Ethernet
3 3 (1.54%) Modbus
3 3 (1.54%) RS-232
3 3 (1.54%) RS-422
3 3 (1.54%) RS-485
4 1 (0.51%) DNS
4 1 (0.51%) Internet
4 1 (0.51%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (5.64%) NoSQL
1 11 (5.64%) PostgreSQL
1 11 (5.64%) SQL Server
2 10 (5.13%) Data Warehouse
3 8 (4.10%) Aerospike
3 8 (4.10%) DynamoDB
3 8 (4.10%) Relational Database
4 7 (3.59%) Amazon Athena
4 7 (3.59%) MongoDB
4 7 (3.59%) Redis
5 5 (2.56%) Data Lake
5 5 (2.56%) Delta Lake
5 5 (2.56%) SAP HANA
6 3 (1.54%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (1.54%) Big Data
6 3 (1.54%) BigQuery
6 3 (1.54%) Oracle Database
6 3 (1.54%) Oracle Reports
6 3 (1.54%) SAP Data Services
7 2 (1.03%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 43 (22.05%) Git
2 38 (19.49%) GitLab
3 32 (16.41%) JIRA
4 31 (15.90%) Visual Studio
5 21 (10.77%) SonarQube
6 15 (7.69%) Eclipse
6 15 (7.69%) Jenkins
6 15 (7.69%) JUnit
7 8 (4.10%) PVCS
7 8 (4.10%) Rational DOORS
7 8 (4.10%) Selenium
8 7 (3.59%) JMeter
8 7 (3.59%) MSTest
9 5 (2.56%) Gradle
9 5 (2.56%) Maven
9 5 (2.56%) MLflow
9 5 (2.56%) Mockito
9 5 (2.56%) NUnit
10 4 (2.05%) Cucumber
10 4 (2.05%) XCTest
General
1 52 (26.67%) Social Skills
2 39 (20.00%) Finance
3 27 (13.85%) Public Sector
4 20 (10.26%) Military
5 16 (8.21%) Analytical Skills
6 13 (6.67%) Presentation Skills
7 11 (5.64%) Banking
7 11 (5.64%) Electronics
8 4 (2.05%) Health Technology
8 4 (2.05%) Law
9 3 (1.54%) Marketing
9 3 (1.54%) Telecoms
10 2 (1.03%) Aerospace
10 2 (1.03%) General Ledger
10 2 (1.03%) Retail
11 1 (0.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.51%) Legal
Job Titles
1 86 (44.10%) Developer
2 37 (18.97%) Software Engineer
3 35 (17.95%) Senior
4 18 (9.23%) Java Developer
5 17 (8.72%) Senior Developer
6 15 (7.69%) Full-Stack Developer
7 14 (7.18%) C++ Software Engineer
8 12 (6.15%) .NET Developer
9 11 (5.64%) C# Software Engineer
9 11 (5.64%) Consultant
10 10 (5.13%) Java Engineer
11 9 (4.62%) Data Engineer
11 9 (4.62%) Lead
12 8 (4.10%) Azure Developer
12 8 (4.10%) Integration Engineer
13 7 (3.59%) C Software Engineer
13 7 (3.59%) C# Developer
13 7 (3.59%) Embedded C Engineer
13 7 (3.59%) Embedded C Software Engineer
13 7 (3.59%) Embedded Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (17.44%) RESTful
2 31 (15.90%) Web Services
3 29 (14.87%) .NET
4 26 (13.33%) Node.js
5 22 (11.28%) React
6 21 (10.77%) AngularJS
6 21 (10.77%) REST
7 20 (10.26%) Spring
8 14 (7.18%) Jest
8 14 (7.18%) Quarkus
9 13 (6.67%) Kafka
9 13 (6.67%) Spring Boot
10 12 (6.15%) .NET Framework
10 12 (6.15%) PySpark
10 12 (6.15%) YAML
11 11 (5.64%) CSS
11 11 (5.64%) Swagger
12 10 (5.13%) .NET Core
12 10 (5.13%) pytest
13 9 (4.62%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 19 (9.74%) Cloud Native
2 17 (8.72%) Distributed Systems
3 10 (5.13%) Product Ownership
4 5 (2.56%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 4 (2.05%) NHS
6 3 (1.54%) IoT
7 2 (1.03%) Algorithms
7 2 (1.03%) Distributed Architecture
7 2 (1.03%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (1.03%) Onboarding
7 2 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (1.03%) Taxonomies
8 1 (0.51%) Contactless
8 1 (0.51%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.51%) Data Structures
8 1 (0.51%) Derivative
8 1 (0.51%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 1 (0.51%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (0.51%) Mobile App
8 1 (0.51%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 30 (15.38%) Windows
2 26 (13.33%) Linux
3 7 (3.59%) Android
4 4 (2.05%) Apple iOS
5 3 (1.54%) Unix
6 1 (0.51%) OpenVMS
6 1 (0.51%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (62.56%) Agile
2 95 (48.72%) CI/CD
3 65 (33.33%) Test Automation
4 58 (29.74%) DevOps
4 58 (29.74%) Problem-Solving
5 54 (27.69%) Software Engineering
6 46 (23.59%) TDD
7 45 (23.08%) Scrum
8 40 (20.51%) Microservices
9 34 (17.44%) SDLC
9 34 (17.44%) Validation
10 31 (15.90%) Integration Testing
11 30 (15.38%) Continuous Integration
11 30 (15.38%) Data Modelling
12 25 (12.82%) Full-Stack Development
13 23 (11.79%) Code Quality
13 23 (11.79%) Containerisation
14 22 (11.28%) Verification and Validation
15 21 (10.77%) Continuous Delivery
15 21 (10.77%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 63 (32.31%) Java
2 55 (28.21%) SQL
3 51 (26.15%) C#
4 44 (22.56%) JavaScript
5 35 (17.95%) C++
6 30 (15.38%) Python
7 21 (10.77%) TypeScript
8 18 (9.23%) C
9 10 (5.13%) PL/SQL
10 9 (4.62%) PowerShell
11 8 (4.10%) ABAP
11 8 (4.10%) Scala
12 7 (3.59%) Embedded C
12 7 (3.59%) Embedded C++
13 6 (3.08%) Apex Code
14 5 (2.56%) Shell Script
15 4 (2.05%) Swift
16 3 (1.54%) SOQL
16 3 (1.54%) SOSL
17 2 (1.03%) Bash
Qualifications
1 56 (28.72%) Security Cleared
2 42 (21.54%) SC Cleared
3 13 (6.67%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (5.64%) Degree
5 7 (3.59%) ISTQB
5 7 (3.59%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 4 (2.05%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.51%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.51%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (15.90%) QA
2 12 (6.15%) Data Quality
3 10 (5.13%) Accessibility
3 10 (5.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 8 (4.10%) HMG Security Policy Framework
5 5 (2.56%) ISO 20022
5 5 (2.56%) PSD2
5 5 (2.56%) SEPA
6 4 (2.05%) HL7
7 2 (1.03%) SLA
8 1 (0.51%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.51%) GDPR
System Software
1 29 (14.87%) Docker
2 9 (4.62%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (4.10%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 30 (15.38%) Kubernetes
2 14 (7.18%) Argo
3 6 (3.08%) Terraform
4 4 (2.05%) Grafana
5 2 (1.03%) HP ALM
5 2 (1.03%) Kibana
5 2 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (1.03%) vRealize
6 1 (0.51%) Tivoli
6 1 (0.51%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 29 (14.87%) Microsoft
2 21 (10.77%) Oracle
3 16 (8.21%) Databricks
4 14 (7.18%) Red Hat
5 11 (5.64%) Salesforce
6 10 (5.13%) SAP
6 10 (5.13%) VMware
7 9 (4.62%) IBM
8 8 (4.10%) ANSYS
9 6 (3.08%) Veracode
10 5 (2.56%) Splunk
11 4 (2.05%) Brio
12 3 (1.54%) Google
13 2 (1.03%) Ab Initio
13 2 (1.03%) Avaloq
13 2 (1.03%) HP
13 2 (1.03%) IFS
13 2 (1.03%) NEC
13 2 (1.03%) Pega
13 2 (1.03%) Workday