BDD Contract Job Trends

Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring BDD skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 27 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 331 272 287
Rank change year-on-year -59 +15 -155
Contract jobs citing BDD 281 313 355
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.76% 0.93% 0.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.86% 1.05% 0.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 182 183 239
10th Percentile £372 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -14.68%
75th Percentile £577 £617 £619
90th Percentile £675 £800 £705
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +8.33% -10.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 3
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £82.50 - £76.25
Median hourly rate £85.00 - £77.50
75th Percentile £87.50 - £84.38
90th Percentile - - £87.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

BDD 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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 32,729 29,699 38,511
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 88.02% 88.28% 88.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,612 18,123 25,677
10th Percentile £300 £308 £306
25th Percentile £406 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £528
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.47% -4.09%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £738 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,069 965 1,551
10th Percentile £14.73 £15.62 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.30 £18.93
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -23.53% +21.43%
75th Percentile £51.65 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.75 £74.63 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.58 £30.88 £44.50
% change year-on-year -23.64% -30.62% +48.33%

BDD
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing BDD relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

BDD job vacancy trend in the UK

BDD
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BDD.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BDD

BDD
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing BDD over the 6 months to 27 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for BDD in the UK

BDD
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BDD.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BDD

BDD
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing BDD within the UK over the 6 months to 27 December 2025. 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
England -64 239 £500 -0.74% 270
UK excluding London -53 131 £488 +8.33% 196
London -38 111 £520 -8.17% 80
North of England -24 99 £500 +11.11% 55
Work from Home -15 73 £475 -7.50% 219
Yorkshire -32 49 £550 +15.79% 19
North West -15 29 £418 +4.38% 34
North East +10 23 £460 +26.90% 2
South East -27 11 £450 -10.00% 60
Midlands -38 6 £313 -38.57% 32
Scotland +3 5 £545 +28.24% 5
West Midlands -26 4 £475 -6.63% 18
Wales - 4 £375 - 3
South West -23 3 £400 -25.58% 20
East Midlands - 2 £310 - 12
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 2
East of England -23 1 £375 +20.00% 21

BDD
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 22 (7.83%) Confluence
2 4 (1.42%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 2 (0.71%) nginx
4 1 (0.36%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.36%) Cloud Foundry
4 1 (0.36%) CMS
Applications
1 6 (2.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 6 (2.14%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.07%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 88 (31.32%) AWS
2 73 (25.98%) Azure
3 37 (13.17%) GitHub
4 25 (8.90%) Azure DevOps
5 22 (7.83%) GCP
5 22 (7.83%) Serverless
6 17 (6.05%) GitHub Actions
7 16 (5.69%) AWS Lambda
8 10 (3.56%) SaaS
9 9 (3.20%) Amazon ECS
9 9 (3.20%) Amazon S3
10 8 (2.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 8 (2.85%) Amazon EKS
10 8 (2.85%) Amazon SQS
11 7 (2.49%) Amazon EventBridge
11 7 (2.49%) Apigee
11 7 (2.49%) AWS Step Functions
11 7 (2.49%) Datadog
12 6 (2.14%) PaaS
13 5 (1.78%) Amazon EMR
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.78%) Cisco IPT
2 4 (1.42%) HTTP
3 2 (0.71%) MQTT
4 1 (0.36%) DSL
4 1 (0.36%) FTP
4 1 (0.36%) Internet
4 1 (0.36%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (13.52%) MongoDB
2 36 (12.81%) PostgreSQL
3 20 (7.12%) MySQL
3 20 (7.12%) NoSQL
4 17 (6.05%) SQL Server
5 13 (4.63%) Redis
6 12 (4.27%) Relational Database
7 11 (3.91%) Amazon RDS
8 8 (2.85%) DynamoDB
9 7 (2.49%) RDBMS
10 6 (2.14%) BigQuery
11 5 (1.78%) Amazon Aurora
12 4 (1.42%) Apache Cassandra
13 3 (1.07%) Data Lake
13 3 (1.07%) DB2
13 3 (1.07%) Delta Lake
14 2 (0.71%) Big Data
14 2 (0.71%) Elasticsearch
14 2 (0.71%) Parquet
15 1 (0.36%) GIS
Development Applications
1 89 (31.67%) Cucumber
2 68 (24.20%) Git
2 68 (24.20%) Jenkins
3 60 (21.35%) Selenium
4 47 (16.73%) JIRA
5 41 (14.59%) GitLab
6 36 (12.81%) Postman
7 26 (9.25%) Mockito
7 26 (9.25%) REST Assured
8 24 (8.54%) Cypress.io
9 16 (5.69%) Bitbucket
10 15 (5.34%) Gradle
10 15 (5.34%) JMeter
11 14 (4.98%) JUnit
12 13 (4.63%) Maven
13 12 (4.27%) SonarQube
14 10 (3.56%) WebDriver
15 9 (3.20%) TestRail
16 8 (2.85%) SpecFlow
17 6 (2.14%) Zephyr
General
1 75 (26.69%) Social Skills
2 54 (19.22%) Public Sector
3 35 (12.46%) Finance
4 31 (11.03%) Banking
5 15 (5.34%) Analytical Skills
6 11 (3.91%) Investment Banking
7 8 (2.85%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (2.49%) Front Office
9 5 (1.78%) Legal
9 5 (1.78%) Military
10 4 (1.42%) Electronics
11 1 (0.36%) Back Office
11 1 (0.36%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.36%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.36%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.36%) Marketing
11 1 (0.36%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.36%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.36%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 108 (38.43%) Developer
2 68 (24.20%) Java Developer
3 53 (18.86%) Senior
4 43 (15.30%) Test Engineer
5 30 (10.68%) Senior Developer
6 24 (8.54%) Lead
6 24 (8.54%) Senior Java Developer
7 22 (7.83%) Software Engineer
8 20 (7.12%) Test Automation Engineer
9 15 (5.34%) QA Engineer
10 14 (4.98%) Analyst
11 13 (4.63%) Java Engineer
11 13 (4.63%) Tester
12 10 (3.56%) Angular Developer
12 10 (3.56%) Automation Engineer
12 10 (3.56%) Automation Tester
13 9 (3.20%) Architect
13 9 (3.20%) Senior Test Engineer
14 8 (2.85%) Business Analyst
14 8 (2.85%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (21.00%) REST
2 56 (19.93%) Spring Boot
3 49 (17.44%) Kafka
3 49 (17.44%) RESTful
4 42 (14.95%) Node.js
5 38 (13.52%) React
5 38 (13.52%) Spring
6 31 (11.03%) Playwright
7 27 (9.61%) ActiveMQ
8 26 (9.25%) .NET
8 26 (9.25%) Gherkin
9 24 (8.54%) JAX-RS
10 23 (8.19%) CSS
11 21 (7.47%) AngularJS
12 17 (6.05%) HTML
13 16 (5.69%) JSON
14 14 (4.98%) Jest
15 13 (4.63%) WireMock
16 12 (4.27%) Web Services
16 12 (4.27%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 39 (13.88%) Product Ownership
2 17 (6.05%) Cloud Native
3 10 (3.56%) Mobile App
4 7 (2.49%) Distributed Systems
5 6 (2.14%) Distributed Architecture
5 6 (2.14%) Equities
5 6 (2.14%) N-Tier
5 6 (2.14%) Onboarding
6 5 (1.78%) Algorithms
6 5 (1.78%) Client/Server
6 5 (1.78%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 5 (1.78%) Greenfield Project
6 5 (1.78%) NHS
7 3 (1.07%) AI Agents
7 3 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
7 3 (1.07%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (1.07%) Educational Technology
7 3 (1.07%) Mobile Banking
7 3 (1.07%) Private Cloud
7 3 (1.07%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 36 (12.81%) Linux
2 29 (10.32%) Unix
3 20 (7.12%) Mac OS X
4 4 (1.42%) Android
5 3 (1.07%) Apple iOS
5 3 (1.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.71%) Windows
7 1 (0.36%) VMS
7 1 (0.36%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 203 (72.24%) Agile
2 193 (68.68%) TDD
3 167 (59.43%) Test Automation
4 152 (54.09%) CI/CD
5 139 (49.47%) Microservices
6 77 (27.40%) Scrum
7 75 (26.69%) DevOps
8 57 (20.28%) Software Engineering
9 56 (19.93%) Problem-Solving
10 53 (18.86%) API Testing
11 52 (18.51%) Containerisation
12 41 (14.59%) Continuous Improvement
13 37 (13.17%) Kanban
14 36 (12.81%) Non-Functional Testing
14 36 (12.81%) Test Strategy
15 35 (12.46%) Continuous Deployment
16 33 (11.74%) Functional Testing
16 33 (11.74%) Mentoring
17 32 (11.39%) Design Patterns
18 31 (11.03%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 177 (62.99%) Java
2 56 (19.93%) JavaScript
3 52 (18.51%) SQL
4 49 (17.44%) Python
5 38 (13.52%) TypeScript
6 22 (7.83%) C#
7 15 (5.34%) Scala
8 9 (3.20%) C++
8 9 (3.20%) Ruby
9 8 (2.85%) Kotlin
10 7 (2.49%) PHP
11 6 (2.14%) Go
11 6 (2.14%) JSX
12 4 (1.42%) Bash
12 4 (1.42%) C
13 3 (1.07%) Objective-C
13 3 (1.07%) Swift
14 2 (0.71%) PL/SQL
15 1 (0.36%) Shell Script
15 1 (0.36%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 70 (24.91%) Security Cleared
2 55 (19.57%) SC Cleared
3 18 (6.41%) BPSS Clearance
4 15 (5.34%) ISTQB
5 14 (4.98%) Degree
6 7 (2.49%) Computer Science Degree
7 5 (1.78%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 3 (1.07%) AWS Certification
8 3 (1.07%) ISEB
9 2 (0.71%) AWS Certified Developer
9 2 (0.71%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 2 (0.71%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.71%) Numerate Degree
10 1 (0.36%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (23.49%) QA
2 36 (12.81%) Accessibility
3 11 (3.91%) WCAG
4 8 (2.85%) GDPR
5 5 (1.78%) PERC
6 3 (1.07%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.71%) HL7
8 1 (0.36%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.36%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 72 (25.62%) Docker
Systems Management
1 51 (18.15%) Kubernetes
2 24 (8.54%) Terraform
3 12 (4.27%) Grafana
4 10 (3.56%) Ansible
5 8 (2.85%) Prometheus
6 3 (1.07%) Kustomize
7 2 (0.71%) HP Fortify
7 2 (0.71%) Kibana
8 1 (0.36%) HAProxy
8 1 (0.36%) logstash
8 1 (0.36%) Rancher
8 1 (0.36%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 13 (4.63%) Oracle
2 9 (3.20%) Microsoft
3 7 (2.49%) Atlassian
4 6 (2.14%) Splunk
5 5 (1.78%) Databricks
5 5 (1.78%) Gigya
5 5 (1.78%) ServiceNow
6 4 (1.42%) Adobe
6 4 (1.42%) Red Hat
7 3 (1.07%) Salesforce
8 2 (0.71%) CA Agile Central
8 2 (0.71%) IBM
9 1 (0.36%) Bloomberg
9 1 (0.36%) Marketo
9 1 (0.36%) MuleSoft
9 1 (0.36%) OpenAI
9 1 (0.36%) Reuters
9 1 (0.36%) Typelevel
9 1 (0.36%) UiPath
9 1 (0.36%) Xamarin