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 22 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 280 279 262
Rank change year-on-year -1 -17 -136
Contract jobs citing BDD 315 317 461
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.94% 0.85% 0.97%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.04% 0.99% 1.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 208 198 291
10th Percentile £362 £361 £363
25th Percentile £413 £419 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -6.54% -6.96%
75th Percentile £589 £600 £661
90th Percentile £700 £763 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £520
% change year-on-year +5.56% -13.46% -4.59%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 9
10th Percentile - - £64.00
25th Percentile £82.50 - -
Median hourly rate £85.00 - £70.00
75th Percentile £87.50 - £78.75
90th Percentile - - £87.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £70.00
% change year-on-year - - +20.11%

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 30,307 32,084 42,189
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.49% 86.09% 88.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,872 19,308 28,607
10th Percentile £300 £310 £313
25th Percentile £405 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,924 1,195 1,576
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.12 £18.87
Median hourly rate £25.08 £38.50 £43.17
Median % change year-on-year -34.87% -10.81% +30.80%
75th Percentile £42.50 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £65.25 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.27 £39.68 £42.50
% change year-on-year -43.89% -6.64% +57.52%

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 22 October 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 22 October 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 -5 254 £504 -4.05% 278
UK excluding London +28 159 £475 +5.56% 212
London -39 107 £540 -4.42% 97
Work from Home +36 91 £500 - 203
North of England +5 89 £525 +16.67% 46
Yorkshire -2 44 £544 +20.83% 9
North West -10 26 £422 +5.50% 31
North East +11 21 £475 -13.64% 6
South East +13 19 £288 -18.59% 94
Scotland +7 16 £466 -1.32% 5
South West +5 15 £425 -27.04% 21
Midlands -15 14 £475 -6.86% 26
West Midlands -11 11 £500 -1.96% 11
Wales +6 3 £525 +40.00% 3
East Midlands - 3 £308 - 14
East of England -9 2 £375 -25.00% 18
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 1

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 (6.98%) Confluence
2 4 (1.27%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.32%) Apache
3 1 (0.32%) Cloud Foundry
3 1 (0.32%) nginx
Applications
1 6 (1.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 5 (1.59%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.27%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.63%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (1.27%) Endur
2 1 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 96 (30.48%) Azure
2 94 (29.84%) AWS
3 40 (12.70%) GitHub
4 38 (12.06%) Azure DevOps
5 21 (6.67%) Serverless
6 16 (5.08%) GitHub Actions
7 15 (4.76%) GCP
8 14 (4.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 14 (4.44%) Amazon S3
8 14 (4.44%) Amazon SQS
9 13 (4.13%) AWS Lambda
10 12 (3.81%) Amazon EC2
11 11 (3.49%) Route 53
12 9 (2.86%) OpenShift
13 8 (2.54%) Amazon EKS
13 8 (2.54%) Datadog
14 7 (2.22%) Amazon ECS
14 7 (2.22%) Amazon EMR
15 6 (1.90%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 6 (1.90%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.63%) Firewall
1 2 (0.63%) HTTP
1 2 (0.63%) Kerberos
1 2 (0.63%) MQTT
1 2 (0.63%) X.509
2 1 (0.32%) DSL
2 1 (0.32%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (17.14%) PostgreSQL
2 38 (12.06%) MongoDB
3 28 (8.89%) NoSQL
4 24 (7.62%) Redis
5 17 (5.40%) Relational Database
6 15 (4.76%) Amazon RDS
7 14 (4.44%) MySQL
7 14 (4.44%) SQL Server
8 13 (4.13%) Amazon Aurora
8 13 (4.13%) DynamoDB
9 8 (2.54%) RDBMS
10 6 (1.90%) BigQuery
11 4 (1.27%) Apache Cassandra
11 4 (1.27%) Big Data
12 3 (0.95%) DB2
13 2 (0.63%) Data Lake
13 2 (0.63%) Data Warehouse
13 2 (0.63%) Elasticsearch
13 2 (0.63%) Parquet
13 2 (0.63%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 83 (26.35%) Cucumber
2 82 (26.03%) Git
3 79 (25.08%) Jenkins
4 54 (17.14%) Selenium
5 43 (13.65%) JIRA
6 31 (9.84%) Mockito
7 29 (9.21%) GitLab
8 23 (7.30%) Maven
9 22 (6.98%) JUnit
10 20 (6.35%) Cypress.io
10 20 (6.35%) Gradle
10 20 (6.35%) Postman
11 17 (5.40%) JMeter
12 16 (5.08%) REST Assured
13 13 (4.13%) Bitbucket
13 13 (4.13%) SonarQube
14 12 (3.81%) SpecFlow
15 11 (3.49%) Xcode
16 9 (2.86%) Artifactory
17 7 (2.22%) WebDriver
General
1 92 (29.21%) Social Skills
2 64 (20.32%) Public Sector
3 48 (15.24%) Banking
4 43 (13.65%) Finance
5 29 (9.21%) Analytical Skills
6 25 (7.94%) Investment Banking
7 11 (3.49%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (2.54%) Front Office
9 6 (1.90%) Marketing
9 6 (1.90%) Telecoms
10 5 (1.59%) Electronics
10 5 (1.59%) Manufacturing
10 5 (1.59%) Military
11 2 (0.63%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.32%) Back Office
12 1 (0.32%) Financial Institution
12 1 (0.32%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.32%) Retail
Job Titles
1 144 (45.71%) Developer
2 77 (24.44%) Java Developer
3 55 (17.46%) Senior
4 34 (10.79%) Lead
4 34 (10.79%) Senior Developer
5 32 (10.16%) Test Engineer
6 24 (7.62%) Senior Java Developer
7 22 (6.98%) Lead Developer
8 17 (5.40%) Analyst
8 17 (5.40%) Software Engineer
9 16 (5.08%) Tester
10 15 (4.76%) .NET Developer
10 15 (4.76%) Test Automation Engineer
11 14 (4.44%) QA Engineer
12 13 (4.13%) Java Engineer
12 13 (4.13%) Scala Developer
13 12 (3.81%) Automation Tester
13 12 (3.81%) Business Analyst
14 11 (3.49%) Lead Java Developer
15 10 (3.17%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 66 (20.95%) Kafka
2 62 (19.68%) RESTful
3 56 (17.78%) REST
4 53 (16.83%) Spring Boot
5 42 (13.33%) Spring
6 41 (13.02%) ActiveMQ
7 37 (11.75%) .NET
7 37 (11.75%) Node.js
8 31 (9.84%) Playwright
9 27 (8.57%) CSS
10 26 (8.25%) React
11 25 (7.94%) HTML
12 24 (7.62%) AngularJS
13 23 (7.30%) JAX-RS
14 21 (6.67%) Web Services
15 17 (5.40%) Gherkin
15 17 (5.40%) JSON
16 16 (5.08%) SOAP
17 14 (4.44%) .NET Core
17 14 (4.44%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 40 (12.70%) Product Ownership
2 16 (5.08%) Mobile App
3 15 (4.76%) Cloud Native
4 13 (4.13%) Algorithms
4 13 (4.13%) Distributed Systems
5 7 (2.22%) Mobile Banking
6 6 (1.90%) Equities
6 6 (1.90%) N-Tier
7 5 (1.59%) AI Agents
7 5 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.59%) Data Structures
7 5 (1.59%) Greenfield Project
8 4 (1.27%) Credit Risk
8 4 (1.27%) Distributed Architecture
8 4 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
8 4 (1.27%) iPad
8 4 (1.27%) iPhone
8 4 (1.27%) Legacy Systems
8 4 (1.27%) Private Cloud
8 4 (1.27%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 41 (13.02%) Linux
2 28 (8.89%) Unix
3 19 (6.03%) Mac OS X
4 16 (5.08%) Android
5 12 (3.81%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.63%) Windows
8 1 (0.32%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 252 (80.00%) Agile
2 223 (70.79%) TDD
3 164 (52.06%) CI/CD
4 156 (49.52%) Test Automation
5 147 (46.67%) Microservices
6 105 (33.33%) Scrum
7 95 (30.16%) DevOps
8 73 (23.17%) Software Engineering
9 62 (19.68%) Problem-Solving
10 55 (17.46%) Containerisation
11 47 (14.92%) Kanban
12 45 (14.29%) SOLID
13 42 (13.33%) Clean Code
14 41 (13.02%) Continuous Deployment
14 41 (13.02%) Continuous Improvement
14 41 (13.02%) Continuous Integration
15 37 (11.75%) Design Patterns
15 37 (11.75%) User Experience
16 36 (11.43%) Mentoring
17 34 (10.79%) Non-Functional Testing
Programming Languages
1 189 (60.00%) Java
2 64 (20.32%) SQL
3 51 (16.19%) JavaScript
3 51 (16.19%) Python
4 42 (13.33%) C#
5 30 (9.52%) TypeScript
6 24 (7.62%) Scala
7 12 (3.81%) C++
7 12 (3.81%) Swift
8 11 (3.49%) Kotlin
8 11 (3.49%) Objective-C
9 10 (3.17%) Go
10 8 (2.54%) C
11 7 (2.22%) PowerShell
11 7 (2.22%) Ruby
12 5 (1.59%) Bash
13 3 (0.95%) JSX
14 2 (0.63%) PL/SQL
15 1 (0.32%) R
15 1 (0.32%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 73 (23.17%) Security Cleared
2 63 (20.00%) SC Cleared
3 30 (9.52%) Degree
4 16 (5.08%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (3.81%) Computer Science Degree
6 11 (3.49%) ISTQB
7 10 (3.17%) Numerate Degree
8 6 (1.90%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 4 (1.27%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.63%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.63%) AWS Certified Developer
10 2 (0.63%) ISEB
11 1 (0.32%) Azure Certification
11 1 (0.32%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 57 (18.10%) QA
2 41 (13.02%) Accessibility
3 14 (4.44%) WCAG
4 5 (1.59%) Data Quality
5 3 (0.95%) GDPR
6 2 (0.63%) Disclosure Scotland
6 2 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.63%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.32%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.32%) NIST
System Software
1 87 (27.62%) Docker
2 6 (1.90%) Postfix
3 1 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 58 (18.41%) Kubernetes
2 30 (9.52%) Terraform
3 20 (6.35%) Ansible
3 20 (6.35%) Grafana
4 16 (5.08%) Prometheus
5 5 (1.59%) Kustomize
6 1 (0.32%) Kibana
6 1 (0.32%) logstash
Vendors
1 14 (4.44%) Oracle
2 13 (4.13%) Atlassian
3 11 (3.49%) Microsoft
4 7 (2.22%) CA Agile Central
4 7 (2.22%) Splunk
5 6 (1.90%) Databricks
5 6 (1.90%) Jaspersoft
6 5 (1.59%) Gigya
6 5 (1.59%) SAP
7 4 (1.27%) OpenLink
8 3 (0.95%) Google
8 3 (0.95%) Red Hat
9 2 (0.63%) Bloomberg
9 2 (0.63%) MuleSoft
9 2 (0.63%) Reuters
9 2 (0.63%) Salesforce
10 1 (0.32%) Charles River
10 1 (0.32%) ESRI
10 1 (0.32%) MicroStrategy
10 1 (0.32%) Xamarin