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 18 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 303 274 273
Rank change year-on-year -29 -1 -143
Contract jobs citing BDD 306 316 411
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.86% 0.88% 0.88%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.96% 1.02% 0.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 205 187 260
10th Percentile £375 £353 £359
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £514
Median % change year-on-year - -2.68% -12.33%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £650
90th Percentile £700 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% -9.09%
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 - - +82.93%

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 31,777 31,113 41,385
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.78% 86.30% 88.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,898 18,698 27,863
10th Percentile £300 £310 £308
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,100 1,096 1,595
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.10 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.12 £19.03
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -20.45% +25.71%
75th Percentile £44.77 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.63 £33.93 £44.50
% change year-on-year -33.30% -23.75% +53.45%

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 18 November 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 18 November 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 -47 250 £518 -0.48% 261
UK excluding London -1 149 £475 +5.56% 174
London -29 110 £530 -3.64% 113
North of England -12 92 £513 +13.89% 35
Work from Home +17 91 £500 - 185
Yorkshire -30 44 £563 +25.00% 9
North East +14 25 £455 +46.77% 5
North West -22 25 £425 +6.25% 21
South East -2 16 £288 -20.00% 68
Scotland +10 12 £470 +7.43% 6
South West -14 11 £425 -20.93% 19
Midlands -23 11 £488 -4.41% 21
West Midlands -20 9 £500 -1.96% 8
Wales +5 4 £375 - 12
East of England -21 2 £375 -7.69% 13
East Midlands - 2 £310 - 13
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 24 (7.84%) Confluence
2 1 (0.33%) Adobe Experience Manager
2 1 (0.33%) Apache Spark
2 1 (0.33%) Cloud Foundry
2 1 (0.33%) nginx
Applications
1 6 (1.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 5 (1.63%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.31%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.65%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 93 (30.39%) AWS
2 81 (26.47%) Azure
3 45 (14.71%) GitHub
4 33 (10.78%) Azure DevOps
5 23 (7.52%) Serverless
6 21 (6.86%) GitHub Actions
7 15 (4.90%) AWS Lambda
8 14 (4.58%) GCP
9 13 (4.25%) Amazon SQS
10 12 (3.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 12 (3.92%) Amazon S3
11 9 (2.94%) Amazon EC2
11 9 (2.94%) Route 53
12 8 (2.61%) Amazon EKS
12 8 (2.61%) Datadog
13 7 (2.29%) Amazon ECS
14 6 (1.96%) Amazon EventBridge
14 6 (1.96%) OpenShift
14 6 (1.96%) PaaS
15 5 (1.63%) Apigee
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.63%) Cisco IPT
2 4 (1.31%) HTTP
3 2 (0.65%) Firewall
3 2 (0.65%) MQTT
3 2 (0.65%) X.509
4 1 (0.33%) DSL
4 1 (0.33%) FTP
4 1 (0.33%) Internet
4 1 (0.33%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (16.01%) PostgreSQL
2 39 (12.75%) MongoDB
3 26 (8.50%) NoSQL
4 21 (6.86%) Redis
5 15 (4.90%) Amazon RDS
6 14 (4.58%) MySQL
7 13 (4.25%) Relational Database
7 13 (4.25%) SQL Server
8 10 (3.27%) Amazon Aurora
8 10 (3.27%) DynamoDB
9 7 (2.29%) RDBMS
10 6 (1.96%) BigQuery
11 4 (1.31%) Apache Cassandra
11 4 (1.31%) Big Data
12 3 (0.98%) DB2
13 2 (0.65%) Amazon Athena
13 2 (0.65%) Data Lake
13 2 (0.65%) Delta Lake
13 2 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
13 2 (0.65%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 85 (27.78%) Git
2 83 (27.12%) Cucumber
3 73 (23.86%) Jenkins
4 53 (17.32%) Selenium
5 48 (15.69%) JIRA
6 31 (10.13%) Mockito
7 29 (9.48%) GitLab
8 24 (7.84%) Postman
9 22 (7.19%) Cypress.io
10 19 (6.21%) Gradle
10 19 (6.21%) JUnit
11 18 (5.88%) REST Assured
12 17 (5.56%) Bitbucket
12 17 (5.56%) Maven
13 14 (4.58%) JMeter
13 14 (4.58%) SonarQube
14 10 (3.27%) SpecFlow
14 10 (3.27%) WebDriver
15 9 (2.94%) Xcode
16 7 (2.29%) Artifactory
General
1 84 (27.45%) Social Skills
2 61 (19.93%) Public Sector
3 42 (13.73%) Banking
4 33 (10.78%) Finance
5 19 (6.21%) Analytical Skills
5 19 (6.21%) Investment Banking
6 11 (3.59%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (2.61%) Front Office
8 6 (1.96%) Electronics
9 5 (1.63%) Legal
9 5 (1.63%) Military
10 3 (0.98%) Manufacturing
10 3 (0.98%) Marketing
10 3 (0.98%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.33%) Back Office
11 1 (0.33%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.33%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.33%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.33%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 130 (42.48%) Developer
2 75 (24.51%) Java Developer
3 51 (16.67%) Senior
4 35 (11.44%) Test Engineer
5 32 (10.46%) Senior Developer
6 30 (9.80%) Lead
7 25 (8.17%) Senior Java Developer
8 22 (7.19%) Software Engineer
9 17 (5.56%) Test Automation Engineer
10 16 (5.23%) Lead Developer
11 15 (4.90%) QA Engineer
11 15 (4.90%) Tester
12 14 (4.58%) Java Engineer
13 13 (4.25%) Analyst
14 12 (3.92%) Scala Developer
15 11 (3.59%) Automation Tester
16 10 (3.27%) .NET Developer
16 10 (3.27%) Angular Developer
17 9 (2.94%) Architect
17 9 (2.94%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 61 (19.93%) Kafka
2 60 (19.61%) RESTful
3 59 (19.28%) REST
4 55 (17.97%) Spring Boot
5 45 (14.71%) Node.js
6 39 (12.75%) Spring
7 36 (11.76%) ActiveMQ
7 36 (11.76%) React
8 29 (9.48%) CSS
8 29 (9.48%) Playwright
9 28 (9.15%) .NET
10 26 (8.50%) AngularJS
11 24 (7.84%) HTML
11 24 (7.84%) JAX-RS
12 22 (7.19%) Gherkin
13 19 (6.21%) JSON
14 17 (5.56%) Web Services
15 14 (4.58%) SOAP
15 14 (4.58%) WireMock
16 13 (4.25%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 42 (13.73%) Product Ownership
2 14 (4.58%) Cloud Native
3 13 (4.25%) Mobile App
4 10 (3.27%) Algorithms
5 8 (2.61%) Distributed Systems
6 7 (2.29%) Mobile Banking
7 6 (1.96%) Client/Server
7 6 (1.96%) Distributed Architecture
7 6 (1.96%) Equities
7 6 (1.96%) N-Tier
8 5 (1.63%) AI Agents
8 5 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.63%) Data Structures
8 5 (1.63%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 5 (1.63%) Greenfield Project
9 4 (1.31%) Onboarding
9 4 (1.31%) Private Cloud
10 3 (0.98%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (0.98%) NHS
11 2 (0.65%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 41 (13.40%) Linux
2 29 (9.48%) Unix
3 19 (6.21%) Mac OS X
4 14 (4.58%) Android
5 9 (2.94%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.65%) Windows
8 1 (0.33%) VMS
8 1 (0.33%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 240 (78.43%) Agile
2 215 (70.26%) TDD
3 164 (53.59%) CI/CD
3 164 (53.59%) Test Automation
4 150 (49.02%) Microservices
5 98 (32.03%) Scrum
6 88 (28.76%) DevOps
7 71 (23.20%) Software Engineering
8 59 (19.28%) Problem-Solving
9 56 (18.30%) Containerisation
10 46 (15.03%) Kanban
11 42 (13.73%) Continuous Integration
11 42 (13.73%) SOLID
12 40 (13.07%) Continuous Deployment
13 39 (12.75%) Continuous Improvement
14 38 (12.42%) API Testing
14 38 (12.42%) Clean Code
15 37 (12.09%) Mentoring
15 37 (12.09%) Non-Functional Testing
15 37 (12.09%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 191 (62.42%) Java
2 57 (18.63%) JavaScript
3 52 (16.99%) SQL
4 41 (13.40%) Python
5 36 (11.76%) TypeScript
6 31 (10.13%) C#
7 23 (7.52%) Scala
8 13 (4.25%) C++
9 11 (3.59%) Kotlin
10 9 (2.94%) Objective-C
10 9 (2.94%) Swift
11 8 (2.61%) C
11 8 (2.61%) Go
11 8 (2.61%) Ruby
12 6 (1.96%) JSX
13 3 (0.98%) Bash
14 2 (0.65%) PL/SQL
14 2 (0.65%) PowerShell
15 1 (0.33%) T-SQL
15 1 (0.33%) XPath
Qualifications
1 72 (23.53%) Security Cleared
2 58 (18.95%) SC Cleared
3 22 (7.19%) Degree
4 21 (6.86%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (3.27%) ISTQB
6 9 (2.94%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (2.29%) Numerate Degree
8 5 (1.63%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 4 (1.31%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.65%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.65%) AWS Certified Developer
10 2 (0.65%) ISEB
10 2 (0.65%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 1 (0.33%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 57 (18.63%) QA
2 40 (13.07%) Accessibility
3 12 (3.92%) WCAG
4 7 (2.29%) GDPR
5 5 (1.63%) PERC
6 4 (1.31%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.65%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.33%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 84 (27.45%) Docker
2 4 (1.31%) Postfix
3 1 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 59 (19.28%) Kubernetes
2 28 (9.15%) Terraform
3 18 (5.88%) Grafana
4 14 (4.58%) Ansible
4 14 (4.58%) Prometheus
5 5 (1.63%) Kustomize
6 2 (0.65%) Kibana
7 1 (0.33%) logstash
7 1 (0.33%) Rancher
Vendors
1 13 (4.25%) Oracle
2 11 (3.59%) Atlassian
3 10 (3.27%) Microsoft
4 6 (1.96%) Splunk
5 5 (1.63%) CA Agile Central
5 5 (1.63%) Gigya
6 4 (1.31%) Databricks
6 4 (1.31%) Jaspersoft
7 3 (0.98%) Google
7 3 (0.98%) Red Hat
7 3 (0.98%) Salesforce
8 2 (0.65%) MuleSoft
8 2 (0.65%) SAP
9 1 (0.33%) Adobe
9 1 (0.33%) Bloomberg
9 1 (0.33%) Charles River
9 1 (0.33%) Marketo
9 1 (0.33%) Reuters
9 1 (0.33%) UiPath
9 1 (0.33%) Xamarin