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 11 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 376 266 278
Rank change year-on-year -110 +12 -27
Contract jobs citing BDD 344 324 326
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.63% 0.98% 0.86%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.75% 1.08% 1.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 235 215 203
10th Percentile £306 £363 £360
25th Percentile £400 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £537 £591 £611
90th Percentile £645 £700 £758
UK excluding London median daily rate £438 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -7.89% +5.56% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - £82.50 -
Median hourly rate £45.00 £85.00 -
Median % change year-on-year -47.06% - -
75th Percentile £46.88 £87.50 -
90th Percentile £48.00 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £46.25 - -

All Process & 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 46,170 29,963 32,599
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.61% 90.48% 86.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,721 18,625 19,646
10th Percentile £325 £295 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £737 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,354 1,887 1,283
10th Percentile £13.53 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -9.60%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.90 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.65 £65.06 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £40.33
% change year-on-year +68.43% -44.79% -7.99%

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 11 October 2026.

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 15 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 11 October 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
England -89 290 £450 -12.16% 213
UK excluding London -86 168 £438 -7.89% 129
London -65 137 £500 -7.41% 113
Work from Home -58 95 £475 -5.00% 108
North of England -89 69 £450 -14.29% 32
Midlands -6 52 £438 -7.89% 27
West Midlands -9 51 £438 -12.50% 19
Yorkshire -40 31 £438 -18.60% 10
North West -50 25 £441 +4.56% 14
Scotland -25 18 £470 +1.62% 17
North East -41 17 £450 -6.49% 8
South East -71 15 £275 -4.51% 18
South West -31 12 £500 +17.65% 13
Wales -9 5 £425 +13.33% 4
Northern Ireland +3 1 - - 11

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 32 (9.30%) Confluence
2 4 (1.16%) Apache
2 4 (1.16%) Apache Spark
3 3 (0.87%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.87%) CMS
3 3 (0.87%) Headless CMS
3 3 (0.87%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (0.87%) Mingle
1 3 (0.87%) Notion
2 2 (0.58%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 12 (3.49%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (2.03%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.87%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 134 (38.95%) AWS
2 115 (33.43%) Azure
3 94 (27.33%) GitHub
4 47 (13.66%) Azure DevOps
5 45 (13.08%) GitHub Actions
6 34 (9.88%) GCP
7 28 (8.14%) Serverless
8 27 (7.85%) GitHub Copilot
9 19 (5.52%) Amazon S3
10 17 (4.94%) AWS Lambda
11 16 (4.65%) Amazon SQS
12 15 (4.36%) Dynamics 365
13 14 (4.07%) Amazon EC2
14 13 (3.78%) Power Automate
14 13 (3.78%) Power Platform
15 12 (3.49%) Anthropic Claude
16 11 (3.20%) ChatGPT
17 10 (2.91%) Snowflake
18 9 (2.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 9 (2.62%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.74%) Internet
2 5 (1.45%) RTP
2 5 (1.45%) Wireshark
3 4 (1.16%) 3GPP
3 4 (1.16%) DNS
4 3 (0.87%) Firewall
5 2 (0.58%) DSL
5 2 (0.58%) HTTP
6 1 (0.29%) BGP
6 1 (0.29%) Intrusion Detection
6 1 (0.29%) Network Security
6 1 (0.29%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.29%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.29%) VPN
6 1 (0.29%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (16.57%) MongoDB
2 30 (8.72%) PostgreSQL
3 26 (7.56%) NoSQL
4 20 (5.81%) Relational Database
5 19 (5.52%) SQL Server
6 12 (3.49%) Db2
7 11 (3.20%) Amazon RDS
7 11 (3.20%) Data Lake
8 10 (2.91%) DynamoDB
9 9 (2.62%) Metadata
9 9 (2.62%) MySQL
10 8 (2.33%) Power BI
11 7 (2.03%) Amazon Aurora
11 7 (2.03%) BigQuery
11 7 (2.03%) Data Warehouse
12 5 (1.45%) Couchbase
12 5 (1.45%) Tableau
13 4 (1.16%) Apache Iceberg
13 4 (1.16%) Big Data
13 4 (1.16%) Neo4j
Development Applications
1 145 (42.15%) Cucumber
2 110 (31.98%) Selenium
3 105 (30.52%) Git
4 81 (23.55%) Jenkins
5 71 (20.64%) GitLab
6 65 (18.90%) JUnit
7 51 (14.83%) JIRA
8 49 (14.24%) REST Assured
9 48 (13.95%) Postman
10 36 (10.47%) Gatling
11 31 (9.01%) Cypress.io
11 31 (9.01%) SonarQube
12 30 (8.72%) WebDriver
13 29 (8.43%) Mockito
14 22 (6.40%) Maven
14 22 (6.40%) SpecFlow
15 14 (4.07%) JMeter
16 13 (3.78%) Gradle
17 10 (2.91%) Serenity BDD
17 10 (2.91%) TeamCity
General
1 134 (38.95%) Social Skills
2 78 (22.67%) Finance
3 68 (19.77%) Public Sector
4 60 (17.44%) Analytical Skills
5 49 (14.24%) Banking
6 21 (6.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 13 (3.78%) Front Office
8 8 (2.33%) Military
9 7 (2.03%) Investment Banking
9 7 (2.03%) Retail
10 4 (1.16%) Marketing
10 4 (1.16%) Organisational Skills
11 3 (0.87%) Aviation
11 3 (0.87%) Fire and Rescue
11 3 (0.87%) Legal Technology
11 3 (0.87%) Local Government
11 3 (0.87%) Police
11 3 (0.87%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (0.58%) Law
13 1 (0.29%) Legal
Job Titles
1 91 (26.45%) Developer
2 77 (22.38%) Senior
3 57 (16.57%) Test Engineer
4 50 (14.53%) Java Developer
5 34 (9.88%) Software Engineer
6 30 (8.72%) Lead
6 30 (8.72%) Test Automation Engineer
7 28 (8.14%) Senior Developer
8 24 (6.98%) Quality Engineer
9 23 (6.69%) Analyst
9 23 (6.69%) Java Engineer
10 19 (5.52%) QA Engineer
11 15 (4.36%) Senior Java Developer
12 14 (4.07%) Automation Engineer
12 14 (4.07%) Senior Test Engineer
12 14 (4.07%) Test Leader
13 13 (3.78%) Test Analyst
14 12 (3.49%) Senior Software Engineer
15 11 (3.20%) Architect
15 11 (3.20%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 84 (24.42%) Playwright
2 74 (21.51%) Spring
3 68 (19.77%) REST
4 63 (18.31%) Gherkin
5 61 (17.73%) Spring Boot
6 58 (16.86%) Kafka
7 46 (13.37%) RESTful
8 33 (9.59%) .NET
8 33 (9.59%) React
9 30 (8.72%) WireMock
10 28 (8.14%) Terraform
11 26 (7.56%) Node.js
12 22 (6.40%) AngularJS
13 21 (6.10%) HTML
14 18 (5.23%) ActiveMQ
14 18 (5.23%) pytest
14 18 (5.23%) RabbitMQ
14 18 (5.23%) SOAP
15 15 (4.36%) JSON
15 15 (4.36%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 37 (10.76%) Product Ownership
2 32 (9.30%) Cloud Native
3 27 (7.85%) Distributed Systems
4 21 (6.10%) Enterprise Software
5 14 (4.07%) Legacy Systems
6 13 (3.78%) Onboarding
7 11 (3.20%) Equity Derivative
8 9 (2.62%) AI Agents
8 9 (2.62%) Self-Motivation
9 8 (2.33%) Management Information System
10 7 (2.03%) Derivative
10 7 (2.03%) Virtual Team
11 5 (1.45%) Distributed Architecture
11 5 (1.45%) NHS
11 5 (1.45%) Taxonomies
12 4 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (1.16%) SWIFT Messaging Network
13 3 (0.87%) Analytical Mindset
13 3 (0.87%) Legacy Code
13 3 (0.87%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 41 (11.92%) Linux
2 23 (6.69%) Unix
3 7 (2.03%) macOS
4 5 (1.45%) Android
4 5 (1.45%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.87%) Windows
6 2 (0.58%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 247 (71.80%) Agile
2 245 (71.22%) CI/CD
3 224 (65.12%) TDD
4 223 (64.83%) Test Automation
5 129 (37.50%) Microservices
6 123 (35.76%) DevOps
7 92 (26.74%) Scrum
8 77 (22.38%) Problem-Solving
9 75 (21.80%) Software Engineering
10 74 (21.51%) AI
10 74 (21.51%) Continuous Improvement
10 74 (21.51%) Software Testing
11 71 (20.64%) API Testing
12 70 (20.35%) Test Strategy
13 64 (18.60%) Stakeholder Management
14 49 (14.24%) Integration Testing
14 49 (14.24%) SDLC
15 46 (13.37%) Coaching
16 45 (13.08%) Continuous Integration
17 42 (12.21%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 213 (61.92%) Java
2 86 (25.00%) Python
3 84 (24.42%) SQL
4 80 (23.26%) JavaScript
5 63 (18.31%) C#
6 44 (12.79%) TypeScript
7 15 (4.36%) Bash
8 13 (3.78%) Ruby
9 7 (2.03%) Apex Code
9 7 (2.03%) C++
9 7 (2.03%) Groovy
9 7 (2.03%) Scala
10 6 (1.74%) R
11 5 (1.45%) Kotlin
12 4 (1.16%) Go
12 4 (1.16%) Perl
13 3 (0.87%) Bicep
13 3 (0.87%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.87%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.58%) PromQL
Qualifications
1 88 (25.58%) Security Cleared
2 72 (20.93%) SC Cleared
3 33 (9.59%) BPSS Clearance
4 25 (7.27%) Degree
5 22 (6.40%) ISTQB
6 19 (5.52%) Computer Science Degree
7 13 (3.78%) DV Cleared
8 9 (2.62%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 8 (2.33%) Microsoft Certification
10 6 (1.74%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 5 (1.45%) AWS Certification
12 3 (0.87%) CSPO
13 2 (0.58%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 2 (0.58%) Azure Certification
13 2 (0.58%) ISEB
13 2 (0.58%) Master's Degree
14 1 (0.29%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 96 (27.91%) QA
2 76 (22.09%) Accessibility
3 48 (13.95%) WCAG
4 16 (4.65%) GDPR
5 14 (4.07%) Data Quality
6 3 (0.87%) ISO 20022
7 2 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.58%) SEPA
7 2 (0.58%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.29%) EMIR
8 1 (0.29%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.29%) MiFID
8 1 (0.29%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 97 (28.20%) Docker
2 3 (0.87%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 85 (24.71%) Kubernetes
2 19 (5.52%) Grafana
3 13 (3.78%) Prometheus
4 6 (1.74%) Ansible
5 5 (1.45%) Kibana
6 3 (0.87%) Istio
7 2 (0.58%) Argo
7 2 (0.58%) Consul
7 2 (0.58%) Zipkin
8 1 (0.29%) Control-M
8 1 (0.29%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 34 (9.88%) Microsoft
2 18 (5.23%) Oracle
3 17 (4.94%) Databricks
4 16 (4.65%) Salesforce
5 14 (4.07%) IBM
6 13 (3.78%) Sybase
7 12 (3.49%) Google
8 8 (2.33%) Conga
8 8 (2.33%) GoCardless
9 6 (1.74%) OpenAI
10 5 (1.45%) Atlassian
10 5 (1.45%) Splunk
11 4 (1.16%) CA Agile Central
11 4 (1.16%) ION Trading
11 4 (1.16%) Jaspersoft
12 3 (0.87%) Guidewire
12 3 (0.87%) OutSystems
13 2 (0.58%) FactSet
13 2 (0.58%) HP
13 2 (0.58%) OneLogin