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 26 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 342 288 294
Rank change year-on-year -54 +6 -86
Contract jobs citing BDD 343 265 341
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.67% 0.88% 0.78%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.79% 0.96% 0.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 204 167 255
10th Percentile £350 £358 £350
25th Percentile £400 £411 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year -7.50% -6.54% -10.83%
75th Percentile £550 £583 £638
90th Percentile £684 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £460 £525
% change year-on-year -1.52% -12.38% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 2
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £45.00 - £56.25
75th Percentile £46.88 - -
90th Percentile £48.00 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £46.25 - £56.25
% change year-on-year - - -19.64%

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 43,249 27,546 37,029
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.99% 91.07% 85.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,953 17,432 23,598
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £502 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.54% -4.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £621 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,594 1,315 2,564
10th Percentile £14.81 £14.20 £12.74
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.44 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +7.14%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.95 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.71 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.66 £38.12
% change year-on-year +82.48% -35.31% +17.65%

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 26 June 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 16 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 26 June 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 -64 277 £463 -9.76% 68
UK excluding London -44 198 £453 -1.52% 54
London -63 110 £494 -16.14% 25
Work from Home -38 104 £450 -10.00% 50
North of England -32 81 £452 -1.85% 17
Midlands -33 47 £425 -11.69% 12
West Midlands -28 46 £425 -15.00% 10
North West -17 41 £438 +8.83% 8
Scotland +2 29 £451 +12.81% 2
Yorkshire -46 26 £620 +19.29% 4
South West -28 19 £525 +23.53% 1
North East -20 18 £450 +7.14% 5
South East -65 14 £359 -13.09% 19
East of England -22 8 £510 - 4
Wales -13 2 £650 - 2
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 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 49 (14.29%) Confluence
2 6 (1.75%) Apache Spark
3 3 (0.87%) Apache
3 3 (0.87%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.87%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.58%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.29%) Camunda
5 1 (0.29%) Tomcat
Applications
1 3 (0.87%) Notion
2 2 (0.58%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.29%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.29%) Mingle
3 1 (0.29%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (2.33%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (1.17%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.87%) Findur
4 2 (0.58%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.58%) Workday HCM
5 1 (0.29%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 128 (37.32%) AWS
2 106 (30.90%) Azure
3 89 (25.95%) GitHub
4 50 (14.58%) GCP
5 49 (14.29%) Azure DevOps
6 43 (12.54%) GitHub Actions
7 28 (8.16%) Serverless
8 25 (7.29%) Amazon S3
9 23 (6.71%) Amazon EC2
9 23 (6.71%) Amazon SQS
10 20 (5.83%) AWS Lambda
11 19 (5.54%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 14 (4.08%) BrowserStack
13 12 (3.50%) AWS KMS
13 12 (3.50%) ChatGPT
13 12 (3.50%) Route 53
14 11 (3.21%) GitHub Copilot
15 10 (2.92%) Anthropic Claude
15 10 (2.92%) Power Platform
16 7 (2.04%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.75%) 3GPP
1 6 (1.75%) RTP
1 6 (1.75%) Wireshark
2 3 (0.87%) Internet
2 3 (0.87%) WAN
3 2 (0.58%) DSL
3 2 (0.58%) Firewall
3 2 (0.58%) NaaS
4 1 (0.29%) Fibre Channel
4 1 (0.29%) HTTP
4 1 (0.29%) iSCSI
4 1 (0.29%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (15.45%) MongoDB
2 48 (13.99%) PostgreSQL
3 23 (6.71%) Relational Database
4 19 (5.54%) DynamoDB
5 18 (5.25%) Amazon RDS
5 18 (5.25%) NoSQL
6 16 (4.66%) Amazon Aurora
6 16 (4.66%) SQL Server
7 13 (3.79%) Db2
8 11 (3.21%) Metadata
9 10 (2.92%) Data Lake
9 10 (2.92%) Oracle Database
10 8 (2.33%) MySQL
11 7 (2.04%) Power BI
12 5 (1.46%) Amazon Athena
12 5 (1.46%) Couchbase
12 5 (1.46%) Tableau
13 3 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
13 3 (0.87%) Looker
13 3 (0.87%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 115 (33.53%) Cucumber
2 96 (27.99%) Git
3 93 (27.11%) Selenium
4 92 (26.82%) Jenkins
5 72 (20.99%) GitLab
6 67 (19.53%) JUnit
7 66 (19.24%) JIRA
8 45 (13.12%) Postman
9 44 (12.83%) REST Assured
10 41 (11.95%) WebDriver
11 38 (11.08%) Mockito
12 31 (9.04%) JMeter
13 30 (8.75%) SonarQube
14 21 (6.12%) Cypress.io
14 21 (6.12%) Maven
15 19 (5.54%) SpecFlow
16 18 (5.25%) Gatling
17 16 (4.66%) TeamCity
18 12 (3.50%) Bitbucket
18 12 (3.50%) DbUnit
General
1 95 (27.70%) Social Skills
2 74 (21.57%) Finance
3 68 (19.83%) Public Sector
4 49 (14.29%) Analytical Skills
5 38 (11.08%) Banking
6 12 (3.50%) Front Office
7 9 (2.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 9 (2.62%) Organisational Skills
8 8 (2.33%) Investment Banking
8 8 (2.33%) Military
8 8 (2.33%) Retail
9 5 (1.46%) Aviation
9 5 (1.46%) Fire and Rescue
9 5 (1.46%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (1.46%) Police
10 4 (1.17%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (0.87%) Billing
11 3 (0.87%) Marketing
12 2 (0.58%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.58%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 108 (31.49%) Developer
2 73 (21.28%) Java Developer
3 64 (18.66%) Senior
4 58 (16.91%) Test Engineer
5 43 (12.54%) Lead
6 36 (10.50%) Software Engineer
7 31 (9.04%) Test Automation Engineer
8 29 (8.45%) Tester
9 23 (6.71%) Automation Tester
10 20 (5.83%) Java Engineer
11 19 (5.54%) Senior Developer
11 19 (5.54%) Senior Java Developer
11 19 (5.54%) Test Leader
12 16 (4.66%) Analyst
13 13 (3.79%) QA Engineer
13 13 (3.79%) Senior Tester
14 12 (3.50%) Automation Test Lead
14 12 (3.50%) Senior Software Engineer
15 11 (3.21%) Salesforce Engineer
15 11 (3.21%) Senior Automation Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (27.11%) Spring
2 73 (21.28%) Spring Boot
3 63 (18.37%) Playwright
4 62 (18.08%) REST
5 53 (15.45%) Kafka
6 49 (14.29%) Gherkin
7 43 (12.54%) RESTful
8 33 (9.62%) .NET
9 30 (8.75%) AngularJS
9 30 (8.75%) WireMock
10 26 (7.58%) Node.js
10 26 (7.58%) React
11 23 (6.71%) ActiveMQ
12 21 (6.12%) Spring Cloud
13 20 (5.83%) SOAP
14 17 (4.96%) JPA
14 17 (4.96%) Web Services
15 16 (4.66%) Hibernate
16 14 (4.08%) JAX-RS
16 14 (4.08%) Spring Batch
Miscellaneous
1 35 (10.20%) Distributed Systems
2 32 (9.33%) Cloud Native
3 30 (8.75%) Product Ownership
4 16 (4.66%) Distributed Architecture
5 13 (3.79%) Enterprise Software
6 12 (3.50%) Equity Derivative
7 10 (2.92%) Derivative
8 8 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
9 7 (2.04%) Mobile App
10 5 (1.46%) Robotics
10 5 (1.46%) Self-Motivation
11 4 (1.17%) Distributed Applications
11 4 (1.17%) Onboarding
12 3 (0.87%) Equities
12 3 (0.87%) Fixed Income
12 3 (0.87%) Public Cloud
12 3 (0.87%) Taxonomies
12 3 (0.87%) Virtual Team
13 2 (0.58%) Linux Command Line
13 2 (0.58%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 48 (13.99%) Linux
2 17 (4.96%) Unix
3 10 (2.92%) Mac OS X
4 5 (1.46%) Android
4 5 (1.46%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.87%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.58%) VMS
6 2 (0.58%) Windows
7 1 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 218 (63.56%) Agile
2 212 (61.81%) TDD
3 209 (60.93%) CI/CD
4 197 (57.43%) Test Automation
5 136 (39.65%) Microservices
6 126 (36.73%) DevOps
7 74 (21.57%) Scrum
8 68 (19.83%) Test Strategy
9 66 (19.24%) API Testing
9 66 (19.24%) Continuous Improvement
9 66 (19.24%) Problem-Solving
10 64 (18.66%) Software Engineering
11 47 (13.70%) AI
11 47 (13.70%) Mentoring
12 45 (13.12%) SDLC
13 43 (12.54%) Containerisation
14 41 (11.95%) Observability
15 38 (11.08%) Continuous Integration
16 35 (10.20%) Kanban
17 34 (9.91%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 213 (62.10%) Java
2 89 (25.95%) SQL
3 68 (19.83%) Python
4 57 (16.62%) JavaScript
5 55 (16.03%) C#
6 28 (8.16%) TypeScript
7 16 (4.66%) C++
8 8 (2.33%) Groovy
8 8 (2.33%) Kotlin
9 7 (2.04%) Apex Code
10 6 (1.75%) T-SQL
11 4 (1.17%) Go
11 4 (1.17%) Perl
11 4 (1.17%) Ruby
12 2 (0.58%) Bash
12 2 (0.58%) Bicep
12 2 (0.58%) PromQL
12 2 (0.58%) Scala
12 2 (0.58%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.58%) VBA
Qualifications
1 92 (26.82%) Security Cleared
2 75 (21.87%) SC Cleared
3 22 (6.41%) Degree
4 21 (6.12%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (3.79%) Computer Science Degree
6 12 (3.50%) ISTQB
7 8 (2.33%) DV Cleared
8 6 (1.75%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 5 (1.46%) AWS Certification
9 5 (1.46%) Azure Certification
10 3 (0.87%) CSPO
11 2 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.58%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 1 (0.29%) ISEB
12 1 (0.29%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 61 (17.78%) QA
2 43 (12.54%) Accessibility
3 15 (4.37%) Data Quality
4 11 (3.21%) WCAG
5 8 (2.33%) GDPR
6 2 (0.58%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.29%) EMIR
7 1 (0.29%) MiFID
7 1 (0.29%) SEPA
System Software
1 95 (27.70%) Docker
2 9 (2.62%) Postfix
3 1 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 79 (23.03%) Kubernetes
2 45 (13.12%) Grafana
3 37 (10.79%) Prometheus
4 31 (9.04%) Terraform
5 7 (2.04%) Ansible
6 3 (0.87%) Istio
6 3 (0.87%) Kibana
7 2 (0.58%) Amdocs OSS
7 2 (0.58%) Consul
7 2 (0.58%) Rancher
7 2 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.58%) Zipkin
8 1 (0.29%) Argo
8 1 (0.29%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.29%) EMC VPLEX
8 1 (0.29%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 24 (7.00%) Oracle
2 17 (4.96%) Salesforce
3 15 (4.37%) Atlassian
3 15 (4.37%) Google
3 15 (4.37%) Sybase
4 11 (3.21%) Jaspersoft
4 11 (3.21%) Splunk
5 9 (2.62%) IBM
5 9 (2.62%) Microsoft
6 8 (2.33%) Checkmarx
6 8 (2.33%) Conga
6 8 (2.33%) GoCardless
7 6 (1.75%) Databricks
7 6 (1.75%) Dynatrace
8 5 (1.46%) ServiceNow
9 4 (1.17%) Veracode
10 3 (0.87%) OpenLink
11 2 (0.58%) Bloomberg
11 2 (0.58%) CA Agile Central
11 2 (0.58%) SAP