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 17 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 353 297 295
Rank change year-on-year -56 -2 -122
Contract jobs citing BDD 292 247 323
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.63% 0.84% 0.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.75% 0.93% 0.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 165 157 240
10th Percentile £350 £363 £325
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £506
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% +3.70% -15.63%
75th Percentile £565 £638 £625
90th Percentile £695 £775 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 2
Median hourly rate - - £56.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £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 39,116 26,622 37,889
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.01% 90.70% 86.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,735 17,238 24,535
10th Percentile £316 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £524 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.51% -0.26% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +0.41% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,315 1,028 2,411
10th Percentile £14.98 £14.96 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.85 £18.51 £15.85
Median hourly rate £37.50 £30.43 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +23.25% -7.98% -8.15%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £78.25 £75.00 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £28.75 £33.07
% change year-on-year +39.13% -13.05% -7.64%

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 17 April 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 17 April 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 -70 249 £475 -9.52% 101
UK excluding London -38 155 £475 -5.00% 83
London -63 113 £475 -19.15% 33
Work from Home -24 83 £425 -15.34% 73
North of England -49 78 £475 +3.26% 23
North West -9 40 £431 +7.21% 14
West Midlands -37 32 £425 -8.11% 5
Midlands -51 32 £425 -8.11% 8
Yorkshire -56 29 £598 +14.38% 6
Scotland +14 17 £350 -12.50% 7
North East -18 11 £406 +4.17% 4
South West -30 9 £525 -4.55% 7
South East -62 9 £359 -28.20% 30
East of England -21 8 £510 - 4
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 2
Wales -10 1 £375 - 2

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 38 (13.01%) Confluence
2 4 (1.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
2 4 (1.37%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.68%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.34%) Camunda
4 1 (0.34%) CMS
4 1 (0.34%) nginx
4 1 (0.34%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.34%) Tomcat
Applications
1 2 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 2 (0.68%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.34%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.34%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 3 (1.03%) Findur
2 2 (0.68%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.68%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.68%) Workday HCM
3 1 (0.34%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.34%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 103 (35.27%) AWS
2 84 (28.77%) Azure
3 65 (22.26%) GitHub
4 44 (15.07%) GCP
5 35 (11.99%) Azure DevOps
6 30 (10.27%) GitHub Actions
7 23 (7.88%) Serverless
8 20 (6.85%) Amazon S3
9 18 (6.16%) AWS Lambda
10 15 (5.14%) Amazon EC2
10 15 (5.14%) Amazon SQS
11 13 (4.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 13 (4.45%) BrowserStack
12 11 (3.77%) SaaS
13 9 (3.08%) AWS KMS
13 9 (3.08%) Route 53
14 7 (2.40%) ChatGPT
15 6 (2.05%) Anthropic Claude
15 6 (2.05%) AWS Step Functions
15 6 (2.05%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.71%) Cisco IPT
2 3 (1.03%) HTTP
2 3 (1.03%) WAN
3 2 (0.68%) 3GPP
3 2 (0.68%) NaaS
3 2 (0.68%) RTP
3 2 (0.68%) Wireshark
4 1 (0.34%) DSL
4 1 (0.34%) Fibre Channel
4 1 (0.34%) FTP
4 1 (0.34%) iSCSI
4 1 (0.34%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (14.38%) PostgreSQL
2 37 (12.67%) MongoDB
3 18 (6.16%) Relational Database
4 16 (5.48%) SQL Server
5 15 (5.14%) Amazon RDS
5 15 (5.14%) MySQL
6 14 (4.79%) DynamoDB
7 11 (3.77%) Amazon Aurora
8 10 (3.42%) Oracle Database
9 8 (2.74%) DB2
10 7 (2.40%) Data Lake
10 7 (2.40%) Metadata
10 7 (2.40%) NoSQL
11 3 (1.03%) Amazon Athena
11 3 (1.03%) Delta Lake
12 2 (0.68%) Apache Cassandra
12 2 (0.68%) Flink
12 2 (0.68%) InfluxDB
12 2 (0.68%) Power BI
12 2 (0.68%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 100 (34.25%) Cucumber
2 82 (28.08%) Git
3 80 (27.40%) Jenkins
4 77 (26.37%) Selenium
5 67 (22.95%) JIRA
6 61 (20.89%) GitLab
7 56 (19.18%) JUnit
8 41 (14.04%) Postman
9 31 (10.62%) Mockito
10 30 (10.27%) WebDriver
11 28 (9.59%) SonarQube
12 26 (8.90%) REST Assured
13 24 (8.22%) JMeter
14 17 (5.82%) Cypress.io
15 16 (5.48%) Maven
16 10 (3.42%) Bitbucket
16 10 (3.42%) Gatling
17 9 (3.08%) DbUnit
17 9 (3.08%) TeamCity
17 9 (3.08%) TestNG
General
1 74 (25.34%) Social Skills
2 63 (21.58%) Finance
3 52 (17.81%) Public Sector
4 32 (10.96%) Analytical Skills
5 25 (8.56%) Banking
6 8 (2.74%) Front Office
6 8 (2.74%) Organisational Skills
7 5 (1.71%) Influencing Skills
7 5 (1.71%) Investment Banking
7 5 (1.71%) Legal
8 4 (1.37%) Electronics
8 4 (1.37%) Military
9 3 (1.03%) Billing
9 3 (1.03%) Manufacturing
9 3 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.68%) Automotive
10 2 (0.68%) Aviation
10 2 (0.68%) Fire and Rescue
10 2 (0.68%) Police
10 2 (0.68%) Retail
Job Titles
1 99 (33.90%) Developer
2 64 (21.92%) Java Developer
3 47 (16.10%) Senior
4 44 (15.07%) Test Engineer
5 35 (11.99%) Lead
6 29 (9.93%) Software Engineer
7 25 (8.56%) Test Automation Engineer
7 25 (8.56%) Tester
8 20 (6.85%) Automation Tester
9 17 (5.82%) Senior Developer
10 16 (5.48%) Senior Java Developer
11 14 (4.79%) Java Engineer
11 14 (4.79%) Test Leader
12 12 (4.11%) QA Engineer
13 11 (3.77%) Automation Test Lead
14 10 (3.42%) Automation Engineer
14 10 (3.42%) Lead Test Engineer
14 10 (3.42%) Senior Automation Tester
14 10 (3.42%) Senior Tester
15 9 (3.08%) Backend Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (26.37%) Spring
2 62 (21.23%) Spring Boot
3 52 (17.81%) REST
4 41 (14.04%) RESTful
5 39 (13.36%) Playwright
6 37 (12.67%) Gherkin
6 37 (12.67%) Kafka
7 33 (11.30%) Node.js
8 30 (10.27%) AngularJS
9 29 (9.93%) React
10 25 (8.56%) .NET
11 23 (7.88%) WireMock
12 21 (7.19%) ActiveMQ
13 17 (5.82%) Spring Cloud
14 16 (5.48%) Web Services
15 15 (5.14%) JAX-RS
15 15 (5.14%) SOAP
16 12 (4.11%) CSS
16 12 (4.11%) Hibernate
16 12 (4.11%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 29 (9.93%) Product Ownership
2 27 (9.25%) Distributed Systems
3 25 (8.56%) Cloud Native
4 15 (5.14%) Distributed Architecture
5 10 (3.42%) Mobile App
6 7 (2.40%) Equity Derivative
7 6 (2.05%) Derivative
8 5 (1.71%) Client/Server
8 5 (1.71%) Onboarding
9 4 (1.37%) Distributed Applications
9 4 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
9 4 (1.37%) Public Cloud
10 2 (0.68%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (0.68%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 2 (0.68%) Hybrid Cloud
10 2 (0.68%) Legacy Systems
10 2 (0.68%) NHS
10 2 (0.68%) Private Cloud
10 2 (0.68%) Synthetic Data
10 2 (0.68%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 41 (14.04%) Linux
2 18 (6.16%) Unix
3 11 (3.77%) Mac OS X
4 3 (1.03%) VMS
5 2 (0.68%) Android
5 2 (0.68%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.68%) Mac OS
5 2 (0.68%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 187 (64.04%) TDD
2 176 (60.27%) Agile
2 176 (60.27%) Test Automation
3 163 (55.82%) CI/CD
4 120 (41.10%) Microservices
5 99 (33.90%) DevOps
6 63 (21.58%) Problem-Solving
7 60 (20.55%) API Testing
8 58 (19.86%) Test Strategy
9 57 (19.52%) Continuous Improvement
10 53 (18.15%) Scrum
11 48 (16.44%) Software Engineering
12 42 (14.38%) SDLC
13 40 (13.70%) Containerisation
14 35 (11.99%) Mentoring
15 33 (11.30%) Kanban
16 31 (10.62%) AI
16 31 (10.62%) Observability
17 30 (10.27%) Continuous Integration
17 30 (10.27%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 184 (63.01%) Java
2 67 (22.95%) Python
2 67 (22.95%) SQL
3 48 (16.44%) JavaScript
4 31 (10.62%) C#
5 30 (10.27%) TypeScript
6 13 (4.45%) C++
7 11 (3.77%) Kotlin
8 8 (2.74%) Ruby
9 7 (2.40%) PHP
10 6 (2.05%) Go
11 4 (1.37%) Scala
12 3 (1.03%) Groovy
12 3 (1.03%) JSX
12 3 (1.03%) Perl
12 3 (1.03%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.34%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.34%) VBA
13 1 (0.34%) VBScript
13 1 (0.34%) XPath
Qualifications
1 73 (25.00%) Security Cleared
2 63 (21.58%) SC Cleared
3 14 (4.79%) Degree
4 11 (3.77%) BPSS Clearance
5 9 (3.08%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (2.40%) ISTQB
7 6 (2.05%) AWS Certification
8 4 (1.37%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.68%) ISEB
10 1 (0.34%) AWS Certified Developer
10 1 (0.34%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 1 (0.34%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 61 (20.89%) QA
2 27 (9.25%) Accessibility
3 8 (2.74%) Data Quality
4 6 (2.05%) GDPR
5 5 (1.71%) PERC
6 4 (1.37%) WCAG
7 2 (0.68%) HL7
8 1 (0.34%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.34%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 74 (25.34%) Docker
2 8 (2.74%) Postfix
3 1 (0.34%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 60 (20.55%) Kubernetes
2 36 (12.33%) Grafana
3 30 (10.27%) Prometheus
4 22 (7.53%) Terraform
5 3 (1.03%) Ansible
5 3 (1.03%) Rancher
6 2 (0.68%) Amdocs OSS
6 2 (0.68%) HP Fortify
6 2 (0.68%) Kibana
6 2 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.34%) EMC VPLEX
7 1 (0.34%) HAProxy
7 1 (0.34%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 19 (6.51%) Oracle
2 13 (4.45%) Atlassian
3 12 (4.11%) Google
4 10 (3.42%) ServiceNow
4 10 (3.42%) Splunk
5 9 (3.08%) Jaspersoft
6 8 (2.74%) Checkmarx
6 8 (2.74%) Salesforce
6 8 (2.74%) Sybase
7 7 (2.40%) Databricks
8 6 (2.05%) IBM
9 5 (1.71%) Microsoft
10 4 (1.37%) Adobe
10 4 (1.37%) Dynatrace
10 4 (1.37%) Veracode
11 3 (1.03%) OpenLink
12 2 (0.68%) Amdocs
12 2 (0.68%) Bloomberg
12 2 (0.68%) Red Hat
12 2 (0.68%) VMware