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

6 months to
2 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 346 293 279
Rank change year-on-year -53 -14 -79
Contract jobs citing BDD 311 247 346
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.64% 0.85% 0.80%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.75% 0.94% 0.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 179 156 259
10th Percentile £350 £360 £350
25th Percentile £400 £410 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -12.50%
75th Percentile £559 £576 £638
90th Percentile £688 £750 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £455 £500
% change year-on-year +1.65% -9.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 2
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £46.25 - -
Median hourly rate £47.50 - £56.25
75th Percentile £48.75 - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 - £56.25
% change year-on-year - - -22.41%

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 41,283 26,327 36,811
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.64% 90.98% 85.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,781 16,819 23,635
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £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 2,472 1,115 2,532
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.99 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.84% -23.32% +0.29%
75th Percentile £67.84 £57.50 £60.75
90th Percentile £81.05 £74.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +8.91%

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 2 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 2 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 -71 257 £475 -5.00% 85
UK excluding London -22 186 £463 +1.65% 68
London -76 101 £500 -9.09% 29
Work from Home -31 90 £450 -10.00% 65
North of England -42 82 £453 +2.08% 13
Midlands -34 40 £425 -8.11% 15
North West -14 39 £431 +10.23% 10
West Midlands -37 39 £425 -11.69% 5
Yorkshire -55 31 £585 +12.55% 3
Scotland +11 25 £438 +12.90% 2
South West -19 17 £525 +16.67% 9
North East -20 16 £450 -
South East -63 13 £359 -24.53% 16
East of England -27 8 £510 - 3
Northern Ireland - 3 - - 4
Wales -12 2 £650 - 6

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 43 (13.83%) Confluence
2 3 (0.96%) Adobe Experience Manager
2 3 (0.96%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.64%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.32%) Camunda
4 1 (0.32%) nginx
4 1 (0.32%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.32%) Tomcat
Applications
1 3 (0.96%) Notion
2 2 (0.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.32%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.32%) Mingle
3 1 (0.32%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (2.57%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.96%) Findur
3 2 (0.64%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.64%) Workday HCM
4 1 (0.32%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 112 (36.01%) AWS
2 93 (29.90%) Azure
3 78 (25.08%) GitHub
4 45 (14.47%) GCP
5 36 (11.58%) Azure DevOps
6 34 (10.93%) GitHub Actions
7 24 (7.72%) Serverless
8 21 (6.75%) Amazon EC2
8 21 (6.75%) Amazon S3
8 21 (6.75%) Amazon SQS
9 18 (5.79%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 18 (5.79%) AWS Lambda
10 14 (4.50%) BrowserStack
11 12 (3.86%) AWS KMS
11 12 (3.86%) Route 53
12 11 (3.54%) ChatGPT
13 10 (3.22%) GitHub Copilot
13 10 (3.22%) SaaS
14 9 (2.89%) Anthropic Claude
15 5 (1.61%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.93%) 3GPP
1 6 (1.93%) RTP
1 6 (1.93%) Wireshark
2 3 (0.96%) WAN
3 2 (0.64%) NaaS
4 1 (0.32%) DSL
4 1 (0.32%) Fibre Channel
4 1 (0.32%) Firewall
4 1 (0.32%) HTTP
4 1 (0.32%) iSCSI
4 1 (0.32%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (15.11%) PostgreSQL
2 45 (14.47%) MongoDB
3 22 (7.07%) Relational Database
4 18 (5.79%) SQL Server
5 17 (5.47%) Amazon RDS
5 17 (5.47%) DynamoDB
6 16 (5.14%) Amazon Aurora
7 15 (4.82%) MySQL
8 12 (3.86%) DB2
9 11 (3.54%) Metadata
10 10 (3.22%) Oracle Database
11 9 (2.89%) NoSQL
12 7 (2.25%) Data Lake
13 4 (1.29%) Amazon Athena
13 4 (1.29%) Power BI
14 3 (0.96%) Delta Lake
14 3 (0.96%) MariaDB
15 2 (0.64%) Elasticsearch
15 2 (0.64%) Flink
15 2 (0.64%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 106 (34.08%) Cucumber
2 88 (28.30%) Selenium
3 85 (27.33%) Jenkins
4 84 (27.01%) Git
5 65 (20.90%) JIRA
6 63 (20.26%) GitLab
7 59 (18.97%) JUnit
8 42 (13.50%) REST Assured
9 41 (13.18%) Postman
10 37 (11.90%) WebDriver
11 34 (10.93%) Mockito
12 29 (9.32%) SonarQube
13 27 (8.68%) JMeter
14 16 (5.14%) Maven
15 15 (4.82%) SpecFlow
15 15 (4.82%) TeamCity
16 14 (4.50%) Gatling
17 13 (4.18%) Cypress.io
18 12 (3.86%) DbUnit
18 12 (3.86%) Serenity BDD
General
1 82 (26.37%) Social Skills
2 68 (21.86%) Finance
3 60 (19.29%) Public Sector
4 40 (12.86%) Analytical Skills
5 33 (10.61%) Banking
6 12 (3.86%) Front Office
7 9 (2.89%) Investment Banking
7 9 (2.89%) Organisational Skills
8 5 (1.61%) Aviation
8 5 (1.61%) Fire and Rescue
8 5 (1.61%) Military
8 5 (1.61%) Police
9 4 (1.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (1.29%) Influencing Skills
9 4 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (0.96%) Billing
10 3 (0.96%) Retail
11 2 (0.64%) Automotive
11 2 (0.64%) Law
11 2 (0.64%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 95 (30.55%) Developer
2 62 (19.94%) Java Developer
3 59 (18.97%) Test Engineer
4 54 (17.36%) Senior
5 45 (14.47%) Lead
6 32 (10.29%) Software Engineer
6 32 (10.29%) Test Automation Engineer
7 23 (7.40%) Tester
8 19 (6.11%) Senior Developer
9 18 (5.79%) Senior Java Developer
9 18 (5.79%) Test Leader
10 17 (5.47%) Automation Tester
11 15 (4.82%) Automation Test Lead
11 15 (4.82%) QA Engineer
12 14 (4.50%) Java Engineer
13 13 (4.18%) Lead Test Engineer
14 11 (3.54%) Analyst
15 10 (3.22%) Architect
15 10 (3.22%) Business Analyst
15 10 (3.22%) Senior Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (26.37%) Spring
2 64 (20.58%) Spring Boot
3 60 (19.29%) REST
4 54 (17.36%) Playwright
5 40 (12.86%) Kafka
5 40 (12.86%) RESTful
6 39 (12.54%) Gherkin
7 35 (11.25%) .NET
8 30 (9.65%) AngularJS
9 25 (8.04%) Node.js
10 24 (7.72%) React
10 24 (7.72%) WireMock
11 22 (7.07%) ActiveMQ
12 21 (6.75%) Spring Cloud
13 18 (5.79%) SOAP
13 18 (5.79%) Web Services
14 16 (5.14%) Hibernate
14 16 (5.14%) JPA
15 14 (4.50%) Spring Batch
16 13 (4.18%) JAX-RS
Miscellaneous
1 31 (9.97%) Distributed Systems
2 30 (9.65%) Cloud Native
3 25 (8.04%) Product Ownership
4 16 (5.14%) Distributed Architecture
5 12 (3.86%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (3.54%) Equity Derivative
7 10 (3.22%) Derivative
8 7 (2.25%) Mobile App
9 5 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (1.61%) Robotics
10 4 (1.29%) Distributed Applications
10 4 (1.29%) Onboarding
10 4 (1.29%) Public Cloud
10 4 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
11 2 (0.64%) Data Protection Act
11 2 (0.64%) Fixed Income
11 2 (0.64%) Hybrid Cloud
11 2 (0.64%) Private Cloud
11 2 (0.64%) Synthetic Data
11 2 (0.64%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 45 (14.47%) Linux
2 16 (5.14%) Unix
3 10 (3.22%) Mac OS X
4 5 (1.61%) Android
4 5 (1.61%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.64%) Mac OS
5 2 (0.64%) VMS
5 2 (0.64%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 193 (62.06%) TDD
2 185 (59.49%) CI/CD
3 184 (59.16%) Test Automation
4 183 (58.84%) Agile
5 122 (39.23%) Microservices
6 111 (35.69%) DevOps
7 67 (21.54%) Test Strategy
8 64 (20.58%) API Testing
9 59 (18.97%) Continuous Improvement
9 59 (18.97%) Scrum
10 55 (17.68%) Problem-Solving
10 55 (17.68%) Software Engineering
11 45 (14.47%) AI
12 41 (13.18%) Containerisation
13 40 (12.86%) Observability
14 39 (12.54%) SDLC
15 38 (12.22%) Mentoring
16 34 (10.93%) Validation
17 31 (9.97%) Continuous Integration
17 31 (9.97%) Performance Testing
Programming Languages
1 191 (61.41%) Java
2 85 (27.33%) SQL
3 70 (22.51%) Python
4 53 (17.04%) JavaScript
5 46 (14.79%) C#
6 26 (8.36%) TypeScript
7 16 (5.14%) C++
8 7 (2.25%) Apex Code
8 7 (2.25%) Kotlin
9 6 (1.93%) PHP
10 5 (1.61%) Go
10 5 (1.61%) Ruby
10 5 (1.61%) T-SQL
11 4 (1.29%) Perl
12 3 (0.96%) Groovy
13 2 (0.64%) PromQL
13 2 (0.64%) Scala
13 2 (0.64%) VBA
14 1 (0.32%) Bicep
14 1 (0.32%) Swift
Qualifications
1 76 (24.44%) Security Cleared
2 64 (20.58%) SC Cleared
3 22 (7.07%) Degree
4 16 (5.14%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (4.18%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (1.93%) AWS Certification
6 6 (1.93%) ISTQB
7 5 (1.61%) Azure Certification
8 4 (1.29%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 3 (0.96%) DV Cleared
10 1 (0.32%) ISEB
10 1 (0.32%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 65 (20.90%) QA
2 33 (10.61%) Accessibility
3 12 (3.86%) Data Quality
4 6 (1.93%) WCAG
5 1 (0.32%) EMIR
5 1 (0.32%) ISO 20022
5 1 (0.32%) MiFID
System Software
1 89 (28.62%) Docker
2 9 (2.89%) Postfix
3 1 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 66 (21.22%) Kubernetes
2 44 (14.15%) Grafana
3 37 (11.90%) Prometheus
4 22 (7.07%) Terraform
5 6 (1.93%) Ansible
6 3 (0.96%) Kibana
7 2 (0.64%) Amdocs OSS
7 2 (0.64%) Consul
7 2 (0.64%) Istio
7 2 (0.64%) Rancher
7 2 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.64%) Zipkin
8 1 (0.32%) EMC VPLEX
8 1 (0.32%) HAProxy
8 1 (0.32%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 23 (7.40%) Oracle
2 15 (4.82%) Atlassian
2 15 (4.82%) Salesforce
3 13 (4.18%) Sybase
4 12 (3.86%) Google
5 11 (3.54%) Jaspersoft
5 11 (3.54%) Splunk
6 10 (3.22%) ServiceNow
7 8 (2.57%) Checkmarx
7 8 (2.57%) Conga
7 8 (2.57%) GoCardless
7 8 (2.57%) IBM
8 7 (2.25%) Databricks
9 5 (1.61%) Dynatrace
10 4 (1.29%) Veracode
11 3 (0.96%) Adobe
11 3 (0.96%) Microsoft
11 3 (0.96%) OpenLink
12 2 (0.64%) Bloomberg
12 2 (0.64%) SAP