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

6 months to
15 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 292 270 278
Rank change year-on-year -22 +8 -152
Contract jobs citing BDD 313 313 405
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.88% 0.85% 0.86%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.98% 0.99% 0.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 207 186 257
10th Percentile £370 £353 £363
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -11.26%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £650
90th Percentile £700 £750 £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 - - +20.69%

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 31,921 31,585 41,489
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.90% 86.22% 88.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,990 19,012 27,981
10th Percentile £295 £310 £308
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.41% -3.18%
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 2,098 1,120 1,596
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.10 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.12 £18.95
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £43.42
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -19.38% +24.04%
75th Percentile £44.07 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £73.58 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.63 £33.27 £43.54
% change year-on-year -31.98% -23.59% +47.59%

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 15 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 15 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 -35 255 £515 -0.96% 252
UK excluding London -1 153 £475 +5.56% 174
London -40 112 £530 -6.19% 104
North of England -6 94 £513 +15.49% 35
Work from Home +23 93 £500 - 192
Yorkshire -15 45 £563 +25.00% 9
North East +10 26 £455 +46.77% 4
North West -21 25 £425 +6.25% 22
South East 0 16 £288 -20.00% 73
Scotland +4 13 £466 +6.57% 6
Midlands -18 12 £475 -6.86% 17
South West -13 11 £425 -20.93% 18
West Midlands -18 10 £500 -1.96% 8
Wales +4 4 £375 - 9
East of England -24 2 £375 -7.69% 15
East Midlands - 2 £310 - 9
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 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 23 (7.35%) Confluence
2 3 (0.96%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.32%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.32%) Apache
3 1 (0.32%) Cloud Foundry
3 1 (0.32%) nginx
Applications
1 6 (1.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 5 (1.60%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.28%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.64%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (0.64%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 96 (30.67%) AWS
2 83 (26.52%) Azure
3 46 (14.70%) GitHub
4 34 (10.86%) Azure DevOps
5 24 (7.67%) Serverless
6 21 (6.71%) GitHub Actions
7 16 (5.11%) AWS Lambda
8 14 (4.47%) Amazon S3
8 14 (4.47%) GCP
9 13 (4.15%) Amazon SQS
10 12 (3.83%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 10 (3.19%) Amazon EC2
12 9 (2.88%) Route 53
13 8 (2.56%) Amazon EKS
13 8 (2.56%) Datadog
14 7 (2.24%) Amazon ECS
14 7 (2.24%) OpenShift
15 6 (1.92%) Amazon EMR
15 6 (1.92%) Amazon EventBridge
15 6 (1.92%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.60%) Cisco IPT
2 4 (1.28%) HTTP
3 2 (0.64%) Firewall
3 2 (0.64%) MQTT
3 2 (0.64%) X.509
4 1 (0.32%) DSL
4 1 (0.32%) FTP
4 1 (0.32%) Internet
4 1 (0.32%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (16.29%) PostgreSQL
2 39 (12.46%) MongoDB
3 27 (8.63%) NoSQL
4 22 (7.03%) Redis
5 16 (5.11%) Amazon RDS
6 14 (4.47%) MySQL
6 14 (4.47%) Relational Database
7 13 (4.15%) SQL Server
8 11 (3.51%) Amazon Aurora
8 11 (3.51%) DynamoDB
9 7 (2.24%) RDBMS
10 6 (1.92%) BigQuery
11 4 (1.28%) Apache Cassandra
11 4 (1.28%) Big Data
12 3 (0.96%) DB2
13 2 (0.64%) Amazon Athena
13 2 (0.64%) Data Lake
13 2 (0.64%) Delta Lake
13 2 (0.64%) Elasticsearch
13 2 (0.64%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 85 (27.16%) Cucumber
1 85 (27.16%) Git
2 75 (23.96%) Jenkins
3 54 (17.25%) Selenium
4 47 (15.02%) JIRA
5 31 (9.90%) Mockito
6 30 (9.58%) GitLab
7 24 (7.67%) Postman
8 23 (7.35%) Cypress.io
9 20 (6.39%) Gradle
10 19 (6.07%) JUnit
10 19 (6.07%) Maven
10 19 (6.07%) REST Assured
11 17 (5.43%) Bitbucket
12 15 (4.79%) JMeter
13 13 (4.15%) SonarQube
14 10 (3.19%) SpecFlow
14 10 (3.19%) WebDriver
15 9 (2.88%) Xcode
16 8 (2.56%) Artifactory
General
1 87 (27.80%) Social Skills
2 62 (19.81%) Public Sector
3 45 (14.38%) Banking
4 36 (11.50%) Finance
5 21 (6.71%) Investment Banking
6 20 (6.39%) Analytical Skills
7 11 (3.51%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (2.56%) Front Office
9 6 (1.92%) Electronics
10 5 (1.60%) Legal
10 5 (1.60%) Military
11 3 (0.96%) Manufacturing
11 3 (0.96%) Marketing
11 3 (0.96%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.32%) Back Office
12 1 (0.32%) Financial Institution
12 1 (0.32%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.32%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.32%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.32%) Retail
Job Titles
1 135 (43.13%) Developer
2 79 (25.24%) Java Developer
3 53 (16.93%) Senior
4 37 (11.82%) Test Engineer
5 32 (10.22%) Senior Developer
6 31 (9.90%) Lead
7 25 (7.99%) Senior Java Developer
8 22 (7.03%) Software Engineer
9 18 (5.75%) Test Automation Engineer
10 17 (5.43%) Lead Developer
11 15 (4.79%) QA Engineer
11 15 (4.79%) Tester
12 14 (4.47%) Java Engineer
13 13 (4.15%) Analyst
13 13 (4.15%) Scala Developer
14 11 (3.51%) Automation Tester
15 10 (3.19%) .NET Developer
15 10 (3.19%) Angular Developer
16 9 (2.88%) Architect
16 9 (2.88%) Lead Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (20.13%) Kafka
2 62 (19.81%) RESTful
3 61 (19.49%) REST
4 57 (18.21%) Spring Boot
5 45 (14.38%) Node.js
6 42 (13.42%) Spring
7 38 (12.14%) ActiveMQ
8 36 (11.50%) React
9 30 (9.58%) Playwright
10 29 (9.27%) CSS
11 28 (8.95%) .NET
12 27 (8.63%) AngularJS
13 24 (7.67%) HTML
13 24 (7.67%) JAX-RS
14 22 (7.03%) Gherkin
15 19 (6.07%) JSON
16 18 (5.75%) Web Services
17 15 (4.79%) SOAP
18 13 (4.15%) GraphQL
18 13 (4.15%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 42 (13.42%) Product Ownership
2 16 (5.11%) Cloud Native
3 14 (4.47%) Mobile App
4 11 (3.51%) Algorithms
5 10 (3.19%) Distributed Systems
6 7 (2.24%) Mobile Banking
7 6 (1.92%) Client/Server
7 6 (1.92%) Distributed Architecture
7 6 (1.92%) Equities
7 6 (1.92%) N-Tier
8 5 (1.60%) AI Agents
8 5 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.60%) Data Structures
8 5 (1.60%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 5 (1.60%) Greenfield Project
9 4 (1.28%) Onboarding
9 4 (1.28%) Private Cloud
10 3 (0.96%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (0.96%) NHS
11 2 (0.64%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 40 (12.78%) Linux
2 29 (9.27%) Unix
3 19 (6.07%) Mac OS X
4 14 (4.47%) Android
5 10 (3.19%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.64%) Windows
8 1 (0.32%) VMS
8 1 (0.32%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 246 (78.59%) Agile
2 221 (70.61%) TDD
3 167 (53.35%) CI/CD
4 165 (52.72%) Test Automation
5 151 (48.24%) Microservices
6 100 (31.95%) Scrum
7 89 (28.43%) DevOps
8 72 (23.00%) Software Engineering
9 61 (19.49%) Problem-Solving
10 56 (17.89%) Containerisation
11 46 (14.70%) Kanban
12 43 (13.74%) Continuous Integration
13 42 (13.42%) SOLID
14 41 (13.10%) Continuous Deployment
15 40 (12.78%) Clean Code
16 39 (12.46%) Continuous Improvement
17 38 (12.14%) API Testing
17 38 (12.14%) User Experience
18 37 (11.82%) Mentoring
18 37 (11.82%) Non-Functional Testing
Programming Languages
1 196 (62.62%) Java
2 58 (18.53%) JavaScript
3 54 (17.25%) SQL
4 43 (13.74%) Python
5 36 (11.50%) TypeScript
6 31 (9.90%) C#
7 24 (7.67%) Scala
8 13 (4.15%) C++
9 11 (3.51%) Kotlin
10 10 (3.19%) Swift
11 9 (2.88%) Objective-C
12 8 (2.56%) C
12 8 (2.56%) Go
12 8 (2.56%) Ruby
13 6 (1.92%) JSX
14 3 (0.96%) Bash
15 2 (0.64%) PL/SQL
15 2 (0.64%) PowerShell
16 1 (0.32%) Shell Script
16 1 (0.32%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 73 (23.32%) Security Cleared
2 59 (18.85%) SC Cleared
3 25 (7.99%) Degree
4 21 (6.71%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (3.19%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (3.19%) ISTQB
6 8 (2.56%) Numerate Degree
7 5 (1.60%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 4 (1.28%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.64%) AWS Certification
9 2 (0.64%) AWS Certified Developer
9 2 (0.64%) ISEB
9 2 (0.64%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 1 (0.32%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 57 (18.21%) QA
2 42 (13.42%) Accessibility
3 13 (4.15%) WCAG
4 7 (2.24%) GDPR
5 5 (1.60%) PERC
6 4 (1.28%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.64%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.32%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.32%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.32%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 87 (27.80%) Docker
2 4 (1.28%) Postfix
3 1 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 60 (19.17%) Kubernetes
2 29 (9.27%) Terraform
3 18 (5.75%) Grafana
4 16 (5.11%) Ansible
5 14 (4.47%) Prometheus
6 5 (1.60%) Kustomize
7 2 (0.64%) Kibana
8 1 (0.32%) logstash
8 1 (0.32%) Rancher
Vendors
1 13 (4.15%) Oracle
2 11 (3.51%) Atlassian
3 10 (3.19%) Microsoft
4 6 (1.92%) Splunk
5 5 (1.60%) CA Agile Central
5 5 (1.60%) Databricks
5 5 (1.60%) Gigya
6 4 (1.28%) Jaspersoft
7 3 (0.96%) Google
7 3 (0.96%) Red Hat
7 3 (0.96%) Salesforce
8 2 (0.64%) MuleSoft
8 2 (0.64%) SAP
9 1 (0.32%) Adobe
9 1 (0.32%) Bloomberg
9 1 (0.32%) Charles River
9 1 (0.32%) Marketo
9 1 (0.32%) Reuters
9 1 (0.32%) UiPath
9 1 (0.32%) Xamarin