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 20 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 344 292 278
Rank change year-on-year -52 -14 -93
Contract jobs citing BDD 298 255 345
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.62% 0.87% 0.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.73% 0.96% 0.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 168 161 263
10th Percentile £348 £363 £350
25th Percentile £400 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £500 £533
Median % change year-on-year -5.50% -6.19% -11.17%
75th Percentile £550 £610 £638
90th Percentile £679 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £467 £475 £533
% change year-on-year -1.79% -10.80% +6.50%
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 40,582 26,548 36,652
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.29% 91.02% 86.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,477 17,040 23,631
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £514 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.88% -2.10% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.21% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,387 1,106 2,443
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.35 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.80 £18.13 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.17 £36.05
Median % change year-on-year +50.90% -21.86% +0.13%
75th Percentile £67.50 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £79.70 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +78.93% -32.93% +7.14%

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 20 May 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 20 May 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 -75 250 £475 -7.32% 75
UK excluding London -21 176 £467 -1.79% 62
London -72 101 £488 -14.47% 21
Work from Home -38 85 £435 -12.95% 61
North of England -31 80 £459 +0.88% 21
North West -11 42 £431 +4.61% 12
Midlands -41 37 £425 -7.61% 9
West Midlands -28 36 £425 -7.86% 4
Yorkshire -54 29 £573 +10.15% 6
Scotland +2 23 £438 +12.90% 3
South West -30 16 £525 - 5
North East -20 12 £426 +9.10% 4
South East -72 12 £358 -28.40% 18
East of England -22 8 £510 - 2
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 1
Wales -12 1 £650 - 3

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 37 (12.42%) Confluence
2 3 (1.01%) Adobe Experience Manager
2 3 (1.01%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.67%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.34%) Camunda
4 1 (0.34%) nginx
4 1 (0.34%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.34%) Tomcat
Applications
1 2 (0.67%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.67%) Notion
2 1 (0.34%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.34%) Mingle
2 1 (0.34%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (2.68%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (1.01%) Findur
3 2 (0.67%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.67%) Workday HCM
4 1 (0.34%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 109 (36.58%) AWS
2 86 (28.86%) Azure
3 67 (22.48%) GitHub
4 45 (15.10%) GCP
5 34 (11.41%) Azure DevOps
6 30 (10.07%) GitHub Actions
7 25 (8.39%) Serverless
8 22 (7.38%) Amazon S3
9 21 (7.05%) Amazon SQS
10 20 (6.71%) Amazon EC2
11 19 (6.38%) AWS Lambda
12 17 (5.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 14 (4.70%) BrowserStack
14 12 (4.03%) AWS KMS
14 12 (4.03%) Route 53
15 10 (3.36%) SaaS
16 9 (3.02%) ChatGPT
17 8 (2.68%) GitHub Copilot
18 7 (2.35%) Anthropic Claude
18 7 (2.35%) AWS Step Functions
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.68%) 3GPP
1 5 (1.68%) RTP
1 5 (1.68%) Wireshark
2 3 (1.01%) WAN
3 2 (0.67%) NaaS
4 1 (0.34%) DSL
4 1 (0.34%) Fibre Channel
4 1 (0.34%) Firewall
4 1 (0.34%) HTTP
4 1 (0.34%) iSCSI
4 1 (0.34%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (14.43%) PostgreSQL
2 41 (13.76%) MongoDB
3 20 (6.71%) Relational Database
4 18 (6.04%) DynamoDB
4 18 (6.04%) SQL Server
5 16 (5.37%) Amazon Aurora
5 16 (5.37%) Amazon RDS
6 15 (5.03%) MySQL
7 10 (3.36%) DB2
7 10 (3.36%) Oracle Database
8 9 (3.02%) Metadata
9 7 (2.35%) Data Lake
9 7 (2.35%) NoSQL
10 4 (1.34%) Power BI
11 3 (1.01%) Amazon Athena
11 3 (1.01%) Delta Lake
11 3 (1.01%) MariaDB
12 2 (0.67%) Flink
12 2 (0.67%) InfluxDB
12 2 (0.67%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 101 (33.89%) Cucumber
2 83 (27.85%) Jenkins
3 82 (27.52%) Selenium
4 79 (26.51%) Git
5 61 (20.47%) GitLab
6 60 (20.13%) JIRA
7 54 (18.12%) JUnit
8 41 (13.76%) Postman
9 40 (13.42%) REST Assured
10 31 (10.40%) Mockito
10 31 (10.40%) SonarQube
10 31 (10.40%) WebDriver
11 25 (8.39%) JMeter
12 18 (6.04%) Maven
13 15 (5.03%) Cypress.io
14 14 (4.70%) TeamCity
15 13 (4.36%) Gatling
15 13 (4.36%) SpecFlow
16 12 (4.03%) DbUnit
17 11 (3.69%) jMock
General
1 78 (26.17%) Social Skills
2 65 (21.81%) Finance
3 57 (19.13%) Public Sector
4 41 (13.76%) Analytical Skills
5 28 (9.40%) Banking
6 8 (2.68%) Front Office
6 8 (2.68%) Organisational Skills
7 7 (2.35%) Investment Banking
8 4 (1.34%) Aviation
8 4 (1.34%) Fire and Rescue
8 4 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
8 4 (1.34%) Military
8 4 (1.34%) Police
8 4 (1.34%) Presentation Skills
9 3 (1.01%) Billing
9 3 (1.01%) Retail
10 2 (0.67%) Automotive
10 2 (0.67%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.67%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.34%) Legal
Job Titles
1 95 (31.88%) Developer
2 62 (20.81%) Java Developer
3 55 (18.46%) Test Engineer
4 48 (16.11%) Senior
5 42 (14.09%) Lead
6 31 (10.40%) Test Automation Engineer
7 30 (10.07%) Software Engineer
8 22 (7.38%) Tester
9 18 (6.04%) Automation Tester
9 18 (6.04%) Test Leader
10 17 (5.70%) Senior Developer
11 16 (5.37%) Senior Java Developer
12 14 (4.70%) Automation Test Lead
12 14 (4.70%) Java Engineer
13 13 (4.36%) Analyst
14 12 (4.03%) Lead Test Engineer
14 12 (4.03%) QA Engineer
15 10 (3.36%) Business Analyst
15 10 (3.36%) Senior Automation Tester
15 10 (3.36%) Senior Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 83 (27.85%) Spring
2 66 (22.15%) Spring Boot
3 53 (17.79%) REST
4 52 (17.45%) Playwright
5 42 (14.09%) RESTful
6 39 (13.09%) Gherkin
6 39 (13.09%) Kafka
7 32 (10.74%) AngularJS
8 30 (10.07%) .NET
9 26 (8.72%) Node.js
9 26 (8.72%) React
10 22 (7.38%) ActiveMQ
11 21 (7.05%) Spring Cloud
11 21 (7.05%) WireMock
12 18 (6.04%) Web Services
13 17 (5.70%) SOAP
14 16 (5.37%) Hibernate
15 14 (4.70%) JPA
16 13 (4.36%) JAX-RS
17 12 (4.03%) Spring Batch
Miscellaneous
1 33 (11.07%) Distributed Systems
2 29 (9.73%) Cloud Native
3 25 (8.39%) Product Ownership
4 13 (4.36%) Distributed Architecture
5 11 (3.69%) Enterprise Software
5 11 (3.69%) Mobile App
6 9 (3.02%) Equity Derivative
7 8 (2.68%) Derivative
8 4 (1.34%) Distributed Applications
8 4 (1.34%) Legacy Systems
8 4 (1.34%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.34%) Robotics
8 4 (1.34%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (1.01%) Onboarding
10 2 (0.67%) Data Protection Act
10 2 (0.67%) Hybrid Cloud
10 2 (0.67%) iSeries
10 2 (0.67%) Private Cloud
10 2 (0.67%) Synthetic Data
10 2 (0.67%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 43 (14.43%) Linux
2 16 (5.37%) Unix
3 10 (3.36%) Mac OS X
4 5 (1.68%) Android
4 5 (1.68%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.67%) Mac OS
5 2 (0.67%) VMS
5 2 (0.67%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 185 (62.08%) TDD
2 179 (60.07%) Test Automation
3 172 (57.72%) CI/CD
4 171 (57.38%) Agile
5 118 (39.60%) Microservices
6 104 (34.90%) DevOps
7 64 (21.48%) API Testing
8 63 (21.14%) Test Strategy
9 61 (20.47%) Problem-Solving
10 59 (19.80%) Continuous Improvement
11 57 (19.13%) Scrum
12 50 (16.78%) Software Engineering
13 41 (13.76%) AI
14 39 (13.09%) Containerisation
15 37 (12.42%) Mentoring
15 37 (12.42%) SDLC
16 36 (12.08%) Observability
17 33 (11.07%) Continuous Integration
18 31 (10.40%) Performance Testing
18 31 (10.40%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 188 (63.09%) Java
2 80 (26.85%) SQL
3 70 (23.49%) Python
4 52 (17.45%) JavaScript
5 40 (13.42%) C#
6 28 (9.40%) TypeScript
7 13 (4.36%) C++
8 11 (3.69%) Kotlin
9 7 (2.35%) Apex Code
9 7 (2.35%) PHP
9 7 (2.35%) Ruby
10 5 (1.68%) Go
10 5 (1.68%) T-SQL
11 4 (1.34%) Perl
12 3 (1.01%) Groovy
13 2 (0.67%) Bash
13 2 (0.67%) Scala
13 2 (0.67%) VBA
14 1 (0.34%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.34%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 72 (24.16%) Security Cleared
2 62 (20.81%) SC Cleared
3 20 (6.71%) Degree
4 11 (3.69%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (3.69%) Computer Science Degree
5 9 (3.02%) ISTQB
6 6 (2.01%) AWS Certification
7 5 (1.68%) Azure Certification
8 4 (1.34%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 3 (1.01%) DV Cleared
10 1 (0.34%) ISEB
10 1 (0.34%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (20.81%) QA
2 31 (10.40%) Accessibility
3 10 (3.36%) Data Quality
4 6 (2.01%) WCAG
5 2 (0.67%) HL7
6 1 (0.34%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 82 (27.52%) Docker
2 9 (3.02%) Postfix
3 1 (0.34%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 63 (21.14%) Kubernetes
2 41 (13.76%) Grafana
3 33 (11.07%) Prometheus
4 21 (7.05%) Terraform
5 4 (1.34%) Ansible
6 3 (1.01%) Kibana
7 2 (0.67%) Amdocs OSS
7 2 (0.67%) HP Fortify
7 2 (0.67%) Istio
7 2 (0.67%) Rancher
7 2 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.34%) EMC VPLEX
8 1 (0.34%) HAProxy
8 1 (0.34%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 22 (7.38%) Oracle
2 15 (5.03%) Atlassian
2 15 (5.03%) Salesforce
3 12 (4.03%) Google
3 12 (4.03%) Splunk
4 11 (3.69%) Jaspersoft
4 11 (3.69%) Sybase
5 10 (3.36%) ServiceNow
6 8 (2.68%) Checkmarx
6 8 (2.68%) Conga
6 8 (2.68%) GoCardless
6 8 (2.68%) IBM
7 7 (2.35%) Databricks
8 5 (1.68%) Dynatrace
9 4 (1.34%) Veracode
10 3 (1.01%) Adobe
10 3 (1.01%) Microsoft
10 3 (1.01%) OpenLink
11 2 (0.67%) Bloomberg
11 2 (0.67%) SAP