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 7 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 366 286 307
Rank change year-on-year -80 +21 -166
Contract jobs citing BDD 286 263 324
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.67% 0.86% 0.72%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.78% 0.95% 0.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 168 156 224
10th Percentile £350 £363 £350
25th Percentile £400 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £498
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% +5.53% -15.32%
75th Percentile £541 £642 £588
90th Percentile £658 £800 £698
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -9.52%
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 36,884 27,639 38,956
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.36% 90.19% 86.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,378 17,377 25,379
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £494 £500
% change year-on-year -2.58% -1.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,184 915 2,310
10th Percentile £14.72 £15.62 £13.16
25th Percentile £18.32 £21.03 £16.06
Median hourly rate £28.00 £32.81 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.66% +0.95% -7.14%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £58.64
90th Percentile £74.00 £75.95 £71.87
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.38 £32.25 £32.50
% change year-on-year -21.30% -0.77% -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 7 March 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 7 March 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 -81 249 £475 -9.52% 117
UK excluding London -57 139 £475 -5.00% 94
London -34 120 £475 -23.39% 35
North of England -45 81 £481 +6.94% 33
Work from Home -36 77 £440 -16.19% 71
North West -20 32 £453 +14.54% 18
Yorkshire -63 32 £513 -2.38% 9
Midlands -46 28 £425 -12.37% 16
West Midlands -38 26 £475 -2.06% 14
North East -1 20 £450 +15.38% 6
South West -30 10 £463 -13.95% 7
South East -45 9 £367 -26.60% 27
Scotland +10 6 £400 -8.57% 4
Wales +1 4 £375 - 1
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 1
East Midlands - 2 £310 - 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 42 (14.69%) Confluence
2 4 (1.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 3 (1.05%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.70%) nginx
4 2 (0.70%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.35%) CMS
5 1 (0.35%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.35%) Tomcat
Applications
1 4 (1.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 4 (1.40%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.05%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.35%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.70%) Oracle EBS
1 2 (0.70%) Workday HCM
2 1 (0.35%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 106 (37.06%) AWS
2 75 (26.22%) Azure
3 47 (16.43%) GitHub
4 29 (10.14%) Azure DevOps
5 28 (9.79%) GCP
6 26 (9.09%) Serverless
7 24 (8.39%) GitHub Actions
8 19 (6.64%) AWS Lambda
9 18 (6.29%) Amazon S3
10 13 (4.55%) BrowserStack
11 10 (3.50%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 10 (3.50%) Amazon EC2
11 10 (3.50%) Amazon SQS
12 9 (3.15%) SaaS
13 8 (2.80%) Amazon EKS
14 5 (1.75%) Amazon Cognito
14 5 (1.75%) AWS KMS
14 5 (1.75%) AWS Step Functions
14 5 (1.75%) Route 53
15 4 (1.40%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.75%) Cisco IPT
2 2 (0.70%) HTTP
2 2 (0.70%) WAN
3 1 (0.35%) DSL
3 1 (0.35%) Fibre Channel
3 1 (0.35%) FTP
3 1 (0.35%) Internet
3 1 (0.35%) iSCSI
3 1 (0.35%) LAN
3 1 (0.35%) NaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (13.29%) PostgreSQL
2 31 (10.84%) MongoDB
3 17 (5.94%) SQL Server
4 13 (4.55%) MySQL
5 12 (4.20%) Amazon RDS
5 12 (4.20%) Relational Database
6 10 (3.50%) Oracle Database
7 9 (3.15%) DynamoDB
8 8 (2.80%) NoSQL
9 7 (2.45%) Data Lake
10 5 (1.75%) Amazon Aurora
11 4 (1.40%) Redis
12 3 (1.05%) Amazon Athena
12 3 (1.05%) Delta Lake
13 2 (0.70%) Apache Cassandra
14 1 (0.35%) Big Data
14 1 (0.35%) BigQuery
14 1 (0.35%) Elasticsearch
14 1 (0.35%) InfluxDB
14 1 (0.35%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 113 (39.51%) Cucumber
2 82 (28.67%) Jenkins
3 79 (27.62%) Selenium
4 71 (24.83%) JIRA
5 67 (23.43%) Git
6 66 (23.08%) GitLab
7 45 (15.73%) Postman
8 41 (14.34%) JUnit
9 31 (10.84%) REST Assured
10 26 (9.09%) JMeter
10 26 (9.09%) Mockito
11 24 (8.39%) WebDriver
12 23 (8.04%) Cypress.io
13 18 (6.29%) SonarQube
14 12 (4.20%) Bitbucket
15 11 (3.85%) Gatling
15 11 (3.85%) Maven
16 8 (2.80%) Serenity BDD
16 8 (2.80%) TestRail
17 7 (2.45%) SpecFlow
General
1 75 (26.22%) Social Skills
2 57 (19.93%) Public Sector
3 47 (16.43%) Finance
4 26 (9.09%) Analytical Skills
5 23 (8.04%) Banking
6 8 (2.80%) Organisational Skills
7 7 (2.45%) Military
8 6 (2.10%) Front Office
9 5 (1.75%) Legal
10 4 (1.40%) Electronics
10 4 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (1.05%) Documentation Skills
12 2 (0.70%) Billing
12 2 (0.70%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.70%) Retail
12 2 (0.70%) Telecoms
13 1 (0.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.35%) Investment Banking
13 1 (0.35%) Marketing
13 1 (0.35%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 84 (29.37%) Developer
2 53 (18.53%) Senior
3 51 (17.83%) Test Engineer
4 50 (17.48%) Java Developer
5 37 (12.94%) Lead
6 26 (9.09%) Software Engineer
7 23 (8.04%) Tester
8 22 (7.69%) Test Automation Engineer
9 20 (6.99%) Senior Developer
10 17 (5.94%) QA Engineer
11 16 (5.59%) Automation Tester
11 16 (5.59%) Java Engineer
11 16 (5.59%) Senior Java Developer
12 13 (4.55%) Lead Test Engineer
12 13 (4.55%) Test Leader
13 11 (3.85%) Analyst
14 10 (3.50%) Automation Engineer
14 10 (3.50%) Senior Test Engineer
15 9 (3.15%) Automation Test Lead
15 9 (3.15%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 61 (21.33%) Spring
2 56 (19.58%) REST
3 55 (19.23%) Spring Boot
4 47 (16.43%) Playwright
5 41 (14.34%) Node.js
6 40 (13.99%) RESTful
7 36 (12.59%) React
8 33 (11.54%) Kafka
9 32 (11.19%) Gherkin
10 27 (9.44%) .NET
11 25 (8.74%) AngularJS
11 25 (8.74%) WireMock
12 19 (6.64%) CSS
13 17 (5.94%) ActiveMQ
13 17 (5.94%) Jest
14 16 (5.59%) SOAP
14 16 (5.59%) Web Services
15 13 (4.55%) JAX-RS
15 13 (4.55%) Spring Cloud
16 12 (4.20%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 27 (9.44%) Product Ownership
2 19 (6.64%) Distributed Systems
3 17 (5.94%) Cloud Native
4 14 (4.90%) Distributed Architecture
5 7 (2.45%) Mobile App
5 7 (2.45%) Onboarding
6 6 (2.10%) Client/Server
6 6 (2.10%) Equities
7 5 (1.75%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 5 (1.75%) NHS
8 4 (1.40%) Distributed Applications
8 4 (1.40%) Public Cloud
9 3 (1.05%) Analytical Mindset
9 3 (1.05%) Educational Technology
10 2 (0.70%) Enterprise Software
10 2 (0.70%) Greenfield Project
10 2 (0.70%) Hybrid Cloud
10 2 (0.70%) Legacy Systems
10 2 (0.70%) Private Cloud
10 2 (0.70%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 37 (12.94%) Linux
2 20 (6.99%) Unix
3 11 (3.85%) Mac OS X
4 4 (1.40%) Windows
5 3 (1.05%) Android
6 2 (0.70%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.70%) VMS
7 1 (0.35%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.35%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 184 (64.34%) Agile
2 176 (61.54%) Test Automation
3 173 (60.49%) TDD
4 166 (58.04%) CI/CD
5 129 (45.10%) Microservices
6 86 (30.07%) DevOps
7 66 (23.08%) API Testing
7 66 (23.08%) Problem-Solving
8 61 (21.33%) Scrum
9 60 (20.98%) Continuous Improvement
9 60 (20.98%) Test Strategy
10 51 (17.83%) Software Engineering
11 49 (17.13%) Containerisation
12 40 (13.99%) Mentoring
12 40 (13.99%) SDLC
13 36 (12.59%) Performance Testing
14 34 (11.89%) Non-Functional Testing
15 32 (11.19%) Kanban
16 31 (10.84%) Continuous Integration
16 31 (10.84%) Functional Testing
Programming Languages
1 174 (60.84%) Java
2 60 (20.98%) JavaScript
3 55 (19.23%) SQL
4 48 (16.78%) Python
5 41 (14.34%) TypeScript
6 28 (9.79%) C#
7 11 (3.85%) C++
8 8 (2.80%) Ruby
9 7 (2.45%) Kotlin
9 7 (2.45%) PHP
10 6 (2.10%) JSX
11 4 (1.40%) Go
11 4 (1.40%) Scala
11 4 (1.40%) T-SQL
12 2 (0.70%) Bash
12 2 (0.70%) Groovy
12 2 (0.70%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.35%) Swift
13 1 (0.35%) VBScript
13 1 (0.35%) XPath
Qualifications
1 76 (26.57%) Security Cleared
2 62 (21.68%) SC Cleared
3 14 (4.90%) BPSS Clearance
3 14 (4.90%) Degree
4 10 (3.50%) ISTQB
5 7 (2.45%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (2.10%) AWS Certification
7 4 (1.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 3 (1.05%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.70%) AWS Certified Developer
9 2 (0.70%) ISEB
10 1 (0.35%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (24.13%) QA
2 40 (13.99%) Accessibility
3 11 (3.85%) WCAG
4 8 (2.80%) GDPR
5 5 (1.75%) PERC
6 2 (0.70%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.70%) HL7
7 1 (0.35%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.35%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 79 (27.62%) Docker
2 4 (1.40%) Postfix
3 1 (0.35%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 58 (20.28%) Kubernetes
2 30 (10.49%) Grafana
3 25 (8.74%) Terraform
4 22 (7.69%) Prometheus
5 5 (1.75%) Ansible
6 2 (0.70%) HP Fortify
6 2 (0.70%) Kibana
6 2 (0.70%) Rancher
6 2 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.35%) Amdocs OSS
7 1 (0.35%) EMC VPLEX
7 1 (0.35%) HAProxy
7 1 (0.35%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 21 (7.34%) Oracle
2 14 (4.90%) Splunk
3 11 (3.85%) Atlassian
4 9 (3.15%) ServiceNow
5 8 (2.80%) Salesforce
6 7 (2.45%) Databricks
7 6 (2.10%) Microsoft
8 5 (1.75%) Jaspersoft
9 4 (1.40%) Adobe
9 4 (1.40%) Google
9 4 (1.40%) Veracode
10 3 (1.05%) Dynatrace
10 3 (1.05%) Red Hat
11 2 (0.70%) CA Agile Central
11 2 (0.70%) IBM
11 2 (0.70%) SAP
11 2 (0.70%) VMware
11 2 (0.70%) Workday
12 1 (0.35%) Amdocs
12 1 (0.35%) BT