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

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 341 288 288
Rank change year-on-year -53 0 -86
Contract jobs citing BDD 326 262 344
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.65% 0.88% 0.78%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.76% 0.97% 0.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 193 163 260
10th Percentile £350 £359 £350
25th Percentile £400 £410 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.00% -4.76% -12.50%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £628
90th Percentile £688 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £460 £525
% change year-on-year +0.54% -12.38% +5.00%
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 - - -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 42,754 27,087 37,306
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.83% 91.00% 85.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,630 17,192 23,755
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.46% -3.79% -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £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 2,570 1,249 2,608
10th Percentile £14.80 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.02 £17.87 £16.02
Median hourly rate £43.96 £26.21 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year +67.72% -29.51% +6.14%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.32 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +17.29%

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 18 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 18 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 -62 264 £475 -5.00% 76
UK excluding London -36 190 £463 +0.54% 70
London -55 105 £500 -14.53% 27
Work from Home -33 98 £450 -10.00% 59
North of England -38 79 £453 +0.67% 14
Midlands -29 43 £425 -11.69% 17
West Midlands -26 42 £425 -15.00% 11
North West -11 40 £438 +8.83% 8
Scotland +1 28 £451 +12.81% 1
Yorkshire -61 25 £620 +19.29% 3
South West -19 19 £525 +23.53% 2
North East -25 18 £450 +7.14% 3
South East -63 13 £359 -24.53% 21
East of England -20 8 £510 - 5
Wales -13 2 £650 - 1
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 13

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 47 (14.42%) Confluence
2 5 (1.53%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.61%) Apache
3 2 (0.61%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.61%) OpenStack
3 2 (0.61%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.31%) Camunda
4 1 (0.31%) Tomcat
Applications
1 3 (0.92%) Notion
2 2 (0.61%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.31%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.31%) Mingle
3 1 (0.31%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (2.45%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.92%) Findur
3 2 (0.61%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.61%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.61%) Workday HCM
4 1 (0.31%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 120 (36.81%) AWS
2 99 (30.37%) Azure
3 85 (26.07%) GitHub
4 48 (14.72%) GCP
5 45 (13.80%) Azure DevOps
6 41 (12.58%) GitHub Actions
7 25 (7.67%) Serverless
8 23 (7.06%) Amazon S3
8 23 (7.06%) Amazon SQS
9 22 (6.75%) Amazon EC2
10 19 (5.83%) AWS Lambda
11 18 (5.52%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 14 (4.29%) BrowserStack
13 12 (3.68%) AWS KMS
13 12 (3.68%) Route 53
14 11 (3.37%) ChatGPT
15 10 (3.07%) GitHub Copilot
16 9 (2.76%) Anthropic Claude
16 9 (2.76%) Power Platform
17 7 (2.15%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.84%) 3GPP
1 6 (1.84%) RTP
1 6 (1.84%) Wireshark
2 3 (0.92%) WAN
3 2 (0.61%) DSL
3 2 (0.61%) Firewall
3 2 (0.61%) Internet
3 2 (0.61%) NaaS
4 1 (0.31%) Fibre Channel
4 1 (0.31%) HTTP
4 1 (0.31%) iSCSI
4 1 (0.31%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (14.42%) MongoDB
1 47 (14.42%) PostgreSQL
2 22 (6.75%) Relational Database
3 18 (5.52%) DynamoDB
4 17 (5.21%) Amazon RDS
5 16 (4.91%) Amazon Aurora
5 16 (4.91%) NoSQL
6 14 (4.29%) SQL Server
7 12 (3.68%) Db2
8 11 (3.37%) Metadata
9 10 (3.07%) Oracle Database
10 9 (2.76%) Data Lake
10 9 (2.76%) MySQL
11 6 (1.84%) Power BI
12 4 (1.23%) Amazon Athena
12 4 (1.23%) Tableau
13 3 (0.92%) Couchbase
13 3 (0.92%) MariaDB
14 2 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
14 2 (0.61%) Redis
Development Applications
1 111 (34.05%) Cucumber
2 91 (27.91%) Git
3 89 (27.30%) Selenium
4 88 (26.99%) Jenkins
5 70 (21.47%) GitLab
6 64 (19.63%) JUnit
7 63 (19.33%) JIRA
8 43 (13.19%) REST Assured
9 41 (12.58%) Postman
10 39 (11.96%) WebDriver
11 35 (10.74%) Mockito
12 30 (9.20%) JMeter
12 30 (9.20%) SonarQube
13 21 (6.44%) Maven
14 18 (5.52%) Cypress.io
14 18 (5.52%) SpecFlow
15 16 (4.91%) Gatling
16 15 (4.60%) TeamCity
17 12 (3.68%) DbUnit
17 12 (3.68%) Serenity BDD
General
1 89 (27.30%) Social Skills
2 71 (21.78%) Finance
3 64 (19.63%) Public Sector
4 45 (13.80%) Analytical Skills
5 35 (10.74%) Banking
6 12 (3.68%) Front Office
7 9 (2.76%) Organisational Skills
8 8 (2.45%) Investment Banking
8 8 (2.45%) Military
9 6 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 6 (1.84%) Retail
10 5 (1.53%) Aviation
10 5 (1.53%) Fire and Rescue
10 5 (1.53%) Influencing Skills
10 5 (1.53%) Police
11 4 (1.23%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (0.92%) Billing
13 2 (0.61%) Manufacturing
13 2 (0.61%) Marketing
13 2 (0.61%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 100 (30.67%) Developer
2 69 (21.17%) Java Developer
3 61 (18.71%) Senior
4 57 (17.48%) Test Engineer
5 41 (12.58%) Lead
6 33 (10.12%) Software Engineer
7 30 (9.20%) Test Automation Engineer
8 29 (8.90%) Tester
9 23 (7.06%) Automation Tester
10 19 (5.83%) Java Engineer
11 18 (5.52%) Senior Developer
11 18 (5.52%) Senior Java Developer
11 18 (5.52%) Test Leader
12 13 (3.99%) Analyst
12 13 (3.99%) QA Engineer
12 13 (3.99%) Senior Tester
13 12 (3.68%) Automation Test Lead
13 12 (3.68%) Senior Software Engineer
14 11 (3.37%) Salesforce Engineer
14 11 (3.37%) Senior Automation Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (28.22%) Spring
2 72 (22.09%) Spring Boot
3 61 (18.71%) Playwright
4 60 (18.40%) REST
5 48 (14.72%) Kafka
6 43 (13.19%) Gherkin
7 42 (12.88%) RESTful
8 30 (9.20%) AngularJS
9 29 (8.90%) .NET
10 28 (8.59%) WireMock
11 27 (8.28%) Node.js
12 25 (7.67%) React
13 22 (6.75%) ActiveMQ
14 21 (6.44%) Spring Cloud
15 18 (5.52%) SOAP
15 18 (5.52%) Web Services
16 17 (5.21%) JPA
17 16 (4.91%) Hibernate
18 14 (4.29%) Spring Batch
19 13 (3.99%) JAX-RS
Miscellaneous
1 34 (10.43%) Distributed Systems
2 30 (9.20%) Cloud Native
3 26 (7.98%) Product Ownership
4 16 (4.91%) Distributed Architecture
5 12 (3.68%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (3.37%) Equity Derivative
7 10 (3.07%) Derivative
8 7 (2.15%) Legacy Systems
8 7 (2.15%) Mobile App
9 5 (1.53%) Onboarding
9 5 (1.53%) Robotics
9 5 (1.53%) Self-Motivation
10 4 (1.23%) Distributed Applications
11 3 (0.92%) Equities
11 3 (0.92%) Fixed Income
11 3 (0.92%) Public Cloud
12 2 (0.61%) Data Protection Act
12 2 (0.61%) PKI
12 2 (0.61%) Taxonomies
12 2 (0.61%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 47 (14.42%) Linux
2 16 (4.91%) Unix
3 10 (3.07%) Mac OS X
4 5 (1.53%) Android
4 5 (1.53%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.61%) Mac OS
5 2 (0.61%) VMS
5 2 (0.61%) Windows
6 1 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 202 (61.96%) Agile
2 200 (61.35%) TDD
3 197 (60.43%) CI/CD
4 188 (57.67%) Test Automation
5 130 (39.88%) Microservices
6 120 (36.81%) DevOps
7 69 (21.17%) Scrum
8 65 (19.94%) Test Strategy
9 62 (19.02%) API Testing
9 62 (19.02%) Software Engineering
10 60 (18.40%) Continuous Improvement
10 60 (18.40%) Problem-Solving
11 46 (14.11%) AI
12 44 (13.50%) Mentoring
12 44 (13.50%) SDLC
13 41 (12.58%) Observability
14 40 (12.27%) Containerisation
15 38 (11.66%) Continuous Integration
16 34 (10.43%) Validation
17 33 (10.12%) Kanban
Programming Languages
1 203 (62.27%) Java
2 86 (26.38%) SQL
3 68 (20.86%) Python
4 51 (15.64%) JavaScript
5 50 (15.34%) C#
6 28 (8.59%) TypeScript
7 16 (4.91%) C++
8 7 (2.15%) Apex Code
8 7 (2.15%) Kotlin
9 6 (1.84%) Groovy
9 6 (1.84%) T-SQL
10 4 (1.23%) Go
10 4 (1.23%) Perl
10 4 (1.23%) Ruby
11 2 (0.61%) Bash
11 2 (0.61%) PromQL
11 2 (0.61%) Scala
11 2 (0.61%) VBA
12 1 (0.31%) R
12 1 (0.31%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 86 (26.38%) Security Cleared
2 69 (21.17%) SC Cleared
3 22 (6.75%) Degree
4 21 (6.44%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (3.99%) Computer Science Degree
6 10 (3.07%) ISTQB
7 7 (2.15%) DV Cleared
8 5 (1.53%) AWS Certification
8 5 (1.53%) Azure Certification
8 5 (1.53%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 2 (0.61%) CSPO
9 2 (0.61%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 1 (0.31%) ISEB
10 1 (0.31%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 56 (17.18%) QA
2 40 (12.27%) Accessibility
3 14 (4.29%) Data Quality
4 8 (2.45%) WCAG
5 4 (1.23%) GDPR
6 1 (0.31%) EMIR
6 1 (0.31%) ISO 20022
6 1 (0.31%) MiFID
System Software
1 90 (27.61%) Docker
2 9 (2.76%) Postfix
3 1 (0.31%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 72 (22.09%) Kubernetes
2 45 (13.80%) Grafana
3 37 (11.35%) Prometheus
4 28 (8.59%) Terraform
5 8 (2.45%) Ansible
6 3 (0.92%) Istio
6 3 (0.92%) Kibana
7 2 (0.61%) Amdocs OSS
7 2 (0.61%) Consul
7 2 (0.61%) Rancher
7 2 (0.61%) Zipkin
8 1 (0.31%) Argo
8 1 (0.31%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.31%) EMC VPLEX
8 1 (0.31%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.31%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 24 (7.36%) Oracle
2 17 (5.21%) Salesforce
3 15 (4.60%) Atlassian
4 14 (4.29%) Google
4 14 (4.29%) Sybase
5 11 (3.37%) Jaspersoft
5 11 (3.37%) Splunk
6 8 (2.45%) Checkmarx
6 8 (2.45%) Conga
6 8 (2.45%) GoCardless
6 8 (2.45%) IBM
7 6 (1.84%) Databricks
7 6 (1.84%) Dynatrace
7 6 (1.84%) Microsoft
8 5 (1.53%) ServiceNow
9 4 (1.23%) Veracode
10 3 (0.92%) OpenLink
11 2 (0.61%) Bloomberg
11 2 (0.61%) CA Agile Central
11 2 (0.61%) SAP