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 8 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 345 277 323
Rank change year-on-year -68 +46 -185
Contract jobs citing BDD 271 269 310
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.69% 0.87% 0.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.80% 0.97% 0.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 166 152 215
10th Percentile £363 £355 £325
25th Percentile £400 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £501 £489
Median % change year-on-year -5.19% +2.45% -16.77%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £592
90th Percentile £675 £800 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £500 £488
% change year-on-year -3.75% +2.56% -7.14%

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 34,050 27,793 39,321
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.05% 89.38% 87.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,585 16,924 25,862
10th Percentile £306 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £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 £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £496 £500
% change year-on-year -3.73% -0.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,077 859 2,130
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.35
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +7.69%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.50 £61.13
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.51 £35.00
% change year-on-year -20.18% -9.97% +11.43%

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 8 February 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 8 February 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 -64 233 £490 -5.08% 123
UK excluding London -49 140 £481 -3.75% 91
London -35 106 £513 -10.87% 43
North of England -36 99 £489 +8.61% 28
Work from Home -28 68 £475 -9.52% 84
Yorkshire -43 51 £563 +12.50% 4
North West -22 28 £400 - 23
North East +2 24 £460 +22.26% 1
Midlands -40 13 £400 -22.52% 16
West Midlands -39 11 £475 -7.99% 15
Scotland +7 8 £400 -8.57% 1
South West -26 8 £425 -19.05% 18
South East -43 6 £550 +10.00% 25
Wales +4 4 £375 - 1
Northern Ireland - 3 - - 1
East Midlands - 2 £310 - 1

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 27 (9.96%) Confluence
2 4 (1.48%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 2 (0.74%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.74%) nginx
3 2 (0.74%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.37%) Cloud Foundry
4 1 (0.37%) CMS
4 1 (0.37%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.37%) Tomcat
Applications
1 6 (2.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 6 (2.21%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.11%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (0.74%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.74%) Workday HCM
2 1 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.37%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 82 (30.26%) AWS
2 52 (19.19%) Azure
3 31 (11.44%) GitHub
4 22 (8.12%) Serverless
5 20 (7.38%) Azure DevOps
6 16 (5.90%) AWS Lambda
7 14 (5.17%) Amazon S3
8 13 (4.80%) GCP
8 13 (4.80%) GitHub Actions
9 11 (4.06%) BrowserStack
10 8 (2.95%) SaaS
11 7 (2.58%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 7 (2.58%) Amazon EKS
12 5 (1.85%) Amazon Cognito
12 5 (1.85%) Amazon SQS
12 5 (1.85%) AWS Step Functions
13 4 (1.48%) Amazon EC2
13 4 (1.48%) Amazon ECS
13 4 (1.48%) BlazeMeter
13 4 (1.48%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.85%) Cisco IPT
2 2 (0.74%) HTTP
3 1 (0.37%) Fibre Channel
3 1 (0.37%) FTP
3 1 (0.37%) Internet
3 1 (0.37%) iSCSI
3 1 (0.37%) LAN
3 1 (0.37%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (14.39%) MongoDB
2 25 (9.23%) PostgreSQL
3 16 (5.90%) SQL Server
4 14 (5.17%) MySQL
5 10 (3.69%) NoSQL
5 10 (3.69%) Oracle Database
5 10 (3.69%) Relational Database
6 9 (3.32%) Amazon RDS
7 7 (2.58%) Data Lake
8 5 (1.85%) DynamoDB
9 4 (1.48%) Redis
10 3 (1.11%) Apache Cassandra
10 3 (1.11%) DB2
10 3 (1.11%) Delta Lake
11 2 (0.74%) Amazon Athena
11 2 (0.74%) Amazon Aurora
11 2 (0.74%) Big Data
12 1 (0.37%) BigQuery
12 1 (0.37%) Data Warehouse
12 1 (0.37%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 96 (35.42%) Cucumber
2 67 (24.72%) Jenkins
3 65 (23.99%) Selenium
4 56 (20.66%) GitLab
5 55 (20.30%) JIRA
6 50 (18.45%) Git
7 41 (15.13%) Postman
8 32 (11.81%) Mockito
9 31 (11.44%) REST Assured
10 22 (8.12%) Cypress.io
11 21 (7.75%) JUnit
12 16 (5.90%) JMeter
13 14 (5.17%) SonarQube
14 13 (4.80%) Bitbucket
15 12 (4.43%) WebDriver
16 10 (3.69%) Gatling
17 9 (3.32%) Maven
17 9 (3.32%) TestRail
18 8 (2.95%) Gradle
19 7 (2.58%) Serenity BDD
General
1 65 (23.99%) Social Skills
2 57 (21.03%) Public Sector
3 45 (16.61%) Finance
4 26 (9.59%) Banking
5 17 (6.27%) Analytical Skills
6 5 (1.85%) Front Office
6 5 (1.85%) Legal
6 5 (1.85%) Military
7 4 (1.48%) Electronics
8 3 (1.11%) Documentation Skills
9 2 (0.74%) Investment Banking
9 2 (0.74%) Retail
10 1 (0.37%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.37%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.37%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.37%) Marketing
10 1 (0.37%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.37%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 96 (35.42%) Developer
2 64 (23.62%) Java Developer
3 54 (19.93%) Senior
4 49 (18.08%) Test Engineer
5 29 (10.70%) Senior Developer
6 27 (9.96%) Lead
7 25 (9.23%) Senior Java Developer
8 23 (8.49%) Software Engineer
9 22 (8.12%) Test Automation Engineer
10 17 (6.27%) QA Engineer
11 15 (5.54%) Java Engineer
12 14 (5.17%) Tester
13 12 (4.43%) Lead Test Engineer
14 10 (3.69%) Automation Engineer
14 10 (3.69%) Automation Tester
15 9 (3.32%) Analyst
15 9 (3.32%) Senior Test Engineer
16 7 (2.58%) Java Software Engineer
16 7 (2.58%) React Developer
17 6 (2.21%) Backend Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 58 (21.40%) Spring Boot
2 52 (19.19%) REST
3 46 (16.97%) Spring
4 40 (14.76%) Kafka
5 39 (14.39%) Node.js
5 39 (14.39%) Playwright
6 36 (13.28%) React
6 36 (13.28%) RESTful
7 29 (10.70%) Gherkin
8 25 (9.23%) ActiveMQ
9 23 (8.49%) JAX-RS
10 20 (7.38%) .NET
10 20 (7.38%) CSS
11 17 (6.27%) AngularJS
12 16 (5.90%) Jest
13 14 (5.17%) HTML
13 14 (5.17%) WireMock
14 13 (4.80%) SOAP
15 11 (4.06%) JSON
15 11 (4.06%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 25 (9.23%) Product Ownership
2 10 (3.69%) Cloud Native
2 10 (3.69%) Mobile App
3 9 (3.32%) Distributed Systems
4 7 (2.58%) Onboarding
5 6 (2.21%) Client/Server
5 6 (2.21%) Distributed Architecture
5 6 (2.21%) Equities
6 5 (1.85%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 5 (1.85%) NHS
7 4 (1.48%) Greenfield Project
7 4 (1.48%) Public Cloud
8 3 (1.11%) Analytical Mindset
8 3 (1.11%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (1.11%) Educational Technology
8 3 (1.11%) Mobile Banking
8 3 (1.11%) Private Cloud
9 2 (0.74%) AS400
9 2 (0.74%) Hybrid Cloud
9 2 (0.74%) iSeries
Operating Systems
1 40 (14.76%) Linux
2 29 (10.70%) Unix
3 20 (7.38%) Mac OS X
4 4 (1.48%) Android
5 3 (1.11%) Apple iOS
5 3 (1.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.74%) Windows
7 1 (0.37%) VMS
7 1 (0.37%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 179 (66.05%) Agile
2 166 (61.25%) Test Automation
3 165 (60.89%) TDD
4 140 (51.66%) CI/CD
5 125 (46.13%) Microservices
6 69 (25.46%) DevOps
7 57 (21.03%) Scrum
8 56 (20.66%) API Testing
9 55 (20.30%) Problem-Solving
10 50 (18.45%) Software Engineering
11 45 (16.61%) Continuous Improvement
12 44 (16.24%) Containerisation
13 42 (15.50%) Test Strategy
14 37 (13.65%) Non-Functional Testing
15 36 (13.28%) SDLC
16 35 (12.92%) Functional Testing
16 35 (12.92%) Performance Testing
17 33 (12.18%) Mentoring
18 32 (11.81%) Continuous Deployment
19 29 (10.70%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 183 (67.53%) Java
2 60 (22.14%) JavaScript
3 50 (18.45%) SQL
4 42 (15.50%) Python
5 37 (13.65%) TypeScript
6 19 (7.01%) C#
7 11 (4.06%) C++
7 11 (4.06%) Ruby
8 8 (2.95%) Kotlin
9 7 (2.58%) PHP
9 7 (2.58%) Scala
10 6 (2.21%) JSX
11 4 (1.48%) Bash
11 4 (1.48%) C
12 3 (1.11%) Go
12 3 (1.11%) Objective-C
12 3 (1.11%) Swift
13 2 (0.74%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.74%) T-SQL
14 1 (0.37%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 74 (27.31%) Security Cleared
2 60 (22.14%) SC Cleared
3 15 (5.54%) BPSS Clearance
4 14 (5.17%) ISTQB
5 11 (4.06%) Degree
6 5 (1.85%) AWS Certification
6 5 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (1.85%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 3 (1.11%) ISEB
8 2 (0.74%) AWS Certified Developer
8 2 (0.74%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.74%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 1 (0.37%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 63 (23.25%) QA
2 37 (13.65%) Accessibility
3 11 (4.06%) WCAG
4 8 (2.95%) GDPR
5 5 (1.85%) PERC
6 2 (0.74%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.74%) HL7
7 1 (0.37%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.37%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 63 (23.25%) Docker
2 2 (0.74%) Postfix
3 1 (0.37%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 45 (16.61%) Kubernetes
2 25 (9.23%) Terraform
3 14 (5.17%) Grafana
4 9 (3.32%) Prometheus
5 5 (1.85%) Ansible
6 2 (0.74%) HP Fortify
6 2 (0.74%) Kibana
6 2 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.37%) EMC VPLEX
7 1 (0.37%) HAProxy
7 1 (0.37%) HP ALM
7 1 (0.37%) Kustomize
7 1 (0.37%) Rancher
Vendors
1 22 (8.12%) Oracle
2 12 (4.43%) Splunk
3 9 (3.32%) Atlassian
4 7 (2.58%) Databricks
4 7 (2.58%) Salesforce
5 6 (2.21%) Microsoft
5 6 (2.21%) ServiceNow
6 5 (1.85%) Red Hat
7 4 (1.48%) Adobe
7 4 (1.48%) Veracode
8 3 (1.11%) Google
9 2 (0.74%) IBM
9 2 (0.74%) Jaspersoft
9 2 (0.74%) SAP
9 2 (0.74%) VMware
9 2 (0.74%) Workday
10 1 (0.37%) CA Agile Central
10 1 (0.37%) Marketo
10 1 (0.37%) MuleSoft
10 1 (0.37%) Xamarin