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 16 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 344 269 284
Rank change year-on-year -75 +15 -145
Contract jobs citing BDD 258 297 338
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.69% 0.93% 0.79%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.79% 1.05% 0.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 162 173 233
10th Percentile £375 £358 £350
25th Percentile £408 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -14.89%
75th Percentile £579 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £810 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £489 £450 £494
% change year-on-year +8.61% -8.86% -9.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £82.50 - -
Median hourly rate £85.00 - £90.00
75th Percentile £87.50 - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - -

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 32,654 28,287 37,362
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.81% 88.79% 87.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,662 17,217 24,715
10th Percentile £304 £306 £304
25th Percentile £406 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,980 898 1,602
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.75 £18.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -19.75% +16.41%
75th Percentile £56.06 £62.24 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.80 £74.91 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £30.45 £43.83
% change year-on-year -21.76% -30.52% +51.12%

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 16 January 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 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 16 January 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 -74 223 £500 - 108
UK excluding London -58 126 £489 +8.61% 89
London -34 101 £518 -9.41% 30
North of England -25 99 £500 +11.11% 25
Work from Home -34 67 £475 -9.52% 87
Yorkshire -48 49 £550 +15.79% 5
North West -11 29 £413 +3.13% 19
North East +2 23 £460 +26.90% 1
South East -35 7 £550 +10.00% 30
Midlands -43 7 £394 -23.73% 8
West Midlands -38 5 £488 -5.57% 5
Wales +4 4 £375 - 3
Scotland -1 3 - - 3
South West -33 3 £400 -25.58% 10
East Midlands - 2 £310 - 3
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 1
East of England -19 1 £375 +20.00% 10

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 22 (8.53%) Confluence
2 4 (1.55%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 2 (0.78%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.78%) nginx
4 1 (0.39%) Cloud Foundry
4 1 (0.39%) CMS
Applications
1 6 (2.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 6 (2.33%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.16%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.78%) Workday HCM
2 1 (0.39%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.39%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 78 (30.23%) AWS
2 58 (22.48%) Azure
3 33 (12.79%) GitHub
4 20 (7.75%) Serverless
5 19 (7.36%) Azure DevOps
6 18 (6.98%) GCP
7 16 (6.20%) AWS Lambda
8 13 (5.04%) GitHub Actions
9 11 (4.26%) SaaS
10 9 (3.49%) Amazon ECS
10 9 (3.49%) Amazon S3
11 8 (3.10%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 8 (3.10%) Amazon SQS
12 7 (2.71%) Amazon EventBridge
12 7 (2.71%) Apigee
12 7 (2.71%) AWS Step Functions
12 7 (2.71%) BrowserStack
12 7 (2.71%) Datadog
13 6 (2.33%) Amazon EKS
13 6 (2.33%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.94%) Cisco IPT
2 3 (1.16%) HTTP
3 1 (0.39%) DSL
3 1 (0.39%) FTP
3 1 (0.39%) Internet
3 1 (0.39%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (13.57%) MongoDB
2 27 (10.47%) PostgreSQL
3 18 (6.98%) MySQL
4 16 (6.20%) NoSQL
5 13 (5.04%) SQL Server
6 11 (4.26%) Amazon RDS
7 9 (3.49%) Redis
7 9 (3.49%) Relational Database
8 8 (3.10%) DynamoDB
9 6 (2.33%) BigQuery
9 6 (2.33%) RDBMS
10 5 (1.94%) Amazon Aurora
11 3 (1.16%) Apache Cassandra
11 3 (1.16%) DB2
12 2 (0.78%) Big Data
13 1 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
13 1 (0.39%) Data Lake
13 1 (0.39%) Data Warehouse
13 1 (0.39%) Delta Lake
13 1 (0.39%) GIS
Development Applications
1 90 (34.88%) Cucumber
2 61 (23.64%) Selenium
3 60 (23.26%) Jenkins
4 59 (22.87%) Git
5 48 (18.60%) JIRA
6 43 (16.67%) GitLab
7 38 (14.73%) Postman
8 28 (10.85%) Mockito
9 26 (10.08%) REST Assured
10 22 (8.53%) Cypress.io
11 16 (6.20%) JUnit
12 15 (5.81%) Bitbucket
12 15 (5.81%) JMeter
13 12 (4.65%) Gradle
13 12 (4.65%) SonarQube
14 11 (4.26%) WebDriver
15 10 (3.88%) Maven
16 9 (3.49%) TestRail
17 7 (2.71%) SpecFlow
18 6 (2.33%) Zephyr
General
1 71 (27.52%) Social Skills
2 54 (20.93%) Public Sector
3 31 (12.02%) Finance
4 24 (9.30%) Banking
5 12 (4.65%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (2.33%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (1.94%) Front Office
7 5 (1.94%) Legal
7 5 (1.94%) Military
8 4 (1.55%) Electronics
8 4 (1.55%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.39%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.39%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.39%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.39%) Marketing
9 1 (0.39%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.39%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (0.39%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 97 (37.60%) Developer
2 63 (24.42%) Java Developer
3 51 (19.77%) Senior
4 44 (17.05%) Test Engineer
5 28 (10.85%) Senior Developer
6 24 (9.30%) Senior Java Developer
7 22 (8.53%) Lead
7 22 (8.53%) Software Engineer
8 21 (8.14%) Test Automation Engineer
9 14 (5.43%) QA Engineer
10 13 (5.04%) Tester
11 11 (4.26%) Java Engineer
12 10 (3.88%) Analyst
13 9 (3.49%) Angular Developer
13 9 (3.49%) Automation Engineer
13 9 (3.49%) Automation Tester
13 9 (3.49%) Senior Test Engineer
14 8 (3.10%) Architect
14 8 (3.10%) Lead Test Engineer
14 8 (3.10%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (20.54%) REST
1 53 (20.54%) Spring Boot
2 40 (15.50%) Node.js
3 38 (14.73%) React
3 38 (14.73%) RESTful
4 36 (13.95%) Kafka
5 34 (13.18%) Playwright
6 33 (12.79%) Spring
7 27 (10.47%) Gherkin
8 24 (9.30%) ActiveMQ
8 24 (9.30%) JAX-RS
9 21 (8.14%) .NET
10 19 (7.36%) CSS
11 18 (6.98%) AngularJS
12 16 (6.20%) Jest
13 13 (5.04%) HTML
13 13 (5.04%) WireMock
14 12 (4.65%) JSON
15 10 (3.88%) SOAP
15 10 (3.88%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 35 (13.57%) Product Ownership
2 15 (5.81%) Cloud Native
3 9 (3.49%) Mobile App
4 7 (2.71%) Distributed Systems
5 6 (2.33%) Distributed Architecture
5 6 (2.33%) Equities
5 6 (2.33%) N-Tier
5 6 (2.33%) Onboarding
6 5 (1.94%) Client/Server
6 5 (1.94%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 5 (1.94%) NHS
7 4 (1.55%) Greenfield Project
8 3 (1.16%) Algorithms
8 3 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
8 3 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (1.16%) Educational Technology
8 3 (1.16%) Mobile Banking
8 3 (1.16%) Public Cloud
9 2 (0.78%) iSeries
9 2 (0.78%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 37 (14.34%) Linux
2 29 (11.24%) Unix
3 20 (7.75%) Mac OS X
4 4 (1.55%) Android
5 3 (1.16%) Apple iOS
5 3 (1.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.78%) Windows
7 1 (0.39%) VMS
7 1 (0.39%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 182 (70.54%) Agile
2 169 (65.50%) TDD
3 163 (63.18%) Test Automation
4 133 (51.55%) CI/CD
5 121 (46.90%) Microservices
6 62 (24.03%) Scrum
7 60 (23.26%) DevOps
8 53 (20.54%) API Testing
9 51 (19.77%) Problem-Solving
9 51 (19.77%) Software Engineering
10 47 (18.22%) Containerisation
11 41 (15.89%) Continuous Improvement
12 39 (15.12%) Test Strategy
13 35 (13.57%) Non-Functional Testing
14 34 (13.18%) Functional Testing
15 32 (12.40%) Mentoring
15 32 (12.40%) SDLC
16 31 (12.02%) Continuous Deployment
17 30 (11.63%) Kanban
18 29 (11.24%) Performance Testing
Programming Languages
1 166 (64.34%) Java
2 56 (21.71%) JavaScript
3 46 (17.83%) SQL
4 43 (16.67%) Python
5 36 (13.95%) TypeScript
6 17 (6.59%) C#
7 11 (4.26%) Ruby
8 10 (3.88%) C++
8 10 (3.88%) Scala
9 8 (3.10%) Kotlin
10 7 (2.71%) PHP
11 6 (2.33%) JSX
12 4 (1.55%) Bash
12 4 (1.55%) C
12 4 (1.55%) Go
13 3 (1.16%) Objective-C
13 3 (1.16%) Swift
14 1 (0.39%) Groovy
14 1 (0.39%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.39%) XPath
Qualifications
1 73 (28.29%) Security Cleared
2 58 (22.48%) SC Cleared
3 16 (6.20%) BPSS Clearance
4 14 (5.43%) ISTQB
5 10 (3.88%) Degree
6 5 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (1.94%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 3 (1.16%) AWS Certification
7 3 (1.16%) ISEB
8 2 (0.78%) AWS Certified Developer
8 2 (0.78%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 1 (0.39%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.39%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 61 (23.64%) QA
2 34 (13.18%) Accessibility
3 11 (4.26%) WCAG
4 8 (3.10%) GDPR
5 5 (1.94%) PERC
6 3 (1.16%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.78%) HL7
8 1 (0.39%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.39%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 61 (23.64%) Docker
Systems Management
1 39 (15.12%) Kubernetes
2 22 (8.53%) Terraform
3 8 (3.10%) Ansible
3 8 (3.10%) Grafana
4 4 (1.55%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.78%) HP Fortify
6 1 (0.39%) HAProxy
6 1 (0.39%) HP ALM
6 1 (0.39%) Kibana
6 1 (0.39%) Kustomize
6 1 (0.39%) Rancher
6 1 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 10 (3.88%) Oracle
2 8 (3.10%) Atlassian
3 7 (2.71%) Microsoft
4 6 (2.33%) Splunk
5 5 (1.94%) Gigya
5 5 (1.94%) ServiceNow
6 4 (1.55%) Adobe
6 4 (1.55%) Red Hat
7 3 (1.16%) Salesforce
8 2 (0.78%) IBM
8 2 (0.78%) SAP
8 2 (0.78%) Workday
9 1 (0.39%) Bloomberg
9 1 (0.39%) Databricks
9 1 (0.39%) Google
9 1 (0.39%) HP
9 1 (0.39%) OpenAI
9 1 (0.39%) Reuters
9 1 (0.39%) VMware
9 1 (0.39%) Xamarin