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 13 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 372 280 259
Rank change year-on-year -92 -21 -11
Contract jobs citing BDD 324 305 352
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.60% 0.93% 0.91%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.71% 1.02% 1.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 207 201 236
10th Percentile £306 £363 £356
25th Percentile £400 £413 £424
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -10.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £544 £625 £650
90th Percentile £657 £700 £756
UK excluding London median daily rate £448 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.79% +5.56% -13.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - £82.50 -
Median hourly rate £45.00 £85.00 -
Median % change year-on-year -47.06% - -
75th Percentile £46.88 £87.50 -
90th Percentile £48.00 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £46.25 - -

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 45,937 29,792 32,994
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 90.51% 85.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,939 18,514 20,418
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,060 1,790 1,498
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.23 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.44 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.50 £43.94 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.10 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.13 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.36% -47.67% +7.50%

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 13 September 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 13 September 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 -85 267 £459 -11.73% 150
UK excluding London -69 170 £448 -5.79% 82
London -81 119 £500 -9.09% 85
Work from Home -64 93 £500 - 93
North of England -68 71 £445 -15.24% 25
Midlands -15 40 £438 -8.85% 11
West Midlands -17 39 £438 -12.50% 8
North West -52 31 £438 +3.31% 15
Yorkshire -50 25 £525 -4.55% 6
Scotland -21 23 £468 +1.08% 9
North East -31 19 £450 -2.17% 4
South East -68 16 £275 -4.51% 23
South West -43 12 £525 +27.27% 8
East of England -16 7 £510 +36.00% 3
Wales -11 4 £531 +41.67% 3
Northern Ireland +3 1 - - 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 30 (9.26%) Confluence
2 4 (1.23%) Apache
2 4 (1.23%) Apache Spark
3 3 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.93%) CMS
3 3 (0.93%) Headless CMS
3 3 (0.93%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.31%) Camunda
Applications
1 3 (0.93%) Notion
2 2 (0.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.62%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 10 (3.09%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (2.47%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.93%) Findur
3 3 (0.93%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 109 (33.64%) AWS
2 99 (30.56%) Azure
3 88 (27.16%) GitHub
4 47 (14.51%) Azure DevOps
5 42 (12.96%) GitHub Actions
6 36 (11.11%) GCP
7 26 (8.02%) Serverless
8 22 (6.79%) GitHub Copilot
9 20 (6.17%) Amazon S3
10 17 (5.25%) Amazon SQS
10 17 (5.25%) AWS Lambda
11 16 (4.94%) Amazon EC2
12 14 (4.32%) Anthropic Claude
12 14 (4.32%) ChatGPT
13 12 (3.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 12 (3.70%) Power Automate
14 11 (3.40%) Dynamics 365
15 10 (3.09%) Power Platform
16 9 (2.78%) AWS KMS
17 8 (2.47%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.16%) RTP
1 7 (2.16%) Wireshark
2 6 (1.85%) 3GPP
3 5 (1.54%) Internet
4 2 (0.62%) DSL
4 2 (0.62%) Firewall
4 2 (0.62%) HTTP
5 1 (0.31%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (16.05%) MongoDB
2 28 (8.64%) PostgreSQL
3 23 (7.10%) NoSQL
4 21 (6.48%) Relational Database
5 16 (4.94%) SQL Server
6 15 (4.63%) Db2
7 13 (4.01%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (4.01%) DynamoDB
8 12 (3.70%) Metadata
9 10 (3.09%) Amazon Aurora
10 7 (2.16%) MySQL
10 7 (2.16%) Power BI
11 6 (1.85%) BigQuery
11 6 (1.85%) Data Lake
11 6 (1.85%) Data Warehouse
12 5 (1.54%) Couchbase
12 5 (1.54%) Tableau
13 3 (0.93%) Amazon Athena
13 3 (0.93%) Amazon Redshift
13 3 (0.93%) Looker
Development Applications
1 115 (35.49%) Cucumber
2 96 (29.63%) Git
3 90 (27.78%) Selenium
4 72 (22.22%) Jenkins
5 59 (18.21%) GitLab
5 59 (18.21%) JUnit
6 47 (14.51%) JIRA
6 47 (14.51%) REST Assured
7 45 (13.89%) Postman
8 32 (9.88%) WebDriver
9 30 (9.26%) Mockito
10 28 (8.64%) SonarQube
11 27 (8.33%) Cypress.io
12 24 (7.41%) Gatling
13 20 (6.17%) Maven
13 20 (6.17%) SpecFlow
14 14 (4.32%) JMeter
15 13 (4.01%) TeamCity
16 10 (3.09%) Gradle
17 9 (2.78%) TestNG
General
1 111 (34.26%) Social Skills
2 72 (22.22%) Finance
3 61 (18.83%) Public Sector
4 57 (17.59%) Analytical Skills
5 46 (14.20%) Banking
6 18 (5.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 14 (4.32%) Front Office
8 9 (2.78%) Investment Banking
9 7 (2.16%) Military
9 7 (2.16%) Retail
10 5 (1.54%) Aviation
10 5 (1.54%) Fire and Rescue
10 5 (1.54%) Police
11 4 (1.23%) Marketing
12 3 (0.93%) Automotive
12 3 (0.93%) Legal Technology
12 3 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (0.93%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.62%) Law
13 2 (0.62%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 98 (30.25%) Developer
2 71 (21.91%) Senior
3 60 (18.52%) Java Developer
4 57 (17.59%) Test Engineer
5 35 (10.80%) Software Engineer
6 33 (10.19%) Test Automation Engineer
7 26 (8.02%) Lead
7 26 (8.02%) Senior Developer
8 23 (7.10%) Analyst
9 19 (5.86%) Java Engineer
10 18 (5.56%) Senior Java Developer
11 15 (4.63%) Tester
12 14 (4.32%) QA Engineer
13 13 (4.01%) Automation Tester
13 13 (4.01%) Test Leader
14 12 (3.70%) Quality Engineer
14 12 (3.70%) Senior Software Engineer
14 12 (3.70%) Test Analyst
15 11 (3.40%) Python Developer
15 11 (3.40%) Senior Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (21.91%) Spring
2 66 (20.37%) Playwright
3 62 (19.14%) Spring Boot
4 61 (18.83%) REST
5 55 (16.98%) Gherkin
5 55 (16.98%) Kafka
6 40 (12.35%) RESTful
7 28 (8.64%) .NET
8 24 (7.41%) Node.js
9 23 (7.10%) React
9 23 (7.10%) Terraform
10 22 (6.79%) WireMock
11 21 (6.48%) AngularJS
12 20 (6.17%) ActiveMQ
13 19 (5.86%) SOAP
14 16 (4.94%) HTML
15 14 (4.32%) JAX-RS
15 14 (4.32%) JSON
15 14 (4.32%) XML
16 13 (4.01%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 37 (11.42%) Product Ownership
2 28 (8.64%) Distributed Systems
3 27 (8.33%) Cloud Native
4 17 (5.25%) Enterprise Software
5 14 (4.32%) Equity Derivative
6 13 (4.01%) Legacy Systems
7 10 (3.09%) Derivative
8 8 (2.47%) Onboarding
9 7 (2.16%) Management Information System
10 6 (1.85%) Virtual Team
11 5 (1.54%) AI Agents
11 5 (1.54%) Distributed Architecture
11 5 (1.54%) NHS
11 5 (1.54%) Robotics
11 5 (1.54%) Self-Motivation
11 5 (1.54%) Taxonomies
12 4 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (1.23%) SWIFT Messaging Network
13 3 (0.93%) Legacy Code
14 2 (0.62%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 44 (13.58%) Linux
2 22 (6.79%) Unix
3 5 (1.54%) Android
3 5 (1.54%) Apple iOS
3 5 (1.54%) Mac OS X
4 3 (0.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (0.93%) Windows
5 2 (0.62%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.31%) AIX
6 1 (0.31%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 218 (67.28%) Agile
2 212 (65.43%) CI/CD
3 205 (63.27%) TDD
4 198 (61.11%) Test Automation
5 112 (34.57%) DevOps
6 107 (33.02%) Microservices
7 77 (23.77%) Scrum
8 72 (22.22%) Problem-Solving
9 71 (21.91%) AI
10 66 (20.37%) Software Engineering
11 64 (19.75%) Continuous Improvement
12 61 (18.83%) API Testing
13 60 (18.52%) Test Strategy
14 48 (14.81%) Software Testing
14 48 (14.81%) Stakeholder Management
15 43 (13.27%) Continuous Integration
15 43 (13.27%) SDLC
16 39 (12.04%) Mentoring
17 37 (11.42%) Integration Testing
18 36 (11.11%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 198 (61.11%) Java
2 88 (27.16%) SQL
3 80 (24.69%) Python
4 62 (19.14%) JavaScript
5 51 (15.74%) C#
6 30 (9.26%) TypeScript
7 12 (3.70%) Bash
7 12 (3.70%) Ruby
8 10 (3.09%) C++
9 7 (2.16%) Apex Code
9 7 (2.16%) Groovy
10 6 (1.85%) Kotlin
10 6 (1.85%) R
11 5 (1.54%) Scala
12 4 (1.23%) Perl
13 3 (0.93%) Go
13 3 (0.93%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.93%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.62%) Cypher
14 2 (0.62%) SHACL
Qualifications
1 79 (24.38%) Security Cleared
2 64 (19.75%) SC Cleared
3 24 (7.41%) BPSS Clearance
4 22 (6.79%) Degree
5 20 (6.17%) ISTQB
6 16 (4.94%) Computer Science Degree
7 10 (3.09%) DV Cleared
8 9 (2.78%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 7 (2.16%) Microsoft Certification
10 5 (1.54%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 3 (0.93%) AWS Certification
11 3 (0.93%) CSPO
12 2 (0.62%) Azure Certification
12 2 (0.62%) ISEB
13 1 (0.31%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 1 (0.31%) ITIL Certification
13 1 (0.31%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (23.46%) QA
2 54 (16.67%) Accessibility
3 34 (10.49%) WCAG
4 16 (4.94%) Data Quality
5 15 (4.63%) GDPR
6 3 (0.93%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.31%) EMIR
7 1 (0.31%) ISO 15022
7 1 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.31%) MiFID
7 1 (0.31%) SEPA
7 1 (0.31%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.31%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 79 (24.38%) Docker
2 5 (1.54%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 64 (19.75%) Kubernetes
2 20 (6.17%) Grafana
3 15 (4.63%) Prometheus
4 6 (1.85%) Ansible
5 4 (1.23%) Kibana
6 3 (0.93%) Istio
7 2 (0.62%) Argo
7 2 (0.62%) Consul
7 2 (0.62%) Zipkin
8 1 (0.31%) Control-M
8 1 (0.31%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.31%) Rancher
8 1 (0.31%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 26 (8.02%) Microsoft
2 16 (4.94%) Sybase
3 15 (4.63%) IBM
3 15 (4.63%) Salesforce
4 14 (4.32%) Google
5 13 (4.01%) Oracle
6 9 (2.78%) Databricks
7 8 (2.47%) Conga
7 8 (2.47%) GoCardless
8 7 (2.16%) Atlassian
8 7 (2.16%) Checkmarx
9 6 (1.85%) Jaspersoft
10 5 (1.54%) OpenAI
11 3 (0.93%) CA Agile Central
11 3 (0.93%) Guidewire
11 3 (0.93%) ION Trading
11 3 (0.93%) OpenLink
11 3 (0.93%) Splunk
12 2 (0.62%) Bloomberg
12 2 (0.62%) FactSet