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

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 331 293 279
Rank change year-on-year -38 -14 -70
Contract jobs citing BDD 338 261 340
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.66% 0.87% 0.78%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.78% 0.95% 0.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 201 164 255
10th Percentile £350 £359 £350
25th Percentile £400 £412 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year -7.50% -6.54% -10.83%
75th Percentile £550 £576 £638
90th Percentile £688 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £455 £460 £525
% change year-on-year -1.03% -12.38% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 2
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £45.00 - £56.25
75th Percentile £46.88 - -
90th Percentile £48.00 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £46.25 - £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 43,234 27,342 36,961
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.93% 91.04% 85.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,976 17,315 23,545
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £502 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.09% -4.38% -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 2,595 1,301 2,587
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.65
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.79 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +7.14%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £72.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.08 £38.12
% change year-on-year +77.47% -34.22% +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 24 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 24 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 -53 273 £463 -8.64% 61
UK excluding London -24 196 £455 -1.03% 50
London -70 108 £488 -16.84% 18
Work from Home -31 102 £450 -10.00% 42
North of England -44 81 £453 -1.52% 15
Midlands -24 46 £425 -11.69% 12
West Midlands -27 45 £425 -15.00% 10
North West -22 41 £438 +8.83% 7
Scotland -2 29 £451 +12.81% 1
Yorkshire -51 26 £620 +19.29% 4
South West -25 19 £525 +23.53% 2
North East -24 18 £450 +7.14% 4
South East -67 13 £359 -24.53% 17
East of England -20 8 £510 - 5
Wales -12 2 £650 -
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 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 49 (14.50%) Confluence
2 6 (1.78%) Apache Spark
3 3 (0.89%) Apache
3 3 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.89%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.59%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.30%) Camunda
5 1 (0.30%) Tomcat
Applications
1 3 (0.89%) Notion
2 2 (0.59%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.30%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.30%) Mingle
3 1 (0.30%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (2.37%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (1.18%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.89%) Findur
4 2 (0.59%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.59%) Workday HCM
5 1 (0.30%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 124 (36.69%) AWS
2 103 (30.47%) Azure
3 88 (26.04%) GitHub
4 49 (14.50%) GCP
5 48 (14.20%) Azure DevOps
6 42 (12.43%) GitHub Actions
7 27 (7.99%) Serverless
8 25 (7.40%) Amazon S3
9 23 (6.80%) Amazon EC2
9 23 (6.80%) Amazon SQS
10 20 (5.92%) AWS Lambda
11 19 (5.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 14 (4.14%) BrowserStack
13 12 (3.55%) AWS KMS
13 12 (3.55%) ChatGPT
13 12 (3.55%) Route 53
14 11 (3.25%) GitHub Copilot
15 10 (2.96%) Anthropic Claude
15 10 (2.96%) Power Platform
16 7 (2.07%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.78%) 3GPP
1 6 (1.78%) RTP
1 6 (1.78%) Wireshark
2 3 (0.89%) Internet
2 3 (0.89%) WAN
3 2 (0.59%) DSL
3 2 (0.59%) Firewall
3 2 (0.59%) NaaS
4 1 (0.30%) Fibre Channel
4 1 (0.30%) HTTP
4 1 (0.30%) iSCSI
4 1 (0.30%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (14.79%) MongoDB
2 47 (13.91%) PostgreSQL
3 23 (6.80%) Relational Database
4 19 (5.62%) DynamoDB
5 18 (5.33%) Amazon RDS
6 17 (5.03%) NoSQL
7 16 (4.73%) Amazon Aurora
7 16 (4.73%) SQL Server
8 13 (3.85%) Db2
9 11 (3.25%) Metadata
10 10 (2.96%) Data Lake
10 10 (2.96%) Oracle Database
11 9 (2.66%) MySQL
12 7 (2.07%) Power BI
13 5 (1.48%) Amazon Athena
13 5 (1.48%) Tableau
14 4 (1.18%) Couchbase
15 3 (0.89%) Amazon Redshift
15 3 (0.89%) Looker
15 3 (0.89%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 115 (34.02%) Cucumber
2 95 (28.11%) Git
3 93 (27.51%) Selenium
4 90 (26.63%) Jenkins
5 72 (21.30%) GitLab
6 66 (19.53%) JIRA
6 66 (19.53%) JUnit
7 45 (13.31%) Postman
8 44 (13.02%) REST Assured
9 41 (12.13%) WebDriver
10 37 (10.95%) Mockito
11 31 (9.17%) JMeter
12 30 (8.88%) SonarQube
13 21 (6.21%) Cypress.io
13 21 (6.21%) Maven
14 18 (5.33%) Gatling
14 18 (5.33%) SpecFlow
15 16 (4.73%) TeamCity
16 12 (3.55%) Bitbucket
16 12 (3.55%) DbUnit
General
1 94 (27.81%) Social Skills
2 75 (22.19%) Finance
3 67 (19.82%) Public Sector
4 49 (14.50%) Analytical Skills
5 38 (11.24%) Banking
6 12 (3.55%) Front Office
7 9 (2.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 9 (2.66%) Organisational Skills
8 8 (2.37%) Investment Banking
8 8 (2.37%) Military
9 7 (2.07%) Retail
10 5 (1.48%) Aviation
10 5 (1.48%) Fire and Rescue
10 5 (1.48%) Influencing Skills
10 5 (1.48%) Police
11 4 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (0.89%) Billing
12 3 (0.89%) Marketing
13 2 (0.59%) Automotive
13 2 (0.59%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 102 (30.18%) Developer
2 69 (20.41%) Java Developer
3 64 (18.93%) Senior
4 58 (17.16%) Test Engineer
5 42 (12.43%) Lead
6 36 (10.65%) Software Engineer
7 31 (9.17%) Test Automation Engineer
8 29 (8.58%) Tester
9 23 (6.80%) Automation Tester
10 20 (5.92%) Java Engineer
11 19 (5.62%) Test Leader
12 18 (5.33%) Senior Developer
12 18 (5.33%) Senior Java Developer
13 16 (4.73%) Analyst
14 13 (3.85%) QA Engineer
14 13 (3.85%) Senior Software Engineer
14 13 (3.85%) Senior Tester
15 12 (3.55%) Automation Test Lead
16 11 (3.25%) Salesforce Engineer
16 11 (3.25%) Senior Automation Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (27.51%) Spring
2 73 (21.60%) Spring Boot
3 63 (18.64%) Playwright
4 60 (17.75%) REST
5 51 (15.09%) Kafka
6 47 (13.91%) Gherkin
7 42 (12.43%) RESTful
8 32 (9.47%) .NET
9 30 (8.88%) AngularJS
10 29 (8.58%) WireMock
11 27 (7.99%) Node.js
12 26 (7.69%) React
13 23 (6.80%) ActiveMQ
14 21 (6.21%) Spring Cloud
15 19 (5.62%) SOAP
16 17 (5.03%) JPA
16 17 (5.03%) Web Services
17 16 (4.73%) Hibernate
18 14 (4.14%) JAX-RS
18 14 (4.14%) Spring Batch
Miscellaneous
1 35 (10.36%) Distributed Systems
2 31 (9.17%) Cloud Native
3 28 (8.28%) Product Ownership
4 16 (4.73%) Distributed Architecture
5 12 (3.55%) Enterprise Software
5 12 (3.55%) Equity Derivative
6 10 (2.96%) Derivative
7 7 (2.07%) Legacy Systems
7 7 (2.07%) Mobile App
8 5 (1.48%) Onboarding
8 5 (1.48%) Robotics
8 5 (1.48%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (1.18%) Distributed Applications
10 3 (0.89%) Equities
10 3 (0.89%) Fixed Income
10 3 (0.89%) Public Cloud
10 3 (0.89%) Taxonomies
10 3 (0.89%) Virtual Team
11 2 (0.59%) Data Protection Act
11 2 (0.59%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 48 (14.20%) Linux
2 17 (5.03%) Unix
3 10 (2.96%) Mac OS X
4 5 (1.48%) Android
4 5 (1.48%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.89%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.59%) VMS
6 2 (0.59%) Windows
7 1 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 212 (62.72%) Agile
2 208 (61.54%) TDD
3 206 (60.95%) CI/CD
4 195 (57.69%) Test Automation
5 132 (39.05%) Microservices
6 123 (36.39%) DevOps
7 72 (21.30%) Scrum
8 68 (20.12%) Test Strategy
9 66 (19.53%) API Testing
10 65 (19.23%) Software Engineering
11 63 (18.64%) Continuous Improvement
12 62 (18.34%) Problem-Solving
13 47 (13.91%) AI
14 46 (13.61%) Mentoring
15 44 (13.02%) SDLC
16 41 (12.13%) Containerisation
16 41 (12.13%) Observability
17 38 (11.24%) Continuous Integration
18 34 (10.06%) Validation
19 33 (9.76%) Kanban
Programming Languages
1 208 (61.54%) Java
2 87 (25.74%) SQL
3 68 (20.12%) Python
4 55 (16.27%) JavaScript
5 54 (15.98%) C#
6 29 (8.58%) TypeScript
7 16 (4.73%) C++
8 7 (2.07%) Apex Code
8 7 (2.07%) Groovy
8 7 (2.07%) Kotlin
9 6 (1.78%) T-SQL
10 4 (1.18%) Go
10 4 (1.18%) Perl
10 4 (1.18%) Ruby
11 2 (0.59%) Bash
11 2 (0.59%) PromQL
11 2 (0.59%) Scala
11 2 (0.59%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.59%) VBA
12 1 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 88 (26.04%) Security Cleared
2 71 (21.01%) SC Cleared
3 22 (6.51%) Degree
4 21 (6.21%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (3.85%) Computer Science Degree
6 12 (3.55%) ISTQB
7 7 (2.07%) DV Cleared
8 6 (1.78%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 5 (1.48%) AWS Certification
9 5 (1.48%) Azure Certification
10 3 (0.89%) CSPO
11 2 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.59%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 1 (0.30%) ISEB
12 1 (0.30%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 59 (17.46%) QA
2 43 (12.72%) Accessibility
3 15 (4.44%) Data Quality
4 11 (3.25%) WCAG
5 7 (2.07%) GDPR
6 2 (0.59%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.30%) EMIR
7 1 (0.30%) MiFID
7 1 (0.30%) SEPA
System Software
1 92 (27.22%) Docker
2 9 (2.66%) Postfix
3 1 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 75 (22.19%) Kubernetes
2 45 (13.31%) Grafana
3 37 (10.95%) Prometheus
4 29 (8.58%) Terraform
5 7 (2.07%) Ansible
6 3 (0.89%) Istio
6 3 (0.89%) Kibana
7 2 (0.59%) Amdocs OSS
7 2 (0.59%) Consul
7 2 (0.59%) Rancher
7 2 (0.59%) Zipkin
8 1 (0.30%) Argo
8 1 (0.30%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.30%) EMC VPLEX
8 1 (0.30%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.30%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 24 (7.10%) Oracle
2 17 (5.03%) Salesforce
3 15 (4.44%) Atlassian
3 15 (4.44%) Google
3 15 (4.44%) Sybase
4 11 (3.25%) Jaspersoft
4 11 (3.25%) Splunk
5 9 (2.66%) IBM
6 8 (2.37%) Checkmarx
6 8 (2.37%) Conga
6 8 (2.37%) GoCardless
6 8 (2.37%) Microsoft
7 6 (1.78%) Databricks
7 6 (1.78%) Dynatrace
8 5 (1.48%) ServiceNow
9 4 (1.18%) Veracode
10 3 (0.89%) OpenLink
11 2 (0.59%) Bloomberg
11 2 (0.59%) CA Agile Central
11 2 (0.59%) SAP