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 1 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 376 275 275
Rank change year-on-year -101 0 -30
Contract jobs citing BDD 338 325 322
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.62% 0.98% 0.85%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.73% 1.08% 0.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 224 213 205
10th Percentile £306 £358 £356
25th Percentile £400 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £538 £588 £615
90th Percentile £646 £700 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £438 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -7.89% +5.56% -10.45%
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 46,382 29,970 32,481
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.48% 90.66% 85.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,008 18,622 19,630
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £733 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,245 1,858 1,349
10th Percentile £13.70 £14.32 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.19 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £39.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.07% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £65.60 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.64 £65.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.50 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.01% -48.10% +1.18%

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 1 October 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 1 October 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 -82 283 £450 -13.42% 260
UK excluding London -82 173 £438 -7.89% 182
London -69 129 £500 -7.41% 115
Work from Home -72 89 £475 -5.00% 136
North of England -82 70 £441 -15.95% 52
Midlands -13 49 £438 -5.41% 38
West Midlands 0 48 £438 -12.50% 25
Yorkshire -48 31 £423 -23.18% 14
North West -49 25 £441 +4.56% 26
Scotland -20 21 £470 +1.62% 20
North East -36 18 £450 -7.69% 12
South East -67 15 £275 -4.51% 35
South West -37 12 £500 +21.21% 18
Wales -11 5 £425 +13.33% 6
East of England -24 4 £585 +56.00% 8
Northern Ireland +7 1 - - 6

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 (8.88%) Confluence
2 4 (1.18%) Apache
2 4 (1.18%) Apache Spark
3 3 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.89%) CMS
3 3 (0.89%) Headless CMS
3 3 (0.89%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (0.89%) Mingle
1 3 (0.89%) Notion
2 2 (0.59%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 11 (3.25%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (2.37%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.89%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 126 (37.28%) AWS
2 107 (31.66%) Azure
3 97 (28.70%) GitHub
4 45 (13.31%) Azure DevOps
4 45 (13.31%) GitHub Actions
5 33 (9.76%) GCP
6 28 (8.28%) Serverless
7 26 (7.69%) GitHub Copilot
8 20 (5.92%) Amazon S3
9 17 (5.03%) Amazon SQS
9 17 (5.03%) AWS Lambda
10 15 (4.44%) Amazon EC2
11 14 (4.14%) Anthropic Claude
12 13 (3.85%) ChatGPT
12 13 (3.85%) Dynamics 365
12 13 (3.85%) Power Automate
13 11 (3.25%) Power Platform
14 10 (2.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 10 (2.96%) Snowflake
15 9 (2.66%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.07%) RTP
1 7 (2.07%) Wireshark
2 6 (1.78%) 3GPP
3 5 (1.48%) Internet
4 2 (0.59%) DNS
4 2 (0.59%) DSL
4 2 (0.59%) Firewall
4 2 (0.59%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (16.27%) MongoDB
2 29 (8.58%) PostgreSQL
3 25 (7.40%) NoSQL
4 20 (5.92%) Relational Database
5 18 (5.33%) SQL Server
6 14 (4.14%) Db2
7 12 (3.55%) Amazon RDS
8 11 (3.25%) DynamoDB
8 11 (3.25%) Metadata
9 10 (2.96%) Data Lake
10 9 (2.66%) Amazon Aurora
11 8 (2.37%) MySQL
12 7 (2.07%) BigQuery
12 7 (2.07%) Data Warehouse
12 7 (2.07%) Power BI
13 5 (1.48%) Couchbase
13 5 (1.48%) Tableau
14 4 (1.18%) Apache Iceberg
14 4 (1.18%) Big Data
15 3 (0.89%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 136 (40.24%) Cucumber
2 106 (31.36%) Selenium
3 104 (30.77%) Git
4 77 (22.78%) Jenkins
5 68 (20.12%) GitLab
6 64 (18.93%) JUnit
7 49 (14.50%) REST Assured
8 47 (13.91%) JIRA
8 47 (13.91%) Postman
9 34 (10.06%) Gatling
10 32 (9.47%) SonarQube
11 30 (8.88%) Cypress.io
11 30 (8.88%) Mockito
11 30 (8.88%) WebDriver
12 22 (6.51%) Maven
13 21 (6.21%) SpecFlow
14 14 (4.14%) JMeter
15 12 (3.55%) Gradle
15 12 (3.55%) TeamCity
16 11 (3.25%) SoapUI
General
1 128 (37.87%) Social Skills
2 78 (23.08%) Finance
3 66 (19.53%) Public Sector
4 60 (17.75%) Analytical Skills
5 50 (14.79%) Banking
6 21 (6.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 15 (4.44%) Front Office
8 9 (2.66%) Investment Banking
9 8 (2.37%) Military
10 7 (2.07%) Retail
11 5 (1.48%) Aviation
11 5 (1.48%) Fire and Rescue
11 5 (1.48%) Police
12 4 (1.18%) Marketing
12 4 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
13 3 (0.89%) Legal Technology
13 3 (0.89%) Local Government
13 3 (0.89%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.59%) Law
15 1 (0.30%) Legal
Job Titles
1 93 (27.51%) Developer
2 77 (22.78%) Senior
3 57 (16.86%) Test Engineer
4 52 (15.38%) Java Developer
5 37 (10.95%) Software Engineer
6 30 (8.88%) Test Automation Engineer
7 28 (8.28%) Lead
7 28 (8.28%) Senior Developer
8 23 (6.80%) Analyst
9 21 (6.21%) Quality Engineer
10 20 (5.92%) Java Engineer
11 16 (4.73%) QA Engineer
11 16 (4.73%) Senior Java Developer
12 14 (4.14%) Senior Test Engineer
12 14 (4.14%) Test Leader
13 13 (3.85%) Automation Engineer
13 13 (3.85%) Test Analyst
14 12 (3.55%) Senior Software Engineer
14 12 (3.55%) Tester
15 11 (3.25%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (23.08%) Playwright
2 75 (22.19%) Spring
3 63 (18.64%) Gherkin
4 62 (18.34%) REST
4 62 (18.34%) Spring Boot
5 59 (17.46%) Kafka
6 42 (12.43%) RESTful
7 32 (9.47%) .NET
8 28 (8.28%) React
8 28 (8.28%) WireMock
9 26 (7.69%) Terraform
10 25 (7.40%) Node.js
11 21 (6.21%) AngularJS
12 19 (5.62%) ActiveMQ
12 19 (5.62%) HTML
13 18 (5.33%) SOAP
14 14 (4.14%) .NET Core
14 14 (4.14%) pytest
14 14 (4.14%) RabbitMQ
14 14 (4.14%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 36 (10.65%) Product Ownership
2 29 (8.58%) Cloud Native
3 25 (7.40%) Distributed Systems
4 19 (5.62%) Enterprise Software
5 14 (4.14%) Legacy Systems
6 13 (3.85%) Equity Derivative
7 12 (3.55%) Onboarding
8 9 (2.66%) Derivative
9 8 (2.37%) Management Information System
9 8 (2.37%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (2.07%) AI Agents
10 7 (2.07%) Virtual Team
11 5 (1.48%) NHS
11 5 (1.48%) Robotics
11 5 (1.48%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 5 (1.48%) Taxonomies
12 4 (1.18%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (1.18%) Distributed Architecture
13 3 (0.89%) Analytical Mindset
13 3 (0.89%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 45 (13.31%) Linux
2 24 (7.10%) Unix
3 6 (1.78%) Mac OS X
4 5 (1.48%) Android
4 5 (1.48%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.89%) Windows
6 2 (0.59%) AIX
7 1 (0.30%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 236 (69.82%) Agile
1 236 (69.82%) CI/CD
2 221 (65.38%) TDD
3 214 (63.31%) Test Automation
4 123 (36.39%) Microservices
5 116 (34.32%) DevOps
6 88 (26.04%) Scrum
7 75 (22.19%) AI
7 75 (22.19%) Software Engineering
8 74 (21.89%) Problem-Solving
9 68 (20.12%) Continuous Improvement
10 67 (19.82%) Software Testing
10 67 (19.82%) Test Strategy
11 64 (18.93%) API Testing
12 60 (17.75%) Stakeholder Management
13 46 (13.61%) SDLC
14 45 (13.31%) Continuous Integration
15 44 (13.02%) Integration Testing
16 41 (12.13%) Coaching
16 41 (12.13%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 212 (62.72%) Java
2 84 (24.85%) SQL
3 82 (24.26%) Python
4 71 (21.01%) JavaScript
5 60 (17.75%) C#
6 39 (11.54%) TypeScript
7 13 (3.85%) Bash
7 13 (3.85%) Ruby
8 9 (2.66%) C++
9 7 (2.07%) Apex Code
9 7 (2.07%) Groovy
9 7 (2.07%) Scala
10 6 (1.78%) Kotlin
10 6 (1.78%) R
11 4 (1.18%) Go
11 4 (1.18%) Perl
12 3 (0.89%) Bicep
12 3 (0.89%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.89%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.59%) PromQL
Qualifications
1 85 (25.15%) Security Cleared
2 69 (20.41%) SC Cleared
3 32 (9.47%) BPSS Clearance
4 24 (7.10%) Degree
5 21 (6.21%) ISTQB
6 19 (5.62%) Computer Science Degree
7 11 (3.25%) DV Cleared
8 9 (2.66%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 8 (2.37%) Microsoft Certification
10 6 (1.78%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 4 (1.18%) AWS Certification
12 3 (0.89%) CSPO
13 2 (0.59%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 2 (0.59%) Azure Certification
13 2 (0.59%) ISEB
13 2 (0.59%) Master's Degree
14 1 (0.30%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 91 (26.92%) QA
2 68 (20.12%) Accessibility
3 45 (13.31%) WCAG
4 16 (4.73%) GDPR
5 15 (4.44%) Data Quality
6 4 (1.18%) ISO 20022
7 2 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.59%) SEPA
7 2 (0.59%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.30%) EMIR
8 1 (0.30%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.30%) MiFID
8 1 (0.30%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 93 (27.51%) Docker
2 4 (1.18%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 79 (23.37%) Kubernetes
2 20 (5.92%) Grafana
3 14 (4.14%) Prometheus
4 6 (1.78%) Ansible
5 5 (1.48%) Kibana
6 3 (0.89%) Istio
7 2 (0.59%) Argo
7 2 (0.59%) Consul
7 2 (0.59%) Zipkin
8 1 (0.30%) Control-M
8 1 (0.30%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.30%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 31 (9.17%) Microsoft
2 16 (4.73%) IBM
2 16 (4.73%) Oracle
3 15 (4.44%) Salesforce
3 15 (4.44%) Sybase
4 14 (4.14%) Databricks
5 13 (3.85%) Google
6 8 (2.37%) Conga
6 8 (2.37%) GoCardless
7 6 (1.78%) Atlassian
7 6 (1.78%) OpenAI
7 6 (1.78%) Splunk
8 5 (1.48%) Jaspersoft
9 4 (1.18%) CA Agile Central
9 4 (1.18%) Checkmarx
9 4 (1.18%) ION Trading
10 3 (0.89%) Guidewire
11 2 (0.59%) FactSet
11 2 (0.59%) HP
11 2 (0.59%) Solace