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 19 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 369 286 264
Rank change year-on-year -83 -22 -27
Contract jobs citing BDD 331 292 358
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.62% 0.89% 0.92%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.73% 0.98% 1.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 203 195 252
10th Percentile £306 £360 £363
25th Percentile £400 £417 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £500 £534
Median % change year-on-year -7.50% -6.37% -7.13%
75th Percentile £538 £622 £650
90th Percentile £675 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £460 £500
% change year-on-year -2.17% -8.00% -0.99%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 2
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - £82.50 -
Median hourly rate £45.00 £85.00 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year -47.06% +51.11% -25.00%
75th Percentile £46.88 £87.50 -
90th Percentile £48.00 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £46.25 - £56.25
% change year-on-year - - -22.41%

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 45,377 29,691 33,202
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.71% 90.48% 85.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,881 18,495 21,183
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.58%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,839 1,731 1,775
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.38 £17.30 £18.15
Median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +65.23% -38.57% +0.61%
75th Percentile £68.00 £49.63 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.05 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.30 £42.50
% change year-on-year +88.67% -45.18% +18.88%

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 19 August 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 19 August 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 -75 272 £461 -11.35% 170
UK excluding London -23 182 £450 -2.17% 98
London -77 114 £494 -16.31% 91
Work from Home -51 102 £475 -5.00% 89
North of England -48 74 £450 -13.42% 30
Midlands -11 43 £425 -8.11% 20
West Midlands -26 42 £425 -11.69% 15
North West -39 35 £456 +9.68% 16
Scotland -9 25 £465 +7.83% 8
Yorkshire -38 23 £525 - 8
North East -22 20 £450 -2.17% 7
South East -78 17 £285 -16.18% 26
South West -42 14 £525 +27.27% 5
East of England -21 8 £510 +36.00% 8
Wales -12 4 £531 - 2
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 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 37 (11.18%) Confluence
2 5 (1.51%) Apache Spark
3 4 (1.21%) Apache
4 3 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (0.91%) CMS
4 3 (0.91%) Headless CMS
4 3 (0.91%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.30%) Camunda
Applications
1 3 (0.91%) Notion
2 2 (0.60%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.30%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 9 (2.72%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (2.42%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.91%) Findur
3 3 (0.91%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 113 (34.14%) AWS
2 105 (31.72%) Azure
3 91 (27.49%) GitHub
4 49 (14.80%) Azure DevOps
5 46 (13.90%) GitHub Actions
6 45 (13.60%) GCP
7 26 (7.85%) Serverless
8 20 (6.04%) Amazon S3
8 20 (6.04%) Amazon SQS
9 18 (5.44%) Amazon EC2
9 18 (5.44%) GitHub Copilot
10 17 (5.14%) AWS Lambda
11 15 (4.53%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 14 (4.23%) ChatGPT
13 12 (3.63%) Anthropic Claude
14 10 (3.02%) AWS KMS
14 10 (3.02%) Power Automate
15 9 (2.72%) Dynamics 365
15 9 (2.72%) Power Platform
15 9 (2.72%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.11%) RTP
1 7 (2.11%) Wireshark
2 6 (1.81%) 3GPP
3 3 (0.91%) DSL
3 3 (0.91%) Internet
4 2 (0.60%) Firewall
4 2 (0.60%) NaaS
4 2 (0.60%) WAN
5 1 (0.30%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (16.31%) MongoDB
2 37 (11.18%) PostgreSQL
3 23 (6.95%) NoSQL
4 20 (6.04%) Relational Database
5 17 (5.14%) SQL Server
6 16 (4.83%) DynamoDB
7 15 (4.53%) Db2
8 14 (4.23%) Amazon RDS
9 13 (3.93%) Amazon Aurora
10 11 (3.32%) Metadata
11 8 (2.42%) MySQL
12 7 (2.11%) Power BI
13 6 (1.81%) BigQuery
13 6 (1.81%) Data Warehouse
14 5 (1.51%) Couchbase
14 5 (1.51%) Data Lake
14 5 (1.51%) Tableau
15 4 (1.21%) Amazon Athena
16 3 (0.91%) Apache Iceberg
16 3 (0.91%) Looker
Development Applications
1 112 (33.84%) Cucumber
2 91 (27.49%) Git
2 91 (27.49%) Selenium
3 78 (23.56%) Jenkins
4 60 (18.13%) GitLab
4 60 (18.13%) JUnit
5 54 (16.31%) JIRA
6 46 (13.90%) Postman
7 41 (12.39%) REST Assured
8 37 (11.18%) WebDriver
9 32 (9.67%) Mockito
10 26 (7.85%) Cypress.io
11 24 (7.25%) SonarQube
12 21 (6.34%) JMeter
12 21 (6.34%) SpecFlow
13 18 (5.44%) Gatling
13 18 (5.44%) Maven
14 15 (4.53%) TeamCity
15 9 (2.72%) Bitbucket
15 9 (2.72%) IntelliJ
General
1 106 (32.02%) Social Skills
2 76 (22.96%) Finance
3 65 (19.64%) Public Sector
4 54 (16.31%) Analytical Skills
5 42 (12.69%) Banking
6 15 (4.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (3.63%) Front Office
8 9 (2.72%) Investment Banking
9 7 (2.11%) Retail
10 6 (1.81%) Military
11 5 (1.51%) Aviation
11 5 (1.51%) Fire and Rescue
11 5 (1.51%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (1.51%) Police
12 4 (1.21%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (0.91%) Automotive
13 3 (0.91%) Billing
13 3 (0.91%) Influencing Skills
13 3 (0.91%) Legal Technology
13 3 (0.91%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 105 (31.72%) Developer
2 69 (20.85%) Senior
3 64 (19.34%) Java Developer
4 56 (16.92%) Test Engineer
5 33 (9.97%) Test Automation Engineer
6 32 (9.67%) Lead
7 31 (9.37%) Software Engineer
8 23 (6.95%) Tester
9 22 (6.65%) Senior Developer
10 21 (6.34%) Analyst
11 19 (5.74%) Automation Tester
12 18 (5.44%) Senior Java Developer
13 16 (4.83%) Java Engineer
13 16 (4.83%) Test Leader
14 13 (3.93%) QA Engineer
15 11 (3.32%) Architect
15 11 (3.32%) Automation Engineer
15 11 (3.32%) Python Developer
15 11 (3.32%) Senior Software Engineer
15 11 (3.32%) Senior Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (22.36%) Spring
2 66 (19.94%) REST
3 65 (19.64%) Playwright
4 62 (18.73%) Spring Boot
5 56 (16.92%) Kafka
6 52 (15.71%) Gherkin
7 43 (12.99%) RESTful
8 31 (9.37%) .NET
9 27 (8.16%) AngularJS
10 26 (7.85%) Node.js
11 25 (7.55%) React
12 23 (6.95%) ActiveMQ
12 23 (6.95%) WireMock
13 20 (6.04%) SOAP
14 16 (4.83%) HTML
14 16 (4.83%) JAX-RS
15 15 (4.53%) JSON
16 14 (4.23%) JPA
17 13 (3.93%) Hibernate
17 13 (3.93%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 36 (10.88%) Distributed Systems
2 34 (10.27%) Product Ownership
3 29 (8.76%) Cloud Native
4 18 (5.44%) Enterprise Software
5 14 (4.23%) Equity Derivative
6 13 (3.93%) Legacy Systems
7 10 (3.02%) Derivative
7 10 (3.02%) Distributed Architecture
8 7 (2.11%) Onboarding
9 6 (1.81%) Management Information System
9 6 (1.81%) Virtual Team
10 5 (1.51%) Mobile App
10 5 (1.51%) Robotics
10 5 (1.51%) Self-Motivation
10 5 (1.51%) Taxonomies
11 4 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (1.21%) NHS
11 4 (1.21%) SWIFT Messaging Network
12 3 (0.91%) AI Agents
12 3 (0.91%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 48 (14.50%) Linux
2 23 (6.95%) Unix
3 6 (1.81%) Android
3 6 (1.81%) Apple iOS
3 6 (1.81%) Mac OS X
4 5 (1.51%) Windows
5 2 (0.60%) Mac OS
5 2 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.60%) VMS
6 1 (0.30%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 223 (67.37%) Agile
2 214 (64.65%) CI/CD
3 212 (64.05%) TDD
4 200 (60.42%) Test Automation
5 118 (35.65%) DevOps
6 117 (35.35%) Microservices
7 75 (22.66%) Scrum
8 71 (21.45%) Problem-Solving
9 70 (21.15%) Continuous Improvement
10 64 (19.34%) AI
11 63 (19.03%) API Testing
12 62 (18.73%) Test Strategy
13 61 (18.43%) Software Engineering
14 43 (12.99%) Continuous Integration
14 43 (12.99%) Mentoring
15 42 (12.69%) Stakeholder Management
16 39 (11.78%) SDLC
17 38 (11.48%) Software Testing
18 33 (9.97%) Containerisation
19 32 (9.67%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 196 (59.21%) Java
2 93 (28.10%) SQL
3 77 (23.26%) Python
4 61 (18.43%) JavaScript
5 52 (15.71%) C#
6 33 (9.97%) TypeScript
7 14 (4.23%) C++
8 8 (2.42%) Groovy
9 7 (2.11%) Apex Code
9 7 (2.11%) Kotlin
9 7 (2.11%) Ruby
10 6 (1.81%) R
11 5 (1.51%) Bash
11 5 (1.51%) Go
12 4 (1.21%) Perl
12 4 (1.21%) T-SQL
13 3 (0.91%) Scala
13 3 (0.91%) Shell Script
14 2 (0.60%) Cypher
14 2 (0.60%) SHACL
Qualifications
1 81 (24.47%) Security Cleared
2 64 (19.34%) SC Cleared
3 22 (6.65%) BPSS Clearance
4 21 (6.34%) Degree
5 19 (5.74%) ISTQB
6 15 (4.53%) Computer Science Degree
7 9 (2.72%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 8 (2.42%) DV Cleared
9 6 (1.81%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (0.91%) AWS Certification
10 3 (0.91%) Azure Certification
10 3 (0.91%) CSPO
10 3 (0.91%) ISEB
10 3 (0.91%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 1 (0.30%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.30%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 71 (21.45%) QA
2 46 (13.90%) Accessibility
3 25 (7.55%) WCAG
4 16 (4.83%) Data Quality
5 14 (4.23%) GDPR
6 3 (0.91%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.30%) EMIR
7 1 (0.30%) ISO 15022
7 1 (0.30%) MiFID
7 1 (0.30%) SEPA
7 1 (0.30%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 80 (24.17%) Docker
2 7 (2.11%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 63 (19.03%) Kubernetes
2 29 (8.76%) Grafana
3 22 (6.65%) Prometheus
4 21 (6.34%) Terraform
5 7 (2.11%) Ansible
6 4 (1.21%) Kibana
7 3 (0.91%) Istio
8 2 (0.60%) Amdocs OSS
8 2 (0.60%) Argo
8 2 (0.60%) Consul
8 2 (0.60%) Rancher
8 2 (0.60%) Zipkin
9 1 (0.30%) Docker Swarm
9 1 (0.30%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 25 (7.55%) Microsoft
2 18 (5.44%) Salesforce
3 16 (4.83%) Sybase
4 15 (4.53%) IBM
5 14 (4.23%) Google
5 14 (4.23%) Oracle
6 10 (3.02%) Atlassian
7 8 (2.42%) Checkmarx
7 8 (2.42%) Conga
7 8 (2.42%) GoCardless
7 8 (2.42%) Jaspersoft
8 6 (1.81%) Dynatrace
9 5 (1.51%) Databricks
10 4 (1.21%) ServiceNow
10 4 (1.21%) Splunk
11 3 (0.91%) CA Agile Central
11 3 (0.91%) Guidewire
11 3 (0.91%) OpenAI
11 3 (0.91%) OpenLink
12 2 (0.60%) Amdocs