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

6 months to
26 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 339 281 306
Rank change year-on-year -58 +25 -172
Contract jobs citing BDD 261 276 335
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.69% 0.88% 0.76%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.79% 0.99% 0.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 163 160 235
10th Percentile £375 £355 £344
25th Percentile £406 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -14.89%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £813 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £498 £488
% change year-on-year -2.01% +2.05% -9.30%
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 32,948 27,851 38,703
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.34% 89.03% 87.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,870 16,883 25,489
10th Percentile £305 £306 £300
25th Percentile £408 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £643
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,006 881 1,954
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.69
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £17.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -9.78% +12.89%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.50 £62.47
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.71 £30.45 £37.50
% change year-on-year -18.85% -18.80% +41.24%

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 26 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 26 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 -76 226 £500 - 142
UK excluding London -56 128 £488 -2.01% 122
London -17 104 £513 -10.87% 39
North of England -26 101 £495 +10.00% 25
Work from Home -21 71 £475 -9.52% 117
Yorkshire -42 49 £550 +10.00% 4
North West -11 31 £428 +7.00% 19
North East +2 23 £460 +26.90% 2
Midlands -43 8 £394 -23.73% 13
West Midlands -38 6 £488 -5.57% 7
South East -49 5 £550 +10.00% 40
Wales 0 4 £375 - 5
Scotland +2 3 - - 3
South West -32 3 £400 -23.81% 20
Northern Ireland - 3 - - 3
East Midlands - 2 £310 - 6
East of England -14 1 £375 +20.00% 15

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 23 (8.81%) Confluence
2 4 (1.53%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 2 (0.77%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.77%) nginx
3 2 (0.77%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.38%) Cloud Foundry
4 1 (0.38%) CMS
Applications
1 5 (1.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 5 (1.92%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.15%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (0.77%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.77%) Workday HCM
2 1 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.38%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 80 (30.65%) AWS
2 58 (22.22%) Azure
3 31 (11.88%) GitHub
4 26 (9.96%) Serverless
5 21 (8.05%) Azure DevOps
6 19 (7.28%) AWS Lambda
7 18 (6.90%) GCP
8 12 (4.60%) Amazon S3
8 12 (4.60%) SaaS
9 11 (4.21%) GitHub Actions
10 9 (3.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 9 (3.45%) AWS Step Functions
11 8 (3.07%) Amazon ECS
11 8 (3.07%) Amazon SQS
12 7 (2.68%) Amazon EventBridge
12 7 (2.68%) Apigee
12 7 (2.68%) BrowserStack
12 7 (2.68%) PaaS
13 6 (2.30%) Amazon EC2
13 6 (2.30%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.92%) Cisco IPT
2 3 (1.15%) HTTP
3 1 (0.38%) FTP
3 1 (0.38%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (13.41%) MongoDB
2 26 (9.96%) PostgreSQL
3 19 (7.28%) MySQL
4 15 (5.75%) NoSQL
5 13 (4.98%) SQL Server
6 12 (4.60%) Amazon RDS
7 10 (3.83%) Relational Database
8 9 (3.45%) DynamoDB
8 9 (3.45%) Redis
9 6 (2.30%) BigQuery
9 6 (2.30%) RDBMS
10 5 (1.92%) Amazon Aurora
11 3 (1.15%) Apache Cassandra
11 3 (1.15%) Data Lake
11 3 (1.15%) Delta Lake
12 2 (0.77%) Amazon Athena
12 2 (0.77%) Big Data
12 2 (0.77%) DB2
13 1 (0.38%) Data Warehouse
13 1 (0.38%) GIS
Development Applications
1 93 (35.63%) Cucumber
2 61 (23.37%) Jenkins
3 60 (22.99%) Selenium
4 56 (21.46%) Git
5 50 (19.16%) JIRA
6 49 (18.77%) GitLab
7 39 (14.94%) Postman
8 29 (11.11%) Mockito
9 26 (9.96%) REST Assured
10 23 (8.81%) Cypress.io
11 17 (6.51%) JUnit
12 15 (5.75%) JMeter
12 15 (5.75%) SonarQube
13 12 (4.60%) Bitbucket
13 12 (4.60%) Gradle
13 12 (4.60%) WebDriver
14 10 (3.83%) Maven
15 9 (3.45%) TestRail
16 6 (2.30%) Zephyr
17 5 (1.92%) SonarLint
General
1 69 (26.44%) Social Skills
2 56 (21.46%) Public Sector
3 34 (13.03%) Finance
4 23 (8.81%) Banking
5 12 (4.60%) Analytical Skills
6 5 (1.92%) Front Office
6 5 (1.92%) Legal
6 5 (1.92%) Military
7 4 (1.53%) Electronics
8 3 (1.15%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (1.15%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.38%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.38%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.38%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.38%) Marketing
9 1 (0.38%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.38%) Retail
9 1 (0.38%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 96 (36.78%) Developer
2 62 (23.75%) Java Developer
3 49 (18.77%) Senior
4 44 (16.86%) Test Engineer
5 28 (10.73%) Senior Developer
6 24 (9.20%) Senior Java Developer
7 23 (8.81%) Software Engineer
8 22 (8.43%) Lead
9 21 (8.05%) Test Automation Engineer
10 16 (6.13%) QA Engineer
11 13 (4.98%) Tester
12 12 (4.60%) Java Engineer
13 10 (3.83%) Automation Engineer
14 9 (3.45%) Analyst
14 9 (3.45%) Automation Tester
14 9 (3.45%) Senior Test Engineer
15 8 (3.07%) Angular Developer
15 8 (3.07%) Architect
15 8 (3.07%) Lead Test Engineer
15 8 (3.07%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (20.69%) Spring Boot
2 53 (20.31%) REST
3 37 (14.18%) React
3 37 (14.18%) RESTful
4 36 (13.79%) Kafka
4 36 (13.79%) Node.js
5 35 (13.41%) Spring
6 34 (13.03%) Playwright
7 26 (9.96%) Gherkin
8 24 (9.20%) ActiveMQ
8 24 (9.20%) JAX-RS
9 20 (7.66%) .NET
10 18 (6.90%) CSS
11 17 (6.51%) AngularJS
12 16 (6.13%) Jest
13 14 (5.36%) WireMock
14 12 (4.60%) HTML
14 12 (4.60%) JSON
15 11 (4.21%) SOAP
15 11 (4.21%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 29 (11.11%) Product Ownership
2 17 (6.51%) Cloud Native
3 11 (4.21%) Mobile App
4 7 (2.68%) Distributed Systems
4 7 (2.68%) Onboarding
5 6 (2.30%) Client/Server
5 6 (2.30%) Distributed Architecture
5 6 (2.30%) N-Tier
6 5 (1.92%) Equities
6 5 (1.92%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 5 (1.92%) NHS
7 4 (1.53%) Public Cloud
8 3 (1.15%) Analytical Mindset
8 3 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (1.15%) Educational Technology
8 3 (1.15%) Greenfield Project
8 3 (1.15%) Mobile Banking
8 3 (1.15%) Private Cloud
9 2 (0.77%) Algorithms
9 2 (0.77%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 38 (14.56%) Linux
2 29 (11.11%) Unix
3 20 (7.66%) Mac OS X
4 4 (1.53%) Android
5 3 (1.15%) Apple iOS
5 3 (1.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.77%) Windows
7 1 (0.38%) VMS
7 1 (0.38%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 181 (69.35%) Agile
2 170 (65.13%) TDD
3 162 (62.07%) Test Automation
4 134 (51.34%) CI/CD
5 123 (47.13%) Microservices
6 60 (22.99%) DevOps
7 59 (22.61%) Scrum
8 53 (20.31%) API Testing
9 52 (19.92%) Problem-Solving
10 49 (18.77%) Containerisation
10 49 (18.77%) Software Engineering
11 40 (15.33%) Continuous Improvement
12 37 (14.18%) Test Strategy
13 34 (13.03%) Non-Functional Testing
13 34 (13.03%) SDLC
14 33 (12.64%) Functional Testing
15 32 (12.26%) Continuous Deployment
15 32 (12.26%) Mentoring
16 29 (11.11%) Kanban
16 29 (11.11%) Performance Testing
Programming Languages
1 171 (65.52%) Java
2 58 (22.22%) JavaScript
3 47 (18.01%) Python
3 47 (18.01%) SQL
4 36 (13.79%) TypeScript
5 18 (6.90%) C#
6 11 (4.21%) C++
6 11 (4.21%) Ruby
7 9 (3.45%) Scala
8 8 (3.07%) Kotlin
9 7 (2.68%) PHP
10 6 (2.30%) JSX
11 4 (1.53%) Bash
11 4 (1.53%) C
12 3 (1.15%) Go
12 3 (1.15%) Objective-C
12 3 (1.15%) Swift
13 2 (0.77%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.38%) Groovy
14 1 (0.38%) XPath
Qualifications
1 72 (27.59%) Security Cleared
2 57 (21.84%) SC Cleared
3 14 (5.36%) BPSS Clearance
3 14 (5.36%) ISTQB
4 10 (3.83%) Degree
5 5 (1.92%) Computer Science Degree
5 5 (1.92%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 3 (1.15%) AWS Certification
6 3 (1.15%) ISEB
7 2 (0.77%) AWS Certified Developer
7 2 (0.77%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 1 (0.38%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.38%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 60 (22.99%) QA
2 31 (11.88%) Accessibility
3 11 (4.21%) WCAG
4 8 (3.07%) GDPR
5 5 (1.92%) PERC
6 3 (1.15%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.77%) HL7
8 1 (0.38%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.38%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 60 (22.99%) Docker
Systems Management
1 39 (14.94%) Kubernetes
2 20 (7.66%) Terraform
3 8 (3.07%) Ansible
3 8 (3.07%) Grafana
4 4 (1.53%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.77%) HP Fortify
5 2 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.38%) HAProxy
6 1 (0.38%) HP ALM
6 1 (0.38%) Kibana
6 1 (0.38%) Kustomize
6 1 (0.38%) Rancher
Vendors
1 11 (4.21%) Oracle
2 7 (2.68%) Microsoft
3 6 (2.30%) Atlassian
3 6 (2.30%) Salesforce
3 6 (2.30%) Splunk
4 5 (1.92%) Gigya
4 5 (1.92%) Red Hat
4 5 (1.92%) ServiceNow
5 4 (1.53%) Adobe
6 3 (1.15%) Databricks
6 3 (1.15%) Veracode
7 2 (0.77%) IBM
7 2 (0.77%) SAP
7 2 (0.77%) Workday
8 1 (0.38%) CA Agile Central
8 1 (0.38%) HP
8 1 (0.38%) Marketo
8 1 (0.38%) MuleSoft
8 1 (0.38%) VMware
8 1 (0.38%) Xamarin