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 8 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 293 270 272
Rank change year-on-year -23 +2 -144
Contract jobs citing BDD 324 313 418
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.93% 0.86% 0.89%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.03% 0.99% 1.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 212 186 262
10th Percentile £363 £356 £363
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -11.11%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £650
90th Percentile £700 £750 £749
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 9
10th Percentile - - £64.00
25th Percentile £82.50 - -
Median hourly rate £85.00 - £70.00
75th Percentile £87.50 - £78.75
90th Percentile - - £87.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £70.00
% change year-on-year - - +20.40%

All Process and 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 31,506 31,506 41,665
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.04% 86.11% 88.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,718 18,972 28,134
10th Percentile £294 £310 £310
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.69% -2.91%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,047 1,115 1,606
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.01 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.32 £20.06 £18.93
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £43.79
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -20.08% +25.12%
75th Percentile £43.75 £64.73 £65.00
90th Percentile £66.50 £73.68 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £35.00 £43.83
% change year-on-year -35.71% -20.14% +48.56%

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 8 November 2025.

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 8 November 2025. 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 -29 264 £500 -4.76% 406
UK excluding London +10 162 £475 +5.56% 313
London -32 114 £528 -6.59% 166
Work from Home +27 98 £500 - 260
North of England +5 97 £500 +12.68% 57
Yorkshire -14 47 £550 +22.22% 8
North East +13 26 £455 +5.81% 6
North West -18 26 £418 +4.38% 43
South East -1 16 £288 -20.00% 170
Scotland +18 15 £466 +6.57% 6
South West -10 15 £400 -25.58% 20
Midlands -18 12 £475 -6.86% 30
West Midlands -21 10 £500 -1.96% 13
Wales +3 4 £375 - 8
East of England -14 2 £375 -7.69% 20
East Midlands - 2 £310 - 17
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 22 (6.79%) Confluence
2 3 (0.93%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.31%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.31%) Apache
3 1 (0.31%) Cloud Foundry
3 1 (0.31%) nginx
Applications
1 6 (1.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 5 (1.54%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.23%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.62%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 96 (29.63%) AWS
2 92 (28.40%) Azure
3 48 (14.81%) GitHub
4 39 (12.04%) Azure DevOps
5 24 (7.41%) Serverless
6 21 (6.48%) GitHub Actions
7 16 (4.94%) AWS Lambda
8 14 (4.32%) Amazon S3
8 14 (4.32%) GCP
9 13 (4.01%) Amazon SQS
10 12 (3.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 10 (3.09%) Amazon EC2
12 9 (2.78%) Route 53
13 8 (2.47%) Amazon EKS
13 8 (2.47%) Datadog
14 7 (2.16%) Amazon ECS
14 7 (2.16%) OpenShift
15 6 (1.85%) Amazon EMR
15 6 (1.85%) Amazon EventBridge
15 6 (1.85%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.23%) Cisco IPT
1 4 (1.23%) HTTP
2 2 (0.62%) Firewall
2 2 (0.62%) MQTT
2 2 (0.62%) X.509
3 1 (0.31%) DSL
3 1 (0.31%) FTP
3 1 (0.31%) Internet
3 1 (0.31%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (16.05%) PostgreSQL
2 39 (12.04%) MongoDB
3 27 (8.33%) NoSQL
4 22 (6.79%) Redis
5 16 (4.94%) Amazon RDS
5 16 (4.94%) Relational Database
6 14 (4.32%) MySQL
7 13 (4.01%) SQL Server
8 11 (3.40%) Amazon Aurora
8 11 (3.40%) DynamoDB
9 8 (2.47%) RDBMS
10 6 (1.85%) BigQuery
11 4 (1.23%) Apache Cassandra
11 4 (1.23%) Big Data
12 3 (0.93%) DB2
13 2 (0.62%) Amazon Athena
13 2 (0.62%) Data Lake
13 2 (0.62%) Data Warehouse
13 2 (0.62%) Parquet
13 2 (0.62%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 85 (26.23%) Cucumber
2 84 (25.93%) Git
3 78 (24.07%) Jenkins
4 58 (17.90%) Selenium
5 46 (14.20%) JIRA
6 32 (9.88%) GitLab
7 31 (9.57%) Mockito
8 26 (8.02%) Cypress.io
8 26 (8.02%) Postman
9 22 (6.79%) REST Assured
10 20 (6.17%) Gradle
10 20 (6.17%) JUnit
10 20 (6.17%) Maven
11 18 (5.56%) JMeter
12 17 (5.25%) Bitbucket
13 12 (3.70%) SonarQube
14 10 (3.09%) SpecFlow
14 10 (3.09%) WebDriver
14 10 (3.09%) Xcode
15 8 (2.47%) Artifactory
General
1 91 (28.09%) Social Skills
2 65 (20.06%) Public Sector
3 45 (13.89%) Banking
4 40 (12.35%) Finance
5 22 (6.79%) Analytical Skills
6 21 (6.48%) Investment Banking
7 11 (3.40%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (2.47%) Electronics
8 8 (2.47%) Front Office
9 6 (1.85%) Manufacturing
9 6 (1.85%) Marketing
9 6 (1.85%) Telecoms
10 5 (1.54%) Military
11 4 (1.23%) Legal
12 2 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.31%) Back Office
13 1 (0.31%) Financial Institution
13 1 (0.31%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.31%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.31%) Retail
Job Titles
1 140 (43.21%) Developer
2 79 (24.38%) Java Developer
3 57 (17.59%) Senior
4 41 (12.65%) Test Engineer
5 35 (10.80%) Lead
5 35 (10.80%) Senior Developer
6 25 (7.72%) Senior Java Developer
7 20 (6.17%) Lead Developer
7 20 (6.17%) Software Engineer
7 20 (6.17%) Test Automation Engineer
8 15 (4.63%) Analyst
8 15 (4.63%) Java Engineer
8 15 (4.63%) QA Engineer
8 15 (4.63%) Tester
9 14 (4.32%) .NET Developer
10 13 (4.01%) Scala Developer
11 11 (3.40%) Automation Tester
12 10 (3.09%) Angular Developer
12 10 (3.09%) Business Analyst
13 9 (2.78%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (19.44%) Kafka
1 63 (19.44%) RESTful
2 60 (18.52%) REST
3 56 (17.28%) Spring Boot
4 47 (14.51%) Node.js
5 41 (12.65%) Spring
6 38 (11.73%) ActiveMQ
7 37 (11.42%) React
8 34 (10.49%) Playwright
9 33 (10.19%) .NET
10 30 (9.26%) CSS
11 26 (8.02%) AngularJS
12 25 (7.72%) HTML
13 24 (7.41%) JAX-RS
14 22 (6.79%) Gherkin
15 19 (5.86%) JSON
15 19 (5.86%) Web Services
16 15 (4.63%) SOAP
17 13 (4.01%) GraphQL
17 13 (4.01%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 45 (13.89%) Product Ownership
2 15 (4.63%) Cloud Native
2 15 (4.63%) Mobile App
3 11 (3.40%) Algorithms
4 9 (2.78%) Distributed Systems
5 7 (2.16%) Equities
5 7 (2.16%) Mobile Banking
6 6 (1.85%) Distributed Architecture
6 6 (1.85%) N-Tier
7 5 (1.54%) AI Agents
7 5 (1.54%) Client/Server
7 5 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.54%) Data Structures
7 5 (1.54%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 5 (1.54%) Greenfield Project
8 4 (1.23%) Private Cloud
9 3 (0.93%) Credit Risk
9 3 (0.93%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (0.93%) iPad
9 3 (0.93%) iPhone
Operating Systems
1 40 (12.35%) Linux
2 29 (8.95%) Unix
3 19 (5.86%) Mac OS X
4 15 (4.63%) Android
5 11 (3.40%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.62%) Windows
8 1 (0.31%) VMS
8 1 (0.31%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 253 (78.09%) Agile
2 230 (70.99%) TDD
3 170 (52.47%) CI/CD
3 170 (52.47%) Test Automation
4 153 (47.22%) Microservices
5 100 (30.86%) Scrum
6 93 (28.70%) DevOps
7 72 (22.22%) Software Engineering
8 63 (19.44%) Problem-Solving
9 57 (17.59%) Containerisation
10 46 (14.20%) SOLID
11 45 (13.89%) Continuous Integration
11 45 (13.89%) Kanban
12 41 (12.65%) Clean Code
12 41 (12.65%) Continuous Deployment
13 40 (12.35%) API Testing
13 40 (12.35%) Mentoring
14 39 (12.04%) User Experience
15 38 (11.73%) Continuous Improvement
15 38 (11.73%) Non-Functional Testing
Programming Languages
1 198 (61.11%) Java
2 60 (18.52%) JavaScript
3 59 (18.21%) SQL
4 46 (14.20%) Python
5 37 (11.42%) C#
5 37 (11.42%) TypeScript
6 24 (7.41%) Scala
7 13 (4.01%) C++
8 11 (3.40%) Kotlin
8 11 (3.40%) Swift
9 10 (3.09%) Objective-C
10 8 (2.47%) C
10 8 (2.47%) Go
10 8 (2.47%) Ruby
11 6 (1.85%) JSX
12 5 (1.54%) PowerShell
13 3 (0.93%) Bash
14 2 (0.62%) PL/SQL
15 1 (0.31%) Shell Script
15 1 (0.31%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 75 (23.15%) Security Cleared
2 61 (18.83%) SC Cleared
3 25 (7.72%) Degree
4 22 (6.79%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (3.40%) ISTQB
6 10 (3.09%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (2.47%) Numerate Degree
8 5 (1.54%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 4 (1.23%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.62%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.62%) AWS Certified Developer
10 2 (0.62%) ISEB
10 2 (0.62%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 1 (0.31%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 58 (17.90%) QA
2 44 (13.58%) Accessibility
3 15 (4.63%) WCAG
4 6 (1.85%) GDPR
5 5 (1.54%) Data Quality
6 4 (1.23%) PERC
7 2 (0.62%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.31%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.31%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 89 (27.47%) Docker
2 4 (1.23%) Postfix
3 1 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 60 (18.52%) Kubernetes
2 33 (10.19%) Terraform
3 18 (5.56%) Grafana
4 16 (4.94%) Ansible
5 14 (4.32%) Prometheus
6 5 (1.54%) Kustomize
7 2 (0.62%) Kibana
8 1 (0.31%) logstash
8 1 (0.31%) Rancher
Vendors
1 14 (4.32%) Oracle
2 13 (4.01%) Microsoft
3 11 (3.40%) Atlassian
4 6 (1.85%) Databricks
4 6 (1.85%) Splunk
5 5 (1.54%) CA Agile Central
5 5 (1.54%) Gigya
5 5 (1.54%) SAP
6 4 (1.23%) Jaspersoft
7 3 (0.93%) Google
7 3 (0.93%) Red Hat
7 3 (0.93%) Salesforce
8 2 (0.62%) Bloomberg
8 2 (0.62%) MuleSoft
8 2 (0.62%) Reuters
9 1 (0.31%) Adobe
9 1 (0.31%) Charles River
9 1 (0.31%) Marketo
9 1 (0.31%) MicroStrategy
9 1 (0.31%) Xamarin