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 30 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 354 291 283
Rank change year-on-year -63 -8 -82
Contract jobs citing BDD 315 247 346
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.64% 0.86% 0.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.76% 0.94% 0.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 178 156 260
10th Percentile £350 £360 £350
25th Percentile £400 £410 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -12.50%
75th Percentile £562 £576 £638
90th Percentile £688 £750 £739
UK excluding London median daily rate £464 £455 £500
% change year-on-year +1.92% -9.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 2
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £46.25 - -
Median hourly rate £47.50 - £56.25
75th Percentile £48.75 - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 - £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 41,610 26,282 36,757
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.67% 91.03% 85.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,026 16,812 23,631
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £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 2,481 1,100 2,513
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.30 £27.97 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.26% -23.38% -1.35%
75th Percentile £67.84 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £73.88 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -33.82% +8.57%

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 30 May 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 30 May 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 -71 262 £475 -5.00% 75
UK excluding London -21 187 £464 +1.92% 63
London -72 104 £500 -9.09% 24
Work from Home -54 90 £450 -10.00% 56
North of England -39 85 £453 +2.08% 12
North West -17 42 £431 +10.23% 9
Midlands -38 39 £425 -8.11% 14
West Midlands -46 38 £425 -11.69% 5
Yorkshire -58 31 £585 +12.55% 3
Scotland +12 25 £438 +12.90% 1
South West -25 17 £525 +16.67% 8
North East -18 16 £450 -
South East -68 13 £359 -24.53% 18
East of England -24 8 £510 - 3
Wales -12 2 £650 - 3
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 4

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 42 (13.33%) Confluence
2 3 (0.95%) Adobe Experience Manager
2 3 (0.95%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.63%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.32%) Camunda
4 1 (0.32%) nginx
4 1 (0.32%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.32%) Tomcat
Applications
1 3 (0.95%) Notion
2 2 (0.63%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.32%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.32%) Mingle
3 1 (0.32%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (2.54%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.95%) Findur
3 2 (0.63%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.63%) Workday HCM
4 1 (0.32%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 112 (35.56%) AWS
2 92 (29.21%) Azure
3 76 (24.13%) GitHub
4 44 (13.97%) GCP
5 36 (11.43%) Azure DevOps
6 32 (10.16%) GitHub Actions
7 24 (7.62%) Serverless
8 21 (6.67%) Amazon EC2
8 21 (6.67%) Amazon S3
8 21 (6.67%) Amazon SQS
9 18 (5.71%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 18 (5.71%) AWS Lambda
10 14 (4.44%) BrowserStack
11 12 (3.81%) AWS KMS
11 12 (3.81%) Route 53
12 11 (3.49%) ChatGPT
13 10 (3.17%) GitHub Copilot
13 10 (3.17%) SaaS
14 9 (2.86%) Anthropic Claude
15 5 (1.59%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.90%) 3GPP
1 6 (1.90%) RTP
1 6 (1.90%) Wireshark
2 3 (0.95%) WAN
3 2 (0.63%) NaaS
4 1 (0.32%) DSL
4 1 (0.32%) Fibre Channel
4 1 (0.32%) Firewall
4 1 (0.32%) HTTP
4 1 (0.32%) iSCSI
4 1 (0.32%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (14.60%) PostgreSQL
2 45 (14.29%) MongoDB
3 22 (6.98%) Relational Database
4 18 (5.71%) SQL Server
5 17 (5.40%) Amazon RDS
5 17 (5.40%) DynamoDB
6 16 (5.08%) Amazon Aurora
7 15 (4.76%) MySQL
8 12 (3.81%) DB2
9 11 (3.49%) Metadata
10 10 (3.17%) Oracle Database
11 9 (2.86%) NoSQL
12 7 (2.22%) Data Lake
13 4 (1.27%) Amazon Athena
13 4 (1.27%) Power BI
14 3 (0.95%) Delta Lake
14 3 (0.95%) MariaDB
15 2 (0.63%) Elasticsearch
15 2 (0.63%) Flink
15 2 (0.63%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 107 (33.97%) Cucumber
2 87 (27.62%) Selenium
3 85 (26.98%) Git
3 85 (26.98%) Jenkins
4 66 (20.95%) JIRA
5 62 (19.68%) GitLab
6 58 (18.41%) JUnit
7 42 (13.33%) Postman
7 42 (13.33%) REST Assured
8 36 (11.43%) WebDriver
9 34 (10.79%) Mockito
10 29 (9.21%) SonarQube
11 26 (8.25%) JMeter
12 16 (5.08%) Maven
13 15 (4.76%) SpecFlow
13 15 (4.76%) TeamCity
14 14 (4.44%) Cypress.io
14 14 (4.44%) Gatling
15 12 (3.81%) DbUnit
15 12 (3.81%) Serenity BDD
General
1 83 (26.35%) Social Skills
2 69 (21.90%) Finance
3 60 (19.05%) Public Sector
4 40 (12.70%) Analytical Skills
5 33 (10.48%) Banking
6 12 (3.81%) Front Office
7 9 (2.86%) Investment Banking
7 9 (2.86%) Organisational Skills
8 5 (1.59%) Aviation
8 5 (1.59%) Fire and Rescue
8 5 (1.59%) Military
8 5 (1.59%) Police
9 4 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (1.27%) Influencing Skills
9 4 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (0.95%) Billing
10 3 (0.95%) Retail
11 2 (0.63%) Automotive
11 2 (0.63%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.63%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 97 (30.79%) Developer
2 62 (19.68%) Java Developer
3 59 (18.73%) Test Engineer
4 56 (17.78%) Senior
5 45 (14.29%) Lead
6 32 (10.16%) Software Engineer
6 32 (10.16%) Test Automation Engineer
7 25 (7.94%) Tester
8 19 (6.03%) Automation Tester
8 19 (6.03%) Senior Developer
9 18 (5.71%) Senior Java Developer
9 18 (5.71%) Test Leader
10 15 (4.76%) Automation Test Lead
10 15 (4.76%) QA Engineer
11 14 (4.44%) Java Engineer
12 13 (4.13%) Lead Test Engineer
13 12 (3.81%) Senior Tester
14 11 (3.49%) Analyst
15 10 (3.17%) Architect
15 10 (3.17%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (26.03%) Spring
2 65 (20.63%) Spring Boot
3 59 (18.73%) REST
4 54 (17.14%) Playwright
5 42 (13.33%) Gherkin
6 41 (13.02%) RESTful
7 40 (12.70%) Kafka
8 35 (11.11%) .NET
9 30 (9.52%) AngularJS
10 27 (8.57%) Node.js
11 26 (8.25%) React
12 23 (7.30%) WireMock
13 22 (6.98%) ActiveMQ
14 21 (6.67%) Spring Cloud
15 18 (5.71%) SOAP
15 18 (5.71%) Web Services
16 16 (5.08%) Hibernate
16 16 (5.08%) JPA
17 14 (4.44%) Spring Batch
18 13 (4.13%) JAX-RS
Miscellaneous
1 31 (9.84%) Distributed Systems
2 29 (9.21%) Cloud Native
3 27 (8.57%) Product Ownership
4 15 (4.76%) Distributed Architecture
5 12 (3.81%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (3.49%) Equity Derivative
7 10 (3.17%) Derivative
8 9 (2.86%) Mobile App
9 5 (1.59%) Robotics
10 4 (1.27%) Distributed Applications
10 4 (1.27%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (1.27%) Onboarding
10 4 (1.27%) Public Cloud
10 4 (1.27%) Self-Motivation
11 2 (0.63%) Data Protection Act
11 2 (0.63%) Fixed Income
11 2 (0.63%) Hybrid Cloud
11 2 (0.63%) Private Cloud
11 2 (0.63%) Synthetic Data
11 2 (0.63%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 45 (14.29%) Linux
2 16 (5.08%) Unix
3 10 (3.17%) Mac OS X
4 5 (1.59%) Android
4 5 (1.59%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.63%) Mac OS
5 2 (0.63%) VMS
5 2 (0.63%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 196 (62.22%) TDD
2 189 (60.00%) Test Automation
3 183 (58.10%) Agile
3 183 (58.10%) CI/CD
4 122 (38.73%) Microservices
5 111 (35.24%) DevOps
6 68 (21.59%) API Testing
7 66 (20.95%) Test Strategy
8 61 (19.37%) Continuous Improvement
9 59 (18.73%) Problem-Solving
10 58 (18.41%) Scrum
11 55 (17.46%) Software Engineering
12 45 (14.29%) AI
13 41 (13.02%) SDLC
14 40 (12.70%) Containerisation
15 39 (12.38%) Mentoring
15 39 (12.38%) Observability
16 33 (10.48%) Continuous Integration
16 33 (10.48%) Validation
17 32 (10.16%) Performance Testing
Programming Languages
1 194 (61.59%) Java
2 86 (27.30%) SQL
3 72 (22.86%) Python
4 54 (17.14%) JavaScript
5 46 (14.60%) C#
6 27 (8.57%) TypeScript
7 16 (5.08%) C++
8 9 (2.86%) Kotlin
9 7 (2.22%) Apex Code
9 7 (2.22%) Ruby
10 6 (1.90%) PHP
11 5 (1.59%) Go
11 5 (1.59%) T-SQL
12 4 (1.27%) Perl
13 3 (0.95%) Groovy
14 2 (0.63%) PromQL
14 2 (0.63%) Scala
14 2 (0.63%) VBA
15 1 (0.32%) Bicep
15 1 (0.32%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 75 (23.81%) Security Cleared
2 63 (20.00%) SC Cleared
3 22 (6.98%) Degree
4 16 (5.08%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (4.13%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (2.22%) ISTQB
7 6 (1.90%) AWS Certification
8 5 (1.59%) Azure Certification
9 4 (1.27%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 3 (0.95%) DV Cleared
11 1 (0.32%) ISEB
11 1 (0.32%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (20.95%) QA
2 33 (10.48%) Accessibility
3 12 (3.81%) Data Quality
4 6 (1.90%) WCAG
5 1 (0.32%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 88 (27.94%) Docker
2 9 (2.86%) Postfix
3 1 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 65 (20.63%) Kubernetes
2 43 (13.65%) Grafana
3 36 (11.43%) Prometheus
4 22 (6.98%) Terraform
5 6 (1.90%) Ansible
6 3 (0.95%) Kibana
7 2 (0.63%) Amdocs OSS
7 2 (0.63%) Consul
7 2 (0.63%) Istio
7 2 (0.63%) Rancher
7 2 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.63%) Zipkin
8 1 (0.32%) EMC VPLEX
8 1 (0.32%) HAProxy
8 1 (0.32%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 23 (7.30%) Oracle
2 15 (4.76%) Atlassian
2 15 (4.76%) Salesforce
3 13 (4.13%) Sybase
4 12 (3.81%) Google
5 11 (3.49%) Jaspersoft
5 11 (3.49%) Splunk
6 10 (3.17%) ServiceNow
7 8 (2.54%) Checkmarx
7 8 (2.54%) Conga
7 8 (2.54%) GoCardless
7 8 (2.54%) IBM
8 7 (2.22%) Databricks
9 5 (1.59%) Dynatrace
10 4 (1.27%) Veracode
11 3 (0.95%) Adobe
11 3 (0.95%) Microsoft
11 3 (0.95%) OpenLink
12 2 (0.63%) Bloomberg
12 2 (0.63%) SAP