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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 368 267 280
Rank change year-on-year -101 +13 -33
Contract jobs citing BDD 344 329 322
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.63% 0.99% 0.85%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.75% 1.10% 0.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 233 220 202
10th Percentile £306 £360 £358
25th Percentile £400 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -3.85% -3.70%
75th Percentile £535 £589 £613
90th Percentile £648 £700 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £438 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -7.89% +5.56% -10.00%
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 46,102 30,004 32,672
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 90.46% 86.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,718 18,629 19,703
10th Percentile £325 £294 £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 £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,326 1,885 1,303
10th Percentile £13.58 £14.33 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -8.31%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.52 £65.00 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £41.25
% change year-on-year +68.43% -46.02% -2.94%

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 9 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 15 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 9 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 -88 289 £450 -12.62% 232
UK excluding London -86 169 £438 -7.89% 140
London -73 136 £500 -7.41% 122
Work from Home -65 95 £475 -5.00% 107
North of England -80 70 £450 -13.85% 37
Midlands -4 51 £438 -5.41% 26
West Midlands -4 50 £438 -12.50% 17
Yorkshire -46 32 £438 -17.65% 10
North West -52 25 £441 +6.07% 17
Scotland -25 19 £470 +1.62% 21
North East -40 17 £450 -7.69% 10
South East -67 15 £275 -4.51% 24
South West -33 12 £500 +17.65% 13
Wales -7 5 £425 +13.33% 5
Northern Ireland +6 1 - - 9

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 31 (9.01%) Confluence
2 4 (1.16%) Apache
2 4 (1.16%) Apache Spark
3 3 (0.87%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.87%) CMS
3 3 (0.87%) Headless CMS
3 3 (0.87%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (0.87%) Mingle
1 3 (0.87%) Notion
2 2 (0.58%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 12 (3.49%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (2.03%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.87%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 132 (38.37%) AWS
2 114 (33.14%) Azure
3 95 (27.62%) GitHub
4 47 (13.66%) Azure DevOps
5 45 (13.08%) GitHub Actions
6 33 (9.59%) GCP
7 28 (8.14%) GitHub Copilot
7 28 (8.14%) Serverless
8 19 (5.52%) Amazon S3
9 17 (4.94%) AWS Lambda
10 16 (4.65%) Amazon SQS
11 15 (4.36%) Dynamics 365
12 14 (4.07%) Amazon EC2
13 13 (3.78%) Anthropic Claude
13 13 (3.78%) Power Automate
13 13 (3.78%) Power Platform
14 12 (3.49%) ChatGPT
15 10 (2.91%) Snowflake
16 9 (2.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 9 (2.62%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.74%) Internet
1 6 (1.74%) RTP
1 6 (1.74%) Wireshark
2 5 (1.45%) 3GPP
3 4 (1.16%) DNS
4 3 (0.87%) Firewall
5 2 (0.58%) DSL
5 2 (0.58%) HTTP
6 1 (0.29%) BGP
6 1 (0.29%) Intrusion Detection
6 1 (0.29%) Network Security
6 1 (0.29%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.29%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.29%) VPN
6 1 (0.29%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (16.28%) MongoDB
2 29 (8.43%) PostgreSQL
3 25 (7.27%) NoSQL
4 20 (5.81%) Relational Database
5 19 (5.52%) SQL Server
6 13 (3.78%) Db2
7 11 (3.20%) Amazon RDS
7 11 (3.20%) Data Lake
8 10 (2.91%) DynamoDB
8 10 (2.91%) Metadata
9 8 (2.33%) MySQL
9 8 (2.33%) Power BI
10 7 (2.03%) Amazon Aurora
10 7 (2.03%) BigQuery
10 7 (2.03%) Data Warehouse
11 5 (1.45%) Couchbase
11 5 (1.45%) Tableau
12 4 (1.16%) Apache Iceberg
12 4 (1.16%) Big Data
12 4 (1.16%) Neo4j
Development Applications
1 142 (41.28%) Cucumber
2 109 (31.69%) Selenium
3 104 (30.23%) Git
4 79 (22.97%) Jenkins
5 71 (20.64%) GitLab
6 63 (18.31%) JUnit
7 50 (14.53%) JIRA
8 49 (14.24%) REST Assured
9 48 (13.95%) Postman
10 35 (10.17%) Gatling
11 31 (9.01%) Cypress.io
12 30 (8.72%) SonarQube
12 30 (8.72%) WebDriver
13 28 (8.14%) Mockito
14 22 (6.40%) SpecFlow
15 21 (6.10%) Maven
16 14 (4.07%) JMeter
17 12 (3.49%) Gradle
18 11 (3.20%) TeamCity
19 10 (2.91%) Serenity BDD
General
1 134 (38.95%) Social Skills
2 78 (22.67%) Finance
3 67 (19.48%) Public Sector
4 61 (17.73%) Analytical Skills
5 49 (14.24%) Banking
6 21 (6.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 14 (4.07%) Front Office
8 8 (2.33%) Investment Banking
8 8 (2.33%) Military
9 7 (2.03%) Retail
10 4 (1.16%) Aviation
10 4 (1.16%) Fire and Rescue
10 4 (1.16%) Marketing
10 4 (1.16%) Organisational Skills
10 4 (1.16%) Police
11 3 (0.87%) Legal Technology
11 3 (0.87%) Local Government
11 3 (0.87%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (0.58%) Law
13 1 (0.29%) Legal
Job Titles
1 91 (26.45%) Developer
2 76 (22.09%) Senior
3 57 (16.57%) Test Engineer
4 50 (14.53%) Java Developer
5 35 (10.17%) Software Engineer
6 30 (8.72%) Lead
6 30 (8.72%) Test Automation Engineer
7 27 (7.85%) Senior Developer
8 23 (6.69%) Analyst
8 23 (6.69%) Java Engineer
8 23 (6.69%) Quality Engineer
9 19 (5.52%) QA Engineer
10 14 (4.07%) Automation Engineer
10 14 (4.07%) Senior Java Developer
10 14 (4.07%) Senior Test Engineer
10 14 (4.07%) Test Leader
11 13 (3.78%) Test Analyst
12 12 (3.49%) Senior Software Engineer
12 12 (3.49%) Tester
13 11 (3.20%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 83 (24.13%) Playwright
2 73 (21.22%) Spring
3 67 (19.48%) REST
4 64 (18.60%) Gherkin
5 60 (17.44%) Spring Boot
6 57 (16.57%) Kafka
7 45 (13.08%) RESTful
8 33 (9.59%) .NET
9 32 (9.30%) React
10 30 (8.72%) WireMock
11 28 (8.14%) Terraform
12 26 (7.56%) Node.js
13 22 (6.40%) AngularJS
14 21 (6.10%) HTML
15 18 (5.23%) pytest
16 17 (4.94%) ActiveMQ
16 17 (4.94%) RabbitMQ
16 17 (4.94%) SOAP
17 14 (4.07%) CSS
17 14 (4.07%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 36 (10.47%) Product Ownership
2 31 (9.01%) Cloud Native
3 26 (7.56%) Distributed Systems
4 20 (5.81%) Enterprise Software
5 14 (4.07%) Legacy Systems
6 13 (3.78%) Onboarding
7 12 (3.49%) Equity Derivative
8 9 (2.62%) AI Agents
8 9 (2.62%) Self-Motivation
9 8 (2.33%) Derivative
9 8 (2.33%) Management Information System
10 7 (2.03%) Virtual Team
11 5 (1.45%) NHS
11 5 (1.45%) Taxonomies
12 4 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (1.16%) Distributed Architecture
12 4 (1.16%) Robotics
12 4 (1.16%) SWIFT Messaging Network
13 3 (0.87%) Analytical Mindset
13 3 (0.87%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 41 (11.92%) Linux
2 22 (6.40%) Unix
3 5 (1.45%) Android
3 5 (1.45%) Apple iOS
3 5 (1.45%) Mac OS X
4 3 (0.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (0.87%) Windows
5 2 (0.58%) AIX
6 1 (0.29%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 245 (71.22%) Agile
2 244 (70.93%) CI/CD
3 224 (65.12%) TDD
4 222 (64.53%) Test Automation
5 128 (37.21%) Microservices
6 123 (35.76%) DevOps
7 91 (26.45%) Scrum
8 77 (22.38%) Problem-Solving
9 76 (22.09%) AI
10 75 (21.80%) Software Engineering
11 73 (21.22%) Continuous Improvement
11 73 (21.22%) Software Testing
12 70 (20.35%) API Testing
13 68 (19.77%) Test Strategy
14 63 (18.31%) Stakeholder Management
15 48 (13.95%) Integration Testing
15 48 (13.95%) SDLC
16 46 (13.37%) Coaching
17 45 (13.08%) Continuous Integration
18 42 (12.21%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 212 (61.63%) Java
2 88 (25.58%) Python
3 85 (24.71%) SQL
4 78 (22.67%) JavaScript
5 64 (18.60%) C#
6 44 (12.79%) TypeScript
7 15 (4.36%) Bash
8 13 (3.78%) Ruby
9 8 (2.33%) C++
10 7 (2.03%) Apex Code
10 7 (2.03%) Groovy
10 7 (2.03%) Scala
11 6 (1.74%) Kotlin
11 6 (1.74%) R
12 4 (1.16%) Go
12 4 (1.16%) Perl
13 3 (0.87%) Bicep
13 3 (0.87%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.87%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.58%) PromQL
Qualifications
1 87 (25.29%) Security Cleared
2 71 (20.64%) SC Cleared
3 32 (9.30%) BPSS Clearance
4 25 (7.27%) Degree
5 22 (6.40%) ISTQB
6 19 (5.52%) Computer Science Degree
7 12 (3.49%) DV Cleared
8 9 (2.62%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 8 (2.33%) Microsoft Certification
10 6 (1.74%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 5 (1.45%) AWS Certification
12 3 (0.87%) CSPO
13 2 (0.58%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 2 (0.58%) Azure Certification
13 2 (0.58%) ISEB
13 2 (0.58%) Master's Degree
14 1 (0.29%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 96 (27.91%) QA
2 75 (21.80%) Accessibility
3 47 (13.66%) WCAG
4 16 (4.65%) GDPR
5 15 (4.36%) Data Quality
6 3 (0.87%) ISO 20022
7 2 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.58%) SEPA
7 2 (0.58%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.29%) EMIR
8 1 (0.29%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.29%) MiFID
8 1 (0.29%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 96 (27.91%) Docker
2 3 (0.87%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 83 (24.13%) Kubernetes
2 19 (5.52%) Grafana
3 13 (3.78%) Prometheus
4 6 (1.74%) Ansible
5 5 (1.45%) Kibana
6 3 (0.87%) Istio
7 2 (0.58%) Argo
7 2 (0.58%) Consul
7 2 (0.58%) Zipkin
8 1 (0.29%) Control-M
8 1 (0.29%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 33 (9.59%) Microsoft
2 17 (4.94%) Databricks
2 17 (4.94%) Oracle
3 15 (4.36%) IBM
3 15 (4.36%) Salesforce
4 14 (4.07%) Sybase
5 11 (3.20%) Google
6 8 (2.33%) Conga
6 8 (2.33%) GoCardless
7 6 (1.74%) OpenAI
8 5 (1.45%) Atlassian
8 5 (1.45%) Splunk
9 4 (1.16%) CA Agile Central
9 4 (1.16%) ION Trading
9 4 (1.16%) Jaspersoft
10 3 (0.87%) Guidewire
10 3 (0.87%) OutSystems
11 2 (0.58%) FactSet
11 2 (0.58%) HP
11 2 (0.58%) OneLogin