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

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 375 291 268
Rank change year-on-year -84 -23 -21
Contract jobs citing BDD 328 293 359
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.61% 0.90% 0.92%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.72% 0.99% 1.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 205 196 248
10th Percentile £306 £361 £361
25th Percentile £400 £420 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £500 £534
Median % change year-on-year -7.50% -6.37% -7.13%
75th Percentile £538 £598 £650
90th Percentile £675 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £463 £500
% change year-on-year -2.70% -7.50% -4.31%
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 45,367 29,590 33,147
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.58% 90.44% 85.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,794 18,422 20,982
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% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,879 1,766 1,695
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £17.97 £17.30 £18.13
Median hourly rate £41.06 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.26% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £67.89 £47.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £42.50
% change year-on-year +94.26% -46.75% +6.25%

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 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 26 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 -75 270 £463 -10.19% 62
UK excluding London -33 184 £450 -2.70% 42
London -78 110 £500 -14.89% 33
Work from Home -49 101 £475 -5.00% 43
North of England -53 74 £450 -13.42% 10
Midlands -19 45 £425 -11.69% 6
West Midlands -25 44 £425 -15.00% 5
North West -40 34 £438 +3.67% 2
Scotland -12 25 £465 +0.54% 4
Yorkshire -38 24 £550 +4.76% 3
North East -28 20 £450 -2.17% 5
South East -77 17 £275 -12.42% 12
South West -43 14 £525 +27.27% 7
East of England -18 8 £510 +36.00% 2
Wales - 4 £531 - 1
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 1

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 36 (10.98%) Confluence
2 5 (1.52%) Apache Spark
3 4 (1.22%) 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 (0.61%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.30%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 9 (2.74%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (2.44%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.91%) Findur
3 3 (0.91%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 114 (34.76%) AWS
2 103 (31.40%) Azure
3 93 (28.35%) GitHub
4 49 (14.94%) Azure DevOps
5 45 (13.72%) GCP
5 45 (13.72%) GitHub Actions
6 24 (7.32%) Serverless
7 21 (6.40%) GitHub Copilot
8 17 (5.18%) Amazon S3
8 17 (5.18%) Amazon SQS
9 15 (4.57%) AWS Lambda
10 14 (4.27%) Amazon EC2
10 14 (4.27%) ChatGPT
11 12 (3.66%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 12 (3.66%) Anthropic Claude
12 10 (3.05%) Power Automate
13 9 (2.74%) Dynamics 365
13 9 (2.74%) Power Platform
14 8 (2.44%) AWS KMS
14 8 (2.44%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.13%) RTP
1 7 (2.13%) Wireshark
2 6 (1.83%) 3GPP
3 3 (0.91%) DSL
3 3 (0.91%) Internet
4 2 (0.61%) Firewall
4 2 (0.61%) HTTP
4 2 (0.61%) NaaS
4 2 (0.61%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (16.16%) MongoDB
2 33 (10.06%) PostgreSQL
3 23 (7.01%) NoSQL
4 20 (6.10%) Relational Database
5 16 (4.88%) SQL Server
6 15 (4.57%) Db2
7 13 (3.96%) DynamoDB
8 11 (3.35%) Amazon Aurora
8 11 (3.35%) Amazon RDS
8 11 (3.35%) Metadata
9 8 (2.44%) MySQL
10 7 (2.13%) Power BI
11 6 (1.83%) BigQuery
11 6 (1.83%) Data Warehouse
12 5 (1.52%) Couchbase
12 5 (1.52%) Data Lake
12 5 (1.52%) Tableau
13 3 (0.91%) Amazon Redshift
13 3 (0.91%) Flink
13 3 (0.91%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 115 (35.06%) Cucumber
2 94 (28.66%) Selenium
3 93 (28.35%) Git
4 76 (23.17%) Jenkins
5 64 (19.51%) GitLab
5 64 (19.51%) JUnit
6 51 (15.55%) JIRA
7 43 (13.11%) Postman
8 42 (12.80%) REST Assured
9 38 (11.59%) WebDriver
10 28 (8.54%) Mockito
11 27 (8.23%) SonarQube
12 25 (7.62%) Cypress.io
13 23 (7.01%) Gatling
14 21 (6.40%) JMeter
15 20 (6.10%) SpecFlow
16 16 (4.88%) Maven
17 14 (4.27%) TeamCity
18 9 (2.74%) IntelliJ
19 8 (2.44%) Bitbucket
General
1 109 (33.23%) Social Skills
2 74 (22.56%) Finance
3 63 (19.21%) Public Sector
4 52 (15.85%) Analytical Skills
5 42 (12.80%) Banking
6 15 (4.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 13 (3.96%) Front Office
8 9 (2.74%) Investment Banking
9 7 (2.13%) Retail
10 6 (1.83%) Military
11 5 (1.52%) Aviation
11 5 (1.52%) Fire and Rescue
11 5 (1.52%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (1.52%) Police
12 3 (0.91%) Automotive
12 3 (0.91%) Billing
12 3 (0.91%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (0.91%) Legal Technology
12 3 (0.91%) Marketing
12 3 (0.91%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 100 (30.49%) Developer
2 67 (20.43%) Senior
3 61 (18.60%) Java Developer
4 56 (17.07%) Test Engineer
5 33 (10.06%) Test Automation Engineer
6 32 (9.76%) Software Engineer
7 29 (8.84%) Lead
8 23 (7.01%) Senior Developer
9 21 (6.40%) Analyst
9 21 (6.40%) Tester
10 18 (5.49%) Senior Java Developer
11 17 (5.18%) Automation Tester
11 17 (5.18%) Java Engineer
12 15 (4.57%) Test Leader
13 13 (3.96%) QA Engineer
14 12 (3.66%) Quality Engineer
15 11 (3.35%) Architect
15 11 (3.35%) Python Developer
16 10 (3.05%) Senior Software Engineer
16 10 (3.05%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (23.48%) Spring
2 67 (20.43%) Playwright
3 63 (19.21%) REST
4 60 (18.29%) Spring Boot
5 56 (17.07%) Gherkin
6 53 (16.16%) Kafka
7 39 (11.89%) RESTful
8 29 (8.84%) .NET
9 27 (8.23%) WireMock
10 25 (7.62%) Node.js
11 24 (7.32%) React
12 23 (7.01%) AngularJS
13 22 (6.71%) Terraform
14 20 (6.10%) ActiveMQ
15 17 (5.18%) SOAP
16 16 (4.88%) JSON
17 15 (4.57%) HTML
17 15 (4.57%) JAX-RS
18 12 (3.66%) Swagger
18 12 (3.66%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 36 (10.98%) Product Ownership
2 34 (10.37%) Distributed Systems
3 28 (8.54%) Cloud Native
4 18 (5.49%) Enterprise Software
5 14 (4.27%) Equity Derivative
5 14 (4.27%) Legacy Systems
6 10 (3.05%) Derivative
6 10 (3.05%) Distributed Architecture
7 7 (2.13%) Onboarding
8 6 (1.83%) Management Information System
8 6 (1.83%) Virtual Team
9 5 (1.52%) Mobile App
9 5 (1.52%) NHS
9 5 (1.52%) Robotics
9 5 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (1.52%) Taxonomies
10 4 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.22%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 3 (0.91%) AI Agents
11 3 (0.91%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 44 (13.41%) Linux
2 22 (6.71%) Unix
3 6 (1.83%) Android
3 6 (1.83%) Apple iOS
4 5 (1.52%) Mac OS X
5 4 (1.22%) Windows
6 2 (0.61%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.61%) VMS
7 1 (0.30%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 220 (67.07%) Agile
2 215 (65.55%) CI/CD
3 212 (64.63%) TDD
4 201 (61.28%) Test Automation
5 119 (36.28%) Microservices
6 115 (35.06%) DevOps
7 78 (23.78%) Scrum
8 71 (21.65%) Continuous Improvement
9 70 (21.34%) Problem-Solving
10 68 (20.73%) Test Strategy
11 65 (19.82%) AI
12 60 (18.29%) API Testing
12 60 (18.29%) Software Engineering
13 45 (13.72%) Stakeholder Management
14 43 (13.11%) Mentoring
15 42 (12.80%) Software Testing
16 40 (12.20%) Continuous Integration
17 37 (11.28%) SDLC
18 36 (10.98%) Pair Programming
19 35 (10.67%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 198 (60.37%) Java
2 90 (27.44%) SQL
3 75 (22.87%) Python
4 58 (17.68%) JavaScript
5 48 (14.63%) C#
6 32 (9.76%) TypeScript
7 13 (3.96%) C++
8 8 (2.44%) Groovy
8 8 (2.44%) Ruby
9 7 (2.13%) Apex Code
10 6 (1.83%) Kotlin
10 6 (1.83%) R
11 5 (1.52%) Bash
12 4 (1.22%) Go
12 4 (1.22%) Perl
13 3 (0.91%) Scala
13 3 (0.91%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.91%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.61%) Cypher
14 2 (0.61%) SHACL
Qualifications
1 78 (23.78%) Security Cleared
2 62 (18.90%) SC Cleared
3 26 (7.93%) BPSS Clearance
4 19 (5.79%) Degree
4 19 (5.79%) ISTQB
5 13 (3.96%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (2.74%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 8 (2.44%) DV Cleared
8 6 (1.83%) Microsoft Certification
9 3 (0.91%) CSPO
9 3 (0.91%) ISEB
9 3 (0.91%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 2 (0.61%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.61%) Azure Certification
11 1 (0.30%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.30%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (22.56%) QA
2 52 (15.85%) Accessibility
3 32 (9.76%) WCAG
4 16 (4.88%) Data Quality
5 14 (4.27%) 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 (24.39%) Docker
2 5 (1.52%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 64 (19.51%) Kubernetes
2 27 (8.23%) Grafana
3 21 (6.40%) Prometheus
4 7 (2.13%) Ansible
5 4 (1.22%) Kibana
6 3 (0.91%) Istio
7 2 (0.61%) Amdocs OSS
7 2 (0.61%) Argo
7 2 (0.61%) Consul
7 2 (0.61%) Rancher
7 2 (0.61%) Zipkin
8 1 (0.30%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.30%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 25 (7.62%) Microsoft
2 17 (5.18%) Salesforce
3 16 (4.88%) Sybase
4 15 (4.57%) IBM
5 14 (4.27%) Google
6 13 (3.96%) Oracle
7 8 (2.44%) Checkmarx
7 8 (2.44%) Conga
7 8 (2.44%) GoCardless
8 7 (2.13%) Atlassian
9 6 (1.83%) Databricks
9 6 (1.83%) Dynatrace
9 6 (1.83%) Jaspersoft
10 4 (1.22%) ServiceNow
10 4 (1.22%) Splunk
11 3 (0.91%) Guidewire
11 3 (0.91%) OpenAI
11 3 (0.91%) OpenLink
12 2 (0.61%) Amdocs
12 2 (0.61%) Bloomberg