Operational Acceptance Testing Contracts

Operational Acceptance Testing (OAT)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Operational Acceptance Testing skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Operational Acceptance Testing over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 499 492 607
Rank change year-on-year -7 +115 +81
Contract jobs citing Operational Acceptance Testing 21 90 111
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.072% 0.21% 0.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.079% 0.24% 0.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 17 57 70
10th Percentile £376 £307 £363
25th Percentile £463 £406 £441
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £481
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +9.09% +3.77%
75th Percentile £525 £630 £590
90th Percentile £750 £750 £639
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £394 £500
% change year-on-year +24.95% -21.25% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 4 0
Median hourly rate - £13.55 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Operational Acceptance Testing 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 26,594 37,597 53,655
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.84% 86.31% 89.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,149 24,227 37,238
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £743 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.50% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,071 2,443 1,746
10th Percentile £14.41 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.21 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
Median % change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%
75th Percentile £60.38 £59.98 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £37.34 £36.00
% change year-on-year -26.35% +3.72% +80.00%

Operational Acceptance Testing
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Operational Acceptance Testing as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Operational Acceptance Testing in the UK

Operational Acceptance Testing
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Operational Acceptance Testing.

Daily rate trend for Operational Acceptance Testing in the UK

Operational Acceptance Testing
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Operational Acceptance Testing over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Operational Acceptance Testing in the UK

Operational Acceptance Testing
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Operational Acceptance Testing.

Hourly rate trend for Operational Acceptance Testing in the UK

Operational Acceptance Testing
Top 12 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Operational Acceptance Testing within the UK over the 6 months to 1 May 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 +3 20 £496 -5.52% 10
UK excluding London +56 16 £492 +24.95% 8
Work from Home +24 9 £500 -11.11% 6
Midlands +20 5 £500 -5.21% 2
West Midlands +17 5 £500 -28.57% 2
London -12 5 £588 +8.05% 3
South East +46 4 £475 +15.15% 4
South West +47 2 £588 +11.90% 2
East of England +30 2 £313 -
North of England - 2 £373 -
North West - 2 £373 -
Scotland +5 1 £500 +14.29%

Operational Acceptance Testing
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 1 (4.76%) CICS
1 1 (4.76%) Confluence
1 1 (4.76%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 1 (4.76%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (4.76%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 3 (14.29%) Azure
2 2 (9.52%) GitHub
3 1 (4.76%) Azure Data Factory
3 1 (4.76%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (4.76%) Azure Machine Learning
3 1 (4.76%) Fivetran
3 1 (4.76%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 3 (14.29%) Firewall
1 3 (14.29%) LAN
1 3 (14.29%) WAN
2 2 (9.52%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.76%) DB2
1 1 (4.76%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 8 (38.10%) JIRA
2 2 (9.52%) Sonatype Nexus
3 1 (4.76%) Jenkins
3 1 (4.76%) JMeter
3 1 (4.76%) LoadRunner
3 1 (4.76%) NeoLoad
3 1 (4.76%) Zephyr
General
1 13 (61.90%) Social Skills
2 6 (28.57%) Finance
3 3 (14.29%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (14.29%) Influencing Skills
4 2 (9.52%) Organisational Skills
5 1 (4.76%) Banking
5 1 (4.76%) Pharmaceutical
5 1 (4.76%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 9 (42.86%) Analyst
2 6 (28.57%) OAT Analyst
3 5 (23.81%) Architect
4 3 (14.29%) Azure Architect
4 3 (14.29%) Cloud Architect
4 3 (14.29%) Lead
4 3 (14.29%) Technical Architect
4 3 (14.29%) Test Analyst
5 2 (9.52%) Network Architect
5 2 (9.52%) Test Manager
6 1 (4.76%) Administrator
6 1 (4.76%) Coordinator
6 1 (4.76%) DBA
6 1 (4.76%) Infrastructure Analyst
6 1 (4.76%) Network Analyst
6 1 (4.76%) Network Engineer
6 1 (4.76%) Senior Analyst
6 1 (4.76%) Sybase DBA
6 1 (4.76%) Technical Analyst
6 1 (4.76%) Test Coordinator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (14.29%) Middleware
2 1 (4.76%) ISPF
2 1 (4.76%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 8 (38.10%) Data Centre
2 4 (19.05%) SCADA
3 3 (14.29%) Public Cloud
4 2 (9.52%) Virtual Team
5 1 (4.76%) Clustering
5 1 (4.76%) Distributed Applications
5 1 (4.76%) EPoS
5 1 (4.76%) Fibre Optics
5 1 (4.76%) FMCG
5 1 (4.76%) Life Science
5 1 (4.76%) Mainframe
5 1 (4.76%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 3 (14.29%) Linux
1 3 (14.29%) Windows
2 1 (4.76%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (42.86%) User Acceptance Testing
2 8 (38.10%) Test Strategy
3 7 (33.33%) Scenario Testing
4 6 (28.57%) Agile
5 5 (23.81%) Non-Functional Testing
5 5 (23.81%) System Integration Testing
5 5 (23.81%) Waterfall
6 4 (19.05%) Test Automation
6 4 (19.05%) Test Management
7 3 (14.29%) Analytics
7 3 (14.29%) Data Science
7 3 (14.29%) Data Strategy
7 3 (14.29%) DevOps
7 3 (14.29%) IT Strategy
7 3 (14.29%) Machine Learning
7 3 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
7 3 (14.29%) Test Planning
7 3 (14.29%) Test Scripting
7 3 (14.29%) Translating Business Requirements
7 3 (14.29%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 1 (4.76%) JavaScript
1 1 (4.76%) JCL
1 1 (4.76%) Perl
1 1 (4.76%) Python
Qualifications
1 8 (38.10%) Security Cleared
2 7 (33.33%) SC Cleared
3 3 (14.29%) ISTQB
4 2 (9.52%) Degree
4 2 (9.52%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
5 1 (4.76%) CCNP
5 1 (4.76%) Cisco Certification
5 1 (4.76%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (4.76%) DV Cleared
5 1 (4.76%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 1 (4.76%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (28.57%) QA
2 1 (4.76%) GxP
2 1 (4.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 1 (4.76%) Docker
1 1 (4.76%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 2 (9.52%) Ansible
2 1 (4.76%) CA Endevor
2 1 (4.76%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 3 (14.29%) Cisco
1 3 (14.29%) Databricks
1 3 (14.29%) Microsoft
2 2 (9.52%) F5
2 2 (9.52%) NetScout
2 2 (9.52%) Palo Alto
2 2 (9.52%) SAP
3 1 (4.76%) HP
3 1 (4.76%) IBM
3 1 (4.76%) Juniper
3 1 (4.76%) Oracle
3 1 (4.76%) Sun
3 1 (4.76%) Sybase