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 15 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 495 503 593
Rank change year-on-year +8 +90 +70
Contract jobs citing Operational Acceptance Testing 27 84 113
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.093% 0.20% 0.20%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.10% 0.23% 0.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 21 56 76
10th Percentile £413 £307 £363
25th Percentile £463 £413 £447
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £488
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +7.69% +5.41%
75th Percentile £525 £630 £619
90th Percentile £750 £750 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £496 £375 £500
% change year-on-year +32.27% -25.00% +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 26,492 36,783 51,773
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.98% 86.20% 89.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,003 23,675 35,887
10th Percentile £305 £300 £325
25th Percentile £410 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -4.55% +3.77%
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,084 2,434 1,710
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.75 £10.99
25th Percentile £18.13 £16.00 £16.22
Median hourly rate £28.30 £36.50 £36.40
Median % change year-on-year -22.48% +0.29% +41.73%
75th Percentile £60.00 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.43 £38.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -33.08% +8.57% +75.00%

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 15 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 15 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 +21 25 £500 -4.76% 12
UK excluding London +44 21 £496 +32.27% 10
Work from Home +36 13 £500 -16.67% 7
West Midlands +21 8 £500 -28.57% 3
Midlands +20 8 £500 -5.21% 3
London -1 6 £675 +24.14% 3
South East +49 5 £475 - 5
East of England +24 2 £313 -
Scotland +2 2 £463 +5.71%
North of England - 2 £373 -
South West - 2 £588 - 2
North West - 2 £373 -

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 (3.70%) CICS
1 1 (3.70%) Confluence
1 1 (3.70%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 1 (3.70%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (3.70%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 4 (14.81%) Azure
2 2 (7.41%) GitHub
3 1 (3.70%) Azure Data Factory
3 1 (3.70%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (3.70%) Azure Machine Learning
3 1 (3.70%) Dynamics 365
3 1 (3.70%) Fivetran
3 1 (3.70%) Power Automate
3 1 (3.70%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (14.81%) Firewall
1 4 (14.81%) LAN
1 4 (14.81%) WAN
2 2 (7.41%) Cisco Nexus
3 1 (3.70%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (3.70%) DB2
1 1 (3.70%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 11 (40.74%) JIRA
2 2 (7.41%) Sonatype Nexus
2 2 (7.41%) Zephyr
3 1 (3.70%) Jenkins
3 1 (3.70%) JMeter
3 1 (3.70%) LoadRunner
3 1 (3.70%) NeoLoad
3 1 (3.70%) TestComplete
General
1 17 (62.96%) Social Skills
2 7 (25.93%) Finance
3 4 (14.81%) Influencing Skills
4 3 (11.11%) Analytical Skills
5 2 (7.41%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (3.70%) Banking
6 1 (3.70%) Pharmaceutical
6 1 (3.70%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 14 (51.85%) Analyst
2 9 (33.33%) OAT Analyst
3 6 (22.22%) Architect
4 5 (18.52%) Test Analyst
5 4 (14.81%) Azure Architect
5 4 (14.81%) Cloud Architect
5 4 (14.81%) Technical Architect
6 3 (11.11%) Lead
7 2 (7.41%) Infrastructure Analyst
7 2 (7.41%) Infrastructure Test Analyst
7 2 (7.41%) Network Analyst
7 2 (7.41%) Network Architect
7 2 (7.41%) Network Infrastructure Analyst
7 2 (7.41%) Test Manager
8 1 (3.70%) Operations Analyst
8 1 (3.70%) Senior Analyst
8 1 (3.70%) Senior Technical Analyst
8 1 (3.70%) Sybase DBA
8 1 (3.70%) Technical Analyst
8 1 (3.70%) Test Coordinator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (14.81%) Middleware
2 2 (7.41%) RFC 2544
3 1 (3.70%) ISPF
3 1 (3.70%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 12 (44.44%) Data Centre
2 6 (22.22%) SCADA
3 4 (14.81%) Public Cloud
4 2 (7.41%) Fibre Optics
4 2 (7.41%) Virtual Team
5 1 (3.70%) Clustering
5 1 (3.70%) Distributed Applications
5 1 (3.70%) EPoS
5 1 (3.70%) FMCG
5 1 (3.70%) Life Science
5 1 (3.70%) Mainframe
5 1 (3.70%) N-Tier
5 1 (3.70%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 4 (14.81%) Linux
1 4 (14.81%) Windows
2 1 (3.70%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 11 (40.74%) Test Strategy
2 10 (37.04%) Scenario Testing
2 10 (37.04%) User Acceptance Testing
3 7 (25.93%) Agile
4 6 (22.22%) Waterfall
5 5 (18.52%) Non-Functional Testing
5 5 (18.52%) System Integration Testing
5 5 (18.52%) Test Automation
5 5 (18.52%) Test Management
6 4 (14.81%) Analytics
6 4 (14.81%) Architectural Patterns
6 4 (14.81%) Business Strategy
6 4 (14.81%) Data Science
6 4 (14.81%) Data Strategy
6 4 (14.81%) IT Strategy
6 4 (14.81%) Machine Learning
6 4 (14.81%) Technology Strategy
6 4 (14.81%) Test Scripting
6 4 (14.81%) Translating Business Requirements
7 3 (11.11%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 1 (3.70%) JavaScript
1 1 (3.70%) JCL
1 1 (3.70%) Perl
1 1 (3.70%) Python
1 1 (3.70%) SQL
Qualifications
1 11 (40.74%) Security Cleared
2 10 (37.04%) SC Cleared
3 4 (14.81%) ISTQB
4 3 (11.11%) Degree
5 2 (7.41%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
5 2 (7.41%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (3.70%) CCNP
6 1 (3.70%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (3.70%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (3.70%) DV Cleared
6 1 (3.70%) ISEB
6 1 (3.70%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (25.93%) QA
2 1 (3.70%) GxP
2 1 (3.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 1 (3.70%) Docker
1 1 (3.70%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 2 (7.41%) Ansible
1 2 (7.41%) HP ALM
2 1 (3.70%) CA Endevor
Vendors
1 4 (14.81%) Cisco
1 4 (14.81%) Databricks
2 3 (11.11%) Microsoft
3 2 (7.41%) F5
3 2 (7.41%) HP
3 2 (7.41%) NetScout
3 2 (7.41%) Palo Alto
3 2 (7.41%) SAP
4 1 (3.70%) IBM
4 1 (3.70%) Juniper
4 1 (3.70%) Oracle
4 1 (3.70%) Sun
4 1 (3.70%) Sybase