User Acceptance Testing Contract Job Trends

User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring User Acceptance Testing skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 73 91 139
Rank change year-on-year +18 +48 -31
Contract jobs citing User Acceptance Testing 1,898 967 694
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.43% 2.91% 1.84%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.05% 3.22% 2.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,145 662 463
10th Percentile £350 £325 £323
25th Percentile £415 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £633
90th Percentile £713 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £455 £475
% change year-on-year +4.51% -4.32% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 17 3
10th Percentile £18.00 £15.74 £39.50
25th Percentile £24.72 £30.05 £46.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £40.49 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +35.84% -32.52% +7.03%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £86.00 £72.30 £64.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £54.23 £32.36 £47.50
% change year-on-year +67.60% -31.88% +54.06%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

User 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 46,870 30,047 32,387
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.76% 90.49% 86.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,156 18,700 19,515
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% -2.42%
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 3,444 1,888 1,247
10th Percentile £13.53 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.94 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -10.11%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.18 £65.25 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £40.33
% change year-on-year +68.43% -44.79% -8.14%

User Acceptance Testing
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing User Acceptance Testing relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

User Acceptance Testing job vacancy trend in the UK

User Acceptance Testing
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing User Acceptance Testing.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing User Acceptance Testing

User Acceptance Testing
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing User Acceptance Testing over the 6 months to 15 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for User Acceptance Testing in the UK

User Acceptance Testing
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing User Acceptance Testing.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing User Acceptance Testing

User Acceptance Testing
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing User Acceptance Testing over the 6 months to 15 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for User Acceptance Testing in the UK

User Acceptance Testing
Top 18 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing User Acceptance Testing within the UK over the 6 months to 15 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 +22 1,602 £511 +2.15% 207
London +26 891 £525 - 87
UK excluding London +13 750 £475 +4.51% 156
Work from Home +14 615 £500 - 190
Midlands +39 189 £475 +10.47% 20
North of England -16 186 £460 -6.50% 28
South East -11 158 £500 - 50
West Midlands +35 143 £475 - 15
North West -12 115 £475 +5.03% 16
South West 0 74 £500 +21.21% 31
Scotland +18 67 £450 +20.00% 7
Yorkshire -17 54 £430 -18.10% 7
East Midlands +3 41 £496 +20.91% 5
East of England -24 40 £525 +2.54% 18
Wales +1 23 £488 +58.54% 5
Northern Ireland +4 17 £456 -10.98% 4
North East -20 17 £388 - 5
Channel Islands - 1 £550 - 1

User Acceptance Testing
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
1 143 (7.53%) Confluence
2 55 (2.90%) SharePoint
3 26 (1.37%) SAS
4 17 (0.90%) CMS
5 10 (0.53%) Camunda
6 6 (0.32%) Apache Spark
6 6 (0.32%) Sitecore CMS
6 6 (0.32%) Tuxedo
7 5 (0.26%) Apache
7 5 (0.26%) Kentico
8 4 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (0.21%) OpenEdge
8 4 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.16%) JBoss
9 3 (0.16%) Microsoft Exchange
9 3 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.16%) SugarCRM
9 3 (0.16%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 3 (0.16%) Umbraco
10 2 (0.11%) IIS
Applications
1 101 (5.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 48 (2.53%) MS Visio
3 44 (2.32%) Microsoft Office
4 25 (1.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (0.74%) Microsoft Project
6 9 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
7 7 (0.37%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.11%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.053%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.053%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.053%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.053%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.053%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.053%) Simulink
9 1 (0.053%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 192 (10.12%) SAP S/4HANA
2 47 (2.48%) Dynamics CRM
3 41 (2.16%) Oracle EBS
4 34 (1.79%) SAP Payroll
5 27 (1.42%) Oracle Payables
5 27 (1.42%) SAP GRC
5 27 (1.42%) Workday HCM
6 24 (1.26%) Oracle Payroll
7 23 (1.21%) SAP HCM
8 21 (1.11%) SAP FI
9 19 (1.00%) Oracle Receivables
10 18 (0.95%) SAP SD
11 16 (0.84%) Aladdin
12 15 (0.79%) NetSuite
12 15 (0.79%) Oracle General Ledger
12 15 (0.79%) SAP MM
13 14 (0.74%) Oracle ERP
13 14 (0.74%) SAP CO
13 14 (0.74%) SAP EWM
13 14 (0.74%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 333 (17.54%) Azure
2 201 (10.59%) Azure DevOps
3 166 (8.75%) Power Platform
4 114 (6.01%) Dynamics 365
5 108 (5.69%) AWS
6 64 (3.37%) SuccessFactors
7 63 (3.32%) OCI
8 42 (2.21%) SaaS
9 37 (1.95%) GitHub
10 36 (1.90%) GCP
11 35 (1.84%) Power Automate
12 33 (1.74%) Snowflake
13 31 (1.63%) Microsoft 365
14 29 (1.53%) PowerApps
15 24 (1.26%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 23 (1.21%) Entra ID
17 22 (1.16%) Microsoft Copilot
18 21 (1.11%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
19 18 (0.95%) GitHub Actions
19 18 (0.95%) Lucidchart
Communications & Networking
1 14 (0.74%) SSL
2 9 (0.47%) WAN
3 7 (0.37%) DNS
3 7 (0.37%) Firewall
4 4 (0.21%) Fibre Channel
4 4 (0.21%) Intrusion Detection
4 4 (0.21%) LAN
4 4 (0.21%) SAN
4 4 (0.21%) Wi-Fi
5 3 (0.16%) HTTP
5 3 (0.16%) TCP/IP
5 3 (0.16%) Unified Communications
5 3 (0.16%) VLAN
5 3 (0.16%) VPN
6 2 (0.11%) DHCP
6 2 (0.11%) HTTPS
6 2 (0.11%) Internet
6 2 (0.11%) Intranet
6 2 (0.11%) Network Security
6 2 (0.11%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (6.16%) Power BI
2 78 (4.11%) SQL Server
3 56 (2.95%) Data Warehouse
4 33 (1.74%) Relational Database
5 30 (1.58%) Oracle Database
6 25 (1.32%) Oracle Reports
7 22 (1.16%) PostgreSQL
8 21 (1.11%) Data Lake
9 20 (1.05%) Metadata
10 19 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 18 (0.95%) Tableau
12 16 (0.84%) SAP HANA
13 15 (0.79%) RDBMS
14 14 (0.74%) Oracle BI Publisher
15 12 (0.63%) Big Data
15 12 (0.63%) Ingres
16 10 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
16 10 (0.53%) MySQL
16 10 (0.53%) Pentaho
17 9 (0.47%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 323 (17.02%) JIRA
2 63 (3.32%) Git
3 45 (2.37%) Selenium
4 42 (2.21%) Jenkins
5 35 (1.84%) Postman
6 29 (1.53%) REST Assured
7 24 (1.26%) Zephyr
8 23 (1.21%) Cypress.io
9 21 (1.11%) GitLab
10 14 (0.74%) JUnit
11 13 (0.68%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
12 11 (0.58%) TestRail
13 10 (0.53%) Maven
13 10 (0.53%) Mockito
14 9 (0.47%) Bitbucket Server
14 9 (0.47%) Gatling
14 9 (0.47%) Gradle
14 9 (0.47%) SonarQube
14 9 (0.47%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 771 (40.62%) Finance
2 725 (38.20%) Social Skills
3 352 (18.55%) Analytical Skills
4 227 (11.96%) Banking
5 182 (9.59%) Public Sector
6 107 (5.64%) Documentation Skills
7 97 (5.11%) Retail
8 74 (3.90%) Legal
8 74 (3.90%) Manufacturing
9 63 (3.32%) General Ledger
10 55 (2.90%) Front Office
11 49 (2.58%) Billing
12 47 (2.48%) Organisational Skills
13 42 (2.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 41 (2.16%) Influencing Skills
15 35 (1.84%) Investment Banking
16 34 (1.79%) Local Government
17 28 (1.48%) Back Office
18 27 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
19 26 (1.37%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 540 (28.45%) Analyst
2 407 (21.44%) Business Analyst
3 300 (15.81%) Consultant
4 228 (12.01%) Lead
5 149 (7.85%) Senior
6 103 (5.43%) Developer
6 103 (5.43%) Test Manager
7 84 (4.43%) SAP Consultant
8 80 (4.21%) Functional Consultant
9 75 (3.95%) Test Leader
10 66 (3.48%) Oracle Consultant
10 66 (3.48%) Test Analyst
11 61 (3.21%) Project Manager
12 52 (2.74%) Tester
13 51 (2.69%) Senior Analyst
14 48 (2.53%) Architect
15 47 (2.48%) Financial Analyst
16 46 (2.42%) Data Analyst
17 44 (2.32%) Finance Business Analyst
18 43 (2.27%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (4.95%) Oracle Fusion
2 91 (4.79%) REST
3 81 (4.27%) Middleware
4 45 (2.37%) JSON
4 45 (2.37%) SOAP
5 43 (2.27%) .NET
6 40 (2.11%) Web Services
6 40 (2.11%) XML
7 39 (2.05%) SAP Fiori
8 34 (1.79%) Playwright
9 31 (1.63%) Terraform
10 20 (1.05%) ADO
10 20 (1.05%) React
11 18 (0.95%) Kafka
12 16 (0.84%) HTML
13 14 (0.74%) OAuth
13 14 (0.74%) Spring Boot
14 13 (0.68%) ARM Templates
14 13 (0.68%) CSS
15 11 (0.58%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 152 (8.01%) Product Ownership
2 101 (5.32%) Onboarding
3 79 (4.16%) Legacy Systems
4 68 (3.58%) Data Structures
5 67 (3.53%) Enterprise Software
6 56 (2.95%) Management Information System
7 36 (1.90%) Derivative
8 35 (1.84%) Data Protection Act
9 31 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
10 28 (1.48%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 26 (1.37%) Cloud Native
12 25 (1.32%) Low-Code
12 25 (1.32%) Virtual Team
13 23 (1.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 22 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
14 22 (1.16%) Replication
15 21 (1.11%) FMCG
16 19 (1.00%) CMDB
17 18 (0.95%) Fixed Income
17 18 (0.95%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 59 (3.11%) Windows
2 28 (1.48%) Linux
3 17 (0.90%) Windows Server
4 15 (0.79%) Unix
5 7 (0.37%) VMS
6 3 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.16%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.11%) zOS
8 1 (0.053%) AIX
8 1 (0.053%) Android
8 1 (0.053%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.053%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.053%) macOS
8 1 (0.053%) Solaris
8 1 (0.053%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 784 (41.31%) Stakeholder Management
2 603 (31.77%) Agile
3 543 (28.61%) Migration
4 529 (27.87%) Validation
5 516 (27.19%) System Integration Testing
6 383 (20.18%) Data Migration
7 375 (19.76%) Requirements Gathering
8 363 (19.13%) Problem-Solving
9 311 (16.39%) User Stories
10 305 (16.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 297 (15.65%) Defect Management
12 296 (15.60%) DevOps
12 296 (15.60%) Workshop Facilitation
13 280 (14.75%) ERP
14 277 (14.59%) Continuous Improvement
15 260 (13.70%) Acceptance Criteria
16 255 (13.44%) Business Analysis
17 243 (12.80%) Integration Testing
18 216 (11.38%) Scenario Testing
19 214 (11.28%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 349 (18.39%) SQL
2 92 (4.85%) Python
3 55 (2.90%) Java
4 53 (2.79%) JavaScript
5 52 (2.74%) C#
6 44 (2.32%) ABAP
7 37 (1.95%) PowerShell
8 21 (1.11%) Bash
9 18 (0.95%) T-SQL
10 15 (0.79%) Bicep
11 13 (0.68%) PL/SQL
12 12 (0.63%) Apex Code
12 12 (0.63%) TypeScript
12 12 (0.63%) VB
13 10 (0.53%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.47%) C
14 9 (0.47%) VB6
15 7 (0.37%) Korn
15 7 (0.37%) VBA
16 5 (0.26%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 274 (14.44%) Security Cleared
2 218 (11.49%) SC Cleared
3 172 (9.06%) Degree
4 65 (3.42%) ISTQB
5 53 (2.79%) ACCA
6 48 (2.53%) CIMA
7 39 (2.05%) BPSS Clearance
8 28 (1.48%) PMI Certification
9 24 (1.26%) PMP
10 23 (1.21%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 22 (1.16%) DV Cleared
12 21 (1.11%) Computer Science Degree
12 21 (1.11%) Microsoft Certification
13 19 (1.00%) CBAP
14 15 (0.79%) Azure Certification
14 15 (0.79%) IIBA
15 14 (0.74%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 13 (0.68%) AWS Certification
17 11 (0.58%) Master's Degree
18 10 (0.53%) FFIEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 275 (14.49%) QA
2 200 (10.54%) Data Quality
3 53 (2.79%) GDPR
4 35 (1.84%) GRC
5 31 (1.63%) Accessibility
6 26 (1.37%) PMO
7 17 (0.90%) NIST
8 15 (0.79%) IFRS
8 15 (0.79%) ISO 20022
9 13 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
9 13 (0.68%) COBIT
10 12 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 9 (0.47%) SLA
12 8 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 8 (0.42%) SEPA
12 8 (0.42%) WCAG
13 7 (0.37%) Solvency II
14 6 (0.32%) EMIR
14 6 (0.32%) GAAP
14 6 (0.32%) MiFID
System Software
1 34 (1.79%) Docker
2 29 (1.53%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
3 11 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
4 4 (0.21%) Microsoft App-V
5 2 (0.11%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.053%) NFS
6 1 (0.053%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.053%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.053%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 39 (2.05%) Kubernetes
2 13 (0.68%) HP ALM
3 10 (0.53%) SCOM
4 8 (0.42%) Grafana
4 8 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
5 7 (0.37%) Ansible
5 7 (0.37%) HP Quality Center
6 6 (0.32%) Microsoft Intune
7 5 (0.26%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.21%) Argo
9 3 (0.16%) SCCM
10 2 (0.11%) ITRS Geneos
11 1 (0.053%) Control-M
11 1 (0.053%) Iperf
11 1 (0.053%) Istio
11 1 (0.053%) Network Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.053%) SnapMirror
11 1 (0.053%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 373 (19.65%) SAP
2 295 (15.54%) Microsoft
3 281 (14.81%) Oracle
4 107 (5.64%) Salesforce
5 75 (3.95%) ServiceNow
6 64 (3.37%) Workday
7 28 (1.48%) Ariba
8 23 (1.21%) UiPath
9 22 (1.16%) Databricks
10 21 (1.11%) Murex
11 20 (1.05%) MuleSoft
12 17 (0.90%) CyberArk
12 17 (0.90%) Talend
13 16 (0.84%) Bloomberg
13 16 (0.84%) IBM
14 15 (0.79%) Informatica
15 14 (0.74%) HP
16 13 (0.68%) Kronos
16 13 (0.68%) Sage
17 12 (0.63%) Tagetik