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

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 137 124
Rank change year-on-year +49 -13 +20
Contract jobs citing User Acceptance Testing 1,240 596 881
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.90% 1.94% 1.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.36% 2.16% 2.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 790 391 583
10th Percentile £329 £320 £344
25th Percentile £407 £400 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £588
90th Percentile £700 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +5.56% -5.26% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 8 26
10th Percentile £15.74 £20.48 £15.52
25th Percentile £22.85 £28.50 £30.75
Median hourly rate £30.15 £58.75 £79.75
Median % change year-on-year -48.68% -26.33% +27.60%
75th Percentile £78.25 £69.13 £86.50
90th Percentile £85.25 £87.95 £92.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.36 £62.50 £49.00
% change year-on-year -54.63% +27.55% -21.66%

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 36,884 27,639 38,956
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.36% 90.19% 86.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,378 17,377 25,379
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £494 £500
% change year-on-year -2.58% -1.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,184 915 2,310
10th Percentile £14.72 £15.62 £13.16
25th Percentile £18.32 £21.03 £16.06
Median hourly rate £28.00 £32.81 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.66% +0.95% -7.14%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £58.64
90th Percentile £74.00 £75.95 £71.87
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.38 £32.25 £32.50
% change year-on-year -21.30% -0.77% -7.14%

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 7 March 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 7 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for User Acceptance Testing in the UK

User Acceptance Testing
Top 17 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 7 March 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 +46 1,080 £500 - 415
London +38 570 £525 +1.45% 133
UK excluding London +59 529 £475 +5.56% 345
Work from Home +55 391 £500 - 156
North of England +4 148 £450 -9.73% 78
South East +43 143 £550 +25.71% 120
Midlands +6 124 £475 -3.31% 59
North West +6 94 £425 -16.87% 46
West Midlands +7 84 £491 -16.43% 22
Yorkshire -21 45 £511 +15.21% 23
East Midlands -16 40 £420 -1.18% 36
South West -8 39 £450 +1.98% 34
Scotland +30 34 £425 -2.86% 10
East of England -16 31 £528 +32.08% 31
Northern Ireland +5 12 £475 +26.67% 5
North East -4 9 £508 +51.49% 9
Wales +5 7 £344 -26.13% 12

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 89 (7.18%) Confluence
2 29 (2.34%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.81%) SAS
5 8 (0.65%) Appian
6 7 (0.56%) CMS
7 6 (0.48%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 5 (0.40%) Apache
8 5 (0.40%) GeoServer
8 5 (0.40%) Smallworld
9 3 (0.24%) Apache Spark
9 3 (0.24%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.16%) Camunda
10 2 (0.16%) Mendix
11 1 (0.081%) Kentico
11 1 (0.081%) LiveLink
11 1 (0.081%) NetWeaver
11 1 (0.081%) SAP Portal
11 1 (0.081%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 54 (4.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (2.66%) Microsoft Project
3 32 (2.58%) MS Visio
4 25 (2.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 17 (1.37%) Microsoft Office
6 6 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.16%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.081%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.081%) S-PLUS
8 1 (0.081%) Trello
Business Applications
1 77 (6.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 48 (3.87%) Oracle Payables
3 41 (3.31%) Oracle EBS
4 40 (3.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 40 (3.23%) Oracle Receivables
5 30 (2.42%) Oracle General Ledger
6 29 (2.34%) Dynamics CRM
7 28 (2.26%) Oracle Assets
8 23 (1.85%) Oracle EBS R12
9 20 (1.61%) Oracle Cash Management
10 18 (1.45%) Oracle ERP
11 15 (1.21%) SAP FI
12 14 (1.13%) iTrent
13 13 (1.05%) Loan IQ
13 13 (1.05%) Payment Gateway
13 13 (1.05%) SAP CO
14 11 (0.89%) SAP FI/CO
15 10 (0.81%) Oracle AGIS
16 9 (0.73%) NEC Housing
16 9 (0.73%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 179 (14.44%) Azure
2 86 (6.94%) AWS
3 76 (6.13%) Power Platform
4 73 (5.89%) Azure DevOps
5 64 (5.16%) Dynamics 365
6 53 (4.27%) OCI
7 33 (2.66%) SaaS
8 32 (2.58%) GCP
9 30 (2.42%) SuccessFactors
10 28 (2.26%) Power Automate
11 24 (1.94%) Microsoft 365
12 23 (1.85%) Entra ID
13 22 (1.77%) GitHub
14 20 (1.61%) PowerApps
15 13 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
16 11 (0.89%) OpenShift
16 11 (0.89%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 10 (0.81%) Serverless
18 9 (0.73%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
19 8 (0.65%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 10 (0.81%) Firewall
1 10 (0.81%) Network Security
2 8 (0.65%) SMS
3 5 (0.40%) BGP
3 5 (0.40%) LAN
3 5 (0.40%) MPLS
4 4 (0.32%) Structured Cabling
5 3 (0.24%) VPN
5 3 (0.24%) WAN
6 2 (0.16%) 5G
6 2 (0.16%) Cisco ASA
6 2 (0.16%) Diameter Protocol
6 2 (0.16%) HTTPS
6 2 (0.16%) IOS XR
6 2 (0.16%) IPsec
6 2 (0.16%) NX-OS
6 2 (0.16%) OSPF
6 2 (0.16%) SSL
6 2 (0.16%) tcpdump
6 2 (0.16%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (3.71%) Power BI
2 29 (2.34%) Oracle Reports
2 29 (2.34%) SQL Server
3 20 (1.61%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 20 (1.61%) Relational Database
4 18 (1.45%) MySQL
5 15 (1.21%) Data Warehouse
5 15 (1.21%) Tableau
6 13 (1.05%) SAP HANA
7 11 (0.89%) Metadata
8 8 (0.65%) Oracle Database
8 8 (0.65%) Pinecone
9 7 (0.56%) DynamoDB
10 6 (0.48%) GIS
10 6 (0.48%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 5 (0.40%) Geospatial Data
11 5 (0.40%) QGIS
12 4 (0.32%) Data Lake
12 4 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
12 4 (0.32%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 214 (17.26%) JIRA
2 29 (2.34%) Selenium
3 26 (2.10%) Postman
4 24 (1.94%) Git
5 17 (1.37%) Jenkins
5 17 (1.37%) TestRail
6 15 (1.21%) GitLab
7 11 (0.89%) Oracle Forms
7 11 (0.89%) Zephyr
8 10 (0.81%) Cucumber
8 10 (0.81%) REST Assured
9 9 (0.73%) Cypress.io
9 9 (0.73%) JMeter
9 9 (0.73%) Team Foundation Server
10 8 (0.65%) MLflow
11 5 (0.40%) Visual Studio
12 4 (0.32%) git-flow
12 4 (0.32%) LoadRunner
12 4 (0.32%) SoapUI
12 4 (0.32%) SpecFlow
General
1 530 (42.74%) Social Skills
2 526 (42.42%) Finance
3 227 (18.31%) Analytical Skills
4 153 (12.34%) Banking
5 139 (11.21%) Public Sector
6 86 (6.94%) Documentation Skills
7 68 (5.48%) Manufacturing
8 44 (3.55%) Investment Banking
9 37 (2.98%) Legal
10 36 (2.90%) Presentation Skills
11 35 (2.82%) General Ledger
12 32 (2.58%) Marketing
13 29 (2.34%) Local Government
14 27 (2.18%) Front Office
14 27 (2.18%) Organisational Skills
14 27 (2.18%) Retail
15 21 (1.69%) Law
16 15 (1.21%) Telecoms
17 14 (1.13%) Billing
17 14 (1.13%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 366 (29.52%) Analyst
2 268 (21.61%) Business Analyst
3 185 (14.92%) Consultant
4 164 (13.23%) Lead
5 75 (6.05%) Senior
5 75 (6.05%) Test Manager
6 72 (5.81%) Developer
7 60 (4.84%) Project Manager
7 60 (4.84%) Test Analyst
8 57 (4.60%) Functional Consultant
9 54 (4.35%) SAP Consultant
10 47 (3.79%) Architect
11 44 (3.55%) Test Leader
12 40 (3.23%) Oracle Consultant
12 40 (3.23%) Tester
13 26 (2.10%) Senior Analyst
14 24 (1.94%) Dynamics 365 Consultant
15 23 (1.85%) Data Analyst
15 23 (1.85%) Migration Analyst
15 23 (1.85%) SAP Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (6.29%) REST
2 55 (4.44%) Oracle Fusion
3 34 (2.74%) SOAP
4 28 (2.26%) Web Services
5 20 (1.61%) Middleware
5 20 (1.61%) RESTful
6 19 (1.53%) .NET
6 19 (1.53%) Playwright
7 18 (1.45%) Spring
7 18 (1.45%) XML
8 17 (1.37%) HTML
8 17 (1.37%) JSON
8 17 (1.37%) Spring Boot
9 16 (1.29%) CSS
9 16 (1.29%) OAuth
10 13 (1.05%) LDAP
10 13 (1.05%) SailPoint
10 13 (1.05%) Swagger
11 12 (0.97%) ADO
11 12 (0.97%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 91 (7.34%) Product Ownership
2 83 (6.69%) Legacy Systems
3 60 (4.84%) Onboarding
4 31 (2.50%) Management Information System
5 27 (2.18%) Data Structures
6 26 (2.10%) Data Protection Act
7 25 (2.02%) Public Cloud
8 22 (1.77%) Derivative
9 21 (1.69%) Low-Code
10 17 (1.37%) Greenfield Project
11 16 (1.29%) SWIFT Messaging Network
12 15 (1.21%) Analytical Mindset
13 14 (1.13%) Cloud Native
13 14 (1.13%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 13 (1.05%) CMDB
14 13 (1.05%) PMI
14 13 (1.05%) Reference Data
15 12 (0.97%) Fixed Income
16 11 (0.89%) Credit Risk
16 11 (0.89%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 30 (2.42%) Windows
2 14 (1.13%) Linux
3 8 (0.65%) Windows 10
4 6 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
5 5 (0.40%) Android
5 5 (0.40%) Apple iOS
6 4 (0.32%) VMS
7 3 (0.24%) OpenVMS
7 3 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.24%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.16%) Unix
9 1 (0.081%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.081%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 398 (32.10%) Agile
2 357 (28.79%) Stakeholder Management
3 326 (26.29%) Migration
4 230 (18.55%) System Integration Testing
5 223 (17.98%) Validation
6 221 (17.82%) Problem-Solving
7 216 (17.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 199 (16.05%) Workshop Facilitation
9 192 (15.48%) Data Migration
10 175 (14.11%) Requirements Gathering
11 174 (14.03%) ERP
12 157 (12.66%) DevOps
13 149 (12.02%) Business Analysis
14 145 (11.69%) Test Automation
15 144 (11.61%) Test Strategy
16 140 (11.29%) User Stories
17 139 (11.21%) Continuous Improvement
18 136 (10.97%) Scenario Testing
19 118 (9.52%) Change Management
19 118 (9.52%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 179 (14.44%) SQL
2 67 (5.40%) Python
3 53 (4.27%) Java
4 35 (2.82%) JavaScript
5 23 (1.85%) PowerShell
6 19 (1.53%) C#
7 18 (1.45%) TypeScript
8 16 (1.29%) PL/SQL
9 14 (1.13%) ABAP
10 8 (0.65%) Bash
10 8 (0.65%) PHP
11 4 (0.32%) C++
11 4 (0.32%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.24%) Apex Code
12 3 (0.24%) Bicep
12 3 (0.24%) Cypher
12 3 (0.24%) Korn
12 3 (0.24%) Scala
12 3 (0.24%) VB
12 3 (0.24%) VB6
Qualifications
1 158 (12.74%) Security Cleared
2 120 (9.68%) Degree
3 115 (9.27%) SC Cleared
4 47 (3.79%) ISTQB
5 36 (2.90%) BPSS Clearance
6 33 (2.66%) PMI Certification
7 23 (1.85%) Master's Degree
7 23 (1.85%) PMP
8 17 (1.37%) Computer Science Degree
9 14 (1.13%) CBAP
10 13 (1.05%) ACCA
10 13 (1.05%) CIMA
11 12 (0.97%) IIBA
12 11 (0.89%) DV Cleared
13 9 (0.73%) ISEB
14 7 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
15 6 (0.48%) AWS Certification
15 6 (0.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 6 (0.48%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 6 (0.48%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 218 (17.58%) QA
2 100 (8.06%) Data Quality
3 45 (3.63%) GDPR
4 27 (2.18%) PMO
5 25 (2.02%) PSD2
6 21 (1.69%) Accessibility
7 19 (1.53%) IFRS
8 18 (1.45%) ISO 20022
8 18 (1.45%) SLA
9 15 (1.21%) IFRS 17
9 15 (1.21%) ISO 8583
9 15 (1.21%) MiFID
10 14 (1.13%) SEPA
11 12 (0.97%) PCI DSS
12 10 (0.81%) NIST
13 9 (0.73%) NCSC
14 8 (0.65%) EMIR
15 7 (0.56%) GRC
15 7 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
16 6 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 28 (2.26%) Docker
2 19 (1.53%) Active Directory
3 14 (1.13%) Virtual Desktop
4 6 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (0.24%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
6 3 (0.24%) ISA Server
7 2 (0.16%) Firmware
7 2 (0.16%) HDFS
8 1 (0.081%) Citrix Presentation Server
8 1 (0.081%) UAG
8 1 (0.081%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 31 (2.50%) Kubernetes
2 28 (2.26%) HP ALM
3 21 (1.69%) Terraform
4 9 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
5 6 (0.48%) Grafana
5 6 (0.48%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (0.32%) SCCM
7 3 (0.24%) Ansible
8 2 (0.16%) HP Quality Center
8 2 (0.16%) Kibana
9 1 (0.081%) CASB
9 1 (0.081%) CEMLI
9 1 (0.081%) Cisco CUCM
9 1 (0.081%) Control-M
9 1 (0.081%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.081%) Oracle Identity Management
9 1 (0.081%) Rundeck
9 1 (0.081%) SCOM
9 1 (0.081%) WSUS
Vendors
1 206 (16.61%) Oracle
2 188 (15.16%) SAP
3 145 (11.69%) Microsoft
4 102 (8.23%) ServiceNow
5 52 (4.19%) Salesforce
6 28 (2.26%) HP
7 18 (1.45%) Murex
7 18 (1.45%) Workday
8 13 (1.05%) Ariba
8 13 (1.05%) Cisco
8 13 (1.05%) UiPath
9 11 (0.89%) Splunk
10 9 (0.73%) Citrix
10 9 (0.73%) NEC
11 8 (0.65%) Adobe
11 8 (0.65%) Bloomberg
11 8 (0.65%) CheckPoint
11 8 (0.65%) CyberArk
11 8 (0.65%) Fortinet
11 8 (0.65%) IBM