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

6 months to
8 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 75 90 132
Rank change year-on-year +15 +42 -24
Contract jobs citing User Acceptance Testing 1,835 960 708
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.36% 2.90% 1.87%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.98% 3.21% 2.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,092 657 470
10th Percentile £350 £324 £313
25th Percentile £416 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £511 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +2.25% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £629
90th Percentile £715 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +5.56% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 16 3
10th Percentile £18.00 £15.74 £39.50
25th Percentile £24.72 £30.04 £46.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £39.25 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.15% -34.59% +14.77%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £86.00 £64.38 £64.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.97 £32.36 £47.50
% change year-on-year +79.17% -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 46,126 29,916 32,545
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.57% 90.50% 85.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,740 18,573 19,640
10th Percentile £325 £295 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,322 1,863 1,307
10th Percentile £13.63 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.63% -7.56%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.21 £65.00
90th Percentile £77.95 £65.23 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.32 £42.50
% change year-on-year +68.05% -47.49% -

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 +21 1,551 £515 +3.00% 1,280
London +22 869 £525 - 617
UK excluding London +14 721 £475 +5.56% 751
Work from Home +12 594 £500 - 482
North of England -8 182 £460 -4.17% 160
Midlands +29 168 £478 +11.05% 125
South East +1 160 £495 -0.20% 232
West Midlands +28 122 £475 +5.56% 80
North West -7 114 £475 +4.86% 80
South West +3 75 £500 +21.21% 81
Scotland +20 64 £450 +20.00% 57
Yorkshire -14 50 £430 -17.16% 57
East Midlands +6 42 £496 +18.04% 45
East of England -30 37 £550 +8.70% 65
Wales +5 23 £488 +35.42% 17
North East -22 18 £375 - 23
Northern Ireland +8 16 £450 -12.20% 21
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
1 132 (7.19%) Confluence
2 55 (3.00%) SharePoint
3 14 (0.76%) CMS
4 10 (0.54%) Camunda
5 7 (0.38%) SAS
6 6 (0.33%) Tuxedo
7 5 (0.27%) Apache
8 4 (0.22%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (0.22%) Apache Spark
8 4 (0.22%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 4 (0.22%) Sitecore CMS
9 3 (0.16%) JBoss
9 3 (0.16%) Kentico
9 3 (0.16%) Microsoft Exchange
9 3 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.16%) SugarCRM
9 3 (0.16%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
10 2 (0.11%) CICS
10 2 (0.11%) IIS
10 2 (0.11%) Smallworld
Applications
1 94 (5.12%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (2.56%) Microsoft Office
3 45 (2.45%) MS Visio
4 24 (1.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
7 7 (0.38%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.054%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.054%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.054%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.054%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.054%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.054%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.054%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 193 (10.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 48 (2.62%) Dynamics CRM
3 38 (2.07%) Oracle EBS
4 33 (1.80%) SAP Payroll
5 27 (1.47%) Oracle Payables
5 27 (1.47%) SAP GRC
5 27 (1.47%) Workday HCM
6 24 (1.31%) SAP HCM
7 22 (1.20%) Oracle Payroll
8 20 (1.09%) SAP FI
9 19 (1.04%) Oracle Receivables
10 18 (0.98%) SAP SD
11 16 (0.87%) Aladdin
12 15 (0.82%) Oracle General Ledger
13 14 (0.76%) SAP CO
13 14 (0.76%) SAP EWM
13 14 (0.76%) SAP MM
13 14 (0.76%) SAP PM
14 13 (0.71%) NetSuite
14 13 (0.71%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 319 (17.38%) Azure
2 189 (10.30%) Azure DevOps
3 165 (8.99%) Power Platform
4 109 (5.94%) Dynamics 365
5 87 (4.74%) AWS
6 64 (3.49%) SuccessFactors
7 60 (3.27%) OCI
8 38 (2.07%) SaaS
9 35 (1.91%) GCP
9 35 (1.91%) GitHub
9 35 (1.91%) Power Automate
10 31 (1.69%) Snowflake
11 28 (1.53%) PowerApps
12 26 (1.42%) Microsoft 365
13 23 (1.25%) Salesforce Service Cloud
14 22 (1.20%) Entra ID
15 21 (1.14%) Microsoft Copilot
16 19 (1.04%) Lucidchart
16 19 (1.04%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
17 18 (0.98%) Boomi
Communications & Networking
1 14 (0.76%) SSL
2 8 (0.44%) WAN
3 7 (0.38%) Firewall
4 5 (0.27%) DNS
5 4 (0.22%) Fibre Channel
5 4 (0.22%) Intrusion Detection
5 4 (0.22%) LAN
5 4 (0.22%) SAN
5 4 (0.22%) Wi-Fi
6 3 (0.16%) HTTP
6 3 (0.16%) TCP/IP
6 3 (0.16%) Unified Communications
6 3 (0.16%) VLAN
6 3 (0.16%) VPN
7 2 (0.11%) DSL
7 2 (0.11%) HTTPS
7 2 (0.11%) Internet
7 2 (0.11%) Intranet
7 2 (0.11%) Network Security
7 2 (0.11%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (6.43%) Power BI
2 71 (3.87%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.94%) Data Warehouse
4 31 (1.69%) Relational Database
5 30 (1.63%) Oracle Database
6 26 (1.42%) Oracle Reports
7 21 (1.14%) Data Lake
7 21 (1.14%) PostgreSQL
8 19 (1.04%) Metadata
8 19 (1.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 16 (0.87%) RDBMS
9 16 (0.87%) SAP HANA
9 16 (0.87%) Tableau
10 12 (0.65%) Ingres
10 12 (0.65%) Oracle BI Publisher
11 10 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (0.54%) Big Data
11 10 (0.54%) MySQL
12 9 (0.49%) SAP BW
13 6 (0.33%) PowerCenter
Development Applications
1 307 (16.73%) JIRA
2 50 (2.72%) Git
3 39 (2.13%) Selenium
4 32 (1.74%) Jenkins
4 32 (1.74%) Postman
5 29 (1.58%) REST Assured
6 23 (1.25%) Zephyr
7 21 (1.14%) GitLab
8 18 (0.98%) Cypress.io
9 14 (0.76%) JUnit
10 13 (0.71%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
12 10 (0.54%) Maven
12 10 (0.54%) Mockito
12 10 (0.54%) TestRail
13 9 (0.49%) Bitbucket Server
13 9 (0.49%) Gradle
13 9 (0.49%) SonarQube
13 9 (0.49%) Team Foundation Server
14 8 (0.44%) Gatling
General
1 758 (41.31%) Finance
2 709 (38.64%) Social Skills
3 337 (18.37%) Analytical Skills
4 218 (11.88%) Banking
5 180 (9.81%) Public Sector
6 107 (5.83%) Documentation Skills
7 100 (5.45%) Retail
8 75 (4.09%) Manufacturing
9 65 (3.54%) Legal
10 58 (3.16%) General Ledger
11 54 (2.94%) Front Office
12 49 (2.67%) Billing
13 45 (2.45%) Organisational Skills
14 40 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 37 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
16 35 (1.91%) Investment Banking
16 35 (1.91%) Local Government
17 31 (1.69%) Back Office
18 28 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
19 26 (1.42%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 510 (27.79%) Analyst
2 390 (21.25%) Business Analyst
3 297 (16.19%) Consultant
4 223 (12.15%) Lead
5 136 (7.41%) Senior
6 101 (5.50%) Developer
7 99 (5.40%) Test Manager
8 85 (4.63%) SAP Consultant
9 82 (4.47%) Functional Consultant
10 70 (3.81%) Test Leader
11 64 (3.49%) Oracle Consultant
12 57 (3.11%) Project Manager
12 57 (3.11%) Test Analyst
13 50 (2.72%) Tester
14 47 (2.56%) Architect
15 46 (2.51%) Senior Analyst
16 45 (2.45%) Financial Analyst
17 42 (2.29%) Finance Business Analyst
18 39 (2.13%) Test Engineer
19 38 (2.07%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (5.12%) Oracle Fusion
2 84 (4.58%) REST
3 76 (4.14%) Middleware
4 46 (2.51%) SOAP
5 43 (2.34%) JSON
6 39 (2.13%) SAP Fiori
6 39 (2.13%) XML
7 36 (1.96%) .NET
8 34 (1.85%) Web Services
9 30 (1.63%) Playwright
9 30 (1.63%) Terraform
10 20 (1.09%) React
11 18 (0.98%) ADO
12 17 (0.93%) Kafka
13 16 (0.87%) HTML
14 14 (0.76%) Spring Boot
15 13 (0.71%) ARM Templates
15 13 (0.71%) CSS
15 13 (0.71%) EDI
15 13 (0.71%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 147 (8.01%) Product Ownership
2 93 (5.07%) Onboarding
3 81 (4.41%) Legacy Systems
4 66 (3.60%) Data Structures
5 63 (3.43%) Enterprise Software
6 56 (3.05%) Management Information System
7 35 (1.91%) Data Protection Act
7 35 (1.91%) Derivative
8 31 (1.69%) Analytical Mindset
9 29 (1.58%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 24 (1.31%) Low-Code
11 22 (1.20%) Replication
11 22 (1.20%) Virtual Team
12 21 (1.14%) FMCG
12 21 (1.14%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 21 (1.14%) Greenfield Project
13 18 (0.98%) CMDB
13 18 (0.98%) Fixed Income
13 18 (0.98%) SCADA
14 17 (0.93%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 62 (3.38%) Windows
2 28 (1.53%) Linux
3 17 (0.93%) Windows Server
4 15 (0.82%) Unix
5 7 (0.38%) 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 (0.054%) Android
8 1 (0.054%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.054%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.054%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.054%) Solaris
8 1 (0.054%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 750 (40.87%) Stakeholder Management
2 570 (31.06%) Agile
3 521 (28.39%) Migration
4 520 (28.34%) System Integration Testing
5 502 (27.36%) Validation
6 363 (19.78%) Requirements Gathering
7 362 (19.73%) Data Migration
8 351 (19.13%) Problem-Solving
9 301 (16.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 297 (16.19%) User Stories
11 283 (15.42%) Workshop Facilitation
12 282 (15.37%) Defect Management
13 272 (14.82%) DevOps
14 269 (14.66%) ERP
15 266 (14.50%) Continuous Improvement
16 243 (13.24%) Business Analysis
17 240 (13.08%) Integration Testing
18 239 (13.02%) Acceptance Criteria
19 215 (11.72%) Scenario Testing
20 203 (11.06%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 317 (17.28%) SQL
2 69 (3.76%) Python
3 53 (2.89%) JavaScript
4 52 (2.83%) Java
5 48 (2.62%) C#
6 44 (2.40%) ABAP
7 35 (1.91%) PowerShell
8 20 (1.09%) Bash
9 19 (1.04%) T-SQL
10 15 (0.82%) PL/SQL
11 13 (0.71%) Bicep
12 12 (0.65%) Apex Code
12 12 (0.65%) VB
13 11 (0.60%) TypeScript
14 10 (0.54%) Shell Script
15 9 (0.49%) C
15 9 (0.49%) VB6
16 7 (0.38%) Korn
16 7 (0.38%) VBA
17 5 (0.27%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 258 (14.06%) Security Cleared
2 202 (11.01%) SC Cleared
3 163 (8.88%) Degree
4 52 (2.83%) ACCA
5 47 (2.56%) CIMA
5 47 (2.56%) ISTQB
6 39 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
7 26 (1.42%) PMI Certification
8 22 (1.20%) DV Cleared
8 22 (1.20%) PMP
9 21 (1.14%) Computer Science Degree
9 21 (1.14%) Microsoft Certification
10 17 (0.93%) CBAP
11 15 (0.82%) Azure Certification
11 15 (0.82%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 14 (0.76%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 12 (0.65%) IIBA
14 11 (0.60%) Master's Degree
15 10 (0.54%) FFIEC
15 10 (0.54%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 274 (14.93%) QA
2 185 (10.08%) Data Quality
3 39 (2.13%) GDPR
4 37 (2.02%) GRC
5 27 (1.47%) Accessibility
6 24 (1.31%) PMO
7 18 (0.98%) NIST
8 15 (0.82%) ISO 20022
9 14 (0.76%) IFRS
10 13 (0.71%) Actionable Recommendations
10 13 (0.71%) COBIT
11 12 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 8 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 8 (0.44%) SEPA
12 8 (0.44%) SLA
13 7 (0.38%) EMIR
13 7 (0.38%) Solvency II
14 6 (0.33%) GAAP
14 6 (0.33%) MiFID
15 4 (0.22%) WCAG
System Software
1 29 (1.58%) Active Directory
2 23 (1.25%) Docker
3 12 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
4 11 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
6 1 (0.054%) NFS
6 1 (0.054%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.054%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.054%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.054%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.054%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 27 (1.47%) Kubernetes
2 13 (0.71%) HP ALM
3 10 (0.54%) SCOM
4 8 (0.44%) Ansible
4 8 (0.44%) Grafana
4 8 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
5 7 (0.38%) HP Quality Center
6 6 (0.33%) Microsoft Intune
7 5 (0.27%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.22%) Argo
9 3 (0.16%) SCCM
10 2 (0.11%) ITRS Geneos
11 1 (0.054%) Control-M
11 1 (0.054%) Data Guard
11 1 (0.054%) Iperf
11 1 (0.054%) Istio
11 1 (0.054%) Network Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.054%) Oracle RMAN
11 1 (0.054%) SnapMirror
11 1 (0.054%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 369 (20.11%) SAP
2 280 (15.26%) Microsoft
3 275 (14.99%) Oracle
4 102 (5.56%) Salesforce
5 75 (4.09%) ServiceNow
6 63 (3.43%) Workday
7 28 (1.53%) Ariba
8 21 (1.14%) Databricks
9 20 (1.09%) MuleSoft
9 20 (1.09%) UiPath
10 18 (0.98%) Murex
11 16 (0.87%) Bloomberg
11 16 (0.87%) CyberArk
11 16 (0.87%) IBM
12 15 (0.82%) Informatica
13 14 (0.76%) HP
14 13 (0.71%) Kronos
14 13 (0.71%) Sage
15 12 (0.65%) Tagetik
16 10 (0.54%) IFS