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

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 87 138 121
Rank change year-on-year +51 -17 +28
Contract jobs citing User Acceptance Testing 1,289 592 861
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.98% 2.02% 1.94%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.46% 2.23% 2.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 815 393 571
10th Percentile £340 £321 £350
25th Percentile £410 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £494
% change year-on-year +5.56% -8.86% +3.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 8 25
10th Percentile £15.74 £20.48 £15.25
25th Percentile £22.55 £28.50 £25.00
Median hourly rate £33.43 £58.75 £84.50
Median % change year-on-year -43.10% -30.47% +35.20%
75th Percentile £79.50 £69.13 £86.50
90th Percentile £85.33 £87.95 £92.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.61 £62.50 £48.00
% change year-on-year -57.43% +30.21% -23.26%

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 37,207 26,505 38,501
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.99% 90.41% 86.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,564 17,019 25,049
10th Percentile £313 £308 £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 £610 £638 £638
90th Percentile £721 £744 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,206 924 2,336
10th Percentile £14.93 £15.25 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.99 £16.05
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.52 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.41 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £31.64 £31.50
% change year-on-year -13.08% +0.44% -10.00%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 +36 1,121 £500 - 340
London +39 597 £525 +1.20% 137
UK excluding London +59 548 £475 +5.56% 254
Work from Home +51 397 £525 +5.00% 146
North of England +8 151 £450 -10.00% 48
South East +38 149 £550 +18.92% 100
Midlands +14 124 £475 -2.56% 51
North West +3 99 £425 -17.19% 33
West Midlands +7 83 £485 -12.81% 29
Yorkshire -22 44 £513 +3.54% 12
South West -5 41 £460 +4.14% 29
East Midlands -18 41 £450 +5.88% 22
Scotland +28 35 £464 +6.11% 12
East of England -13 33 £528 +32.17% 11
Northern Ireland +8 14 £475 +26.67% 1
North East -5 8 £508 +51.49% 3
Wales -1 7 £344 -24.84% 3

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 90 (6.98%) Confluence
2 28 (2.17%) SharePoint
3 10 (0.78%) SAS
4 9 (0.70%) Microsoft Exchange
5 8 (0.62%) Appian
6 7 (0.54%) CMS
7 6 (0.47%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 6 (0.47%) Apache
8 5 (0.39%) GeoServer
8 5 (0.39%) Smallworld
9 3 (0.23%) Apache Spark
9 3 (0.23%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.16%) Camunda
10 2 (0.16%) JBoss
10 2 (0.16%) Mendix
11 1 (0.078%) IBM HTTP Server
11 1 (0.078%) Kentico
11 1 (0.078%) LiveLink
11 1 (0.078%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 54 (4.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (2.56%) MS Visio
3 31 (2.40%) Microsoft Project
4 26 (2.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 18 (1.40%) Microsoft Office
6 6 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.16%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.078%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.078%) S-PLUS
8 1 (0.078%) Trello
Business Applications
1 81 (6.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 49 (3.80%) Oracle Payables
3 43 (3.34%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 41 (3.18%) Oracle EBS
4 41 (3.18%) Oracle Receivables
5 29 (2.25%) Dynamics CRM
5 29 (2.25%) Oracle General Ledger
6 27 (2.09%) Oracle Assets
7 23 (1.78%) Oracle EBS R12
8 20 (1.55%) Oracle Cash Management
9 18 (1.40%) Oracle ERP
10 16 (1.24%) SAP FI
11 14 (1.09%) iTrent
11 14 (1.09%) SAP CO
12 13 (1.01%) Loan IQ
12 13 (1.01%) Payment Gateway
13 12 (0.93%) SAP FI/CO
14 10 (0.78%) NEC Housing
14 10 (0.78%) Oracle AGIS
15 9 (0.70%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 183 (14.20%) Azure
2 92 (7.14%) Power Platform
3 87 (6.75%) Azure DevOps
4 79 (6.13%) AWS
5 73 (5.66%) Dynamics 365
6 54 (4.19%) OCI
7 32 (2.48%) SaaS
8 30 (2.33%) SuccessFactors
9 28 (2.17%) Power Automate
10 26 (2.02%) GitHub
11 25 (1.94%) GCP
12 22 (1.71%) Entra ID
13 21 (1.63%) Microsoft 365
13 21 (1.63%) PowerApps
14 13 (1.01%) Azure Data Factory
15 11 (0.85%) OpenShift
16 10 (0.78%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 10 (0.78%) Serverless
17 9 (0.70%) GitHub Actions
17 9 (0.70%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 12 (0.93%) Firewall
1 12 (0.93%) Network Security
2 8 (0.62%) SMS
3 6 (0.47%) LAN
4 5 (0.39%) BGP
4 5 (0.39%) MPLS
5 4 (0.31%) Structured Cabling
5 4 (0.31%) VPN
5 4 (0.31%) WAN
6 3 (0.23%) SSL
7 2 (0.16%) Cisco ASA
7 2 (0.16%) Cisco IOS
7 2 (0.16%) DHCP
7 2 (0.16%) FTP
7 2 (0.16%) IPsec
7 2 (0.16%) OSPF
7 2 (0.16%) SIGTRAN
7 2 (0.16%) tcpdump
7 2 (0.16%) VLAN
7 2 (0.16%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (4.89%) Power BI
2 29 (2.25%) Oracle Reports
3 27 (2.09%) SQL Server
4 21 (1.63%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 20 (1.55%) Relational Database
6 18 (1.40%) MySQL
6 18 (1.40%) Tableau
7 17 (1.32%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (1.09%) Metadata
9 12 (0.93%) SAP HANA
10 10 (0.78%) Oracle Database
11 8 (0.62%) Pinecone
12 7 (0.54%) DynamoDB
13 6 (0.47%) Electronic Patient Records
13 6 (0.47%) GIS
13 6 (0.47%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 5 (0.39%) Geospatial Data
14 5 (0.39%) QGIS
15 4 (0.31%) Data Lake
15 4 (0.31%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 223 (17.30%) JIRA
2 32 (2.48%) Selenium
3 26 (2.02%) Git
3 26 (2.02%) Postman
4 20 (1.55%) Jenkins
5 18 (1.40%) GitLab
6 17 (1.32%) TestRail
7 13 (1.01%) Zephyr
8 11 (0.85%) Oracle Forms
9 10 (0.78%) Cucumber
9 10 (0.78%) REST Assured
10 9 (0.70%) JMeter
10 9 (0.70%) Team Foundation Server
11 8 (0.62%) Cypress.io
11 8 (0.62%) MLflow
12 5 (0.39%) Bitbucket
12 5 (0.39%) Visual Studio
13 4 (0.31%) git-flow
13 4 (0.31%) LoadRunner
13 4 (0.31%) SpecFlow
General
1 548 (42.51%) Finance
2 535 (41.51%) Social Skills
3 241 (18.70%) Analytical Skills
4 154 (11.95%) Banking
5 142 (11.02%) Public Sector
6 96 (7.45%) Documentation Skills
7 68 (5.28%) Manufacturing
8 40 (3.10%) Investment Banking
9 38 (2.95%) Legal
9 38 (2.95%) Retail
10 37 (2.87%) Presentation Skills
11 34 (2.64%) General Ledger
12 32 (2.48%) Marketing
13 31 (2.40%) Law
14 30 (2.33%) Front Office
14 30 (2.33%) Local Government
15 29 (2.25%) Organisational Skills
16 16 (1.24%) Retail Banking
17 14 (1.09%) Back Office
17 14 (1.09%) Billing
Job Titles
1 378 (29.33%) Analyst
2 284 (22.03%) Business Analyst
3 189 (14.66%) Lead
4 187 (14.51%) Consultant
5 81 (6.28%) Test Manager
6 77 (5.97%) Senior
7 74 (5.74%) Developer
8 59 (4.58%) Architect
8 59 (4.58%) Project Manager
9 57 (4.42%) Functional Consultant
10 56 (4.34%) Test Analyst
11 55 (4.27%) SAP Consultant
12 47 (3.65%) Test Leader
13 40 (3.10%) Oracle Consultant
14 38 (2.95%) Tester
15 29 (2.25%) Senior Analyst
16 24 (1.86%) Migration Analyst
17 23 (1.78%) Dynamics 365 Consultant
17 23 (1.78%) Financial Analyst
17 23 (1.78%) Programme Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (6.21%) REST
2 57 (4.42%) Oracle Fusion
3 38 (2.95%) SOAP
4 25 (1.94%) Web Services
5 24 (1.86%) Middleware
6 19 (1.47%) RESTful
6 19 (1.47%) XML
7 18 (1.40%) JSON
8 17 (1.32%) .NET
8 17 (1.32%) Playwright
8 17 (1.32%) Spring
9 16 (1.24%) CSS
9 16 (1.24%) Spring Boot
10 15 (1.16%) HTML
10 15 (1.16%) OAuth
11 13 (1.01%) SailPoint
11 13 (1.01%) Swagger
12 12 (0.93%) ADO
12 12 (0.93%) JWT
13 11 (0.85%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 98 (7.60%) Product Ownership
2 85 (6.59%) Legacy Systems
3 57 (4.42%) Onboarding
4 34 (2.64%) Management Information System
5 30 (2.33%) Data Structures
6 27 (2.09%) Data Protection Act
7 25 (1.94%) Public Cloud
8 23 (1.78%) Derivative
9 21 (1.63%) Low-Code
10 18 (1.40%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 17 (1.32%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 17 (1.32%) Greenfield Project
12 15 (1.16%) CMDB
12 15 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
13 14 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
14 13 (1.01%) Cloud Native
14 13 (1.01%) PMI
14 13 (1.01%) Reference Data
15 12 (0.93%) Credit Risk
15 12 (0.93%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 26 (2.02%) Windows
2 14 (1.09%) Linux
3 6 (0.47%) Windows 10
3 6 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
4 4 (0.31%) VMS
5 3 (0.23%) Android
5 3 (0.23%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.23%) Unix
5 3 (0.23%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.16%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.16%) OpenVMS
6 2 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 408 (31.65%) Agile
2 373 (28.94%) Stakeholder Management
3 349 (27.08%) Migration
4 245 (19.01%) System Integration Testing
5 237 (18.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 237 (18.39%) Validation
6 226 (17.53%) Problem-Solving
7 220 (17.07%) Data Migration
8 219 (16.99%) Workshop Facilitation
9 193 (14.97%) ERP
10 181 (14.04%) Requirements Gathering
11 164 (12.72%) DevOps
12 159 (12.34%) Business Analysis
13 157 (12.18%) Continuous Improvement
13 157 (12.18%) Test Automation
14 153 (11.87%) Test Strategy
14 153 (11.87%) User Stories
15 146 (11.33%) Scenario Testing
16 119 (9.23%) Change Management
16 119 (9.23%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 187 (14.51%) SQL
2 67 (5.20%) Python
3 50 (3.88%) Java
4 34 (2.64%) JavaScript
5 21 (1.63%) PowerShell
6 17 (1.32%) C#
6 17 (1.32%) TypeScript
7 16 (1.24%) PL/SQL
8 13 (1.01%) ABAP
9 9 (0.70%) PHP
10 8 (0.62%) Bash
11 5 (0.39%) Korn
12 4 (0.31%) Apex Code
12 4 (0.31%) T-SQL
13 3 (0.23%) Cypher
13 3 (0.23%) Scala
13 3 (0.23%) SOQL
13 3 (0.23%) SOSL
13 3 (0.23%) VB
13 3 (0.23%) VB6
Qualifications
1 160 (12.41%) Security Cleared
2 117 (9.08%) Degree
3 116 (9.00%) SC Cleared
4 50 (3.88%) ISTQB
5 35 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
6 34 (2.64%) PMI Certification
7 23 (1.78%) PMP
8 22 (1.71%) Master's Degree
9 16 (1.24%) Computer Science Degree
10 15 (1.16%) CBAP
11 13 (1.01%) ACCA
11 13 (1.01%) CIMA
11 13 (1.01%) IIBA
12 11 (0.85%) DV Cleared
13 9 (0.70%) ISEB
14 8 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
15 7 (0.54%) ITIL Certification
16 6 (0.47%) AWS Certification
16 6 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 6 (0.47%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 234 (18.15%) QA
2 106 (8.22%) Data Quality
3 48 (3.72%) GDPR
4 25 (1.94%) PMO
5 24 (1.86%) PSD2
6 20 (1.55%) Accessibility
6 20 (1.55%) IFRS
6 20 (1.55%) SLA
7 18 (1.40%) ISO 20022
8 16 (1.24%) IFRS 17
9 15 (1.16%) ISO 8583
9 15 (1.16%) MiFID
10 13 (1.01%) SEPA
11 12 (0.93%) PCI DSS
12 10 (0.78%) NIST
13 9 (0.70%) NCSC
14 8 (0.62%) EMIR
15 7 (0.54%) GRC
15 7 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
16 6 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 26 (2.02%) Docker
2 18 (1.40%) Active Directory
3 15 (1.16%) Virtual Desktop
4 6 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.31%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (0.23%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
6 3 (0.23%) ISA Server
7 2 (0.16%) Firmware
7 2 (0.16%) HDFS
8 1 (0.078%) Citrix Presentation Server
8 1 (0.078%) UAG
8 1 (0.078%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 29 (2.25%) Kubernetes
2 28 (2.17%) HP ALM
3 20 (1.55%) Terraform
4 10 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
5 6 (0.47%) Grafana
6 5 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (0.23%) Ansible
7 3 (0.23%) HP Quality Center
8 2 (0.16%) Kibana
8 2 (0.16%) SCCM
9 1 (0.078%) CASB
9 1 (0.078%) CEMLI
9 1 (0.078%) Cisco CUCM
9 1 (0.078%) Control-M
9 1 (0.078%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.078%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.078%) Rundeck
9 1 (0.078%) SCOM
9 1 (0.078%) WSUS
Vendors
1 210 (16.29%) Oracle
2 189 (14.66%) SAP
3 148 (11.48%) Microsoft
4 100 (7.76%) ServiceNow
5 53 (4.11%) Salesforce
6 29 (2.25%) HP
7 18 (1.40%) Murex
8 17 (1.32%) Workday
9 13 (1.01%) Ariba
9 13 (1.01%) Cisco
9 13 (1.01%) UiPath
10 12 (0.93%) IFS
11 11 (0.85%) Bloomberg
11 11 (0.85%) Citrix
11 11 (0.85%) Splunk
12 10 (0.78%) Adobe
12 10 (0.78%) IBM
12 10 (0.78%) Infor
12 10 (0.78%) NEC
13 8 (0.62%) Avaloq