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 22 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 75 90 123
Rank change year-on-year +15 +33 -16
Contract jobs citing User Acceptance Testing 1,806 923 734
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.31% 2.84% 1.93%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.92% 3.14% 2.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,075 627 487
10th Percentile £350 £325 £313
25th Percentile £416 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £518
Median % change year-on-year - -3.38% -1.43%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £732
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +5.56% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 13 3
10th Percentile £16.95 £30.01 £39.50
25th Percentile £21.03 £30.25 £46.25
Median hourly rate £50.24 £40.49 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +24.09% -32.52% +34.74%
75th Percentile £65.98 £60.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £86.00 £64.75 £64.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.01 £32.36 £47.50
% change year-on-year -19.61% -31.88% +37.68%

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 46,027 29,389 32,594
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.35% 90.49% 85.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,906 18,237 19,938
10th Percentile £325 £300 £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 £626 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,152 1,808 1,420
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.24 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.69
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.09% -1.10%
75th Percentile £67.25 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.08 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +79.61% -48.10% +1.18%

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 22 September 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 22 September 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 22 September 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 +16 1,524 £509 +1.80% 1,126
London +20 865 £525 - 641
UK excluding London +16 695 £475 +5.56% 609
Work from Home +15 581 £500 - 770
Midlands +37 164 £475 +7.34% 87
South East +9 164 £500 +8.11% 182
North of England -15 163 £460 +0.88% 137
West Midlands +23 115 £475 - 58
North West -20 102 £475 +4.86% 90
South West +8 76 £500 +17.65% 50
Scotland +11 62 £450 +5.88% 71
East Midlands +11 46 £463 +11.63% 29
Yorkshire -25 43 £440 -12.00% 33
East of England -33 31 £550 +10.00% 50
Wales +3 23 £500 +38.89% 15
North East -18 18 £375 - 14
Northern Ireland +3 14 £450 -12.83% 24
Channel Islands - 1 £550 -

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
1 121 (6.70%) Confluence
2 55 (3.05%) SharePoint
3 13 (0.72%) CMS
4 8 (0.44%) Camunda
5 7 (0.39%) SAS
6 6 (0.33%) Tuxedo
7 5 (0.28%) Apache
8 4 (0.22%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (0.22%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.17%) JBoss
9 3 (0.17%) Kentico
9 3 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
9 3 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.17%) Sitecore CMS
9 3 (0.17%) SugarCRM
9 3 (0.17%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
10 2 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.11%) IIS
10 2 (0.11%) OpenROAD
10 2 (0.11%) Smallworld
Applications
1 86 (4.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (2.55%) Microsoft Office
3 39 (2.16%) MS Visio
4 20 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 15 (0.83%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.28%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.055%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.055%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.055%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.055%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.055%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.055%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.055%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 183 (10.13%) SAP S/4HANA
2 46 (2.55%) Dynamics CRM
3 37 (2.05%) Oracle EBS
4 32 (1.77%) SAP Payroll
5 27 (1.50%) Oracle Payables
5 27 (1.50%) SAP GRC
6 24 (1.33%) Workday HCM
7 22 (1.22%) SAP HCM
8 21 (1.16%) Oracle Payroll
9 18 (1.00%) SAP SD
10 17 (0.94%) Oracle Receivables
10 17 (0.94%) SAP FI
11 16 (0.89%) Oracle General Ledger
12 15 (0.83%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
13 14 (0.78%) Aladdin
13 14 (0.78%) Oracle ERP
14 13 (0.72%) NetSuite
14 13 (0.72%) SAP CO
14 13 (0.72%) SAP MM
14 13 (0.72%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 314 (17.39%) Azure
2 187 (10.35%) Azure DevOps
3 159 (8.80%) Power Platform
4 111 (6.15%) Dynamics 365
5 83 (4.60%) AWS
6 60 (3.32%) OCI
7 56 (3.10%) SuccessFactors
8 38 (2.10%) SaaS
9 35 (1.94%) GitHub
10 32 (1.77%) Power Automate
11 31 (1.72%) GCP
12 30 (1.66%) Snowflake
13 28 (1.55%) PowerApps
13 28 (1.55%) Salesforce Service Cloud
14 26 (1.44%) Entra ID
15 22 (1.22%) Microsoft 365
15 22 (1.22%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
16 20 (1.11%) Boomi
17 17 (0.94%) GitHub Actions
18 16 (0.89%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 16 (0.89%) SSL
2 10 (0.55%) WAN
3 8 (0.44%) Firewall
4 6 (0.33%) DNS
4 6 (0.33%) LAN
5 5 (0.28%) TCP/IP
6 4 (0.22%) Fibre Channel
6 4 (0.22%) Internet
6 4 (0.22%) Intrusion Detection
6 4 (0.22%) SAN
6 4 (0.22%) VPN
6 4 (0.22%) Wi-Fi
7 3 (0.17%) DHCP
7 3 (0.17%) FTP
7 3 (0.17%) HTTP
7 3 (0.17%) Network Security
7 3 (0.17%) SD-WAN
7 3 (0.17%) VLAN
8 2 (0.11%) HTTPS
8 2 (0.11%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (6.53%) Power BI
2 66 (3.65%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.77%) Data Warehouse
4 32 (1.77%) Relational Database
5 30 (1.66%) Oracle Database
6 28 (1.55%) Oracle Reports
7 22 (1.22%) Data Lake
8 21 (1.16%) PostgreSQL
8 21 (1.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 19 (1.05%) Metadata
10 17 (0.94%) RDBMS
11 16 (0.89%) SAP HANA
11 16 (0.89%) Tableau
12 14 (0.78%) Oracle BI Publisher
13 12 (0.66%) Ingres
14 10 (0.55%) MySQL
15 9 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
15 9 (0.50%) Big Data
16 7 (0.39%) SAP BW
17 6 (0.33%) PowerCenter
Development Applications
1 292 (16.17%) JIRA
2 50 (2.77%) Git
3 38 (2.10%) Selenium
4 30 (1.66%) Jenkins
5 29 (1.61%) Postman
6 24 (1.33%) REST Assured
7 21 (1.16%) Zephyr
8 19 (1.05%) GitLab
9 16 (0.89%) Cypress.io
10 12 (0.66%) Cucumber
11 10 (0.55%) JUnit
11 10 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
12 9 (0.50%) Maven
12 9 (0.50%) Team Foundation Server
13 8 (0.44%) Bitbucket Server
13 8 (0.44%) Gradle
13 8 (0.44%) Mockito
13 8 (0.44%) Oracle Forms
13 8 (0.44%) SonarQube
13 8 (0.44%) Visual Studio
General
1 748 (41.42%) Finance
2 695 (38.48%) Social Skills
3 331 (18.33%) Analytical Skills
4 215 (11.90%) Banking
5 168 (9.30%) Public Sector
6 117 (6.48%) Documentation Skills
7 101 (5.59%) Retail
8 70 (3.88%) Manufacturing
9 67 (3.71%) Legal
10 59 (3.27%) Front Office
11 52 (2.88%) General Ledger
12 46 (2.55%) Organisational Skills
13 40 (2.21%) Billing
14 39 (2.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 38 (2.10%) Investment Banking
16 36 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
17 32 (1.77%) Back Office
18 30 (1.66%) Presentation Skills
19 28 (1.55%) Local Government
20 26 (1.44%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 506 (28.02%) Analyst
2 389 (21.54%) Business Analyst
3 285 (15.78%) Consultant
4 227 (12.57%) Lead
5 131 (7.25%) Senior
6 107 (5.92%) Test Manager
7 104 (5.76%) Developer
8 83 (4.60%) Functional Consultant
9 82 (4.54%) SAP Consultant
10 64 (3.54%) Test Leader
11 63 (3.49%) Oracle Consultant
12 59 (3.27%) Architect
13 57 (3.16%) Test Analyst
14 53 (2.93%) Project Manager
15 47 (2.60%) Financial Analyst
15 47 (2.60%) Tester
16 44 (2.44%) Senior Analyst
17 42 (2.33%) Finance Business Analyst
18 39 (2.16%) Test Engineer
19 38 (2.10%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (4.93%) Oracle Fusion
2 85 (4.71%) REST
3 77 (4.26%) Middleware
4 51 (2.82%) SOAP
5 39 (2.16%) XML
6 38 (2.10%) JSON
7 36 (1.99%) SAP Fiori
8 35 (1.94%) .NET
9 29 (1.61%) Web Services
10 28 (1.55%) Playwright
10 28 (1.55%) Terraform
11 18 (1.00%) ADO
11 18 (1.00%) React
12 15 (0.83%) Kafka
13 14 (0.78%) HTML
14 12 (0.66%) ARM Templates
14 12 (0.66%) CSS
14 12 (0.66%) EDI
14 12 (0.66%) Spring Boot
15 11 (0.61%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 145 (8.03%) Product Ownership
2 92 (5.09%) Onboarding
3 82 (4.54%) Legacy Systems
4 62 (3.43%) Data Structures
5 58 (3.21%) Enterprise Software
6 53 (2.93%) Management Information System
7 33 (1.83%) Derivative
8 32 (1.77%) Analytical Mindset
8 32 (1.77%) Data Protection Act
9 31 (1.72%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 22 (1.22%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 22 (1.22%) Virtual Team
11 21 (1.16%) FMCG
11 21 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
12 19 (1.05%) Low-Code
12 19 (1.05%) SCADA
13 18 (1.00%) CMDB
13 18 (1.00%) Fixed Income
13 18 (1.00%) Replication
13 18 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 65 (3.60%) Windows
2 31 (1.72%) Linux
3 17 (0.94%) Windows Server
4 14 (0.78%) Unix
5 7 (0.39%) VMS
6 3 (0.17%) Mac OS
6 3 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.055%) Android
8 1 (0.055%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.055%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.055%) Solaris
8 1 (0.055%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 699 (38.70%) Stakeholder Management
2 561 (31.06%) Agile
3 509 (28.18%) Migration
4 503 (27.85%) System Integration Testing
5 490 (27.13%) Validation
6 362 (20.04%) Data Migration
7 343 (18.99%) Problem-Solving
8 342 (18.94%) Requirements Gathering
9 305 (16.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 295 (16.33%) ERP
11 282 (15.61%) User Stories
12 269 (14.89%) DevOps
13 267 (14.78%) Workshop Facilitation
14 266 (14.73%) Defect Management
15 262 (14.51%) Continuous Improvement
16 237 (13.12%) Integration Testing
17 233 (12.90%) Business Analysis
18 222 (12.29%) Acceptance Criteria
19 206 (11.41%) Scenario Testing
19 206 (11.41%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 309 (17.11%) SQL
2 65 (3.60%) Python
3 53 (2.93%) JavaScript
4 50 (2.77%) Java
5 44 (2.44%) C#
6 39 (2.16%) ABAP
7 35 (1.94%) PowerShell
8 20 (1.11%) Bash
9 19 (1.05%) T-SQL
10 15 (0.83%) Apex Code
11 14 (0.78%) PL/SQL
12 12 (0.66%) Bicep
12 12 (0.66%) TypeScript
13 11 (0.61%) VB
14 9 (0.50%) C
14 9 (0.50%) Shell Script
15 8 (0.44%) VB6
16 7 (0.39%) Korn
16 7 (0.39%) R
16 7 (0.39%) VBA
Qualifications
1 250 (13.84%) Security Cleared
2 196 (10.85%) SC Cleared
3 161 (8.91%) Degree
4 49 (2.71%) ACCA
5 44 (2.44%) CIMA
5 44 (2.44%) ISTQB
6 36 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
7 23 (1.27%) PMI Certification
8 21 (1.16%) Computer Science Degree
8 21 (1.16%) PMP
9 20 (1.11%) DV Cleared
9 20 (1.11%) Microsoft Certification
10 17 (0.94%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.78%) CBAP
11 14 (0.78%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 12 (0.66%) IIBA
12 12 (0.66%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 11 (0.61%) Master's Degree
14 10 (0.55%) FFIEC
15 9 (0.50%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 274 (15.17%) QA
2 171 (9.47%) Data Quality
3 41 (2.27%) GDPR
4 34 (1.88%) GRC
5 29 (1.61%) Accessibility
6 25 (1.38%) PMO
7 17 (0.94%) NIST
8 16 (0.89%) ISO 20022
9 13 (0.72%) IFRS
9 13 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 12 (0.66%) Actionable Recommendations
11 10 (0.55%) SLA
12 9 (0.50%) COBIT
12 9 (0.50%) SEPA
13 7 (0.39%) EMIR
13 7 (0.39%) MiFID
13 7 (0.39%) Solvency II
14 6 (0.33%) HL7
15 5 (0.28%) GAAP
16 4 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 35 (1.94%) Active Directory
2 22 (1.22%) Docker
3 12 (0.66%) Virtual Machines
4 11 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.17%) Microsoft App-V
6 2 (0.11%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.055%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.055%) NFS
7 1 (0.055%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.055%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.055%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.055%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 26 (1.44%) Kubernetes
2 15 (0.83%) HP ALM
3 10 (0.55%) SCOM
3 10 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
4 9 (0.50%) Grafana
5 7 (0.39%) Ansible
5 7 (0.39%) HP Quality Center
6 5 (0.28%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (0.28%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.22%) Argo
8 3 (0.17%) Control-M
8 3 (0.17%) ITRS Geneos
8 3 (0.17%) SCCM
9 1 (0.055%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.055%) Iperf
9 1 (0.055%) Istio
9 1 (0.055%) Network Intrusion Detection System
9 1 (0.055%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.055%) SnapMirror
9 1 (0.055%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 352 (19.49%) SAP
2 281 (15.56%) Oracle
3 257 (14.23%) Microsoft
4 107 (5.92%) Salesforce
5 81 (4.49%) ServiceNow
6 62 (3.43%) Workday
7 25 (1.38%) Ariba
8 20 (1.11%) Murex
9 19 (1.05%) MuleSoft
10 18 (1.00%) Databricks
10 18 (1.00%) UiPath
11 16 (0.89%) CyberArk
11 16 (0.89%) HP
12 15 (0.83%) Bloomberg
12 15 (0.83%) IBM
13 14 (0.78%) Kronos
14 13 (0.72%) Informatica
15 12 (0.66%) IFS
15 12 (0.66%) Tagetik
16 11 (0.61%) Blue Prism