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

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 89 119
Rank change year-on-year +13 +30 -11
Contract jobs citing User Acceptance Testing 1,797 929 748
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.31% 2.84% 1.95%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.92% 3.14% 2.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,071 632 498
10th Percentile £350 £325 £313
25th Percentile £416 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year - -2.91% -1.90%
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% +73.91%
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 45,811 29,562 32,919
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.30% 90.52% 85.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,773 18,345 20,161
10th Percentile £325 £300 £309
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 £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £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 1,818 1,440
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.23 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +0.58%
75th Percentile £67.47 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £66.15 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.06 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +84.00% -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 21 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 21 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 21 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 1,517 £510 +2.00% 1,144
London +20 861 £525 - 657
UK excluding London +16 692 £475 +5.56% 614
Work from Home +14 575 £500 - 458
South East +2 166 £500 +5.26% 182
Midlands +39 164 £475 +7.34% 85
North of England -16 162 £460 +1.04% 141
West Midlands +26 115 £475 - 57
North West -21 101 £475 +5.20% 92
South West +5 75 £500 +17.65% 49
Scotland +7 62 £450 +5.88% 73
East Midlands +11 46 £463 +11.63% 28
Yorkshire -20 43 £440 -12.00% 35
East of England -30 29 £550 +10.00% 51
Wales -1 22 £500 +38.89% 15
North East -23 18 £375 - 14
Northern Ireland +3 14 £450 -12.83% 25
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
1 120 (6.68%) Confluence
2 54 (3.01%) SharePoint
3 13 (0.72%) CMS
4 8 (0.45%) 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 85 (4.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (2.56%) Microsoft Office
3 38 (2.11%) MS Visio
4 19 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 15 (0.83%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.28%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.056%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.056%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.056%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.056%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.056%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.056%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.056%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 182 (10.13%) SAP S/4HANA
2 46 (2.56%) Dynamics CRM
3 37 (2.06%) Oracle EBS
4 32 (1.78%) SAP Payroll
5 27 (1.50%) Oracle Payables
5 27 (1.50%) SAP GRC
6 22 (1.22%) SAP HCM
6 22 (1.22%) Workday HCM
7 21 (1.17%) Oracle Payroll
8 18 (1.00%) SAP SD
9 17 (0.95%) Oracle Receivables
9 17 (0.95%) SAP FI
10 16 (0.89%) Oracle General Ledger
11 15 (0.83%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
12 14 (0.78%) Aladdin
12 14 (0.78%) Oracle ERP
13 13 (0.72%) NetSuite
13 13 (0.72%) SAP CO
13 13 (0.72%) SAP MM
13 13 (0.72%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 308 (17.14%) Azure
2 185 (10.29%) Azure DevOps
3 159 (8.85%) Power Platform
4 113 (6.29%) Dynamics 365
5 82 (4.56%) AWS
6 60 (3.34%) OCI
7 56 (3.12%) SuccessFactors
8 37 (2.06%) SaaS
9 35 (1.95%) GitHub
10 32 (1.78%) Power Automate
11 30 (1.67%) GCP
12 28 (1.56%) PowerApps
12 28 (1.56%) Snowflake
13 27 (1.50%) Salesforce Service Cloud
14 26 (1.45%) Entra ID
15 22 (1.22%) Microsoft 365
16 21 (1.17%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
17 20 (1.11%) Boomi
18 17 (0.95%) GitHub Actions
19 16 (0.89%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 16 (0.89%) SSL
2 10 (0.56%) WAN
3 8 (0.45%) 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%) 5G
8 2 (0.11%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (6.57%) Power BI
2 66 (3.67%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.73%) Data Warehouse
4 32 (1.78%) Relational Database
5 30 (1.67%) Oracle Database
6 28 (1.56%) Oracle Reports
7 22 (1.22%) Data Lake
8 21 (1.17%) PostgreSQL
8 21 (1.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 18 (1.00%) Metadata
10 17 (0.95%) RDBMS
11 15 (0.83%) SAP HANA
12 14 (0.78%) Oracle BI Publisher
12 14 (0.78%) Tableau
13 12 (0.67%) Ingres
14 10 (0.56%) 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
1 288 (16.03%) JIRA
2 50 (2.78%) Git
3 36 (2.00%) Selenium
4 30 (1.67%) Jenkins
5 28 (1.56%) Postman
6 23 (1.28%) REST Assured
7 20 (1.11%) Zephyr
8 19 (1.06%) GitLab
9 16 (0.89%) Cypress.io
10 12 (0.67%) Cucumber
11 10 (0.56%) Sonatype Nexus
12 9 (0.50%) JUnit
12 9 (0.50%) Maven
12 9 (0.50%) Team Foundation Server
13 8 (0.45%) Bitbucket Server
13 8 (0.45%) Gradle
13 8 (0.45%) Mockito
13 8 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
13 8 (0.45%) SonarQube
13 8 (0.45%) Visual Studio
General
1 748 (41.62%) Finance
2 693 (38.56%) Social Skills
3 333 (18.53%) Analytical Skills
4 213 (11.85%) Banking
5 167 (9.29%) Public Sector
6 118 (6.57%) Documentation Skills
7 101 (5.62%) Retail
8 71 (3.95%) Manufacturing
9 67 (3.73%) Legal
10 59 (3.28%) Front Office
11 52 (2.89%) General Ledger
12 45 (2.50%) Organisational Skills
13 40 (2.23%) Billing
14 39 (2.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 38 (2.11%) Investment Banking
16 35 (1.95%) Influencing Skills
17 32 (1.78%) Back Office
18 30 (1.67%) Presentation Skills
19 28 (1.56%) Law
20 26 (1.45%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 505 (28.10%) Analyst
2 388 (21.59%) Business Analyst
3 281 (15.64%) Consultant
4 229 (12.74%) Lead
5 131 (7.29%) Senior
6 107 (5.95%) Test Manager
7 104 (5.79%) Developer
8 83 (4.62%) Functional Consultant
9 82 (4.56%) SAP Consultant
10 63 (3.51%) Oracle Consultant
11 62 (3.45%) Test Leader
12 60 (3.34%) Architect
13 57 (3.17%) Test Analyst
14 52 (2.89%) Project Manager
15 47 (2.62%) Financial Analyst
16 46 (2.56%) Tester
17 44 (2.45%) Senior Analyst
18 42 (2.34%) Finance Business Analyst
19 39 (2.17%) Test Engineer
20 38 (2.11%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (4.95%) Oracle Fusion
2 84 (4.67%) REST
3 77 (4.28%) Middleware
4 51 (2.84%) SOAP
5 39 (2.17%) XML
6 38 (2.11%) JSON
7 35 (1.95%) .NET
7 35 (1.95%) SAP Fiori
8 29 (1.61%) Web Services
9 28 (1.56%) Playwright
9 28 (1.56%) Terraform
10 18 (1.00%) ADO
10 18 (1.00%) React
11 15 (0.83%) Kafka
12 14 (0.78%) HTML
13 12 (0.67%) ARM Templates
13 12 (0.67%) CSS
13 12 (0.67%) EDI
13 12 (0.67%) Spring Boot
14 11 (0.61%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 144 (8.01%) Product Ownership
2 92 (5.12%) Onboarding
3 81 (4.51%) Legacy Systems
4 61 (3.39%) Data Structures
5 58 (3.23%) Enterprise Software
6 53 (2.95%) Management Information System
7 33 (1.84%) Derivative
8 32 (1.78%) Analytical Mindset
8 32 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
9 31 (1.73%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 22 (1.22%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 22 (1.22%) Virtual Team
11 21 (1.17%) FMCG
12 19 (1.06%) Greenfield Project
12 19 (1.06%) Low-Code
12 19 (1.06%) 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 (3.62%) Windows
2 31 (1.73%) Linux
3 17 (0.95%) 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 (0.056%) Android
8 1 (0.056%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.056%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.056%) Solaris
8 1 (0.056%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 695 (38.68%) Stakeholder Management
2 559 (31.11%) Agile
3 510 (28.38%) Migration
4 501 (27.88%) System Integration Testing
5 487 (27.10%) Validation
6 362 (20.14%) Data Migration
7 343 (19.09%) Problem-Solving
8 341 (18.98%) Requirements Gathering
9 306 (17.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 299 (16.64%) ERP
11 280 (15.58%) User Stories
12 267 (14.86%) DevOps
13 266 (14.80%) Workshop Facilitation
14 263 (14.64%) Continuous Improvement
14 263 (14.64%) Defect Management
15 236 (13.13%) Integration Testing
16 231 (12.85%) Business Analysis
17 220 (12.24%) Acceptance Criteria
18 206 (11.46%) Scenario Testing
19 203 (11.30%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 305 (16.97%) SQL
2 64 (3.56%) Python
3 52 (2.89%) JavaScript
4 49 (2.73%) Java
5 44 (2.45%) C#
6 38 (2.11%) ABAP
7 35 (1.95%) PowerShell
8 20 (1.11%) Bash
9 19 (1.06%) T-SQL
10 15 (0.83%) Apex Code
11 14 (0.78%) PL/SQL
12 12 (0.67%) Bicep
12 12 (0.67%) TypeScript
13 11 (0.61%) VB
14 9 (0.50%) C
14 9 (0.50%) Shell Script
15 8 (0.45%) VB6
16 7 (0.39%) Korn
16 7 (0.39%) R
16 7 (0.39%) VBA
Qualifications
1 250 (13.91%) Security Cleared
2 196 (10.91%) SC Cleared
3 161 (8.96%) Degree
4 49 (2.73%) ACCA
5 44 (2.45%) CIMA
5 44 (2.45%) ISTQB
6 35 (1.95%) BPSS Clearance
7 23 (1.28%) PMI Certification
8 21 (1.17%) Computer Science Degree
8 21 (1.17%) PMP
9 20 (1.11%) DV Cleared
9 20 (1.11%) Microsoft Certification
10 17 (0.95%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.78%) CBAP
11 14 (0.78%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 12 (0.67%) IIBA
12 12 (0.67%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 11 (0.61%) Master's Degree
14 10 (0.56%) FFIEC
15 9 (0.50%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 272 (15.14%) QA
2 168 (9.35%) Data Quality
3 42 (2.34%) GDPR
4 34 (1.89%) GRC
5 29 (1.61%) Accessibility
6 24 (1.34%) PMO
7 17 (0.95%) NIST
8 16 (0.89%) ISO 20022
9 13 (0.72%) IFRS
9 13 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 11 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
11 10 (0.56%) 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%) DICOM
System Software
1 34 (1.89%) Active Directory
2 22 (1.22%) Docker
3 12 (0.67%) Virtual Machines
4 11 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.17%) Microsoft App-V
6 2 (0.11%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.056%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.056%) NFS
7 1 (0.056%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.056%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.056%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.056%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 26 (1.45%) Kubernetes
2 15 (0.83%) HP ALM
3 10 (0.56%) SCOM
4 9 (0.50%) Grafana
4 9 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
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 (0.056%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.056%) Iperf
9 1 (0.056%) Istio
9 1 (0.056%) Network Intrusion Detection System
9 1 (0.056%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.056%) SnapMirror
9 1 (0.056%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 351 (19.53%) SAP
2 281 (15.64%) Oracle
3 258 (14.36%) Microsoft
4 106 (5.90%) Salesforce
5 80 (4.45%) ServiceNow
6 60 (3.34%) Workday
7 25 (1.39%) Ariba
8 20 (1.11%) Murex
9 19 (1.06%) 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%) IFS
14 13 (0.72%) Informatica
15 12 (0.67%) Tagetik
16 11 (0.61%) Blue Prism