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

6 months to
12 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 141 122
Rank change year-on-year +56 -19 +24
Contract jobs citing User Acceptance Testing 1,258 586 866
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.95% 1.99% 1.94%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.42% 2.20% 2.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 795 388 575
10th Percentile £336 £320 £346
25th Percentile £409 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £504
Median % change year-on-year - -0.79% -4.00%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
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 20 8 26
10th Percentile £15.74 £20.48 £15.52
25th Percentile £22.55 £28.50 £30.75
Median hourly rate £33.43 £58.75 £79.75
Median % change year-on-year -43.10% -26.33% +27.60%
75th Percentile £79.50 £69.13 £86.50
90th Percentile £85.33 £87.95 £92.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.61 £62.50 £49.00
% change year-on-year -57.43% +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 36,752 26,590 38,671
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.07% 90.35% 86.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,283 16,983 25,150
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 £744 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,192 900 2,342
10th Percentile £14.82 £15.49 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £29.61 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.89% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.79 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.34 £70.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.21 £32.00 £31.50
% change year-on-year -14.97% +1.59% -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 12 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 12 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 12 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 +43 1,091 £500 - 403
London +39 574 £525 +1.45% 146
UK excluding London +57 539 £475 +5.56% 310
Work from Home +56 388 £525 +5.00% 136
North of England +4 150 £450 -12.20% 66
South East +35 147 £538 +19.44% 106
Midlands +9 127 £475 -3.31% 64
North West +4 98 £425 -17.32% 38
West Midlands +2 86 £490 -16.60% 29
Yorkshire -25 44 £513 +15.49% 21
East Midlands -15 41 £420 -1.18% 33
South West -6 36 £463 +4.82% 33
Scotland +24 34 £416 -4.91% 11
East of England -16 33 £528 +32.17% 21
Northern Ireland +6 14 £475 +26.67% 1
North East -7 8 £508 +51.49% 7
Wales -1 7 £344 -24.84% 8

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 88 (7.00%) Confluence
2 27 (2.15%) SharePoint
3 10 (0.79%) SAS
4 9 (0.72%) Microsoft Exchange
5 8 (0.64%) 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 (0.079%) Headless CMS
11 1 (0.079%) JBoss
11 1 (0.079%) Kentico
11 1 (0.079%) LiveLink
11 1 (0.079%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 53 (4.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (2.78%) Microsoft Project
3 30 (2.38%) MS Visio
4 25 (1.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 17 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
6 6 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.16%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.079%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.079%) S-PLUS
8 1 (0.079%) Trello
Business Applications
1 81 (6.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 48 (3.82%) Oracle Payables
3 41 (3.26%) Oracle EBS
3 41 (3.26%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 41 (3.26%) Oracle Receivables
4 29 (2.31%) Dynamics CRM
4 29 (2.31%) Oracle General Ledger
5 27 (2.15%) Oracle Assets
6 23 (1.83%) Oracle EBS R12
7 20 (1.59%) Oracle Cash Management
8 18 (1.43%) Oracle ERP
9 16 (1.27%) SAP FI
10 14 (1.11%) iTrent
10 14 (1.11%) SAP CO
11 13 (1.03%) Loan IQ
11 13 (1.03%) Payment Gateway
12 12 (0.95%) SAP FI/CO
13 10 (0.79%) Oracle AGIS
14 9 (0.72%) NEC Housing
14 9 (0.72%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 183 (14.55%) Azure
2 86 (6.84%) AWS
3 82 (6.52%) Power Platform
4 75 (5.96%) Azure DevOps
5 68 (5.41%) Dynamics 365
6 54 (4.29%) OCI
7 33 (2.62%) SaaS
8 32 (2.54%) GCP
9 31 (2.46%) SuccessFactors
10 28 (2.23%) Power Automate
11 24 (1.91%) Entra ID
12 22 (1.75%) GitHub
13 21 (1.67%) Microsoft 365
13 21 (1.67%) PowerApps
14 13 (1.03%) Azure Data Factory
15 11 (0.87%) OpenShift
16 10 (0.79%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 10 (0.79%) Serverless
17 9 (0.72%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
18 8 (0.64%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 12 (0.95%) Network Security
2 11 (0.87%) Firewall
3 8 (0.64%) SMS
4 6 (0.48%) LAN
5 5 (0.40%) BGP
5 5 (0.40%) MPLS
6 4 (0.32%) Structured Cabling
6 4 (0.32%) VPN
6 4 (0.32%) WAN
7 3 (0.24%) SSL
8 2 (0.16%) Cisco ASA
8 2 (0.16%) Cisco IOS
8 2 (0.16%) DHCP
8 2 (0.16%) DNS
8 2 (0.16%) IPsec
8 2 (0.16%) OSPF
8 2 (0.16%) SIGTRAN
8 2 (0.16%) tcpdump
8 2 (0.16%) VLAN
8 2 (0.16%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (4.05%) Power BI
2 30 (2.38%) Oracle Reports
3 29 (2.31%) SQL Server
4 21 (1.67%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 20 (1.59%) Relational Database
6 18 (1.43%) MySQL
7 16 (1.27%) Tableau
8 15 (1.19%) Data Warehouse
9 13 (1.03%) Metadata
10 12 (0.95%) SAP HANA
11 10 (0.79%) Oracle Database
12 8 (0.64%) Pinecone
13 7 (0.56%) DynamoDB
14 6 (0.48%) GIS
14 6 (0.48%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 5 (0.40%) Geospatial Data
15 5 (0.40%) QGIS
16 4 (0.32%) Data Lake
16 4 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
16 4 (0.32%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 213 (16.93%) JIRA
2 31 (2.46%) Selenium
3 26 (2.07%) Git
3 26 (2.07%) Postman
4 18 (1.43%) Jenkins
5 17 (1.35%) TestRail
6 16 (1.27%) GitLab
7 12 (0.95%) Zephyr
8 11 (0.87%) Oracle Forms
9 10 (0.79%) Cucumber
9 10 (0.79%) REST Assured
10 9 (0.72%) Cypress.io
10 9 (0.72%) JMeter
10 9 (0.72%) Team Foundation Server
11 8 (0.64%) MLflow
12 5 (0.40%) Visual Studio
13 4 (0.32%) git-flow
13 4 (0.32%) LoadRunner
13 4 (0.32%) SoapUI
13 4 (0.32%) SpecFlow
General
1 540 (42.93%) Finance
2 528 (41.97%) Social Skills
3 230 (18.28%) Analytical Skills
4 151 (12.00%) Banking
5 141 (11.21%) Public Sector
6 89 (7.07%) Documentation Skills
7 68 (5.41%) Manufacturing
8 42 (3.34%) Investment Banking
9 38 (3.02%) Legal
10 35 (2.78%) Presentation Skills
11 34 (2.70%) General Ledger
12 32 (2.54%) Marketing
13 30 (2.38%) Retail
14 29 (2.31%) Local Government
15 27 (2.15%) Front Office
15 27 (2.15%) Organisational Skills
16 24 (1.91%) Law
17 15 (1.19%) Retail Banking
18 14 (1.11%) Billing
18 14 (1.11%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 366 (29.09%) Analyst
2 272 (21.62%) Business Analyst
3 186 (14.79%) Consultant
4 174 (13.83%) Lead
5 78 (6.20%) Test Manager
6 76 (6.04%) Senior
7 74 (5.88%) Developer
8 60 (4.77%) Project Manager
9 57 (4.53%) Functional Consultant
10 56 (4.45%) Test Analyst
11 54 (4.29%) SAP Consultant
12 51 (4.05%) Architect
13 46 (3.66%) Test Leader
14 41 (3.26%) Tester
15 39 (3.10%) Oracle Consultant
16 27 (2.15%) Senior Analyst
17 24 (1.91%) Dynamics 365 Consultant
17 24 (1.91%) Migration Analyst
18 23 (1.83%) SAP Manager
19 22 (1.75%) Financial Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (6.28%) REST
2 57 (4.53%) Oracle Fusion
3 35 (2.78%) SOAP
4 28 (2.23%) Web Services
5 22 (1.75%) Middleware
6 20 (1.59%) .NET
6 20 (1.59%) RESTful
7 19 (1.51%) Playwright
8 18 (1.43%) Spring
9 17 (1.35%) HTML
9 17 (1.35%) Spring Boot
9 17 (1.35%) XML
10 16 (1.27%) CSS
10 16 (1.27%) JSON
10 16 (1.27%) OAuth
11 13 (1.03%) LDAP
11 13 (1.03%) SailPoint
11 13 (1.03%) Swagger
12 12 (0.95%) ADO
12 12 (0.95%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 94 (7.47%) Product Ownership
2 83 (6.60%) Legacy Systems
3 59 (4.69%) Onboarding
4 30 (2.38%) Management Information System
5 27 (2.15%) Data Structures
6 26 (2.07%) Data Protection Act
6 26 (2.07%) Public Cloud
7 23 (1.83%) Derivative
8 21 (1.67%) Low-Code
9 17 (1.35%) Greenfield Project
9 17 (1.35%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 15 (1.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 14 (1.11%) Analytical Mindset
11 14 (1.11%) Cloud Native
12 13 (1.03%) CMDB
12 13 (1.03%) PMI
12 13 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
13 12 (0.95%) Credit Risk
13 12 (0.95%) Fixed Income
13 12 (0.95%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 28 (2.23%) Windows
2 14 (1.11%) Linux
3 6 (0.48%) Windows 10
3 6 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
4 5 (0.40%) Android
4 5 (0.40%) Apple iOS
5 4 (0.32%) VMS
6 3 (0.24%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.16%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.16%) OpenVMS
7 2 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.16%) Unix
8 1 (0.079%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 403 (32.03%) Agile
2 364 (28.93%) Stakeholder Management
3 338 (26.87%) Migration
4 239 (19.00%) System Integration Testing
5 230 (18.28%) Validation
6 219 (17.41%) Problem-Solving
6 219 (17.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 205 (16.30%) Data Migration
8 202 (16.06%) Workshop Facilitation
9 183 (14.55%) ERP
10 173 (13.75%) Requirements Gathering
11 158 (12.56%) DevOps
12 155 (12.32%) Business Analysis
13 150 (11.92%) Test Automation
14 149 (11.84%) Test Strategy
15 147 (11.69%) Continuous Improvement
16 141 (11.21%) Scenario Testing
16 141 (11.21%) User Stories
17 119 (9.46%) Change Management
18 117 (9.30%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 187 (14.86%) SQL
2 69 (5.48%) Python
3 53 (4.21%) Java
4 35 (2.78%) JavaScript
5 24 (1.91%) PowerShell
6 20 (1.59%) C#
7 18 (1.43%) TypeScript
8 16 (1.27%) PL/SQL
9 13 (1.03%) ABAP
10 8 (0.64%) Bash
10 8 (0.64%) 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
1 161 (12.80%) Security Cleared
2 118 (9.38%) Degree
2 118 (9.38%) SC Cleared
3 49 (3.90%) ISTQB
4 36 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
5 33 (2.62%) PMI Certification
6 22 (1.75%) Master's Degree
6 22 (1.75%) PMP
7 17 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
8 14 (1.11%) CBAP
9 13 (1.03%) ACCA
9 13 (1.03%) CIMA
10 12 (0.95%) IIBA
11 11 (0.87%) DV Cleared
12 9 (0.72%) ISEB
13 8 (0.64%) Microsoft Certification
14 7 (0.56%) ITIL Certification
15 6 (0.48%) AWS Certification
15 6 (0.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 6 (0.48%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 229 (18.20%) QA
2 100 (7.95%) Data Quality
3 46 (3.66%) GDPR
4 25 (1.99%) PMO
4 25 (1.99%) PSD2
5 22 (1.75%) Accessibility
6 20 (1.59%) IFRS
6 20 (1.59%) SLA
7 18 (1.43%) ISO 20022
8 16 (1.27%) IFRS 17
9 15 (1.19%) ISO 8583
9 15 (1.19%) MiFID
10 14 (1.11%) SEPA
11 12 (0.95%) PCI DSS
12 10 (0.79%) NIST
13 9 (0.72%) NCSC
14 8 (0.64%) EMIR
14 8 (0.64%) GRC
15 7 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
16 6 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 28 (2.23%) Docker
2 20 (1.59%) Active Directory
3 15 (1.19%) 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 (0.079%) Citrix Presentation Server
8 1 (0.079%) UAG
8 1 (0.079%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 31 (2.46%) Kubernetes
2 27 (2.15%) HP ALM
3 20 (1.59%) Terraform
4 10 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
5 6 (0.48%) Grafana
5 6 (0.48%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.24%) Ansible
6 3 (0.24%) HP Quality Center
6 3 (0.24%) SCCM
7 2 (0.16%) Kibana
8 1 (0.079%) CASB
8 1 (0.079%) CEMLI
8 1 (0.079%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.079%) Control-M
8 1 (0.079%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.079%) Oracle Identity Management
8 1 (0.079%) Oracle RMAN
8 1 (0.079%) Rundeck
8 1 (0.079%) SCOM
8 1 (0.079%) WSUS
Vendors
1 209 (16.61%) Oracle
2 192 (15.26%) SAP
3 146 (11.61%) Microsoft
4 104 (8.27%) ServiceNow
5 50 (3.97%) Salesforce
6 28 (2.23%) HP
7 18 (1.43%) Murex
8 17 (1.35%) Workday
9 13 (1.03%) Ariba
9 13 (1.03%) Cisco
9 13 (1.03%) UiPath
10 11 (0.87%) Citrix
10 11 (0.87%) IFS
10 11 (0.87%) Splunk
11 10 (0.79%) Infor
12 9 (0.72%) Adobe
12 9 (0.72%) Bloomberg
12 9 (0.72%) IBM
12 9 (0.72%) NEC
13 8 (0.64%) CheckPoint