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 31 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 91 112
Rank change year-on-year +20 +21 +18
Contract jobs citing User Acceptance Testing 1,755 902 816
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.31% 2.75% 2.05%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.89% 3.04% 2.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,054 599 552
10th Percentile £354 £341 £326
25th Percentile £425 £404 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £631
90th Percentile £713 £701 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £456 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -8.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 16 3
10th Percentile £17.18 £30.13 £39.50
25th Percentile £21.99 £32.28 £46.25
Median hourly rate £46.49 £53.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.50% -10.42% +32.51%
75th Percentile £83.25 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £86.00 £65.00 £64.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.71 £52.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year -29.61% +9.79% +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 45,107 29,668 33,959
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.95% 90.46% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,893 18,635 21,816
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £736 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,744 1,629 1,969
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.20 £13.69
25th Percentile £19.66 £17.35 £17.72
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.00 £40.33
% change year-on-year +83.17% -40.48% +0.81%

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 31 July 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 31 July 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 31 July 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 +15 1,477 £500 - 299
London +19 837 £525 - 141
UK excluding London +35 699 £475 +4.17% 220
Work from Home +16 544 £500 +2.09% 160
South East +23 178 £500 +17.65% 72
Midlands +50 168 £475 +2.70% 37
North of England -31 147 £460 -6.50% 62
West Midlands +24 114 £475 +5.56% 25
North West -32 100 £463 -2.53% 40
South West 0 72 £500 +14.29% 24
Scotland +31 65 £425 - 6
East Midlands +21 51 £463 -2.47% 12
Yorkshire -38 33 £450 -9.09% 18
East of England -17 31 £575 +27.78% 16
Wales -3 23 £500 +10.74% 6
Northern Ireland +5 20 £475 -9.09% 1
North East - 14 £365 - 7

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
1 113 (6.44%) Confluence
2 41 (2.34%) SharePoint
3 9 (0.51%) CMS
4 8 (0.46%) SAS
5 7 (0.40%) Apache
6 6 (0.34%) Tuxedo
7 5 (0.28%) JBoss
8 4 (0.23%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.17%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.17%) Appian
9 3 (0.17%) Kentico
9 3 (0.17%) Mendix
9 3 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.17%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
10 2 (0.11%) Camunda
10 2 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.11%) Headless CMS
10 2 (0.11%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Exchange
10 2 (0.11%) OpenROAD
Applications
1 66 (3.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (2.68%) MS Visio
3 40 (2.28%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (1.20%) Microsoft Project
5 15 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 10 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
8 2 (0.11%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.057%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.057%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 150 (8.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 45 (2.56%) Dynamics CRM
3 38 (2.17%) Oracle EBS
4 32 (1.82%) Oracle Payables
5 25 (1.42%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 25 (1.42%) SAP Payroll
6 22 (1.25%) Oracle Receivables
7 21 (1.20%) SAP GRC
8 19 (1.08%) SAP HCM
9 17 (0.97%) Oracle ERP
10 14 (0.80%) Oracle EBS R12
10 14 (0.80%) Oracle General Ledger
11 13 (0.74%) Oracle Assets
11 13 (0.74%) SAP SD
11 13 (0.74%) Workday HCM
12 12 (0.68%) Finacle
12 12 (0.68%) Oracle Cash Management
12 12 (0.68%) Oracle Payroll
13 11 (0.63%) NetSuite
13 11 (0.63%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 282 (16.07%) Azure
2 159 (9.06%) Power Platform
3 157 (8.95%) Azure DevOps
4 119 (6.78%) Dynamics 365
5 83 (4.73%) AWS
6 59 (3.36%) OCI
7 51 (2.91%) SuccessFactors
8 44 (2.51%) GitHub
9 37 (2.11%) SaaS
10 36 (2.05%) Power Automate
11 32 (1.82%) GCP
12 31 (1.77%) Entra ID
12 31 (1.77%) PowerApps
12 31 (1.77%) Salesforce Service Cloud
13 25 (1.42%) Snowflake
14 20 (1.14%) GitHub Actions
14 20 (1.14%) Microsoft 365
14 20 (1.14%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
15 19 (1.08%) Boomi
16 14 (0.80%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 19 (1.08%) Firewall
2 15 (0.85%) Network Security
3 12 (0.68%) SSL
4 10 (0.57%) WAN
5 8 (0.46%) DNS
6 7 (0.40%) LAN
6 7 (0.40%) TCP/IP
7 5 (0.28%) DHCP
7 5 (0.28%) FTP
7 5 (0.28%) Internet
7 5 (0.28%) VPN
8 4 (0.23%) 5G
8 4 (0.23%) Intrusion Detection
8 4 (0.23%) SD-WAN
9 3 (0.17%) IPsec
9 3 (0.17%) VLAN
9 3 (0.17%) Wi-Fi
10 2 (0.11%) Diameter Protocol
10 2 (0.11%) IOS XR
10 2 (0.11%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 127 (7.24%) Power BI
2 45 (2.56%) Data Warehouse
3 43 (2.45%) SQL Server
4 32 (1.82%) Oracle Reports
5 31 (1.77%) Relational Database
6 22 (1.25%) Data Lake
6 22 (1.25%) Oracle Database
7 21 (1.20%) Tableau
8 20 (1.14%) PostgreSQL
9 19 (1.08%) Metadata
9 19 (1.08%) RDBMS
10 18 (1.03%) Oracle BI Publisher
10 18 (1.03%) SAP HANA
11 13 (0.74%) Ingres
12 12 (0.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 9 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
14 7 (0.40%) Big Data
14 7 (0.40%) MySQL
15 5 (0.28%) SAP BW
15 5 (0.28%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 285 (16.24%) JIRA
2 36 (2.05%) Git
2 36 (2.05%) Selenium
3 29 (1.65%) Postman
4 28 (1.60%) Jenkins
5 19 (1.08%) REST Assured
6 17 (0.97%) Cypress.io
6 17 (0.97%) Zephyr
7 14 (0.80%) GitLab
8 11 (0.63%) Bitbucket
8 11 (0.63%) Oracle Forms
8 11 (0.63%) TestRail
9 10 (0.57%) Cucumber
9 10 (0.57%) Team Foundation Server
10 9 (0.51%) WebDriver
11 8 (0.46%) Visual Studio
12 6 (0.34%) Gatling
13 5 (0.28%) JMeter
13 5 (0.28%) SoapUI
13 5 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 765 (43.59%) Finance
2 628 (35.78%) Social Skills
3 306 (17.44%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (10.54%) Banking
5 170 (9.69%) Public Sector
6 128 (7.29%) Documentation Skills
7 103 (5.87%) Retail
8 67 (3.82%) Legal
9 64 (3.65%) Manufacturing
10 53 (3.02%) Front Office
11 48 (2.74%) Law
12 47 (2.68%) General Ledger
13 45 (2.56%) Organisational Skills
14 41 (2.34%) Investment Banking
15 38 (2.17%) Billing
16 33 (1.88%) Back Office
16 33 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
17 30 (1.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 30 (1.71%) Local Government
18 26 (1.48%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 510 (29.06%) Analyst
2 393 (22.39%) Business Analyst
3 239 (13.62%) Consultant
4 236 (13.45%) Lead
5 138 (7.86%) Senior
6 91 (5.19%) Test Manager
7 87 (4.96%) Developer
8 80 (4.56%) Architect
9 73 (4.16%) Functional Consultant
10 72 (4.10%) SAP Consultant
11 61 (3.48%) Test Leader
12 59 (3.36%) Project Manager
13 56 (3.19%) Test Analyst
14 54 (3.08%) Oracle Consultant
15 47 (2.68%) Senior Analyst
16 45 (2.56%) Tester
17 39 (2.22%) Senior Business Analyst
18 38 (2.17%) Data Analyst
18 38 (2.17%) Test Engineer
19 34 (1.94%) Financial Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (4.56%) REST
2 74 (4.22%) Oracle Fusion
3 73 (4.16%) Middleware
4 51 (2.91%) SOAP
5 38 (2.17%) JSON
6 35 (1.99%) XML
7 29 (1.65%) SAP Fiori
8 25 (1.42%) Playwright
9 22 (1.25%) .NET
10 19 (1.08%) ADO
10 19 (1.08%) Web Services
11 12 (0.68%) OAuth
12 11 (0.63%) React
12 11 (0.63%) SailPoint
13 10 (0.57%) AngularJS
13 10 (0.57%) EDI
14 9 (0.51%) Kafka
14 9 (0.51%) Lightning Web Components
14 9 (0.51%) Microsoft Graph
15 8 (0.46%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 138 (7.86%) Product Ownership
2 98 (5.58%) Legacy Systems
3 82 (4.67%) Onboarding
4 52 (2.96%) Data Structures
4 52 (2.96%) Enterprise Software
5 50 (2.85%) Management Information System
6 34 (1.94%) Analytical Mindset
7 33 (1.88%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 32 (1.82%) Derivative
9 31 (1.77%) Data Protection Act
10 25 (1.42%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 24 (1.37%) Low-Code
11 24 (1.37%) Public Cloud
12 23 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
13 22 (1.25%) Virtual Team
14 21 (1.20%) FMCG
15 19 (1.08%) Reinsurance
16 18 (1.03%) CMDB
16 18 (1.03%) SCADA
17 17 (0.97%) Cloud Native
Operating Systems
1 58 (3.30%) Windows
2 32 (1.82%) Linux
3 12 (0.68%) Unix
3 12 (0.68%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.23%) Mac OS
5 3 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.11%) VMS
6 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
6 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.057%) Android
7 1 (0.057%) Data ONTAP
7 1 (0.057%) Solaris
7 1 (0.057%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.057%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 592 (33.73%) Stakeholder Management
2 541 (30.83%) Agile
3 520 (29.63%) Migration
4 460 (26.21%) System Integration Testing
5 458 (26.10%) Validation
6 377 (21.48%) Data Migration
7 318 (18.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 315 (17.95%) ERP
9 309 (17.61%) Problem-Solving
10 305 (17.38%) Requirements Gathering
11 271 (15.44%) User Stories
12 256 (14.59%) Workshop Facilitation
13 249 (14.19%) Continuous Improvement
14 244 (13.90%) DevOps
15 215 (12.25%) Acceptance Criteria
15 215 (12.25%) Business Analysis
15 215 (12.25%) Defect Management
16 212 (12.08%) Scenario Testing
17 204 (11.62%) Test Automation
18 202 (11.51%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 278 (15.84%) SQL
2 74 (4.22%) Python
3 42 (2.39%) JavaScript
4 39 (2.22%) Java
5 33 (1.88%) ABAP
5 33 (1.88%) C#
6 24 (1.37%) PowerShell
7 20 (1.14%) PL/SQL
8 18 (1.03%) Apex Code
9 14 (0.80%) Bash
10 12 (0.68%) TypeScript
10 12 (0.68%) VB
11 11 (0.63%) T-SQL
12 10 (0.57%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.51%) C
13 9 (0.51%) VB6
14 8 (0.46%) Korn
15 7 (0.40%) R
15 7 (0.40%) VBA
16 5 (0.28%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 216 (12.31%) Security Cleared
2 167 (9.52%) SC Cleared
3 129 (7.35%) Degree
4 49 (2.79%) ISTQB
5 35 (1.99%) ACCA
6 30 (1.71%) CIMA
7 29 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
8 26 (1.48%) PMI Certification
9 21 (1.20%) PMP
10 20 (1.14%) Microsoft Certification
11 17 (0.97%) DV Cleared
11 17 (0.97%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 15 (0.85%) CBAP
13 14 (0.80%) Azure Certification
14 13 (0.74%) Computer Science Degree
15 11 (0.63%) IIBA
16 10 (0.57%) ISEB
16 10 (0.57%) Master's Degree
17 9 (0.51%) FFIEC
18 7 (0.40%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 274 (15.61%) QA
2 149 (8.49%) Data Quality
3 56 (3.19%) GDPR
4 32 (1.82%) Accessibility
5 31 (1.77%) GRC
6 25 (1.42%) NIST
7 24 (1.37%) PMO
8 23 (1.31%) SLA
9 19 (1.08%) ISO 20022
10 17 (0.97%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 11 (0.63%) SEPA
12 10 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
13 9 (0.51%) COBIT
13 9 (0.51%) IFRS
14 8 (0.46%) EMIR
14 8 (0.46%) HIPAA
14 8 (0.46%) HL7
14 8 (0.46%) MiFID
15 7 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
15 7 (0.40%) Solvency II
System Software
1 43 (2.45%) Active Directory
2 18 (1.03%) Docker
3 10 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
4 7 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.17%) Microsoft App-V
6 2 (0.11%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.057%) Citrix Presentation Server
7 1 (0.057%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.057%) NFS
7 1 (0.057%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.057%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 23 (1.31%) HP ALM
2 21 (1.20%) Kubernetes
3 17 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
4 13 (0.74%) Grafana
4 13 (0.74%) Terraform
5 6 (0.34%) HP Quality Center
6 5 (0.28%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (0.28%) Prometheus
6 5 (0.28%) SCOM
7 4 (0.23%) Ansible
7 4 (0.23%) Control-M
7 4 (0.23%) ITRS Geneos
8 3 (0.17%) SCCM
9 2 (0.11%) Argo
9 2 (0.11%) Kibana
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle RMAN
10 1 (0.057%) CASB
10 1 (0.057%) Data Guard
10 1 (0.057%) Istio
10 1 (0.057%) WSUS
Vendors
1 306 (17.44%) SAP
2 271 (15.44%) Oracle
3 228 (12.99%) Microsoft
4 115 (6.55%) Salesforce
5 90 (5.13%) ServiceNow
6 44 (2.51%) Workday
7 25 (1.42%) HP
8 23 (1.31%) Ariba
9 20 (1.14%) IFS
10 19 (1.08%) CyberArk
11 18 (1.03%) Murex
11 18 (1.03%) Zscaler
12 17 (0.97%) MuleSoft
13 16 (0.91%) Adobe
13 16 (0.91%) Cisco
14 14 (0.80%) Kronos
15 13 (0.74%) Bloomberg
15 13 (0.74%) IBM
15 13 (0.74%) Infor
15 13 (0.74%) Informatica