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

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 79 130 111
Rank change year-on-year +51 -19 +34
Contract jobs citing User Acceptance Testing 1,440 632 866
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.11% 2.15% 1.99%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.67% 2.37% 2.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 893 416 586
10th Percentile £350 £328 £338
25th Percentile £413 £404 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £701 £742
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +5.56% -5.26% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 10 13
10th Percentile £21.65 £20.83 £13.17
25th Percentile £23.93 £36.06 £16.86
Median hourly rate £30.15 £58.75 £53.00
Median % change year-on-year -48.68% +10.85% -15.20%
75th Percentile £71.00 £64.69 £86.50
90th Percentile £84.45 £86.15 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.38 £58.75 £36.25
% change year-on-year -51.70% +62.07% -42.00%

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 39,258 26,720 37,503
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.83% 90.74% 86.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,768 17,301 24,236
10th Percentile £318 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.03% -0.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £484 £500
% change year-on-year +0.31% -3.30% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,351 1,041 2,413
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.84 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.80 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £30.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% -14.29% -6.67%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.50 £58.69
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.00 £71.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £29.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +37.93% -17.14% -6.67%

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 April 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 April 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 21 April 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 +37 1,253 £500 - 362
London +28 683 £500 -4.76% 154
UK excluding London +59 589 £475 +5.56% 256
Work from Home +40 429 £525 +7.47% 158
South East +46 179 £505 +22.36% 89
North of England -2 143 £450 -9.46% 63
Midlands +7 130 £475 - 53
North West -14 94 £425 -16.67% 24
West Midlands +5 86 £480 -5.88% 33
South West +5 54 £475 +2.70% 14
East Midlands -12 43 £450 +5.88% 20
Yorkshire -32 38 £500 +5.82% 36
Scotland +21 37 £513 +17.14% 5
East of England -18 30 £550 +37.50% 17
Northern Ireland +9 14 £475 -7.99% 7
North East -5 11 £500 +49.25% 3
Wales -4 7 £456 +0.72% 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 98 (6.81%) Confluence
2 24 (1.67%) SharePoint
3 11 (0.76%) SAS
4 8 (0.56%) Appian
5 7 (0.49%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 6 (0.42%) Apache
6 6 (0.42%) CMS
7 3 (0.21%) Apache Spark
7 3 (0.21%) ArcGIS
7 3 (0.21%) Microsoft Exchange
7 3 (0.21%) OpenStack
8 2 (0.14%) Camunda
8 2 (0.14%) GeoServer
8 2 (0.14%) JBoss
8 2 (0.14%) Jupyter
8 2 (0.14%) Mendix
8 2 (0.14%) Smallworld
9 1 (0.069%) Headless CMS
9 1 (0.069%) IBM HTTP Server
9 1 (0.069%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 61 (4.24%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (2.43%) MS Visio
3 29 (2.01%) Microsoft Project
4 28 (1.94%) Microsoft Office
5 24 (1.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.069%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 95 (6.60%) SAP S/4HANA
2 45 (3.13%) Oracle Payables
3 43 (2.99%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 41 (2.85%) Oracle EBS
5 35 (2.43%) Oracle Receivables
6 33 (2.29%) Dynamics CRM
7 26 (1.81%) Oracle General Ledger
8 22 (1.53%) Oracle Assets
8 22 (1.53%) Oracle EBS R12
9 18 (1.25%) Oracle ERP
10 16 (1.11%) Oracle Cash Management
10 16 (1.11%) SAP FI
11 14 (0.97%) SAP CO
12 13 (0.90%) iTrent
12 13 (0.90%) Loan IQ
13 12 (0.83%) SAP FI/CO
14 11 (0.76%) Aladdin
15 10 (0.69%) NEC Housing
15 10 (0.69%) Payment Gateway
16 8 (0.56%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 208 (14.44%) Azure
2 120 (8.33%) Power Platform
3 104 (7.22%) Azure DevOps
4 98 (6.81%) Dynamics 365
5 86 (5.97%) AWS
6 52 (3.61%) OCI
7 36 (2.50%) SuccessFactors
8 35 (2.43%) SaaS
9 34 (2.36%) Entra ID
10 30 (2.08%) GCP
10 30 (2.08%) Power Automate
11 26 (1.81%) GitHub
12 24 (1.67%) PowerApps
13 21 (1.46%) Salesforce Service Cloud
14 19 (1.32%) Microsoft 365
15 17 (1.18%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
16 13 (0.90%) Azure Data Factory
16 13 (0.90%) Serverless
17 12 (0.83%) OpenShift
18 10 (0.69%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.11%) Firewall
2 14 (0.97%) Network Security
3 8 (0.56%) SMS
4 6 (0.42%) LAN
4 6 (0.42%) VPN
5 5 (0.35%) BGP
5 5 (0.35%) MPLS
6 4 (0.28%) 5G
6 4 (0.28%) DHCP
6 4 (0.28%) DNS
6 4 (0.28%) FTP
6 4 (0.28%) SSL
6 4 (0.28%) TCP/IP
6 4 (0.28%) WAN
7 3 (0.21%) Internet
7 3 (0.21%) IPsec
7 3 (0.21%) SD-WAN
7 3 (0.21%) VLAN
8 2 (0.14%) SIGTRAN
8 2 (0.14%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 90 (6.25%) Power BI
2 28 (1.94%) Oracle Reports
2 28 (1.94%) SQL Server
3 22 (1.53%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 22 (1.53%) Relational Database
4 21 (1.46%) Tableau
5 18 (1.25%) Data Warehouse
6 16 (1.11%) MySQL
7 13 (0.90%) Metadata
8 11 (0.76%) Oracle Database
8 11 (0.76%) SAP HANA
9 8 (0.56%) Pinecone
9 8 (0.56%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 7 (0.49%) DynamoDB
10 7 (0.49%) Electronic Patient Records
10 7 (0.49%) RDBMS
11 6 (0.42%) Data Lake
12 5 (0.35%) PostgreSQL
12 5 (0.35%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 4 (0.28%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 254 (17.64%) JIRA
2 40 (2.78%) Selenium
3 30 (2.08%) Postman
4 25 (1.74%) Git
5 20 (1.39%) Jenkins
6 19 (1.32%) TestRail
7 18 (1.25%) GitLab
8 17 (1.18%) Zephyr
9 11 (0.76%) REST Assured
10 10 (0.69%) Cucumber
10 10 (0.69%) JMeter
11 9 (0.63%) Cypress.io
11 9 (0.63%) Oracle Forms
12 8 (0.56%) MLflow
13 7 (0.49%) Team Foundation Server
14 5 (0.35%) Bitbucket
14 5 (0.35%) git-flow
14 5 (0.35%) Visual Studio
15 4 (0.28%) Gatling
15 4 (0.28%) NUnit
General
1 629 (43.68%) Finance
2 549 (38.13%) Social Skills
3 269 (18.68%) Analytical Skills
4 171 (11.88%) Banking
5 147 (10.21%) Public Sector
6 113 (7.85%) Documentation Skills
7 71 (4.93%) Manufacturing
8 60 (4.17%) Retail
9 50 (3.47%) Law
10 47 (3.26%) Investment Banking
11 44 (3.06%) Presentation Skills
12 41 (2.85%) Front Office
13 39 (2.71%) Legal
14 37 (2.57%) General Ledger
15 34 (2.36%) Marketing
16 30 (2.08%) Local Government
16 30 (2.08%) Organisational Skills
17 24 (1.67%) Back Office
18 17 (1.18%) Retail Banking
19 16 (1.11%) Billing
Job Titles
1 412 (28.61%) Analyst
2 311 (21.60%) Business Analyst
3 236 (16.39%) Lead
4 199 (13.82%) Consultant
5 97 (6.74%) Test Manager
6 94 (6.53%) Senior
7 77 (5.35%) Architect
8 76 (5.28%) Developer
9 66 (4.58%) Project Manager
10 61 (4.24%) Functional Consultant
11 59 (4.10%) Test Analyst
12 53 (3.68%) SAP Consultant
13 51 (3.54%) Test Leader
14 44 (3.06%) Oracle Consultant
15 39 (2.71%) Lead Architect
16 38 (2.64%) Tester
17 36 (2.50%) Senior Analyst
18 33 (2.29%) Functional Architect
19 27 (1.88%) Test Engineer
20 26 (1.81%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 83 (5.76%) REST
2 43 (2.99%) SOAP
3 42 (2.92%) Oracle Fusion
4 39 (2.71%) Middleware
5 24 (1.67%) XML
6 23 (1.60%) .NET
7 22 (1.53%) Web Services
8 21 (1.46%) JSON
9 18 (1.25%) Playwright
9 18 (1.25%) RESTful
10 17 (1.18%) SailPoint
11 16 (1.11%) Spring
12 15 (1.04%) OAuth
12 15 (1.04%) Spring Boot
13 13 (0.90%) ADO
13 13 (0.90%) Swagger
14 12 (0.83%) AngularJS
14 12 (0.83%) CSS
14 12 (0.83%) JWT
15 11 (0.76%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 107 (7.43%) Product Ownership
2 98 (6.81%) Legacy Systems
3 65 (4.51%) Onboarding
4 38 (2.64%) Data Structures
4 38 (2.64%) Management Information System
5 32 (2.22%) Public Cloud
6 29 (2.01%) Derivative
7 28 (1.94%) Data Protection Act
8 21 (1.46%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 20 (1.39%) Self-Motivation
10 19 (1.32%) Low-Code
10 19 (1.32%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 17 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
11 17 (1.18%) Enterprise Software
12 15 (1.04%) Cloud Native
12 15 (1.04%) Fixed Income
13 13 (0.90%) Credit Risk
13 13 (0.90%) Greenfield Project
14 12 (0.83%) Reference Data
14 12 (0.83%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 32 (2.22%) Windows
2 17 (1.18%) Linux
3 4 (0.28%) Mac OS
3 4 (0.28%) VMS
3 4 (0.28%) Windows 10
3 4 (0.28%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.21%) Unix
5 2 (0.14%) Android
5 2 (0.14%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.14%) OpenVMS
5 2 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
5 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 453 (31.46%) Agile
2 412 (28.61%) Stakeholder Management
3 404 (28.06%) Migration
4 308 (21.39%) Validation
5 288 (20.00%) System Integration Testing
6 276 (19.17%) Data Migration
7 257 (17.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 249 (17.29%) ERP
9 223 (15.49%) Problem-Solving
10 216 (15.00%) Workshop Facilitation
11 200 (13.89%) Requirements Gathering
12 193 (13.40%) Test Automation
13 186 (12.92%) DevOps
14 184 (12.78%) Scenario Testing
15 183 (12.71%) Continuous Improvement
16 180 (12.50%) Test Strategy
17 176 (12.22%) User Stories
18 155 (10.76%) Business Analysis
19 146 (10.14%) End-to-End Testing
20 138 (9.58%) Defect Management
Programming Languages
1 196 (13.61%) SQL
2 77 (5.35%) Python
3 51 (3.54%) Java
4 37 (2.57%) JavaScript
5 24 (1.67%) C#
6 19 (1.32%) PL/SQL
7 17 (1.18%) PowerShell
7 17 (1.18%) TypeScript
8 12 (0.83%) ABAP
9 9 (0.63%) Bash
10 8 (0.56%) PHP
11 7 (0.49%) Apex Code
12 6 (0.42%) T-SQL
13 5 (0.35%) Korn
13 5 (0.35%) R
14 4 (0.28%) Perl
14 4 (0.28%) Shell Script
15 3 (0.21%) Scala
15 3 (0.21%) VB
15 3 (0.21%) VB6
Qualifications
1 166 (11.53%) Security Cleared
2 125 (8.68%) SC Cleared
3 108 (7.50%) Degree
4 52 (3.61%) ISTQB
5 37 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
6 29 (2.01%) PMI Certification
7 22 (1.53%) PMP
8 21 (1.46%) ACCA
8 21 (1.46%) CIMA
9 16 (1.11%) Master's Degree
10 13 (0.90%) Computer Science Degree
11 12 (0.83%) IIBA
12 10 (0.69%) DV Cleared
13 9 (0.63%) CBAP
14 8 (0.56%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 8 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
15 7 (0.49%) AWS Certification
15 7 (0.49%) ISEB
16 6 (0.42%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 6 (0.42%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 261 (18.13%) QA
2 117 (8.13%) Data Quality
3 59 (4.10%) GDPR
4 24 (1.67%) PMO
5 22 (1.53%) Accessibility
6 20 (1.39%) IFRS
7 19 (1.32%) PSD2
7 19 (1.32%) SLA
8 18 (1.25%) ISO 20022
9 16 (1.11%) IFRS 17
9 16 (1.11%) NIST
10 12 (0.83%) SEPA
11 11 (0.76%) GRC
11 11 (0.76%) ISO 8583
12 10 (0.69%) HL7
12 10 (0.69%) MiFID
13 9 (0.63%) NCSC
14 8 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
14 8 (0.56%) PCI DSS
14 8 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 28 (1.94%) Active Directory
2 26 (1.81%) Docker
3 13 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
4 4 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.21%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
5 3 (0.21%) ISA Server
5 3 (0.21%) VMware Infrastructure
6 2 (0.14%) Firmware
6 2 (0.14%) HDFS
6 2 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
7 1 (0.069%) Citrix Presentation Server
7 1 (0.069%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.069%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.069%) UAG
7 1 (0.069%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 30 (2.08%) Kubernetes
2 27 (1.88%) HP ALM
3 18 (1.25%) Terraform
4 15 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
5 7 (0.49%) Grafana
6 6 (0.42%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (0.28%) Ansible
7 4 (0.28%) Control-M
8 3 (0.21%) HP Quality Center
9 2 (0.14%) ITRS Geneos
9 2 (0.14%) Kibana
9 2 (0.14%) Oracle RMAN
9 2 (0.14%) SCCM
10 1 (0.069%) CASB
10 1 (0.069%) CEMLI
10 1 (0.069%) Cisco CUCM
10 1 (0.069%) Data Guard
10 1 (0.069%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.069%) Rundeck
10 1 (0.069%) WSUS
Vendors
1 213 (14.79%) Oracle
2 199 (13.82%) SAP
3 178 (12.36%) Microsoft
4 107 (7.43%) ServiceNow
5 74 (5.14%) Salesforce
6 28 (1.94%) HP
7 20 (1.39%) Murex
7 20 (1.39%) Workday
8 19 (1.32%) IFS
9 14 (0.97%) Ariba
9 14 (0.97%) Blue Prism
10 13 (0.90%) Adobe
10 13 (0.90%) UiPath
11 12 (0.83%) Citrix
11 12 (0.83%) Infor
12 11 (0.76%) Bloomberg
12 11 (0.76%) Cisco
12 11 (0.76%) Splunk
13 10 (0.69%) CyberArk
13 10 (0.69%) Zscaler