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

6 months to
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 91 111
Rank change year-on-year +20 +20 +15
Contract jobs citing User Acceptance Testing 1,751 905 810
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.28% 2.75% 2.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.87% 3.04% 2.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,046 603 551
10th Percentile £355 £335 £325
25th Percentile £425 £404 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £630
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £500
% change year-on-year +2.70% -7.50% +0.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 14 3
10th Percentile £17.18 £30.48 £39.50
25th Percentile £21.08 £33.66 £46.25
Median hourly rate £46.25 £55.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.04% -7.08% +73.91%
75th Percentile £78.38 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £86.00 £65.00 £64.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.01 £52.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year -38.63% +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 45,262 29,771 33,475
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.91% 90.46% 85.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,917 18,660 21,435
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
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 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,788 1,660 1,878
10th Percentile £14.46 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.30 £18.15
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.63% -5.12%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £64.13
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £74.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.30 £40.94
% change year-on-year +88.67% -43.09% +3.38%

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 6 August 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 6 August 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 6 August 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 1,471 £500 - 448
London +19 843 £525 - 233
UK excluding London +25 690 £475 +2.70% 269
Work from Home +17 555 £500 +3.15% 216
South East +25 174 £500 +14.29% 95
Midlands +42 158 £475 +5.56% 51
North of England -33 150 £463 -6.00% 63
West Midlands +23 104 £475 +5.56% 33
North West -37 101 £482 -2.08% 40
South West -4 72 £493 +12.57% 23
Scotland +38 66 £425 - 10
East Midlands +22 50 £550 +30.95% 18
Yorkshire -33 33 £450 -9.09% 18
East of England -16 30 £575 +27.78% 21
Wales +2 23 £500 +10.74% 5
Northern Ireland +8 20 £475 -9.09% 3
North East - 16 £375 - 6

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
1 112 (6.40%) Confluence
2 40 (2.28%) SharePoint
3 11 (0.63%) CMS
4 8 (0.46%) SAS
5 6 (0.34%) Apache
5 6 (0.34%) Tuxedo
6 5 (0.29%) JBoss
7 4 (0.23%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.17%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.17%) Kentico
8 3 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (0.17%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 2 (0.11%) Appian
9 2 (0.11%) Camunda
9 2 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.11%) Headless CMS
9 2 (0.11%) Jupyter
9 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.11%) OpenROAD
9 2 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 69 (3.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (2.63%) MS Visio
3 40 (2.28%) Microsoft Office
4 19 (1.09%) Microsoft Project
5 13 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 10 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.29%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.057%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.057%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 152 (8.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 43 (2.46%) Dynamics CRM
3 36 (2.06%) Oracle EBS
4 32 (1.83%) Oracle Payables
5 24 (1.37%) SAP Payroll
6 23 (1.31%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 21 (1.20%) Oracle Receivables
7 21 (1.20%) SAP GRC
8 18 (1.03%) Oracle ERP
8 18 (1.03%) SAP HCM
9 16 (0.91%) Workday HCM
10 14 (0.80%) Oracle General Ledger
11 13 (0.74%) Oracle Assets
11 13 (0.74%) Oracle EBS R12
11 13 (0.74%) Oracle Payroll
11 13 (0.74%) SAP SD
12 12 (0.69%) Finacle
12 12 (0.69%) Oracle Cash Management
13 11 (0.63%) NetSuite
13 11 (0.63%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 285 (16.28%) Azure
2 163 (9.31%) Azure DevOps
2 163 (9.31%) Power Platform
3 118 (6.74%) Dynamics 365
4 81 (4.63%) AWS
5 61 (3.48%) OCI
6 53 (3.03%) SuccessFactors
7 43 (2.46%) GitHub
8 37 (2.11%) SaaS
9 35 (2.00%) Power Automate
10 32 (1.83%) Entra ID
11 31 (1.77%) PowerApps
11 31 (1.77%) Salesforce Service Cloud
12 28 (1.60%) GCP
13 25 (1.43%) Snowflake
14 21 (1.20%) GitHub Actions
14 21 (1.20%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
15 20 (1.14%) Microsoft 365
16 19 (1.09%) Boomi
17 14 (0.80%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 19 (1.09%) Firewall
2 15 (0.86%) Network Security
3 13 (0.74%) SSL
4 10 (0.57%) WAN
5 8 (0.46%) DNS
6 7 (0.40%) LAN
6 7 (0.40%) TCP/IP
7 5 (0.29%) DHCP
7 5 (0.29%) FTP
7 5 (0.29%) Internet
7 5 (0.29%) 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%) Cisco IOS
10 2 (0.11%) SIGTRAN
10 2 (0.11%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 129 (7.37%) Power BI
2 47 (2.68%) Data Warehouse
3 45 (2.57%) SQL Server
4 32 (1.83%) Oracle Reports
5 30 (1.71%) Relational Database
6 21 (1.20%) Data Lake
6 21 (1.20%) Oracle Database
6 21 (1.20%) Tableau
7 20 (1.14%) PostgreSQL
8 18 (1.03%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 18 (1.03%) RDBMS
9 17 (0.97%) Metadata
9 17 (0.97%) SAP HANA
10 14 (0.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 12 (0.69%) Ingres
12 9 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
13 8 (0.46%) MySQL
14 7 (0.40%) Big Data
15 5 (0.29%) BusinessObjects
15 5 (0.29%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 285 (16.28%) JIRA
2 38 (2.17%) Git
3 35 (2.00%) Selenium
4 29 (1.66%) Postman
5 27 (1.54%) Jenkins
6 19 (1.09%) REST Assured
7 18 (1.03%) Zephyr
8 15 (0.86%) Cypress.io
8 15 (0.86%) GitLab
9 11 (0.63%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.57%) Cucumber
10 10 (0.57%) Oracle Forms
10 10 (0.57%) TestRail
11 9 (0.51%) Team Foundation Server
11 9 (0.51%) WebDriver
12 8 (0.46%) Visual Studio
13 6 (0.34%) Gatling
14 5 (0.29%) JMeter
14 5 (0.29%) JUnit
14 5 (0.29%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 763 (43.58%) Finance
2 633 (36.15%) Social Skills
3 304 (17.36%) Analytical Skills
4 188 (10.74%) Banking
5 169 (9.65%) Public Sector
6 130 (7.42%) Documentation Skills
7 105 (6.00%) Retail
8 65 (3.71%) Legal
9 62 (3.54%) Manufacturing
10 55 (3.14%) Front Office
11 48 (2.74%) General Ledger
11 48 (2.74%) Law
12 46 (2.63%) Organisational Skills
13 42 (2.40%) Investment Banking
14 39 (2.23%) Billing
15 34 (1.94%) Presentation Skills
16 33 (1.88%) Back Office
16 33 (1.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 29 (1.66%) Local Government
18 27 (1.54%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 504 (28.78%) Analyst
2 393 (22.44%) Business Analyst
3 244 (13.93%) Consultant
4 241 (13.76%) Lead
5 132 (7.54%) Senior
6 92 (5.25%) Test Manager
7 87 (4.97%) Developer
8 78 (4.45%) Architect
9 74 (4.23%) Functional Consultant
10 71 (4.05%) SAP Consultant
11 62 (3.54%) Test Leader
12 58 (3.31%) Project Manager
13 55 (3.14%) Oracle Consultant
14 50 (2.86%) Test Analyst
15 46 (2.63%) Tester
16 45 (2.57%) Senior Analyst
17 39 (2.23%) Senior Business Analyst
17 39 (2.23%) Test Engineer
18 36 (2.06%) Data Analyst
19 34 (1.94%) Financial Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (4.63%) REST
2 79 (4.51%) Oracle Fusion
3 73 (4.17%) Middleware
4 51 (2.91%) SOAP
5 39 (2.23%) JSON
6 37 (2.11%) XML
7 29 (1.66%) SAP Fiori
8 25 (1.43%) .NET
8 25 (1.43%) Playwright
9 20 (1.14%) Web Services
10 17 (0.97%) ADO
11 12 (0.69%) SailPoint
12 11 (0.63%) OAuth
12 11 (0.63%) React
13 10 (0.57%) AngularJS
13 10 (0.57%) EDI
13 10 (0.57%) Lightning Web Components
14 9 (0.51%) Kafka
14 9 (0.51%) Microsoft Graph
15 8 (0.46%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 136 (7.77%) Product Ownership
2 93 (5.31%) Legacy Systems
3 80 (4.57%) Onboarding
4 52 (2.97%) Data Structures
4 52 (2.97%) Enterprise Software
5 50 (2.86%) Management Information System
6 35 (2.00%) Derivative
7 34 (1.94%) Analytical Mindset
8 33 (1.88%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 29 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
10 27 (1.54%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 27 (1.54%) Public Cloud
11 23 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
12 21 (1.20%) FMCG
12 21 (1.20%) Virtual Team
13 20 (1.14%) CMDB
13 20 (1.14%) Low-Code
14 18 (1.03%) Reinsurance
15 17 (0.97%) Cloud Native
15 17 (0.97%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 60 (3.43%) Windows
2 31 (1.77%) Linux
3 13 (0.74%) Windows Server
4 12 (0.69%) Unix
5 4 (0.23%) Mac OS
6 3 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.11%) VMS
7 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.057%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.057%) Solaris
8 1 (0.057%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.057%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 600 (34.27%) Stakeholder Management
2 536 (30.61%) Agile
3 511 (29.18%) Migration
4 466 (26.61%) System Integration Testing
5 461 (26.33%) Validation
6 373 (21.30%) Data Migration
7 317 (18.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 314 (17.93%) ERP
9 306 (17.48%) Problem-Solving
10 304 (17.36%) Requirements Gathering
11 271 (15.48%) User Stories
12 261 (14.91%) Workshop Facilitation
13 251 (14.33%) DevOps
14 250 (14.28%) Continuous Improvement
15 219 (12.51%) Defect Management
16 218 (12.45%) Acceptance Criteria
17 212 (12.11%) Business Analysis
18 210 (11.99%) Scenario Testing
19 207 (11.82%) Integration Testing
20 203 (11.59%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 281 (16.05%) SQL
2 75 (4.28%) Python
3 40 (2.28%) JavaScript
4 39 (2.23%) Java
5 36 (2.06%) C#
6 35 (2.00%) ABAP
7 25 (1.43%) PowerShell
8 19 (1.09%) Apex Code
8 19 (1.09%) PL/SQL
9 14 (0.80%) Bash
10 12 (0.69%) T-SQL
10 12 (0.69%) TypeScript
11 11 (0.63%) VB
12 10 (0.57%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.51%) C
14 8 (0.46%) VB6
14 8 (0.46%) VBA
15 7 (0.40%) Korn
15 7 (0.40%) R
16 6 (0.34%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 213 (12.16%) Security Cleared
2 164 (9.37%) SC Cleared
3 134 (7.65%) Degree
4 47 (2.68%) ISTQB
5 36 (2.06%) ACCA
6 31 (1.77%) CIMA
7 29 (1.66%) 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
12 16 (0.91%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 15 (0.86%) Azure Certification
13 15 (0.86%) CBAP
14 13 (0.74%) Computer Science Degree
15 12 (0.69%) IIBA
16 10 (0.57%) FFIEC
16 10 (0.57%) Master's Degree
17 9 (0.51%) ISEB
18 8 (0.46%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 273 (15.59%) QA
2 152 (8.68%) Data Quality
3 56 (3.20%) GDPR
4 31 (1.77%) GRC
5 30 (1.71%) Accessibility
6 26 (1.48%) NIST
7 25 (1.43%) PMO
8 23 (1.31%) SLA
9 19 (1.09%) ISO 20022
10 17 (0.97%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 11 (0.63%) SEPA
12 10 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
12 10 (0.57%) 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 44 (2.51%) Active Directory
2 18 (1.03%) Docker
3 10 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
4 8 (0.46%) 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 21 (1.20%) Kubernetes
2 20 (1.14%) HP ALM
3 17 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
4 16 (0.91%) Terraform
5 12 (0.69%) Grafana
6 7 (0.40%) HP Quality Center
7 6 (0.34%) SCOM
8 5 (0.29%) Ansible
8 5 (0.29%) Microsoft Intune
8 5 (0.29%) Prometheus
9 4 (0.23%) Control-M
9 4 (0.23%) ITRS Geneos
10 3 (0.17%) SCCM
11 2 (0.11%) Argo
11 2 (0.11%) Oracle RMAN
12 1 (0.057%) CASB
12 1 (0.057%) Data Guard
12 1 (0.057%) Istio
12 1 (0.057%) Network Intrusion Detection System
12 1 (0.057%) WSUS
Vendors
1 304 (17.36%) SAP
2 269 (15.36%) Oracle
3 228 (13.02%) Microsoft
4 113 (6.45%) Salesforce
5 89 (5.08%) ServiceNow
6 49 (2.80%) Workday
7 23 (1.31%) Ariba
8 22 (1.26%) HP
9 20 (1.14%) IFS
10 19 (1.09%) CyberArk
11 18 (1.03%) Murex
11 18 (1.03%) Zscaler
12 17 (0.97%) Cisco
12 17 (0.97%) MuleSoft
13 16 (0.91%) Adobe
14 14 (0.80%) Bloomberg
14 14 (0.80%) Kronos
15 13 (0.74%) IBM
15 13 (0.74%) Infor
16 11 (0.63%) Splunk