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

6 months to
12 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 91 133
Rank change year-on-year +19 +42 -24
Contract jobs citing User Acceptance Testing 1,849 948 704
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.39% 2.88% 1.86%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.00% 3.18% 2.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,105 647 468
10th Percentile £350 £325 £313
25th Percentile £415 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £631
90th Percentile £715 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +4.22% -2.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 17 3
10th Percentile £18.00 £15.74 £39.50
25th Percentile £24.72 £30.05 £46.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £40.49 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +35.84% -32.52% +8.48%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £86.00 £72.30 £64.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.97 £32.36 £47.50
% change year-on-year +79.17% -31.88% +54.06%

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 46,186 29,793 32,494
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.63% 90.48% 86.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,729 18,525 19,586
10th Percentile £325 £294 £308
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 £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,368 1,885 1,263
10th Percentile £13.53 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -9.60%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.79 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.72 £65.21 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £40.33
% change year-on-year +68.43% -44.79% -7.83%

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 October 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 October 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 12 October 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 +18 1,563 £513 +2.50% 1,031
London +26 877 £525 - 534
UK excluding London +11 725 £482 +4.22% 529
Work from Home +11 600 £500 - 428
North of England -11 182 £460 -6.50% 118
Midlands +35 175 £480 +8.47% 87
South East +1 159 £500 - 146
West Midlands +32 128 £475 - 62
North West -10 113 £484 +6.91% 66
South West +4 71 £500 +21.21% 57
Scotland +18 64 £450 +12.50% 45
Yorkshire -8 52 £430 -17.20% 39
East Midlands +7 42 £496 +18.04% 25
East of England -19 39 £525 +2.54% 55
Wales -3 23 £488 +58.54% 11
North East -23 17 £365 - 13
Northern Ireland +3 16 £450 -12.20% 16
Channel Islands - 1 £550 - 1

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
1 136 (7.36%) Confluence
2 55 (2.97%) SharePoint
3 17 (0.92%) CMS
4 12 (0.65%) SAS
5 10 (0.54%) Camunda
6 6 (0.32%) Sitecore CMS
6 6 (0.32%) Tuxedo
7 5 (0.27%) Apache
7 5 (0.27%) Kentico
8 4 (0.22%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (0.22%) Apache Spark
8 4 (0.22%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.16%) JBoss
9 3 (0.16%) Microsoft Exchange
9 3 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.16%) SugarCRM
9 3 (0.16%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 3 (0.16%) Umbraco
10 2 (0.11%) CICS
10 2 (0.11%) IIS
Applications
1 97 (5.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (2.49%) MS Visio
3 44 (2.38%) Microsoft Office
4 24 (1.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
6 9 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
7 7 (0.38%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.054%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.054%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.054%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.054%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.054%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.054%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.054%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 191 (10.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 46 (2.49%) Dynamics CRM
3 41 (2.22%) Oracle EBS
4 33 (1.78%) SAP Payroll
5 27 (1.46%) Oracle Payables
5 27 (1.46%) SAP GRC
5 27 (1.46%) Workday HCM
6 24 (1.30%) Oracle Payroll
6 24 (1.30%) SAP HCM
7 21 (1.14%) SAP FI
8 19 (1.03%) Oracle Receivables
9 18 (0.97%) SAP SD
10 15 (0.81%) Aladdin
10 15 (0.81%) Oracle General Ledger
10 15 (0.81%) SAP MM
11 14 (0.76%) NetSuite
11 14 (0.76%) SAP CO
11 14 (0.76%) SAP EWM
11 14 (0.76%) SAP PM
12 13 (0.70%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 325 (17.58%) Azure
2 193 (10.44%) Azure DevOps
3 165 (8.92%) Power Platform
4 109 (5.90%) Dynamics 365
5 94 (5.08%) AWS
6 64 (3.46%) SuccessFactors
7 63 (3.41%) OCI
8 41 (2.22%) SaaS
9 36 (1.95%) GCP
9 36 (1.95%) GitHub
10 34 (1.84%) Power Automate
11 33 (1.78%) Snowflake
12 27 (1.46%) Microsoft 365
12 27 (1.46%) PowerApps
13 23 (1.24%) Entra ID
13 23 (1.24%) Salesforce Service Cloud
14 21 (1.14%) Microsoft Copilot
15 20 (1.08%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
16 19 (1.03%) Lucidchart
17 17 (0.92%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 14 (0.76%) SSL
2 8 (0.43%) WAN
3 7 (0.38%) DNS
3 7 (0.38%) Firewall
4 4 (0.22%) Fibre Channel
4 4 (0.22%) Intrusion Detection
4 4 (0.22%) LAN
4 4 (0.22%) SAN
4 4 (0.22%) Wi-Fi
5 3 (0.16%) HTTP
5 3 (0.16%) TCP/IP
5 3 (0.16%) Unified Communications
5 3 (0.16%) VLAN
5 3 (0.16%) VPN
6 2 (0.11%) DSL
6 2 (0.11%) HTTPS
6 2 (0.11%) Intranet
6 2 (0.11%) Network Security
6 2 (0.11%) Wireless
6 2 (0.11%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (6.38%) Power BI
2 73 (3.95%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.92%) Data Warehouse
4 31 (1.68%) Oracle Database
5 30 (1.62%) Relational Database
6 25 (1.35%) Oracle Reports
7 22 (1.19%) PostgreSQL
8 21 (1.14%) Data Lake
9 20 (1.08%) Metadata
10 19 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 18 (0.97%) Tableau
12 16 (0.87%) SAP HANA
13 15 (0.81%) RDBMS
14 14 (0.76%) Oracle BI Publisher
15 12 (0.65%) Ingres
16 10 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
16 10 (0.54%) Big Data
16 10 (0.54%) MySQL
17 9 (0.49%) SAP BW
18 6 (0.32%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 315 (17.04%) JIRA
2 52 (2.81%) Git
3 42 (2.27%) Selenium
4 35 (1.89%) Postman
5 34 (1.84%) Jenkins
6 29 (1.57%) REST Assured
7 24 (1.30%) Zephyr
8 21 (1.14%) Cypress.io
8 21 (1.14%) GitLab
9 14 (0.76%) JUnit
10 13 (0.70%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
11 11 (0.59%) TestRail
12 10 (0.54%) Maven
12 10 (0.54%) Mockito
13 9 (0.49%) Bitbucket Server
13 9 (0.49%) Gatling
13 9 (0.49%) Gradle
13 9 (0.49%) SonarQube
13 9 (0.49%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 755 (40.83%) Finance
2 711 (38.45%) Social Skills
3 344 (18.60%) Analytical Skills
4 219 (11.84%) Banking
5 178 (9.63%) Public Sector
6 107 (5.79%) Documentation Skills
7 98 (5.30%) Retail
8 73 (3.95%) Manufacturing
9 68 (3.68%) Legal
10 61 (3.30%) General Ledger
11 52 (2.81%) Front Office
12 49 (2.65%) Billing
13 45 (2.43%) Organisational Skills
14 41 (2.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 40 (2.16%) Influencing Skills
16 35 (1.89%) Local Government
17 34 (1.84%) Investment Banking
18 29 (1.57%) Back Office
19 26 (1.41%) Marketing
19 26 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 518 (28.02%) Analyst
2 393 (21.25%) Business Analyst
3 298 (16.12%) Consultant
4 228 (12.33%) Lead
5 139 (7.52%) Senior
6 102 (5.52%) Developer
7 100 (5.41%) Test Manager
8 85 (4.60%) SAP Consultant
9 80 (4.33%) Functional Consultant
10 74 (4.00%) Test Leader
11 66 (3.57%) Oracle Consultant
12 61 (3.30%) Test Analyst
13 59 (3.19%) Project Manager
14 52 (2.81%) Tester
15 47 (2.54%) Architect
16 46 (2.49%) Senior Analyst
17 45 (2.43%) Financial Analyst
18 42 (2.27%) Finance Business Analyst
19 39 (2.11%) Data Analyst
19 39 (2.11%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (5.08%) Oracle Fusion
2 88 (4.76%) REST
3 78 (4.22%) Middleware
4 46 (2.49%) SOAP
5 43 (2.33%) JSON
6 41 (2.22%) .NET
7 40 (2.16%) XML
8 39 (2.11%) SAP Fiori
9 36 (1.95%) Web Services
10 32 (1.73%) Playwright
11 30 (1.62%) Terraform
12 20 (1.08%) React
13 19 (1.03%) ADO
14 18 (0.97%) Kafka
15 16 (0.87%) HTML
16 14 (0.76%) Spring Boot
17 13 (0.70%) ARM Templates
17 13 (0.70%) CSS
17 13 (0.70%) OAuth
18 11 (0.59%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 146 (7.90%) Product Ownership
2 95 (5.14%) Onboarding
3 79 (4.27%) Legacy Systems
4 66 (3.57%) Data Structures
5 65 (3.52%) Enterprise Software
6 55 (2.97%) Management Information System
7 34 (1.84%) Data Protection Act
7 34 (1.84%) Derivative
8 30 (1.62%) Analytical Mindset
9 28 (1.51%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 24 (1.30%) Low-Code
10 24 (1.30%) Virtual Team
11 22 (1.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 22 (1.19%) Greenfield Project
11 22 (1.19%) Replication
12 21 (1.14%) FMCG
13 18 (0.97%) Cloud Native
13 18 (0.97%) CMDB
13 18 (0.97%) SCADA
14 17 (0.92%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 59 (3.19%) Windows
2 28 (1.51%) Linux
3 17 (0.92%) Windows Server
4 15 (0.81%) Unix
5 7 (0.38%) VMS
6 3 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.16%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.11%) zOS
8 1 (0.054%) Android
8 1 (0.054%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.054%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.054%) macOS
8 1 (0.054%) Solaris
8 1 (0.054%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 765 (41.37%) Stakeholder Management
2 581 (31.42%) Agile
3 525 (28.39%) Migration
4 516 (27.91%) System Integration Testing
5 506 (27.37%) Validation
6 367 (19.85%) Data Migration
7 364 (19.69%) Requirements Gathering
8 351 (18.98%) Problem-Solving
9 301 (16.28%) User Stories
10 300 (16.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 289 (15.63%) Workshop Facilitation
12 287 (15.52%) Defect Management
13 280 (15.14%) DevOps
14 271 (14.66%) Continuous Improvement
14 271 (14.66%) ERP
15 246 (13.30%) Acceptance Criteria
16 244 (13.20%) Integration Testing
17 239 (12.93%) Business Analysis
18 215 (11.63%) Scenario Testing
19 209 (11.30%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 323 (17.47%) SQL
2 75 (4.06%) Python
3 53 (2.87%) Java
4 52 (2.81%) JavaScript
5 51 (2.76%) C#
6 45 (2.43%) ABAP
7 35 (1.89%) PowerShell
8 20 (1.08%) Bash
9 18 (0.97%) T-SQL
10 14 (0.76%) Bicep
10 14 (0.76%) PL/SQL
11 12 (0.65%) Apex Code
11 12 (0.65%) VB
12 11 (0.59%) TypeScript
13 10 (0.54%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.49%) C
14 9 (0.49%) VB6
15 7 (0.38%) Korn
15 7 (0.38%) VBA
16 5 (0.27%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 261 (14.12%) Security Cleared
2 206 (11.14%) SC Cleared
3 165 (8.92%) Degree
4 59 (3.19%) ISTQB
5 52 (2.81%) ACCA
6 47 (2.54%) CIMA
7 37 (2.00%) BPSS Clearance
8 26 (1.41%) PMI Certification
9 22 (1.19%) DV Cleared
9 22 (1.19%) PMP
10 21 (1.14%) Computer Science Degree
10 21 (1.14%) Microsoft Certification
11 19 (1.03%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 17 (0.92%) CBAP
13 15 (0.81%) Azure Certification
13 15 (0.81%) IIBA
14 14 (0.76%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 11 (0.59%) Master's Degree
16 10 (0.54%) FFIEC
16 10 (0.54%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 274 (14.82%) QA
2 191 (10.33%) Data Quality
3 44 (2.38%) GDPR
4 36 (1.95%) GRC
5 29 (1.57%) Accessibility
6 24 (1.30%) PMO
7 18 (0.97%) NIST
8 15 (0.81%) ISO 20022
9 14 (0.76%) IFRS
10 13 (0.70%) Actionable Recommendations
10 13 (0.70%) COBIT
11 12 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 8 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 8 (0.43%) SEPA
12 8 (0.43%) SLA
13 7 (0.38%) Solvency II
13 7 (0.38%) WCAG
14 6 (0.32%) EMIR
14 6 (0.32%) GAAP
14 6 (0.32%) MiFID
System Software
1 29 (1.57%) Active Directory
2 26 (1.41%) Docker
3 12 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
4 11 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
6 2 (0.11%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.054%) NFS
7 1 (0.054%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.054%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.054%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.054%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 31 (1.68%) Kubernetes
2 13 (0.70%) HP ALM
3 10 (0.54%) SCOM
4 8 (0.43%) Ansible
4 8 (0.43%) Grafana
4 8 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
5 7 (0.38%) HP Quality Center
6 6 (0.32%) Microsoft Intune
7 5 (0.27%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.22%) Argo
9 3 (0.16%) SCCM
10 2 (0.11%) ITRS Geneos
11 1 (0.054%) Control-M
11 1 (0.054%) Data Guard
11 1 (0.054%) Iperf
11 1 (0.054%) Istio
11 1 (0.054%) Network Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.054%) Oracle RMAN
11 1 (0.054%) SnapMirror
11 1 (0.054%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 368 (19.90%) SAP
2 284 (15.36%) Microsoft
3 278 (15.04%) Oracle
4 106 (5.73%) Salesforce
5 78 (4.22%) ServiceNow
6 64 (3.46%) Workday
7 28 (1.51%) Ariba
8 22 (1.19%) UiPath
9 21 (1.14%) Databricks
10 20 (1.08%) MuleSoft
10 20 (1.08%) Murex
11 16 (0.87%) Bloomberg
11 16 (0.87%) CyberArk
11 16 (0.87%) IBM
12 15 (0.81%) Informatica
13 14 (0.76%) HP
14 13 (0.70%) Kronos
14 13 (0.70%) Sage
15 12 (0.65%) Tagetik
16 10 (0.54%) Google