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

6 months to
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 77 130 113
Rank change year-on-year +53 -17 +36
Contract jobs citing User Acceptance Testing 1,443 636 869
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.07% 2.17% 2.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.63% 2.39% 2.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 895 419 583
10th Percentile £350 £341 £325
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £588
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 13 10 10
10th Percentile £21.65 £20.83 £12.92
25th Percentile £25.00 £36.06 £14.85
Median hourly rate £30.15 £58.75 £36.25
Median % change year-on-year -48.68% +62.07% -42.00%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.69 £78.25
90th Percentile £84.85 £86.15 £87.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.15 £58.75 £36.25
% change year-on-year -48.68% +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 39,735 26,655 37,382
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.58% 90.81% 86.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,044 17,231 24,097
10th Percentile £319 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.40% -0.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £631 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £485 £500
% change year-on-year - -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,400 1,068 2,424
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.84 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.98 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £40.25 £29.15 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.08% -16.71% -6.27%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.24 £59.44
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.00 £28.00 £35.98
% change year-on-year +50.00% -22.17% -0.07%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 +44 1,253 £500 - 308
London +30 681 £500 -4.76% 143
UK excluding London +67 597 £475 +5.56% 245
Work from Home +33 433 £525 +5.00% 140
South East +39 180 £500 +21.21% 94
North of England -12 144 £449 -10.03% 53
Midlands +6 133 £485 +4.86% 50
North West -6 94 £425 -16.77% 31
West Midlands +4 89 £488 -1.52% 29
South West -4 53 £469 +4.22% 13
East Midlands -15 43 £465 +9.41% 21
Yorkshire -28 39 £484 +2.43% 18
Scotland +22 38 £506 +15.25% 10
East of England -17 30 £550 +29.41% 12
Northern Ireland +11 15 £475 -8.65% 5
North East -10 11 £500 +49.25% 4
Wales -6 8 £475 +4.86% 9

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 96 (6.65%) Confluence
2 21 (1.46%) SharePoint
3 11 (0.76%) SAS
4 8 (0.55%) 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%) 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%) Microsoft Exchange
9 1 (0.069%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 60 (4.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (2.29%) MS Visio
3 28 (1.94%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (1.94%) Microsoft Project
4 23 (1.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle Smart View
7 1 (0.069%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 94 (6.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 46 (3.19%) Oracle Payables
3 43 (2.98%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 42 (2.91%) Oracle EBS
5 36 (2.49%) Oracle Receivables
6 33 (2.29%) Dynamics CRM
7 26 (1.80%) Oracle General Ledger
8 23 (1.59%) Oracle EBS R12
9 22 (1.52%) Oracle Assets
10 18 (1.25%) Oracle ERP
11 17 (1.18%) Oracle Cash Management
11 17 (1.18%) SAP FI
12 15 (1.04%) SAP CO
13 13 (0.90%) iTrent
13 13 (0.90%) Loan IQ
13 13 (0.90%) SAP FI/CO
14 11 (0.76%) Aladdin
15 10 (0.69%) NEC Housing
15 10 (0.69%) Payment Gateway
16 9 (0.62%) Finacle
Cloud Services
1 207 (14.35%) Azure
2 113 (7.83%) Power Platform
3 107 (7.42%) Azure DevOps
4 100 (6.93%) Dynamics 365
5 85 (5.89%) AWS
6 56 (3.88%) OCI
7 34 (2.36%) SaaS
7 34 (2.36%) SuccessFactors
8 33 (2.29%) Entra ID
9 31 (2.15%) GCP
9 31 (2.15%) Power Automate
10 25 (1.73%) GitHub
10 25 (1.73%) PowerApps
11 24 (1.66%) Salesforce Service Cloud
12 20 (1.39%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
13 16 (1.11%) Microsoft 365
14 14 (0.97%) Serverless
15 13 (0.90%) Azure Data Factory
16 12 (0.83%) OpenShift
17 10 (0.69%) Boomi
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.18%) Firewall
2 14 (0.97%) Network Security
3 8 (0.55%) SMS
4 6 (0.42%) LAN
4 6 (0.42%) VPN
5 5 (0.35%) BGP
5 5 (0.35%) FTP
5 5 (0.35%) MPLS
5 5 (0.35%) TCP/IP
5 5 (0.35%) WAN
6 4 (0.28%) 5G
6 4 (0.28%) DHCP
6 4 (0.28%) DNS
7 3 (0.21%) Internet
7 3 (0.21%) IPsec
7 3 (0.21%) SD-WAN
7 3 (0.21%) SSL
7 3 (0.21%) VLAN
8 2 (0.14%) SIGTRAN
8 2 (0.14%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 84 (5.82%) Power BI
2 30 (2.08%) SQL Server
3 29 (2.01%) Oracle Reports
4 23 (1.59%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 22 (1.52%) Relational Database
6 18 (1.25%) Tableau
7 17 (1.18%) Data Warehouse
8 16 (1.11%) MySQL
9 13 (0.90%) Metadata
10 12 (0.83%) Oracle Database
11 10 (0.69%) SAP HANA
12 8 (0.55%) Pinecone
12 8 (0.55%) RDBMS
12 8 (0.55%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 7 (0.49%) DynamoDB
14 6 (0.42%) Data Lake
15 5 (0.35%) Electronic Patient Records
15 5 (0.35%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 4 (0.28%) NoSQL
16 4 (0.28%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 253 (17.53%) JIRA
2 39 (2.70%) Selenium
3 29 (2.01%) Postman
4 25 (1.73%) Git
5 20 (1.39%) TestRail
6 19 (1.32%) Jenkins
7 17 (1.18%) GitLab
8 16 (1.11%) Zephyr
9 10 (0.69%) Cucumber
9 10 (0.69%) JMeter
9 10 (0.69%) REST Assured
10 9 (0.62%) Oracle Forms
11 8 (0.55%) Cypress.io
11 8 (0.55%) MLflow
12 7 (0.49%) Team Foundation Server
13 6 (0.42%) Visual Studio
14 5 (0.35%) Bitbucket
14 5 (0.35%) git-flow
14 5 (0.35%) SoapUI
15 4 (0.28%) Gatling
General
1 634 (43.94%) Finance
2 547 (37.91%) Social Skills
3 266 (18.43%) Analytical Skills
4 172 (11.92%) Banking
5 146 (10.12%) Public Sector
6 113 (7.83%) Documentation Skills
7 69 (4.78%) Manufacturing
8 63 (4.37%) Retail
9 48 (3.33%) Law
10 45 (3.12%) Investment Banking
11 44 (3.05%) Presentation Skills
12 42 (2.91%) Legal
13 39 (2.70%) General Ledger
14 38 (2.63%) Front Office
15 35 (2.43%) Marketing
16 33 (2.29%) Organisational Skills
17 28 (1.94%) Local Government
18 23 (1.59%) Back Office
19 21 (1.46%) Billing
20 16 (1.11%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 411 (28.48%) Analyst
2 307 (21.28%) Business Analyst
3 233 (16.15%) Lead
4 197 (13.65%) Consultant
5 101 (7.00%) Test Manager
6 96 (6.65%) Senior
7 79 (5.47%) Developer
8 78 (5.41%) Architect
9 61 (4.23%) Functional Consultant
10 60 (4.16%) Project Manager
11 59 (4.09%) Test Analyst
12 52 (3.60%) Test Leader
13 50 (3.47%) SAP Consultant
14 46 (3.19%) Oracle Consultant
15 39 (2.70%) Tester
16 38 (2.63%) Lead Architect
17 37 (2.56%) Senior Analyst
18 33 (2.29%) Functional Architect
19 26 (1.80%) Senior Business Analyst
19 26 (1.80%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (6.03%) REST
2 47 (3.26%) SOAP
3 46 (3.19%) Oracle Fusion
4 40 (2.77%) Middleware
5 24 (1.66%) XML
6 23 (1.59%) .NET
7 22 (1.52%) Web Services
8 20 (1.39%) JSON
9 17 (1.18%) Playwright
9 17 (1.18%) RESTful
10 16 (1.11%) ADO
10 16 (1.11%) SailPoint
10 16 (1.11%) Spring
11 15 (1.04%) OAuth
11 15 (1.04%) Spring Boot
12 13 (0.90%) Swagger
13 12 (0.83%) AngularJS
13 12 (0.83%) JWT
14 11 (0.76%) NumPy
14 11 (0.76%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 110 (7.62%) Product Ownership
2 95 (6.58%) Legacy Systems
3 67 (4.64%) Onboarding
4 39 (2.70%) Management Information System
5 37 (2.56%) Data Structures
6 32 (2.22%) Public Cloud
7 30 (2.08%) Data Protection Act
7 30 (2.08%) Derivative
8 21 (1.46%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 21 (1.46%) Low-Code
9 20 (1.39%) Self-Motivation
9 20 (1.39%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 18 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
11 17 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
12 15 (1.04%) Cloud Native
12 15 (1.04%) Fixed Income
13 13 (0.90%) Credit Risk
14 12 (0.83%) CMDB
14 12 (0.83%) Reference Data
14 12 (0.83%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 31 (2.15%) Windows
2 16 (1.11%) Linux
3 4 (0.28%) VMS
3 4 (0.28%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.21%) Mac OS
4 3 (0.21%) Unix
5 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
5 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.069%) Android
6 1 (0.069%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.069%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.069%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 457 (31.67%) Agile
2 413 (28.62%) Stakeholder Management
3 406 (28.14%) Migration
4 313 (21.69%) Validation
5 295 (20.44%) System Integration Testing
6 279 (19.33%) Data Migration
7 259 (17.95%) ERP
8 253 (17.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 223 (15.45%) Problem-Solving
10 216 (14.97%) Workshop Facilitation
11 202 (14.00%) Requirements Gathering
12 195 (13.51%) Test Automation
13 192 (13.31%) DevOps
14 185 (12.82%) Scenario Testing
15 182 (12.61%) Continuous Improvement
16 179 (12.40%) User Stories
17 178 (12.34%) Test Strategy
18 157 (10.88%) Business Analysis
19 145 (10.05%) End-to-End Testing
20 144 (9.98%) Defect Management
Programming Languages
1 190 (13.17%) SQL
2 74 (5.13%) Python
3 50 (3.47%) Java
4 35 (2.43%) JavaScript
5 24 (1.66%) C#
6 19 (1.32%) PL/SQL
7 17 (1.18%) PowerShell
7 17 (1.18%) TypeScript
8 12 (0.83%) ABAP
9 11 (0.76%) Apex Code
10 9 (0.62%) Bash
11 8 (0.55%) PHP
12 6 (0.42%) Korn
12 6 (0.42%) T-SQL
13 5 (0.35%) R
13 5 (0.35%) SOQL
13 5 (0.35%) SOSL
14 4 (0.28%) Perl
14 4 (0.28%) Shell Script
15 3 (0.21%) VB6
Qualifications
1 163 (11.30%) Security Cleared
2 121 (8.39%) SC Cleared
3 105 (7.28%) Degree
4 52 (3.60%) ISTQB
5 36 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
6 28 (1.94%) PMI Certification
7 23 (1.59%) ACCA
7 23 (1.59%) CIMA
8 21 (1.46%) PMP
9 15 (1.04%) Master's Degree
10 13 (0.90%) Computer Science Degree
10 13 (0.90%) IIBA
11 10 (0.69%) DV Cleared
12 9 (0.62%) CBAP
13 8 (0.55%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 8 (0.55%) Microsoft Certification
14 7 (0.49%) AWS Certification
14 7 (0.49%) ISEB
15 6 (0.42%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 6 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 264 (18.30%) QA
2 116 (8.04%) Data Quality
3 61 (4.23%) GDPR
4 23 (1.59%) PMO
5 21 (1.46%) Accessibility
5 21 (1.46%) IFRS
6 20 (1.39%) PSD2
7 19 (1.32%) SLA
8 18 (1.25%) ISO 20022
9 17 (1.18%) NIST
10 16 (1.11%) IFRS 17
11 12 (0.83%) GRC
11 12 (0.83%) SEPA
12 11 (0.76%) ISO 8583
13 10 (0.69%) MiFID
14 9 (0.62%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 8 (0.55%) HL7
15 8 (0.55%) NCSC
15 8 (0.55%) PCI DSS
16 7 (0.49%) California Consumer Privacy Act
System Software
1 27 (1.87%) Active Directory
2 25 (1.73%) 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 29 (2.01%) Kubernetes
2 27 (1.87%) HP ALM
3 16 (1.11%) Terraform
4 15 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
5 6 (0.42%) Grafana
6 5 (0.35%) 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%) Network Intrusion Detection System
10 1 (0.069%) Rundeck
10 1 (0.069%) WSUS
Vendors
1 224 (15.52%) Oracle
2 202 (14.00%) SAP
3 181 (12.54%) Microsoft
4 103 (7.14%) ServiceNow
5 79 (5.47%) Salesforce
6 28 (1.94%) HP
7 21 (1.46%) Workday
8 20 (1.39%) Murex
9 19 (1.32%) IFS
10 14 (0.97%) Ariba
10 14 (0.97%) Blue Prism
11 13 (0.90%) Adobe
11 13 (0.90%) Infor
11 13 (0.90%) UiPath
12 12 (0.83%) Cisco
12 12 (0.83%) Citrix
13 11 (0.76%) Bloomberg
13 11 (0.76%) Splunk
14 10 (0.69%) NEC
14 10 (0.69%) Zscaler