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

6 months to
18 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 69 86 112
Rank change year-on-year +17 +26 +20
Contract jobs citing User Acceptance Testing 1,747 903 850
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.30% 2.77% 2.02%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.88% 3.07% 2.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,057 602 569
10th Percentile £350 £331 £325
25th Percentile £419 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year - -2.91% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +5.56% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 16 4
10th Percentile £16.67 £30.13 £22.30
25th Percentile £21.90 £32.28 £30.47
Median hourly rate £46.49 £53.75 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.50% +13.16% +62.80%
75th Percentile £84.56 £63.75 £63.13
90th Percentile £86.40 £65.00 £64.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.56 £52.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year -26.07% +9.79% +99.12%

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 45,026 29,407 35,968
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.11% 90.34% 85.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,974 18,494 23,016
10th Percentile £325 £300 £301
25th Percentile £419 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,654 1,554 2,302
10th Percentile £14.87 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.01 £17.37 £16.71
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.50 £51.55 £62.00
90th Percentile £82.46 £70.00 £73.48
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.33 £38.20
% change year-on-year +84.96% -36.30% -4.51%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 +16 1,470 £500 - 258
London +19 838 £525 - 122
UK excluding London +33 700 £475 +5.56% 189
Work from Home +6 537 £500 +1.11% 148
South East +37 181 £490 +15.29% 72
Midlands +45 165 £475 +11.76% 39
North of England -34 146 £460 -3.06% 48
West Midlands +22 113 £475 +2.70% 23
North West -35 100 £460 -3.06% 28
South West -4 68 £480 +9.71% 16
Scotland +34 67 £429 +0.94% 3
East Midlands +18 49 £468 +14.02% 16
East of England -13 33 £575 +27.78% 6
Yorkshire -26 33 £450 -10.67% 17
Northern Ireland +7 22 £475 -9.09% 1
Wales -1 22 £500 +10.38% 6
North East -22 13 £365 +8.96% 4

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
1 123 (7.04%) Confluence
2 41 (2.35%) SharePoint
3 8 (0.46%) SAS
4 7 (0.40%) CMS
5 6 (0.34%) Apache
5 6 (0.34%) Tuxedo
6 5 (0.29%) Appian
6 5 (0.29%) JBoss
7 4 (0.23%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 4 (0.23%) Camunda
8 3 (0.17%) Kentico
8 3 (0.17%) Mendix
8 3 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (0.17%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 2 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
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
Applications
1 64 (3.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (2.69%) MS Visio
3 38 (2.18%) Microsoft Office
4 24 (1.37%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (1.03%) 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
1 146 (8.36%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (2.40%) Dynamics CRM
3 33 (1.89%) Oracle EBS
3 33 (1.89%) Oracle Payables
4 30 (1.72%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 25 (1.43%) SAP Payroll
6 23 (1.32%) Oracle Receivables
7 21 (1.20%) SAP GRC
8 19 (1.09%) SAP HCM
9 18 (1.03%) Oracle ERP
10 14 (0.80%) Oracle EBS R12
10 14 (0.80%) Oracle General Ledger
10 14 (0.80%) Payment Gateway
11 13 (0.74%) Finacle
11 13 (0.74%) SAP SD
12 12 (0.69%) Oracle Assets
13 11 (0.63%) Oracle Cash Management
13 11 (0.63%) SAP PM
14 10 (0.57%) SAP EWM
14 10 (0.57%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 281 (16.08%) Azure
2 159 (9.10%) Azure DevOps
3 140 (8.01%) Power Platform
4 111 (6.35%) Dynamics 365
5 84 (4.81%) AWS
6 56 (3.21%) OCI
7 51 (2.92%) SuccessFactors
8 42 (2.40%) GitHub
9 41 (2.35%) SaaS
10 31 (1.77%) Entra ID
10 31 (1.77%) Power Automate
11 29 (1.66%) Salesforce Service Cloud
12 28 (1.60%) GCP
13 24 (1.37%) PowerApps
14 22 (1.26%) Microsoft 365
15 20 (1.14%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
15 20 (1.14%) Snowflake
16 19 (1.09%) Boomi
17 18 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
18 13 (0.74%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 19 (1.09%) Firewall
2 15 (0.86%) Network Security
3 10 (0.57%) WAN
4 9 (0.52%) SSL
5 8 (0.46%) DNS
6 7 (0.40%) LAN
6 7 (0.40%) TCP/IP
6 7 (0.40%) VPN
7 5 (0.29%) DHCP
7 5 (0.29%) FTP
7 5 (0.29%) Internet
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%) BGP
10 2 (0.11%) MPLS
10 2 (0.11%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 115 (6.58%) Power BI
2 43 (2.46%) SQL Server
3 37 (2.12%) Data Warehouse
4 36 (2.06%) Relational Database
5 28 (1.60%) Oracle Reports
6 21 (1.20%) Oracle Database
6 21 (1.20%) RDBMS
7 20 (1.14%) Data Lake
7 20 (1.14%) PostgreSQL
8 18 (1.03%) SAP HANA
9 16 (0.92%) Metadata
9 16 (0.92%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 16 (0.92%) Tableau
10 15 (0.86%) Ingres
11 10 (0.57%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (0.57%) MySQL
11 10 (0.57%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 7 (0.40%) Big Data
13 5 (0.29%) BusinessObjects
14 4 (0.23%) PowerCenter
Development Applications
1 300 (17.17%) JIRA
2 34 (1.95%) Selenium
3 33 (1.89%) Git
4 31 (1.77%) Postman
5 26 (1.49%) Jenkins
6 18 (1.03%) REST Assured
7 17 (0.97%) Cypress.io
8 16 (0.92%) Zephyr
9 14 (0.80%) GitLab
9 14 (0.80%) Team Foundation Server
10 13 (0.74%) Oracle Forms
11 11 (0.63%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.63%) TestRail
12 10 (0.57%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.46%) WebDriver
14 7 (0.40%) Gatling
15 6 (0.34%) JMeter
15 6 (0.34%) Visual Studio
16 5 (0.29%) JUnit
16 5 (0.29%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 768 (43.96%) Finance
2 617 (35.32%) Social Skills
3 298 (17.06%) Analytical Skills
4 194 (11.10%) Banking
5 167 (9.56%) Public Sector
6 129 (7.38%) Documentation Skills
7 99 (5.67%) Retail
8 73 (4.18%) Legal
9 63 (3.61%) Manufacturing
10 53 (3.03%) Front Office
11 49 (2.80%) Law
12 46 (2.63%) General Ledger
12 46 (2.63%) Organisational Skills
13 44 (2.52%) Investment Banking
14 38 (2.18%) Billing
15 35 (2.00%) Presentation Skills
16 33 (1.89%) Back Office
17 29 (1.66%) Local Government
18 27 (1.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 22 (1.26%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 510 (29.19%) Analyst
2 385 (22.04%) Business Analyst
3 238 (13.62%) Lead
4 232 (13.28%) Consultant
5 134 (7.67%) Senior
6 89 (5.09%) Test Manager
7 80 (4.58%) Architect
7 80 (4.58%) Developer
8 73 (4.18%) SAP Consultant
9 69 (3.95%) Functional Consultant
10 68 (3.89%) Test Leader
11 67 (3.84%) Test Analyst
12 61 (3.49%) Project Manager
13 49 (2.80%) Oracle Consultant
14 47 (2.69%) Senior Analyst
15 44 (2.52%) Tester
16 39 (2.23%) Test Engineer
17 38 (2.18%) Senior Business Analyst
18 33 (1.89%) Data Analyst
18 33 (1.89%) Lead Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (4.52%) REST
2 76 (4.35%) Middleware
3 64 (3.66%) Oracle Fusion
4 53 (3.03%) SOAP
5 39 (2.23%) JSON
6 36 (2.06%) XML
7 29 (1.66%) SAP Fiori
8 24 (1.37%) Playwright
9 20 (1.14%) ADO
10 18 (1.03%) .NET
11 16 (0.92%) Web Services
12 14 (0.80%) React
13 10 (0.57%) AngularJS
13 10 (0.57%) SailPoint
13 10 (0.57%) Swagger
14 9 (0.52%) EDI
14 9 (0.52%) Lightning Web Components
14 9 (0.52%) Microsoft Graph
14 9 (0.52%) OAuth
15 8 (0.46%) ODBC
Miscellaneous
1 135 (7.73%) Product Ownership
2 102 (5.84%) Legacy Systems
3 83 (4.75%) Onboarding
4 53 (3.03%) Data Structures
5 50 (2.86%) Enterprise Software
5 50 (2.86%) Management Information System
6 35 (2.00%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 34 (1.95%) Derivative
8 33 (1.89%) Analytical Mindset
9 31 (1.77%) Data Protection Act
10 26 (1.49%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 26 (1.49%) Public Cloud
11 23 (1.32%) Low-Code
11 23 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
12 20 (1.14%) FMCG
12 20 (1.14%) Virtual Team
13 18 (1.03%) Reinsurance
14 17 (0.97%) CMDB
15 15 (0.86%) Life Science
15 15 (0.86%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 60 (3.43%) Windows
2 32 (1.83%) Linux
3 12 (0.69%) Unix
4 11 (0.63%) Windows Server
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%) Android
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
1 571 (32.68%) Stakeholder Management
2 538 (30.80%) Agile
3 515 (29.48%) Migration
4 455 (26.04%) System Integration Testing
5 454 (25.99%) Validation
6 376 (21.52%) Data Migration
7 313 (17.92%) ERP
8 312 (17.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 301 (17.23%) Problem-Solving
10 287 (16.43%) Requirements Gathering
11 256 (14.65%) User Stories
12 243 (13.91%) Workshop Facilitation
13 242 (13.85%) DevOps
14 237 (13.57%) Continuous Improvement
15 222 (12.71%) Scenario Testing
16 219 (12.54%) Defect Management
17 215 (12.31%) Test Automation
18 210 (12.02%) Acceptance Criteria
19 200 (11.45%) Integration Testing
20 199 (11.39%) Business Analysis
Programming Languages
1 256 (14.65%) SQL
2 67 (3.84%) Python
3 46 (2.63%) Java
4 40 (2.29%) JavaScript
5 33 (1.89%) ABAP
6 26 (1.49%) C#
7 24 (1.37%) PowerShell
8 19 (1.09%) PL/SQL
9 18 (1.03%) Apex Code
10 15 (0.86%) TypeScript
11 14 (0.80%) VB
12 13 (0.74%) Bash
13 11 (0.63%) VB6
14 10 (0.57%) C
14 10 (0.57%) Shell Script
15 9 (0.52%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.46%) Korn
17 7 (0.40%) R
18 6 (0.34%) VBA
19 5 (0.29%) Perl
Qualifications
1 210 (12.02%) Security Cleared
2 160 (9.16%) SC Cleared
3 122 (6.98%) Degree
4 54 (3.09%) ISTQB
5 36 (2.06%) BPSS Clearance
6 33 (1.89%) ACCA
7 28 (1.60%) CIMA
8 23 (1.32%) PMI Certification
9 18 (1.03%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 18 (1.03%) PMP
10 16 (0.92%) DV Cleared
11 15 (0.86%) CBAP
11 15 (0.86%) Microsoft Certification
12 13 (0.74%) Azure Certification
13 12 (0.69%) Computer Science Degree
13 12 (0.69%) Master's Degree
14 11 (0.63%) IIBA
15 10 (0.57%) ISEB
16 6 (0.34%) CISSP
16 6 (0.34%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 274 (15.68%) QA
2 142 (8.13%) Data Quality
3 57 (3.26%) GDPR
4 31 (1.77%) GRC
5 30 (1.72%) Accessibility
6 23 (1.32%) PMO
6 23 (1.32%) SLA
7 21 (1.20%) ISO 20022
8 20 (1.14%) NIST
9 16 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 12 (0.69%) IFRS
10 12 (0.69%) SEPA
11 11 (0.63%) PSD2
12 8 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
12 8 (0.46%) EMIR
12 8 (0.46%) HL7
12 8 (0.46%) ISO 8583
12 8 (0.46%) MiFID
13 7 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
13 7 (0.40%) Solvency II
System Software
1 43 (2.46%) Active Directory
2 24 (1.37%) Docker
3 11 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
4 6 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.17%) Microsoft App-V
6 2 (0.11%) Firmware
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 27 (1.55%) HP ALM
2 26 (1.49%) Kubernetes
3 18 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
4 14 (0.80%) Terraform
5 13 (0.74%) Grafana
6 8 (0.46%) HP Quality Center
7 5 (0.29%) Microsoft Intune
7 5 (0.29%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.23%) Control-M
8 4 (0.23%) ITRS Geneos
8 4 (0.23%) SCOM
9 3 (0.17%) SCCM
10 2 (0.11%) Ansible
10 2 (0.11%) Argo
10 2 (0.11%) Kibana
10 2 (0.11%) Oracle RMAN
11 1 (0.057%) Network Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.057%) Rundeck
11 1 (0.057%) SnapMirror
11 1 (0.057%) WSUS
Vendors
1 306 (17.52%) SAP
2 261 (14.94%) Oracle
3 224 (12.82%) Microsoft
4 112 (6.41%) Salesforce
5 91 (5.21%) ServiceNow
6 41 (2.35%) Workday
7 29 (1.66%) HP
8 24 (1.37%) Ariba
9 21 (1.20%) Murex
10 20 (1.14%) IFS
11 18 (1.03%) CyberArk
12 17 (0.97%) Zscaler
13 16 (0.92%) Adobe
13 16 (0.92%) Cisco
13 16 (0.92%) MuleSoft
14 15 (0.86%) Infor
15 14 (0.80%) Bloomberg
15 14 (0.80%) IBM
15 14 (0.80%) Kronos
16 13 (0.74%) Blue Prism