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

6 months to
30 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 91 132
Rank change year-on-year +19 +41 -26
Contract jobs citing User Acceptance Testing 1,841 937 703
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.35% 2.85% 1.87%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.97% 3.15% 2.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,100 638 464
10th Percentile £350 £325 £313
25th Percentile £415 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +0.05% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £603 £600 £631
90th Percentile £715 £700 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £453 £475
% change year-on-year +4.86% -4.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 14 3
10th Percentile £16.95 £20.02 £39.50
25th Percentile £21.03 £30.10 £46.25
Median hourly rate £50.24 £39.25 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.02% -34.59% +20.00%
75th Percentile £65.98 £59.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £86.00 £62.63 £64.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.01 £32.36 £47.50
% change year-on-year -19.61% -31.88% +12.43%

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 46,343 29,774 32,275
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.43% 90.67% 85.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,026 18,502 19,486
10th Percentile £325 £296 £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 £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,222 1,849 1,345
10th Percentile £13.70 £14.29 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.19 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £38.86 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +54.51% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £65.60 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £74.48
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.27 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +75.98% -48.10% +1.18%

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 30 September 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 30 September 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 30 September 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 +19 1,558 £513 +2.50% 970
London +23 873 £525 - 478
UK excluding London +15 722 £475 +4.86% 553
Work from Home +13 593 £500 - 377
Midlands +46 173 £475 +9.20% 96
North of England -22 173 £460 -3.06% 126
South East +6 172 £490 +1.34% 149
West Midlands +34 123 £475 - 66
North West -18 106 £475 +4.51% 72
South West +8 77 £500 +17.65% 50
Scotland +15 63 £450 +12.50% 56
Yorkshire -21 49 £430 -18.10% 38
East Midlands +9 46 £467 +12.41% 30
East of England -27 31 £550 +10.00% 53
Wales 0 23 £488 +35.42% 13
North East -22 18 £375 - 16
Northern Ireland 0 14 £450 -12.20% 21
Channel Islands - 1 £550 -

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
1 129 (7.01%) Confluence
2 55 (2.99%) SharePoint
3 13 (0.71%) CMS
4 9 (0.49%) Camunda
5 6 (0.33%) SAS
5 6 (0.33%) Tuxedo
6 5 (0.27%) Apache
7 4 (0.22%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.22%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 3 (0.16%) JBoss
8 3 (0.16%) Kentico
8 3 (0.16%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
8 3 (0.16%) SugarCRM
8 3 (0.16%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 2 (0.11%) CICS
9 2 (0.11%) IIS
9 2 (0.11%) OpenROAD
9 2 (0.11%) Smallworld
Applications
1 88 (4.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 48 (2.61%) Microsoft Office
3 43 (2.34%) MS Visio
4 21 (1.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.43%) 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
1 189 (10.27%) SAP S/4HANA
2 47 (2.55%) Dynamics CRM
3 38 (2.06%) Oracle EBS
4 32 (1.74%) SAP Payroll
5 29 (1.58%) Oracle Payables
6 27 (1.47%) SAP GRC
6 27 (1.47%) Workday HCM
7 22 (1.20%) Oracle Payroll
7 22 (1.20%) SAP HCM
8 19 (1.03%) Oracle Receivables
8 19 (1.03%) SAP FI
9 18 (0.98%) SAP SD
10 16 (0.87%) Oracle General Ledger
11 15 (0.81%) Aladdin
11 15 (0.81%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
12 14 (0.76%) Oracle ERP
12 14 (0.76%) SAP CO
12 14 (0.76%) SAP PM
13 13 (0.71%) NetSuite
13 13 (0.71%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 324 (17.60%) Azure
2 191 (10.37%) Azure DevOps
3 156 (8.47%) Power Platform
4 107 (5.81%) Dynamics 365
5 89 (4.83%) AWS
6 62 (3.37%) OCI
7 60 (3.26%) SuccessFactors
8 39 (2.12%) SaaS
9 36 (1.96%) GCP
10 34 (1.85%) GitHub
10 34 (1.85%) Power Automate
11 31 (1.68%) Snowflake
12 28 (1.52%) PowerApps
13 26 (1.41%) Entra ID
13 26 (1.41%) Microsoft 365
13 26 (1.41%) Salesforce Service Cloud
14 21 (1.14%) Microsoft Copilot
14 21 (1.14%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
15 18 (0.98%) Boomi
16 16 (0.87%) Lucidchart
Communications & Networking
1 16 (0.87%) SSL
2 10 (0.54%) WAN
3 9 (0.49%) Firewall
4 7 (0.38%) DNS
5 6 (0.33%) LAN
6 5 (0.27%) TCP/IP
6 5 (0.27%) VPN
7 4 (0.22%) Fibre Channel
7 4 (0.22%) Internet
7 4 (0.22%) Intrusion Detection
7 4 (0.22%) Network Security
7 4 (0.22%) SAN
7 4 (0.22%) Wi-Fi
8 3 (0.16%) DHCP
8 3 (0.16%) FTP
8 3 (0.16%) HTTP
8 3 (0.16%) SD-WAN
8 3 (0.16%) Unified Communications
8 3 (0.16%) VLAN
9 2 (0.11%) DSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (5.98%) Power BI
2 67 (3.64%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.72%) Data Warehouse
4 32 (1.74%) Relational Database
5 30 (1.63%) Oracle Database
6 28 (1.52%) Oracle Reports
7 21 (1.14%) Data Lake
7 21 (1.14%) PostgreSQL
8 19 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 18 (0.98%) Metadata
10 17 (0.92%) RDBMS
11 16 (0.87%) SAP HANA
12 15 (0.81%) Oracle BI Publisher
12 15 (0.81%) Tableau
13 12 (0.65%) Ingres
14 10 (0.54%) MySQL
15 9 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
15 9 (0.49%) SAP BW
16 8 (0.43%) Big Data
17 7 (0.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 303 (16.46%) JIRA
2 50 (2.72%) Git
3 39 (2.12%) Selenium
4 32 (1.74%) Jenkins
5 30 (1.63%) Postman
6 26 (1.41%) REST Assured
7 22 (1.20%) Zephyr
8 21 (1.14%) GitLab
9 17 (0.92%) Cypress.io
10 13 (0.71%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.60%) JUnit
11 11 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
12 10 (0.54%) Maven
13 9 (0.49%) Bitbucket Server
13 9 (0.49%) Gradle
13 9 (0.49%) Mockito
13 9 (0.49%) SonarQube
13 9 (0.49%) Team Foundation Server
14 8 (0.43%) Gatling
14 8 (0.43%) Visual Studio
General
1 759 (41.23%) Finance
2 713 (38.73%) Social Skills
3 334 (18.14%) Analytical Skills
4 221 (12.00%) Banking
5 174 (9.45%) Public Sector
6 115 (6.25%) Documentation Skills
7 104 (5.65%) Retail
8 73 (3.97%) Manufacturing
9 68 (3.69%) Legal
10 59 (3.20%) Front Office
11 56 (3.04%) General Ledger
12 48 (2.61%) Billing
13 45 (2.44%) Organisational Skills
14 40 (2.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 36 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
15 36 (1.96%) Investment Banking
16 32 (1.74%) Back Office
17 31 (1.68%) Local Government
17 31 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
18 25 (1.36%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 515 (27.97%) Analyst
2 396 (21.51%) Business Analyst
3 296 (16.08%) Consultant
4 214 (11.62%) Lead
5 135 (7.33%) Senior
6 103 (5.59%) Developer
7 102 (5.54%) Test Manager
8 85 (4.62%) Functional Consultant
9 83 (4.51%) SAP Consultant
10 67 (3.64%) Test Leader
11 66 (3.59%) Oracle Consultant
12 60 (3.26%) Project Manager
13 58 (3.15%) Test Analyst
14 51 (2.77%) Tester
15 49 (2.66%) Architect
16 47 (2.55%) Senior Analyst
17 46 (2.50%) Financial Analyst
18 44 (2.39%) Finance Business Analyst
19 40 (2.17%) Senior Business Analyst
19 40 (2.17%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (5.05%) Oracle Fusion
2 85 (4.62%) REST
3 81 (4.40%) Middleware
4 50 (2.72%) SOAP
5 44 (2.39%) JSON
6 41 (2.23%) XML
7 38 (2.06%) SAP Fiori
8 36 (1.96%) .NET
9 32 (1.74%) Web Services
10 29 (1.58%) Playwright
10 29 (1.58%) Terraform
11 19 (1.03%) React
12 18 (0.98%) ADO
13 17 (0.92%) Kafka
14 15 (0.81%) HTML
15 13 (0.71%) CSS
15 13 (0.71%) EDI
15 13 (0.71%) Spring Boot
16 12 (0.65%) ARM Templates
17 11 (0.60%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 146 (7.93%) Product Ownership
2 97 (5.27%) Onboarding
3 83 (4.51%) Legacy Systems
4 63 (3.42%) Data Structures
5 60 (3.26%) Enterprise Software
6 54 (2.93%) Management Information System
7 36 (1.96%) Data Protection Act
8 34 (1.85%) Derivative
9 32 (1.74%) Analytical Mindset
10 30 (1.63%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 22 (1.20%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 21 (1.14%) Greenfield Project
12 21 (1.14%) Low-Code
12 21 (1.14%) Replication
13 20 (1.09%) Fixed Income
13 20 (1.09%) FMCG
13 20 (1.09%) Virtual Team
14 19 (1.03%) SCADA
15 18 (0.98%) CMDB
15 18 (0.98%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 69 (3.75%) Windows
2 31 (1.68%) Linux
3 17 (0.92%) Windows Server
4 14 (0.76%) Unix
5 7 (0.38%) VMS
6 4 (0.22%) Windows 10
7 3 (0.16%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (0.11%) zOS
9 1 (0.054%) Android
9 1 (0.054%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.054%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.054%) Solaris
9 1 (0.054%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 734 (39.87%) Stakeholder Management
2 577 (31.34%) Agile
3 527 (28.63%) Migration
4 515 (27.97%) System Integration Testing
5 500 (27.16%) Validation
6 368 (19.99%) Data Migration
7 360 (19.55%) Requirements Gathering
8 350 (19.01%) Problem-Solving
9 294 (15.97%) User Stories
10 293 (15.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 281 (15.26%) ERP
12 279 (15.15%) Workshop Facilitation
13 274 (14.88%) Defect Management
14 273 (14.83%) DevOps
15 253 (13.74%) Continuous Improvement
16 240 (13.04%) Integration Testing
17 239 (12.98%) Business Analysis
18 238 (12.93%) Acceptance Criteria
19 220 (11.95%) Scenario Testing
20 206 (11.19%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 312 (16.95%) SQL
2 64 (3.48%) Python
3 54 (2.93%) JavaScript
4 50 (2.72%) Java
5 46 (2.50%) C#
6 41 (2.23%) ABAP
7 34 (1.85%) PowerShell
8 20 (1.09%) Bash
9 19 (1.03%) T-SQL
10 15 (0.81%) PL/SQL
11 12 (0.65%) Apex Code
11 12 (0.65%) Bicep
11 12 (0.65%) TypeScript
11 12 (0.65%) VB
12 9 (0.49%) C
12 9 (0.49%) Shell Script
12 9 (0.49%) VB6
13 7 (0.38%) Korn
13 7 (0.38%) VBA
14 5 (0.27%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 255 (13.85%) Security Cleared
2 201 (10.92%) SC Cleared
3 165 (8.96%) Degree
4 52 (2.82%) ACCA
5 47 (2.55%) CIMA
6 45 (2.44%) ISTQB
7 36 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
8 25 (1.36%) PMI Certification
9 23 (1.25%) Computer Science Degree
10 21 (1.14%) DV Cleared
10 21 (1.14%) Microsoft Certification
10 21 (1.14%) PMP
11 17 (0.92%) Azure Certification
12 16 (0.87%) CBAP
13 14 (0.76%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 14 (0.76%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 12 (0.65%) IIBA
15 11 (0.60%) Master's Degree
16 10 (0.54%) FFIEC
16 10 (0.54%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 276 (14.99%) QA
2 174 (9.45%) Data Quality
3 43 (2.34%) GDPR
4 39 (2.12%) GRC
5 30 (1.63%) Accessibility
6 26 (1.41%) PMO
7 21 (1.14%) NIST
8 16 (0.87%) ISO 20022
9 14 (0.76%) IFRS
10 13 (0.71%) Actionable Recommendations
10 13 (0.71%) COBIT
10 13 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 9 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 9 (0.49%) SLA
12 8 (0.43%) SEPA
13 7 (0.38%) EMIR
13 7 (0.38%) MiFID
13 7 (0.38%) Solvency II
14 6 (0.33%) GAAP
15 5 (0.27%) HL7
System Software
1 34 (1.85%) Active Directory
2 23 (1.25%) Docker
3 12 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
4 11 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
6 2 (0.11%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.054%) Hyper-V
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 27 (1.47%) Kubernetes
2 15 (0.81%) HP ALM
3 12 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
4 10 (0.54%) SCOM
5 8 (0.43%) Ansible
5 8 (0.43%) Grafana
6 7 (0.38%) HP Quality Center
7 6 (0.33%) Microsoft Intune
8 5 (0.27%) Prometheus
9 4 (0.22%) Argo
10 3 (0.16%) ITRS Geneos
10 3 (0.16%) SCCM
11 2 (0.11%) Control-M
12 1 (0.054%) Data Guard
12 1 (0.054%) Iperf
12 1 (0.054%) Istio
12 1 (0.054%) Network Intrusion Detection System
12 1 (0.054%) Oracle RMAN
12 1 (0.054%) SnapMirror
12 1 (0.054%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 359 (19.50%) SAP
2 282 (15.32%) Oracle
3 267 (14.50%) Microsoft
4 105 (5.70%) Salesforce
5 80 (4.35%) ServiceNow
6 63 (3.42%) Workday
7 25 (1.36%) Ariba
8 20 (1.09%) Databricks
9 19 (1.03%) MuleSoft
9 19 (1.03%) Murex
9 19 (1.03%) UiPath
10 16 (0.87%) CyberArk
10 16 (0.87%) HP
10 16 (0.87%) IBM
11 15 (0.81%) Bloomberg
12 13 (0.71%) Informatica
12 13 (0.71%) Kronos
13 12 (0.65%) Tagetik
14 11 (0.60%) Blue Prism
14 11 (0.60%) IFS