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

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 92 132
Rank change year-on-year +20 +40 -25
Contract jobs citing User Acceptance Testing 1,897 959 695
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.43% 2.89% 1.85%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.05% 3.19% 2.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,142 656 462
10th Percentile £350 £325 £323
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £634
90th Percentile £714 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +2.70% -2.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 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% +7.03%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £86.00 £72.30 £64.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £54.23 £32.36 £47.50
% change year-on-year +67.60% -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 46,826 30,024 32,246
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.73% 90.50% 86.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,144 18,679 19,408
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% -2.42%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £737 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,407 1,886 1,245
10th Percentile £13.64 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -10.11%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.72 £65.07 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £40.33
% change year-on-year +68.43% -44.79% -8.14%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 +20 1,602 £510 +1.90% 812
London +27 894 £525 - 427
UK excluding London +15 746 £475 +2.70% 421
Work from Home +12 613 £500 - 353
North of England -9 186 £460 -6.50% 93
Midlands +37 185 £475 +7.34% 68
South East -2 159 £500 - 121
West Midlands +37 139 £475 - 50
North West -13 115 £475 +5.03% 54
South West +3 75 £500 +21.21% 40
Scotland +14 66 £450 +20.00% 43
Yorkshire -10 54 £430 -18.10% 28
East Midlands 0 41 £496 +18.04% 18
East of England -24 40 £525 +3.75% 38
Wales 0 23 £488 +58.54% 9
North East -25 17 £388 - 11
Northern Ireland +5 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
1 143 (7.54%) Confluence
2 56 (2.95%) SharePoint
3 26 (1.37%) SAS
4 17 (0.90%) CMS
5 10 (0.53%) Camunda
6 6 (0.32%) Sitecore CMS
6 6 (0.32%) Tuxedo
7 5 (0.26%) Apache
7 5 (0.26%) Apache Spark
7 5 (0.26%) Kentico
8 4 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (0.21%) 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%) Headless CMS
10 2 (0.11%) IIS
Applications
1 100 (5.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (2.48%) MS Visio
3 44 (2.32%) Microsoft Office
4 25 (1.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (0.74%) Microsoft Project
6 9 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
7 7 (0.37%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.11%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.053%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.053%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.053%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.053%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.053%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.053%) Simulink
9 1 (0.053%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 192 (10.12%) SAP S/4HANA
2 46 (2.42%) Dynamics CRM
3 41 (2.16%) Oracle EBS
4 33 (1.74%) SAP Payroll
5 27 (1.42%) Oracle Payables
5 27 (1.42%) SAP GRC
5 27 (1.42%) Workday HCM
6 24 (1.27%) Oracle Payroll
6 24 (1.27%) SAP HCM
7 21 (1.11%) SAP FI
8 19 (1.00%) Oracle Receivables
9 18 (0.95%) SAP SD
10 15 (0.79%) Aladdin
10 15 (0.79%) NetSuite
10 15 (0.79%) Oracle General Ledger
10 15 (0.79%) SAP MM
11 14 (0.74%) SAP CO
11 14 (0.74%) SAP EWM
11 14 (0.74%) SAP PM
12 13 (0.69%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 333 (17.55%) Azure
2 199 (10.49%) Azure DevOps
3 166 (8.75%) Power Platform
4 111 (5.85%) Dynamics 365
5 108 (5.69%) AWS
6 64 (3.37%) SuccessFactors
7 63 (3.32%) OCI
8 43 (2.27%) SaaS
9 37 (1.95%) GitHub
10 36 (1.90%) GCP
11 34 (1.79%) Power Automate
12 33 (1.74%) Snowflake
13 31 (1.63%) Microsoft 365
14 28 (1.48%) PowerApps
15 24 (1.27%) Entra ID
15 24 (1.27%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 22 (1.16%) Microsoft Copilot
17 21 (1.11%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
18 18 (0.95%) GitHub Actions
18 18 (0.95%) Lucidchart
Communications & Networking
1 14 (0.74%) SSL
2 9 (0.47%) WAN
3 7 (0.37%) DNS
3 7 (0.37%) Firewall
4 4 (0.21%) Fibre Channel
4 4 (0.21%) Intrusion Detection
4 4 (0.21%) LAN
4 4 (0.21%) SAN
4 4 (0.21%) 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%) DHCP
6 2 (0.11%) HTTPS
6 2 (0.11%) Internet
6 2 (0.11%) Intranet
6 2 (0.11%) Network Security
6 2 (0.11%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (6.22%) Power BI
2 76 (4.01%) SQL Server
3 55 (2.90%) Data Warehouse
4 31 (1.63%) Oracle Database
4 31 (1.63%) Relational Database
5 26 (1.37%) Oracle Reports
6 22 (1.16%) PostgreSQL
7 21 (1.11%) Data Lake
8 20 (1.05%) Metadata
9 19 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 17 (0.90%) Tableau
11 16 (0.84%) SAP HANA
12 15 (0.79%) RDBMS
13 14 (0.74%) Oracle BI Publisher
14 12 (0.63%) Ingres
15 11 (0.58%) Big Data
16 10 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
16 10 (0.53%) MySQL
16 10 (0.53%) Pentaho
17 9 (0.47%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 322 (16.97%) JIRA
2 63 (3.32%) Git
3 43 (2.27%) Selenium
4 42 (2.21%) Jenkins
5 35 (1.85%) Postman
6 29 (1.53%) REST Assured
7 24 (1.27%) Zephyr
8 22 (1.16%) Cypress.io
9 21 (1.11%) GitLab
10 14 (0.74%) JUnit
11 13 (0.69%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
12 11 (0.58%) TestRail
13 10 (0.53%) Maven
13 10 (0.53%) Mockito
14 9 (0.47%) Bitbucket Server
14 9 (0.47%) Gatling
14 9 (0.47%) Gradle
14 9 (0.47%) SonarQube
14 9 (0.47%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 774 (40.80%) Finance
2 724 (38.17%) Social Skills
3 352 (18.56%) Analytical Skills
4 227 (11.97%) Banking
5 183 (9.65%) Public Sector
6 109 (5.75%) Documentation Skills
7 98 (5.17%) Retail
8 74 (3.90%) Manufacturing
9 72 (3.80%) Legal
10 63 (3.32%) General Ledger
11 54 (2.85%) Front Office
12 50 (2.64%) Billing
13 46 (2.42%) Organisational Skills
14 42 (2.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 40 (2.11%) Influencing Skills
16 35 (1.85%) Investment Banking
16 35 (1.85%) Local Government
17 30 (1.58%) Back Office
18 27 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
19 26 (1.37%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 537 (28.31%) Analyst
2 404 (21.30%) Business Analyst
3 301 (15.87%) Consultant
4 230 (12.12%) Lead
5 147 (7.75%) Senior
6 103 (5.43%) Developer
7 102 (5.38%) Test Manager
8 85 (4.48%) SAP Consultant
9 80 (4.22%) Functional Consultant
10 75 (3.95%) Test Leader
11 67 (3.53%) Oracle Consultant
11 67 (3.53%) Test Analyst
12 62 (3.27%) Project Manager
13 52 (2.74%) Tester
14 50 (2.64%) Senior Analyst
15 48 (2.53%) Architect
16 47 (2.48%) Financial Analyst
17 46 (2.42%) Data Analyst
18 44 (2.32%) Finance Business Analyst
19 42 (2.21%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (4.96%) Oracle Fusion
2 89 (4.69%) REST
3 81 (4.27%) Middleware
4 46 (2.42%) SOAP
5 44 (2.32%) JSON
6 43 (2.27%) .NET
7 41 (2.16%) XML
8 40 (2.11%) Web Services
9 39 (2.06%) SAP Fiori
10 33 (1.74%) Playwright
11 31 (1.63%) Terraform
12 20 (1.05%) ADO
12 20 (1.05%) React
13 18 (0.95%) Kafka
14 16 (0.84%) HTML
15 14 (0.74%) OAuth
15 14 (0.74%) Spring Boot
16 13 (0.69%) ARM Templates
16 13 (0.69%) CSS
17 11 (0.58%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 152 (8.01%) Product Ownership
2 100 (5.27%) Onboarding
3 80 (4.22%) Legacy Systems
4 68 (3.58%) Data Structures
5 67 (3.53%) Enterprise Software
6 57 (3.00%) Management Information System
7 36 (1.90%) Derivative
8 35 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
9 30 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
10 28 (1.48%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 26 (1.37%) Cloud Native
12 25 (1.32%) Low-Code
12 25 (1.32%) Virtual Team
13 23 (1.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 22 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
14 22 (1.16%) Replication
15 21 (1.11%) FMCG
16 19 (1.00%) CMDB
17 18 (0.95%) Fixed Income
18 17 (0.90%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 59 (3.11%) Windows
2 28 (1.48%) Linux
3 17 (0.90%) Windows Server
4 15 (0.79%) Unix
5 7 (0.37%) 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 (0.053%) AIX
8 1 (0.053%) Android
8 1 (0.053%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.053%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.053%) macOS
8 1 (0.053%) Solaris
8 1 (0.053%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 784 (41.33%) Stakeholder Management
2 605 (31.89%) Agile
3 546 (28.78%) Migration
4 527 (27.78%) Validation
5 523 (27.57%) System Integration Testing
6 384 (20.24%) Data Migration
7 372 (19.61%) Requirements Gathering
8 362 (19.08%) Problem-Solving
9 309 (16.29%) User Stories
10 305 (16.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 297 (15.66%) Defect Management
12 294 (15.50%) DevOps
12 294 (15.50%) Workshop Facilitation
13 281 (14.81%) ERP
14 277 (14.60%) Continuous Improvement
15 259 (13.65%) Acceptance Criteria
16 252 (13.28%) Business Analysis
17 247 (13.02%) Integration Testing
18 218 (11.49%) Scenario Testing
19 215 (11.33%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 345 (18.19%) SQL
2 90 (4.74%) Python
3 55 (2.90%) Java
4 53 (2.79%) C#
5 52 (2.74%) JavaScript
6 45 (2.37%) ABAP
7 37 (1.95%) PowerShell
8 21 (1.11%) Bash
9 18 (0.95%) T-SQL
10 15 (0.79%) Bicep
11 14 (0.74%) PL/SQL
12 12 (0.63%) Apex Code
12 12 (0.63%) VB
13 11 (0.58%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.58%) TypeScript
14 9 (0.47%) C
14 9 (0.47%) VB6
15 7 (0.37%) Korn
15 7 (0.37%) VBA
16 5 (0.26%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 276 (14.55%) Security Cleared
2 220 (11.60%) SC Cleared
3 171 (9.01%) Degree
4 65 (3.43%) ISTQB
5 53 (2.79%) ACCA
6 48 (2.53%) CIMA
7 39 (2.06%) BPSS Clearance
8 28 (1.48%) PMI Certification
9 24 (1.27%) PMP
10 23 (1.21%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 22 (1.16%) DV Cleared
12 21 (1.11%) Computer Science Degree
12 21 (1.11%) Microsoft Certification
13 19 (1.00%) CBAP
14 15 (0.79%) Azure Certification
14 15 (0.79%) IIBA
15 14 (0.74%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 13 (0.69%) AWS Certification
17 11 (0.58%) Master's Degree
18 10 (0.53%) FFIEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 274 (14.44%) QA
2 201 (10.60%) Data Quality
3 54 (2.85%) GDPR
4 36 (1.90%) GRC
5 31 (1.63%) Accessibility
6 26 (1.37%) PMO
7 18 (0.95%) NIST
8 15 (0.79%) IFRS
8 15 (0.79%) ISO 20022
9 13 (0.69%) Actionable Recommendations
9 13 (0.69%) COBIT
10 12 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 8 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 8 (0.42%) SEPA
11 8 (0.42%) SLA
11 8 (0.42%) WCAG
12 7 (0.37%) Solvency II
13 6 (0.32%) EMIR
13 6 (0.32%) GAAP
13 6 (0.32%) MiFID
System Software
1 34 (1.79%) Docker
2 30 (1.58%) Active Directory
3 12 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
4 11 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (0.21%) Microsoft App-V
6 2 (0.11%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.053%) NFS
7 1 (0.053%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.053%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.053%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.053%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 39 (2.06%) Kubernetes
2 13 (0.69%) HP ALM
3 10 (0.53%) SCOM
4 8 (0.42%) Ansible
4 8 (0.42%) Grafana
4 8 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
5 7 (0.37%) HP Quality Center
6 6 (0.32%) Microsoft Intune
7 5 (0.26%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.21%) Argo
9 3 (0.16%) SCCM
10 2 (0.11%) ITRS Geneos
11 1 (0.053%) Control-M
11 1 (0.053%) Data Guard
11 1 (0.053%) Iperf
11 1 (0.053%) Istio
11 1 (0.053%) Network Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.053%) Oracle RMAN
11 1 (0.053%) SnapMirror
11 1 (0.053%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 372 (19.61%) SAP
2 292 (15.39%) Microsoft
3 280 (14.76%) Oracle
4 108 (5.69%) Salesforce
5 79 (4.16%) ServiceNow
6 64 (3.37%) Workday
7 28 (1.48%) Ariba
8 23 (1.21%) UiPath
9 22 (1.16%) Databricks
10 21 (1.11%) Murex
11 20 (1.05%) MuleSoft
12 17 (0.90%) CyberArk
12 17 (0.90%) Talend
13 16 (0.84%) Bloomberg
13 16 (0.84%) IBM
14 15 (0.79%) Informatica
15 14 (0.74%) HP
16 13 (0.69%) Kronos
16 13 (0.69%) Sage
17 12 (0.63%) Tagetik