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

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 144 120
Rank change year-on-year +58 -24 +28
Contract jobs citing User Acceptance Testing 1,276 587 861
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.96% 1.99% 1.93%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.43% 2.20% 2.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 807 389 570
10th Percentile £341 £320 £342
25th Percentile £409 £400 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £488
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.69% +2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 8 25
10th Percentile £15.74 £20.48 £15.25
25th Percentile £22.55 £28.50 £25.00
Median hourly rate £33.43 £58.75 £84.50
Median % change year-on-year -43.10% -30.47% +35.20%
75th Percentile £79.50 £69.13 £86.50
90th Percentile £85.33 £87.95 £92.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.61 £62.50 £48.00
% change year-on-year -57.43% +30.21% -23.26%

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 37,150 26,655 38,571
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.07% 90.32% 86.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,527 17,023 25,087
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £612 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £745 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,218 906 2,334
10th Percentile £14.88 £15.39 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £31.65
% change year-on-year -15.38% +2.69% -9.57%

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 March 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 March 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 14 March 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 +46 1,109 £500 - 353
London +36 586 £525 +1.20% 142
UK excluding London +60 544 £475 +5.56% 259
Work from Home +50 395 £525 +5.85% 145
South East +40 149 £550 +22.22% 96
North of England +3 149 £450 -12.20% 56
Midlands +10 127 £475 -2.56% 53
North West +5 97 £425 -17.99% 37
West Midlands +2 85 £488 -17.02% 26
Yorkshire -19 44 £513 +3.54% 15
East Midlands -12 42 £435 +2.35% 26
South West -9 40 £469 +6.29% 28
Scotland +29 34 £416 -4.91% 9
East of England -17 33 £528 +32.17% 13
Northern Ireland +8 14 £475 +26.67% 1
North East -7 8 £508 +51.49% 4
Wales -4 7 £344 -24.84% 3

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 92 (7.21%) Confluence
2 28 (2.19%) SharePoint
3 10 (0.78%) SAS
4 9 (0.71%) Microsoft Exchange
5 8 (0.63%) Appian
6 7 (0.55%) CMS
7 6 (0.47%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 5 (0.39%) Apache
8 5 (0.39%) GeoServer
8 5 (0.39%) Smallworld
9 3 (0.24%) Apache Spark
9 3 (0.24%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.16%) Camunda
10 2 (0.16%) JBoss
10 2 (0.16%) Mendix
11 1 (0.078%) Apache Airflow
11 1 (0.078%) Headless CMS
11 1 (0.078%) LiveLink
11 1 (0.078%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 54 (4.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (2.74%) Microsoft Project
3 33 (2.59%) MS Visio
4 26 (2.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 18 (1.41%) Microsoft Office
6 6 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.16%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.078%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.078%) S-PLUS
8 1 (0.078%) Trello
Business Applications
1 81 (6.35%) SAP S/4HANA
2 48 (3.76%) Oracle Payables
3 42 (3.29%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 41 (3.21%) Oracle EBS
4 41 (3.21%) Oracle Receivables
5 29 (2.27%) Dynamics CRM
5 29 (2.27%) Oracle General Ledger
6 27 (2.12%) Oracle Assets
7 23 (1.80%) Oracle EBS R12
8 20 (1.57%) Oracle Cash Management
9 18 (1.41%) Oracle ERP
10 16 (1.25%) SAP FI
11 14 (1.10%) iTrent
11 14 (1.10%) SAP CO
12 13 (1.02%) Loan IQ
12 13 (1.02%) Payment Gateway
13 12 (0.94%) SAP FI/CO
14 10 (0.78%) Oracle AGIS
15 9 (0.71%) Maximo
15 9 (0.71%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 185 (14.50%) Azure
2 87 (6.82%) AWS
2 87 (6.82%) Power Platform
3 79 (6.19%) Azure DevOps
4 70 (5.49%) Dynamics 365
5 55 (4.31%) OCI
6 32 (2.51%) GCP
6 32 (2.51%) SaaS
7 30 (2.35%) SuccessFactors
8 27 (2.12%) Power Automate
9 24 (1.88%) Entra ID
9 24 (1.88%) GitHub
10 21 (1.65%) Microsoft 365
10 21 (1.65%) PowerApps
11 13 (1.02%) Azure Data Factory
12 11 (0.86%) OpenShift
12 11 (0.86%) Salesforce Service Cloud
13 10 (0.78%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
13 10 (0.78%) Serverless
14 8 (0.63%) Anthropic Claude
Communications & Networking
1 12 (0.94%) Network Security
2 11 (0.86%) Firewall
3 8 (0.63%) SMS
4 6 (0.47%) LAN
5 5 (0.39%) BGP
5 5 (0.39%) MPLS
6 4 (0.31%) Structured Cabling
6 4 (0.31%) VPN
6 4 (0.31%) WAN
7 3 (0.24%) SSL
8 2 (0.16%) 5G
8 2 (0.16%) Cisco ASA
8 2 (0.16%) DHCP
8 2 (0.16%) Diameter Protocol
8 2 (0.16%) DNS
8 2 (0.16%) HTTPS
8 2 (0.16%) IOS XR
8 2 (0.16%) NX-OS
8 2 (0.16%) OSPF
8 2 (0.16%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (4.39%) Power BI
2 30 (2.35%) Oracle Reports
3 29 (2.27%) SQL Server
4 21 (1.65%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 20 (1.57%) Relational Database
6 18 (1.41%) MySQL
7 17 (1.33%) Tableau
8 16 (1.25%) Data Warehouse
9 14 (1.10%) Metadata
10 12 (0.94%) SAP HANA
11 10 (0.78%) Oracle Database
12 8 (0.63%) Pinecone
13 7 (0.55%) DynamoDB
14 6 (0.47%) Electronic Patient Records
14 6 (0.47%) GIS
14 6 (0.47%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 5 (0.39%) Geospatial Data
15 5 (0.39%) QGIS
16 4 (0.31%) Data Lake
16 4 (0.31%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 221 (17.32%) JIRA
2 33 (2.59%) Selenium
3 28 (2.19%) Git
4 27 (2.12%) Postman
5 20 (1.57%) Jenkins
6 17 (1.33%) GitLab
6 17 (1.33%) TestRail
7 13 (1.02%) Zephyr
8 11 (0.86%) Oracle Forms
9 10 (0.78%) Cucumber
9 10 (0.78%) REST Assured
10 9 (0.71%) JMeter
10 9 (0.71%) Team Foundation Server
11 8 (0.63%) Cypress.io
11 8 (0.63%) MLflow
12 5 (0.39%) Visual Studio
13 4 (0.31%) Bitbucket
13 4 (0.31%) LoadRunner
13 4 (0.31%) SoapUI
13 4 (0.31%) SpecFlow
General
1 548 (42.95%) Finance
2 530 (41.54%) Social Skills
3 235 (18.42%) Analytical Skills
4 155 (12.15%) Banking
5 142 (11.13%) Public Sector
6 90 (7.05%) Documentation Skills
7 68 (5.33%) Manufacturing
8 42 (3.29%) Investment Banking
9 38 (2.98%) Legal
10 36 (2.82%) Presentation Skills
11 34 (2.66%) General Ledger
12 32 (2.51%) Marketing
12 32 (2.51%) Retail
13 30 (2.35%) Front Office
14 29 (2.27%) Local Government
15 27 (2.12%) Organisational Skills
16 26 (2.04%) Law
17 16 (1.25%) Retail Banking
18 14 (1.10%) Back Office
18 14 (1.10%) Billing
Job Titles
1 372 (29.15%) Analyst
2 278 (21.79%) Business Analyst
3 187 (14.66%) Consultant
4 180 (14.11%) Lead
5 79 (6.19%) Test Manager
6 78 (6.11%) Senior
7 76 (5.96%) Developer
8 59 (4.62%) Project Manager
9 57 (4.47%) Functional Consultant
10 56 (4.39%) Test Analyst
11 55 (4.31%) SAP Consultant
12 54 (4.23%) Architect
13 47 (3.68%) Test Leader
14 40 (3.13%) Tester
15 39 (3.06%) Oracle Consultant
16 28 (2.19%) Senior Analyst
17 24 (1.88%) Dynamics 365 Consultant
17 24 (1.88%) Migration Analyst
18 23 (1.80%) SAP Manager
19 22 (1.72%) Financial Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (6.27%) REST
2 58 (4.55%) Oracle Fusion
3 36 (2.82%) SOAP
4 27 (2.12%) Web Services
5 23 (1.80%) Middleware
6 20 (1.57%) .NET
6 20 (1.57%) RESTful
7 18 (1.41%) Playwright
7 18 (1.41%) Spring
7 18 (1.41%) XML
8 17 (1.33%) HTML
8 17 (1.33%) JSON
8 17 (1.33%) Spring Boot
9 16 (1.25%) CSS
9 16 (1.25%) OAuth
10 13 (1.02%) LDAP
10 13 (1.02%) SailPoint
10 13 (1.02%) Swagger
11 12 (0.94%) ADO
11 12 (0.94%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 96 (7.52%) Product Ownership
2 85 (6.66%) Legacy Systems
3 60 (4.70%) Onboarding
4 33 (2.59%) Management Information System
5 29 (2.27%) Data Structures
6 28 (2.19%) Data Protection Act
7 25 (1.96%) Public Cloud
8 23 (1.80%) Derivative
9 21 (1.65%) Low-Code
10 18 (1.41%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 17 (1.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 17 (1.33%) Greenfield Project
12 14 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
12 14 (1.10%) Cloud Native
12 14 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
13 13 (1.02%) CMDB
13 13 (1.02%) PMI
14 12 (0.94%) Credit Risk
14 12 (0.94%) Fixed Income
14 12 (0.94%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 27 (2.12%) Windows
2 14 (1.10%) Linux
3 6 (0.47%) Windows 10
3 6 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
4 4 (0.31%) Android
4 4 (0.31%) Apple iOS
4 4 (0.31%) VMS
5 3 (0.24%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.16%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.16%) OpenVMS
6 2 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.16%) Unix
7 1 (0.078%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 406 (31.82%) Agile
2 371 (29.08%) Stakeholder Management
3 344 (26.96%) Migration
4 246 (19.28%) System Integration Testing
5 232 (18.18%) Validation
6 228 (17.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 222 (17.40%) Problem-Solving
8 211 (16.54%) Data Migration
9 209 (16.38%) Workshop Facilitation
10 189 (14.81%) ERP
11 177 (13.87%) Requirements Gathering
12 164 (12.85%) DevOps
13 159 (12.46%) Business Analysis
14 156 (12.23%) Test Automation
15 152 (11.91%) Test Strategy
16 151 (11.83%) Continuous Improvement
17 147 (11.52%) User Stories
18 145 (11.36%) Scenario Testing
19 121 (9.48%) Change Management
20 119 (9.33%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 188 (14.73%) SQL
2 69 (5.41%) Python
3 53 (4.15%) Java
4 35 (2.74%) JavaScript
5 23 (1.80%) PowerShell
6 20 (1.57%) C#
7 18 (1.41%) TypeScript
8 16 (1.25%) PL/SQL
9 13 (1.02%) ABAP
10 8 (0.63%) Bash
10 8 (0.63%) PHP
11 4 (0.31%) Apex Code
11 4 (0.31%) C++
11 4 (0.31%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.24%) Cypher
12 3 (0.24%) Korn
12 3 (0.24%) Scala
12 3 (0.24%) SOQL
12 3 (0.24%) VB
12 3 (0.24%) VB6
Qualifications
1 165 (12.93%) Security Cleared
2 122 (9.56%) SC Cleared
3 119 (9.33%) Degree
4 50 (3.92%) ISTQB
5 36 (2.82%) BPSS Clearance
6 34 (2.66%) PMI Certification
7 23 (1.80%) PMP
8 22 (1.72%) Master's Degree
9 17 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
10 15 (1.18%) CBAP
11 13 (1.02%) ACCA
11 13 (1.02%) CIMA
11 13 (1.02%) IIBA
12 11 (0.86%) DV Cleared
13 9 (0.71%) ISEB
14 8 (0.63%) Microsoft Certification
15 7 (0.55%) ITIL Certification
16 6 (0.47%) AWS Certification
16 6 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 6 (0.47%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 238 (18.65%) QA
2 103 (8.07%) Data Quality
3 47 (3.68%) GDPR
4 25 (1.96%) PMO
4 25 (1.96%) PSD2
5 21 (1.65%) Accessibility
6 20 (1.57%) IFRS
6 20 (1.57%) SLA
7 18 (1.41%) ISO 20022
8 16 (1.25%) IFRS 17
9 15 (1.18%) ISO 8583
9 15 (1.18%) MiFID
10 14 (1.10%) SEPA
11 12 (0.94%) PCI DSS
12 10 (0.78%) NIST
13 9 (0.71%) NCSC
14 8 (0.63%) EMIR
15 7 (0.55%) GRC
15 7 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
16 6 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 28 (2.19%) Docker
2 20 (1.57%) Active Directory
3 15 (1.18%) Virtual Desktop
4 6 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.31%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (0.24%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
6 3 (0.24%) ISA Server
7 2 (0.16%) Firmware
7 2 (0.16%) HDFS
8 1 (0.078%) Citrix Presentation Server
8 1 (0.078%) UAG
8 1 (0.078%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 31 (2.43%) Kubernetes
2 28 (2.19%) HP ALM
3 20 (1.57%) Terraform
4 10 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
5 6 (0.47%) Grafana
6 5 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (0.24%) Ansible
7 3 (0.24%) HP Quality Center
8 2 (0.16%) Kibana
8 2 (0.16%) SCCM
9 1 (0.078%) CASB
9 1 (0.078%) CEMLI
9 1 (0.078%) Cisco CUCM
9 1 (0.078%) Control-M
9 1 (0.078%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.078%) Oracle Identity Management
9 1 (0.078%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.078%) Rundeck
9 1 (0.078%) SCOM
9 1 (0.078%) WSUS
Vendors
1 213 (16.69%) Oracle
2 195 (15.28%) SAP
3 151 (11.83%) Microsoft
4 104 (8.15%) ServiceNow
5 54 (4.23%) Salesforce
6 29 (2.27%) HP
7 18 (1.41%) Murex
8 17 (1.33%) Workday
9 13 (1.02%) Ariba
9 13 (1.02%) Cisco
9 13 (1.02%) UiPath
10 11 (0.86%) Citrix
10 11 (0.86%) IFS
10 11 (0.86%) Splunk
11 10 (0.78%) IBM
11 10 (0.78%) Infor
12 9 (0.71%) Adobe
12 9 (0.71%) Bloomberg
12 9 (0.71%) NEC
13 8 (0.63%) Fortinet