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

6 months to
27 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 133 120
Rank change year-on-year +51 -13 +32
Contract jobs citing User Acceptance Testing 1,334 617 854
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.02% 2.13% 1.93%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.53% 2.35% 2.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 849 409 566
10th Percentile £348 £330 £350
25th Percentile £413 £405 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £511
Median % change year-on-year - -2.20% -2.62%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 10 23
10th Percentile £19.88 £20.83 £14.72
25th Percentile £23.39 £36.06 £24.63
Median hourly rate £33.43 £58.75 £85.00
Median % change year-on-year -43.10% -30.88% +36.00%
75th Percentile £82.00 £64.69 £86.50
90th Percentile £85.48 £86.15 £93.05
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.61 £58.75 £36.50
% change year-on-year -54.71% +60.96% -41.65%

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 37,825 26,281 38,283
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.77% 90.55% 86.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,952 17,099 24,858
10th Percentile £313 £308 £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 £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.51% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,225 950 2,347
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.20 £12.83
25th Percentile £18.75 £20.49 £16.00
Median hourly rate £35.00 £32.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +9.38% -1.54% -9.72%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £57.91
90th Percentile £76.40 £77.22 £71.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.50 £31.64 £31.50
% change year-on-year -3.60% +0.44% -13.10%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 +33 1,166 £500 - 331
London +30 641 £500 -4.76% 144
UK excluding London +48 551 £475 +5.56% 229
Work from Home +38 405 £525 +5.00% 137
South East +27 151 £550 +22.22% 93
North of England -8 143 £450 -10.00% 43
Midlands +12 130 £475 - 42
North West -1 95 £425 -16.88% 25
West Midlands +9 86 £491 -3.73% 30
South West 0 45 £460 +4.14% 18
East Midlands -9 43 £450 +5.88% 12
Yorkshire -23 39 £505 +6.88% 17
Scotland +24 35 £513 +16.68% 10
East of England -22 32 £539 +34.92% 16
Northern Ireland +6 13 £475 +26.67% 5
North East -5 9 £500 +49.25% 1
Wales -3 8 £413 -9.93% 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 90 (6.75%) Confluence
2 26 (1.95%) SharePoint
3 11 (0.82%) SAS
4 8 (0.60%) Appian
5 7 (0.52%) CMS
6 6 (0.45%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 6 (0.45%) Apache
6 6 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
7 3 (0.22%) Apache Spark
7 3 (0.22%) OpenStack
8 2 (0.15%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.15%) Camunda
8 2 (0.15%) GeoServer
8 2 (0.15%) JBoss
8 2 (0.15%) Mendix
8 2 (0.15%) Smallworld
9 1 (0.075%) Cloud Foundry
9 1 (0.075%) IBM HTTP Server
9 1 (0.075%) Kentico
9 1 (0.075%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 59 (4.42%) Microsoft Excel
2 36 (2.70%) MS Visio
3 32 (2.40%) Microsoft Project
4 26 (1.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 20 (1.50%) Microsoft Office
6 5 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.15%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.075%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.075%) S-PLUS
8 1 (0.075%) Trello
Business Applications
1 82 (6.15%) SAP S/4HANA
2 49 (3.67%) Oracle Payables
3 43 (3.22%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 42 (3.15%) Oracle EBS
5 41 (3.07%) Oracle Receivables
6 31 (2.32%) Oracle General Ledger
7 30 (2.25%) Dynamics CRM
8 27 (2.02%) Oracle Assets
9 23 (1.72%) Oracle EBS R12
10 20 (1.50%) Oracle Cash Management
11 17 (1.27%) Oracle ERP
12 16 (1.20%) SAP FI
13 14 (1.05%) iTrent
13 14 (1.05%) SAP CO
14 13 (0.97%) Loan IQ
14 13 (0.97%) Payment Gateway
15 12 (0.90%) SAP FI/CO
16 10 (0.75%) NEC Housing
16 10 (0.75%) Oracle AGIS
17 9 (0.67%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 193 (14.47%) Azure
2 109 (8.17%) Power Platform
3 96 (7.20%) Azure DevOps
4 88 (6.60%) Dynamics 365
5 82 (6.15%) AWS
6 50 (3.75%) OCI
7 31 (2.32%) SaaS
7 31 (2.32%) SuccessFactors
8 29 (2.17%) Power Automate
9 28 (2.10%) GitHub
10 26 (1.95%) Entra ID
10 26 (1.95%) GCP
11 22 (1.65%) PowerApps
12 19 (1.42%) Microsoft 365
13 14 (1.05%) Salesforce Service Cloud
14 13 (0.97%) Azure Data Factory
15 12 (0.90%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
16 11 (0.82%) OpenShift
16 11 (0.82%) Serverless
17 10 (0.75%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 12 (0.90%) Firewall
1 12 (0.90%) Network Security
2 8 (0.60%) SMS
3 6 (0.45%) LAN
4 5 (0.37%) BGP
4 5 (0.37%) MPLS
5 4 (0.30%) 5G
5 4 (0.30%) Structured Cabling
5 4 (0.30%) VPN
5 4 (0.30%) WAN
6 3 (0.22%) SSL
7 2 (0.15%) DHCP
7 2 (0.15%) Diameter Protocol
7 2 (0.15%) DNS
7 2 (0.15%) FTP
7 2 (0.15%) IOS XR
7 2 (0.15%) NGFW
7 2 (0.15%) NX-OS
7 2 (0.15%) OSPF
7 2 (0.15%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 81 (6.07%) Power BI
2 29 (2.17%) SQL Server
3 26 (1.95%) Oracle Reports
4 20 (1.50%) Relational Database
4 20 (1.50%) Tableau
5 19 (1.42%) Oracle BI Publisher
6 18 (1.35%) Data Warehouse
6 18 (1.35%) MySQL
7 12 (0.90%) Metadata
7 12 (0.90%) SAP HANA
8 8 (0.60%) Oracle Database
8 8 (0.60%) Pinecone
9 7 (0.52%) DynamoDB
9 7 (0.52%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 6 (0.45%) Electronic Patient Records
10 6 (0.45%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 5 (0.37%) Data Lake
12 4 (0.30%) PostgreSQL
12 4 (0.30%) RDBMS
12 4 (0.30%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 234 (17.54%) JIRA
2 35 (2.62%) Selenium
3 28 (2.10%) Postman
4 26 (1.95%) Git
5 20 (1.50%) Jenkins
6 18 (1.35%) GitLab
6 18 (1.35%) TestRail
7 16 (1.20%) Zephyr
8 11 (0.82%) REST Assured
9 10 (0.75%) Cucumber
9 10 (0.75%) JMeter
10 9 (0.67%) Oracle Forms
10 9 (0.67%) Team Foundation Server
11 8 (0.60%) Cypress.io
11 8 (0.60%) MLflow
12 5 (0.37%) Bitbucket
12 5 (0.37%) LoadRunner
12 5 (0.37%) SoapUI
12 5 (0.37%) Visual Studio
13 4 (0.30%) SpecFlow
General
1 581 (43.55%) Finance
2 534 (40.03%) Social Skills
3 251 (18.82%) Analytical Skills
4 163 (12.22%) Banking
5 142 (10.64%) Public Sector
6 102 (7.65%) Documentation Skills
7 67 (5.02%) Manufacturing
8 45 (3.37%) Law
9 43 (3.22%) Investment Banking
9 43 (3.22%) Retail
10 39 (2.92%) Legal
11 38 (2.85%) Presentation Skills
12 36 (2.70%) General Ledger
13 33 (2.47%) Front Office
13 33 (2.47%) Marketing
14 31 (2.32%) Local Government
15 29 (2.17%) Organisational Skills
16 16 (1.20%) Back Office
16 16 (1.20%) Retail Banking
17 15 (1.12%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 399 (29.91%) Analyst
2 299 (22.41%) Business Analyst
3 209 (15.67%) Lead
4 187 (14.02%) Consultant
5 90 (6.75%) Test Manager
6 82 (6.15%) Senior
7 73 (5.47%) Developer
8 70 (5.25%) Architect
9 62 (4.65%) Project Manager
10 59 (4.42%) Test Analyst
11 56 (4.20%) Functional Consultant
11 56 (4.20%) SAP Consultant
12 50 (3.75%) Test Leader
13 38 (2.85%) Oracle Consultant
14 37 (2.77%) Tester
15 34 (2.55%) Lead Architect
16 31 (2.32%) Senior Analyst
17 28 (2.10%) Functional Architect
18 24 (1.80%) Migration Analyst
18 24 (1.80%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (5.85%) REST
2 48 (3.60%) Oracle Fusion
3 41 (3.07%) SOAP
4 30 (2.25%) Middleware
5 23 (1.72%) Web Services
6 20 (1.50%) .NET
7 19 (1.42%) Playwright
7 19 (1.42%) RESTful
7 19 (1.42%) XML
8 17 (1.27%) Spring
9 16 (1.20%) Spring Boot
10 15 (1.12%) JSON
10 15 (1.12%) OAuth
11 14 (1.05%) SailPoint
12 13 (0.97%) CSS
12 13 (0.97%) Swagger
13 12 (0.90%) ADO
13 12 (0.90%) HTML
13 12 (0.90%) JWT
14 11 (0.82%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 102 (7.65%) Product Ownership
2 82 (6.15%) Legacy Systems
3 58 (4.35%) Onboarding
4 34 (2.55%) Management Information System
5 33 (2.47%) Data Structures
6 28 (2.10%) Public Cloud
7 27 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
8 25 (1.87%) Derivative
9 21 (1.57%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 21 (1.57%) Low-Code
10 19 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
11 18 (1.35%) SWIFT Messaging Network
12 15 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
12 15 (1.12%) Greenfield Project
13 14 (1.05%) Cloud Native
13 14 (1.05%) CMDB
14 13 (0.97%) Credit Risk
14 13 (0.97%) PMI
14 13 (0.97%) Reference Data
15 12 (0.90%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 26 (1.95%) Windows
2 13 (0.97%) Linux
3 6 (0.45%) Windows 10
4 4 (0.30%) VMS
5 3 (0.22%) Unix
5 3 (0.22%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
6 2 (0.15%) Android
6 2 (0.15%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.15%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.15%) OpenVMS
6 2 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 427 (32.01%) Agile
2 381 (28.56%) Stakeholder Management
3 359 (26.91%) Migration
4 257 (19.27%) System Integration Testing
5 254 (19.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 254 (19.04%) Validation
6 235 (17.62%) Data Migration
7 232 (17.39%) Problem-Solving
8 223 (16.72%) Workshop Facilitation
9 214 (16.04%) ERP
10 188 (14.09%) Requirements Gathering
11 175 (13.12%) Continuous Improvement
12 172 (12.89%) DevOps
13 169 (12.67%) Test Automation
14 164 (12.29%) Test Strategy
15 163 (12.22%) User Stories
16 161 (12.07%) Business Analysis
17 158 (11.84%) Scenario Testing
18 129 (9.67%) End-to-End Testing
19 125 (9.37%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 192 (14.39%) SQL
2 72 (5.40%) Python
3 50 (3.75%) Java
4 33 (2.47%) JavaScript
5 19 (1.42%) C#
5 19 (1.42%) PowerShell
6 17 (1.27%) PL/SQL
6 17 (1.27%) TypeScript
7 13 (0.97%) ABAP
8 9 (0.67%) PHP
9 8 (0.60%) Bash
10 6 (0.45%) Apex Code
11 5 (0.37%) Korn
11 5 (0.37%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.22%) Perl
12 3 (0.22%) R
12 3 (0.22%) Scala
12 3 (0.22%) VB
12 3 (0.22%) VB6
12 3 (0.22%) VBA
Qualifications
1 160 (11.99%) Security Cleared
2 118 (8.85%) SC Cleared
3 112 (8.40%) Degree
4 53 (3.97%) ISTQB
5 36 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
5 36 (2.70%) PMI Certification
6 25 (1.87%) PMP
7 19 (1.42%) Master's Degree
8 15 (1.12%) CBAP
9 14 (1.05%) Computer Science Degree
10 13 (0.97%) ACCA
10 13 (0.97%) CIMA
10 13 (0.97%) IIBA
11 11 (0.82%) DV Cleared
12 9 (0.67%) ISEB
13 8 (0.60%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 8 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
14 7 (0.52%) ITIL Certification
15 6 (0.45%) AWS Certification
15 6 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 247 (18.52%) QA
2 110 (8.25%) Data Quality
3 49 (3.67%) GDPR
4 25 (1.87%) PMO
5 24 (1.80%) PSD2
6 21 (1.57%) SLA
7 20 (1.50%) Accessibility
7 20 (1.50%) IFRS
8 18 (1.35%) ISO 20022
9 16 (1.20%) IFRS 17
10 15 (1.12%) ISO 8583
10 15 (1.12%) MiFID
11 13 (0.97%) SEPA
12 12 (0.90%) PCI DSS
13 11 (0.82%) NIST
14 9 (0.67%) NCSC
15 8 (0.60%) EMIR
16 7 (0.52%) GRC
16 7 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
16 7 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 26 (1.95%) Docker
2 20 (1.50%) Active Directory
3 15 (1.12%) Virtual Desktop
4 6 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (0.22%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
6 3 (0.22%) ISA Server
7 2 (0.15%) Firmware
7 2 (0.15%) HDFS
8 1 (0.075%) Citrix Presentation Server
8 1 (0.075%) UAG
8 1 (0.075%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 29 (2.17%) Kubernetes
2 27 (2.02%) HP ALM
3 20 (1.50%) Terraform
4 11 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
5 6 (0.45%) Grafana
6 5 (0.37%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (0.22%) Ansible
7 3 (0.22%) Control-M
7 3 (0.22%) HP Quality Center
8 2 (0.15%) Kibana
9 1 (0.075%) CASB
9 1 (0.075%) CEMLI
9 1 (0.075%) Cisco CUCM
9 1 (0.075%) ITRS Geneos
9 1 (0.075%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.075%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.075%) Rundeck
9 1 (0.075%) SCCM
9 1 (0.075%) SCOM
9 1 (0.075%) WSUS
Vendors
1 205 (15.37%) Oracle
2 189 (14.17%) SAP
3 163 (12.22%) Microsoft
4 100 (7.50%) ServiceNow
5 63 (4.72%) Salesforce
6 28 (2.10%) HP
7 20 (1.50%) Murex
8 18 (1.35%) Workday
9 15 (1.12%) Ariba
10 13 (0.97%) Cisco
10 13 (0.97%) IFS
10 13 (0.97%) UiPath
11 12 (0.90%) Adobe
12 11 (0.82%) Bloomberg
12 11 (0.82%) Citrix
12 11 (0.82%) Splunk
13 10 (0.75%) IBM
13 10 (0.75%) Infor
13 10 (0.75%) NEC
14 8 (0.60%) CheckPoint