Acceptance Criteria Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Acceptance Criteria
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Acceptance Criteria skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 353 371 403
Rank change year-on-year +18 +32 -92
Permanent jobs citing Acceptance Criteria 157 200 174
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.37% 0.56% 0.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.47% 0.63% 0.57%
Number of salaries quoted 76 66 135
10th Percentile £38,369 £34,375 £36,250
25th Percentile £46,250 £42,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -
75th Percentile £61,250 £62,500 £61,250
90th Percentile £73,875 £67,500 £73,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £59,908 £58,000
% change year-on-year +0.15% +3.29% +0.87%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

Acceptance Criteria falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 33,283 31,985 30,588
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 78.49% 89.04% 88.64%
Number of salaries quoted 19,187 14,363 22,780
10th Percentile £27,750 £31,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £33,500 £41,250 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £52,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +5.77% -5.45%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £66,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £83,750 £80,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

Acceptance Criteria
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Acceptance Criteria relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Acceptance Criteria job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Acceptance Criteria
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Acceptance Criteria.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Acceptance Criteria

Acceptance Criteria
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Acceptance Criteria in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 14 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Acceptance Criteria in the UK excluding London

Acceptance Criteria
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Acceptance Criteria within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 14 January 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
South East +33 51 £55,000 +12.82% 92
North of England -8 31 £57,500 +12.75% 27
Scotland +19 26 £45,000 -2.70% 6
Midlands +7 21 £52,500 +3.70% 27
South West -2 18 £60,000 +9.09% 29
North West +10 16 £52,500 -6.25% 11
West Midlands +3 16 £53,250 +5.18% 16
Yorkshire -7 13 £58,750 +11.90% 12
Wales +10 5 £41,740 -38.16% 11
East Midlands -4 5 £45,000 - 11
East of England +19 4 £55,000 +57.14% 37
North East 0 2 £51,250 +10.81% 4
Northern Ireland -12 1 - - 3
Acceptance Criteria
UK

Acceptance Criteria
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 25 (15.92%) Confluence
2 2 (1.27%) Oracle Application Server
2 2 (1.27%) SharePoint
Applications
1 13 (8.28%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.91%) Trello
3 2 (1.27%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.64%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 3 (1.91%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (1.27%) Integrated Workplace Management System
2 2 (1.27%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.64%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 32 (20.38%) Azure
2 25 (15.92%) Azure DevOps
3 22 (14.01%) Power Platform
4 15 (9.55%) Snowflake
5 14 (8.92%) SaaS
6 6 (3.82%) Serverless
7 5 (3.18%) AWS
8 4 (2.55%) Amazon S3
8 4 (2.55%) AWS Lambda
8 4 (2.55%) Microsoft 365
8 4 (2.55%) Power Automate
9 2 (1.27%) Amazon Cognito
9 2 (1.27%) Amazon SageMaker
9 2 (1.27%) Asana
9 2 (1.27%) AWS Step Functions
9 2 (1.27%) Azure Functions
9 2 (1.27%) Azure Logic Apps
9 2 (1.27%) Azure Service Bus
9 2 (1.27%) PowerApps
9 2 (1.27%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.55%) Broadband
1 4 (2.55%) Profibus
1 4 (2.55%) SNA
2 1 (0.64%) Bluetooth
2 1 (0.64%) RFID
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (12.74%) Power BI
2 14 (8.92%) Data Warehouse
2 14 (8.92%) Tableau
3 4 (2.55%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
3 4 (2.55%) Metadata
4 2 (1.27%) Amazon RDS
4 2 (1.27%) GIS
4 2 (1.27%) Oracle ODI
4 2 (1.27%) Oracle Reports
4 2 (1.27%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (1.27%) Star Schema
5 1 (0.64%) BusinessObjects
5 1 (0.64%) BusinessObjects Web Intelligence
5 1 (0.64%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 37 (23.57%) JIRA
2 11 (7.01%) Selenium
3 6 (3.82%) Cypress.io
4 4 (2.55%) Jenkins
4 4 (2.55%) Postman
4 4 (2.55%) Rational DOORS
5 3 (1.91%) Rational Rhapsody
5 3 (1.91%) SpecFlow
5 3 (1.91%) TeamCity
5 3 (1.91%) TestRail
5 3 (1.91%) WebDriver
6 2 (1.27%) DBeaver
7 1 (0.64%) Android Studio
7 1 (0.64%) Appium
7 1 (0.64%) Balsamiq
7 1 (0.64%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.64%) Gatling
7 1 (0.64%) JMeter
7 1 (0.64%) Oracle APEX
7 1 (0.64%) Xcode
General
1 84 (53.50%) Social Skills
2 47 (29.94%) Finance
3 39 (24.84%) Analytical Skills
4 20 (12.74%) Marketing
5 12 (7.64%) Legal
6 8 (5.10%) Organisational Skills
7 6 (3.82%) Aerospace
8 5 (3.18%) Automotive
9 4 (2.55%) Front Office
9 4 (2.55%) Manufacturing
10 3 (1.91%) Documentation Skills
10 3 (1.91%) Telecoms
11 2 (1.27%) Back Office
11 2 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (1.27%) Retail
12 1 (0.64%) Advertising
12 1 (0.64%) Banking
12 1 (0.64%) Electronics
12 1 (0.64%) Games
12 1 (0.64%) Law
Job Titles
1 54 (34.39%) Analyst
2 41 (26.11%) Business Analyst
3 28 (17.83%) Senior
4 20 (12.74%) Quality Engineer
5 18 (11.46%) Product Owner
6 13 (8.28%) Systems Engineer
7 10 (6.37%) Senior Systems Engineer
8 9 (5.73%) Senior Analyst
8 9 (5.73%) Technical Analyst
8 9 (5.73%) Technical Business Analyst
9 8 (5.10%) Senior Business Analyst
10 7 (4.46%) Lead
11 6 (3.82%) Change Analyst
11 6 (3.82%) Instrumentation Engineer
11 6 (3.82%) Principal Engineer
11 6 (3.82%) Principal Systems Engineer
11 6 (3.82%) Product Manager
11 6 (3.82%) Senior Electrical Engineer
11 6 (3.82%) Tester
12 5 (3.18%) Service Transition Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (5.10%) Playwright
2 4 (2.55%) REST
3 3 (1.91%) Akka
3 3 (1.91%) Web Services
4 2 (1.27%) Gherkin
4 2 (1.27%) OpenAPI
4 2 (1.27%) RESTful
4 2 (1.27%) Swagger
4 2 (1.27%) XML
5 1 (0.64%) .NET
5 1 (0.64%) EDI
5 1 (0.64%) React Native
5 1 (0.64%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 51 (32.48%) Product Ownership
2 15 (9.55%) Management Information System
2 15 (9.55%) Onboarding
3 11 (7.01%) Analytical Mindset
4 4 (2.55%) Data Structures
4 4 (2.55%) Virtual Team
5 3 (1.91%) e-Learning
5 3 (1.91%) Over-the-Top Content
5 3 (1.91%) PMI
5 3 (1.91%) Video\Live Streaming
6 2 (1.27%) Cybercrime
6 2 (1.27%) Data Centre
6 2 (1.27%) Mobile App
6 2 (1.27%) PropTech
6 2 (1.27%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (0.64%) Contactless
7 1 (0.64%) EMV
7 1 (0.64%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.64%) FMCG
7 1 (0.64%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.64%) Android
1 1 (0.64%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 113 (71.97%) Agile
2 91 (57.96%) User Stories
3 39 (24.84%) Continuous Improvement
4 35 (22.29%) Test Automation
5 33 (21.02%) DevOps
5 33 (21.02%) Scrum
6 29 (18.47%) CI/CD
7 28 (17.83%) Stakeholder Management
8 26 (16.56%) User Acceptance Testing
9 24 (15.29%) Decision-Making
9 24 (15.29%) Roadmaps
9 24 (15.29%) Sprint Planning
10 23 (14.65%) Asset Management
10 23 (14.65%) Coaching
11 20 (12.74%) Business Analysis
11 20 (12.74%) Business Intelligence
11 20 (12.74%) Change Management
11 20 (12.74%) Requirements Gathering
11 20 (12.74%) Validation
12 19 (12.10%) Sprint Retrospective
Programming Languages
1 32 (20.38%) SQL
2 17 (10.83%) Python
3 3 (1.91%) JavaScript
3 3 (1.91%) Scala
4 2 (1.27%) C#
4 2 (1.27%) TypeScript
5 1 (0.64%) Java
Qualifications
1 37 (23.57%) Degree
2 24 (15.29%) BPSS Clearance
3 10 (6.37%) PMI Certification
4 9 (5.73%) Master's Degree
4 9 (5.73%) Security Cleared
5 8 (5.10%) PMP
6 7 (4.46%) SC Cleared
7 5 (3.18%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (2.55%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 3 (1.91%) AWS Certification
9 3 (1.91%) CBAP
9 3 (1.91%) DV Cleared
9 3 (1.91%) TOGAF Certification
10 2 (1.27%) Azure Certification
10 2 (1.27%) Chartered Engineer
10 2 (1.27%) IIBA
10 2 (1.27%) ISTQB
10 2 (1.27%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 2 (1.27%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.64%) CSPO
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 49 (31.21%) QA
2 13 (8.28%) Accessibility
3 3 (1.91%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.27%) IEC 61131
4 2 (1.27%) IEC 61508
5 1 (0.64%) GDPR
5 1 (0.64%) GMP
5 1 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.64%) NIST
5 1 (0.64%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 4 (2.55%) Docker
1 4 (2.55%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 4 (2.55%) Kubernetes
2 2 (1.27%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 8 (5.10%) Microsoft
2 4 (2.55%) Charles River
2 4 (2.55%) EMC
2 4 (2.55%) IBM
2 4 (2.55%) Oracle
3 3 (1.91%) Salesforce
3 3 (1.91%) SAP
4 1 (0.64%) Atlassian
4 1 (0.64%) ESRI
4 1 (0.64%) Genesys
4 1 (0.64%) HubSpot
4 1 (0.64%) ServiceNow
4 1 (0.64%) Siebel