Acceptance Criteria Job Trends

Acceptance Criteria
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Acceptance Criteria skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 7 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 399 412 467
Rank change year-on-year +13 +55 -137
Permanent jobs citing Acceptance Criteria 317 272 415
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.44% 0.59% 0.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.56% 0.63% 0.58%
Number of salaries quoted 160 136 307
10th Percentile £39,238 £43,125 £38,650
25th Percentile £46,250 £47,500 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +4.35% +0.18%
75th Percentile £76,000 £76,000 £82,500
90th Percentile £87,500 £83,750 £92,661
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £51,626 £50,000
% change year-on-year +1.69% +3.25% -

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

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.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 56,779 43,287 71,183
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 78.47% 93.48% 87.85%
Number of salaries quoted 34,177 22,512 54,463
10th Percentile £29,262 £32,500 £29,250
25th Percentile £39,000 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £76,875 £80,100 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -9.09%

Acceptance Criteria
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Acceptance Criteria job vacancy trend in the UK

Acceptance Criteria
Salary Trend

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

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Acceptance Criteria

Acceptance Criteria
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Acceptance Criteria over the 6 months to 7 March 2026.

Salary histogram for Acceptance Criteria in the UK

Acceptance Criteria
Top 17 Job Locations

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 over the 6 months to 7 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +21 267 £58,875 -3.33% 157
UK excluding London +23 185 £52,500 +1.69% 127
Work from Home +76 145 £63,750 -1.92% 89
London +43 113 £76,000 - 49
South East +10 43 £52,500 +5.00% 37
North of England -17 38 £57,500 +9.52% 45
South West +5 31 £55,000 - 18
Midlands -5 27 £54,000 +2.86% 12
Scotland 0 22 £47,500 +2.70% 4
North West -4 20 £46,421 -19.27% 23
West Midlands -2 16 £54,000 -5.06% 6
Yorkshire -33 14 £57,500 +21.05% 17
Wales +1 13 £41,740 - 4
East of England +14 10 £52,500 +40.00% 7
East Midlands -17 10 £51,250 -2.38% 6
North East -18 4 £53,000 +14.59% 5
Northern Ireland -30 1 - - 1

Acceptance Criteria
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 39 (12.30%) Confluence
2 8 (2.52%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.95%) Tomcat
3 3 (0.95%) WebSphere
3 3 (0.95%) WebSphere Application Server
4 2 (0.63%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.63%) Oracle Application Server
5 1 (0.32%) Jupyter
5 1 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 5 (1.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.26%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.63%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.63%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.63%) Trello
4 1 (0.32%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 9 (2.84%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (1.89%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.95%) Integrated Workplace Management System
4 2 (0.63%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.63%) Workday HCM
5 1 (0.32%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 57 (17.98%) Azure
2 39 (12.30%) AWS
3 32 (10.09%) Serverless
4 30 (9.46%) Azure DevOps
5 27 (8.52%) SaaS
6 23 (7.26%) Power Platform
7 22 (6.94%) Amazon S3
7 22 (6.94%) AWS Lambda
8 14 (4.42%) Amazon SQS
9 13 (4.10%) Power Automate
10 10 (3.15%) PowerApps
11 8 (2.52%) Azure Functions
11 8 (2.52%) Azure Logic Apps
11 8 (2.52%) Azure Service Bus
12 7 (2.21%) Snowflake
13 6 (1.89%) Microsoft 365
14 5 (1.58%) Figma
14 5 (1.58%) Miro
14 5 (1.58%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
14 5 (1.58%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 27 (8.52%) Broadband
2 5 (1.58%) Profibus
2 5 (1.58%) RTP
3 4 (1.26%) SNA
4 3 (0.95%) SSL
5 2 (0.63%) Wireless
6 1 (0.32%) Bluetooth
6 1 (0.32%) DHCP
6 1 (0.32%) DNS
6 1 (0.32%) HTTP
6 1 (0.32%) LAN
6 1 (0.32%) RFID
6 1 (0.32%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.32%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.32%) VLAN
6 1 (0.32%) VPN
6 1 (0.32%) WAN
6 1 (0.32%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (4.42%) Power BI
2 10 (3.15%) Data Warehouse
3 8 (2.52%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (1.89%) Amazon RDS
4 6 (1.89%) Tableau
5 5 (1.58%) Metadata
5 5 (1.58%) NoSQL
6 4 (1.26%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
6 4 (1.26%) MongoDB
7 3 (0.95%) DB2
7 3 (0.95%) SQL Server
8 2 (0.63%) Data Lake
8 2 (0.63%) GIS
8 2 (0.63%) Oracle ODI
8 2 (0.63%) Oracle Reports
8 2 (0.63%) Star Schema
9 1 (0.32%) BigQuery
9 1 (0.32%) BusinessObjects
9 1 (0.32%) BusinessObjects Web Intelligence
9 1 (0.32%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 56 (17.67%) JIRA
2 27 (8.52%) Jenkins
3 23 (7.26%) Selenium
3 23 (7.26%) TeamCity
4 14 (4.42%) Cypress.io
5 12 (3.79%) Postman
6 7 (2.21%) Rational DOORS
7 4 (1.26%) Oracle APEX
7 4 (1.26%) SpecFlow
8 3 (0.95%) JUnit
8 3 (0.95%) Rational Rhapsody
8 3 (0.95%) WebDriver
9 2 (0.63%) DBeaver
9 2 (0.63%) JMeter
9 2 (0.63%) Mockito
9 2 (0.63%) SoapUI
9 2 (0.63%) TestRail
10 1 (0.32%) Balsamiq
10 1 (0.32%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.32%) Git
General
1 135 (42.59%) Social Skills
2 86 (27.13%) Finance
3 56 (17.67%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (8.20%) Organisational Skills
5 15 (4.73%) Banking
5 15 (4.73%) Health Technology
5 15 (4.73%) Influencing Skills
5 15 (4.73%) Publishing
6 14 (4.42%) Legal
6 14 (4.42%) Tech for Good
7 12 (3.79%) Public Sector
8 10 (3.15%) Marketing
9 9 (2.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (2.52%) Aerospace
10 8 (2.52%) Automotive
10 8 (2.52%) Retail
11 6 (1.89%) Documentation Skills
11 6 (1.89%) Financial Institution
11 6 (1.89%) Telecoms
12 5 (1.58%) Digital Healthcare
Job Titles
1 95 (29.97%) Analyst
2 85 (26.81%) Business Analyst
3 80 (25.24%) Senior
4 41 (12.93%) Lead
5 37 (11.67%) Developer
6 20 (6.31%) Product Owner
6 20 (6.31%) Python Developer
6 20 (6.31%) Senior Analyst
7 19 (5.99%) Senior Business Analyst
7 19 (5.99%) Technical Analyst
7 19 (5.99%) Technical Business Analyst
8 18 (5.68%) Lead Developer
8 18 (5.68%) Lead Python Developer
9 17 (5.36%) Product Manager
10 16 (5.05%) Senior Systems Engineer
10 16 (5.05%) Systems Engineer
11 14 (4.42%) AWS Developer
11 14 (4.42%) React Developer
11 14 (4.42%) Test Leader
12 13 (4.10%) QA Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (7.26%) Akka
2 22 (6.94%) Playwright
3 18 (5.68%) RESTful
4 6 (1.89%) REST
4 6 (1.89%) Web Services
5 5 (1.58%) React
6 4 (1.26%) XML
7 3 (0.95%) .NET
7 3 (0.95%) AngularJS
7 3 (0.95%) LAPP Stack
7 3 (0.95%) LDAP
7 3 (0.95%) OpenAPI
7 3 (0.95%) Spring
7 3 (0.95%) Swagger
7 3 (0.95%) Vue
7 3 (0.95%) WebSphere MQ
8 2 (0.63%) HTML5 Canvas
8 2 (0.63%) Node.js
8 2 (0.63%) Spring Boot
8 2 (0.63%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 84 (26.50%) Product Ownership
2 24 (7.57%) Video\Live Streaming
3 23 (7.26%) Over-the-Top Content
4 14 (4.42%) Onboarding
5 12 (3.79%) Self-Motivation
6 11 (3.47%) Management Information System
7 8 (2.52%) Data Structures
8 7 (2.21%) Legacy Systems
9 6 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
10 5 (1.58%) Virtual Team
11 4 (1.26%) CMDB
11 4 (1.26%) Mobile App
11 4 (1.26%) PropTech
12 3 (0.95%) Data Centre
12 3 (0.95%) e-Learning
12 3 (0.95%) Linux Command Line
12 3 (0.95%) Low-Code
12 3 (0.95%) PACS
12 3 (0.95%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 6 (1.89%) Unix
1 6 (1.89%) Windows
2 4 (1.26%) Linux
2 4 (1.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (0.63%) Android
3 2 (0.63%) Apple iOS
3 2 (0.63%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 216 (68.14%) Agile
2 156 (49.21%) User Stories
3 103 (32.49%) Scrum
4 76 (23.97%) Continuous Improvement
5 64 (20.19%) Roadmaps
6 58 (18.30%) User Acceptance Testing
7 57 (17.98%) Coaching
8 54 (17.03%) DevOps
9 52 (16.40%) CI/CD
10 49 (15.46%) Analytics
11 47 (14.83%) TDD
11 47 (14.83%) Test Automation
12 46 (14.51%) Kanban
13 45 (14.20%) Mentoring
13 45 (14.20%) Stakeholder Management
14 43 (13.56%) Business Analysis
15 41 (12.93%) Problem-Solving
16 37 (11.67%) Pair Programming
17 36 (11.36%) Validation
18 35 (11.04%) AI
Programming Languages
1 42 (13.25%) Python
2 35 (11.04%) SQL
3 24 (7.57%) Scala
4 9 (2.84%) Java
5 8 (2.52%) JavaScript
6 7 (2.21%) C#
7 6 (1.89%) TypeScript
8 1 (0.32%) Go
8 1 (0.32%) PHP
Qualifications
1 68 (21.45%) Degree
2 38 (11.99%) BPSS Clearance
3 32 (10.09%) Security Cleared
4 24 (7.57%) SC Cleared
5 15 (4.73%) Master's Degree
6 13 (4.10%) PMI Certification
7 11 (3.47%) PMP
8 9 (2.84%) DV Cleared
9 8 (2.52%) AWS Certification
10 6 (1.89%) Computer Science Degree
10 6 (1.89%) ITIL Certification
11 5 (1.58%) CIPD
11 5 (1.58%) IIBA
11 5 (1.58%) ISTQB
11 5 (1.58%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 5 (1.58%) TOGAF Certification
12 4 (1.26%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 3 (0.95%) CBAP
14 2 (0.63%) Chartered Engineer
14 2 (0.63%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 82 (25.87%) QA
2 21 (6.62%) Accessibility
3 7 (2.21%) IEC 61508
4 6 (1.89%) Data Quality
4 6 (1.89%) SLA
5 4 (1.26%) PMO
6 3 (0.95%) Actionable Recommendations
6 3 (0.95%) ISO 20022
6 3 (0.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.63%) GDPR
7 2 (0.63%) GRC
7 2 (0.63%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 2 (0.63%) IEC 61131
7 2 (0.63%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.32%) GMP
8 1 (0.32%) NIST
System Software
1 29 (9.15%) Docker
2 4 (1.26%) Virtual Desktop
3 2 (0.63%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.32%) Veritas Cluster Server
4 1 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 27 (8.52%) Kubernetes
2 7 (2.21%) Functional Safety
3 2 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.32%) Terraform
Vendors
1 23 (7.26%) Microsoft
2 13 (4.10%) Salesforce
3 11 (3.47%) Oracle
4 10 (3.15%) IBM
5 7 (2.21%) ServiceNow
6 5 (1.58%) Charles River
6 5 (1.58%) EMC
7 4 (1.26%) Atlassian
7 4 (1.26%) CrowdStrike
7 4 (1.26%) Fortinet
7 4 (1.26%) Palo Alto
7 4 (1.26%) Red Hat
8 3 (0.95%) SAP
9 2 (0.63%) Workday
10 1 (0.32%) Aderant
10 1 (0.32%) Foundry
10 1 (0.32%) Intapp
10 1 (0.32%) MarketAxess
10 1 (0.32%) Tradeweb
10 1 (0.32%) Triple Point