Acceptance Criteria Contracts

Acceptance Criteria
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Acceptance Criteria skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Acceptance Criteria over the 6 months to 20 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
20 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 238 221 211
Rank change year-on-year -17 -10 +55
Contract jobs citing Acceptance Criteria 420 678 1,221
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.99% 1.18% 1.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.15% 1.32% 1.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 299 473 781
10th Percentile £363 £400 £380
25th Percentile £418 £456 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £550 £500
Median % change year-on-year -8.18% +10.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £604 £588
90th Percentile £625 £650 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £549 £475
% change year-on-year -10.75% +15.58% +8.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 7 24
10th Percentile £27.23 £49.15 £42.00
25th Percentile £31.71 £55.75 £50.25
Median hourly rate £32.36 £60.00 £61.63
Median % change year-on-year -46.08% -2.64% +112.50%
75th Percentile £57.00 £67.00 £75.00
90th Percentile £65.50 £74.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.25 £55.25 £63.25
% change year-on-year -19.91% -12.65% +134.43%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Acceptance Criteria is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 36,622 51,397 80,021
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.09% 89.76% 90.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,613 35,611 56,174
10th Percentile £300 £325 £344
25th Percentile £413 £439 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +3.77% +7.07%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £480
% change year-on-year - +4.17% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,439 1,690 1,913
10th Percentile £12.75 £10.63 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.00 £15.77 £15.50
Median hourly rate £36.50 £36.00 £25.68
Median % change year-on-year +1.39% +40.19% +7.00%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £49.50
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.00 £35.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year +8.57% +75.00% -6.54%

Acceptance Criteria
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Acceptance Criteria as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Acceptance Criteria in the UK

Acceptance Criteria
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Acceptance Criteria.

Daily rate trend for Acceptance Criteria in the UK

Acceptance Criteria
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Acceptance Criteria over the 6 months to 20 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Acceptance Criteria in the UK

Acceptance Criteria
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Acceptance Criteria.

Hourly rate trend for Acceptance Criteria in the UK

Acceptance Criteria
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Acceptance Criteria over the 6 months to 20 May 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Acceptance Criteria in the UK

Acceptance Criteria
Top 15 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Acceptance Criteria within the UK over the 6 months to 20 May 2024. 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 -8 372 £510 -7.27% 164
London +41 224 £525 -6.46% 57
Work from Home +8 159 £500 -8.93% 79
UK excluding London -53 154 £490 -10.75% 123
South East -16 43 £475 -9.52% 36
North of England 0 38 £490 -5.77% 27
South West -10 35 £550 -2.65% 13
Yorkshire +28 30 £490 -10.91% 12
Scotland +35 17 £463 -11.90% 12
East of England +5 12 £375 -25.00% 18
Midlands -14 10 £475 -11.63% 17
North West -20 7 £481 -3.70% 13
West Midlands -9 6 £450 -22.41% 13
East Midlands +15 4 £500 +35.14% 4
North East +9 1 - - 2

Acceptance Criteria
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 31 (7.38%) Confluence
2 6 (1.43%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 3 (0.71%) ArcGIS
4 3 (0.71%) CMS
4 3 (0.71%) Drupal
5 2 (0.48%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.24%) BizTalk Server
6 1 (0.24%) IIS
6 1 (0.24%) Joomla!
6 1 (0.24%) LiveLink
6 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.24%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.24%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.24%) WordPress
Applications
1 6 (1.43%) Microsoft Excel
1 6 (1.43%) Microsoft Office
1 6 (1.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 6 (1.43%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.48%) Trello
3 1 (0.24%) Adobe XD
3 1 (0.24%) InVision
3 1 (0.24%) Sketch
3 1 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.24%) Zeplin
Business Applications
1 12 (2.86%) Aligne
2 11 (2.62%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (2.38%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (1.67%) SAP PM
5 5 (1.19%) SimCorp Dimension
6 4 (0.95%) Shopify
7 3 (0.71%) SAP Hybris
8 2 (0.48%) VisionPLUS
9 1 (0.24%) Endur
9 1 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
9 1 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
9 1 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
9 1 (0.24%) SAP APO
9 1 (0.24%) SAP IBP
9 1 (0.24%) SAP MM
9 1 (0.24%) Softmar
9 1 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 73 (17.38%) Azure
2 40 (9.52%) Azure DevOps
3 24 (5.71%) Dynamics 365
4 22 (5.24%) Power Platform
5 20 (4.76%) AWS
6 13 (3.10%) Power Automate
7 7 (1.67%) Microsoft 365
7 7 (1.67%) Miro
7 7 (1.67%) SaaS
8 6 (1.43%) PowerApps
9 4 (0.95%) BigCommerce
9 4 (0.95%) PaaS
9 4 (0.95%) SAP Commerce Cloud
10 3 (0.71%) Azure Data Factory
10 3 (0.71%) Azure Service Bus
10 3 (0.71%) Figma
11 2 (0.48%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 2 (0.48%) Azure Sentinel
11 2 (0.48%) Entra ID
11 2 (0.48%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.67%) SSH
2 3 (0.71%) DNS
3 2 (0.48%) DHCP
3 2 (0.48%) Firewall
3 2 (0.48%) HTTP
3 2 (0.48%) Wi-Fi
4 1 (0.24%) FTP
4 1 (0.24%) LAN
4 1 (0.24%) PuTTY
4 1 (0.24%) SMS
4 1 (0.24%) SSL
4 1 (0.24%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (3.81%) Power BI
2 10 (2.38%) NoSQL
3 9 (2.14%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (1.90%) Data Lake
5 7 (1.67%) SQL Server
6 6 (1.43%) GIS
7 5 (1.19%) Geospatial Data
8 4 (0.95%) Apache Cassandra
8 4 (0.95%) MySQL
8 4 (0.95%) Redis
8 4 (0.95%) SAP HANA
8 4 (0.95%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 4 (0.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 4 (0.95%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 3 (0.71%) Tableau
10 2 (0.48%) Big Data
10 2 (0.48%) BigQuery
10 2 (0.48%) Data Mart
10 2 (0.48%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.48%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 53 (12.62%) JIRA
2 17 (4.05%) Postman
2 17 (4.05%) Selenium
3 13 (3.10%) JUnit
4 11 (2.62%) SoapUI
5 9 (2.14%) JMeter
6 8 (1.90%) Cucumber
7 7 (1.67%) Visual Studio
7 7 (1.67%) WebDriver
8 6 (1.43%) Appium
8 6 (1.43%) Git
8 6 (1.43%) LoadRunner
9 5 (1.19%) Gatling
10 4 (0.95%) Mockito
10 4 (0.95%) Rational Performance Tester
10 4 (0.95%) ScalaTest
11 2 (0.48%) Jenkins
11 2 (0.48%) SpecFlow
11 2 (0.48%) Team Foundation Server
11 2 (0.48%) XCUITest
General
1 148 (35.24%) Social Skills
2 92 (21.90%) Finance
3 75 (17.86%) Analytical Skills
4 44 (10.48%) Public Sector
5 27 (6.43%) Presentation Skills
6 20 (4.76%) Back Office
7 16 (3.81%) Banking
8 12 (2.86%) Retail
9 11 (2.62%) Telecoms
10 9 (2.14%) Games
10 9 (2.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 8 (1.90%) Investment Banking
12 7 (1.67%) Influencing Skills
12 7 (1.67%) Marketing
13 6 (1.43%) Front Office
14 5 (1.19%) German Language
14 5 (1.19%) Legal
14 5 (1.19%) Manufacturing
14 5 (1.19%) Organisational Skills
15 3 (0.71%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 172 (40.95%) Analyst
2 130 (30.95%) Business Analyst
3 71 (16.90%) Senior
4 36 (8.57%) Senior Analyst
5 34 (8.10%) Product Owner
6 30 (7.14%) Developer
7 27 (6.43%) Technical Analyst
8 26 (6.19%) Project Manager
9 23 (5.48%) Service Manager
10 22 (5.24%) Senior Business Analyst
11 21 (5.00%) Service Transition Manager
11 21 (5.00%) Transition Manager
12 20 (4.76%) Consultant
13 19 (4.52%) Technical Business Analyst
14 18 (4.29%) Tester
15 17 (4.05%) Lead
16 16 (3.81%) Test Analyst
17 14 (3.33%) Test Leader
18 12 (2.86%) Agile Business Analyst
19 10 (2.38%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (4.05%) SOAP
2 14 (3.33%) REST
2 14 (3.33%) Web Services
2 14 (3.33%) XML
3 11 (2.62%) Hibernate
3 11 (2.62%) JPA
3 11 (2.62%) JSON
3 11 (2.62%) Spring
4 7 (1.67%) .NET
4 7 (1.67%) Gherkin
4 7 (1.67%) J2EE
4 7 (1.67%) RESTful
5 6 (1.43%) ADO
5 6 (1.43%) Swagger
6 5 (1.19%) Akka
6 5 (1.19%) OpenAPI
7 4 (0.95%) HTML
7 4 (0.95%) Play Framework
7 4 (0.95%) SAP PI
7 4 (0.95%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 92 (21.90%) Product Ownership
2 26 (6.19%) Management Information System
3 22 (5.24%) Mobile App
4 11 (2.62%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 9 (2.14%) Renewable Energy
5 9 (2.14%) Solar Panel
6 8 (1.90%) Onboarding
7 7 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
7 7 (1.67%) Linux Command Line
8 6 (1.43%) Algorithms
8 6 (1.43%) Derivative
9 5 (1.19%) Hybrid Cloud
9 5 (1.19%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 4 (0.95%) Data Structures
11 3 (0.71%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (0.71%) Low-Code
11 3 (0.71%) Security Posture
12 2 (0.48%) Freedom of Information Act
12 2 (0.48%) NHS
12 2 (0.48%) Online Banking
Operating Systems
1 20 (4.76%) Linux
2 11 (2.62%) Unix
2 11 (2.62%) Windows
3 8 (1.90%) Android
4 3 (0.71%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.24%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 259 (61.67%) Agile
2 218 (51.90%) User Stories
3 98 (23.33%) Scrum
4 93 (22.14%) Business Analysis
5 88 (20.95%) Problem-Solving
6 70 (16.67%) DevOps
7 60 (14.29%) User Acceptance Testing
8 57 (13.57%) Test Automation
9 44 (10.48%) Product Backlog
9 44 (10.48%) Project Management
10 43 (10.24%) Requirements Gathering
10 43 (10.24%) Workshop Facilitation
11 41 (9.76%) Epics
12 37 (8.81%) Project Delivery
12 37 (8.81%) Stakeholder Management
12 37 (8.81%) Test Scripting
13 36 (8.57%) Scenario Testing
13 36 (8.57%) SDLC
13 36 (8.57%) Translating Business Requirements
14 33 (7.86%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 35 (8.33%) SQL
2 31 (7.38%) Java
3 17 (4.05%) Python
4 12 (2.86%) C#
5 8 (1.90%) C
5 8 (1.90%) JavaScript
6 7 (1.67%) Kotlin
7 6 (1.43%) C++
7 6 (1.43%) Scala
7 6 (1.43%) VB
8 5 (1.19%) Perl
8 5 (1.19%) T-SQL
9 4 (0.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 4 (0.95%) PL/SQL
9 4 (0.95%) PowerShell
10 3 (0.71%) R
11 2 (0.48%) Go
11 2 (0.48%) Swift
12 1 (0.24%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.24%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 60 (14.29%) Security Cleared
2 43 (10.24%) SC Cleared
3 42 (10.00%) Degree
4 10 (2.38%) DV Cleared
5 8 (1.90%) CBAP
6 7 (1.67%) CSPO
7 6 (1.43%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (1.43%) ISEB
8 5 (1.19%) ITIL Certification
9 4 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (0.95%) ISTQB
9 4 (0.95%) Master's Degree
9 4 (0.95%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.71%) MBA
10 3 (0.71%) PMP
11 2 (0.48%) Azure Certification
11 2 (0.48%) IIBA
11 2 (0.48%) ISEB Practitioner
12 1 (0.24%) DBS Check
12 1 (0.24%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 60 (14.29%) QA
2 14 (3.33%) Accessibility
3 11 (2.62%) PCI DSS
4 9 (2.14%) WCAG
5 8 (1.90%) PMO
6 5 (1.19%) ISO 20022
7 3 (0.71%) Data Quality
7 3 (0.71%) Disclosure Scotland
7 3 (0.71%) ISO 9001
8 2 (0.48%) COBIT
8 2 (0.48%) GDPR
8 2 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.48%) PSD2
8 2 (0.48%) SLA
8 2 (0.48%) Software Quality Assurance
9 1 (0.24%) NCSC
9 1 (0.24%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 8 (1.90%) Docker
2 2 (0.48%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.24%) PowerHA
Systems Management
1 9 (2.14%) Kubernetes
2 6 (1.43%) Grafana
2 6 (1.43%) Prometheus
3 3 (0.71%) HP Quality Center
4 1 (0.24%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 50 (11.90%) Microsoft
2 31 (7.38%) SAP
3 11 (2.62%) Adobe
4 8 (1.90%) Salesforce
4 8 (1.90%) ServiceNow
5 6 (1.43%) IBM
6 5 (1.19%) Atlassian
6 5 (1.19%) CyberSource
6 5 (1.19%) HP
6 5 (1.19%) SimCorp
7 4 (0.95%) Sitecore
8 3 (0.71%) Dell
8 3 (0.71%) ESRI
8 3 (0.71%) Intel
8 3 (0.71%) Oracle
9 2 (0.48%) Ariba
9 2 (0.48%) Civica
9 2 (0.48%) Guidewire
9 2 (0.48%) MuleSoft
9 2 (0.48%) Murex