Validation Contracts

Validation
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Validation skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Validation over the 6 months to 27 April 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
27 Apr 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 125 145 196
Rank change year-on-year +20 +51 -30
Contract jobs citing Validation 792 1,103 1,336
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.83% 1.84% 1.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.12% 2.05% 1.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 398 631 772
10th Percentile £319 £363 £350
25th Percentile £414 £450 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £518
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +6.28% +15.00%
75th Percentile £609 £675 £613
90th Percentile £700 £925 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 156 186 80
10th Percentile £23.06 £42.50 £26.48
25th Percentile £52.19 £52.60 £42.50
Median hourly rate £60.00 £62.53 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.04% +13.68% +22.22%
75th Percentile £75.16 £67.50 £64.94
90th Percentile £82.88 £72.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £62.00 £54.92
% change year-on-year +0.81% +12.89% +22.04%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Validation 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 37,374 53,774 80,482
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.31% 89.91% 90.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,095 37,304 56,474
10th Percentile £300 £325 £340
25th Percentile £413 £438 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +4.76% +8.25%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £475
% change year-on-year - +5.26% +9.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,422 1,763 1,928
10th Percentile £12.75 £11.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.00 £16.25 £15.25
Median hourly rate £35.00 £37.34 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.27% +49.36% -
75th Percentile £59.44 £65.00 £49.25
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £63.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.00 £36.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year - +80.00% -8.17%

Validation
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Validation in the UK

Validation
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for Validation in the UK

Validation
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Validation over the 6 months to 27 April 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Validation in the UK

Validation
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for Validation in the UK

Validation
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Validation over the 6 months to 27 April 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Validation in the UK

Validation
Top 18 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Validation within the UK over the 6 months to 27 April 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 +25 708 £500 -9.09% 834
UK excluding London +23 433 £500 +5.26% 696
Work from Home +46 283 £528 -3.08% 296
London +9 278 £550 -15.38% 181
South East +2 108 £501 +5.37% 179
North of England +72 85 £445 -12.75% 103
South West -11 84 £450 -18.18% 111
East of England +2 83 £488 -0.51% 126
Midlands +7 52 £450 +12.50% 140
North West +26 41 £500 - 65
Yorkshire +42 35 £425 -43.33% 30
West Midlands +22 34 £488 +8.33% 97
East Midlands +11 20 £405 +15.71% 42
Northern Ireland +17 11 £600 - 10
Scotland -7 10 £475 -4.04% 49
North East +20 9 £454 -30.15% 11
Wales +14 3 £615 +29.47% 13
Isle of Man - 2 - - 1

Validation
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 (3.91%) Confluence
2 20 (2.53%) SharePoint
3 18 (2.27%) SAS
4 14 (1.77%) Apache Spark
5 11 (1.39%) CMS
6 6 (0.76%) Sitecore CMS
7 4 (0.51%) Apache
7 4 (0.51%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.38%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (0.38%) WebSphere
9 2 (0.25%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 1 (0.13%) Jupyter
10 1 (0.13%) WordPress
Applications
1 50 (6.31%) Microsoft Excel
2 38 (4.80%) Microsoft Office
3 37 (4.67%) Simulink
4 30 (3.79%) Stateflow
5 18 (2.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 13 (1.64%) AutoCAD
7 8 (1.01%) Microsoft Project
8 7 (0.88%) MS Visio
9 6 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
10 5 (0.63%) TargetLink
11 2 (0.25%) Sketch
12 1 (0.13%) InVision
12 1 (0.13%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 35 (4.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.76%) Magento
3 5 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.63%) SAP CO
3 5 (0.63%) SAP FI
3 5 (0.63%) SAP FI/CO
4 4 (0.51%) SAP MDG
4 4 (0.51%) SAP SD
4 4 (0.51%) Workday HCM
5 3 (0.38%) SAP Hybris
5 3 (0.38%) Teamcenter
6 2 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
6 2 (0.25%) NEC Housing
6 2 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.25%) SAP Business One
6 2 (0.25%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.25%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.25%) SAP Retail
7 1 (0.13%) SAP LE
Cloud Services
1 76 (9.60%) Azure
2 52 (6.57%) Power Platform
3 35 (4.42%) AWS
4 22 (2.78%) GCP
5 14 (1.77%) dbt
6 13 (1.64%) SAP Commerce Cloud
7 12 (1.52%) Azure DevOps
7 12 (1.52%) Microsoft 365
8 11 (1.39%) Dynamics 365
8 11 (1.39%) GitHub
8 11 (1.39%) Serverless
9 9 (1.14%) AWS Lambda
9 9 (1.14%) Azure Data Factory
9 9 (1.14%) OCI
9 9 (1.14%) SaaS
10 8 (1.01%) Amazon S3
10 8 (1.01%) Azure Functions
11 7 (0.88%) Veeva
12 6 (0.76%) Power Automate
13 5 (0.63%) BrowserStack
Communications & Networking
1 20 (2.53%) SNMP
2 16 (2.02%) Software-Defined Radio
3 13 (1.64%) Internet
3 13 (1.64%) TCP/IP
4 11 (1.39%) Firewall
4 11 (1.39%) WAN
5 10 (1.26%) DNS
5 10 (1.26%) Ethernet
5 10 (1.26%) LAN
6 9 (1.14%) SSL
7 8 (1.01%) VPN
8 7 (0.88%) DHCP
8 7 (0.88%) VSAN
9 6 (0.76%) MPLS
9 6 (0.76%) Wireless
10 5 (0.63%) SD-WAN
10 5 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
11 4 (0.51%) SDH
11 4 (0.51%) VoIP
11 4 (0.51%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (5.81%) Data Warehouse
2 39 (4.92%) Power BI
3 19 (2.40%) SQL Server
4 14 (1.77%) Relational Database
5 12 (1.52%) Data Lake
6 10 (1.26%) Electronic Patient Records
7 9 (1.14%) Big Data
7 9 (1.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 8 (1.01%) Oracle Database
9 7 (0.88%) Amazon Redshift
9 7 (0.88%) Couchbase
9 7 (0.88%) Tableau
10 5 (0.63%) Hadoop
10 5 (0.63%) Oracle Reports
10 5 (0.63%) SAP HANA
11 4 (0.51%) RDBMS
11 4 (0.51%) SAP Data Services
12 3 (0.38%) GIS
12 3 (0.38%) NoSQL
12 3 (0.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 61 (7.70%) JIRA
2 39 (4.92%) Git
3 34 (4.29%) Rational DOORS
4 24 (3.03%) Eclipse
5 20 (2.53%) Bitbucket
6 15 (1.89%) GoogleTest
6 15 (1.89%) Robot Framework
7 11 (1.39%) JMeter
7 11 (1.39%) Selenium
7 11 (1.39%) Subversion
8 10 (1.26%) Rational Rhapsody
9 9 (1.14%) Visual Studio
10 8 (1.01%) Jenkins
11 7 (0.88%) LoadRunner
12 6 (0.76%) Postman
13 4 (0.51%) Appium
13 4 (0.51%) Cypress.io
13 4 (0.51%) GitLab
13 4 (0.51%) LSMW
13 4 (0.51%) PVCS
General
1 188 (23.74%) Social Skills
2 178 (22.47%) Finance
3 108 (13.64%) Analytical Skills
4 48 (6.06%) Public Sector
5 41 (5.18%) Automotive
6 40 (5.05%) Manufacturing
7 36 (4.55%) Aerospace
7 36 (4.55%) Legal
8 35 (4.42%) Marketing
9 33 (4.17%) Banking
10 32 (4.04%) Presentation Skills
11 29 (3.66%) Electronics
12 27 (3.41%) Telecoms
13 25 (3.16%) Military
14 22 (2.78%) Retail
15 20 (2.53%) Organisational Skills
16 13 (1.64%) Documentation Skills
16 13 (1.64%) Influencing Skills
16 13 (1.64%) Law
17 11 (1.39%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 144 (18.18%) Analyst
2 86 (10.86%) Software Engineer
3 58 (7.32%) Architect
3 58 (7.32%) Lead
4 52 (6.57%) Business Analyst
5 49 (6.19%) Senior
6 47 (5.93%) Developer
7 45 (5.68%) Systems Engineer
8 43 (5.43%) Consultant
9 37 (4.67%) Embedded Engineer
10 35 (4.42%) Data Analyst
11 34 (4.29%) Embedded Software Engineer
12 29 (3.66%) Project Manager
13 23 (2.90%) Data Engineer
14 22 (2.78%) Principal Engineer
15 21 (2.65%) Test Engineer
16 20 (2.53%) Integration Engineer
16 20 (2.53%) Principal Systems Engineer
17 18 (2.27%) Data Migration Analyst
17 18 (2.27%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (2.65%) CSS
1 21 (2.65%) HTML
2 11 (1.39%) Kafka
2 11 (1.39%) Node.js
2 11 (1.39%) PySpark
3 10 (1.26%) ADO
3 10 (1.26%) REST
4 9 (1.14%) Pandas
4 9 (1.14%) Web Services
5 8 (1.01%) JSON
6 6 (0.76%) Flash
7 5 (0.63%) Middleware
8 4 (0.51%) AngularJS
8 4 (0.51%) React
8 4 (0.51%) Swagger
8 4 (0.51%) WebdriverIO
9 3 (0.38%) Lightning Web Components
9 3 (0.38%) Playwright
9 3 (0.38%) SAP Fiori
9 3 (0.38%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 43 (5.43%) Algorithms
2 35 (4.42%) Management Information System
3 22 (2.78%) Product Ownership
4 20 (2.53%) Self-Motivation
5 12 (1.52%) NHS
6 11 (1.39%) Legacy Systems
6 11 (1.39%) Life Science
7 9 (1.14%) Data Centre
7 9 (1.14%) Data Structures
8 8 (1.01%) LIMS
8 8 (1.01%) Linux Command Line
8 8 (1.01%) Operational Technology
9 7 (0.88%) Data Protection Act
9 7 (0.88%) Embedded Systems
9 7 (0.88%) Multi-touch
9 7 (0.88%) Onboarding
10 6 (0.76%) Clustering
10 6 (0.76%) CMDB
10 6 (0.76%) DataPower
10 6 (0.76%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 40 (5.05%) Linux
1 40 (5.05%) Windows
2 22 (2.78%) Unix
3 6 (0.76%) Oracle Linux
3 6 (0.76%) Solaris
3 6 (0.76%) VMS
4 5 (0.63%) Windows Server 2016
5 4 (0.51%) Android
5 4 (0.51%) SafeRTOS
6 3 (0.38%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.38%) Windows 10
6 3 (0.38%) Windows 7
6 3 (0.38%) Windows Server 2012
6 3 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.13%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 144 (18.18%) Verification and Validation
2 128 (16.16%) Agile
3 120 (15.15%) Migration
3 120 (15.15%) Software Engineering
4 119 (15.03%) Problem-Solving
5 85 (10.73%) Computer Science
6 80 (10.10%) Data Migration
7 76 (9.60%) Project Management
8 73 (9.22%) User Acceptance Testing
9 65 (8.21%) Data Modelling
9 65 (8.21%) Data Validation
10 62 (7.83%) Test Automation
11 59 (7.45%) ETL
12 57 (7.20%) Data Management
13 54 (6.82%) Business Intelligence
14 53 (6.69%) Systems Engineering
15 52 (6.57%) Scrum
16 48 (6.06%) Risk Management
17 46 (5.81%) Analytics
17 46 (5.81%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 91 (11.49%) SQL
2 67 (8.46%) C++
3 66 (8.33%) Python
4 60 (7.58%) C
5 41 (5.18%) MATLAB
6 39 (4.92%) JavaScript
7 29 (3.66%) Java
8 26 (3.28%) C#
9 16 (2.02%) Embedded C
10 15 (1.89%) R
11 14 (1.77%) Ada
12 13 (1.64%) PowerShell
13 12 (1.52%) Embedded C++
14 10 (1.26%) Bash
15 7 (0.88%) Assembly Language
15 7 (0.88%) T-SQL
15 7 (0.88%) VB
16 6 (0.76%) Shell Script
17 5 (0.63%) Perl
17 5 (0.63%) VBA
Qualifications
1 144 (18.18%) Degree
2 112 (14.14%) Security Cleared
3 83 (10.48%) SC Cleared
4 41 (5.18%) Master's Degree
5 26 (3.28%) DV Cleared
6 25 (3.16%) Computer Science Degree
7 12 (1.52%) Cisco Certification
7 12 (1.52%) ISTQB
8 11 (1.39%) CCNA
8 11 (1.39%) PhD
9 10 (1.26%) ITIL Certification
9 10 (1.26%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 9 (1.14%) BPSS Clearance
11 8 (1.01%) Chartered Engineer
11 8 (1.01%) PMI Certification
11 8 (1.01%) PMP
12 4 (0.51%) CCNP
12 4 (0.51%) SAP Certification
13 3 (0.38%) CCA
13 3 (0.38%) Citrix Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 95 (11.99%) QA
2 78 (9.85%) Data Quality
3 29 (3.66%) NIST
4 17 (2.15%) GxP
5 14 (1.77%) PMO
6 13 (1.64%) GDPR
7 11 (1.39%) AUTOSAR
8 9 (1.14%) PCI DSS
9 8 (1.01%) CDISC
9 8 (1.01%) HL7
9 8 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 6 (0.76%) GAMP
10 6 (0.76%) ISO 26262
11 5 (0.63%) Accessibility
11 5 (0.63%) DO-178B
11 5 (0.63%) IEC 61508
11 5 (0.63%) IFRS
11 5 (0.63%) IFRS 9
11 5 (0.63%) MISRA
11 5 (0.63%) MISRA C
System Software
1 27 (3.41%) Firmware
2 24 (3.03%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (1.89%) Virtual Machines
4 11 (1.39%) VMware ESXi
5 9 (1.14%) Active Directory
5 9 (1.14%) KVM
6 8 (1.01%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.63%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.38%) Docker
8 3 (0.38%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.25%) vSphere
10 1 (0.13%) HDFS
10 1 (0.13%) NFS
10 1 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 10 (1.26%) vCenter Server
2 6 (0.76%) Ansible
3 4 (0.51%) FortiGate
3 4 (0.51%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.38%) HP Quality Center
4 3 (0.38%) Kubernetes
4 3 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (0.25%) Functional Safety
5 2 (0.25%) HP ALM
5 2 (0.25%) Nmap
5 2 (0.25%) OpenNMS
6 1 (0.13%) Kibana
6 1 (0.13%) QRadar
6 1 (0.13%) SCCM
6 1 (0.13%) Trend Micro Deep Security
Vendors
1 93 (11.74%) Microsoft
2 86 (10.86%) SAP
3 45 (5.68%) Oracle
4 27 (3.41%) Google
4 27 (3.41%) VMware
5 23 (2.90%) Atlassian
6 16 (2.02%) EMC
6 16 (2.02%) Salesforce
7 15 (1.89%) Cisco
7 15 (1.89%) IBM
8 14 (1.77%) Databricks
9 9 (1.14%) Workday
10 6 (0.76%) HP
10 6 (0.76%) ServiceNow
10 6 (0.76%) Sitecore
11 5 (0.63%) MathWorks
11 5 (0.63%) OpenText
12 4 (0.51%) Aruba
12 4 (0.51%) Barracuda Networks
12 4 (0.51%) DocuSign