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 3 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
3 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 123 152 188
Rank change year-on-year +29 +36 -18
Contract jobs citing Validation 803 1,061 1,355
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.85% 1.79% 1.53%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.14% 1.99% 1.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 395 609 776
10th Percentile £319 £363 £350
25th Percentile £413 £458 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +4.76% +16.67%
75th Percentile £603 £675 £613
90th Percentile £697 £950 £701
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £495 £475
% change year-on-year +1.01% +4.21% +12.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 163 174 81
10th Percentile £23.44 £42.50 £26.75
25th Percentile £51.88 £51.90 £42.50
Median hourly rate £60.00 £62.55 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.08% +13.73% +29.41%
75th Percentile £75.08 £67.50 £64.75
90th Percentile £77.00 £75.92 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £54.17
% change year-on-year - +15.38% +23.82%

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 37,452 53,231 80,444
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.33% 89.85% 90.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,130 36,930 56,488
10th Percentile £300 £325 £341
25th Percentile £413 £438 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +3.77% +8.72%
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% +8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,454 1,752 1,920
10th Percentile £12.75 £11.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.00 £16.25 £15.50
Median hourly rate £35.95 £36.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.14% +44.00% +2.04%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £49.25
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £64.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £35.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year +7.14% +75.00% -6.98%

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 3 May 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 3 May 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 3 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 +32 716 £500 -9.09% 886
UK excluding London +27 444 £500 +1.01% 739
Work from Home +53 286 £534 -2.95% 290
London -4 277 £550 -12.00% 191
South East +2 107 £513 +2.55% 191
South West -4 91 £400 -30.07% 104
East of England +6 86 £488 -2.50% 129
North of England +74 84 £445 -15.24% 119
Midlands +21 53 £425 +6.25% 162
North West +34 42 £500 -4.31% 74
West Midlands +21 35 £475 +5.56% 106
Yorkshire +42 33 £425 -43.33% 36
East Midlands +19 20 £405 +1.25% 55
Scotland -1 12 £575 +16.16% 47
Northern Ireland +19 11 £600 - 5
North East +19 9 £454 -24.33% 12
Wales +18 3 £615 +29.47% 16
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 30 (3.74%) Confluence
2 21 (2.62%) SAS
2 21 (2.62%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.74%) Apache Spark
4 11 (1.37%) CMS
5 6 (0.75%) Sitecore CMS
6 4 (0.50%) Apache
6 4 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
7 3 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
7 3 (0.37%) WebSphere
8 2 (0.25%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 1 (0.12%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 51 (6.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 37 (4.61%) Simulink
3 36 (4.48%) Microsoft Office
4 30 (3.74%) Stateflow
5 18 (2.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 17 (2.12%) AutoCAD
7 9 (1.12%) MS Visio
8 8 (1.00%) Microsoft Project
9 6 (0.75%) Spreadsheet
10 5 (0.62%) TargetLink
11 2 (0.25%) Sketch
12 1 (0.12%) InVision
12 1 (0.12%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 33 (4.11%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.75%) Magento
3 5 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.62%) SAP CO
3 5 (0.62%) SAP FI
3 5 (0.62%) SAP FI/CO
4 4 (0.50%) SAP SD
5 3 (0.37%) SAP Hybris
5 3 (0.37%) SAP MDG
5 3 (0.37%) Teamcenter
6 2 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
6 2 (0.25%) NEC Housing
6 2 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
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
6 2 (0.25%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 79 (9.84%) Azure
2 52 (6.48%) Power Platform
3 36 (4.48%) AWS
4 22 (2.74%) GCP
5 14 (1.74%) dbt
6 13 (1.62%) SAP Commerce Cloud
7 12 (1.49%) Azure DevOps
8 11 (1.37%) Dynamics 365
8 11 (1.37%) GitHub
8 11 (1.37%) Microsoft 365
8 11 (1.37%) Serverless
9 9 (1.12%) AWS Lambda
9 9 (1.12%) Azure Data Factory
9 9 (1.12%) OCI
9 9 (1.12%) SaaS
10 8 (1.00%) Amazon S3
10 8 (1.00%) Azure Functions
11 7 (0.87%) Veeva
12 5 (0.62%) BrowserStack
12 5 (0.62%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 20 (2.49%) SNMP
2 16 (1.99%) Software-Defined Radio
3 15 (1.87%) TCP/IP
4 13 (1.62%) Internet
5 12 (1.49%) Ethernet
5 12 (1.49%) WAN
6 11 (1.37%) Firewall
7 10 (1.25%) DNS
7 10 (1.25%) LAN
8 9 (1.12%) SSL
9 8 (1.00%) VPN
10 7 (0.87%) DHCP
10 7 (0.87%) MPLS
11 6 (0.75%) VSAN
11 6 (0.75%) Wireless
12 5 (0.62%) SD-WAN
12 5 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
13 4 (0.50%) SDH
13 4 (0.50%) VLAN
13 4 (0.50%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (5.60%) Data Warehouse
2 39 (4.86%) Power BI
3 19 (2.37%) SQL Server
4 13 (1.62%) Relational Database
5 12 (1.49%) Data Lake
6 10 (1.25%) Electronic Patient Records
7 9 (1.12%) Big Data
7 9 (1.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 8 (1.00%) Oracle Database
9 7 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
9 7 (0.87%) Couchbase
9 7 (0.87%) Tableau
10 6 (0.75%) Hadoop
10 6 (0.75%) SAP HANA
11 5 (0.62%) NoSQL
11 5 (0.62%) Oracle Reports
12 4 (0.50%) SAP Data Services
13 3 (0.37%) Apache Hive
13 3 (0.37%) Data Mining
13 3 (0.37%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 61 (7.60%) JIRA
2 41 (5.11%) Git
3 35 (4.36%) Rational DOORS
4 26 (3.24%) Eclipse
5 20 (2.49%) Bitbucket
6 15 (1.87%) GoogleTest
6 15 (1.87%) Robot Framework
7 12 (1.49%) Subversion
8 11 (1.37%) JMeter
8 11 (1.37%) Visual Studio
9 10 (1.25%) Rational Rhapsody
9 10 (1.25%) Selenium
10 8 (1.00%) Jenkins
11 7 (0.87%) LoadRunner
12 6 (0.75%) Postman
13 4 (0.50%) Appium
13 4 (0.50%) CppUnit
13 4 (0.50%) Cypress.io
13 4 (0.50%) GitLab
13 4 (0.50%) LSMW
General
1 191 (23.79%) Social Skills
2 180 (22.42%) Finance
3 107 (13.33%) Analytical Skills
4 51 (6.35%) Public Sector
5 41 (5.11%) Automotive
5 41 (5.11%) Manufacturing
6 37 (4.61%) Aerospace
6 37 (4.61%) Legal
7 35 (4.36%) Banking
7 35 (4.36%) Marketing
8 34 (4.23%) Presentation Skills
9 29 (3.61%) Electronics
10 27 (3.36%) Military
11 26 (3.24%) Telecoms
12 21 (2.62%) Retail
13 20 (2.49%) Organisational Skills
14 15 (1.87%) Influencing Skills
15 13 (1.62%) Documentation Skills
15 13 (1.62%) Law
16 12 (1.49%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 142 (17.68%) Analyst
2 88 (10.96%) Software Engineer
3 64 (7.97%) Architect
4 57 (7.10%) Lead
5 51 (6.35%) Business Analyst
6 50 (6.23%) Senior
7 47 (5.85%) Developer
8 46 (5.73%) Systems Engineer
9 42 (5.23%) Consultant
10 37 (4.61%) Embedded Engineer
11 35 (4.36%) Data Analyst
12 34 (4.23%) Embedded Software Engineer
13 29 (3.61%) Project Manager
14 23 (2.86%) Data Engineer
15 22 (2.74%) Principal Engineer
16 21 (2.62%) Test Engineer
17 20 (2.49%) Integration Engineer
17 20 (2.49%) Principal Systems Engineer
18 19 (2.37%) C++ Software Engineer
19 18 (2.24%) Validation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (2.62%) CSS
1 21 (2.62%) HTML
2 13 (1.62%) Node.js
3 12 (1.49%) Web Services
4 11 (1.37%) Kafka
4 11 (1.37%) PySpark
4 11 (1.37%) REST
5 10 (1.25%) ADO
6 9 (1.12%) JSON
6 9 (1.12%) Pandas
7 6 (0.75%) Middleware
8 5 (0.62%) Flash
9 4 (0.50%) AngularJS
9 4 (0.50%) Lightning Web Components
9 4 (0.50%) React
9 4 (0.50%) Swagger
9 4 (0.50%) WebdriverIO
10 3 (0.37%) Playwright
10 3 (0.37%) Spring Boot
10 3 (0.37%) Twitter Bootstrap
Miscellaneous
1 43 (5.35%) Algorithms
2 33 (4.11%) Management Information System
3 25 (3.11%) Product Ownership
4 21 (2.62%) Self-Motivation
5 12 (1.49%) NHS
6 11 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
7 10 (1.25%) Data Centre
7 10 (1.25%) Life Science
8 9 (1.12%) Linux Command Line
9 8 (1.00%) Data Structures
9 8 (1.00%) LIMS
9 8 (1.00%) Operational Technology
10 7 (0.87%) Credit Risk
10 7 (0.87%) Data Protection Act
10 7 (0.87%) Embedded Systems
10 7 (0.87%) Multi-touch
10 7 (0.87%) Onboarding
11 6 (0.75%) CMDB
11 6 (0.75%) DataPower
11 6 (0.75%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 44 (5.48%) Linux
2 42 (5.23%) Windows
3 23 (2.86%) Unix
4 6 (0.75%) Oracle Linux
4 6 (0.75%) Solaris
4 6 (0.75%) VMS
5 5 (0.62%) Windows Server 2016
6 4 (0.50%) Android
6 4 (0.50%) SafeRTOS
7 3 (0.37%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.37%) Windows 10
7 3 (0.37%) Windows 7
7 3 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
7 3 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.12%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 146 (18.18%) Verification and Validation
2 134 (16.69%) Agile
3 122 (15.19%) Problem-Solving
3 122 (15.19%) Software Engineering
4 120 (14.94%) Migration
5 83 (10.34%) Computer Science
6 78 (9.71%) Data Migration
7 77 (9.59%) Project Management
8 75 (9.34%) User Acceptance Testing
9 64 (7.97%) Data Modelling
9 64 (7.97%) Data Validation
9 64 (7.97%) Test Automation
10 58 (7.22%) ETL
11 56 (6.97%) Data Management
11 56 (6.97%) Scrum
12 52 (6.48%) Business Intelligence
12 52 (6.48%) Systems Engineering
13 47 (5.85%) Risk Management
14 46 (5.73%) Stakeholder Management
14 46 (5.73%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 97 (12.08%) SQL
2 72 (8.97%) C++
3 70 (8.72%) Python
4 61 (7.60%) C
5 41 (5.11%) JavaScript
5 41 (5.11%) MATLAB
6 30 (3.74%) Java
7 29 (3.61%) C#
8 16 (1.99%) Embedded C
9 15 (1.87%) R
10 14 (1.74%) Ada
11 13 (1.62%) PowerShell
12 12 (1.49%) Bash
12 12 (1.49%) Embedded C++
13 8 (1.00%) Assembly Language
14 7 (0.87%) Shell Script
14 7 (0.87%) T-SQL
14 7 (0.87%) VB
15 5 (0.62%) Perl
15 5 (0.62%) VBA
Qualifications
1 144 (17.93%) Degree
2 114 (14.20%) Security Cleared
3 82 (10.21%) SC Cleared
4 44 (5.48%) Master's Degree
5 29 (3.61%) DV Cleared
6 25 (3.11%) Computer Science Degree
7 13 (1.62%) PhD
8 12 (1.49%) ISTQB
9 11 (1.37%) BPSS Clearance
9 11 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
10 10 (1.25%) CCNA
10 10 (1.25%) ITIL Certification
11 9 (1.12%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 8 (1.00%) Chartered Engineer
12 8 (1.00%) PMI Certification
12 8 (1.00%) PMP
13 4 (0.50%) CCNP
13 4 (0.50%) SAP Certification
14 3 (0.37%) HNC
14 3 (0.37%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 96 (11.96%) QA
2 74 (9.22%) Data Quality
3 29 (3.61%) NIST
4 18 (2.24%) GxP
5 14 (1.74%) PMO
6 13 (1.62%) GDPR
7 11 (1.37%) AUTOSAR
7 11 (1.37%) PCI DSS
8 8 (1.00%) CDISC
8 8 (1.00%) HL7
8 8 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 6 (0.75%) GAMP
9 6 (0.75%) ISO 26262
10 5 (0.62%) DO-178B
10 5 (0.62%) IEC 61508
10 5 (0.62%) IFRS
10 5 (0.62%) IFRS 9
10 5 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 17025
10 5 (0.62%) MISRA
10 5 (0.62%) MISRA C
System Software
1 28 (3.49%) Firmware
2 23 (2.86%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (1.87%) Virtual Machines
4 10 (1.25%) VMware ESXi
5 9 (1.12%) Active Directory
5 9 (1.12%) KVM
6 7 (0.87%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.75%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.37%) Docker
8 3 (0.37%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.25%) vSphere
10 1 (0.12%) HDFS
10 1 (0.12%) NFS
10 1 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 9 (1.12%) vCenter Server
2 6 (0.75%) Ansible
3 4 (0.50%) FortiGate
3 4 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.37%) HP Quality Center
4 3 (0.37%) Kubernetes
4 3 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (0.25%) Functional Safety
5 2 (0.25%) Nmap
5 2 (0.25%) OpenNMS
6 1 (0.12%) Kibana
6 1 (0.12%) QRadar
6 1 (0.12%) SCCM
6 1 (0.12%) Trend Micro Deep Security
Vendors
1 95 (11.83%) Microsoft
2 86 (10.71%) SAP
3 46 (5.73%) Oracle
4 27 (3.36%) Google
5 26 (3.24%) VMware
6 22 (2.74%) Atlassian
7 19 (2.37%) Salesforce
8 16 (1.99%) EMC
9 15 (1.87%) Databricks
9 15 (1.87%) IBM
10 14 (1.74%) Cisco
11 7 (0.87%) Workday
12 6 (0.75%) ServiceNow
12 6 (0.75%) Sitecore
13 5 (0.62%) Cadence
13 5 (0.62%) MathWorks
13 5 (0.62%) OpenText
14 4 (0.50%) Adobe
14 4 (0.50%) Aruba
14 4 (0.50%) Barracuda Networks