Validation Contract Job Trends in the City of London

Validation
Central London > City of London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the City of London requiring Validation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 31 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 65 65
Rank change year-on-year +28 0 +43
Contract jobs citing Validation 109 53 65
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 5.08% 3.06% 2.82%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.81% 3.32% 3.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 75 34 44
10th Percentile £363 £413 £370
25th Percentile £459 £460 £491
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £573 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.93% +4.09% -
75th Percentile £726 £638 £578
90th Percentile £795 £707 £800
Central London median daily rate £525 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -8.70% +4.55% -1.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
Median hourly rate £17.23 - -
Central London median hourly rate £17.23 - -

All Process & Methodology Skills
City of London

Validation falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the City of London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,876 1,596 2,066
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 87.46% 92.15% 89.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,294 1,030 1,465
10th Percentile £363 £365 £350
25th Percentile £450 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £570
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +0.88% -5.00%
75th Percentile £669 £680 £688
90th Percentile £775 £766 £800
Central London median daily rate £550 £573 £550
% change year-on-year -3.93% +4.09% -7.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 9 11
10th Percentile £18.75 £22.00 £18.93
25th Percentile £19.46 £24.66 £20.07
Median hourly rate £28.00 £31.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.68% +24.00% -45.65%
75th Percentile £45.08 £34.68 £40.92
90th Percentile £58.53 £51.75 £50.25
Central London median hourly rate £26.11 £29.07 £27.81
% change year-on-year -10.18% +4.53% -20.54%

Validation
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Validation relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London.

Validation job vacancy trend in the City of London

Validation
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Validation.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Validation

Validation
Daily Rate Histogram in the City of London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Validation in the City of London over the 6 months to 31 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Validation in the City of London

Validation
Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Validation.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Validation

Validation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of 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 8 (7.34%) Apache Airflow
2 4 (3.67%) Apache
3 3 (2.75%) Apache Spark
4 2 (1.83%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.92%) Anypoint
5 1 (0.92%) Confluence
5 1 (0.92%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (8.26%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (1.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.92%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 5 (4.59%) Workday HCM
2 2 (1.83%) Algo Collateral
2 2 (1.83%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.92%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.92%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.92%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.92%) Oracle E-Business Tax
3 1 (0.92%) Oracle Financials
3 1 (0.92%) Oracle General Ledger
3 1 (0.92%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.92%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 29 (26.61%) Azure
2 25 (22.94%) AWS
3 15 (13.76%) Power Platform
4 7 (6.42%) GCP
4 7 (6.42%) Snowflake
5 6 (5.50%) Amazon S3
5 6 (5.50%) Serverless
6 5 (4.59%) AWS Lambda
6 5 (4.59%) Azure DevOps
6 5 (4.59%) GitHub
6 5 (4.59%) SaaS
7 4 (3.67%) dbt
8 3 (2.75%) Azure Data Factory
8 3 (2.75%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 3 (2.75%) Dynamics 365
8 3 (2.75%) Entra ID
8 3 (2.75%) Prefect
8 3 (2.75%) SuccessFactors
9 2 (1.83%) Google Workspace
9 2 (1.83%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.83%) Firewall
1 2 (1.83%) Network Security
2 1 (0.92%) Internet
2 1 (0.92%) MPLS
2 1 (0.92%) SD-WAN
2 1 (0.92%) VLAN
2 1 (0.92%) VPN
2 1 (0.92%) VSAN
2 1 (0.92%) WAN
2 1 (0.92%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (10.09%) Power BI
2 10 (9.17%) Data Warehouse
3 7 (6.42%) Metadata
3 7 (6.42%) Tableau
4 4 (3.67%) Amazon Redshift
4 4 (3.67%) Data Lake
4 4 (3.67%) SQL Server
4 4 (3.67%) Star Schema
5 3 (2.75%) Big Data
5 3 (2.75%) Power Query
5 3 (2.75%) Snowflake Schema
6 2 (1.83%) Amazon Athena
6 2 (1.83%) CockroachDB
6 2 (1.83%) DynamoDB
6 2 (1.83%) Hadoop
6 2 (1.83%) MySQL
6 2 (1.83%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (1.83%) Relational Database
6 2 (1.83%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 1 (0.92%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 6 (5.50%) JIRA
2 5 (4.59%) Git
2 5 (4.59%) Postman
2 5 (4.59%) Selenium
3 3 (2.75%) Cucumber
4 2 (1.83%) Bitbucket
4 2 (1.83%) GitLab
4 2 (1.83%) Jenkins
4 2 (1.83%) MLflow
5 1 (0.92%) git-flow
5 1 (0.92%) JMeter
5 1 (0.92%) LoadRunner
5 1 (0.92%) Robot Framework
5 1 (0.92%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.92%) SpecFlow
5 1 (0.92%) TestRail
5 1 (0.92%) WinAutomation
5 1 (0.92%) Zephyr
General
1 55 (50.46%) Finance
2 35 (32.11%) Social Skills
3 28 (25.69%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (20.18%) Banking
5 10 (9.17%) Financial Institution
6 6 (5.50%) Investment Banking
7 5 (4.59%) Front Office
7 5 (4.59%) Public Sector
8 4 (3.67%) Publishing
9 3 (2.75%) Presentation Skills
9 3 (2.75%) Telecoms
10 2 (1.83%) Back Office
10 2 (1.83%) Documentation Skills
10 2 (1.83%) General Ledger
10 2 (1.83%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.92%) Legal
11 1 (0.92%) Police
11 1 (0.92%) Retail
Job Titles
1 24 (22.02%) Analyst
2 12 (11.01%) Data Engineer
3 11 (10.09%) Migration Manager
3 11 (10.09%) Migration Project Manager
3 11 (10.09%) Project Manager
4 9 (8.26%) Consultant
4 9 (8.26%) Senior
5 8 (7.34%) Business Analyst
5 8 (7.34%) Data Analyst
5 8 (7.34%) Lead
6 5 (4.59%) Architect
7 4 (3.67%) Report Analyst
7 4 (3.67%) Snowflake Data Engineer
7 4 (3.67%) Snowflake Engineer
7 4 (3.67%) Tester
7 4 (3.67%) Workday Analyst
8 3 (2.75%) Migration Engineer
8 3 (2.75%) Principal Consultant
8 3 (2.75%) Senior Data Engineer
8 3 (2.75%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (6.42%) PyTorch
2 6 (5.50%) TensorFlow
3 4 (3.67%) .NET
3 4 (3.67%) JSON
3 4 (3.67%) Kafka
3 4 (3.67%) Pandas
3 4 (3.67%) REST
3 4 (3.67%) scikit-learn
3 4 (3.67%) XML
4 3 (2.75%) NumPy
4 3 (2.75%) Playwright
5 2 (1.83%) boto
5 2 (1.83%) FIX Protocol
5 2 (1.83%) HTML
5 2 (1.83%) Middleware
5 2 (1.83%) Next.js
5 2 (1.83%) Node.js
5 2 (1.83%) OAuth
5 2 (1.83%) PySpark
5 2 (1.83%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 8 (7.34%) Legacy Systems
2 7 (6.42%) Data Structures
3 5 (4.59%) Derivative
4 4 (3.67%) Clustering
4 4 (3.67%) Data Centre
4 4 (3.67%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 3 (2.75%) AI Agents
5 3 (2.75%) Algorithms
5 3 (2.75%) Cloud Native
5 3 (2.75%) Fixed Income
5 3 (2.75%) Management Information System
5 3 (2.75%) Onboarding
5 3 (2.75%) Product Ownership
5 3 (2.75%) Replication
6 2 (1.83%) Equities
6 2 (1.83%) Reference Data
6 2 (1.83%) Synthetic Data
6 2 (1.83%) Virtual Team
7 1 (0.92%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.92%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.92%) Linux
1 1 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
1 1 (0.92%) SUSE
1 1 (0.92%) VMS
1 1 (0.92%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (30.28%) Migration
2 31 (28.44%) Agile
3 28 (25.69%) Analytics
4 25 (22.94%) Stakeholder Management
5 23 (21.10%) ETL
5 23 (21.10%) Problem-Solving
6 21 (19.27%) AI
7 20 (18.35%) Project Delivery
8 18 (16.51%) Data Pipeline
8 18 (16.51%) Data Validation
9 17 (15.60%) Business Intelligence
9 17 (15.60%) Data Modelling
10 16 (14.68%) Data Analysis
11 15 (13.76%) Data Engineering
11 15 (13.76%) Data Governance
11 15 (13.76%) Project Management
11 15 (13.76%) Test Automation
11 15 (13.76%) User Acceptance Testing
12 14 (12.84%) Continuous Improvement
12 14 (12.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 36 (33.03%) SQL
2 27 (24.77%) Python
3 6 (5.50%) C#
3 6 (5.50%) Java
4 3 (2.75%) C++
4 3 (2.75%) JavaScript
5 2 (1.83%) TypeScript
5 2 (1.83%) VB.NET
6 1 (0.92%) Apex Code
6 1 (0.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 1 (0.92%) Groovy
6 1 (0.92%) Korn
6 1 (0.92%) PL/SQL
6 1 (0.92%) PowerShell
6 1 (0.92%) R
6 1 (0.92%) Scala
6 1 (0.92%) XPath
Qualifications
1 12 (11.01%) Degree
1 12 (11.01%) PMI Certification
1 12 (11.01%) PMP
2 8 (7.34%) Security Cleared
3 5 (4.59%) Computer Science Degree
3 5 (4.59%) Master's Degree
4 4 (3.67%) SC Cleared
5 3 (2.75%) ISTQB
6 2 (1.83%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 2 (1.83%) PhD
6 2 (1.83%) SnowPro
7 1 (0.92%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.92%) CISM
7 1 (0.92%) CISSP
7 1 (0.92%) CTC Cleared
7 1 (0.92%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.92%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 1 (0.92%) MBA
7 1 (0.92%) MPhil
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (30.28%) Data Quality
2 25 (22.94%) QA
3 16 (14.68%) GDPR
4 14 (12.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (11.93%) NIST
6 3 (2.75%) Accessibility
6 3 (2.75%) SLA
7 2 (1.83%) Actionable Recommendations
7 2 (1.83%) IFRS
7 2 (1.83%) IFRS 17
7 2 (1.83%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.92%) Basel III
8 1 (0.92%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.92%) EMIR
8 1 (0.92%) GAAP
8 1 (0.92%) GRC
8 1 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 1 (0.92%) MiFID
8 1 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.92%) Solvency II
System Software
1 2 (1.83%) Docker
2 1 (0.92%) Firmware
2 1 (0.92%) Hyper-V
2 1 (0.92%) Virtual Machines
2 1 (0.92%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.92%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (0.92%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 3 (2.75%) Terraform
2 1 (0.92%) Failover Clustering
2 1 (0.92%) Grafana
2 1 (0.92%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.92%) Microsoft Clustering
2 1 (0.92%) vCenter Server
2 1 (0.92%) VxRail
Vendors
1 15 (13.76%) Microsoft
2 11 (10.09%) CyberArk
3 10 (9.17%) SAP
4 7 (6.42%) Oracle
4 7 (6.42%) Workday
5 6 (5.50%) Google
5 6 (5.50%) Informatica
6 5 (4.59%) Salesforce
7 4 (3.67%) Databricks
8 3 (2.75%) Anaplan
8 3 (2.75%) MuleSoft
8 3 (2.75%) Murex
9 2 (1.83%) SmartStream
9 2 (1.83%) Talend
9 2 (1.83%) UiPath
10 1 (0.92%) Alteryx
10 1 (0.92%) Bloomberg
10 1 (0.92%) IBM
10 1 (0.92%) Planon
10 1 (0.92%) Qualtrics