Validation Contract Job Trends in London

Validation
England > London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in London requiring Validation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 70 150
Rank change year-on-year +39 +80 -15
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,321 501 285
As % of all contract jobs in London 6.53% 3.74% 1.76%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 7.34% 4.04% 1.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 828 322 188
10th Percentile £363 £375 £363
25th Percentile £425 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year - +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £638 £672 £600
90th Percentile £750 £736 £675
England median daily rate £500 £513 £500
% change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 11 1
10th Percentile £16.70 - -
25th Percentile £20.05 £16.50 -
Median hourly rate £25.50 £17.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +50.00% -29.69% -49.09%
75th Percentile £55.00 £38.13 -
90th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 -
England median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £63.25
% change year-on-year -15.38% +2.77% -6.34%

All Process & Methodology Skills
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 London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 17,999 12,398 14,420
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.95% 92.52% 89.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,778 8,176 9,391
10th Percentile £360 £331 £350
25th Percentile £450 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.85% -1.82% -4.35%
75th Percentile £664 £663 £675
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 337 243 184
10th Percentile £15.96 £18.03 £17.33
25th Percentile £18.75 £25.01 £24.17
Median hourly rate £33.60 £30.00 £36.65
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% -18.14% -8.18%
75th Percentile £61.50 £47.25 £56.38
90th Percentile £81.25 £64.55 £78.75
England median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -4.49%

Validation
Job Vacancy Trend in London

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

Validation job vacancy trend in London

Validation
Daily Rate Trend in London

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing Validation

Validation
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Validation in London over the 6 months to 10 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Validation in London

Validation
Hourly Rate Trend in London

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing Validation

Validation
Hourly Rate Histogram in London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Validation in London over the 6 months to 10 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Validation in London

Validation
Contract Job Locations in London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Validation within the London region over the 6 months to 10 October 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Central London +28 166 £538 -14.00% 189
West London +4 27 £475 +26.67% 44
South London +2 24 £535 +7.00% 17
East London +5 3 £425 -17.07% 13
North London -3 2 £314 -42.95% 3
Validation
England

Validation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in 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 51 (3.86%) Confluence
2 39 (2.95%) SharePoint
3 32 (2.42%) Apache Airflow
4 30 (2.27%) Apache Spark
5 19 (1.44%) Apache
6 17 (1.29%) CMS
7 15 (1.14%) Microsoft Exchange
8 12 (0.91%) SAS
9 5 (0.38%) IIS
9 5 (0.38%) SharePoint 2013
10 4 (0.30%) Headless CMS
10 4 (0.30%) JBoss
10 4 (0.30%) Jupyter
10 4 (0.30%) Sitecore CMS
11 3 (0.23%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.23%) Palantir Foundry
11 3 (0.23%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.15%) Documentum
12 2 (0.15%) Tomcat
Applications
1 79 (5.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 20 (1.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 16 (1.21%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (1.21%) MS Visio
4 14 (1.06%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.38%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.15%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.15%) CPLEX
6 2 (0.15%) EPLAN
6 2 (0.15%) LaTeX
6 2 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.076%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.076%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 38 (2.88%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.91%) Aladdin
2 12 (0.91%) Workday HCM
3 10 (0.76%) Oracle Payables
4 7 (0.53%) iTrent
4 7 (0.53%) NetSuite
4 7 (0.53%) Oracle EBS
4 7 (0.53%) Oracle ERP
5 6 (0.45%) SAP MDG
6 5 (0.38%) Maximo
6 5 (0.38%) SAP GRC
7 4 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
7 4 (0.30%) IBM Planning Analytics
7 4 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
7 4 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
7 4 (0.30%) SAP SD
8 3 (0.23%) Dynamics NAV
8 3 (0.23%) IntelliMatch
8 3 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
8 3 (0.23%) Oracle General Ledger
Cloud Services
1 275 (20.82%) Azure
2 177 (13.40%) AWS
3 150 (11.36%) Power Platform
4 95 (7.19%) Azure DevOps
5 72 (5.45%) GCP
6 65 (4.92%) Snowflake
7 59 (4.47%) GitHub
8 55 (4.16%) Entra ID
9 37 (2.80%) Amazon S3
10 35 (2.65%) dbt
11 32 (2.42%) SaaS
11 32 (2.42%) Serverless
12 31 (2.35%) Azure Data Factory
13 29 (2.20%) GitHub Actions
13 29 (2.20%) Microsoft 365
14 27 (2.04%) AWS CloudFormation
15 23 (1.74%) Microsoft Purview
16 22 (1.67%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 19 (1.44%) AWS Lambda
17 19 (1.44%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 34 (2.57%) Firewall
2 32 (2.42%) DNS
3 26 (1.97%) VPN
4 25 (1.89%) VLAN
5 19 (1.44%) BGP
6 18 (1.36%) Internet
6 18 (1.36%) Network Security
7 14 (1.06%) 5G
7 14 (1.06%) WAN
8 13 (0.98%) OSPF
9 12 (0.91%) Radio Access Network
9 12 (0.91%) TCP/IP
10 10 (0.76%) 3GPP
10 10 (0.76%) TACACS
11 9 (0.68%) Ethernet VPN
11 9 (0.68%) VXLAN
12 8 (0.61%) DHCP
13 7 (0.53%) Cisco ISE
13 7 (0.53%) MPLS
13 7 (0.53%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 135 (10.22%) Power BI
2 90 (6.81%) Data Warehouse
3 60 (4.54%) Metadata
4 56 (4.24%) SQL Server
5 40 (3.03%) PostgreSQL
6 39 (2.95%) Relational Database
7 38 (2.88%) Data Lake
8 36 (2.73%) Tableau
9 29 (2.20%) Delta Lake
10 28 (2.12%) MongoDB
11 23 (1.74%) NoSQL
12 22 (1.67%) BigQuery
13 20 (1.51%) Big Data
14 19 (1.44%) Amazon RDS
15 18 (1.36%) Oracle Database
16 17 (1.29%) Power Query
17 16 (1.21%) MySQL
18 15 (1.14%) Amazon Aurora
18 15 (1.14%) Amazon Redshift
18 15 (1.14%) Redis
Development Applications
1 126 (9.54%) JIRA
2 98 (7.42%) Git
3 45 (3.41%) Jenkins
4 33 (2.50%) Selenium
5 30 (2.27%) GitLab
6 17 (1.29%) Postman
7 15 (1.14%) JMeter
8 10 (0.76%) Cypress.io
9 9 (0.68%) JUnit
10 8 (0.61%) TestRail
11 7 (0.53%) Cucumber
11 7 (0.53%) Eclipse
11 7 (0.53%) Visual Studio Code
12 6 (0.45%) Ant
12 6 (0.45%) ER Studio
12 6 (0.45%) ERwin
12 6 (0.45%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.45%) WebDriver
13 5 (0.38%) MLflow
13 5 (0.38%) Zephyr
General
1 520 (39.36%) Finance
2 377 (28.54%) Social Skills
3 268 (20.29%) Analytical Skills
4 197 (14.91%) Banking
5 110 (8.33%) Public Sector
6 64 (4.84%) Documentation Skills
7 51 (3.86%) Retail
8 38 (2.88%) Front Office
9 35 (2.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 33 (2.50%) Manufacturing
11 31 (2.35%) Legal
12 29 (2.20%) Telecoms
13 27 (2.04%) Investment Banking
13 27 (2.04%) Local Government
14 26 (1.97%) Marketing
15 25 (1.89%) Automotive
16 20 (1.51%) General Ledger
16 20 (1.51%) Pharmaceutical
17 19 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
18 17 (1.29%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 282 (21.35%) Analyst
2 178 (13.47%) Senior
3 159 (12.04%) Lead
4 138 (10.45%) Business Analyst
5 114 (8.63%) Data Engineer
6 96 (7.27%) Data Analyst
7 95 (7.19%) Architect
8 92 (6.96%) Consultant
9 75 (5.68%) Developer
10 40 (3.03%) Tester
11 32 (2.42%) Network Engineer
12 29 (2.20%) Data Scientist
13 28 (2.12%) Senior Analyst
13 28 (2.12%) Senior Data Engineer
14 26 (1.97%) Administrator
14 26 (1.97%) Technical Analyst
14 26 (1.97%) Test Engineer
15 24 (1.82%) Test Leader
16 22 (1.67%) Data Business Analyst
17 21 (1.59%) Financial Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (6.74%) Terraform
2 83 (6.28%) REST
3 55 (4.16%) PySpark
4 47 (3.56%) JSON
5 42 (3.18%) Kafka
6 33 (2.50%) Middleware
7 32 (2.42%) pytest
8 30 (2.27%) Playwright
8 30 (2.27%) XML
9 23 (1.74%) OAuth
10 22 (1.67%) Oracle Fusion
11 21 (1.59%) SOAP
12 20 (1.51%) .NET
12 20 (1.51%) OpenID
12 20 (1.51%) Web Services
13 19 (1.44%) RESTful
14 18 (1.36%) Lightning Web Components
15 17 (1.29%) Pandas
16 14 (1.06%) HTML
16 14 (1.06%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 83 (6.28%) Data Structures
2 79 (5.98%) Onboarding
3 71 (5.37%) Product Ownership
4 67 (5.07%) Cloud Native
5 65 (4.92%) Legacy Systems
6 43 (3.26%) Management Information System
7 38 (2.88%) Data Centre
8 33 (2.50%) Enterprise Software
9 30 (2.27%) Algorithms
9 30 (2.27%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 29 (2.20%) Derivative
11 28 (2.12%) Fixed Income
12 27 (2.04%) AI Agents
13 26 (1.97%) Analytical Mindset
14 24 (1.82%) Distributed Systems
15 23 (1.74%) Reference Data
15 23 (1.74%) Replication
16 19 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
16 19 (1.44%) Reinsurance
17 18 (1.36%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 57 (4.31%) Windows
2 35 (2.65%) Linux
3 24 (1.82%) Windows Server
4 13 (0.98%) Unix
5 12 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 7 (0.53%) Android
6 7 (0.53%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.38%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
9 3 (0.23%) VMS
9 3 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.15%) SUSE
10 2 (0.15%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.076%) AIX
11 1 (0.076%) CentOS
11 1 (0.076%) Solaris
11 1 (0.076%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.076%) VxWorks
11 1 (0.076%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.076%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 368 (27.86%) Migration
2 351 (26.57%) Stakeholder Management
3 294 (22.26%) CI/CD
4 262 (19.83%) Agile
5 242 (18.32%) User Acceptance Testing
6 235 (17.79%) Analytics
7 234 (17.71%) Data Validation
8 230 (17.41%) Data Modelling
9 222 (16.81%) AI
10 217 (16.43%) Data Migration
11 208 (15.75%) DevOps
12 188 (14.23%) Data Analysis
13 183 (13.85%) Problem-Solving
14 179 (13.55%) Test Automation
15 159 (12.04%) Data Pipeline
16 158 (11.96%) Continuous Improvement
17 157 (11.88%) ETL
18 155 (11.73%) Data Governance
19 150 (11.36%) Business Intelligence
19 150 (11.36%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 407 (30.81%) SQL
2 311 (23.54%) Python
3 73 (5.53%) Java
4 58 (4.39%) PowerShell
5 29 (2.20%) JavaScript
6 25 (1.89%) C#
7 21 (1.59%) Bash
8 19 (1.44%) Apex Code
8 19 (1.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 18 (1.36%) TypeScript
10 16 (1.21%) C++
11 15 (1.14%) R
11 15 (1.14%) VBA
12 13 (0.98%) Bicep
12 13 (0.98%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.68%) Korn
13 9 (0.68%) SOQL
14 8 (0.61%) Go
14 8 (0.61%) T-SQL
15 7 (0.53%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 196 (14.84%) Security Cleared
2 171 (12.94%) SC Cleared
3 96 (7.27%) Degree
4 27 (2.04%) AWS Certification
5 22 (1.67%) BPSS Clearance
6 19 (1.44%) Cisco Certification
7 18 (1.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 18 (1.36%) DV Cleared
8 17 (1.29%) Computer Science Degree
8 17 (1.29%) PMI Certification
9 16 (1.21%) Master's Degree
10 14 (1.06%) CISSP
10 14 (1.06%) PMP
11 12 (0.91%) CCNP
12 11 (0.83%) Azure Certification
13 10 (0.76%) ISTQB
14 9 (0.68%) CISM
15 8 (0.61%) CBAP
15 8 (0.61%) DBS Check
16 7 (0.53%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 327 (24.75%) Data Quality
2 169 (12.79%) QA
3 33 (2.50%) GDPR
4 22 (1.67%) NIST
5 19 (1.44%) Accessibility
6 17 (1.29%) PMO
7 16 (1.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 15 (1.14%) SLA
9 11 (0.83%) GRC
10 9 (0.68%) ISO 20022
10 9 (0.68%) MiFID
11 8 (0.61%) Basel III
12 7 (0.53%) COBIT
12 7 (0.53%) EMIR
12 7 (0.53%) GxP
12 7 (0.53%) IFRS
13 6 (0.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 5 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
14 5 (0.38%) IFRS 9
14 5 (0.38%) Solvency II
System Software
1 54 (4.09%) Active Directory
2 53 (4.01%) Docker
3 12 (0.91%) Virtual Machines
3 12 (0.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.23%) VMware NSX
7 2 (0.15%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.15%) vSphere
8 1 (0.076%) Ceph
8 1 (0.076%) Embedded Firmware
8 1 (0.076%) etcd
8 1 (0.076%) Firmware
8 1 (0.076%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.076%) NFS
8 1 (0.076%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 63 (4.77%) Kubernetes
2 44 (3.33%) Ansible
3 19 (1.44%) Grafana
4 17 (1.29%) Prometheus
5 14 (1.06%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (0.98%) FortiGate
7 12 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
8 7 (0.53%) Functional Safety
9 5 (0.38%) HP ALM
10 4 (0.30%) systemd
11 3 (0.23%) Control-M
11 3 (0.23%) Podman
11 3 (0.23%) Progress Chef
11 3 (0.23%) Puppet
12 2 (0.15%) Argo
12 2 (0.15%) Cisco Prime
12 2 (0.15%) Data Guard
12 2 (0.15%) ITRS Geneos
12 2 (0.15%) Kibana
12 2 (0.15%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 209 (15.82%) Microsoft
2 98 (7.42%) Databricks
3 93 (7.04%) Oracle
4 83 (6.28%) SAP
5 56 (4.24%) Salesforce
6 41 (3.10%) Cisco
7 34 (2.57%) ServiceNow
8 33 (2.50%) Workday
9 30 (2.27%) Google
10 24 (1.82%) IBM
11 19 (1.44%) Palo Alto
12 16 (1.21%) Fortinet
12 16 (1.21%) Zscaler
13 15 (1.14%) Informatica
13 15 (1.14%) VMware
14 10 (0.76%) Arista
14 10 (0.76%) Juniper
14 10 (0.76%) Red Hat
15 9 (0.68%) CrowdStrike
15 9 (0.68%) UiPath