Validation Contract Job Trends

Validation
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Validation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 68 121
Rank change year-on-year +34 +53 +30
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,884 1,185 750
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.38% 3.60% 1.94%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.36% 3.98% 2.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,739 691 369
10th Percentile £340 £343 £344
25th Percentile £410 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £588
90th Percentile £702 £688 £668
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £505 £475
% change year-on-year -8.42% +6.32% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 189 83 118
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £29.24
25th Percentile £27.24 £38.87 £48.75
Median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -7.69% -0.38%
75th Percentile £74.25 £65.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £83.15 £75.00 £75.56
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -3.85% - -0.76%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 45,374 29,740 33,103
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.72% 90.47% 85.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,858 18,514 21,188
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.58%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,851 1,725 1,782
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £18.17
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -38.57% +0.86%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.13% -45.88% +19.72%

Validation
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Validation job vacancy trend in the UK

Validation
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Validation.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Validation

Validation
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Validation over the 6 months to 18 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Validation in the UK

Validation
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Validation.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Validation

Validation
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Validation over the 6 months to 18 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Validation in the UK

Validation
Top 18 Contract Job 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 18 August 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
England +32 2,502 £500 -2.44% 1,088
UK excluding London +30 1,346 £463 -8.42% 905
London +41 1,203 £525 +2.44% 330
Work from Home +36 811 £500 - 408
South East +2 325 £500 - 285
North of England +43 315 £450 -9.04% 157
Midlands +35 315 £475 -5.00% 160
West Midlands +33 221 £463 -8.87% 102
North West +17 158 £450 -16.20% 85
East of England +6 150 £475 -6.40% 109
Yorkshire +37 142 £460 +5.75% 39
South West -1 131 £525 -8.70% 146
Scotland +46 96 £430 -7.03% 48
East Midlands +21 89 £500 - 58
Wales -9 23 £338 -10.00% 21
North East -30 20 £438 -20.45% 36
Northern Ireland +10 10 £380 -35.59% 2
Channel Islands 0 1 - -

Validation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 86 (2.98%) Confluence
2 68 (2.36%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (1.94%) SAS
4 54 (1.87%) SharePoint
5 41 (1.42%) Apache Spark
6 31 (1.07%) Apache
7 17 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
8 13 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
9 11 (0.38%) CMS
9 11 (0.38%) Jupyter
10 9 (0.31%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.24%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
12 5 (0.17%) IIS
12 5 (0.17%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.14%) Sitecore CMS
13 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.10%) OpenStack
Applications
1 198 (6.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.42%) MS Visio
3 40 (1.39%) Microsoft Office
4 32 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 32 (1.11%) Spreadsheet
5 13 (0.45%) AutoCAD
6 10 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.28%) CATIA
7 8 (0.28%) Navisworks
7 8 (0.28%) Revit
8 7 (0.24%) ProjectWise
9 6 (0.21%) Simulink
10 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.069%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.069%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.069%) Windchill
12 1 (0.035%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.035%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.035%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.035%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 122 (4.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.01%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.45%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.42%) NetSuite
6 11 (0.38%) iTrent
6 11 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 11 (0.38%) Teamcenter
7 10 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
7 10 (0.35%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.35%) SAP SD
8 9 (0.31%) Aladdin
8 9 (0.31%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.31%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
9 8 (0.28%) SAP FI
10 7 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
10 7 (0.24%) SAP HCM
10 7 (0.24%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 614 (21.29%) Azure
2 342 (11.86%) AWS
3 306 (10.61%) Power Platform
4 162 (5.62%) Azure DevOps
5 151 (5.24%) GCP
6 136 (4.72%) GitHub
7 100 (3.47%) Snowflake
8 79 (2.74%) Entra ID
9 75 (2.60%) Azure Data Factory
9 75 (2.60%) GitHub Actions
10 63 (2.18%) Serverless
11 59 (2.05%) Microsoft 365
12 54 (1.87%) SaaS
13 53 (1.84%) Amazon S3
14 46 (1.60%) dbt
15 45 (1.56%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 45 (1.56%) SuccessFactors
16 44 (1.53%) OCI
17 36 (1.25%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 34 (1.18%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 112 (3.88%) Firewall
2 66 (2.29%) DNS
3 64 (2.22%) Network Security
4 59 (2.05%) VLAN
5 51 (1.77%) VPN
6 44 (1.53%) TCP/IP
7 42 (1.46%) BGP
7 42 (1.46%) WAN
8 32 (1.11%) DHCP
9 25 (0.87%) OSPF
10 24 (0.83%) LAN
11 23 (0.80%) VXLAN
12 22 (0.76%) Internet
13 21 (0.73%) Ethernet VPN
13 21 (0.73%) SD-WAN
13 21 (0.73%) Wireless
14 20 (0.69%) SAN
15 19 (0.66%) Ethernet
15 19 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
16 16 (0.55%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 285 (9.88%) Power BI
2 168 (5.83%) Data Warehouse
3 124 (4.30%) Metadata
4 106 (3.68%) SQL Server
5 100 (3.47%) PostgreSQL
6 95 (3.29%) Relational Database
7 87 (3.02%) Data Lake
8 76 (2.64%) Tableau
9 37 (1.28%) Big Data
10 36 (1.25%) MongoDB
11 35 (1.21%) NoSQL
12 33 (1.14%) Oracle Reports
12 33 (1.14%) SAS Enterprise Guide
13 32 (1.11%) Delta Lake
14 30 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
14 30 (1.04%) MySQL
14 30 (1.04%) Oracle Database
14 30 (1.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 28 (0.97%) BigQuery
16 27 (0.94%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 255 (8.84%) JIRA
2 193 (6.69%) Git
3 107 (3.71%) Jenkins
4 88 (3.05%) GitLab
5 69 (2.39%) Selenium
6 47 (1.63%) Postman
7 45 (1.56%) JMeter
8 35 (1.21%) Cucumber
9 33 (1.14%) JUnit
10 31 (1.07%) WebDriver
11 23 (0.80%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.62%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.55%) Gatling
13 16 (0.55%) Visual Studio
14 15 (0.52%) Cypress.io
15 14 (0.49%) Rational Rhapsody
15 14 (0.49%) REST Assured
16 13 (0.45%) Maven
16 13 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
17 12 (0.42%) Gradle
General
1 827 (28.68%) Social Skills
2 804 (27.88%) Finance
3 572 (19.83%) Analytical Skills
4 254 (8.81%) Public Sector
5 208 (7.21%) Banking
6 153 (5.31%) Documentation Skills
7 106 (3.68%) Manufacturing
8 97 (3.36%) Retail
9 70 (2.43%) Aerospace
10 66 (2.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 60 (2.08%) Pharmaceutical
12 58 (2.01%) Telecoms
13 55 (1.91%) Organisational Skills
14 52 (1.80%) Automotive
15 49 (1.70%) Legal
16 45 (1.56%) Marketing
17 42 (1.46%) Front Office
17 42 (1.46%) Law
18 41 (1.42%) Local Government
19 38 (1.32%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 507 (17.58%) Analyst
2 315 (10.92%) Senior
3 281 (9.74%) Lead
4 237 (8.22%) Business Analyst
5 233 (8.08%) Data Engineer
6 220 (7.63%) Consultant
7 175 (6.07%) Developer
8 140 (4.85%) Architect
8 140 (4.85%) Data Analyst
9 108 (3.74%) Test Engineer
10 82 (2.84%) Tester
11 75 (2.60%) Project Manager
12 72 (2.50%) Network Engineer
13 62 (2.15%) Systems Engineer
14 60 (2.08%) Administrator
15 55 (1.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 54 (1.87%) Senior Data Engineer
16 54 (1.87%) Technical Analyst
17 47 (1.63%) Senior Analyst
17 47 (1.63%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 167 (5.79%) REST
2 91 (3.16%) JSON
3 77 (2.67%) XML
4 76 (2.64%) PySpark
5 75 (2.60%) Kafka
6 63 (2.18%) Middleware
7 52 (1.80%) .NET
7 52 (1.80%) Oracle Fusion
8 48 (1.66%) Playwright
9 46 (1.60%) pytest
9 46 (1.60%) Spring
10 43 (1.49%) SOAP
11 41 (1.42%) Web Services
12 36 (1.25%) OAuth
13 33 (1.14%) RESTful
14 32 (1.11%) Pandas
15 31 (1.07%) Spring Boot
16 29 (1.01%) Node.js
17 24 (0.83%) Lightning Web Components
17 24 (0.83%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 159 (5.51%) Onboarding
2 150 (5.20%) Data Structures
3 130 (4.51%) Cloud Native
4 126 (4.37%) Legacy Systems
5 123 (4.26%) Product Ownership
6 94 (3.26%) Management Information System
7 88 (3.05%) Data Centre
8 51 (1.77%) Enterprise Software
9 49 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
9 49 (1.70%) Distributed Systems
10 43 (1.49%) Life Science
11 41 (1.42%) AI Agents
11 41 (1.42%) SCADA
12 40 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
13 38 (1.32%) Replication
14 35 (1.21%) NHS
15 34 (1.18%) Algorithms
15 34 (1.18%) Operational Technology
16 33 (1.14%) Public Cloud
17 32 (1.11%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 177 (6.14%) Windows
2 117 (4.06%) Linux
3 66 (2.29%) Windows Server
4 40 (1.39%) Unix
5 19 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.45%) Windows 10
7 12 (0.42%) Android
8 11 (0.38%) Ubuntu
9 10 (0.35%) VMS
10 8 (0.28%) Apple iOS
11 7 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.21%) AIX
13 4 (0.14%) SUSE
13 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.069%) Data ONTAP
14 2 (0.069%) HPUX
14 2 (0.069%) VxWorks
14 2 (0.069%) Windows Server 2019
15 1 (0.035%) Mac OS X
15 1 (0.035%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 781 (27.08%) Migration
2 571 (19.80%) Agile
3 553 (19.17%) Stakeholder Management
4 523 (18.13%) CI/CD
5 475 (16.47%) User Acceptance Testing
6 467 (16.19%) Analytics
7 463 (16.05%) Data Migration
8 460 (15.95%) Data Modelling
9 458 (15.88%) Problem-Solving
10 446 (15.46%) Data Validation
11 376 (13.04%) AI
12 372 (12.90%) DevOps
13 365 (12.66%) Test Automation
14 358 (12.41%) Continuous Improvement
15 322 (11.17%) ETL
16 319 (11.06%) Business Intelligence
16 319 (11.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 303 (10.51%) Data Pipeline
18 291 (10.09%) Data Governance
19 277 (9.60%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 723 (25.07%) SQL
2 553 (19.17%) Python
3 142 (4.92%) Java
4 87 (3.02%) PowerShell
5 64 (2.22%) C#
6 58 (2.01%) Bash
7 54 (1.87%) JavaScript
8 43 (1.49%) C++
9 34 (1.18%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.04%) Apex Code
10 30 (1.04%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 28 (0.97%) Bicep
12 26 (0.90%) C
13 25 (0.87%) PL/SQL
14 24 (0.83%) R
15 21 (0.73%) VBA
16 18 (0.62%) Shell Script
17 17 (0.59%) T-SQL
18 16 (0.55%) MATLAB
19 13 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 540 (18.72%) Security Cleared
2 397 (13.77%) SC Cleared
3 186 (6.45%) Degree
4 69 (2.39%) DV Cleared
5 61 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.60%) Cisco Certification
7 43 (1.49%) Computer Science Degree
8 37 (1.28%) CCNP
9 28 (0.97%) ISTQB
10 26 (0.90%) ACCA
11 25 (0.87%) CIMA
12 23 (0.80%) AWS Certification
13 22 (0.76%) Azure Certification
14 21 (0.73%) PMI Certification
15 20 (0.69%) PMP
16 19 (0.66%) CCNA
17 15 (0.52%) CISSP
17 15 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
18 13 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
19 11 (0.38%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 551 (19.11%) Data Quality
2 366 (12.69%) QA
3 122 (4.23%) GDPR
4 53 (1.84%) NIST
5 46 (1.60%) Accessibility
5 46 (1.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 44 (1.53%) SLA
7 39 (1.35%) GxP
8 38 (1.32%) PMO
9 22 (0.76%) GRC
10 21 (0.73%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 18 (0.62%) ISO 20022
12 17 (0.59%) GMP
13 14 (0.49%) Def Stans
13 14 (0.49%) NCSC
14 13 (0.45%) HL7
14 13 (0.45%) WCAG
15 12 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 11 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.38%) NIST 800
System Software
1 120 (4.16%) Docker
2 98 (3.40%) Active Directory
3 81 (2.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.25%) Virtual Machines
5 28 (0.97%) VMware ESXi
6 25 (0.87%) Firmware
7 24 (0.83%) Hyper-V
8 22 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
9 21 (0.73%) vSphere
10 15 (0.52%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.14%) KVM
11 4 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.10%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.069%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.069%) NFS
13 2 (0.069%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.069%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.035%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.035%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 155 (5.37%) Kubernetes
2 146 (5.06%) Terraform
3 76 (2.64%) Ansible
4 50 (1.73%) Grafana
5 42 (1.46%) Prometheus
6 26 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
7 24 (0.83%) FortiGate
8 23 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.45%) SCCM
9 13 (0.45%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.35%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.35%) VxRail
11 8 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
12 7 (0.24%) Argo
13 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Clustering
13 5 (0.17%) Progress Chef
13 5 (0.17%) systemd
13 5 (0.17%) vRealize
14 4 (0.14%) Consul
14 4 (0.14%) Puppet
Vendors
1 434 (15.05%) Microsoft
2 257 (8.91%) SAP
3 248 (8.60%) Oracle
4 154 (5.34%) Databricks
5 94 (3.26%) VMware
6 93 (3.22%) Salesforce
7 88 (3.05%) ServiceNow
8 72 (2.50%) Cisco
9 52 (1.80%) Google
10 44 (1.53%) Workday
11 38 (1.32%) Informatica
12 31 (1.07%) IBM
13 29 (1.01%) Fortinet
13 29 (1.01%) Juniper
14 27 (0.94%) Palo Alto
14 27 (0.94%) Zscaler
15 25 (0.87%) MuleSoft
16 21 (0.73%) Ariba
16 21 (0.73%) Sage
17 20 (0.69%) Splunk