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 31 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 65 117
Rank change year-on-year +33 +52 +35
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,922 1,225 774
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.44% 3.72% 2.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.43% 4.11% 2.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,741 717 376
10th Percentile £331 £329 £350
25th Percentile £411 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £588
90th Percentile £701 £688 £669
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -7.50% +5.26% -7.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 186 88 114
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £29.84
25th Percentile £26.61 £41.25 £51.06
Median hourly rate £53.25 £61.25 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.06% -5.77% -3.70%
75th Percentile £73.25 £65.38 £70.81
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £76.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% - -4.41%

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 45,455 29,807 32,988
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.58% 90.45% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,783 18,569 20,737
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% -3.67%
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 2,905 1,767 1,609
10th Percentile £14.10 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.75 £17.30 £18.89
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +3.56%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.31 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.56 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +92.49% -47.37% +14.67%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 +33 2,519 £500 -0.99% 1,817
UK excluding London +26 1,342 £463 -7.50% 1,222
London +36 1,233 £525 +1.94% 856
Work from Home +31 808 £500 - 733
North of England +48 330 £453 +6.59% 218
South East -1 325 £500 - 358
Midlands +34 295 £463 -5.13% 164
West Midlands +31 207 £451 -9.90% 113
North West +19 167 £450 +5.88% 120
Yorkshire +42 145 £462 +2.60% 51
East of England +2 142 £475 -6.40% 168
South West +3 131 £525 -8.70% 201
Scotland +41 109 £430 -9.47% 108
East Midlands +26 84 £500 - 51
Wales -4 24 £363 -3.33% 27
North East -24 23 £438 -2.78% 49
Northern Ireland +7 8 £380 -37.45% 13
Channel Islands -2 1 - - 2

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 80 (2.74%) Confluence
2 66 (2.26%) Apache Airflow
3 57 (1.95%) SharePoint
4 54 (1.85%) SAS
5 40 (1.37%) Apache Spark
6 28 (0.96%) Apache
7 17 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
8 13 (0.44%) 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 6 (0.21%) Sitecore CMS
13 5 (0.17%) IIS
13 5 (0.17%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.17%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
Applications
1 200 (6.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.44%) Microsoft Office
3 38 (1.30%) MS Visio
4 33 (1.13%) Spreadsheet
5 30 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 13 (0.44%) AutoCAD
7 10 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
8 8 (0.27%) CATIA
8 8 (0.27%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.27%) Revit
9 7 (0.24%) ProjectWise
10 6 (0.21%) Simulink
11 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.068%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.068%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.068%) Windchill
13 1 (0.034%) Autodesk Inventor
13 1 (0.034%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.034%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.034%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 113 (3.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.79%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.48%) Oracle Payables
3 14 (0.48%) Workday HCM
4 13 (0.44%) NetSuite
4 13 (0.44%) SAP SD
4 13 (0.44%) Teamcenter
5 11 (0.38%) Aladdin
5 11 (0.38%) iTrent
6 10 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.34%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 10 (0.34%) SAP FI
6 10 (0.34%) SAP MDG
6 10 (0.34%) SAP MM
7 9 (0.31%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.31%) SAP ERP
8 8 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.27%) Oracle General Ledger
8 8 (0.27%) SAP HCM
8 8 (0.27%) SAP PS
Cloud Services
1 627 (21.46%) Azure
2 337 (11.53%) AWS
3 304 (10.40%) Power Platform
4 179 (6.13%) Azure DevOps
5 139 (4.76%) GCP
6 133 (4.55%) GitHub
7 102 (3.49%) Snowflake
8 81 (2.77%) Entra ID
9 76 (2.60%) Azure Data Factory
10 68 (2.33%) GitHub Actions
11 67 (2.29%) Serverless
12 62 (2.12%) Microsoft 365
12 62 (2.12%) SaaS
13 50 (1.71%) Amazon S3
14 47 (1.61%) dbt
15 45 (1.54%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 39 (1.33%) OCI
17 38 (1.30%) SuccessFactors
18 35 (1.20%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 35 (1.20%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 114 (3.90%) Firewall
2 72 (2.46%) DNS
3 70 (2.40%) VLAN
4 64 (2.19%) Network Security
5 54 (1.85%) VPN
6 46 (1.57%) BGP
7 45 (1.54%) WAN
8 43 (1.47%) TCP/IP
9 37 (1.27%) DHCP
10 28 (0.96%) OSPF
11 25 (0.86%) LAN
11 25 (0.86%) VXLAN
12 24 (0.82%) Wireless
13 22 (0.75%) Ethernet VPN
13 22 (0.75%) Internet
13 22 (0.75%) SD-WAN
14 21 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
15 20 (0.68%) SAN
16 19 (0.65%) HTTP
17 17 (0.58%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 281 (9.62%) Power BI
2 173 (5.92%) Data Warehouse
3 129 (4.41%) Metadata
4 107 (3.66%) Relational Database
5 106 (3.63%) SQL Server
6 96 (3.29%) PostgreSQL
7 84 (2.87%) Data Lake
8 73 (2.50%) Tableau
9 40 (1.37%) Delta Lake
10 38 (1.30%) MongoDB
11 36 (1.23%) NoSQL
12 35 (1.20%) Big Data
12 35 (1.20%) Oracle Database
13 32 (1.10%) MySQL
14 31 (1.06%) Azure SQL Database
14 31 (1.06%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 30 (1.03%) Redis
16 29 (0.99%) BigQuery
17 27 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
17 27 (0.92%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 253 (8.66%) JIRA
2 196 (6.71%) Git
3 105 (3.59%) Jenkins
4 90 (3.08%) GitLab
5 72 (2.46%) Selenium
6 46 (1.57%) Postman
7 36 (1.23%) JMeter
8 24 (0.82%) Cucumber
8 24 (0.82%) WebDriver
9 19 (0.65%) JUnit
10 18 (0.62%) Rational DOORS
11 16 (0.55%) Cypress.io
12 15 (0.51%) Gatling
13 14 (0.48%) Rational Rhapsody
14 13 (0.44%) Oracle Forms
14 13 (0.44%) REST Assured
15 12 (0.41%) Maven
15 12 (0.41%) TestRail
15 12 (0.41%) Zephyr
16 11 (0.38%) Gradle
General
1 824 (28.20%) Social Skills
2 809 (27.69%) Finance
3 579 (19.82%) Analytical Skills
4 253 (8.66%) Public Sector
5 221 (7.56%) Banking
6 152 (5.20%) Documentation Skills
7 107 (3.66%) Manufacturing
8 93 (3.18%) Retail
9 68 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 66 (2.26%) Telecoms
11 60 (2.05%) Pharmaceutical
12 59 (2.02%) Aerospace
13 57 (1.95%) Automotive
14 55 (1.88%) Organisational Skills
15 48 (1.64%) Legal
15 48 (1.64%) Marketing
16 44 (1.51%) Law
17 43 (1.47%) Front Office
18 41 (1.40%) Local Government
19 37 (1.27%) Billing
Job Titles
1 525 (17.97%) Analyst
2 326 (11.16%) Senior
3 267 (9.14%) Lead
4 242 (8.28%) Business Analyst
5 237 (8.11%) Data Engineer
6 229 (7.84%) Consultant
7 175 (5.99%) Developer
8 150 (5.13%) Data Analyst
9 146 (5.00%) Architect
10 112 (3.83%) Test Engineer
11 79 (2.70%) Tester
12 78 (2.67%) Network Engineer
13 67 (2.29%) Project Manager
14 65 (2.22%) Systems Engineer
15 60 (2.05%) Administrator
16 58 (1.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 57 (1.95%) Senior Data Engineer
18 53 (1.81%) Technical Analyst
19 51 (1.75%) Test Manager
20 50 (1.71%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 177 (6.06%) REST
2 155 (5.30%) Terraform
3 98 (3.35%) JSON
4 84 (2.87%) PySpark
5 81 (2.77%) XML
6 75 (2.57%) Kafka
7 68 (2.33%) Middleware
8 52 (1.78%) .NET
8 52 (1.78%) Playwright
9 48 (1.64%) Oracle Fusion
10 46 (1.57%) pytest
11 42 (1.44%) SOAP
12 39 (1.33%) OAuth
13 38 (1.30%) RESTful
13 38 (1.30%) Spring
14 35 (1.20%) Pandas
14 35 (1.20%) Web Services
15 31 (1.06%) Spring Boot
16 27 (0.92%) YAML
17 25 (0.86%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 161 (5.51%) Data Structures
2 159 (5.44%) Onboarding
3 130 (4.45%) Cloud Native
4 124 (4.24%) Legacy Systems
5 118 (4.04%) Product Ownership
6 101 (3.46%) Management Information System
7 89 (3.05%) Data Centre
8 53 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
9 49 (1.68%) Distributed Systems
10 47 (1.61%) Analytical Mindset
11 46 (1.57%) AI Agents
12 44 (1.51%) Life Science
13 43 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
14 41 (1.40%) SCADA
15 39 (1.33%) NHS
16 37 (1.27%) Replication
17 33 (1.13%) CMDB
17 33 (1.13%) Operational Technology
18 32 (1.10%) Hybrid Cloud
19 31 (1.06%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 174 (5.95%) Windows
2 117 (4.00%) Linux
3 70 (2.40%) Windows Server
4 45 (1.54%) Unix
5 19 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.48%) Android
6 14 (0.48%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.38%) Ubuntu
7 11 (0.38%) VMS
8 9 (0.31%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.24%) Windows 7
10 6 (0.21%) AIX
11 4 (0.14%) SUSE
11 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.068%) HPUX
12 2 (0.068%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.068%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.034%) Debian
13 1 (0.034%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.034%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 789 (27.00%) Migration
2 583 (19.95%) Stakeholder Management
3 572 (19.58%) Agile
4 533 (18.24%) CI/CD
5 488 (16.70%) User Acceptance Testing
6 470 (16.08%) Data Modelling
7 466 (15.95%) Analytics
8 464 (15.88%) Data Migration
9 453 (15.50%) Data Validation
10 451 (15.43%) Problem-Solving
11 389 (13.31%) DevOps
12 385 (13.18%) AI
13 370 (12.66%) Test Automation
14 361 (12.35%) Continuous Improvement
15 328 (11.23%) ETL
16 320 (10.95%) Business Intelligence
17 316 (10.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 307 (10.51%) Data Pipeline
19 295 (10.10%) Data Governance
20 292 (9.99%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 750 (25.67%) SQL
2 580 (19.85%) Python
3 142 (4.86%) Java
4 100 (3.42%) PowerShell
5 63 (2.16%) Bash
6 56 (1.92%) C#
7 51 (1.75%) JavaScript
8 35 (1.20%) C++
9 32 (1.10%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.06%) Apex Code
11 30 (1.03%) R
12 29 (0.99%) Bicep
13 28 (0.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 27 (0.92%) PL/SQL
15 25 (0.86%) C
16 24 (0.82%) Shell Script
17 18 (0.62%) T-SQL
18 17 (0.58%) VBA
19 16 (0.55%) MATLAB
20 13 (0.44%) Scala
Qualifications
1 548 (18.75%) Security Cleared
2 404 (13.83%) SC Cleared
3 190 (6.50%) Degree
4 72 (2.46%) DV Cleared
5 62 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.71%) Cisco Certification
7 46 (1.57%) Computer Science Degree
8 41 (1.40%) CCNP
9 28 (0.96%) ACCA
9 28 (0.96%) CIMA
9 28 (0.96%) ISTQB
10 25 (0.86%) AWS Certification
11 22 (0.75%) Azure Certification
12 20 (0.68%) CCNA
12 20 (0.68%) PMI Certification
13 18 (0.62%) PMP
14 16 (0.55%) Microsoft Certification
15 15 (0.51%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 15 (0.51%) CISSP
16 14 (0.48%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 579 (19.82%) Data Quality
2 371 (12.70%) QA
3 114 (3.90%) GDPR
4 48 (1.64%) SLA
5 46 (1.57%) Accessibility
6 45 (1.54%) NIST
7 40 (1.37%) GxP
8 38 (1.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 37 (1.27%) PMO
10 23 (0.79%) GRC
11 22 (0.75%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 19 (0.65%) ISO 20022
13 17 (0.58%) GMP
14 14 (0.48%) NCSC
14 14 (0.48%) WCAG
15 13 (0.44%) Def Stans
16 12 (0.41%) HL7
17 11 (0.38%) IFRS
17 11 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 10 (0.34%) Solvency II
System Software
1 112 (3.83%) Docker
2 98 (3.35%) Active Directory
3 83 (2.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
5 32 (1.10%) VMware ESXi
6 29 (0.99%) Firmware
7 26 (0.89%) Hyper-V
8 23 (0.79%) vSphere
9 22 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
10 14 (0.48%) VMware NSX
11 5 (0.17%) KVM
11 5 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
12 4 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.10%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.068%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.068%) OpenSSH
14 2 (0.068%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.034%) etcd
15 1 (0.034%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.034%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 144 (4.93%) Kubernetes
2 88 (3.01%) Ansible
3 45 (1.54%) Grafana
4 37 (1.27%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
6 25 (0.86%) FortiGate
7 19 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.55%) SCCM
9 15 (0.51%) vCenter Server
10 14 (0.48%) HP ALM
11 10 (0.34%) Failover Clustering
11 10 (0.34%) VxRail
12 7 (0.24%) Argo
12 7 (0.24%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.21%) Microsoft Clustering
14 5 (0.17%) systemd
14 5 (0.17%) vMotion
14 5 (0.17%) vRealize
15 4 (0.14%) Consul
15 4 (0.14%) Kibana
Vendors
1 445 (15.23%) Microsoft
2 253 (8.66%) SAP
3 243 (8.32%) Oracle
4 160 (5.48%) Databricks
5 98 (3.35%) Salesforce
6 95 (3.25%) VMware
7 86 (2.94%) ServiceNow
8 82 (2.81%) Cisco
9 49 (1.68%) Google
10 47 (1.61%) Workday
11 38 (1.30%) IBM
12 37 (1.27%) Informatica
13 31 (1.06%) Fortinet
14 29 (0.99%) Juniper
15 28 (0.96%) Zscaler
16 27 (0.92%) Palo Alto
17 22 (0.75%) Splunk
18 21 (0.72%) MuleSoft
19 18 (0.62%) Ariba
20 17 (0.58%) HP