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 16 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 68 115
Rank change year-on-year +36 +47 +35
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,023 1,210 780
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.57% 3.67% 2.04%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.59% 4.06% 2.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,786 690 384
10th Percentile £331 £325 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £507 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.28% +1.30% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £591
90th Percentile £700 £688 £662
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -7.50% +5.26% -7.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 190 88 102
10th Percentile £16.65 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £26.61 £41.25 £51.06
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% - -2.61%
75th Percentile £72.31 £67.00 £70.81
90th Percentile £82.28 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -17.69% - -5.11%

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 45,839 29,816 32,769
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.46% 90.52% 85.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,855 18,531 20,147
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,070 1,799 1,460
10th Percentile £13.84 £14.25 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.36 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.50 £44.68 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.56 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +83.63% -47.37% +5.81%

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 16 September 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 16 September 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 16 September 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 2,593 £500 -2.44% 4,868
UK excluding London +27 1,374 £463 -7.50% 2,904
London +36 1,282 £525 - 2,370
Work from Home +28 835 £500 - 1,898
North of England +42 332 £451 +5.38% 491
South East +3 329 £505 +1.00% 695
Midlands +39 301 £473 -0.42% 409
West Midlands +24 210 £468 -1.41% 282
North West +17 162 £450 +5.88% 297
Yorkshire +44 148 £461 -2.89% 136
South West +12 143 £525 -4.55% 392
East of England -4 139 £463 -8.87% 445
Scotland +42 124 £440 -13.04% 366
East Midlands +32 87 £490 -2.00% 126
North East -23 27 £425 -5.56% 69
Wales -1 24 £363 -3.33% 64
Northern Ireland +4 4 £363 -40.33% 78
Channel Islands -5 1 - - 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 (2.84%) Confluence
2 67 (2.22%) Apache Airflow
3 60 (1.98%) SharePoint
4 53 (1.75%) SAS
5 43 (1.42%) Apache Spark
6 31 (1.03%) Apache
7 20 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
8 14 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
9 12 (0.40%) CMS
10 9 (0.30%) Jupyter
10 9 (0.30%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.23%) Palantir Foundry
11 7 (0.23%) Sitecore CMS
12 6 (0.20%) OpenStack
12 6 (0.20%) WebLogic
13 5 (0.17%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.17%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.13%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.13%) IIS
14 4 (0.13%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 214 (7.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (1.55%) Microsoft Office
3 42 (1.39%) MS Visio
4 34 (1.12%) Spreadsheet
5 32 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 15 (0.50%) AutoCAD
7 10 (0.33%) Navisworks
7 10 (0.33%) Revit
8 9 (0.30%) ProjectWise
9 8 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
10 6 (0.20%) CATIA
10 6 (0.20%) Simulink
11 4 (0.13%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.066%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.066%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.066%) Windchill
13 1 (0.033%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.033%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.033%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.033%) Trello
Business Applications
1 120 (3.97%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.60%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.50%) Oracle Payables
3 15 (0.50%) SAP SD
4 13 (0.43%) NetSuite
4 13 (0.43%) SAP FI
4 13 (0.43%) Teamcenter
5 12 (0.40%) SAP MDG
5 12 (0.40%) Workday HCM
6 11 (0.36%) Aladdin
6 11 (0.36%) iTrent
6 11 (0.36%) SAP HCM
6 11 (0.36%) SAP MM
7 9 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
7 9 (0.30%) SAP CO
7 9 (0.30%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.30%) SAP PS
8 8 (0.26%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.26%) Oracle General Ledger
Cloud Services
1 606 (20.05%) Azure
2 345 (11.41%) AWS
3 302 (9.99%) Power Platform
4 178 (5.89%) Azure DevOps
5 140 (4.63%) GCP
6 133 (4.40%) GitHub
7 108 (3.57%) Snowflake
8 89 (2.94%) Entra ID
9 73 (2.41%) GitHub Actions
10 70 (2.32%) Azure Data Factory
11 62 (2.05%) Serverless
12 59 (1.95%) SaaS
13 58 (1.92%) Microsoft 365
14 57 (1.89%) Amazon S3
14 57 (1.89%) dbt
15 39 (1.29%) SuccessFactors
16 38 (1.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 35 (1.16%) Azure Monitor
18 34 (1.12%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 31 (1.03%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 110 (3.64%) Firewall
2 75 (2.48%) DNS
3 68 (2.25%) VLAN
4 59 (1.95%) Network Security
5 52 (1.72%) VPN
6 46 (1.52%) BGP
6 46 (1.52%) TCP/IP
7 42 (1.39%) WAN
8 35 (1.16%) DHCP
9 28 (0.93%) OSPF
10 26 (0.86%) VXLAN
11 25 (0.83%) Wireless
12 23 (0.76%) Ethernet VPN
13 22 (0.73%) HTTP
13 22 (0.73%) Internet
13 22 (0.73%) LAN
14 21 (0.69%) Ethernet
15 20 (0.66%) 5G
15 20 (0.66%) SAN
15 20 (0.66%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 280 (9.26%) Power BI
2 167 (5.52%) Data Warehouse
3 129 (4.27%) Metadata
4 119 (3.94%) Relational Database
5 103 (3.41%) SQL Server
6 94 (3.11%) PostgreSQL
7 83 (2.75%) Data Lake
8 73 (2.41%) Tableau
9 42 (1.39%) Oracle Database
10 38 (1.26%) Delta Lake
10 38 (1.26%) MongoDB
11 36 (1.19%) Big Data
12 33 (1.09%) BigQuery
12 33 (1.09%) NoSQL
12 33 (1.09%) Power Query
13 31 (1.03%) Oracle Reports
13 31 (1.03%) Redis
14 30 (0.99%) MySQL
14 30 (0.99%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 28 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 268 (8.87%) JIRA
2 216 (7.15%) Git
3 103 (3.41%) Jenkins
4 91 (3.01%) GitLab
5 82 (2.71%) Selenium
6 42 (1.39%) Postman
7 35 (1.16%) JMeter
8 26 (0.86%) Cucumber
9 22 (0.73%) Rational DOORS
9 22 (0.73%) WebDriver
10 19 (0.63%) JUnit
11 17 (0.56%) Eclipse
12 15 (0.50%) Cypress.io
12 15 (0.50%) Gatling
12 15 (0.50%) REST Assured
12 15 (0.50%) Visual Studio
12 15 (0.50%) Zephyr
13 14 (0.46%) Oracle Forms
14 12 (0.40%) Maven
14 12 (0.40%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 864 (28.58%) Social Skills
2 862 (28.51%) Finance
3 602 (19.91%) Analytical Skills
4 257 (8.50%) Banking
5 254 (8.40%) Public Sector
6 143 (4.73%) Documentation Skills
7 119 (3.94%) Manufacturing
8 97 (3.21%) Retail
9 68 (2.25%) Telecoms
10 67 (2.22%) Automotive
10 67 (2.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 59 (1.95%) Organisational Skills
12 58 (1.92%) Pharmaceutical
13 56 (1.85%) Legal
14 51 (1.69%) Marketing
15 50 (1.65%) Aerospace
16 46 (1.52%) Front Office
16 46 (1.52%) Law
17 41 (1.36%) Local Government
18 40 (1.32%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 537 (17.76%) Analyst
2 342 (11.31%) Senior
3 272 (9.00%) Lead
4 245 (8.10%) Business Analyst
5 240 (7.94%) Consultant
6 237 (7.84%) Data Engineer
7 187 (6.19%) Developer
8 158 (5.23%) Data Analyst
9 153 (5.06%) Architect
10 114 (3.77%) Test Engineer
11 75 (2.48%) Network Engineer
11 75 (2.48%) Tester
12 65 (2.15%) Systems Engineer
13 60 (1.98%) Administrator
14 57 (1.89%) Senior Data Engineer
15 56 (1.85%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 56 (1.85%) Project Manager
16 55 (1.82%) Senior Analyst
17 50 (1.65%) Software Engineer
17 50 (1.65%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 184 (6.09%) REST
2 166 (5.49%) Terraform
3 99 (3.27%) JSON
4 88 (2.91%) PySpark
5 84 (2.78%) XML
6 78 (2.58%) Middleware
7 74 (2.45%) Kafka
8 55 (1.82%) Playwright
9 53 (1.75%) .NET
10 47 (1.55%) SOAP
10 47 (1.55%) Web Services
11 46 (1.52%) Oracle Fusion
11 46 (1.52%) pytest
12 42 (1.39%) OAuth
13 39 (1.29%) Pandas
14 38 (1.26%) RESTful
14 38 (1.26%) Spring
15 34 (1.12%) Spring Boot
16 31 (1.03%) HTML
17 29 (0.96%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 166 (5.49%) Onboarding
2 159 (5.26%) Data Structures
3 131 (4.33%) Cloud Native
4 122 (4.04%) Legacy Systems
5 111 (3.67%) Product Ownership
6 110 (3.64%) Management Information System
7 88 (2.91%) Data Centre
8 57 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
9 53 (1.75%) Distributed Systems
10 51 (1.69%) AI Agents
11 45 (1.49%) Life Science
12 44 (1.46%) Analytical Mindset
13 43 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
14 42 (1.39%) SCADA
15 38 (1.26%) Operational Technology
16 37 (1.22%) NHS
16 37 (1.22%) Replication
17 35 (1.16%) Algorithms
18 32 (1.06%) Reference Data
19 31 (1.03%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 198 (6.55%) Windows
2 134 (4.43%) Linux
3 79 (2.61%) Windows Server
4 53 (1.75%) Unix
5 22 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (0.50%) Android
6 15 (0.50%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.36%) Ubuntu
7 11 (0.36%) VMS
8 9 (0.30%) AIX
8 9 (0.30%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.23%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.13%) SUSE
10 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.099%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.066%) HPUX
12 2 (0.066%) Solaris
12 2 (0.066%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.066%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 814 (26.93%) Migration
2 654 (21.63%) Stakeholder Management
3 596 (19.72%) Agile
4 573 (18.95%) CI/CD
5 491 (16.24%) User Acceptance Testing
6 490 (16.21%) Data Modelling
7 486 (16.08%) Analytics
8 475 (15.71%) Data Validation
9 473 (15.65%) Data Migration
10 463 (15.32%) Problem-Solving
11 414 (13.70%) AI
12 400 (13.23%) DevOps
13 392 (12.97%) Continuous Improvement
14 386 (12.77%) Test Automation
15 340 (11.25%) ETL
16 321 (10.62%) Business Intelligence
17 315 (10.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 314 (10.39%) Data Analysis
19 308 (10.19%) Data Pipeline
20 305 (10.09%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 790 (26.13%) SQL
2 623 (20.61%) Python
3 150 (4.96%) Java
4 101 (3.34%) PowerShell
5 71 (2.35%) JavaScript
6 70 (2.32%) C#
7 62 (2.05%) Bash
8 43 (1.42%) C++
9 41 (1.36%) TypeScript
10 32 (1.06%) Apex Code
11 31 (1.03%) R
12 29 (0.96%) PL/SQL
13 28 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 27 (0.89%) Shell Script
15 25 (0.83%) Bicep
15 25 (0.83%) C
16 18 (0.60%) VBA
17 16 (0.53%) MATLAB
17 16 (0.53%) T-SQL
18 15 (0.50%) Scala
Qualifications
1 591 (19.55%) Security Cleared
2 434 (14.36%) SC Cleared
3 200 (6.62%) Degree
4 83 (2.75%) DV Cleared
5 68 (2.25%) BPSS Clearance
6 48 (1.59%) Computer Science Degree
7 47 (1.55%) Cisco Certification
8 38 (1.26%) CCNP
9 31 (1.03%) ACCA
9 31 (1.03%) AWS Certification
9 31 (1.03%) CIMA
10 27 (0.89%) ISTQB
11 26 (0.86%) Azure Certification
12 25 (0.83%) PMI Certification
13 24 (0.79%) PMP
14 18 (0.60%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 17 (0.56%) CISSP
15 17 (0.56%) Master's Degree
16 16 (0.53%) CCNA
17 15 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 623 (20.61%) Data Quality
2 369 (12.21%) QA
3 106 (3.51%) GDPR
4 50 (1.65%) Accessibility
5 41 (1.36%) SLA
6 39 (1.29%) GxP
6 39 (1.29%) NIST
7 36 (1.19%) PMO
8 35 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 22 (0.73%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 22 (0.73%) ISO 20022
10 21 (0.69%) GRC
11 17 (0.56%) GMP
12 16 (0.53%) WCAG
13 15 (0.50%) NCSC
14 14 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.36%) Def Stans
15 11 (0.36%) IFRS
15 11 (0.36%) MiFID
16 10 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 115 (3.80%) Docker
2 100 (3.31%) Active Directory
3 88 (2.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (1.29%) Virtual Machines
5 36 (1.19%) VMware ESXi
6 29 (0.96%) Firmware
7 26 (0.86%) Hyper-V
7 26 (0.86%) vSphere
8 23 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
9 14 (0.46%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.17%) KVM
12 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.099%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.066%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.066%) OpenSSH
14 2 (0.066%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.033%) etcd
15 1 (0.033%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.033%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 143 (4.73%) Kubernetes
2 93 (3.08%) Ansible
3 43 (1.42%) Grafana
4 35 (1.16%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
6 25 (0.83%) FortiGate
7 19 (0.63%) SCCM
8 18 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.50%) vCenter Server
10 14 (0.46%) HP ALM
11 10 (0.33%) Failover Clustering
11 10 (0.33%) VxRail
12 9 (0.30%) Argo
13 8 (0.26%) Progress Chef
14 7 (0.23%) Functional Safety
15 6 (0.20%) Control-M
15 6 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
16 5 (0.17%) systemd
16 5 (0.17%) vMotion
16 5 (0.17%) vRealize
Vendors
1 461 (15.25%) Microsoft
2 262 (8.67%) SAP
3 252 (8.34%) Oracle
4 165 (5.46%) Databricks
5 103 (3.41%) VMware
6 101 (3.34%) Salesforce
7 83 (2.75%) Cisco
8 74 (2.45%) ServiceNow
9 55 (1.82%) Google
10 50 (1.65%) Workday
11 44 (1.46%) IBM
12 33 (1.09%) Informatica
13 31 (1.03%) Fortinet
14 29 (0.96%) Zscaler
15 28 (0.93%) Juniper
16 27 (0.89%) Palo Alto
17 24 (0.79%) Splunk
18 22 (0.73%) MuleSoft
19 17 (0.56%) Ariba
19 17 (0.56%) CyberArk