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

6 months to
16 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 52 112 132
Rank change year-on-year +60 +20 +2
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,691 723 834
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.24% 2.36% 1.86%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.88% 2.63% 2.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,032 397 453
10th Percentile £350 £359 £320
25th Percentile £403 £409 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £623
90th Percentile £700 £725 £723
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £503
% change year-on-year -5.00% -0.55% +1.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 33 156
10th Percentile £31.50 £25.46 £23.06
25th Percentile £41.94 £47.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +3.92%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.75 £75.25
90th Percentile £73.75 £74.75 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £61.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +5.69% -5.38% +3.92%

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 34,650 27,474 38,981
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.87% 89.55% 87.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,945 16,847 25,520
10th Percentile £310 £306 £300
25th Percentile £409 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £479 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -3.23% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,102 836 2,133
10th Percentile £14.55 £15.62 £13.25
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.05 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -4.41% -1.68%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £30.78 £35.00
% change year-on-year -18.29% -12.06% +7.69%

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 February 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 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Validation in the UK

Validation
Top 17 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 February 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 +53 1,459 £500 -4.76% 737
UK excluding London +41 781 £475 -5.00% 608
London +71 688 £525 -4.55% 212
Work from Home +65 527 £500 -4.76% 335
North of England +38 207 £420 - 112
South East +6 167 £505 +0.90% 212
North West +32 136 £400 +1.27% 74
Midlands +17 125 £492 +0.92% 117
South West +6 123 £475 -17.39% 75
West Midlands +13 102 £496 +1.38% 74
East of England +23 93 £482 +20.44% 84
Yorkshire -7 61 £475 -2.62% 31
Scotland +37 48 £433 -4.42% 21
East Midlands -7 22 £463 +26.02% 42
Northern Ireland +14 19 £425 - 1
North East -4 12 £450 -45.45% 7
Wales +5 9 £450 - 8

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 63 (3.73%) Confluence
2 40 (2.37%) Apache Spark
3 33 (1.95%) SharePoint
4 27 (1.60%) SAS
5 21 (1.24%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
7 16 (0.95%) Apache
8 14 (0.83%) Skype for Business
9 9 (0.53%) Appian
9 9 (0.53%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.41%) Mattermost
11 6 (0.35%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.35%) CMS
11 6 (0.35%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
12 5 (0.30%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.24%) Anypoint
13 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.18%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 86 (5.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (2.42%) Microsoft Office
3 30 (1.77%) MS Visio
4 18 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.71%) Microsoft Project
6 10 (0.59%) Chatbot
7 7 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
8 6 (0.35%) Sketch
9 4 (0.24%) Notion
10 3 (0.18%) LaTeX
11 2 (0.12%) Simulink
12 1 (0.059%) CANalyzer
12 1 (0.059%) CATIA
12 1 (0.059%) OrCAD
12 1 (0.059%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.059%) Stateflow
12 1 (0.059%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 76 (4.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (1.24%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.83%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.71%) SAP EHS
4 12 (0.71%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.65%) Oracle General Ledger
5 11 (0.65%) Oracle Receivables
6 10 (0.59%) Remedy ITSM
7 9 (0.53%) Aladdin
7 9 (0.53%) NetSuite
7 9 (0.53%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.53%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 9 (0.53%) SAP FI
7 9 (0.53%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.47%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 7 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
9 7 (0.41%) SAP MM
10 6 (0.35%) OpenText VIM for SAP
10 6 (0.35%) Payment Gateway
10 6 (0.35%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 389 (23.00%) Azure
2 208 (12.30%) AWS
3 133 (7.87%) Power Platform
4 132 (7.81%) Azure DevOps
5 76 (4.49%) GitHub
6 66 (3.90%) GCP
7 55 (3.25%) Entra ID
8 51 (3.02%) Serverless
9 50 (2.96%) SaaS
10 47 (2.78%) Azure Data Factory
10 47 (2.78%) GitHub Actions
11 43 (2.54%) Amazon S3
12 36 (2.13%) Snowflake
13 34 (2.01%) OCI
14 32 (1.89%) Microsoft 365
15 28 (1.66%) AWS Lambda
15 28 (1.66%) OpenShift
16 25 (1.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 21 (1.24%) AWS CloudFormation
17 21 (1.24%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 53 (3.13%) Firewall
2 27 (1.60%) TCP/IP
3 26 (1.54%) Network Security
4 18 (1.06%) Ethernet
4 18 (1.06%) HTTP
5 17 (1.01%) DNS
6 16 (0.95%) VLAN
7 15 (0.89%) VPN
8 14 (0.83%) Skype
8 14 (0.83%) WAN
9 13 (0.77%) Wireless
10 12 (0.71%) BGP
11 11 (0.65%) OSPF
12 10 (0.59%) MPLS
13 9 (0.53%) LAN
14 8 (0.47%) TACACS
15 7 (0.41%) Internet
15 7 (0.41%) SAN
15 7 (0.41%) SD-WAN
15 7 (0.41%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 127 (7.51%) Power BI
2 81 (4.79%) Metadata
3 63 (3.73%) Data Warehouse
4 45 (2.66%) SQL Server
5 41 (2.42%) Tableau
6 35 (2.07%) Data Lake
7 30 (1.77%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
9 24 (1.42%) Delta Lake
10 22 (1.30%) Relational Database
11 21 (1.24%) Azure SQL Database
11 21 (1.24%) Big Data
12 20 (1.18%) Amazon Redshift
12 20 (1.18%) Geospatial Data
13 19 (1.12%) Pinecone
14 18 (1.06%) GIS
15 17 (1.01%) Oracle Database
15 17 (1.01%) Oracle Reports
16 16 (0.95%) Amazon Athena
16 16 (0.95%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 161 (9.52%) JIRA
2 84 (4.97%) Git
3 70 (4.14%) Jenkins
4 53 (3.13%) Postman
5 48 (2.84%) GitLab
6 44 (2.60%) Selenium
7 32 (1.89%) Oracle APEX
8 25 (1.48%) Rational DOORS
9 20 (1.18%) JMeter
10 17 (1.01%) MLflow
11 16 (0.95%) Cucumber
11 16 (0.95%) TestRail
12 15 (0.89%) Visual Studio
13 14 (0.83%) Zephyr
14 13 (0.77%) JUnit
15 12 (0.71%) REST Assured
16 11 (0.65%) SpecFlow
17 9 (0.53%) Bitbucket
17 9 (0.53%) Cypress.io
17 9 (0.53%) Eclipse
General
1 631 (37.32%) Social Skills
2 488 (28.86%) Finance
3 344 (20.34%) Analytical Skills
4 152 (8.99%) Public Sector
5 148 (8.75%) Banking
6 89 (5.26%) Documentation Skills
7 45 (2.66%) Presentation Skills
8 44 (2.60%) Manufacturing
9 39 (2.31%) Influencing Skills
10 36 (2.13%) Pharmaceutical
11 31 (1.83%) Telecoms
12 30 (1.77%) Electronics
12 30 (1.77%) Front Office
13 29 (1.71%) Aerospace
14 28 (1.66%) Legal
14 28 (1.66%) Marketing
14 28 (1.66%) Organisational Skills
15 25 (1.48%) Military
16 22 (1.30%) Billing
16 22 (1.30%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 339 (20.05%) Analyst
2 172 (10.17%) Senior
3 149 (8.81%) Business Analyst
4 148 (8.75%) Lead
5 133 (7.87%) Consultant
6 123 (7.27%) Developer
7 111 (6.56%) Architect
8 85 (5.03%) Data Engineer
9 81 (4.79%) Data Analyst
10 51 (3.02%) Software Engineer
11 50 (2.96%) Tester
12 49 (2.90%) Senior Analyst
13 47 (2.78%) Project Manager
14 40 (2.37%) SAP Consultant
14 40 (2.37%) Test Analyst
15 38 (2.25%) Test Manager
16 35 (2.07%) Senior Developer
16 35 (2.07%) Solutions Architect
17 31 (1.83%) Embedded Engineer
18 30 (1.77%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (6.51%) REST
2 89 (5.26%) JSON
3 57 (3.37%) XML
4 50 (2.96%) OAuth
4 50 (2.96%) Oracle Fusion
5 45 (2.66%) Middleware
6 41 (2.42%) PySpark
6 41 (2.42%) SOAP
7 40 (2.37%) Kafka
8 38 (2.25%) RESTful
9 34 (2.01%) .NET
10 33 (1.95%) Node.js
11 30 (1.77%) PyTorch
11 30 (1.77%) Swagger
12 29 (1.71%) Playwright
13 27 (1.60%) TensorFlow
14 26 (1.54%) Pandas
14 26 (1.54%) Web Services
15 25 (1.48%) pytest
16 24 (1.42%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 101 (5.97%) Legacy Systems
2 74 (4.38%) Data Structures
3 63 (3.73%) Onboarding
4 60 (3.55%) Product Ownership
5 53 (3.13%) Management Information System
6 51 (3.02%) Cloud Native
7 31 (1.83%) Data Centre
8 28 (1.66%) Algorithms
8 28 (1.66%) Analytical Mindset
9 27 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
10 22 (1.30%) Hybrid Cloud
11 21 (1.24%) Distributed Systems
11 21 (1.24%) FPGA
12 20 (1.18%) Derivative
13 19 (1.12%) Life Science
13 19 (1.12%) Replication
14 17 (1.01%) Operational Technology
14 17 (1.01%) Security Posture
15 15 (0.89%) Greenfield Project
16 14 (0.83%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 93 (5.50%) Linux
2 87 (5.14%) Windows
3 32 (1.89%) Unix
4 10 (0.59%) Android
5 6 (0.35%) Embedded Linux
5 6 (0.35%) Mac OS
5 6 (0.35%) Windows Server
5 6 (0.35%) zOS
6 3 (0.18%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.12%) Debian
7 2 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.12%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.059%) FreeRTOS
8 1 (0.059%) pSOS
8 1 (0.059%) Robot Operating System
8 1 (0.059%) Solaris
8 1 (0.059%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 418 (24.72%) Agile
2 396 (23.42%) Problem-Solving
3 381 (22.53%) Migration
4 294 (17.39%) Stakeholder Management
5 278 (16.44%) Data Validation
6 267 (15.79%) CI/CD
7 265 (15.67%) DevOps
8 252 (14.90%) Analytics
9 230 (13.60%) Data Modelling
10 213 (12.60%) Data Migration
11 211 (12.48%) Test Automation
12 202 (11.95%) User Acceptance Testing
13 195 (11.53%) ETL
14 194 (11.47%) AI
15 174 (10.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 169 (9.99%) Continuous Improvement
17 167 (9.88%) Business Intelligence
18 163 (9.64%) Data Governance
19 153 (9.05%) Data Analysis
20 142 (8.40%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 411 (24.31%) SQL
2 357 (21.11%) Python
3 93 (5.50%) JavaScript
4 89 (5.26%) Java
5 65 (3.84%) C#
6 53 (3.13%) PL/SQL
7 51 (3.02%) PowerShell
8 47 (2.78%) Bash
9 45 (2.66%) C++
10 42 (2.48%) C
11 35 (2.07%) TypeScript
12 24 (1.42%) R
13 21 (1.24%) Bicep
14 18 (1.06%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 17 (1.01%) Ada
15 17 (1.01%) Groovy
16 16 (0.95%) Shell Script
17 15 (0.89%) Scala
18 12 (0.71%) T-SQL
19 11 (0.65%) VBA
Qualifications
1 366 (21.64%) Security Cleared
2 267 (15.79%) SC Cleared
3 180 (10.64%) Degree
4 61 (3.61%) Computer Science Degree
5 56 (3.31%) BPSS Clearance
6 40 (2.37%) Master's Degree
7 39 (2.31%) DV Cleared
8 32 (1.89%) ISTQB
9 28 (1.66%) PMI Certification
10 21 (1.24%) PMP
11 20 (1.18%) AWS Certification
12 16 (0.95%) CBAP
13 14 (0.83%) Cisco Certification
14 13 (0.77%) Oracle Certification
15 12 (0.71%) CISSP
16 11 (0.65%) Azure Certification
16 11 (0.65%) CCNP
17 10 (0.59%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 10 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
18 9 (0.53%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 243 (14.37%) Data Quality
2 210 (12.42%) QA
3 91 (5.38%) GDPR
4 68 (4.02%) NIST
5 47 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 35 (2.07%) Accessibility
7 20 (1.18%) IFRS
8 18 (1.06%) GxP
8 18 (1.06%) IFRS 17
9 15 (0.89%) Def Stans
10 14 (0.83%) PCI DSS
10 14 (0.83%) SLA
11 13 (0.77%) EU AI Act
12 12 (0.71%) COBIT
12 12 (0.71%) GMP
12 12 (0.71%) NCSC
13 11 (0.65%) PMO
14 10 (0.59%) GRC
14 10 (0.59%) MiFID
14 10 (0.59%) MISRA
System Software
1 59 (3.49%) Docker
2 46 (2.72%) Active Directory
3 30 (1.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.24%) Firmware
5 12 (0.71%) VMware NSX
6 9 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.41%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.24%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 4 (0.24%) NFS
8 4 (0.24%) vSphere
9 3 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.18%) KVM
10 2 (0.12%) Ceph
10 2 (0.12%) Lustre
10 2 (0.12%) OpenAM
10 2 (0.12%) OpenIDM
10 2 (0.12%) QEMU
10 2 (0.12%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 2 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 87 (5.14%) Kubernetes
2 73 (4.32%) Terraform
3 38 (2.25%) Ansible
4 22 (1.30%) Single Sign-On
5 18 (1.06%) Microsoft Intune
5 18 (1.06%) Prometheus
6 15 (0.89%) Grafana
6 15 (0.89%) Kibana
6 15 (0.89%) SCCM
7 14 (0.83%) Puppet
8 11 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 9 (0.53%) Nessus
9 9 (0.53%) Nmap
10 8 (0.47%) SCOM
11 7 (0.41%) HP SiteScope
12 4 (0.24%) CASB
12 4 (0.24%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.24%) Iperf
12 4 (0.24%) RSA Archer
12 4 (0.24%) vMotion
Vendors
1 223 (13.19%) Microsoft
2 165 (9.76%) Oracle
3 137 (8.10%) SAP
4 83 (4.91%) Databricks
5 69 (4.08%) ServiceNow
6 51 (3.02%) Splunk
7 43 (2.54%) Cisco
8 42 (2.48%) Google
9 39 (2.31%) Salesforce
10 36 (2.13%) VMware
10 36 (2.13%) Workday
11 23 (1.36%) MuleSoft
12 20 (1.18%) IBM
13 19 (1.12%) Murex
13 19 (1.12%) Palo Alto
14 17 (1.01%) Informatica
14 17 (1.01%) OpenAI
14 17 (1.01%) Sage
15 14 (0.83%) Bloomberg
15 14 (0.83%) Remedy