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

6 months to
6 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 114 128
Rank change year-on-year +60 +14 +10
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,657 722 848
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.23% 2.32% 1.89%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.86% 2.59% 2.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,012 382 466
10th Percentile £350 £351 £322
25th Percentile £402 £409 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £491 £516 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.89% -3.95% -2.27%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £613
90th Percentile £699 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% +3.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 35 154
10th Percentile £31.52 £27.35 £23.55
25th Percentile £42.78 £47.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.75 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.55% -11.15% +2.80%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.75 £75.25
90th Percentile £73.50 £66.90 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.65 £65.98
% change year-on-year +12.76% -12.63% +2.91%

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 34,126 27,826 38,980
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.15% 89.30% 87.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,616 16,956 25,656
10th Percentile £306 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £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 £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £497 £500
% change year-on-year -3.47% -0.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,067 860 2,108
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.45
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +9.38%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.55 £61.31
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £30.88 £35.50
% change year-on-year -19.03% -13.03% +18.89%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 +58 1,434 £498 -5.24% 799
UK excluding London +38 759 £475 -5.00% 633
London +79 679 £513 -2.84% 251
Work from Home +64 521 £500 -4.76% 365
North of England +26 192 £420 - 134
South East +9 174 £500 - 192
North West +24 126 £400 +1.27% 84
Midlands +17 124 £500 +2.15% 116
South West +13 120 £475 -17.39% 78
West Midlands +18 104 £500 +2.04% 77
East of England +13 91 £477 +19.13% 89
Yorkshire -9 56 £487 -0.10% 41
Scotland +28 42 £440 -3.30% 33
East Midlands -13 20 £475 +58.33% 39
Northern Ireland +11 19 £425 - 1
North East -7 12 £450 -37.93% 9
Wales +2 6 £475 - 9

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 (3.80%) Confluence
2 39 (2.35%) Apache Spark
3 33 (1.99%) SharePoint
4 29 (1.75%) SAS
5 23 (1.39%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (1.21%) Microsoft Exchange
7 15 (0.91%) Apache
8 14 (0.84%) Skype for Business
9 9 (0.54%) Exchange Server 2013
10 8 (0.48%) Appian
10 8 (0.48%) CMS
11 7 (0.42%) Mattermost
12 6 (0.36%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.30%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.30%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
14 4 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.24%) Anypoint
14 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
15 3 (0.18%) GeoServer
15 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 83 (5.01%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (2.53%) Microsoft Office
3 29 (1.75%) MS Visio
4 17 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 11 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
6 9 (0.54%) Chatbot
7 8 (0.48%) Sketch
8 7 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
9 4 (0.24%) Notion
10 3 (0.18%) LaTeX
11 2 (0.12%) Simulink
12 1 (0.060%) CANalyzer
12 1 (0.060%) CATIA
12 1 (0.060%) OrCAD
12 1 (0.060%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.060%) Stateflow
12 1 (0.060%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 82 (4.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 20 (1.21%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.78%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.72%) SAP EHS
5 11 (0.66%) Oracle General Ledger
6 10 (0.60%) Oracle Receivables
7 9 (0.54%) Aladdin
7 9 (0.54%) NetSuite
7 9 (0.54%) Remedy ITSM
7 9 (0.54%) SAP FI
7 9 (0.54%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.48%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.48%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 8 (0.48%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 8 (0.48%) Workday HCM
9 7 (0.42%) SAP MM
10 6 (0.36%) OpenText VIM for SAP
10 6 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
10 6 (0.36%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 381 (22.99%) Azure
2 205 (12.37%) AWS
3 136 (8.21%) Azure DevOps
4 127 (7.66%) Power Platform
5 76 (4.59%) GitHub
6 68 (4.10%) GCP
7 56 (3.38%) Entra ID
8 49 (2.96%) Serverless
9 48 (2.90%) SaaS
10 47 (2.84%) GitHub Actions
11 46 (2.78%) Azure Data Factory
12 40 (2.41%) Amazon S3
13 37 (2.23%) Snowflake
14 33 (1.99%) OCI
15 31 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
16 25 (1.51%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 25 (1.51%) OpenShift
17 23 (1.39%) AWS Lambda
18 21 (1.27%) Dynamics 365
19 18 (1.09%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 50 (3.02%) Firewall
2 25 (1.51%) TCP/IP
3 22 (1.33%) Network Security
4 20 (1.21%) Ethernet
5 17 (1.03%) HTTP
5 17 (1.03%) VPN
5 17 (1.03%) WAN
6 15 (0.91%) DNS
6 15 (0.91%) VLAN
6 15 (0.91%) Wireless
7 14 (0.84%) Skype
8 13 (0.78%) BGP
9 12 (0.72%) LAN
9 12 (0.72%) MPLS
9 12 (0.72%) OSPF
10 10 (0.60%) TACACS
11 8 (0.48%) SD-WAN
12 7 (0.42%) Internet
13 6 (0.36%) Cisco ASA
13 6 (0.36%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 120 (7.24%) Power BI
2 75 (4.53%) Metadata
3 59 (3.56%) Data Warehouse
4 44 (2.66%) SQL Server
5 39 (2.35%) Tableau
6 35 (2.11%) Data Lake
7 31 (1.87%) NoSQL
8 27 (1.63%) PostgreSQL
9 23 (1.39%) Delta Lake
9 23 (1.39%) Relational Database
10 21 (1.27%) Azure SQL Database
11 19 (1.15%) Amazon Redshift
11 19 (1.15%) Big Data
11 19 (1.15%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 18 (1.09%) Oracle Database
12 18 (1.09%) Pinecone
13 16 (0.97%) Geospatial Data
14 15 (0.91%) GIS
14 15 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
14 15 (0.91%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 160 (9.66%) JIRA
2 82 (4.95%) Git
3 72 (4.35%) Jenkins
4 51 (3.08%) Postman
5 49 (2.96%) GitLab
6 43 (2.60%) Selenium
7 32 (1.93%) Oracle APEX
8 24 (1.45%) Rational DOORS
9 20 (1.21%) JMeter
10 17 (1.03%) TestRail
10 17 (1.03%) Visual Studio
11 16 (0.97%) Cucumber
11 16 (0.97%) MLflow
12 13 (0.78%) Zephyr
13 11 (0.66%) Eclipse
13 11 (0.66%) JUnit
13 11 (0.66%) REST Assured
13 11 (0.66%) SpecFlow
14 10 (0.60%) Cypress.io
15 9 (0.54%) Bitbucket
General
1 619 (37.36%) Social Skills
2 467 (28.18%) Finance
3 341 (20.58%) Analytical Skills
4 151 (9.11%) Public Sector
5 143 (8.63%) Banking
6 88 (5.31%) Documentation Skills
7 47 (2.84%) Presentation Skills
8 44 (2.66%) Manufacturing
9 37 (2.23%) Influencing Skills
10 35 (2.11%) Pharmaceutical
11 33 (1.99%) Telecoms
12 30 (1.81%) Marketing
13 29 (1.75%) Aerospace
13 29 (1.75%) Electronics
13 29 (1.75%) Front Office
14 27 (1.63%) Legal
14 27 (1.63%) Military
14 27 (1.63%) Organisational Skills
15 22 (1.33%) Billing
15 22 (1.33%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 328 (19.79%) Analyst
2 169 (10.20%) Senior
3 149 (8.99%) Business Analyst
4 141 (8.51%) Lead
5 138 (8.33%) Consultant
6 124 (7.48%) Developer
7 99 (5.97%) Architect
8 79 (4.77%) Data Analyst
9 75 (4.53%) Data Engineer
10 52 (3.14%) Software Engineer
10 52 (3.14%) Tester
11 48 (2.90%) Senior Analyst
12 47 (2.84%) Project Manager
13 42 (2.53%) SAP Consultant
14 41 (2.47%) Test Analyst
15 37 (2.23%) Test Manager
16 35 (2.11%) Senior Developer
17 32 (1.93%) Solutions Architect
18 30 (1.81%) Embedded Engineer
19 29 (1.75%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (6.46%) REST
2 86 (5.19%) JSON
3 57 (3.44%) XML
4 50 (3.02%) Oracle Fusion
5 48 (2.90%) OAuth
6 42 (2.53%) SOAP
7 41 (2.47%) Middleware
8 38 (2.29%) PySpark
8 38 (2.29%) RESTful
9 36 (2.17%) Node.js
10 35 (2.11%) .NET
10 35 (2.11%) Kafka
11 30 (1.81%) PyTorch
12 29 (1.75%) Playwright
13 28 (1.69%) Swagger
14 27 (1.63%) TensorFlow
14 27 (1.63%) Web Services
15 26 (1.57%) pytest
16 25 (1.51%) JWT
17 24 (1.45%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 96 (5.79%) Legacy Systems
2 67 (4.04%) Data Structures
3 66 (3.98%) Onboarding
4 60 (3.62%) Product Ownership
5 51 (3.08%) Management Information System
6 48 (2.90%) Cloud Native
7 33 (1.99%) Data Centre
8 28 (1.69%) Algorithms
9 27 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
10 24 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
11 22 (1.33%) FPGA
12 20 (1.21%) Derivative
12 20 (1.21%) Life Science
13 19 (1.15%) Distributed Systems
13 19 (1.15%) Hybrid Cloud
14 17 (1.03%) Replication
15 16 (0.97%) Operational Technology
16 15 (0.91%) SCADA
16 15 (0.91%) Security Posture
17 14 (0.84%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 93 (5.61%) Linux
2 87 (5.25%) Windows
3 30 (1.81%) Unix
4 11 (0.66%) Android
5 6 (0.36%) Embedded Linux
5 6 (0.36%) Windows Server
5 6 (0.36%) zOS
6 5 (0.30%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.24%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.12%) Debian
8 2 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.12%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.060%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.060%) pSOS
9 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 424 (25.59%) Agile
2 386 (23.30%) Problem-Solving
3 380 (22.93%) Migration
4 279 (16.84%) Stakeholder Management
5 275 (16.60%) DevOps
6 269 (16.23%) CI/CD
7 267 (16.11%) Data Validation
8 241 (14.54%) Analytics
9 210 (12.67%) Test Automation
10 206 (12.43%) Data Modelling
11 205 (12.37%) Data Migration
12 204 (12.31%) User Acceptance Testing
13 185 (11.16%) AI
14 182 (10.98%) ETL
15 173 (10.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 157 (9.47%) Business Intelligence
16 157 (9.47%) Continuous Improvement
16 157 (9.47%) Data Governance
17 148 (8.93%) Data Analysis
18 137 (8.27%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 412 (24.86%) SQL
2 356 (21.48%) Python
3 98 (5.91%) JavaScript
4 88 (5.31%) Java
5 67 (4.04%) C#
6 54 (3.26%) PowerShell
7 53 (3.20%) PL/SQL
8 49 (2.96%) Bash
9 48 (2.90%) C++
10 42 (2.53%) C
11 34 (2.05%) TypeScript
12 24 (1.45%) R
13 19 (1.15%) Bicep
14 17 (1.03%) Groovy
15 16 (0.97%) Ada
15 16 (0.97%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 16 (0.97%) Shell Script
16 15 (0.91%) Scala
17 12 (0.72%) T-SQL
18 9 (0.54%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 361 (21.79%) Security Cleared
2 265 (15.99%) SC Cleared
3 173 (10.44%) Degree
4 61 (3.68%) Computer Science Degree
5 57 (3.44%) BPSS Clearance
6 39 (2.35%) DV Cleared
6 39 (2.35%) Master's Degree
7 32 (1.93%) ISTQB
8 29 (1.75%) PMI Certification
9 23 (1.39%) AWS Certification
10 21 (1.27%) PMP
11 17 (1.03%) CBAP
12 16 (0.97%) Cisco Certification
13 14 (0.84%) Oracle Certification
14 12 (0.72%) Azure Certification
15 11 (0.66%) CCNP
16 10 (0.60%) CCIE
16 10 (0.60%) CISSP
16 10 (0.60%) OCA
17 9 (0.54%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 230 (13.88%) Data Quality
2 205 (12.37%) QA
3 91 (5.49%) GDPR
4 67 (4.04%) NIST
5 47 (2.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 38 (2.29%) Accessibility
7 19 (1.15%) GxP
7 19 (1.15%) IFRS
8 17 (1.03%) IFRS 17
9 15 (0.91%) Def Stans
9 15 (0.91%) PCI DSS
10 14 (0.84%) SLA
11 13 (0.78%) EU AI Act
11 13 (0.78%) PMO
12 12 (0.72%) NCSC
13 11 (0.66%) COBIT
13 11 (0.66%) GMP
14 10 (0.60%) GRC
14 10 (0.60%) MiFID
14 10 (0.60%) MISRA
System Software
1 59 (3.56%) Docker
2 46 (2.78%) Active Directory
3 32 (1.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (1.33%) Firmware
5 13 (0.78%) VMware NSX
6 12 (0.72%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.36%) Hyper-V
9 4 (0.24%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
9 4 (0.24%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.24%) vSphere
10 3 (0.18%) KVM
10 3 (0.18%) QEMU
11 2 (0.12%) Ceph
11 2 (0.12%) Lustre
11 2 (0.12%) NFS
11 2 (0.12%) OpenAM
11 2 (0.12%) OpenDJ
11 2 (0.12%) OpenIDM
11 2 (0.12%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 83 (5.01%) Kubernetes
2 72 (4.35%) Terraform
3 42 (2.53%) Ansible
4 21 (1.27%) Single Sign-On
5 18 (1.09%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (0.91%) Kibana
6 15 (0.91%) SCCM
7 14 (0.84%) Puppet
8 13 (0.78%) Grafana
9 11 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 11 (0.66%) Prometheus
10 9 (0.54%) Nmap
11 8 (0.48%) SCOM
12 7 (0.42%) HP SiteScope
13 6 (0.36%) Nessus
14 5 (0.30%) RSA Archer
15 4 (0.24%) Iperf
15 4 (0.24%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
16 3 (0.18%) FortiGate
16 3 (0.18%) OMEGAMON
Vendors
1 221 (13.34%) Microsoft
2 165 (9.96%) Oracle
3 139 (8.39%) SAP
4 80 (4.83%) Databricks
5 65 (3.92%) ServiceNow
6 44 (2.66%) Cisco
7 42 (2.53%) Google
7 42 (2.53%) Splunk
8 38 (2.29%) Salesforce
8 38 (2.29%) VMware
9 29 (1.75%) Workday
10 19 (1.15%) IBM
10 19 (1.15%) MuleSoft
10 19 (1.15%) Murex
10 19 (1.15%) Palo Alto
11 16 (0.97%) Informatica
12 15 (0.91%) OpenAI
13 14 (0.84%) Sage
14 13 (0.78%) Bloomberg
14 13 (0.78%) CheckPoint