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

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 64 107
Rank change year-on-year +33 +43 +45
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,148 1,231 805
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.76% 3.75% 2.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.82% 4.14% 2.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,847 703 405
10th Percentile £341 £340 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -7.41%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £594
90th Percentile £700 £688 £666
UK excluding London median daily rate £467 £500 £485
% change year-on-year -6.60% +3.15% -5.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 206 88 96
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £26.91 £41.25 £47.19
Median hourly rate £53.50 £62.50 £63.75
Median % change year-on-year -14.40% -1.96% -4.48%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £65.63
90th Percentile £79.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.25 £65.00 £63.75
% change year-on-year -13.46% +1.96% -5.64%

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 46,176 29,707 32,376
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 90.53% 85.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,774 18,450 19,527
10th Percentile £325 £297 £308
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 £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,315 1,863 1,324
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.14 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £38.50 £25.15 £41.08
Median % change year-on-year +53.08% -38.77% -3.91%
75th Percentile £65.41 £43.21 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.40 £65.00 £74.31
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £22.32 £42.50
% change year-on-year +73.52% -47.49% -

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 October 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 October 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 6 October 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 +34 2,692 £500 -2.44% 4,498
UK excluding London +28 1,450 £467 -6.60% 2,984
London +41 1,310 £525 - 1,950
Work from Home +25 872 £500 - 1,812
North of England +47 357 £459 +6.69% 517
South East +4 335 £525 +5.00% 742
Midlands +36 299 £463 -7.50% 428
West Midlands +24 213 £456 -10.15% 268
North West +24 179 £467 +9.88% 269
South West +20 174 £525 -4.55% 340
Yorkshire +51 148 £463 -2.63% 166
Scotland +50 147 £450 -11.07% 415
East of England -6 142 £475 -2.56% 390
East Midlands +30 83 £489 -4.63% 159
North East -14 35 £425 -11.92% 84
Wales -3 24 £394 +5.00% 95
Northern Ireland +4 4 £363 -27.50% 96
Channel Islands -5 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 95 (3.02%) Confluence
2 64 (2.03%) Apache Airflow
3 62 (1.97%) SharePoint
4 49 (1.56%) Apache Spark
5 46 (1.46%) SAS
6 41 (1.30%) Apache
7 21 (0.67%) CMS
8 20 (0.64%) Microsoft Exchange
9 14 (0.44%) Oracle Workflow
10 11 (0.35%) Jupyter
11 9 (0.29%) IIS
11 9 (0.29%) SharePoint 2013
12 8 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
13 7 (0.22%) Sitecore CMS
13 7 (0.22%) WebLogic
14 6 (0.19%) OpenStack
15 5 (0.16%) CICS
15 5 (0.16%) Tomcat
15 5 (0.16%) Tuxedo
16 4 (0.13%) JBoss
Applications
1 205 (6.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 48 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
3 40 (1.27%) MS Visio
4 31 (0.98%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 17 (0.54%) AutoCAD
7 12 (0.38%) Navisworks
7 12 (0.38%) Revit
8 10 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
8 10 (0.32%) ProjectWise
9 9 (0.29%) Simulink
10 5 (0.16%) CATIA
10 5 (0.16%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.095%) OrCAD
12 2 (0.064%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.064%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.064%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.032%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.032%) Trello
13 1 (0.032%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 114 (3.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.57%) SAP FI
3 17 (0.54%) Workday HCM
4 16 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
5 15 (0.48%) SAP SD
6 14 (0.44%) Integrated Workplace Management System
6 14 (0.44%) Oracle EBS
6 14 (0.44%) SAP HCM
7 13 (0.41%) Aladdin
7 13 (0.41%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.41%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.38%) SAP MDG
9 11 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
9 11 (0.35%) SAP MM
10 10 (0.32%) iTrent
10 10 (0.32%) SAP CO
10 10 (0.32%) SAP ERP
11 9 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
11 9 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
11 9 (0.29%) SAP PS
Cloud Services
1 604 (19.19%) Azure
2 350 (11.12%) AWS
3 319 (10.13%) Power Platform
4 188 (5.97%) Azure DevOps
5 160 (5.08%) GCP
6 154 (4.89%) GitHub
7 111 (3.53%) Snowflake
8 104 (3.30%) Entra ID
9 78 (2.48%) GitHub Actions
10 74 (2.35%) Azure Data Factory
11 62 (1.97%) Amazon S3
11 62 (1.97%) SaaS
12 61 (1.94%) Microsoft 365
12 61 (1.94%) Serverless
13 57 (1.81%) dbt
14 47 (1.49%) SuccessFactors
15 40 (1.27%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 39 (1.24%) Azure Monitor
16 39 (1.24%) Dynamics 365
17 35 (1.11%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 108 (3.43%) Firewall
2 79 (2.51%) DNS
3 60 (1.91%) VLAN
4 59 (1.87%) Network Security
5 57 (1.81%) VPN
6 50 (1.59%) BGP
7 49 (1.56%) TCP/IP
8 43 (1.37%) WAN
9 34 (1.08%) DHCP
10 30 (0.95%) VXLAN
11 29 (0.92%) OSPF
12 27 (0.86%) Ethernet VPN
13 26 (0.83%) Ethernet
13 26 (0.83%) Wireless
14 24 (0.76%) LAN
15 22 (0.70%) Internet
15 22 (0.70%) SD-WAN
15 22 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
16 20 (0.64%) 5G
16 20 (0.64%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 294 (9.34%) Power BI
2 172 (5.46%) Data Warehouse
3 145 (4.61%) Metadata
4 125 (3.97%) Relational Database
5 111 (3.53%) SQL Server
6 102 (3.24%) PostgreSQL
7 85 (2.70%) Data Lake
8 66 (2.10%) Tableau
9 42 (1.33%) MongoDB
10 41 (1.30%) Oracle Database
11 39 (1.24%) Delta Lake
12 38 (1.21%) BigQuery
12 38 (1.21%) Power Query
13 37 (1.18%) Redis
14 36 (1.14%) Big Data
15 34 (1.08%) NoSQL
16 29 (0.92%) MySQL
16 29 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
17 28 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
18 25 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 282 (8.96%) JIRA
2 231 (7.34%) Git
3 105 (3.34%) Jenkins
4 99 (3.14%) GitLab
5 80 (2.54%) Selenium
6 44 (1.40%) Postman
7 35 (1.11%) JMeter
8 26 (0.83%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.76%) Rational DOORS
10 21 (0.67%) JUnit
11 20 (0.64%) WebDriver
12 19 (0.60%) REST Assured
12 19 (0.60%) Zephyr
13 17 (0.54%) Cypress.io
13 17 (0.54%) Eclipse
13 17 (0.54%) Visual Studio
14 14 (0.44%) Oracle Forms
15 13 (0.41%) Gatling
15 13 (0.41%) TestRail
16 12 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 904 (28.72%) Finance
2 897 (28.49%) Social Skills
3 631 (20.04%) Analytical Skills
4 291 (9.24%) Banking
5 278 (8.83%) Public Sector
6 137 (4.35%) Manufacturing
7 129 (4.10%) Documentation Skills
8 94 (2.99%) Retail
9 77 (2.45%) Automotive
10 72 (2.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 71 (2.26%) Telecoms
12 59 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
13 58 (1.84%) Legal
14 57 (1.81%) Aerospace
15 54 (1.72%) Pharmaceutical
16 51 (1.62%) Marketing
17 46 (1.46%) Billing
17 46 (1.46%) Local Government
18 43 (1.37%) Front Office
19 42 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 531 (16.87%) Analyst
2 382 (12.13%) Senior
3 283 (8.99%) Lead
4 260 (8.26%) Consultant
5 253 (8.04%) Data Engineer
6 236 (7.50%) Business Analyst
7 207 (6.58%) Developer
8 170 (5.40%) Data Analyst
9 166 (5.27%) Architect
10 113 (3.59%) Test Engineer
11 80 (2.54%) Tester
12 77 (2.45%) Network Engineer
13 66 (2.10%) Senior Data Engineer
14 63 (2.00%) Administrator
15 59 (1.87%) Senior Analyst
15 59 (1.87%) Systems Engineer
16 55 (1.75%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 51 (1.62%) Software Engineer
18 47 (1.49%) Project Manager
19 46 (1.46%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 205 (6.51%) REST
2 199 (6.32%) Terraform
3 100 (3.18%) JSON
4 93 (2.95%) Middleware
5 91 (2.89%) PySpark
6 86 (2.73%) XML
7 74 (2.35%) Kafka
8 62 (1.97%) Playwright
9 60 (1.91%) OAuth
10 58 (1.84%) .NET
11 56 (1.78%) Web Services
12 52 (1.65%) pytest
13 51 (1.62%) SOAP
14 48 (1.52%) Oracle Fusion
15 46 (1.46%) RESTful
16 45 (1.43%) OpenID
17 43 (1.37%) OAuth2
18 36 (1.14%) Pandas
19 35 (1.11%) FastAPI
19 35 (1.11%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 180 (5.72%) Onboarding
2 174 (5.53%) Data Structures
3 147 (4.67%) Cloud Native
4 125 (3.97%) Legacy Systems
4 125 (3.97%) Management Information System
5 118 (3.75%) Product Ownership
6 95 (3.02%) Data Centre
7 68 (2.16%) Enterprise Software
8 63 (2.00%) AI Agents
9 61 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
10 47 (1.49%) Analytical Mindset
11 46 (1.46%) Life Science
12 42 (1.33%) Algorithms
12 42 (1.33%) SCADA
13 41 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
13 41 (1.30%) Replication
14 36 (1.14%) NHS
14 36 (1.14%) Operational Technology
15 35 (1.11%) CMDB
16 34 (1.08%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 218 (6.93%) Windows
2 141 (4.48%) Linux
3 88 (2.80%) Windows Server
4 60 (1.91%) Unix
5 22 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.51%) Windows 10
7 14 (0.44%) Android
8 11 (0.35%) AIX
8 11 (0.35%) Ubuntu
9 9 (0.29%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.22%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.19%) VMS
11 6 (0.19%) zOS
12 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
12 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.095%) CentOS
13 3 (0.095%) VxWorks
14 2 (0.064%) HPUX
14 2 (0.064%) Solaris
14 2 (0.064%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 855 (27.16%) Migration
2 704 (22.36%) Stakeholder Management
3 626 (19.89%) CI/CD
4 601 (19.09%) Agile
5 513 (16.30%) Data Modelling
6 507 (16.11%) User Acceptance Testing
7 506 (16.07%) Data Migration
8 496 (15.76%) Analytics
9 484 (15.37%) Data Validation
9 484 (15.37%) Problem-Solving
10 446 (14.17%) AI
11 440 (13.98%) Continuous Improvement
12 428 (13.60%) DevOps
13 420 (13.34%) Test Automation
14 353 (11.21%) ETL
15 338 (10.74%) Business Intelligence
16 327 (10.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 325 (10.32%) Data Governance
18 320 (10.17%) Data Analysis
19 304 (9.66%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 834 (26.49%) SQL
2 674 (21.41%) Python
3 155 (4.92%) Java
4 120 (3.81%) PowerShell
5 81 (2.57%) JavaScript
6 79 (2.51%) C#
7 64 (2.03%) Bash
8 50 (1.59%) TypeScript
9 45 (1.43%) C++
10 32 (1.02%) Shell Script
11 29 (0.92%) Bicep
11 29 (0.92%) R
12 28 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 27 (0.86%) PL/SQL
14 26 (0.83%) Apex Code
14 26 (0.83%) C
15 23 (0.73%) Go
16 20 (0.64%) VBA
17 19 (0.60%) T-SQL
18 17 (0.54%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 636 (20.20%) Security Cleared
2 481 (15.28%) SC Cleared
3 218 (6.93%) Degree
4 92 (2.92%) DV Cleared
5 77 (2.45%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.59%) Computer Science Degree
7 46 (1.46%) Cisco Certification
8 37 (1.18%) CCNP
9 36 (1.14%) AWS Certification
10 34 (1.08%) ACCA
10 34 (1.08%) CIMA
11 27 (0.86%) ISTQB
12 26 (0.83%) Azure Certification
13 25 (0.79%) PMI Certification
14 23 (0.73%) PMP
15 22 (0.70%) CISSP
16 21 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 20 (0.64%) Master's Degree
18 19 (0.60%) DBS Check
19 15 (0.48%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 661 (21.00%) Data Quality
2 376 (11.94%) QA
3 101 (3.21%) GDPR
4 55 (1.75%) Accessibility
5 51 (1.62%) SLA
6 37 (1.18%) GxP
7 36 (1.14%) NIST
7 36 (1.14%) PMO
8 33 (1.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 23 (0.73%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 23 (0.73%) GRC
10 21 (0.67%) ISO 20022
11 18 (0.57%) GMP
11 18 (0.57%) WCAG
12 16 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
13 14 (0.44%) NCSC
14 12 (0.38%) IFRS
15 11 (0.35%) ISO 19650
15 11 (0.35%) MiFID
16 10 (0.32%) Def Stans
System Software
1 118 (3.75%) Active Directory
2 111 (3.53%) Docker
3 92 (2.92%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.14%) VMware ESXi
5 34 (1.08%) Virtual Machines
6 27 (0.86%) Firmware
7 25 (0.79%) Hyper-V
7 25 (0.79%) Virtual Desktop
8 23 (0.73%) vSphere
9 16 (0.51%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.16%) KVM
12 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.13%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.064%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.064%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.032%) HDFS
14 1 (0.032%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.032%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 1 (0.032%) NFS
Systems Management
1 160 (5.08%) Kubernetes
2 111 (3.53%) Ansible
3 44 (1.40%) Grafana
4 35 (1.11%) Prometheus
5 26 (0.83%) FortiGate
6 25 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
7 19 (0.60%) SCCM
7 19 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.44%) HP ALM
9 11 (0.35%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.32%) Functional Safety
10 10 (0.32%) Progress Chef
11 9 (0.29%) Argo
11 9 (0.29%) Control-M
12 6 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
12 6 (0.19%) Kibana
12 6 (0.19%) VxRail
13 5 (0.16%) vMotion
13 5 (0.16%) vRealize
14 4 (0.13%) Consul
Vendors
1 488 (15.50%) Microsoft
2 265 (8.42%) SAP
3 246 (7.81%) Oracle
4 179 (5.69%) Databricks
5 106 (3.37%) VMware
6 97 (3.08%) ServiceNow
7 90 (2.86%) Cisco
8 88 (2.80%) Salesforce
9 72 (2.29%) Google
10 58 (1.84%) Workday
11 52 (1.65%) IBM
12 35 (1.11%) Informatica
13 34 (1.08%) Fortinet
14 30 (0.95%) Palo Alto
14 30 (0.95%) Zscaler
15 27 (0.86%) Juniper
16 21 (0.67%) CyberArk
17 20 (0.64%) Red Hat
17 20 (0.64%) Sage
18 19 (0.60%) Splunk