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

6 months to
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 67 109
Rank change year-on-year +35 +42 +42
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,100 1,222 806
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.65% 3.71% 2.12%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.69% 4.10% 2.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,828 695 398
10th Percentile £331 £325 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £501 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.10% +0.10% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £590
90th Percentile £700 £688 £664
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £488
% change year-on-year -7.50% +2.56% -4.97%
Number of hourly rates quoted 194 85 101
10th Percentile £16.84 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £26.61 £41.25 £48.00
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% - -1.49%
75th Percentile £72.31 £67.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £81.89 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -17.69% - -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 46,342 29,835 32,681
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.41% 90.50% 85.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,074 18,533 19,873
10th Percentile £325 £300 £309
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 £626 £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 3,192 1,836 1,405
10th Percentile £13.74 £14.31 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.32 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -
75th Percentile £67.25 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +79.25% -48.10% +1.18%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 2,661 £500 -2.44% 4,213
UK excluding London +33 1,417 £463 -7.50% 2,537
London +40 1,304 £525 - 2,011
Work from Home +25 850 £500 - 1,554
North of England +43 348 £450 +4.65% 442
South East +4 331 £525 +5.00% 668
Midlands +36 307 £473 -0.42% 350
West Midlands +29 215 £464 -2.40% 241
North West +16 166 £452 +6.29% 249
Yorkshire +54 156 £460 -3.16% 124
South West +17 153 £521 -5.23% 333
East of England -7 144 £450 -10.00% 342
Scotland +41 128 £430 -15.02% 309
East Midlands +26 88 £489 -2.25% 108
North East -25 31 £425 -11.92% 71
Wales 0 25 £394 +5.00% 59
Northern Ireland +5 4 £363 -40.33% 65
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 92 (2.97%) Confluence
2 70 (2.26%) Apache Airflow
3 60 (1.94%) SharePoint
4 53 (1.71%) SAS
5 44 (1.42%) Apache Spark
6 34 (1.10%) Apache
7 18 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
8 17 (0.55%) CMS
9 14 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
10 12 (0.39%) Jupyter
11 9 (0.29%) SharePoint 2013
12 8 (0.26%) Palantir Foundry
13 7 (0.23%) ArcGIS
13 7 (0.23%) Sitecore CMS
14 6 (0.19%) OpenStack
14 6 (0.19%) WebLogic
15 5 (0.16%) Tuxedo
16 4 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 4 (0.13%) IIS
16 4 (0.13%) JBoss
Applications
1 215 (6.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
3 40 (1.29%) MS Visio
4 32 (1.03%) Spreadsheet
5 31 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 16 (0.52%) AutoCAD
7 11 (0.35%) Navisworks
7 11 (0.35%) Revit
8 10 (0.32%) ProjectWise
9 8 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
10 6 (0.19%) Simulink
11 5 (0.16%) CATIA
12 4 (0.13%) Chatbot
13 2 (0.065%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.065%) EPLAN
13 2 (0.065%) Windchill
14 1 (0.032%) LaTeX
14 1 (0.032%) Oracle Smart View
14 1 (0.032%) OrCAD
14 1 (0.032%) Trello
Business Applications
1 111 (3.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
3 15 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.48%) SAP SD
4 14 (0.45%) SAP FI
5 13 (0.42%) NetSuite
5 13 (0.42%) SAP HCM
5 13 (0.42%) Teamcenter
5 13 (0.42%) Workday HCM
6 12 (0.39%) SAP MDG
7 11 (0.35%) Aladdin
8 10 (0.32%) iTrent
8 10 (0.32%) SAP MM
9 9 (0.29%) Integrated Workplace Management System
9 9 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
9 9 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
9 9 (0.29%) SAP CO
9 9 (0.29%) SAP ERP
9 9 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
9 9 (0.29%) SAP PS
Cloud Services
1 611 (19.71%) Azure
2 359 (11.58%) AWS
3 312 (10.06%) Power Platform
4 183 (5.90%) Azure DevOps
5 160 (5.16%) GCP
6 144 (4.65%) GitHub
7 109 (3.52%) Snowflake
8 94 (3.03%) Entra ID
9 75 (2.42%) GitHub Actions
10 71 (2.29%) Azure Data Factory
11 62 (2.00%) dbt
11 62 (2.00%) Serverless
12 61 (1.97%) Amazon S3
13 59 (1.90%) SaaS
14 58 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
15 40 (1.29%) SuccessFactors
16 39 (1.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 37 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
18 35 (1.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 32 (1.03%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 114 (3.68%) Firewall
2 75 (2.42%) DNS
3 70 (2.26%) VLAN
4 61 (1.97%) Network Security
5 57 (1.84%) VPN
6 52 (1.68%) BGP
7 47 (1.52%) TCP/IP
8 45 (1.45%) WAN
9 35 (1.13%) DHCP
10 31 (1.00%) OSPF
11 30 (0.97%) VXLAN
12 27 (0.87%) Ethernet VPN
13 26 (0.84%) LAN
13 26 (0.84%) Wireless
14 24 (0.77%) Ethernet
15 22 (0.71%) Internet
15 22 (0.71%) SD-WAN
15 22 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
16 21 (0.68%) 5G
17 20 (0.65%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 289 (9.32%) Power BI
2 172 (5.55%) Data Warehouse
3 136 (4.39%) Metadata
4 121 (3.90%) Relational Database
5 101 (3.26%) SQL Server
6 98 (3.16%) PostgreSQL
7 86 (2.77%) Data Lake
8 73 (2.35%) Tableau
9 42 (1.35%) Oracle Database
10 39 (1.26%) Delta Lake
10 39 (1.26%) MongoDB
11 37 (1.19%) Power Query
12 36 (1.16%) BigQuery
13 35 (1.13%) Big Data
13 35 (1.13%) NoSQL
14 31 (1.00%) Redis
15 30 (0.97%) Oracle Reports
15 30 (0.97%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 29 (0.94%) Amazon Athena
16 29 (0.94%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 274 (8.84%) JIRA
2 234 (7.55%) Git
3 106 (3.42%) Jenkins
4 95 (3.06%) GitLab
5 83 (2.68%) Selenium
6 44 (1.42%) Postman
7 35 (1.13%) JMeter
8 25 (0.81%) Cucumber
9 23 (0.74%) Rational DOORS
10 22 (0.71%) WebDriver
11 21 (0.68%) JUnit
12 17 (0.55%) Cypress.io
12 17 (0.55%) Eclipse
12 17 (0.55%) REST Assured
12 17 (0.55%) Visual Studio
13 16 (0.52%) Zephyr
14 15 (0.48%) Gatling
15 14 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
16 12 (0.39%) Visual Studio Code
17 11 (0.35%) TestRail
General
1 886 (28.58%) Social Skills
2 878 (28.32%) Finance
3 624 (20.13%) Analytical Skills
4 277 (8.94%) Banking
5 265 (8.55%) Public Sector
6 138 (4.45%) Documentation Skills
7 122 (3.94%) Manufacturing
8 96 (3.10%) Retail
9 73 (2.35%) Telecoms
10 72 (2.32%) Automotive
11 70 (2.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 61 (1.97%) Organisational Skills
13 58 (1.87%) Legal
14 54 (1.74%) Marketing
15 53 (1.71%) Aerospace
15 53 (1.71%) Pharmaceutical
16 46 (1.48%) Front Office
17 44 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
17 44 (1.42%) Law
18 43 (1.39%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 527 (17.00%) Analyst
2 358 (11.55%) Senior
3 278 (8.97%) Lead
4 254 (8.19%) Data Engineer
5 247 (7.97%) Consultant
6 239 (7.71%) Business Analyst
7 202 (6.52%) Developer
8 162 (5.23%) Data Analyst
9 161 (5.19%) Architect
10 112 (3.61%) Test Engineer
11 80 (2.58%) Network Engineer
12 79 (2.55%) Tester
13 63 (2.03%) Systems Engineer
14 60 (1.94%) Administrator
15 59 (1.90%) Senior Data Engineer
16 58 (1.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 58 (1.87%) Senior Analyst
17 52 (1.68%) Software Engineer
18 50 (1.61%) Project Manager
19 47 (1.52%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 197 (6.35%) REST
2 184 (5.94%) Terraform
3 100 (3.23%) JSON
4 91 (2.94%) PySpark
5 82 (2.65%) Middleware
5 82 (2.65%) XML
6 76 (2.45%) Kafka
7 60 (1.94%) Playwright
8 59 (1.90%) .NET
9 52 (1.68%) SOAP
9 52 (1.68%) Web Services
10 51 (1.65%) pytest
11 50 (1.61%) OAuth
12 46 (1.48%) Oracle Fusion
13 45 (1.45%) RESTful
14 38 (1.23%) OpenID
14 38 (1.23%) Pandas
15 37 (1.19%) Spring
16 36 (1.16%) Node.js
17 35 (1.13%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 176 (5.68%) Onboarding
2 161 (5.19%) Data Structures
3 144 (4.65%) Cloud Native
4 121 (3.90%) Legacy Systems
5 120 (3.87%) Product Ownership
6 113 (3.65%) Management Information System
7 94 (3.03%) Data Centre
8 60 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
9 55 (1.77%) AI Agents
9 55 (1.77%) Enterprise Software
10 46 (1.48%) Analytical Mindset
11 45 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
12 42 (1.35%) Life Science
12 42 (1.35%) SCADA
13 38 (1.23%) Algorithms
13 38 (1.23%) Operational Technology
14 37 (1.19%) NHS
14 37 (1.19%) Replication
15 34 (1.10%) CMDB
16 33 (1.06%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 210 (6.77%) Windows
2 140 (4.52%) Linux
3 82 (2.65%) Windows Server
4 58 (1.87%) Unix
5 22 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.52%) Android
6 16 (0.52%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.35%) Ubuntu
7 11 (0.35%) VMS
8 10 (0.32%) AIX
9 9 (0.29%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.23%) Windows 7
11 4 (0.13%) SUSE
11 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.097%) VxWorks
12 3 (0.097%) zOS
13 2 (0.065%) CentOS
13 2 (0.065%) HPUX
13 2 (0.065%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 835 (26.94%) Migration
2 681 (21.97%) Stakeholder Management
3 609 (19.65%) Agile
3 609 (19.65%) CI/CD
4 505 (16.29%) Data Modelling
5 495 (15.97%) Analytics
6 491 (15.84%) User Acceptance Testing
7 484 (15.61%) Data Migration
8 480 (15.48%) Data Validation
9 478 (15.42%) Problem-Solving
10 429 (13.84%) AI
11 418 (13.48%) DevOps
12 414 (13.35%) Continuous Improvement
12 414 (13.35%) Test Automation
13 355 (11.45%) ETL
14 335 (10.81%) Business Intelligence
15 323 (10.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 317 (10.23%) Data Analysis
17 314 (10.13%) Data Governance
18 310 (10.00%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 816 (26.32%) SQL
2 670 (21.61%) Python
3 154 (4.97%) Java
4 111 (3.58%) PowerShell
5 79 (2.55%) C#
6 77 (2.48%) JavaScript
7 64 (2.06%) Bash
8 46 (1.48%) TypeScript
9 45 (1.45%) C++
10 32 (1.03%) Apex Code
10 32 (1.03%) R
11 30 (0.97%) Shell Script
12 29 (0.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 29 (0.94%) PL/SQL
13 25 (0.81%) Bicep
14 24 (0.77%) C
15 21 (0.68%) Go
16 19 (0.61%) VBA
17 18 (0.58%) T-SQL
18 15 (0.48%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 611 (19.71%) Security Cleared
2 454 (14.65%) SC Cleared
3 212 (6.84%) Degree
4 85 (2.74%) DV Cleared
5 73 (2.35%) BPSS Clearance
6 51 (1.65%) Computer Science Degree
7 47 (1.52%) Cisco Certification
8 38 (1.23%) CCNP
9 34 (1.10%) AWS Certification
10 32 (1.03%) ACCA
10 32 (1.03%) CIMA
11 28 (0.90%) ISTQB
12 27 (0.87%) Azure Certification
13 26 (0.84%) PMI Certification
14 24 (0.77%) PMP
15 22 (0.71%) CISSP
16 19 (0.61%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 18 (0.58%) Master's Degree
18 15 (0.48%) CCNA
18 15 (0.48%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 636 (20.52%) Data Quality
2 376 (12.13%) QA
3 104 (3.35%) GDPR
4 54 (1.74%) Accessibility
5 46 (1.48%) SLA
6 37 (1.19%) NIST
7 36 (1.16%) GxP
7 36 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 36 (1.16%) PMO
8 23 (0.74%) GRC
9 22 (0.71%) ISO 20022
10 21 (0.68%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 20 (0.65%) WCAG
12 17 (0.55%) GMP
13 15 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
13 15 (0.48%) NCSC
14 11 (0.35%) IFRS
14 11 (0.35%) MiFID
15 10 (0.32%) Def Stans
15 10 (0.32%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 116 (3.74%) Docker
2 103 (3.32%) Active Directory
3 95 (3.06%) VMware Infrastructure
4 42 (1.35%) Virtual Machines
5 38 (1.23%) VMware ESXi
6 32 (1.03%) Firmware
7 27 (0.87%) Hyper-V
7 27 (0.87%) vSphere
8 23 (0.74%) Virtual Desktop
9 17 (0.55%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.16%) KVM
12 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.097%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.065%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.065%) OpenSSH
14 2 (0.065%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.032%) etcd
15 1 (0.032%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.032%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 148 (4.77%) Kubernetes
2 103 (3.32%) Ansible
3 44 (1.42%) Grafana
4 34 (1.10%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.87%) FortiGate
5 27 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
6 20 (0.65%) SCCM
7 18 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (0.48%) vCenter Server
9 14 (0.45%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.32%) Failover Clustering
10 10 (0.32%) VxRail
11 9 (0.29%) Argo
11 9 (0.29%) Functional Safety
11 9 (0.29%) Progress Chef
12 6 (0.19%) Control-M
12 6 (0.19%) Kibana
12 6 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
13 5 (0.16%) systemd
13 5 (0.16%) vRealize
Vendors
1 470 (15.16%) Microsoft
2 252 (8.13%) SAP
3 247 (7.97%) Oracle
4 172 (5.55%) Databricks
5 109 (3.52%) VMware
6 98 (3.16%) Salesforce
7 91 (2.94%) Cisco
8 87 (2.81%) ServiceNow
9 69 (2.23%) Google
10 53 (1.71%) Workday
11 47 (1.52%) IBM
12 35 (1.13%) Informatica
13 34 (1.10%) Fortinet
14 31 (1.00%) Zscaler
15 30 (0.97%) Palo Alto
16 29 (0.94%) Juniper
17 23 (0.74%) Splunk
18 20 (0.65%) MuleSoft
18 20 (0.65%) Red Hat
19 19 (0.61%) CyberArk