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

6 months to
19 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 116 133
Rank change year-on-year +65 +17 -2
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,753 724 806
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.31% 2.35% 1.83%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.96% 2.62% 2.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,071 399 440
10th Percentile £350 £359 £318
25th Percentile £402 £409 £437
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -6.29% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £623
90th Percentile £700 £725 £714
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £501
% change year-on-year -5.00% -0.10% +0.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 34 153
10th Percentile £31.52 £25.56 £23.45
25th Percentile £42.78 £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 £65.44 £75.25
90th Percentile £76.80 £75.18 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +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 35,377 27,631 38,379
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.89% 89.70% 87.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,416 17,028 25,083
10th Percentile £311 £306 £300
25th Percentile £410 £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 £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,136 844 2,147
10th Percentile £14.58 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.05 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.50 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.54% -7.14% -
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £60.32
90th Percentile £70.36 £75.00 £73.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £30.62 £35.00
% change year-on-year -17.85% -12.53% +5.26%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +57 1,519 £500 -4.81% 761
UK excluding London +51 810 £475 -5.00% 665
London +70 721 £514 -6.59% 198
Work from Home +63 549 £500 -4.76% 309
North of England +34 211 £423 +0.60% 121
South East +7 174 £501 +0.25% 211
North West +35 140 £401 +1.39% 81
Midlands +16 138 £481 -1.41% 133
South West +10 126 £475 -17.39% 87
West Midlands +11 114 £492 +0.51% 86
East of England +20 95 £478 +19.50% 90
Yorkshire -5 61 £464 -4.87% 32
Scotland +36 49 £425 -6.08% 27
East Midlands -10 23 £450 +22.62% 44
Northern Ireland +15 19 £425 - 3
North East -6 12 £450 -45.45% 8
Wales +5 10 £463 - 12

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 72 (4.11%) Confluence
2 41 (2.34%) Apache Spark
3 31 (1.77%) SharePoint
4 27 (1.54%) SAS
5 22 (1.25%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (1.03%) Apache
6 18 (1.03%) Microsoft Exchange
7 9 (0.51%) Appian
7 9 (0.51%) CMS
7 9 (0.51%) Skype for Business
8 7 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2013
8 7 (0.40%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
9 6 (0.34%) ArcGIS
9 6 (0.34%) Jupyter
10 4 (0.23%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.23%) Anypoint
10 4 (0.23%) Mattermost
10 4 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.17%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 86 (4.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 36 (2.05%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (1.60%) MS Visio
4 16 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
6 10 (0.57%) Chatbot
7 7 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
8 6 (0.34%) Sketch
9 4 (0.23%) Notion
10 3 (0.17%) LaTeX
11 2 (0.11%) Simulink
12 1 (0.057%) CANalyzer
12 1 (0.057%) CATIA
12 1 (0.057%) OrCAD
12 1 (0.057%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.057%) Stateflow
12 1 (0.057%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 81 (4.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (1.25%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.80%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.68%) SAP EHS
5 11 (0.63%) Oracle General Ledger
5 11 (0.63%) Oracle Receivables
5 11 (0.63%) Workday HCM
6 9 (0.51%) Aladdin
6 9 (0.51%) NetSuite
6 9 (0.51%) Oracle Assets
6 9 (0.51%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 9 (0.51%) SAP FI
6 9 (0.51%) SAP MDG
7 8 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
7 8 (0.46%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 7 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
8 7 (0.40%) SAP ERP
8 7 (0.40%) SAP MM
9 6 (0.34%) Oracle Financials
9 6 (0.34%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 409 (23.33%) Azure
2 222 (12.66%) AWS
3 138 (7.87%) Power Platform
4 134 (7.64%) Azure DevOps
5 82 (4.68%) GitHub
6 78 (4.45%) GCP
7 56 (3.19%) Entra ID
8 55 (3.14%) Serverless
9 51 (2.91%) GitHub Actions
10 50 (2.85%) SaaS
11 49 (2.80%) Azure Data Factory
12 45 (2.57%) Amazon S3
13 35 (2.00%) OCI
13 35 (2.00%) Snowflake
14 30 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
15 29 (1.65%) Microsoft 365
16 28 (1.60%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 28 (1.60%) OpenShift
17 23 (1.31%) AWS CloudFormation
18 22 (1.25%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 55 (3.14%) Firewall
2 29 (1.65%) Network Security
3 28 (1.60%) TCP/IP
4 18 (1.03%) DNS
4 18 (1.03%) Ethernet
4 18 (1.03%) HTTP
5 17 (0.97%) VPN
6 16 (0.91%) VLAN
7 13 (0.74%) WAN
7 13 (0.74%) Wireless
8 12 (0.68%) BGP
9 11 (0.63%) OSPF
10 10 (0.57%) MPLS
11 9 (0.51%) LAN
11 9 (0.51%) SAN
11 9 (0.51%) Skype
12 8 (0.46%) SSL
12 8 (0.46%) TACACS
13 7 (0.40%) Internet
13 7 (0.40%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 129 (7.36%) Power BI
2 84 (4.79%) Metadata
3 68 (3.88%) Data Warehouse
4 46 (2.62%) SQL Server
5 42 (2.40%) Tableau
6 39 (2.22%) PostgreSQL
7 38 (2.17%) Data Lake
8 31 (1.77%) NoSQL
9 25 (1.43%) Delta Lake
10 23 (1.31%) Relational Database
11 22 (1.25%) Big Data
12 21 (1.20%) Amazon Redshift
12 21 (1.20%) Azure SQL Database
12 21 (1.20%) Geospatial Data
13 20 (1.14%) Oracle Reports
14 19 (1.08%) Pinecone
15 18 (1.03%) GIS
16 17 (0.97%) Amazon Athena
16 17 (0.97%) Oracle Database
16 17 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 175 (9.98%) JIRA
2 98 (5.59%) Git
3 76 (4.34%) Jenkins
4 54 (3.08%) Selenium
5 53 (3.02%) Postman
6 52 (2.97%) GitLab
7 32 (1.83%) Oracle APEX
8 30 (1.71%) JMeter
9 27 (1.54%) Cucumber
10 25 (1.43%) Rational DOORS
11 24 (1.37%) JUnit
12 18 (1.03%) MLflow
13 16 (0.91%) TestRail
14 15 (0.86%) Visual Studio
15 14 (0.80%) Zephyr
16 12 (0.68%) REST Assured
17 11 (0.63%) SpecFlow
17 11 (0.63%) WebDriver
18 9 (0.51%) Cypress.io
18 9 (0.51%) Eclipse
General
1 650 (37.08%) Social Skills
2 503 (28.69%) Finance
3 359 (20.48%) Analytical Skills
4 156 (8.90%) Public Sector
5 153 (8.73%) Banking
6 89 (5.08%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (2.80%) Manufacturing
8 44 (2.51%) Presentation Skills
9 40 (2.28%) Influencing Skills
10 39 (2.22%) Pharmaceutical
11 33 (1.88%) Aerospace
11 33 (1.88%) Organisational Skills
12 32 (1.83%) Telecoms
13 31 (1.77%) Front Office
14 30 (1.71%) Electronics
15 28 (1.60%) Marketing
16 27 (1.54%) Legal
17 25 (1.43%) Investment Banking
18 24 (1.37%) Billing
18 24 (1.37%) Military
Job Titles
1 348 (19.85%) Analyst
2 179 (10.21%) Senior
3 160 (9.13%) Lead
4 154 (8.78%) Business Analyst
5 136 (7.76%) Consultant
6 126 (7.19%) Developer
7 116 (6.62%) Architect
8 95 (5.42%) Data Engineer
9 87 (4.96%) Data Analyst
10 56 (3.19%) Tester
11 51 (2.91%) Software Engineer
12 49 (2.80%) Senior Analyst
13 47 (2.68%) Project Manager
14 42 (2.40%) Test Analyst
15 41 (2.34%) SAP Consultant
16 38 (2.17%) Test Manager
17 36 (2.05%) Senior Developer
17 36 (2.05%) Solutions Architect
18 32 (1.83%) Test Engineer
19 31 (1.77%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 113 (6.45%) REST
2 88 (5.02%) JSON
3 57 (3.25%) XML
4 51 (2.91%) Oracle Fusion
5 50 (2.85%) OAuth
6 45 (2.57%) Middleware
7 43 (2.45%) Kafka
7 43 (2.45%) PySpark
8 42 (2.40%) SOAP
9 38 (2.17%) RESTful
10 36 (2.05%) .NET
11 34 (1.94%) Node.js
12 31 (1.77%) PyTorch
13 30 (1.71%) Playwright
14 29 (1.65%) Swagger
14 29 (1.65%) TensorFlow
15 27 (1.54%) Pandas
16 26 (1.48%) pytest
16 26 (1.48%) Web Services
17 24 (1.37%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 108 (6.16%) Legacy Systems
2 81 (4.62%) Data Structures
3 67 (3.82%) Product Ownership
4 66 (3.76%) Onboarding
5 55 (3.14%) Management Information System
6 54 (3.08%) Cloud Native
7 34 (1.94%) Data Centre
8 30 (1.71%) Analytical Mindset
9 28 (1.60%) Algorithms
9 28 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
10 26 (1.48%) Distributed Systems
11 21 (1.20%) FPGA
11 21 (1.20%) Hybrid Cloud
12 20 (1.14%) Derivative
13 19 (1.08%) Life Science
13 19 (1.08%) Replication
14 18 (1.03%) Greenfield Project
14 18 (1.03%) Security Posture
14 18 (1.03%) Virtual Team
15 17 (0.97%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 92 (5.25%) Linux
2 89 (5.08%) Windows
3 35 (2.00%) Unix
4 10 (0.57%) Android
5 6 (0.34%) Embedded Linux
5 6 (0.34%) Mac OS
5 6 (0.34%) Windows Server
5 6 (0.34%) zOS
6 3 (0.17%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.11%) Debian
7 2 (0.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.057%) FreeRTOS
8 1 (0.057%) pSOS
8 1 (0.057%) Robot Operating System
8 1 (0.057%) Solaris
8 1 (0.057%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 429 (24.47%) Agile
2 409 (23.33%) Problem-Solving
3 400 (22.82%) Migration
4 311 (17.74%) Stakeholder Management
5 294 (16.77%) Data Validation
6 282 (16.09%) CI/CD
7 272 (15.52%) DevOps
8 255 (14.55%) Analytics
9 241 (13.75%) Data Modelling
10 229 (13.06%) Test Automation
11 228 (13.01%) Data Migration
12 212 (12.09%) ETL
13 204 (11.64%) User Acceptance Testing
14 202 (11.52%) AI
15 186 (10.61%) Continuous Improvement
16 183 (10.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 170 (9.70%) Business Intelligence
17 170 (9.70%) Data Governance
18 157 (8.96%) Data Analysis
19 144 (8.21%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 426 (24.30%) SQL
2 366 (20.88%) Python
3 94 (5.36%) JavaScript
4 91 (5.19%) Java
5 67 (3.82%) C#
6 53 (3.02%) PL/SQL
7 47 (2.68%) Bash
7 47 (2.68%) PowerShell
8 45 (2.57%) C++
9 42 (2.40%) C
10 37 (2.11%) TypeScript
11 24 (1.37%) R
12 21 (1.20%) Bicep
13 18 (1.03%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 17 (0.97%) Ada
14 17 (0.97%) Groovy
15 16 (0.91%) Shell Script
16 15 (0.86%) Scala
17 13 (0.74%) T-SQL
18 12 (0.68%) VBA
Qualifications
1 383 (21.85%) Security Cleared
2 282 (16.09%) SC Cleared
3 179 (10.21%) Degree
4 61 (3.48%) Computer Science Degree
5 58 (3.31%) BPSS Clearance
6 40 (2.28%) Master's Degree
7 39 (2.22%) DV Cleared
8 32 (1.83%) ISTQB
9 27 (1.54%) PMI Certification
10 20 (1.14%) AWS Certification
10 20 (1.14%) PMP
11 16 (0.91%) CBAP
12 15 (0.86%) Cisco Certification
13 14 (0.80%) CISSP
14 13 (0.74%) Oracle Certification
15 12 (0.68%) CCNP
16 11 (0.63%) Microsoft Certification
17 10 (0.57%) Azure Certification
17 10 (0.57%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
18 9 (0.51%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 257 (14.66%) Data Quality
2 225 (12.84%) QA
3 95 (5.42%) GDPR
4 69 (3.94%) NIST
5 49 (2.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 36 (2.05%) Accessibility
7 20 (1.14%) IFRS
8 19 (1.08%) GxP
9 18 (1.03%) IFRS 17
10 15 (0.86%) Def Stans
10 15 (0.86%) GMP
11 14 (0.80%) PCI DSS
11 14 (0.80%) SLA
12 13 (0.74%) COBIT
12 13 (0.74%) EU AI Act
13 12 (0.68%) NCSC
14 11 (0.63%) PMO
15 10 (0.57%) GRC
15 10 (0.57%) MiFID
15 10 (0.57%) MISRA
System Software
1 69 (3.94%) Docker
2 40 (2.28%) Active Directory
3 29 (1.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.20%) Firmware
5 12 (0.68%) VMware NSX
6 8 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.40%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.23%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 4 (0.23%) NFS
8 4 (0.23%) vSphere
9 3 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.17%) KVM
10 2 (0.11%) Ceph
10 2 (0.11%) Lustre
10 2 (0.11%) OpenAM
10 2 (0.11%) OpenDJ
10 2 (0.11%) OpenIDM
10 2 (0.11%) QEMU
10 2 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 99 (5.65%) Kubernetes
2 77 (4.39%) Terraform
3 39 (2.22%) Ansible
4 26 (1.48%) Prometheus
5 23 (1.31%) Grafana
5 23 (1.31%) Single Sign-On
6 18 (1.03%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (0.86%) Kibana
8 14 (0.80%) Puppet
9 13 (0.74%) SCCM
10 10 (0.57%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 10 (0.57%) Nessus
11 9 (0.51%) Nmap
12 5 (0.29%) CASB
12 5 (0.29%) SCOM
13 4 (0.23%) EMC VPLEX
13 4 (0.23%) HP SiteScope
13 4 (0.23%) Iperf
13 4 (0.23%) RSA Archer
13 4 (0.23%) vMotion
Vendors
1 226 (12.89%) Microsoft
2 173 (9.87%) Oracle
3 149 (8.50%) SAP
4 86 (4.91%) Databricks
5 71 (4.05%) ServiceNow
6 50 (2.85%) Splunk
7 43 (2.45%) Google
8 42 (2.40%) Cisco
9 41 (2.34%) Salesforce
10 35 (2.00%) VMware
10 35 (2.00%) Workday
11 28 (1.60%) MuleSoft
12 23 (1.31%) IBM
13 21 (1.20%) Informatica
13 21 (1.20%) Palo Alto
14 20 (1.14%) Sage
15 19 (1.08%) Murex
16 17 (0.97%) OpenAI
17 14 (0.80%) Bloomberg
17 14 (0.80%) Remedy