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

6 months to
18 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 71 121
Rank change year-on-year +35 +50 +33
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,787 1,131 818
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.27% 3.47% 1.94%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.19% 3.85% 2.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,669 665 406
10th Percentile £333 £350 £350
25th Percentile £410 £421 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £588
90th Percentile £700 £700 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £515 £495
% change year-on-year -9.71% +4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 175 82 155
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £28.50 £38.44 £47.92
Median hourly rate £60.00 £58.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.13% -2.08% -7.69%
75th Percentile £74.25 £66.13 £67.50
90th Percentile £83.90 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year - +4.17% -4.00%

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 45,026 29,407 35,968
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.11% 90.34% 85.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,974 18,494 23,016
10th Percentile £325 £300 £301
25th Percentile £419 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,654 1,554 2,302
10th Percentile £14.87 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.01 £17.37 £16.71
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.50 £51.55 £62.00
90th Percentile £82.46 £70.00 £73.48
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.33 £38.20
% change year-on-year +84.96% -36.30% -4.51%

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 18 July 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 18 July 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 18 July 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 +31 2,415 £500 -4.76% 722
UK excluding London +28 1,302 £465 -9.71% 548
London +48 1,161 £513 -3.76% 261
Work from Home +44 799 £492 -1.60% 282
North of England +35 310 £450 -5.26% 122
South East +7 309 £510 +2.00% 178
Midlands +40 306 £475 +5.56% 95
West Midlands +33 224 £475 +11.76% 47
North West +17 170 £450 -14.29% 64
East of England +5 136 £510 +2.00% 68
Yorkshire +31 129 £460 +9.52% 34
South West -13 125 £520 -9.57% 64
Scotland +42 90 £423 -15.92% 25
East Midlands +21 77 £517 +14.89% 48
Wales +6 29 £455 +21.33% 11
North East -23 17 £425 -15.00% 24
Northern Ireland +7 10 £380 -35.59% 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 86 (3.09%) Confluence
2 68 (2.44%) Apache Airflow
3 58 (2.08%) SAS
4 51 (1.83%) SharePoint
5 44 (1.58%) Apache Spark
6 30 (1.08%) Apache
7 14 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
8 12 (0.43%) Jupyter
9 11 (0.39%) Microsoft Exchange
10 9 (0.32%) ArcGIS
10 9 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.25%) CMS
12 5 (0.18%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.14%) Appian
13 4 (0.14%) IIS
14 3 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
14 3 (0.11%) FactoryTalk
14 3 (0.11%) JBoss
14 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
14 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
Applications
1 181 (6.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.47%) MS Visio
3 36 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
4 29 (1.04%) Spreadsheet
5 28 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 12 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.29%) CATIA
8 6 (0.22%) AutoCAD
9 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.18%) Simulink
10 2 (0.072%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.072%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.072%) Sketch
10 2 (0.072%) Windchill
11 1 (0.036%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.036%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.036%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.036%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.036%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.036%) Revit
Business Applications
1 125 (4.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (1.26%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.54%) Teamcenter
3 15 (0.54%) Workday HCM
4 13 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
5 11 (0.39%) Aladdin
5 11 (0.39%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 11 (0.39%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.36%) iTrent
6 10 (0.36%) NetSuite
6 10 (0.36%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
7 9 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
7 9 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
7 9 (0.32%) SAP MDG
7 9 (0.32%) SAP SD
8 8 (0.29%) Sage X3
8 8 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
8 8 (0.29%) SAP HCM
8 8 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 581 (20.85%) Azure
2 326 (11.70%) AWS
3 284 (10.19%) Power Platform
4 150 (5.38%) Azure DevOps
5 134 (4.81%) GCP
6 122 (4.38%) GitHub
7 96 (3.44%) Snowflake
8 71 (2.55%) Serverless
9 70 (2.51%) Entra ID
9 70 (2.51%) GitHub Actions
10 68 (2.44%) Azure Data Factory
11 63 (2.26%) Amazon S3
12 53 (1.90%) SaaS
13 50 (1.79%) Microsoft 365
14 46 (1.65%) dbt
15 45 (1.61%) OCI
16 43 (1.54%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 38 (1.36%) AWS Lambda
18 37 (1.33%) SuccessFactors
19 33 (1.18%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 117 (4.20%) Firewall
2 68 (2.44%) Network Security
3 55 (1.97%) DNS
4 50 (1.79%) VLAN
5 48 (1.72%) VPN
6 40 (1.44%) WAN
7 38 (1.36%) TCP/IP
8 34 (1.22%) BGP
9 25 (0.90%) OSPF
9 25 (0.90%) Wireless
10 24 (0.86%) DHCP
11 23 (0.83%) LAN
11 23 (0.83%) SAN
12 22 (0.79%) SD-WAN
13 19 (0.68%) Internet
14 18 (0.65%) Ethernet
15 17 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
16 13 (0.47%) HTTP
16 13 (0.47%) NAS
17 12 (0.43%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 264 (9.47%) Power BI
2 157 (5.63%) Data Warehouse
3 114 (4.09%) Metadata
4 99 (3.55%) SQL Server
5 87 (3.12%) PostgreSQL
6 86 (3.09%) Data Lake
7 74 (2.66%) Relational Database
7 74 (2.66%) Tableau
8 41 (1.47%) Big Data
9 33 (1.18%) Oracle Database
9 33 (1.18%) SAS Enterprise Guide
10 32 (1.15%) Oracle Reports
11 30 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 29 (1.04%) Power Query
13 28 (1.00%) Amazon Redshift
13 28 (1.00%) NoSQL
14 27 (0.97%) BigQuery
14 27 (0.97%) Delta Lake
15 25 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
16 24 (0.86%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 245 (8.79%) JIRA
2 167 (5.99%) Git
3 94 (3.37%) Jenkins
4 70 (2.51%) GitLab
5 60 (2.15%) Selenium
6 48 (1.72%) JMeter
7 46 (1.65%) Postman
8 39 (1.40%) JUnit
9 38 (1.36%) Cucumber
10 31 (1.11%) WebDriver
11 26 (0.93%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.65%) Eclipse
13 17 (0.61%) Rational Rhapsody
14 16 (0.57%) Gatling
15 15 (0.54%) Visual Studio
16 14 (0.50%) Oracle Forms
17 12 (0.43%) MLflow
17 12 (0.43%) REST Assured
18 11 (0.39%) Cypress.io
19 10 (0.36%) Maven
General
1 819 (29.39%) Finance
2 805 (28.88%) Social Skills
3 522 (18.73%) Analytical Skills
4 231 (8.29%) Public Sector
5 217 (7.79%) Banking
6 162 (5.81%) Documentation Skills
7 102 (3.66%) Manufacturing
8 80 (2.87%) Retail
9 74 (2.66%) Aerospace
10 61 (2.19%) Pharmaceutical
11 55 (1.97%) Telecoms
12 54 (1.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 51 (1.83%) Organisational Skills
14 44 (1.58%) Legal
15 42 (1.51%) Front Office
16 40 (1.44%) Automotive
16 40 (1.44%) Marketing
17 39 (1.40%) Billing
18 37 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
19 36 (1.29%) Law
Job Titles
1 502 (18.01%) Analyst
2 282 (10.12%) Senior
3 279 (10.01%) Lead
4 243 (8.72%) Business Analyst
5 224 (8.04%) Data Engineer
6 203 (7.28%) Consultant
7 164 (5.88%) Developer
8 156 (5.60%) Architect
9 138 (4.95%) Data Analyst
10 93 (3.34%) Test Engineer
11 82 (2.94%) Project Manager
12 81 (2.91%) Tester
13 61 (2.19%) Network Engineer
14 53 (1.90%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 53 (1.90%) Systems Engineer
15 49 (1.76%) Technical Analyst
16 48 (1.72%) Senior Data Engineer
17 45 (1.61%) Senior Analyst
17 45 (1.61%) Test Manager
18 44 (1.58%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 136 (4.88%) REST
2 81 (2.91%) JSON
3 73 (2.62%) Kafka
4 62 (2.22%) PySpark
5 59 (2.12%) Middleware
6 56 (2.01%) XML
7 52 (1.87%) Oracle Fusion
8 47 (1.69%) .NET
9 45 (1.61%) Spring
10 42 (1.51%) OAuth
11 41 (1.47%) SOAP
12 40 (1.44%) pytest
13 38 (1.36%) Web Services
14 34 (1.22%) Playwright
15 33 (1.18%) RESTful
16 32 (1.15%) Pandas
17 29 (1.04%) Node.js
18 28 (1.00%) Swagger
19 25 (0.90%) Spring Boot
19 25 (0.90%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 153 (5.49%) Onboarding
2 151 (5.42%) Data Structures
3 134 (4.81%) Legacy Systems
4 126 (4.52%) Cloud Native
5 119 (4.27%) Product Ownership
6 84 (3.01%) Data Centre
7 72 (2.58%) Management Information System
8 55 (1.97%) Distributed Systems
9 48 (1.72%) Analytical Mindset
10 43 (1.54%) Life Science
11 41 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
12 39 (1.40%) SCADA
13 37 (1.33%) Enterprise Software
13 37 (1.33%) Hybrid Cloud
14 36 (1.29%) AI Agents
15 35 (1.26%) NHS
15 35 (1.26%) Virtual Team
16 31 (1.11%) Operational Technology
16 31 (1.11%) Reference Data
17 30 (1.08%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 158 (5.67%) Windows
2 103 (3.70%) Linux
3 50 (1.79%) Windows Server
4 36 (1.29%) Unix
5 19 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.36%) Android
7 9 (0.32%) Ubuntu
7 9 (0.32%) VMS
8 7 (0.25%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.22%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.14%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.14%) SUSE
11 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.072%) AIX
12 2 (0.072%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.072%) HPUX
12 2 (0.072%) Solaris
12 2 (0.072%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.072%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.072%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 761 (27.31%) Migration
2 549 (19.70%) Agile
3 514 (18.44%) Stakeholder Management
4 470 (16.86%) Analytics
5 465 (16.68%) CI/CD
6 463 (16.61%) Data Validation
7 454 (16.29%) User Acceptance Testing
8 450 (16.15%) Data Migration
8 450 (16.15%) Problem-Solving
9 448 (16.07%) Data Modelling
10 346 (12.41%) AI
11 343 (12.31%) ETL
12 341 (12.24%) Continuous Improvement
13 340 (12.20%) Test Automation
14 337 (12.09%) DevOps
15 312 (11.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 309 (11.09%) Business Intelligence
17 279 (10.01%) Data Pipeline
18 276 (9.90%) Data Governance
19 269 (9.65%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 659 (23.65%) SQL
2 498 (17.87%) Python
3 119 (4.27%) Java
4 78 (2.80%) PowerShell
5 62 (2.22%) C#
6 56 (2.01%) Bash
7 41 (1.47%) JavaScript
8 40 (1.44%) C++
9 34 (1.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 32 (1.15%) Bicep
10 32 (1.15%) C
10 32 (1.15%) TypeScript
11 31 (1.11%) Apex Code
12 26 (0.93%) PL/SQL
13 23 (0.83%) R
13 23 (0.83%) VBA
14 21 (0.75%) Ada
15 19 (0.68%) T-SQL
16 17 (0.61%) MATLAB
17 15 (0.54%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 506 (18.16%) Security Cleared
2 363 (13.02%) SC Cleared
3 184 (6.60%) Degree
4 65 (2.33%) BPSS Clearance
4 65 (2.33%) DV Cleared
5 42 (1.51%) Cisco Certification
6 37 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
7 33 (1.18%) CCNP
8 25 (0.90%) PMI Certification
9 24 (0.86%) PMP
10 22 (0.79%) ISTQB
11 21 (0.75%) ACCA
12 20 (0.72%) Azure Certification
12 20 (0.72%) CIMA
12 20 (0.72%) CISSP
13 17 (0.61%) Microsoft Certification
14 16 (0.57%) CCNA
15 15 (0.54%) DBS Check
16 14 (0.50%) AWS Certification
16 14 (0.50%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 507 (18.19%) Data Quality
2 337 (12.09%) QA
3 129 (4.63%) GDPR
4 58 (2.08%) NIST
5 53 (1.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 48 (1.72%) Accessibility
7 39 (1.40%) GxP
7 39 (1.40%) PMO
7 39 (1.40%) SLA
8 21 (0.75%) GRC
9 19 (0.68%) GMP
9 19 (0.68%) ISO 20022
10 18 (0.65%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 17 (0.61%) Def Stans
12 16 (0.57%) HL7
13 15 (0.54%) IFRS
14 14 (0.50%) NCSC
15 13 (0.47%) WCAG
16 12 (0.43%) PCI DSS
16 12 (0.43%) Solvency II
System Software
1 110 (3.95%) Docker
2 88 (3.16%) Active Directory
3 74 (2.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (1.18%) Virtual Machines
5 25 (0.90%) VMware ESXi
6 21 (0.75%) Hyper-V
7 19 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
7 19 (0.68%) vSphere
8 16 (0.57%) Firmware
8 16 (0.57%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.22%) NFS
10 4 (0.14%) KVM
10 4 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.072%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.072%) OpenSSH
12 2 (0.072%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.072%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.036%) etcd
13 1 (0.036%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 160 (5.74%) Kubernetes
2 137 (4.92%) Terraform
3 55 (1.97%) Ansible
3 55 (1.97%) Prometheus
4 54 (1.94%) Grafana
5 25 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
6 24 (0.86%) FortiGate
6 24 (0.86%) Microsoft Intune
7 12 (0.43%) SCCM
8 11 (0.39%) vCenter Server
9 10 (0.36%) HP ALM
10 7 (0.25%) VxRail
11 6 (0.22%) Nessus
11 6 (0.22%) vMotion
12 5 (0.18%) Argo
12 5 (0.18%) CASB
12 5 (0.18%) Failover Clustering
12 5 (0.18%) Istio
13 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Clustering
13 4 (0.14%) vRealize
Vendors
1 395 (14.17%) Microsoft
2 254 (9.11%) SAP
3 244 (8.75%) Oracle
4 139 (4.99%) Databricks
5 93 (3.34%) Salesforce
6 88 (3.16%) VMware
7 71 (2.55%) ServiceNow
8 63 (2.26%) Cisco
9 48 (1.72%) Workday
10 44 (1.58%) Google
11 40 (1.44%) Informatica
12 39 (1.40%) Splunk
13 33 (1.18%) Fortinet
13 33 (1.18%) Palo Alto
14 31 (1.11%) IBM
15 28 (1.00%) Juniper
16 27 (0.97%) MuleSoft
17 26 (0.93%) Sage
18 25 (0.90%) Zscaler
19 20 (0.72%) IFS