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

6 months to
30 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 65 109
Rank change year-on-year +33 +44 +44
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,125 1,222 802
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.69% 3.72% 2.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.74% 4.10% 2.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,836 695 399
10th Percentile £335 £331 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -7.19%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £588
90th Percentile £701 £695 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £481
% change year-on-year -7.50% +3.95% -6.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 194 84 98
10th Percentile £16.84 £21.85 £28.00
25th Percentile £26.52 £41.25 £47.63
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% - -2.61%
75th Percentile £72.31 £67.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £73.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -17.69% - -3.79%

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 46,343 29,774 32,275
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.43% 90.67% 85.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,026 18,502 19,486
10th Percentile £325 £296 £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 £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,222 1,849 1,345
10th Percentile £13.70 £14.29 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.19 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £38.86 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +54.51% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £65.60 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £74.48
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.27 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +75.98% -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 30 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 30 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 30 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 +30 2,674 £500 -2.91% 3,791
UK excluding London +32 1,429 £463 -7.50% 2,348
London +36 1,305 £525 - 1,694
Work from Home +28 857 £500 - 1,402
North of England +43 356 £454 +3.07% 435
South East +4 332 £525 +5.00% 569
Midlands +40 305 £463 -2.58% 333
West Midlands +32 214 £463 -7.50% 234
North West +20 173 £464 +9.06% 228
South West +16 161 £525 -4.55% 310
Yorkshire +49 155 £460 -3.16% 141
Scotland +50 139 £450 -16.20% 297
East of England -6 137 £450 -10.00% 310
East Midlands +28 87 £488 +2.63% 99
North East -18 33 £425 -11.92% 67
Wales +1 26 £394 +5.00% 49
Northern Ireland +2 4 £363 -33.49% 73
Channel Islands -4 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 94 (3.01%) Confluence
2 67 (2.14%) Apache Airflow
3 60 (1.92%) SharePoint
4 52 (1.66%) SAS
5 46 (1.47%) Apache Spark
6 37 (1.18%) Apache
7 18 (0.58%) CMS
7 18 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
8 14 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
9 12 (0.38%) Jupyter
10 9 (0.29%) SharePoint 2013
11 8 (0.26%) IIS
11 8 (0.26%) Palantir Foundry
12 7 (0.22%) Sitecore CMS
12 7 (0.22%) WebLogic
13 6 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 6 (0.19%) OpenStack
14 5 (0.16%) CICS
14 5 (0.16%) Tuxedo
15 4 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 206 (6.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (1.50%) Microsoft Office
3 39 (1.25%) MS Visio
4 30 (0.96%) Spreadsheet
5 28 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 16 (0.51%) AutoCAD
7 11 (0.35%) Navisworks
7 11 (0.35%) Revit
8 10 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
8 10 (0.32%) ProjectWise
9 7 (0.22%) Simulink
10 5 (0.16%) CATIA
10 5 (0.16%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.064%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.064%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.064%) OrCAD
12 1 (0.032%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.032%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.032%) Trello
12 1 (0.032%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 113 (3.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
2 16 (0.51%) SAP FI
2 16 (0.51%) Workday HCM
3 15 (0.48%) SAP SD
4 14 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
4 14 (0.45%) SAP HCM
5 13 (0.42%) NetSuite
5 13 (0.42%) Teamcenter
6 12 (0.38%) Aladdin
6 12 (0.38%) SAP MDG
7 10 (0.32%) iTrent
7 10 (0.32%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.32%) SAP MM
8 9 (0.29%) Integrated Workplace Management System
8 9 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.29%) SAP CO
8 9 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.29%) SAP PS
9 8 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 604 (19.33%) Azure
2 355 (11.36%) AWS
3 308 (9.86%) Power Platform
4 188 (6.02%) Azure DevOps
5 158 (5.06%) GCP
6 147 (4.70%) GitHub
7 110 (3.52%) Snowflake
8 99 (3.17%) Entra ID
9 77 (2.46%) GitHub Actions
10 72 (2.30%) Azure Data Factory
11 63 (2.02%) Serverless
12 61 (1.95%) Amazon S3
13 60 (1.92%) dbt
13 60 (1.92%) Microsoft 365
13 60 (1.92%) SaaS
14 42 (1.34%) SuccessFactors
15 40 (1.28%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 36 (1.15%) Azure Monitor
16 36 (1.15%) Dynamics 365
17 34 (1.09%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 109 (3.49%) Firewall
2 78 (2.50%) DNS
3 61 (1.95%) VLAN
4 59 (1.89%) Network Security
5 56 (1.79%) VPN
6 49 (1.57%) BGP
7 47 (1.50%) TCP/IP
8 42 (1.34%) WAN
9 34 (1.09%) DHCP
10 30 (0.96%) VXLAN
11 28 (0.90%) OSPF
12 27 (0.86%) Ethernet VPN
13 25 (0.80%) Ethernet
13 25 (0.80%) Wireless
14 24 (0.77%) LAN
15 22 (0.70%) Internet
15 22 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
16 21 (0.67%) SD-WAN
17 20 (0.64%) 5G
17 20 (0.64%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 285 (9.12%) Power BI
2 170 (5.44%) Data Warehouse
3 133 (4.26%) Metadata
4 123 (3.94%) Relational Database
5 106 (3.39%) SQL Server
6 97 (3.10%) PostgreSQL
7 86 (2.75%) Data Lake
8 69 (2.21%) Tableau
9 42 (1.34%) Oracle Database
10 39 (1.25%) Delta Lake
11 38 (1.22%) BigQuery
11 38 (1.22%) MongoDB
11 38 (1.22%) Power Query
12 34 (1.09%) NoSQL
13 32 (1.02%) Big Data
13 32 (1.02%) Redis
14 31 (0.99%) Oracle Reports
15 29 (0.93%) Amazon Athena
15 29 (0.93%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 27 (0.86%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 275 (8.80%) JIRA
2 234 (7.49%) Git
3 105 (3.36%) Jenkins
4 95 (3.04%) GitLab
5 81 (2.59%) Selenium
6 42 (1.34%) Postman
7 34 (1.09%) JMeter
8 25 (0.80%) Cucumber
9 23 (0.74%) Rational DOORS
10 21 (0.67%) JUnit
10 21 (0.67%) WebDriver
11 17 (0.54%) Eclipse
11 17 (0.54%) REST Assured
11 17 (0.54%) Visual Studio
11 17 (0.54%) Zephyr
12 16 (0.51%) Cypress.io
13 14 (0.45%) Gatling
13 14 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
14 12 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
15 11 (0.35%) TestRail
General
1 894 (28.61%) Finance
2 892 (28.54%) Social Skills
3 626 (20.03%) Analytical Skills
4 282 (9.02%) Banking
5 272 (8.70%) Public Sector
6 135 (4.32%) Documentation Skills
7 130 (4.16%) Manufacturing
8 96 (3.07%) Retail
9 74 (2.37%) Automotive
10 72 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 72 (2.30%) Telecoms
11 63 (2.02%) Organisational Skills
12 59 (1.89%) Legal
13 52 (1.66%) Aerospace
13 52 (1.66%) Pharmaceutical
14 51 (1.63%) Marketing
15 46 (1.47%) Front Office
16 45 (1.44%) Billing
17 44 (1.41%) Local Government
18 42 (1.34%) Law
Job Titles
1 530 (16.96%) Analyst
2 369 (11.81%) Senior
3 278 (8.90%) Lead
4 252 (8.06%) Consultant
5 251 (8.03%) Data Engineer
6 237 (7.58%) Business Analyst
7 202 (6.46%) Developer
8 168 (5.38%) Data Analyst
9 164 (5.25%) Architect
10 111 (3.55%) Test Engineer
11 80 (2.56%) Tester
12 77 (2.46%) Network Engineer
13 62 (1.98%) Administrator
14 61 (1.95%) Systems Engineer
15 60 (1.92%) Senior Data Engineer
16 59 (1.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 59 (1.89%) Senior Analyst
17 52 (1.66%) Software Engineer
18 50 (1.60%) Project Manager
19 46 (1.47%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 198 (6.34%) REST
2 189 (6.05%) Terraform
3 97 (3.10%) JSON
4 92 (2.94%) PySpark
5 89 (2.85%) Middleware
6 83 (2.66%) XML
7 75 (2.40%) Kafka
8 62 (1.98%) Playwright
9 60 (1.92%) .NET
10 54 (1.73%) OAuth
10 54 (1.73%) Web Services
11 53 (1.70%) SOAP
12 50 (1.60%) pytest
13 48 (1.54%) Oracle Fusion
14 45 (1.44%) RESTful
15 42 (1.34%) OpenID
16 37 (1.18%) OAuth2
16 37 (1.18%) Pandas
17 36 (1.15%) Spring
18 35 (1.12%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 177 (5.66%) Onboarding
2 165 (5.28%) Data Structures
3 145 (4.64%) Cloud Native
4 124 (3.97%) Legacy Systems
5 119 (3.81%) Management Information System
5 119 (3.81%) Product Ownership
6 96 (3.07%) Data Centre
7 63 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
8 61 (1.95%) Distributed Systems
9 59 (1.89%) AI Agents
10 45 (1.44%) Analytical Mindset
10 45 (1.44%) Life Science
11 44 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
12 42 (1.34%) SCADA
13 38 (1.22%) Algorithms
13 38 (1.22%) Operational Technology
14 36 (1.15%) NHS
15 34 (1.09%) CMDB
16 33 (1.06%) Replication
16 33 (1.06%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 216 (6.91%) Windows
2 139 (4.45%) Linux
3 84 (2.69%) Windows Server
4 57 (1.82%) Unix
5 19 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.51%) Windows 10
7 14 (0.45%) Android
8 11 (0.35%) Ubuntu
9 10 (0.32%) AIX
10 9 (0.29%) Apple iOS
11 8 (0.26%) VMS
12 7 (0.22%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.19%) zOS
14 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
14 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
15 3 (0.096%) CentOS
15 3 (0.096%) VxWorks
16 2 (0.064%) HPUX
16 2 (0.064%) Solaris
16 2 (0.064%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 850 (27.20%) Migration
2 696 (22.27%) Stakeholder Management
3 618 (19.78%) CI/CD
4 603 (19.30%) Agile
5 501 (16.03%) Data Modelling
6 500 (16.00%) Data Migration
6 500 (16.00%) User Acceptance Testing
7 493 (15.78%) Analytics
8 480 (15.36%) Problem-Solving
9 477 (15.26%) Data Validation
10 439 (14.05%) AI
11 425 (13.60%) Continuous Improvement
12 423 (13.54%) DevOps
13 421 (13.47%) Test Automation
14 348 (11.14%) ETL
15 328 (10.50%) Business Intelligence
16 324 (10.37%) Data Analysis
17 317 (10.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 313 (10.02%) Data Governance
19 304 (9.73%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 823 (26.34%) SQL
2 663 (21.22%) Python
3 153 (4.90%) Java
4 116 (3.71%) PowerShell
5 79 (2.53%) C#
6 76 (2.43%) JavaScript
7 66 (2.11%) Bash
8 48 (1.54%) TypeScript
9 44 (1.41%) C++
10 30 (0.96%) Apex Code
10 30 (0.96%) Shell Script
11 28 (0.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 28 (0.90%) R
12 26 (0.83%) PL/SQL
13 25 (0.80%) Bicep
14 24 (0.77%) C
15 22 (0.70%) Go
16 19 (0.61%) T-SQL
16 19 (0.61%) VBA
17 16 (0.51%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 621 (19.87%) Security Cleared
2 471 (15.07%) SC Cleared
3 209 (6.69%) Degree
4 86 (2.75%) DV Cleared
5 74 (2.37%) BPSS Clearance
6 51 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
7 46 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
8 37 (1.18%) CCNP
9 34 (1.09%) ACCA
9 34 (1.09%) AWS Certification
9 34 (1.09%) CIMA
10 26 (0.83%) ISTQB
11 25 (0.80%) PMI Certification
12 24 (0.77%) Azure Certification
13 23 (0.74%) PMP
14 22 (0.70%) CISSP
15 19 (0.61%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 19 (0.61%) DBS Check
16 18 (0.58%) Master's Degree
17 15 (0.48%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 642 (20.54%) Data Quality
2 374 (11.97%) QA
3 101 (3.23%) GDPR
4 54 (1.73%) Accessibility
4 54 (1.73%) SLA
5 37 (1.18%) PMO
6 36 (1.15%) GxP
6 36 (1.15%) NIST
7 34 (1.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 23 (0.74%) GRC
8 23 (0.74%) ISO 20022
9 22 (0.70%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 19 (0.61%) WCAG
11 17 (0.54%) GMP
12 16 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
13 14 (0.45%) NCSC
14 12 (0.38%) IFRS
15 11 (0.35%) MiFID
16 10 (0.32%) Def Stans
16 10 (0.32%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 115 (3.68%) Docker
2 112 (3.58%) Active Directory
3 91 (2.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (1.25%) Virtual Machines
5 34 (1.09%) VMware ESXi
6 27 (0.86%) Firmware
7 23 (0.74%) Hyper-V
7 23 (0.74%) Virtual Desktop
7 23 (0.74%) vSphere
8 16 (0.51%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
10 5 (0.16%) KVM
11 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.096%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.064%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.064%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.064%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.032%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.032%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 1 (0.032%) NFS
Systems Management
1 147 (4.70%) Kubernetes
2 103 (3.30%) Ansible
3 42 (1.34%) Grafana
4 33 (1.06%) Prometheus
5 26 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
6 25 (0.80%) FortiGate
7 21 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
8 20 (0.64%) SCCM
9 14 (0.45%) HP ALM
10 11 (0.35%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.32%) Functional Safety
11 10 (0.32%) Progress Chef
12 9 (0.29%) Argo
12 9 (0.29%) Control-M
13 6 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
13 6 (0.19%) Kibana
13 6 (0.19%) VxRail
14 5 (0.16%) systemd
14 5 (0.16%) vMotion
14 5 (0.16%) vRealize
Vendors
1 477 (15.26%) Microsoft
2 257 (8.22%) SAP
3 251 (8.03%) Oracle
4 176 (5.63%) Databricks
5 105 (3.36%) VMware
6 95 (3.04%) Salesforce
7 91 (2.91%) ServiceNow
8 89 (2.85%) Cisco
9 71 (2.27%) Google
10 57 (1.82%) Workday
11 52 (1.66%) IBM
12 33 (1.06%) Fortinet
12 33 (1.06%) Informatica
13 30 (0.96%) Zscaler
14 29 (0.93%) Palo Alto
15 28 (0.90%) Juniper
16 22 (0.70%) Splunk
17 21 (0.67%) CyberArk
18 20 (0.64%) Red Hat
19 19 (0.61%) Sage