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

6 months to
30 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 55 116 132
Rank change year-on-year +61 +16 +8
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,595 709 831
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.13% 2.25% 1.87%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.72% 2.53% 2.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 968 366 454
10th Percentile £350 £361 £321
25th Percentile £400 £409 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £513 £538
Median % change year-on-year -3.98% -4.65% -1.01%
75th Percentile £600 £614 £623
90th Percentile £700 £723 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £513
% change year-on-year -4.04% -3.56% +3.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 39 146
10th Percentile £29.43 £28.45 £23.75
25th Percentile £41.60 £47.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.75 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.55% -11.15% +2.80%
75th Percentile £68.29 £63.75 £77.00
90th Percentile £73.50 £66.30 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.65 £65.98
% change year-on-year +12.76% -12.63% +4.35%

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 33,770 28,023 38,738
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.35% 89.09% 87.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,366 17,006 25,501
10th Percentile £305 £308 £300
25th Percentile £406 £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 £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £499 £500
% change year-on-year -3.86% -0.15% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,033 877 2,012
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.41
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.75
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.96
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -9.61% +10.63%
75th Percentile £58.00 £62.50 £62.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.71 £30.78 £36.50
% change year-on-year -19.72% -15.67% +35.86%

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 January 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 January 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 30 January 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 +55 1,380 £500 -4.31% 835
UK excluding London +42 736 £475 -4.04% 736
London +76 648 £513 -2.84% 217
Work from Home +71 501 £500 -7.41% 350
North of England +20 184 £417 -4.69% 138
South East +16 164 £500 - 236
Midlands +15 122 £500 +2.56% 117
North West +21 119 £400 -2.08% 67
South West +10 117 £475 -17.39% 111
West Midlands +15 102 £506 +3.64% 71
East of England +18 95 £482 +20.44% 110
Yorkshire -11 53 £487 -0.10% 59
Scotland +27 40 £425 -5.56% 32
East Midlands -14 20 £475 +58.33% 44
Northern Ireland +14 19 £425 - 4
North East -4 14 £463 -36.21% 13
Wales -1 4 £536 - 20

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 63 (3.95%) Confluence
2 38 (2.38%) Apache Spark
3 32 (2.01%) SAS
3 32 (2.01%) SharePoint
4 25 (1.57%) Apache Airflow
5 20 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
6 14 (0.88%) Apache
6 14 (0.88%) Skype for Business
7 9 (0.56%) Exchange Server 2013
8 8 (0.50%) CMS
9 7 (0.44%) Appian
9 7 (0.44%) Mattermost
10 6 (0.38%) OpenStack
11 5 (0.31%) ArcGIS
11 5 (0.31%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
12 4 (0.25%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.25%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.25%) Jupyter
13 3 (0.19%) GeoServer
13 3 (0.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 81 (5.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (2.63%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (1.76%) MS Visio
4 15 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 10 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
6 9 (0.56%) Chatbot
7 6 (0.38%) Sketch
8 5 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
9 4 (0.25%) Notion
10 3 (0.19%) LaTeX
11 2 (0.13%) Simulink
12 1 (0.063%) CANalyzer
12 1 (0.063%) CATIA
12 1 (0.063%) OrCAD
12 1 (0.063%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.063%) Stateflow
12 1 (0.063%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 84 (5.27%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (1.07%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.82%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.75%) SAP EHS
5 11 (0.69%) Oracle General Ledger
6 10 (0.63%) Aladdin
6 10 (0.63%) Oracle Receivables
6 10 (0.63%) SAP FI
7 9 (0.56%) NetSuite
7 9 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
7 9 (0.56%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.50%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.50%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.50%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 8 (0.50%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 7 (0.44%) OpenText VIM for SAP
9 7 (0.44%) SAP MM
10 6 (0.38%) SAP ERP
10 6 (0.38%) Workday HCM
11 5 (0.31%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 371 (23.26%) Azure
2 200 (12.54%) AWS
3 135 (8.46%) Azure DevOps
4 123 (7.71%) Power Platform
5 72 (4.51%) GitHub
6 63 (3.95%) GCP
7 56 (3.51%) Entra ID
8 48 (3.01%) SaaS
8 48 (3.01%) Serverless
9 44 (2.76%) GitHub Actions
10 43 (2.70%) Azure Data Factory
11 36 (2.26%) Amazon S3
12 33 (2.07%) Snowflake
13 32 (2.01%) OCI
14 31 (1.94%) Microsoft 365
15 25 (1.57%) OpenShift
16 24 (1.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 23 (1.44%) AWS Lambda
18 21 (1.32%) Dynamics 365
19 18 (1.13%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 41 (2.57%) Firewall
2 27 (1.69%) TCP/IP
3 21 (1.32%) Ethernet
3 21 (1.32%) Network Security
4 19 (1.19%) WAN
5 17 (1.07%) HTTP
5 17 (1.07%) VPN
6 14 (0.88%) DNS
6 14 (0.88%) Skype
6 14 (0.88%) VLAN
6 14 (0.88%) Wireless
7 13 (0.82%) BGP
8 12 (0.75%) LAN
8 12 (0.75%) MPLS
8 12 (0.75%) OSPF
9 11 (0.69%) TACACS
10 9 (0.56%) SD-WAN
11 7 (0.44%) Internet
11 7 (0.44%) SNMP
12 6 (0.38%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 115 (7.21%) Power BI
2 71 (4.45%) Metadata
3 60 (3.76%) Data Warehouse
4 43 (2.70%) SQL Server
5 41 (2.57%) Tableau
6 33 (2.07%) Data Lake
7 30 (1.88%) NoSQL
8 26 (1.63%) PostgreSQL
9 24 (1.50%) Relational Database
10 22 (1.38%) Delta Lake
10 22 (1.38%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 21 (1.32%) Azure SQL Database
12 19 (1.19%) Amazon Redshift
12 19 (1.19%) Big Data
12 19 (1.19%) Oracle Database
13 17 (1.07%) Pinecone
14 16 (1.00%) Oracle Reports
15 15 (0.94%) Parquet
16 14 (0.88%) BigQuery
16 14 (0.88%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 161 (10.09%) JIRA
2 78 (4.89%) Git
3 74 (4.64%) Jenkins
4 49 (3.07%) Postman
5 46 (2.88%) GitLab
6 41 (2.57%) Selenium
7 32 (2.01%) Oracle APEX
8 24 (1.50%) Rational DOORS
9 19 (1.19%) JMeter
9 19 (1.19%) Visual Studio
10 17 (1.07%) TestRail
11 16 (1.00%) Cucumber
12 14 (0.88%) MLflow
13 13 (0.82%) Eclipse
13 13 (0.82%) Zephyr
14 11 (0.69%) REST Assured
14 11 (0.69%) SpecFlow
15 10 (0.63%) Bitbucket
15 10 (0.63%) Cypress.io
15 10 (0.63%) JUnit
General
1 601 (37.68%) Social Skills
2 437 (27.40%) Finance
3 332 (20.82%) Analytical Skills
4 152 (9.53%) Public Sector
5 136 (8.53%) Banking
6 82 (5.14%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (3.07%) Presentation Skills
8 41 (2.57%) Manufacturing
9 35 (2.19%) Influencing Skills
10 34 (2.13%) Pharmaceutical
11 32 (2.01%) Telecoms
12 30 (1.88%) Aerospace
13 29 (1.82%) Marketing
14 28 (1.76%) Electronics
15 27 (1.69%) Front Office
15 27 (1.69%) Military
16 26 (1.63%) Legal
17 24 (1.50%) Organisational Skills
18 23 (1.44%) Investment Banking
19 21 (1.32%) Billing
Job Titles
1 316 (19.81%) Analyst
2 163 (10.22%) Senior
3 144 (9.03%) Business Analyst
4 137 (8.59%) Consultant
5 135 (8.46%) Lead
6 125 (7.84%) Developer
7 92 (5.77%) Architect
8 75 (4.70%) Data Analyst
9 69 (4.33%) Data Engineer
10 53 (3.32%) Software Engineer
11 50 (3.13%) Tester
12 47 (2.95%) Senior Analyst
13 43 (2.70%) Project Manager
13 43 (2.70%) SAP Consultant
14 38 (2.38%) Test Analyst
14 38 (2.38%) Test Manager
15 35 (2.19%) Senior Developer
16 31 (1.94%) Solutions Architect
17 30 (1.88%) Data Scientist
18 28 (1.76%) Embedded Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (6.52%) REST
2 83 (5.20%) JSON
3 59 (3.70%) XML
4 49 (3.07%) Oracle Fusion
5 45 (2.82%) OAuth
6 42 (2.63%) Middleware
6 42 (2.63%) SOAP
7 38 (2.38%) Node.js
8 37 (2.32%) PySpark
8 37 (2.32%) RESTful
9 33 (2.07%) .NET
10 29 (1.82%) Kafka
11 28 (1.76%) Playwright
11 28 (1.76%) Web Services
12 27 (1.69%) PyTorch
12 27 (1.69%) Swagger
13 24 (1.50%) JWT
13 24 (1.50%) SAP Fiori
13 24 (1.50%) TensorFlow
14 23 (1.44%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 91 (5.71%) Legacy Systems
2 66 (4.14%) Data Structures
3 65 (4.08%) Product Ownership
4 63 (3.95%) Onboarding
5 50 (3.13%) Management Information System
6 42 (2.63%) Cloud Native
7 31 (1.94%) Data Centre
8 28 (1.76%) Algorithms
9 27 (1.69%) Analytical Mindset
10 26 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
11 21 (1.32%) FPGA
12 20 (1.25%) Life Science
13 19 (1.19%) Derivative
14 17 (1.07%) Hybrid Cloud
14 17 (1.07%) Operational Technology
14 17 (1.07%) Replication
15 16 (1.00%) SCADA
16 15 (0.94%) Distributed Systems
16 15 (0.94%) Security Posture
17 14 (0.88%) Embedded Systems
Operating Systems
1 93 (5.83%) Linux
2 78 (4.89%) Windows
3 30 (1.88%) Unix
4 11 (0.69%) Android
5 6 (0.38%) Embedded Linux
5 6 (0.38%) Windows Server
6 5 (0.31%) zOS
7 4 (0.25%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.13%) Debian
8 2 (0.13%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.13%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.13%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.063%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.063%) pSOS
9 1 (0.063%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 420 (26.33%) Agile
2 371 (23.26%) Problem-Solving
3 364 (22.82%) Migration
4 276 (17.30%) DevOps
5 269 (16.87%) Stakeholder Management
6 263 (16.49%) CI/CD
6 263 (16.49%) Data Validation
7 231 (14.48%) Analytics
8 199 (12.48%) Data Modelling
9 195 (12.23%) Test Automation
10 194 (12.16%) User Acceptance Testing
11 193 (12.10%) Data Migration
12 176 (11.03%) ETL
13 170 (10.66%) AI
14 167 (10.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 152 (9.53%) Data Governance
16 151 (9.47%) Business Intelligence
17 146 (9.15%) Continuous Improvement
18 140 (8.78%) Data Analysis
19 132 (8.28%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 399 (25.02%) SQL
2 338 (21.19%) Python
3 99 (6.21%) JavaScript
4 90 (5.64%) Java
5 68 (4.26%) C#
6 52 (3.26%) PL/SQL
7 50 (3.13%) C++
8 49 (3.07%) PowerShell
9 44 (2.76%) Bash
10 40 (2.51%) C
11 34 (2.13%) TypeScript
12 24 (1.50%) R
13 17 (1.07%) Groovy
14 16 (1.00%) Shell Script
15 15 (0.94%) Ada
15 15 (0.94%) Bicep
15 15 (0.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 15 (0.94%) Scala
16 11 (0.69%) T-SQL
17 9 (0.56%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 353 (22.13%) Security Cleared
2 259 (16.24%) SC Cleared
3 166 (10.41%) Degree
4 62 (3.89%) Computer Science Degree
5 54 (3.39%) BPSS Clearance
6 38 (2.38%) DV Cleared
7 37 (2.32%) Master's Degree
8 31 (1.94%) ISTQB
9 27 (1.69%) PMI Certification
10 23 (1.44%) AWS Certification
11 19 (1.19%) PMP
12 17 (1.07%) CBAP
13 15 (0.94%) Cisco Certification
14 14 (0.88%) Oracle Certification
15 11 (0.69%) Azure Certification
16 10 (0.63%) CCIE
16 10 (0.63%) CISSP
16 10 (0.63%) OCA
17 9 (0.56%) CCNP
17 9 (0.56%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 214 (13.42%) Data Quality
2 200 (12.54%) QA
3 90 (5.64%) GDPR
4 64 (4.01%) NIST
5 46 (2.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 34 (2.13%) Accessibility
7 18 (1.13%) GxP
7 18 (1.13%) IFRS
8 16 (1.00%) IFRS 17
9 15 (0.94%) Def Stans
10 13 (0.82%) EU AI Act
10 13 (0.82%) PCI DSS
11 11 (0.69%) NCSC
11 11 (0.69%) SLA
12 10 (0.63%) COBIT
12 10 (0.63%) GMP
12 10 (0.63%) MiFID
12 10 (0.63%) MISRA
12 10 (0.63%) PMO
13 9 (0.56%) DO-178B
System Software
1 57 (3.57%) Docker
2 45 (2.82%) Active Directory
3 27 (1.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (1.38%) Firmware
5 12 (0.75%) VMware NSX
6 9 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.31%) Hyper-V
9 4 (0.25%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
9 4 (0.25%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.25%) vSphere
10 3 (0.19%) KVM
10 3 (0.19%) QEMU
11 2 (0.13%) Ceph
11 2 (0.13%) Lustre
11 2 (0.13%) OpenAM
11 2 (0.13%) OpenDJ
11 2 (0.13%) OpenIDM
11 2 (0.13%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.063%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 77 (4.83%) Kubernetes
2 63 (3.95%) Terraform
3 45 (2.82%) Ansible
4 21 (1.32%) Single Sign-On
5 15 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
6 14 (0.88%) Kibana
6 14 (0.88%) Puppet
7 11 (0.69%) SCCM
8 10 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 10 (0.63%) Grafana
9 8 (0.50%) Nmap
10 7 (0.44%) HP SiteScope
10 7 (0.44%) SCOM
11 6 (0.38%) Nessus
11 6 (0.38%) Prometheus
12 5 (0.31%) RSA Archer
13 4 (0.25%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
14 3 (0.19%) FortiGate
14 3 (0.19%) HP ALM
14 3 (0.19%) OMEGAMON
Vendors
1 210 (13.17%) Microsoft
2 160 (10.03%) Oracle
3 136 (8.53%) SAP
4 72 (4.51%) Databricks
5 65 (4.08%) ServiceNow
6 43 (2.70%) Cisco
7 39 (2.45%) Google
8 37 (2.32%) Salesforce
9 36 (2.26%) Splunk
10 32 (2.01%) VMware
11 26 (1.63%) Workday
12 19 (1.19%) IBM
12 19 (1.19%) MuleSoft
12 19 (1.19%) Murex
13 17 (1.07%) Palo Alto
14 14 (0.88%) Informatica
15 13 (0.82%) Bloomberg
15 13 (0.82%) OpenAI
15 13 (0.82%) Sage
16 12 (0.75%) OneTrust