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

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 67 111
Rank change year-on-year +35 +44 +37
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,043 1,209 798
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.60% 3.70% 2.08%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.64% 4.09% 2.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,797 688 392
10th Percentile £331 £325 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £502 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.35% +0.35% -7.41%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £591
90th Percentile £701 £688 £662
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £488
% change year-on-year -7.50% +2.56% -4.97%
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 85 102
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £29.79
25th Percentile £26.52 £41.25 £48.75
Median hourly rate £52.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.23% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £70.63 £67.00 £70.81
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -17.69% - -6.14%

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 45,811 29,562 32,919
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.30% 90.52% 85.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,773 18,345 20,161
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 £625 £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 3,152 1,818 1,440
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.23 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +0.58%
75th Percentile £67.47 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £66.15 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.06 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +84.00% -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 21 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 21 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 21 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 +34 2,612 £500 -2.44% 4,814
UK excluding London +29 1,397 £463 -7.50% 2,832
London +36 1,275 £525 - 2,451
Work from Home +27 826 £500 - 1,778
North of England +47 341 £450 +4.65% 456
South East +2 331 £525 +5.00% 709
Midlands +36 305 £473 +2.27% 383
West Midlands +27 214 £464 +3.02% 256
North West +18 163 £450 +5.88% 272
Yorkshire +52 153 £460 -3.16% 124
South West +16 150 £523 -5.00% 387
East of England -7 138 £450 -11.33% 409
Scotland +39 125 £430 -15.02% 381
East Midlands +28 87 £489 -2.25% 126
North East -23 30 £425 -11.92% 69
Wales -1 25 £394 +5.00% 61
Northern Ireland +6 4 £363 -40.33% 76
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 86 (2.83%) Confluence
2 66 (2.17%) Apache Airflow
3 61 (2.00%) SharePoint
4 53 (1.74%) SAS
5 44 (1.45%) Apache Spark
6 32 (1.05%) Apache
7 20 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
8 15 (0.49%) CMS
9 14 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
10 10 (0.33%) Jupyter
11 9 (0.30%) SharePoint 2013
12 8 (0.26%) Palantir Foundry
13 7 (0.23%) ArcGIS
13 7 (0.23%) Sitecore CMS
14 6 (0.20%) OpenStack
14 6 (0.20%) WebLogic
15 5 (0.16%) Tuxedo
16 4 (0.13%) IIS
16 4 (0.13%) JBoss
16 4 (0.13%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 215 (7.07%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
3 38 (1.25%) MS Visio
4 32 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 32 (1.05%) Spreadsheet
5 16 (0.53%) AutoCAD
6 11 (0.36%) Navisworks
6 11 (0.36%) Revit
7 10 (0.33%) ProjectWise
8 8 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
9 6 (0.20%) CATIA
9 6 (0.20%) Simulink
10 4 (0.13%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.066%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.066%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.066%) Windchill
12 1 (0.033%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.033%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.033%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.033%) Trello
Business Applications
1 113 (3.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.49%) Oracle EBS
2 15 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
2 15 (0.49%) SAP SD
3 13 (0.43%) NetSuite
3 13 (0.43%) SAP FI
3 13 (0.43%) Teamcenter
4 12 (0.39%) SAP MDG
4 12 (0.39%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.36%) Aladdin
5 11 (0.36%) SAP HCM
6 10 (0.33%) iTrent
6 10 (0.33%) SAP MM
7 9 (0.30%) Integrated Workplace Management System
7 9 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
7 9 (0.30%) SAP CO
7 9 (0.30%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.30%) SAP PS
8 8 (0.26%) Oracle Financials
Cloud Services
1 602 (19.78%) Azure
2 347 (11.40%) AWS
3 307 (10.09%) Power Platform
4 180 (5.92%) Azure DevOps
5 149 (4.90%) GCP
6 141 (4.63%) GitHub
7 107 (3.52%) Snowflake
8 92 (3.02%) Entra ID
9 73 (2.40%) GitHub Actions
10 68 (2.23%) Azure Data Factory
11 60 (1.97%) Serverless
12 58 (1.91%) Amazon S3
12 58 (1.91%) dbt
12 58 (1.91%) SaaS
13 56 (1.84%) Microsoft 365
14 40 (1.31%) SuccessFactors
15 38 (1.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 37 (1.22%) Azure Monitor
17 35 (1.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 32 (1.05%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 113 (3.71%) Firewall
2 76 (2.50%) DNS
3 70 (2.30%) VLAN
4 61 (2.00%) Network Security
5 55 (1.81%) VPN
6 50 (1.64%) BGP
7 47 (1.54%) TCP/IP
8 44 (1.45%) WAN
9 35 (1.15%) DHCP
10 30 (0.99%) OSPF
11 29 (0.95%) VXLAN
12 26 (0.85%) Ethernet VPN
12 26 (0.85%) Wireless
13 24 (0.79%) LAN
14 23 (0.76%) Ethernet
15 22 (0.72%) Internet
15 22 (0.72%) SD-WAN
16 20 (0.66%) 5G
16 20 (0.66%) HTTP
16 20 (0.66%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 286 (9.40%) Power BI
2 168 (5.52%) Data Warehouse
3 133 (4.37%) Metadata
4 118 (3.88%) Relational Database
5 100 (3.29%) SQL Server
6 92 (3.02%) PostgreSQL
7 86 (2.83%) Data Lake
8 72 (2.37%) Tableau
9 42 (1.38%) Oracle Database
10 38 (1.25%) Delta Lake
10 38 (1.25%) MongoDB
11 36 (1.18%) Big Data
11 36 (1.18%) BigQuery
11 36 (1.18%) Power Query
12 33 (1.08%) NoSQL
13 32 (1.05%) Oracle Reports
14 31 (1.02%) Redis
15 30 (0.99%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 29 (0.95%) MySQL
17 28 (0.92%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 266 (8.74%) JIRA
2 228 (7.49%) Git
3 104 (3.42%) Jenkins
4 93 (3.06%) GitLab
5 83 (2.73%) Selenium
6 43 (1.41%) Postman
7 35 (1.15%) JMeter
8 25 (0.82%) Cucumber
9 23 (0.76%) Rational DOORS
10 21 (0.69%) WebDriver
11 19 (0.62%) JUnit
12 17 (0.56%) Cypress.io
12 17 (0.56%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.53%) REST Assured
13 16 (0.53%) Visual Studio
13 16 (0.53%) Zephyr
14 15 (0.49%) Gatling
15 14 (0.46%) Oracle Forms
16 12 (0.39%) Rational Rhapsody
17 11 (0.36%) Gradle
General
1 872 (28.66%) Social Skills
2 862 (28.33%) Finance
3 615 (20.21%) Analytical Skills
4 268 (8.81%) Banking
5 257 (8.45%) Public Sector
6 140 (4.60%) Documentation Skills
7 123 (4.04%) Manufacturing
8 96 (3.15%) Retail
9 71 (2.33%) Automotive
10 70 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 70 (2.30%) Telecoms
11 59 (1.94%) Organisational Skills
12 57 (1.87%) Legal
13 54 (1.77%) Marketing
14 53 (1.74%) Aerospace
15 51 (1.68%) Pharmaceutical
16 46 (1.51%) Front Office
17 44 (1.45%) Law
18 42 (1.38%) Influencing Skills
19 41 (1.35%) Billing
Job Titles
1 522 (17.15%) Analyst
2 351 (11.53%) Senior
3 278 (9.14%) Lead
4 241 (7.92%) Consultant
5 238 (7.82%) Data Engineer
6 236 (7.76%) Business Analyst
7 197 (6.47%) Developer
8 158 (5.19%) Data Analyst
9 157 (5.16%) Architect
10 112 (3.68%) Test Engineer
11 79 (2.60%) Network Engineer
12 77 (2.53%) Tester
13 63 (2.07%) Systems Engineer
14 61 (2.00%) Administrator
15 58 (1.91%) Senior Data Engineer
16 56 (1.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 56 (1.84%) Senior Analyst
17 51 (1.68%) Software Engineer
18 49 (1.61%) Project Manager
19 47 (1.54%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 193 (6.34%) REST
2 176 (5.78%) Terraform
3 98 (3.22%) JSON
4 89 (2.92%) PySpark
5 82 (2.69%) XML
6 81 (2.66%) Middleware
7 73 (2.40%) Kafka
8 60 (1.97%) Playwright
9 56 (1.84%) .NET
10 51 (1.68%) Web Services
11 50 (1.64%) pytest
11 50 (1.64%) SOAP
12 46 (1.51%) OAuth
12 46 (1.51%) Oracle Fusion
13 40 (1.31%) RESTful
14 39 (1.28%) Pandas
15 37 (1.22%) Spring
16 34 (1.12%) HTML
16 34 (1.12%) Node.js
16 34 (1.12%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 169 (5.55%) Onboarding
2 160 (5.26%) Data Structures
3 138 (4.53%) Cloud Native
4 122 (4.01%) Legacy Systems
5 115 (3.78%) Product Ownership
6 113 (3.71%) Management Information System
7 91 (2.99%) Data Centre
8 55 (1.81%) Distributed Systems
8 55 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
9 54 (1.77%) AI Agents
10 46 (1.51%) Analytical Mindset
11 43 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
12 42 (1.38%) SCADA
13 41 (1.35%) Life Science
14 38 (1.25%) Operational Technology
15 37 (1.22%) Algorithms
15 37 (1.22%) NHS
15 37 (1.22%) Replication
16 34 (1.12%) CMDB
17 32 (1.05%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 205 (6.74%) Windows
2 134 (4.40%) Linux
3 80 (2.63%) Windows Server
4 56 (1.84%) Unix
5 22 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.53%) Android
6 16 (0.53%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.36%) Ubuntu
7 11 (0.36%) VMS
8 9 (0.30%) AIX
8 9 (0.30%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.23%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.13%) SUSE
10 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.099%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.066%) CentOS
12 2 (0.066%) HPUX
12 2 (0.066%) Solaris
12 2 (0.066%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 818 (26.88%) Migration
2 665 (21.85%) Stakeholder Management
3 595 (19.55%) Agile
4 593 (19.49%) CI/CD
5 495 (16.27%) Data Modelling
6 489 (16.07%) Analytics
7 487 (16.00%) User Acceptance Testing
8 475 (15.61%) Data Validation
9 471 (15.48%) Problem-Solving
10 470 (15.45%) Data Migration
11 420 (13.80%) AI
12 408 (13.41%) DevOps
13 402 (13.21%) Continuous Improvement
14 401 (13.18%) Test Automation
15 343 (11.27%) ETL
16 328 (10.78%) Business Intelligence
17 315 (10.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 312 (10.25%) Data Analysis
19 310 (10.19%) Data Governance
20 307 (10.09%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 797 (26.19%) SQL
2 645 (21.20%) Python
3 151 (4.96%) Java
4 105 (3.45%) PowerShell
5 75 (2.46%) C#
5 75 (2.46%) JavaScript
6 64 (2.10%) Bash
7 44 (1.45%) C++
7 44 (1.45%) TypeScript
8 32 (1.05%) Apex Code
9 31 (1.02%) R
10 29 (0.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 29 (0.95%) PL/SQL
10 29 (0.95%) Shell Script
11 25 (0.82%) Bicep
11 25 (0.82%) C
12 18 (0.59%) T-SQL
12 18 (0.59%) VBA
13 16 (0.53%) Go
14 15 (0.49%) Scala
Qualifications
1 597 (19.62%) Security Cleared
2 442 (14.53%) SC Cleared
3 204 (6.70%) Degree
4 85 (2.79%) DV Cleared
5 68 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
6 49 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
7 47 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
8 38 (1.25%) CCNP
9 34 (1.12%) AWS Certification
10 31 (1.02%) ACCA
10 31 (1.02%) CIMA
11 28 (0.92%) ISTQB
12 27 (0.89%) Azure Certification
13 23 (0.76%) PMI Certification
14 22 (0.72%) PMP
15 21 (0.69%) CISSP
16 19 (0.62%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 17 (0.56%) Master's Degree
18 16 (0.53%) Microsoft Certification
19 15 (0.49%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 630 (20.70%) Data Quality
2 371 (12.19%) QA
3 103 (3.38%) GDPR
4 54 (1.77%) Accessibility
5 45 (1.48%) SLA
6 37 (1.22%) NIST
7 36 (1.18%) PMO
8 35 (1.15%) GxP
9 34 (1.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 22 (0.72%) ISO 20022
11 21 (0.69%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 21 (0.69%) GRC
12 20 (0.66%) WCAG
13 17 (0.56%) GMP
14 15 (0.49%) NCSC
15 14 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.36%) Def Stans
16 11 (0.36%) IFRS
16 11 (0.36%) MiFID
17 10 (0.33%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 115 (3.78%) Docker
2 101 (3.32%) Active Directory
3 90 (2.96%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (1.28%) Virtual Machines
5 36 (1.18%) VMware ESXi
6 31 (1.02%) Firmware
7 26 (0.85%) Hyper-V
7 26 (0.85%) vSphere
8 23 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
9 16 (0.53%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.16%) KVM
12 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.099%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.066%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.066%) OpenSSH
14 2 (0.066%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.033%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.033%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 1 (0.033%) NFS
Systems Management
1 144 (4.73%) Kubernetes
2 99 (3.25%) Ansible
3 43 (1.41%) Grafana
4 34 (1.12%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
6 26 (0.85%) FortiGate
7 20 (0.66%) SCCM
8 17 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.49%) vCenter Server
10 14 (0.46%) HP ALM
11 10 (0.33%) Failover Clustering
11 10 (0.33%) VxRail
12 9 (0.30%) Argo
12 9 (0.30%) Progress Chef
13 8 (0.26%) Functional Safety
14 6 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
15 5 (0.16%) Kibana
15 5 (0.16%) systemd
15 5 (0.16%) vMotion
15 5 (0.16%) vRealize
Vendors
1 463 (15.22%) Microsoft
2 253 (8.31%) SAP
3 248 (8.15%) Oracle
4 168 (5.52%) Databricks
5 104 (3.42%) VMware
6 97 (3.19%) Salesforce
7 88 (2.89%) Cisco
8 83 (2.73%) ServiceNow
9 62 (2.04%) Google
10 52 (1.71%) Workday
11 47 (1.54%) IBM
12 35 (1.15%) Informatica
13 33 (1.08%) Fortinet
14 31 (1.02%) Zscaler
15 29 (0.95%) Juniper
15 29 (0.95%) Palo Alto
16 24 (0.79%) Splunk
17 20 (0.66%) MuleSoft
18 19 (0.62%) Red Hat
19 18 (0.59%) Sage