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

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 68 127
Rank change year-on-year +33 +59 +24
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,841 1,168 744
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.32% 3.55% 1.91%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.27% 3.92% 2.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,716 682 364
10th Percentile £340 £350 £342
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £488
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +5.53% -11.27%
75th Percentile £600 £620 £588
90th Percentile £700 £688 £669
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £515 £463
% change year-on-year -10.19% +11.35% -9.84%
Number of hourly rates quoted 184 87 121
10th Percentile £17.01 £20.50 £29.77
25th Percentile £27.16 £38.87 £51.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -7.69% -
75th Percentile £74.25 £66.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £83.53 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -3.85% - -

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 45,312 29,789 33,296
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.84% 90.47% 85.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,886 18,626 21,285
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £421 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,829 1,693 1,837
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.30 £18.35
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -38.57% -1.35%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.13 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.74 £42.50
% change year-on-year +93.36% -46.51% +17.24%

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 11 August 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 11 August 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 11 August 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 +32 2,461 £500 -3.85% 1,896
UK excluding London +28 1,335 £463 -10.19% 1,215
London +42 1,181 £525 +0.96% 821
Work from Home +35 801 £492 -1.60% 659
South East +3 322 £500 - 341
Midlands +32 314 £475 +5.56% 191
North of England +50 307 £450 -9.09% 224
West Midlands +33 223 £463 +2.78% 116
North West +30 156 £450 -21.40% 132
East of England +5 149 £475 -6.40% 160
Yorkshire +39 137 £458 +5.17% 51
South West -3 129 £525 -8.70% 195
Scotland +41 92 £420 -10.40% 93
East Midlands +25 86 £509 +11.99% 75
Wales +1 26 £425 +13.33% 28
North East -35 18 £425 -22.73% 45
Northern Ireland +11 10 £380 -35.59% 5
Channel Islands +2 1 - -

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 82 (2.89%) Confluence
2 68 (2.39%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (1.94%) SAS
4 50 (1.76%) SharePoint
5 41 (1.44%) Apache Spark
6 32 (1.13%) Apache
7 13 (0.46%) Jupyter
7 13 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
8 12 (0.42%) Microsoft Exchange
9 10 (0.35%) CMS
10 9 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.25%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.18%) IIS
12 5 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
12 5 (0.18%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.11%) JBoss
14 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
Applications
1 192 (6.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.44%) MS Visio
3 39 (1.37%) Microsoft Office
4 29 (1.02%) Spreadsheet
5 25 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 13 (0.46%) AutoCAD
7 10 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
8 8 (0.28%) CATIA
8 8 (0.28%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.28%) Revit
9 7 (0.25%) ProjectWise
10 6 (0.21%) Simulink
11 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.070%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.070%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.070%) Windchill
13 1 (0.035%) Autodesk Inventor
13 1 (0.035%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.035%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.035%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 121 (4.26%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.02%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.46%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.42%) iTrent
5 12 (0.42%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.42%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 12 (0.42%) SAP ERP
6 11 (0.39%) Teamcenter
7 10 (0.35%) Oracle Assets
7 10 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.32%) Aladdin
8 9 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.32%) SAP MDG
8 9 (0.32%) SAP SD
9 8 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
9 8 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
9 8 (0.28%) Sage X3
10 7 (0.25%) SAP FI
10 7 (0.25%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 614 (21.61%) Azure
2 337 (11.86%) AWS
3 299 (10.52%) Power Platform
4 161 (5.67%) Azure DevOps
5 151 (5.32%) GCP
6 132 (4.65%) GitHub
7 98 (3.45%) Snowflake
8 75 (2.64%) Azure Data Factory
8 75 (2.64%) Entra ID
9 73 (2.57%) GitHub Actions
10 70 (2.46%) Serverless
11 56 (1.97%) Amazon S3
12 54 (1.90%) SaaS
13 53 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
14 46 (1.62%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 46 (1.62%) dbt
15 43 (1.51%) OCI
15 43 (1.51%) SuccessFactors
16 37 (1.30%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 34 (1.20%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 115 (4.05%) Firewall
2 68 (2.39%) Network Security
3 65 (2.29%) DNS
4 55 (1.94%) VLAN
5 53 (1.87%) VPN
6 47 (1.65%) TCP/IP
7 41 (1.44%) WAN
8 37 (1.30%) BGP
9 30 (1.06%) DHCP
10 26 (0.92%) OSPF
11 24 (0.84%) LAN
12 23 (0.81%) Internet
13 22 (0.77%) SD-WAN
14 21 (0.74%) SAN
15 20 (0.70%) Wireless
16 17 (0.60%) Ethernet
16 17 (0.60%) VXLAN
16 17 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
17 15 (0.53%) Ethernet VPN
17 15 (0.53%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 278 (9.79%) Power BI
2 168 (5.91%) Data Warehouse
3 116 (4.08%) Metadata
4 102 (3.59%) SQL Server
5 97 (3.41%) PostgreSQL
6 89 (3.13%) Data Lake
7 88 (3.10%) Relational Database
8 76 (2.68%) Tableau
9 38 (1.34%) Big Data
10 34 (1.20%) MongoDB
11 33 (1.16%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 32 (1.13%) NoSQL
12 32 (1.13%) Oracle Reports
13 31 (1.09%) Delta Lake
13 31 (1.09%) Oracle Database
13 31 (1.09%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 30 (1.06%) Azure SQL Database
15 28 (0.99%) BigQuery
15 28 (0.99%) Power Query
16 27 (0.95%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 253 (8.91%) JIRA
2 187 (6.58%) Git
3 106 (3.73%) Jenkins
4 82 (2.89%) GitLab
5 70 (2.46%) Selenium
6 49 (1.72%) JMeter
7 46 (1.62%) Postman
8 39 (1.37%) Cucumber
9 37 (1.30%) JUnit
10 35 (1.23%) WebDriver
11 24 (0.84%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.63%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.56%) Gatling
13 16 (0.56%) Visual Studio
14 14 (0.49%) REST Assured
15 13 (0.46%) Maven
15 13 (0.46%) Rational Rhapsody
16 12 (0.42%) Cypress.io
16 12 (0.42%) Gradle
16 12 (0.42%) Oracle Forms
General
1 808 (28.44%) Finance
2 807 (28.41%) Social Skills
3 549 (19.32%) Analytical Skills
4 246 (8.66%) Public Sector
5 209 (7.36%) Banking
6 147 (5.17%) Documentation Skills
7 107 (3.77%) Manufacturing
8 94 (3.31%) Retail
9 69 (2.43%) Aerospace
10 62 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 62 (2.18%) Pharmaceutical
11 57 (2.01%) Telecoms
12 52 (1.83%) Organisational Skills
13 49 (1.72%) Automotive
14 45 (1.58%) Legal
15 42 (1.48%) Front Office
15 42 (1.48%) Marketing
16 40 (1.41%) Local Government
17 39 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
17 39 (1.37%) Law
Job Titles
1 495 (17.42%) Analyst
2 304 (10.70%) Senior
3 284 (10.00%) Lead
4 235 (8.27%) Business Analyst
5 234 (8.24%) Data Engineer
6 212 (7.46%) Consultant
7 171 (6.02%) Developer
8 146 (5.14%) Architect
9 141 (4.96%) Data Analyst
10 106 (3.73%) Test Engineer
11 85 (2.99%) Tester
12 75 (2.64%) Project Manager
13 66 (2.32%) Network Engineer
14 59 (2.08%) Systems Engineer
15 58 (2.04%) Administrator
16 54 (1.90%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 54 (1.90%) Technical Analyst
17 51 (1.80%) Senior Data Engineer
18 45 (1.58%) Senior Analyst
19 44 (1.55%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 151 (5.32%) REST
2 84 (2.96%) JSON
3 77 (2.71%) Kafka
4 75 (2.64%) XML
5 74 (2.60%) PySpark
6 63 (2.22%) Middleware
7 52 (1.83%) .NET
7 52 (1.83%) Oracle Fusion
8 47 (1.65%) Spring
9 44 (1.55%) Playwright
9 44 (1.55%) pytest
10 41 (1.44%) SOAP
11 37 (1.30%) OAuth
11 37 (1.30%) Web Services
12 33 (1.16%) Pandas
12 33 (1.16%) RESTful
13 29 (1.02%) Node.js
14 28 (0.99%) Spring Boot
15 26 (0.92%) WireMock
16 24 (0.84%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 158 (5.56%) Onboarding
2 154 (5.42%) Data Structures
3 131 (4.61%) Legacy Systems
4 126 (4.44%) Cloud Native
5 121 (4.26%) Product Ownership
6 87 (3.06%) Management Information System
7 83 (2.92%) Data Centre
8 54 (1.90%) Distributed Systems
9 47 (1.65%) Analytical Mindset
10 45 (1.58%) Enterprise Software
11 43 (1.51%) Life Science
12 41 (1.44%) AI Agents
13 40 (1.41%) SCADA
14 39 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
15 37 (1.30%) Replication
16 36 (1.27%) NHS
17 34 (1.20%) Operational Technology
18 33 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
18 33 (1.16%) Public Cloud
19 32 (1.13%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 168 (5.91%) Windows
2 118 (4.15%) Linux
3 61 (2.15%) Windows Server
4 45 (1.58%) Unix
5 19 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.39%) Android
6 11 (0.39%) Ubuntu
6 11 (0.39%) Windows 10
7 10 (0.35%) VMS
8 7 (0.25%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.21%) Windows 7
10 5 (0.18%) AIX
11 4 (0.14%) SUSE
11 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.070%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.070%) HPUX
12 2 (0.070%) VxWorks
13 1 (0.035%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.035%) Solaris
13 1 (0.035%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 770 (27.10%) Migration
2 556 (19.57%) Agile
3 545 (19.18%) Stakeholder Management
4 509 (17.92%) CI/CD
5 470 (16.54%) Analytics
6 465 (16.37%) User Acceptance Testing
7 460 (16.19%) Data Modelling
8 457 (16.09%) Data Migration
9 456 (16.05%) Data Validation
10 443 (15.59%) Problem-Solving
11 367 (12.92%) DevOps
12 366 (12.88%) AI
13 357 (12.57%) Continuous Improvement
14 354 (12.46%) Test Automation
15 334 (11.76%) ETL
16 317 (11.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 314 (11.05%) Business Intelligence
18 300 (10.56%) Data Pipeline
19 287 (10.10%) Data Governance
20 267 (9.40%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 706 (24.85%) SQL
2 533 (18.76%) Python
3 135 (4.75%) Java
4 77 (2.71%) PowerShell
5 62 (2.18%) C#
6 57 (2.01%) Bash
7 51 (1.80%) JavaScript
8 40 (1.41%) C++
9 33 (1.16%) TypeScript
10 32 (1.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 30 (1.06%) Apex Code
12 29 (1.02%) Bicep
13 26 (0.92%) C
13 26 (0.92%) PL/SQL
14 24 (0.84%) VBA
15 23 (0.81%) R
16 18 (0.63%) T-SQL
17 17 (0.60%) Shell Script
18 15 (0.53%) MATLAB
19 13 (0.46%) Scala
Qualifications
1 522 (18.37%) Security Cleared
2 380 (13.38%) SC Cleared
3 183 (6.44%) Degree
4 68 (2.39%) DV Cleared
5 63 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
6 44 (1.55%) Cisco Certification
7 43 (1.51%) Computer Science Degree
8 35 (1.23%) CCNP
9 27 (0.95%) ISTQB
10 25 (0.88%) ACCA
11 24 (0.84%) CIMA
12 21 (0.74%) Azure Certification
12 21 (0.74%) PMI Certification
13 20 (0.70%) AWS Certification
13 20 (0.70%) PMP
14 19 (0.67%) CISSP
14 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Certification
15 17 (0.60%) CCNA
16 11 (0.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 11 (0.39%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 543 (19.11%) Data Quality
2 356 (12.53%) QA
3 125 (4.40%) GDPR
4 52 (1.83%) NIST
5 46 (1.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 45 (1.58%) Accessibility
7 39 (1.37%) GxP
8 38 (1.34%) PMO
8 38 (1.34%) SLA
9 20 (0.70%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 20 (0.70%) GRC
9 20 (0.70%) ISO 20022
10 18 (0.63%) GMP
11 14 (0.49%) Def Stans
11 14 (0.49%) NCSC
11 14 (0.49%) WCAG
12 13 (0.46%) HL7
12 13 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 12 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.39%) NIST 800
System Software
1 122 (4.29%) Docker
2 96 (3.38%) Active Directory
3 78 (2.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (1.30%) Virtual Machines
5 27 (0.95%) VMware ESXi
6 22 (0.77%) Firmware
6 22 (0.77%) Hyper-V
7 20 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
8 19 (0.67%) vSphere
9 13 (0.46%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.14%) KVM
10 4 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.11%) NFS
11 3 (0.11%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.070%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.070%) OpenSSH
12 2 (0.070%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.035%) Ceph
13 1 (0.035%) etcd
Systems Management
1 158 (5.56%) Kubernetes
2 141 (4.96%) Terraform
3 65 (2.29%) Ansible
4 55 (1.94%) Grafana
5 50 (1.76%) Prometheus
6 25 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
7 24 (0.84%) FortiGate
8 22 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
9 12 (0.42%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.35%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.35%) VxRail
11 9 (0.32%) SCCM
12 8 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
13 7 (0.25%) Argo
14 5 (0.18%) CASB
14 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Clustering
14 5 (0.18%) systemd
14 5 (0.18%) vRealize
15 4 (0.14%) Consul
15 4 (0.14%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 422 (14.85%) Microsoft
2 256 (9.01%) SAP
3 246 (8.66%) Oracle
4 153 (5.39%) Databricks
5 93 (3.27%) Salesforce
6 91 (3.20%) VMware
7 76 (2.68%) ServiceNow
8 62 (2.18%) Cisco
9 51 (1.80%) Google
10 46 (1.62%) Workday
11 38 (1.34%) Informatica
12 32 (1.13%) IBM
13 30 (1.06%) Fortinet
14 29 (1.02%) Juniper
14 29 (1.02%) MuleSoft
14 29 (1.02%) Palo Alto
14 29 (1.02%) Splunk
15 27 (0.95%) Zscaler
16 23 (0.81%) Sage
17 20 (0.70%) Ariba