Validation Contract Job Trends

Validation
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Validation skills. It covers vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 19 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 66 116 149
Rank change year-on-year +50 +33 +10
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,219 792 858
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 3.70% 2.06% 1.73%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.09% 2.40% 1.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 693 390 479
10th Percentile £325 £325 £350
25th Percentile £413 £400 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £500 £540
Median % change year-on-year +0.60% -7.41% +1.89%
75th Percentile £625 £590 £648
90th Percentile £688 £663 £950
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £481 £514
% change year-on-year +3.95% -6.33% +3.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 103 104
10th Percentile £20.50 £29.82 £48.60
25th Percentile £41.25 £49.50 £56.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year - -3.70% +22.73%
75th Percentile £67.00 £70.13 £84.36
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year - -7.14% +27.96%

All Process and 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 29,825 33,013 44,130
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.52% 85.68% 89.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,531 20,242 29,974
10th Percentile £300 £308 £313
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,812 1,459 1,554
10th Percentile £14.23 £14.96 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.00 £18.79
Median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £43.79
Median % change year-on-year -41.51% -1.81% +51.53%
75th Percentile £44.76 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £43.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -47.67% +1.18% +84.18%

Validation
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Validation as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Validation 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 19 September 2025.

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 19 September 2025.

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 19 September 2025. 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 +41 1,047 £513 +4.59% 1,048
UK excluding London +18 569 £500 +3.95% 898
London +82 496 £525 +5.00% 310
Work from Home +83 394 £500 -1.91% 537
South East +27 157 £500 +4.49% 255
North of England +12 105 £430 -7.03% 153
East of England +21 97 £500 -20.00% 117
Midlands -13 87 £463 -2.63% 141
North West +19 67 £425 -8.11% 105
South West -25 66 £550 -5.50% 170
West Midlands -16 63 £450 -6.64% 92
Scotland +24 41 £506 +1.20% 43
Yorkshire -8 27 £475 -5.00% 37
East Midlands +5 23 £500 +21.21% 44
Wales +12 14 £375 - 29
North East +4 12 £483 +14.88% 11
Northern Ireland -3 4 £608 - 10
Channel Islands - 1 - -

Validation
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 66 (5.41%) Confluence
2 37 (3.04%) SharePoint
3 22 (1.80%) Apache Spark
4 18 (1.48%) Apache Airflow
5 15 (1.23%) Skype for Business
6 14 (1.15%) Microsoft Exchange
7 13 (1.07%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 11 (0.90%) Apache
9 10 (0.82%) SAS
9 10 (0.82%) WebLogic
10 9 (0.74%) Oracle Service Bus
11 7 (0.57%) CMS
11 7 (0.57%) Exchange Server 2013
11 7 (0.57%) Mattermost
12 6 (0.49%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.33%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.33%) ArcGIS
14 3 (0.25%) Smallworld
15 2 (0.16%) Oracle Spatial
15 2 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 95 (7.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (3.77%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (2.13%) MS Visio
4 25 (2.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.57%) Simulink
6 6 (0.49%) Sketch
7 5 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.16%) CANalyzer
8 2 (0.16%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.16%) Oracle Smart View
8 2 (0.16%) Siemens NX
8 2 (0.16%) Stateflow
9 1 (0.082%) Fusion 360
9 1 (0.082%) NASTRAN
9 1 (0.082%) Trello
9 1 (0.082%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 86 (7.05%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (1.80%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (1.15%) SAP MDG
4 11 (0.90%) SAP EHS
5 10 (0.82%) Aladdin
5 10 (0.82%) Dynamics CRM
5 10 (0.82%) Oracle Payables
5 10 (0.82%) Teamcenter
6 9 (0.74%) Oracle BPM
7 8 (0.66%) Oracle Assets
7 8 (0.66%) Oracle E-Business Tax
7 8 (0.66%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.66%) Remedy ITSM
7 8 (0.66%) SAP FI
8 7 (0.57%) SAP CO
8 7 (0.57%) SAP FI/CO
9 6 (0.49%) SAP PLM
9 6 (0.49%) SAP PM
10 5 (0.41%) SAP ERP
10 5 (0.41%) SAP PS
Cloud Services
1 191 (15.67%) Azure
2 135 (11.07%) AWS
3 104 (8.53%) Power Platform
4 61 (5.00%) Azure DevOps
5 55 (4.51%) GCP
6 36 (2.95%) SaaS
7 30 (2.46%) GitHub
8 27 (2.21%) Entra ID
9 25 (2.05%) Microsoft 365
9 25 (2.05%) OCI
9 25 (2.05%) Serverless
10 23 (1.89%) Snowflake
11 19 (1.56%) PaaS
12 17 (1.39%) Dynamics 365
13 16 (1.31%) Azure Data Factory
13 16 (1.31%) dbt
14 15 (1.23%) OpenShift
15 13 (1.07%) Amazon S3
16 12 (0.98%) AWS Lambda
16 12 (0.98%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 35 (2.87%) Firewall
2 29 (2.38%) DNS
2 29 (2.38%) VPN
3 28 (2.30%) BGP
3 28 (2.30%) TCP/IP
4 25 (2.05%) MPLS
5 24 (1.97%) WAN
6 20 (1.64%) Ethernet
7 19 (1.56%) OSPF
8 17 (1.39%) LTE
9 15 (1.23%) 3GPP
9 15 (1.23%) Skype
10 14 (1.15%) LAN
11 13 (1.07%) SD-WAN
11 13 (1.07%) Wireless
12 12 (0.98%) Internet
12 12 (0.98%) SNMP
13 10 (0.82%) SSL
14 9 (0.74%) IPsec
14 9 (0.74%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 92 (7.55%) Power BI
2 61 (5.00%) Data Warehouse
3 36 (2.95%) Tableau
4 27 (2.21%) SQL Server
5 26 (2.13%) NoSQL
6 25 (2.05%) Oracle Database
6 25 (2.05%) Oracle Reports
7 20 (1.64%) Relational Database
8 17 (1.39%) BigQuery
8 17 (1.39%) Metadata
9 15 (1.23%) Data Lake
10 14 (1.15%) SAP Data Services
10 14 (1.15%) SAP HANA
11 12 (0.98%) Amazon Redshift
11 12 (0.98%) PostgreSQL
12 10 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
12 10 (0.82%) SAP BW
13 9 (0.74%) Looker
13 9 (0.74%) MySQL
14 8 (0.66%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 129 (10.58%) JIRA
2 56 (4.59%) Git
3 43 (3.53%) Jenkins
4 34 (2.79%) Postman
5 24 (1.97%) Selenium
6 22 (1.80%) Visual Studio
7 19 (1.56%) Cucumber
7 19 (1.56%) Eclipse
8 17 (1.39%) GitLab
8 17 (1.39%) JMeter
9 16 (1.31%) Cypress.io
10 14 (1.15%) REST Assured
11 10 (0.82%) TestRail
12 8 (0.66%) Bitbucket
12 8 (0.66%) Zephyr
13 6 (0.49%) LoadRunner
14 5 (0.41%) JUnit
14 5 (0.41%) SoapUI
15 4 (0.33%) Rational DOORS
15 4 (0.33%) SpecFlow
General
1 493 (40.44%) Social Skills
2 314 (25.76%) Finance
3 253 (20.75%) Analytical Skills
4 88 (7.22%) Public Sector
5 77 (6.32%) Banking
6 63 (5.17%) Documentation Skills
7 60 (4.92%) Presentation Skills
8 44 (3.61%) Telecoms
9 42 (3.45%) Front Office
10 38 (3.12%) Manufacturing
11 37 (3.04%) Aerospace
12 33 (2.71%) Pharmaceutical
13 31 (2.54%) Marketing
14 29 (2.38%) Military
15 21 (1.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 20 (1.64%) Electronics
16 20 (1.64%) Retail
17 19 (1.56%) Influencing Skills
17 19 (1.56%) Investment Banking
17 19 (1.56%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 254 (20.84%) Analyst
2 135 (11.07%) Consultant
3 103 (8.45%) Business Analyst
4 88 (7.22%) Senior
5 85 (6.97%) Lead
6 80 (6.56%) Data Analyst
7 64 (5.25%) Developer
8 47 (3.86%) Tester
9 46 (3.77%) SAP Consultant
10 40 (3.28%) Architect
11 39 (3.20%) Data Engineer
12 34 (2.79%) Project Manager
13 32 (2.63%) Software Engineer
14 31 (2.54%) Test Engineer
15 30 (2.46%) Data Scientist
16 28 (2.30%) Test Analyst
17 26 (2.13%) FPGA Engineer
18 25 (2.05%) Network Engineer
18 25 (2.05%) Systems Engineer
19 23 (1.89%) Data Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (3.53%) REST
2 40 (3.28%) JSON
3 38 (3.12%) Web Services
4 32 (2.63%) RESTful
5 29 (2.38%) Node.js
6 28 (2.30%) XML
7 27 (2.21%) SAP Fiori
8 25 (2.05%) SOAP
9 23 (1.89%) Oracle Fusion
10 20 (1.64%) Kafka
11 18 (1.48%) Middleware
12 17 (1.39%) OAuth
12 17 (1.39%) Swagger
13 16 (1.31%) Pandas
14 15 (1.23%) .NET
14 15 (1.23%) OpenAPI
15 14 (1.15%) React
16 13 (1.07%) PySpark
17 12 (0.98%) OAuth2
17 12 (0.98%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 59 (4.84%) Legacy Systems
2 49 (4.02%) Onboarding
3 43 (3.53%) Management Information System
4 40 (3.28%) Data Structures
4 40 (3.28%) Product Ownership
5 38 (3.12%) FPGA
6 32 (2.63%) Data Centre
7 30 (2.46%) Data Protection Act
8 23 (1.89%) Cloud Native
8 23 (1.89%) Virtual Team
9 20 (1.64%) Analytical Mindset
10 19 (1.56%) IoT
11 17 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
11 17 (1.39%) Self-Motivation
12 15 (1.23%) Derivative
12 15 (1.23%) Hybrid Cloud
12 15 (1.23%) Life Science
12 15 (1.23%) SCADA
13 14 (1.15%) NB-IoT
13 14 (1.15%) Verilog
Operating Systems
1 107 (8.78%) Linux
2 77 (6.32%) Windows
3 34 (2.79%) Unix
4 11 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (0.57%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.49%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.41%) Android
7 5 (0.41%) VMS
8 2 (0.16%) Windows Server 2003
9 1 (0.082%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.082%) MVS
9 1 (0.082%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.082%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.082%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.082%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.082%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.082%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.082%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 294 (24.12%) Migration
2 288 (23.63%) Problem-Solving
3 275 (22.56%) Agile
4 194 (15.91%) Data Validation
5 161 (13.21%) Data Migration
6 150 (12.31%) Analytics
7 147 (12.06%) Test Automation
8 143 (11.73%) DevOps
9 142 (11.65%) Stakeholder Management
10 139 (11.40%) CI/CD
11 133 (10.91%) Data Analysis
12 129 (10.58%) User Acceptance Testing
13 128 (10.50%) Business Intelligence
14 127 (10.42%) ETL
15 110 (9.02%) Data Modelling
16 108 (8.86%) Data Governance
17 104 (8.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 90 (7.38%) Visualisation
19 84 (6.89%) Data Cleansing
20 83 (6.81%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 311 (25.51%) SQL
2 271 (22.23%) Python
3 52 (4.27%) JavaScript
4 49 (4.02%) C#
4 49 (4.02%) Java
5 46 (3.77%) C++
6 40 (3.28%) Bash
7 30 (2.46%) PowerShell
8 26 (2.13%) PL/SQL
9 24 (1.97%) Shell Script
10 23 (1.89%) R
10 23 (1.89%) VBA
11 19 (1.56%) Tcl
12 17 (1.39%) SystemVerilog
13 14 (1.15%) TypeScript
14 12 (0.98%) ABAP
15 11 (0.90%) C
16 10 (0.82%) MATLAB
17 9 (0.74%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 7 (0.57%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 217 (17.80%) Security Cleared
2 176 (14.44%) SC Cleared
3 139 (11.40%) Degree
4 42 (3.45%) BPSS Clearance
5 27 (2.21%) Cisco Certification
5 27 (2.21%) Master's Degree
6 25 (2.05%) Computer Science Degree
7 22 (1.80%) DV Cleared
8 21 (1.72%) PMI Certification
9 20 (1.64%) CCNP
9 20 (1.64%) PhD
10 19 (1.56%) AWS Certification
11 18 (1.48%) ISTQB
12 13 (1.07%) CBAP
12 13 (1.07%) CISSP
13 11 (0.90%) CCIE
13 11 (0.90%) PMP
14 9 (0.74%) Azure Certification
14 9 (0.74%) SAP Certification
15 8 (0.66%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 139 (11.40%) QA
2 137 (11.24%) Data Quality
3 53 (4.35%) GDPR
4 21 (1.72%) Accessibility
4 21 (1.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 21 (1.72%) NIST
5 20 (1.64%) MiFID
6 17 (1.39%) GxP
7 15 (1.23%) IFRS
7 15 (1.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 12 (0.98%) EMIR
9 11 (0.90%) PCI DSS
9 11 (0.90%) PMO
10 6 (0.49%) COBIT
10 6 (0.49%) EU AI Act
10 6 (0.49%) HL7
10 6 (0.49%) IFRS 9
10 6 (0.49%) SEPA
11 5 (0.41%) GRC
12 4 (0.33%) ITGC
System Software
1 46 (3.77%) Active Directory
2 36 (2.95%) VMware Infrastructure
3 26 (2.13%) Docker
4 20 (1.64%) VMware ESXi
5 16 (1.31%) vSphere
6 10 (0.82%) VMware NSX
7 9 (0.74%) Firmware
8 6 (0.49%) Dovecot
8 6 (0.49%) Postfix
9 4 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
10 3 (0.25%) OpenAM
10 3 (0.25%) QEMU
11 2 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
11 2 (0.16%) Virtual Machines
12 1 (0.082%) KVM
12 1 (0.082%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.082%) Squid
12 1 (0.082%) Time Sharing Option
12 1 (0.082%) Veritas Cluster Server
Systems Management
1 52 (4.27%) Ansible
2 38 (3.12%) Kubernetes
3 36 (2.95%) Terraform
4 10 (0.82%) SCCM
4 10 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
5 9 (0.74%) HP ALM
5 9 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
5 9 (0.74%) Nessus
5 9 (0.74%) SCOM
6 8 (0.66%) Argo
6 8 (0.66%) Istio
7 7 (0.57%) HP SiteScope
7 7 (0.57%) Puppet
8 6 (0.49%) CASB
8 6 (0.49%) Nmap
8 6 (0.49%) vCenter Server
9 5 (0.41%) Kibana
10 4 (0.33%) Control-M
10 4 (0.33%) PowerCLI
10 4 (0.33%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 190 (15.59%) Microsoft
2 128 (10.50%) SAP
3 121 (9.93%) Oracle
4 55 (4.51%) VMware
5 45 (3.69%) Cisco
6 44 (3.61%) Salesforce
7 37 (3.04%) ServiceNow
8 35 (2.87%) Databricks
9 26 (2.13%) Workday
10 25 (2.05%) Splunk
11 19 (1.56%) Google
12 17 (1.39%) Red Hat
13 14 (1.15%) EMC
13 14 (1.15%) F5
13 14 (1.15%) Juniper
14 13 (1.07%) Adobe
15 12 (0.98%) Palo Alto
15 12 (0.98%) Remedy
15 12 (0.98%) Xilinx
16 11 (0.90%) CyberArk