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

6 months to
26 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 52 113 135
Rank change year-on-year +61 +22 +2
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,789 738 774
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.32% 2.41% 1.77%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.98% 2.67% 2.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,089 410 427
10th Percentile £350 £360 £317
25th Percentile £402 £410 £434
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -6.29% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £623
90th Percentile £700 £725 £705
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% -0.05% +0.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 95 34 144
10th Percentile £32.15 £25.56 £22.98
25th Percentile £53.60 £47.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +3.92%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.44 £75.25
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.18 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +4.00%

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 35,955 27,589 38,137
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.76% 89.91% 86.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,818 17,125 24,933
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £411 £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 £482 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -2.18% -1.45% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,143 864 2,185
10th Percentile £14.61 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.99 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £26.61 £32.66 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year -18.53% -1.24% -5.53%
75th Percentile £61.50 £63.75 £59.50
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.18 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.76 £35.00
% change year-on-year -20.81% -9.26% -

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 26 February 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 26 February 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 26 February 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 +50 1,554 £499 -5.05% 612
UK excluding London +48 838 £475 -5.00% 514
London +67 730 £513 -6.82% 148
Work from Home +62 560 £492 -6.29% 261
North of England +31 210 £420 -4.00% 104
South East +13 182 £501 +0.25% 147
Midlands +29 147 £492 +0.61% 112
North West +27 139 £400 -3.03% 63
South West +13 130 £475 -17.39% 64
West Midlands +20 121 £493 -0.51% 76
East of England +29 103 £475 +11.76% 80
Yorkshire -9 63 £465 +2.48% 29
Scotland +41 49 £425 -6.08% 18
East Midlands -11 24 £450 +22.62% 35
Northern Ireland +12 19 £425 -22.73% 4
Wales +6 11 £450 - 6
North East -6 11 £463 -43.94% 13

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 71 (3.97%) Confluence
2 41 (2.29%) Apache Spark
3 31 (1.73%) SAS
4 27 (1.51%) SharePoint
5 25 (1.40%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (1.01%) Apache
7 17 (0.95%) Microsoft Exchange
8 9 (0.50%) Appian
8 9 (0.50%) CMS
9 8 (0.45%) Skype for Business
10 7 (0.39%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
11 6 (0.34%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.34%) Exchange Server 2013
11 6 (0.34%) Jupyter
12 5 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.22%) Anypoint
13 4 (0.22%) Mattermost
14 3 (0.17%) GeoServer
14 3 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 84 (4.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.84%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (1.45%) MS Visio
4 15 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.67%) Microsoft Project
6 10 (0.56%) Chatbot
7 6 (0.34%) Sketch
7 6 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
8 4 (0.22%) Notion
9 3 (0.17%) LaTeX
10 2 (0.11%) Simulink
11 1 (0.056%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.056%) CATIA
11 1 (0.056%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.056%) Stateflow
11 1 (0.056%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 81 (4.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.40%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.73%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.67%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.61%) Oracle General Ledger
6 10 (0.56%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 10 (0.56%) Oracle Receivables
6 10 (0.56%) SAP FI
7 9 (0.50%) NetSuite
7 9 (0.50%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.50%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.45%) Aladdin
8 8 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.45%) SAP MM
9 7 (0.39%) OpenText VIM for SAP
9 7 (0.39%) Oracle EBS R12
9 7 (0.39%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 7 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
10 6 (0.34%) Payment Gateway
10 6 (0.34%) SAP EHS
Cloud Services
1 411 (22.97%) Azure
2 231 (12.91%) AWS
3 143 (7.99%) Power Platform
4 130 (7.27%) Azure DevOps
5 84 (4.70%) GitHub
6 79 (4.42%) GCP
7 58 (3.24%) Entra ID
7 58 (3.24%) Serverless
8 53 (2.96%) GitHub Actions
9 49 (2.74%) Azure Data Factory
10 48 (2.68%) SaaS
11 46 (2.57%) Amazon S3
12 38 (2.12%) OCI
13 37 (2.07%) Snowflake
14 32 (1.79%) AWS Lambda
15 29 (1.62%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 29 (1.62%) OpenShift
16 27 (1.51%) Microsoft 365
17 25 (1.40%) AWS CloudFormation
18 22 (1.23%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 56 (3.13%) Firewall
2 35 (1.96%) TCP/IP
3 29 (1.62%) Network Security
4 26 (1.45%) Ethernet
5 20 (1.12%) DNS
6 19 (1.06%) HTTP
7 18 (1.01%) VPN
8 16 (0.89%) VLAN
9 13 (0.73%) WAN
10 12 (0.67%) Wireless
11 10 (0.56%) BGP
11 10 (0.56%) MPLS
11 10 (0.56%) OSPF
11 10 (0.56%) SAN
12 8 (0.45%) LAN
12 8 (0.45%) NAS
12 8 (0.45%) Skype
12 8 (0.45%) SSL
13 7 (0.39%) Internet
13 7 (0.39%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 133 (7.43%) Power BI
2 86 (4.81%) Metadata
3 73 (4.08%) Data Warehouse
4 47 (2.63%) SQL Server
5 44 (2.46%) Tableau
6 42 (2.35%) Data Lake
7 39 (2.18%) PostgreSQL
8 28 (1.57%) NoSQL
9 27 (1.51%) Delta Lake
10 23 (1.29%) Relational Database
11 22 (1.23%) Amazon Redshift
11 22 (1.23%) Big Data
11 22 (1.23%) Oracle Reports
12 21 (1.17%) Azure SQL Database
12 21 (1.17%) Geospatial Data
13 19 (1.06%) Amazon Athena
13 19 (1.06%) Oracle Database
13 19 (1.06%) Pinecone
14 18 (1.01%) GIS
15 17 (0.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 169 (9.45%) JIRA
2 103 (5.76%) Git
3 79 (4.42%) Jenkins
4 55 (3.07%) Selenium
5 53 (2.96%) GitLab
6 52 (2.91%) Postman
7 32 (1.79%) Oracle APEX
8 31 (1.73%) Rational DOORS
9 30 (1.68%) JMeter
10 28 (1.57%) Cucumber
10 28 (1.57%) JUnit
11 22 (1.23%) Visual Studio
12 20 (1.12%) MLflow
13 16 (0.89%) Eclipse
14 13 (0.73%) TestRail
15 12 (0.67%) REST Assured
15 12 (0.67%) Zephyr
16 11 (0.61%) SpecFlow
16 11 (0.61%) WebDriver
17 9 (0.50%) Cypress.io
General
1 665 (37.17%) Social Skills
2 515 (28.79%) Finance
3 365 (20.40%) Analytical Skills
4 161 (9.00%) Public Sector
5 160 (8.94%) Banking
6 91 (5.09%) Documentation Skills
7 54 (3.02%) Manufacturing
8 52 (2.91%) Presentation Skills
9 40 (2.24%) Aerospace
10 38 (2.12%) Influencing Skills
10 38 (2.12%) Pharmaceutical
11 31 (1.73%) Electronics
11 31 (1.73%) Organisational Skills
11 31 (1.73%) Telecoms
12 30 (1.68%) Marketing
12 30 (1.68%) Military
13 29 (1.62%) Front Office
14 27 (1.51%) Legal
15 26 (1.45%) Billing
16 24 (1.34%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 346 (19.34%) Analyst
2 183 (10.23%) Senior
3 167 (9.33%) Lead
4 153 (8.55%) Business Analyst
5 137 (7.66%) Consultant
6 129 (7.21%) Developer
7 122 (6.82%) Architect
8 97 (5.42%) Data Engineer
9 88 (4.92%) Data Analyst
10 55 (3.07%) Software Engineer
11 54 (3.02%) Tester
12 51 (2.85%) Project Manager
13 49 (2.74%) Senior Analyst
14 41 (2.29%) Test Analyst
15 40 (2.24%) SAP Consultant
16 37 (2.07%) Test Manager
17 36 (2.01%) Senior Developer
17 36 (2.01%) Solutions Architect
18 33 (1.84%) Embedded Engineer
18 33 (1.84%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 116 (6.48%) REST
2 88 (4.92%) JSON
3 57 (3.19%) XML
4 52 (2.91%) Oracle Fusion
5 50 (2.79%) OAuth
6 48 (2.68%) Middleware
7 46 (2.57%) Kafka
8 44 (2.46%) PySpark
9 42 (2.35%) SOAP
10 41 (2.29%) Node.js
11 38 (2.12%) .NET
12 36 (2.01%) PyTorch
13 35 (1.96%) RESTful
14 33 (1.84%) Playwright
15 32 (1.79%) TensorFlow
15 32 (1.79%) Web Services
16 30 (1.68%) Swagger
17 29 (1.62%) pytest
18 26 (1.45%) Pandas
19 24 (1.34%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 108 (6.04%) Legacy Systems
2 78 (4.36%) Data Structures
3 70 (3.91%) Product Ownership
4 64 (3.58%) Onboarding
5 58 (3.24%) Cloud Native
6 54 (3.02%) Management Information System
7 35 (1.96%) Data Centre
8 31 (1.73%) Analytical Mindset
9 30 (1.68%) Algorithms
10 26 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
10 26 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
11 20 (1.12%) Derivative
11 20 (1.12%) Hybrid Cloud
11 20 (1.12%) Operational Technology
12 19 (1.06%) FPGA
12 19 (1.06%) Replication
12 19 (1.06%) Security Posture
13 18 (1.01%) Greenfield Project
13 18 (1.01%) Virtual Team
14 17 (0.95%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 96 (5.37%) Windows
2 93 (5.20%) Linux
3 35 (1.96%) Unix
4 9 (0.50%) Android
5 8 (0.45%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.34%) Embedded Linux
6 6 (0.34%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.34%) zOS
7 2 (0.11%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.11%) Debian
7 2 (0.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.056%) FreeRTOS
8 1 (0.056%) pSOS
8 1 (0.056%) Robot Operating System
8 1 (0.056%) Solaris
8 1 (0.056%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 438 (24.48%) Agile
2 409 (22.86%) Migration
3 403 (22.53%) Problem-Solving
4 318 (17.78%) Stakeholder Management
5 302 (16.88%) CI/CD
6 290 (16.21%) Data Validation
7 272 (15.20%) DevOps
8 261 (14.59%) Analytics
9 248 (13.86%) Data Modelling
10 233 (13.02%) Test Automation
11 232 (12.97%) Data Migration
12 216 (12.07%) ETL
13 206 (11.51%) AI
14 205 (11.46%) User Acceptance Testing
15 191 (10.68%) Continuous Improvement
16 187 (10.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 173 (9.67%) Business Intelligence
17 173 (9.67%) Data Governance
18 156 (8.72%) Data Analysis
19 147 (8.22%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 427 (23.87%) SQL
2 369 (20.63%) Python
3 97 (5.42%) JavaScript
4 93 (5.20%) Java
5 72 (4.02%) C#
6 54 (3.02%) PL/SQL
7 53 (2.96%) C++
8 47 (2.63%) PowerShell
9 45 (2.52%) Bash
10 43 (2.40%) C
11 36 (2.01%) TypeScript
12 24 (1.34%) R
13 22 (1.23%) Bicep
14 21 (1.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 19 (1.06%) Ada
16 17 (0.95%) Groovy
17 15 (0.84%) Scala
18 14 (0.78%) T-SQL
19 12 (0.67%) VBA
20 11 (0.61%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 403 (22.53%) Security Cleared
2 298 (16.66%) SC Cleared
3 185 (10.34%) Degree
4 62 (3.47%) Computer Science Degree
5 56 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
6 42 (2.35%) DV Cleared
7 40 (2.24%) Master's Degree
8 32 (1.79%) ISTQB
9 27 (1.51%) PMI Certification
10 21 (1.17%) PMP
11 20 (1.12%) AWS Certification
12 16 (0.89%) CBAP
12 16 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
13 15 (0.84%) CISSP
14 12 (0.67%) CCNP
14 12 (0.67%) Oracle Certification
15 11 (0.61%) Microsoft Certification
16 10 (0.56%) Azure Certification
16 10 (0.56%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 9 (0.50%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 260 (14.53%) Data Quality
2 221 (12.35%) QA
3 97 (5.42%) GDPR
4 74 (4.14%) NIST
5 54 (3.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 37 (2.07%) Accessibility
7 21 (1.17%) IFRS
8 18 (1.01%) GxP
8 18 (1.01%) IFRS 17
9 17 (0.95%) Def Stans
10 15 (0.84%) SLA
11 14 (0.78%) GMP
11 14 (0.78%) PCI DSS
12 13 (0.73%) COBIT
12 13 (0.73%) NCSC
13 12 (0.67%) EU AI Act
13 12 (0.67%) PMO
14 10 (0.56%) GRC
14 10 (0.56%) MiFID
14 10 (0.56%) MISRA
System Software
1 73 (4.08%) Docker
2 42 (2.35%) Active Directory
3 29 (1.62%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.17%) Firmware
5 12 (0.67%) VMware NSX
6 8 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
6 8 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.39%) Hyper-V
8 4 (0.22%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 4 (0.22%) NFS
8 4 (0.22%) vSphere
9 3 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
10 2 (0.11%) Ceph
10 2 (0.11%) KVM
10 2 (0.11%) Lustre
10 2 (0.11%) OpenAM
10 2 (0.11%) OpenDJ
10 2 (0.11%) OpenIDM
10 2 (0.11%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 2 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 105 (5.87%) Kubernetes
2 78 (4.36%) Terraform
3 37 (2.07%) Ansible
4 24 (1.34%) Prometheus
5 23 (1.29%) Single Sign-On
6 21 (1.17%) Grafana
7 17 (0.95%) Microsoft Intune
8 15 (0.84%) Kibana
9 14 (0.78%) Puppet
10 12 (0.67%) SCCM
11 10 (0.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 10 (0.56%) Nessus
12 9 (0.50%) Nmap
13 5 (0.28%) CASB
13 5 (0.28%) SCOM
14 4 (0.22%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.22%) HP SiteScope
14 4 (0.22%) Iperf
14 4 (0.22%) RSA Archer
14 4 (0.22%) vMotion
Vendors
1 235 (13.14%) Microsoft
2 176 (9.84%) Oracle
3 145 (8.11%) SAP
4 91 (5.09%) Databricks
5 72 (4.02%) ServiceNow
6 49 (2.74%) Splunk
7 42 (2.35%) Salesforce
8 41 (2.29%) Cisco
8 41 (2.29%) Google
9 36 (2.01%) Workday
10 35 (1.96%) VMware
11 28 (1.57%) MuleSoft
12 23 (1.29%) IBM
12 23 (1.29%) Sage
13 21 (1.17%) Informatica
13 21 (1.17%) Palo Alto
14 19 (1.06%) Murex
15 16 (0.89%) OpenAI
16 14 (0.78%) Bloomberg
16 14 (0.78%) Remedy