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

6 months to
31 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 55 114 132
Rank change year-on-year +59 +18 +6
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,605 720 841
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.14% 2.29% 1.88%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.75% 2.57% 2.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 978 376 460
10th Percentile £350 £346 £318
25th Percentile £400 £408 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £516 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.68% -3.95% -0.78%
75th Percentile £600 £618 £620
90th Percentile £700 £723 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £514
% change year-on-year -2.96% -4.68% +3.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 38 147
10th Percentile £29.17 £28.18 £23.85
25th Percentile £41.42 £47.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.65 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.76% -11.32% +2.80%
75th Percentile £68.52 £63.75 £77.00
90th Percentile £73.63 £66.45 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.54 £65.98
% change year-on-year +12.96% -12.79% +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 33,821 28,022 39,068
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.29% 89.12% 87.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,401 17,008 25,726
10th Percentile £305 £307 £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 £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,033 874 2,031
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.41
25th Percentile £17.60 £21.00 £16.78
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.96
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -9.62% +12.38%
75th Percentile £58.00 £62.50 £62.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.71 £30.62 £36.50
% change year-on-year -19.29% -16.12% +31.77%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 1,390 £500 -4.76% 715
UK excluding London +39 737 £475 -2.96% 609
London +74 656 £513 -5.09% 211
Work from Home +67 501 £500 -4.76% 316
North of England +18 185 £417 -0.71% 116
South East +12 167 £500 - 206
Midlands +21 122 £500 +2.56% 102
North West +13 120 £400 +1.27% 59
South West +7 116 £475 -17.39% 88
West Midlands +14 102 £506 +3.64% 69
East of England +20 93 £482 +20.44% 91
Yorkshire -5 53 £487 -0.10% 49
Scotland +27 40 £425 -6.08% 25
East Midlands -9 20 £475 +58.33% 32
Northern Ireland +15 19 £425 - 1
North East -8 14 £463 -36.21% 9
Wales -1 4 £536 - 11

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 (3.93%) Confluence
2 39 (2.43%) Apache Spark
3 32 (1.99%) SAS
3 32 (1.99%) SharePoint
4 25 (1.56%) Apache Airflow
5 20 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
6 14 (0.87%) Apache
6 14 (0.87%) 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 (0.37%) 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 84 (5.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (2.62%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (1.74%) MS Visio
4 16 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 11 (0.69%) Microsoft Project
6 9 (0.56%) Chatbot
7 6 (0.37%) Sketch
7 6 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
8 4 (0.25%) Notion
9 3 (0.19%) LaTeX
10 2 (0.12%) Simulink
11 1 (0.062%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.062%) CATIA
11 1 (0.062%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.062%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.062%) Stateflow
11 1 (0.062%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 84 (5.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (1.06%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.81%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.75%) SAP EHS
5 11 (0.69%) Oracle General Ledger
6 10 (0.62%) Aladdin
6 10 (0.62%) Oracle Receivables
6 10 (0.62%) 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 (0.37%) SAP ERP
10 6 (0.37%) Workday HCM
11 5 (0.31%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 376 (23.43%) Azure
2 201 (12.52%) AWS
3 136 (8.47%) Azure DevOps
4 126 (7.85%) Power Platform
5 73 (4.55%) GitHub
6 64 (3.99%) GCP
7 57 (3.55%) Entra ID
8 48 (2.99%) SaaS
8 48 (2.99%) Serverless
9 45 (2.80%) GitHub Actions
10 44 (2.74%) Azure Data Factory
11 36 (2.24%) Amazon S3
12 33 (2.06%) Snowflake
13 32 (1.99%) Microsoft 365
13 32 (1.99%) OCI
14 25 (1.56%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 25 (1.56%) OpenShift
15 23 (1.43%) AWS Lambda
16 21 (1.31%) Dynamics 365
17 18 (1.12%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 44 (2.74%) Firewall
2 25 (1.56%) TCP/IP
3 21 (1.31%) Network Security
4 19 (1.18%) Ethernet
4 19 (1.18%) WAN
5 17 (1.06%) HTTP
5 17 (1.06%) VPN
6 15 (0.93%) DNS
7 14 (0.87%) Skype
7 14 (0.87%) VLAN
7 14 (0.87%) Wireless
8 13 (0.81%) BGP
9 12 (0.75%) LAN
9 12 (0.75%) MPLS
9 12 (0.75%) OSPF
10 11 (0.69%) TACACS
11 9 (0.56%) SD-WAN
12 7 (0.44%) SNMP
13 6 (0.37%) Cisco ISE
13 6 (0.37%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (7.35%) Power BI
2 71 (4.42%) Metadata
3 62 (3.86%) Data Warehouse
4 42 (2.62%) SQL Server
5 41 (2.55%) Tableau
6 33 (2.06%) Data Lake
7 30 (1.87%) NoSQL
8 26 (1.62%) PostgreSQL
9 24 (1.50%) Relational Database
10 23 (1.43%) Delta Lake
11 22 (1.37%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 21 (1.31%) Azure SQL Database
13 19 (1.18%) Amazon Redshift
13 19 (1.18%) Big Data
13 19 (1.18%) Oracle Database
14 17 (1.06%) Pinecone
15 16 (1.00%) Oracle Reports
16 15 (0.93%) Parquet
17 14 (0.87%) BigQuery
17 14 (0.87%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 160 (9.97%) JIRA
2 79 (4.92%) Git
3 74 (4.61%) Jenkins
4 49 (3.05%) Postman
5 46 (2.87%) GitLab
6 41 (2.55%) Selenium
7 32 (1.99%) Oracle APEX
8 24 (1.50%) Rational DOORS
9 19 (1.18%) JMeter
10 17 (1.06%) TestRail
10 17 (1.06%) Visual Studio
11 16 (1.00%) Cucumber
12 14 (0.87%) MLflow
13 13 (0.81%) Zephyr
14 11 (0.69%) Eclipse
14 11 (0.69%) REST Assured
14 11 (0.69%) SpecFlow
15 10 (0.62%) Bitbucket
15 10 (0.62%) Cypress.io
15 10 (0.62%) JUnit
General
1 601 (37.45%) Social Skills
2 444 (27.66%) Finance
3 333 (20.75%) Analytical Skills
4 151 (9.41%) Public Sector
5 140 (8.72%) Banking
6 85 (5.30%) Documentation Skills
7 47 (2.93%) Presentation Skills
8 41 (2.55%) Manufacturing
9 36 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
10 34 (2.12%) Pharmaceutical
11 32 (1.99%) Telecoms
12 30 (1.87%) Aerospace
13 29 (1.81%) Marketing
14 28 (1.74%) Electronics
14 28 (1.74%) Front Office
15 27 (1.68%) Legal
16 26 (1.62%) Military
17 24 (1.50%) Investment Banking
17 24 (1.50%) Organisational Skills
18 22 (1.37%) Billing
Job Titles
1 321 (20.00%) Analyst
2 165 (10.28%) Senior
3 146 (9.10%) Business Analyst
4 137 (8.54%) Consultant
5 136 (8.47%) Lead
6 125 (7.79%) Developer
7 92 (5.73%) Architect
8 76 (4.74%) Data Analyst
9 70 (4.36%) Data Engineer
10 52 (3.24%) Software Engineer
11 51 (3.18%) Tester
12 48 (2.99%) Senior Analyst
13 44 (2.74%) Project Manager
14 43 (2.68%) SAP Consultant
15 38 (2.37%) Test Analyst
15 38 (2.37%) Test Manager
16 35 (2.18%) Senior Developer
17 31 (1.93%) Solutions Architect
18 30 (1.87%) Data Scientist
19 29 (1.81%) Embedded Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (6.48%) REST
2 84 (5.23%) JSON
3 58 (3.61%) XML
4 49 (3.05%) Oracle Fusion
5 46 (2.87%) OAuth
6 42 (2.62%) Middleware
6 42 (2.62%) SOAP
7 38 (2.37%) PySpark
8 37 (2.31%) RESTful
9 36 (2.24%) Node.js
10 33 (2.06%) .NET
11 31 (1.93%) Kafka
12 28 (1.74%) Playwright
13 27 (1.68%) PyTorch
13 27 (1.68%) Swagger
14 26 (1.62%) Web Services
15 24 (1.50%) JWT
15 24 (1.50%) SAP Fiori
15 24 (1.50%) TensorFlow
16 23 (1.43%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 92 (5.73%) Legacy Systems
2 66 (4.11%) Data Structures
3 65 (4.05%) Onboarding
4 64 (3.99%) Product Ownership
5 50 (3.12%) Management Information System
6 43 (2.68%) Cloud Native
7 32 (1.99%) Data Centre
8 28 (1.74%) Algorithms
8 28 (1.74%) Analytical Mindset
9 26 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
10 21 (1.31%) FPGA
11 20 (1.25%) Derivative
11 20 (1.25%) Life Science
12 18 (1.12%) Replication
13 17 (1.06%) Hybrid Cloud
13 17 (1.06%) Operational Technology
14 16 (1.00%) Distributed Systems
14 16 (1.00%) SCADA
15 15 (0.93%) Security Posture
16 14 (0.87%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 93 (5.79%) Linux
2 81 (5.05%) Windows
3 30 (1.87%) Unix
4 11 (0.69%) Android
5 6 (0.37%) Embedded Linux
5 6 (0.37%) Windows Server
6 5 (0.31%) zOS
7 4 (0.25%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.12%) Debian
8 2 (0.12%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.12%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.062%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.062%) pSOS
9 1 (0.062%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 420 (26.17%) Agile
2 371 (23.12%) Problem-Solving
3 370 (23.05%) Migration
4 276 (17.20%) DevOps
5 270 (16.82%) Stakeholder Management
6 264 (16.45%) CI/CD
6 264 (16.45%) Data Validation
7 234 (14.58%) Analytics
8 200 (12.46%) Data Modelling
9 196 (12.21%) Test Automation
9 196 (12.21%) User Acceptance Testing
10 193 (12.02%) Data Migration
11 178 (11.09%) ETL
12 171 (10.65%) AI
13 168 (10.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 154 (9.60%) Business Intelligence
14 154 (9.60%) Data Governance
15 146 (9.10%) Continuous Improvement
16 141 (8.79%) Data Analysis
17 134 (8.35%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 403 (25.11%) SQL
2 340 (21.18%) Python
3 97 (6.04%) JavaScript
4 90 (5.61%) Java
5 66 (4.11%) C#
6 53 (3.30%) PL/SQL
7 52 (3.24%) PowerShell
8 48 (2.99%) C++
9 45 (2.80%) Bash
10 41 (2.55%) C
11 33 (2.06%) TypeScript
12 24 (1.50%) R
13 18 (1.12%) Bicep
14 17 (1.06%) Groovy
15 16 (1.00%) Ada
16 15 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 15 (0.93%) Scala
16 15 (0.93%) Shell Script
17 12 (0.75%) T-SQL
18 9 (0.56%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 355 (22.12%) Security Cleared
2 259 (16.14%) SC Cleared
3 167 (10.40%) Degree
4 62 (3.86%) Computer Science Degree
5 54 (3.36%) BPSS Clearance
6 38 (2.37%) DV Cleared
7 37 (2.31%) Master's Degree
8 31 (1.93%) ISTQB
9 27 (1.68%) PMI Certification
10 23 (1.43%) AWS Certification
11 19 (1.18%) PMP
12 17 (1.06%) CBAP
13 15 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
14 14 (0.87%) Oracle Certification
15 12 (0.75%) Azure Certification
16 10 (0.62%) CCIE
16 10 (0.62%) CISSP
16 10 (0.62%) OCA
17 9 (0.56%) CCNP
17 9 (0.56%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 219 (13.64%) Data Quality
2 201 (12.52%) QA
3 90 (5.61%) GDPR
4 65 (4.05%) NIST
5 46 (2.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 34 (2.12%) Accessibility
7 18 (1.12%) GxP
7 18 (1.12%) IFRS
8 16 (1.00%) IFRS 17
9 15 (0.93%) Def Stans
10 14 (0.87%) PCI DSS
11 13 (0.81%) EU AI Act
12 11 (0.69%) NCSC
12 11 (0.69%) PMO
12 11 (0.69%) SLA
13 10 (0.62%) COBIT
13 10 (0.62%) GMP
13 10 (0.62%) MiFID
13 10 (0.62%) MISRA
14 9 (0.56%) DO-178B
System Software
1 57 (3.55%) Docker
2 46 (2.87%) Active Directory
3 29 (1.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (1.37%) Firmware
5 13 (0.81%) VMware NSX
6 9 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.37%) 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 (0.12%) Ceph
11 2 (0.12%) Lustre
11 2 (0.12%) NFS
11 2 (0.12%) OpenAM
11 2 (0.12%) OpenDJ
11 2 (0.12%) OpenIDM
11 2 (0.12%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 78 (4.86%) Kubernetes
2 66 (4.11%) Terraform
3 45 (2.80%) Ansible
4 21 (1.31%) Single Sign-On
5 15 (0.93%) Microsoft Intune
6 14 (0.87%) Kibana
6 14 (0.87%) Puppet
7 11 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 11 (0.69%) Grafana
7 11 (0.69%) SCCM
8 8 (0.50%) Nmap
9 7 (0.44%) HP SiteScope
9 7 (0.44%) Prometheus
9 7 (0.44%) SCOM
10 6 (0.37%) Nessus
11 5 (0.31%) RSA Archer
12 4 (0.25%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 3 (0.19%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.19%) HP ALM
13 3 (0.19%) OMEGAMON
Vendors
1 211 (13.15%) Microsoft
2 161 (10.03%) Oracle
3 137 (8.54%) SAP
4 73 (4.55%) Databricks
5 65 (4.05%) ServiceNow
6 44 (2.74%) Cisco
7 39 (2.43%) Google
8 38 (2.37%) Splunk
9 37 (2.31%) Salesforce
10 34 (2.12%) VMware
11 26 (1.62%) Workday
12 19 (1.18%) IBM
12 19 (1.18%) MuleSoft
12 19 (1.18%) Murex
13 17 (1.06%) Palo Alto
14 14 (0.87%) Informatica
15 13 (0.81%) Avaloq
15 13 (0.81%) Bloomberg
15 13 (0.81%) OpenAI
15 13 (0.81%) Sage