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

6 months to
26 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 64 109
Rank change year-on-year +32 +45 +40
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,100 1,227 808
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.65% 3.71% 2.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.70% 4.10% 2.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,819 699 401
10th Percentile £331 £325 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £588
90th Percentile £701 £688 £663
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £488
% change year-on-year -7.50% +2.56% -5.07%
Number of hourly rates quoted 196 86 99
10th Percentile £16.93 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £26.80 £41.25 £47.75
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £72.68 £67.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £73.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £54.25 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -16.54% - -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 46,293 29,942 32,892
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.37% 90.52% 85.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,017 18,609 19,950
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
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 £630 £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 3,198 1,849 1,396
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.32 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.23 £17.33 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £66.00 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.22
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.78% -47.67% +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 26 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 26 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 26 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 +33 2,658 £500 -2.91% 4,305
UK excluding London +33 1,420 £463 -7.50% 2,639
London +38 1,296 £525 - 2,036
Work from Home +28 852 £498 -0.45% 1,625
North of England +48 346 £453 +5.35% 447
South East +2 334 £510 +2.00% 712
Midlands +39 306 £463 -5.08% 354
West Midlands +30 215 £463 -7.45% 243
North West +20 165 £454 +6.71% 251
South West +20 157 £524 -4.77% 342
Yorkshire +51 155 £461 -2.89% 135
East of England -9 140 £450 -10.00% 363
Scotland +40 130 £440 -13.04% 318
East Midlands +28 87 £475 -7.32% 110
North East -20 31 £425 -11.92% 63
Wales +1 26 £394 +5.00% 56
Northern Ireland -1 4 £363 -33.49% 81
Channel Islands -4 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 91 (2.94%) Confluence
2 67 (2.16%) Apache Airflow
3 60 (1.94%) SharePoint
4 53 (1.71%) SAS
5 45 (1.45%) Apache Spark
6 34 (1.10%) Apache
7 18 (0.58%) CMS
7 18 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
8 14 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
9 12 (0.39%) Jupyter
10 9 (0.29%) SharePoint 2013
11 8 (0.26%) Palantir Foundry
12 7 (0.23%) ArcGIS
12 7 (0.23%) Sitecore CMS
13 6 (0.19%) OpenStack
13 6 (0.19%) WebLogic
14 5 (0.16%) Tuxedo
15 4 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 4 (0.13%) CICS
15 4 (0.13%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 209 (6.74%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
3 37 (1.19%) MS Visio
4 29 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 28 (0.90%) Spreadsheet
6 16 (0.52%) AutoCAD
7 11 (0.35%) Navisworks
7 11 (0.35%) Revit
8 10 (0.32%) ProjectWise
9 9 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
10 7 (0.23%) Simulink
11 5 (0.16%) CATIA
11 5 (0.16%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.065%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.065%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.065%) OrCAD
13 1 (0.032%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.032%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.032%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.032%) Trello
Business Applications
1 112 (3.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
3 15 (0.48%) SAP SD
4 14 (0.45%) SAP FI
4 14 (0.45%) SAP HCM
4 14 (0.45%) Workday HCM
5 13 (0.42%) NetSuite
5 13 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
5 13 (0.42%) Teamcenter
6 12 (0.39%) SAP MDG
7 11 (0.35%) Aladdin
8 10 (0.32%) iTrent
8 10 (0.32%) SAP MM
9 9 (0.29%) Integrated Workplace Management System
9 9 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
9 9 (0.29%) SAP CO
9 9 (0.29%) SAP ERP
9 9 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
9 9 (0.29%) SAP PS
10 8 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 604 (19.48%) Azure
2 354 (11.42%) AWS
3 310 (10.00%) Power Platform
4 187 (6.03%) Azure DevOps
5 159 (5.13%) GCP
6 147 (4.74%) GitHub
7 110 (3.55%) Snowflake
8 95 (3.06%) Entra ID
9 76 (2.45%) GitHub Actions
10 72 (2.32%) Azure Data Factory
11 61 (1.97%) Serverless
12 60 (1.94%) Amazon S3
13 59 (1.90%) dbt
13 59 (1.90%) Microsoft 365
14 58 (1.87%) SaaS
15 41 (1.32%) SuccessFactors
16 40 (1.29%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 34 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
18 33 (1.06%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 32 (1.03%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 109 (3.52%) Firewall
2 75 (2.42%) DNS
3 62 (2.00%) VLAN
4 58 (1.87%) Network Security
5 55 (1.77%) VPN
6 49 (1.58%) BGP
7 47 (1.52%) TCP/IP
8 43 (1.39%) WAN
9 34 (1.10%) DHCP
10 30 (0.97%) VXLAN
11 28 (0.90%) OSPF
12 27 (0.87%) Ethernet VPN
13 25 (0.81%) Ethernet
13 25 (0.81%) LAN
13 25 (0.81%) Wireless
14 22 (0.71%) Internet
14 22 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
15 21 (0.68%) 5G
15 21 (0.68%) SD-WAN
16 20 (0.65%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 287 (9.26%) Power BI
2 170 (5.48%) Data Warehouse
3 135 (4.35%) Metadata
4 123 (3.97%) Relational Database
5 101 (3.26%) SQL Server
6 96 (3.10%) PostgreSQL
7 87 (2.81%) Data Lake
8 69 (2.23%) Tableau
9 42 (1.35%) Oracle Database
10 39 (1.26%) Delta Lake
11 38 (1.23%) MongoDB
12 37 (1.19%) BigQuery
13 36 (1.16%) Power Query
14 34 (1.10%) NoSQL
15 33 (1.06%) Big Data
16 32 (1.03%) Redis
17 31 (1.00%) Oracle Reports
18 30 (0.97%) SAS Enterprise Guide
19 29 (0.94%) Amazon Athena
20 28 (0.90%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 272 (8.77%) JIRA
2 236 (7.61%) Git
3 104 (3.35%) Jenkins
4 94 (3.03%) GitLab
5 81 (2.61%) Selenium
6 42 (1.35%) Postman
7 34 (1.10%) JMeter
8 25 (0.81%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.77%) Rational DOORS
10 22 (0.71%) WebDriver
11 21 (0.68%) JUnit
12 17 (0.55%) Eclipse
12 17 (0.55%) REST Assured
12 17 (0.55%) Visual Studio
13 16 (0.52%) Cypress.io
13 16 (0.52%) Zephyr
14 14 (0.45%) Gatling
14 14 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
15 12 (0.39%) Visual Studio Code
16 11 (0.35%) TestRail
General
1 893 (28.81%) Social Skills
2 888 (28.65%) Finance
3 621 (20.03%) Analytical Skills
4 282 (9.10%) Banking
5 268 (8.65%) Public Sector
6 135 (4.35%) Documentation Skills
7 128 (4.13%) Manufacturing
8 96 (3.10%) Retail
9 74 (2.39%) Telecoms
10 73 (2.35%) Automotive
11 70 (2.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 60 (1.94%) Legal
12 60 (1.94%) Organisational Skills
13 54 (1.74%) Aerospace
14 51 (1.65%) Marketing
14 51 (1.65%) Pharmaceutical
15 46 (1.48%) Front Office
16 45 (1.45%) Billing
16 45 (1.45%) Local Government
17 44 (1.42%) Law
Job Titles
1 521 (16.81%) Analyst
2 360 (11.61%) Senior
3 279 (9.00%) Lead
4 254 (8.19%) Data Engineer
5 245 (7.90%) Consultant
6 236 (7.61%) Business Analyst
7 202 (6.52%) Developer
8 163 (5.26%) Architect
8 163 (5.26%) Data Analyst
9 110 (3.55%) Test Engineer
10 80 (2.58%) Tester
11 78 (2.52%) Network Engineer
12 62 (2.00%) Systems Engineer
13 61 (1.97%) Administrator
14 60 (1.94%) Senior Data Engineer
15 58 (1.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 57 (1.84%) Senior Analyst
17 52 (1.68%) Software Engineer
18 50 (1.61%) Project Manager
19 46 (1.48%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 197 (6.35%) REST
2 184 (5.94%) Terraform
3 96 (3.10%) JSON
4 91 (2.94%) PySpark
5 85 (2.74%) Middleware
6 82 (2.65%) XML
7 75 (2.42%) Kafka
8 60 (1.94%) Playwright
9 59 (1.90%) .NET
10 52 (1.68%) SOAP
10 52 (1.68%) Web Services
11 50 (1.61%) OAuth
11 50 (1.61%) pytest
12 47 (1.52%) Oracle Fusion
13 44 (1.42%) RESTful
14 38 (1.23%) OpenID
15 37 (1.19%) Pandas
16 36 (1.16%) Spring
17 35 (1.13%) Node.js
17 35 (1.13%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 176 (5.68%) Onboarding
2 164 (5.29%) Data Structures
3 145 (4.68%) Cloud Native
4 122 (3.94%) Legacy Systems
5 119 (3.84%) Product Ownership
6 116 (3.74%) Management Information System
7 94 (3.03%) Data Centre
8 60 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
9 57 (1.84%) AI Agents
10 56 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
11 45 (1.45%) Analytical Mindset
12 44 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
12 44 (1.42%) Life Science
13 42 (1.35%) SCADA
14 38 (1.23%) Algorithms
14 38 (1.23%) Operational Technology
15 36 (1.16%) NHS
16 35 (1.13%) CMDB
17 34 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
18 33 (1.06%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 212 (6.84%) Windows
2 136 (4.39%) Linux
3 82 (2.65%) Windows Server
4 58 (1.87%) Unix
5 19 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.52%) Windows 10
7 14 (0.45%) Android
8 11 (0.35%) Ubuntu
9 10 (0.32%) AIX
10 9 (0.29%) Apple iOS
11 8 (0.26%) VMS
12 7 (0.23%) Windows 7
13 5 (0.16%) zOS
14 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
14 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
15 3 (0.097%) CentOS
15 3 (0.097%) VxWorks
16 2 (0.065%) HPUX
16 2 (0.065%) Solaris
16 2 (0.065%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 836 (26.97%) Migration
2 687 (22.16%) Stakeholder Management
3 615 (19.84%) CI/CD
4 603 (19.45%) Agile
5 506 (16.32%) Data Modelling
6 496 (16.00%) Analytics
7 492 (15.87%) User Acceptance Testing
8 490 (15.81%) Data Migration
9 480 (15.48%) Problem-Solving
10 478 (15.42%) Data Validation
11 437 (14.10%) AI
12 423 (13.65%) DevOps
13 421 (13.58%) Continuous Improvement
14 418 (13.48%) Test Automation
15 348 (11.23%) ETL
16 332 (10.71%) Business Intelligence
17 322 (10.39%) Data Analysis
17 322 (10.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 317 (10.23%) Data Governance
19 308 (9.94%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 814 (26.26%) SQL
2 664 (21.42%) Python
3 153 (4.94%) Java
4 110 (3.55%) PowerShell
5 79 (2.55%) C#
6 75 (2.42%) JavaScript
7 64 (2.06%) Bash
8 46 (1.48%) TypeScript
9 44 (1.42%) C++
10 32 (1.03%) Apex Code
11 30 (0.97%) R
11 30 (0.97%) Shell Script
12 28 (0.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 27 (0.87%) PL/SQL
14 25 (0.81%) Bicep
15 24 (0.77%) C
16 21 (0.68%) Go
17 18 (0.58%) T-SQL
17 18 (0.58%) VBA
18 16 (0.52%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 607 (19.58%) Security Cleared
2 456 (14.71%) SC Cleared
3 211 (6.81%) Degree
4 86 (2.77%) DV Cleared
5 74 (2.39%) BPSS Clearance
6 51 (1.65%) Computer Science Degree
7 46 (1.48%) Cisco Certification
8 37 (1.19%) CCNP
9 34 (1.10%) AWS Certification
10 32 (1.03%) ACCA
10 32 (1.03%) CIMA
11 26 (0.84%) ISTQB
12 25 (0.81%) PMI Certification
13 24 (0.77%) Azure Certification
14 23 (0.74%) PMP
15 22 (0.71%) CISSP
16 19 (0.61%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 18 (0.58%) Master's Degree
18 15 (0.48%) CCNA
18 15 (0.48%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 639 (20.61%) Data Quality
2 374 (12.06%) QA
3 103 (3.32%) GDPR
4 53 (1.71%) Accessibility
5 47 (1.52%) SLA
6 37 (1.19%) NIST
7 36 (1.16%) GxP
7 36 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 36 (1.16%) PMO
8 23 (0.74%) GRC
9 22 (0.71%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 22 (0.71%) ISO 20022
10 19 (0.61%) WCAG
11 17 (0.55%) GMP
12 15 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
12 15 (0.48%) NCSC
13 11 (0.35%) IFRS
13 11 (0.35%) MiFID
14 10 (0.32%) Def Stans
14 10 (0.32%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 114 (3.68%) Docker
2 105 (3.39%) Active Directory
3 91 (2.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (1.26%) Virtual Machines
5 34 (1.10%) VMware ESXi
6 27 (0.87%) Firmware
7 23 (0.74%) Hyper-V
7 23 (0.74%) Virtual Desktop
7 23 (0.74%) vSphere
8 16 (0.52%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
10 5 (0.16%) KVM
11 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.097%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.065%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.065%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.065%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.032%) Ceph
14 1 (0.032%) etcd
14 1 (0.032%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 146 (4.71%) Kubernetes
2 102 (3.29%) Ansible
3 43 (1.39%) Grafana
4 33 (1.06%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
6 25 (0.81%) FortiGate
7 20 (0.65%) SCCM
8 19 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.45%) HP ALM
10 11 (0.35%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.32%) Functional Safety
11 10 (0.32%) Progress Chef
12 9 (0.29%) Argo
13 8 (0.26%) Control-M
14 6 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
14 6 (0.19%) Kibana
14 6 (0.19%) VxRail
15 5 (0.16%) systemd
15 5 (0.16%) vMotion
15 5 (0.16%) vRealize
Vendors
1 473 (15.26%) Microsoft
2 254 (8.19%) SAP
3 248 (8.00%) Oracle
4 173 (5.58%) Databricks
5 104 (3.35%) VMware
6 97 (3.13%) Salesforce
7 89 (2.87%) ServiceNow
8 88 (2.84%) Cisco
9 70 (2.26%) Google
10 55 (1.77%) Workday
11 49 (1.58%) IBM
12 34 (1.10%) Informatica
13 33 (1.06%) Fortinet
14 30 (0.97%) Zscaler
15 28 (0.90%) Juniper
15 28 (0.90%) Palo Alto
16 22 (0.71%) Splunk
17 20 (0.65%) CyberArk
17 20 (0.65%) MuleSoft
17 20 (0.65%) Red Hat