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

6 months to
30 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 67 116
Rank change year-on-year +35 +49 +35
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,940 1,225 775
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.45% 3.72% 2.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.44% 4.11% 2.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,758 717 375
10th Percentile £331 £329 £350
25th Percentile £411 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £589
90th Percentile £702 £688 £669
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -7.50% +5.26% -7.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 185 88 114
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £29.84
25th Percentile £26.52 £41.25 £51.06
Median hourly rate £53.00 £61.25 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.47% -5.77% -1.49%
75th Percentile £73.25 £65.38 £70.81
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £76.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% - -3.70%

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 45,677 29,801 32,930
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.61% 90.45% 85.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,947 18,563 20,756
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £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 £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,899 1,765 1,620
10th Percentile £14.10 £14.21 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.85 £17.30 £18.50
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.03
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -40.16% +0.31%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.12 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.15 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.65 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +88.47% -47.37% +14.67%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 +31 2,535 £500 -0.99% 1,918
UK excluding London +26 1,352 £463 -7.50% 1,299
London +38 1,239 £525 +1.94% 888
Work from Home +31 816 £500 - 766
North of England +48 334 £453 +6.59% 230
South East -1 324 £500 - 376
Midlands +35 300 £473 -2.97% 183
West Midlands +30 209 £451 -9.90% 121
North West +15 170 £450 +5.88% 127
Yorkshire +41 147 £460 +2.33% 56
East of England +1 144 £475 -6.40% 178
South West +2 131 £525 -8.70% 212
Scotland +37 109 £430 -9.47% 112
East Midlands +28 87 £500 - 62
Wales -4 24 £363 -3.33% 28
North East -26 22 £438 -2.78% 49
Northern Ireland +7 8 £380 -37.45% 16
Channel Islands -1 1 - - 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 80 (2.72%) Confluence
2 67 (2.28%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (1.90%) SharePoint
4 55 (1.87%) SAS
5 40 (1.36%) Apache Spark
6 28 (0.95%) Apache
7 17 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
8 13 (0.44%) Oracle Workflow
9 11 (0.37%) CMS
9 11 (0.37%) Jupyter
10 9 (0.31%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.24%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
12 6 (0.20%) Sitecore CMS
13 5 (0.17%) IIS
13 5 (0.17%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.17%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.10%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 203 (6.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.43%) Microsoft Office
3 38 (1.29%) MS Visio
4 33 (1.12%) Spreadsheet
5 31 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 13 (0.44%) AutoCAD
7 10 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
8 8 (0.27%) CATIA
8 8 (0.27%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.27%) Revit
9 7 (0.24%) ProjectWise
10 6 (0.20%) Simulink
11 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.068%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.068%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.068%) Windchill
13 1 (0.034%) Autodesk Inventor
13 1 (0.034%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.034%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.034%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 118 (4.01%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (0.82%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
4 14 (0.48%) Workday HCM
5 13 (0.44%) NetSuite
5 13 (0.44%) SAP SD
5 13 (0.44%) Teamcenter
6 11 (0.37%) Aladdin
6 11 (0.37%) iTrent
7 10 (0.34%) Oracle Assets
7 10 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
7 10 (0.34%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 10 (0.34%) SAP FI
7 10 (0.34%) SAP MDG
7 10 (0.34%) SAP MM
8 9 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.31%) SAP ERP
9 8 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
9 8 (0.27%) SAP HCM
9 8 (0.27%) SAP PS
Cloud Services
1 628 (21.36%) Azure
2 338 (11.50%) AWS
3 307 (10.44%) Power Platform
4 179 (6.09%) Azure DevOps
5 140 (4.76%) GCP
6 133 (4.52%) GitHub
7 102 (3.47%) Snowflake
8 81 (2.76%) Entra ID
9 76 (2.59%) Azure Data Factory
10 68 (2.31%) GitHub Actions
11 67 (2.28%) Serverless
12 62 (2.11%) Microsoft 365
12 62 (2.11%) SaaS
13 51 (1.73%) Amazon S3
14 47 (1.60%) dbt
15 45 (1.53%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 41 (1.39%) SuccessFactors
17 39 (1.33%) OCI
18 35 (1.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 35 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 117 (3.98%) Firewall
2 72 (2.45%) DNS
3 70 (2.38%) Network Security
3 70 (2.38%) VLAN
4 54 (1.84%) VPN
5 46 (1.56%) BGP
6 45 (1.53%) WAN
7 43 (1.46%) TCP/IP
8 37 (1.26%) DHCP
9 28 (0.95%) OSPF
10 25 (0.85%) LAN
10 25 (0.85%) VXLAN
11 24 (0.82%) Wireless
12 22 (0.75%) Ethernet VPN
12 22 (0.75%) Internet
12 22 (0.75%) SAN
12 22 (0.75%) SD-WAN
13 21 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
14 19 (0.65%) HTTP
15 17 (0.58%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 284 (9.66%) Power BI
2 176 (5.99%) Data Warehouse
3 130 (4.42%) Metadata
4 106 (3.61%) Relational Database
4 106 (3.61%) SQL Server
5 96 (3.27%) PostgreSQL
6 85 (2.89%) Data Lake
7 74 (2.52%) Tableau
8 41 (1.39%) Delta Lake
9 38 (1.29%) MongoDB
10 36 (1.22%) NoSQL
10 36 (1.22%) Oracle Database
11 35 (1.19%) Big Data
12 32 (1.09%) MySQL
12 32 (1.09%) SAS Enterprise Guide
13 31 (1.05%) Azure SQL Database
14 30 (1.02%) Redis
15 29 (0.99%) BigQuery
15 29 (0.99%) Power Query
16 27 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 256 (8.71%) JIRA
2 195 (6.63%) Git
3 105 (3.57%) Jenkins
4 90 (3.06%) GitLab
5 71 (2.41%) Selenium
6 46 (1.56%) Postman
7 36 (1.22%) JMeter
8 24 (0.82%) Cucumber
8 24 (0.82%) WebDriver
9 19 (0.65%) JUnit
10 18 (0.61%) Rational DOORS
11 16 (0.54%) Cypress.io
12 15 (0.51%) Gatling
13 14 (0.48%) Rational Rhapsody
14 13 (0.44%) Oracle Forms
14 13 (0.44%) REST Assured
15 12 (0.41%) Maven
15 12 (0.41%) TestRail
15 12 (0.41%) Zephyr
16 11 (0.37%) Gradle
General
1 832 (28.30%) Social Skills
2 821 (27.93%) Finance
3 581 (19.76%) Analytical Skills
4 256 (8.71%) Public Sector
5 221 (7.52%) Banking
6 154 (5.24%) Documentation Skills
7 109 (3.71%) Manufacturing
8 94 (3.20%) Retail
9 68 (2.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 66 (2.24%) Telecoms
11 60 (2.04%) Pharmaceutical
12 59 (2.01%) Aerospace
13 57 (1.94%) Automotive
14 55 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
15 48 (1.63%) Legal
15 48 (1.63%) Marketing
16 44 (1.50%) Law
17 43 (1.46%) Front Office
18 41 (1.39%) Local Government
19 37 (1.26%) Billing
Job Titles
1 526 (17.89%) Analyst
2 326 (11.09%) Senior
3 269 (9.15%) Lead
4 243 (8.27%) Business Analyst
5 239 (8.13%) Data Engineer
6 234 (7.96%) Consultant
7 178 (6.05%) Developer
8 150 (5.10%) Data Analyst
9 146 (4.97%) Architect
10 112 (3.81%) Test Engineer
11 79 (2.69%) Tester
12 78 (2.65%) Network Engineer
13 69 (2.35%) Project Manager
14 65 (2.21%) Systems Engineer
15 60 (2.04%) Administrator
15 60 (2.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 57 (1.94%) Senior Data Engineer
17 53 (1.80%) Technical Analyst
18 52 (1.77%) Test Manager
19 50 (1.70%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 177 (6.02%) REST
2 155 (5.27%) Terraform
3 98 (3.33%) JSON
4 85 (2.89%) PySpark
5 81 (2.76%) XML
6 75 (2.55%) Kafka
7 68 (2.31%) Middleware
8 52 (1.77%) .NET
8 52 (1.77%) Playwright
9 48 (1.63%) Oracle Fusion
10 46 (1.56%) pytest
11 42 (1.43%) SOAP
12 39 (1.33%) OAuth
13 38 (1.29%) RESTful
13 38 (1.29%) Spring
14 35 (1.19%) Pandas
14 35 (1.19%) Web Services
15 31 (1.05%) Spring Boot
16 27 (0.92%) YAML
17 25 (0.85%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 161 (5.48%) Data Structures
1 161 (5.48%) Onboarding
2 130 (4.42%) Cloud Native
3 124 (4.22%) Legacy Systems
4 119 (4.05%) Product Ownership
5 101 (3.44%) Management Information System
6 93 (3.16%) Data Centre
7 53 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
8 50 (1.70%) Distributed Systems
9 47 (1.60%) AI Agents
9 47 (1.60%) Analytical Mindset
10 44 (1.50%) Life Science
11 43 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
12 41 (1.39%) SCADA
13 39 (1.33%) NHS
13 39 (1.33%) Replication
14 33 (1.12%) CMDB
14 33 (1.12%) Operational Technology
15 32 (1.09%) Hybrid Cloud
16 31 (1.05%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 177 (6.02%) Windows
2 119 (4.05%) Linux
3 70 (2.38%) Windows Server
4 45 (1.53%) Unix
5 19 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.48%) Android
6 14 (0.48%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.37%) Ubuntu
7 11 (0.37%) VMS
8 9 (0.31%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.24%) Windows 7
10 6 (0.20%) AIX
11 4 (0.14%) SUSE
11 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.068%) HPUX
12 2 (0.068%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.068%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.034%) Alpine Linux
13 1 (0.034%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.034%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 796 (27.07%) Migration
2 585 (19.90%) Stakeholder Management
3 574 (19.52%) Agile
4 533 (18.13%) CI/CD
5 493 (16.77%) User Acceptance Testing
6 472 (16.05%) Analytics
7 470 (15.99%) Data Migration
7 470 (15.99%) Data Modelling
8 455 (15.48%) Data Validation
8 455 (15.48%) Problem-Solving
9 390 (13.27%) DevOps
10 386 (13.13%) AI
11 369 (12.55%) Test Automation
12 364 (12.38%) Continuous Improvement
13 332 (11.29%) ETL
14 323 (10.99%) Business Intelligence
15 322 (10.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 307 (10.44%) Data Pipeline
17 296 (10.07%) Data Governance
18 294 (10.00%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 753 (25.61%) SQL
2 579 (19.69%) Python
3 142 (4.83%) Java
4 100 (3.40%) PowerShell
5 63 (2.14%) Bash
6 56 (1.90%) C#
7 51 (1.73%) JavaScript
8 35 (1.19%) C++
9 32 (1.09%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.05%) Apex Code
11 30 (1.02%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 30 (1.02%) R
12 29 (0.99%) Bicep
13 27 (0.92%) PL/SQL
14 25 (0.85%) C
15 24 (0.82%) Shell Script
16 19 (0.65%) VBA
17 18 (0.61%) T-SQL
18 17 (0.58%) MATLAB
19 13 (0.44%) Scala
Qualifications
1 548 (18.64%) Security Cleared
2 405 (13.78%) SC Cleared
3 192 (6.53%) Degree
4 71 (2.41%) DV Cleared
5 62 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.70%) Cisco Certification
7 46 (1.56%) Computer Science Degree
8 41 (1.39%) CCNP
9 28 (0.95%) ACCA
9 28 (0.95%) CIMA
9 28 (0.95%) ISTQB
10 25 (0.85%) AWS Certification
11 22 (0.75%) Azure Certification
12 20 (0.68%) CCNA
12 20 (0.68%) PMI Certification
13 18 (0.61%) PMP
14 16 (0.54%) Microsoft Certification
15 15 (0.51%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 15 (0.51%) CISSP
16 14 (0.48%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 582 (19.80%) Data Quality
2 375 (12.76%) QA
3 115 (3.91%) GDPR
4 49 (1.67%) SLA
5 46 (1.56%) Accessibility
5 46 (1.56%) NIST
6 40 (1.36%) GxP
7 39 (1.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 37 (1.26%) PMO
9 25 (0.85%) GRC
10 22 (0.75%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 19 (0.65%) ISO 20022
12 17 (0.58%) GMP
13 14 (0.48%) NCSC
13 14 (0.48%) WCAG
14 13 (0.44%) Def Stans
15 12 (0.41%) HL7
16 11 (0.37%) IFRS
16 11 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 10 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 112 (3.81%) Docker
2 101 (3.44%) Active Directory
3 86 (2.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (1.26%) Virtual Machines
5 32 (1.09%) VMware ESXi
6 29 (0.99%) Firmware
7 26 (0.88%) Hyper-V
8 23 (0.78%) vSphere
9 22 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
10 14 (0.48%) VMware NSX
11 5 (0.17%) KVM
11 5 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
12 4 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.10%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.068%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.068%) OpenSSH
14 2 (0.068%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.034%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.034%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 1 (0.034%) NFS
Systems Management
1 144 (4.90%) Kubernetes
2 88 (2.99%) Ansible
3 45 (1.53%) Grafana
4 37 (1.26%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
6 25 (0.85%) FortiGate
7 22 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.54%) SCCM
9 15 (0.51%) vCenter Server
10 14 (0.48%) HP ALM
11 10 (0.34%) Failover Clustering
11 10 (0.34%) VxRail
12 7 (0.24%) Argo
12 7 (0.24%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
14 5 (0.17%) systemd
14 5 (0.17%) vMotion
14 5 (0.17%) vRealize
15 4 (0.14%) Consul
15 4 (0.14%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 450 (15.31%) Microsoft
2 259 (8.81%) SAP
3 246 (8.37%) Oracle
4 161 (5.48%) Databricks
5 99 (3.37%) VMware
6 98 (3.33%) Salesforce
7 87 (2.96%) ServiceNow
8 82 (2.79%) Cisco
9 50 (1.70%) Google
10 47 (1.60%) Workday
11 38 (1.29%) IBM
12 37 (1.26%) Informatica
13 31 (1.05%) Fortinet
13 31 (1.05%) Juniper
14 28 (0.95%) Zscaler
15 27 (0.92%) Palo Alto
16 22 (0.75%) Splunk
17 21 (0.71%) MuleSoft
18 19 (0.65%) Ariba
18 19 (0.65%) Sage