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

6 months to
22 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 68 117
Rank change year-on-year +34 +49 +30
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,912 1,204 762
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.41% 3.67% 1.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.39% 4.06% 2.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,755 705 369
10th Percentile £336 £331 £348
25th Percentile £411 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £605 £594
90th Percentile £703 £688 £668
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -7.50% +5.26% -7.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 189 87 117
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £29.06
25th Percentile £26.52 £38.87 £48.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -7.69% -0.76%
75th Percentile £73.25 £65.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £75.74
UK excluding London median hourly rate £58.99 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -9.25% - -0.76%

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 45,595 29,691 33,157
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.72% 90.49% 85.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,992 18,509 21,072
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% -3.58%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,871 1,749 1,744
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £13.87
25th Percentile £18.27 £17.30 £18.00
Median hourly rate £41.92 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +66.68% -37.90% -2.41%
75th Percentile £67.89 £47.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.00 £41.50
% change year-on-year +91.13% -44.58% +10.67%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 +32 2,519 £500 -2.20% 2,318
UK excluding London +24 1,351 £463 -7.50% 1,615
London +39 1,219 £525 +2.44% 1,035
Work from Home +31 811 £500 - 921
North of England +43 329 £453 -8.48% 267
South East -1 316 £503 +0.50% 420
Midlands +34 308 £475 -5.00% 218
West Midlands +28 215 £461 -9.21% 143
North West +25 168 £460 -12.80% 154
East of England +4 148 £475 -5.00% 246
Yorkshire +41 145 £460 +2.22% 70
South West +3 136 £525 -8.70% 251
Scotland +42 101 £430 -7.03% 172
East Midlands +20 88 £505 +0.90% 75
Wales -9 24 £363 -3.33% 43
North East -33 21 £438 -20.45% 50
Northern Ireland +7 10 £380 -35.59% 32
Channel Islands 0 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 83 (2.85%) Confluence
2 67 (2.30%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (1.92%) SAS
4 54 (1.85%) SharePoint
5 42 (1.44%) Apache Spark
6 29 (1.00%) Apache
7 17 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
8 13 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
9 11 (0.38%) Jupyter
10 10 (0.34%) CMS
11 9 (0.31%) SharePoint 2013
12 7 (0.24%) ArcGIS
12 7 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
13 5 (0.17%) IIS
13 5 (0.17%) Sitecore CMS
13 5 (0.17%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.10%) OpenStack
Applications
1 202 (6.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.44%) Microsoft Office
3 41 (1.41%) MS Visio
4 33 (1.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 33 (1.13%) Spreadsheet
5 13 (0.45%) AutoCAD
6 10 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.27%) CATIA
7 8 (0.27%) Navisworks
7 8 (0.27%) Revit
8 7 (0.24%) ProjectWise
9 6 (0.21%) Simulink
10 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.069%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.069%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.069%) Windchill
12 1 (0.034%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.034%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.034%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.034%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 121 (4.16%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (0.93%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.48%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.45%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.41%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.41%) Teamcenter
6 11 (0.38%) iTrent
6 11 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 11 (0.38%) SAP SD
7 10 (0.34%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.31%) Aladdin
8 9 (0.31%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.31%) SAP FI
8 9 (0.31%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
9 8 (0.27%) SAP HCM
10 7 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
10 7 (0.24%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 621 (21.33%) Azure
2 335 (11.50%) AWS
3 306 (10.51%) Power Platform
4 169 (5.80%) Azure DevOps
5 147 (5.05%) GCP
6 133 (4.57%) GitHub
7 100 (3.43%) Snowflake
8 79 (2.71%) Entra ID
9 75 (2.58%) Azure Data Factory
10 71 (2.44%) GitHub Actions
11 67 (2.30%) Serverless
12 60 (2.06%) Microsoft 365
13 58 (1.99%) SaaS
14 54 (1.85%) Amazon S3
15 46 (1.58%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 46 (1.58%) dbt
16 44 (1.51%) SuccessFactors
17 41 (1.41%) OCI
18 36 (1.24%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 34 (1.17%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 115 (3.95%) Firewall
2 68 (2.34%) DNS
3 66 (2.27%) Network Security
4 63 (2.16%) VLAN
5 51 (1.75%) VPN
6 46 (1.58%) TCP/IP
7 43 (1.48%) BGP
8 42 (1.44%) WAN
9 35 (1.20%) DHCP
10 25 (0.86%) OSPF
11 24 (0.82%) LAN
11 24 (0.82%) VXLAN
12 22 (0.76%) Ethernet VPN
12 22 (0.76%) Internet
12 22 (0.76%) SAN
12 22 (0.76%) Wireless
13 20 (0.69%) Ethernet
13 20 (0.69%) SD-WAN
14 19 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
15 16 (0.55%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 286 (9.82%) Power BI
2 173 (5.94%) Data Warehouse
3 126 (4.33%) Metadata
4 109 (3.74%) SQL Server
5 98 (3.37%) Relational Database
6 97 (3.33%) PostgreSQL
7 83 (2.85%) Data Lake
8 74 (2.54%) Tableau
9 38 (1.30%) Big Data
10 37 (1.27%) MongoDB
11 35 (1.20%) Delta Lake
11 35 (1.20%) NoSQL
12 32 (1.10%) SAS Enterprise Guide
13 31 (1.06%) MySQL
13 31 (1.06%) Oracle Database
13 31 (1.06%) Oracle Reports
14 30 (1.03%) Azure SQL Database
15 29 (1.00%) BigQuery
16 28 (0.96%) Redis
17 27 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 253 (8.69%) JIRA
2 193 (6.63%) Git
3 106 (3.64%) Jenkins
4 87 (2.99%) GitLab
5 68 (2.34%) Selenium
6 49 (1.68%) Postman
7 41 (1.41%) JMeter
8 27 (0.93%) WebDriver
9 26 (0.89%) Cucumber
10 22 (0.76%) JUnit
11 20 (0.69%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.62%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.55%) Cypress.io
13 16 (0.55%) Gatling
13 16 (0.55%) Visual Studio
14 14 (0.48%) Rational Rhapsody
14 14 (0.48%) REST Assured
15 13 (0.45%) Maven
15 13 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
16 12 (0.41%) Gradle
General
1 826 (28.37%) Social Skills
2 805 (27.64%) Finance
3 579 (19.88%) Analytical Skills
4 257 (8.83%) Public Sector
5 213 (7.31%) Banking
6 153 (5.25%) Documentation Skills
7 108 (3.71%) Manufacturing
8 97 (3.33%) Retail
9 66 (2.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 63 (2.16%) Aerospace
11 61 (2.09%) Telecoms
12 59 (2.03%) Pharmaceutical
13 57 (1.96%) Organisational Skills
14 52 (1.79%) Automotive
15 50 (1.72%) Legal
16 48 (1.65%) Marketing
17 43 (1.48%) Law
18 42 (1.44%) Front Office
18 42 (1.44%) Local Government
19 39 (1.34%) Billing
Job Titles
1 513 (17.62%) Analyst
2 322 (11.06%) Senior
3 280 (9.62%) Lead
4 238 (8.17%) Business Analyst
5 234 (8.04%) Data Engineer
6 225 (7.73%) Consultant
7 174 (5.98%) Developer
8 145 (4.98%) Architect
9 142 (4.88%) Data Analyst
10 109 (3.74%) Test Engineer
11 81 (2.78%) Tester
12 75 (2.58%) Network Engineer
12 75 (2.58%) Project Manager
13 62 (2.13%) Systems Engineer
14 60 (2.06%) Administrator
15 57 (1.96%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 56 (1.92%) Senior Data Engineer
17 54 (1.85%) Technical Analyst
18 50 (1.72%) Test Manager
19 49 (1.68%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 172 (5.91%) REST
2 147 (5.05%) Terraform
3 94 (3.23%) JSON
4 82 (2.82%) PySpark
5 79 (2.71%) XML
6 74 (2.54%) Kafka
7 69 (2.37%) Middleware
8 53 (1.82%) .NET
9 52 (1.79%) Playwright
10 51 (1.75%) Oracle Fusion
11 44 (1.51%) pytest
12 42 (1.44%) SOAP
13 41 (1.41%) Spring
13 41 (1.41%) Web Services
14 36 (1.24%) OAuth
15 34 (1.17%) Pandas
15 34 (1.17%) RESTful
16 31 (1.06%) Spring Boot
17 29 (1.00%) Node.js
18 25 (0.86%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 167 (5.73%) Onboarding
2 148 (5.08%) Data Structures
3 127 (4.36%) Cloud Native
4 122 (4.19%) Legacy Systems
4 122 (4.19%) Product Ownership
5 96 (3.30%) Management Information System
6 91 (3.13%) Data Centre
7 54 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
8 48 (1.65%) Distributed Systems
9 47 (1.61%) Analytical Mindset
10 43 (1.48%) Life Science
11 41 (1.41%) AI Agents
11 41 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
11 41 (1.41%) SCADA
12 38 (1.30%) Replication
13 35 (1.20%) NHS
14 34 (1.17%) Algorithms
14 34 (1.17%) CMDB
15 33 (1.13%) Operational Technology
16 32 (1.10%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 183 (6.28%) Windows
2 121 (4.16%) Linux
3 68 (2.34%) Windows Server
4 42 (1.44%) Unix
5 19 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.48%) Android
7 13 (0.45%) Windows 10
8 11 (0.38%) Ubuntu
8 11 (0.38%) VMS
9 9 (0.31%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.21%) AIX
12 4 (0.14%) SUSE
12 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.069%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.069%) HPUX
13 2 (0.069%) VxWorks
13 2 (0.069%) Windows Server 2019
14 1 (0.034%) Alpine Linux
14 1 (0.034%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 785 (26.96%) Migration
2 575 (19.75%) Agile
3 561 (19.27%) Stakeholder Management
4 530 (18.20%) CI/CD
5 490 (16.83%) User Acceptance Testing
6 472 (16.21%) Analytics
7 465 (15.97%) Data Migration
8 462 (15.87%) Data Modelling
9 456 (15.66%) Problem-Solving
10 448 (15.38%) Data Validation
11 380 (13.05%) AI
12 379 (13.02%) DevOps
13 365 (12.53%) Continuous Improvement
14 364 (12.50%) Test Automation
15 324 (11.13%) ETL
16 323 (11.09%) Business Intelligence
17 319 (10.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 307 (10.54%) Data Pipeline
19 289 (9.92%) Data Governance
20 280 (9.62%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 735 (25.24%) SQL
2 565 (19.40%) Python
3 140 (4.81%) Java
4 92 (3.16%) PowerShell
5 65 (2.23%) C#
6 60 (2.06%) Bash
7 55 (1.89%) JavaScript
8 44 (1.51%) C++
9 32 (1.10%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.06%) Apex Code
11 28 (0.96%) Bicep
11 28 (0.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 28 (0.96%) R
12 26 (0.89%) C
13 25 (0.86%) PL/SQL
14 22 (0.76%) Shell Script
15 20 (0.69%) VBA
16 17 (0.58%) T-SQL
17 16 (0.55%) MATLAB
18 13 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 544 (18.68%) Security Cleared
2 400 (13.74%) SC Cleared
3 191 (6.56%) Degree
4 71 (2.44%) DV Cleared
5 62 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
6 48 (1.65%) Cisco Certification
7 45 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
8 39 (1.34%) CCNP
9 27 (0.93%) ACCA
9 27 (0.93%) CIMA
9 27 (0.93%) ISTQB
10 24 (0.82%) AWS Certification
11 22 (0.76%) Azure Certification
12 20 (0.69%) CCNA
12 20 (0.69%) PMI Certification
13 18 (0.62%) PMP
14 17 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
15 16 (0.55%) CISSP
16 14 (0.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 14 (0.48%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 569 (19.54%) Data Quality
2 369 (12.67%) QA
3 118 (4.05%) GDPR
4 53 (1.82%) SLA
5 49 (1.68%) NIST
6 46 (1.58%) Accessibility
7 43 (1.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 40 (1.37%) GxP
9 39 (1.34%) PMO
10 25 (0.86%) GRC
11 21 (0.72%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 20 (0.69%) ISO 20022
13 16 (0.55%) GMP
14 15 (0.52%) NCSC
15 13 (0.45%) HL7
15 13 (0.45%) WCAG
16 12 (0.41%) Def Stans
16 12 (0.41%) IFRS
16 12 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 11 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 115 (3.95%) Docker
2 102 (3.50%) Active Directory
3 83 (2.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
5 30 (1.03%) VMware ESXi
6 27 (0.93%) Firmware
7 25 (0.86%) Hyper-V
8 22 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
8 22 (0.76%) vSphere
9 15 (0.52%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.14%) KVM
10 4 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.10%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.069%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.069%) NFS
12 2 (0.069%) OpenSSH
12 2 (0.069%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.034%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.034%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 143 (4.91%) Kubernetes
2 80 (2.75%) Ansible
3 46 (1.58%) Grafana
4 38 (1.30%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.93%) Microsoft Intune
6 24 (0.82%) FortiGate
7 23 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (0.52%) vCenter Server
9 13 (0.45%) SCCM
10 10 (0.34%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.34%) VxRail
11 9 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
12 7 (0.24%) Argo
13 6 (0.21%) Microsoft Clustering
13 6 (0.21%) Progress Chef
14 5 (0.17%) systemd
14 5 (0.17%) vRealize
15 4 (0.14%) Consul
15 4 (0.14%) Puppet
15 4 (0.14%) vMotion
Vendors
1 441 (15.14%) Microsoft
2 256 (8.79%) SAP
3 245 (8.41%) Oracle
4 161 (5.53%) Databricks
5 97 (3.33%) Salesforce
6 96 (3.30%) VMware
7 90 (3.09%) ServiceNow
8 75 (2.58%) Cisco
9 52 (1.79%) Google
10 44 (1.51%) Workday
11 37 (1.27%) Informatica
12 34 (1.17%) IBM
13 29 (1.00%) Fortinet
13 29 (1.00%) Juniper
14 27 (0.93%) Palo Alto
14 27 (0.93%) Zscaler
15 21 (0.72%) MuleSoft
15 21 (0.72%) Splunk
16 20 (0.69%) Ariba
17 19 (0.65%) Sage