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

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 58 118 130
Rank change year-on-year +60 +12 +10
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,518 699 768
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.08% 2.19% 1.80%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.65% 2.47% 2.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 922 362 427
10th Percentile £356 £342 £340
25th Percentile £413 £406 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% -0.97%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £623
90th Percentile £700 £699 £747
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £513
% change year-on-year -0.94% -6.53% +3.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 42 107
10th Percentile £26.96 £29.10 £46.50
25th Percentile £41.25 £46.56 £59.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.40 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.25% -18.01% +10.71%
75th Percentile £67.25 £63.75 £84.36
90th Percentile £75.00 £67.35 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year +13.54% -18.21% +10.71%

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 32,654 28,287 37,362
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.81% 88.79% 87.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,662 17,217 24,715
10th Percentile £304 £306 £304
25th Percentile £406 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,980 898 1,602
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.75 £18.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -19.75% +16.41%
75th Percentile £56.06 £62.24 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.80 £74.91 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £30.45 £43.83
% change year-on-year -21.76% -30.52% +51.12%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 +58 1,312 £500 - 976
UK excluding London +42 692 £475 -0.94% 912
London +87 627 £513 -2.38% 177
Work from Home +72 487 £500 -7.83% 486
North of England +29 168 £419 -0.36% 147
South East +13 153 £500 +2.56% 310
Midlands +10 112 £515 +14.44% 121
South West +11 111 £475 -17.39% 146
North West +26 106 £400 -3.03% 61
East of England +19 92 £478 +23.35% 151
West Midlands +7 91 £519 +9.16% 65
Yorkshire -14 47 £487 +15.95% 61
Scotland +23 38 £449 -0.33% 35
East Midlands -14 21 £475 +50.79% 56
Northern Ireland +15 20 £425 - 13
North East -3 15 £475 -42.42% 27
Wales +2 6 £625 - 34

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 56 (3.69%) Confluence
2 35 (2.31%) Apache Spark
3 30 (1.98%) SAS
3 30 (1.98%) SharePoint
4 21 (1.38%) Microsoft Exchange
5 20 (1.32%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.99%) Apache
7 14 (0.92%) Skype for Business
8 9 (0.59%) Exchange Server 2013
9 8 (0.53%) CMS
10 7 (0.46%) Mattermost
11 6 (0.40%) OpenStack
11 6 (0.40%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.40%) WebLogic
12 5 (0.33%) Appian
12 5 (0.33%) Oracle Service Bus
13 4 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.26%) Anypoint
13 4 (0.26%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.26%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
Applications
1 82 (5.40%) Microsoft Excel
2 39 (2.57%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (1.84%) MS Visio
4 18 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 10 (0.66%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
7 6 (0.40%) Sketch
8 4 (0.26%) Notion
9 3 (0.20%) LaTeX
9 3 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
10 2 (0.13%) Simulink
11 1 (0.066%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.066%) CATIA
11 1 (0.066%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.066%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.066%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 88 (5.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.92%) Oracle EBS
3 12 (0.79%) Oracle Payables
3 12 (0.79%) SAP EHS
3 12 (0.79%) SAP FI
4 10 (0.66%) NetSuite
4 10 (0.66%) Oracle General Ledger
4 10 (0.66%) SAP MDG
5 9 (0.59%) Aladdin
5 9 (0.59%) Oracle Receivables
5 9 (0.59%) Remedy ITSM
6 7 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
6 7 (0.46%) Markit EDM
6 7 (0.46%) OpenText VIM for SAP
6 7 (0.46%) Oracle Assets
6 7 (0.46%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 7 (0.46%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 7 (0.46%) SAP MM
7 6 (0.40%) SAP ERP
7 6 (0.40%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 359 (23.65%) Azure
2 184 (12.12%) AWS
3 130 (8.56%) Azure DevOps
4 122 (8.04%) Power Platform
5 70 (4.61%) GitHub
6 62 (4.08%) GCP
7 49 (3.23%) Entra ID
7 49 (3.23%) SaaS
8 44 (2.90%) GitHub Actions
9 43 (2.83%) Serverless
10 42 (2.77%) Azure Data Factory
11 29 (1.91%) Microsoft 365
11 29 (1.91%) OCI
11 29 (1.91%) Snowflake
12 28 (1.84%) Amazon S3
13 27 (1.78%) OpenShift
14 25 (1.65%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 19 (1.25%) AWS Lambda
15 19 (1.25%) Dynamics 365
16 17 (1.12%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 36 (2.37%) Firewall
2 27 (1.78%) TCP/IP
3 21 (1.38%) DNS
3 21 (1.38%) Ethernet
4 20 (1.32%) WAN
5 17 (1.12%) Network Security
6 16 (1.05%) HTTP
7 15 (0.99%) VPN
8 14 (0.92%) Skype
9 12 (0.79%) BGP
9 12 (0.79%) Internet
9 12 (0.79%) VLAN
9 12 (0.79%) Wireless
10 11 (0.72%) LAN
10 11 (0.72%) MPLS
10 11 (0.72%) OSPF
11 10 (0.66%) DMARC
11 10 (0.66%) SD-WAN
11 10 (0.66%) TACACS
12 8 (0.53%) DKIM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (7.44%) Power BI
2 66 (4.35%) Data Warehouse
2 66 (4.35%) Metadata
3 39 (2.57%) Tableau
4 38 (2.50%) SQL Server
5 34 (2.24%) Data Lake
6 27 (1.78%) NoSQL
7 25 (1.65%) PostgreSQL
8 23 (1.52%) Azure SQL Database
8 23 (1.52%) Oracle Database
8 23 (1.52%) Relational Database
9 22 (1.45%) SAS Enterprise Guide
10 21 (1.38%) Delta Lake
11 17 (1.12%) Big Data
11 17 (1.12%) Oracle Reports
12 16 (1.05%) Pinecone
13 15 (0.99%) Parquet
13 15 (0.99%) SAP Data Services
14 14 (0.92%) Amazon Athena
14 14 (0.92%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 150 (9.88%) JIRA
2 75 (4.94%) Git
2 75 (4.94%) Jenkins
3 49 (3.23%) Postman
4 47 (3.10%) GitLab
5 44 (2.90%) Selenium
6 32 (2.11%) Oracle APEX
7 20 (1.32%) JMeter
7 20 (1.32%) Rational DOORS
8 19 (1.25%) Visual Studio
9 17 (1.12%) TestRail
10 16 (1.05%) Cucumber
11 14 (0.92%) Eclipse
12 13 (0.86%) MLflow
12 13 (0.86%) Zephyr
13 12 (0.79%) Bitbucket
13 12 (0.79%) SpecFlow
14 10 (0.66%) Cypress.io
14 10 (0.66%) JUnit
14 10 (0.66%) REST Assured
General
1 579 (38.14%) Social Skills
2 416 (27.40%) Finance
3 321 (21.15%) Analytical Skills
4 147 (9.68%) Public Sector
5 119 (7.84%) Banking
6 75 (4.94%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (3.23%) Presentation Skills
8 39 (2.57%) Manufacturing
9 36 (2.37%) Pharmaceutical
10 34 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
11 29 (1.91%) Electronics
12 28 (1.84%) Marketing
12 28 (1.84%) Military
12 28 (1.84%) Telecoms
13 27 (1.78%) Front Office
14 26 (1.71%) Investment Banking
15 24 (1.58%) Aerospace
16 23 (1.52%) Legal
17 21 (1.38%) Billing
17 21 (1.38%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 307 (20.22%) Analyst
2 155 (10.21%) Senior
3 139 (9.16%) Consultant
4 136 (8.96%) Business Analyst
5 122 (8.04%) Developer
5 122 (8.04%) Lead
6 83 (5.47%) Architect
7 75 (4.94%) Data Analyst
8 66 (4.35%) Data Engineer
9 53 (3.49%) Software Engineer
10 49 (3.23%) SAP Consultant
10 49 (3.23%) Tester
11 44 (2.90%) Project Manager
12 42 (2.77%) Senior Analyst
13 36 (2.37%) Test Analyst
14 35 (2.31%) Senior Developer
15 34 (2.24%) Data Scientist
15 34 (2.24%) Test Manager
16 28 (1.84%) QA Engineer
16 28 (1.84%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (6.59%) REST
2 80 (5.27%) JSON
3 59 (3.89%) XML
4 49 (3.23%) Oracle Fusion
5 42 (2.77%) SOAP
6 41 (2.70%) OAuth
7 40 (2.64%) Middleware
8 38 (2.50%) PySpark
9 37 (2.44%) Node.js
10 35 (2.31%) RESTful
11 32 (2.11%) .NET
12 30 (1.98%) Playwright
13 28 (1.84%) Kafka
14 26 (1.71%) SAP Fiori
15 25 (1.65%) PyTorch
15 25 (1.65%) Swagger
15 25 (1.65%) Web Services
16 22 (1.45%) JWT
16 22 (1.45%) pytest
16 22 (1.45%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 85 (5.60%) Legacy Systems
2 61 (4.02%) Data Structures
3 56 (3.69%) Onboarding
4 51 (3.36%) Product Ownership
5 44 (2.90%) Management Information System
6 34 (2.24%) Cloud Native
7 28 (1.84%) Algorithms
8 26 (1.71%) Data Centre
9 24 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
10 23 (1.52%) Analytical Mindset
10 23 (1.52%) FPGA
11 20 (1.32%) Derivative
12 18 (1.19%) Life Science
12 18 (1.19%) SCADA
13 15 (0.99%) Operational Technology
13 15 (0.99%) Replication
13 15 (0.99%) Virtual Team
14 14 (0.92%) Embedded Systems
14 14 (0.92%) Hybrid Cloud
14 14 (0.92%) PCIe
Operating Systems
1 104 (6.85%) Linux
2 75 (4.94%) Windows
3 31 (2.04%) Unix
4 11 (0.72%) Android
5 9 (0.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.40%) Embedded Linux
6 6 (0.40%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.33%) zOS
8 4 (0.26%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.13%) Debian
9 2 (0.13%) Robot Operating System
10 1 (0.066%) FreeRTOS
10 1 (0.066%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.066%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.066%) VMS
10 1 (0.066%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 411 (27.08%) Agile
2 344 (22.66%) Problem-Solving
3 341 (22.46%) Migration
4 270 (17.79%) DevOps
5 262 (17.26%) CI/CD
6 249 (16.40%) Data Validation
7 240 (15.81%) Stakeholder Management
8 219 (14.43%) Analytics
9 183 (12.06%) Data Migration
9 183 (12.06%) Test Automation
10 181 (11.92%) Data Modelling
11 172 (11.33%) User Acceptance Testing
12 170 (11.20%) ETL
13 163 (10.74%) AI
14 162 (10.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 143 (9.42%) Business Intelligence
15 143 (9.42%) Data Governance
16 141 (9.29%) Data Analysis
17 133 (8.76%) Continuous Improvement
18 130 (8.56%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 393 (25.89%) SQL
2 338 (22.27%) Python
3 97 (6.39%) JavaScript
4 88 (5.80%) Java
5 71 (4.68%) C#
6 57 (3.75%) PL/SQL
7 51 (3.36%) C++
8 49 (3.23%) PowerShell
9 46 (3.03%) Bash
10 33 (2.17%) C
11 32 (2.11%) TypeScript
12 29 (1.91%) R
13 16 (1.05%) Shell Script
14 15 (0.99%) Groovy
15 14 (0.92%) Scala
16 13 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.79%) ABAP
17 12 (0.79%) T-SQL
18 11 (0.72%) Bicep
19 9 (0.59%) XPath
Qualifications
1 341 (22.46%) Security Cleared
2 257 (16.93%) SC Cleared
3 152 (10.01%) Degree
4 58 (3.82%) Computer Science Degree
5 51 (3.36%) BPSS Clearance
6 34 (2.24%) Master's Degree
7 33 (2.17%) DV Cleared
8 30 (1.98%) ISTQB
9 29 (1.91%) PMI Certification
10 22 (1.45%) AWS Certification
11 20 (1.32%) PMP
12 16 (1.05%) CBAP
13 14 (0.92%) Cisco Certification
13 14 (0.92%) Oracle Certification
14 12 (0.79%) Azure Certification
15 11 (0.72%) CISSP
16 10 (0.66%) OCA
17 9 (0.59%) CTC Cleared
17 9 (0.59%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 9 (0.59%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 201 (13.24%) QA
2 199 (13.11%) Data Quality
3 86 (5.67%) GDPR
4 61 (4.02%) NIST
5 40 (2.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 35 (2.31%) Accessibility
7 18 (1.19%) GxP
7 18 (1.19%) IFRS
8 14 (0.92%) IFRS 17
9 13 (0.86%) EU AI Act
10 11 (0.72%) Def Stans
10 11 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 10 (0.66%) MiFID
11 10 (0.66%) MISRA
11 10 (0.66%) NCSC
11 10 (0.66%) PCI DSS
12 9 (0.59%) DO-178B
12 9 (0.59%) GMP
12 9 (0.59%) SLA
13 7 (0.46%) COBIT
System Software
1 55 (3.62%) Docker
2 47 (3.10%) Active Directory
3 28 (1.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.58%) Firmware
5 9 (0.59%) VMware NSX
6 7 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
6 7 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.40%) Dovecot
7 6 (0.40%) Postfix
8 4 (0.26%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 4 (0.26%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.26%) vSphere
9 3 (0.20%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.20%) KVM
9 3 (0.20%) QEMU
10 2 (0.13%) Ceph
10 2 (0.13%) Lustre
10 2 (0.13%) OpenAM
10 2 (0.13%) OpenIDM
10 2 (0.13%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 72 (4.74%) Kubernetes
2 61 (4.02%) Terraform
3 47 (3.10%) Ansible
4 16 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
5 13 (0.86%) Kibana
5 13 (0.86%) Microsoft Intune
5 13 (0.86%) Puppet
6 10 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 10 (0.66%) Grafana
6 10 (0.66%) SCCM
7 8 (0.53%) SCOM
8 7 (0.46%) HP SiteScope
8 7 (0.46%) Nmap
9 5 (0.33%) Argo
9 5 (0.33%) Istio
9 5 (0.33%) Nessus
9 5 (0.33%) Prometheus
9 5 (0.33%) RSA Archer
10 4 (0.26%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 3 (0.20%) OMEGAMON
Vendors
1 197 (12.98%) Microsoft
2 161 (10.61%) Oracle
3 136 (8.96%) SAP
4 73 (4.81%) Databricks
5 63 (4.15%) ServiceNow
6 38 (2.50%) Google
7 36 (2.37%) Cisco
7 36 (2.37%) VMware
8 35 (2.31%) Salesforce
9 34 (2.24%) Splunk
10 28 (1.84%) Workday
11 20 (1.32%) MuleSoft
12 19 (1.25%) IBM
13 17 (1.12%) Murex
14 15 (0.99%) Bloomberg
15 13 (0.86%) Adobe
15 13 (0.86%) Informatica
15 13 (0.86%) Red Hat
16 12 (0.79%) OneTrust
16 12 (0.79%) Palo Alto