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

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 68 121
Rank change year-on-year +32 +53 +32
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,787 1,161 767
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.27% 3.55% 1.91%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.21% 3.92% 2.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,669 687 384
10th Percentile £341 £350 £342
25th Percentile £413 £419 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £586
90th Percentile £700 £688 £669
UK excluding London median daily rate £464 £515 £475
% change year-on-year -9.95% +8.42% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 175 83 133
10th Percentile £17.12 £20.50 £28.35
25th Percentile £27.07 £41.25 £51.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £74.25 £67.00 £68.88
90th Percentile £83.90 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £61.25 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -5.77% - +3.92%

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 44,902 29,618 34,312
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.94% 90.44% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,798 18,592 22,057
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £521 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.10% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,679 1,619 2,026
10th Percentile £14.79 £14.20 £13.56
25th Percentile £20.06 £17.33 £17.55
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.39 £68.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +87.06% -41.25% -

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 28 July 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 28 July 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 28 July 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 2,416 £500 -4.76% 1,014
UK excluding London +24 1,300 £464 -9.95% 722
London +43 1,168 £523 -0.48% 398
Work from Home +37 796 £492 -1.60% 376
South East -1 315 £505 +1.00% 222
Midlands +37 308 £475 +5.56% 117
North of England +40 301 £450 -9.09% 156
West Midlands +32 225 £470 +7.43% 69
North West +21 163 £450 -15.65% 86
East of England 0 134 £500 - 94
Yorkshire +37 127 £453 +4.08% 37
South West -9 124 £521 -9.35% 97
Scotland +37 92 £428 -10.00% 39
East Midlands +19 78 £509 +10.89% 48
Wales +3 30 £450 +20.00% 12
North East -34 15 £425 -15.00% 34
Northern Ireland +6 10 £380 -35.59% 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 81 (2.91%) Confluence
2 67 (2.40%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (2.01%) SAS
4 49 (1.76%) SharePoint
5 42 (1.51%) Apache Spark
6 31 (1.11%) Apache
7 14 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
8 13 (0.47%) Jupyter
9 11 (0.39%) Microsoft Exchange
10 9 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
11 8 (0.29%) ArcGIS
11 8 (0.29%) CMS
12 5 (0.18%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.14%) IIS
13 4 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
13 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
14 3 (0.11%) JBoss
Applications
1 185 (6.64%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.51%) MS Visio
3 37 (1.33%) Microsoft Office
4 29 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 28 (1.00%) Spreadsheet
6 12 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.29%) CATIA
8 7 (0.25%) AutoCAD
9 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.18%) Simulink
10 2 (0.072%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.072%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.072%) Navisworks
10 2 (0.072%) ProjectWise
10 2 (0.072%) Revit
10 2 (0.072%) Sketch
10 2 (0.072%) Windchill
11 1 (0.036%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.036%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.036%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 122 (4.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.18%) Oracle EBS
3 19 (0.68%) Workday HCM
4 13 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.47%) Teamcenter
5 11 (0.39%) Aladdin
5 11 (0.39%) iTrent
5 11 (0.39%) NetSuite
5 11 (0.39%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
6 10 (0.36%) Oracle Assets
6 10 (0.36%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 10 (0.36%) SAP MDG
7 9 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
7 9 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
7 9 (0.32%) Sage X3
7 9 (0.32%) SAP SD
8 8 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
8 8 (0.29%) SAP HCM
8 8 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 597 (21.42%) Azure
2 329 (11.80%) AWS
3 293 (10.51%) Power Platform
4 149 (5.35%) Azure DevOps
5 143 (5.13%) GCP
6 126 (4.52%) GitHub
7 101 (3.62%) Snowflake
8 73 (2.62%) GitHub Actions
9 71 (2.55%) Azure Data Factory
10 69 (2.48%) Serverless
11 68 (2.44%) Entra ID
12 60 (2.15%) Amazon S3
13 53 (1.90%) Microsoft 365
14 50 (1.79%) SaaS
15 44 (1.58%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 44 (1.58%) dbt
15 44 (1.58%) OCI
16 40 (1.44%) SuccessFactors
17 35 (1.26%) AWS Lambda
18 34 (1.22%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 117 (4.20%) Firewall
2 69 (2.48%) Network Security
3 58 (2.08%) DNS
4 51 (1.83%) VLAN
5 49 (1.76%) VPN
6 41 (1.47%) TCP/IP
6 41 (1.47%) WAN
7 34 (1.22%) BGP
8 27 (0.97%) DHCP
9 25 (0.90%) LAN
9 25 (0.90%) OSPF
10 23 (0.83%) SAN
11 22 (0.79%) Internet
11 22 (0.79%) SD-WAN
11 22 (0.79%) Wireless
12 18 (0.65%) Ethernet
13 16 (0.57%) Wi-Fi
14 13 (0.47%) NAS
14 13 (0.47%) VXLAN
15 12 (0.43%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 272 (9.76%) Power BI
2 165 (5.92%) Data Warehouse
3 113 (4.05%) Metadata
4 98 (3.52%) SQL Server
5 87 (3.12%) PostgreSQL
6 86 (3.09%) Data Lake
7 78 (2.80%) Relational Database
7 78 (2.80%) Tableau
8 39 (1.40%) Big Data
9 33 (1.18%) Oracle Database
9 33 (1.18%) Oracle Reports
9 33 (1.18%) SAS Enterprise Guide
10 31 (1.11%) Delta Lake
10 31 (1.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 29 (1.04%) Power Query
12 27 (0.97%) BigQuery
12 27 (0.97%) NoSQL
13 26 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
14 25 (0.90%) Amazon Redshift
15 24 (0.86%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 251 (9.01%) JIRA
2 166 (5.96%) Git
3 94 (3.37%) Jenkins
4 72 (2.58%) GitLab
5 62 (2.22%) Selenium
6 49 (1.76%) JMeter
7 47 (1.69%) Postman
8 39 (1.40%) JUnit
9 38 (1.36%) Cucumber
10 32 (1.15%) WebDriver
11 22 (0.79%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.65%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.57%) Gatling
14 14 (0.50%) Visual Studio
15 13 (0.47%) Oracle Forms
15 13 (0.47%) Rational Rhapsody
15 13 (0.47%) REST Assured
16 11 (0.39%) Cypress.io
16 11 (0.39%) MLflow
16 11 (0.39%) Zephyr
General
1 813 (29.17%) Finance
2 802 (28.78%) Social Skills
3 528 (18.95%) Analytical Skills
4 234 (8.40%) Public Sector
5 202 (7.25%) Banking
6 155 (5.56%) Documentation Skills
7 104 (3.73%) Manufacturing
8 87 (3.12%) Retail
9 67 (2.40%) Aerospace
10 62 (2.22%) Pharmaceutical
11 59 (2.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 55 (1.97%) Organisational Skills
13 54 (1.94%) Telecoms
14 43 (1.54%) Automotive
14 43 (1.54%) Legal
15 42 (1.51%) Front Office
15 42 (1.51%) Marketing
16 40 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
17 37 (1.33%) Billing
17 37 (1.33%) Military
Job Titles
1 501 (17.98%) Analyst
2 287 (10.30%) Senior
3 276 (9.90%) Lead
4 239 (8.58%) Business Analyst
5 232 (8.32%) Data Engineer
6 204 (7.32%) Consultant
7 165 (5.92%) Developer
8 149 (5.35%) Architect
9 140 (5.02%) Data Analyst
10 95 (3.41%) Test Engineer
11 84 (3.01%) Tester
12 80 (2.87%) Project Manager
13 63 (2.26%) Network Engineer
14 55 (1.97%) Systems Engineer
15 54 (1.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 50 (1.79%) Senior Data Engineer
16 50 (1.79%) Technical Analyst
17 47 (1.69%) Administrator
18 44 (1.58%) Migration Engineer
19 43 (1.54%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 139 (4.99%) REST
2 84 (3.01%) JSON
3 74 (2.66%) Kafka
4 70 (2.51%) PySpark
5 61 (2.19%) XML
6 59 (2.12%) Middleware
7 50 (1.79%) Oracle Fusion
8 49 (1.76%) .NET
9 44 (1.58%) Spring
10 42 (1.51%) SOAP
11 40 (1.44%) pytest
11 40 (1.44%) Web Services
12 37 (1.33%) OAuth
13 36 (1.29%) Playwright
14 34 (1.22%) Pandas
15 29 (1.04%) RESTful
16 28 (1.00%) Node.js
17 25 (0.90%) Spring Boot
17 25 (0.90%) WireMock
18 24 (0.86%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 155 (5.56%) Data Structures
2 153 (5.49%) Onboarding
3 133 (4.77%) Legacy Systems
4 122 (4.38%) Cloud Native
5 116 (4.16%) Product Ownership
6 80 (2.87%) Data Centre
7 78 (2.80%) Management Information System
8 56 (2.01%) Distributed Systems
9 46 (1.65%) Analytical Mindset
10 42 (1.51%) Life Science
11 41 (1.47%) AI Agents
11 41 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
11 41 (1.47%) Enterprise Software
12 40 (1.44%) Hybrid Cloud
12 40 (1.44%) SCADA
13 33 (1.18%) NHS
13 33 (1.18%) Reference Data
14 32 (1.15%) Operational Technology
14 32 (1.15%) Virtual Team
15 31 (1.11%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 170 (6.10%) Windows
2 107 (3.84%) Linux
3 56 (2.01%) Windows Server
4 39 (1.40%) Unix
5 19 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.36%) Android
6 10 (0.36%) Ubuntu
6 10 (0.36%) Windows 10
7 9 (0.32%) VMS
8 6 (0.22%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.18%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.14%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.14%) SUSE
11 3 (0.11%) AIX
11 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.072%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.072%) HPUX
12 2 (0.072%) Solaris
12 2 (0.072%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.072%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 757 (27.16%) Migration
2 547 (19.63%) Agile
3 521 (18.69%) Stakeholder Management
4 474 (17.01%) Analytics
5 471 (16.90%) CI/CD
6 455 (16.33%) User Acceptance Testing
7 454 (16.29%) Data Migration
8 451 (16.18%) Data Modelling
9 450 (16.15%) Data Validation
10 436 (15.64%) Problem-Solving
11 359 (12.88%) AI
12 349 (12.52%) Continuous Improvement
13 340 (12.20%) ETL
14 338 (12.13%) Test Automation
15 336 (12.06%) DevOps
16 313 (11.23%) Business Intelligence
16 313 (11.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 292 (10.48%) Data Pipeline
18 282 (10.12%) Data Governance
19 268 (9.62%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 680 (24.40%) SQL
2 514 (18.44%) Python
3 121 (4.34%) Java
4 82 (2.94%) PowerShell
5 63 (2.26%) C#
6 58 (2.08%) Bash
7 41 (1.47%) JavaScript
8 34 (1.22%) C++
8 34 (1.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 31 (1.11%) Bicep
9 31 (1.11%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.08%) Apex Code
11 27 (0.97%) C
11 27 (0.97%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.86%) R
13 23 (0.83%) VBA
14 19 (0.68%) T-SQL
15 15 (0.54%) Ada
15 15 (0.54%) MATLAB
15 15 (0.54%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 507 (18.19%) Security Cleared
2 367 (13.17%) SC Cleared
3 187 (6.71%) Degree
4 63 (2.26%) DV Cleared
5 62 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
6 43 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
7 36 (1.29%) Computer Science Degree
8 34 (1.22%) CCNP
9 24 (0.86%) ISTQB
10 23 (0.83%) PMI Certification
11 22 (0.79%) ACCA
11 22 (0.79%) PMP
12 21 (0.75%) CIMA
13 20 (0.72%) Azure Certification
14 18 (0.65%) CISSP
14 18 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
15 16 (0.57%) CCNA
16 14 (0.50%) DBS Check
17 13 (0.47%) AWS Certification
18 12 (0.43%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 518 (18.59%) Data Quality
2 343 (12.31%) QA
3 121 (4.34%) GDPR
4 54 (1.94%) NIST
5 48 (1.72%) Accessibility
6 46 (1.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 42 (1.51%) SLA
8 38 (1.36%) GxP
9 37 (1.33%) PMO
10 20 (0.72%) GRC
11 19 (0.68%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 18 (0.65%) GMP
13 16 (0.57%) HL7
14 15 (0.54%) ISO 20022
15 14 (0.50%) NCSC
16 13 (0.47%) Def Stans
16 13 (0.47%) IFRS
16 13 (0.47%) WCAG
17 12 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
17 12 (0.43%) NIST 800
System Software
1 113 (4.05%) Docker
2 94 (3.37%) Active Directory
3 76 (2.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (1.18%) Virtual Machines
5 26 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
6 22 (0.79%) Virtual Desktop
7 21 (0.75%) Hyper-V
8 20 (0.72%) Firmware
9 19 (0.68%) vSphere
10 15 (0.54%) VMware NSX
11 6 (0.22%) NFS
12 4 (0.14%) KVM
12 4 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.072%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.072%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.072%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.072%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.036%) Ceph
14 1 (0.036%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 157 (5.63%) Kubernetes
2 136 (4.88%) Terraform
3 57 (2.05%) Ansible
4 55 (1.97%) Prometheus
5 54 (1.94%) Grafana
6 28 (1.00%) Microsoft Intune
7 24 (0.86%) FortiGate
8 21 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.47%) SCCM
10 12 (0.43%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.36%) HP ALM
12 8 (0.29%) VxRail
13 6 (0.22%) Istio
13 6 (0.22%) vMotion
14 5 (0.18%) Argo
14 5 (0.18%) CASB
14 5 (0.18%) Failover Clustering
14 5 (0.18%) vRealize
15 4 (0.14%) Consul
15 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 408 (14.64%) Microsoft
2 256 (9.19%) SAP
3 249 (8.93%) Oracle
4 156 (5.60%) Databricks
5 91 (3.27%) Salesforce
6 90 (3.23%) VMware
7 71 (2.55%) ServiceNow
8 61 (2.19%) Cisco
9 52 (1.87%) Workday
10 51 (1.83%) Google
11 41 (1.47%) Informatica
12 38 (1.36%) Splunk
13 31 (1.11%) Fortinet
13 31 (1.11%) IBM
14 30 (1.08%) Palo Alto
15 29 (1.04%) Juniper
16 28 (1.00%) MuleSoft
17 26 (0.93%) Zscaler
18 25 (0.90%) Sage
19 20 (0.72%) IFS