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

6 months to
23 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 117 130
Rank change year-on-year +61 +13 +5
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,554 706 801
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.10% 2.23% 1.84%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.68% 2.50% 2.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 941 364 440
10th Percentile £350 £344 £318
25th Percentile £409 £406 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £511 £531
Median % change year-on-year -2.20% -3.76% -2.16%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £623
90th Percentile £700 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £513
% change year-on-year -2.56% -4.88% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 42 132
10th Percentile £29.43 £29.10 £35.54
25th Percentile £42.78 £46.56 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.65 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year +12.76% -12.63% +5.39%
75th Percentile £68.29 £63.75 £79.83
90th Percentile £74.75 £66.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.54 £67.50
% change year-on-year +12.96% -14.76% +7.72%

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 33,213 28,195 38,072
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.59% 88.98% 87.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,058 17,139 25,095
10th Percentile £305 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £644
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,026 893 1,862
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.94 £17.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £37.01
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -12.19% +15.66%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £69.65 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.00 £30.62 £39.55
% change year-on-year -21.61% -22.59% +52.12%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 +57 1,345 £500 -2.44% 1,338
UK excluding London +37 715 £475 -2.56% 1,283
London +76 632 £513 -2.38% 194
Work from Home +79 489 £500 -8.26% 466
North of England +29 181 £423 -3.43% 223
South East +15 161 £500 - 386
North West +24 115 £400 -3.03% 82
South West +12 113 £475 -17.82% 200
Midlands +9 113 £515 +8.42% 204
East of England +18 97 £482 +20.44% 216
West Midlands +4 93 £515 +8.42% 94
Yorkshire -8 53 £491 +8.21% 110
Scotland +23 35 £447 -0.67% 38
Northern Ireland +13 20 £425 - 22
East Midlands -14 20 £475 +58.33% 106
North East -3 15 £463 -36.21% 32
Wales -2 4 £536 - 51

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 59 (3.80%) Confluence
2 35 (2.25%) Apache Spark
3 32 (2.06%) SAS
4 31 (1.99%) SharePoint
5 21 (1.35%) Microsoft Exchange
6 20 (1.29%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (0.97%) Apache
8 14 (0.90%) Skype for Business
9 9 (0.58%) Exchange Server 2013
10 8 (0.51%) CMS
11 7 (0.45%) Mattermost
12 6 (0.39%) Appian
12 6 (0.39%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.32%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.32%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
14 4 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.26%) Anypoint
14 4 (0.26%) Jupyter
14 4 (0.26%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 4 (0.26%) WebLogic
Applications
1 77 (4.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 39 (2.51%) Microsoft Office
3 27 (1.74%) MS Visio
4 14 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (0.58%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
7 6 (0.39%) Sketch
8 4 (0.26%) Notion
9 3 (0.19%) LaTeX
9 3 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
10 2 (0.13%) Simulink
11 1 (0.064%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.064%) CATIA
11 1 (0.064%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.064%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.064%) Stateflow
11 1 (0.064%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 82 (5.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (1.09%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.84%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.77%) SAP EHS
4 12 (0.77%) SAP FI
5 11 (0.71%) Oracle General Ledger
6 10 (0.64%) NetSuite
6 10 (0.64%) Oracle Receivables
7 9 (0.58%) Aladdin
7 9 (0.58%) Remedy ITSM
7 9 (0.58%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.51%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.51%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 7 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
9 7 (0.45%) Markit EDM
9 7 (0.45%) OpenText VIM for SAP
9 7 (0.45%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 7 (0.45%) SAP MM
10 6 (0.39%) SAP ERP
10 6 (0.39%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 363 (23.36%) Azure
2 193 (12.42%) AWS
3 130 (8.37%) Azure DevOps
4 118 (7.59%) Power Platform
5 69 (4.44%) GitHub
6 63 (4.05%) GCP
7 53 (3.41%) Entra ID
8 47 (3.02%) SaaS
9 45 (2.90%) Serverless
10 43 (2.77%) GitHub Actions
11 42 (2.70%) Azure Data Factory
12 33 (2.12%) OCI
13 30 (1.93%) Amazon S3
13 30 (1.93%) Snowflake
14 29 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
15 25 (1.61%) OpenShift
16 24 (1.54%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 21 (1.35%) AWS Lambda
18 18 (1.16%) Dynamics 365
19 17 (1.09%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 40 (2.57%) Firewall
2 26 (1.67%) TCP/IP
3 21 (1.35%) Ethernet
3 21 (1.35%) Network Security
3 21 (1.35%) WAN
4 16 (1.03%) HTTP
4 16 (1.03%) VPN
5 15 (0.97%) DNS
6 14 (0.90%) Skype
7 13 (0.84%) VLAN
7 13 (0.84%) Wireless
8 12 (0.77%) BGP
8 12 (0.77%) LAN
9 11 (0.71%) MPLS
9 11 (0.71%) OSPF
9 11 (0.71%) SD-WAN
9 11 (0.71%) TACACS
10 8 (0.51%) SNMP
11 7 (0.45%) Internet
12 6 (0.39%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (7.08%) Power BI
2 67 (4.31%) Metadata
3 64 (4.12%) Data Warehouse
4 39 (2.51%) Tableau
5 38 (2.45%) SQL Server
6 35 (2.25%) Data Lake
7 29 (1.87%) NoSQL
8 25 (1.61%) PostgreSQL
9 22 (1.42%) Relational Database
9 22 (1.42%) SAS Enterprise Guide
10 21 (1.35%) Azure SQL Database
10 21 (1.35%) Delta Lake
11 20 (1.29%) Oracle Database
12 17 (1.09%) Big Data
12 17 (1.09%) Pinecone
13 16 (1.03%) Oracle Reports
14 15 (0.97%) Parquet
14 15 (0.97%) SAP Data Services
15 14 (0.90%) Amazon Athena
15 14 (0.90%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 157 (10.10%) JIRA
2 74 (4.76%) Jenkins
3 72 (4.63%) Git
4 48 (3.09%) Postman
5 47 (3.02%) GitLab
6 42 (2.70%) Selenium
7 32 (2.06%) Oracle APEX
8 24 (1.54%) Rational DOORS
9 19 (1.22%) JMeter
9 19 (1.22%) Visual Studio
10 17 (1.09%) TestRail
11 15 (0.97%) Cucumber
12 14 (0.90%) MLflow
13 13 (0.84%) Eclipse
13 13 (0.84%) Zephyr
14 12 (0.77%) SpecFlow
15 11 (0.71%) Bitbucket
16 10 (0.64%) Cypress.io
16 10 (0.64%) JUnit
16 10 (0.64%) REST Assured
General
1 584 (37.58%) Social Skills
2 422 (27.16%) Finance
3 326 (20.98%) Analytical Skills
4 147 (9.46%) Public Sector
5 127 (8.17%) Banking
6 81 (5.21%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (3.15%) Presentation Skills
8 39 (2.51%) Manufacturing
9 35 (2.25%) Influencing Skills
9 35 (2.25%) Pharmaceutical
10 30 (1.93%) Aerospace
11 29 (1.87%) Electronics
11 29 (1.87%) Marketing
11 29 (1.87%) Telecoms
12 27 (1.74%) Front Office
12 27 (1.74%) Military
13 25 (1.61%) Legal
14 23 (1.48%) Investment Banking
15 21 (1.35%) Billing
15 21 (1.35%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 313 (20.14%) Analyst
2 159 (10.23%) Senior
3 141 (9.07%) Business Analyst
4 137 (8.82%) Consultant
5 132 (8.49%) Lead
6 120 (7.72%) Developer
7 87 (5.60%) Architect
8 75 (4.83%) Data Analyst
9 66 (4.25%) Data Engineer
10 54 (3.47%) Software Engineer
11 51 (3.28%) Tester
12 45 (2.90%) SAP Consultant
13 43 (2.77%) Project Manager
13 43 (2.77%) Senior Analyst
14 37 (2.38%) Test Analyst
15 35 (2.25%) Senior Developer
15 35 (2.25%) Test Manager
16 30 (1.93%) Data Scientist
17 28 (1.80%) Solutions Architect
17 28 (1.80%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (6.50%) REST
2 79 (5.08%) JSON
3 58 (3.73%) XML
4 50 (3.22%) Oracle Fusion
5 42 (2.70%) Middleware
5 42 (2.70%) OAuth
5 42 (2.70%) SOAP
6 38 (2.45%) PySpark
7 37 (2.38%) Node.js
8 35 (2.25%) RESTful
9 31 (1.99%) .NET
10 30 (1.93%) Playwright
11 28 (1.80%) Kafka
12 27 (1.74%) PyTorch
13 26 (1.67%) Swagger
14 25 (1.61%) Web Services
15 24 (1.54%) SAP Fiori
15 24 (1.54%) TensorFlow
16 23 (1.48%) JWT
16 23 (1.48%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 86 (5.53%) Legacy Systems
2 61 (3.93%) Data Structures
3 57 (3.67%) Onboarding
4 54 (3.47%) Product Ownership
5 46 (2.96%) Management Information System
6 36 (2.32%) Cloud Native
7 30 (1.93%) Data Centre
8 29 (1.87%) Algorithms
9 24 (1.54%) Analytical Mindset
9 24 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
10 22 (1.42%) FPGA
11 19 (1.22%) Derivative
11 19 (1.22%) Life Science
12 17 (1.09%) Operational Technology
12 17 (1.09%) SCADA
13 15 (0.97%) Distributed Systems
13 15 (0.97%) Replication
14 14 (0.90%) Embedded Systems
14 14 (0.90%) Hybrid Cloud
14 14 (0.90%) PCIe
Operating Systems
1 96 (6.18%) Linux
2 78 (5.02%) Windows
3 31 (1.99%) Unix
4 11 (0.71%) Android
5 6 (0.39%) Embedded Linux
5 6 (0.39%) Windows Server
6 5 (0.32%) zOS
7 4 (0.26%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.13%) Debian
9 2 (0.13%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.13%) Robot Operating System
10 1 (0.064%) FreeRTOS
10 1 (0.064%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.064%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 417 (26.83%) Agile
2 345 (22.20%) Migration
2 345 (22.20%) Problem-Solving
3 274 (17.63%) DevOps
4 261 (16.80%) CI/CD
5 254 (16.34%) Data Validation
6 250 (16.09%) Stakeholder Management
7 220 (14.16%) Analytics
8 191 (12.29%) Test Automation
9 188 (12.10%) Data Modelling
10 185 (11.90%) Data Migration
11 181 (11.65%) User Acceptance Testing
12 166 (10.68%) AI
13 165 (10.62%) ETL
14 162 (10.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 143 (9.20%) Data Analysis
16 142 (9.14%) Business Intelligence
16 142 (9.14%) Data Governance
17 136 (8.75%) Continuous Improvement
18 129 (8.30%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 392 (25.23%) SQL
2 335 (21.56%) Python
3 97 (6.24%) JavaScript
4 89 (5.73%) Java
5 66 (4.25%) C#
6 53 (3.41%) PL/SQL
7 52 (3.35%) C++
8 48 (3.09%) PowerShell
9 44 (2.83%) Bash
10 39 (2.51%) C
11 32 (2.06%) TypeScript
12 24 (1.54%) R
13 16 (1.03%) Groovy
13 16 (1.03%) Shell Script
14 15 (0.97%) Scala
15 14 (0.90%) Ada
15 14 (0.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.77%) Bicep
17 11 (0.71%) T-SQL
18 9 (0.58%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 346 (22.27%) Security Cleared
2 254 (16.34%) SC Cleared
3 152 (9.78%) Degree
4 61 (3.93%) Computer Science Degree
5 51 (3.28%) BPSS Clearance
6 38 (2.45%) DV Cleared
7 36 (2.32%) Master's Degree
8 29 (1.87%) ISTQB
9 28 (1.80%) PMI Certification
10 23 (1.48%) AWS Certification
11 20 (1.29%) PMP
12 16 (1.03%) CBAP
13 14 (0.90%) Cisco Certification
13 14 (0.90%) Oracle Certification
14 11 (0.71%) Azure Certification
15 10 (0.64%) CISSP
15 10 (0.64%) OCA
16 9 (0.58%) CTC Cleared
16 9 (0.58%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 9 (0.58%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 202 (13.00%) Data Quality
2 200 (12.87%) QA
3 86 (5.53%) GDPR
4 64 (4.12%) NIST
5 45 (2.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 35 (2.25%) Accessibility
7 20 (1.29%) GxP
8 19 (1.22%) IFRS
9 15 (0.97%) IFRS 17
10 14 (0.90%) Def Stans
11 13 (0.84%) EU AI Act
12 12 (0.77%) PCI DSS
13 10 (0.64%) GMP
13 10 (0.64%) MiFID
13 10 (0.64%) MISRA
13 10 (0.64%) NCSC
13 10 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.64%) SLA
14 9 (0.58%) COBIT
14 9 (0.58%) DO-178B
System Software
1 58 (3.73%) Docker
2 47 (3.02%) Active Directory
3 25 (1.61%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.48%) Firmware
5 11 (0.71%) VMware NSX
6 8 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.26%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 4 (0.26%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.26%) vSphere
9 3 (0.19%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.19%) KVM
9 3 (0.19%) QEMU
10 2 (0.13%) Ceph
10 2 (0.13%) Lustre
10 2 (0.13%) OpenAM
10 2 (0.13%) OpenDJ
10 2 (0.13%) OpenIDM
10 2 (0.13%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 1 (0.064%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 76 (4.89%) Kubernetes
2 63 (4.05%) Terraform
3 46 (2.96%) Ansible
4 19 (1.22%) Single Sign-On
5 15 (0.97%) Microsoft Intune
6 14 (0.90%) Kibana
6 14 (0.90%) Puppet
7 11 (0.71%) SCCM
8 10 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 10 (0.64%) Grafana
9 8 (0.51%) SCOM
10 7 (0.45%) HP SiteScope
10 7 (0.45%) Nmap
11 6 (0.39%) Nessus
12 5 (0.32%) Prometheus
12 5 (0.32%) RSA Archer
13 4 (0.26%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
14 3 (0.19%) FortiGate
14 3 (0.19%) HP ALM
14 3 (0.19%) OMEGAMON
Vendors
1 196 (12.61%) Microsoft
2 160 (10.30%) Oracle
3 129 (8.30%) SAP
4 73 (4.70%) Databricks
5 63 (4.05%) ServiceNow
6 42 (2.70%) Cisco
7 39 (2.51%) Google
8 38 (2.45%) Salesforce
9 35 (2.25%) Splunk
10 31 (1.99%) VMware
11 26 (1.67%) Workday
12 20 (1.29%) IBM
13 19 (1.22%) MuleSoft
14 17 (1.09%) Murex
15 15 (0.97%) Bloomberg
15 15 (0.97%) Palo Alto
16 12 (0.77%) Adobe
16 12 (0.77%) Avaloq
16 12 (0.77%) Informatica
16 12 (0.77%) OneTrust