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 29 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 67 111
Rank change year-on-year +35 +44 +40
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,087 1,213 805
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.65% 3.72% 2.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.70% 4.10% 2.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,819 689 401
10th Percentile £335 £330 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -7.41%
75th Percentile £600 £627 £588
90th Percentile £701 £690 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £481
% change year-on-year -7.50% +3.95% -6.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 192 84 98
10th Percentile £16.74 £21.85 £28.00
25th Percentile £26.52 £41.25 £47.63
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £71.60 £67.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £81.93 £75.00 £73.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -17.69% - -4.45%

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 46,073 29,551 32,512
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.35% 90.64% 85.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,867 18,364 19,652
10th Percentile £325 £294 £308
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,200 1,847 1,359
10th Percentile £13.74 £14.25 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.23 £17.30 £20.06
Median hourly rate £39.75 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.05% -40.82% -1.16%
75th Percentile £65.88 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £74.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +79.25% -48.10% +1.18%

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 29 September 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 29 September 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 29 September 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 2,644 £500 -2.91% 3,716
UK excluding London +32 1,410 £463 -7.50% 2,268
London +34 1,292 £525 - 1,687
Work from Home +27 847 £500 - 1,385
North of England +44 345 £453 +2.95% 428
South East +3 332 £525 +5.00% 561
Midlands +37 302 £463 -2.53% 322
West Midlands +29 212 £463 -7.45% 227
North West +20 165 £455 +7.00% 231
South West +17 158 £523 -5.00% 298
Yorkshire +51 154 £461 -2.89% 133
East of England -6 137 £450 -10.00% 293
Scotland +41 129 £440 -18.06% 278
East Midlands +30 86 £488 +2.63% 95
North East -21 31 £425 -11.92% 66
Wales 0 26 £394 +5.00% 47
Northern Ireland +2 4 £363 -33.49% 73
Channel Islands -3 1 - - 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 93 (3.01%) Confluence
2 67 (2.17%) Apache Airflow
3 60 (1.94%) SharePoint
4 52 (1.68%) SAS
5 46 (1.49%) Apache Spark
6 35 (1.13%) Apache
7 18 (0.58%) CMS
7 18 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
8 14 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
9 12 (0.39%) Jupyter
10 9 (0.29%) SharePoint 2013
11 8 (0.26%) Palantir Foundry
12 7 (0.23%) Sitecore CMS
13 6 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 6 (0.19%) OpenStack
13 6 (0.19%) WebLogic
14 5 (0.16%) Tuxedo
15 4 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 4 (0.13%) CICS
15 4 (0.13%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 204 (6.61%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
3 39 (1.26%) MS Visio
4 28 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.91%) Spreadsheet
5 16 (0.52%) AutoCAD
6 11 (0.36%) Navisworks
6 11 (0.36%) Revit
7 10 (0.32%) ProjectWise
8 9 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
9 7 (0.23%) Simulink
10 5 (0.16%) CATIA
10 5 (0.16%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.065%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.065%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.065%) OrCAD
12 1 (0.032%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.032%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.032%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.032%) Trello
Business Applications
1 112 (3.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
2 16 (0.52%) SAP FI
3 15 (0.49%) SAP SD
3 15 (0.49%) Workday HCM
4 14 (0.45%) SAP HCM
5 13 (0.42%) NetSuite
5 13 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
5 13 (0.42%) Teamcenter
6 12 (0.39%) Aladdin
6 12 (0.39%) SAP MDG
7 10 (0.32%) iTrent
7 10 (0.32%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.32%) SAP MM
8 9 (0.29%) Integrated Workplace Management System
8 9 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.29%) SAP CO
8 9 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.29%) SAP PS
9 8 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 598 (19.37%) Azure
2 352 (11.40%) AWS
3 307 (9.94%) Power Platform
4 187 (6.06%) Azure DevOps
5 158 (5.12%) GCP
6 146 (4.73%) GitHub
7 109 (3.53%) Snowflake
8 95 (3.08%) Entra ID
9 76 (2.46%) GitHub Actions
10 71 (2.30%) Azure Data Factory
11 61 (1.98%) Amazon S3
11 61 (1.98%) Serverless
12 60 (1.94%) dbt
12 60 (1.94%) Microsoft 365
13 58 (1.88%) SaaS
14 42 (1.36%) SuccessFactors
15 39 (1.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 34 (1.10%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 34 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
16 34 (1.10%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 108 (3.50%) Firewall
2 75 (2.43%) DNS
3 61 (1.98%) VLAN
4 58 (1.88%) Network Security
5 55 (1.78%) VPN
6 49 (1.59%) BGP
7 46 (1.49%) TCP/IP
8 42 (1.36%) WAN
9 34 (1.10%) DHCP
10 30 (0.97%) VXLAN
11 28 (0.91%) OSPF
12 27 (0.87%) Ethernet VPN
13 25 (0.81%) Ethernet
13 25 (0.81%) Wireless
14 24 (0.78%) LAN
15 22 (0.71%) Internet
15 22 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
16 21 (0.68%) SD-WAN
17 20 (0.65%) 5G
17 20 (0.65%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 284 (9.20%) Power BI
2 169 (5.47%) Data Warehouse
3 133 (4.31%) Metadata
4 121 (3.92%) Relational Database
5 101 (3.27%) SQL Server
6 97 (3.14%) PostgreSQL
7 86 (2.79%) Data Lake
8 69 (2.24%) Tableau
9 41 (1.33%) Oracle Database
10 39 (1.26%) Delta Lake
11 38 (1.23%) BigQuery
11 38 (1.23%) MongoDB
12 37 (1.20%) Power Query
13 34 (1.10%) NoSQL
14 32 (1.04%) Big Data
14 32 (1.04%) Redis
15 31 (1.00%) Oracle Reports
16 29 (0.94%) Amazon Athena
16 29 (0.94%) SAS Enterprise Guide
17 27 (0.87%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 272 (8.81%) JIRA
2 234 (7.58%) Git
3 104 (3.37%) Jenkins
4 95 (3.08%) GitLab
5 80 (2.59%) Selenium
6 42 (1.36%) Postman
7 34 (1.10%) JMeter
8 25 (0.81%) Cucumber
9 23 (0.75%) Rational DOORS
10 21 (0.68%) JUnit
10 21 (0.68%) WebDriver
11 17 (0.55%) Eclipse
11 17 (0.55%) REST Assured
11 17 (0.55%) Visual Studio
11 17 (0.55%) Zephyr
12 16 (0.52%) Cypress.io
13 14 (0.45%) Gatling
13 14 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
14 12 (0.39%) Visual Studio Code
15 11 (0.36%) TestRail
General
1 890 (28.83%) Social Skills
2 885 (28.67%) Finance
3 619 (20.05%) Analytical Skills
4 281 (9.10%) Banking
5 269 (8.71%) Public Sector
6 133 (4.31%) Documentation Skills
7 128 (4.15%) Manufacturing
8 95 (3.08%) Retail
9 74 (2.40%) Automotive
10 72 (2.33%) Telecoms
11 71 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 59 (1.91%) Legal
12 59 (1.91%) Organisational Skills
13 51 (1.65%) Aerospace
13 51 (1.65%) Marketing
13 51 (1.65%) Pharmaceutical
14 45 (1.46%) Billing
14 45 (1.46%) Front Office
15 44 (1.43%) Local Government
16 42 (1.36%) Law
Job Titles
1 522 (16.91%) Analyst
2 361 (11.69%) Senior
3 276 (8.94%) Lead
4 250 (8.10%) Data Engineer
5 247 (8.00%) Consultant
6 236 (7.64%) Business Analyst
7 201 (6.51%) Developer
8 167 (5.41%) Data Analyst
9 163 (5.28%) Architect
10 109 (3.53%) Test Engineer
11 80 (2.59%) Tester
12 77 (2.49%) Network Engineer
13 62 (2.01%) Administrator
14 61 (1.98%) Systems Engineer
15 60 (1.94%) Senior Data Engineer
16 57 (1.85%) Senior Analyst
17 56 (1.81%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 52 (1.68%) Software Engineer
19 50 (1.62%) Project Manager
20 45 (1.46%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 197 (6.38%) REST
2 185 (5.99%) Terraform
3 97 (3.14%) JSON
4 92 (2.98%) PySpark
5 86 (2.79%) Middleware
6 83 (2.69%) XML
7 75 (2.43%) Kafka
8 61 (1.98%) Playwright
9 59 (1.91%) .NET
10 53 (1.72%) SOAP
11 52 (1.68%) Web Services
12 51 (1.65%) OAuth
13 50 (1.62%) pytest
14 47 (1.52%) Oracle Fusion
15 45 (1.46%) RESTful
16 39 (1.26%) OpenID
17 37 (1.20%) Pandas
18 36 (1.17%) OAuth2
18 36 (1.17%) Spring
19 35 (1.13%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 176 (5.70%) Onboarding
2 164 (5.31%) Data Structures
3 143 (4.63%) Cloud Native
4 123 (3.98%) Legacy Systems
5 118 (3.82%) Product Ownership
6 116 (3.76%) Management Information System
7 94 (3.05%) Data Centre
8 59 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
8 59 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
9 58 (1.88%) AI Agents
10 45 (1.46%) Analytical Mindset
11 44 (1.43%) Data Protection Act
11 44 (1.43%) Life Science
12 42 (1.36%) SCADA
13 38 (1.23%) Algorithms
13 38 (1.23%) Operational Technology
14 36 (1.17%) NHS
15 34 (1.10%) CMDB
16 33 (1.07%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 33 (1.07%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 210 (6.80%) Windows
2 135 (4.37%) Linux
3 81 (2.62%) Windows Server
4 56 (1.81%) Unix
5 19 (0.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.52%) Windows 10
7 14 (0.45%) Android
8 11 (0.36%) Ubuntu
9 10 (0.32%) AIX
10 9 (0.29%) Apple iOS
11 8 (0.26%) VMS
12 7 (0.23%) Windows 7
13 5 (0.16%) zOS
14 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
14 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
15 3 (0.097%) CentOS
15 3 (0.097%) VxWorks
16 2 (0.065%) HPUX
16 2 (0.065%) Solaris
16 2 (0.065%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 840 (27.21%) Migration
2 692 (22.42%) Stakeholder Management
3 613 (19.86%) CI/CD
4 600 (19.44%) Agile
5 501 (16.23%) Data Modelling
6 496 (16.07%) Data Migration
7 494 (16.00%) User Acceptance Testing
8 488 (15.81%) Analytics
9 476 (15.42%) Problem-Solving
10 475 (15.39%) Data Validation
11 437 (14.16%) AI
12 421 (13.64%) Continuous Improvement
13 419 (13.57%) DevOps
14 418 (13.54%) Test Automation
15 346 (11.21%) ETL
16 327 (10.59%) Business Intelligence
17 322 (10.43%) Data Analysis
18 317 (10.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 313 (10.14%) Data Governance
20 302 (9.78%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 814 (26.37%) SQL
2 661 (21.41%) Python
3 153 (4.96%) Java
4 110 (3.56%) PowerShell
5 78 (2.53%) C#
6 76 (2.46%) JavaScript
7 64 (2.07%) Bash
8 48 (1.55%) TypeScript
9 44 (1.43%) C++
10 30 (0.97%) Apex Code
11 29 (0.94%) Shell Script
12 28 (0.91%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 28 (0.91%) R
13 26 (0.84%) PL/SQL
14 25 (0.81%) Bicep
15 24 (0.78%) C
16 22 (0.71%) Go
17 19 (0.62%) T-SQL
18 18 (0.58%) VBA
19 16 (0.52%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 608 (19.70%) Security Cleared
2 458 (14.84%) SC Cleared
3 209 (6.77%) Degree
4 86 (2.79%) DV Cleared
5 74 (2.40%) BPSS Clearance
6 51 (1.65%) Computer Science Degree
7 46 (1.49%) Cisco Certification
8 37 (1.20%) CCNP
9 34 (1.10%) AWS Certification
10 33 (1.07%) ACCA
10 33 (1.07%) CIMA
11 26 (0.84%) ISTQB
12 25 (0.81%) PMI Certification
13 24 (0.78%) Azure Certification
14 23 (0.75%) PMP
15 22 (0.71%) CISSP
16 19 (0.62%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 18 (0.58%) Master's Degree
18 15 (0.49%) CCNA
18 15 (0.49%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 637 (20.63%) Data Quality
2 370 (11.99%) QA
3 101 (3.27%) GDPR
4 53 (1.72%) Accessibility
5 46 (1.49%) SLA
6 36 (1.17%) GxP
6 36 (1.17%) NIST
6 36 (1.17%) PMO
7 34 (1.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 23 (0.75%) GRC
8 23 (0.75%) ISO 20022
9 22 (0.71%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 19 (0.62%) WCAG
11 17 (0.55%) GMP
12 16 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
13 14 (0.45%) NCSC
14 11 (0.36%) IFRS
14 11 (0.36%) MiFID
15 10 (0.32%) Def Stans
15 10 (0.32%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 115 (3.73%) Docker
2 105 (3.40%) Active Directory
3 91 (2.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (1.26%) Virtual Machines
5 34 (1.10%) VMware ESXi
6 27 (0.87%) Firmware
7 23 (0.75%) Hyper-V
7 23 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
7 23 (0.75%) vSphere
8 16 (0.52%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
10 5 (0.16%) KVM
11 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.097%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.065%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.065%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.065%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.032%) etcd
14 1 (0.032%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.032%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 147 (4.76%) Kubernetes
2 102 (3.30%) Ansible
3 42 (1.36%) Grafana
4 33 (1.07%) Prometheus
5 26 (0.84%) Microsoft Intune
6 25 (0.81%) FortiGate
7 20 (0.65%) SCCM
8 19 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.45%) HP ALM
10 11 (0.36%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.32%) Functional Safety
11 10 (0.32%) Progress Chef
12 9 (0.29%) Argo
13 8 (0.26%) Control-M
14 6 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
14 6 (0.19%) Kibana
14 6 (0.19%) VxRail
15 5 (0.16%) systemd
15 5 (0.16%) vMotion
15 5 (0.16%) vRealize
Vendors
1 472 (15.29%) Microsoft
2 256 (8.29%) SAP
3 249 (8.07%) Oracle
4 173 (5.60%) Databricks
5 104 (3.37%) VMware
6 95 (3.08%) Salesforce
7 89 (2.88%) ServiceNow
8 88 (2.85%) Cisco
9 71 (2.30%) Google
10 56 (1.81%) Workday
11 51 (1.65%) IBM
12 33 (1.07%) Fortinet
12 33 (1.07%) Informatica
13 30 (0.97%) Zscaler
14 28 (0.91%) Juniper
14 28 (0.91%) Palo Alto
15 22 (0.71%) Splunk
16 20 (0.65%) CyberArk
16 20 (0.65%) Red Hat
17 19 (0.62%) MuleSoft