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

6 months to
27 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 69 122
Rank change year-on-year +34 +53 +27
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,780 1,169 766
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.27% 3.55% 1.91%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.20% 3.92% 2.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,670 691 383
10th Percentile £341 £350 £346
25th Percentile £413 £417 £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 £700 £670
UK excluding London median daily rate £464 £515 £475
% change year-on-year -9.95% +8.42% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 174 84 133
10th Percentile £17.01 £20.50 £28.35
25th Percentile £26.99 £40.31 £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 £83.93 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -3.85% - +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 44,856 29,798 34,328
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.96% 90.42% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,798 18,719 22,071
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £419 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -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 2,670 1,616 2,026
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £13.56
25th Percentile £20.02 £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 £68.38 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.38 £68.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.82 £40.00
% change year-on-year +84.59% -40.46% -

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 +32 2,409 £500 -4.76% 1,016
UK excluding London +27 1,298 £464 -9.95% 721
London +47 1,164 £521 -0.86% 397
Work from Home +40 792 £492 -1.60% 382
Midlands +34 312 £475 +5.56% 120
South East +3 311 £505 +1.00% 224
North of England +37 301 £450 -5.26% 155
West Midlands +35 229 £469 +7.14% 71
North West +20 163 £450 -14.69% 85
East of England -1 133 £500 - 90
Yorkshire +32 127 £453 +4.08% 38
South West -13 123 £523 -9.13% 97
Scotland +46 92 £425 -10.53% 39
East Midlands +21 78 £509 +10.89% 49
Wales +4 30 £450 +20.00% 11
North East -33 15 £425 -15.00% 33
Northern Ireland +8 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 83 (2.99%) Confluence
2 66 (2.37%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (2.01%) SAS
4 49 (1.76%) SharePoint
5 43 (1.55%) Apache Spark
6 31 (1.12%) Apache
7 14 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
8 13 (0.47%) Jupyter
9 11 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
10 9 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
11 8 (0.29%) ArcGIS
12 7 (0.25%) CMS
13 5 (0.18%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.14%) IIS
14 4 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
14 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
15 3 (0.11%) JBoss
Applications
1 186 (6.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.51%) MS Visio
3 36 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
4 29 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 29 (1.04%) Spreadsheet
5 13 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.29%) CATIA
7 7 (0.25%) AutoCAD
8 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.18%) Simulink
9 2 (0.072%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.072%) EPLAN
9 2 (0.072%) Navisworks
9 2 (0.072%) ProjectWise
9 2 (0.072%) Revit
9 2 (0.072%) Sketch
9 2 (0.072%) Windchill
10 1 (0.036%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.036%) MicroStation
10 1 (0.036%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 122 (4.39%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.19%) Oracle EBS
3 18 (0.65%) Workday HCM
4 13 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.47%) Teamcenter
5 11 (0.40%) Aladdin
5 11 (0.40%) iTrent
5 11 (0.40%) NetSuite
5 11 (0.40%) 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
1 595 (21.40%) Azure
2 326 (11.73%) AWS
3 292 (10.50%) Power Platform
4 151 (5.43%) Azure DevOps
5 140 (5.04%) GCP
6 126 (4.53%) GitHub
7 98 (3.53%) Snowflake
8 73 (2.63%) GitHub Actions
9 72 (2.59%) Azure Data Factory
10 68 (2.45%) Entra ID
10 68 (2.45%) Serverless
11 60 (2.16%) Amazon S3
12 52 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
13 50 (1.80%) SaaS
14 46 (1.65%) dbt
15 44 (1.58%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 44 (1.58%) OCI
16 37 (1.33%) SuccessFactors
17 34 (1.22%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 34 (1.22%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 118 (4.24%) Firewall
2 69 (2.48%) Network Security
3 58 (2.09%) DNS
4 51 (1.83%) VLAN
5 50 (1.80%) 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
10 23 (0.83%) Wireless
11 22 (0.79%) SD-WAN
12 21 (0.76%) Internet
13 18 (0.65%) Ethernet
14 16 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.47%) NAS
15 13 (0.47%) VXLAN
16 12 (0.43%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 271 (9.75%) Power BI
2 161 (5.79%) Data Warehouse
3 114 (4.10%) Metadata
4 98 (3.53%) SQL Server
5 87 (3.13%) PostgreSQL
6 86 (3.09%) Data Lake
7 78 (2.81%) Tableau
8 77 (2.77%) Relational Database
9 40 (1.44%) Big Data
10 34 (1.22%) Oracle Database
11 33 (1.19%) Oracle Reports
11 33 (1.19%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 31 (1.12%) Delta Lake
12 31 (1.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 29 (1.04%) Power Query
14 27 (0.97%) Amazon Redshift
14 27 (0.97%) BigQuery
14 27 (0.97%) NoSQL
15 26 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
16 24 (0.86%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 252 (9.06%) JIRA
2 165 (5.94%) Git
3 94 (3.38%) Jenkins
4 72 (2.59%) GitLab
5 62 (2.23%) Selenium
6 49 (1.76%) JMeter
7 47 (1.69%) Postman
8 39 (1.40%) JUnit
9 38 (1.37%) Cucumber
10 32 (1.15%) WebDriver
11 22 (0.79%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.65%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.58%) 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 (0.40%) Cypress.io
16 11 (0.40%) MLflow
16 11 (0.40%) Zephyr
General
1 812 (29.21%) Finance
2 801 (28.81%) Social Skills
3 530 (19.06%) Analytical Skills
4 233 (8.38%) Public Sector
5 204 (7.34%) Banking
6 153 (5.50%) Documentation Skills
7 103 (3.71%) Manufacturing
8 86 (3.09%) Retail
9 67 (2.41%) Aerospace
10 62 (2.23%) Pharmaceutical
11 58 (2.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 54 (1.94%) Telecoms
13 53 (1.91%) Organisational Skills
14 44 (1.58%) Legal
15 43 (1.55%) Automotive
16 42 (1.51%) Front Office
17 40 (1.44%) Marketing
18 39 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
19 37 (1.33%) Billing
20 36 (1.29%) Law
Job Titles
1 501 (18.02%) Analyst
2 284 (10.22%) Senior
3 274 (9.86%) Lead
4 240 (8.63%) Business Analyst
5 229 (8.24%) Data Engineer
6 205 (7.37%) Consultant
7 165 (5.94%) Developer
8 148 (5.32%) Architect
9 141 (5.07%) Data Analyst
10 94 (3.38%) Test Engineer
11 84 (3.02%) Tester
12 80 (2.88%) Project Manager
13 63 (2.27%) Network Engineer
14 55 (1.98%) Systems Engineer
15 54 (1.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 50 (1.80%) Technical Analyst
17 49 (1.76%) Senior Data Engineer
18 47 (1.69%) Administrator
19 44 (1.58%) Migration Engineer
19 44 (1.58%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 138 (4.96%) REST
2 84 (3.02%) JSON
3 72 (2.59%) Kafka
4 68 (2.45%) PySpark
5 61 (2.19%) XML
6 59 (2.12%) Middleware
7 50 (1.80%) 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 36 (1.29%) OAuth
12 36 (1.29%) Playwright
13 33 (1.19%) Pandas
14 29 (1.04%) RESTful
15 28 (1.01%) Node.js
16 25 (0.90%) Spring Boot
16 25 (0.90%) WireMock
17 24 (0.86%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 156 (5.61%) Data Structures
2 152 (5.47%) Onboarding
3 132 (4.75%) Legacy Systems
4 121 (4.35%) Cloud Native
5 118 (4.24%) Product Ownership
6 80 (2.88%) Data Centre
7 74 (2.66%) Management Information System
8 55 (1.98%) Distributed Systems
9 46 (1.65%) Analytical Mindset
10 42 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
10 42 (1.51%) Life Science
11 41 (1.47%) AI Agents
11 41 (1.47%) Enterprise Software
12 40 (1.44%) Hybrid Cloud
12 40 (1.44%) SCADA
13 35 (1.26%) Reference Data
14 33 (1.19%) NHS
14 33 (1.19%) Virtual Team
15 31 (1.12%) Operational Technology
15 31 (1.12%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 170 (6.12%) Windows
2 107 (3.85%) Linux
3 56 (2.01%) Windows Server
4 39 (1.40%) Unix
5 19 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.40%) Windows 10
7 10 (0.36%) Android
7 10 (0.36%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.32%) VMS
9 6 (0.22%) Apple iOS
10 5 (0.18%) Windows 7
11 4 (0.14%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.14%) SUSE
12 3 (0.11%) AIX
12 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.072%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.072%) HPUX
13 2 (0.072%) Solaris
13 2 (0.072%) VxWorks
13 2 (0.072%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 758 (27.27%) Migration
2 547 (19.68%) Agile
3 520 (18.71%) Stakeholder Management
4 474 (17.05%) Analytics
5 469 (16.87%) CI/CD
6 452 (16.26%) Data Migration
6 452 (16.26%) Data Validation
7 451 (16.22%) User Acceptance Testing
8 447 (16.08%) Data Modelling
9 441 (15.86%) Problem-Solving
10 357 (12.84%) AI
11 344 (12.37%) Continuous Improvement
12 342 (12.30%) ETL
13 338 (12.16%) DevOps
13 338 (12.16%) Test Automation
14 314 (11.29%) Business Intelligence
15 309 (11.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 288 (10.36%) Data Pipeline
17 277 (9.96%) Data Governance
18 267 (9.60%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 676 (24.32%) SQL
2 510 (18.35%) Python
3 121 (4.35%) Java
4 82 (2.95%) PowerShell
5 63 (2.27%) C#
6 58 (2.09%) Bash
7 41 (1.47%) JavaScript
8 34 (1.22%) C++
8 34 (1.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 32 (1.15%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.12%) Bicep
11 30 (1.08%) Apex Code
12 27 (0.97%) C
12 27 (0.97%) PL/SQL
13 24 (0.86%) R
14 23 (0.83%) VBA
15 19 (0.68%) T-SQL
16 15 (0.54%) Ada
16 15 (0.54%) MATLAB
16 15 (0.54%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 506 (18.20%) Security Cleared
2 366 (13.17%) SC Cleared
3 188 (6.76%) Degree
4 63 (2.27%) DV Cleared
5 62 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
6 43 (1.55%) Cisco Certification
7 35 (1.26%) 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 (0.76%) CIMA
13 20 (0.72%) Azure Certification
14 18 (0.65%) CISSP
14 18 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
15 16 (0.58%) CCNA
16 14 (0.50%) DBS Check
17 13 (0.47%) AWS Certification
18 12 (0.43%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 516 (18.56%) Data Quality
2 340 (12.23%) QA
3 122 (4.39%) GDPR
4 53 (1.91%) NIST
5 48 (1.73%) Accessibility
6 45 (1.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 42 (1.51%) SLA
8 38 (1.37%) 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 (0.58%) HL7
14 15 (0.54%) ISO 20022
15 13 (0.47%) Def Stans
15 13 (0.47%) IFRS
15 13 (0.47%) NCSC
15 13 (0.47%) WCAG
16 12 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.43%) NIST 800
System Software
1 113 (4.06%) Docker
2 93 (3.35%) Active Directory
3 77 (2.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
5 26 (0.94%) VMware ESXi
6 23 (0.83%) Virtual Desktop
7 21 (0.76%) Hyper-V
8 20 (0.72%) Firmware
9 19 (0.68%) vSphere
10 16 (0.58%) 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%) etcd
Systems Management
1 156 (5.61%) Kubernetes
2 136 (4.89%) Terraform
3 57 (2.05%) Ansible
4 55 (1.98%) Prometheus
5 54 (1.94%) Grafana
6 27 (0.97%) Microsoft Intune
7 24 (0.86%) FortiGate
8 21 (0.76%) 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%) vMotion
14 5 (0.18%) Argo
14 5 (0.18%) CASB
14 5 (0.18%) Failover Clustering
14 5 (0.18%) Istio
14 5 (0.18%) vRealize
15 4 (0.14%) Consul
15 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 405 (14.57%) Microsoft
2 253 (9.10%) SAP
3 249 (8.96%) Oracle
4 152 (5.47%) Databricks
5 91 (3.27%) Salesforce
5 91 (3.27%) VMware
6 71 (2.55%) ServiceNow
7 62 (2.23%) Cisco
8 51 (1.83%) Workday
9 50 (1.80%) Google
10 41 (1.47%) Informatica
11 38 (1.37%) Splunk
12 31 (1.12%) Fortinet
12 31 (1.12%) IBM
12 31 (1.12%) Palo Alto
13 29 (1.04%) Juniper
14 28 (1.01%) MuleSoft
15 26 (0.94%) Zscaler
16 25 (0.90%) Sage
17 20 (0.72%) IFS