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

6 months to
27 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 67 107
Rank change year-on-year +35 +40 +42
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,085 1,229 811
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.64% 3.72% 2.12%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.69% 4.11% 2.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,813 699 401
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% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £588
90th Percentile £704 £690 £663
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £488
% change year-on-year -7.50% +2.56% -4.97%
Number of hourly rates quoted 192 87 99
10th Percentile £16.74 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £26.52 £41.25 £47.75
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 £73.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -17.69% - -7.14%

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 46,089 29,922 32,856
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.33% 90.54% 85.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,886 18,587 19,900
10th Percentile £325 £295 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £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 £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,201 1,858 1,386
10th Percentile £13.70 £14.29 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.23 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £39.50 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.06% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £65.88 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.78% -47.67% +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 27 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 27 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 27 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 +32 2,644 £500 -2.91% 3,630
UK excluding London +33 1,412 £463 -7.50% 2,226
London +37 1,291 £525 - 1,633
Work from Home +29 848 £500 - 1,353
North of England +46 346 £453 +5.35% 405
South East +3 332 £525 +5.00% 553
Midlands +42 303 £463 -5.03% 320
West Midlands +30 213 £463 -7.45% 222
North West +16 165 £454 +6.71% 225
South West +21 157 £524 -4.77% 297
Yorkshire +44 155 £461 -2.89% 124
East of England -5 137 £450 -10.00% 293
Scotland +41 130 £440 -13.04% 273
East Midlands +27 86 £488 -4.88% 97
North East -18 31 £425 -11.92% 58
Wales -1 26 £394 +5.00% 49
Northern Ireland +1 4 £363 -33.49% 70
Channel Islands -4 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 91 (2.95%) Confluence
2 67 (2.17%) Apache Airflow
3 60 (1.94%) SharePoint
4 53 (1.72%) SAS
5 45 (1.46%) Apache Spark
6 34 (1.10%) 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
1 206 (6.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
3 37 (1.20%) MS Visio
4 29 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 28 (0.91%) Spreadsheet
6 16 (0.52%) AutoCAD
7 11 (0.36%) Navisworks
7 11 (0.36%) Revit
8 10 (0.32%) ProjectWise
9 9 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
10 7 (0.23%) Simulink
11 5 (0.16%) CATIA
11 5 (0.16%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.065%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.065%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.065%) OrCAD
13 1 (0.032%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.032%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.032%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.032%) Trello
Business Applications
1 113 (3.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
3 15 (0.49%) SAP FI
3 15 (0.49%) SAP SD
4 14 (0.45%) SAP HCM
4 14 (0.45%) Workday 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 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 ERP
8 9 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.29%) SAP PS
9 8 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 601 (19.48%) Azure
2 352 (11.41%) AWS
3 309 (10.02%) Power Platform
4 186 (6.03%) Azure DevOps
5 158 (5.12%) GCP
6 147 (4.76%) GitHub
7 110 (3.57%) Snowflake
8 94 (3.05%) Entra ID
9 76 (2.46%) GitHub Actions
10 72 (2.33%) Azure Data Factory
11 61 (1.98%) Serverless
12 60 (1.94%) Amazon S3
13 59 (1.91%) dbt
13 59 (1.91%) Microsoft 365
14 57 (1.85%) SaaS
15 42 (1.36%) SuccessFactors
16 40 (1.30%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 34 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
18 33 (1.07%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 32 (1.04%) Azure Key Vault
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 (0.88%) 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%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 286 (9.27%) Power BI
2 169 (5.48%) Data Warehouse
3 134 (4.34%) Metadata
4 122 (3.95%) Relational Database
5 102 (3.31%) SQL Server
6 96 (3.11%) PostgreSQL
7 87 (2.82%) Data Lake
8 69 (2.24%) Tableau
9 42 (1.36%) Oracle Database
10 39 (1.26%) Delta Lake
11 38 (1.23%) MongoDB
12 37 (1.20%) BigQuery
13 36 (1.17%) Power Query
14 34 (1.10%) NoSQL
15 33 (1.07%) Big Data
16 32 (1.04%) Redis
17 31 (1.00%) Oracle Reports
18 30 (0.97%) SAS Enterprise Guide
19 29 (0.94%) Amazon Athena
20 28 (0.91%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 269 (8.72%) JIRA
2 234 (7.59%) Git
3 103 (3.34%) Jenkins
4 94 (3.05%) 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
12 16 (0.52%) Cypress.io
12 16 (0.52%) Zephyr
13 14 (0.45%) Gatling
13 14 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
14 12 (0.39%) Visual Studio Code
15 11 (0.36%) TestRail
General
1 889 (28.82%) Social Skills
2 887 (28.75%) Finance
3 620 (20.10%) Analytical Skills
4 280 (9.08%) Banking
5 269 (8.72%) Public Sector
6 134 (4.34%) Documentation Skills
7 127 (4.12%) Manufacturing
8 96 (3.11%) Retail
9 73 (2.37%) Automotive
10 72 (2.33%) Telecoms
11 71 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 61 (1.98%) Legal
13 59 (1.91%) Organisational Skills
14 51 (1.65%) Aerospace
14 51 (1.65%) Marketing
14 51 (1.65%) Pharmaceutical
15 46 (1.49%) Front Office
16 44 (1.43%) Billing
16 44 (1.43%) Law
16 44 (1.43%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 518 (16.79%) Analyst
2 362 (11.73%) Senior
3 277 (8.98%) Lead
4 251 (8.14%) Data Engineer
5 245 (7.94%) Consultant
6 234 (7.59%) Business Analyst
7 202 (6.55%) Developer
8 163 (5.28%) Data Analyst
9 161 (5.22%) Architect
10 109 (3.53%) Test Engineer
11 80 (2.59%) Tester
12 77 (2.50%) Network Engineer
13 61 (1.98%) Administrator
13 61 (1.98%) Systems Engineer
14 60 (1.94%) Senior Data Engineer
15 57 (1.85%) Senior Analyst
16 56 (1.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 52 (1.69%) Software Engineer
18 50 (1.62%) Project Manager
19 45 (1.46%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 196 (6.35%) REST
2 184 (5.96%) Terraform
3 95 (3.08%) JSON
4 91 (2.95%) PySpark
5 85 (2.76%) Middleware
6 82 (2.66%) XML
7 74 (2.40%) Kafka
8 60 (1.94%) Playwright
9 59 (1.91%) .NET
10 52 (1.69%) SOAP
10 52 (1.69%) Web Services
11 50 (1.62%) OAuth
11 50 (1.62%) pytest
12 47 (1.52%) Oracle Fusion
13 44 (1.43%) RESTful
14 38 (1.23%) OpenID
15 37 (1.20%) Pandas
16 36 (1.17%) Spring
17 35 (1.13%) Node.js
17 35 (1.13%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 175 (5.67%) Onboarding
2 164 (5.32%) Data Structures
3 144 (4.67%) Cloud Native
4 121 (3.92%) Legacy Systems
5 119 (3.86%) Product Ownership
6 116 (3.76%) Management Information System
7 93 (3.01%) Data Centre
8 60 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
9 58 (1.88%) AI Agents
10 57 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
11 45 (1.46%) Analytical Mindset
12 44 (1.43%) Data Protection Act
12 44 (1.43%) Life Science
13 42 (1.36%) SCADA
14 38 (1.23%) Algorithms
14 38 (1.23%) Operational Technology
15 36 (1.17%) NHS
16 34 (1.10%) CMDB
17 33 (1.07%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 33 (1.07%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 210 (6.81%) Windows
2 135 (4.38%) Linux
3 81 (2.63%) Windows Server
4 57 (1.85%) 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
1 836 (27.10%) Migration
2 688 (22.30%) Stakeholder Management
3 612 (19.84%) CI/CD
4 601 (19.48%) Agile
5 501 (16.24%) Data Modelling
6 493 (15.98%) User Acceptance Testing
7 492 (15.95%) Data Migration
8 491 (15.92%) Analytics
9 476 (15.43%) Problem-Solving
10 475 (15.40%) Data Validation
11 438 (14.20%) AI
12 422 (13.68%) DevOps
13 420 (13.61%) Continuous Improvement
14 416 (13.48%) Test Automation
15 344 (11.15%) ETL
16 329 (10.66%) Business Intelligence
17 322 (10.44%) Data Analysis
18 319 (10.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 314 (10.18%) Data Governance
20 304 (9.85%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 809 (26.22%) SQL
2 660 (21.39%) Python
3 152 (4.93%) Java
4 110 (3.57%) PowerShell
5 78 (2.53%) C#
6 75 (2.43%) JavaScript
7 64 (2.07%) Bash
8 46 (1.49%) TypeScript
9 44 (1.43%) C++
10 32 (1.04%) Apex Code
11 29 (0.94%) R
11 29 (0.94%) Shell Script
12 28 (0.91%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 26 (0.84%) PL/SQL
14 25 (0.81%) Bicep
15 24 (0.78%) C
16 21 (0.68%) Go
17 19 (0.62%) T-SQL
18 18 (0.58%) VBA
19 16 (0.52%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 604 (19.58%) Security Cleared
2 454 (14.72%) SC Cleared
3 209 (6.77%) Degree
4 86 (2.79%) DV Cleared
5 73 (2.37%) 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
1 636 (20.62%) Data Quality
2 372 (12.06%) QA
3 102 (3.31%) GDPR
4 53 (1.72%) Accessibility
5 47 (1.52%) SLA
6 36 (1.17%) GxP
6 36 (1.17%) PMO
7 35 (1.13%) NIST
8 34 (1.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 23 (0.75%) GRC
10 22 (0.71%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 22 (0.71%) ISO 20022
11 19 (0.62%) WCAG
12 17 (0.55%) GMP
13 15 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
13 15 (0.49%) 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
1 114 (3.70%) Docker
2 104 (3.37%) Active Directory
3 91 (2.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (1.26%) Virtual Machines
5 34 (1.10%) VMware ESXi
6 27 (0.88%) 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%) Embedded Firmware
14 1 (0.032%) etcd
14 1 (0.032%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 145 (4.70%) Kubernetes
2 102 (3.31%) Ansible
3 43 (1.39%) 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
1 470 (15.24%) Microsoft
2 256 (8.30%) SAP
3 248 (8.04%) Oracle
4 173 (5.61%) Databricks
5 104 (3.37%) VMware
6 96 (3.11%) Salesforce
7 88 (2.85%) Cisco
7 88 (2.85%) ServiceNow
8 70 (2.27%) Google
9 54 (1.75%) Workday
10 49 (1.59%) IBM
11 33 (1.07%) Fortinet
11 33 (1.07%) Informatica
12 30 (0.97%) Zscaler
13 28 (0.91%) Juniper
13 28 (0.91%) Palo Alto
14 22 (0.71%) Splunk
15 20 (0.65%) CyberArk
15 20 (0.65%) Red Hat
16 19 (0.62%) MuleSoft