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

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 69 119
Rank change year-on-year +33 +50 +36
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,774 1,130 822
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.27% 3.47% 1.95%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.19% 3.84% 2.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,660 666 409
10th Percentile £333 £350 £344
25th Percentile £410 £419 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £588
90th Percentile £700 £700 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £525 £490
% change year-on-year -11.90% +7.14% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 174 82 156
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £28.50 £38.44 £47.83
Median hourly rate £60.00 £58.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.13% -2.08% -7.69%
75th Percentile £74.25 £66.13 £67.50
90th Percentile £83.93 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year - +4.17% -4.00%

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 44,805 29,397 36,049
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.08% 90.38% 85.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,846 18,489 23,062
10th Percentile £325 £300 £303
25th Percentile £419 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
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 2,636 1,550 2,325
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.34 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.50 £51.65 £61.60
90th Percentile £82.75 £70.00 £73.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.33 £38.12
% change year-on-year +84.96% -36.18% -4.70%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 2,402 £500 -4.76% 763
UK excluding London +28 1,292 £463 -11.90% 581
London +43 1,159 £513 -3.76% 278
Work from Home +46 793 £492 -1.60% 308
North of England +36 308 £450 -5.26% 123
South East +3 304 £504 +0.75% 197
Midlands +43 303 £475 +5.56% 98
West Midlands +32 221 £475 +14.46% 49
North West +23 170 £450 -14.29% 64
East of England +5 136 £510 +0.49% 71
Yorkshire +34 127 £460 +9.52% 34
South West -15 125 £520 -9.57% 64
Scotland +41 90 £423 -15.92% 27
East Midlands +19 77 £517 +13.75% 49
Wales +6 29 £455 +21.33% 12
North East -28 17 £425 -22.73% 25
Northern Ireland +7 10 £380 -35.59% 4

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 86 (3.10%) Confluence
2 68 (2.45%) Apache Airflow
3 58 (2.09%) SAS
4 51 (1.84%) SharePoint
5 44 (1.59%) Apache Spark
6 30 (1.08%) Apache
7 14 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
8 12 (0.43%) Jupyter
9 11 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
10 9 (0.32%) ArcGIS
10 9 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.25%) CMS
12 5 (0.18%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.14%) Appian
13 4 (0.14%) IIS
14 3 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
14 3 (0.11%) FactoryTalk
14 3 (0.11%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
14 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 181 (6.52%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.48%) MS Visio
3 36 (1.30%) Microsoft Office
4 29 (1.05%) Spreadsheet
5 28 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 12 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.29%) CATIA
8 6 (0.22%) 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%) Sketch
10 2 (0.072%) Windchill
11 1 (0.036%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.036%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.036%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.036%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.036%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.036%) Revit
Business Applications
1 125 (4.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (1.26%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.54%) Teamcenter
3 15 (0.54%) Workday HCM
4 13 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
5 11 (0.40%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 11 (0.40%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.36%) Aladdin
6 10 (0.36%) iTrent
6 10 (0.36%) NetSuite
6 10 (0.36%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
7 9 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
7 9 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
7 9 (0.32%) SAP MDG
7 9 (0.32%) SAP SD
8 8 (0.29%) Sage X3
8 8 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
8 8 (0.29%) SAP HCM
8 8 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 574 (20.69%) Azure
2 326 (11.75%) AWS
3 283 (10.20%) Power Platform
4 150 (5.41%) Azure DevOps
5 134 (4.83%) GCP
6 122 (4.40%) GitHub
7 95 (3.42%) Snowflake
8 70 (2.52%) GitHub Actions
9 69 (2.49%) Serverless
10 67 (2.42%) Azure Data Factory
10 67 (2.42%) Entra ID
11 63 (2.27%) Amazon S3
12 53 (1.91%) SaaS
13 50 (1.80%) Microsoft 365
14 45 (1.62%) dbt
14 45 (1.62%) OCI
15 43 (1.55%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 38 (1.37%) AWS Lambda
17 37 (1.33%) SuccessFactors
18 33 (1.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 113 (4.07%) Firewall
2 66 (2.38%) Network Security
3 51 (1.84%) DNS
4 50 (1.80%) VLAN
5 44 (1.59%) VPN
6 40 (1.44%) WAN
7 34 (1.23%) BGP
7 34 (1.23%) TCP/IP
8 25 (0.90%) OSPF
8 25 (0.90%) Wireless
9 23 (0.83%) LAN
9 23 (0.83%) SAN
10 22 (0.79%) SD-WAN
11 20 (0.72%) DHCP
12 19 (0.68%) Internet
13 18 (0.65%) Ethernet
14 17 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.47%) HTTP
15 13 (0.47%) NAS
16 12 (0.43%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 263 (9.48%) Power BI
2 157 (5.66%) Data Warehouse
3 113 (4.07%) Metadata
4 99 (3.57%) SQL Server
5 87 (3.14%) PostgreSQL
6 85 (3.06%) Data Lake
7 74 (2.67%) Relational Database
7 74 (2.67%) Tableau
8 41 (1.48%) Big Data
9 33 (1.19%) Oracle Database
9 33 (1.19%) SAS Enterprise Guide
10 32 (1.15%) Oracle Reports
11 30 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 29 (1.05%) Power Query
13 28 (1.01%) Amazon Redshift
14 27 (0.97%) BigQuery
14 27 (0.97%) Delta Lake
14 27 (0.97%) NoSQL
15 24 (0.87%) Amazon Athena
15 24 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 245 (8.83%) JIRA
2 166 (5.98%) Git
3 94 (3.39%) Jenkins
4 70 (2.52%) GitLab
5 60 (2.16%) Selenium
6 48 (1.73%) JMeter
7 46 (1.66%) Postman
8 39 (1.41%) JUnit
9 38 (1.37%) Cucumber
10 31 (1.12%) WebDriver
11 26 (0.94%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.65%) Eclipse
13 17 (0.61%) Rational Rhapsody
14 16 (0.58%) Gatling
15 15 (0.54%) Visual Studio
16 14 (0.50%) Oracle Forms
17 12 (0.43%) MLflow
17 12 (0.43%) REST Assured
18 11 (0.40%) Cypress.io
19 10 (0.36%) Maven
General
1 817 (29.45%) Finance
2 803 (28.95%) Social Skills
3 522 (18.82%) Analytical Skills
4 230 (8.29%) Public Sector
5 216 (7.79%) Banking
6 162 (5.84%) Documentation Skills
7 102 (3.68%) Manufacturing
8 80 (2.88%) Retail
9 74 (2.67%) Aerospace
10 61 (2.20%) Pharmaceutical
11 55 (1.98%) Telecoms
12 54 (1.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 51 (1.84%) Organisational Skills
14 44 (1.59%) Legal
15 42 (1.51%) Front Office
16 40 (1.44%) Marketing
17 39 (1.41%) Automotive
18 38 (1.37%) Billing
19 37 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
20 36 (1.30%) Law
Job Titles
1 499 (17.99%) Analyst
2 279 (10.06%) Lead
3 278 (10.02%) Senior
4 240 (8.65%) Business Analyst
5 223 (8.04%) Data Engineer
6 203 (7.32%) Consultant
7 161 (5.80%) Developer
8 156 (5.62%) Architect
9 138 (4.97%) Data Analyst
10 93 (3.35%) Test Engineer
11 82 (2.96%) Project Manager
12 81 (2.92%) Tester
13 61 (2.20%) Network Engineer
14 52 (1.87%) Systems Engineer
15 50 (1.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 49 (1.77%) Technical Analyst
17 48 (1.73%) Senior Data Engineer
18 45 (1.62%) Senior Analyst
18 45 (1.62%) Test Manager
19 44 (1.59%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 134 (4.83%) REST
2 81 (2.92%) JSON
3 73 (2.63%) Kafka
4 62 (2.24%) PySpark
5 59 (2.13%) Middleware
6 56 (2.02%) XML
7 52 (1.87%) Oracle Fusion
8 46 (1.66%) .NET
9 45 (1.62%) Spring
10 41 (1.48%) OAuth
10 41 (1.48%) SOAP
11 40 (1.44%) pytest
12 38 (1.37%) Web Services
13 34 (1.23%) Playwright
14 32 (1.15%) Pandas
14 32 (1.15%) RESTful
15 29 (1.05%) Node.js
16 28 (1.01%) Swagger
17 25 (0.90%) Spring Boot
17 25 (0.90%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 149 (5.37%) Onboarding
2 148 (5.34%) Data Structures
3 134 (4.83%) Legacy Systems
4 125 (4.51%) Cloud Native
5 119 (4.29%) Product Ownership
6 83 (2.99%) Data Centre
7 68 (2.45%) Management Information System
8 55 (1.98%) Distributed Systems
9 48 (1.73%) Analytical Mindset
10 43 (1.55%) Life Science
11 40 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
12 39 (1.41%) SCADA
13 37 (1.33%) Enterprise Software
14 36 (1.30%) AI Agents
15 35 (1.26%) Virtual Team
16 34 (1.23%) NHS
17 33 (1.19%) Hybrid Cloud
18 31 (1.12%) Operational Technology
18 31 (1.12%) Reference Data
19 30 (1.08%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 154 (5.55%) Windows
2 99 (3.57%) Linux
3 46 (1.66%) Windows Server
4 36 (1.30%) Unix
5 19 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.36%) Android
7 9 (0.32%) Ubuntu
7 9 (0.32%) VMS
8 7 (0.25%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.22%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.14%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.14%) SUSE
11 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.072%) AIX
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%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.072%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 758 (27.33%) Migration
2 548 (19.75%) Agile
3 513 (18.49%) Stakeholder Management
4 465 (16.76%) Analytics
5 462 (16.65%) Data Validation
6 461 (16.62%) CI/CD
7 451 (16.26%) User Acceptance Testing
8 450 (16.22%) Data Migration
9 448 (16.15%) Problem-Solving
10 444 (16.01%) Data Modelling
11 345 (12.44%) AI
12 342 (12.33%) ETL
13 341 (12.29%) Continuous Improvement
14 340 (12.26%) Test Automation
15 333 (12.00%) DevOps
16 310 (11.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 308 (11.10%) Business Intelligence
18 278 (10.02%) Data Pipeline
19 276 (9.95%) Data Governance
20 268 (9.66%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 657 (23.68%) SQL
2 496 (17.88%) Python
3 119 (4.29%) Java
4 74 (2.67%) PowerShell
5 61 (2.20%) C#
6 52 (1.87%) Bash
7 40 (1.44%) C++
7 40 (1.44%) JavaScript
8 34 (1.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 33 (1.19%) C
10 31 (1.12%) Apex Code
10 31 (1.12%) TypeScript
11 28 (1.01%) Bicep
12 26 (0.94%) PL/SQL
13 23 (0.83%) R
13 23 (0.83%) VBA
14 21 (0.76%) Ada
15 19 (0.68%) T-SQL
16 17 (0.61%) MATLAB
17 15 (0.54%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 502 (18.10%) Security Cleared
2 363 (13.09%) SC Cleared
3 182 (6.56%) Degree
4 65 (2.34%) BPSS Clearance
5 61 (2.20%) DV Cleared
6 42 (1.51%) Cisco Certification
7 37 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
8 33 (1.19%) CCNP
9 25 (0.90%) PMI Certification
10 24 (0.87%) PMP
11 22 (0.79%) ISTQB
12 21 (0.76%) ACCA
13 20 (0.72%) Azure Certification
13 20 (0.72%) CIMA
13 20 (0.72%) CISSP
14 17 (0.61%) Microsoft Certification
15 16 (0.58%) CCNA
16 15 (0.54%) DBS Check
17 14 (0.50%) AWS Certification
17 14 (0.50%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 507 (18.28%) Data Quality
2 335 (12.08%) QA
3 128 (4.61%) GDPR
4 58 (2.09%) NIST
5 53 (1.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 47 (1.69%) Accessibility
7 39 (1.41%) GxP
7 39 (1.41%) PMO
7 39 (1.41%) SLA
8 21 (0.76%) GRC
9 19 (0.68%) GMP
9 19 (0.68%) ISO 20022
10 18 (0.65%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 17 (0.61%) Def Stans
12 15 (0.54%) HL7
12 15 (0.54%) IFRS
13 14 (0.50%) NCSC
14 13 (0.47%) WCAG
15 12 (0.43%) PCI DSS
15 12 (0.43%) Solvency II
System Software
1 110 (3.97%) Docker
2 84 (3.03%) Active Directory
3 74 (2.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
5 25 (0.90%) VMware ESXi
6 21 (0.76%) Hyper-V
7 19 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
7 19 (0.68%) vSphere
8 16 (0.58%) Firmware
8 16 (0.58%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.22%) NFS
10 4 (0.14%) KVM
10 4 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.072%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.072%) OpenSSH
12 2 (0.072%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.072%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.036%) etcd
13 1 (0.036%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 160 (5.77%) Kubernetes
2 132 (4.76%) Terraform
3 55 (1.98%) Prometheus
4 54 (1.95%) Grafana
5 52 (1.87%) Ansible
6 25 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
7 24 (0.87%) FortiGate
8 21 (0.76%) Microsoft Intune
9 11 (0.40%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.36%) HP ALM
11 9 (0.32%) SCCM
12 7 (0.25%) VxRail
13 6 (0.22%) Nessus
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
15 4 (0.14%) Consul
15 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 389 (14.02%) Microsoft
2 254 (9.16%) SAP
3 244 (8.80%) Oracle
4 139 (5.01%) Databricks
5 93 (3.35%) Salesforce
6 88 (3.17%) VMware
7 71 (2.56%) ServiceNow
8 63 (2.27%) Cisco
9 48 (1.73%) Workday
10 44 (1.59%) Google
11 40 (1.44%) Informatica
12 39 (1.41%) Splunk
13 33 (1.19%) Fortinet
13 33 (1.19%) Palo Alto
14 31 (1.12%) IBM
15 28 (1.01%) Juniper
16 27 (0.97%) MuleSoft
17 26 (0.94%) Sage
18 25 (0.90%) Zscaler
19 20 (0.72%) IFS