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

6 months to
26 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 120 137
Rank change year-on-year +64 +17 -1
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,538 695 820
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.08% 2.22% 1.85%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.67% 2.50% 2.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 931 357 455
10th Percentile £350 £346 £331
25th Percentile £405 £408 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £538
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -3.26% -1.01%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £623
90th Percentile £700 £708 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £513
% change year-on-year -4.04% -3.51% +2.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 40 137
10th Percentile £28.91 £28.73 £23.85
25th Percentile £41.94 £47.19 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.65 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year +12.76% -12.63% +4.82%
75th Percentile £67.84 £63.75 £77.50
90th Percentile £73.75 £66.15 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.54 £65.98
% change year-on-year +12.96% -12.79% +4.35%

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 32,948 27,851 38,703
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.34% 89.03% 87.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,870 16,883 25,489
10th Percentile £305 £306 £300
25th Percentile £408 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £643
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,006 881 1,954
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.69
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £17.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -9.78% +12.89%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.50 £62.47
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.71 £30.45 £37.50
% change year-on-year -18.85% -18.80% +41.24%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 +58 1,332 £500 -4.76% 1,125
UK excluding London +43 708 £475 -4.04% 1,052
London +81 624 £515 -2.37% 203
Work from Home +73 478 £500 -8.68% 460
North of England +30 179 £419 -7.00% 178
South East +12 160 £500 - 330
South West +11 116 £475 -17.82% 162
North West +26 115 £400 -3.03% 71
Midlands +13 111 £515 +7.01% 163
East of England +19 93 £482 +20.44% 173
West Midlands +10 92 £515 +5.64% 85
Yorkshire -3 51 £487 -0.10% 84
Scotland +27 36 £447 -0.67% 39
Northern Ireland +12 20 £425 - 15
East Midlands -14 19 £475 +58.33% 75
North East -5 15 £463 -36.21% 24
Wales -5 2 £536 - 39

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 58 (3.77%) Confluence
2 34 (2.21%) Apache Spark
3 32 (2.08%) SAS
3 32 (2.08%) SharePoint
4 23 (1.50%) Apache Airflow
5 20 (1.30%) Microsoft Exchange
6 15 (0.98%) Apache
7 14 (0.91%) Skype for Business
8 9 (0.59%) Exchange Server 2013
9 8 (0.52%) CMS
10 7 (0.46%) Mattermost
11 6 (0.39%) Appian
11 6 (0.39%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.33%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.33%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
13 4 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.26%) Anypoint
13 4 (0.26%) Jupyter
14 3 (0.20%) GeoServer
14 3 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 77 (5.01%) Microsoft Excel
2 39 (2.54%) Microsoft Office
3 27 (1.76%) MS Visio
4 14 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (0.59%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
7 6 (0.39%) Sketch
8 4 (0.26%) Notion
8 4 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
9 3 (0.20%) LaTeX
10 2 (0.13%) Simulink
11 1 (0.065%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.065%) CATIA
11 1 (0.065%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.065%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.065%) Stateflow
11 1 (0.065%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 83 (5.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (1.11%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.85%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.78%) SAP EHS
5 11 (0.72%) Oracle General Ledger
5 11 (0.72%) SAP FI
6 10 (0.65%) Oracle Receivables
7 9 (0.59%) Aladdin
7 9 (0.59%) NetSuite
7 9 (0.59%) Remedy ITSM
7 9 (0.59%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.52%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.52%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 7 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
9 7 (0.46%) Markit EDM
9 7 (0.46%) OpenText VIM for SAP
9 7 (0.46%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 7 (0.46%) SAP MM
10 6 (0.39%) SAP ERP
11 5 (0.33%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 356 (23.15%) Azure
2 193 (12.55%) AWS
3 129 (8.39%) Azure DevOps
4 118 (7.67%) Power Platform
5 69 (4.49%) GitHub
6 62 (4.03%) GCP
7 53 (3.45%) Entra ID
8 47 (3.06%) SaaS
9 45 (2.93%) Serverless
10 43 (2.80%) GitHub Actions
11 40 (2.60%) Azure Data Factory
12 32 (2.08%) OCI
12 32 (2.08%) Snowflake
13 31 (2.02%) Amazon S3
14 29 (1.89%) Microsoft 365
15 25 (1.63%) OpenShift
16 24 (1.56%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 21 (1.37%) AWS Lambda
18 19 (1.24%) Dynamics 365
19 17 (1.11%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 39 (2.54%) Firewall
2 26 (1.69%) TCP/IP
3 21 (1.37%) Ethernet
3 21 (1.37%) Network Security
3 21 (1.37%) WAN
4 16 (1.04%) HTTP
4 16 (1.04%) VPN
5 14 (0.91%) DNS
5 14 (0.91%) Skype
6 13 (0.85%) VLAN
6 13 (0.85%) Wireless
7 12 (0.78%) BGP
7 12 (0.78%) LAN
8 11 (0.72%) MPLS
8 11 (0.72%) OSPF
8 11 (0.72%) SD-WAN
8 11 (0.72%) TACACS
9 8 (0.52%) SNMP
10 7 (0.46%) Internet
11 6 (0.39%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (7.15%) Power BI
2 67 (4.36%) Metadata
3 62 (4.03%) Data Warehouse
4 39 (2.54%) Tableau
5 38 (2.47%) SQL Server
6 34 (2.21%) Data Lake
7 29 (1.89%) NoSQL
8 25 (1.63%) PostgreSQL
9 22 (1.43%) Relational Database
9 22 (1.43%) SAS Enterprise Guide
10 21 (1.37%) Azure SQL Database
10 21 (1.37%) Delta Lake
11 17 (1.11%) Oracle Database
12 16 (1.04%) Big Data
12 16 (1.04%) Oracle Reports
13 15 (0.98%) Parquet
13 15 (0.98%) Pinecone
14 14 (0.91%) Amazon Athena
14 14 (0.91%) Amazon Redshift
14 14 (0.91%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 154 (10.01%) JIRA
2 73 (4.75%) Jenkins
3 71 (4.62%) Git
4 48 (3.12%) Postman
5 47 (3.06%) GitLab
6 40 (2.60%) Selenium
7 32 (2.08%) Oracle APEX
8 23 (1.50%) Rational DOORS
9 19 (1.24%) JMeter
9 19 (1.24%) Visual Studio
10 17 (1.11%) TestRail
11 15 (0.98%) Cucumber
12 13 (0.85%) Eclipse
12 13 (0.85%) MLflow
12 13 (0.85%) Zephyr
13 11 (0.72%) SpecFlow
14 10 (0.65%) Bitbucket
14 10 (0.65%) Cypress.io
14 10 (0.65%) JUnit
14 10 (0.65%) REST Assured
General
1 579 (37.65%) Social Skills
2 420 (27.31%) Finance
3 318 (20.68%) Analytical Skills
4 144 (9.36%) Public Sector
5 128 (8.32%) Banking
6 80 (5.20%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (3.19%) Presentation Skills
8 41 (2.67%) Manufacturing
9 35 (2.28%) Influencing Skills
9 35 (2.28%) Pharmaceutical
10 30 (1.95%) Aerospace
11 29 (1.89%) Telecoms
12 28 (1.82%) Electronics
12 28 (1.82%) Marketing
13 27 (1.76%) Front Office
13 27 (1.76%) Military
14 23 (1.50%) Investment Banking
14 23 (1.50%) Legal
15 21 (1.37%) Billing
15 21 (1.37%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 309 (20.09%) Analyst
2 160 (10.40%) Senior
3 140 (9.10%) Business Analyst
4 134 (8.71%) Consultant
5 129 (8.39%) Lead
6 120 (7.80%) Developer
7 89 (5.79%) Architect
8 73 (4.75%) Data Analyst
9 66 (4.29%) Data Engineer
10 53 (3.45%) Software Engineer
11 49 (3.19%) Tester
12 45 (2.93%) Senior Analyst
13 43 (2.80%) SAP Consultant
14 42 (2.73%) Project Manager
15 37 (2.41%) Test Analyst
16 35 (2.28%) Senior Developer
16 35 (2.28%) Test Manager
17 29 (1.89%) Data Scientist
17 29 (1.89%) Solutions Architect
18 27 (1.76%) Embedded Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (6.50%) REST
2 78 (5.07%) JSON
3 57 (3.71%) XML
4 50 (3.25%) Oracle Fusion
5 41 (2.67%) Middleware
5 41 (2.67%) OAuth
6 40 (2.60%) SOAP
7 37 (2.41%) Node.js
7 37 (2.41%) PySpark
8 33 (2.15%) RESTful
9 31 (2.02%) .NET
10 28 (1.82%) Kafka
10 28 (1.82%) Playwright
11 26 (1.69%) PyTorch
12 25 (1.63%) Swagger
12 25 (1.63%) Web Services
13 24 (1.56%) SAP Fiori
14 23 (1.50%) JWT
14 23 (1.50%) TensorFlow
15 22 (1.43%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 86 (5.59%) Legacy Systems
2 60 (3.90%) Data Structures
3 58 (3.77%) Onboarding
4 54 (3.51%) Product Ownership
5 46 (2.99%) Management Information System
6 38 (2.47%) Cloud Native
7 31 (2.02%) Data Centre
8 28 (1.82%) Algorithms
9 25 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
9 25 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
10 21 (1.37%) FPGA
11 20 (1.30%) Life Science
12 18 (1.17%) Derivative
13 17 (1.11%) Operational Technology
14 16 (1.04%) Replication
14 16 (1.04%) SCADA
15 14 (0.91%) Distributed Systems
15 14 (0.91%) Embedded Systems
15 14 (0.91%) Hybrid Cloud
16 13 (0.85%) PCIe
Operating Systems
1 94 (6.11%) Linux
2 75 (4.88%) Windows
3 31 (2.02%) Unix
4 11 (0.72%) Android
5 6 (0.39%) Embedded Linux
6 5 (0.33%) Windows Server
6 5 (0.33%) zOS
7 4 (0.26%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.13%) Debian
8 2 (0.13%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.13%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.065%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.065%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 412 (26.79%) Agile
2 345 (22.43%) Problem-Solving
3 343 (22.30%) Migration
4 271 (17.62%) DevOps
5 257 (16.71%) CI/CD
6 255 (16.58%) Data Validation
7 249 (16.19%) Stakeholder Management
8 219 (14.24%) Analytics
9 190 (12.35%) Data Modelling
10 185 (12.03%) Test Automation
11 184 (11.96%) Data Migration
12 182 (11.83%) User Acceptance Testing
13 164 (10.66%) AI
14 161 (10.47%) ETL
15 160 (10.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 144 (9.36%) Data Governance
17 142 (9.23%) Business Intelligence
18 137 (8.91%) Data Analysis
19 136 (8.84%) Continuous Improvement
20 128 (8.32%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 388 (25.23%) SQL
2 331 (21.52%) Python
3 97 (6.31%) JavaScript
4 88 (5.72%) Java
5 64 (4.16%) C#
6 52 (3.38%) PL/SQL
7 49 (3.19%) C++
8 47 (3.06%) PowerShell
9 44 (2.86%) Bash
10 39 (2.54%) C
11 32 (2.08%) TypeScript
12 23 (1.50%) R
13 16 (1.04%) Groovy
13 16 (1.04%) Shell Script
14 14 (0.91%) Ada
14 14 (0.91%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 14 (0.91%) Scala
15 12 (0.78%) Bicep
16 11 (0.72%) T-SQL
17 9 (0.59%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 343 (22.30%) Security Cleared
2 252 (16.38%) SC Cleared
3 151 (9.82%) Degree
4 61 (3.97%) Computer Science Degree
5 50 (3.25%) BPSS Clearance
6 38 (2.47%) DV Cleared
7 36 (2.34%) Master's Degree
8 30 (1.95%) ISTQB
9 27 (1.76%) PMI Certification
10 23 (1.50%) AWS Certification
11 19 (1.24%) PMP
12 16 (1.04%) CBAP
13 14 (0.91%) Cisco Certification
13 14 (0.91%) Oracle Certification
14 11 (0.72%) Azure Certification
15 10 (0.65%) OCA
16 9 (0.59%) CCIE
16 9 (0.59%) CISSP
16 9 (0.59%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 9 (0.59%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 202 (13.13%) Data Quality
2 196 (12.74%) QA
3 86 (5.59%) GDPR
4 63 (4.10%) NIST
5 44 (2.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 34 (2.21%) Accessibility
7 19 (1.24%) GxP
8 18 (1.17%) IFRS
9 15 (0.98%) IFRS 17
10 14 (0.91%) Def Stans
11 13 (0.85%) EU AI Act
12 11 (0.72%) PCI DSS
13 10 (0.65%) GMP
13 10 (0.65%) MiFID
13 10 (0.65%) MISRA
13 10 (0.65%) NCSC
13 10 (0.65%) SLA
14 9 (0.59%) COBIT
14 9 (0.59%) PMO
14 9 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 56 (3.64%) Docker
2 45 (2.93%) Active Directory
3 25 (1.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (1.43%) Firmware
5 11 (0.72%) VMware NSX
6 8 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.26%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 4 (0.26%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.26%) vSphere
9 3 (0.20%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.20%) KVM
9 3 (0.20%) 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 (0.065%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 74 (4.81%) Kubernetes
2 61 (3.97%) Terraform
3 45 (2.93%) Ansible
4 19 (1.24%) Single Sign-On
5 15 (0.98%) Microsoft Intune
6 14 (0.91%) Kibana
6 14 (0.91%) Puppet
7 11 (0.72%) SCCM
8 10 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 10 (0.65%) Grafana
9 7 (0.46%) HP SiteScope
9 7 (0.46%) Nmap
9 7 (0.46%) SCOM
10 6 (0.39%) Nessus
11 5 (0.33%) Prometheus
11 5 (0.33%) RSA Archer
12 4 (0.26%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 3 (0.20%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.20%) HP ALM
13 3 (0.20%) OMEGAMON
Vendors
1 197 (12.81%) Microsoft
2 156 (10.14%) Oracle
3 130 (8.45%) SAP
4 70 (4.55%) Databricks
5 63 (4.10%) ServiceNow
6 42 (2.73%) Cisco
7 39 (2.54%) Google
8 37 (2.41%) Salesforce
9 35 (2.28%) Splunk
10 30 (1.95%) VMware
11 25 (1.63%) Workday
12 19 (1.24%) IBM
12 19 (1.24%) MuleSoft
13 17 (1.11%) Murex
14 15 (0.98%) Palo Alto
15 13 (0.85%) Informatica
16 12 (0.78%) Adobe
16 12 (0.78%) Avaloq
16 12 (0.78%) OneTrust
16 12 (0.78%) Sage