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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 68 108
Rank change year-on-year +37 +40 +42
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,178 1,220 822
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.83% 3.68% 2.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.89% 4.07% 2.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,874 695 417
10th Percentile £340 £350 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -7.41%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £591
90th Percentile £701 £695 £665
UK excluding London median daily rate £472 £500 £485
% change year-on-year -5.65% +3.15% -6.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 204 88 95
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £26.94 £41.25 £46.88
Median hourly rate £54.25 £62.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.20% - -7.41%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -11.54% +4.00% -9.75%

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 46,102 30,004 32,672
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 90.46% 86.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,718 18,629 19,703
10th Percentile £325 £294 £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 £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,326 1,885 1,303
10th Percentile £13.58 £14.33 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -8.31%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.52 £65.00 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £41.25
% change year-on-year +68.43% -46.02% -2.94%

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 9 October 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 9 October 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 9 October 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 2,718 £500 -2.44% 4,561
UK excluding London +40 1,466 £472 -5.65% 2,675
London +40 1,324 £525 - 2,149
Work from Home +28 882 £500 - 1,605
North of England +56 365 £460 +6.98% 444
South East +7 333 £525 +5.00% 657
Midlands +41 299 £461 -3.00% 378
West Midlands +27 213 £451 -11.23% 244
North West +28 185 £472 +11.06% 240
South West +22 177 £525 -4.33% 328
Scotland +50 152 £467 -13.04% 361
Yorkshire +58 150 £463 -2.63% 143
East of England -5 144 £475 -2.56% 390
East Midlands +28 83 £490 +8.89% 133
North East -17 35 £425 -11.92% 61
Wales +1 24 £363 -3.33% 63
Northern Ireland +4 4 £363 -27.50% 84
Channel Islands -5 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 96 (3.02%) Confluence
2 64 (2.01%) Apache Airflow
3 62 (1.95%) SharePoint
4 51 (1.60%) Apache Spark
5 44 (1.38%) SAS
6 43 (1.35%) Apache
7 23 (0.72%) CMS
8 21 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
9 12 (0.38%) Oracle Workflow
10 11 (0.35%) Jupyter
11 9 (0.28%) IIS
11 9 (0.28%) SharePoint 2013
12 8 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
13 7 (0.22%) Sitecore CMS
13 7 (0.22%) WebLogic
14 6 (0.19%) OpenStack
15 5 (0.16%) CICS
15 5 (0.16%) Tomcat
15 5 (0.16%) Tuxedo
16 4 (0.13%) JBoss
Applications
1 208 (6.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (1.48%) Microsoft Office
3 40 (1.26%) MS Visio
4 32 (1.01%) Spreadsheet
5 31 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 17 (0.53%) AutoCAD
7 12 (0.38%) Navisworks
7 12 (0.38%) Revit
8 10 (0.31%) ProjectWise
9 9 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
9 9 (0.28%) Simulink
10 4 (0.13%) CATIA
10 4 (0.13%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.094%) LaTeX
11 3 (0.094%) OrCAD
12 2 (0.063%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.063%) EPLAN
13 1 (0.031%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.031%) Trello
13 1 (0.031%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 115 (3.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.60%) SAP FI
3 17 (0.53%) Workday HCM
4 15 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
4 15 (0.47%) SAP SD
5 14 (0.44%) Integrated Workplace Management System
5 14 (0.44%) SAP HCM
6 13 (0.41%) Aladdin
6 13 (0.41%) NetSuite
6 13 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
7 12 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
7 12 (0.38%) SAP MDG
8 11 (0.35%) SAP MM
8 11 (0.35%) Teamcenter
9 10 (0.31%) iTrent
9 10 (0.31%) SAP CO
9 10 (0.31%) SAP ERP
10 9 (0.28%) SAP Payroll
10 9 (0.28%) SAP PS
11 8 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 611 (19.23%) Azure
2 362 (11.39%) AWS
3 312 (9.82%) Power Platform
4 192 (6.04%) Azure DevOps
5 165 (5.19%) GCP
6 156 (4.91%) GitHub
7 110 (3.46%) Snowflake
8 108 (3.40%) Entra ID
9 80 (2.52%) GitHub Actions
10 74 (2.33%) Azure Data Factory
11 64 (2.01%) SaaS
12 63 (1.98%) Amazon S3
13 61 (1.92%) Serverless
14 60 (1.89%) dbt
14 60 (1.89%) Microsoft 365
15 50 (1.57%) SuccessFactors
16 41 (1.29%) Azure Monitor
17 40 (1.26%) Dynamics 365
18 37 (1.16%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 35 (1.10%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 110 (3.46%) Firewall
2 84 (2.64%) DNS
3 64 (2.01%) VLAN
4 63 (1.98%) VPN
5 61 (1.92%) Network Security
6 55 (1.73%) BGP
6 55 (1.73%) TCP/IP
7 43 (1.35%) WAN
8 37 (1.16%) DHCP
9 34 (1.07%) OSPF
10 30 (0.94%) VXLAN
11 28 (0.88%) Ethernet VPN
12 27 (0.85%) Ethernet
13 25 (0.79%) Wireless
14 23 (0.72%) LAN
15 22 (0.69%) Internet
16 21 (0.66%) SAN
16 21 (0.66%) SD-WAN
16 21 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
17 20 (0.63%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 287 (9.03%) Power BI
2 172 (5.41%) Data Warehouse
3 149 (4.69%) Metadata
4 125 (3.93%) Relational Database
5 108 (3.40%) SQL Server
6 101 (3.18%) PostgreSQL
7 83 (2.61%) Data Lake
8 64 (2.01%) Tableau
9 44 (1.38%) Delta Lake
10 42 (1.32%) MongoDB
11 41 (1.29%) Oracle Database
12 40 (1.26%) Power Query
13 37 (1.16%) BigQuery
13 37 (1.16%) Redis
14 36 (1.13%) Big Data
15 35 (1.10%) NoSQL
16 31 (0.98%) Oracle Reports
17 29 (0.91%) MySQL
18 27 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
19 25 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 282 (8.87%) JIRA
2 240 (7.55%) Git
3 109 (3.43%) Jenkins
4 100 (3.15%) GitLab
5 81 (2.55%) Selenium
6 46 (1.45%) Postman
7 35 (1.10%) JMeter
8 26 (0.82%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.76%) Rational DOORS
10 21 (0.66%) JUnit
11 20 (0.63%) WebDriver
11 20 (0.63%) Zephyr
12 19 (0.60%) REST Assured
13 18 (0.57%) Cypress.io
14 17 (0.53%) Eclipse
14 17 (0.53%) Visual Studio
15 14 (0.44%) Oracle Forms
16 13 (0.41%) Gatling
16 13 (0.41%) TestRail
17 12 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 908 (28.57%) Finance
2 900 (28.32%) Social Skills
3 635 (19.98%) Analytical Skills
4 295 (9.28%) Banking
5 275 (8.65%) Public Sector
6 141 (4.44%) Manufacturing
7 127 (4.00%) Documentation Skills
8 91 (2.86%) Retail
9 76 (2.39%) Automotive
10 75 (2.36%) Telecoms
11 72 (2.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 58 (1.83%) Aerospace
13 57 (1.79%) Legal
13 57 (1.79%) Organisational Skills
14 53 (1.67%) Pharmaceutical
15 50 (1.57%) Marketing
16 47 (1.48%) Billing
16 47 (1.48%) Local Government
17 43 (1.35%) Front Office
18 42 (1.32%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 531 (16.71%) Analyst
2 392 (12.33%) Senior
3 285 (8.97%) Lead
4 264 (8.31%) Consultant
5 259 (8.15%) Data Engineer
6 237 (7.46%) Business Analyst
7 203 (6.39%) Developer
8 169 (5.32%) Architect
8 169 (5.32%) Data Analyst
9 113 (3.56%) Test Engineer
10 82 (2.58%) Network Engineer
11 81 (2.55%) Tester
12 65 (2.05%) Senior Data Engineer
13 64 (2.01%) Administrator
14 59 (1.86%) Senior Analyst
14 59 (1.86%) Systems Engineer
15 58 (1.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 52 (1.64%) Software Engineer
17 46 (1.45%) Project Manager
17 46 (1.45%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 209 (6.58%) REST
2 208 (6.54%) Terraform
3 102 (3.21%) JSON
4 94 (2.96%) PySpark
5 89 (2.80%) Middleware
6 86 (2.71%) XML
7 76 (2.39%) Kafka
8 63 (1.98%) Playwright
9 60 (1.89%) OAuth
10 58 (1.83%) .NET
11 56 (1.76%) Web Services
12 53 (1.67%) pytest
13 52 (1.64%) SOAP
14 49 (1.54%) Oracle Fusion
15 46 (1.45%) OpenID
15 46 (1.45%) RESTful
16 44 (1.38%) OAuth2
17 37 (1.16%) Spring
18 36 (1.13%) FastAPI
19 35 (1.10%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 186 (5.85%) Onboarding
2 176 (5.54%) Data Structures
3 145 (4.56%) Cloud Native
4 129 (4.06%) Management Information System
5 123 (3.87%) Legacy Systems
5 123 (3.87%) Product Ownership
6 99 (3.12%) Data Centre
7 71 (2.23%) Enterprise Software
8 63 (1.98%) AI Agents
8 63 (1.98%) Distributed Systems
9 50 (1.57%) Analytical Mindset
10 46 (1.45%) Life Science
11 43 (1.35%) Algorithms
12 42 (1.32%) Data Protection Act
12 42 (1.32%) Replication
13 41 (1.29%) SCADA
14 40 (1.26%) CMDB
15 36 (1.13%) Operational Technology
16 35 (1.10%) NHS
16 35 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 221 (6.95%) Windows
2 146 (4.59%) Linux
3 91 (2.86%) Windows Server
4 59 (1.86%) Unix
5 22 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.50%) Windows 10
7 13 (0.41%) Android
8 11 (0.35%) AIX
8 11 (0.35%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.25%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.22%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.19%) VMS
11 6 (0.19%) zOS
12 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
12 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.094%) CentOS
13 3 (0.094%) VxWorks
14 2 (0.063%) HPUX
14 2 (0.063%) Solaris
14 2 (0.063%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 851 (26.78%) Migration
2 715 (22.50%) Stakeholder Management
3 646 (20.33%) CI/CD
4 600 (18.88%) Agile
5 513 (16.14%) Data Modelling
6 502 (15.80%) Data Migration
7 500 (15.73%) User Acceptance Testing
8 496 (15.61%) Analytics
9 485 (15.26%) Problem-Solving
10 481 (15.14%) Data Validation
11 453 (14.25%) AI
12 448 (14.10%) Continuous Improvement
13 437 (13.75%) DevOps
14 435 (13.69%) Test Automation
15 355 (11.17%) ETL
16 332 (10.45%) Business Intelligence
17 331 (10.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 325 (10.23%) Data Governance
19 321 (10.10%) Data Analysis
20 306 (9.63%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 842 (26.49%) SQL
2 694 (21.84%) Python
3 154 (4.85%) Java
4 128 (4.03%) PowerShell
5 82 (2.58%) C#
6 80 (2.52%) JavaScript
7 67 (2.11%) Bash
8 51 (1.60%) TypeScript
9 43 (1.35%) C++
10 33 (1.04%) Shell Script
11 32 (1.01%) Bicep
12 31 (0.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 28 (0.88%) PL/SQL
13 28 (0.88%) R
14 26 (0.82%) Apex Code
15 24 (0.76%) C
16 22 (0.69%) Go
17 21 (0.66%) VBA
18 19 (0.60%) T-SQL
19 17 (0.53%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 650 (20.45%) Security Cleared
2 496 (15.61%) SC Cleared
3 222 (6.99%) Degree
4 97 (3.05%) DV Cleared
5 79 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
6 49 (1.54%) Computer Science Degree
7 46 (1.45%) Cisco Certification
8 38 (1.20%) AWS Certification
9 36 (1.13%) CCNP
10 34 (1.07%) ACCA
10 34 (1.07%) CIMA
11 28 (0.88%) ISTQB
12 25 (0.79%) Azure Certification
12 25 (0.79%) CISSP
13 24 (0.76%) PMI Certification
14 22 (0.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 22 (0.69%) PMP
15 19 (0.60%) DBS Check
15 19 (0.60%) Master's Degree
16 15 (0.47%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 673 (21.18%) Data Quality
2 372 (11.71%) QA
3 95 (2.99%) GDPR
4 54 (1.70%) Accessibility
5 50 (1.57%) SLA
6 36 (1.13%) NIST
7 35 (1.10%) GxP
8 34 (1.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 34 (1.07%) PMO
9 24 (0.76%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 23 (0.72%) GRC
11 21 (0.66%) ISO 20022
12 18 (0.57%) WCAG
13 16 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
13 16 (0.50%) GMP
14 14 (0.44%) NCSC
15 12 (0.38%) IFRS
16 11 (0.35%) ISO 19650
17 10 (0.31%) Def Stans
17 10 (0.31%) MiFID
System Software
1 123 (3.87%) Active Directory
2 112 (3.52%) Docker
3 93 (2.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 38 (1.20%) VMware ESXi
5 35 (1.10%) Virtual Machines
6 27 (0.85%) Firmware
7 25 (0.79%) Virtual Desktop
8 24 (0.76%) Hyper-V
9 23 (0.72%) vSphere
10 16 (0.50%) VMware NSX
11 8 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.16%) KVM
13 4 (0.13%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.063%) NFS
14 2 (0.063%) Oracle RAC
14 2 (0.063%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.031%) Embedded Firmware
15 1 (0.031%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.031%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 1 (0.031%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 161 (5.07%) Kubernetes
2 118 (3.71%) Ansible
3 44 (1.38%) Grafana
4 35 (1.10%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
6 26 (0.82%) FortiGate
7 22 (0.69%) SCCM
8 20 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.41%) HP ALM
10 11 (0.35%) Progress Chef
10 11 (0.35%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.31%) Functional Safety
12 9 (0.28%) Argo
12 9 (0.28%) Control-M
13 6 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
13 6 (0.19%) Kibana
13 6 (0.19%) VxRail
14 5 (0.16%) Puppet
14 5 (0.16%) vMotion
14 5 (0.16%) vRealize
Vendors
1 495 (15.58%) Microsoft
2 273 (8.59%) SAP
3 244 (7.68%) Oracle
4 186 (5.85%) Databricks
5 109 (3.43%) VMware
6 100 (3.15%) ServiceNow
7 92 (2.89%) Cisco
8 91 (2.86%) Salesforce
9 77 (2.42%) Google
10 58 (1.83%) Workday
11 53 (1.67%) IBM
12 36 (1.13%) Fortinet
13 34 (1.07%) Informatica
14 32 (1.01%) Palo Alto
15 30 (0.94%) Zscaler
16 29 (0.91%) Juniper
17 24 (0.76%) Splunk
18 23 (0.72%) CyberArk
19 20 (0.63%) Ariba
19 20 (0.63%) MuleSoft