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

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 66 115
Rank change year-on-year +34 +49 +33
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,030 1,214 791
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.55% 3.68% 2.05%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.57% 4.06% 2.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,792 696 389
10th Percentile £333 £328 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £622 £588
90th Percentile £700 £688 £652
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -7.50% +5.26% -7.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 189 88 105
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £26.90 £41.25 £51.25
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £72.66 £67.00 £71.50
90th Percentile £82.30 £75.00 £76.12
UK excluding London median hourly rate £54.25 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -16.54% - -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 46,152 29,871 33,024
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 90.49% 85.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,085 18,553 20,430
10th Percentile £325 £300 £311
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,056 1,793 1,507
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.23 £14.70
25th Percentile £17.44 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.92%
75th Percentile £67.50 £44.78 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.50 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.03 £22.58 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.32% -47.50% +7.50%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 +30 2,601 £500 -2.44% 2,711
UK excluding London +27 1,377 £463 -7.50% 1,764
London +40 1,287 £525 +0.96% 1,260
Work from Home +28 841 £500 - 2,005
North of England +39 336 £450 +5.32% 274
South East +2 332 £501 -0.74% 460
Midlands +33 300 £473 -0.42% 269
West Midlands +27 211 £463 -2.53% 183
North West +22 167 £450 +5.88% 154
Yorkshire +43 148 £461 -2.89% 78
East of England -5 142 £478 -4.40% 248
South West +13 139 £525 -4.55% 257
Scotland +38 121 £430 -15.02% 194
East Midlands +24 85 £490 -2.00% 85
North East -30 26 £425 -5.56% 45
Wales -6 24 £363 -3.33% 50
Northern Ireland +3 4 £363 -40.33% 45
Channel Islands -4 1 - - 1

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 (2.74%) Confluence
2 67 (2.21%) Apache Airflow
3 62 (2.05%) SharePoint
4 53 (1.75%) SAS
5 43 (1.42%) Apache Spark
6 31 (1.02%) Apache
7 19 (0.63%) Microsoft Exchange
8 15 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
9 12 (0.40%) CMS
10 10 (0.33%) Jupyter
11 9 (0.30%) SharePoint 2013
12 7 (0.23%) Palantir Foundry
12 7 (0.23%) Sitecore CMS
13 6 (0.20%) WebLogic
14 5 (0.17%) ArcGIS
14 5 (0.17%) OpenStack
14 5 (0.17%) Tuxedo
15 4 (0.13%) FactoryTalk
15 4 (0.13%) Headless CMS
15 4 (0.13%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 215 (7.10%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
3 40 (1.32%) MS Visio
4 37 (1.22%) Spreadsheet
5 31 (1.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 15 (0.50%) AutoCAD
7 10 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
7 10 (0.33%) Navisworks
7 10 (0.33%) Revit
8 9 (0.30%) ProjectWise
9 8 (0.26%) CATIA
10 6 (0.20%) Simulink
11 4 (0.13%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.066%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.066%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.066%) Windchill
13 1 (0.033%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.033%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.033%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.033%) Trello
Business Applications
1 117 (3.86%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.59%) Oracle EBS
3 16 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
4 14 (0.46%) SAP SD
5 13 (0.43%) NetSuite
5 13 (0.43%) SAP FI
5 13 (0.43%) Teamcenter
5 13 (0.43%) Workday HCM
6 11 (0.36%) Aladdin
6 11 (0.36%) iTrent
6 11 (0.36%) SAP MDG
6 11 (0.36%) SAP MM
7 10 (0.33%) SAP HCM
8 9 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.30%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.30%) SAP CO
8 9 (0.30%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.30%) SAP PS
9 8 (0.26%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 621 (20.50%) Azure
2 347 (11.45%) AWS
3 303 (10.00%) Power Platform
4 183 (6.04%) Azure DevOps
5 136 (4.49%) GCP
5 136 (4.49%) GitHub
6 108 (3.56%) Snowflake
7 88 (2.90%) Entra ID
8 76 (2.51%) Azure Data Factory
9 73 (2.41%) GitHub Actions
10 65 (2.15%) Serverless
11 61 (2.01%) Microsoft 365
12 60 (1.98%) SaaS
13 55 (1.82%) dbt
14 54 (1.78%) Amazon S3
15 44 (1.45%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 39 (1.29%) SuccessFactors
17 35 (1.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 35 (1.16%) Azure Monitor
18 33 (1.09%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 115 (3.80%) Firewall
2 72 (2.38%) DNS
3 68 (2.24%) VLAN
4 65 (2.15%) Network Security
5 55 (1.82%) VPN
6 45 (1.49%) BGP
6 45 (1.49%) TCP/IP
7 43 (1.42%) WAN
8 35 (1.16%) DHCP
9 27 (0.89%) OSPF
10 26 (0.86%) VXLAN
11 25 (0.83%) Wireless
12 22 (0.73%) Ethernet VPN
12 22 (0.73%) Internet
12 22 (0.73%) LAN
12 22 (0.73%) SD-WAN
13 21 (0.69%) HTTP
13 21 (0.69%) SAN
14 20 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
15 19 (0.63%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 280 (9.24%) Power BI
2 170 (5.61%) Data Warehouse
3 131 (4.32%) Metadata
4 120 (3.96%) Relational Database
5 108 (3.56%) SQL Server
6 96 (3.17%) PostgreSQL
7 83 (2.74%) Data Lake
8 74 (2.44%) Tableau
9 42 (1.39%) Delta Lake
9 42 (1.39%) Oracle Database
10 38 (1.25%) MongoDB
11 37 (1.22%) Big Data
12 33 (1.09%) NoSQL
12 33 (1.09%) Power Query
13 32 (1.06%) BigQuery
13 32 (1.06%) Oracle Reports
14 31 (1.02%) Azure SQL Database
14 31 (1.02%) MySQL
15 30 (0.99%) Redis
15 30 (0.99%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 271 (8.94%) JIRA
2 211 (6.96%) Git
3 104 (3.43%) Jenkins
4 90 (2.97%) GitLab
5 79 (2.61%) Selenium
6 43 (1.42%) Postman
7 35 (1.16%) JMeter
8 23 (0.76%) Cucumber
9 22 (0.73%) WebDriver
10 21 (0.69%) Rational DOORS
11 19 (0.63%) JUnit
12 16 (0.53%) Eclipse
13 15 (0.50%) Cypress.io
13 15 (0.50%) Gatling
13 15 (0.50%) REST Assured
13 15 (0.50%) Zephyr
14 14 (0.46%) Oracle Forms
15 13 (0.43%) Rational Rhapsody
16 12 (0.40%) Maven
16 12 (0.40%) Visual Studio
General
1 861 (28.42%) Social Skills
2 857 (28.28%) Finance
3 597 (19.70%) Analytical Skills
4 261 (8.61%) Public Sector
5 249 (8.22%) Banking
6 146 (4.82%) Documentation Skills
7 116 (3.83%) Manufacturing
8 98 (3.23%) Retail
9 69 (2.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 67 (2.21%) Automotive
11 65 (2.15%) Telecoms
12 59 (1.95%) Organisational Skills
13 56 (1.85%) Pharmaceutical
14 54 (1.78%) Aerospace
15 52 (1.72%) Legal
16 51 (1.68%) Marketing
17 47 (1.55%) Law
18 45 (1.49%) Front Office
19 42 (1.39%) Local Government
20 38 (1.25%) Billing
Job Titles
1 538 (17.76%) Analyst
2 346 (11.42%) Senior
3 272 (8.98%) Lead
4 243 (8.02%) Consultant
5 242 (7.99%) Business Analyst
6 237 (7.82%) Data Engineer
7 189 (6.24%) Developer
8 157 (5.18%) Data Analyst
9 155 (5.12%) Architect
10 110 (3.63%) Test Engineer
11 77 (2.54%) Tester
12 75 (2.48%) Network Engineer
13 65 (2.15%) Systems Engineer
14 62 (2.05%) Administrator
15 60 (1.98%) Project Manager
16 59 (1.95%) Senior Data Engineer
17 57 (1.88%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 55 (1.82%) Senior Analyst
19 50 (1.65%) Technical Analyst
20 49 (1.62%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 187 (6.17%) REST
2 168 (5.54%) Terraform
3 100 (3.30%) JSON
4 92 (3.04%) PySpark
5 84 (2.77%) XML
6 77 (2.54%) Middleware
7 75 (2.48%) Kafka
8 53 (1.75%) Playwright
9 51 (1.68%) .NET
10 47 (1.55%) Oracle Fusion
10 47 (1.55%) SOAP
11 45 (1.49%) pytest
12 44 (1.45%) Web Services
13 42 (1.39%) OAuth
14 38 (1.25%) Pandas
14 38 (1.25%) RESTful
15 37 (1.22%) Spring
16 33 (1.09%) Spring Boot
17 29 (0.96%) React
17 29 (0.96%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 162 (5.35%) Data Structures
2 161 (5.31%) Onboarding
3 132 (4.36%) Cloud Native
4 123 (4.06%) Legacy Systems
5 113 (3.73%) Product Ownership
6 111 (3.66%) Management Information System
7 87 (2.87%) Data Centre
8 56 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
9 51 (1.68%) Distributed Systems
10 49 (1.62%) AI Agents
11 45 (1.49%) Analytical Mindset
12 44 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
12 44 (1.45%) Life Science
13 42 (1.39%) SCADA
14 38 (1.25%) Replication
15 37 (1.22%) NHS
16 36 (1.19%) Operational Technology
17 33 (1.09%) Algorithms
18 32 (1.06%) CMDB
19 31 (1.02%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 193 (6.37%) Windows
2 131 (4.32%) Linux
3 77 (2.54%) Windows Server
4 52 (1.72%) Unix
5 22 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (0.50%) Android
6 15 (0.50%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.36%) Ubuntu
7 11 (0.36%) VMS
8 9 (0.30%) AIX
8 9 (0.30%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.23%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.13%) SUSE
10 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.099%) VxWorks
11 3 (0.099%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.066%) CentOS
12 2 (0.066%) HPUX
12 2 (0.066%) Solaris
12 2 (0.066%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 817 (26.96%) Migration
2 635 (20.96%) Stakeholder Management
3 590 (19.47%) Agile
4 571 (18.84%) CI/CD
5 489 (16.14%) Data Modelling
6 488 (16.11%) User Acceptance Testing
7 482 (15.91%) Analytics
8 481 (15.87%) Data Migration
9 475 (15.68%) Data Validation
10 467 (15.41%) Problem-Solving
11 407 (13.43%) AI
11 407 (13.43%) DevOps
12 386 (12.74%) Continuous Improvement
13 383 (12.64%) Test Automation
14 342 (11.29%) ETL
15 322 (10.63%) Business Intelligence
16 318 (10.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 313 (10.33%) Data Analysis
18 309 (10.20%) Data Pipeline
19 304 (10.03%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 789 (26.04%) SQL
2 617 (20.36%) Python
3 152 (5.02%) Java
4 103 (3.40%) PowerShell
5 67 (2.21%) JavaScript
6 66 (2.18%) C#
7 62 (2.05%) Bash
8 40 (1.32%) C++
8 40 (1.32%) TypeScript
9 32 (1.06%) Apex Code
10 31 (1.02%) PL/SQL
11 30 (0.99%) R
12 28 (0.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 26 (0.86%) Bicep
13 26 (0.86%) C
14 24 (0.79%) Shell Script
15 19 (0.63%) VBA
16 18 (0.59%) T-SQL
17 16 (0.53%) MATLAB
17 16 (0.53%) Scala
Qualifications
1 593 (19.57%) Security Cleared
2 434 (14.32%) SC Cleared
3 194 (6.40%) Degree
4 83 (2.74%) DV Cleared
5 70 (2.31%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.65%) Cisco Certification
7 46 (1.52%) Computer Science Degree
8 41 (1.35%) CCNP
9 29 (0.96%) ACCA
9 29 (0.96%) AWS Certification
9 29 (0.96%) CIMA
10 27 (0.89%) ISTQB
11 24 (0.79%) Azure Certification
12 22 (0.73%) PMI Certification
13 20 (0.66%) PMP
14 19 (0.63%) CCNA
15 17 (0.56%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 17 (0.56%) CISSP
16 15 (0.50%) Master's Degree
16 15 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 619 (20.43%) Data Quality
2 373 (12.31%) QA
3 109 (3.60%) GDPR
4 51 (1.68%) Accessibility
5 42 (1.39%) SLA
6 41 (1.35%) NIST
7 38 (1.25%) GxP
7 38 (1.25%) PMO
8 35 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 23 (0.76%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 20 (0.66%) GRC
10 20 (0.66%) ISO 20022
11 17 (0.56%) GMP
11 17 (0.56%) WCAG
12 14 (0.46%) NCSC
13 12 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.40%) Def Stans
14 11 (0.36%) IFRS
14 11 (0.36%) MiFID
15 10 (0.33%) HL7
System Software
1 113 (3.73%) Docker
2 101 (3.33%) Active Directory
3 86 (2.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
5 34 (1.12%) VMware ESXi
6 29 (0.96%) Firmware
7 25 (0.83%) Hyper-V
8 23 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
8 23 (0.76%) vSphere
9 14 (0.46%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.17%) KVM
12 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.099%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.066%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.066%) OpenSSH
14 2 (0.066%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.033%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.033%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 1 (0.033%) NFS
Systems Management
1 145 (4.79%) Kubernetes
2 91 (3.00%) Ansible
3 42 (1.39%) Grafana
4 34 (1.12%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
6 26 (0.86%) FortiGate
7 19 (0.63%) SCCM
8 17 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.50%) HP ALM
9 15 (0.50%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.33%) Failover Clustering
10 10 (0.33%) VxRail
11 9 (0.30%) Argo
12 7 (0.23%) Functional Safety
12 7 (0.23%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.20%) Control-M
13 6 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
14 5 (0.17%) systemd
14 5 (0.17%) vMotion
14 5 (0.17%) vRealize
Vendors
1 459 (15.15%) Microsoft
2 265 (8.75%) SAP
3 258 (8.51%) Oracle
4 167 (5.51%) Databricks
5 103 (3.40%) Salesforce
6 98 (3.23%) VMware
7 82 (2.71%) Cisco
8 77 (2.54%) ServiceNow
9 52 (1.72%) Google
10 50 (1.65%) Workday
11 44 (1.45%) IBM
12 35 (1.16%) Informatica
13 31 (1.02%) Fortinet
14 30 (0.99%) Zscaler
15 29 (0.96%) Juniper
16 28 (0.92%) Palo Alto
17 22 (0.73%) MuleSoft
17 22 (0.73%) Splunk
18 17 (0.56%) Ariba
18 17 (0.56%) HP