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

6 months to
13 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 77 123
Rank change year-on-year +34 +46 +26
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,206 888 795
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.67% 3.06% 1.86%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.54% 3.37% 2.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,333 520 389
10th Percentile £325 £343 £325
25th Percentile £400 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £528 £513
Median % change year-on-year -8.06% +2.93% -6.82%
75th Percentile £588 £627 £600
90th Percentile £700 £703 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £452 £513 £500
% change year-on-year -11.71% +2.50% +1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 134 58 165
10th Percentile £17.23 £21.57 £25.26
25th Percentile £33.23 £38.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £63.75 £55.52 £61.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.82% -8.98% -3.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £74.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £76.94
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.63 £63.75
% change year-on-year +12.80% -9.61% +1.96%

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 39,805 26,361 36,876
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.33% 90.96% 86.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,996 16,941 23,723
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £516 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.13% -1.71% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £626 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £479 £500
% change year-on-year +2.71% -4.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,368 1,073 2,431
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.41 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.90 £18.38 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.60 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +48.60% -21.64% +1.39%
75th Percentile £67.31 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.78 £38.00
% change year-on-year +74.59% -32.17% +8.57%

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 13 May 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 13 May 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 13 May 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 +33 1,923 £492 -8.47% 856
UK excluding London +23 1,026 £452 -11.71% 621
London +55 930 £501 -9.00% 318
Work from Home +56 660 £485 -3.10% 391
North of England +41 265 £425 -5.56% 136
Midlands +30 230 £481 +1.26% 93
South East -5 220 £500 - 180
West Midlands +23 168 £475 - 52
North West +30 162 £414 -5.31% 86
East of England +8 117 £500 +11.11% 80
South West -11 105 £488 -15.22% 96
Yorkshire +19 93 £451 +8.03% 39
Scotland +50 67 £400 -12.33% 31
East Midlands +7 58 £525 +4.06% 41
Wales +8 21 £455 +193.55% 18
North East -12 13 £450 -28.00% 12
Northern Ireland +11 12 £400 -32.20% 8

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 90 (4.08%) Confluence
2 41 (1.86%) Apache Airflow
2 41 (1.86%) Apache Spark
3 38 (1.72%) SAS
4 20 (0.91%) Apache
4 20 (0.91%) SharePoint
5 12 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
6 11 (0.50%) ArcGIS
7 9 (0.41%) Appian
7 9 (0.41%) Jupyter
8 8 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.18%) CMS
12 3 (0.14%) CICS
12 3 (0.14%) Oracle Self-Service HR
12 3 (0.14%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.091%) Apache Pulsar
13 2 (0.091%) Exchange Server 2013
13 2 (0.091%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 143 (6.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 31 (1.41%) MS Visio
3 30 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (0.95%) Spreadsheet
5 19 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 15 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
7 7 (0.32%) CATIA
7 7 (0.32%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.14%) LaTeX
8 3 (0.14%) Notion
9 2 (0.091%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.091%) EPLAN
9 2 (0.091%) Simulink
9 2 (0.091%) Sketch
10 1 (0.045%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.045%) CANalyzer
10 1 (0.045%) MicroStation
10 1 (0.045%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.045%) UXPin
10 1 (0.045%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 106 (4.81%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (1.63%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.68%) Teamcenter
4 14 (0.63%) Oracle General Ledger
5 13 (0.59%) Oracle Payables
5 13 (0.59%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 12 (0.54%) Workday HCM
7 10 (0.45%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.41%) Oracle EBS R12
8 9 (0.41%) SAP ERP
9 8 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
9 8 (0.36%) Oracle Receivables
10 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
10 7 (0.32%) NetSuite
10 7 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
11 6 (0.27%) Oracle Financials
11 6 (0.27%) Sage X3
11 6 (0.27%) SAP Business One
12 5 (0.23%) Oracle E-Business Tax
12 5 (0.23%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 432 (19.58%) Azure
2 279 (12.65%) AWS
3 223 (10.11%) Power Platform
4 111 (5.03%) Azure DevOps
5 109 (4.94%) GCP
6 90 (4.08%) GitHub
7 64 (2.90%) Snowflake
8 62 (2.81%) Serverless
9 56 (2.54%) Azure Data Factory
9 56 (2.54%) Entra ID
9 56 (2.54%) SaaS
10 55 (2.49%) Amazon S3
11 48 (2.18%) OCI
12 47 (2.13%) GitHub Actions
13 39 (1.77%) Microsoft 365
14 38 (1.72%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 33 (1.50%) AWS Lambda
16 31 (1.41%) AWS CloudFormation
17 30 (1.36%) dbt
18 25 (1.13%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 83 (3.76%) Firewall
2 56 (2.54%) Network Security
3 40 (1.81%) VLAN
4 34 (1.54%) TCP/IP
5 29 (1.31%) DNS
5 29 (1.31%) VPN
6 26 (1.18%) WAN
7 23 (1.04%) Ethernet
8 18 (0.82%) LAN
9 17 (0.77%) Wireless
10 16 (0.73%) SAN
11 14 (0.63%) BGP
11 14 (0.63%) OSPF
11 14 (0.63%) SD-WAN
12 13 (0.59%) HTTP
13 12 (0.54%) NAS
13 12 (0.54%) Wi-Fi
14 11 (0.50%) Cisco ISE
15 10 (0.45%) Internet
15 10 (0.45%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 211 (9.56%) Power BI
2 114 (5.17%) Data Warehouse
3 99 (4.49%) Metadata
4 77 (3.49%) SQL Server
5 74 (3.35%) Tableau
6 60 (2.72%) PostgreSQL
7 57 (2.58%) Data Lake
8 47 (2.13%) Relational Database
9 30 (1.36%) NoSQL
10 29 (1.31%) Big Data
11 28 (1.27%) Amazon Redshift
12 25 (1.13%) Delta Lake
12 25 (1.13%) Oracle Reports
13 23 (1.04%) Oracle Database
13 23 (1.04%) Power Query
13 23 (1.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 21 (0.95%) Azure SQL Database
14 21 (0.95%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 20 (0.91%) BigQuery
16 19 (0.86%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 203 (9.20%) JIRA
2 126 (5.71%) Git
3 83 (3.76%) Jenkins
4 55 (2.49%) Selenium
5 54 (2.45%) GitLab
6 46 (2.09%) Postman
7 41 (1.86%) JMeter
8 32 (1.45%) JUnit
9 26 (1.18%) Cucumber
10 25 (1.13%) Rational DOORS
10 25 (1.13%) WebDriver
11 16 (0.73%) MLflow
12 15 (0.68%) Eclipse
12 15 (0.68%) Visual Studio
13 14 (0.63%) Rational Rhapsody
14 12 (0.54%) Bitbucket
14 12 (0.54%) REST Assured
15 11 (0.50%) Gatling
16 9 (0.41%) Gradle
16 9 (0.41%) Maven
General
1 684 (31.01%) Social Skills
2 654 (29.65%) Finance
3 415 (18.81%) Analytical Skills
4 187 (8.48%) Public Sector
5 177 (8.02%) Banking
6 119 (5.39%) Documentation Skills
7 76 (3.45%) Manufacturing
8 60 (2.72%) Aerospace
9 48 (2.18%) Organisational Skills
9 48 (2.18%) Pharmaceutical
10 45 (2.04%) Retail
11 44 (1.99%) Presentation Skills
12 38 (1.72%) Legal
13 36 (1.63%) Influencing Skills
14 32 (1.45%) General Ledger
14 32 (1.45%) Marketing
15 31 (1.41%) Telecoms
16 30 (1.36%) Front Office
17 29 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 29 (1.31%) Military
Job Titles
1 416 (18.86%) Analyst
2 232 (10.52%) Lead
3 192 (8.70%) Senior
4 185 (8.39%) Business Analyst
5 175 (7.93%) Data Engineer
6 155 (7.03%) Consultant
7 139 (6.30%) Architect
8 116 (5.26%) Developer
9 115 (5.21%) Data Analyst
10 84 (3.81%) Project Manager
11 57 (2.58%) Tester
12 48 (2.18%) Test Engineer
13 47 (2.13%) Software Engineer
14 46 (2.09%) Senior Analyst
15 45 (2.04%) Network Engineer
16 40 (1.81%) Systems Engineer
16 40 (1.81%) Technical Analyst
16 40 (1.81%) Test Manager
17 39 (1.77%) Security Engineer
18 37 (1.68%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 117 (5.30%) REST
2 77 (3.49%) JSON
3 69 (3.13%) Kafka
4 57 (2.58%) Oracle Fusion
5 53 (2.40%) Middleware
6 49 (2.22%) OAuth
7 45 (2.04%) PySpark
8 40 (1.81%) XML
9 38 (1.72%) Swagger
10 36 (1.63%) SOAP
11 33 (1.50%) .NET
12 32 (1.45%) Node.js
12 32 (1.45%) RESTful
13 30 (1.36%) Pandas
13 30 (1.36%) Web Services
14 28 (1.27%) Playwright
14 28 (1.27%) PyTorch
15 27 (1.22%) Spring
16 25 (1.13%) OpenAPI
16 25 (1.13%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 122 (5.53%) Legacy Systems
2 118 (5.35%) Data Structures
3 111 (5.03%) Onboarding
4 94 (4.26%) Product Ownership
5 80 (3.63%) Cloud Native
6 75 (3.40%) Data Centre
7 57 (2.58%) Management Information System
8 41 (1.86%) Distributed Systems
9 36 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
10 34 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
11 28 (1.27%) Operational Technology
12 27 (1.22%) Replication
12 27 (1.22%) SCADA
13 26 (1.18%) Hybrid Cloud
13 26 (1.18%) NHS
13 26 (1.18%) Virtual Team
14 25 (1.13%) Life Science
15 24 (1.09%) Public Cloud
15 24 (1.09%) Reference Data
16 22 (1.00%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 106 (4.81%) Windows
2 92 (4.17%) Linux
3 31 (1.41%) Unix
4 16 (0.73%) Windows Server
5 11 (0.50%) Android
6 9 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 6 (0.27%) Embedded Linux
7 6 (0.27%) VMS
8 5 (0.23%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.23%) zOS
9 4 (0.18%) SUSE
9 4 (0.18%) Windows 10
10 3 (0.14%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.091%) Debian
12 1 (0.045%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.045%) HPUX
12 1 (0.045%) pSOS
12 1 (0.045%) Solaris
12 1 (0.045%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.045%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 604 (27.38%) Migration
2 437 (19.81%) Agile
3 419 (18.99%) Problem-Solving
4 375 (17.00%) Data Validation
5 370 (16.77%) Stakeholder Management
6 362 (16.41%) Data Migration
7 348 (15.78%) CI/CD
8 344 (15.59%) Data Modelling
9 323 (14.64%) User Acceptance Testing
10 322 (14.60%) Analytics
11 295 (13.37%) ETL
12 266 (12.06%) DevOps
13 261 (11.83%) Test Automation
14 256 (11.60%) Business Intelligence
15 238 (10.79%) AI
16 236 (10.70%) Continuous Improvement
17 228 (10.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 217 (9.84%) Data Governance
19 197 (8.93%) Data Pipeline
20 196 (8.88%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 523 (23.71%) SQL
2 397 (18.00%) Python
3 103 (4.67%) Java
4 59 (2.67%) C#
5 52 (2.36%) C++
6 47 (2.13%) PowerShell
7 46 (2.09%) C
8 44 (1.99%) Bash
9 42 (1.90%) JavaScript
10 31 (1.41%) TypeScript
11 28 (1.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 27 (1.22%) PL/SQL
12 27 (1.22%) R
13 26 (1.18%) Bicep
14 20 (0.91%) Ada
14 20 (0.91%) Scala
15 19 (0.86%) Apex Code
16 15 (0.68%) MATLAB
17 12 (0.54%) T-SQL
17 12 (0.54%) VBA
Qualifications
1 405 (18.36%) Security Cleared
2 294 (13.33%) SC Cleared
3 176 (7.98%) Degree
4 56 (2.54%) BPSS Clearance
5 47 (2.13%) Computer Science Degree
6 34 (1.54%) PMI Certification
7 33 (1.50%) DV Cleared
8 30 (1.36%) Cisco Certification
9 28 (1.27%) Master's Degree
9 28 (1.27%) PMP
10 24 (1.09%) CCNP
11 18 (0.82%) CISSP
11 18 (0.82%) ISTQB
12 15 (0.68%) ACCA
12 15 (0.68%) CBAP
13 13 (0.59%) AWS Certification
13 13 (0.59%) Azure Certification
13 13 (0.59%) CIMA
13 13 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
14 12 (0.54%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 387 (17.54%) Data Quality
2 285 (12.92%) QA
3 119 (5.39%) GDPR
4 68 (3.08%) NIST
5 60 (2.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 33 (1.50%) Accessibility
7 29 (1.31%) SLA
8 27 (1.22%) GxP
9 25 (1.13%) IFRS
10 24 (1.09%) PMO
11 20 (0.91%) IFRS 17
12 18 (0.82%) GMP
12 18 (0.82%) GRC
12 18 (0.82%) HL7
13 16 (0.73%) Def Stans
14 14 (0.63%) MiFID
15 13 (0.59%) ISO 20022
15 13 (0.59%) NIST 800
15 13 (0.59%) PCI DSS
16 12 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 79 (3.58%) Docker
2 51 (2.31%) Active Directory
3 43 (1.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.04%) Firmware
5 18 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
6 17 (0.77%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.63%) VMware ESXi
7 14 (0.63%) VMware NSX
8 10 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
8 10 (0.45%) vSphere
9 5 (0.23%) NFS
10 4 (0.18%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 3 (0.14%) Embedded Firmware
11 3 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.091%) Ceph
12 2 (0.091%) KVM
12 2 (0.091%) OpenAM
12 2 (0.091%) OpenDJ
12 2 (0.091%) OpenIDM
Systems Management
1 122 (5.53%) Kubernetes
2 96 (4.35%) Terraform
3 43 (1.95%) Prometheus
4 41 (1.86%) Grafana
5 38 (1.72%) Ansible
6 30 (1.36%) Single Sign-On
7 16 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
8 12 (0.54%) FortiGate
9 11 (0.50%) Kibana
10 10 (0.45%) Puppet
11 9 (0.41%) SCCM
12 6 (0.27%) Nessus
12 6 (0.27%) vCenter Server
13 5 (0.23%) CASB
13 5 (0.23%) vMotion
14 4 (0.18%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.18%) Failover Clustering
14 4 (0.18%) Istio
14 4 (0.18%) VxRail
15 3 (0.14%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 301 (13.64%) Microsoft
2 193 (8.75%) SAP
3 186 (8.43%) Oracle
4 102 (4.62%) Databricks
5 71 (3.22%) ServiceNow
6 69 (3.13%) Salesforce
7 53 (2.40%) VMware
8 50 (2.27%) Cisco
9 47 (2.13%) Google
10 42 (1.90%) Splunk
11 32 (1.45%) Informatica
12 27 (1.22%) Palo Alto
13 26 (1.18%) Sage
14 25 (1.13%) IBM
14 25 (1.13%) MuleSoft
15 24 (1.09%) Workday
16 22 (1.00%) CyberArk
17 20 (0.91%) OpenAI
18 19 (0.86%) IFS
19 18 (0.82%) Fortinet