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

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 67 106
Rank change year-on-year +36 +39 +44
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,154 1,239 823
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.75% 3.74% 2.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.80% 4.13% 2.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,844 704 414
10th Percentile £340 £341 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £590
90th Percentile £701 £688 £662
UK excluding London median daily rate £467 £500 £485
% change year-on-year -6.60% +3.15% -5.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 209 87 98
10th Percentile £17.17 £23.20 £28.00
25th Percentile £26.90 £41.25 £47.63
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £63.75
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% +1.96% -3.38%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £66.88
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% - -3.75%

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 46,356 30,019 32,670
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 90.58% 85.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,940 18,640 19,751
10th Percentile £325 £300 £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 £632 £625 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,287 1,869 1,348
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.32 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.17 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £38.72 £25.15 £42.27
Median % change year-on-year +53.96% -40.49% -0.55%
75th Percentile £65.60 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.02 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.86% -48.10% +1.18%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 +31 2,697 £500 -2.44% 4,710
UK excluding London +31 1,449 £467 -6.60% 3,215
London +41 1,314 £525 - 2,117
Work from Home +27 868 £500 - 2,042
North of England +46 360 £459 +6.69% 532
South East +5 331 £525 +5.00% 773
Midlands +37 302 £463 -7.50% 411
West Midlands +29 213 £458 -9.85% 262
North West +25 179 £467 +9.88% 272
South West +15 174 £525 -4.55% 402
Yorkshire +53 152 £463 -2.63% 166
Scotland +47 145 £467 -7.71% 505
East of England -7 140 £475 -5.00% 395
East Midlands +28 86 £489 -4.63% 149
North East -23 34 £425 -11.92% 97
Wales 0 25 £394 +5.00% 122
Northern Ireland +3 4 £363 -33.49% 114
Channel Islands -4 1 - - 3

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 95 (3.01%) Confluence
2 64 (2.03%) Apache Airflow
3 62 (1.97%) SharePoint
4 50 (1.59%) Apache Spark
5 46 (1.46%) SAS
6 42 (1.33%) Apache
7 20 (0.63%) CMS
8 18 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
9 14 (0.44%) Oracle Workflow
10 12 (0.38%) Jupyter
11 9 (0.29%) IIS
11 9 (0.29%) 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%) ArcGIS
15 5 (0.16%) CICS
15 5 (0.16%) Tomcat
15 5 (0.16%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 204 (6.47%) Microsoft Excel
2 48 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
3 39 (1.24%) MS Visio
4 30 (0.95%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 17 (0.54%) AutoCAD
7 12 (0.38%) Navisworks
7 12 (0.38%) Revit
8 10 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
8 10 (0.32%) ProjectWise
9 9 (0.29%) Simulink
10 5 (0.16%) CATIA
10 5 (0.16%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.095%) OrCAD
12 2 (0.063%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.063%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.063%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.032%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.032%) Trello
13 1 (0.032%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 114 (3.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.54%) Workday HCM
3 16 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
3 16 (0.51%) SAP FI
4 15 (0.48%) SAP SD
5 14 (0.44%) Integrated Workplace Management System
5 14 (0.44%) Oracle EBS
5 14 (0.44%) SAP HCM
6 13 (0.41%) NetSuite
6 13 (0.41%) Teamcenter
7 12 (0.38%) Aladdin
7 12 (0.38%) SAP MDG
8 11 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
8 11 (0.35%) SAP MM
9 10 (0.32%) iTrent
9 10 (0.32%) SAP ERP
10 9 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
10 9 (0.29%) SAP CO
10 9 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
10 9 (0.29%) SAP PS
Cloud Services
1 605 (19.18%) Azure
2 351 (11.13%) AWS
3 320 (10.15%) Power Platform
4 186 (5.90%) Azure DevOps
5 161 (5.10%) GCP
6 152 (4.82%) GitHub
7 111 (3.52%) Snowflake
8 101 (3.20%) Entra ID
9 78 (2.47%) GitHub Actions
10 75 (2.38%) Azure Data Factory
11 63 (2.00%) Amazon S3
11 63 (2.00%) Serverless
12 62 (1.97%) Microsoft 365
13 59 (1.87%) SaaS
14 57 (1.81%) dbt
15 45 (1.43%) SuccessFactors
16 41 (1.30%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 39 (1.24%) Dynamics 365
18 36 (1.14%) Azure Monitor
19 35 (1.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 108 (3.42%) Firewall
2 79 (2.50%) DNS
3 61 (1.93%) VLAN
4 59 (1.87%) Network Security
5 57 (1.81%) VPN
6 50 (1.59%) BGP
7 49 (1.55%) TCP/IP
8 43 (1.36%) WAN
9 34 (1.08%) DHCP
10 30 (0.95%) VXLAN
11 29 (0.92%) OSPF
12 27 (0.86%) Ethernet VPN
13 26 (0.82%) Ethernet
13 26 (0.82%) Wireless
14 24 (0.76%) LAN
15 22 (0.70%) Internet
15 22 (0.70%) SD-WAN
15 22 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
16 20 (0.63%) 5G
16 20 (0.63%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 296 (9.38%) Power BI
2 172 (5.45%) Data Warehouse
3 143 (4.53%) Metadata
4 124 (3.93%) Relational Database
5 110 (3.49%) SQL Server
6 101 (3.20%) PostgreSQL
7 86 (2.73%) Data Lake
8 69 (2.19%) Tableau
9 42 (1.33%) MongoDB
10 39 (1.24%) Delta Lake
10 39 (1.24%) Oracle Database
11 38 (1.20%) BigQuery
12 37 (1.17%) Power Query
13 36 (1.14%) Big Data
14 35 (1.11%) Redis
15 34 (1.08%) NoSQL
16 30 (0.95%) Oracle Reports
17 29 (0.92%) MySQL
18 27 (0.86%) Azure SQL Database
19 26 (0.82%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 281 (8.91%) JIRA
2 236 (7.48%) Git
3 106 (3.36%) Jenkins
4 102 (3.23%) GitLab
5 82 (2.60%) Selenium
6 44 (1.40%) Postman
7 35 (1.11%) JMeter
8 27 (0.86%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.76%) Rational DOORS
10 23 (0.73%) JUnit
11 20 (0.63%) REST Assured
11 20 (0.63%) WebDriver
12 19 (0.60%) Zephyr
13 17 (0.54%) Eclipse
13 17 (0.54%) Visual Studio
14 16 (0.51%) Cypress.io
15 14 (0.44%) Gatling
15 14 (0.44%) Oracle Forms
16 13 (0.41%) TestRail
17 12 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 900 (28.54%) Finance
2 896 (28.41%) Social Skills
3 631 (20.01%) Analytical Skills
4 286 (9.07%) Banking
5 270 (8.56%) Public Sector
6 138 (4.38%) Manufacturing
7 132 (4.19%) Documentation Skills
8 94 (2.98%) Retail
9 77 (2.44%) Automotive
10 72 (2.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 71 (2.25%) Telecoms
12 61 (1.93%) Organisational Skills
13 60 (1.90%) Legal
14 57 (1.81%) Aerospace
15 53 (1.68%) Pharmaceutical
16 51 (1.62%) Marketing
17 46 (1.46%) Billing
17 46 (1.46%) Local Government
18 45 (1.43%) Front Office
19 43 (1.36%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 531 (16.84%) Analyst
2 379 (12.02%) Senior
3 284 (9.00%) Lead
4 260 (8.24%) Consultant
5 254 (8.05%) Data Engineer
6 234 (7.42%) Business Analyst
7 207 (6.56%) Developer
8 172 (5.45%) Data Analyst
9 165 (5.23%) Architect
10 113 (3.58%) Test Engineer
11 79 (2.50%) Tester
12 77 (2.44%) Network Engineer
13 66 (2.09%) Senior Data Engineer
14 63 (2.00%) Administrator
15 60 (1.90%) Senior Analyst
16 59 (1.87%) Systems Engineer
17 57 (1.81%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 51 (1.62%) Software Engineer
19 48 (1.52%) Project Manager
20 46 (1.46%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 209 (6.63%) REST
2 198 (6.28%) Terraform
3 102 (3.23%) JSON
4 92 (2.92%) PySpark
5 91 (2.89%) Middleware
6 85 (2.69%) XML
7 75 (2.38%) Kafka
8 62 (1.97%) Playwright
9 59 (1.87%) .NET
10 58 (1.84%) OAuth
11 56 (1.78%) Web Services
12 54 (1.71%) SOAP
13 52 (1.65%) pytest
14 47 (1.49%) Oracle Fusion
15 46 (1.46%) RESTful
16 43 (1.36%) OpenID
17 41 (1.30%) OAuth2
18 38 (1.20%) Pandas
19 36 (1.14%) YAML
20 35 (1.11%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 179 (5.68%) Onboarding
2 171 (5.42%) Data Structures
3 147 (4.66%) Cloud Native
4 124 (3.93%) Legacy Systems
5 122 (3.87%) Management Information System
6 120 (3.80%) Product Ownership
7 96 (3.04%) Data Centre
8 65 (2.06%) Enterprise Software
9 61 (1.93%) AI Agents
9 61 (1.93%) Distributed Systems
10 46 (1.46%) Analytical Mindset
10 46 (1.46%) Life Science
11 44 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
12 42 (1.33%) Algorithms
12 42 (1.33%) SCADA
13 40 (1.27%) Replication
14 36 (1.14%) NHS
14 36 (1.14%) Operational Technology
15 35 (1.11%) CMDB
16 34 (1.08%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 220 (6.98%) Windows
2 140 (4.44%) Linux
3 90 (2.85%) Windows Server
4 60 (1.90%) Unix
5 22 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.51%) Windows 10
7 14 (0.44%) Android
8 11 (0.35%) AIX
8 11 (0.35%) Ubuntu
9 9 (0.29%) Apple iOS
10 8 (0.25%) VMS
11 7 (0.22%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.19%) zOS
13 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
14 3 (0.095%) CentOS
14 3 (0.095%) VxWorks
15 2 (0.063%) HPUX
15 2 (0.063%) Solaris
15 2 (0.063%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 855 (27.11%) Migration
2 704 (22.32%) Stakeholder Management
3 629 (19.94%) CI/CD
4 605 (19.18%) Agile
5 517 (16.39%) Data Modelling
6 509 (16.14%) User Acceptance Testing
7 504 (15.98%) Data Migration
8 499 (15.82%) Analytics
9 485 (15.38%) Problem-Solving
10 483 (15.31%) Data Validation
11 448 (14.20%) AI
12 437 (13.86%) Continuous Improvement
13 429 (13.60%) DevOps
14 425 (13.47%) Test Automation
15 353 (11.19%) ETL
16 342 (10.84%) Business Intelligence
17 324 (10.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 321 (10.18%) Data Analysis
18 321 (10.18%) Data Governance
19 307 (9.73%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 834 (26.44%) SQL
2 679 (21.53%) Python
3 157 (4.98%) Java
4 123 (3.90%) PowerShell
5 80 (2.54%) C#
5 80 (2.54%) JavaScript
6 67 (2.12%) Bash
7 50 (1.59%) TypeScript
8 45 (1.43%) C++
9 32 (1.01%) Shell Script
10 30 (0.95%) R
11 28 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 26 (0.82%) Apex Code
12 26 (0.82%) Bicep
12 26 (0.82%) C
12 26 (0.82%) PL/SQL
13 23 (0.73%) Go
14 20 (0.63%) VBA
15 19 (0.60%) T-SQL
16 17 (0.54%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 632 (20.04%) Security Cleared
2 476 (15.09%) SC Cleared
3 219 (6.94%) Degree
4 92 (2.92%) DV Cleared
5 76 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.59%) Computer Science Degree
7 46 (1.46%) Cisco Certification
8 37 (1.17%) CCNP
9 36 (1.14%) AWS Certification
10 33 (1.05%) ACCA
10 33 (1.05%) CIMA
11 27 (0.86%) ISTQB
12 25 (0.79%) PMI Certification
13 24 (0.76%) Azure Certification
14 23 (0.73%) PMP
15 22 (0.70%) CISSP
16 21 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 20 (0.63%) Master's Degree
18 19 (0.60%) DBS Check
19 15 (0.48%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 662 (20.99%) Data Quality
2 377 (11.95%) QA
3 102 (3.23%) GDPR
4 54 (1.71%) Accessibility
5 52 (1.65%) SLA
6 37 (1.17%) PMO
7 36 (1.14%) GxP
7 36 (1.14%) NIST
8 32 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 22 (0.70%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 22 (0.70%) GRC
9 22 (0.70%) ISO 20022
10 18 (0.57%) WCAG
11 17 (0.54%) GMP
12 16 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
13 14 (0.44%) NCSC
14 12 (0.38%) IFRS
15 11 (0.35%) ISO 19650
15 11 (0.35%) MiFID
16 10 (0.32%) Def Stans
System Software
1 118 (3.74%) Active Directory
2 112 (3.55%) Docker
3 94 (2.98%) VMware Infrastructure
4 38 (1.20%) Virtual Machines
5 37 (1.17%) VMware ESXi
6 28 (0.89%) Firmware
7 26 (0.82%) Hyper-V
8 25 (0.79%) Virtual Desktop
9 23 (0.73%) vSphere
10 16 (0.51%) VMware NSX
11 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.16%) KVM
13 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
13 4 (0.13%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.063%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.063%) OpenSSH
14 2 (0.063%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.032%) Ceph
15 1 (0.032%) HDFS
15 1 (0.032%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 156 (4.95%) Kubernetes
2 111 (3.52%) Ansible
3 40 (1.27%) Grafana
4 34 (1.08%) Prometheus
5 26 (0.82%) FortiGate
6 25 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
7 21 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
8 20 (0.63%) SCCM
9 14 (0.44%) HP ALM
10 11 (0.35%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.32%) Functional Safety
11 10 (0.32%) Progress Chef
12 9 (0.29%) Argo
12 9 (0.29%) Control-M
13 6 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
13 6 (0.19%) Kibana
13 6 (0.19%) VxRail
14 5 (0.16%) vMotion
14 5 (0.16%) vRealize
15 4 (0.13%) Consul
Vendors
1 489 (15.50%) Microsoft
2 263 (8.34%) SAP
3 247 (7.83%) Oracle
4 180 (5.71%) Databricks
5 108 (3.42%) VMware
6 96 (3.04%) ServiceNow
7 90 (2.85%) Cisco
8 89 (2.82%) Salesforce
9 72 (2.28%) Google
10 59 (1.87%) Workday
11 52 (1.65%) IBM
12 35 (1.11%) Informatica
13 34 (1.08%) Fortinet
14 30 (0.95%) Palo Alto
14 30 (0.95%) Zscaler
15 27 (0.86%) Juniper
16 21 (0.67%) Sage
16 21 (0.67%) Splunk
17 20 (0.63%) CyberArk
17 20 (0.63%) Red Hat