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

6 months to
11 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 68 108
Rank change year-on-year +37 +40 +43
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,185 1,207 825
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.84% 3.64% 2.18%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.90% 4.03% 2.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,880 692 419
10th Percentile £341 £350 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -7.19%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £592
90th Percentile £701 £688 £664
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £500 £488
% change year-on-year -5.40% +2.56% -7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 205 84 95
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £26.95 £41.25 £46.88
Median hourly rate £53.50 £63.75 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.08% +2.00% -7.41%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £74.63 £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 46,170 29,963 32,599
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.61% 90.48% 86.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,721 18,625 19,646
10th Percentile £325 £295 £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 £737 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,354 1,887 1,283
10th Percentile £13.53 £14.38 £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% -9.60%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.90 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.65 £65.06 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £40.33
% change year-on-year +68.43% -44.79% -7.99%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 +35 2,721 £500 -2.44% 4,863
UK excluding London +38 1,476 £473 -5.40% 3,033
London +42 1,319 £525 - 2,212
Work from Home +30 885 £500 - 1,744
North of England +50 366 £460 +6.98% 495
South East +11 334 £525 +5.00% 706
Midlands +36 306 £458 -3.68% 437
West Midlands +30 221 £451 -11.23% 278
North West +26 187 £472 +11.06% 272
South West +22 176 £525 -4.11% 383
Scotland +48 153 £459 -14.62% 439
Yorkshire +61 150 £463 -2.63% 159
East of England -2 145 £475 -5.00% 421
East Midlands +37 82 £490 +8.89% 159
North East -17 34 £425 -11.92% 70
Wales -1 24 £363 -3.33% 73
Northern Ireland 0 4 £363 -19.44% 110
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
1 100 (3.14%) Confluence
2 64 (2.01%) Apache Airflow
2 64 (2.01%) SharePoint
3 51 (1.60%) Apache Spark
4 47 (1.48%) SAS
5 43 (1.35%) Apache
6 23 (0.72%) CMS
7 21 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
8 12 (0.38%) Oracle Workflow
9 11 (0.35%) Jupyter
10 9 (0.28%) IIS
10 9 (0.28%) SharePoint 2013
11 8 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
12 7 (0.22%) Sitecore CMS
12 7 (0.22%) WebLogic
13 6 (0.19%) OpenStack
14 5 (0.16%) CICS
14 5 (0.16%) Tomcat
14 5 (0.16%) Tuxedo
15 4 (0.13%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 212 (6.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (1.48%) Microsoft Office
3 41 (1.29%) MS Visio
4 32 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 32 (1.00%) Spreadsheet
5 18 (0.57%) AutoCAD
6 13 (0.41%) 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
11 3 (0.094%) 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%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.031%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.031%) Trello
Business Applications
1 112 (3.52%) 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
8 11 (0.35%) 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 Financials
Cloud Services
1 617 (19.37%) Azure
2 367 (11.52%) AWS
3 316 (9.92%) Power Platform
4 198 (6.22%) Azure DevOps
5 164 (5.15%) GCP
6 158 (4.96%) GitHub
7 110 (3.45%) Entra ID
7 110 (3.45%) Snowflake
8 81 (2.54%) GitHub Actions
9 74 (2.32%) Azure Data Factory
10 64 (2.01%) SaaS
11 63 (1.98%) Amazon S3
12 61 (1.92%) Serverless
13 60 (1.88%) dbt
13 60 (1.88%) Microsoft 365
14 49 (1.54%) SuccessFactors
15 42 (1.32%) Azure Monitor
16 41 (1.29%) Dynamics 365
17 37 (1.16%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 35 (1.10%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 109 (3.42%) Firewall
2 86 (2.70%) DNS
3 62 (1.95%) VLAN
4 61 (1.92%) VPN
5 59 (1.85%) Network Security
6 54 (1.70%) TCP/IP
7 53 (1.66%) BGP
8 41 (1.29%) WAN
9 37 (1.16%) DHCP
10 32 (1.00%) OSPF
11 28 (0.88%) Ethernet VPN
11 28 (0.88%) VXLAN
12 27 (0.85%) Ethernet
13 24 (0.75%) Wireless
14 22 (0.69%) Internet
15 21 (0.66%) LAN
15 21 (0.66%) SAN
15 21 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
16 20 (0.63%) 5G
16 20 (0.63%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 290 (9.11%) Power BI
2 171 (5.37%) Data Warehouse
3 153 (4.80%) Metadata
4 127 (3.99%) Relational Database
5 109 (3.42%) SQL Server
6 104 (3.27%) PostgreSQL
7 85 (2.67%) Data Lake
8 64 (2.01%) Tableau
9 44 (1.38%) Delta Lake
9 44 (1.38%) MongoDB
10 42 (1.32%) Power Query
11 41 (1.29%) Oracle Database
12 37 (1.16%) BigQuery
12 37 (1.16%) Redis
13 36 (1.13%) Big Data
14 35 (1.10%) NoSQL
15 32 (1.00%) Oracle Reports
16 29 (0.91%) MySQL
17 28 (0.88%) Azure SQL Database
18 25 (0.78%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 286 (8.98%) JIRA
2 242 (7.60%) Git
3 110 (3.45%) Jenkins
4 100 (3.14%) GitLab
5 82 (2.57%) Selenium
6 47 (1.48%) Postman
7 35 (1.10%) JMeter
8 26 (0.82%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.75%) Rational DOORS
10 21 (0.66%) JUnit
10 21 (0.66%) Zephyr
11 20 (0.63%) REST Assured
11 20 (0.63%) WebDriver
12 19 (0.60%) Cypress.io
13 17 (0.53%) Eclipse
13 17 (0.53%) Visual Studio
14 14 (0.44%) Oracle Forms
14 14 (0.44%) TestRail
15 13 (0.41%) Gatling
16 12 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 908 (28.51%) Finance
2 898 (28.19%) Social Skills
3 639 (20.06%) Analytical Skills
4 296 (9.29%) Banking
5 275 (8.63%) Public Sector
6 144 (4.52%) Manufacturing
7 127 (3.99%) Documentation Skills
8 92 (2.89%) Retail
9 76 (2.39%) Automotive
10 74 (2.32%) Telecoms
11 71 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 59 (1.85%) Aerospace
13 57 (1.79%) Legal
14 56 (1.76%) Organisational Skills
15 52 (1.63%) Pharmaceutical
16 50 (1.57%) Marketing
17 47 (1.48%) Billing
18 46 (1.44%) Local Government
19 43 (1.35%) Front Office
20 42 (1.32%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 534 (16.77%) Analyst
2 391 (12.28%) Senior
3 283 (8.89%) Lead
4 262 (8.23%) Consultant
5 259 (8.13%) Data Engineer
6 237 (7.44%) Business Analyst
7 201 (6.31%) Developer
8 173 (5.43%) Data Analyst
9 169 (5.31%) Architect
10 113 (3.55%) Test Engineer
11 81 (2.54%) Tester
12 79 (2.48%) Network Engineer
13 66 (2.07%) Administrator
14 65 (2.04%) Senior Data Engineer
15 59 (1.85%) Senior Analyst
15 59 (1.85%) Systems Engineer
16 57 (1.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 51 (1.60%) Software Engineer
18 46 (1.44%) Project Manager
18 46 (1.44%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 211 (6.62%) Terraform
2 209 (6.56%) REST
3 102 (3.20%) JSON
4 94 (2.95%) PySpark
5 89 (2.79%) Middleware
6 86 (2.70%) XML
7 76 (2.39%) Kafka
8 64 (2.01%) Playwright
9 60 (1.88%) OAuth
10 59 (1.85%) .NET
11 56 (1.76%) Web Services
12 53 (1.66%) pytest
13 51 (1.60%) SOAP
14 48 (1.51%) OpenID
14 48 (1.51%) Oracle Fusion
15 45 (1.41%) RESTful
16 44 (1.38%) OAuth2
17 37 (1.16%) Spring
18 36 (1.13%) FastAPI
18 36 (1.13%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 184 (5.78%) Onboarding
2 176 (5.53%) Data Structures
3 147 (4.62%) Cloud Native
4 131 (4.11%) Management Information System
5 123 (3.86%) Product Ownership
6 122 (3.83%) Legacy Systems
7 96 (3.01%) Data Centre
8 72 (2.26%) Enterprise Software
9 64 (2.01%) AI Agents
10 63 (1.98%) Distributed Systems
11 50 (1.57%) Analytical Mindset
12 45 (1.41%) Life Science
13 43 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
14 42 (1.32%) Algorithms
14 42 (1.32%) Replication
15 41 (1.29%) SCADA
16 40 (1.26%) CMDB
17 36 (1.13%) Operational Technology
18 35 (1.10%) NHS
18 35 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 221 (6.94%) Windows
2 145 (4.55%) Linux
3 91 (2.86%) Windows Server
4 59 (1.85%) 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 (26.72%) Migration
2 720 (22.61%) Stakeholder Management
3 652 (20.47%) CI/CD
4 606 (19.03%) Agile
5 510 (16.01%) Data Modelling
6 503 (15.79%) Data Migration
7 502 (15.76%) User Acceptance Testing
8 495 (15.54%) Analytics
9 488 (15.32%) Problem-Solving
10 487 (15.29%) Data Validation
11 452 (14.19%) AI
12 449 (14.10%) Continuous Improvement
13 443 (13.91%) DevOps
14 440 (13.81%) Test Automation
15 355 (11.15%) ETL
16 334 (10.49%) Business Intelligence
17 332 (10.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 327 (10.27%) Data Governance
19 319 (10.02%) Data Analysis
20 307 (9.64%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 848 (26.62%) SQL
2 693 (21.76%) Python
3 154 (4.84%) Java
4 129 (4.05%) PowerShell
5 82 (2.57%) C#
6 80 (2.51%) JavaScript
7 68 (2.14%) Bash
8 50 (1.57%) TypeScript
9 42 (1.32%) C++
10 33 (1.04%) Bicep
10 33 (1.04%) Shell Script
11 31 (0.97%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 28 (0.88%) R
13 27 (0.85%) PL/SQL
14 25 (0.78%) Apex Code
15 23 (0.72%) C
16 22 (0.69%) Go
16 22 (0.69%) VBA
17 19 (0.60%) T-SQL
18 17 (0.53%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 648 (20.35%) Security Cleared
2 494 (15.51%) SC Cleared
3 223 (7.00%) Degree
4 97 (3.05%) DV Cleared
5 79 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
6 49 (1.54%) Computer Science Degree
7 43 (1.35%) Cisco Certification
8 40 (1.26%) AWS Certification
9 34 (1.07%) ACCA
9 34 (1.07%) CIMA
10 33 (1.04%) CCNP
11 32 (1.00%) ISTQB
12 26 (0.82%) Azure Certification
13 25 (0.78%) CISSP
14 24 (0.75%) PMI Certification
15 22 (0.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 22 (0.69%) PMP
16 19 (0.60%) DBS Check
16 19 (0.60%) Master's Degree
17 15 (0.47%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 673 (21.13%) Data Quality
2 374 (11.74%) QA
3 98 (3.08%) GDPR
4 54 (1.70%) Accessibility
5 50 (1.57%) SLA
6 36 (1.13%) NIST
7 34 (1.07%) GxP
7 34 (1.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 34 (1.07%) PMO
8 24 (0.75%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 23 (0.72%) GRC
10 21 (0.66%) ISO 20022
11 18 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
11 18 (0.57%) WCAG
12 16 (0.50%) GMP
13 14 (0.44%) NCSC
14 12 (0.38%) IFRS
14 12 (0.38%) ISO 19650
15 10 (0.31%) Def Stans
15 10 (0.31%) MiFID
System Software
1 123 (3.86%) Active Directory
2 115 (3.61%) Docker
3 93 (2.92%) VMware Infrastructure
4 38 (1.19%) VMware ESXi
5 35 (1.10%) Virtual Machines
6 27 (0.85%) Firmware
7 25 (0.78%) Virtual Desktop
8 24 (0.75%) Hyper-V
9 23 (0.72%) vSphere
10 16 (0.50%) VMware NSX
11 6 (0.19%) 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%) HDFS
15 1 (0.031%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.031%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 1 (0.031%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 163 (5.12%) Kubernetes
2 117 (3.67%) Ansible
3 45 (1.41%) Grafana
4 35 (1.10%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
6 24 (0.75%) 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%) Argo
11 10 (0.31%) Functional Safety
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
1 496 (15.57%) Microsoft
2 269 (8.45%) SAP
3 244 (7.66%) Oracle
4 186 (5.84%) Databricks
5 109 (3.42%) VMware
6 100 (3.14%) ServiceNow
7 90 (2.83%) Salesforce
8 89 (2.79%) Cisco
9 78 (2.45%) Google
10 59 (1.85%) Workday
11 56 (1.76%) IBM
12 34 (1.07%) Informatica
13 33 (1.04%) Fortinet
14 31 (0.97%) Palo Alto
15 29 (0.91%) Juniper
15 29 (0.91%) Zscaler
16 24 (0.75%) Splunk
17 23 (0.72%) CyberArk
18 20 (0.63%) Ariba
18 20 (0.63%) MuleSoft