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 19 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 101 130
Rank change year-on-year +55 +29 +9
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,955 766 785
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.51% 2.62% 1.77%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.25% 2.89% 2.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,206 450 419
10th Percentile £350 £363 £340
25th Percentile £401 £421 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £543 £538
Median % change year-on-year -11.31% +0.93% -2.27%
75th Percentile £588 £630 £623
90th Percentile £700 £716 £705
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £513 £500
% change year-on-year -7.32% +2.50% +0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 101 41 147
10th Percentile £23.03 £25.26 £20.52
25th Percentile £48.75 £47.50 £49.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.55% -3.75% -4.08%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £75.16
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £59.13 £61.63
% change year-on-year +9.94% -4.06% -1.39%

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 37,265 26,485 38,452
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.97% 90.43% 86.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,631 17,037 25,025
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £610 £638 £638
90th Percentile £723 £744 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,203 922 2,327
10th Percentile £14.97 £15.25 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.12
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% +1.20% -8.24%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.52 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £31.76 £30.91
% change year-on-year -13.41% +2.74% -11.68%

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 19 March 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 19 March 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 19 March 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 +53 1,689 £490 -10.91% 910
UK excluding London +42 929 £475 -7.32% 723
London +71 784 £506 -8.05% 294
Work from Home +64 594 £488 -6.25% 381
North of England +29 229 £433 -10.13% 144
South East -3 196 £500 - 228
Midlands +34 179 £481 +1.16% 115
North West +27 148 £418 -9.62% 70
West Midlands +29 142 £481 -2.56% 73
South West +8 134 £475 -17.39% 92
East of England +20 116 £492 +9.38% 103
Yorkshire +1 72 £462 +9.93% 50
Scotland +41 50 £404 -10.33% 39
East Midlands -7 35 £475 +29.08% 42
Northern Ireland +20 25 £400 -27.27% 5
Wales - 15 £460 - 16
North East -1 12 £450 -37.93% 24

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 79 (4.04%) Confluence
2 41 (2.10%) Apache Spark
3 33 (1.69%) SAS
4 32 (1.64%) Apache Airflow
5 20 (1.02%) Apache
6 18 (0.92%) SharePoint
7 13 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
8 9 (0.46%) Appian
9 8 (0.41%) ArcGIS
9 8 (0.41%) Jupyter
10 7 (0.36%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
10 7 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.26%) CMS
12 4 (0.20%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.20%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.15%) CICS
13 3 (0.15%) GeoServer
13 3 (0.15%) Oracle Self-Service HR
13 3 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.15%) WebLogic
Applications
1 93 (4.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (1.23%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (1.23%) MS Visio
3 15 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 15 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
4 13 (0.66%) Spreadsheet
5 10 (0.51%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.20%) Notion
7 3 (0.15%) CATIA
7 3 (0.15%) LaTeX
8 2 (0.10%) Sketch
9 1 (0.051%) Autodesk Inventor
9 1 (0.051%) CANalyzer
9 1 (0.051%) MicroStation
9 1 (0.051%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.051%) Simulink
9 1 (0.051%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 90 (4.60%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (1.64%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.77%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.66%) Oracle General Ledger
4 13 (0.66%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 13 (0.66%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.61%) Oracle Receivables
6 11 (0.56%) Oracle Assets
7 10 (0.51%) SAP FI
8 9 (0.46%) NetSuite
8 9 (0.46%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.41%) Aladdin
9 8 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
9 8 (0.41%) OpenText VIM for SAP
9 8 (0.41%) Oracle EBS R12
10 7 (0.36%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 7 (0.36%) SAP ERP
10 7 (0.36%) SAP MM
11 6 (0.31%) Oracle Financials
11 6 (0.31%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 458 (23.43%) Azure
2 257 (13.15%) AWS
3 165 (8.44%) Power Platform
4 144 (7.37%) Azure DevOps
5 100 (5.12%) GitHub
6 86 (4.40%) GCP
7 63 (3.22%) GitHub Actions
7 63 (3.22%) Serverless
8 58 (2.97%) Amazon S3
9 56 (2.86%) Azure Data Factory
10 54 (2.76%) Entra ID
11 49 (2.51%) SaaS
12 46 (2.35%) OCI
13 41 (2.10%) Snowflake
14 36 (1.84%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 35 (1.79%) AWS Lambda
16 30 (1.53%) AWS CloudFormation
17 28 (1.43%) OpenShift
18 27 (1.38%) Microsoft 365
19 24 (1.23%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 66 (3.38%) Firewall
2 47 (2.40%) Network Security
3 35 (1.79%) TCP/IP
4 24 (1.23%) DNS
4 24 (1.23%) Ethernet
5 21 (1.07%) VPN
6 19 (0.97%) HTTP
7 17 (0.87%) WAN
8 16 (0.82%) VLAN
9 15 (0.77%) SAN
10 13 (0.66%) NAS
11 10 (0.51%) SD-WAN
11 10 (0.51%) Wireless
12 9 (0.46%) Internet
12 9 (0.46%) LAN
12 9 (0.46%) SSL
13 8 (0.41%) BGP
13 8 (0.41%) OSPF
14 7 (0.36%) Cisco ISE
14 7 (0.36%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 154 (7.88%) Power BI
2 103 (5.27%) Metadata
3 93 (4.76%) Data Warehouse
4 63 (3.22%) SQL Server
5 56 (2.86%) PostgreSQL
6 51 (2.61%) Tableau
7 46 (2.35%) Data Lake
8 33 (1.69%) Delta Lake
9 29 (1.48%) NoSQL
9 29 (1.48%) Oracle Reports
10 28 (1.43%) Azure SQL Database
10 28 (1.43%) Relational Database
11 25 (1.28%) Amazon Redshift
11 25 (1.28%) Big Data
12 20 (1.02%) Oracle Database
12 20 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 19 (0.97%) Amazon Athena
13 19 (0.97%) GIS
13 19 (0.97%) Pinecone
13 19 (0.97%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 186 (9.51%) JIRA
2 120 (6.14%) Git
3 89 (4.55%) Jenkins
4 64 (3.27%) Selenium
5 57 (2.92%) GitLab
6 56 (2.86%) Postman
7 36 (1.84%) JUnit
8 35 (1.79%) Cucumber
8 35 (1.79%) JMeter
9 31 (1.59%) Rational DOORS
10 29 (1.48%) Oracle APEX
11 21 (1.07%) MLflow
12 20 (1.02%) Visual Studio
12 20 (1.02%) WebDriver
13 14 (0.72%) Eclipse
13 14 (0.72%) REST Assured
13 14 (0.72%) TestRail
14 12 (0.61%) Bitbucket
14 12 (0.61%) SpecFlow
14 12 (0.61%) Zephyr
General
1 685 (35.04%) Social Skills
2 566 (28.95%) Finance
3 382 (19.54%) Analytical Skills
4 180 (9.21%) Public Sector
5 167 (8.54%) Banking
6 97 (4.96%) Documentation Skills
7 58 (2.97%) Manufacturing
8 50 (2.56%) Presentation Skills
9 48 (2.46%) Aerospace
10 45 (2.30%) Pharmaceutical
11 35 (1.79%) Influencing Skills
12 34 (1.74%) Organisational Skills
13 32 (1.64%) Electronics
14 30 (1.53%) Marketing
15 29 (1.48%) Billing
16 28 (1.43%) Legal
16 28 (1.43%) Telecoms
17 27 (1.38%) Military
18 26 (1.33%) Financial Institution
18 26 (1.33%) Retail
Job Titles
1 354 (18.11%) Analyst
2 206 (10.54%) Senior
3 198 (10.13%) Lead
4 159 (8.13%) Business Analyst
5 143 (7.31%) Consultant
6 136 (6.96%) Developer
7 131 (6.70%) Data Engineer
8 128 (6.55%) Architect
9 91 (4.65%) Data Analyst
10 72 (3.68%) Project Manager
11 60 (3.07%) Tester
12 51 (2.61%) Software Engineer
13 50 (2.56%) Senior Analyst
14 43 (2.20%) SAP Consultant
15 40 (2.05%) Test Analyst
16 39 (1.99%) Senior Developer
17 38 (1.94%) Test Engineer
18 37 (1.89%) Test Manager
19 35 (1.79%) Embedded Engineer
19 35 (1.79%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 130 (6.65%) REST
2 98 (5.01%) JSON
3 63 (3.22%) Oracle Fusion
4 60 (3.07%) XML
5 54 (2.76%) Kafka
6 52 (2.66%) OAuth
7 50 (2.56%) Middleware
8 49 (2.51%) PySpark
9 45 (2.30%) SOAP
10 43 (2.20%) .NET
11 41 (2.10%) Node.js
12 37 (1.89%) RESTful
13 35 (1.79%) Playwright
14 33 (1.69%) PyTorch
15 31 (1.59%) Web Services
16 30 (1.53%) pytest
16 30 (1.53%) Swagger
17 29 (1.48%) TensorFlow
18 26 (1.33%) SAML
19 25 (1.28%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 117 (5.98%) Legacy Systems
2 97 (4.96%) Data Structures
3 86 (4.40%) Product Ownership
4 75 (3.84%) Onboarding
5 63 (3.22%) Cloud Native
6 53 (2.71%) Management Information System
7 48 (2.46%) Data Centre
8 34 (1.74%) Analytical Mindset
9 32 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
10 28 (1.43%) Algorithms
11 26 (1.33%) Data Protection Act
12 25 (1.28%) Replication
13 21 (1.07%) Hybrid Cloud
13 21 (1.07%) Operational Technology
13 21 (1.07%) Virtual Team
14 20 (1.02%) Derivative
14 20 (1.02%) Life Science
14 20 (1.02%) NHS
15 18 (0.92%) Greenfield Project
16 17 (0.87%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 97 (4.96%) Windows
2 79 (4.04%) Linux
3 29 (1.48%) Unix
4 11 (0.56%) Windows Server
5 9 (0.46%) Android
6 6 (0.31%) Embedded Linux
6 6 (0.31%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.31%) zOS
7 3 (0.15%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.10%) Debian
8 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.051%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.051%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.051%) pSOS
9 1 (0.051%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.051%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.051%) Solaris
9 1 (0.051%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 470 (24.04%) Migration
2 449 (22.97%) Agile
3 415 (21.23%) Problem-Solving
4 346 (17.70%) CI/CD
5 344 (17.60%) Stakeholder Management
6 330 (16.88%) Data Validation
7 298 (15.24%) Analytics
8 290 (14.83%) DevOps
9 282 (14.42%) Data Migration
10 271 (13.86%) Data Modelling
11 253 (12.94%) Test Automation
12 251 (12.84%) ETL
13 237 (12.12%) User Acceptance Testing
14 232 (11.87%) Continuous Improvement
15 218 (11.15%) AI
16 215 (11.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 199 (10.18%) Data Governance
18 196 (10.03%) Business Intelligence
19 169 (8.64%) Data Pipeline
20 162 (8.29%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 475 (24.30%) SQL
2 366 (18.72%) Python
3 96 (4.91%) Java
4 90 (4.60%) JavaScript
5 74 (3.79%) C#
6 51 (2.61%) PL/SQL
7 50 (2.56%) PowerShell
8 49 (2.51%) C++
9 42 (2.15%) C
10 37 (1.89%) TypeScript
11 35 (1.79%) Bash
12 26 (1.33%) Bicep
12 26 (1.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 23 (1.18%) R
14 20 (1.02%) Ada
15 18 (0.92%) T-SQL
16 17 (0.87%) Groovy
16 17 (0.87%) Scala
17 12 (0.61%) VBA
18 11 (0.56%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 420 (21.48%) Security Cleared
2 307 (15.70%) SC Cleared
3 181 (9.26%) Degree
4 62 (3.17%) BPSS Clearance
5 58 (2.97%) Computer Science Degree
6 41 (2.10%) DV Cleared
7 36 (1.84%) Master's Degree
8 29 (1.48%) ISTQB
9 27 (1.38%) PMI Certification
10 24 (1.23%) PMP
11 17 (0.87%) Cisco Certification
12 16 (0.82%) AWS Certification
12 16 (0.82%) CISSP
13 14 (0.72%) CBAP
13 14 (0.72%) CCNP
13 14 (0.72%) Microsoft Certification
14 10 (0.51%) Oracle Certification
15 9 (0.46%) Azure Certification
15 9 (0.46%) CCNA
15 9 (0.46%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 312 (15.96%) Data Quality
2 255 (13.04%) QA
3 109 (5.58%) GDPR
4 81 (4.14%) NIST
5 64 (3.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 31 (1.59%) Accessibility
7 27 (1.38%) SLA
8 22 (1.13%) IFRS
9 21 (1.07%) GxP
10 19 (0.97%) Def Stans
10 19 (0.97%) IFRS 17
11 18 (0.92%) PMO
12 17 (0.87%) GRC
13 15 (0.77%) GMP
13 15 (0.77%) PCI DSS
14 14 (0.72%) HL7
15 13 (0.66%) COBIT
15 13 (0.66%) NCSC
16 11 (0.56%) MiFID
16 11 (0.56%) NIST 800
System Software
1 76 (3.89%) Docker
2 45 (2.30%) Active Directory
3 34 (1.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (1.13%) Firmware
5 10 (0.51%) VMware NSX
6 8 (0.41%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.26%) NFS
9 4 (0.20%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
9 4 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.15%) Embedded Firmware
10 3 (0.15%) vSphere
11 2 (0.10%) Ceph
11 2 (0.10%) KVM
11 2 (0.10%) Lustre
11 2 (0.10%) OpenAM
11 2 (0.10%) OpenDJ
11 2 (0.10%) OpenIDM
11 2 (0.10%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 115 (5.88%) Kubernetes
2 86 (4.40%) Terraform
3 31 (1.59%) Prometheus
4 30 (1.53%) Single Sign-On
5 28 (1.43%) Ansible
5 28 (1.43%) Grafana
6 13 (0.66%) Microsoft Intune
7 11 (0.56%) Kibana
7 11 (0.56%) Puppet
8 9 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 7 (0.36%) SCCM
10 6 (0.31%) Nessus
11 5 (0.26%) CASB
12 4 (0.20%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.20%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.20%) FortiGate
12 4 (0.20%) RSA Archer
12 4 (0.20%) vMotion
13 3 (0.15%) CloudHub
13 3 (0.15%) linkerd
Vendors
1 253 (12.94%) Microsoft
2 197 (10.08%) Oracle
3 164 (8.39%) SAP
4 104 (5.32%) Databricks
5 84 (4.30%) ServiceNow
6 45 (2.30%) Google
7 43 (2.20%) Salesforce
8 41 (2.10%) Splunk
8 41 (2.10%) VMware
9 35 (1.79%) Cisco
10 33 (1.69%) Workday
11 29 (1.48%) MuleSoft
12 28 (1.43%) Informatica
12 28 (1.43%) Sage
13 22 (1.13%) IBM
14 20 (1.02%) OpenAI
14 20 (1.02%) Palo Alto
15 17 (0.87%) CyberArk
16 15 (0.77%) Murex
17 13 (0.66%) Bloomberg