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 14 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 53 111 129
Rank change year-on-year +58 +18 +3
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,705 727 840
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.25% 2.35% 1.87%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.88% 2.62% 2.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,041 402 460
10th Percentile £350 £357 £324
25th Percentile £403 £409 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £539
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.55% -2.05%
75th Percentile £600 £620 £623
90th Percentile £700 £718 £714
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% +3.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 33 153
10th Percentile £31.51 £25.46 £22.95
25th Percentile £42.36 £47.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +3.92%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.75 £75.25
90th Percentile £73.63 £74.75 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £61.50 £65.46
% change year-on-year +5.69% -6.05% +4.65%

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 34,907 27,716 39,026
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.98% 89.51% 87.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,112 17,001 25,591
10th Percentile £310 £306 £300
25th Percentile £409 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -3.03% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,104 852 2,127
10th Percentile £14.61 £15.62 £13.25
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £33.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -2.99% +2.15%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £60.32
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.69
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £30.62 £35.00
% change year-on-year -17.85% -12.53% +7.69%

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 14 February 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 14 February 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 14 February 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 +55 1,473 £500 -4.76% 674
UK excluding London +47 786 £475 -5.00% 561
London +69 695 £525 -4.55% 174
Work from Home +65 532 £500 -4.76% 288
North of England +41 208 £420 - 114
South East +12 170 £505 +0.90% 187
North West +30 137 £400 +1.27% 74
Midlands +20 125 £492 +0.77% 114
South West +12 123 £475 -17.39% 59
West Midlands +12 102 £496 +1.28% 76
East of England +21 94 £482 +20.44% 75
Yorkshire -7 61 £475 -2.62% 33
Scotland +31 48 £433 -4.95% 22
East Midlands -12 22 £463 +26.02% 37
Northern Ireland +13 19 £425 - 1
North East -5 12 £450 -45.45% 7
Wales +3 9 £450 - 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 63 (3.70%) Confluence
2 40 (2.35%) Apache Spark
3 33 (1.94%) SharePoint
4 27 (1.58%) SAS
5 21 (1.23%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (1.11%) Microsoft Exchange
7 16 (0.94%) Apache
8 14 (0.82%) Skype for Business
9 9 (0.53%) Appian
9 9 (0.53%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.41%) Mattermost
11 6 (0.35%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.35%) CMS
11 6 (0.35%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
12 5 (0.29%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.23%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.23%) Anypoint
13 4 (0.23%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.18%) WebSphere
Applications
1 88 (5.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (2.46%) Microsoft Office
3 30 (1.76%) MS Visio
4 18 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.70%) Microsoft Project
6 10 (0.59%) Chatbot
7 7 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
8 6 (0.35%) Sketch
9 4 (0.23%) Notion
10 3 (0.18%) LaTeX
11 2 (0.12%) Simulink
12 1 (0.059%) CANalyzer
12 1 (0.059%) CATIA
12 1 (0.059%) OrCAD
12 1 (0.059%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.059%) Stateflow
12 1 (0.059%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 77 (4.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (1.23%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.82%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.70%) SAP EHS
4 12 (0.70%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.65%) Oracle General Ledger
5 11 (0.65%) Oracle Receivables
6 10 (0.59%) Remedy ITSM
7 9 (0.53%) Aladdin
7 9 (0.53%) NetSuite
7 9 (0.53%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.53%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 9 (0.53%) SAP FI
7 9 (0.53%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.47%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.47%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 7 (0.41%) SAP ERP
9 7 (0.41%) SAP MM
10 6 (0.35%) Oracle EBS R12
10 6 (0.35%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 390 (22.87%) Azure
2 209 (12.26%) AWS
3 134 (7.86%) Power Platform
4 133 (7.80%) Azure DevOps
5 77 (4.52%) GitHub
6 66 (3.87%) GCP
7 55 (3.23%) Entra ID
8 52 (3.05%) Serverless
9 50 (2.93%) SaaS
10 47 (2.76%) Azure Data Factory
10 47 (2.76%) GitHub Actions
11 43 (2.52%) Amazon S3
12 36 (2.11%) Snowflake
13 34 (1.99%) OCI
14 33 (1.94%) Microsoft 365
15 29 (1.70%) OpenShift
16 28 (1.64%) AWS Lambda
17 25 (1.47%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 21 (1.23%) Dynamics 365
18 21 (1.23%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 53 (3.11%) Firewall
2 28 (1.64%) TCP/IP
3 26 (1.52%) Network Security
4 19 (1.11%) Ethernet
5 18 (1.06%) HTTP
6 17 (1.00%) DNS
7 16 (0.94%) VLAN
7 16 (0.94%) WAN
8 15 (0.88%) VPN
8 15 (0.88%) Wireless
9 14 (0.82%) Skype
10 13 (0.76%) BGP
11 12 (0.70%) OSPF
12 11 (0.65%) LAN
12 11 (0.65%) MPLS
13 9 (0.53%) TACACS
14 7 (0.41%) Internet
14 7 (0.41%) SAN
14 7 (0.41%) SD-WAN
14 7 (0.41%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 128 (7.51%) Power BI
2 81 (4.75%) Metadata
3 63 (3.70%) Data Warehouse
4 45 (2.64%) SQL Server
5 41 (2.40%) Tableau
6 35 (2.05%) Data Lake
7 30 (1.76%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.70%) PostgreSQL
9 24 (1.41%) Delta Lake
10 22 (1.29%) Relational Database
11 21 (1.23%) Azure SQL Database
11 21 (1.23%) Big Data
12 20 (1.17%) Amazon Redshift
12 20 (1.17%) Geospatial Data
13 19 (1.11%) Pinecone
14 18 (1.06%) GIS
15 17 (1.00%) Oracle Database
15 17 (1.00%) Oracle Reports
16 16 (0.94%) Amazon Athena
16 16 (0.94%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 163 (9.56%) JIRA
2 85 (4.99%) Git
3 71 (4.16%) Jenkins
4 53 (3.11%) Postman
5 49 (2.87%) GitLab
6 44 (2.58%) Selenium
7 32 (1.88%) Oracle APEX
8 25 (1.47%) Rational DOORS
9 20 (1.17%) JMeter
10 17 (1.00%) MLflow
11 16 (0.94%) Cucumber
11 16 (0.94%) TestRail
11 16 (0.94%) Visual Studio
12 14 (0.82%) Zephyr
13 13 (0.76%) JUnit
14 12 (0.70%) REST Assured
15 11 (0.65%) SpecFlow
16 10 (0.59%) Eclipse
17 9 (0.53%) Bitbucket
17 9 (0.53%) Cypress.io
General
1 637 (37.36%) Social Skills
2 490 (28.74%) Finance
3 349 (20.47%) Analytical Skills
4 155 (9.09%) Public Sector
5 149 (8.74%) Banking
6 92 (5.40%) Documentation Skills
7 46 (2.70%) Presentation Skills
8 44 (2.58%) Manufacturing
9 39 (2.29%) Influencing Skills
10 36 (2.11%) Pharmaceutical
11 31 (1.82%) Telecoms
12 30 (1.76%) Electronics
12 30 (1.76%) Front Office
13 29 (1.70%) Aerospace
13 29 (1.70%) Marketing
13 29 (1.70%) Organisational Skills
14 28 (1.64%) Legal
15 26 (1.52%) Military
16 22 (1.29%) Billing
16 22 (1.29%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 341 (20.00%) Analyst
2 174 (10.21%) Senior
3 150 (8.80%) Business Analyst
4 148 (8.68%) Lead
5 133 (7.80%) Consultant
6 125 (7.33%) Developer
7 111 (6.51%) Architect
8 85 (4.99%) Data Engineer
9 81 (4.75%) Data Analyst
10 52 (3.05%) Software Engineer
11 50 (2.93%) Tester
12 49 (2.87%) Senior Analyst
13 48 (2.82%) Project Manager
14 40 (2.35%) SAP Consultant
14 40 (2.35%) Test Analyst
15 38 (2.23%) Test Manager
16 36 (2.11%) Senior Developer
17 35 (2.05%) Solutions Architect
18 31 (1.82%) Embedded Engineer
19 30 (1.76%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (6.45%) REST
2 90 (5.28%) JSON
3 57 (3.34%) XML
4 51 (2.99%) Oracle Fusion
5 50 (2.93%) OAuth
6 45 (2.64%) Middleware
7 41 (2.40%) Kafka
7 41 (2.40%) PySpark
7 41 (2.40%) SOAP
8 38 (2.23%) RESTful
9 35 (2.05%) .NET
10 34 (1.99%) Node.js
11 30 (1.76%) PyTorch
11 30 (1.76%) Swagger
12 29 (1.70%) Playwright
13 27 (1.58%) TensorFlow
13 27 (1.58%) Web Services
14 26 (1.52%) Pandas
15 25 (1.47%) pytest
16 24 (1.41%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 101 (5.92%) Legacy Systems
2 76 (4.46%) Data Structures
3 64 (3.75%) Onboarding
4 61 (3.58%) Product Ownership
5 53 (3.11%) Management Information System
6 52 (3.05%) Cloud Native
7 32 (1.88%) Data Centre
8 28 (1.64%) Algorithms
8 28 (1.64%) Analytical Mindset
9 27 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
10 23 (1.35%) Hybrid Cloud
11 22 (1.29%) FPGA
12 21 (1.23%) Distributed Systems
13 20 (1.17%) Derivative
14 19 (1.11%) Life Science
14 19 (1.11%) Replication
15 18 (1.06%) Security Posture
16 17 (1.00%) Operational Technology
17 15 (0.88%) Greenfield Project
18 14 (0.82%) PCIe
Operating Systems
1 95 (5.57%) Linux
2 88 (5.16%) Windows
3 33 (1.94%) Unix
4 10 (0.59%) Android
5 6 (0.35%) Embedded Linux
5 6 (0.35%) Mac OS
5 6 (0.35%) Windows Server
5 6 (0.35%) zOS
6 3 (0.18%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.12%) Debian
7 2 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.12%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.059%) FreeRTOS
8 1 (0.059%) pSOS
8 1 (0.059%) Robot Operating System
8 1 (0.059%) Solaris
8 1 (0.059%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 421 (24.69%) Agile
2 397 (23.28%) Problem-Solving
3 385 (22.58%) Migration
4 296 (17.36%) Stakeholder Management
5 279 (16.36%) Data Validation
6 270 (15.84%) CI/CD
7 267 (15.66%) DevOps
8 252 (14.78%) Analytics
9 230 (13.49%) Data Modelling
10 215 (12.61%) Data Migration
11 214 (12.55%) Test Automation
12 204 (11.96%) User Acceptance Testing
13 195 (11.44%) ETL
14 194 (11.38%) AI
15 175 (10.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 169 (9.91%) Continuous Improvement
17 168 (9.85%) Business Intelligence
18 166 (9.74%) Data Governance
19 153 (8.97%) Data Analysis
20 142 (8.33%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 415 (24.34%) SQL
2 359 (21.06%) Python
3 94 (5.51%) JavaScript
4 89 (5.22%) Java
5 67 (3.93%) C#
6 54 (3.17%) PL/SQL
7 51 (2.99%) PowerShell
8 48 (2.82%) Bash
9 46 (2.70%) C++
10 42 (2.46%) C
11 35 (2.05%) TypeScript
12 24 (1.41%) R
13 21 (1.23%) Bicep
14 18 (1.06%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 17 (1.00%) Ada
15 17 (1.00%) Groovy
16 16 (0.94%) Shell Script
17 15 (0.88%) Scala
18 12 (0.70%) T-SQL
19 11 (0.65%) VBA
Qualifications
1 367 (21.52%) Security Cleared
2 268 (15.72%) SC Cleared
3 181 (10.62%) Degree
4 61 (3.58%) Computer Science Degree
5 56 (3.28%) BPSS Clearance
6 40 (2.35%) Master's Degree
7 39 (2.29%) DV Cleared
8 32 (1.88%) ISTQB
9 28 (1.64%) PMI Certification
10 21 (1.23%) AWS Certification
10 21 (1.23%) PMP
11 16 (0.94%) CBAP
12 15 (0.88%) Cisco Certification
12 15 (0.88%) Oracle Certification
13 12 (0.70%) CISSP
14 11 (0.65%) Azure Certification
14 11 (0.65%) CCNP
15 10 (0.59%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 10 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
15 10 (0.59%) OCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 245 (14.37%) Data Quality
2 214 (12.55%) QA
3 94 (5.51%) GDPR
4 69 (4.05%) NIST
5 48 (2.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 35 (2.05%) Accessibility
7 20 (1.17%) IFRS
8 18 (1.06%) GxP
8 18 (1.06%) IFRS 17
9 15 (0.88%) Def Stans
9 15 (0.88%) PCI DSS
10 14 (0.82%) SLA
11 13 (0.76%) EU AI Act
12 12 (0.70%) COBIT
12 12 (0.70%) GMP
12 12 (0.70%) NCSC
12 12 (0.70%) PMO
13 10 (0.59%) GRC
13 10 (0.59%) MiFID
13 10 (0.59%) MISRA
System Software
1 60 (3.52%) Docker
2 47 (2.76%) Active Directory
3 32 (1.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.23%) Firmware
5 13 (0.76%) VMware NSX
6 9 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.41%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.23%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 4 (0.23%) NFS
8 4 (0.23%) vSphere
9 3 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.18%) KVM
9 3 (0.18%) QEMU
10 2 (0.12%) Ceph
10 2 (0.12%) Lustre
10 2 (0.12%) OpenAM
10 2 (0.12%) OpenDJ
10 2 (0.12%) OpenIDM
10 2 (0.12%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 87 (5.10%) Kubernetes
2 74 (4.34%) Terraform
3 39 (2.29%) Ansible
4 22 (1.29%) Single Sign-On
5 18 (1.06%) Microsoft Intune
5 18 (1.06%) Prometheus
6 15 (0.88%) Grafana
6 15 (0.88%) Kibana
6 15 (0.88%) SCCM
7 14 (0.82%) Puppet
8 11 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 9 (0.53%) Nessus
9 9 (0.53%) Nmap
10 8 (0.47%) SCOM
11 7 (0.41%) HP SiteScope
12 4 (0.23%) CASB
12 4 (0.23%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.23%) Iperf
12 4 (0.23%) RSA Archer
12 4 (0.23%) vMotion
Vendors
1 227 (13.31%) Microsoft
2 166 (9.74%) Oracle
3 138 (8.09%) SAP
4 83 (4.87%) Databricks
5 70 (4.11%) ServiceNow
6 51 (2.99%) Splunk
7 44 (2.58%) Cisco
8 42 (2.46%) Google
9 40 (2.35%) Salesforce
10 38 (2.23%) VMware
11 36 (2.11%) Workday
12 23 (1.35%) MuleSoft
13 20 (1.17%) IBM
14 19 (1.11%) Murex
14 19 (1.11%) Palo Alto
15 17 (1.00%) Informatica
15 17 (1.00%) OpenAI
15 17 (1.00%) Sage
16 14 (0.82%) Bloomberg
16 14 (0.82%) Remedy