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 23 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 70 117
Rank change year-on-year +34 +47 +39
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,780 1,142 797
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.27% 3.50% 1.94%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.20% 3.87% 2.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,670 677 401
10th Percentile £340 £350 £345
25th Percentile £410 £421 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £588
90th Percentile £700 £700 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £525 £475
% change year-on-year -11.90% +10.53% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 171 82 140
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £27.07 £38.44 £51.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £58.75 £61.25
Median % change year-on-year -6.38% -4.08% -5.77%
75th Percentile £74.63 £66.13 £69.16
90th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -3.85% - +3.92%

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 44,826 29,510 35,120
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.01% 90.34% 85.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,774 18,532 22,551
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,642 1,578 2,152
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £13.25
25th Percentile £20.01 £17.46 £17.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £39.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -36.33% -7.06%
75th Percentile £68.55 £50.94 £62.76
90th Percentile £83.00 £69.13 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.34 £40.00
% change year-on-year +84.88% -39.15% -1.45%

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 23 July 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 23 July 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 23 July 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 +34 2,408 £500 -4.76% 1,104
UK excluding London +29 1,294 £463 -11.90% 742
London +45 1,167 £513 -2.38% 471
Work from Home +40 796 £491 -1.80% 451
South East +1 310 £510 +2.00% 229
Midlands +38 309 £475 +5.56% 115
North of England +37 303 £450 -5.26% 153
West Midlands +29 226 £468 +6.86% 63
North West +20 165 £450 -14.69% 89
East of England 0 132 £500 - 91
Yorkshire +32 127 £453 +8.57% 39
South West -12 123 £521 -9.35% 105
Scotland +46 90 £425 -10.53% 45
East Midlands +22 78 £505 +11.00% 52
Wales +3 30 £450 +20.00% 13
North East -31 15 £425 -15.00% 26
Northern Ireland +12 10 £380 -35.59% 6

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 85 (3.06%) Confluence
2 69 (2.48%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (2.01%) SAS
4 50 (1.80%) SharePoint
5 45 (1.62%) Apache Spark
6 32 (1.15%) Apache
7 14 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
8 13 (0.47%) Jupyter
9 11 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
10 9 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
11 8 (0.29%) ArcGIS
12 7 (0.25%) CMS
13 5 (0.18%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.14%) IIS
14 4 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
14 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
15 3 (0.11%) Appian
15 3 (0.11%) JBoss
15 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
Applications
1 186 (6.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.51%) MS Visio
3 36 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
4 30 (1.08%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 15 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.29%) CATIA
8 7 (0.25%) AutoCAD
9 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.18%) Simulink
10 2 (0.072%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.072%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.072%) Navisworks
10 2 (0.072%) ProjectWise
10 2 (0.072%) Revit
10 2 (0.072%) Sketch
10 2 (0.072%) Windchill
11 1 (0.036%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.036%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.036%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 126 (4.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.19%) Oracle EBS
3 17 (0.61%) Workday HCM
4 14 (0.50%) Teamcenter
5 13 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
6 11 (0.40%) Aladdin
6 11 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
6 11 (0.40%) NetSuite
6 11 (0.40%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 11 (0.40%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.36%) iTrent
7 10 (0.36%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
8 9 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.32%) Sage X3
8 9 (0.32%) SAP MDG
8 9 (0.32%) SAP SD
9 8 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
9 8 (0.29%) SAP HCM
9 8 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 592 (21.29%) Azure
2 322 (11.58%) AWS
3 291 (10.47%) Power Platform
4 151 (5.43%) Azure DevOps
5 138 (4.96%) GCP
6 126 (4.53%) GitHub
7 97 (3.49%) Snowflake
8 73 (2.63%) Azure Data Factory
8 73 (2.63%) GitHub Actions
9 69 (2.48%) Entra ID
9 69 (2.48%) Serverless
10 62 (2.23%) Amazon S3
11 51 (1.83%) Microsoft 365
11 51 (1.83%) SaaS
12 46 (1.65%) dbt
13 44 (1.58%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 44 (1.58%) OCI
14 39 (1.40%) SuccessFactors
15 36 (1.29%) AWS Lambda
16 34 (1.22%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 118 (4.24%) Firewall
2 70 (2.52%) Network Security
3 58 (2.09%) DNS
4 51 (1.83%) VLAN
4 51 (1.83%) VPN
5 41 (1.47%) TCP/IP
5 41 (1.47%) WAN
6 35 (1.26%) BGP
7 27 (0.97%) DHCP
8 26 (0.94%) OSPF
9 23 (0.83%) LAN
9 23 (0.83%) SAN
9 23 (0.83%) Wireless
10 22 (0.79%) SD-WAN
11 20 (0.72%) Internet
12 18 (0.65%) Ethernet
13 16 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
14 13 (0.47%) HTTP
14 13 (0.47%) NAS
14 13 (0.47%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 270 (9.71%) Power BI
2 160 (5.76%) Data Warehouse
3 116 (4.17%) Metadata
4 100 (3.60%) SQL Server
5 88 (3.17%) PostgreSQL
6 85 (3.06%) Data Lake
7 78 (2.81%) Tableau
8 77 (2.77%) Relational Database
9 42 (1.51%) Big Data
10 34 (1.22%) Oracle Database
11 33 (1.19%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 32 (1.15%) Oracle Reports
13 30 (1.08%) Delta Lake
13 30 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 29 (1.04%) Power Query
15 27 (0.97%) Amazon Redshift
15 27 (0.97%) BigQuery
15 27 (0.97%) NoSQL
16 26 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
17 24 (0.86%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 251 (9.03%) JIRA
2 169 (6.08%) Git
3 95 (3.42%) Jenkins
4 71 (2.55%) GitLab
5 61 (2.19%) Selenium
6 49 (1.76%) JMeter
7 46 (1.65%) Postman
8 39 (1.40%) JUnit
9 38 (1.37%) Cucumber
10 32 (1.15%) WebDriver
11 22 (0.79%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.65%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.58%) Gatling
14 14 (0.50%) Visual Studio
15 13 (0.47%) Oracle Forms
15 13 (0.47%) Rational Rhapsody
15 13 (0.47%) REST Assured
16 11 (0.40%) Cypress.io
16 11 (0.40%) MLflow
16 11 (0.40%) Zephyr
General
1 820 (29.50%) Finance
2 797 (28.67%) Social Skills
3 524 (18.85%) Analytical Skills
4 229 (8.24%) Public Sector
5 208 (7.48%) Banking
6 154 (5.54%) Documentation Skills
7 104 (3.74%) Manufacturing
8 86 (3.09%) Retail
9 69 (2.48%) Aerospace
10 61 (2.19%) Pharmaceutical
11 56 (2.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 55 (1.98%) Telecoms
13 52 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
14 45 (1.62%) Legal
15 42 (1.51%) Automotive
16 41 (1.47%) Front Office
17 39 (1.40%) Marketing
18 37 (1.33%) Billing
18 37 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
19 35 (1.26%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 500 (17.99%) Analyst
2 283 (10.18%) Senior
3 276 (9.93%) Lead
4 240 (8.63%) Business Analyst
5 228 (8.20%) Data Engineer
6 205 (7.37%) Consultant
7 164 (5.90%) Developer
8 148 (5.32%) Architect
9 140 (5.04%) Data Analyst
10 91 (3.27%) Test Engineer
11 82 (2.95%) Tester
12 80 (2.88%) Project Manager
13 63 (2.27%) Network Engineer
14 54 (1.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 52 (1.87%) Systems Engineer
16 49 (1.76%) Senior Data Engineer
16 49 (1.76%) Technical Analyst
17 45 (1.62%) Administrator
17 45 (1.62%) Senior Analyst
17 45 (1.62%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 138 (4.96%) REST
2 84 (3.02%) JSON
3 73 (2.63%) Kafka
4 66 (2.37%) PySpark
5 61 (2.19%) XML
6 57 (2.05%) Middleware
7 50 (1.80%) Oracle Fusion
8 48 (1.73%) .NET
9 45 (1.62%) Spring
10 41 (1.47%) pytest
11 40 (1.44%) SOAP
12 38 (1.37%) OAuth
12 38 (1.37%) Web Services
13 35 (1.26%) Playwright
14 33 (1.19%) Pandas
15 31 (1.12%) RESTful
16 28 (1.01%) Node.js
17 25 (0.90%) Spring Boot
17 25 (0.90%) Swagger
17 25 (0.90%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 156 (5.61%) Data Structures
2 155 (5.58%) Onboarding
3 134 (4.82%) Legacy Systems
4 125 (4.50%) Cloud Native
5 123 (4.42%) Product Ownership
6 82 (2.95%) Data Centre
7 74 (2.66%) Management Information System
8 55 (1.98%) Distributed Systems
9 48 (1.73%) Analytical Mindset
10 41 (1.47%) AI Agents
10 41 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
10 41 (1.47%) Life Science
11 40 (1.44%) Hybrid Cloud
12 38 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
12 38 (1.37%) SCADA
13 36 (1.29%) Reference Data
14 35 (1.26%) Virtual Team
15 33 (1.19%) NHS
16 31 (1.12%) Replication
17 30 (1.08%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 164 (5.90%) Windows
2 107 (3.85%) Linux
3 54 (1.94%) Windows Server
4 39 (1.40%) Unix
5 19 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.36%) Android
6 10 (0.36%) Ubuntu
7 9 (0.32%) VMS
8 7 (0.25%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.22%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.14%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.14%) SUSE
11 3 (0.11%) AIX
11 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.072%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.072%) HPUX
12 2 (0.072%) Solaris
12 2 (0.072%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.072%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.072%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 765 (27.52%) Migration
2 547 (19.68%) Agile
3 520 (18.71%) Stakeholder Management
4 477 (17.16%) Analytics
5 470 (16.91%) CI/CD
6 456 (16.40%) Data Migration
7 455 (16.37%) User Acceptance Testing
8 454 (16.33%) Data Validation
9 449 (16.15%) Data Modelling
10 445 (16.01%) Problem-Solving
11 355 (12.77%) AI
12 344 (12.37%) ETL
13 343 (12.34%) Continuous Improvement
14 339 (12.19%) Test Automation
15 338 (12.16%) DevOps
16 313 (11.26%) Business Intelligence
17 312 (11.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 287 (10.32%) Data Pipeline
19 282 (10.14%) Data Governance
20 270 (9.71%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 673 (24.21%) SQL
2 508 (18.27%) Python
3 122 (4.39%) Java
4 81 (2.91%) PowerShell
5 63 (2.27%) C#
6 59 (2.12%) Bash
7 40 (1.44%) JavaScript
8 34 (1.22%) C++
8 34 (1.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 32 (1.15%) Bicep
9 32 (1.15%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.08%) Apex Code
11 27 (0.97%) C
12 26 (0.94%) PL/SQL
13 23 (0.83%) R
13 23 (0.83%) VBA
14 19 (0.68%) T-SQL
15 15 (0.54%) Ada
15 15 (0.54%) MATLAB
15 15 (0.54%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 501 (18.02%) Security Cleared
2 363 (13.06%) SC Cleared
3 191 (6.87%) Degree
4 64 (2.30%) BPSS Clearance
5 62 (2.23%) DV Cleared
6 44 (1.58%) Cisco Certification
7 36 (1.29%) Computer Science Degree
8 35 (1.26%) CCNP
9 26 (0.94%) ISTQB
10 23 (0.83%) PMI Certification
11 22 (0.79%) PMP
12 21 (0.76%) ACCA
13 20 (0.72%) Azure Certification
13 20 (0.72%) CIMA
14 19 (0.68%) CISSP
15 18 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
16 16 (0.58%) CCNA
17 15 (0.54%) DBS Check
18 13 (0.47%) AWS Certification
18 13 (0.47%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 517 (18.60%) Data Quality
2 338 (12.16%) QA
3 127 (4.57%) GDPR
4 54 (1.94%) NIST
5 47 (1.69%) Accessibility
5 47 (1.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 39 (1.40%) PMO
6 39 (1.40%) SLA
7 37 (1.33%) GxP
8 21 (0.76%) GRC
9 18 (0.65%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 18 (0.65%) GMP
10 16 (0.58%) HL7
10 16 (0.58%) ISO 20022
11 14 (0.50%) IFRS
11 14 (0.50%) NCSC
12 13 (0.47%) Def Stans
12 13 (0.47%) WCAG
13 12 (0.43%) NIST 800
13 12 (0.43%) Solvency II
System Software
1 113 (4.06%) Docker
2 90 (3.24%) Active Directory
3 75 (2.70%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
5 26 (0.94%) VMware ESXi
6 21 (0.76%) Hyper-V
7 19 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
7 19 (0.68%) vSphere
8 16 (0.58%) Firmware
8 16 (0.58%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.22%) NFS
10 4 (0.14%) KVM
10 4 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.072%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.072%) OpenSSH
11 2 (0.072%) VirtualBox
11 2 (0.072%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.036%) etcd
12 1 (0.036%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 159 (5.72%) Kubernetes
2 137 (4.93%) Terraform
3 58 (2.09%) Ansible
4 55 (1.98%) Prometheus
5 54 (1.94%) Grafana
6 25 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
7 24 (0.86%) FortiGate
8 23 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.47%) SCCM
10 12 (0.43%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.36%) HP ALM
12 8 (0.29%) VxRail
13 6 (0.22%) vMotion
14 5 (0.18%) Argo
14 5 (0.18%) CASB
14 5 (0.18%) Failover Clustering
14 5 (0.18%) Istio
14 5 (0.18%) vRealize
15 4 (0.14%) Consul
15 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 406 (14.60%) Microsoft
2 259 (9.32%) SAP
3 248 (8.92%) Oracle
4 148 (5.32%) Databricks
5 92 (3.31%) Salesforce
6 89 (3.20%) VMware
7 70 (2.52%) ServiceNow
8 63 (2.27%) Cisco
9 50 (1.80%) Workday
10 47 (1.69%) Google
11 40 (1.44%) Informatica
12 39 (1.40%) Splunk
13 32 (1.15%) Fortinet
13 32 (1.15%) Palo Alto
14 31 (1.12%) IBM
15 29 (1.04%) Juniper
16 27 (0.97%) MuleSoft
16 27 (0.97%) Sage
17 26 (0.94%) Zscaler
18 20 (0.72%) IFS