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 7 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 68 128
Rank change year-on-year +32 +60 +21
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,814 1,168 736
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.27% 3.55% 1.89%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.20% 3.93% 2.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,696 681 365
10th Percentile £340 £350 £342
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £490
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +6.12% -10.91%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £588
90th Percentile £700 £688 £671
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £517 £463
% change year-on-year -10.50% +11.73% -9.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 180 86 122
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £28.18
25th Percentile £26.80 £37.67 £51.06
Median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -7.69% -
75th Percentile £74.25 £66.88 £68.85
90th Percentile £83.78 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -3.85% - -

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 45,370 29,720 33,385
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.93% 90.44% 85.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,958 18,627 21,372
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £729 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,804 1,656 1,869
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.33 £18.13
Median hourly rate £42.68 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +69.69% -37.63% -5.12%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £64.25
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £74.51
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.30 £40.94
% change year-on-year +88.67% -43.09% +2.35%

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 7 August 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 7 August 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 7 August 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 2,436 £500 -4.76% 1,736
UK excluding London +28 1,326 £463 -10.50% 1,120
London +42 1,165 £525 - 734
Work from Home +40 797 £492 -1.60% 609
South East +4 318 £504 +0.75% 319
Midlands +30 312 £475 +5.56% 179
North of England +42 306 £450 -9.09% 220
West Midlands +29 223 £468 +3.94% 111
North West +31 159 £450 -21.40% 126
East of England +3 148 £475 -6.40% 144
Yorkshire +40 134 £451 +3.56% 54
South West -13 125 £525 -8.70% 169
Scotland +44 94 £420 -10.40% 83
East Midlands +24 83 £525 +15.51% 68
Wales +2 26 £425 +13.33% 21
North East -36 17 £425 -22.73% 43
Northern Ireland +10 10 £380 -35.59% 6
Channel Islands +2 1 - -

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 82 (2.91%) Confluence
2 69 (2.45%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (1.99%) SAS
4 48 (1.71%) SharePoint
5 41 (1.46%) Apache Spark
6 32 (1.14%) Apache
7 13 (0.46%) Jupyter
7 13 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
8 11 (0.39%) Microsoft Exchange
9 9 (0.32%) CMS
9 9 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
10 7 (0.25%) ArcGIS
11 5 (0.18%) IIS
11 5 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
11 5 (0.18%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.11%) JBoss
13 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
Applications
1 191 (6.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.49%) MS Visio
3 39 (1.39%) Microsoft Office
4 29 (1.03%) Spreadsheet
5 27 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 12 (0.43%) AutoCAD
7 11 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
8 8 (0.28%) CATIA
9 7 (0.25%) Navisworks
9 7 (0.25%) ProjectWise
9 7 (0.25%) Revit
10 6 (0.21%) Simulink
11 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.071%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.071%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.071%) Windchill
13 1 (0.036%) Autodesk Inventor
13 1 (0.036%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.036%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.036%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 123 (4.37%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.07%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.50%) Oracle Payables
3 14 (0.50%) Workday HCM
4 12 (0.43%) iTrent
4 12 (0.43%) NetSuite
4 12 (0.43%) Teamcenter
5 11 (0.39%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 11 (0.39%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.36%) Aladdin
6 10 (0.36%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
7 9 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
7 9 (0.32%) Sage X3
7 9 (0.32%) SAP MDG
7 9 (0.32%) SAP SD
8 8 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
8 8 (0.28%) SAP Payroll
9 7 (0.25%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 609 (21.64%) Azure
2 331 (11.76%) AWS
3 298 (10.59%) Power Platform
4 158 (5.61%) Azure DevOps
5 147 (5.22%) GCP
6 126 (4.48%) GitHub
7 99 (3.52%) Snowflake
8 75 (2.67%) Entra ID
9 73 (2.59%) Azure Data Factory
10 70 (2.49%) GitHub Actions
10 70 (2.49%) Serverless
11 56 (1.99%) Amazon S3
12 54 (1.92%) SaaS
13 51 (1.81%) Microsoft 365
14 46 (1.63%) dbt
15 45 (1.60%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 44 (1.56%) OCI
17 43 (1.53%) SuccessFactors
18 34 (1.21%) AWS Lambda
18 34 (1.21%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 113 (4.02%) Firewall
2 69 (2.45%) Network Security
3 64 (2.27%) DNS
4 53 (1.88%) VLAN
5 52 (1.85%) VPN
6 45 (1.60%) TCP/IP
7 40 (1.42%) WAN
8 35 (1.24%) BGP
9 28 (1.00%) DHCP
10 26 (0.92%) OSPF
11 24 (0.85%) LAN
12 23 (0.82%) Internet
13 21 (0.75%) SD-WAN
13 21 (0.75%) Wireless
14 20 (0.71%) SAN
15 17 (0.60%) Ethernet
16 16 (0.57%) Wi-Fi
17 15 (0.53%) HTTP
17 15 (0.53%) VXLAN
18 13 (0.46%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 278 (9.88%) Power BI
2 172 (6.11%) Data Warehouse
3 115 (4.09%) Metadata
4 98 (3.48%) SQL Server
5 93 (3.30%) PostgreSQL
6 89 (3.16%) Data Lake
7 84 (2.99%) Relational Database
8 79 (2.81%) Tableau
9 39 (1.39%) Big Data
10 34 (1.21%) Oracle Reports
11 33 (1.17%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 32 (1.14%) NoSQL
13 31 (1.10%) Delta Lake
13 31 (1.10%) Oracle Database
13 31 (1.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 30 (1.07%) Azure SQL Database
15 29 (1.03%) BigQuery
15 29 (1.03%) MongoDB
16 27 (0.96%) Power Query
17 24 (0.85%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 253 (8.99%) JIRA
2 186 (6.61%) Git
3 102 (3.62%) Jenkins
4 75 (2.67%) GitLab
5 69 (2.45%) Selenium
6 48 (1.71%) JMeter
7 44 (1.56%) Postman
8 38 (1.35%) Cucumber
8 38 (1.35%) JUnit
9 35 (1.24%) WebDriver
10 24 (0.85%) Rational DOORS
11 18 (0.64%) Eclipse
12 16 (0.57%) Gatling
13 15 (0.53%) Visual Studio
14 13 (0.46%) Rational Rhapsody
14 13 (0.46%) REST Assured
15 12 (0.43%) Maven
15 12 (0.43%) Oracle Forms
16 11 (0.39%) Cypress.io
16 11 (0.39%) Gradle
General
1 809 (28.75%) Finance
2 802 (28.50%) Social Skills
3 549 (19.51%) Analytical Skills
4 242 (8.60%) Public Sector
5 208 (7.39%) Banking
6 148 (5.26%) Documentation Skills
7 106 (3.77%) Manufacturing
8 94 (3.34%) Retail
9 69 (2.45%) Aerospace
10 62 (2.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 62 (2.20%) Pharmaceutical
11 56 (1.99%) Telecoms
12 51 (1.81%) Organisational Skills
13 45 (1.60%) Automotive
14 43 (1.53%) Legal
15 41 (1.46%) Front Office
16 40 (1.42%) Law
16 40 (1.42%) Marketing
17 38 (1.35%) Influencing Skills
17 38 (1.35%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 495 (17.59%) Analyst
2 296 (10.52%) Senior
3 283 (10.06%) Lead
4 233 (8.28%) Business Analyst
5 232 (8.24%) Data Engineer
6 208 (7.39%) Consultant
7 169 (6.01%) Developer
8 146 (5.19%) Architect
9 142 (5.05%) Data Analyst
10 102 (3.62%) Test Engineer
11 82 (2.91%) Tester
12 77 (2.74%) Project Manager
13 67 (2.38%) Network Engineer
14 57 (2.03%) Systems Engineer
15 54 (1.92%) Technical Analyst
16 52 (1.85%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 51 (1.81%) Administrator
18 50 (1.78%) Senior Data Engineer
19 44 (1.56%) Data Scientist
19 44 (1.56%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (5.33%) REST
2 83 (2.95%) JSON
3 77 (2.74%) Kafka
4 74 (2.63%) XML
5 72 (2.56%) PySpark
6 61 (2.17%) Middleware
7 52 (1.85%) Oracle Fusion
8 49 (1.74%) .NET
9 46 (1.63%) pytest
10 45 (1.60%) Spring
11 41 (1.46%) Playwright
11 41 (1.46%) SOAP
12 37 (1.31%) Web Services
13 36 (1.28%) OAuth
14 34 (1.21%) Pandas
15 33 (1.17%) RESTful
16 29 (1.03%) Node.js
17 26 (0.92%) Spring Boot
18 25 (0.89%) WireMock
19 24 (0.85%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 158 (5.61%) Onboarding
2 156 (5.54%) Data Structures
3 132 (4.69%) Legacy Systems
4 124 (4.41%) Cloud Native
5 120 (4.26%) Product Ownership
6 85 (3.02%) Management Information System
7 80 (2.84%) Data Centre
8 54 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
9 48 (1.71%) Analytical Mindset
10 45 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
11 43 (1.53%) Life Science
12 41 (1.46%) AI Agents
13 40 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
13 40 (1.42%) SCADA
14 35 (1.24%) Hybrid Cloud
15 33 (1.17%) NHS
15 33 (1.17%) Operational Technology
15 33 (1.17%) Public Cloud
16 31 (1.10%) Reference Data
16 31 (1.10%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 163 (5.79%) Windows
2 115 (4.09%) Linux
3 58 (2.06%) Windows Server
4 41 (1.46%) Unix
5 19 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.39%) Android
6 11 (0.39%) Ubuntu
6 11 (0.39%) Windows 10
7 10 (0.36%) VMS
8 7 (0.25%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.21%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.14%) AIX
10 4 (0.14%) SUSE
10 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.071%) Data ONTAP
11 2 (0.071%) HPUX
11 2 (0.071%) Solaris
11 2 (0.071%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.036%) Debian
12 1 (0.036%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 764 (27.15%) Migration
2 553 (19.65%) Agile
3 541 (19.23%) Stakeholder Management
4 497 (17.66%) CI/CD
5 474 (16.84%) Analytics
6 462 (16.42%) User Acceptance Testing
7 460 (16.35%) Data Modelling
8 456 (16.20%) Data Validation
9 455 (16.17%) Data Migration
10 441 (15.67%) Problem-Solving
11 363 (12.90%) AI
12 362 (12.86%) DevOps
13 358 (12.72%) Continuous Improvement
14 346 (12.30%) Test Automation
15 336 (11.94%) ETL
16 318 (11.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 316 (11.23%) Business Intelligence
18 297 (10.55%) Data Pipeline
19 290 (10.31%) Data Governance
20 267 (9.49%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 698 (24.80%) SQL
2 526 (18.69%) Python
3 132 (4.69%) Java
4 76 (2.70%) PowerShell
5 60 (2.13%) C#
6 57 (2.03%) Bash
7 50 (1.78%) JavaScript
8 37 (1.31%) C++
9 34 (1.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 33 (1.17%) TypeScript
11 30 (1.07%) Apex Code
12 29 (1.03%) Bicep
13 27 (0.96%) C
14 26 (0.92%) PL/SQL
15 24 (0.85%) VBA
16 23 (0.82%) R
17 18 (0.64%) T-SQL
18 17 (0.60%) Shell Script
19 16 (0.57%) MATLAB
20 13 (0.46%) Scala
Qualifications
1 515 (18.30%) Security Cleared
2 375 (13.33%) SC Cleared
3 186 (6.61%) Degree
4 65 (2.31%) DV Cleared
5 61 (2.17%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (1.60%) Cisco Certification
7 43 (1.53%) Computer Science Degree
8 36 (1.28%) CCNP
9 27 (0.96%) ISTQB
10 24 (0.85%) ACCA
11 23 (0.82%) CIMA
12 21 (0.75%) Azure Certification
12 21 (0.75%) PMI Certification
13 20 (0.71%) PMP
14 19 (0.68%) CISSP
14 19 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
15 17 (0.60%) CCNA
16 15 (0.53%) AWS Certification
17 11 (0.39%) Master's Degree
18 10 (0.36%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 540 (19.19%) Data Quality
2 355 (12.62%) QA
3 126 (4.48%) GDPR
4 52 (1.85%) NIST
5 46 (1.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 45 (1.60%) Accessibility
7 38 (1.35%) GxP
7 38 (1.35%) SLA
8 37 (1.31%) PMO
9 20 (0.71%) GRC
9 20 (0.71%) ISO 20022
10 19 (0.68%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 17 (0.60%) GMP
12 14 (0.50%) Def Stans
12 14 (0.50%) NCSC
12 14 (0.50%) WCAG
13 13 (0.46%) HL7
13 13 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 12 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.43%) IFRS
System Software
1 120 (4.26%) Docker
2 97 (3.45%) Active Directory
3 74 (2.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 35 (1.24%) Virtual Machines
5 27 (0.96%) VMware ESXi
6 22 (0.78%) Firmware
7 20 (0.71%) Hyper-V
7 20 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
8 19 (0.68%) vSphere
9 13 (0.46%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.14%) KVM
11 4 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.11%) NFS
13 2 (0.071%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.071%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.071%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.071%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.036%) Ceph
14 1 (0.036%) etcd
Systems Management
1 156 (5.54%) Kubernetes
2 131 (4.66%) Terraform
3 60 (2.13%) Ansible
4 54 (1.92%) Grafana
5 51 (1.81%) Prometheus
6 26 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
7 24 (0.85%) FortiGate
8 22 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
9 12 (0.43%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.36%) HP ALM
11 9 (0.32%) SCCM
11 9 (0.32%) VxRail
12 6 (0.21%) Failover Clustering
13 5 (0.18%) Argo
13 5 (0.18%) CASB
13 5 (0.18%) systemd
13 5 (0.18%) vRealize
14 4 (0.14%) Consul
14 4 (0.14%) Istio
14 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 414 (14.71%) Microsoft
2 256 (9.10%) SAP
3 246 (8.74%) Oracle
4 150 (5.33%) Databricks
5 91 (3.23%) Salesforce
6 87 (3.09%) VMware
7 73 (2.59%) ServiceNow
8 62 (2.20%) Cisco
9 51 (1.81%) Google
10 47 (1.67%) Workday
11 38 (1.35%) Informatica
12 33 (1.17%) IBM
13 31 (1.10%) Splunk
14 30 (1.07%) Fortinet
14 30 (1.07%) Palo Alto
15 29 (1.03%) Juniper
15 29 (1.03%) MuleSoft
16 28 (1.00%) Zscaler
17 24 (0.85%) Sage
18 20 (0.71%) Ariba