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

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 68 121
Rank change year-on-year +33 +53 +32
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,893 1,196 759
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.40% 3.65% 1.95%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.38% 4.03% 2.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,744 699 368
10th Percentile £338 £331 £347
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £601 £589
90th Percentile £705 £688 £669
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -7.00% +5.26% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 188 86 118
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £29.24
25th Percentile £26.80 £37.67 £48.75
Median hourly rate £55.00 £61.25 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.20% -5.77% -0.76%
75th Percentile £73.25 £65.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £75.56
UK excluding London median hourly rate £58.99 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -9.25% - -0.76%

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 45,356 29,667 33,233
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.68% 90.51% 85.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,834 18,495 21,131
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.58%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,855 1,741 1,763
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.31 £17.33 £18.00
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -37.90% -1.22%
75th Percentile £67.94 £49.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.00 £41.50
% change year-on-year +83.17% -42.17% +12.54%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 +34 2,505 £500 -1.96% 1,154
UK excluding London +31 1,343 £465 -7.00% 943
London +43 1,211 £525 +2.44% 353
Work from Home +32 803 £500 - 431
North of England +45 326 £455 -8.18% 164
South East -2 314 £501 +0.25% 293
Midlands +35 308 £475 -2.56% 158
West Midlands +29 215 £461 -7.85% 100
North West +26 166 £463 -12.32% 89
East of England +6 148 £475 -5.00% 136
Yorkshire +42 144 £460 +2.22% 41
South West +2 135 £525 -8.70% 151
Scotland +40 99 £435 -5.95% 45
East Midlands +23 88 £505 +0.90% 58
Wales -6 24 £363 -3.33% 22
North East -26 21 £438 -20.45% 36
Northern Ireland +7 10 £380 -35.59% 2
Channel Islands 0 1 - - 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 83 (2.87%) Confluence
2 67 (2.32%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (1.94%) SAS
4 54 (1.87%) SharePoint
5 42 (1.45%) Apache Spark
6 29 (1.00%) Apache
7 17 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
8 13 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
9 11 (0.38%) Jupyter
10 10 (0.35%) CMS
11 9 (0.31%) SharePoint 2013
12 7 (0.24%) ArcGIS
12 7 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
13 5 (0.17%) IIS
13 5 (0.17%) Sitecore CMS
13 5 (0.17%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.10%) OpenStack
Applications
1 201 (6.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.42%) Microsoft Office
2 41 (1.42%) MS Visio
3 33 (1.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 33 (1.14%) Spreadsheet
4 13 (0.45%) AutoCAD
5 10 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.28%) CATIA
6 8 (0.28%) Navisworks
6 8 (0.28%) Revit
7 7 (0.24%) ProjectWise
8 6 (0.21%) Simulink
9 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.069%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.069%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.069%) Windchill
11 1 (0.035%) Gliffy
11 1 (0.035%) LaTeX
11 1 (0.035%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.035%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 119 (4.11%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (0.93%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.48%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.45%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.41%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.41%) Teamcenter
6 11 (0.38%) iTrent
6 11 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 11 (0.38%) SAP SD
7 10 (0.35%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.31%) Aladdin
8 9 (0.31%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.31%) SAP FI
8 9 (0.31%) SAP MDG
9 7 (0.24%) Dynamics CRM
9 7 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
9 7 (0.24%) SAP Payroll
9 7 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 616 (21.29%) Azure
2 334 (11.55%) AWS
3 303 (10.47%) Power Platform
4 167 (5.77%) Azure DevOps
5 147 (5.08%) GCP
6 133 (4.60%) GitHub
7 99 (3.42%) Snowflake
8 78 (2.70%) Entra ID
9 74 (2.56%) Azure Data Factory
10 71 (2.45%) GitHub Actions
11 66 (2.28%) Serverless
12 60 (2.07%) Microsoft 365
13 57 (1.97%) SaaS
14 54 (1.87%) Amazon S3
15 46 (1.59%) dbt
16 45 (1.56%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 44 (1.52%) SuccessFactors
18 41 (1.42%) OCI
19 36 (1.24%) Amazon CloudWatch
20 34 (1.18%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 114 (3.94%) Firewall
2 68 (2.35%) DNS
3 66 (2.28%) Network Security
4 63 (2.18%) VLAN
5 51 (1.76%) VPN
6 46 (1.59%) TCP/IP
7 43 (1.49%) BGP
8 42 (1.45%) WAN
9 35 (1.21%) DHCP
10 25 (0.86%) OSPF
11 24 (0.83%) LAN
11 24 (0.83%) VXLAN
12 22 (0.76%) Ethernet VPN
12 22 (0.76%) Internet
12 22 (0.76%) SAN
12 22 (0.76%) Wireless
13 20 (0.69%) Ethernet
13 20 (0.69%) SD-WAN
14 19 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
15 16 (0.55%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 284 (9.82%) Power BI
2 171 (5.91%) Data Warehouse
3 125 (4.32%) Metadata
4 107 (3.70%) SQL Server
5 97 (3.35%) PostgreSQL
6 96 (3.32%) Relational Database
7 83 (2.87%) Data Lake
8 74 (2.56%) Tableau
9 38 (1.31%) Big Data
10 37 (1.28%) MongoDB
11 35 (1.21%) NoSQL
12 34 (1.18%) Delta Lake
13 32 (1.11%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 31 (1.07%) MySQL
14 31 (1.07%) Oracle Database
14 31 (1.07%) Oracle Reports
15 30 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
16 29 (1.00%) BigQuery
17 28 (0.97%) Redis
18 27 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 251 (8.68%) JIRA
2 192 (6.64%) Git
3 106 (3.66%) Jenkins
4 87 (3.01%) GitLab
5 67 (2.32%) Selenium
6 49 (1.69%) Postman
7 41 (1.42%) JMeter
8 27 (0.93%) WebDriver
9 26 (0.90%) Cucumber
10 22 (0.76%) JUnit
11 20 (0.69%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.62%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.55%) Cypress.io
13 16 (0.55%) Gatling
13 16 (0.55%) Visual Studio
14 14 (0.48%) Rational Rhapsody
14 14 (0.48%) REST Assured
15 13 (0.45%) Maven
15 13 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
16 12 (0.41%) Gradle
General
1 816 (28.21%) Social Skills
2 797 (27.55%) Finance
3 575 (19.88%) Analytical Skills
4 256 (8.85%) Public Sector
5 209 (7.22%) Banking
6 151 (5.22%) Documentation Skills
7 107 (3.70%) Manufacturing
8 95 (3.28%) Retail
9 66 (2.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 63 (2.18%) Aerospace
11 61 (2.11%) Telecoms
12 58 (2.00%) Pharmaceutical
13 54 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
14 52 (1.80%) Automotive
15 49 (1.69%) Legal
16 47 (1.62%) Marketing
17 43 (1.49%) Law
18 42 (1.45%) Front Office
18 42 (1.45%) Local Government
19 38 (1.31%) Billing
Job Titles
1 509 (17.59%) Analyst
2 319 (11.03%) Senior
3 280 (9.68%) Lead
4 236 (8.16%) Business Analyst
5 234 (8.09%) Data Engineer
6 225 (7.78%) Consultant
7 174 (6.01%) Developer
8 143 (4.94%) Architect
9 141 (4.87%) Data Analyst
10 108 (3.73%) Test Engineer
11 81 (2.80%) Tester
12 75 (2.59%) Network Engineer
13 74 (2.56%) Project Manager
14 62 (2.14%) Systems Engineer
15 60 (2.07%) Administrator
16 56 (1.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 56 (1.94%) Senior Data Engineer
17 54 (1.87%) Technical Analyst
18 49 (1.69%) Test Manager
19 48 (1.66%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 171 (5.91%) REST
2 146 (5.05%) Terraform
3 94 (3.25%) JSON
4 81 (2.80%) PySpark
5 79 (2.73%) XML
6 74 (2.56%) Kafka
7 66 (2.28%) Middleware
8 53 (1.83%) .NET
9 52 (1.80%) Playwright
10 51 (1.76%) Oracle Fusion
11 44 (1.52%) pytest
12 42 (1.45%) SOAP
13 41 (1.42%) Spring
13 41 (1.42%) Web Services
14 36 (1.24%) OAuth
15 34 (1.18%) Pandas
15 34 (1.18%) RESTful
16 31 (1.07%) Spring Boot
17 29 (1.00%) Node.js
18 25 (0.86%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 165 (5.70%) Onboarding
2 147 (5.08%) Data Structures
3 127 (4.39%) Cloud Native
4 122 (4.22%) Legacy Systems
4 122 (4.22%) Product Ownership
5 94 (3.25%) Management Information System
6 91 (3.15%) Data Centre
7 54 (1.87%) Enterprise Software
8 47 (1.62%) Analytical Mindset
8 47 (1.62%) Distributed Systems
9 43 (1.49%) Life Science
10 41 (1.42%) AI Agents
10 41 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
10 41 (1.42%) SCADA
11 38 (1.31%) Replication
12 35 (1.21%) NHS
13 34 (1.18%) Algorithms
13 34 (1.18%) CMDB
14 33 (1.14%) Operational Technology
15 32 (1.11%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 183 (6.33%) Windows
2 120 (4.15%) Linux
3 68 (2.35%) Windows Server
4 41 (1.42%) Unix
5 19 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.48%) Android
7 13 (0.45%) Windows 10
8 11 (0.38%) Ubuntu
9 10 (0.35%) VMS
10 9 (0.31%) Apple iOS
11 7 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.21%) AIX
13 4 (0.14%) SUSE
13 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.069%) Data ONTAP
14 2 (0.069%) HPUX
14 2 (0.069%) VxWorks
14 2 (0.069%) Windows Server 2019
15 1 (0.035%) Alpine Linux
15 1 (0.035%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 778 (26.89%) Migration
2 572 (19.77%) Agile
3 554 (19.15%) Stakeholder Management
4 525 (18.15%) CI/CD
5 486 (16.80%) User Acceptance Testing
6 469 (16.21%) Analytics
7 461 (15.94%) Data Migration
8 459 (15.87%) Data Modelling
9 453 (15.66%) Problem-Solving
10 445 (15.38%) Data Validation
11 378 (13.07%) AI
12 376 (13.00%) DevOps
13 362 (12.51%) Continuous Improvement
14 360 (12.44%) Test Automation
15 321 (11.10%) ETL
16 320 (11.06%) Business Intelligence
17 317 (10.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 304 (10.51%) Data Pipeline
19 288 (9.96%) Data Governance
20 278 (9.61%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 727 (25.13%) SQL
2 561 (19.39%) Python
3 140 (4.84%) Java
4 92 (3.18%) PowerShell
5 65 (2.25%) C#
6 60 (2.07%) Bash
7 55 (1.90%) JavaScript
8 44 (1.52%) C++
9 32 (1.11%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.07%) Apex Code
11 28 (0.97%) Bicep
11 28 (0.97%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 27 (0.93%) R
13 26 (0.90%) C
14 24 (0.83%) PL/SQL
15 21 (0.73%) Shell Script
16 20 (0.69%) VBA
17 17 (0.59%) T-SQL
18 16 (0.55%) MATLAB
19 13 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 540 (18.67%) Security Cleared
2 397 (13.72%) SC Cleared
3 189 (6.53%) Degree
4 70 (2.42%) DV Cleared
5 62 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
6 48 (1.66%) Cisco Certification
7 44 (1.52%) Computer Science Degree
8 39 (1.35%) CCNP
9 27 (0.93%) ISTQB
10 26 (0.90%) ACCA
10 26 (0.90%) CIMA
11 24 (0.83%) AWS Certification
12 22 (0.76%) Azure Certification
13 20 (0.69%) CCNA
13 20 (0.69%) PMI Certification
14 18 (0.62%) PMP
15 16 (0.55%) CISSP
15 16 (0.55%) Microsoft Certification
16 14 (0.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 14 (0.48%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 561 (19.39%) Data Quality
2 365 (12.62%) QA
3 118 (4.08%) GDPR
4 51 (1.76%) SLA
5 49 (1.69%) NIST
6 46 (1.59%) Accessibility
7 43 (1.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 39 (1.35%) GxP
8 39 (1.35%) PMO
9 24 (0.83%) GRC
10 21 (0.73%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 20 (0.69%) ISO 20022
12 16 (0.55%) GMP
13 15 (0.52%) NCSC
14 13 (0.45%) HL7
14 13 (0.45%) WCAG
15 12 (0.41%) Def Stans
15 12 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 11 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.38%) IFRS
System Software
1 115 (3.98%) Docker
2 101 (3.49%) Active Directory
3 82 (2.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (1.28%) Virtual Machines
5 29 (1.00%) VMware ESXi
6 27 (0.93%) Firmware
7 25 (0.86%) Hyper-V
8 22 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
8 22 (0.76%) vSphere
9 15 (0.52%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.14%) KVM
10 4 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.10%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.069%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.069%) NFS
12 2 (0.069%) OpenSSH
12 2 (0.069%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.035%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.035%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 143 (4.94%) Kubernetes
2 79 (2.73%) Ansible
3 46 (1.59%) Grafana
4 38 (1.31%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.93%) Microsoft Intune
6 24 (0.83%) FortiGate
7 23 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.48%) vCenter Server
9 13 (0.45%) SCCM
10 10 (0.35%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.35%) VxRail
11 9 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
12 7 (0.24%) Argo
13 6 (0.21%) Microsoft Clustering
13 6 (0.21%) Progress Chef
14 5 (0.17%) systemd
14 5 (0.17%) vRealize
15 4 (0.14%) Consul
15 4 (0.14%) Puppet
15 4 (0.14%) vMotion
Vendors
1 437 (15.11%) Microsoft
2 253 (8.75%) SAP
3 244 (8.43%) Oracle
4 159 (5.50%) Databricks
5 97 (3.35%) Salesforce
6 95 (3.28%) VMware
7 90 (3.11%) ServiceNow
8 75 (2.59%) Cisco
9 52 (1.80%) Google
10 44 (1.52%) Workday
11 37 (1.28%) Informatica
12 33 (1.14%) IBM
13 29 (1.00%) Fortinet
13 29 (1.00%) Juniper
14 27 (0.93%) Palo Alto
14 27 (0.93%) Zscaler
15 21 (0.73%) MuleSoft
15 21 (0.73%) Splunk
16 20 (0.69%) Ariba
17 19 (0.66%) Sage