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 12 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 74 123
Rank change year-on-year +37 +49 +35
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,534 991 814
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.07% 3.37% 1.87%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.98% 3.70% 2.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,504 597 403
10th Percentile £325 £350 £325
25th Percentile £406 £415 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -6.01% +2.44% -7.66%
75th Percentile £594 £630 £599
90th Percentile £700 £701 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £464 £520 £500
% change year-on-year -10.82% +4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 163 62 172
10th Percentile £17.23 £16.67 £26.88
25th Percentile £27.87 £38.93 £50.44
Median hourly rate £60.00 £57.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -4.76%
75th Percentile £74.63 £65.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £83.95 £77.25 £76.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.14 £62.50 £62.00
% change year-on-year +1.02% +0.81% -0.80%

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 42,365 26,787 37,171
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.77% 91.01% 85.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,429 17,005 23,768
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £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 2,540 1,187 2,585
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.21 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.56% -25.45% +4.20%
75th Percentile £68.00 £56.00 £61.25
90th Percentile £81.25 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +15.02%

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 12 June 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 12 June 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 12 June 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 +36 2,203 £500 -5.66% 813
UK excluding London +31 1,204 £464 -10.82% 691
London +53 1,049 £513 -6.82% 251
Work from Home +49 751 £481 -3.90% 321
North of England +45 303 £437 -2.83% 140
Midlands +28 270 £492 +9.39% 114
South East 0 256 £500 - 227
West Midlands +27 195 £484 +20.10% 68
North West +33 174 £425 -4.23% 71
South West +5 134 £500 -13.04% 101
East of England +9 130 £500 +11.11% 77
Yorkshire +23 113 £455 +4.60% 50
Scotland +46 84 £419 -11.84% 33
East Midlands +19 70 £525 +15.51% 46
Wales +7 25 £455 +193.55% 12
North East -19 19 £425 -22.73% 22
Northern Ireland +11 13 £400 -32.20% 12

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 84 (3.31%) Confluence
2 60 (2.37%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (1.85%) SAS
4 45 (1.78%) Apache Spark
5 37 (1.46%) SharePoint
6 23 (0.91%) Apache
7 14 (0.55%) Jupyter
8 11 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
9 9 (0.36%) Appian
9 9 (0.36%) ArcGIS
9 9 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.28%) SharePoint 2013
11 5 (0.20%) CMS
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 5 (0.20%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
13 3 (0.12%) Apache Pulsar
13 3 (0.12%) IIS
13 3 (0.12%) Oracle Self-Service HR
13 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 156 (6.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.34%) MS Visio
3 27 (1.07%) Microsoft Office
4 24 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 24 (0.95%) Spreadsheet
5 11 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.32%) CATIA
7 6 (0.24%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.20%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.16%) Simulink
10 3 (0.12%) LaTeX
11 2 (0.079%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.079%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.079%) Sketch
11 2 (0.079%) Windchill
12 1 (0.039%) Autodesk Inventor
12 1 (0.039%) CANalyzer
12 1 (0.039%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.039%) OrCAD
12 1 (0.039%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 122 (4.81%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (1.38%) Oracle EBS
3 16 (0.63%) Teamcenter
4 14 (0.55%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 13 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
6 12 (0.47%) Workday HCM
7 11 (0.43%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.36%) Aladdin
8 9 (0.36%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.36%) SAP ERP
9 8 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
9 8 (0.32%) SAP SD
10 7 (0.28%) Oracle EBS R12
10 7 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
10 7 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
10 7 (0.28%) Sage X3
10 7 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.24%) Dynamics CRM
11 6 (0.24%) iTrent
11 6 (0.24%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 505 (19.93%) Azure
2 328 (12.94%) AWS
3 238 (9.39%) Power Platform
4 129 (5.09%) Azure DevOps
4 129 (5.09%) GCP
5 118 (4.66%) GitHub
6 84 (3.31%) Snowflake
7 69 (2.72%) Serverless
8 67 (2.64%) GitHub Actions
9 64 (2.53%) Entra ID
10 61 (2.41%) Amazon S3
11 59 (2.33%) Azure Data Factory
12 57 (2.25%) SaaS
13 45 (1.78%) Microsoft 365
14 42 (1.66%) OCI
15 37 (1.46%) AWS Lambda
15 37 (1.46%) dbt
16 36 (1.42%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 32 (1.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 30 (1.18%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 99 (3.91%) Firewall
2 64 (2.53%) Network Security
3 44 (1.74%) VLAN
4 42 (1.66%) DNS
5 40 (1.58%) WAN
6 35 (1.38%) TCP/IP
6 35 (1.38%) VPN
7 26 (1.03%) BGP
8 23 (0.91%) LAN
9 22 (0.87%) Ethernet
9 22 (0.87%) SD-WAN
10 20 (0.79%) SAN
11 19 (0.75%) OSPF
11 19 (0.75%) Wireless
12 17 (0.67%) DHCP
12 17 (0.67%) Internet
13 15 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
14 12 (0.47%) Cisco ISE
14 12 (0.47%) NAS
14 12 (0.47%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 222 (8.76%) Power BI
2 126 (4.97%) Data Warehouse
3 95 (3.75%) SQL Server
4 92 (3.63%) Metadata
5 81 (3.20%) PostgreSQL
6 71 (2.80%) Tableau
7 65 (2.57%) Data Lake
8 60 (2.37%) Relational Database
9 35 (1.38%) Big Data
10 31 (1.22%) Oracle Database
11 30 (1.18%) Amazon Redshift
11 30 (1.18%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 29 (1.14%) NoSQL
13 26 (1.03%) Oracle Reports
13 26 (1.03%) Power Query
14 24 (0.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 23 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
15 23 (0.91%) BigQuery
16 22 (0.87%) Delta Lake
17 20 (0.79%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 225 (8.88%) JIRA
2 147 (5.80%) Git
3 99 (3.91%) Jenkins
4 69 (2.72%) GitLab
5 57 (2.25%) Selenium
6 54 (2.13%) Postman
7 47 (1.85%) JMeter
8 37 (1.46%) JUnit
9 35 (1.38%) Cucumber
10 30 (1.18%) WebDriver
11 26 (1.03%) Rational DOORS
12 17 (0.67%) Eclipse
12 17 (0.67%) Rational Rhapsody
13 16 (0.63%) Visual Studio
14 15 (0.59%) Gatling
14 15 (0.59%) MLflow
15 12 (0.47%) REST Assured
16 10 (0.39%) Cypress.io
16 10 (0.39%) Gradle
16 10 (0.39%) Maven
General
1 742 (29.28%) Finance
2 735 (29.01%) Social Skills
3 448 (17.68%) Analytical Skills
4 219 (8.64%) Public Sector
5 202 (7.97%) Banking
6 141 (5.56%) Documentation Skills
7 82 (3.24%) Manufacturing
8 71 (2.80%) Aerospace
9 56 (2.21%) Retail
10 53 (2.09%) Pharmaceutical
11 47 (1.85%) Organisational Skills
12 42 (1.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 42 (1.66%) Influencing Skills
13 40 (1.58%) Legal
13 40 (1.58%) Telecoms
14 39 (1.54%) Marketing
15 37 (1.46%) Front Office
15 37 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
16 36 (1.42%) General Ledger
17 33 (1.30%) Military
Job Titles
1 444 (17.52%) Analyst
2 258 (10.18%) Lead
3 257 (10.14%) Senior
4 214 (8.45%) Business Analyst
5 195 (7.70%) Data Engineer
6 183 (7.22%) Consultant
7 154 (6.08%) Architect
8 141 (5.56%) Developer
9 121 (4.78%) Data Analyst
10 87 (3.43%) Project Manager
11 73 (2.88%) Test Engineer
12 65 (2.57%) Tester
13 50 (1.97%) Network Engineer
14 49 (1.93%) Senior Analyst
15 48 (1.89%) Test Manager
16 46 (1.82%) Software Engineer
16 46 (1.82%) Technical Analyst
17 45 (1.78%) Systems Engineer
18 42 (1.66%) SAP Consultant
18 42 (1.66%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 137 (5.41%) REST
2 79 (3.12%) JSON
3 69 (2.72%) Kafka
4 56 (2.21%) Oracle Fusion
5 52 (2.05%) OAuth
6 51 (2.01%) XML
7 48 (1.89%) Middleware
8 45 (1.78%) PySpark
9 41 (1.62%) SOAP
10 40 (1.58%) Swagger
11 39 (1.54%) .NET
11 39 (1.54%) pytest
11 39 (1.54%) RESTful
12 38 (1.50%) Spring
13 33 (1.30%) Pandas
13 33 (1.30%) Web Services
14 32 (1.26%) Playwright
15 30 (1.18%) Node.js
16 29 (1.14%) OAuth2
17 27 (1.07%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 137 (5.41%) Legacy Systems
2 127 (5.01%) Onboarding
3 120 (4.74%) Data Structures
4 111 (4.38%) Product Ownership
5 105 (4.14%) Cloud Native
6 79 (3.12%) Data Centre
7 62 (2.45%) Management Information System
8 57 (2.25%) Distributed Systems
9 44 (1.74%) Analytical Mindset
10 39 (1.54%) Life Science
11 37 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
12 33 (1.30%) SCADA
13 31 (1.22%) Operational Technology
14 30 (1.18%) Hybrid Cloud
14 30 (1.18%) NHS
14 30 (1.18%) Replication
15 29 (1.14%) Distributed Architecture
15 29 (1.14%) Reference Data
15 29 (1.14%) Virtual Team
16 28 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 134 (5.29%) Windows
2 94 (3.71%) Linux
3 34 (1.34%) Unix
4 27 (1.07%) Windows Server
5 14 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.47%) Android
7 8 (0.32%) VMS
8 7 (0.28%) Windows 10
9 5 (0.20%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.16%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.16%) SUSE
10 4 (0.16%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.079%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.079%) Embedded Linux
12 2 (0.079%) HPUX
12 2 (0.079%) Solaris
12 2 (0.079%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.079%) zOS
13 1 (0.039%) pSOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 682 (26.91%) Migration
2 492 (19.42%) Agile
3 436 (17.21%) Stakeholder Management
4 431 (17.01%) Problem-Solving
5 424 (16.73%) Data Validation
6 421 (16.61%) CI/CD
7 406 (16.02%) Data Migration
8 403 (15.90%) User Acceptance Testing
9 396 (15.63%) Data Modelling
10 377 (14.88%) Analytics
11 314 (12.39%) AI
11 314 (12.39%) ETL
12 308 (12.15%) Test Automation
13 306 (12.08%) DevOps
14 275 (10.85%) Continuous Improvement
15 267 (10.54%) Business Intelligence
16 261 (10.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 234 (9.23%) Data Governance
18 232 (9.16%) Data Analysis
18 232 (9.16%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 591 (23.32%) SQL
2 454 (17.92%) Python
3 117 (4.62%) Java
4 66 (2.60%) PowerShell
5 56 (2.21%) C#
6 48 (1.89%) Bash
7 44 (1.74%) C
8 43 (1.70%) C++
9 39 (1.54%) JavaScript
10 32 (1.26%) Bicep
10 32 (1.26%) TypeScript
11 31 (1.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 28 (1.10%) Apex Code
13 23 (0.91%) PL/SQL
13 23 (0.91%) R
14 21 (0.83%) Ada
15 20 (0.79%) Scala
16 17 (0.67%) MATLAB
16 17 (0.67%) T-SQL
17 13 (0.51%) VBA
Qualifications
1 464 (18.31%) Security Cleared
2 342 (13.50%) SC Cleared
3 179 (7.06%) Degree
4 63 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
5 48 (1.89%) DV Cleared
6 44 (1.74%) Computer Science Degree
7 33 (1.30%) Cisco Certification
8 30 (1.18%) PMI Certification
9 27 (1.07%) CCNP
10 26 (1.03%) PMP
11 21 (0.83%) ISTQB
12 20 (0.79%) ACCA
12 20 (0.79%) Master's Degree
13 18 (0.71%) CIMA
14 17 (0.67%) CISSP
15 16 (0.63%) Azure Certification
15 16 (0.63%) Microsoft Certification
16 15 (0.59%) AWS Certification
17 14 (0.55%) CCNA
18 12 (0.47%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 436 (17.21%) Data Quality
2 298 (11.76%) QA
3 120 (4.74%) GDPR
4 63 (2.49%) NIST
5 54 (2.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 38 (1.50%) Accessibility
7 34 (1.34%) SLA
8 30 (1.18%) GxP
8 30 (1.18%) PMO
9 27 (1.07%) IFRS
10 19 (0.75%) GRC
11 18 (0.71%) IFRS 17
12 17 (0.67%) Def Stans
12 17 (0.67%) GMP
12 17 (0.67%) HL7
13 14 (0.55%) ISO 20022
13 14 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 13 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
14 13 (0.51%) PCI DSS
15 12 (0.47%) NIST 800
System Software
1 105 (4.14%) Docker
2 67 (2.64%) Active Directory
3 58 (2.29%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (0.95%) Virtual Machines
5 22 (0.87%) Hyper-V
6 19 (0.75%) Firmware
6 19 (0.75%) VMware ESXi
7 16 (0.63%) VMware NSX
8 14 (0.55%) vSphere
9 10 (0.39%) Virtual Desktop
10 6 (0.24%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 3 (0.12%) KVM
12 3 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.079%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.079%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.079%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.039%) etcd
14 1 (0.039%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 150 (5.92%) Kubernetes
2 122 (4.81%) Terraform
3 54 (2.13%) Prometheus
4 48 (1.89%) Grafana
5 47 (1.85%) Ansible
6 29 (1.14%) Single Sign-On
7 21 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
8 20 (0.79%) FortiGate
9 9 (0.36%) vCenter Server
10 8 (0.32%) Kibana
10 8 (0.32%) SCCM
11 7 (0.28%) Puppet
12 6 (0.24%) Nessus
12 6 (0.24%) vMotion
13 5 (0.20%) Argo
13 5 (0.20%) Istio
13 5 (0.20%) VxRail
14 4 (0.16%) CASB
14 4 (0.16%) Consul
14 4 (0.16%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 337 (13.30%) Microsoft
2 223 (8.80%) SAP
3 215 (8.48%) Oracle
4 121 (4.78%) Databricks
5 85 (3.35%) Salesforce
6 73 (2.88%) ServiceNow
7 70 (2.76%) VMware
8 54 (2.13%) Cisco
9 49 (1.93%) Google
10 41 (1.62%) Splunk
11 33 (1.30%) Workday
12 32 (1.26%) Informatica
13 29 (1.14%) Palo Alto
14 28 (1.10%) Sage
15 27 (1.07%) MuleSoft
16 24 (0.95%) Fortinet
17 23 (0.91%) IBM
18 21 (0.83%) IFS
18 21 (0.83%) OpenAI
19 20 (0.79%) CyberArk