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

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 53 110 128
Rank change year-on-year +57 +18 +9
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,694 723 835
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.23% 2.33% 1.87%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.87% 2.61% 2.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,034 397 456
10th Percentile £350 £354 £322
25th Percentile £402 £409 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £499 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -5.05% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £623
90th Percentile £700 £722 £719
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 £26.80 £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 34,804 27,718 38,790
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.01% 89.51% 87.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,033 16,994 25,434
10th Percentile £308 £306 £300
25th Percentile £408 £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 £496 £500
% change year-on-year -3.25% -0.77% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,100 850 2,118
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.27
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £33.53
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -3.06% +3.15%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £30.78 £35.00
% change year-on-year -18.29% -12.06% +9.38%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +53 1,469 £500 -4.76% 682
UK excluding London +43 781 £475 -5.00% 571
London +79 694 £522 -4.27% 204
Work from Home +67 527 £500 -4.76% 291
North of England +34 204 £419 -0.36% 112
South East +4 171 £503 +0.50% 192
North West +29 133 £400 +1.27% 73
Midlands +16 125 £492 +0.61% 117
South West +11 122 £475 -17.39% 66
West Midlands +12 102 £500 +2.04% 80
East of England +24 94 £482 +20.44% 73
Yorkshire -12 61 £475 -2.62% 32
Scotland +36 48 £433 -4.95% 22
East Midlands -15 22 £463 +21.87% 36
Northern Ireland +13 19 £425 - 1
North East -5 12 £450 -45.45% 7
Wales +1 7 £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 (3.72%) Confluence
2 40 (2.36%) Apache Spark
3 33 (1.95%) SharePoint
4 27 (1.59%) SAS
5 21 (1.24%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
7 16 (0.94%) Apache
8 14 (0.83%) 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 4 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.24%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
12 4 (0.24%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.18%) GeoServer
Applications
1 87 (5.14%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (2.42%) Microsoft Office
3 30 (1.77%) MS Visio
4 18 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.71%) Microsoft Project
6 10 (0.59%) Chatbot
7 7 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
8 6 (0.35%) Sketch
9 4 (0.24%) 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 (4.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (1.24%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.83%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.71%) SAP EHS
4 12 (0.71%) 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
1 389 (22.96%) Azure
2 209 (12.34%) AWS
3 135 (7.97%) Azure DevOps
4 131 (7.73%) Power Platform
5 77 (4.55%) GitHub
6 67 (3.96%) GCP
7 57 (3.36%) Entra ID
8 50 (2.95%) SaaS
8 50 (2.95%) Serverless
9 47 (2.77%) Azure Data Factory
9 47 (2.77%) GitHub Actions
10 43 (2.54%) Amazon S3
11 36 (2.13%) Snowflake
12 34 (2.01%) OCI
13 32 (1.89%) Microsoft 365
14 29 (1.71%) OpenShift
15 26 (1.53%) AWS Lambda
16 25 (1.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 21 (1.24%) Dynamics 365
17 21 (1.24%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 53 (3.13%) Firewall
2 26 (1.53%) Network Security
2 26 (1.53%) TCP/IP
3 19 (1.12%) Ethernet
4 18 (1.06%) HTTP
5 17 (1.00%) VPN
6 16 (0.94%) VLAN
6 16 (0.94%) WAN
7 15 (0.89%) DNS
7 15 (0.89%) Wireless
8 14 (0.83%) Skype
9 13 (0.77%) BGP
10 12 (0.71%) OSPF
11 11 (0.65%) LAN
11 11 (0.65%) MPLS
12 9 (0.53%) TACACS
13 7 (0.41%) Internet
13 7 (0.41%) SD-WAN
14 6 (0.35%) Cisco ASA
14 6 (0.35%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (7.38%) Power BI
2 81 (4.78%) Metadata
3 63 (3.72%) Data Warehouse
4 45 (2.66%) SQL Server
5 41 (2.42%) Tableau
6 35 (2.07%) Data Lake
7 31 (1.83%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
9 24 (1.42%) Delta Lake
10 22 (1.30%) Relational Database
11 21 (1.24%) Azure SQL Database
12 20 (1.18%) Amazon Redshift
12 20 (1.18%) Big Data
13 19 (1.12%) Pinecone
14 18 (1.06%) Geospatial Data
15 17 (1.00%) Oracle Database
15 17 (1.00%) Oracle Reports
16 16 (0.94%) Amazon Athena
16 16 (0.94%) GIS
16 16 (0.94%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 164 (9.68%) JIRA
2 87 (5.14%) Git
3 71 (4.19%) Jenkins
4 53 (3.13%) Postman
5 49 (2.89%) GitLab
6 44 (2.60%) Selenium
7 32 (1.89%) Oracle APEX
8 25 (1.48%) Rational DOORS
9 20 (1.18%) JMeter
10 18 (1.06%) MLflow
11 16 (0.94%) Cucumber
11 16 (0.94%) TestRail
11 16 (0.94%) Visual Studio
12 14 (0.83%) Zephyr
13 13 (0.77%) JUnit
14 12 (0.71%) 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 (37.60%) Social Skills
2 482 (28.45%) Finance
3 347 (20.48%) Analytical Skills
4 152 (8.97%) Public Sector
5 148 (8.74%) Banking
6 92 (5.43%) Documentation Skills
7 46 (2.72%) Presentation Skills
8 44 (2.60%) Manufacturing
9 38 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
10 36 (2.13%) Pharmaceutical
11 30 (1.77%) Electronics
11 30 (1.77%) Telecoms
12 29 (1.71%) Aerospace
12 29 (1.71%) Front Office
12 29 (1.71%) Marketing
13 28 (1.65%) Legal
13 28 (1.65%) Organisational Skills
14 26 (1.53%) Military
15 22 (1.30%) Billing
15 22 (1.30%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 337 (19.89%) Analyst
2 171 (10.09%) Senior
3 147 (8.68%) Business Analyst
3 147 (8.68%) Lead
4 133 (7.85%) Consultant
5 124 (7.32%) Developer
6 109 (6.43%) Architect
7 85 (5.02%) Data Engineer
8 80 (4.72%) Data Analyst
9 52 (3.07%) Software Engineer
10 50 (2.95%) Tester
11 49 (2.89%) Senior Analyst
12 48 (2.83%) Project Manager
13 40 (2.36%) SAP Consultant
13 40 (2.36%) Test Analyst
14 38 (2.24%) Test Manager
15 35 (2.07%) Senior Developer
16 34 (2.01%) Solutions Architect
17 31 (1.83%) Embedded Engineer
18 30 (1.77%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (6.43%) REST
2 89 (5.25%) JSON
3 57 (3.36%) XML
4 51 (3.01%) Oracle Fusion
5 50 (2.95%) OAuth
6 43 (2.54%) Middleware
7 41 (2.42%) Kafka
7 41 (2.42%) PySpark
7 41 (2.42%) SOAP
8 38 (2.24%) RESTful
9 35 (2.07%) .NET
10 33 (1.95%) Node.js
11 31 (1.83%) PyTorch
12 30 (1.77%) Swagger
13 29 (1.71%) Playwright
14 28 (1.65%) TensorFlow
15 27 (1.59%) Web Services
16 25 (1.48%) Pandas
16 25 (1.48%) pytest
17 24 (1.42%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 100 (5.90%) Legacy Systems
2 73 (4.31%) Data Structures
3 64 (3.78%) Onboarding
4 61 (3.60%) Product Ownership
5 52 (3.07%) Cloud Native
6 51 (3.01%) Management Information System
7 31 (1.83%) Data Centre
8 28 (1.65%) Algorithms
8 28 (1.65%) Analytical Mindset
9 27 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
10 22 (1.30%) FPGA
10 22 (1.30%) Hybrid Cloud
11 21 (1.24%) Distributed Systems
12 20 (1.18%) Derivative
12 20 (1.18%) Life Science
13 18 (1.06%) Replication
14 17 (1.00%) Operational Technology
15 16 (0.94%) Security Posture
16 15 (0.89%) Greenfield Project
17 14 (0.83%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 94 (5.55%) Linux
2 87 (5.14%) Windows
3 31 (1.83%) 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 (24.85%) Agile
2 395 (23.32%) Problem-Solving
3 381 (22.49%) Migration
4 293 (17.30%) Stakeholder Management
5 278 (16.41%) Data Validation
6 271 (16.00%) DevOps
7 270 (15.94%) CI/CD
8 251 (14.82%) Analytics
9 228 (13.46%) Data Modelling
10 215 (12.69%) Test Automation
11 213 (12.57%) Data Migration
12 204 (12.04%) User Acceptance Testing
13 194 (11.45%) ETL
14 191 (11.28%) AI
15 174 (10.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 167 (9.86%) Continuous Improvement
17 165 (9.74%) Business Intelligence
18 164 (9.68%) Data Governance
19 151 (8.91%) Data Analysis
20 141 (8.32%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 416 (24.56%) SQL
2 361 (21.31%) Python
3 94 (5.55%) JavaScript
4 88 (5.19%) Java
5 67 (3.96%) C#
6 54 (3.19%) PL/SQL
6 54 (3.19%) PowerShell
7 51 (3.01%) Bash
8 46 (2.72%) C++
9 42 (2.48%) C
10 33 (1.95%) TypeScript
11 24 (1.42%) R
12 21 (1.24%) Bicep
13 18 (1.06%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 17 (1.00%) Ada
14 17 (1.00%) Groovy
15 16 (0.94%) Shell Script
16 15 (0.89%) Scala
17 12 (0.71%) T-SQL
18 11 (0.65%) VBA
Qualifications
1 364 (21.49%) Security Cleared
2 266 (15.70%) SC Cleared
3 179 (10.57%) Degree
4 61 (3.60%) Computer Science Degree
5 56 (3.31%) BPSS Clearance
6 40 (2.36%) Master's Degree
7 39 (2.30%) DV Cleared
8 32 (1.89%) ISTQB
9 28 (1.65%) PMI Certification
10 22 (1.30%) AWS Certification
11 21 (1.24%) PMP
12 16 (0.94%) CBAP
13 15 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
13 15 (0.89%) Oracle Certification
14 11 (0.65%) Azure Certification
14 11 (0.65%) CCNP
15 10 (0.59%) CISSP
15 10 (0.59%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 10 (0.59%) OCA
16 9 (0.53%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 243 (14.34%) Data Quality
2 215 (12.69%) QA
3 91 (5.37%) GDPR
4 69 (4.07%) NIST
5 48 (2.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 34 (2.01%) Accessibility
7 20 (1.18%) IFRS
8 19 (1.12%) GxP
9 18 (1.06%) IFRS 17
10 15 (0.89%) Def Stans
10 15 (0.89%) PCI DSS
11 14 (0.83%) SLA
12 13 (0.77%) EU AI Act
13 12 (0.71%) COBIT
13 12 (0.71%) GMP
13 12 (0.71%) NCSC
13 12 (0.71%) PMO
14 10 (0.59%) GRC
14 10 (0.59%) MiFID
14 10 (0.59%) MISRA
System Software
1 61 (3.60%) Docker
2 46 (2.72%) Active Directory
3 31 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.24%) Firmware
5 13 (0.77%) VMware NSX
6 11 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.41%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.24%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 4 (0.24%) vSphere
9 3 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.18%) KVM
9 3 (0.18%) NFS
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 88 (5.19%) Kubernetes
2 74 (4.37%) Terraform
3 41 (2.42%) Ansible
4 22 (1.30%) Single Sign-On
5 18 (1.06%) Microsoft Intune
5 18 (1.06%) Prometheus
6 15 (0.89%) Grafana
6 15 (0.89%) Kibana
6 15 (0.89%) SCCM
7 14 (0.83%) Puppet
8 11 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 9 (0.53%) Nmap
10 8 (0.47%) SCOM
11 7 (0.41%) HP SiteScope
11 7 (0.41%) Nessus
12 4 (0.24%) Iperf
12 4 (0.24%) RSA Archer
13 3 (0.18%) CloudHub
13 3 (0.18%) EMC VPLEX
13 3 (0.18%) vMotion
Vendors
1 225 (13.28%) Microsoft
2 166 (9.80%) Oracle
3 137 (8.09%) SAP
4 83 (4.90%) Databricks
5 69 (4.07%) ServiceNow
6 48 (2.83%) Splunk
7 44 (2.60%) Cisco
8 42 (2.48%) Google
9 40 (2.36%) Salesforce
10 37 (2.18%) VMware
11 34 (2.01%) Workday
12 21 (1.24%) MuleSoft
13 20 (1.18%) IBM
14 19 (1.12%) Murex
14 19 (1.12%) Palo Alto
15 17 (1.00%) Informatica
15 17 (1.00%) Sage
16 16 (0.94%) OpenAI
17 14 (0.83%) Avaloq
17 14 (0.83%) Bloomberg