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 27 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 115 128
Rank change year-on-year +61 +13 +7
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,561 694 830
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.10% 2.23% 1.87%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.69% 2.51% 2.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 945 357 459
10th Percentile £350 £346 £318
25th Percentile £404 £408 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £538
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -3.26% -2.27%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £623
90th Percentile £700 £708 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £513
% change year-on-year -4.04% -3.51% +2.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 39 140
10th Percentile £28.91 £28.45 £23.21
25th Percentile £41.94 £47.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.75 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year +12.55% -12.47% +5.29%
75th Percentile £67.84 £63.75 £77.50
90th Percentile £73.75 £66.30 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.65 £65.98
% change year-on-year +12.76% -12.63% +4.82%

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 33,264 27,700 38,783
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.38% 89.09% 87.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,060 16,780 25,534
10th Percentile £305 £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 £643
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,011 875 1,974
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.50
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.88
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -9.72% +12.50%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.71 £30.43 £37.50
% change year-on-year -18.80% -18.85% +44.23%

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 27 January 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 27 January 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 27 January 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 +56 1,351 £500 -4.76% 1,085
UK excluding London +39 718 £475 -4.04% 1,001
London +81 635 £513 -2.84% 216
Work from Home +69 487 £500 -8.68% 426
North of England +26 181 £419 -7.00% 170
South East +15 162 £500 - 323
North West +20 117 £400 -3.03% 71
South West +14 116 £475 -17.82% 151
Midlands +11 114 £515 +7.01% 159
East of England +19 94 £482 +20.44% 154
West Midlands +13 94 £515 +5.64% 82
Yorkshire -4 51 £487 -0.10% 78
Scotland +31 38 £425 -5.56% 39
Northern Ireland +12 20 £425 - 13
East Midlands -12 20 £475 +58.33% 73
North East -5 15 £463 -36.21% 22
Wales -5 2 £536 - 34

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 60 (3.84%) Confluence
2 36 (2.31%) Apache Spark
3 32 (2.05%) SAS
3 32 (2.05%) SharePoint
4 23 (1.47%) Apache Airflow
5 20 (1.28%) Microsoft Exchange
6 15 (0.96%) Apache
7 14 (0.90%) Skype for Business
8 9 (0.58%) Exchange Server 2013
9 8 (0.51%) CMS
10 7 (0.45%) Appian
10 7 (0.45%) Mattermost
11 6 (0.38%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.32%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.32%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
13 4 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.26%) Anypoint
13 4 (0.26%) Jupyter
14 3 (0.19%) GeoServer
14 3 (0.19%) WebSphere
Applications
1 77 (4.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 39 (2.50%) Microsoft Office
3 27 (1.73%) MS Visio
4 14 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (0.58%) Chatbot
5 9 (0.58%) Microsoft Project
6 6 (0.38%) Sketch
7 4 (0.26%) Notion
7 4 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
8 3 (0.19%) LaTeX
9 2 (0.13%) Simulink
10 1 (0.064%) CANalyzer
10 1 (0.064%) CATIA
10 1 (0.064%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.064%) Siemens NX
10 1 (0.064%) Stateflow
10 1 (0.064%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 85 (5.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (1.09%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.83%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.77%) SAP EHS
5 11 (0.70%) Oracle General Ledger
5 11 (0.70%) SAP FI
6 10 (0.64%) Oracle Receivables
7 9 (0.58%) Aladdin
7 9 (0.58%) NetSuite
7 9 (0.58%) Remedy ITSM
7 9 (0.58%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.51%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.51%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 8 (0.51%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 7 (0.45%) Markit EDM
9 7 (0.45%) OpenText VIM for SAP
9 7 (0.45%) SAP MM
10 6 (0.38%) SAP ERP
11 5 (0.32%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 360 (23.06%) Azure
2 195 (12.49%) AWS
3 131 (8.39%) Azure DevOps
4 119 (7.62%) Power Platform
5 70 (4.48%) GitHub
6 63 (4.04%) GCP
7 55 (3.52%) Entra ID
8 48 (3.07%) SaaS
9 45 (2.88%) Serverless
10 44 (2.82%) GitHub Actions
11 41 (2.63%) Azure Data Factory
12 32 (2.05%) OCI
12 32 (2.05%) Snowflake
13 31 (1.99%) Amazon S3
14 30 (1.92%) Microsoft 365
15 25 (1.60%) OpenShift
16 24 (1.54%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 21 (1.35%) AWS Lambda
17 21 (1.35%) Dynamics 365
18 17 (1.09%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 40 (2.56%) Firewall
2 27 (1.73%) TCP/IP
3 22 (1.41%) Network Security
4 21 (1.35%) Ethernet
4 21 (1.35%) WAN
5 17 (1.09%) HTTP
5 17 (1.09%) VPN
6 14 (0.90%) DNS
6 14 (0.90%) Skype
6 14 (0.90%) VLAN
7 13 (0.83%) BGP
7 13 (0.83%) Wireless
8 12 (0.77%) LAN
8 12 (0.77%) MPLS
8 12 (0.77%) OSPF
9 11 (0.70%) SD-WAN
9 11 (0.70%) TACACS
10 8 (0.51%) SNMP
11 7 (0.45%) Internet
12 6 (0.38%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 111 (7.11%) Power BI
2 70 (4.48%) Metadata
3 62 (3.97%) Data Warehouse
4 40 (2.56%) SQL Server
5 39 (2.50%) Tableau
6 34 (2.18%) Data Lake
7 30 (1.92%) NoSQL
8 26 (1.67%) PostgreSQL
9 24 (1.54%) Relational Database
10 22 (1.41%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 21 (1.35%) Azure SQL Database
11 21 (1.35%) Delta Lake
12 18 (1.15%) Big Data
13 17 (1.09%) Oracle Database
14 16 (1.02%) Oracle Reports
14 16 (1.02%) Pinecone
15 15 (0.96%) Parquet
16 14 (0.90%) Amazon Athena
16 14 (0.90%) BigQuery
16 14 (0.90%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 156 (9.99%) JIRA
2 75 (4.80%) Git
3 74 (4.74%) Jenkins
4 48 (3.07%) Postman
5 47 (3.01%) GitLab
6 40 (2.56%) Selenium
7 32 (2.05%) Oracle APEX
8 23 (1.47%) Rational DOORS
9 19 (1.22%) JMeter
9 19 (1.22%) Visual Studio
10 17 (1.09%) TestRail
11 15 (0.96%) Cucumber
12 14 (0.90%) MLflow
13 13 (0.83%) Eclipse
13 13 (0.83%) Zephyr
14 11 (0.70%) SpecFlow
15 10 (0.64%) Bitbucket
15 10 (0.64%) Cypress.io
15 10 (0.64%) JUnit
15 10 (0.64%) REST Assured
General
1 588 (37.67%) Social Skills
2 430 (27.55%) Finance
3 322 (20.63%) Analytical Skills
4 145 (9.29%) Public Sector
5 131 (8.39%) Banking
6 80 (5.12%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (3.14%) Presentation Skills
8 41 (2.63%) Manufacturing
9 35 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
9 35 (2.24%) Pharmaceutical
10 31 (1.99%) Aerospace
10 31 (1.99%) Telecoms
11 28 (1.79%) Electronics
11 28 (1.79%) Marketing
12 27 (1.73%) Front Office
12 27 (1.73%) Military
13 24 (1.54%) Legal
14 23 (1.47%) Investment Banking
15 21 (1.35%) Billing
15 21 (1.35%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 310 (19.86%) Analyst
2 162 (10.38%) Senior
3 141 (9.03%) Business Analyst
4 136 (8.71%) Consultant
5 131 (8.39%) Lead
6 121 (7.75%) Developer
7 90 (5.77%) Architect
8 73 (4.68%) Data Analyst
9 66 (4.23%) Data Engineer
10 53 (3.40%) Software Engineer
11 49 (3.14%) Tester
12 45 (2.88%) Senior Analyst
13 44 (2.82%) SAP Consultant
14 43 (2.75%) Project Manager
15 37 (2.37%) Test Analyst
15 37 (2.37%) Test Manager
16 35 (2.24%) Senior Developer
17 30 (1.92%) Solutions Architect
18 29 (1.86%) Data Scientist
19 27 (1.73%) Embedded Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (6.53%) REST
2 79 (5.06%) JSON
3 57 (3.65%) XML
4 50 (3.20%) Oracle Fusion
5 44 (2.82%) OAuth
6 41 (2.63%) Middleware
7 40 (2.56%) SOAP
8 37 (2.37%) Node.js
8 37 (2.37%) PySpark
9 35 (2.24%) RESTful
10 31 (1.99%) .NET
11 28 (1.79%) Kafka
11 28 (1.79%) Playwright
12 27 (1.73%) PyTorch
13 26 (1.67%) Swagger
13 26 (1.67%) Web Services
14 24 (1.54%) JWT
14 24 (1.54%) SAP Fiori
14 24 (1.54%) TensorFlow
15 23 (1.47%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 89 (5.70%) Legacy Systems
2 61 (3.91%) Data Structures
2 61 (3.91%) Onboarding
3 60 (3.84%) Product Ownership
4 47 (3.01%) Management Information System
5 41 (2.63%) Cloud Native
6 31 (1.99%) Data Centre
7 28 (1.79%) Algorithms
8 26 (1.67%) Analytical Mindset
9 25 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
10 21 (1.35%) FPGA
11 20 (1.28%) Life Science
12 19 (1.22%) Derivative
13 17 (1.09%) Operational Technology
14 16 (1.02%) Replication
14 16 (1.02%) SCADA
15 15 (0.96%) Distributed Systems
16 14 (0.90%) Credit Risk
16 14 (0.90%) Hybrid Cloud
16 14 (0.90%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 94 (6.02%) Linux
2 75 (4.80%) Windows
3 31 (1.99%) Unix
4 11 (0.70%) Android
5 6 (0.38%) Embedded Linux
6 5 (0.32%) Windows Server
6 5 (0.32%) zOS
7 4 (0.26%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.13%) Debian
8 2 (0.13%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.13%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.064%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.064%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 417 (26.71%) Agile
2 355 (22.74%) Problem-Solving
3 353 (22.61%) Migration
4 274 (17.55%) DevOps
5 262 (16.78%) CI/CD
6 260 (16.66%) Stakeholder Management
7 259 (16.59%) Data Validation
8 223 (14.29%) Analytics
9 193 (12.36%) Data Modelling
10 190 (12.17%) Data Migration
10 190 (12.17%) Test Automation
11 189 (12.11%) User Acceptance Testing
12 166 (10.63%) AI
12 166 (10.63%) ETL
13 164 (10.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 150 (9.61%) Data Governance
15 143 (9.16%) Business Intelligence
16 142 (9.10%) Continuous Improvement
17 138 (8.84%) Data Analysis
18 129 (8.26%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 391 (25.05%) SQL
2 333 (21.33%) Python
3 97 (6.21%) JavaScript
4 89 (5.70%) Java
5 64 (4.10%) C#
6 52 (3.33%) PL/SQL
7 49 (3.14%) C++
8 47 (3.01%) PowerShell
9 45 (2.88%) Bash
10 39 (2.50%) C
11 32 (2.05%) TypeScript
12 23 (1.47%) R
13 16 (1.02%) Groovy
13 16 (1.02%) Shell Script
14 15 (0.96%) Scala
15 14 (0.90%) Ada
15 14 (0.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 13 (0.83%) Bicep
17 11 (0.70%) T-SQL
18 9 (0.58%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 344 (22.04%) Security Cleared
2 253 (16.21%) SC Cleared
3 157 (10.06%) Degree
4 61 (3.91%) Computer Science Degree
5 53 (3.40%) BPSS Clearance
6 38 (2.43%) DV Cleared
7 37 (2.37%) Master's Degree
8 31 (1.99%) ISTQB
9 27 (1.73%) PMI Certification
10 23 (1.47%) AWS Certification
11 19 (1.22%) PMP
12 16 (1.02%) CBAP
13 15 (0.96%) Cisco Certification
14 14 (0.90%) Oracle Certification
15 11 (0.70%) Azure Certification
16 10 (0.64%) CCIE
16 10 (0.64%) CISSP
16 10 (0.64%) OCA
17 9 (0.58%) CCNP
17 9 (0.58%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 207 (13.26%) Data Quality
2 201 (12.88%) QA
3 91 (5.83%) GDPR
4 64 (4.10%) NIST
5 46 (2.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 34 (2.18%) Accessibility
7 19 (1.22%) GxP
7 19 (1.22%) IFRS
8 16 (1.02%) IFRS 17
9 14 (0.90%) Def Stans
10 13 (0.83%) EU AI Act
11 12 (0.77%) PCI DSS
12 11 (0.70%) NCSC
13 10 (0.64%) GMP
13 10 (0.64%) MiFID
13 10 (0.64%) MISRA
13 10 (0.64%) SLA
14 9 (0.58%) COBIT
14 9 (0.58%) PMO
14 9 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 57 (3.65%) Docker
2 45 (2.88%) Active Directory
3 25 (1.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (1.41%) Firmware
5 11 (0.70%) VMware NSX
6 8 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.26%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 4 (0.26%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.26%) vSphere
9 3 (0.19%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.19%) KVM
9 3 (0.19%) QEMU
10 2 (0.13%) Ceph
10 2 (0.13%) Lustre
10 2 (0.13%) OpenAM
10 2 (0.13%) OpenDJ
10 2 (0.13%) OpenIDM
10 2 (0.13%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 1 (0.064%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 77 (4.93%) Kubernetes
2 62 (3.97%) Terraform
3 46 (2.95%) Ansible
4 21 (1.35%) Single Sign-On
5 15 (0.96%) Microsoft Intune
6 14 (0.90%) Kibana
6 14 (0.90%) Puppet
7 11 (0.70%) SCCM
8 10 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 10 (0.64%) Grafana
9 8 (0.51%) Nmap
10 7 (0.45%) HP SiteScope
10 7 (0.45%) SCOM
11 6 (0.38%) Nessus
12 5 (0.32%) Prometheus
12 5 (0.32%) RSA Archer
13 4 (0.26%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
14 3 (0.19%) FortiGate
14 3 (0.19%) Iperf
14 3 (0.19%) OMEGAMON
Vendors
1 202 (12.94%) Microsoft
2 158 (10.12%) Oracle
3 134 (8.58%) SAP
4 70 (4.48%) Databricks
5 64 (4.10%) ServiceNow
6 43 (2.75%) Cisco
7 39 (2.50%) Google
8 37 (2.37%) Salesforce
9 36 (2.31%) Splunk
10 30 (1.92%) VMware
11 25 (1.60%) Workday
12 19 (1.22%) IBM
12 19 (1.22%) MuleSoft
13 18 (1.15%) Murex
14 16 (1.02%) Palo Alto
15 14 (0.90%) Informatica
16 13 (0.83%) Sage
17 12 (0.77%) Adobe
17 12 (0.77%) Bloomberg
17 12 (0.77%) Fortinet