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 22 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 67 113
Rank change year-on-year +35 +46 +36
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,068 1,205 796
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.62% 3.71% 2.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.67% 4.10% 2.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,813 685 392
10th Percentile £331 £325 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -7.41%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £591
90th Percentile £700 £688 £662
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £488
% change year-on-year -7.50% +2.56% -4.97%
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 85 100
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £29.59
25th Percentile £26.52 £41.25 £48.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.23% - -1.49%
75th Percentile £70.63 £67.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -17.69% - -4.41%

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 46,027 29,389 32,594
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.35% 90.49% 85.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,906 18,237 19,938
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £626 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,152 1,808 1,420
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.24 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.69
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.09% -1.10%
75th Percentile £67.25 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.08 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +79.61% -48.10% +1.18%

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 22 September 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 22 September 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 22 September 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 2,633 £500 -2.44% 3,518
UK excluding London +28 1,406 £463 -7.50% 2,200
London +38 1,289 £525 +0.48% 1,631
Work from Home +26 835 £500 - 1,395
North of England +45 345 £450 +4.65% 391
South East +3 331 £525 +5.00% 580
Midlands +36 305 £473 +2.27% 317
West Midlands +28 214 £464 +3.02% 217
North West +18 164 £450 +5.88% 224
Yorkshire +50 156 £460 -3.16% 105
South West +17 150 £523 -5.00% 295
East of England -9 141 £450 -11.33% 280
Scotland +43 126 £430 -15.02% 244
East Midlands +30 87 £489 -2.25% 99
North East -18 30 £425 -11.92% 63
Wales +2 26 £394 +5.00% 46
Northern Ireland +6 4 £363 -40.33% 74
Channel Islands -5 1 - - 2

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 87 (2.84%) Confluence
2 67 (2.18%) Apache Airflow
3 61 (1.99%) SharePoint
4 53 (1.73%) SAS
5 44 (1.43%) Apache Spark
6 32 (1.04%) Apache
7 19 (0.62%) Microsoft Exchange
8 16 (0.52%) CMS
9 14 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
10 12 (0.39%) Jupyter
11 9 (0.29%) SharePoint 2013
12 8 (0.26%) Palantir Foundry
13 7 (0.23%) ArcGIS
13 7 (0.23%) Sitecore CMS
14 6 (0.20%) OpenStack
14 6 (0.20%) WebLogic
15 5 (0.16%) Tuxedo
16 4 (0.13%) Headless CMS
16 4 (0.13%) IIS
16 4 (0.13%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 215 (7.01%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (1.53%) Microsoft Office
3 39 (1.27%) MS Visio
4 32 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 31 (1.01%) Spreadsheet
6 16 (0.52%) AutoCAD
7 11 (0.36%) Navisworks
7 11 (0.36%) Revit
8 10 (0.33%) ProjectWise
9 7 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
10 6 (0.20%) CATIA
10 6 (0.20%) Simulink
11 4 (0.13%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.065%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.065%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.065%) Windchill
13 1 (0.033%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.033%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.033%) OrCAD
13 1 (0.033%) Trello
Business Applications
1 113 (3.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.49%) Oracle EBS
2 15 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
2 15 (0.49%) SAP SD
3 14 (0.46%) SAP FI
4 13 (0.42%) NetSuite
4 13 (0.42%) Teamcenter
4 13 (0.42%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.39%) SAP MDG
6 11 (0.36%) Aladdin
6 11 (0.36%) SAP HCM
7 10 (0.33%) iTrent
7 10 (0.33%) SAP MM
8 9 (0.29%) Integrated Workplace Management System
8 9 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.29%) SAP CO
8 9 (0.29%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.29%) SAP PS
9 8 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 606 (19.75%) Azure
2 353 (11.51%) AWS
3 309 (10.07%) Power Platform
4 180 (5.87%) Azure DevOps
5 154 (5.02%) GCP
6 141 (4.60%) GitHub
7 107 (3.49%) Snowflake
8 95 (3.10%) Entra ID
9 74 (2.41%) GitHub Actions
10 69 (2.25%) Azure Data Factory
11 61 (1.99%) Serverless
12 60 (1.96%) SaaS
13 59 (1.92%) Amazon S3
14 58 (1.89%) dbt
15 55 (1.79%) Microsoft 365
16 40 (1.30%) SuccessFactors
17 38 (1.24%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 37 (1.21%) Azure Monitor
19 35 (1.14%) Amazon CloudWatch
20 32 (1.04%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 113 (3.68%) Firewall
2 76 (2.48%) DNS
3 70 (2.28%) VLAN
4 61 (1.99%) Network Security
5 55 (1.79%) VPN
6 50 (1.63%) BGP
7 47 (1.53%) TCP/IP
8 44 (1.43%) WAN
9 35 (1.14%) DHCP
10 30 (0.98%) OSPF
11 29 (0.95%) VXLAN
12 26 (0.85%) Ethernet VPN
12 26 (0.85%) Wireless
13 25 (0.81%) LAN
14 24 (0.78%) Ethernet
15 22 (0.72%) Internet
16 21 (0.68%) SD-WAN
17 20 (0.65%) 5G
17 20 (0.65%) SAN
17 20 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 287 (9.35%) Power BI
2 171 (5.57%) Data Warehouse
3 135 (4.40%) Metadata
4 118 (3.85%) Relational Database
5 100 (3.26%) SQL Server
6 92 (3.00%) PostgreSQL
7 86 (2.80%) Data Lake
8 73 (2.38%) Tableau
9 42 (1.37%) Oracle Database
10 38 (1.24%) Delta Lake
10 38 (1.24%) MongoDB
11 36 (1.17%) Big Data
11 36 (1.17%) BigQuery
11 36 (1.17%) Power Query
12 34 (1.11%) NoSQL
13 32 (1.04%) Oracle Reports
14 31 (1.01%) Redis
15 30 (0.98%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 29 (0.95%) Amazon Athena
16 29 (0.95%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 267 (8.70%) JIRA
2 229 (7.46%) Git
3 105 (3.42%) Jenkins
4 93 (3.03%) GitLab
5 83 (2.71%) Selenium
6 43 (1.40%) Postman
7 35 (1.14%) JMeter
8 25 (0.81%) Cucumber
9 22 (0.72%) Rational DOORS
10 21 (0.68%) WebDriver
11 20 (0.65%) JUnit
12 17 (0.55%) Cypress.io
12 17 (0.55%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.52%) REST Assured
13 16 (0.52%) Visual Studio
13 16 (0.52%) Zephyr
14 15 (0.49%) Gatling
15 14 (0.46%) Oracle Forms
16 11 (0.36%) Maven
16 11 (0.36%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 878 (28.62%) Social Skills
2 869 (28.32%) Finance
3 620 (20.21%) Analytical Skills
4 272 (8.87%) Banking
5 260 (8.47%) Public Sector
6 139 (4.53%) Documentation Skills
7 123 (4.01%) Manufacturing
8 95 (3.10%) Retail
9 72 (2.35%) Telecoms
10 71 (2.31%) Automotive
11 70 (2.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 60 (1.96%) Organisational Skills
13 57 (1.86%) Legal
14 54 (1.76%) Marketing
15 53 (1.73%) Aerospace
16 51 (1.66%) Pharmaceutical
17 46 (1.50%) Front Office
18 45 (1.47%) Law
19 44 (1.43%) Influencing Skills
20 42 (1.37%) Billing
Job Titles
1 524 (17.08%) Analyst
2 354 (11.54%) Senior
3 278 (9.06%) Lead
4 244 (7.95%) Consultant
5 243 (7.92%) Data Engineer
6 238 (7.76%) Business Analyst
7 202 (6.58%) Developer
8 159 (5.18%) Architect
8 159 (5.18%) Data Analyst
9 112 (3.65%) Test Engineer
10 79 (2.57%) Network Engineer
11 78 (2.54%) Tester
12 63 (2.05%) Systems Engineer
13 61 (1.99%) Administrator
14 58 (1.89%) Senior Data Engineer
15 57 (1.86%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 56 (1.83%) Senior Analyst
17 51 (1.66%) Software Engineer
18 50 (1.63%) Project Manager
19 47 (1.53%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 195 (6.36%) REST
2 180 (5.87%) Terraform
3 98 (3.19%) JSON
4 89 (2.90%) PySpark
5 83 (2.71%) Middleware
6 82 (2.67%) XML
7 74 (2.41%) Kafka
8 60 (1.96%) Playwright
9 57 (1.86%) .NET
10 51 (1.66%) pytest
10 51 (1.66%) SOAP
10 51 (1.66%) Web Services
11 49 (1.60%) OAuth
12 46 (1.50%) Oracle Fusion
13 43 (1.40%) RESTful
14 39 (1.27%) Pandas
15 37 (1.21%) Spring
16 36 (1.17%) Node.js
16 36 (1.17%) OpenID
17 34 (1.11%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 170 (5.54%) Onboarding
2 161 (5.25%) Data Structures
3 140 (4.56%) Cloud Native
4 123 (4.01%) Legacy Systems
5 116 (3.78%) Product Ownership
6 114 (3.72%) Management Information System
7 92 (3.00%) Data Centre
8 59 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
9 55 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
10 54 (1.76%) AI Agents
11 46 (1.50%) Analytical Mindset
12 43 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
13 42 (1.37%) SCADA
14 41 (1.34%) Life Science
15 38 (1.24%) Algorithms
15 38 (1.24%) Operational Technology
16 37 (1.21%) NHS
16 37 (1.21%) Replication
17 34 (1.11%) CMDB
18 32 (1.04%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 205 (6.68%) Windows
2 136 (4.43%) Linux
3 81 (2.64%) Windows Server
4 57 (1.86%) Unix
5 22 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.52%) Android
6 16 (0.52%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.36%) Ubuntu
7 11 (0.36%) VMS
8 9 (0.29%) AIX
8 9 (0.29%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.23%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.13%) SUSE
10 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.098%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.065%) CentOS
12 2 (0.065%) HPUX
12 2 (0.065%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.065%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 820 (26.73%) Migration
2 671 (21.87%) Stakeholder Management
3 602 (19.62%) Agile
4 600 (19.56%) CI/CD
5 498 (16.23%) Data Modelling
6 494 (16.10%) Analytics
7 490 (15.97%) User Acceptance Testing
8 476 (15.51%) Data Validation
9 474 (15.45%) Data Migration
9 474 (15.45%) Problem-Solving
10 422 (13.75%) AI
11 412 (13.43%) DevOps
12 407 (13.27%) Test Automation
13 406 (13.23%) Continuous Improvement
14 349 (11.38%) ETL
15 330 (10.76%) Business Intelligence
16 319 (10.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 314 (10.23%) Data Analysis
18 313 (10.20%) Data Governance
19 311 (10.14%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 807 (26.30%) SQL
2 656 (21.38%) Python
3 152 (4.95%) Java
4 105 (3.42%) PowerShell
5 76 (2.48%) C#
5 76 (2.48%) JavaScript
6 64 (2.09%) Bash
7 44 (1.43%) C++
7 44 (1.43%) TypeScript
8 32 (1.04%) Apex Code
9 31 (1.01%) R
10 30 (0.98%) Shell Script
11 29 (0.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 29 (0.95%) PL/SQL
12 25 (0.81%) Bicep
13 24 (0.78%) C
14 19 (0.62%) Go
15 18 (0.59%) T-SQL
15 18 (0.59%) VBA
16 15 (0.49%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 605 (19.72%) Security Cleared
2 449 (14.63%) SC Cleared
3 209 (6.81%) Degree
4 85 (2.77%) DV Cleared
5 72 (2.35%) BPSS Clearance
6 51 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
7 47 (1.53%) Cisco Certification
8 38 (1.24%) CCNP
9 34 (1.11%) AWS Certification
10 31 (1.01%) ACCA
10 31 (1.01%) CIMA
11 28 (0.91%) ISTQB
12 27 (0.88%) Azure Certification
13 24 (0.78%) PMI Certification
14 23 (0.75%) PMP
15 21 (0.68%) CISSP
16 19 (0.62%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 18 (0.59%) Master's Degree
18 16 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
19 15 (0.49%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 635 (20.70%) Data Quality
2 372 (12.13%) QA
3 102 (3.32%) GDPR
4 54 (1.76%) Accessibility
5 45 (1.47%) SLA
6 37 (1.21%) NIST
7 36 (1.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 36 (1.17%) PMO
8 35 (1.14%) GxP
9 22 (0.72%) GRC
9 22 (0.72%) ISO 20022
10 21 (0.68%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 20 (0.65%) WCAG
12 17 (0.55%) GMP
13 15 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
13 15 (0.49%) NCSC
14 11 (0.36%) IFRS
14 11 (0.36%) MiFID
15 10 (0.33%) Def Stans
15 10 (0.33%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 115 (3.75%) Docker
2 101 (3.29%) Active Directory
3 93 (3.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
5 37 (1.21%) VMware ESXi
6 32 (1.04%) Firmware
7 27 (0.88%) Hyper-V
7 27 (0.88%) vSphere
8 23 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
9 16 (0.52%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.16%) KVM
12 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.098%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.065%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.065%) OpenSSH
14 2 (0.065%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.033%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.033%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 1 (0.033%) NFS
Systems Management
1 146 (4.76%) Kubernetes
2 100 (3.26%) Ansible
3 44 (1.43%) Grafana
4 34 (1.11%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
6 26 (0.85%) FortiGate
7 20 (0.65%) SCCM
8 18 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.49%) vCenter Server
10 14 (0.46%) HP ALM
11 10 (0.33%) Failover Clustering
11 10 (0.33%) VxRail
12 9 (0.29%) Argo
12 9 (0.29%) Progress Chef
13 8 (0.26%) Functional Safety
14 6 (0.20%) Kibana
14 6 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
15 5 (0.16%) systemd
15 5 (0.16%) vMotion
15 5 (0.16%) vRealize
Vendors
1 463 (15.09%) Microsoft
2 254 (8.28%) SAP
3 247 (8.05%) Oracle
4 169 (5.51%) Databricks
5 107 (3.49%) VMware
6 98 (3.19%) Salesforce
7 89 (2.90%) Cisco
8 86 (2.80%) ServiceNow
9 64 (2.09%) Google
10 53 (1.73%) Workday
11 47 (1.53%) IBM
12 35 (1.14%) Informatica
13 33 (1.08%) Fortinet
14 31 (1.01%) Zscaler
15 29 (0.95%) Juniper
15 29 (0.95%) Palo Alto
16 24 (0.78%) Splunk
17 20 (0.65%) MuleSoft
18 19 (0.62%) Red Hat
19 18 (0.59%) Sage