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 16 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 78 118
Rank change year-on-year +35 +40 +34
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,257 900 797
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.70% 3.09% 1.87%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.57% 3.40% 2.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,359 529 389
10th Percentile £325 £350 £325
25th Percentile £400 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £530 £505
Median % change year-on-year -8.49% +4.95% -8.18%
75th Percentile £588 £630 £600
90th Percentile £700 £701 £694
UK excluding London median daily rate £452 £514 £500
% change year-on-year -11.92% +2.75% +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 135 57 166
10th Percentile £17.23 £21.09 £25.53
25th Percentile £33.46 £37.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £62.50 £55.00 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.64% -9.09% -4.32%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £73.63
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £76.93
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +13.04% -8.00% -

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 40,526 26,506 36,695
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.38% 90.99% 86.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,448 17,044 23,613
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £626 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,394 1,081 2,430
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.30 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.85 £18.20 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.41 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +49.60% -21.13% +0.06%
75th Percentile £67.49 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.43 £37.50
% change year-on-year +76.96% -32.19% +7.14%

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 16 May 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 16 May 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 16 May 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 +31 1,970 £492 -8.89% 874
UK excluding London +25 1,043 £452 -11.92% 651
London +56 961 £500 -9.05% 311
Work from Home +57 671 £485 -3.10% 392
North of England +39 272 £425 -5.56% 137
Midlands +25 233 £481 +1.32% 95
South East -12 223 £500 - 190
West Midlands +21 169 £475 - 55
North West +34 165 £418 -4.46% 84
East of England +8 117 £500 +11.11% 87
South West -10 109 £475 -17.39% 102
Yorkshire +19 97 £451 +8.03% 39
Scotland +39 67 £400 -12.33% 30
East Midlands +9 60 £525 +4.06% 40
Wales +8 21 £455 +193.55% 21
North East -14 13 £450 -28.00% 15
Northern Ireland +10 12 £400 -32.20% 9

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 90 (3.99%) Confluence
2 41 (1.82%) Apache Airflow
2 41 (1.82%) Apache Spark
3 38 (1.68%) SAS
4 21 (0.93%) SharePoint
5 20 (0.89%) Apache
6 12 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
7 11 (0.49%) ArcGIS
8 9 (0.40%) Appian
8 9 (0.40%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.40%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
10 5 (0.22%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.18%) CMS
12 3 (0.13%) CICS
12 3 (0.13%) Oracle Self-Service HR
12 3 (0.13%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.089%) Anypoint
13 2 (0.089%) Apache Pulsar
13 2 (0.089%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 149 (6.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (1.42%) MS Visio
3 31 (1.37%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.93%) Spreadsheet
5 15 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
6 7 (0.31%) CATIA
6 7 (0.31%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.13%) LaTeX
7 3 (0.13%) Notion
8 2 (0.089%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.089%) EPLAN
8 2 (0.089%) Simulink
8 2 (0.089%) Sketch
9 1 (0.044%) Autodesk Inventor
9 1 (0.044%) CANalyzer
9 1 (0.044%) MicroStation
9 1 (0.044%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.044%) UXPin
9 1 (0.044%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 107 (4.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (1.60%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.66%) Teamcenter
4 14 (0.62%) Oracle General Ledger
5 13 (0.58%) Oracle Payables
5 13 (0.58%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 12 (0.53%) Workday HCM
7 10 (0.44%) Oracle Assets
7 10 (0.44%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.40%) Oracle EBS R12
9 8 (0.35%) Aladdin
9 8 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
9 8 (0.35%) NetSuite
9 8 (0.35%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.35%) Payment Gateway
10 6 (0.27%) iTrent
10 6 (0.27%) Oracle Financials
10 6 (0.27%) Sage X3
10 6 (0.27%) SAP Business One
11 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 441 (19.54%) Azure
2 285 (12.63%) AWS
3 227 (10.06%) Power Platform
4 112 (4.96%) Azure DevOps
4 112 (4.96%) GCP
5 97 (4.30%) GitHub
6 66 (2.92%) Snowflake
7 64 (2.84%) Serverless
8 57 (2.53%) Amazon S3
8 57 (2.53%) Entra ID
8 57 (2.53%) SaaS
9 56 (2.48%) Azure Data Factory
10 52 (2.30%) GitHub Actions
11 49 (2.17%) OCI
12 39 (1.73%) Microsoft 365
13 38 (1.68%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 35 (1.55%) AWS Lambda
15 31 (1.37%) AWS CloudFormation
15 31 (1.37%) dbt
16 25 (1.11%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 87 (3.85%) Firewall
2 58 (2.57%) Network Security
3 41 (1.82%) VLAN
4 35 (1.55%) TCP/IP
5 33 (1.46%) DNS
6 31 (1.37%) VPN
7 26 (1.15%) WAN
8 23 (1.02%) Ethernet
9 18 (0.80%) LAN
10 16 (0.71%) SAN
10 16 (0.71%) Wireless
11 14 (0.62%) BGP
11 14 (0.62%) OSPF
11 14 (0.62%) SD-WAN
12 13 (0.58%) HTTP
13 12 (0.53%) NAS
13 12 (0.53%) Wi-Fi
14 11 (0.49%) Cisco ISE
14 11 (0.49%) DHCP
15 10 (0.44%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 215 (9.53%) Power BI
2 117 (5.18%) Data Warehouse
3 98 (4.34%) Metadata
4 80 (3.54%) SQL Server
5 76 (3.37%) Tableau
6 62 (2.75%) PostgreSQL
7 60 (2.66%) Data Lake
8 48 (2.13%) Relational Database
9 32 (1.42%) NoSQL
10 29 (1.28%) Big Data
11 28 (1.24%) Amazon Redshift
12 26 (1.15%) Delta Lake
13 25 (1.11%) Oracle Reports
14 24 (1.06%) Power Query
15 23 (1.02%) Oracle Database
15 23 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 22 (0.97%) BigQuery
17 21 (0.93%) SAS Enterprise Guide
18 20 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
18 20 (0.89%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 202 (8.95%) JIRA
2 126 (5.58%) Git
3 87 (3.85%) Jenkins
4 57 (2.53%) Selenium
5 54 (2.39%) GitLab
6 50 (2.22%) Postman
7 44 (1.95%) JMeter
8 32 (1.42%) JUnit
9 28 (1.24%) Cucumber
10 25 (1.11%) Rational DOORS
10 25 (1.11%) WebDriver
11 16 (0.71%) MLflow
12 15 (0.66%) Eclipse
12 15 (0.66%) Visual Studio
13 14 (0.62%) Rational Rhapsody
14 12 (0.53%) Bitbucket
14 12 (0.53%) Gatling
14 12 (0.53%) REST Assured
15 10 (0.44%) Gradle
15 10 (0.44%) Maven
General
1 697 (30.88%) Social Skills
2 667 (29.55%) Finance
3 421 (18.65%) Analytical Skills
4 190 (8.42%) Public Sector
5 185 (8.20%) Banking
6 122 (5.41%) Documentation Skills
7 77 (3.41%) Manufacturing
8 60 (2.66%) Aerospace
9 48 (2.13%) Organisational Skills
9 48 (2.13%) Pharmaceutical
9 48 (2.13%) Retail
10 44 (1.95%) Presentation Skills
11 39 (1.73%) Legal
12 36 (1.60%) Influencing Skills
13 34 (1.51%) Marketing
14 32 (1.42%) Front Office
14 32 (1.42%) General Ledger
14 32 (1.42%) Telecoms
15 31 (1.37%) Military
16 29 (1.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 424 (18.79%) Analyst
2 234 (10.37%) Lead
3 201 (8.91%) Senior
4 188 (8.33%) Business Analyst
5 177 (7.84%) Data Engineer
6 160 (7.09%) Consultant
7 138 (6.11%) Architect
8 122 (5.41%) Developer
9 117 (5.18%) Data Analyst
10 85 (3.77%) Project Manager
11 57 (2.53%) Tester
12 53 (2.35%) Test Engineer
13 49 (2.17%) Software Engineer
14 47 (2.08%) Senior Analyst
15 45 (1.99%) Network Engineer
16 41 (1.82%) Technical Analyst
16 41 (1.82%) Test Manager
17 40 (1.77%) Security Engineer
17 40 (1.77%) Systems Engineer
18 37 (1.64%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 119 (5.27%) REST
2 79 (3.50%) JSON
3 70 (3.10%) Kafka
4 55 (2.44%) Oracle Fusion
5 54 (2.39%) Middleware
6 52 (2.30%) OAuth
7 47 (2.08%) PySpark
8 43 (1.91%) XML
9 39 (1.73%) Swagger
10 38 (1.68%) SOAP
11 36 (1.60%) .NET
12 35 (1.55%) RESTful
13 33 (1.46%) Node.js
14 31 (1.37%) Pandas
14 31 (1.37%) Web Services
15 30 (1.33%) Playwright
16 28 (1.24%) PyTorch
16 28 (1.24%) Spring
17 27 (1.20%) OAuth2
18 26 (1.15%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 126 (5.58%) Legacy Systems
2 120 (5.32%) Data Structures
3 117 (5.18%) Onboarding
4 97 (4.30%) Product Ownership
5 82 (3.63%) Cloud Native
6 75 (3.32%) Data Centre
7 58 (2.57%) Management Information System
8 41 (1.82%) Distributed Systems
9 36 (1.60%) Analytical Mindset
10 34 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
11 30 (1.33%) Operational Technology
12 29 (1.28%) Replication
13 28 (1.24%) SCADA
14 27 (1.20%) Hybrid Cloud
14 27 (1.20%) NHS
14 27 (1.20%) Reference Data
15 26 (1.15%) Life Science
15 26 (1.15%) Virtual Team
16 25 (1.11%) Public Cloud
17 23 (1.02%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 108 (4.79%) Windows
2 94 (4.16%) Linux
3 33 (1.46%) Unix
4 17 (0.75%) Windows Server
5 11 (0.49%) Android
6 10 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 7 (0.31%) VMS
8 5 (0.22%) Embedded Linux
8 5 (0.22%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.22%) zOS
9 4 (0.18%) SUSE
9 4 (0.18%) Windows 10
10 3 (0.13%) Apple iOS
11 1 (0.044%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.044%) Debian
11 1 (0.044%) HPUX
11 1 (0.044%) pSOS
11 1 (0.044%) Solaris
11 1 (0.044%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.044%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 620 (27.47%) Migration
2 448 (19.85%) Agile
3 422 (18.70%) Problem-Solving
4 384 (17.01%) Stakeholder Management
5 380 (16.84%) Data Validation
6 371 (16.44%) Data Migration
7 358 (15.86%) CI/CD
8 352 (15.60%) Data Modelling
9 332 (14.71%) Analytics
10 330 (14.62%) User Acceptance Testing
11 299 (13.25%) ETL
12 270 (11.96%) DevOps
13 267 (11.83%) Test Automation
14 260 (11.52%) Business Intelligence
15 243 (10.77%) Continuous Improvement
16 241 (10.68%) AI
17 233 (10.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 223 (9.88%) Data Governance
19 201 (8.91%) Data Pipeline
20 200 (8.86%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 536 (23.75%) SQL
2 405 (17.94%) Python
3 109 (4.83%) Java
4 61 (2.70%) C#
5 50 (2.22%) C++
6 48 (2.13%) PowerShell
7 46 (2.04%) C
8 44 (1.95%) Bash
8 44 (1.95%) JavaScript
9 32 (1.42%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.37%) Bicep
11 28 (1.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 27 (1.20%) R
13 26 (1.15%) PL/SQL
14 20 (0.89%) Ada
14 20 (0.89%) Apex Code
14 20 (0.89%) Scala
15 15 (0.66%) MATLAB
16 12 (0.53%) VBA
17 11 (0.49%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 413 (18.30%) Security Cleared
2 300 (13.29%) SC Cleared
3 179 (7.93%) Degree
4 55 (2.44%) BPSS Clearance
5 47 (2.08%) Computer Science Degree
6 35 (1.55%) DV Cleared
7 34 (1.51%) PMI Certification
8 30 (1.33%) Cisco Certification
9 28 (1.24%) Master's Degree
9 28 (1.24%) PMP
10 24 (1.06%) CCNP
11 18 (0.80%) CISSP
11 18 (0.80%) ISTQB
12 15 (0.66%) ACCA
12 15 (0.66%) CBAP
13 13 (0.58%) AWS Certification
13 13 (0.58%) Azure Certification
13 13 (0.58%) CIMA
13 13 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
14 12 (0.53%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 395 (17.50%) Data Quality
2 290 (12.85%) QA
3 117 (5.18%) GDPR
4 70 (3.10%) NIST
5 61 (2.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 33 (1.46%) Accessibility
7 30 (1.33%) SLA
8 27 (1.20%) GxP
9 25 (1.11%) IFRS
9 25 (1.11%) PMO
10 20 (0.89%) IFRS 17
11 18 (0.80%) GMP
11 18 (0.80%) GRC
11 18 (0.80%) HL7
12 17 (0.75%) Def Stans
13 14 (0.62%) ISO 20022
13 14 (0.62%) MiFID
14 13 (0.58%) NIST 800
14 13 (0.58%) PCI DSS
15 12 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 82 (3.63%) Docker
2 53 (2.35%) Active Directory
3 47 (2.08%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.02%) Firmware
5 20 (0.89%) Virtual Machines
6 18 (0.80%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.66%) VMware ESXi
7 15 (0.66%) VMware NSX
8 12 (0.53%) vSphere
9 11 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
10 5 (0.22%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 3 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.089%) Embedded Firmware
13 2 (0.089%) KVM
13 2 (0.089%) Lustre
13 2 (0.089%) OpenAM
13 2 (0.089%) OpenDJ
13 2 (0.089%) OpenIDM
Systems Management
1 124 (5.49%) Kubernetes
2 99 (4.39%) Terraform
3 44 (1.95%) Prometheus
4 42 (1.86%) Grafana
5 39 (1.73%) Ansible
6 30 (1.33%) Single Sign-On
7 16 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
8 12 (0.53%) FortiGate
9 11 (0.49%) Kibana
10 10 (0.44%) Puppet
11 9 (0.40%) SCCM
12 7 (0.31%) vCenter Server
13 6 (0.27%) Nessus
13 6 (0.27%) vMotion
14 5 (0.22%) CASB
15 4 (0.18%) Argo
15 4 (0.18%) EMC VPLEX
15 4 (0.18%) Failover Clustering
15 4 (0.18%) Istio
15 4 (0.18%) VxRail
Vendors
1 312 (13.82%) Microsoft
2 196 (8.68%) SAP
3 191 (8.46%) Oracle
4 107 (4.74%) Databricks
5 73 (3.23%) ServiceNow
6 71 (3.15%) Salesforce
7 57 (2.53%) VMware
8 50 (2.22%) Cisco
9 48 (2.13%) Google
10 42 (1.86%) Splunk
11 32 (1.42%) Informatica
12 27 (1.20%) MuleSoft
12 27 (1.20%) Palo Alto
12 27 (1.20%) Sage
13 26 (1.15%) Workday
14 25 (1.11%) IBM
15 22 (0.97%) CyberArk
16 21 (0.93%) IFS
17 20 (0.89%) OpenAI
18 18 (0.80%) Fortinet