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

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 66 110
Rank change year-on-year +35 +44 +39
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,096 1,214 794
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.64% 3.71% 2.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.69% 4.10% 2.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,827 690 393
10th Percentile £331 £325 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.05% +0.05% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £594
90th Percentile £700 £688 £667
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £488
% change year-on-year -7.50% +2.56% -4.97%
Number of hourly rates quoted 193 85 100
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £29.59
25th Percentile £26.52 £41.25 £48.00
Median hourly rate £53.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.46% - -1.49%
75th Percentile £71.25 £67.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £82.01 £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 46,309 29,588 32,312
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.42% 90.49% 85.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,063 18,372 19,750
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 £627 £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 3,189 1,818 1,403
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.25 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -
75th Percentile £67.25 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +79.25% -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 23 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 23 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 23 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 +35 2,659 £500 -2.44% 4,323
UK excluding London +31 1,415 £463 -7.50% 2,599
London +36 1,303 £525 - 2,061
Work from Home +27 844 £500 - 1,539
North of England +39 349 £450 +4.71% 447
South East +2 330 £525 +5.00% 680
Midlands +37 308 £473 +2.27% 353
West Midlands +32 215 £464 +3.02% 243
North West +17 166 £452 +6.29% 254
Yorkshire +48 157 £460 -3.16% 124
South West +15 152 £523 -5.00% 340
East of England -7 143 £450 -11.33% 358
Scotland +44 127 £430 -15.02% 317
East Midlands +26 89 £490 -2.00% 109
North East -19 31 £425 -11.92% 70
Wales -1 25 £394 +5.00% 64
Northern Ireland +5 4 £363 -40.33% 68
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 88 (2.84%) Confluence
2 70 (2.26%) Apache Airflow
3 61 (1.97%) SharePoint
4 53 (1.71%) SAS
5 45 (1.45%) Apache Spark
6 34 (1.10%) Apache
7 20 (0.65%) Microsoft Exchange
8 16 (0.52%) CMS
9 14 (0.45%) 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 (0.19%) OpenStack
14 6 (0.19%) WebLogic
15 5 (0.16%) Tuxedo
16 4 (0.13%) IIS
16 4 (0.13%) JBoss
16 4 (0.13%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 217 (7.01%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
3 39 (1.26%) MS Visio
4 32 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 32 (1.03%) Spreadsheet
5 16 (0.52%) AutoCAD
6 11 (0.36%) Navisworks
6 11 (0.36%) Revit
7 10 (0.32%) ProjectWise
8 7 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
9 6 (0.19%) Simulink
10 5 (0.16%) CATIA
11 4 (0.13%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.065%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.065%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.065%) Windchill
13 1 (0.032%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.032%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.032%) OrCAD
13 1 (0.032%) Trello
Business Applications
1 114 (3.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
3 15 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.48%) SAP SD
4 14 (0.45%) SAP FI
5 13 (0.42%) NetSuite
5 13 (0.42%) Teamcenter
5 13 (0.42%) Workday HCM
6 12 (0.39%) SAP HCM
6 12 (0.39%) SAP MDG
7 11 (0.36%) Aladdin
8 10 (0.32%) iTrent
8 10 (0.32%) SAP MM
9 9 (0.29%) Integrated Workplace Management System
9 9 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
9 9 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
9 9 (0.29%) Oracle General Ledger
9 9 (0.29%) SAP CO
9 9 (0.29%) SAP ERP
9 9 (0.29%) SAP PS
Cloud Services
1 609 (19.67%) Azure
2 356 (11.50%) AWS
3 311 (10.05%) Power Platform
4 181 (5.85%) Azure DevOps
5 157 (5.07%) GCP
6 142 (4.59%) GitHub
7 110 (3.55%) Snowflake
8 96 (3.10%) Entra ID
9 75 (2.42%) GitHub Actions
10 70 (2.26%) Azure Data Factory
11 62 (2.00%) Serverless
12 61 (1.97%) Amazon S3
12 61 (1.97%) SaaS
13 59 (1.91%) dbt
14 58 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
15 40 (1.29%) SuccessFactors
16 39 (1.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 37 (1.20%) Azure Monitor
18 35 (1.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 32 (1.03%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 114 (3.68%) Firewall
2 76 (2.45%) DNS
3 70 (2.26%) VLAN
4 61 (1.97%) Network Security
5 56 (1.81%) VPN
6 50 (1.61%) BGP
7 47 (1.52%) TCP/IP
8 44 (1.42%) WAN
9 35 (1.13%) DHCP
10 30 (0.97%) OSPF
11 29 (0.94%) VXLAN
12 26 (0.84%) Ethernet VPN
12 26 (0.84%) Wireless
13 25 (0.81%) LAN
14 24 (0.78%) Ethernet
15 22 (0.71%) Internet
15 22 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
16 21 (0.68%) 5G
16 21 (0.68%) SD-WAN
17 20 (0.65%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 288 (9.30%) Power BI
2 173 (5.59%) Data Warehouse
3 138 (4.46%) Metadata
4 119 (3.84%) Relational Database
5 100 (3.23%) SQL Server
6 95 (3.07%) PostgreSQL
7 86 (2.78%) Data Lake
8 74 (2.39%) Tableau
9 42 (1.36%) Oracle Database
10 39 (1.26%) MongoDB
11 38 (1.23%) Delta Lake
12 37 (1.20%) BigQuery
12 37 (1.20%) Power Query
13 36 (1.16%) Big Data
14 35 (1.13%) NoSQL
15 31 (1.00%) Oracle Reports
15 31 (1.00%) Redis
16 30 (0.97%) SAS Enterprise Guide
17 29 (0.94%) Amazon Athena
17 29 (0.94%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 270 (8.72%) JIRA
2 232 (7.49%) Git
3 106 (3.42%) Jenkins
4 94 (3.04%) GitLab
5 84 (2.71%) Selenium
6 44 (1.42%) Postman
7 35 (1.13%) JMeter
8 25 (0.81%) Cucumber
9 22 (0.71%) Rational DOORS
9 22 (0.71%) WebDriver
10 21 (0.68%) JUnit
11 17 (0.55%) Cypress.io
11 17 (0.55%) Eclipse
11 17 (0.55%) REST Assured
12 16 (0.52%) Visual Studio
12 16 (0.52%) Zephyr
13 15 (0.48%) Gatling
14 14 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
15 11 (0.36%) Maven
15 11 (0.36%) TestRail
General
1 888 (28.68%) Social Skills
2 875 (28.26%) Finance
3 621 (20.06%) Analytical Skills
4 275 (8.88%) Banking
5 265 (8.56%) Public Sector
6 139 (4.49%) Documentation Skills
7 122 (3.94%) Manufacturing
8 95 (3.07%) Retail
9 73 (2.36%) Telecoms
10 72 (2.33%) Automotive
11 70 (2.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 60 (1.94%) Organisational Skills
13 57 (1.84%) Legal
14 54 (1.74%) Marketing
15 53 (1.71%) Pharmaceutical
16 52 (1.68%) Aerospace
17 46 (1.49%) Front Office
18 44 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
18 44 (1.42%) Law
19 43 (1.39%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 527 (17.02%) Analyst
2 357 (11.53%) Senior
3 280 (9.04%) Lead
4 249 (8.04%) Data Engineer
5 246 (7.95%) Consultant
6 239 (7.72%) Business Analyst
7 203 (6.56%) Developer
8 161 (5.20%) Architect
8 161 (5.20%) Data Analyst
9 113 (3.65%) Test Engineer
10 79 (2.55%) Network Engineer
10 79 (2.55%) Tester
11 63 (2.03%) Systems Engineer
12 61 (1.97%) Administrator
13 58 (1.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 58 (1.87%) Senior Data Engineer
14 56 (1.81%) Senior Analyst
15 52 (1.68%) Software Engineer
16 50 (1.61%) Project Manager
17 47 (1.52%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 195 (6.30%) REST
2 183 (5.91%) Terraform
3 98 (3.17%) JSON
4 90 (2.91%) PySpark
5 83 (2.68%) Middleware
6 82 (2.65%) XML
7 76 (2.45%) Kafka
8 60 (1.94%) Playwright
9 57 (1.84%) .NET
10 52 (1.68%) Web Services
11 51 (1.65%) pytest
11 51 (1.65%) SOAP
12 50 (1.61%) OAuth
13 46 (1.49%) Oracle Fusion
14 44 (1.42%) RESTful
15 39 (1.26%) Pandas
16 37 (1.20%) OpenID
16 37 (1.20%) Spring
17 36 (1.16%) Node.js
18 35 (1.13%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 176 (5.68%) Onboarding
2 163 (5.26%) Data Structures
3 144 (4.65%) Cloud Native
4 123 (3.97%) Legacy Systems
5 118 (3.81%) Product Ownership
6 113 (3.65%) Management Information System
7 92 (2.97%) Data Centre
8 60 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
9 55 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
10 54 (1.74%) AI Agents
11 46 (1.49%) Analytical Mindset
12 44 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
13 42 (1.36%) Life Science
13 42 (1.36%) SCADA
14 38 (1.23%) Algorithms
14 38 (1.23%) Operational Technology
15 37 (1.20%) NHS
15 37 (1.20%) Replication
16 34 (1.10%) CMDB
17 32 (1.03%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 205 (6.62%) Windows
2 138 (4.46%) Linux
3 81 (2.62%) Windows Server
4 57 (1.84%) Unix
5 22 (0.71%) 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 (0.097%) 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
1 831 (26.84%) Migration
2 678 (21.90%) Stakeholder Management
3 606 (19.57%) Agile
3 606 (19.57%) CI/CD
4 501 (16.18%) Data Modelling
5 494 (15.96%) Analytics
6 493 (15.92%) User Acceptance Testing
7 482 (15.57%) Data Migration
8 479 (15.47%) Data Validation
9 478 (15.44%) Problem-Solving
10 426 (13.76%) AI
11 415 (13.40%) DevOps
12 412 (13.31%) Test Automation
13 410 (13.24%) Continuous Improvement
14 354 (11.43%) ETL
15 332 (10.72%) Business Intelligence
16 322 (10.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 316 (10.21%) Data Governance
18 315 (10.17%) Data Analysis
19 313 (10.11%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 813 (26.26%) SQL
2 664 (21.45%) Python
3 153 (4.94%) Java
4 108 (3.49%) PowerShell
5 77 (2.49%) C#
6 76 (2.45%) JavaScript
7 64 (2.07%) Bash
8 44 (1.42%) C++
8 44 (1.42%) TypeScript
9 32 (1.03%) Apex Code
9 32 (1.03%) R
10 30 (0.97%) Shell Script
11 29 (0.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 29 (0.94%) PL/SQL
12 25 (0.81%) Bicep
13 24 (0.78%) C
14 20 (0.65%) Go
15 19 (0.61%) VBA
16 18 (0.58%) T-SQL
17 15 (0.48%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 612 (19.77%) Security Cleared
2 454 (14.66%) SC Cleared
3 210 (6.78%) Degree
4 85 (2.75%) DV Cleared
5 74 (2.39%) BPSS Clearance
6 51 (1.65%) Computer Science Degree
7 47 (1.52%) Cisco Certification
8 38 (1.23%) CCNP
9 34 (1.10%) AWS Certification
10 32 (1.03%) ACCA
10 32 (1.03%) CIMA
11 28 (0.90%) ISTQB
12 27 (0.87%) Azure Certification
13 24 (0.78%) PMI Certification
14 23 (0.74%) PMP
15 22 (0.71%) CISSP
16 19 (0.61%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 18 (0.58%) Master's Degree
18 16 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
19 15 (0.48%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 639 (20.64%) Data Quality
2 374 (12.08%) QA
3 103 (3.33%) GDPR
4 54 (1.74%) Accessibility
5 45 (1.45%) SLA
6 38 (1.23%) NIST
7 37 (1.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 36 (1.16%) GxP
8 36 (1.16%) PMO
9 22 (0.71%) GRC
9 22 (0.71%) ISO 20022
10 21 (0.68%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 20 (0.65%) WCAG
12 17 (0.55%) GMP
13 15 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
13 15 (0.48%) NCSC
14 11 (0.36%) IFRS
14 11 (0.36%) MiFID
15 10 (0.32%) Def Stans
15 10 (0.32%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 116 (3.75%) Docker
2 102 (3.29%) Active Directory
3 94 (3.04%) VMware Infrastructure
4 40 (1.29%) Virtual Machines
5 38 (1.23%) VMware ESXi
6 32 (1.03%) Firmware
7 27 (0.87%) Hyper-V
7 27 (0.87%) vSphere
8 23 (0.74%) Virtual Desktop
9 16 (0.52%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.16%) KVM
12 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.097%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.065%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.065%) OpenSSH
14 2 (0.065%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.032%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.032%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 1 (0.032%) NFS
Systems Management
1 148 (4.78%) Kubernetes
2 101 (3.26%) Ansible
3 44 (1.42%) Grafana
4 34 (1.10%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
6 26 (0.84%) FortiGate
7 20 (0.65%) SCCM
8 18 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.48%) vCenter Server
10 14 (0.45%) HP ALM
11 10 (0.32%) Failover Clustering
11 10 (0.32%) VxRail
12 9 (0.29%) Argo
12 9 (0.29%) Functional Safety
12 9 (0.29%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.19%) Kibana
13 6 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
14 5 (0.16%) systemd
14 5 (0.16%) vMotion
14 5 (0.16%) vRealize
Vendors
1 473 (15.28%) Microsoft
2 254 (8.20%) SAP
3 248 (8.01%) Oracle
4 171 (5.52%) Databricks
5 108 (3.49%) VMware
6 99 (3.20%) Salesforce
7 89 (2.87%) Cisco
8 86 (2.78%) ServiceNow
9 68 (2.20%) Google
10 53 (1.71%) Workday
11 47 (1.52%) IBM
12 35 (1.13%) Informatica
13 33 (1.07%) Fortinet
14 31 (1.00%) Zscaler
15 29 (0.94%) Juniper
15 29 (0.94%) Palo Alto
16 24 (0.78%) Splunk
17 21 (0.68%) MuleSoft
18 19 (0.61%) Red Hat
19 18 (0.58%) Sage