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 25 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 69 118
Rank change year-on-year +37 +49 +24
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,905 1,203 772
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.42% 3.67% 1.99%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.40% 4.06% 2.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,750 701 375
10th Percentile £337 £331 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £591
90th Percentile £705 £688 £666
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -7.50% +5.26% -7.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 186 88 117
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £29.06
25th Percentile £26.52 £40.06 £48.00
Median hourly rate £53.00 £61.25 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.47% -5.77% -0.76%
75th Percentile £73.25 £65.38 £68.75
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £75.74
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% - -1.49%

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 45,365 29,616 33,160
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.57% 90.47% 85.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,789 18,444 20,998
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,884 1,758 1,700
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £13.87
25th Percentile £18.00 £17.30 £18.13
Median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +65.23% -38.57% -3.67%
75th Percentile £67.99 £47.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £42.50
% change year-on-year +94.26% -46.75% +6.25%

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 25 August 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 25 August 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 25 August 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 +33 2,511 £500 -2.44% 1,192
UK excluding London +28 1,349 £463 -7.50% 1,024
London +41 1,218 £525 +2.44% 378
Work from Home +30 809 £500 - 453
North of England +44 326 £453 -8.48% 175
South East 0 318 £503 +0.50% 301
Midlands +33 309 £475 -5.00% 158
West Midlands +31 215 £459 -9.56% 108
North West +22 166 £456 -13.55% 95
Yorkshire +43 143 £460 +2.22% 41
East of England -1 142 £475 -6.40% 132
South West +3 134 £524 -8.91% 194
Scotland +48 105 £440 -4.86% 76
East Midlands +24 89 £500 - 50
Wales -5 25 £394 +5.00% 20
North East -29 21 £438 -20.45% 41
Northern Ireland +8 10 £380 -37.45% 2
Channel Islands 0 1 - - 1

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 83 (2.86%) Confluence
2 67 (2.31%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (1.89%) SharePoint
4 54 (1.86%) SAS
5 41 (1.41%) Apache Spark
6 29 (1.00%) Apache
7 18 (0.62%) Microsoft Exchange
8 13 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
9 11 (0.38%) CMS
9 11 (0.38%) Jupyter
10 9 (0.31%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.24%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
12 6 (0.21%) Sitecore CMS
13 5 (0.17%) IIS
13 5 (0.17%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
14 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
Applications
1 203 (6.99%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (1.48%) Microsoft Office
3 42 (1.45%) MS Visio
4 33 (1.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 33 (1.14%) Spreadsheet
5 13 (0.45%) AutoCAD
6 10 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.28%) CATIA
7 8 (0.28%) Navisworks
7 8 (0.28%) Revit
8 7 (0.24%) ProjectWise
9 6 (0.21%) Simulink
10 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.069%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.069%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.069%) Windchill
12 1 (0.034%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.034%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.034%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.034%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 117 (4.03%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (0.90%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.45%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.41%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.41%) Teamcenter
6 11 (0.38%) iTrent
6 11 (0.38%) SAP SD
7 10 (0.34%) Aladdin
7 10 (0.34%) Oracle Assets
7 10 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
7 10 (0.34%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 10 (0.34%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.31%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.28%) SAP FI
9 8 (0.28%) SAP HCM
9 8 (0.28%) SAP MM
10 7 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
10 7 (0.24%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 623 (21.45%) Azure
2 335 (11.53%) AWS
3 305 (10.50%) Power Platform
4 170 (5.85%) Azure DevOps
5 147 (5.06%) GCP
6 131 (4.51%) GitHub
7 101 (3.48%) Snowflake
8 78 (2.69%) Entra ID
9 75 (2.58%) Azure Data Factory
10 69 (2.38%) GitHub Actions
11 66 (2.27%) Serverless
12 61 (2.10%) Microsoft 365
13 59 (2.03%) SaaS
14 52 (1.79%) Amazon S3
15 46 (1.58%) dbt
16 45 (1.55%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 43 (1.48%) SuccessFactors
18 41 (1.41%) OCI
19 36 (1.24%) Amazon CloudWatch
20 34 (1.17%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 114 (3.92%) Firewall
2 68 (2.34%) DNS
3 67 (2.31%) Network Security
4 62 (2.13%) VLAN
5 51 (1.76%) VPN
6 43 (1.48%) BGP
7 42 (1.45%) WAN
8 41 (1.41%) TCP/IP
9 34 (1.17%) DHCP
10 25 (0.86%) OSPF
11 24 (0.83%) LAN
11 24 (0.83%) VXLAN
12 22 (0.76%) Ethernet VPN
12 22 (0.76%) Internet
12 22 (0.76%) SAN
12 22 (0.76%) Wireless
13 20 (0.69%) SD-WAN
14 19 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
15 17 (0.59%) HTTP
16 15 (0.52%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 283 (9.74%) Power BI
2 172 (5.92%) Data Warehouse
3 129 (4.44%) Metadata
4 109 (3.75%) SQL Server
5 100 (3.44%) Relational Database
6 98 (3.37%) PostgreSQL
7 83 (2.86%) Data Lake
8 75 (2.58%) Tableau
9 38 (1.31%) MongoDB
10 37 (1.27%) Big Data
10 37 (1.27%) Delta Lake
11 35 (1.20%) NoSQL
12 33 (1.14%) Oracle Database
13 32 (1.10%) MySQL
13 32 (1.10%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 31 (1.07%) Azure SQL Database
14 31 (1.07%) Oracle Reports
15 29 (1.00%) BigQuery
15 29 (1.00%) Redis
16 27 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 254 (8.74%) JIRA
2 194 (6.68%) Git
3 106 (3.65%) Jenkins
4 87 (2.99%) GitLab
5 69 (2.38%) Selenium
6 48 (1.65%) Postman
7 41 (1.41%) JMeter
8 27 (0.93%) WebDriver
9 26 (0.90%) Cucumber
10 22 (0.76%) JUnit
11 19 (0.65%) Rational DOORS
12 16 (0.55%) Cypress.io
12 16 (0.55%) Gatling
13 14 (0.48%) Rational Rhapsody
13 14 (0.48%) REST Assured
14 13 (0.45%) Maven
14 13 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
15 12 (0.41%) Eclipse
15 12 (0.41%) Gradle
16 11 (0.38%) TestRail
General
1 826 (28.43%) Social Skills
2 805 (27.71%) Finance
3 582 (20.03%) Analytical Skills
4 256 (8.81%) Public Sector
5 211 (7.26%) Banking
6 152 (5.23%) Documentation Skills
7 105 (3.61%) Manufacturing
8 97 (3.34%) Retail
9 66 (2.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 62 (2.13%) Aerospace
10 62 (2.13%) Telecoms
11 58 (2.00%) Pharmaceutical
12 57 (1.96%) Organisational Skills
13 53 (1.82%) Automotive
14 50 (1.72%) Legal
15 47 (1.62%) Marketing
16 43 (1.48%) Front Office
17 42 (1.45%) Local Government
18 41 (1.41%) Law
19 38 (1.31%) Billing
Job Titles
1 519 (17.87%) Analyst
2 320 (11.02%) Senior
3 275 (9.47%) Lead
4 239 (8.23%) Business Analyst
5 234 (8.06%) Data Engineer
6 228 (7.85%) Consultant
7 174 (5.99%) Developer
8 146 (5.03%) Data Analyst
9 144 (4.96%) Architect
10 110 (3.79%) Test Engineer
11 81 (2.79%) Tester
12 75 (2.58%) Network Engineer
13 73 (2.51%) Project Manager
14 64 (2.20%) Systems Engineer
15 60 (2.07%) Administrator
16 58 (2.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 55 (1.89%) Senior Data Engineer
18 52 (1.79%) Technical Analyst
19 50 (1.72%) Test Manager
20 49 (1.69%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 172 (5.92%) REST
2 147 (5.06%) Terraform
3 94 (3.24%) JSON
4 82 (2.82%) PySpark
5 78 (2.69%) XML
6 75 (2.58%) Kafka
7 67 (2.31%) Middleware
8 52 (1.79%) .NET
9 51 (1.76%) Oracle Fusion
9 51 (1.76%) Playwright
10 44 (1.51%) pytest
11 41 (1.41%) SOAP
11 41 (1.41%) Spring
12 36 (1.24%) OAuth
12 36 (1.24%) Web Services
13 35 (1.20%) Pandas
14 34 (1.17%) RESTful
15 31 (1.07%) Spring Boot
16 25 (0.86%) Lightning Web Components
16 25 (0.86%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 166 (5.71%) Onboarding
2 152 (5.23%) Data Structures
3 126 (4.34%) Cloud Native
4 122 (4.20%) Legacy Systems
4 122 (4.20%) Product Ownership
5 98 (3.37%) Management Information System
6 89 (3.06%) Data Centre
7 54 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
8 50 (1.72%) Distributed Systems
9 46 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
10 43 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
11 42 (1.45%) AI Agents
11 42 (1.45%) Life Science
12 41 (1.41%) SCADA
13 39 (1.34%) NHS
14 38 (1.31%) Replication
15 34 (1.17%) Algorithms
16 33 (1.14%) CMDB
16 33 (1.14%) Operational Technology
17 32 (1.10%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 175 (6.02%) Windows
2 117 (4.03%) Linux
3 67 (2.31%) Windows Server
4 42 (1.45%) Unix
5 19 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.48%) Android
7 13 (0.45%) Windows 10
8 11 (0.38%) Ubuntu
8 11 (0.38%) VMS
9 9 (0.31%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.21%) AIX
12 4 (0.14%) SUSE
12 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.069%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.069%) HPUX
13 2 (0.069%) VxWorks
13 2 (0.069%) Windows Server 2019
14 1 (0.034%) Mac OS X
14 1 (0.034%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 788 (27.13%) Migration
2 570 (19.62%) Stakeholder Management
3 565 (19.45%) Agile
4 523 (18.00%) CI/CD
5 489 (16.83%) User Acceptance Testing
6 476 (16.39%) Analytics
7 467 (16.08%) Data Modelling
8 466 (16.04%) Data Migration
9 459 (15.80%) Problem-Solving
10 452 (15.56%) Data Validation
11 381 (13.12%) AI
12 379 (13.05%) DevOps
13 365 (12.56%) Test Automation
14 360 (12.39%) Continuous Improvement
15 323 (11.12%) ETL
16 320 (11.02%) Business Intelligence
17 319 (10.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 310 (10.67%) Data Pipeline
19 294 (10.12%) Data Governance
20 283 (9.74%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 738 (25.40%) SQL
2 567 (19.52%) Python
3 140 (4.82%) Java
4 93 (3.20%) PowerShell
5 62 (2.13%) Bash
6 58 (2.00%) C#
7 50 (1.72%) JavaScript
8 38 (1.31%) C++
9 31 (1.07%) Apex Code
9 31 (1.07%) TypeScript
10 28 (0.96%) Bicep
10 28 (0.96%) R
11 27 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 26 (0.90%) C
13 24 (0.83%) PL/SQL
14 23 (0.79%) Shell Script
15 19 (0.65%) VBA
16 18 (0.62%) T-SQL
17 16 (0.55%) MATLAB
18 13 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 538 (18.52%) Security Cleared
2 395 (13.60%) SC Cleared
3 193 (6.64%) Degree
4 68 (2.34%) DV Cleared
5 60 (2.07%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.58%) Cisco Certification
7 45 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
8 39 (1.34%) CCNP
9 28 (0.96%) ACCA
9 28 (0.96%) CIMA
10 27 (0.93%) ISTQB
11 24 (0.83%) AWS Certification
12 22 (0.76%) Azure Certification
13 20 (0.69%) PMI Certification
14 18 (0.62%) CCNA
14 18 (0.62%) PMP
15 17 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
16 15 (0.52%) CISSP
17 14 (0.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 14 (0.48%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 578 (19.90%) Data Quality
2 370 (12.74%) QA
3 115 (3.96%) GDPR
4 52 (1.79%) SLA
5 48 (1.65%) NIST
6 46 (1.58%) Accessibility
7 41 (1.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 39 (1.34%) GxP
8 39 (1.34%) PMO
9 26 (0.90%) GRC
10 21 (0.72%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 20 (0.69%) ISO 20022
12 15 (0.52%) GMP
13 14 (0.48%) NCSC
14 13 (0.45%) HL7
14 13 (0.45%) WCAG
15 12 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.41%) Def Stans
15 12 (0.41%) IFRS
15 12 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 115 (3.96%) Docker
2 101 (3.48%) Active Directory
3 83 (2.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
5 30 (1.03%) VMware ESXi
6 27 (0.93%) Firmware
7 25 (0.86%) Hyper-V
8 22 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
8 22 (0.76%) vSphere
9 14 (0.48%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.14%) KVM
11 4 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.10%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.069%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.069%) NFS
13 2 (0.069%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.069%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.034%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.034%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 141 (4.85%) Kubernetes
2 82 (2.82%) Ansible
3 47 (1.62%) Grafana
4 39 (1.34%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.93%) Microsoft Intune
6 24 (0.83%) FortiGate
7 23 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.48%) vCenter Server
9 13 (0.45%) SCCM
10 10 (0.34%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.34%) VxRail
11 9 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
12 7 (0.24%) Argo
12 7 (0.24%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.21%) Microsoft Clustering
14 5 (0.17%) systemd
14 5 (0.17%) vRealize
15 4 (0.14%) Control-M
15 4 (0.14%) Puppet
15 4 (0.14%) vMotion
Vendors
1 438 (15.08%) Microsoft
2 254 (8.74%) SAP
3 246 (8.47%) Oracle
4 162 (5.58%) Databricks
5 96 (3.30%) Salesforce
5 96 (3.30%) VMware
6 90 (3.10%) ServiceNow
7 75 (2.58%) Cisco
8 52 (1.79%) Google
9 46 (1.58%) Workday
10 38 (1.31%) Informatica
11 34 (1.17%) IBM
12 29 (1.00%) Fortinet
12 29 (1.00%) Juniper
13 27 (0.93%) Zscaler
14 26 (0.90%) Palo Alto
15 21 (0.72%) Splunk
16 20 (0.69%) Ariba
16 20 (0.69%) MuleSoft
17 18 (0.62%) IFS