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 13 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 68 104
Rank change year-on-year +37 +36 +52
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,230 1,199 823
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.88% 3.64% 2.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.94% 4.02% 2.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,901 688 417
10th Percentile £350 £350 £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 £594
90th Percentile £700 £688 £665
UK excluding London median daily rate £471 £500 £488
% change year-on-year -5.90% +2.56% -7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 209 84 96
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £26.95 £41.25 £47.19
Median hourly rate £53.50 £63.75 £63.25
Median % change year-on-year -16.08% +0.79% -6.30%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £65.25
90th Percentile £79.00 £74.63 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -11.54% +4.00% -8.13%

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 46,512 29,792 32,258
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.69% 90.47% 86.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,938 18,529 19,417
10th Percentile £325 £294 £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 £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £737 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,382 1,881 1,250
10th Percentile £13.63 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.03
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -10.11%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.54 £65.14 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £40.33
% change year-on-year +68.43% -44.79% -7.83%

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 13 October 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 13 October 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 13 October 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 +37 2,761 £500 -2.44% 2,411
UK excluding London +41 1,501 £471 -5.90% 1,315
London +41 1,333 £525 - 1,288
Work from Home +29 898 £500 - 937
North of England +51 368 £460 +6.98% 246
South East +10 340 £525 +5.00% 334
Midlands +42 319 £453 -4.58% 174
West Midlands +29 234 £450 -11.28% 117
North West +21 187 £472 +11.06% 132
South West +22 176 £525 -4.11% 162
Scotland +52 153 £459 -15.64% 182
Yorkshire +58 151 £466 -1.84% 82
East of England 0 149 £475 -5.00% 166
East Midlands +32 82 £490 +8.89% 56
North East -18 35 £425 -11.92% 33
Wales -3 25 £363 -3.33% 27
Northern Ireland +1 4 £363 -19.44% 41
Channel Islands -4 1 - - 3

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
1 107 (3.31%) Confluence
2 65 (2.01%) SharePoint
3 64 (1.98%) Apache Airflow
4 60 (1.86%) SAS
5 53 (1.64%) Apache Spark
6 43 (1.33%) Apache
7 23 (0.71%) CMS
8 21 (0.65%) Microsoft Exchange
9 12 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
10 11 (0.34%) Jupyter
11 9 (0.28%) IIS
11 9 (0.28%) SharePoint 2013
11 9 (0.28%) WebLogic
12 8 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
13 7 (0.22%) Sitecore CMS
14 6 (0.19%) OpenStack
15 5 (0.15%) CICS
15 5 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
15 5 (0.15%) Tomcat
15 5 (0.15%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 213 (6.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 48 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
3 42 (1.30%) MS Visio
4 33 (1.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 32 (0.99%) Spreadsheet
6 18 (0.56%) AutoCAD
7 13 (0.40%) Navisworks
8 12 (0.37%) Revit
9 10 (0.31%) ProjectWise
10 9 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
10 9 (0.28%) Simulink
11 4 (0.12%) CATIA
12 3 (0.093%) Chatbot
12 3 (0.093%) LaTeX
12 3 (0.093%) OrCAD
13 2 (0.062%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.062%) EPLAN
14 1 (0.031%) SOLIDWORKS
14 1 (0.031%) Trello
14 1 (0.031%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 114 (3.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.65%) SAP FI
3 17 (0.53%) Workday HCM
4 16 (0.50%) SAP SD
5 15 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
6 14 (0.43%) Integrated Workplace Management System
6 14 (0.43%) SAP HCM
7 13 (0.40%) Aladdin
7 13 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
7 13 (0.40%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
8 12 (0.37%) SAP MM
9 11 (0.34%) SAP MDG
9 11 (0.34%) Teamcenter
10 10 (0.31%) iTrent
10 10 (0.31%) SAP CO
10 10 (0.31%) SAP ERP
11 9 (0.28%) SAP Payroll
11 9 (0.28%) SAP PS
12 8 (0.25%) Oracle Financials
Cloud Services
1 618 (19.13%) Azure
2 384 (11.89%) AWS
3 316 (9.78%) Power Platform
4 198 (6.13%) Azure DevOps
5 164 (5.08%) GCP
6 160 (4.95%) GitHub
7 111 (3.44%) Entra ID
7 111 (3.44%) Snowflake
8 82 (2.54%) GitHub Actions
9 74 (2.29%) Azure Data Factory
10 65 (2.01%) Amazon S3
11 64 (1.98%) SaaS
11 64 (1.98%) Serverless
12 62 (1.92%) Microsoft 365
13 60 (1.86%) dbt
14 50 (1.55%) SuccessFactors
15 42 (1.30%) Azure Monitor
15 42 (1.30%) Dynamics 365
16 37 (1.15%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 36 (1.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 110 (3.41%) Firewall
2 87 (2.69%) DNS
3 63 (1.95%) VLAN
4 61 (1.89%) VPN
5 59 (1.83%) Network Security
6 55 (1.70%) TCP/IP
7 53 (1.64%) BGP
8 41 (1.27%) WAN
9 37 (1.15%) DHCP
10 32 (0.99%) OSPF
11 28 (0.87%) Ethernet VPN
11 28 (0.87%) VXLAN
12 27 (0.84%) Ethernet
13 24 (0.74%) Wireless
14 22 (0.68%) Internet
15 21 (0.65%) LAN
15 21 (0.65%) SAN
15 21 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
16 20 (0.62%) 5G
16 20 (0.62%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 289 (8.95%) Power BI
2 171 (5.29%) Data Warehouse
3 155 (4.80%) Metadata
4 128 (3.96%) Relational Database
5 110 (3.41%) SQL Server
6 106 (3.28%) PostgreSQL
7 85 (2.63%) Data Lake
8 64 (1.98%) Tableau
9 46 (1.42%) Delta Lake
10 45 (1.39%) MongoDB
11 42 (1.30%) Power Query
12 41 (1.27%) Oracle Database
13 37 (1.15%) BigQuery
13 37 (1.15%) Redis
14 36 (1.11%) Big Data
15 35 (1.08%) NoSQL
16 32 (0.99%) Oracle Reports
17 29 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
17 29 (0.90%) MySQL
18 26 (0.80%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 297 (9.20%) JIRA
2 249 (7.71%) Git
3 117 (3.62%) Jenkins
4 102 (3.16%) GitLab
5 82 (2.54%) Selenium
6 47 (1.46%) Postman
7 36 (1.11%) JMeter
8 26 (0.80%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.74%) Rational DOORS
10 22 (0.68%) JUnit
11 21 (0.65%) REST Assured
11 21 (0.65%) Zephyr
12 20 (0.62%) WebDriver
13 19 (0.59%) Cypress.io
14 17 (0.53%) Eclipse
14 17 (0.53%) Visual Studio
15 14 (0.43%) Oracle Forms
15 14 (0.43%) TestRail
16 13 (0.40%) Gatling
17 12 (0.37%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 925 (28.64%) Finance
2 908 (28.11%) Social Skills
3 652 (20.19%) Analytical Skills
4 298 (9.23%) Banking
5 280 (8.67%) Public Sector
6 148 (4.58%) Manufacturing
7 128 (3.96%) Documentation Skills
8 92 (2.85%) Retail
9 76 (2.35%) Automotive
10 75 (2.32%) Telecoms
11 72 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 59 (1.83%) Aerospace
13 57 (1.76%) Legal
13 57 (1.76%) Organisational Skills
14 54 (1.67%) Pharmaceutical
15 50 (1.55%) Marketing
16 47 (1.46%) Billing
17 46 (1.42%) Local Government
18 43 (1.33%) Front Office
19 42 (1.30%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 549 (17.00%) Analyst
2 399 (12.35%) Senior
3 286 (8.85%) Lead
4 267 (8.27%) Data Engineer
5 265 (8.20%) Consultant
6 242 (7.49%) Business Analyst
7 202 (6.25%) Developer
8 180 (5.57%) Data Analyst
9 172 (5.33%) Architect
10 114 (3.53%) Test Engineer
11 81 (2.51%) Tester
12 79 (2.45%) Network Engineer
13 66 (2.04%) Administrator
14 65 (2.01%) Senior Data Engineer
15 63 (1.95%) Senior Analyst
16 61 (1.89%) Systems Engineer
17 57 (1.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 51 (1.58%) Software Engineer
19 48 (1.49%) Test Analyst
20 46 (1.42%) SAP Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 214 (6.63%) Terraform
2 211 (6.53%) REST
3 103 (3.19%) JSON
4 95 (2.94%) PySpark
5 91 (2.82%) Middleware
6 89 (2.76%) XML
7 76 (2.35%) Kafka
8 65 (2.01%) Playwright
9 61 (1.89%) .NET
10 60 (1.86%) OAuth
11 56 (1.73%) Web Services
12 54 (1.67%) pytest
13 51 (1.58%) SOAP
14 50 (1.55%) Oracle Fusion
15 49 (1.52%) OpenID
16 45 (1.39%) RESTful
17 44 (1.36%) OAuth2
18 39 (1.21%) FastAPI
19 37 (1.15%) JWT
19 37 (1.15%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 185 (5.73%) Onboarding
2 177 (5.48%) Data Structures
3 153 (4.74%) Cloud Native
4 131 (4.06%) Management Information System
5 124 (3.84%) Product Ownership
6 123 (3.81%) Legacy Systems
7 97 (3.00%) Data Centre
8 73 (2.26%) Enterprise Software
9 70 (2.17%) AI Agents
10 63 (1.95%) Distributed Systems
11 51 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
12 48 (1.49%) Life Science
13 44 (1.36%) Data Protection Act
14 43 (1.33%) SCADA
15 42 (1.30%) Algorithms
15 42 (1.30%) Replication
16 40 (1.24%) CMDB
17 38 (1.18%) Operational Technology
18 36 (1.11%) Self-Motivation
19 35 (1.08%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 225 (6.97%) Windows
2 147 (4.55%) Linux
3 93 (2.88%) Windows Server
4 60 (1.86%) Unix
5 22 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.50%) Windows 10
7 13 (0.40%) Android
8 12 (0.37%) AIX
9 11 (0.34%) Ubuntu
10 8 (0.25%) Apple iOS
11 7 (0.22%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.19%) VMS
12 6 (0.19%) zOS
13 4 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
14 3 (0.093%) CentOS
14 3 (0.093%) VxWorks
15 2 (0.062%) HPUX
15 2 (0.062%) Solaris
15 2 (0.062%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 870 (26.93%) Migration
2 733 (22.69%) Stakeholder Management
3 671 (20.77%) CI/CD
4 622 (19.26%) Agile
5 519 (16.07%) Data Migration
5 519 (16.07%) User Acceptance Testing
6 517 (16.01%) Data Modelling
7 499 (15.45%) Data Validation
8 497 (15.39%) Analytics
8 497 (15.39%) Problem-Solving
9 462 (14.30%) AI
10 454 (14.06%) Continuous Improvement
11 452 (13.99%) Test Automation
12 450 (13.93%) DevOps
13 368 (11.39%) ETL
14 337 (10.43%) Data Governance
15 334 (10.34%) Business Intelligence
15 334 (10.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 322 (9.97%) Data Pipeline
17 321 (9.94%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 866 (26.81%) SQL
2 713 (22.07%) Python
3 157 (4.86%) Java
4 130 (4.02%) PowerShell
5 83 (2.57%) C#
6 80 (2.48%) JavaScript
7 68 (2.11%) Bash
8 53 (1.64%) TypeScript
9 42 (1.30%) C++
10 34 (1.05%) Bicep
10 34 (1.05%) Shell Script
11 31 (0.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 28 (0.87%) R
13 27 (0.84%) PL/SQL
14 25 (0.77%) Apex Code
15 23 (0.71%) C
16 22 (0.68%) Go
16 22 (0.68%) VBA
17 19 (0.59%) T-SQL
18 17 (0.53%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 667 (20.65%) Security Cleared
2 512 (15.85%) SC Cleared
3 227 (7.03%) Degree
4 97 (3.00%) DV Cleared
5 80 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
6 49 (1.52%) Computer Science Degree
7 46 (1.42%) AWS Certification
8 43 (1.33%) Cisco Certification
9 40 (1.24%) ISTQB
10 37 (1.15%) ACCA
10 37 (1.15%) CIMA
11 33 (1.02%) CCNP
12 26 (0.80%) Azure Certification
13 25 (0.77%) CISSP
14 24 (0.74%) PMI Certification
15 22 (0.68%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 22 (0.68%) PMP
16 20 (0.62%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 20 (0.62%) Master's Degree
17 19 (0.59%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 681 (21.08%) Data Quality
2 376 (11.64%) QA
3 109 (3.37%) GDPR
4 56 (1.73%) Accessibility
5 50 (1.55%) SLA
6 37 (1.15%) NIST
7 36 (1.11%) GxP
8 35 (1.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 35 (1.08%) PMO
9 26 (0.80%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 23 (0.71%) GRC
11 21 (0.65%) ISO 20022
12 19 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
13 18 (0.56%) WCAG
14 17 (0.53%) GMP
15 14 (0.43%) NCSC
16 12 (0.37%) IFRS
16 12 (0.37%) ISO 19650
17 10 (0.31%) Def Stans
17 10 (0.31%) MiFID
System Software
1 124 (3.84%) Docker
2 123 (3.81%) Active Directory
3 94 (2.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 38 (1.18%) VMware ESXi
5 35 (1.08%) Virtual Machines
6 27 (0.84%) Firmware
7 25 (0.77%) Virtual Desktop
8 24 (0.74%) Hyper-V
9 23 (0.71%) vSphere
10 16 (0.50%) VMware NSX
11 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.15%) KVM
13 4 (0.12%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.062%) NFS
14 2 (0.062%) Oracle RAC
14 2 (0.062%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.031%) HDFS
15 1 (0.031%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.031%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 1 (0.031%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 171 (5.29%) Kubernetes
2 117 (3.62%) Ansible
3 45 (1.39%) Grafana
4 35 (1.08%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.84%) Microsoft Intune
6 24 (0.74%) FortiGate
7 22 (0.68%) SCCM
8 20 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.40%) HP ALM
10 11 (0.34%) Progress Chef
10 11 (0.34%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.31%) Argo
11 10 (0.31%) Functional Safety
12 9 (0.28%) Control-M
13 6 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
13 6 (0.19%) Kibana
13 6 (0.19%) VxRail
14 5 (0.15%) Puppet
14 5 (0.15%) vMotion
14 5 (0.15%) vRealize
Vendors
1 500 (15.48%) Microsoft
2 276 (8.54%) SAP
3 250 (7.74%) Oracle
4 189 (5.85%) Databricks
5 110 (3.41%) VMware
6 100 (3.10%) ServiceNow
7 91 (2.82%) Salesforce
8 89 (2.76%) Cisco
9 79 (2.45%) Google
10 59 (1.83%) Workday
11 56 (1.73%) IBM
12 34 (1.05%) Informatica
13 33 (1.02%) Fortinet
14 31 (0.96%) Palo Alto
15 29 (0.90%) Juniper
15 29 (0.90%) Zscaler
16 24 (0.74%) Splunk
17 23 (0.71%) CyberArk
18 21 (0.65%) Ariba
19 20 (0.62%) Red Hat