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

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 68 113
Rank change year-on-year +36 +45 +35
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,022 1,215 784
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.53% 3.68% 2.03%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.54% 4.07% 2.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,791 696 379
10th Percentile £333 £328 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £620 £588
90th Percentile £701 £688 £661
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -7.50% +5.26% -7.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 187 88 106
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £26.71 £41.25 £51.06
Median hourly rate £53.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.46% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £73.00 £67.00 £71.50
90th Percentile £82.70 £75.00 £75.93
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -17.69% - -7.14%

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 46,202 29,871 32,996
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.62% 90.47% 85.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,118 18,549 20,447
10th Percentile £325 £300 £311
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
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 3,059 1,786 1,512
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.23 £14.71
25th Percentile £17.36 £17.30 £20.09
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +3.61%
75th Percentile £67.50 £45.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +76.76% -47.37% +8.72%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 +33 2,598 £500 -1.48% 2,590
UK excluding London +26 1,376 £463 -7.50% 1,714
London +41 1,283 £525 +0.96% 1,197
Work from Home +29 836 £500 - 1,892
North of England +37 337 £452 +6.29% 263
South East +5 334 £500 -0.50% 450
Midlands +33 301 £473 -0.42% 264
West Midlands +31 213 £463 -2.58% 179
North West +22 167 £450 +5.88% 144
Yorkshire +44 149 £461 -2.89% 76
East of England -5 140 £477 -4.70% 243
South West +9 139 £525 -4.55% 246
Scotland +44 119 £430 -15.02% 190
East Midlands +28 84 £495 -1.00% 84
North East -31 26 £425 -5.56% 46
Wales -5 23 £363 -3.33% 51
Northern Ireland +2 4 £363 -40.33% 39
Channel Islands -3 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 (2.75%) Confluence
2 66 (2.18%) Apache Airflow
3 61 (2.02%) SharePoint
4 53 (1.75%) SAS
5 43 (1.42%) Apache Spark
6 30 (0.99%) Apache
7 19 (0.63%) Microsoft Exchange
8 15 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
9 12 (0.40%) CMS
10 10 (0.33%) Jupyter
11 9 (0.30%) SharePoint 2013
12 7 (0.23%) Palantir Foundry
12 7 (0.23%) Sitecore CMS
13 5 (0.17%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.17%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.17%) Tuxedo
13 5 (0.17%) WebLogic
14 4 (0.13%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.13%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.13%) IIS
Applications
1 212 (7.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
3 39 (1.29%) MS Visio
4 38 (1.26%) Spreadsheet
5 31 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 15 (0.50%) AutoCAD
7 10 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
7 10 (0.33%) Navisworks
7 10 (0.33%) Revit
8 9 (0.30%) ProjectWise
9 8 (0.26%) CATIA
10 6 (0.20%) Simulink
11 4 (0.13%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.066%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.066%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.066%) Windchill
13 1 (0.033%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.033%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.033%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.033%) Trello
Business Applications
1 117 (3.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.60%) Oracle EBS
3 16 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
4 14 (0.46%) SAP SD
5 13 (0.43%) NetSuite
5 13 (0.43%) SAP FI
5 13 (0.43%) Teamcenter
5 13 (0.43%) Workday HCM
6 11 (0.36%) Aladdin
6 11 (0.36%) iTrent
6 11 (0.36%) SAP MDG
6 11 (0.36%) SAP MM
7 10 (0.33%) SAP HCM
8 9 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.30%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.30%) SAP CO
8 9 (0.30%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.30%) SAP PS
9 8 (0.26%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 621 (20.55%) Azure
2 345 (11.42%) AWS
3 304 (10.06%) Power Platform
4 182 (6.02%) Azure DevOps
5 137 (4.53%) GCP
5 137 (4.53%) GitHub
6 108 (3.57%) Snowflake
7 86 (2.85%) Entra ID
8 76 (2.51%) Azure Data Factory
9 74 (2.45%) GitHub Actions
10 64 (2.12%) Serverless
11 61 (2.02%) Microsoft 365
12 60 (1.99%) SaaS
13 55 (1.82%) dbt
14 53 (1.75%) Amazon S3
15 44 (1.46%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 39 (1.29%) SuccessFactors
17 35 (1.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 34 (1.13%) Azure Monitor
19 33 (1.09%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 115 (3.81%) Firewall
2 72 (2.38%) DNS
3 68 (2.25%) VLAN
4 65 (2.15%) Network Security
5 54 (1.79%) VPN
6 45 (1.49%) BGP
7 43 (1.42%) WAN
8 40 (1.32%) TCP/IP
9 35 (1.16%) DHCP
10 27 (0.89%) OSPF
11 26 (0.86%) VXLAN
12 25 (0.83%) Wireless
13 22 (0.73%) Ethernet VPN
13 22 (0.73%) LAN
13 22 (0.73%) SD-WAN
14 21 (0.69%) HTTP
14 21 (0.69%) Internet
14 21 (0.69%) SAN
15 19 (0.63%) 5G
15 19 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 281 (9.30%) Power BI
2 171 (5.66%) Data Warehouse
3 131 (4.33%) Metadata
4 120 (3.97%) Relational Database
5 108 (3.57%) SQL Server
6 96 (3.18%) PostgreSQL
7 83 (2.75%) Data Lake
8 75 (2.48%) Tableau
9 42 (1.39%) Oracle Database
10 41 (1.36%) Delta Lake
11 38 (1.26%) MongoDB
12 37 (1.22%) Big Data
13 34 (1.13%) Oracle Reports
14 33 (1.09%) NoSQL
15 32 (1.06%) BigQuery
15 32 (1.06%) Power Query
16 31 (1.03%) MySQL
17 30 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
17 30 (0.99%) Redis
17 30 (0.99%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 269 (8.90%) JIRA
2 212 (7.02%) Git
3 105 (3.47%) Jenkins
4 90 (2.98%) GitLab
5 79 (2.61%) Selenium
6 43 (1.42%) Postman
7 36 (1.19%) JMeter
8 24 (0.79%) WebDriver
9 23 (0.76%) Cucumber
10 21 (0.69%) Rational DOORS
11 19 (0.63%) JUnit
12 15 (0.50%) Cypress.io
12 15 (0.50%) Gatling
13 14 (0.46%) Oracle Forms
13 14 (0.46%) REST Assured
13 14 (0.46%) Zephyr
14 13 (0.43%) Rational Rhapsody
15 12 (0.40%) Maven
16 11 (0.36%) Eclipse
16 11 (0.36%) Gradle
General
1 860 (28.46%) Social Skills
2 851 (28.16%) Finance
3 595 (19.69%) Analytical Skills
4 260 (8.60%) Public Sector
5 243 (8.04%) Banking
6 147 (4.86%) Documentation Skills
7 115 (3.81%) Manufacturing
8 98 (3.24%) Retail
9 69 (2.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 67 (2.22%) Automotive
10 67 (2.22%) Telecoms
11 58 (1.92%) Organisational Skills
12 57 (1.89%) Pharmaceutical
13 55 (1.82%) Aerospace
14 51 (1.69%) Legal
15 50 (1.65%) Marketing
16 46 (1.52%) Law
17 44 (1.46%) Front Office
18 42 (1.39%) Local Government
19 39 (1.29%) Billing
Job Titles
1 534 (17.67%) Analyst
2 346 (11.45%) Senior
3 273 (9.03%) Lead
4 242 (8.01%) Consultant
5 240 (7.94%) Business Analyst
6 239 (7.91%) Data Engineer
7 188 (6.22%) Developer
8 158 (5.23%) Data Analyst
9 153 (5.06%) Architect
10 112 (3.71%) Test Engineer
11 77 (2.55%) Tester
12 75 (2.48%) Network Engineer
13 67 (2.22%) Systems Engineer
14 63 (2.08%) Administrator
15 60 (1.99%) Project Manager
16 59 (1.95%) Senior Data Engineer
17 57 (1.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 52 (1.72%) Senior Analyst
19 50 (1.65%) Technical Analyst
20 49 (1.62%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 184 (6.09%) REST
2 166 (5.49%) Terraform
3 100 (3.31%) JSON
4 91 (3.01%) PySpark
5 84 (2.78%) XML
6 77 (2.55%) Middleware
7 76 (2.51%) Kafka
8 54 (1.79%) .NET
9 53 (1.75%) Playwright
10 47 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
11 46 (1.52%) SOAP
12 45 (1.49%) pytest
13 42 (1.39%) OAuth
14 39 (1.29%) Web Services
15 38 (1.26%) Pandas
15 38 (1.26%) RESTful
15 38 (1.26%) Spring
16 33 (1.09%) Spring Boot
17 29 (0.96%) HTML
17 29 (0.96%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 167 (5.53%) Data Structures
2 163 (5.39%) Onboarding
3 133 (4.40%) Cloud Native
4 125 (4.14%) Legacy Systems
5 114 (3.77%) Product Ownership
6 112 (3.71%) Management Information System
7 87 (2.88%) Data Centre
8 57 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
9 50 (1.65%) Distributed Systems
10 48 (1.59%) AI Agents
11 45 (1.49%) Analytical Mindset
11 45 (1.49%) Life Science
12 44 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
13 42 (1.39%) SCADA
14 38 (1.26%) NHS
14 38 (1.26%) Replication
15 36 (1.19%) Operational Technology
16 33 (1.09%) Algorithms
16 33 (1.09%) CMDB
17 31 (1.03%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 185 (6.12%) Windows
2 124 (4.10%) Linux
3 75 (2.48%) Windows Server
4 50 (1.65%) Unix
5 21 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (0.50%) Android
7 14 (0.46%) Windows 10
8 11 (0.36%) Ubuntu
8 11 (0.36%) VMS
9 9 (0.30%) Apple iOS
10 8 (0.26%) AIX
11 7 (0.23%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.13%) SUSE
12 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.099%) VxWorks
13 3 (0.099%) Windows Server 2019
14 2 (0.066%) CentOS
14 2 (0.066%) HPUX
14 2 (0.066%) zOS
15 1 (0.033%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 812 (26.87%) Migration
2 631 (20.88%) Stakeholder Management
3 588 (19.46%) Agile
4 569 (18.83%) CI/CD
5 489 (16.18%) Data Modelling
6 487 (16.12%) User Acceptance Testing
7 481 (15.92%) Analytics
8 479 (15.85%) Data Migration
9 470 (15.55%) Data Validation
10 467 (15.45%) Problem-Solving
11 407 (13.47%) AI
12 404 (13.37%) DevOps
13 389 (12.87%) Continuous Improvement
14 384 (12.71%) Test Automation
15 339 (11.22%) ETL
16 323 (10.69%) Business Intelligence
17 318 (10.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 310 (10.26%) Data Pipeline
19 309 (10.23%) Data Analysis
20 304 (10.06%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 785 (25.98%) SQL
2 614 (20.32%) Python
3 150 (4.96%) Java
4 100 (3.31%) PowerShell
5 62 (2.05%) Bash
5 62 (2.05%) JavaScript
6 61 (2.02%) C#
7 40 (1.32%) TypeScript
8 35 (1.16%) C++
9 32 (1.06%) Apex Code
10 30 (0.99%) PL/SQL
10 30 (0.99%) R
11 28 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 26 (0.86%) Bicep
12 26 (0.86%) C
13 24 (0.79%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.63%) VBA
15 18 (0.60%) T-SQL
16 16 (0.53%) MATLAB
17 15 (0.50%) Scala
Qualifications
1 589 (19.49%) Security Cleared
2 431 (14.26%) SC Cleared
3 196 (6.49%) Degree
4 83 (2.75%) DV Cleared
5 68 (2.25%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.65%) Cisco Certification
7 46 (1.52%) Computer Science Degree
8 41 (1.36%) CCNP
9 29 (0.96%) AWS Certification
10 28 (0.93%) ACCA
10 28 (0.93%) CIMA
10 28 (0.93%) ISTQB
11 23 (0.76%) Azure Certification
12 22 (0.73%) PMI Certification
13 20 (0.66%) PMP
14 19 (0.63%) CCNA
15 17 (0.56%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 17 (0.56%) CISSP
15 17 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
16 15 (0.50%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 621 (20.55%) Data Quality
2 377 (12.48%) QA
3 111 (3.67%) GDPR
4 50 (1.65%) Accessibility
5 42 (1.39%) NIST
6 41 (1.36%) SLA
7 39 (1.29%) GxP
8 38 (1.26%) PMO
9 36 (1.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 23 (0.76%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 21 (0.69%) GRC
12 20 (0.66%) ISO 20022
13 18 (0.60%) GMP
14 17 (0.56%) WCAG
15 14 (0.46%) NCSC
16 12 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.40%) Def Stans
17 11 (0.36%) HL7
17 11 (0.36%) MiFID
18 10 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 112 (3.71%) Docker
2 98 (3.24%) Active Directory
3 85 (2.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
5 34 (1.13%) VMware ESXi
6 29 (0.96%) Firmware
7 25 (0.83%) Hyper-V
8 23 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
8 23 (0.76%) vSphere
9 14 (0.46%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.17%) KVM
12 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.099%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.066%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.066%) OpenSSH
14 2 (0.066%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.033%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.033%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 1 (0.033%) NFS
Systems Management
1 145 (4.80%) Kubernetes
2 89 (2.95%) Ansible
3 43 (1.42%) Grafana
4 36 (1.19%) Prometheus
5 26 (0.86%) FortiGate
5 26 (0.86%) Microsoft Intune
6 17 (0.56%) SCCM
6 17 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
7 15 (0.50%) vCenter Server
8 14 (0.46%) HP ALM
9 10 (0.33%) Failover Clustering
9 10 (0.33%) VxRail
10 9 (0.30%) Argo
11 7 (0.23%) Functional Safety
12 6 (0.20%) Control-M
12 6 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
12 6 (0.20%) Progress Chef
13 5 (0.17%) systemd
13 5 (0.17%) vMotion
13 5 (0.17%) vRealize
Vendors
1 458 (15.16%) Microsoft
2 265 (8.77%) SAP
3 257 (8.50%) Oracle
4 165 (5.46%) Databricks
5 103 (3.41%) Salesforce
6 97 (3.21%) VMware
7 82 (2.71%) Cisco
8 78 (2.58%) ServiceNow
9 52 (1.72%) Google
10 49 (1.62%) Workday
11 44 (1.46%) IBM
12 36 (1.19%) Informatica
13 31 (1.03%) Fortinet
14 30 (0.99%) Zscaler
15 29 (0.96%) Juniper
16 28 (0.93%) Palo Alto
17 23 (0.76%) MuleSoft
17 23 (0.76%) Splunk
18 17 (0.56%) Ariba
18 17 (0.56%) CyberArk