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 10 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 52 115 129
Rank change year-on-year +63 +14 +8
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,669 720 845
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.24% 2.35% 1.88%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.87% 2.62% 2.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,017 385 464
10th Percentile £350 £353 £325
25th Percentile £403 £409 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -6.19% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £620
90th Percentile £700 £712 £721
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% +3.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 33 153
10th Percentile £31.51 £26.80 £22.95
25th Percentile £42.36 £47.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.75 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.55% -11.15% +3.36%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.75 £75.25
90th Percentile £73.63 £67.20 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.65 £65.46
% change year-on-year +12.76% -11.94% +4.09%

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 34,251 27,445 39,124
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.02% 89.42% 87.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,718 16,700 25,680
10th Percentile £306 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £716 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,071 843 2,128
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.05 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -1.71% +1.74%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.12
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.08 £35.00
% change year-on-year -19.08% -11.20% +10.55%

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 10 February 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 10 February 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 10 February 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 +56 1,446 £500 -4.76% 683
UK excluding London +37 772 £475 -5.00% 566
London +74 680 £520 -3.70% 200
Work from Home +67 521 £500 -4.76% 293
North of England +30 199 £420 - 110
South East +14 174 £501 +0.25% 183
North West +30 133 £400 +1.27% 71
Midlands +17 125 £493 +0.61% 113
South West +12 122 £475 -17.39% 70
West Midlands +11 103 £500 +2.04% 82
East of England +19 91 £478 +19.50% 76
Yorkshire -9 56 £487 -0.10% 32
Scotland +33 45 £440 -3.30% 27
East Midlands -17 21 £475 +58.33% 30
Northern Ireland +14 19 £425 - 1
North East -5 12 £450 -37.93% 7
Wales -2 6 £461 - 4

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 63 (3.77%) Confluence
2 39 (2.34%) Apache Spark
3 33 (1.98%) SharePoint
4 28 (1.68%) SAS
5 22 (1.32%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (1.20%) Microsoft Exchange
7 15 (0.90%) Apache
8 14 (0.84%) Skype for Business
9 9 (0.54%) Appian
9 9 (0.54%) Exchange Server 2013
10 8 (0.48%) CMS
11 7 (0.42%) Mattermost
12 6 (0.36%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.36%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
13 4 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.24%) Anypoint
13 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.24%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.18%) GeoServer
14 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 82 (4.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (2.52%) Microsoft Office
3 29 (1.74%) MS Visio
4 16 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 11 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
6 10 (0.60%) Chatbot
7 8 (0.48%) Sketch
8 7 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
9 4 (0.24%) Notion
10 3 (0.18%) LaTeX
11 2 (0.12%) Simulink
12 1 (0.060%) CANalyzer
12 1 (0.060%) CATIA
12 1 (0.060%) OrCAD
12 1 (0.060%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.060%) Stateflow
12 1 (0.060%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 80 (4.79%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (1.26%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.78%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.72%) SAP EHS
5 11 (0.66%) Oracle General Ledger
5 11 (0.66%) Workday HCM
6 10 (0.60%) Oracle Receivables
6 10 (0.60%) Remedy ITSM
7 9 (0.54%) Aladdin
7 9 (0.54%) NetSuite
7 9 (0.54%) SAP FI
7 9 (0.54%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.48%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.48%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 8 (0.48%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 7 (0.42%) SAP MM
10 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
10 6 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
10 6 (0.36%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 382 (22.89%) Azure
2 203 (12.16%) AWS
3 134 (8.03%) Azure DevOps
4 127 (7.61%) Power Platform
5 75 (4.49%) GitHub
6 66 (3.95%) GCP
7 56 (3.36%) Entra ID
8 49 (2.94%) SaaS
9 47 (2.82%) Azure Data Factory
9 47 (2.82%) Serverless
10 46 (2.76%) GitHub Actions
11 40 (2.40%) Amazon S3
12 35 (2.10%) Snowflake
13 34 (2.04%) OCI
14 32 (1.92%) Microsoft 365
15 25 (1.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 24 (1.44%) OpenShift
17 23 (1.38%) AWS Lambda
18 20 (1.20%) Dynamics 365
18 20 (1.20%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 50 (3.00%) Firewall
2 24 (1.44%) TCP/IP
3 22 (1.32%) Network Security
4 19 (1.14%) Ethernet
5 18 (1.08%) HTTP
6 16 (0.96%) DNS
6 16 (0.96%) VPN
7 15 (0.90%) VLAN
7 15 (0.90%) WAN
8 14 (0.84%) Skype
8 14 (0.84%) Wireless
9 12 (0.72%) BGP
10 11 (0.66%) MPLS
10 11 (0.66%) OSPF
11 10 (0.60%) LAN
12 9 (0.54%) TACACS
13 7 (0.42%) SD-WAN
14 6 (0.36%) Cisco ISE
14 6 (0.36%) Internet
14 6 (0.36%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 121 (7.25%) Power BI
2 76 (4.55%) Metadata
3 61 (3.65%) Data Warehouse
4 45 (2.70%) SQL Server
5 39 (2.34%) Tableau
6 35 (2.10%) Data Lake
7 31 (1.86%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.74%) PostgreSQL
9 23 (1.38%) Delta Lake
10 22 (1.32%) Relational Database
11 21 (1.26%) Azure SQL Database
12 19 (1.14%) Amazon Redshift
12 19 (1.14%) Big Data
12 19 (1.14%) Pinecone
13 18 (1.08%) Geospatial Data
13 18 (1.08%) Oracle Database
13 18 (1.08%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 17 (1.02%) Oracle Reports
15 16 (0.96%) GIS
16 15 (0.90%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 158 (9.47%) JIRA
2 83 (4.97%) Git
3 71 (4.25%) Jenkins
4 52 (3.12%) Postman
5 49 (2.94%) GitLab
6 44 (2.64%) Selenium
7 32 (1.92%) Oracle APEX
8 24 (1.44%) Rational DOORS
9 19 (1.14%) JMeter
10 17 (1.02%) MLflow
10 17 (1.02%) TestRail
11 16 (0.96%) Cucumber
11 16 (0.96%) Visual Studio
12 13 (0.78%) Zephyr
13 12 (0.72%) JUnit
13 12 (0.72%) REST Assured
14 11 (0.66%) SpecFlow
15 10 (0.60%) Eclipse
16 9 (0.54%) Bitbucket
16 9 (0.54%) Cypress.io
General
1 628 (37.63%) Social Skills
2 470 (28.16%) Finance
3 343 (20.55%) Analytical Skills
4 150 (8.99%) Public Sector
5 144 (8.63%) Banking
6 89 (5.33%) Documentation Skills
7 45 (2.70%) Manufacturing
7 45 (2.70%) Presentation Skills
8 38 (2.28%) Influencing Skills
9 36 (2.16%) Pharmaceutical
10 31 (1.86%) Telecoms
11 30 (1.80%) Aerospace
11 30 (1.80%) Front Office
12 29 (1.74%) Electronics
12 29 (1.74%) Marketing
13 28 (1.68%) Legal
13 28 (1.68%) Organisational Skills
14 26 (1.56%) Military
15 22 (1.32%) Billing
15 22 (1.32%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 334 (20.01%) Analyst
2 170 (10.19%) Senior
3 149 (8.93%) Business Analyst
4 140 (8.39%) Lead
5 136 (8.15%) Consultant
6 123 (7.37%) Developer
7 100 (5.99%) Architect
8 78 (4.67%) Data Analyst
9 77 (4.61%) Data Engineer
10 52 (3.12%) Software Engineer
11 50 (3.00%) Tester
12 49 (2.94%) Senior Analyst
13 47 (2.82%) Project Manager
14 42 (2.52%) SAP Consultant
15 40 (2.40%) Test Analyst
16 36 (2.16%) Test Manager
17 35 (2.10%) Senior Developer
18 31 (1.86%) Embedded Engineer
18 31 (1.86%) Solutions Architect
19 30 (1.80%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (6.47%) REST
2 85 (5.09%) JSON
3 56 (3.36%) XML
4 50 (3.00%) Oracle Fusion
5 47 (2.82%) OAuth
6 41 (2.46%) Middleware
6 41 (2.46%) SOAP
7 38 (2.28%) PySpark
8 37 (2.22%) RESTful
9 35 (2.10%) Kafka
10 33 (1.98%) .NET
10 33 (1.98%) Node.js
11 31 (1.86%) PyTorch
12 30 (1.80%) Swagger
13 29 (1.74%) Playwright
14 28 (1.68%) TensorFlow
15 27 (1.62%) Web Services
16 25 (1.50%) Pandas
16 25 (1.50%) pytest
17 24 (1.44%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 99 (5.93%) Legacy Systems
2 70 (4.19%) Data Structures
3 63 (3.77%) Onboarding
4 60 (3.59%) Product Ownership
5 51 (3.06%) Management Information System
6 48 (2.88%) Cloud Native
7 32 (1.92%) Data Centre
8 28 (1.68%) Algorithms
8 28 (1.68%) Analytical Mindset
9 26 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
10 22 (1.32%) FPGA
11 20 (1.20%) Derivative
11 20 (1.20%) Life Science
12 19 (1.14%) Distributed Systems
12 19 (1.14%) Hybrid Cloud
13 18 (1.08%) Replication
14 16 (0.96%) Operational Technology
15 15 (0.90%) SCADA
15 15 (0.90%) Security Posture
16 14 (0.84%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 93 (5.57%) Linux
2 87 (5.21%) Windows
3 30 (1.80%) Unix
4 11 (0.66%) Android
5 6 (0.36%) Embedded Linux
5 6 (0.36%) Windows Server
5 6 (0.36%) zOS
6 5 (0.30%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.24%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.12%) Debian
8 2 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.12%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.060%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.060%) pSOS
9 1 (0.060%) Solaris
9 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 421 (25.22%) Agile
2 390 (23.37%) Problem-Solving
3 380 (22.77%) Migration
4 285 (17.08%) Stakeholder Management
5 272 (16.30%) DevOps
6 270 (16.18%) Data Validation
7 264 (15.82%) CI/CD
8 241 (14.44%) Analytics
9 210 (12.58%) Test Automation
10 209 (12.52%) Data Modelling
11 205 (12.28%) Data Migration
12 202 (12.10%) User Acceptance Testing
13 188 (11.26%) AI
14 181 (10.84%) ETL
15 174 (10.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 160 (9.59%) Continuous Improvement
17 159 (9.53%) Business Intelligence
18 157 (9.41%) Data Governance
19 150 (8.99%) Data Analysis
20 132 (7.91%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 414 (24.81%) SQL
2 350 (20.97%) Python
3 94 (5.63%) JavaScript
4 88 (5.27%) Java
5 65 (3.89%) C#
6 55 (3.30%) PowerShell
7 53 (3.18%) PL/SQL
8 49 (2.94%) Bash
9 47 (2.82%) C++
10 43 (2.58%) C
11 32 (1.92%) TypeScript
12 24 (1.44%) R
13 20 (1.20%) Bicep
14 17 (1.02%) Ada
14 17 (1.02%) Groovy
15 16 (0.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 16 (0.96%) Shell Script
16 15 (0.90%) Scala
17 12 (0.72%) T-SQL
18 9 (0.54%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 364 (21.81%) Security Cleared
2 267 (16.00%) SC Cleared
3 173 (10.37%) Degree
4 61 (3.65%) Computer Science Degree
5 56 (3.36%) BPSS Clearance
6 39 (2.34%) DV Cleared
6 39 (2.34%) Master's Degree
7 32 (1.92%) ISTQB
8 28 (1.68%) PMI Certification
9 22 (1.32%) AWS Certification
10 21 (1.26%) PMP
11 16 (0.96%) CBAP
12 15 (0.90%) Cisco Certification
12 15 (0.90%) Oracle Certification
13 11 (0.66%) Azure Certification
13 11 (0.66%) CCNP
14 10 (0.60%) OCA
15 9 (0.54%) CCIE
15 9 (0.54%) CISSP
15 9 (0.54%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 232 (13.90%) Data Quality
2 208 (12.46%) QA
3 89 (5.33%) GDPR
4 68 (4.07%) NIST
5 47 (2.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 35 (2.10%) Accessibility
7 19 (1.14%) GxP
7 19 (1.14%) IFRS
8 17 (1.02%) IFRS 17
9 15 (0.90%) Def Stans
9 15 (0.90%) PCI DSS
10 14 (0.84%) SLA
11 13 (0.78%) EU AI Act
11 13 (0.78%) PMO
12 12 (0.72%) COBIT
12 12 (0.72%) GMP
12 12 (0.72%) NCSC
13 10 (0.60%) GRC
13 10 (0.60%) MiFID
13 10 (0.60%) MISRA
System Software
1 60 (3.59%) Docker
2 46 (2.76%) Active Directory
3 33 (1.98%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (1.32%) Firmware
5 13 (0.78%) VMware NSX
6 12 (0.72%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.42%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.24%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 4 (0.24%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.24%) vSphere
9 3 (0.18%) KVM
9 3 (0.18%) NFS
9 3 (0.18%) QEMU
10 2 (0.12%) Ceph
10 2 (0.12%) Lustre
10 2 (0.12%) OpenAM
10 2 (0.12%) OpenDJ
10 2 (0.12%) OpenIDM
10 2 (0.12%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 83 (4.97%) Kubernetes
2 72 (4.31%) Terraform
3 41 (2.46%) Ansible
4 21 (1.26%) Single Sign-On
5 18 (1.08%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (0.90%) Kibana
6 15 (0.90%) SCCM
7 14 (0.84%) Puppet
8 13 (0.78%) Grafana
9 11 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 11 (0.66%) Prometheus
10 9 (0.54%) Nmap
11 8 (0.48%) SCOM
12 7 (0.42%) HP SiteScope
13 6 (0.36%) Nessus
14 5 (0.30%) RSA Archer
15 4 (0.24%) Iperf
16 3 (0.18%) CloudHub
16 3 (0.18%) EMC VPLEX
16 3 (0.18%) vMotion
Vendors
1 222 (13.30%) Microsoft
2 167 (10.01%) Oracle
3 139 (8.33%) SAP
4 80 (4.79%) Databricks
5 67 (4.01%) ServiceNow
6 42 (2.52%) Cisco
6 42 (2.52%) Splunk
7 41 (2.46%) Google
8 39 (2.34%) VMware
9 38 (2.28%) Salesforce
10 32 (1.92%) Workday
11 20 (1.20%) IBM
11 20 (1.20%) MuleSoft
12 19 (1.14%) Murex
13 18 (1.08%) Palo Alto
14 17 (1.02%) Informatica
15 16 (0.96%) OpenAI
15 16 (0.96%) Sage
16 14 (0.84%) Avaloq
17 13 (0.78%) Bloomberg