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

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 68 109
Rank change year-on-year +36 +41 +41
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,091 1,223 813
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.63% 3.71% 2.12%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.68% 4.09% 2.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,815 696 402
10th Percentile £331 £325 £325
25th Percentile £411 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £511 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.20% +2.25% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £593
90th Percentile £700 £688 £662
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £500 £488
% change year-on-year -8.00% +2.56% -5.02%
Number of hourly rates quoted 194 86 101
10th Percentile £16.84 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £26.91 £41.25 £48.00
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% - -2.61%
75th Percentile £72.73 £67.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £54.25 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -16.54% - -5.11%

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 46,295 29,870 32,935
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.37% 90.52% 85.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,040 18,573 20,019
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 £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,185 1,844 1,407
10th Percentile £13.72 £14.33 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.33 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £67.25 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.03 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.91% -47.67% +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 25 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 25 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 25 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 +32 2,651 £500 -2.91% 4,058
UK excluding London +32 1,415 £460 -8.00% 2,470
London +32 1,295 £525 - 1,930
Work from Home +28 846 £500 - 1,546
North of England +55 348 £450 +4.65% 436
South East +2 331 £510 +2.00% 647
Midlands +32 306 £463 -5.13% 343
West Midlands +32 216 £463 -7.50% 236
North West +15 166 £452 +6.29% 246
Yorkshire +50 156 £460 -3.16% 125
South West +17 152 £524 -4.77% 317
East of England -10 143 £450 -10.00% 324
Scotland +40 129 £430 -15.02% 305
East Midlands +29 86 £475 -7.32% 106
North East -24 31 £425 -11.92% 67
Wales -2 25 £394 +5.00% 53
Northern Ireland +4 4 £363 -40.33% 79
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 92 (2.98%) Confluence
2 68 (2.20%) Apache Airflow
3 60 (1.94%) SharePoint
4 53 (1.71%) SAS
5 45 (1.46%) Apache Spark
6 34 (1.10%) Apache
7 18 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
8 17 (0.55%) 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%) CICS
16 4 (0.13%) IIS
16 4 (0.13%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 211 (6.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
3 37 (1.20%) MS Visio
4 29 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 29 (0.94%) Spreadsheet
5 16 (0.52%) AutoCAD
6 11 (0.36%) Navisworks
6 11 (0.36%) Revit
7 10 (0.32%) ProjectWise
8 9 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
9 7 (0.23%) Simulink
10 5 (0.16%) CATIA
11 4 (0.13%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.065%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.065%) EPLAN
13 1 (0.032%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.032%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.032%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.032%) OrCAD
13 1 (0.032%) Trello
Business Applications
1 111 (3.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
3 15 (0.49%) SAP SD
4 14 (0.45%) SAP FI
5 13 (0.42%) NetSuite
5 13 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
5 13 (0.42%) SAP HCM
5 13 (0.42%) Workday HCM
6 12 (0.39%) SAP MDG
6 12 (0.39%) Teamcenter
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%) SAP CO
9 9 (0.29%) SAP ERP
9 9 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
9 9 (0.29%) SAP PS
Cloud Services
1 605 (19.57%) Azure
2 355 (11.48%) AWS
3 311 (10.06%) Power Platform
4 185 (5.99%) Azure DevOps
5 157 (5.08%) GCP
6 146 (4.72%) GitHub
7 109 (3.53%) Snowflake
8 93 (3.01%) Entra ID
9 75 (2.43%) GitHub Actions
10 71 (2.30%) Azure Data Factory
11 63 (2.04%) Serverless
12 62 (2.01%) Amazon S3
13 60 (1.94%) dbt
14 58 (1.88%) Microsoft 365
14 58 (1.88%) SaaS
15 40 (1.29%) SuccessFactors
16 39 (1.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 36 (1.16%) Azure Monitor
18 35 (1.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 33 (1.07%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 112 (3.62%) Firewall
2 75 (2.43%) DNS
3 68 (2.20%) VLAN
4 60 (1.94%) Network Security
5 56 (1.81%) VPN
6 52 (1.68%) BGP
7 47 (1.52%) TCP/IP
8 45 (1.46%) WAN
9 35 (1.13%) DHCP
10 31 (1.00%) OSPF
11 30 (0.97%) VXLAN
12 27 (0.87%) Ethernet VPN
13 26 (0.84%) LAN
13 26 (0.84%) Wireless
14 25 (0.81%) Ethernet
15 22 (0.71%) Internet
15 22 (0.71%) SD-WAN
15 22 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
16 21 (0.68%) 5G
17 20 (0.65%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 288 (9.32%) Power BI
2 171 (5.53%) Data Warehouse
3 137 (4.43%) Metadata
4 121 (3.91%) Relational Database
5 102 (3.30%) SQL Server
6 96 (3.11%) PostgreSQL
7 86 (2.78%) Data Lake
8 71 (2.30%) Tableau
9 42 (1.36%) Oracle Database
10 39 (1.26%) MongoDB
11 38 (1.23%) Delta Lake
12 37 (1.20%) BigQuery
13 36 (1.16%) Power Query
14 35 (1.13%) NoSQL
15 33 (1.07%) Big Data
16 31 (1.00%) Redis
17 30 (0.97%) Amazon Athena
17 30 (0.97%) Oracle Reports
17 30 (0.97%) SAS Enterprise Guide
18 29 (0.94%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 272 (8.80%) JIRA
2 235 (7.60%) Git
3 106 (3.43%) Jenkins
4 95 (3.07%) GitLab
5 82 (2.65%) Selenium
6 43 (1.39%) Postman
7 35 (1.13%) JMeter
8 25 (0.81%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.78%) Rational DOORS
10 22 (0.71%) WebDriver
11 21 (0.68%) JUnit
12 17 (0.55%) Cypress.io
12 17 (0.55%) Eclipse
12 17 (0.55%) REST Assured
12 17 (0.55%) Visual Studio
13 16 (0.52%) Zephyr
14 15 (0.49%) Gatling
15 14 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
16 12 (0.39%) Visual Studio Code
17 11 (0.36%) TestRail
General
1 883 (28.57%) Social Skills
2 877 (28.37%) Finance
3 618 (19.99%) Analytical Skills
4 278 (8.99%) Banking
5 263 (8.51%) Public Sector
6 135 (4.37%) Documentation Skills
7 123 (3.98%) Manufacturing
8 96 (3.11%) Retail
9 74 (2.39%) Telecoms
10 73 (2.36%) Automotive
11 70 (2.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 60 (1.94%) Organisational Skills
13 58 (1.88%) Legal
14 52 (1.68%) Aerospace
14 52 (1.68%) Pharmaceutical
15 50 (1.62%) Marketing
16 46 (1.49%) Front Office
17 45 (1.46%) Local Government
18 44 (1.42%) Billing
18 44 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 519 (16.79%) Analyst
2 358 (11.58%) Senior
3 280 (9.06%) Lead
4 253 (8.19%) Data Engineer
5 244 (7.89%) Consultant
6 235 (7.60%) Business Analyst
7 200 (6.47%) Developer
8 161 (5.21%) Architect
8 161 (5.21%) Data Analyst
9 112 (3.62%) Test Engineer
10 80 (2.59%) Network Engineer
10 80 (2.59%) Tester
11 63 (2.04%) Systems Engineer
12 60 (1.94%) Administrator
13 59 (1.91%) Senior Data Engineer
14 58 (1.88%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 57 (1.84%) Senior Analyst
16 52 (1.68%) Software Engineer
17 50 (1.62%) Project Manager
18 47 (1.52%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 199 (6.44%) REST
2 184 (5.95%) Terraform
3 98 (3.17%) JSON
4 91 (2.94%) PySpark
5 82 (2.65%) Middleware
5 82 (2.65%) XML
6 76 (2.46%) Kafka
7 60 (1.94%) Playwright
8 59 (1.91%) .NET
9 52 (1.68%) SOAP
9 52 (1.68%) Web Services
10 51 (1.65%) pytest
11 50 (1.62%) OAuth
12 45 (1.46%) Oracle Fusion
12 45 (1.46%) RESTful
13 38 (1.23%) OpenID
14 37 (1.20%) Pandas
14 37 (1.20%) Spring
15 36 (1.16%) Node.js
16 35 (1.13%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 176 (5.69%) Onboarding
2 161 (5.21%) Data Structures
3 145 (4.69%) Cloud Native
4 121 (3.91%) Legacy Systems
5 120 (3.88%) Product Ownership
6 114 (3.69%) Management Information System
7 95 (3.07%) Data Centre
8 60 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
9 56 (1.81%) AI Agents
9 56 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
10 46 (1.49%) Analytical Mindset
11 45 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
12 42 (1.36%) Life Science
12 42 (1.36%) SCADA
13 38 (1.23%) Algorithms
13 38 (1.23%) Operational Technology
14 36 (1.16%) NHS
15 35 (1.13%) CMDB
15 35 (1.13%) Replication
16 33 (1.07%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 213 (6.89%) Windows
2 139 (4.50%) Linux
3 82 (2.65%) Windows Server
4 58 (1.88%) Unix
5 21 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.52%) Windows 10
7 15 (0.49%) Android
8 11 (0.36%) Ubuntu
9 10 (0.32%) AIX
9 10 (0.32%) VMS
10 9 (0.29%) Apple iOS
11 7 (0.23%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.16%) zOS
13 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
14 3 (0.097%) CentOS
14 3 (0.097%) VxWorks
15 2 (0.065%) HPUX
15 2 (0.065%) Solaris
15 2 (0.065%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 832 (26.92%) Migration
2 680 (22.00%) Stakeholder Management
3 613 (19.83%) CI/CD
4 603 (19.51%) Agile
5 505 (16.34%) Data Modelling
6 492 (15.92%) Analytics
6 492 (15.92%) User Acceptance Testing
7 487 (15.76%) Data Migration
8 477 (15.43%) Problem-Solving
9 473 (15.30%) Data Validation
10 433 (14.01%) AI
11 422 (13.65%) DevOps
12 419 (13.56%) Test Automation
13 416 (13.46%) Continuous Improvement
14 350 (11.32%) ETL
15 334 (10.81%) Business Intelligence
16 320 (10.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 318 (10.29%) Data Analysis
18 314 (10.16%) Data Governance
19 309 (10.00%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 810 (26.21%) SQL
2 665 (21.51%) Python
3 154 (4.98%) Java
4 111 (3.59%) PowerShell
5 79 (2.56%) C#
6 76 (2.46%) JavaScript
7 64 (2.07%) Bash
8 46 (1.49%) TypeScript
9 45 (1.46%) C++
10 32 (1.04%) Apex Code
11 31 (1.00%) R
12 30 (0.97%) Shell Script
13 28 (0.91%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 27 (0.87%) PL/SQL
15 25 (0.81%) Bicep
16 24 (0.78%) C
17 21 (0.68%) Go
18 19 (0.61%) VBA
19 18 (0.58%) T-SQL
20 16 (0.52%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 613 (19.83%) Security Cleared
2 458 (14.82%) SC Cleared
3 211 (6.83%) Degree
4 85 (2.75%) DV Cleared
5 73 (2.36%) 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 (1.04%) ACCA
10 32 (1.04%) CIMA
11 27 (0.87%) ISTQB
12 26 (0.84%) Azure Certification
13 25 (0.81%) 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 15 (0.49%) CCNA
18 15 (0.49%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 636 (20.58%) Data Quality
2 375 (12.13%) QA
3 101 (3.27%) GDPR
4 54 (1.75%) Accessibility
5 47 (1.52%) SLA
6 36 (1.16%) GxP
6 36 (1.16%) NIST
6 36 (1.16%) PMO
7 35 (1.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 23 (0.74%) 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 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
13 15 (0.49%) 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
2 104 (3.36%) Active Directory
3 94 (3.04%) VMware Infrastructure
4 41 (1.33%) Virtual Machines
5 36 (1.16%) VMware ESXi
6 29 (0.94%) Firmware
7 25 (0.81%) Hyper-V
7 25 (0.81%) vSphere
8 23 (0.74%) Virtual Desktop
9 17 (0.55%) 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%) etcd
15 1 (0.032%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.032%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 148 (4.79%) Kubernetes
2 103 (3.33%) Ansible
3 44 (1.42%) Grafana
4 34 (1.10%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.87%) FortiGate
5 27 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
6 20 (0.65%) SCCM
7 18 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.45%) HP ALM
9 13 (0.42%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.32%) Functional Safety
11 9 (0.29%) Argo
11 9 (0.29%) Progress Chef
12 8 (0.26%) Control-M
12 8 (0.26%) Failover Clustering
12 8 (0.26%) VxRail
13 6 (0.19%) Kibana
14 5 (0.16%) systemd
14 5 (0.16%) vMotion
14 5 (0.16%) vRealize
Vendors
1 470 (15.21%) Microsoft
2 251 (8.12%) SAP
3 246 (7.96%) Oracle
4 172 (5.56%) Databricks
5 107 (3.46%) VMware
6 97 (3.14%) Salesforce
7 91 (2.94%) Cisco
8 88 (2.85%) ServiceNow
9 68 (2.20%) Google
10 53 (1.71%) Workday
11 48 (1.55%) IBM
12 35 (1.13%) Informatica
13 34 (1.10%) Fortinet
14 31 (1.00%) Zscaler
15 30 (0.97%) Palo Alto
16 29 (0.94%) Juniper
17 22 (0.71%) Splunk
18 20 (0.65%) MuleSoft
18 20 (0.65%) Red Hat
19 19 (0.61%) Sage