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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 69 124
Rank change year-on-year +33 +55 +25
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,776 1,163 758
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.28% 3.54% 1.90%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.22% 3.92% 2.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,662 685 384
10th Percentile £341 £350 £340
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £493
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +6.60% -10.45%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £585
90th Percentile £700 £700 £666
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £525 £469
% change year-on-year -11.43% +12.00% -6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 174 83 127
10th Percentile £17.01 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £26.99 £41.25 £49.63
Median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -7.69% -
75th Percentile £74.25 £67.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.93 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -3.85% - +3.96%

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 44,620 29,684 34,056
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.91% 90.46% 85.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,627 18,648 21,888
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £734 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,682 1,621 1,980
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.20 £13.69
25th Percentile £19.73 £17.33 £17.74
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.35 £68.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.57 £40.33
% change year-on-year +86.55% -41.56% -

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 29 July 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 29 July 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 29 July 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 +30 2,407 £500 -4.76% 1,028
UK excluding London +25 1,293 £465 -11.43% 732
London +45 1,162 £525 - 402
Work from Home +39 791 £494 -1.25% 374
South East +4 315 £504 +0.75% 222
Midlands +32 306 £475 +5.56% 121
North of England +36 299 £450 -9.09% 158
West Midlands +28 223 £473 +8.11% 71
North West +18 161 £450 -17.20% 88
East of England 0 134 £500 - 98
Yorkshire +34 127 £455 +4.60% 37
South West -10 124 £523 -9.13% 97
Scotland +37 91 £425 -10.53% 39
East Midlands +23 78 £509 +10.89% 50
Wales +1 28 £450 +20.00% 12
North East -40 15 £425 -15.00% 34
Northern Ireland +5 10 £380 -35.59% 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 80 (2.88%) Confluence
2 66 (2.38%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (2.02%) SAS
4 49 (1.77%) SharePoint
5 41 (1.48%) Apache Spark
6 31 (1.12%) Apache
7 13 (0.47%) Jupyter
7 13 (0.47%) Oracle Workflow
8 11 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
9 9 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
10 8 (0.29%) ArcGIS
10 8 (0.29%) CMS
11 5 (0.18%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.14%) IIS
12 4 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
12 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
13 3 (0.11%) JBoss
Applications
1 187 (6.74%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.48%) MS Visio
3 35 (1.26%) Microsoft Office
4 28 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (1.01%) Spreadsheet
5 12 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.29%) CATIA
7 7 (0.25%) AutoCAD
8 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.18%) Simulink
9 2 (0.072%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.072%) EPLAN
9 2 (0.072%) Navisworks
9 2 (0.072%) ProjectWise
9 2 (0.072%) Revit
9 2 (0.072%) Sketch
9 2 (0.072%) Windchill
10 1 (0.036%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.036%) MicroStation
10 1 (0.036%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 122 (4.39%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.19%) Oracle EBS
3 18 (0.65%) Workday HCM
4 13 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.47%) Teamcenter
5 11 (0.40%) iTrent
5 11 (0.40%) NetSuite
5 11 (0.40%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.36%) Aladdin
6 10 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
6 10 (0.36%) Oracle Assets
6 10 (0.36%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 10 (0.36%) SAP MDG
7 9 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
7 9 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
7 9 (0.32%) Sage X3
7 9 (0.32%) SAP SD
8 8 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
8 8 (0.29%) SAP HCM
8 8 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 594 (21.40%) Azure
2 329 (11.85%) AWS
3 292 (10.52%) Power Platform
4 148 (5.33%) Azure DevOps
5 145 (5.22%) GCP
6 124 (4.47%) GitHub
7 100 (3.60%) Snowflake
8 73 (2.63%) GitHub Actions
9 70 (2.52%) Azure Data Factory
10 68 (2.45%) Entra ID
11 66 (2.38%) Serverless
12 57 (2.05%) Amazon S3
13 52 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
13 52 (1.87%) SaaS
14 44 (1.59%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 44 (1.59%) OCI
15 42 (1.51%) dbt
16 41 (1.48%) SuccessFactors
17 34 (1.22%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 34 (1.22%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 117 (4.21%) Firewall
2 69 (2.49%) Network Security
3 59 (2.13%) DNS
4 51 (1.84%) VLAN
5 49 (1.77%) VPN
6 41 (1.48%) TCP/IP
6 41 (1.48%) WAN
7 34 (1.22%) BGP
8 27 (0.97%) DHCP
9 25 (0.90%) LAN
9 25 (0.90%) OSPF
10 23 (0.83%) Internet
11 22 (0.79%) SAN
11 22 (0.79%) SD-WAN
11 22 (0.79%) Wireless
12 18 (0.65%) Ethernet
13 16 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
14 13 (0.47%) VXLAN
15 12 (0.43%) Cisco ISE
15 12 (0.43%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 271 (9.76%) Power BI
2 166 (5.98%) Data Warehouse
3 114 (4.11%) Metadata
4 96 (3.46%) SQL Server
5 87 (3.13%) PostgreSQL
6 86 (3.10%) Data Lake
7 79 (2.85%) Relational Database
8 78 (2.81%) Tableau
9 39 (1.40%) Big Data
10 33 (1.19%) Oracle Reports
10 33 (1.19%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 32 (1.15%) Oracle Database
11 32 (1.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 30 (1.08%) Delta Lake
13 29 (1.04%) Power Query
14 27 (0.97%) BigQuery
14 27 (0.97%) NoSQL
15 26 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
16 24 (0.86%) Amazon Athena
17 22 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 247 (8.90%) JIRA
2 167 (6.02%) Git
3 93 (3.35%) Jenkins
4 72 (2.59%) GitLab
5 60 (2.16%) Selenium
6 49 (1.77%) JMeter
7 46 (1.66%) Postman
8 39 (1.40%) JUnit
9 37 (1.33%) Cucumber
10 32 (1.15%) WebDriver
11 21 (0.76%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.65%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.58%) Gatling
14 14 (0.50%) Visual Studio
15 13 (0.47%) Oracle Forms
15 13 (0.47%) REST Assured
16 11 (0.40%) Cypress.io
16 11 (0.40%) MLflow
16 11 (0.40%) Rational Rhapsody
16 11 (0.40%) Zephyr
General
1 811 (29.21%) Finance
2 799 (28.78%) Social Skills
3 525 (18.91%) Analytical Skills
4 230 (8.29%) Public Sector
5 200 (7.20%) Banking
6 154 (5.55%) Documentation Skills
7 104 (3.75%) Manufacturing
8 87 (3.13%) Retail
9 66 (2.38%) Aerospace
10 62 (2.23%) Pharmaceutical
11 59 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 53 (1.91%) Organisational Skills
12 53 (1.91%) Telecoms
13 43 (1.55%) Legal
14 42 (1.51%) Automotive
14 42 (1.51%) Front Office
15 41 (1.48%) Marketing
16 40 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
17 38 (1.37%) Law
18 37 (1.33%) Billing
Job Titles
1 499 (17.98%) Analyst
2 288 (10.37%) Senior
3 275 (9.91%) Lead
4 237 (8.54%) Business Analyst
5 231 (8.32%) Data Engineer
6 204 (7.35%) Consultant
7 162 (5.84%) Developer
8 150 (5.40%) Architect
9 139 (5.01%) Data Analyst
10 95 (3.42%) Test Engineer
11 82 (2.95%) Tester
12 80 (2.88%) Project Manager
13 63 (2.27%) Network Engineer
14 56 (2.02%) Systems Engineer
15 52 (1.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 51 (1.84%) Technical Analyst
17 50 (1.80%) Senior Data Engineer
18 49 (1.77%) Administrator
19 44 (1.59%) Migration Engineer
20 43 (1.55%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 137 (4.94%) REST
2 81 (2.92%) JSON
3 73 (2.63%) Kafka
4 70 (2.52%) PySpark
5 60 (2.16%) XML
6 58 (2.09%) Middleware
7 50 (1.80%) Oracle Fusion
8 48 (1.73%) .NET
9 44 (1.59%) Spring
10 42 (1.51%) pytest
11 40 (1.44%) SOAP
12 38 (1.37%) Web Services
13 37 (1.33%) Playwright
14 36 (1.30%) OAuth
15 33 (1.19%) Pandas
16 28 (1.01%) Node.js
16 28 (1.01%) RESTful
17 25 (0.90%) Spring Boot
17 25 (0.90%) WireMock
18 24 (0.86%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 152 (5.48%) Data Structures
1 152 (5.48%) Onboarding
2 134 (4.83%) Legacy Systems
3 123 (4.43%) Cloud Native
4 114 (4.11%) Product Ownership
5 81 (2.92%) Data Centre
6 76 (2.74%) Management Information System
7 56 (2.02%) Distributed Systems
8 45 (1.62%) Analytical Mindset
9 42 (1.51%) Life Science
10 41 (1.48%) AI Agents
10 41 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
11 40 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
11 40 (1.44%) SCADA
12 37 (1.33%) Hybrid Cloud
13 33 (1.19%) NHS
13 33 (1.19%) Reference Data
14 32 (1.15%) Operational Technology
14 32 (1.15%) Virtual Team
15 30 (1.08%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 169 (6.09%) Windows
2 107 (3.85%) Linux
3 55 (1.98%) Windows Server
4 39 (1.40%) Unix
5 19 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.36%) Android
6 10 (0.36%) Ubuntu
6 10 (0.36%) Windows 10
7 9 (0.32%) VMS
8 6 (0.22%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.18%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.14%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.14%) SUSE
11 3 (0.11%) AIX
11 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.072%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.072%) HPUX
12 2 (0.072%) Solaris
12 2 (0.072%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.072%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 761 (27.41%) Migration
2 543 (19.56%) Agile
3 520 (18.73%) Stakeholder Management
4 474 (17.07%) CI/CD
5 471 (16.97%) Analytics
6 457 (16.46%) Data Migration
7 456 (16.43%) User Acceptance Testing
8 450 (16.21%) Data Modelling
9 448 (16.14%) Data Validation
10 431 (15.53%) Problem-Solving
11 360 (12.97%) AI
12 348 (12.54%) Continuous Improvement
13 337 (12.14%) DevOps
14 336 (12.10%) ETL
15 334 (12.03%) Test Automation
16 312 (11.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 310 (11.17%) Business Intelligence
18 291 (10.48%) Data Pipeline
19 284 (10.23%) Data Governance
20 269 (9.69%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 674 (24.28%) SQL
2 512 (18.44%) Python
3 120 (4.32%) Java
4 80 (2.88%) PowerShell
5 60 (2.16%) C#
6 58 (2.09%) Bash
7 40 (1.44%) JavaScript
8 34 (1.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 33 (1.19%) C++
10 31 (1.12%) TypeScript
11 30 (1.08%) Apex Code
12 29 (1.04%) Bicep
13 27 (0.97%) PL/SQL
14 26 (0.94%) C
15 23 (0.83%) R
15 23 (0.83%) VBA
16 19 (0.68%) T-SQL
17 15 (0.54%) MATLAB
17 15 (0.54%) Shell Script
18 14 (0.50%) Ada
Qualifications
1 501 (18.05%) Security Cleared
2 364 (13.11%) SC Cleared
3 181 (6.52%) Degree
4 62 (2.23%) DV Cleared
5 61 (2.20%) BPSS Clearance
6 43 (1.55%) Cisco Certification
7 36 (1.30%) Computer Science Degree
8 34 (1.22%) CCNP
9 24 (0.86%) ISTQB
10 23 (0.83%) PMI Certification
11 22 (0.79%) ACCA
11 22 (0.79%) PMP
12 21 (0.76%) CIMA
13 20 (0.72%) Azure Certification
14 18 (0.65%) CISSP
14 18 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
15 16 (0.58%) CCNA
16 13 (0.47%) AWS Certification
17 12 (0.43%) DBS Check
17 12 (0.43%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 520 (18.73%) Data Quality
2 346 (12.46%) QA
3 123 (4.43%) GDPR
4 55 (1.98%) NIST
5 48 (1.73%) Accessibility
6 46 (1.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 41 (1.48%) SLA
8 38 (1.37%) GxP
9 37 (1.33%) PMO
10 20 (0.72%) GRC
11 19 (0.68%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 18 (0.65%) GMP
13 15 (0.54%) ISO 20022
14 14 (0.50%) HL7
14 14 (0.50%) NCSC
15 13 (0.47%) IFRS
15 13 (0.47%) WCAG
16 12 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.43%) Def Stans
16 12 (0.43%) NIST 800
System Software
1 114 (4.11%) Docker
2 94 (3.39%) Active Directory
3 76 (2.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
5 26 (0.94%) VMware ESXi
6 22 (0.79%) Virtual Desktop
7 20 (0.72%) Firmware
8 19 (0.68%) Hyper-V
8 19 (0.68%) vSphere
9 15 (0.54%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.18%) NFS
11 4 (0.14%) KVM
11 4 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.072%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.072%) OpenSSH
12 2 (0.072%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.072%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.036%) etcd
13 1 (0.036%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 157 (5.66%) Kubernetes
2 135 (4.86%) Terraform
3 59 (2.13%) Ansible
4 54 (1.95%) Grafana
4 54 (1.95%) Prometheus
5 28 (1.01%) Microsoft Intune
6 24 (0.86%) FortiGate
7 21 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (0.47%) SCCM
9 12 (0.43%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.36%) HP ALM
11 8 (0.29%) VxRail
12 6 (0.22%) Istio
13 5 (0.18%) Argo
13 5 (0.18%) CASB
13 5 (0.18%) Failover Clustering
13 5 (0.18%) vMotion
13 5 (0.18%) vRealize
14 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Clustering
14 4 (0.14%) systemd
Vendors
1 404 (14.55%) Microsoft
2 255 (9.19%) SAP
3 247 (8.90%) Oracle
4 155 (5.58%) Databricks
5 92 (3.31%) Salesforce
6 90 (3.24%) VMware
7 71 (2.56%) ServiceNow
8 62 (2.23%) Cisco
9 51 (1.84%) Google
9 51 (1.84%) Workday
10 41 (1.48%) Informatica
11 37 (1.33%) Splunk
12 32 (1.15%) Fortinet
13 31 (1.12%) IBM
14 30 (1.08%) Palo Alto
15 29 (1.04%) Juniper
15 29 (1.04%) MuleSoft
16 27 (0.97%) Zscaler
17 25 (0.90%) Sage
18 20 (0.72%) IFS