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

6 months to
16 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 68 119
Rank change year-on-year +32 +51 +33
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,880 1,185 754
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.36% 3.58% 1.94%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.32% 3.96% 2.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,735 692 370
10th Percentile £340 £344 £345
25th Percentile £410 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £511 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.20% +2.25% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £588
90th Percentile £701 £688 £668
UK excluding London median daily rate £461 £508 £475
% change year-on-year -9.18% +6.84% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 186 84 120
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £29.59
25th Percentile £26.99 £40.06 £50.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £61.25 £63.75
Median % change year-on-year -10.20% -3.92% -1.92%
75th Percentile £74.25 £65.38 £68.75
90th Percentile £83.38 £75.00 £75.19
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -3.85% - -

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 45,559 29,946 33,160
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.84% 90.50% 85.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,021 18,667 21,209
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £423 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.31%
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 2,840 1,725 1,823
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £18.25
Median hourly rate £42.13 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +67.50% -38.57% -1.35%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £64.25
90th Percentile £81.32 £68.00 £74.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.13% -45.88% +13.33%

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 16 August 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 16 August 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 16 August 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 +35 2,500 £500 -2.68% 1,874
UK excluding London +28 1,342 £461 -9.18% 1,210
London +43 1,207 £525 +2.44% 824
Work from Home +35 810 £500 - 654
South East 0 326 £500 - 342
Midlands +34 320 £475 -5.00% 201
North of England +39 305 £450 -9.09% 211
West Midlands +25 228 £459 -9.56% 128
North West +21 152 £447 -16.76% 123
East of England +6 150 £475 -6.40% 160
Yorkshire +45 139 £460 +5.75% 49
South West -2 131 £525 -8.70% 185
Scotland +42 92 £420 -9.19% 91
East Midlands +22 87 £505 +0.90% 73
Wales -5 23 £369 -1.67% 30
North East -33 18 £425 -22.73% 42
Northern Ireland +10 10 £380 -35.59% 13
Channel Islands +2 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 88 (3.06%) Confluence
2 69 (2.40%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (1.91%) SAS
4 54 (1.88%) SharePoint
5 42 (1.46%) Apache Spark
6 32 (1.11%) Apache
7 17 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
8 12 (0.42%) Jupyter
8 12 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
9 11 (0.38%) CMS
10 9 (0.31%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.24%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.17%) IIS
12 5 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
12 5 (0.17%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.10%) JBoss
14 3 (0.10%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.10%) Tomcat
Applications
1 198 (6.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.42%) MS Visio
3 40 (1.39%) Microsoft Office
4 31 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 31 (1.08%) Spreadsheet
5 13 (0.45%) AutoCAD
6 10 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.28%) CATIA
7 8 (0.28%) Navisworks
7 8 (0.28%) Revit
8 7 (0.24%) ProjectWise
9 6 (0.21%) Simulink
10 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.069%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.069%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.069%) Windchill
12 1 (0.035%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.035%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.035%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.035%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 123 (4.27%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.01%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.45%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.42%) iTrent
5 12 (0.42%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.42%) Teamcenter
6 11 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 11 (0.38%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
7 10 (0.35%) SAP SD
8 9 (0.31%) Aladdin
8 9 (0.31%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.31%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
9 8 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
9 8 (0.28%) Sage X3
9 8 (0.28%) SAP FI
10 7 (0.24%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 621 (21.56%) Azure
2 346 (12.01%) AWS
3 309 (10.73%) Power Platform
4 161 (5.59%) Azure DevOps
5 155 (5.38%) GCP
6 138 (4.79%) GitHub
7 99 (3.44%) Snowflake
8 79 (2.74%) Entra ID
9 76 (2.64%) Azure Data Factory
9 76 (2.64%) GitHub Actions
10 66 (2.29%) Serverless
11 57 (1.98%) Microsoft 365
12 54 (1.88%) Amazon S3
13 53 (1.84%) SaaS
14 47 (1.63%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 46 (1.60%) dbt
16 45 (1.56%) SuccessFactors
17 44 (1.53%) OCI
18 36 (1.25%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 34 (1.18%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 115 (3.99%) Firewall
2 67 (2.33%) DNS
2 67 (2.33%) Network Security
3 55 (1.91%) VLAN
4 53 (1.84%) VPN
5 44 (1.53%) TCP/IP
6 41 (1.42%) BGP
7 39 (1.35%) WAN
8 31 (1.08%) DHCP
9 25 (0.87%) OSPF
10 23 (0.80%) LAN
11 22 (0.76%) Internet
11 22 (0.76%) SAN
11 22 (0.76%) VXLAN
12 21 (0.73%) SD-WAN
13 20 (0.69%) Ethernet VPN
13 20 (0.69%) Wireless
14 19 (0.66%) Ethernet
15 17 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
16 15 (0.52%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 287 (9.97%) Power BI
2 171 (5.94%) Data Warehouse
3 123 (4.27%) Metadata
4 104 (3.61%) SQL Server
5 101 (3.51%) PostgreSQL
6 91 (3.16%) Relational Database
7 89 (3.09%) Data Lake
8 77 (2.67%) Tableau
9 38 (1.32%) Big Data
10 36 (1.25%) MongoDB
11 34 (1.18%) NoSQL
12 33 (1.15%) Delta Lake
12 33 (1.15%) SAS Enterprise Guide
13 32 (1.11%) Oracle Reports
14 31 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 30 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
15 30 (1.04%) Oracle Database
16 29 (1.01%) BigQuery
16 29 (1.01%) MySQL
17 28 (0.97%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 257 (8.92%) JIRA
2 194 (6.74%) Git
3 109 (3.78%) Jenkins
4 89 (3.09%) GitLab
5 73 (2.53%) Selenium
6 50 (1.74%) JMeter
7 47 (1.63%) Postman
8 39 (1.35%) Cucumber
9 37 (1.28%) JUnit
10 35 (1.22%) WebDriver
11 23 (0.80%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.63%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.56%) Gatling
13 16 (0.56%) Visual Studio
14 14 (0.49%) Cypress.io
14 14 (0.49%) REST Assured
15 13 (0.45%) Maven
15 13 (0.45%) Rational Rhapsody
16 12 (0.42%) Gradle
16 12 (0.42%) Oracle Forms
General
1 831 (28.85%) Social Skills
2 805 (27.95%) Finance
3 571 (19.83%) Analytical Skills
4 250 (8.68%) Public Sector
5 207 (7.19%) Banking
6 151 (5.24%) Documentation Skills
7 110 (3.82%) Manufacturing
8 97 (3.37%) Retail
9 70 (2.43%) Aerospace
10 66 (2.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 62 (2.15%) Pharmaceutical
12 57 (1.98%) Telecoms
13 53 (1.84%) Organisational Skills
14 51 (1.77%) Automotive
15 46 (1.60%) Legal
16 43 (1.49%) Marketing
17 42 (1.46%) Front Office
17 42 (1.46%) Law
18 41 (1.42%) Local Government
19 39 (1.35%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 504 (17.50%) Analyst
2 313 (10.87%) Senior
3 284 (9.86%) Lead
4 239 (8.30%) Business Analyst
5 235 (8.16%) Data Engineer
6 220 (7.64%) Consultant
7 173 (6.01%) Developer
8 142 (4.93%) Architect
9 141 (4.90%) Data Analyst
10 109 (3.78%) Test Engineer
11 85 (2.95%) Tester
12 75 (2.60%) Project Manager
13 68 (2.36%) Network Engineer
14 60 (2.08%) Administrator
14 60 (2.08%) Systems Engineer
15 55 (1.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 54 (1.88%) Technical Analyst
17 52 (1.81%) Senior Data Engineer
18 46 (1.60%) Senior Analyst
19 45 (1.56%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 165 (5.73%) REST
2 90 (3.13%) JSON
3 76 (2.64%) Kafka
3 76 (2.64%) PySpark
3 76 (2.64%) XML
4 62 (2.15%) Middleware
5 52 (1.81%) Oracle Fusion
6 50 (1.74%) .NET
6 50 (1.74%) Spring
7 48 (1.67%) Playwright
8 47 (1.63%) pytest
9 42 (1.46%) SOAP
10 39 (1.35%) Web Services
11 35 (1.22%) OAuth
12 33 (1.15%) RESTful
13 32 (1.11%) Pandas
14 31 (1.08%) Spring Boot
15 29 (1.01%) Node.js
16 26 (0.90%) WireMock
17 24 (0.83%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 161 (5.59%) Onboarding
2 152 (5.28%) Data Structures
3 128 (4.44%) Legacy Systems
4 127 (4.41%) Cloud Native
5 126 (4.38%) Product Ownership
6 93 (3.23%) Management Information System
7 87 (3.02%) Data Centre
8 52 (1.81%) Distributed Systems
9 50 (1.74%) Enterprise Software
10 49 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
11 43 (1.49%) Life Science
12 42 (1.46%) AI Agents
13 41 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
13 41 (1.42%) SCADA
14 38 (1.32%) Replication
15 35 (1.22%) NHS
16 34 (1.18%) Algorithms
16 34 (1.18%) Operational Technology
17 33 (1.15%) Public Cloud
18 30 (1.04%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 172 (5.97%) Windows
2 119 (4.13%) Linux
3 63 (2.19%) Windows Server
4 42 (1.46%) Unix
5 19 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.42%) Android
6 12 (0.42%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.38%) Ubuntu
8 10 (0.35%) VMS
9 8 (0.28%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.21%) Windows 7
11 5 (0.17%) AIX
12 4 (0.14%) SUSE
12 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.069%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.069%) HPUX
13 2 (0.069%) VxWorks
14 1 (0.035%) Mac OS X
14 1 (0.035%) Solaris
14 1 (0.035%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 780 (27.08%) Migration
2 576 (20.00%) Agile
3 556 (19.31%) Stakeholder Management
4 525 (18.23%) CI/CD
5 475 (16.49%) User Acceptance Testing
6 467 (16.22%) Analytics
7 464 (16.11%) Data Migration
8 462 (16.04%) Data Modelling
9 460 (15.97%) Problem-Solving
10 456 (15.83%) Data Validation
11 379 (13.16%) AI
12 373 (12.95%) DevOps
13 370 (12.85%) Test Automation
14 364 (12.64%) Continuous Improvement
15 331 (11.49%) ETL
16 323 (11.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 321 (11.15%) Business Intelligence
18 301 (10.45%) Data Pipeline
19 292 (10.14%) Data Governance
20 277 (9.62%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 728 (25.28%) SQL
2 551 (19.13%) Python
3 140 (4.86%) Java
4 85 (2.95%) PowerShell
5 61 (2.12%) C#
6 58 (2.01%) Bash
7 54 (1.88%) JavaScript
8 42 (1.46%) C++
9 34 (1.18%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.08%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 30 (1.04%) Apex Code
12 28 (0.97%) Bicep
13 26 (0.90%) C
14 25 (0.87%) PL/SQL
15 24 (0.83%) R
16 22 (0.76%) VBA
17 18 (0.63%) T-SQL
18 17 (0.59%) Shell Script
19 16 (0.56%) MATLAB
20 13 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 538 (18.68%) Security Cleared
2 396 (13.75%) SC Cleared
3 184 (6.39%) Degree
4 68 (2.36%) DV Cleared
5 61 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (1.56%) Cisco Certification
7 43 (1.49%) Computer Science Degree
8 36 (1.25%) CCNP
9 28 (0.97%) ISTQB
10 25 (0.87%) ACCA
11 24 (0.83%) CIMA
12 23 (0.80%) AWS Certification
13 22 (0.76%) Azure Certification
14 21 (0.73%) PMI Certification
15 20 (0.69%) PMP
16 17 (0.59%) CCNA
16 17 (0.59%) CISSP
17 16 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
18 13 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
19 11 (0.38%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 557 (19.34%) Data Quality
2 367 (12.74%) QA
3 124 (4.31%) GDPR
4 53 (1.84%) NIST
5 47 (1.63%) Accessibility
6 46 (1.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 39 (1.35%) GxP
8 38 (1.32%) PMO
8 38 (1.32%) SLA
9 22 (0.76%) GRC
10 20 (0.69%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 18 (0.63%) GMP
11 18 (0.63%) ISO 20022
12 14 (0.49%) Def Stans
12 14 (0.49%) NCSC
13 13 (0.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 13 (0.45%) WCAG
14 12 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.42%) HL7
15 11 (0.38%) NIST 800
System Software
1 124 (4.31%) Docker
2 97 (3.37%) Active Directory
3 81 (2.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.25%) Virtual Machines
5 28 (0.97%) VMware ESXi
6 23 (0.80%) Firmware
6 23 (0.80%) Hyper-V
7 21 (0.73%) vSphere
8 20 (0.69%) Virtual Desktop
9 15 (0.52%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.14%) KVM
11 4 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.10%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.069%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.069%) NFS
13 2 (0.069%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.069%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.035%) Ceph
14 1 (0.035%) etcd
Systems Management
1 158 (5.49%) Kubernetes
2 148 (5.14%) Terraform
3 74 (2.57%) Ansible
4 53 (1.84%) Grafana
5 45 (1.56%) Prometheus
6 27 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
7 24 (0.83%) FortiGate
8 23 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.45%) SCCM
9 13 (0.45%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.35%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.35%) VxRail
11 8 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
12 7 (0.24%) Argo
13 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Clustering
13 5 (0.17%) systemd
13 5 (0.17%) vRealize
14 4 (0.14%) Consul
14 4 (0.14%) Progress Chef
14 4 (0.14%) Puppet
Vendors
1 433 (15.03%) Microsoft
2 261 (9.06%) SAP
3 247 (8.58%) Oracle
4 157 (5.45%) Databricks
5 94 (3.26%) Salesforce
5 94 (3.26%) VMware
6 82 (2.85%) ServiceNow
7 69 (2.40%) Cisco
8 51 (1.77%) Google
9 44 (1.53%) Workday
10 39 (1.35%) Informatica
11 32 (1.11%) IBM
12 29 (1.01%) Fortinet
12 29 (1.01%) Juniper
12 29 (1.01%) Palo Alto
13 27 (0.94%) Zscaler
14 26 (0.90%) MuleSoft
15 22 (0.76%) Sage
15 22 (0.76%) Splunk
16 21 (0.73%) Ariba