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

6 months to
8 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 102 133
Rank change year-on-year +51 +31 +3
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,862 765 789
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.39% 2.54% 1.77%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.09% 2.82% 2.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,137 440 428
10th Percentile £350 £361 £325
25th Percentile £403 £413 £434
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £540 £540
Median % change year-on-year -9.26% - -1.82%
75th Percentile £600 £632 £623
90th Percentile £700 £721 £708
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £515 £500
% change year-on-year -7.77% +3.00% +0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 97 41 148
10th Percentile £26.56 £25.26 £21.11
25th Percentile £51.25 £46.92 £50.94
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.54 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.96% -4.89% -4.32%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.75 £75.16
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.65 £62.25
% change year-on-year +12.76% -7.40% -0.44%

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 36,580 27,136 38,678
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.31% 90.25% 86.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,208 17,123 25,158
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £611 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £743 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -1.94% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,181 914 2,335
10th Percentile £14.64 £15.50 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £28.50 £32.50 £32.12
Median % change year-on-year -12.31% +1.20% -8.24%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £76.25 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.46 £31.64 £31.50
% change year-on-year -19.54% +0.44% -10.00%

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 8 March 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 8 March 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 8 March 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 +47 1,610 £499 -9.36% 819
UK excluding London +44 880 £475 -7.77% 658
London +64 751 £513 -6.82% 264
Work from Home +59 571 £492 -6.29% 348
North of England +30 213 £428 -13.42% 123
South East +8 188 £500 - 225
Midlands +26 166 £492 +0.77% 119
North West +23 139 £407 -11.95% 65
South West +7 136 £475 -17.39% 89
West Midlands +22 131 £492 +0.41% 78
East of England +21 105 £475 +5.56% 80
Yorkshire -4 66 £463 +1.93% 42
Scotland +39 49 £405 -10.50% 27
East Midlands -3 33 £475 +29.43% 40
Northern Ireland +17 24 £400 -27.27% 4
Wales - 14 £460 - 10
North East -3 11 £463 -36.21% 16

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 74 (3.97%) Confluence
2 42 (2.26%) Apache Spark
3 33 (1.77%) SAS
4 28 (1.50%) Apache Airflow
5 22 (1.18%) SharePoint
6 19 (1.02%) Apache
7 16 (0.86%) Microsoft Exchange
8 9 (0.48%) Appian
9 7 (0.38%) ArcGIS
9 7 (0.38%) Jupyter
9 7 (0.38%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
10 6 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.27%) CMS
12 4 (0.21%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.21%) Exchange Server 2013
12 4 (0.21%) Skype for Business
13 3 (0.16%) CICS
13 3 (0.16%) GeoServer
13 3 (0.16%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.16%) WebLogic
Applications
1 86 (4.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (1.61%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (1.40%) MS Visio
4 16 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
6 9 (0.48%) Chatbot
6 9 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.21%) Notion
8 3 (0.16%) LaTeX
9 2 (0.11%) Simulink
9 2 (0.11%) Sketch
10 1 (0.054%) CANalyzer
10 1 (0.054%) CATIA
10 1 (0.054%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.054%) Stateflow
10 1 (0.054%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 84 (4.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.61%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.75%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.64%) Oracle General Ledger
4 12 (0.64%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 12 (0.64%) Workday HCM
5 10 (0.54%) Oracle Assets
5 10 (0.54%) Oracle Receivables
5 10 (0.54%) SAP FI
6 9 (0.48%) NetSuite
6 9 (0.48%) Oracle EBS R12
6 9 (0.48%) SAP MDG
7 8 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
7 8 (0.43%) OpenText VIM for SAP
8 7 (0.38%) Aladdin
8 7 (0.38%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 7 (0.38%) SAP ERP
8 7 (0.38%) SAP MM
9 6 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
9 6 (0.32%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 428 (22.99%) Azure
2 245 (13.16%) AWS
3 151 (8.11%) Power Platform
4 129 (6.93%) Azure DevOps
5 90 (4.83%) GCP
6 89 (4.78%) GitHub
7 60 (3.22%) Entra ID
8 57 (3.06%) Serverless
9 56 (3.01%) GitHub Actions
10 51 (2.74%) Amazon S3
11 50 (2.69%) Azure Data Factory
12 47 (2.52%) SaaS
13 43 (2.31%) OCI
14 39 (2.09%) Snowflake
15 32 (1.72%) AWS Lambda
16 30 (1.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 28 (1.50%) AWS CloudFormation
17 28 (1.50%) OpenShift
18 26 (1.40%) Microsoft 365
19 23 (1.24%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 59 (3.17%) Firewall
2 38 (2.04%) Network Security
3 34 (1.83%) TCP/IP
4 24 (1.29%) Ethernet
5 22 (1.18%) DNS
6 19 (1.02%) HTTP
7 17 (0.91%) VLAN
7 17 (0.91%) VPN
8 14 (0.75%) SAN
8 14 (0.75%) WAN
9 12 (0.64%) NAS
10 10 (0.54%) Wireless
11 9 (0.48%) LAN
11 9 (0.48%) SSL
12 8 (0.43%) BGP
12 8 (0.43%) Internet
12 8 (0.43%) OSPF
12 8 (0.43%) SD-WAN
13 7 (0.38%) MPLS
14 6 (0.32%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 141 (7.57%) Power BI
2 94 (5.05%) Metadata
3 81 (4.35%) Data Warehouse
4 52 (2.79%) SQL Server
5 46 (2.47%) PostgreSQL
6 45 (2.42%) Tableau
7 44 (2.36%) Data Lake
8 29 (1.56%) Delta Lake
8 29 (1.56%) NoSQL
9 26 (1.40%) Oracle Reports
10 25 (1.34%) Big Data
11 24 (1.29%) Relational Database
12 23 (1.24%) Amazon Redshift
13 21 (1.13%) Azure SQL Database
13 21 (1.13%) Geospatial Data
14 20 (1.07%) Oracle Database
15 19 (1.02%) Amazon Athena
15 19 (1.02%) Pinecone
15 19 (1.02%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 19 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 175 (9.40%) JIRA
2 111 (5.96%) Git
3 85 (4.56%) Jenkins
4 58 (3.11%) Selenium
5 55 (2.95%) GitLab
6 53 (2.85%) Postman
7 33 (1.77%) JMeter
8 32 (1.72%) JUnit
8 32 (1.72%) Rational DOORS
9 31 (1.66%) Cucumber
9 31 (1.66%) Oracle APEX
10 20 (1.07%) MLflow
10 20 (1.07%) Visual Studio
11 15 (0.81%) WebDriver
12 14 (0.75%) Eclipse
13 13 (0.70%) REST Assured
14 12 (0.64%) SpecFlow
14 12 (0.64%) TestRail
14 12 (0.64%) Zephyr
15 10 (0.54%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 663 (35.61%) Social Skills
2 543 (29.16%) Finance
3 373 (20.03%) Analytical Skills
4 173 (9.29%) Public Sector
5 164 (8.81%) Banking
6 91 (4.89%) Documentation Skills
7 56 (3.01%) Manufacturing
8 50 (2.69%) Presentation Skills
9 46 (2.47%) Aerospace
10 39 (2.09%) Pharmaceutical
11 38 (2.04%) Influencing Skills
12 34 (1.83%) Organisational Skills
13 32 (1.72%) Electronics
13 32 (1.72%) Marketing
14 30 (1.61%) Front Office
15 29 (1.56%) Legal
16 27 (1.45%) Billing
16 27 (1.45%) Military
16 27 (1.45%) Telecoms
17 24 (1.29%) Retail
Job Titles
1 345 (18.53%) Analyst
2 191 (10.26%) Senior
3 187 (10.04%) Lead
4 154 (8.27%) Business Analyst
5 140 (7.52%) Consultant
6 133 (7.14%) Developer
7 124 (6.66%) Architect
8 113 (6.07%) Data Engineer
9 89 (4.78%) Data Analyst
10 58 (3.11%) Project Manager
11 56 (3.01%) Tester
12 52 (2.79%) Software Engineer
13 50 (2.69%) Senior Analyst
14 39 (2.09%) SAP Consultant
14 39 (2.09%) Test Analyst
15 36 (1.93%) Senior Developer
15 36 (1.93%) Test Engineer
15 36 (1.93%) Test Manager
16 34 (1.83%) Embedded Engineer
16 34 (1.83%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 119 (6.39%) REST
2 91 (4.89%) JSON
3 59 (3.17%) Oracle Fusion
4 56 (3.01%) XML
5 51 (2.74%) OAuth
6 49 (2.63%) Kafka
7 48 (2.58%) Middleware
8 46 (2.47%) PySpark
9 42 (2.26%) SOAP
10 41 (2.20%) .NET
10 41 (2.20%) Node.js
11 37 (1.99%) RESTful
12 36 (1.93%) PyTorch
13 34 (1.83%) Playwright
14 32 (1.72%) TensorFlow
15 30 (1.61%) pytest
15 30 (1.61%) Swagger
15 30 (1.61%) Web Services
16 27 (1.45%) Pandas
17 25 (1.34%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 108 (5.80%) Legacy Systems
2 82 (4.40%) Data Structures
3 76 (4.08%) Product Ownership
4 68 (3.65%) Onboarding
5 61 (3.28%) Cloud Native
6 50 (2.69%) Management Information System
7 44 (2.36%) Data Centre
8 32 (1.72%) Analytical Mindset
9 30 (1.61%) Algorithms
10 28 (1.50%) Distributed Systems
11 27 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
12 23 (1.24%) Derivative
13 22 (1.18%) Replication
14 21 (1.13%) Operational Technology
15 20 (1.07%) Hybrid Cloud
16 19 (1.02%) Security Posture
16 19 (1.02%) Virtual Team
17 18 (0.97%) FPGA
17 18 (0.97%) Greenfield Project
18 17 (0.91%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 100 (5.37%) Windows
2 88 (4.73%) Linux
3 34 (1.83%) Unix
4 9 (0.48%) Android
4 9 (0.48%) Windows Server
5 6 (0.32%) Embedded Linux
5 6 (0.32%) Mac OS
5 6 (0.32%) zOS
6 3 (0.16%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.11%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.11%) Debian
7 2 (0.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.054%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.054%) FreeRTOS
8 1 (0.054%) pSOS
8 1 (0.054%) Robot Operating System
8 1 (0.054%) Solaris
8 1 (0.054%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 438 (23.52%) Agile
2 429 (23.04%) Migration
3 416 (22.34%) Problem-Solving
4 333 (17.88%) Stakeholder Management
5 319 (17.13%) CI/CD
6 302 (16.22%) Data Validation
7 289 (15.52%) Analytics
8 274 (14.72%) DevOps
9 255 (13.69%) Data Modelling
10 247 (13.27%) Data Migration
11 242 (13.00%) Test Automation
12 232 (12.46%) ETL
13 221 (11.87%) User Acceptance Testing
14 216 (11.60%) AI
15 211 (11.33%) Continuous Improvement
16 199 (10.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 181 (9.72%) Business Intelligence
17 181 (9.72%) Data Governance
18 161 (8.65%) Data Analysis
19 159 (8.54%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 448 (24.06%) SQL
2 372 (19.98%) Python
3 94 (5.05%) Java
4 93 (4.99%) JavaScript
5 72 (3.87%) C#
6 52 (2.79%) PL/SQL
7 50 (2.69%) C++
8 48 (2.58%) PowerShell
9 43 (2.31%) C
10 42 (2.26%) Bash
11 38 (2.04%) TypeScript
12 26 (1.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 25 (1.34%) R
14 24 (1.29%) Bicep
15 20 (1.07%) Ada
16 17 (0.91%) Groovy
17 16 (0.86%) Scala
18 15 (0.81%) T-SQL
19 12 (0.64%) Shell Script
19 12 (0.64%) VBA
Qualifications
1 410 (22.02%) Security Cleared
2 304 (16.33%) SC Cleared
3 181 (9.72%) Degree
4 60 (3.22%) Computer Science Degree
5 58 (3.11%) BPSS Clearance
6 42 (2.26%) DV Cleared
7 37 (1.99%) Master's Degree
8 31 (1.66%) ISTQB
9 26 (1.40%) PMI Certification
10 22 (1.18%) PMP
11 17 (0.91%) AWS Certification
12 16 (0.86%) CISSP
13 14 (0.75%) CBAP
14 13 (0.70%) Cisco Certification
15 12 (0.64%) Microsoft Certification
15 12 (0.64%) Oracle Certification
16 10 (0.54%) CCNP
17 9 (0.48%) Azure Certification
17 9 (0.48%) CTC Cleared
18 8 (0.43%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 279 (14.98%) Data Quality
2 234 (12.57%) QA
3 97 (5.21%) GDPR
4 79 (4.24%) NIST
5 59 (3.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 32 (1.72%) Accessibility
7 22 (1.18%) SLA
8 21 (1.13%) IFRS
9 18 (0.97%) Def Stans
9 18 (0.97%) GxP
9 18 (0.97%) IFRS 17
10 16 (0.86%) PCI DSS
10 16 (0.86%) PMO
11 15 (0.81%) GMP
11 15 (0.81%) GRC
12 13 (0.70%) COBIT
12 13 (0.70%) NCSC
13 12 (0.64%) EU AI Act
14 11 (0.59%) HL7
14 11 (0.59%) MiFID
System Software
1 76 (4.08%) Docker
2 47 (2.52%) Active Directory
3 31 (1.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (1.18%) Firmware
5 10 (0.54%) VMware NSX
6 8 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.38%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.27%) NFS
9 4 (0.21%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
9 4 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
10 3 (0.16%) vSphere
11 2 (0.11%) Ceph
11 2 (0.11%) KVM
11 2 (0.11%) Lustre
11 2 (0.11%) OpenAM
11 2 (0.11%) OpenDJ
11 2 (0.11%) OpenIDM
11 2 (0.11%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 111 (5.96%) Kubernetes
2 81 (4.35%) Terraform
3 33 (1.77%) Ansible
4 30 (1.61%) Single Sign-On
5 27 (1.45%) Prometheus
6 24 (1.29%) Grafana
7 15 (0.81%) Microsoft Intune
8 13 (0.70%) Kibana
8 13 (0.70%) Puppet
9 10 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 10 (0.54%) Nessus
9 10 (0.54%) SCCM
10 7 (0.38%) Nmap
11 5 (0.27%) CASB
12 4 (0.21%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.21%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.21%) RSA Archer
12 4 (0.21%) vMotion
13 3 (0.16%) OMEGAMON
13 3 (0.16%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 239 (12.84%) Microsoft
2 191 (10.26%) Oracle
3 150 (8.06%) SAP
4 97 (5.21%) Databricks
5 83 (4.46%) ServiceNow
6 46 (2.47%) Google
7 45 (2.42%) Splunk
8 39 (2.09%) Salesforce
9 37 (1.99%) Cisco
9 37 (1.99%) VMware
10 36 (1.93%) Workday
11 28 (1.50%) MuleSoft
12 27 (1.45%) Sage
13 24 (1.29%) Informatica
14 23 (1.24%) IBM
15 19 (1.02%) Murex
15 19 (1.02%) Palo Alto
16 18 (0.97%) OpenAI
17 16 (0.86%) CyberArk
18 14 (0.75%) Bloomberg