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

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 66 116
Rank change year-on-year +34 +50 +32
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,054 1,219 792
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.61% 3.70% 2.06%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.64% 4.09% 2.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,801 693 390
10th Percentile £331 £325 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £503 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.60% +0.60% -7.41%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £590
90th Percentile £701 £688 £663
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £481
% change year-on-year -7.34% +3.95% -6.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 195 87 103
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £29.82
25th Percentile £26.52 £41.25 £49.50
Median hourly rate £53.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.46% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £71.96 £67.00 £70.13
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -17.69% - -7.14%

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 45,960 29,830 33,021
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.47% 90.53% 85.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,897 18,534 20,247
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 £625 £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 3,123 1,812 1,459
10th Percentile £13.84 £14.23 £14.96
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -1.91%
75th Percentile £67.50 £44.76 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.56 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +84.69% -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 18 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 18 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 18 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 +33 2,618 £500 -2.44% 4,230
UK excluding London +30 1,396 £463 -7.34% 2,581
London +36 1,287 £525 - 1,997
Work from Home +28 842 £500 - 1,571
North of England +43 339 £450 +4.65% 422
South East +3 329 £525 +5.00% 702
Midlands +38 307 £475 +2.70% 365
West Midlands +29 214 £473 +5.11% 248
North West +17 162 £450 +5.88% 239
Yorkshire +51 153 £460 -3.16% 118
South West +20 151 £525 -4.55% 330
East of England -6 137 £450 -10.00% 387
Scotland +44 126 £450 -11.07% 302
East Midlands +29 89 £490 -2.00% 115
North East -30 29 £425 -11.92% 67
Wales -2 25 £363 -3.33% 59
Northern Ireland +3 4 £363 -40.33% 51
Channel Islands -5 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 87 (2.85%) Confluence
2 66 (2.16%) Apache Airflow
3 62 (2.03%) SharePoint
4 54 (1.77%) SAS
5 44 (1.44%) Apache Spark
6 31 (1.02%) Apache
7 20 (0.65%) Microsoft Exchange
8 14 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
9 13 (0.43%) CMS
10 9 (0.29%) Jupyter
10 9 (0.29%) SharePoint 2013
11 8 (0.26%) Palantir Foundry
12 7 (0.23%) Sitecore CMS
13 6 (0.20%) ArcGIS
13 6 (0.20%) OpenStack
13 6 (0.20%) WebLogic
14 5 (0.16%) Tuxedo
15 4 (0.13%) FactoryTalk
15 4 (0.13%) Headless CMS
15 4 (0.13%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 217 (7.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 49 (1.60%) Microsoft Office
3 41 (1.34%) MS Visio
4 34 (1.11%) Spreadsheet
5 31 (1.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 16 (0.52%) AutoCAD
7 11 (0.36%) Navisworks
7 11 (0.36%) Revit
8 10 (0.33%) ProjectWise
9 8 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
10 6 (0.20%) CATIA
10 6 (0.20%) Simulink
11 4 (0.13%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.065%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.065%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.065%) Windchill
13 1 (0.033%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.033%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.033%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.033%) Trello
Business Applications
1 117 (3.83%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
3 15 (0.49%) SAP SD
4 13 (0.43%) NetSuite
4 13 (0.43%) SAP FI
4 13 (0.43%) Teamcenter
5 12 (0.39%) SAP MDG
5 12 (0.39%) Workday HCM
6 11 (0.36%) Aladdin
6 11 (0.36%) iTrent
6 11 (0.36%) SAP HCM
6 11 (0.36%) SAP MM
7 9 (0.29%) Integrated Workplace Management System
7 9 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
7 9 (0.29%) SAP CO
7 9 (0.29%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.29%) SAP PS
8 8 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 609 (19.94%) Azure
2 346 (11.33%) AWS
3 309 (10.12%) Power Platform
4 183 (5.99%) Azure DevOps
5 145 (4.75%) GCP
6 141 (4.62%) GitHub
7 108 (3.54%) Snowflake
8 92 (3.01%) Entra ID
9 73 (2.39%) GitHub Actions
10 69 (2.26%) Azure Data Factory
11 61 (2.00%) Serverless
12 59 (1.93%) Amazon S3
12 59 (1.93%) dbt
13 58 (1.90%) SaaS
14 57 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
15 40 (1.31%) SuccessFactors
16 39 (1.28%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 37 (1.21%) Azure Monitor
18 35 (1.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 32 (1.05%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 110 (3.60%) Firewall
2 76 (2.49%) DNS
3 70 (2.29%) VLAN
4 59 (1.93%) Network Security
5 52 (1.70%) VPN
6 50 (1.64%) BGP
7 47 (1.54%) TCP/IP
8 44 (1.44%) WAN
9 35 (1.15%) DHCP
10 30 (0.98%) OSPF
11 29 (0.95%) VXLAN
12 26 (0.85%) Ethernet VPN
12 26 (0.85%) Wireless
13 24 (0.79%) LAN
14 23 (0.75%) Ethernet
15 22 (0.72%) HTTP
15 22 (0.72%) Internet
15 22 (0.72%) SD-WAN
16 20 (0.65%) 5G
16 20 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 287 (9.40%) Power BI
2 171 (5.60%) Data Warehouse
3 133 (4.35%) Metadata
4 117 (3.83%) Relational Database
5 102 (3.34%) SQL Server
6 93 (3.05%) PostgreSQL
7 86 (2.82%) Data Lake
8 74 (2.42%) Tableau
9 43 (1.41%) Oracle Database
10 38 (1.24%) Delta Lake
10 38 (1.24%) MongoDB
11 36 (1.18%) Big Data
11 36 (1.18%) Power Query
12 33 (1.08%) BigQuery
12 33 (1.08%) NoSQL
13 32 (1.05%) Oracle Reports
14 31 (1.02%) Redis
14 31 (1.02%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 29 (0.95%) MySQL
16 28 (0.92%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 270 (8.84%) JIRA
2 226 (7.40%) Git
3 103 (3.37%) Jenkins
4 93 (3.05%) GitLab
5 83 (2.72%) Selenium
6 43 (1.41%) Postman
7 35 (1.15%) JMeter
8 26 (0.85%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.79%) Rational DOORS
10 21 (0.69%) WebDriver
11 18 (0.59%) JUnit
12 17 (0.56%) Cypress.io
12 17 (0.56%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.52%) REST Assured
13 16 (0.52%) Visual Studio
13 16 (0.52%) Zephyr
14 15 (0.49%) Gatling
15 14 (0.46%) Oracle Forms
16 12 (0.39%) Rational Rhapsody
17 11 (0.36%) Gradle
General
1 873 (28.59%) Finance
2 870 (28.49%) Social Skills
3 617 (20.20%) Analytical Skills
4 266 (8.71%) Banking
5 258 (8.45%) Public Sector
6 143 (4.68%) Documentation Skills
7 124 (4.06%) Manufacturing
8 97 (3.18%) Retail
9 70 (2.29%) Automotive
9 70 (2.29%) Telecoms
10 68 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 60 (1.96%) Organisational Skills
12 57 (1.87%) Legal
13 54 (1.77%) Pharmaceutical
14 53 (1.74%) Aerospace
15 51 (1.67%) Marketing
16 46 (1.51%) Front Office
16 46 (1.51%) Law
17 42 (1.38%) Influencing Skills
17 42 (1.38%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 532 (17.42%) Analyst
2 349 (11.43%) Senior
3 275 (9.00%) Lead
4 244 (7.99%) Business Analyst
4 244 (7.99%) Consultant
5 238 (7.79%) Data Engineer
6 195 (6.39%) Developer
7 161 (5.27%) Architect
8 159 (5.21%) Data Analyst
9 112 (3.67%) Test Engineer
10 78 (2.55%) Tester
11 77 (2.52%) Network Engineer
12 65 (2.13%) Systems Engineer
13 61 (2.00%) Administrator
14 58 (1.90%) Senior Data Engineer
15 56 (1.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 56 (1.83%) Senior Analyst
16 53 (1.74%) Project Manager
17 51 (1.67%) Software Engineer
18 48 (1.57%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 192 (6.29%) REST
2 171 (5.60%) Terraform
3 99 (3.24%) JSON
4 89 (2.91%) PySpark
5 83 (2.72%) XML
6 82 (2.69%) Middleware
7 74 (2.42%) Kafka
8 60 (1.96%) Playwright
9 55 (1.80%) .NET
10 49 (1.60%) Web Services
11 48 (1.57%) SOAP
12 47 (1.54%) pytest
13 46 (1.51%) OAuth
13 46 (1.51%) Oracle Fusion
14 39 (1.28%) Pandas
14 39 (1.28%) RESTful
15 37 (1.21%) Spring
16 34 (1.11%) Spring Boot
17 33 (1.08%) HTML
17 33 (1.08%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 169 (5.53%) Onboarding
2 164 (5.37%) Data Structures
3 134 (4.39%) Cloud Native
4 122 (3.99%) Legacy Systems
5 115 (3.77%) Product Ownership
6 114 (3.73%) Management Information System
7 91 (2.98%) Data Centre
8 57 (1.87%) Enterprise Software
9 56 (1.83%) Distributed Systems
10 53 (1.74%) AI Agents
11 45 (1.47%) Analytical Mindset
12 44 (1.44%) Life Science
13 43 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
14 42 (1.38%) SCADA
15 38 (1.24%) Operational Technology
15 38 (1.24%) Replication
16 37 (1.21%) NHS
17 36 (1.18%) Algorithms
18 32 (1.05%) CMDB
18 32 (1.05%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 203 (6.65%) Windows
2 134 (4.39%) Linux
3 79 (2.59%) Windows Server
4 56 (1.83%) Unix
5 22 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.52%) Android
7 15 (0.49%) Windows 10
8 11 (0.36%) Ubuntu
8 11 (0.36%) VMS
9 9 (0.29%) AIX
9 9 (0.29%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.23%) Windows 7
11 4 (0.13%) SUSE
11 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.098%) VxWorks
13 2 (0.065%) CentOS
13 2 (0.065%) HPUX
13 2 (0.065%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.065%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 821 (26.88%) Migration
2 664 (21.74%) Stakeholder Management
3 599 (19.61%) Agile
4 589 (19.29%) CI/CD
5 497 (16.27%) Data Modelling
6 496 (16.24%) User Acceptance Testing
7 492 (16.11%) Analytics
8 477 (15.62%) Data Validation
9 475 (15.55%) Data Migration
10 471 (15.42%) Problem-Solving
11 423 (13.85%) AI
12 411 (13.46%) DevOps
13 397 (13.00%) Continuous Improvement
14 396 (12.97%) Test Automation
15 345 (11.30%) ETL
16 329 (10.77%) Business Intelligence
17 316 (10.35%) Data Analysis
18 315 (10.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 311 (10.18%) Data Governance
20 307 (10.05%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 800 (26.20%) SQL
2 638 (20.89%) Python
3 151 (4.94%) Java
4 102 (3.34%) PowerShell
5 74 (2.42%) C#
6 72 (2.36%) JavaScript
7 63 (2.06%) Bash
8 44 (1.44%) C++
8 44 (1.44%) TypeScript
9 32 (1.05%) Apex Code
10 31 (1.02%) R
11 29 (0.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 29 (0.95%) PL/SQL
11 29 (0.95%) Shell Script
12 26 (0.85%) C
13 25 (0.82%) Bicep
14 18 (0.59%) VBA
15 17 (0.56%) T-SQL
16 15 (0.49%) MATLAB
16 15 (0.49%) Scala
Qualifications
1 595 (19.48%) Security Cleared
2 438 (14.34%) SC Cleared
3 206 (6.75%) Degree
4 85 (2.78%) DV Cleared
5 67 (2.19%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.64%) Computer Science Degree
7 47 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
8 38 (1.24%) CCNP
9 32 (1.05%) AWS Certification
10 31 (1.02%) ACCA
10 31 (1.02%) CIMA
11 28 (0.92%) ISTQB
12 26 (0.85%) Azure Certification
13 25 (0.82%) PMI Certification
14 24 (0.79%) PMP
15 19 (0.62%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 19 (0.62%) CISSP
16 17 (0.56%) Master's Degree
17 16 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
18 15 (0.49%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 636 (20.83%) Data Quality
2 371 (12.15%) QA
3 105 (3.44%) GDPR
4 53 (1.74%) Accessibility
5 43 (1.41%) SLA
6 38 (1.24%) GxP
6 38 (1.24%) NIST
7 36 (1.18%) PMO
8 35 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 22 (0.72%) ISO 20022
10 21 (0.69%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 21 (0.69%) GRC
11 19 (0.62%) WCAG
12 17 (0.56%) GMP
13 15 (0.49%) NCSC
14 14 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.36%) Def Stans
15 11 (0.36%) IFRS
15 11 (0.36%) MiFID
16 10 (0.33%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 115 (3.77%) Docker
2 100 (3.27%) Active Directory
3 90 (2.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (1.28%) Virtual Machines
5 36 (1.18%) VMware ESXi
6 31 (1.02%) Firmware
7 26 (0.85%) Hyper-V
7 26 (0.85%) vSphere
8 23 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
9 16 (0.52%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.16%) KVM
12 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.098%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.065%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.065%) OpenSSH
14 2 (0.065%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.033%) Ceph
15 1 (0.033%) etcd
15 1 (0.033%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 143 (4.68%) Kubernetes
2 98 (3.21%) Ansible
3 42 (1.38%) Grafana
4 34 (1.11%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
6 26 (0.85%) FortiGate
7 19 (0.62%) SCCM
8 18 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.49%) HP ALM
9 15 (0.49%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.33%) Failover Clustering
10 10 (0.33%) VxRail
11 9 (0.29%) Argo
12 8 (0.26%) Functional Safety
12 8 (0.26%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.20%) Control-M
13 6 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
14 5 (0.16%) systemd
14 5 (0.16%) vMotion
14 5 (0.16%) vRealize
Vendors
1 464 (15.19%) Microsoft
2 260 (8.51%) SAP
3 253 (8.28%) Oracle
4 168 (5.50%) Databricks
5 104 (3.41%) VMware
6 100 (3.27%) Salesforce
7 88 (2.88%) Cisco
8 81 (2.65%) ServiceNow
9 58 (1.90%) Google
10 51 (1.67%) Workday
11 47 (1.54%) IBM
12 36 (1.18%) Informatica
13 32 (1.05%) Fortinet
14 31 (1.02%) Zscaler
15 29 (0.95%) Juniper
16 28 (0.92%) Palo Alto
17 24 (0.79%) Splunk
18 22 (0.72%) MuleSoft
19 19 (0.62%) Sage
20 18 (0.59%) Red Hat