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

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 65 114
Rank change year-on-year +33 +49 +36
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,015 1,220 780
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.53% 3.70% 2.04%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.54% 4.09% 2.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,791 702 377
10th Percentile £333 £331 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £614 £588
90th Percentile £700 £688 £661
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -7.40% +5.26% -7.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 188 88 106
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £26.52 £41.25 £51.06
Median hourly rate £52.75 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.85% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £72.87 £67.00 £71.50
90th Percentile £82.65 £75.00 £75.93
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 46,112 29,840 32,750
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.63% 90.46% 85.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,098 18,520 20,299
10th Percentile £325 £300 £312
25th Percentile £425 £403 £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 £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 3,038 1,780 1,507
10th Percentile £13.87 £14.23 £14.70
25th Percentile £17.38 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.50 £45.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.03 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +76.89% -47.37% +8.65%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 +31 2,591 £500 -0.30% 1,918
UK excluding London +26 1,373 £463 -7.40% 1,302
London +40 1,280 £525 +0.96% 872
Work from Home +27 840 £500 - 754
North of England +42 338 £453 +6.59% 210
South East 0 330 £501 +0.25% 344
Midlands +32 302 £464 -2.40% 214
West Midlands +30 214 £459 -3.37% 158
North West +16 168 £453 +6.59% 113
Yorkshire +45 150 £460 -0.54% 63
East of England -4 143 £475 -5.00% 183
South West +13 136 £525 -4.55% 203
Scotland +28 118 £440 -13.04% 118
East Midlands +23 84 £495 -1.00% 56
North East -32 25 £425 -5.56% 37
Wales -2 23 £363 -3.33% 33
Northern Ireland +4 4 £363 -40.33% 30
Channel Islands -3 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 81 (2.69%) Confluence
2 66 (2.19%) Apache Airflow
3 61 (2.02%) SharePoint
4 53 (1.76%) SAS
5 41 (1.36%) Apache Spark
6 30 (1.00%) Apache
7 20 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
8 15 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
9 12 (0.40%) CMS
10 10 (0.33%) Jupyter
11 9 (0.30%) SharePoint 2013
12 7 (0.23%) Palantir Foundry
12 7 (0.23%) Sitecore CMS
13 6 (0.20%) ArcGIS
14 5 (0.17%) OpenStack
14 5 (0.17%) Tuxedo
15 4 (0.13%) FactoryTalk
15 4 (0.13%) Headless CMS
15 4 (0.13%) IIS
15 4 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 213 (7.06%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
3 39 (1.29%) MS Visio
4 38 (1.26%) Spreadsheet
5 30 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 15 (0.50%) AutoCAD
7 10 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
7 10 (0.33%) Navisworks
7 10 (0.33%) Revit
8 9 (0.30%) ProjectWise
9 8 (0.27%) CATIA
10 6 (0.20%) Simulink
11 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.066%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.066%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.066%) Windchill
13 1 (0.033%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.033%) MicroStation
13 1 (0.033%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.033%) Trello
Business Applications
1 115 (3.81%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.60%) Oracle EBS
3 16 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.43%) NetSuite
4 13 (0.43%) SAP SD
4 13 (0.43%) Teamcenter
4 13 (0.43%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.36%) Aladdin
5 11 (0.36%) iTrent
5 11 (0.36%) SAP FI
5 11 (0.36%) SAP MDG
6 10 (0.33%) SAP MM
7 9 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
7 9 (0.30%) Oracle General Ledger
7 9 (0.30%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.30%) SAP HCM
8 8 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
8 8 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
8 8 (0.27%) SAP PS
Cloud Services
1 628 (20.83%) Azure
2 343 (11.38%) AWS
3 304 (10.08%) Power Platform
4 184 (6.10%) Azure DevOps
5 139 (4.61%) GitHub
6 137 (4.54%) GCP
7 106 (3.52%) Snowflake
8 88 (2.92%) Entra ID
9 76 (2.52%) Azure Data Factory
10 75 (2.49%) GitHub Actions
11 65 (2.16%) Serverless
12 62 (2.06%) Microsoft 365
12 62 (2.06%) SaaS
13 53 (1.76%) Amazon S3
13 53 (1.76%) dbt
14 45 (1.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 39 (1.29%) SuccessFactors
16 35 (1.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 35 (1.16%) Azure Monitor
17 34 (1.13%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 116 (3.85%) Firewall
2 73 (2.42%) DNS
3 68 (2.26%) VLAN
4 65 (2.16%) Network Security
5 55 (1.82%) VPN
6 45 (1.49%) BGP
7 43 (1.43%) WAN
8 40 (1.33%) TCP/IP
9 36 (1.19%) DHCP
10 27 (0.90%) OSPF
11 26 (0.86%) VXLAN
12 25 (0.83%) Wireless
13 22 (0.73%) Ethernet VPN
13 22 (0.73%) Internet
13 22 (0.73%) LAN
13 22 (0.73%) SD-WAN
14 21 (0.70%) HTTP
14 21 (0.70%) SAN
15 19 (0.63%) 5G
15 19 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 281 (9.32%) Power BI
2 172 (5.70%) Data Warehouse
3 130 (4.31%) Metadata
4 118 (3.91%) Relational Database
5 108 (3.58%) SQL Server
6 96 (3.18%) PostgreSQL
7 83 (2.75%) Data Lake
8 72 (2.39%) Tableau
9 42 (1.39%) Delta Lake
10 41 (1.36%) Oracle Database
11 38 (1.26%) MongoDB
12 35 (1.16%) Big Data
13 34 (1.13%) Oracle Reports
14 33 (1.09%) NoSQL
14 33 (1.09%) Power Query
15 32 (1.06%) Azure SQL Database
16 31 (1.03%) BigQuery
16 31 (1.03%) MySQL
17 30 (1.00%) Redis
17 30 (1.00%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 268 (8.89%) JIRA
2 212 (7.03%) Git
3 105 (3.48%) Jenkins
4 90 (2.99%) GitLab
5 80 (2.65%) Selenium
6 44 (1.46%) Postman
7 37 (1.23%) JMeter
8 25 (0.83%) WebDriver
9 24 (0.80%) Cucumber
10 20 (0.66%) JUnit
10 20 (0.66%) Rational DOORS
11 16 (0.53%) Cypress.io
12 15 (0.50%) Gatling
13 14 (0.46%) Oracle Forms
13 14 (0.46%) REST Assured
13 14 (0.46%) Zephyr
14 13 (0.43%) Rational Rhapsody
15 12 (0.40%) Maven
16 11 (0.36%) Eclipse
16 11 (0.36%) Gradle
General
1 859 (28.49%) Social Skills
2 845 (28.03%) Finance
3 596 (19.77%) Analytical Skills
4 260 (8.62%) Public Sector
5 241 (7.99%) Banking
6 149 (4.94%) Documentation Skills
7 115 (3.81%) Manufacturing
8 98 (3.25%) Retail
9 68 (2.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 68 (2.26%) Telecoms
10 64 (2.12%) Automotive
11 60 (1.99%) Pharmaceutical
12 57 (1.89%) Organisational Skills
13 55 (1.82%) Aerospace
14 52 (1.72%) Legal
15 50 (1.66%) Marketing
16 45 (1.49%) Law
17 44 (1.46%) Front Office
18 42 (1.39%) Local Government
19 39 (1.29%) Billing
Job Titles
1 530 (17.58%) Analyst
2 344 (11.41%) Senior
3 272 (9.02%) Lead
4 240 (7.96%) Business Analyst
4 240 (7.96%) Data Engineer
5 237 (7.86%) Consultant
6 186 (6.17%) Developer
7 156 (5.17%) Data Analyst
8 151 (5.01%) Architect
9 112 (3.71%) Test Engineer
10 78 (2.59%) Tester
11 75 (2.49%) Network Engineer
12 67 (2.22%) Systems Engineer
13 63 (2.09%) Administrator
14 62 (2.06%) Project Manager
15 59 (1.96%) Senior Data Engineer
16 58 (1.92%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 50 (1.66%) Senior Analyst
17 50 (1.66%) Technical Analyst
17 50 (1.66%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 186 (6.17%) REST
2 164 (5.44%) Terraform
3 99 (3.28%) JSON
4 92 (3.05%) PySpark
5 85 (2.82%) XML
6 77 (2.55%) Kafka
7 74 (2.45%) Middleware
8 54 (1.79%) .NET
8 54 (1.79%) Playwright
9 48 (1.59%) Oracle Fusion
10 47 (1.56%) SOAP
11 45 (1.49%) pytest
12 43 (1.43%) OAuth
13 39 (1.29%) Spring
14 38 (1.26%) Pandas
14 38 (1.26%) Web Services
15 37 (1.23%) RESTful
16 33 (1.09%) Spring Boot
17 29 (0.96%) OpenID
18 28 (0.93%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 169 (5.61%) Data Structures
2 163 (5.41%) Onboarding
3 133 (4.41%) Cloud Native
4 125 (4.15%) Legacy Systems
5 115 (3.81%) Product Ownership
6 112 (3.71%) Management Information System
7 88 (2.92%) Data Centre
8 57 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
9 51 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
10 48 (1.59%) AI Agents
11 46 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
11 46 (1.53%) Life Science
12 44 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
13 42 (1.39%) SCADA
14 38 (1.26%) NHS
14 38 (1.26%) Replication
15 36 (1.19%) Operational Technology
16 33 (1.09%) Algorithms
16 33 (1.09%) CMDB
17 31 (1.03%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 185 (6.14%) Windows
2 123 (4.08%) Linux
3 75 (2.49%) Windows Server
4 48 (1.59%) Unix
5 21 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (0.50%) Android
7 14 (0.46%) Windows 10
8 11 (0.36%) Ubuntu
8 11 (0.36%) VMS
9 9 (0.30%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.23%) AIX
10 7 (0.23%) Windows 7
11 4 (0.13%) SUSE
11 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.100%) VxWorks
12 3 (0.100%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.066%) CentOS
13 2 (0.066%) HPUX
13 2 (0.066%) zOS
14 1 (0.033%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 809 (26.83%) Migration
2 626 (20.76%) Stakeholder Management
3 586 (19.44%) Agile
4 568 (18.84%) CI/CD
5 488 (16.19%) User Acceptance Testing
6 486 (16.12%) Data Modelling
7 479 (15.89%) Data Migration
8 476 (15.79%) Analytics
9 470 (15.59%) Data Validation
10 465 (15.42%) Problem-Solving
11 403 (13.37%) DevOps
12 401 (13.30%) AI
13 390 (12.94%) Continuous Improvement
14 386 (12.80%) Test Automation
15 335 (11.11%) ETL
16 322 (10.68%) Business Intelligence
17 321 (10.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 311 (10.32%) Data Analysis
18 311 (10.32%) Data Pipeline
19 306 (10.15%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 780 (25.87%) SQL
2 609 (20.20%) Python
3 147 (4.88%) Java
4 101 (3.35%) PowerShell
5 62 (2.06%) Bash
6 61 (2.02%) C#
7 58 (1.92%) JavaScript
8 38 (1.26%) TypeScript
9 35 (1.16%) C++
10 32 (1.06%) Apex Code
11 30 (1.00%) PL/SQL
12 29 (0.96%) R
13 28 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 27 (0.90%) Bicep
15 26 (0.86%) C
16 24 (0.80%) Shell Script
17 19 (0.63%) T-SQL
17 19 (0.63%) VBA
18 16 (0.53%) MATLAB
19 15 (0.50%) Scala
Qualifications
1 588 (19.50%) Security Cleared
2 429 (14.23%) SC Cleared
3 197 (6.53%) Degree
4 82 (2.72%) DV Cleared
5 69 (2.29%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.66%) Cisco Certification
7 46 (1.53%) Computer Science Degree
8 41 (1.36%) CCNP
9 28 (0.93%) ACCA
9 28 (0.93%) AWS Certification
9 28 (0.93%) CIMA
9 28 (0.93%) ISTQB
10 23 (0.76%) Azure Certification
11 22 (0.73%) PMI Certification
12 20 (0.66%) PMP
13 19 (0.63%) CCNA
14 17 (0.56%) CISSP
14 17 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
15 16 (0.53%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 15 (0.50%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 621 (20.60%) Data Quality
2 376 (12.47%) QA
3 112 (3.71%) GDPR
4 50 (1.66%) Accessibility
5 43 (1.43%) NIST
5 43 (1.43%) SLA
6 40 (1.33%) GxP
7 37 (1.23%) PMO
8 36 (1.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 24 (0.80%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 21 (0.70%) GRC
11 20 (0.66%) ISO 20022
12 18 (0.60%) GMP
13 17 (0.56%) WCAG
14 14 (0.46%) NCSC
15 12 (0.40%) Def Stans
16 11 (0.36%) HL7
16 11 (0.36%) MiFID
17 10 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 10 (0.33%) Solvency II
System Software
1 112 (3.71%) Docker
2 100 (3.32%) Active Directory
3 87 (2.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
5 34 (1.13%) VMware ESXi
6 29 (0.96%) Firmware
7 26 (0.86%) Hyper-V
8 23 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
8 23 (0.76%) vSphere
9 14 (0.46%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.17%) KVM
12 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.100%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.066%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.066%) OpenSSH
14 2 (0.066%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.033%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.033%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 1 (0.033%) NFS
Systems Management
1 146 (4.84%) Kubernetes
2 89 (2.95%) Ansible
3 44 (1.46%) Grafana
4 37 (1.23%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
6 26 (0.86%) FortiGate
7 17 (0.56%) SCCM
7 17 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (0.50%) vCenter Server
9 14 (0.46%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.33%) Failover Clustering
10 10 (0.33%) VxRail
11 8 (0.27%) Argo
12 6 (0.20%) Control-M
12 6 (0.20%) Functional Safety
12 6 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
12 6 (0.20%) Progress Chef
13 5 (0.17%) systemd
13 5 (0.17%) vMotion
13 5 (0.17%) vRealize
Vendors
1 462 (15.32%) Microsoft
2 263 (8.72%) SAP
3 256 (8.49%) Oracle
4 164 (5.44%) Databricks
5 103 (3.42%) Salesforce
6 99 (3.28%) VMware
7 82 (2.72%) Cisco
8 78 (2.59%) ServiceNow
9 51 (1.69%) Google
10 49 (1.63%) Workday
11 43 (1.43%) IBM
12 36 (1.19%) Informatica
13 31 (1.03%) Fortinet
14 30 (1.00%) Zscaler
15 29 (0.96%) Juniper
16 28 (0.93%) Palo Alto
17 23 (0.76%) MuleSoft
17 23 (0.76%) Splunk
18 17 (0.56%) Ariba
18 17 (0.56%) CyberArk