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

6 months to
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 67 116
Rank change year-on-year +36 +49 +36
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,009 1,210 795
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.54% 3.68% 2.06%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.55% 4.06% 2.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,781 693 391
10th Percentile £333 £326 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £503 £495
Median % change year-on-year -0.60% +1.62% -10.00%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £588
90th Percentile £701 £688 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -7.40% +5.26% -7.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 189 87 106
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £26.90 £41.25 £51.25
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £72.66 £67.00 £71.50
90th Percentile £82.30 £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 45,937 29,792 32,994
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 90.51% 85.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,939 18,514 20,418
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
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 3,060 1,790 1,498
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.23 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.44 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.50 £43.94 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.10 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.13 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.36% -47.67% +7.50%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +32 2,583 £500 -2.44% 2,733
UK excluding London +28 1,370 £463 -7.40% 1,688
London +36 1,275 £525 - 1,333
Work from Home +27 834 £500 - 2,152
North of England +44 336 £450 +5.32% 272
South East -2 328 £503 +0.50% 437
Midlands +35 299 £473 -0.42% 246
West Midlands +30 210 £463 -2.46% 174
North West +18 166 £450 +5.88% 160
Yorkshire +50 148 £461 -2.89% 70
East of England -1 141 £478 -4.40% 251
South West +9 138 £525 -4.55% 249
Scotland +39 121 £430 -15.02% 182
East Midlands +24 85 £490 -2.00% 70
North East -25 27 £425 -5.56% 45
Wales -4 24 £363 -3.33% 46
Northern Ireland +3 4 £363 -40.33% 36
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 83 (2.76%) Confluence
2 66 (2.19%) Apache Airflow
3 60 (1.99%) SharePoint
4 53 (1.76%) SAS
5 43 (1.43%) Apache Spark
6 31 (1.03%) Apache
7 19 (0.63%) Microsoft Exchange
8 14 (0.47%) 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%) WebLogic
14 5 (0.17%) 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%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 212 (7.05%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (1.53%) Microsoft Office
3 40 (1.33%) MS Visio
4 36 (1.20%) Spreadsheet
5 31 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 15 (0.50%) AutoCAD
7 10 (0.33%) Navisworks
7 10 (0.33%) Revit
8 9 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
8 9 (0.30%) ProjectWise
9 7 (0.23%) CATIA
10 6 (0.20%) Simulink
11 4 (0.13%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.066%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.066%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.066%) 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
1 116 (3.86%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.60%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.50%) Oracle Payables
4 14 (0.47%) SAP SD
5 13 (0.43%) NetSuite
5 13 (0.43%) SAP FI
5 13 (0.43%) Teamcenter
5 13 (0.43%) Workday HCM
6 11 (0.37%) Aladdin
6 11 (0.37%) iTrent
6 11 (0.37%) SAP MDG
6 11 (0.37%) SAP MM
7 10 (0.33%) SAP HCM
8 9 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.30%) SAP CO
8 9 (0.30%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.30%) SAP PS
9 8 (0.27%) Oracle Financials
9 8 (0.27%) Oracle General Ledger
9 8 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 614 (20.41%) Azure
2 343 (11.40%) AWS
3 302 (10.04%) Power Platform
4 181 (6.02%) Azure DevOps
5 135 (4.49%) GCP
6 133 (4.42%) GitHub
7 108 (3.59%) Snowflake
8 87 (2.89%) Entra ID
9 75 (2.49%) Azure Data Factory
10 73 (2.43%) GitHub Actions
11 64 (2.13%) Serverless
12 60 (1.99%) Microsoft 365
13 59 (1.96%) SaaS
14 55 (1.83%) dbt
15 53 (1.76%) Amazon S3
16 43 (1.43%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 39 (1.30%) SuccessFactors
18 35 (1.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 34 (1.13%) Azure Monitor
20 33 (1.10%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 114 (3.79%) Firewall
2 71 (2.36%) DNS
3 68 (2.26%) VLAN
4 64 (2.13%) Network Security
5 54 (1.79%) VPN
6 46 (1.53%) BGP
7 43 (1.43%) TCP/IP
7 43 (1.43%) WAN
8 34 (1.13%) DHCP
9 28 (0.93%) OSPF
10 26 (0.86%) VXLAN
11 25 (0.83%) Wireless
12 23 (0.76%) Ethernet VPN
13 22 (0.73%) Internet
13 22 (0.73%) LAN
13 22 (0.73%) SD-WAN
14 21 (0.70%) HTTP
15 20 (0.66%) SAN
15 20 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
16 19 (0.63%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 279 (9.27%) Power BI
2 166 (5.52%) Data Warehouse
3 128 (4.25%) Metadata
4 119 (3.95%) Relational Database
5 105 (3.49%) SQL Server
6 93 (3.09%) PostgreSQL
7 82 (2.73%) Data Lake
8 74 (2.46%) Tableau
9 42 (1.40%) Oracle Database
10 41 (1.36%) Delta Lake
11 38 (1.26%) MongoDB
12 36 (1.20%) Big Data
13 33 (1.10%) Power Query
14 32 (1.06%) BigQuery
14 32 (1.06%) NoSQL
14 32 (1.06%) Oracle Reports
15 30 (1.00%) Azure SQL Database
15 30 (1.00%) MySQL
15 30 (1.00%) Redis
15 30 (1.00%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 268 (8.91%) JIRA
2 210 (6.98%) Git
3 102 (3.39%) Jenkins
4 88 (2.92%) GitLab
5 78 (2.59%) Selenium
6 42 (1.40%) Postman
7 35 (1.16%) JMeter
8 23 (0.76%) Cucumber
9 22 (0.73%) WebDriver
10 21 (0.70%) Rational DOORS
11 19 (0.63%) JUnit
12 15 (0.50%) Cypress.io
12 15 (0.50%) Eclipse
12 15 (0.50%) Gatling
12 15 (0.50%) REST Assured
12 15 (0.50%) Zephyr
13 14 (0.47%) Oracle Forms
14 13 (0.43%) Rational Rhapsody
15 12 (0.40%) Maven
16 11 (0.37%) Gradle
General
1 857 (28.48%) Social Skills
2 851 (28.28%) Finance
3 593 (19.71%) Analytical Skills
4 257 (8.54%) Public Sector
5 249 (8.28%) Banking
6 145 (4.82%) Documentation Skills
7 115 (3.82%) Manufacturing
8 98 (3.26%) Retail
9 67 (2.23%) Automotive
9 67 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 65 (2.16%) Telecoms
11 58 (1.93%) Organisational Skills
12 56 (1.86%) Pharmaceutical
13 53 (1.76%) Aerospace
14 52 (1.73%) Legal
15 51 (1.69%) Marketing
16 47 (1.56%) Law
17 45 (1.50%) Front Office
18 42 (1.40%) Local Government
19 38 (1.26%) Billing
Job Titles
1 536 (17.81%) Analyst
2 345 (11.47%) Senior
3 271 (9.01%) Lead
4 242 (8.04%) Business Analyst
4 242 (8.04%) Consultant
5 235 (7.81%) Data Engineer
6 187 (6.21%) Developer
7 156 (5.18%) Data Analyst
8 152 (5.05%) Architect
9 110 (3.66%) Test Engineer
10 76 (2.53%) Network Engineer
10 76 (2.53%) Tester
11 65 (2.16%) Systems Engineer
12 61 (2.03%) Administrator
13 58 (1.93%) Senior Data Engineer
14 57 (1.89%) Project Manager
15 56 (1.86%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 55 (1.83%) Senior Analyst
17 50 (1.66%) Technical Analyst
18 49 (1.63%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 187 (6.21%) REST
2 164 (5.45%) Terraform
3 100 (3.32%) JSON
4 91 (3.02%) PySpark
5 83 (2.76%) XML
6 76 (2.53%) Middleware
7 74 (2.46%) Kafka
8 53 (1.76%) Playwright
9 51 (1.69%) .NET
10 47 (1.56%) SOAP
11 46 (1.53%) Oracle Fusion
12 45 (1.50%) pytest
13 43 (1.43%) Web Services
14 42 (1.40%) OAuth
15 38 (1.26%) Pandas
15 38 (1.26%) RESTful
16 37 (1.23%) Spring
17 33 (1.10%) Spring Boot
18 29 (0.96%) React
18 29 (0.96%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 161 (5.35%) Onboarding
2 158 (5.25%) Data Structures
3 130 (4.32%) Cloud Native
4 121 (4.02%) Legacy Systems
5 113 (3.76%) Product Ownership
6 109 (3.62%) Management Information System
7 86 (2.86%) Data Centre
8 56 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
9 51 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
10 49 (1.63%) AI Agents
11 44 (1.46%) Analytical Mindset
11 44 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
11 44 (1.46%) Life Science
12 42 (1.40%) SCADA
13 36 (1.20%) NHS
13 36 (1.20%) Operational Technology
13 36 (1.20%) Replication
14 33 (1.10%) Algorithms
15 32 (1.06%) CMDB
16 31 (1.03%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 189 (6.28%) Windows
2 128 (4.25%) Linux
3 76 (2.53%) Windows Server
4 51 (1.69%) Unix
5 22 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (0.50%) Android
6 15 (0.50%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.37%) Ubuntu
7 11 (0.37%) VMS
8 9 (0.30%) AIX
8 9 (0.30%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.23%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.13%) SUSE
10 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.100%) VxWorks
11 3 (0.100%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.066%) CentOS
12 2 (0.066%) HPUX
12 2 (0.066%) Solaris
12 2 (0.066%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 811 (26.95%) Migration
2 634 (21.07%) Stakeholder Management
3 585 (19.44%) Agile
4 563 (18.71%) CI/CD
5 486 (16.15%) User Acceptance Testing
6 484 (16.09%) Data Modelling
7 477 (15.85%) Data Migration
8 476 (15.82%) Analytics
9 472 (15.69%) Data Validation
10 460 (15.29%) Problem-Solving
11 406 (13.49%) AI
12 402 (13.36%) DevOps
13 385 (12.79%) Continuous Improvement
14 380 (12.63%) Test Automation
15 338 (11.23%) ETL
16 320 (10.63%) Business Intelligence
17 316 (10.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 313 (10.40%) Data Analysis
19 306 (10.17%) Data Pipeline
20 300 (9.97%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 783 (26.02%) SQL
2 615 (20.44%) Python
3 151 (5.02%) Java
4 101 (3.36%) PowerShell
5 66 (2.19%) JavaScript
6 65 (2.16%) C#
7 60 (1.99%) Bash
8 40 (1.33%) TypeScript
9 39 (1.30%) C++
10 32 (1.06%) Apex Code
11 30 (1.00%) PL/SQL
11 30 (1.00%) R
12 28 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 26 (0.86%) C
14 25 (0.83%) Bicep
15 24 (0.80%) Shell Script
16 18 (0.60%) T-SQL
16 18 (0.60%) VBA
17 16 (0.53%) MATLAB
18 15 (0.50%) Scala
Qualifications
1 588 (19.54%) Security Cleared
2 430 (14.29%) SC Cleared
3 193 (6.41%) Degree
4 82 (2.73%) 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 29 (0.96%) ACCA
9 29 (0.96%) AWS Certification
9 29 (0.96%) CIMA
10 27 (0.90%) ISTQB
11 24 (0.80%) Azure Certification
12 21 (0.70%) PMI Certification
13 19 (0.63%) CCNA
13 19 (0.63%) PMP
14 17 (0.56%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 17 (0.56%) CISSP
15 15 (0.50%) Master's Degree
15 15 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 613 (20.37%) Data Quality
2 371 (12.33%) QA
3 106 (3.52%) GDPR
4 51 (1.69%) Accessibility
5 41 (1.36%) NIST
5 41 (1.36%) SLA
6 38 (1.26%) GxP
7 37 (1.23%) PMO
8 35 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 23 (0.76%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 20 (0.66%) GRC
10 20 (0.66%) ISO 20022
11 17 (0.56%) GMP
11 17 (0.56%) WCAG
12 14 (0.47%) NCSC
13 12 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.40%) Def Stans
14 11 (0.37%) IFRS
14 11 (0.37%) MiFID
15 10 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 113 (3.76%) Docker
2 99 (3.29%) Active Directory
3 86 (2.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.20%) Virtual Machines
5 34 (1.13%) VMware ESXi
6 29 (0.96%) Firmware
7 25 (0.83%) Hyper-V
8 23 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
8 23 (0.76%) vSphere
9 14 (0.47%) 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
1 144 (4.79%) Kubernetes
2 91 (3.02%) Ansible
3 42 (1.40%) Grafana
4 34 (1.13%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
6 26 (0.86%) FortiGate
7 19 (0.63%) SCCM
8 17 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.50%) HP ALM
9 15 (0.50%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.33%) Failover Clustering
10 10 (0.33%) VxRail
11 9 (0.30%) Argo
12 7 (0.23%) Functional Safety
12 7 (0.23%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.20%) Control-M
13 6 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
14 5 (0.17%) systemd
14 5 (0.17%) vMotion
14 5 (0.17%) vRealize
Vendors
1 456 (15.15%) Microsoft
2 261 (8.67%) SAP
3 256 (8.51%) Oracle
4 165 (5.48%) Databricks
5 101 (3.36%) Salesforce
6 98 (3.26%) VMware
7 83 (2.76%) Cisco
8 76 (2.53%) ServiceNow
9 53 (1.76%) Google
10 50 (1.66%) Workday
11 45 (1.50%) IBM
12 35 (1.16%) 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%) Splunk
18 22 (0.73%) MuleSoft
19 17 (0.56%) CyberArk
19 17 (0.56%) HP