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

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 68 122
Rank change year-on-year +32 +54 +27
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,851 1,180 752
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.34% 3.58% 1.93%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.30% 3.96% 2.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,719 689 365
10th Percentile £340 £350 £347
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £488
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +5.02% -11.27%
75th Percentile £600 £612 £588
90th Percentile £702 £688 £669
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £511 £469
% change year-on-year -9.54% +9.07% -8.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 184 84 123
10th Percentile £17.01 £20.50 £29.82
25th Percentile £27.16 £36.42 £51.13
Median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -7.69% -
75th Percentile £74.25 £65.38 £68.13
90th Percentile £83.53 £75.00 £75.00
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 45,250 29,801 33,299
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.81% 90.48% 85.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,843 18,616 21,279
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £423 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
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 2,819 1,703 1,838
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.75 £17.31 £18.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -39.40% -1.55%
75th Percentile £68.00 £47.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.38 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.74 £42.50
% change year-on-year +93.36% -46.51% +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 13 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 13 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 13 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 2,471 £500 -2.91% 2,878
UK excluding London +26 1,331 £463 -9.54% 1,780
London +40 1,191 £525 +1.45% 1,420
Work from Home +34 802 £500 - 1,048
South East +5 325 £500 - 435
Midlands +33 315 £475 +2.70% 240
North of England +42 302 £450 -9.09% 305
West Midlands +33 224 £463 -4.15% 150
North West +19 152 £450 -17.20% 178
East of England +4 149 £475 -6.40% 261
Yorkshire +43 136 £460 +5.75% 74
South West -2 130 £525 -8.70% 276
Scotland +39 90 £423 -8.65% 200
East Midlands +24 86 £509 +13.11% 90
Wales -2 25 £369 -1.67% 55
North East -35 18 £425 -22.73% 59
Northern Ireland +12 10 £380 -35.59% 35
Channel Islands +2 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 (3.05%) Confluence
2 69 (2.42%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (1.93%) SAS
4 51 (1.79%) SharePoint
5 41 (1.44%) Apache Spark
6 32 (1.12%) Apache
7 14 (0.49%) Microsoft Exchange
8 13 (0.46%) Jupyter
9 12 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
10 10 (0.35%) CMS
11 9 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
12 7 (0.25%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.18%) IIS
13 5 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
13 5 (0.18%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.11%) JBoss
15 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
Applications
1 196 (6.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.44%) MS Visio
3 40 (1.40%) Microsoft Office
4 30 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 29 (1.02%) Spreadsheet
6 13 (0.46%) AutoCAD
7 10 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
8 8 (0.28%) CATIA
8 8 (0.28%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.28%) Revit
9 7 (0.25%) ProjectWise
10 6 (0.21%) Simulink
11 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.070%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.070%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.070%) Windchill
13 1 (0.035%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.035%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.035%) MicroStation
13 1 (0.035%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 120 (4.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.02%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.46%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.42%) iTrent
5 12 (0.42%) NetSuite
6 11 (0.39%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 11 (0.39%) SAP ERP
6 11 (0.39%) Teamcenter
7 10 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
7 10 (0.35%) SAP SD
8 9 (0.32%) Aladdin
8 9 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.32%) 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 (0.25%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 617 (21.64%) Azure
2 340 (11.93%) AWS
3 306 (10.73%) Power Platform
4 160 (5.61%) Azure DevOps
5 152 (5.33%) GCP
6 134 (4.70%) GitHub
7 98 (3.44%) Snowflake
8 76 (2.67%) Entra ID
9 75 (2.63%) Azure Data Factory
9 75 (2.63%) GitHub Actions
10 67 (2.35%) Serverless
11 55 (1.93%) Microsoft 365
12 53 (1.86%) Amazon S3
13 52 (1.82%) SaaS
14 47 (1.65%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 46 (1.61%) dbt
16 45 (1.58%) SuccessFactors
17 44 (1.54%) OCI
18 35 (1.23%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 34 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 114 (4.00%) Firewall
2 67 (2.35%) DNS
3 65 (2.28%) Network Security
4 54 (1.89%) VLAN
5 52 (1.82%) VPN
6 45 (1.58%) TCP/IP
7 39 (1.37%) WAN
8 38 (1.33%) BGP
9 30 (1.05%) DHCP
10 25 (0.88%) OSPF
11 23 (0.81%) LAN
12 22 (0.77%) Internet
13 21 (0.74%) SAN
13 21 (0.74%) SD-WAN
14 20 (0.70%) Wireless
15 19 (0.67%) Ethernet
15 19 (0.67%) VXLAN
16 17 (0.60%) Ethernet VPN
16 17 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
17 15 (0.53%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 285 (10.00%) Power BI
2 169 (5.93%) Data Warehouse
3 116 (4.07%) Metadata
4 102 (3.58%) SQL Server
5 99 (3.47%) PostgreSQL
6 90 (3.16%) Relational Database
7 89 (3.12%) Data Lake
8 76 (2.67%) Tableau
9 39 (1.37%) Big Data
10 35 (1.23%) MongoDB
11 33 (1.16%) NoSQL
11 33 (1.16%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 32 (1.12%) Oracle Reports
13 31 (1.09%) Delta Lake
13 31 (1.09%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 30 (1.05%) Azure SQL Database
14 30 (1.05%) Oracle Database
15 29 (1.02%) BigQuery
16 28 (0.98%) MySQL
16 28 (0.98%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 254 (8.91%) JIRA
2 189 (6.63%) Git
3 107 (3.75%) Jenkins
4 84 (2.95%) GitLab
5 72 (2.53%) Selenium
6 49 (1.72%) JMeter
7 47 (1.65%) Postman
8 39 (1.37%) Cucumber
9 37 (1.30%) JUnit
10 35 (1.23%) WebDriver
11 23 (0.81%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.63%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.56%) Gatling
13 16 (0.56%) Visual Studio
14 14 (0.49%) REST Assured
15 13 (0.46%) Cypress.io
15 13 (0.46%) Maven
15 13 (0.46%) Rational Rhapsody
16 12 (0.42%) Gradle
16 12 (0.42%) Oracle Forms
General
1 816 (28.62%) Social Skills
2 803 (28.17%) Finance
3 560 (19.64%) Analytical Skills
4 245 (8.59%) Public Sector
5 207 (7.26%) Banking
6 151 (5.30%) Documentation Skills
7 108 (3.79%) Manufacturing
8 95 (3.33%) Retail
9 70 (2.46%) Aerospace
10 62 (2.17%) Pharmaceutical
11 61 (2.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 57 (2.00%) Telecoms
13 53 (1.86%) Organisational Skills
14 50 (1.75%) Automotive
15 44 (1.54%) Legal
16 43 (1.51%) Front Office
16 43 (1.51%) Marketing
17 41 (1.44%) Law
18 40 (1.40%) Local Government
19 39 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 500 (17.54%) Analyst
2 307 (10.77%) Senior
3 283 (9.93%) Lead
4 240 (8.42%) Business Analyst
5 232 (8.14%) Data Engineer
6 218 (7.65%) Consultant
7 173 (6.07%) Developer
8 142 (4.98%) Architect
9 141 (4.95%) Data Analyst
10 106 (3.72%) Test Engineer
11 85 (2.98%) Tester
12 72 (2.53%) Project Manager
13 64 (2.24%) Network Engineer
14 60 (2.10%) Systems Engineer
15 59 (2.07%) Administrator
16 54 (1.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 54 (1.89%) Technical Analyst
17 51 (1.79%) Senior Data Engineer
18 45 (1.58%) Migration Engineer
18 45 (1.58%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 160 (5.61%) REST
2 86 (3.02%) JSON
3 76 (2.67%) XML
4 74 (2.60%) Kafka
4 74 (2.60%) PySpark
5 62 (2.17%) Middleware
6 52 (1.82%) Oracle Fusion
7 50 (1.75%) .NET
8 48 (1.68%) Spring
9 47 (1.65%) Playwright
10 45 (1.58%) pytest
11 42 (1.47%) SOAP
12 39 (1.37%) Web Services
13 34 (1.19%) OAuth
14 33 (1.16%) Pandas
15 32 (1.12%) RESTful
16 30 (1.05%) Node.js
17 29 (1.02%) Spring Boot
18 26 (0.91%) WireMock
19 24 (0.84%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 158 (5.54%) Onboarding
2 153 (5.37%) Data Structures
3 128 (4.49%) Legacy Systems
4 125 (4.38%) Cloud Native
5 124 (4.35%) Product Ownership
6 88 (3.09%) Management Information System
7 84 (2.95%) Data Centre
8 52 (1.82%) Distributed Systems
9 48 (1.68%) Analytical Mindset
10 46 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
11 43 (1.51%) Life Science
12 42 (1.47%) AI Agents
13 41 (1.44%) SCADA
14 39 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
15 38 (1.33%) Replication
16 34 (1.19%) NHS
16 34 (1.19%) Operational Technology
17 33 (1.16%) Algorithms
17 33 (1.16%) Public Cloud
18 32 (1.12%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 170 (5.96%) Windows
2 118 (4.14%) Linux
3 62 (2.17%) Windows Server
4 44 (1.54%) Unix
5 19 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.42%) Android
7 11 (0.39%) Ubuntu
7 11 (0.39%) Windows 10
8 10 (0.35%) VMS
9 8 (0.28%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.21%) Windows 7
11 5 (0.18%) AIX
12 4 (0.14%) SUSE
12 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.070%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.070%) HPUX
13 2 (0.070%) VxWorks
14 1 (0.035%) Mac OS X
14 1 (0.035%) Solaris
14 1 (0.035%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 769 (26.97%) Migration
2 567 (19.89%) Agile
3 549 (19.26%) Stakeholder Management
4 513 (17.99%) CI/CD
5 473 (16.59%) User Acceptance Testing
6 467 (16.38%) Analytics
7 457 (16.03%) Data Migration
7 457 (16.03%) Data Modelling
8 453 (15.89%) Data Validation
9 449 (15.75%) Problem-Solving
10 373 (13.08%) AI
11 367 (12.87%) DevOps
12 359 (12.59%) Continuous Improvement
13 357 (12.52%) Test Automation
14 329 (11.54%) ETL
15 319 (11.19%) Business Intelligence
16 318 (11.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 297 (10.42%) Data Pipeline
18 287 (10.07%) Data Governance
19 274 (9.61%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 717 (25.15%) SQL
2 539 (18.91%) Python
3 138 (4.84%) Java
4 81 (2.84%) PowerShell
5 60 (2.10%) C#
6 56 (1.96%) Bash
7 52 (1.82%) JavaScript
8 41 (1.44%) C++
9 35 (1.23%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.09%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 30 (1.05%) Apex Code
12 28 (0.98%) Bicep
13 26 (0.91%) C
14 25 (0.88%) PL/SQL
15 23 (0.81%) R
16 22 (0.77%) VBA
17 18 (0.63%) T-SQL
18 17 (0.60%) Shell Script
19 16 (0.56%) MATLAB
20 13 (0.46%) Scala
Qualifications
1 532 (18.66%) Security Cleared
2 390 (13.68%) SC Cleared
3 185 (6.49%) Degree
4 68 (2.39%) DV Cleared
5 61 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
6 44 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
7 43 (1.51%) Computer Science Degree
8 35 (1.23%) CCNP
9 28 (0.98%) ISTQB
10 25 (0.88%) ACCA
11 24 (0.84%) CIMA
12 22 (0.77%) Azure Certification
13 21 (0.74%) AWS Certification
13 21 (0.74%) PMI Certification
14 20 (0.70%) PMP
15 18 (0.63%) CISSP
15 18 (0.63%) Microsoft Certification
16 17 (0.60%) CCNA
17 12 (0.42%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 11 (0.39%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 544 (19.08%) Data Quality
2 359 (12.59%) QA
3 125 (4.38%) GDPR
4 51 (1.79%) NIST
5 46 (1.61%) Accessibility
6 45 (1.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 39 (1.37%) GxP
8 38 (1.33%) PMO
8 38 (1.33%) SLA
9 20 (0.70%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 20 (0.70%) GRC
10 18 (0.63%) GMP
10 18 (0.63%) ISO 20022
11 14 (0.49%) Def Stans
11 14 (0.49%) NCSC
11 14 (0.49%) WCAG
12 13 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 12 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.42%) HL7
14 11 (0.39%) NIST 800
System Software
1 122 (4.28%) Docker
2 97 (3.40%) Active Directory
3 80 (2.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.26%) Virtual Machines
5 27 (0.95%) VMware ESXi
6 23 (0.81%) Hyper-V
7 22 (0.77%) Firmware
8 20 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
8 20 (0.70%) vSphere
9 14 (0.49%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.14%) KVM
11 4 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.11%) NFS
12 3 (0.11%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.070%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.070%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.070%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.035%) Ceph
14 1 (0.035%) etcd
Systems Management
1 156 (5.47%) Kubernetes
2 144 (5.05%) Terraform
3 67 (2.35%) Ansible
4 53 (1.86%) Grafana
5 45 (1.58%) Prometheus
6 26 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
7 24 (0.84%) FortiGate
8 22 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
9 12 (0.42%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.35%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.35%) SCCM
10 10 (0.35%) VxRail
11 8 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
12 7 (0.25%) Argo
13 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Clustering
13 5 (0.18%) systemd
13 5 (0.18%) vRealize
14 4 (0.14%) CASB
14 4 (0.14%) Consul
14 4 (0.14%) Puppet
Vendors
1 426 (14.94%) Microsoft
2 258 (9.05%) SAP
3 246 (8.63%) Oracle
4 154 (5.40%) Databricks
5 93 (3.26%) VMware
6 92 (3.23%) Salesforce
7 78 (2.74%) ServiceNow
8 63 (2.21%) Cisco
9 50 (1.75%) Google
10 45 (1.58%) Workday
11 39 (1.37%) Informatica
12 32 (1.12%) IBM
13 29 (1.02%) Juniper
14 28 (0.98%) Fortinet
14 28 (0.98%) MuleSoft
14 28 (0.98%) Palo Alto
15 26 (0.91%) Zscaler
16 25 (0.88%) Splunk
17 22 (0.77%) Sage
18 21 (0.74%) Ariba