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

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 100 129
Rank change year-on-year +54 +29 +6
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,931 770 786
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.47% 2.61% 1.77%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.20% 2.89% 2.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,182 448 421
10th Percentile £350 £364 £340
25th Percentile £402 £420 £435
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £535 £538
Median % change year-on-year -9.79% -0.47% -2.27%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £623
90th Percentile £700 £725 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £513 £500
% change year-on-year -7.32% +2.50% +0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 100 41 146
10th Percentile £24.13 £25.26 £19.94
25th Percentile £50.63 £46.92 £48.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.54 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.96% -4.10% -4.08%
75th Percentile £70.38 £63.75 £75.12
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.65 £62.00
% change year-on-year +12.76% -7.02% -0.80%

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 37,150 26,655 38,571
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.07% 90.32% 86.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,527 17,023 25,087
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 £612 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £745 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,218 906 2,334
10th Percentile £14.88 £15.39 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £31.65
% change year-on-year -15.38% +2.69% -9.57%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 +50 1,668 £490 -10.09% 862
UK excluding London +51 922 £475 -7.32% 694
London +62 771 £510 -7.27% 272
Work from Home +61 587 £488 -6.25% 361
North of England +30 229 £443 -8.05% 143
South East +4 197 £500 - 217
Midlands +33 176 £481 -1.46% 127
North West +30 149 £420 -9.19% 72
West Midlands +19 140 £481 -1.79% 86
South West +8 134 £475 -17.39% 95
East of England +25 111 £475 +5.56% 83
Yorkshire -2 70 £462 +9.93% 48
Scotland +46 50 £405 -10.00% 34
East Midlands -3 34 £513 +39.27% 41
Northern Ireland +19 25 £400 -27.27% 4
Wales - 15 £460 - 12
North East -5 13 £463 -36.21% 23

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 77 (3.99%) Confluence
2 42 (2.18%) Apache Spark
3 33 (1.71%) SAS
4 30 (1.55%) Apache Airflow
5 20 (1.04%) Apache
5 20 (1.04%) SharePoint
6 13 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
7 9 (0.47%) Appian
8 8 (0.41%) ArcGIS
8 8 (0.41%) Jupyter
9 7 (0.36%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
9 7 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.26%) CMS
11 4 (0.21%) Anypoint
11 4 (0.21%) Smallworld
12 3 (0.16%) CICS
12 3 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 3 (0.16%) Oracle Self-Service HR
12 3 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.16%) WebLogic
Applications
1 90 (4.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (1.19%) MS Visio
4 14 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (0.67%) Microsoft Project
6 12 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.52%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.21%) Notion
9 3 (0.16%) CATIA
9 3 (0.16%) LaTeX
10 2 (0.10%) Sketch
11 1 (0.052%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.052%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.052%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.052%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.052%) Simulink
11 1 (0.052%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 91 (4.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (1.66%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.78%) Oracle Payables
4 14 (0.73%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 13 (0.67%) Oracle General Ledger
5 13 (0.67%) Workday HCM
6 12 (0.62%) Oracle Receivables
7 11 (0.57%) Oracle Assets
8 10 (0.52%) SAP FI
9 9 (0.47%) NetSuite
9 9 (0.47%) Oracle EBS R12
9 9 (0.47%) SAP MDG
10 8 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
10 8 (0.41%) OpenText VIM for SAP
11 7 (0.36%) Aladdin
11 7 (0.36%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 7 (0.36%) SAP ERP
11 7 (0.36%) SAP MM
12 6 (0.31%) iTrent
12 6 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 448 (23.20%) Azure
2 257 (13.31%) AWS
3 161 (8.34%) Power Platform
4 134 (6.94%) Azure DevOps
5 96 (4.97%) GitHub
6 91 (4.71%) GCP
7 64 (3.31%) Serverless
8 60 (3.11%) GitHub Actions
9 57 (2.95%) Amazon S3
9 57 (2.95%) Entra ID
10 51 (2.64%) Azure Data Factory
10 51 (2.64%) SaaS
11 45 (2.33%) OCI
12 40 (2.07%) Snowflake
13 35 (1.81%) AWS Lambda
14 33 (1.71%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 30 (1.55%) AWS CloudFormation
16 29 (1.50%) OpenShift
17 24 (1.24%) Microsoft 365
17 24 (1.24%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 65 (3.37%) Firewall
2 44 (2.28%) Network Security
3 35 (1.81%) TCP/IP
4 24 (1.24%) DNS
4 24 (1.24%) Ethernet
5 20 (1.04%) VPN
6 19 (0.98%) HTTP
7 16 (0.83%) VLAN
8 15 (0.78%) SAN
8 15 (0.78%) WAN
9 13 (0.67%) NAS
10 10 (0.52%) Wireless
11 9 (0.47%) Internet
11 9 (0.47%) LAN
11 9 (0.47%) SSL
12 8 (0.41%) BGP
12 8 (0.41%) OSPF
12 8 (0.41%) SD-WAN
13 7 (0.36%) Cisco ISE
13 7 (0.36%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 149 (7.72%) Power BI
2 99 (5.13%) Metadata
3 89 (4.61%) Data Warehouse
4 58 (3.00%) SQL Server
5 55 (2.85%) PostgreSQL
6 47 (2.43%) Tableau
7 46 (2.38%) Data Lake
8 32 (1.66%) Delta Lake
9 31 (1.61%) NoSQL
10 29 (1.50%) Oracle Reports
11 26 (1.35%) Big Data
12 25 (1.29%) Amazon Redshift
12 25 (1.29%) Azure SQL Database
12 25 (1.29%) Relational Database
13 20 (1.04%) Geospatial Data
13 20 (1.04%) Oracle Database
13 20 (1.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 19 (0.98%) Amazon Athena
14 19 (0.98%) Pinecone
14 19 (0.98%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 182 (9.43%) JIRA
2 118 (6.11%) Git
3 89 (4.61%) Jenkins
4 64 (3.31%) Selenium
5 59 (3.06%) GitLab
6 57 (2.95%) Postman
7 35 (1.81%) JMeter
7 35 (1.81%) JUnit
8 34 (1.76%) Cucumber
9 32 (1.66%) Rational DOORS
10 29 (1.50%) Oracle APEX
11 20 (1.04%) MLflow
11 20 (1.04%) Visual Studio
12 19 (0.98%) WebDriver
13 14 (0.73%) Eclipse
13 14 (0.73%) REST Assured
13 14 (0.73%) TestRail
14 12 (0.62%) SpecFlow
14 12 (0.62%) Zephyr
15 11 (0.57%) Bitbucket
General
1 678 (35.11%) Social Skills
2 561 (29.05%) Finance
3 382 (19.78%) Analytical Skills
4 180 (9.32%) Public Sector
5 168 (8.70%) Banking
6 98 (5.08%) Documentation Skills
7 59 (3.06%) Manufacturing
8 51 (2.64%) Presentation Skills
9 49 (2.54%) Aerospace
10 41 (2.12%) Pharmaceutical
11 38 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
12 34 (1.76%) Organisational Skills
13 32 (1.66%) Electronics
14 31 (1.61%) Telecoms
15 29 (1.50%) Billing
15 29 (1.50%) Legal
15 29 (1.50%) Marketing
16 28 (1.45%) Front Office
17 27 (1.40%) Military
18 26 (1.35%) Retail
Job Titles
1 345 (17.87%) Analyst
2 202 (10.46%) Senior
3 193 (9.99%) Lead
4 154 (7.98%) Business Analyst
5 141 (7.30%) Consultant
6 136 (7.04%) Developer
7 129 (6.68%) Architect
8 124 (6.42%) Data Engineer
9 92 (4.76%) Data Analyst
10 67 (3.47%) Project Manager
11 58 (3.00%) Tester
12 51 (2.64%) Software Engineer
13 50 (2.59%) Senior Analyst
14 40 (2.07%) SAP Consultant
15 39 (2.02%) Test Analyst
16 38 (1.97%) Senior Developer
16 38 (1.97%) Test Engineer
17 37 (1.92%) Test Manager
18 35 (1.81%) Embedded Engineer
19 34 (1.76%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 126 (6.53%) REST
2 92 (4.76%) JSON
3 65 (3.37%) Oracle Fusion
4 58 (3.00%) XML
5 53 (2.74%) Kafka
6 52 (2.69%) OAuth
7 50 (2.59%) Middleware
8 49 (2.54%) PySpark
9 46 (2.38%) .NET
10 44 (2.28%) SOAP
11 42 (2.18%) Node.js
12 39 (2.02%) RESTful
13 36 (1.86%) PyTorch
14 35 (1.81%) Playwright
15 32 (1.66%) TensorFlow
16 31 (1.61%) Web Services
17 30 (1.55%) pytest
17 30 (1.55%) Swagger
18 27 (1.40%) Pandas
19 26 (1.35%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 117 (6.06%) Legacy Systems
2 97 (5.02%) Data Structures
3 84 (4.35%) Product Ownership
4 73 (3.78%) Onboarding
5 67 (3.47%) Cloud Native
6 53 (2.74%) Management Information System
7 47 (2.43%) Data Centre
8 34 (1.76%) Analytical Mindset
9 31 (1.61%) Distributed Systems
10 30 (1.55%) Algorithms
11 28 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
12 25 (1.29%) Replication
13 23 (1.19%) Derivative
14 21 (1.09%) Operational Technology
15 20 (1.04%) Hybrid Cloud
15 20 (1.04%) NHS
15 20 (1.04%) Virtual Team
16 18 (0.93%) Enterprise Software
16 18 (0.93%) Greenfield Project
16 18 (0.93%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 97 (5.02%) Windows
2 80 (4.14%) Linux
3 31 (1.61%) Unix
4 11 (0.57%) Windows Server
5 9 (0.47%) Android
6 6 (0.31%) Embedded Linux
6 6 (0.31%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.31%) zOS
7 3 (0.16%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.10%) Debian
8 2 (0.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.052%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.052%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.052%) pSOS
9 1 (0.052%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.052%) Solaris
9 1 (0.052%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 452 (23.41%) Agile
2 450 (23.30%) Migration
3 423 (21.91%) Problem-Solving
4 345 (17.87%) Stakeholder Management
5 342 (17.71%) CI/CD
6 318 (16.47%) Data Validation
7 301 (15.59%) Analytics
8 281 (14.55%) DevOps
9 266 (13.78%) Data Migration
10 265 (13.72%) Data Modelling
11 257 (13.31%) Test Automation
12 243 (12.58%) ETL
13 232 (12.01%) User Acceptance Testing
14 230 (11.91%) Continuous Improvement
15 223 (11.55%) AI
16 206 (10.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 192 (9.94%) Data Governance
18 190 (9.84%) Business Intelligence
19 166 (8.60%) Data Pipeline
20 162 (8.39%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 464 (24.03%) SQL
2 372 (19.26%) Python
3 95 (4.92%) Java
4 91 (4.71%) JavaScript
5 74 (3.83%) C#
6 52 (2.69%) PL/SQL
7 49 (2.54%) C++
8 48 (2.49%) PowerShell
9 42 (2.18%) C
10 38 (1.97%) TypeScript
11 37 (1.92%) Bash
12 26 (1.35%) Bicep
12 26 (1.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 23 (1.19%) R
14 20 (1.04%) Ada
15 17 (0.88%) Groovy
15 17 (0.88%) Scala
16 16 (0.83%) T-SQL
17 12 (0.62%) Shell Script
17 12 (0.62%) VBA
Qualifications
1 418 (21.65%) Security Cleared
2 308 (15.95%) SC Cleared
3 182 (9.43%) Degree
4 59 (3.06%) BPSS Clearance
4 59 (3.06%) Computer Science Degree
5 41 (2.12%) DV Cleared
6 36 (1.86%) Master's Degree
7 32 (1.66%) ISTQB
8 26 (1.35%) PMI Certification
9 23 (1.19%) PMP
10 16 (0.83%) AWS Certification
10 16 (0.83%) Cisco Certification
10 16 (0.83%) CISSP
11 14 (0.73%) CBAP
11 14 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
12 13 (0.67%) CCNP
13 12 (0.62%) Oracle Certification
14 9 (0.47%) Azure Certification
14 9 (0.47%) CTC Cleared
15 8 (0.41%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 296 (15.33%) Data Quality
2 249 (12.89%) QA
3 105 (5.44%) GDPR
4 82 (4.25%) NIST
5 62 (3.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 31 (1.61%) Accessibility
7 27 (1.40%) SLA
8 22 (1.14%) IFRS
9 19 (0.98%) Def Stans
9 19 (0.98%) GxP
9 19 (0.98%) IFRS 17
10 17 (0.88%) GRC
10 17 (0.88%) PMO
11 15 (0.78%) GMP
11 15 (0.78%) PCI DSS
12 14 (0.73%) HL7
13 13 (0.67%) COBIT
13 13 (0.67%) NCSC
14 12 (0.62%) EU AI Act
15 11 (0.57%) MiFID
System Software
1 79 (4.09%) Docker
2 43 (2.23%) Active Directory
3 33 (1.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (1.14%) Firmware
5 10 (0.52%) VMware NSX
6 8 (0.41%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.26%) 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 (0.10%) Ceph
11 2 (0.10%) KVM
11 2 (0.10%) Lustre
11 2 (0.10%) OpenAM
11 2 (0.10%) OpenDJ
11 2 (0.10%) OpenIDM
11 2 (0.10%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 117 (6.06%) Kubernetes
2 87 (4.51%) Terraform
3 31 (1.61%) Ansible
3 31 (1.61%) Prometheus
4 30 (1.55%) Single Sign-On
5 27 (1.40%) Grafana
6 13 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
7 12 (0.62%) Kibana
7 12 (0.62%) Puppet
8 9 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 7 (0.36%) SCCM
10 6 (0.31%) Nessus
11 5 (0.26%) CASB
12 4 (0.21%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.21%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.21%) FortiGate
12 4 (0.21%) RSA Archer
12 4 (0.21%) vMotion
13 3 (0.16%) Nmap
13 3 (0.16%) OMEGAMON
Vendors
1 249 (12.89%) Microsoft
2 198 (10.25%) Oracle
3 161 (8.34%) SAP
4 100 (5.18%) Databricks
5 86 (4.45%) ServiceNow
6 46 (2.38%) Google
7 43 (2.23%) Splunk
8 42 (2.18%) Salesforce
9 39 (2.02%) VMware
10 37 (1.92%) Workday
11 36 (1.86%) Cisco
12 29 (1.50%) MuleSoft
13 28 (1.45%) Sage
14 26 (1.35%) Informatica
15 22 (1.14%) IBM
16 20 (1.04%) Palo Alto
17 19 (0.98%) OpenAI
18 17 (0.88%) Murex
19 16 (0.83%) CyberArk
20 14 (0.73%) Bloomberg