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

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 67 125
Rank change year-on-year +31 +58 +28
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,828 1,175 738
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.30% 3.54% 1.90%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.25% 3.92% 2.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,707 686 365
10th Percentile £340 £350 £342
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £488
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +5.53% -11.27%
75th Percentile £600 £620 £588
90th Percentile £700 £688 £669
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £515 £463
% change year-on-year -10.19% +11.35% -9.84%
Number of hourly rates quoted 183 87 121
10th Percentile £16.91 £20.50 £29.77
25th Percentile £27.07 £38.87 £51.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -7.69% -
75th Percentile £74.25 £66.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £83.60 £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 45,268 29,990 33,185
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.86% 90.46% 85.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,853 18,764 21,291
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £420 £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 £729 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,826 1,696 1,837
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.89 £17.30 £18.35
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -38.57% -3.67%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £42.50
% change year-on-year +94.26% -46.75% +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 10 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 10 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 10 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 +33 2,447 £500 -3.85% 1,767
UK excluding London +27 1,326 £463 -10.19% 1,127
London +40 1,175 £525 +0.96% 764
Work from Home +39 796 £492 -1.60% 613
South East +3 317 £501 +0.25% 315
Midlands +36 315 £475 +5.56% 190
North of England +52 303 £450 -9.09% 209
West Midlands +32 223 £468 +3.94% 118
North West +24 154 £450 -21.40% 121
East of England +6 148 £475 -6.40% 150
Yorkshire +41 135 £453 +4.08% 48
South West -8 127 £525 -8.70% 172
Scotland +46 93 £416 -11.20% 87
East Midlands +28 87 £505 +11.00% 72
Wales -4 26 £425 +13.33% 22
North East -35 18 £425 -22.73% 43
Northern Ireland +11 10 £380 -35.59% 4
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 82 (2.90%) Confluence
2 69 (2.44%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (1.98%) SAS
4 49 (1.73%) SharePoint
5 41 (1.45%) Apache Spark
6 32 (1.13%) Apache
7 13 (0.46%) Jupyter
7 13 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
8 12 (0.42%) Microsoft Exchange
9 10 (0.35%) CMS
10 9 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.25%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.18%) IIS
12 5 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
12 5 (0.18%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.11%) JBoss
14 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
Applications
1 194 (6.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.49%) MS Visio
3 40 (1.41%) Microsoft Office
4 29 (1.03%) Spreadsheet
5 27 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 13 (0.46%) AutoCAD
7 11 (0.39%) 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 (0.071%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.071%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.071%) Windchill
13 1 (0.035%) Autodesk Inventor
13 1 (0.035%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.035%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.035%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 121 (4.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.03%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
4 14 (0.50%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.42%) iTrent
5 12 (0.42%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.42%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 11 (0.39%) SAP ERP
6 11 (0.39%) Teamcenter
7 10 (0.35%) Aladdin
7 10 (0.35%) Oracle Assets
7 10 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.32%) SAP MDG
8 9 (0.32%) SAP SD
9 8 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
9 8 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
9 8 (0.28%) Sage X3
10 7 (0.25%) SAP FI
10 7 (0.25%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 610 (21.57%) Azure
2 338 (11.95%) AWS
3 297 (10.50%) Power Platform
4 158 (5.59%) Azure DevOps
5 148 (5.23%) GCP
6 129 (4.56%) GitHub
7 98 (3.47%) Snowflake
8 75 (2.65%) Entra ID
9 73 (2.58%) Azure Data Factory
10 71 (2.51%) GitHub Actions
11 70 (2.48%) Serverless
12 56 (1.98%) Amazon S3
13 54 (1.91%) SaaS
14 53 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
15 46 (1.63%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 46 (1.63%) dbt
16 43 (1.52%) OCI
17 42 (1.49%) SuccessFactors
18 37 (1.31%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 34 (1.20%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 113 (4.00%) Firewall
2 69 (2.44%) Network Security
3 64 (2.26%) DNS
4 54 (1.91%) VLAN
5 52 (1.84%) VPN
6 46 (1.63%) TCP/IP
7 40 (1.41%) WAN
8 37 (1.31%) BGP
9 29 (1.03%) DHCP
10 26 (0.92%) OSPF
11 24 (0.85%) LAN
12 23 (0.81%) Internet
13 21 (0.74%) SD-WAN
13 21 (0.74%) Wireless
14 20 (0.71%) SAN
15 17 (0.60%) Ethernet
15 17 (0.60%) VXLAN
16 16 (0.57%) Wi-Fi
17 15 (0.53%) Ethernet VPN
17 15 (0.53%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 276 (9.76%) Power BI
2 169 (5.98%) Data Warehouse
3 115 (4.07%) Metadata
4 101 (3.57%) SQL Server
5 97 (3.43%) PostgreSQL
6 89 (3.15%) Data Lake
7 87 (3.08%) Relational Database
8 78 (2.76%) Tableau
9 39 (1.38%) Big Data
10 33 (1.17%) MongoDB
10 33 (1.17%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 32 (1.13%) NoSQL
11 32 (1.13%) Oracle Reports
12 31 (1.10%) Delta Lake
12 31 (1.10%) Oracle Database
12 31 (1.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 30 (1.06%) Azure SQL Database
14 28 (0.99%) BigQuery
14 28 (0.99%) Power Query
15 27 (0.95%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 255 (9.02%) JIRA
2 188 (6.65%) Git
3 103 (3.64%) Jenkins
4 78 (2.76%) GitLab
5 69 (2.44%) Selenium
6 48 (1.70%) JMeter
7 45 (1.59%) Postman
8 38 (1.34%) Cucumber
8 38 (1.34%) JUnit
9 35 (1.24%) WebDriver
10 24 (0.85%) Rational DOORS
11 18 (0.64%) Eclipse
12 16 (0.57%) Gatling
13 15 (0.53%) Visual Studio
14 13 (0.46%) Rational Rhapsody
14 13 (0.46%) REST Assured
15 12 (0.42%) Maven
15 12 (0.42%) Oracle Forms
16 11 (0.39%) Cypress.io
16 11 (0.39%) Zephyr
General
1 807 (28.54%) Finance
2 806 (28.50%) Social Skills
3 546 (19.31%) Analytical Skills
4 246 (8.70%) Public Sector
5 210 (7.43%) Banking
6 148 (5.23%) Documentation Skills
7 105 (3.71%) Manufacturing
8 94 (3.32%) Retail
9 69 (2.44%) Aerospace
10 62 (2.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 62 (2.19%) Pharmaceutical
11 56 (1.98%) Telecoms
12 52 (1.84%) Organisational Skills
13 47 (1.66%) Automotive
14 43 (1.52%) Legal
15 42 (1.49%) Front Office
15 42 (1.49%) Marketing
16 40 (1.41%) Local Government
17 39 (1.38%) Law
18 38 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 494 (17.47%) Analyst
2 302 (10.68%) Senior
3 282 (9.97%) Lead
4 233 (8.24%) Business Analyst
5 232 (8.20%) Data Engineer
6 209 (7.39%) Consultant
7 170 (6.01%) Developer
8 147 (5.20%) Architect
9 141 (4.99%) Data Analyst
10 106 (3.75%) Test Engineer
11 83 (2.93%) Tester
12 75 (2.65%) Project Manager
13 66 (2.33%) Network Engineer
14 58 (2.05%) Systems Engineer
15 56 (1.98%) Administrator
16 54 (1.91%) Technical Analyst
17 52 (1.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 50 (1.77%) Senior Data Engineer
19 44 (1.56%) Data Scientist
19 44 (1.56%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 151 (5.34%) REST
2 85 (3.01%) JSON
3 77 (2.72%) Kafka
4 74 (2.62%) XML
5 73 (2.58%) PySpark
6 62 (2.19%) Middleware
7 52 (1.84%) Oracle Fusion
8 50 (1.77%) .NET
9 46 (1.63%) Spring
10 44 (1.56%) pytest
11 41 (1.45%) Playwright
11 41 (1.45%) SOAP
12 36 (1.27%) Web Services
13 35 (1.24%) OAuth
14 33 (1.17%) Pandas
15 32 (1.13%) RESTful
16 29 (1.03%) Node.js
17 27 (0.95%) Spring Boot
18 25 (0.88%) WireMock
19 24 (0.85%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 158 (5.59%) Onboarding
2 155 (5.48%) Data Structures
3 129 (4.56%) Legacy Systems
4 124 (4.38%) Cloud Native
5 120 (4.24%) Product Ownership
6 87 (3.08%) Management Information System
7 83 (2.93%) Data Centre
8 54 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
9 47 (1.66%) Analytical Mindset
10 45 (1.59%) Enterprise Software
11 43 (1.52%) Life Science
12 41 (1.45%) AI Agents
13 40 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
13 40 (1.41%) SCADA
14 36 (1.27%) NHS
14 36 (1.27%) Replication
15 35 (1.24%) Hybrid Cloud
16 33 (1.17%) Operational Technology
16 33 (1.17%) Public Cloud
17 31 (1.10%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 167 (5.91%) Windows
2 116 (4.10%) Linux
3 60 (2.12%) Windows Server
4 44 (1.56%) Unix
5 19 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.39%) Android
6 11 (0.39%) Ubuntu
6 11 (0.39%) Windows 10
7 10 (0.35%) VMS
8 7 (0.25%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.21%) Windows 7
10 5 (0.18%) AIX
11 4 (0.14%) SUSE
11 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.071%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.071%) HPUX
12 2 (0.071%) VxWorks
13 1 (0.035%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.035%) Solaris
13 1 (0.035%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 769 (27.19%) Migration
2 553 (19.55%) Agile
3 543 (19.20%) Stakeholder Management
4 505 (17.86%) CI/CD
5 473 (16.73%) Analytics
6 464 (16.41%) Data Modelling
7 463 (16.37%) User Acceptance Testing
8 456 (16.12%) Data Migration
9 455 (16.09%) Data Validation
10 445 (15.74%) Problem-Solving
11 363 (12.84%) DevOps
12 362 (12.80%) AI
13 358 (12.66%) Continuous Improvement
14 347 (12.27%) Test Automation
15 335 (11.85%) ETL
16 318 (11.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 312 (11.03%) Business Intelligence
18 297 (10.50%) Data Pipeline
19 288 (10.18%) Data Governance
20 267 (9.44%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 703 (24.86%) SQL
2 531 (18.78%) Python
3 134 (4.74%) Java
4 77 (2.72%) PowerShell
5 61 (2.16%) C#
6 57 (2.02%) Bash
7 50 (1.77%) JavaScript
8 38 (1.34%) C++
9 33 (1.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 33 (1.17%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.06%) Apex Code
11 29 (1.03%) Bicep
12 26 (0.92%) C
12 26 (0.92%) PL/SQL
13 24 (0.85%) VBA
14 23 (0.81%) R
15 18 (0.64%) T-SQL
16 17 (0.60%) Shell Script
17 16 (0.57%) MATLAB
18 13 (0.46%) Scala
Qualifications
1 519 (18.35%) Security Cleared
2 379 (13.40%) SC Cleared
3 186 (6.58%) Degree
4 66 (2.33%) DV Cleared
5 63 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
6 44 (1.56%) Cisco Certification
7 43 (1.52%) Computer Science Degree
8 35 (1.24%) CCNP
9 27 (0.95%) ISTQB
10 25 (0.88%) ACCA
11 24 (0.85%) CIMA
12 21 (0.74%) Azure Certification
12 21 (0.74%) PMI Certification
13 20 (0.71%) PMP
14 19 (0.67%) AWS Certification
14 19 (0.67%) CISSP
14 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Certification
15 17 (0.60%) CCNA
16 11 (0.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 11 (0.39%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 542 (19.17%) Data Quality
2 355 (12.55%) QA
3 127 (4.49%) GDPR
4 52 (1.84%) NIST
5 46 (1.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 45 (1.59%) Accessibility
7 38 (1.34%) GxP
7 38 (1.34%) SLA
8 37 (1.31%) PMO
9 20 (0.71%) GRC
9 20 (0.71%) ISO 20022
10 19 (0.67%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 17 (0.60%) GMP
12 14 (0.50%) Def Stans
12 14 (0.50%) NCSC
12 14 (0.50%) WCAG
13 13 (0.46%) HL7
13 13 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 12 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.39%) NIST 800
System Software
1 120 (4.24%) Docker
2 97 (3.43%) Active Directory
3 77 (2.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
5 27 (0.95%) VMware ESXi
6 22 (0.78%) Firmware
7 21 (0.74%) Hyper-V
8 20 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
9 19 (0.67%) vSphere
10 13 (0.46%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.14%) KVM
11 4 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.11%) NFS
12 3 (0.11%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.071%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.071%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.071%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.035%) etcd
14 1 (0.035%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 157 (5.55%) Kubernetes
2 137 (4.84%) Terraform
3 63 (2.23%) Ansible
4 54 (1.91%) Grafana
5 51 (1.80%) Prometheus
6 26 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
7 24 (0.85%) FortiGate
8 22 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
9 12 (0.42%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.35%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.35%) VxRail
11 9 (0.32%) SCCM
12 7 (0.25%) Failover Clustering
13 6 (0.21%) Argo
14 5 (0.18%) CASB
14 5 (0.18%) systemd
14 5 (0.18%) vRealize
15 4 (0.14%) Consul
15 4 (0.14%) Istio
15 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 420 (14.85%) Microsoft
2 253 (8.95%) SAP
3 246 (8.70%) Oracle
4 151 (5.34%) Databricks
5 91 (3.22%) Salesforce
6 90 (3.18%) VMware
7 76 (2.69%) ServiceNow
8 63 (2.23%) Cisco
9 51 (1.80%) Google
10 47 (1.66%) Workday
11 38 (1.34%) Informatica
12 32 (1.13%) IBM
13 31 (1.10%) Splunk
14 30 (1.06%) Fortinet
14 30 (1.06%) Palo Alto
15 29 (1.03%) Juniper
15 29 (1.03%) MuleSoft
16 28 (0.99%) Zscaler
17 23 (0.81%) Sage
18 20 (0.71%) Ariba