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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 67 122
Rank change year-on-year +31 +55 +30
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,865 1,179 749
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.37% 3.58% 1.92%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.33% 3.96% 2.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,724 689 361
10th Percentile £340 £350 £345
25th Percentile £410 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £490
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +4.59% -10.91%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £588
90th Percentile £701 £688 £670
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £510 £469
% change year-on-year -9.31% +8.80% -8.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 186 83 124
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £29.84
25th Percentile £26.99 £38.87 £50.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £63.75
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -5.88% -1.92%
75th Percentile £74.25 £65.75 £67.81
90th Percentile £83.38 £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 45,278 29,786 33,285
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.80% 90.49% 85.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,840 18,586 21,275
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 2,823 1,710 1,832
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.31 £18.46
Median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.19% -39.40% -2.35%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £74.83
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.13% -45.88% +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 14 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 14 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 14 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 2,488 £500 -2.91% 2,499
UK excluding London +28 1,336 £463 -9.31% 1,405
London +44 1,199 £525 +2.44% 1,310
Work from Home +34 807 £500 - 811
South East +3 327 £500 - 385
Midlands +36 319 £475 -2.56% 188
North of England +39 303 £450 -9.09% 223
West Midlands +28 227 £458 -8.50% 117
North West +19 151 £449 -17.48% 129
East of England +6 149 £475 -6.40% 229
Yorkshire +43 138 £460 +5.75% 52
South West -4 129 £525 -8.70% 217
Scotland +44 90 £423 -8.65% 142
East Midlands +21 87 £505 +0.90% 71
Wales -7 23 £369 -1.67% 39
North East -36 18 £425 -22.73% 45
Northern Ireland +11 10 £380 -35.59% 7
Channel Islands +2 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 88 (3.07%) Confluence
2 69 (2.41%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (1.92%) SAS
4 51 (1.78%) SharePoint
5 42 (1.47%) Apache Spark
6 32 (1.12%) Apache
7 14 (0.49%) Microsoft Exchange
8 12 (0.42%) Jupyter
8 12 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
9 10 (0.35%) CMS
10 9 (0.31%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.24%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.17%) IIS
12 5 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
12 5 (0.17%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.10%) JBoss
14 3 (0.10%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.10%) Tomcat
Applications
1 198 (6.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.43%) MS Visio
3 40 (1.40%) Microsoft Office
4 31 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 30 (1.05%) Spreadsheet
6 13 (0.45%) AutoCAD
7 10 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
8 8 (0.28%) CATIA
8 8 (0.28%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.28%) Revit
9 7 (0.24%) ProjectWise
10 6 (0.21%) Simulink
11 5 (0.17%) 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
1 123 (4.29%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.01%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.45%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.42%) iTrent
5 12 (0.42%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.42%) Teamcenter
6 11 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 11 (0.38%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
7 10 (0.35%) SAP SD
8 9 (0.31%) Aladdin
8 9 (0.31%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.31%) 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 (0.24%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 619 (21.61%) Azure
2 343 (11.97%) AWS
3 305 (10.65%) Power Platform
4 161 (5.62%) Azure DevOps
5 154 (5.38%) GCP
6 136 (4.75%) GitHub
7 98 (3.42%) Snowflake
8 77 (2.69%) Entra ID
9 76 (2.65%) Azure Data Factory
9 76 (2.65%) GitHub Actions
10 65 (2.27%) Serverless
11 54 (1.88%) Microsoft 365
12 53 (1.85%) Amazon S3
13 52 (1.82%) SaaS
14 47 (1.64%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 46 (1.61%) dbt
16 45 (1.57%) SuccessFactors
17 44 (1.54%) OCI
18 36 (1.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 34 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 115 (4.01%) Firewall
2 67 (2.34%) DNS
2 67 (2.34%) Network Security
3 55 (1.92%) VLAN
4 53 (1.85%) VPN
5 44 (1.54%) TCP/IP
6 39 (1.36%) BGP
6 39 (1.36%) WAN
7 31 (1.08%) DHCP
8 25 (0.87%) OSPF
9 23 (0.80%) LAN
10 22 (0.77%) Internet
10 22 (0.77%) SAN
11 21 (0.73%) SD-WAN
12 20 (0.70%) VXLAN
12 20 (0.70%) Wireless
13 19 (0.66%) Ethernet
14 18 (0.63%) Ethernet VPN
15 17 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
16 15 (0.52%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 284 (9.91%) Power BI
2 170 (5.93%) Data Warehouse
3 119 (4.15%) Metadata
4 104 (3.63%) SQL Server
5 101 (3.53%) PostgreSQL
6 90 (3.14%) Relational Database
7 89 (3.11%) Data Lake
8 76 (2.65%) Tableau
9 38 (1.33%) Big Data
10 36 (1.26%) MongoDB
11 34 (1.19%) NoSQL
12 33 (1.15%) Delta Lake
12 33 (1.15%) SAS Enterprise Guide
13 32 (1.12%) Oracle Reports
14 31 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 30 (1.05%) Azure SQL Database
15 30 (1.05%) Oracle Database
16 29 (1.01%) BigQuery
16 29 (1.01%) MySQL
17 28 (0.98%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 256 (8.94%) JIRA
2 192 (6.70%) Git
3 109 (3.80%) Jenkins
4 87 (3.04%) GitLab
5 73 (2.55%) Selenium
6 50 (1.75%) JMeter
7 47 (1.64%) Postman
8 39 (1.36%) Cucumber
9 37 (1.29%) JUnit
10 35 (1.22%) WebDriver
11 23 (0.80%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.63%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.56%) Gatling
13 16 (0.56%) Visual Studio
14 14 (0.49%) Cypress.io
14 14 (0.49%) REST Assured
15 13 (0.45%) Maven
15 13 (0.45%) Rational Rhapsody
16 12 (0.42%) Gradle
16 12 (0.42%) Oracle Forms
General
1 825 (28.80%) Social Skills
2 802 (27.99%) Finance
3 569 (19.86%) Analytical Skills
4 246 (8.59%) Public Sector
5 206 (7.19%) Banking
6 150 (5.24%) Documentation Skills
7 110 (3.84%) Manufacturing
8 97 (3.39%) Retail
9 70 (2.44%) Aerospace
10 64 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 62 (2.16%) Pharmaceutical
12 57 (1.99%) Telecoms
13 53 (1.85%) Organisational Skills
14 51 (1.78%) Automotive
15 45 (1.57%) Legal
16 43 (1.50%) Marketing
17 42 (1.47%) Front Office
18 41 (1.43%) Law
18 41 (1.43%) Local Government
19 38 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 500 (17.45%) Analyst
2 311 (10.86%) Senior
3 284 (9.91%) Lead
4 239 (8.34%) Business Analyst
5 233 (8.13%) Data Engineer
6 219 (7.64%) Consultant
7 173 (6.04%) Developer
8 140 (4.89%) Architect
8 140 (4.89%) Data Analyst
9 108 (3.77%) Test Engineer
10 85 (2.97%) Tester
11 73 (2.55%) Project Manager
12 67 (2.34%) Network Engineer
13 60 (2.09%) Administrator
13 60 (2.09%) Systems Engineer
14 55 (1.92%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 54 (1.88%) Technical Analyst
16 52 (1.82%) Senior Data Engineer
17 46 (1.61%) Senior Analyst
18 45 (1.57%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 162 (5.65%) REST
2 87 (3.04%) JSON
3 76 (2.65%) Kafka
3 76 (2.65%) PySpark
3 76 (2.65%) XML
4 62 (2.16%) Middleware
5 52 (1.82%) Oracle Fusion
6 50 (1.75%) .NET
6 50 (1.75%) Spring
7 48 (1.68%) Playwright
8 47 (1.64%) pytest
9 42 (1.47%) SOAP
10 39 (1.36%) Web Services
11 35 (1.22%) OAuth
12 32 (1.12%) Pandas
12 32 (1.12%) RESTful
13 31 (1.08%) Spring Boot
14 29 (1.01%) Node.js
15 26 (0.91%) WireMock
16 24 (0.84%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 161 (5.62%) Onboarding
2 151 (5.27%) Data Structures
3 129 (4.50%) Legacy Systems
4 126 (4.40%) Cloud Native
4 126 (4.40%) Product Ownership
5 91 (3.18%) Management Information System
6 85 (2.97%) Data Centre
7 52 (1.82%) Distributed Systems
8 50 (1.75%) Enterprise Software
9 49 (1.71%) Analytical Mindset
10 43 (1.50%) Life Science
11 42 (1.47%) AI Agents
12 41 (1.43%) Data Protection Act
12 41 (1.43%) SCADA
13 38 (1.33%) Replication
14 34 (1.19%) Algorithms
14 34 (1.19%) NHS
14 34 (1.19%) Operational Technology
15 33 (1.15%) Public Cloud
16 30 (1.05%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 171 (5.97%) Windows
2 119 (4.15%) Linux
3 63 (2.20%) Windows Server
4 42 (1.47%) Unix
5 19 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.42%) Android
7 11 (0.38%) Ubuntu
7 11 (0.38%) Windows 10
8 10 (0.35%) VMS
9 8 (0.28%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.21%) Windows 7
11 5 (0.17%) 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
1 774 (27.02%) Migration
2 573 (20.00%) Agile
3 555 (19.37%) Stakeholder Management
4 520 (18.15%) CI/CD
5 476 (16.61%) User Acceptance Testing
6 466 (16.27%) Analytics
7 460 (16.06%) Data Migration
8 459 (16.02%) Data Modelling
9 455 (15.88%) Data Validation
9 455 (15.88%) Problem-Solving
10 375 (13.09%) AI
11 371 (12.95%) DevOps
12 366 (12.77%) Test Automation
13 364 (12.71%) Continuous Improvement
14 329 (11.48%) ETL
15 319 (11.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 318 (11.10%) Business Intelligence
17 298 (10.40%) Data Pipeline
18 287 (10.02%) Data Governance
19 276 (9.63%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 722 (25.20%) SQL
2 544 (18.99%) Python
3 139 (4.85%) Java
4 85 (2.97%) PowerShell
5 61 (2.13%) C#
6 58 (2.02%) Bash
7 53 (1.85%) JavaScript
8 42 (1.47%) C++
9 34 (1.19%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.08%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 30 (1.05%) Apex Code
12 28 (0.98%) Bicep
13 26 (0.91%) C
14 25 (0.87%) PL/SQL
15 23 (0.80%) R
16 22 (0.77%) VBA
17 18 (0.63%) T-SQL
18 17 (0.59%) Shell Script
19 16 (0.56%) MATLAB
20 13 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 533 (18.60%) Security Cleared
2 392 (13.68%) SC Cleared
3 184 (6.42%) Degree
4 68 (2.37%) DV Cleared
5 61 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (1.57%) Cisco Certification
7 43 (1.50%) Computer Science Degree
8 36 (1.26%) CCNP
9 28 (0.98%) ISTQB
10 25 (0.87%) ACCA
11 24 (0.84%) CIMA
12 23 (0.80%) AWS Certification
13 22 (0.77%) Azure Certification
14 21 (0.73%) PMI Certification
15 20 (0.70%) PMP
16 17 (0.59%) CCNA
16 17 (0.59%) CISSP
17 16 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
18 13 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
19 11 (0.38%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 551 (19.23%) Data Quality
2 365 (12.74%) QA
3 122 (4.26%) GDPR
4 52 (1.82%) NIST
5 46 (1.61%) Accessibility
5 46 (1.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 39 (1.36%) GxP
7 38 (1.33%) PMO
7 38 (1.33%) SLA
8 22 (0.77%) GRC
9 20 (0.70%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 18 (0.63%) GMP
10 18 (0.63%) ISO 20022
11 14 (0.49%) Def Stans
11 14 (0.49%) NCSC
12 13 (0.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 13 (0.45%) WCAG
13 12 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.42%) HL7
14 11 (0.38%) IFRS
System Software
1 123 (4.29%) Docker
2 97 (3.39%) Active Directory
3 80 (2.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.26%) Virtual Machines
5 28 (0.98%) VMware ESXi
6 23 (0.80%) Firmware
6 23 (0.80%) Hyper-V
7 21 (0.73%) vSphere
8 20 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
9 14 (0.49%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.14%) KVM
11 4 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.10%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.070%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.070%) NFS
13 2 (0.070%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.070%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.035%) Ceph
14 1 (0.035%) etcd
Systems Management
1 158 (5.51%) Kubernetes
2 148 (5.17%) Terraform
3 72 (2.51%) Ansible
4 53 (1.85%) Grafana
5 45 (1.57%) Prometheus
6 27 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
7 24 (0.84%) FortiGate
8 23 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.45%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.42%) SCCM
11 10 (0.35%) HP ALM
11 10 (0.35%) VxRail
12 8 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
13 7 (0.24%) Argo
14 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Clustering
14 5 (0.17%) systemd
14 5 (0.17%) vRealize
15 4 (0.14%) Consul
15 4 (0.14%) Progress Chef
15 4 (0.14%) Puppet
Vendors
1 428 (14.94%) Microsoft
2 261 (9.11%) SAP
3 247 (8.62%) Oracle
4 157 (5.48%) Databricks
5 93 (3.25%) Salesforce
5 93 (3.25%) VMware
6 78 (2.72%) ServiceNow
7 67 (2.34%) Cisco
8 51 (1.78%) Google
9 43 (1.50%) Workday
10 39 (1.36%) Informatica
11 32 (1.12%) IBM
12 29 (1.01%) Fortinet
12 29 (1.01%) Juniper
12 29 (1.01%) Palo Alto
13 27 (0.94%) Zscaler
14 26 (0.91%) MuleSoft
15 22 (0.77%) Sage
15 22 (0.77%) Splunk
16 21 (0.73%) Ariba