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

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 65 106
Rank change year-on-year +34 +41 +42
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,141 1,241 819
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.75% 3.74% 2.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.81% 4.13% 2.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,834 710 412
10th Percentile £340 £349 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £591
90th Percentile £701 £688 £662
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £500 £482
% change year-on-year -6.99% +3.73% -6.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 207 87 98
10th Percentile £17.17 £23.20 £28.00
25th Percentile £26.71 £41.25 £47.63
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% +4.00% -5.27%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -15.38% +4.00% -7.45%

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 46,144 30,062 32,646
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.46% 90.58% 85.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,776 18,666 19,743
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £634 £625 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,300 1,877 1,341
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.33 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.12 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £38.62 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.57% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £65.06 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £65.18 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.00 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.77% -48.10% +1.18%

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 4 October 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 4 October 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 4 October 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 2,686 £500 -2.44% 4,782
UK excluding London +33 1,444 £465 -6.99% 3,425
London +38 1,308 £525 - 2,028
Work from Home +25 863 £500 - 2,278
North of England +46 356 £457 +6.22% 586
South East +6 332 £525 +5.00% 795
Midlands +41 300 £463 -7.50% 467
West Midlands +22 213 £458 -9.85% 294
North West +27 178 £467 +9.88% 296
South West +22 174 £525 -4.55% 401
Yorkshire +54 149 £461 -2.89% 187
Scotland +49 145 £467 -7.71% 530
East of England -7 140 £475 -5.00% 408
East Midlands +32 84 £488 -4.88% 173
North East -17 34 £425 -11.92% 105
Wales -1 25 £394 +5.00% 164
Northern Ireland +2 4 £363 -27.50% 113
Channel Islands -4 1 - - 2

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 95 (3.02%) Confluence
2 64 (2.04%) Apache Airflow
3 62 (1.97%) SharePoint
4 50 (1.59%) Apache Spark
5 46 (1.46%) SAS
6 42 (1.34%) Apache
7 20 (0.64%) CMS
8 18 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
9 14 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
10 12 (0.38%) Jupyter
11 9 (0.29%) IIS
11 9 (0.29%) SharePoint 2013
12 8 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
13 7 (0.22%) Sitecore CMS
13 7 (0.22%) WebLogic
14 6 (0.19%) OpenStack
15 5 (0.16%) ArcGIS
15 5 (0.16%) CICS
15 5 (0.16%) Tomcat
15 5 (0.16%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 204 (6.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 48 (1.53%) Microsoft Office
3 39 (1.24%) MS Visio
4 30 (0.96%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 17 (0.54%) AutoCAD
7 12 (0.38%) Navisworks
7 12 (0.38%) Revit
8 10 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
8 10 (0.32%) ProjectWise
9 9 (0.29%) Simulink
10 5 (0.16%) CATIA
10 5 (0.16%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.096%) OrCAD
12 2 (0.064%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.064%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.064%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.032%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.032%) Trello
13 1 (0.032%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 113 (3.60%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.54%) SAP FI
2 17 (0.54%) Workday HCM
3 16 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
4 15 (0.48%) SAP SD
5 14 (0.45%) Integrated Workplace Management System
5 14 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
5 14 (0.45%) SAP HCM
6 13 (0.41%) NetSuite
6 13 (0.41%) Teamcenter
7 12 (0.38%) Aladdin
7 12 (0.38%) SAP MDG
8 11 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
8 11 (0.35%) SAP MM
9 10 (0.32%) iTrent
9 10 (0.32%) SAP ERP
10 9 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
10 9 (0.29%) SAP CO
10 9 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
10 9 (0.29%) SAP PS
Cloud Services
1 601 (19.13%) Azure
2 350 (11.14%) AWS
3 318 (10.12%) Power Platform
4 185 (5.89%) Azure DevOps
5 161 (5.13%) GCP
6 150 (4.78%) GitHub
7 111 (3.53%) Snowflake
8 101 (3.22%) Entra ID
9 78 (2.48%) GitHub Actions
10 74 (2.36%) Azure Data Factory
11 63 (2.01%) Amazon S3
12 62 (1.97%) Serverless
13 61 (1.94%) Microsoft 365
14 59 (1.88%) SaaS
15 57 (1.81%) dbt
16 46 (1.46%) SuccessFactors
17 40 (1.27%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 39 (1.24%) Dynamics 365
19 36 (1.15%) Azure Monitor
20 35 (1.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 108 (3.44%) Firewall
2 79 (2.52%) DNS
3 61 (1.94%) VLAN
4 59 (1.88%) Network Security
5 57 (1.81%) VPN
6 50 (1.59%) BGP
7 49 (1.56%) TCP/IP
8 43 (1.37%) WAN
9 34 (1.08%) DHCP
10 30 (0.96%) VXLAN
11 29 (0.92%) OSPF
12 27 (0.86%) Ethernet VPN
13 26 (0.83%) Ethernet
13 26 (0.83%) Wireless
14 24 (0.76%) LAN
15 22 (0.70%) Internet
15 22 (0.70%) SD-WAN
15 22 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
16 20 (0.64%) 5G
16 20 (0.64%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 294 (9.36%) Power BI
2 171 (5.44%) Data Warehouse
3 142 (4.52%) Metadata
4 124 (3.95%) Relational Database
5 110 (3.50%) SQL Server
6 101 (3.22%) PostgreSQL
7 85 (2.71%) Data Lake
8 68 (2.16%) Tableau
9 42 (1.34%) MongoDB
10 39 (1.24%) Delta Lake
10 39 (1.24%) Oracle Database
11 38 (1.21%) BigQuery
12 37 (1.18%) Power Query
13 36 (1.15%) Big Data
14 35 (1.11%) Redis
15 34 (1.08%) NoSQL
16 30 (0.96%) Oracle Reports
17 29 (0.92%) MySQL
18 27 (0.86%) Azure SQL Database
19 26 (0.83%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 281 (8.95%) JIRA
2 233 (7.42%) Git
3 105 (3.34%) Jenkins
4 100 (3.18%) GitLab
5 81 (2.58%) Selenium
6 43 (1.37%) Postman
7 34 (1.08%) JMeter
8 26 (0.83%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.76%) Rational DOORS
10 22 (0.70%) JUnit
11 20 (0.64%) WebDriver
12 19 (0.60%) REST Assured
12 19 (0.60%) Zephyr
13 17 (0.54%) Eclipse
13 17 (0.54%) Visual Studio
14 16 (0.51%) Cypress.io
15 14 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
16 13 (0.41%) Gatling
16 13 (0.41%) TestRail
17 12 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 899 (28.62%) Finance
2 895 (28.49%) Social Skills
3 632 (20.12%) Analytical Skills
4 287 (9.14%) Banking
5 272 (8.66%) Public Sector
6 137 (4.36%) Manufacturing
7 131 (4.17%) Documentation Skills
8 94 (2.99%) Retail
9 77 (2.45%) Automotive
10 74 (2.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 71 (2.26%) Telecoms
12 60 (1.91%) Organisational Skills
13 59 (1.88%) Legal
14 56 (1.78%) Aerospace
15 53 (1.69%) Pharmaceutical
16 51 (1.62%) Marketing
17 46 (1.46%) Billing
17 46 (1.46%) Local Government
18 44 (1.40%) Front Office
19 43 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 527 (16.78%) Analyst
2 380 (12.10%) Senior
3 283 (9.01%) Lead
4 260 (8.28%) Consultant
5 253 (8.05%) Data Engineer
6 232 (7.39%) Business Analyst
7 206 (6.56%) Developer
8 170 (5.41%) Data Analyst
9 164 (5.22%) Architect
10 112 (3.57%) Test Engineer
11 79 (2.52%) Tester
12 77 (2.45%) Network Engineer
13 66 (2.10%) Senior Data Engineer
14 63 (2.01%) Administrator
15 60 (1.91%) Senior Analyst
16 59 (1.88%) Systems Engineer
17 56 (1.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 51 (1.62%) Software Engineer
19 47 (1.50%) Project Manager
20 46 (1.46%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 207 (6.59%) REST
2 197 (6.27%) Terraform
3 102 (3.25%) JSON
4 92 (2.93%) Middleware
4 92 (2.93%) PySpark
5 85 (2.71%) XML
6 74 (2.36%) Kafka
7 61 (1.94%) Playwright
8 58 (1.85%) .NET
8 58 (1.85%) OAuth
9 56 (1.78%) Web Services
10 53 (1.69%) SOAP
11 52 (1.66%) pytest
12 47 (1.50%) Oracle Fusion
13 46 (1.46%) RESTful
14 43 (1.37%) OpenID
15 41 (1.31%) OAuth2
16 38 (1.21%) Pandas
17 36 (1.15%) YAML
18 35 (1.11%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 177 (5.64%) Onboarding
2 172 (5.48%) Data Structures
3 146 (4.65%) Cloud Native
4 122 (3.88%) Legacy Systems
5 121 (3.85%) Management Information System
6 119 (3.79%) Product Ownership
7 96 (3.06%) Data Centre
8 66 (2.10%) Enterprise Software
9 63 (2.01%) AI Agents
10 61 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
11 46 (1.46%) Analytical Mindset
12 45 (1.43%) Life Science
13 42 (1.34%) Algorithms
13 42 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
13 42 (1.34%) SCADA
14 40 (1.27%) Replication
15 36 (1.15%) NHS
15 36 (1.15%) Operational Technology
16 35 (1.11%) CMDB
17 34 (1.08%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 218 (6.94%) Windows
2 140 (4.46%) Linux
3 89 (2.83%) Windows Server
4 60 (1.91%) Unix
5 22 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.51%) Windows 10
7 14 (0.45%) Android
8 11 (0.35%) AIX
8 11 (0.35%) Ubuntu
9 9 (0.29%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.22%) VMS
10 7 (0.22%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.19%) zOS
12 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
12 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.096%) CentOS
13 3 (0.096%) VxWorks
14 2 (0.064%) HPUX
14 2 (0.064%) Solaris
14 2 (0.064%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 854 (27.19%) Migration
2 703 (22.38%) Stakeholder Management
3 626 (19.93%) CI/CD
4 603 (19.20%) Agile
5 513 (16.33%) Data Modelling
6 509 (16.21%) User Acceptance Testing
7 503 (16.01%) Data Migration
8 498 (15.85%) Analytics
9 486 (15.47%) Problem-Solving
10 481 (15.31%) Data Validation
11 447 (14.23%) AI
12 437 (13.91%) Continuous Improvement
13 427 (13.59%) DevOps
14 423 (13.47%) Test Automation
15 352 (11.21%) ETL
16 340 (10.82%) Business Intelligence
17 323 (10.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 319 (10.16%) Data Analysis
18 319 (10.16%) Data Governance
19 305 (9.71%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 831 (26.46%) SQL
2 678 (21.59%) Python
3 156 (4.97%) Java
4 121 (3.85%) PowerShell
5 80 (2.55%) JavaScript
6 79 (2.52%) C#
7 66 (2.10%) Bash
8 50 (1.59%) TypeScript
9 45 (1.43%) C++
10 32 (1.02%) Shell Script
11 30 (0.96%) R
12 28 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 26 (0.83%) Apex Code
13 26 (0.83%) Bicep
13 26 (0.83%) C
13 26 (0.83%) PL/SQL
14 23 (0.73%) Go
15 20 (0.64%) VBA
16 19 (0.60%) T-SQL
17 17 (0.54%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 627 (19.96%) Security Cleared
2 472 (15.03%) SC Cleared
3 217 (6.91%) Degree
4 92 (2.93%) DV Cleared
5 76 (2.42%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.59%) Computer Science Degree
7 46 (1.46%) Cisco Certification
8 37 (1.18%) CCNP
9 36 (1.15%) AWS Certification
10 34 (1.08%) ACCA
10 34 (1.08%) CIMA
11 27 (0.86%) ISTQB
12 25 (0.80%) PMI Certification
13 24 (0.76%) Azure Certification
14 23 (0.73%) PMP
15 22 (0.70%) CISSP
16 21 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 20 (0.64%) Master's Degree
18 19 (0.60%) DBS Check
19 15 (0.48%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 660 (21.01%) Data Quality
2 375 (11.94%) QA
3 103 (3.28%) GDPR
4 53 (1.69%) Accessibility
5 52 (1.66%) SLA
6 36 (1.15%) GxP
6 36 (1.15%) PMO
7 35 (1.11%) NIST
8 31 (0.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 22 (0.70%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 22 (0.70%) GRC
10 21 (0.67%) ISO 20022
11 18 (0.57%) WCAG
12 17 (0.54%) GMP
13 16 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
14 14 (0.45%) NCSC
15 12 (0.38%) IFRS
16 11 (0.35%) ISO 19650
16 11 (0.35%) MiFID
17 10 (0.32%) Def Stans
System Software
1 117 (3.72%) Active Directory
2 111 (3.53%) Docker
3 93 (2.96%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (1.18%) VMware ESXi
5 36 (1.15%) Virtual Machines
6 27 (0.86%) Firmware
7 26 (0.83%) Hyper-V
8 25 (0.80%) Virtual Desktop
9 23 (0.73%) vSphere
10 16 (0.51%) VMware NSX
11 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.16%) KVM
13 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
13 4 (0.13%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.064%) OpenSSH
14 2 (0.064%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.032%) HDFS
15 1 (0.032%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.032%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 1 (0.032%) NFS
Systems Management
1 155 (4.93%) Kubernetes
2 111 (3.53%) Ansible
3 40 (1.27%) Grafana
4 34 (1.08%) Prometheus
5 26 (0.83%) FortiGate
6 25 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
7 20 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
8 19 (0.60%) SCCM
9 14 (0.45%) HP ALM
10 11 (0.35%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.32%) Functional Safety
11 10 (0.32%) Progress Chef
12 9 (0.29%) Argo
12 9 (0.29%) Control-M
13 6 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
13 6 (0.19%) Kibana
13 6 (0.19%) VxRail
14 5 (0.16%) vMotion
14 5 (0.16%) vRealize
15 4 (0.13%) systemd
Vendors
1 486 (15.47%) Microsoft
2 262 (8.34%) SAP
3 247 (7.86%) Oracle
4 179 (5.70%) Databricks
5 107 (3.41%) VMware
6 96 (3.06%) ServiceNow
7 90 (2.87%) Cisco
8 89 (2.83%) Salesforce
9 72 (2.29%) Google
10 58 (1.85%) Workday
11 52 (1.66%) IBM
12 35 (1.11%) Informatica
13 34 (1.08%) Fortinet
14 30 (0.96%) Palo Alto
14 30 (0.96%) Zscaler
15 27 (0.86%) Juniper
16 21 (0.67%) Sage
17 20 (0.64%) CyberArk
17 20 (0.64%) Red Hat
17 20 (0.64%) Splunk