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

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 66 111
Rank change year-on-year +34 +45 +33
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,058 1,221 799
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.60% 3.71% 2.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.64% 4.10% 2.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,806 696 392
10th Percentile £331 £325 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £511 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.20% +2.25% -7.41%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £591
90th Percentile £703 £688 £662
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £485
% change year-on-year -7.50% +3.15% -5.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 192 86 102
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £29.79
25th Percentile £26.52 £41.25 £48.75
Median hourly rate £52.75 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.85% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £71.60 £67.00 £70.81
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -17.69% - -7.14%

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 46,068 29,787 33,025
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.40% 90.53% 85.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,926 18,499 20,227
10th Percentile £325 £300 £309
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 £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,164 1,816 1,455
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.23 £14.90
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -1.91%
75th Percentile £67.48 £44.05 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.03 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.91% -47.67% +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 20 September 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 20 September 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 20 September 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 +34 2,622 £500 -2.44% 4,044
UK excluding London +29 1,400 £463 -7.50% 2,409
London +32 1,284 £525 - 1,979
Work from Home +26 837 £500 - 1,484
North of England +47 341 £450 +4.65% 398
South East +5 331 £525 +5.00% 634
Midlands +37 305 £473 +2.27% 344
West Midlands +25 214 £464 +3.02% 237
North West +18 163 £450 +5.88% 223
Yorkshire +46 153 £460 -3.16% 113
South West +16 151 £525 -4.55% 323
East of England -3 138 £450 -11.33% 348
Scotland +41 127 £440 -13.04% 283
East Midlands +25 87 £489 -2.25% 107
North East -25 30 £425 -11.92% 65
Wales 0 25 £394 +5.00% 58
Northern Ireland +5 4 £363 -40.33% 51
Channel Islands -5 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 86 (2.81%) Confluence
2 66 (2.16%) Apache Airflow
3 61 (1.99%) SharePoint
4 54 (1.77%) SAS
5 44 (1.44%) Apache Spark
6 32 (1.05%) Apache
7 20 (0.65%) Microsoft Exchange
8 15 (0.49%) CMS
9 14 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
10 10 (0.33%) Jupyter
11 9 (0.29%) SharePoint 2013
12 8 (0.26%) Palantir Foundry
13 7 (0.23%) ArcGIS
13 7 (0.23%) Sitecore CMS
14 6 (0.20%) OpenStack
14 6 (0.20%) WebLogic
15 5 (0.16%) Tuxedo
16 4 (0.13%) Headless CMS
16 4 (0.13%) IIS
16 4 (0.13%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 214 (7.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
3 38 (1.24%) MS Visio
4 34 (1.11%) Spreadsheet
5 31 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 16 (0.52%) AutoCAD
7 11 (0.36%) Navisworks
7 11 (0.36%) Revit
8 10 (0.33%) ProjectWise
9 8 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
10 6 (0.20%) CATIA
10 6 (0.20%) Simulink
11 4 (0.13%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.065%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.065%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.065%) Windchill
13 1 (0.033%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.033%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.033%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.033%) Trello
Business Applications
1 115 (3.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.49%) Oracle EBS
2 15 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
2 15 (0.49%) SAP SD
3 13 (0.43%) NetSuite
3 13 (0.43%) SAP FI
3 13 (0.43%) Teamcenter
4 12 (0.39%) SAP MDG
4 12 (0.39%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.36%) Aladdin
5 11 (0.36%) iTrent
5 11 (0.36%) SAP HCM
5 11 (0.36%) SAP MM
6 9 (0.29%) Integrated Workplace Management System
6 9 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
6 9 (0.29%) SAP CO
6 9 (0.29%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
6 9 (0.29%) SAP PS
7 8 (0.26%) Oracle Assets
Cloud Services
1 606 (19.82%) Azure
2 347 (11.35%) AWS
3 309 (10.10%) Power Platform
4 183 (5.98%) Azure DevOps
5 149 (4.87%) GCP
6 142 (4.64%) GitHub
7 107 (3.50%) Snowflake
8 93 (3.04%) Entra ID
9 74 (2.42%) GitHub Actions
10 68 (2.22%) Azure Data Factory
11 60 (1.96%) Serverless
12 58 (1.90%) Amazon S3
12 58 (1.90%) dbt
12 58 (1.90%) SaaS
13 56 (1.83%) Microsoft 365
14 40 (1.31%) SuccessFactors
15 38 (1.24%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 37 (1.21%) Azure Monitor
17 35 (1.14%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 32 (1.05%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 113 (3.70%) Firewall
2 76 (2.49%) DNS
3 70 (2.29%) VLAN
4 61 (1.99%) Network Security
5 55 (1.80%) VPN
6 50 (1.64%) BGP
7 47 (1.54%) TCP/IP
8 44 (1.44%) WAN
9 35 (1.14%) DHCP
10 30 (0.98%) OSPF
11 29 (0.95%) VXLAN
12 26 (0.85%) Ethernet VPN
12 26 (0.85%) Wireless
13 24 (0.78%) LAN
14 23 (0.75%) Ethernet
15 22 (0.72%) Internet
15 22 (0.72%) SD-WAN
16 21 (0.69%) HTTP
17 20 (0.65%) 5G
17 20 (0.65%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 288 (9.42%) Power BI
2 169 (5.53%) Data Warehouse
3 133 (4.35%) Metadata
4 118 (3.86%) Relational Database
5 100 (3.27%) SQL Server
6 92 (3.01%) PostgreSQL
7 86 (2.81%) Data Lake
8 73 (2.39%) Tableau
9 42 (1.37%) Oracle Database
10 38 (1.24%) Delta Lake
10 38 (1.24%) MongoDB
11 37 (1.21%) Big Data
12 36 (1.18%) BigQuery
12 36 (1.18%) Power Query
13 33 (1.08%) NoSQL
14 32 (1.05%) Oracle Reports
15 31 (1.01%) Redis
15 31 (1.01%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 29 (0.95%) MySQL
17 28 (0.92%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 269 (8.80%) JIRA
2 228 (7.46%) Git
3 105 (3.43%) Jenkins
4 93 (3.04%) GitLab
5 83 (2.71%) Selenium
6 43 (1.41%) Postman
7 35 (1.14%) JMeter
8 26 (0.85%) Cucumber
9 23 (0.75%) Rational DOORS
10 21 (0.69%) WebDriver
11 20 (0.65%) JUnit
12 17 (0.56%) Cypress.io
12 17 (0.56%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.52%) REST Assured
13 16 (0.52%) Visual Studio
13 16 (0.52%) Zephyr
14 15 (0.49%) Gatling
15 14 (0.46%) Oracle Forms
16 12 (0.39%) Rational Rhapsody
17 11 (0.36%) Gradle
General
1 878 (28.71%) Social Skills
2 869 (28.42%) Finance
3 620 (20.27%) Analytical Skills
4 269 (8.80%) Banking
5 258 (8.44%) Public Sector
6 142 (4.64%) Documentation Skills
7 123 (4.02%) Manufacturing
8 97 (3.17%) Retail
9 71 (2.32%) Automotive
10 70 (2.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 70 (2.29%) Telecoms
11 60 (1.96%) Organisational Skills
12 57 (1.86%) Legal
13 53 (1.73%) Aerospace
13 53 (1.73%) Marketing
14 52 (1.70%) Pharmaceutical
15 46 (1.50%) Front Office
16 44 (1.44%) Law
17 42 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
18 41 (1.34%) Billing
Job Titles
1 528 (17.27%) Analyst
2 351 (11.48%) Senior
3 278 (9.09%) Lead
4 243 (7.95%) Consultant
5 239 (7.82%) Business Analyst
6 238 (7.78%) Data Engineer
7 198 (6.47%) Developer
8 159 (5.20%) Data Analyst
9 158 (5.17%) Architect
10 112 (3.66%) Test Engineer
11 79 (2.58%) Network Engineer
12 78 (2.55%) Tester
13 64 (2.09%) Systems Engineer
14 61 (1.99%) Administrator
15 58 (1.90%) Senior Data Engineer
16 56 (1.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 56 (1.83%) Senior Analyst
17 51 (1.67%) Software Engineer
18 50 (1.64%) Project Manager
19 48 (1.57%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 195 (6.38%) REST
2 176 (5.76%) Terraform
3 99 (3.24%) JSON
4 89 (2.91%) PySpark
5 83 (2.71%) XML
6 82 (2.68%) Middleware
7 74 (2.42%) Kafka
8 60 (1.96%) Playwright
9 56 (1.83%) .NET
10 51 (1.67%) Web Services
11 50 (1.64%) pytest
11 50 (1.64%) SOAP
12 47 (1.54%) OAuth
13 46 (1.50%) Oracle Fusion
14 40 (1.31%) RESTful
15 39 (1.28%) Pandas
16 37 (1.21%) Spring
17 34 (1.11%) HTML
17 34 (1.11%) Node.js
17 34 (1.11%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 171 (5.59%) Onboarding
2 162 (5.30%) Data Structures
3 138 (4.51%) Cloud Native
4 122 (3.99%) Legacy Systems
5 116 (3.79%) Product Ownership
6 114 (3.73%) Management Information System
7 91 (2.98%) Data Centre
8 56 (1.83%) Distributed Systems
9 55 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
10 54 (1.77%) AI Agents
11 46 (1.50%) Analytical Mindset
12 43 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
13 42 (1.37%) Life Science
13 42 (1.37%) SCADA
14 38 (1.24%) Operational Technology
15 37 (1.21%) Algorithms
15 37 (1.21%) NHS
15 37 (1.21%) Replication
16 34 (1.11%) CMDB
17 32 (1.05%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 205 (6.70%) Windows
2 136 (4.45%) Linux
3 80 (2.62%) Windows Server
4 56 (1.83%) Unix
5 22 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.52%) Android
6 16 (0.52%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.36%) Ubuntu
7 11 (0.36%) VMS
8 9 (0.29%) AIX
8 9 (0.29%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.23%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.13%) SUSE
10 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.098%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.065%) HPUX
12 2 (0.065%) Solaris
12 2 (0.065%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.065%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 821 (26.85%) Migration
2 668 (21.84%) Stakeholder Management
3 597 (19.52%) Agile
4 595 (19.46%) CI/CD
5 498 (16.29%) Data Modelling
6 492 (16.09%) User Acceptance Testing
7 491 (16.06%) Analytics
8 477 (15.60%) Data Validation
9 473 (15.47%) Data Migration
9 473 (15.47%) Problem-Solving
10 421 (13.77%) AI
11 411 (13.44%) DevOps
12 403 (13.18%) Continuous Improvement
12 403 (13.18%) Test Automation
13 346 (11.31%) ETL
14 330 (10.79%) Business Intelligence
15 317 (10.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 314 (10.27%) Data Analysis
17 310 (10.14%) Data Governance
18 307 (10.04%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 800 (26.16%) SQL
2 645 (21.09%) Python
3 152 (4.97%) Java
4 105 (3.43%) PowerShell
5 75 (2.45%) C#
5 75 (2.45%) JavaScript
6 64 (2.09%) Bash
7 44 (1.44%) C++
7 44 (1.44%) TypeScript
8 32 (1.05%) Apex Code
9 31 (1.01%) R
10 29 (0.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 29 (0.95%) PL/SQL
10 29 (0.95%) Shell Script
11 26 (0.85%) C
12 25 (0.82%) Bicep
13 18 (0.59%) T-SQL
13 18 (0.59%) VBA
14 16 (0.52%) Go
15 15 (0.49%) Scala
Qualifications
1 599 (19.59%) Security Cleared
2 443 (14.49%) SC Cleared
3 204 (6.67%) Degree
4 85 (2.78%) DV Cleared
5 68 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.64%) Computer Science Degree
7 47 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
8 38 (1.24%) CCNP
9 34 (1.11%) AWS Certification
10 31 (1.01%) ACCA
10 31 (1.01%) CIMA
11 29 (0.95%) ISTQB
12 27 (0.88%) Azure Certification
13 23 (0.75%) PMI Certification
14 22 (0.72%) PMP
15 21 (0.69%) CISSP
16 19 (0.62%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 17 (0.56%) Master's Degree
18 16 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
19 15 (0.49%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 634 (20.73%) Data Quality
2 374 (12.23%) QA
3 104 (3.40%) GDPR
4 54 (1.77%) Accessibility
5 45 (1.47%) SLA
6 38 (1.24%) NIST
7 36 (1.18%) GxP
7 36 (1.18%) PMO
8 35 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 22 (0.72%) ISO 20022
10 21 (0.69%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 21 (0.69%) GRC
11 20 (0.65%) WCAG
12 17 (0.56%) GMP
13 15 (0.49%) NCSC
14 14 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.36%) Def Stans
15 11 (0.36%) IFRS
15 11 (0.36%) MiFID
16 10 (0.33%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 115 (3.76%) Docker
2 101 (3.30%) Active Directory
3 90 (2.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (1.28%) Virtual Machines
5 36 (1.18%) VMware ESXi
6 31 (1.01%) Firmware
7 26 (0.85%) Hyper-V
7 26 (0.85%) vSphere
8 23 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
9 16 (0.52%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.16%) KVM
12 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.098%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.065%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.065%) OpenSSH
14 2 (0.065%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.033%) Ceph
15 1 (0.033%) etcd
15 1 (0.033%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 145 (4.74%) Kubernetes
2 99 (3.24%) Ansible
3 43 (1.41%) Grafana
4 34 (1.11%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
6 26 (0.85%) FortiGate
7 20 (0.65%) SCCM
8 18 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.49%) HP ALM
9 15 (0.49%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.33%) Failover Clustering
10 10 (0.33%) VxRail
11 9 (0.29%) Argo
11 9 (0.29%) Progress Chef
12 8 (0.26%) Functional Safety
13 6 (0.20%) Control-M
13 6 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
14 5 (0.16%) Kibana
14 5 (0.16%) systemd
14 5 (0.16%) vMotion
Vendors
1 463 (15.14%) Microsoft
2 257 (8.40%) SAP
3 250 (8.18%) Oracle
4 168 (5.49%) Databricks
5 104 (3.40%) VMware
6 98 (3.20%) Salesforce
7 88 (2.88%) Cisco
8 83 (2.71%) ServiceNow
9 62 (2.03%) Google
10 52 (1.70%) Workday
11 47 (1.54%) IBM
12 35 (1.14%) Informatica
13 33 (1.08%) Fortinet
14 31 (1.01%) Zscaler
15 29 (0.95%) Juniper
15 29 (0.95%) Palo Alto
16 24 (0.78%) Splunk
17 22 (0.72%) MuleSoft
18 19 (0.62%) Red Hat
19 18 (0.59%) Sage