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 5 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 64 112 145
Rank change year-on-year +48 +33 -5
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,400 776 805
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.84% 2.15% 1.79%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.31% 2.46% 2.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 833 391 462
10th Percentile £360 £332 £350
25th Percentile £413 £404 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £606 £588 £625
90th Percentile £688 £675 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £514
% change year-on-year - -7.63% +2.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 74 90
10th Percentile £30.90 £28.00 £51.24
25th Percentile £41.25 £45.22 £58.75
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £68.03
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -8.13% +9.73%
75th Percentile £67.25 £65.00 £84.36
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £61.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year +5.69% -12.14% +13.82%

All Process and 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 32,500 31,582 39,830
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.05% 87.42% 88.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,460 19,152 26,649
10th Percentile £300 £310 £312
25th Percentile £405 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £743 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,092 1,104 1,551
10th Percentile £14.54 £15.25 £14.36
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.23 £18.95
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.75 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.21% -22.94% +21.43%
75th Percentile £45.53 £63.51 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £73.93 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.85 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -29.71% -23.53% +30.77%

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 5 December 2025.

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 5 December 2025.

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 5 December 2025. 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 +46 1,209 £500 - 771
UK excluding London +22 660 £475 - 723
London +78 563 £520 +4.00% 150
Work from Home +80 441 £500 -6.98% 328
South East +11 158 £500 +17.65% 274
North of England +22 140 £425 -12.82% 131
East of England +21 115 £492 +31.25% 130
South West -3 98 £475 -18.24% 105
Midlands +2 94 £506 +24.55% 102
North West +20 87 £415 -10.03% 79
West Midlands +4 78 £515 +8.42% 67
Yorkshire -4 38 £430 +2.38% 39
Scotland +28 36 £450 -1.10% 19
East Midlands -9 16 £456 +14.06% 33
North East +6 15 £475 -32.14% 14
Northern Ireland +8 14 £425 - 3
Wales +2 12 £447 - 11
Channel Islands - 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 57 (4.07%) Confluence
2 32 (2.29%) Apache Spark
3 31 (2.21%) SharePoint
4 26 (1.86%) SAS
5 20 (1.43%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (1.36%) Microsoft Exchange
7 14 (1.00%) Apache
7 14 (1.00%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.86%) WebLogic
9 9 (0.64%) Oracle Service Bus
9 9 (0.64%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 8 (0.57%) CMS
11 7 (0.50%) Exchange Server 2013
11 7 (0.50%) Mattermost
12 6 (0.43%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.21%) Anypoint
14 3 (0.21%) ArcGIS
14 3 (0.21%) CICS
14 3 (0.21%) GeoServer
Applications
1 89 (6.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 37 (2.64%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (2.00%) MS Visio
4 20 (1.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (0.64%) Chatbot
6 8 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
7 6 (0.43%) Sketch
8 4 (0.29%) Notion
9 3 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
10 2 (0.14%) Oracle Smart View
10 2 (0.14%) Simulink
11 1 (0.071%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.071%) NASTRAN
11 1 (0.071%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.071%) Stateflow
11 1 (0.071%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 80 (5.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.00%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.93%) SAP MDG
4 12 (0.86%) SAP EHS
4 12 (0.86%) SAP FI
5 10 (0.71%) Aladdin
5 10 (0.71%) Remedy ITSM
6 9 (0.64%) NetSuite
6 9 (0.64%) Oracle BPM
7 8 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
7 8 (0.57%) Oracle Payables
8 7 (0.50%) OpenText VIM for SAP
8 7 (0.50%) Oracle Receivables
8 7 (0.50%) SAP MM
9 6 (0.43%) SAP ERP
10 5 (0.36%) Markit EDM
10 5 (0.36%) SAP PLM
10 5 (0.36%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 5 (0.36%) Workday HCM
11 4 (0.29%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 318 (22.71%) Azure
2 158 (11.29%) AWS
3 125 (8.93%) Azure DevOps
4 123 (8.79%) Power Platform
5 61 (4.36%) GitHub
6 59 (4.21%) GCP
7 42 (3.00%) SaaS
8 40 (2.86%) Entra ID
8 40 (2.86%) GitHub Actions
9 34 (2.43%) Serverless
10 31 (2.21%) Microsoft 365
11 30 (2.14%) OpenShift
12 29 (2.07%) Azure Data Factory
13 26 (1.86%) Snowflake
14 23 (1.64%) Amazon S3
14 23 (1.64%) Dynamics 365
15 22 (1.57%) OCI
16 18 (1.29%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 17 (1.21%) Tricentis Tosca
18 16 (1.14%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 38 (2.71%) Firewall
2 35 (2.50%) TCP/IP
3 25 (1.79%) DNS
4 22 (1.57%) Ethernet
5 20 (1.43%) WAN
6 16 (1.14%) VPN
7 15 (1.07%) 3GPP
8 14 (1.00%) BGP
8 14 (1.00%) HTTP
8 14 (1.00%) LTE
8 14 (1.00%) Skype
9 13 (0.93%) MPLS
9 13 (0.93%) OSPF
10 12 (0.86%) Network Security
10 12 (0.86%) SSL
10 12 (0.86%) Wireless
11 11 (0.79%) SD-WAN
12 10 (0.71%) LAN
13 9 (0.64%) SNMP
13 9 (0.64%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 116 (8.29%) Power BI
2 68 (4.86%) Data Warehouse
3 60 (4.29%) Metadata
4 43 (3.07%) Tableau
5 32 (2.29%) SQL Server
6 27 (1.93%) Oracle Database
7 25 (1.79%) NoSQL
8 24 (1.71%) Data Lake
9 23 (1.64%) Relational Database
10 21 (1.50%) Azure SQL Database
11 20 (1.43%) Oracle Reports
12 19 (1.36%) PostgreSQL
13 18 (1.29%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 17 (1.21%) Delta Lake
15 16 (1.14%) BigQuery
16 15 (1.07%) SAP Data Services
17 14 (1.00%) Big Data
17 14 (1.00%) Geospatial Data
17 14 (1.00%) Parquet
17 14 (1.00%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 143 (10.21%) JIRA
2 70 (5.00%) Git
3 69 (4.93%) Jenkins
4 44 (3.14%) Selenium
5 43 (3.07%) Postman
6 42 (3.00%) GitLab
7 32 (2.29%) Oracle APEX
8 27 (1.93%) Visual Studio
9 22 (1.57%) Eclipse
10 21 (1.50%) TestRail
11 19 (1.36%) Cucumber
12 18 (1.29%) Rational DOORS
13 17 (1.21%) Zephyr
14 16 (1.14%) JMeter
15 13 (0.93%) JUnit
16 12 (0.86%) Bitbucket
16 12 (0.86%) SpecFlow
17 11 (0.79%) REST Assured
18 10 (0.71%) Cypress.io
19 9 (0.64%) MLflow
General
1 551 (39.36%) Social Skills
2 371 (26.50%) Finance
3 315 (22.50%) Analytical Skills
4 129 (9.21%) Public Sector
5 101 (7.21%) Banking
6 85 (6.07%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (3.50%) Presentation Skills
8 35 (2.50%) Military
8 35 (2.50%) Pharmaceutical
9 33 (2.36%) Manufacturing
10 32 (2.29%) Aerospace
11 31 (2.21%) Telecoms
12 30 (2.14%) Marketing
13 27 (1.93%) Electronics
13 27 (1.93%) Influencing Skills
14 26 (1.86%) Investment Banking
15 24 (1.71%) Organisational Skills
16 23 (1.64%) Front Office
17 21 (1.50%) Billing
18 18 (1.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 283 (20.21%) Analyst
2 145 (10.36%) Senior
3 140 (10.00%) Consultant
4 124 (8.86%) Developer
5 122 (8.71%) Business Analyst
6 103 (7.36%) Lead
7 69 (4.93%) Data Analyst
8 61 (4.36%) Architect
9 54 (3.86%) Software Engineer
10 51 (3.64%) Tester
11 47 (3.36%) Data Engineer
12 46 (3.29%) SAP Consultant
13 38 (2.71%) Data Scientist
13 38 (2.71%) Senior Developer
13 38 (2.71%) Test Analyst
14 35 (2.50%) Senior Analyst
15 34 (2.43%) Project Manager
16 27 (1.93%) QA Engineer
17 24 (1.71%) Data Consultant
17 24 (1.71%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (5.86%) REST
2 74 (5.29%) JSON
3 55 (3.93%) XML
4 44 (3.14%) Oracle Fusion
5 43 (3.07%) Node.js
6 40 (2.86%) SOAP
7 33 (2.36%) OAuth
8 32 (2.29%) Web Services
9 31 (2.21%) .NET
9 31 (2.21%) RESTful
10 29 (2.07%) PySpark
11 27 (1.93%) Middleware
11 27 (1.93%) SAP Fiori
12 25 (1.79%) Playwright
13 21 (1.50%) Swagger
14 18 (1.29%) Kafka
14 18 (1.29%) OAuth2
14 18 (1.29%) OpenAPI
15 17 (1.21%) Pandas
16 16 (1.14%) React
Miscellaneous
1 66 (4.71%) Legacy Systems
2 51 (3.64%) Data Structures
3 47 (3.36%) Onboarding
4 46 (3.29%) Product Ownership
5 39 (2.79%) Management Information System
6 31 (2.21%) Cloud Native
7 29 (2.07%) Data Centre
8 28 (2.00%) FPGA
9 26 (1.86%) Data Protection Act
10 23 (1.64%) Virtual Team
11 22 (1.57%) Algorithms
12 21 (1.50%) Derivative
13 20 (1.43%) IoT
14 19 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
15 16 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
16 15 (1.07%) Hybrid Cloud
16 15 (1.07%) NB-IoT
17 14 (1.00%) Security Posture
17 14 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
18 12 (0.86%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 107 (7.64%) Linux
2 84 (6.00%) Windows
3 27 (1.93%) Unix
4 9 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (0.57%) Windows Server
6 7 (0.50%) Android
7 4 (0.29%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.29%) zOS
8 3 (0.21%) VMS
9 2 (0.14%) Debian
9 2 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
9 2 (0.14%) FreeRTOS
9 2 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.071%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.071%) MVS
10 1 (0.071%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.071%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.071%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.071%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 381 (27.21%) Agile
2 327 (23.36%) Problem-Solving
3 315 (22.50%) Migration
4 252 (18.00%) DevOps
5 234 (16.71%) CI/CD
6 219 (15.64%) Data Validation
7 213 (15.21%) Analytics
8 193 (13.79%) Stakeholder Management
9 180 (12.86%) Data Migration
10 163 (11.64%) Test Automation
11 151 (10.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 147 (10.50%) Data Modelling
13 142 (10.14%) ETL
14 141 (10.07%) Business Intelligence
14 141 (10.07%) User Acceptance Testing
15 132 (9.43%) Data Governance
16 129 (9.21%) Data Analysis
17 123 (8.79%) AI
18 117 (8.36%) Continuous Improvement
19 112 (8.00%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 354 (25.29%) SQL
2 308 (22.00%) Python
3 100 (7.14%) JavaScript
4 76 (5.43%) C#
5 72 (5.14%) Java
6 59 (4.21%) PL/SQL
7 54 (3.86%) C++
8 43 (3.07%) Bash
9 42 (3.00%) PowerShell
10 33 (2.36%) R
11 25 (1.79%) TypeScript
12 21 (1.50%) C
13 16 (1.14%) Shell Script
14 15 (1.07%) Groovy
14 15 (1.07%) T-SQL
15 14 (1.00%) ABAP
16 13 (0.93%) VBA
17 9 (0.64%) Apex Code
17 9 (0.64%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 9 (0.64%) XPath
Qualifications
1 321 (22.93%) Security Cleared
2 243 (17.36%) SC Cleared
3 153 (10.93%) Degree
4 44 (3.14%) Computer Science Degree
5 40 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
6 34 (2.43%) Master's Degree
7 31 (2.21%) DV Cleared
8 28 (2.00%) ISTQB
9 24 (1.71%) PMI Certification
10 19 (1.36%) AWS Certification
11 17 (1.21%) CBAP
11 17 (1.21%) PMP
12 15 (1.07%) CISSP
12 15 (1.07%) PhD
13 13 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
13 13 (0.93%) Oracle Certification
14 10 (0.71%) Azure Certification
14 10 (0.71%) OCA
15 9 (0.64%) CTC Cleared
15 9 (0.64%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 173 (12.36%) QA
2 172 (12.29%) Data Quality
3 72 (5.14%) GDPR
4 50 (3.57%) NIST
5 37 (2.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 31 (2.21%) Accessibility
7 16 (1.14%) GxP
8 14 (1.00%) EU AI Act
9 12 (0.86%) Def Stans
10 10 (0.71%) COBIT
10 10 (0.71%) IFRS
10 10 (0.71%) NCSC
11 9 (0.64%) MISRA
12 8 (0.57%) DO-178B
12 8 (0.57%) MiFID
12 8 (0.57%) PCI DSS
12 8 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 7 (0.50%) HL7
13 7 (0.50%) SLA
14 6 (0.43%) 21 CFR Part 11
System Software
1 51 (3.64%) Active Directory
2 43 (3.07%) Docker
3 30 (2.14%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (1.57%) Firmware
5 10 (0.71%) vSphere
6 9 (0.64%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.64%) VMware NSX
7 7 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.43%) Dovecot
8 6 (0.43%) Postfix
9 4 (0.29%) Embedded Firmware
10 3 (0.21%) QEMU
11 2 (0.14%) OpenAM
11 2 (0.14%) OpenDJ
11 2 (0.14%) OpenIDM
11 2 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
12 1 (0.071%) Ceph
12 1 (0.071%) Lustre
12 1 (0.071%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.071%) Veritas Cluster Server
Systems Management
1 63 (4.50%) Kubernetes
2 54 (3.86%) Terraform
3 49 (3.50%) Ansible
4 16 (1.14%) Single Sign-On
5 11 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
6 10 (0.71%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 9 (0.64%) Grafana
7 9 (0.64%) Nessus
7 9 (0.64%) Puppet
7 9 (0.64%) SCCM
7 9 (0.64%) SCOM
8 8 (0.57%) Argo
8 8 (0.57%) Istio
8 8 (0.57%) Kibana
9 7 (0.50%) HP SiteScope
9 7 (0.50%) Nmap
10 6 (0.43%) HP ALM
11 5 (0.36%) CASB
11 5 (0.36%) Prometheus
11 5 (0.36%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 202 (14.43%) Microsoft
2 158 (11.29%) Oracle
3 124 (8.86%) SAP
4 64 (4.57%) ServiceNow
5 52 (3.71%) Databricks
6 44 (3.14%) Salesforce
6 44 (3.14%) VMware
7 35 (2.50%) Cisco
8 31 (2.21%) Splunk
9 28 (2.00%) Workday
10 24 (1.71%) Google
11 16 (1.14%) IBM
11 16 (1.14%) MuleSoft
11 16 (1.14%) Red Hat
12 14 (1.00%) Remedy
13 13 (0.93%) Informatica
14 12 (0.86%) Palo Alto
15 11 (0.79%) Adobe
15 11 (0.79%) CyberArk
15 11 (0.79%) EMC