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

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 66 117
Rank change year-on-year +34 +51 +32
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,961 1,204 769
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.52% 3.73% 2.02%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.52% 4.12% 2.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,770 700 373
10th Percentile £331 £325 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £610 £591
90th Percentile £701 £688 £670
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -7.50% +5.26% -7.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 183 86 109
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £26.52 £41.25 £51.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £63.75 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.65% -1.92% -3.70%
75th Percentile £73.25 £66.88 £71.50
90th Percentile £82.90 £75.00 £76.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -17.69% - -3.70%

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 45,398 29,222 32,553
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.63% 90.44% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,773 18,158 20,413
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £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 2,911 1,744 1,558
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.20 £14.41
25th Percentile £17.72 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +2.41%
75th Percentile £67.84 £46.01 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.18 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +87.80% -47.37% +12.13%

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 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 4 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 4 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 +30 2,547 £500 -0.79% 3,289
UK excluding London +25 1,347 £463 -7.50% 2,071
London +39 1,256 £525 +0.96% 1,693
Work from Home +27 822 £500 - 1,265
North of England +39 337 £453 +6.59% 308
South East -3 320 £500 - 517
Midlands +34 294 £464 -2.40% 268
West Midlands +28 209 £458 -3.68% 179
North West +27 168 £450 +5.88% 186
Yorkshire +42 150 £462 -0.17% 72
East of England -3 144 £475 -5.00% 312
South West +8 132 £525 -7.69% 320
Scotland +37 112 £440 -7.37% 270
East Midlands +21 81 £500 - 89
North East -24 24 £425 -5.56% 58
Wales -5 23 £363 -3.33% 50
Northern Ireland +5 5 £381 -37.24% 64
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 81 (2.74%) Confluence
2 66 (2.23%) Apache Airflow
3 60 (2.03%) SharePoint
4 53 (1.79%) SAS
5 39 (1.32%) Apache Spark
6 30 (1.01%) Apache
7 19 (0.64%) Microsoft Exchange
8 14 (0.47%) Oracle Workflow
9 12 (0.41%) CMS
10 10 (0.34%) Jupyter
11 9 (0.30%) SharePoint 2013
12 7 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
12 7 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
13 6 (0.20%) ArcGIS
14 5 (0.17%) OpenStack
14 5 (0.17%) Tuxedo
15 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
15 4 (0.14%) Headless CMS
15 4 (0.14%) IIS
15 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
Applications
1 201 (6.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.42%) Microsoft Office
3 39 (1.32%) MS Visio
4 35 (1.18%) Spreadsheet
5 30 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 14 (0.47%) AutoCAD
7 10 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
8 9 (0.30%) Navisworks
8 9 (0.30%) Revit
9 8 (0.27%) CATIA
9 8 (0.27%) ProjectWise
10 6 (0.20%) Simulink
11 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.068%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.068%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.068%) Windchill
13 1 (0.034%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.034%) MicroStation
13 1 (0.034%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.034%) Trello
Business Applications
1 116 (3.92%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.64%) Oracle EBS
3 16 (0.54%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.44%) NetSuite
4 13 (0.44%) SAP SD
4 13 (0.44%) Teamcenter
4 13 (0.44%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.37%) Aladdin
5 11 (0.37%) iTrent
5 11 (0.37%) SAP FI
5 11 (0.37%) SAP MDG
6 10 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.34%) SAP MM
7 9 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.30%) Oracle General Ledger
7 9 (0.30%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.30%) SAP HCM
8 8 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 8 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
8 8 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 626 (21.14%) Azure
2 336 (11.35%) AWS
3 301 (10.17%) Power Platform
4 183 (6.18%) Azure DevOps
5 139 (4.69%) GCP
6 133 (4.49%) GitHub
7 102 (3.44%) Snowflake
8 83 (2.80%) Entra ID
9 76 (2.57%) Azure Data Factory
10 70 (2.36%) GitHub Actions
11 67 (2.26%) Serverless
12 62 (2.09%) SaaS
13 61 (2.06%) Microsoft 365
14 50 (1.69%) Amazon S3
15 49 (1.65%) dbt
16 45 (1.52%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 39 (1.32%) SuccessFactors
18 35 (1.18%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 35 (1.18%) OCI
19 34 (1.15%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 115 (3.88%) Firewall
2 71 (2.40%) DNS
3 68 (2.30%) VLAN
4 65 (2.20%) Network Security
5 55 (1.86%) VPN
6 45 (1.52%) BGP
7 43 (1.45%) WAN
8 40 (1.35%) TCP/IP
9 36 (1.22%) DHCP
10 27 (0.91%) OSPF
11 26 (0.88%) VXLAN
12 24 (0.81%) Wireless
13 22 (0.74%) Ethernet VPN
13 22 (0.74%) Internet
13 22 (0.74%) LAN
13 22 (0.74%) SD-WAN
14 21 (0.71%) HTTP
14 21 (0.71%) SAN
15 19 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
16 17 (0.57%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 278 (9.39%) Power BI
2 171 (5.78%) Data Warehouse
3 131 (4.42%) Metadata
4 113 (3.82%) Relational Database
5 107 (3.61%) SQL Server
6 97 (3.28%) PostgreSQL
7 83 (2.80%) Data Lake
8 72 (2.43%) Tableau
9 41 (1.38%) Delta Lake
10 38 (1.28%) MongoDB
10 38 (1.28%) Oracle Database
11 34 (1.15%) Big Data
11 34 (1.15%) NoSQL
12 31 (1.05%) Azure SQL Database
12 31 (1.05%) BigQuery
12 31 (1.05%) MySQL
13 30 (1.01%) Oracle Reports
13 30 (1.01%) Redis
13 30 (1.01%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 29 (0.98%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 265 (8.95%) JIRA
2 205 (6.92%) Git
3 105 (3.55%) Jenkins
4 91 (3.07%) GitLab
5 77 (2.60%) Selenium
6 45 (1.52%) Postman
7 38 (1.28%) JMeter
8 25 (0.84%) Cucumber
8 25 (0.84%) WebDriver
9 20 (0.68%) JUnit
10 19 (0.64%) Rational DOORS
11 17 (0.57%) Cypress.io
12 15 (0.51%) Gatling
13 14 (0.47%) Oracle Forms
13 14 (0.47%) REST Assured
14 13 (0.44%) Rational Rhapsody
14 13 (0.44%) Zephyr
15 12 (0.41%) Maven
15 12 (0.41%) TestRail
16 11 (0.37%) Eclipse
General
1 839 (28.34%) Social Skills
2 830 (28.03%) Finance
3 588 (19.86%) Analytical Skills
4 257 (8.68%) Public Sector
5 237 (8.00%) Banking
6 150 (5.07%) Documentation Skills
7 108 (3.65%) Manufacturing
8 98 (3.31%) Retail
9 69 (2.33%) Telecoms
10 67 (2.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 60 (2.03%) Automotive
12 58 (1.96%) Pharmaceutical
13 56 (1.89%) Organisational Skills
14 53 (1.79%) Aerospace
15 49 (1.65%) Legal
16 48 (1.62%) Marketing
17 45 (1.52%) Law
18 43 (1.45%) Front Office
19 41 (1.38%) Local Government
20 37 (1.25%) Billing
Job Titles
1 523 (17.66%) Analyst
2 337 (11.38%) Senior
3 270 (9.12%) Lead
4 238 (8.04%) Business Analyst
5 237 (8.00%) Data Engineer
6 233 (7.87%) Consultant
7 183 (6.18%) Developer
8 153 (5.17%) Data Analyst
9 150 (5.07%) Architect
10 112 (3.78%) Test Engineer
11 80 (2.70%) Tester
12 75 (2.53%) Network Engineer
13 66 (2.23%) Systems Engineer
14 64 (2.16%) Project Manager
15 62 (2.09%) Administrator
16 57 (1.93%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 56 (1.89%) Senior Data Engineer
18 51 (1.72%) Test Manager
19 50 (1.69%) Senior Analyst
20 49 (1.65%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 184 (6.21%) REST
2 155 (5.23%) Terraform
3 99 (3.34%) JSON
4 86 (2.90%) PySpark
5 85 (2.87%) XML
6 76 (2.57%) Kafka
7 71 (2.40%) Middleware
8 55 (1.86%) Playwright
9 54 (1.82%) .NET
10 47 (1.59%) Oracle Fusion
11 46 (1.55%) pytest
11 46 (1.55%) SOAP
12 41 (1.38%) OAuth
13 39 (1.32%) Spring
14 38 (1.28%) Web Services
15 37 (1.25%) RESTful
16 35 (1.18%) Pandas
17 32 (1.08%) Spring Boot
18 27 (0.91%) OpenID
18 27 (0.91%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 167 (5.64%) Data Structures
2 162 (5.47%) Onboarding
3 131 (4.42%) Cloud Native
4 127 (4.29%) Legacy Systems
5 118 (3.99%) Product Ownership
6 107 (3.61%) Management Information System
7 87 (2.94%) Data Centre
8 54 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
9 52 (1.76%) Distributed Systems
10 45 (1.52%) AI Agents
11 44 (1.49%) Analytical Mindset
11 44 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
11 44 (1.49%) Life Science
12 41 (1.38%) SCADA
13 39 (1.32%) NHS
14 38 (1.28%) Replication
15 33 (1.11%) Algorithms
15 33 (1.11%) CMDB
16 32 (1.08%) Operational Technology
17 30 (1.01%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 179 (6.05%) Windows
2 122 (4.12%) Linux
3 74 (2.50%) Windows Server
4 48 (1.62%) Unix
5 21 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (0.51%) Android
7 13 (0.44%) Windows 10
8 11 (0.37%) Ubuntu
8 11 (0.37%) VMS
9 10 (0.34%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.24%) AIX
10 7 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 4 (0.14%) SUSE
11 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.10%) VxWorks
12 3 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.068%) CentOS
13 2 (0.068%) HPUX
13 2 (0.068%) zOS
14 1 (0.034%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 799 (26.98%) Migration
2 603 (20.36%) Stakeholder Management
3 579 (19.55%) Agile
4 553 (18.68%) CI/CD
5 488 (16.48%) User Acceptance Testing
6 482 (16.28%) Data Modelling
7 473 (15.97%) Data Migration
8 465 (15.70%) Analytics
9 464 (15.67%) Data Validation
10 458 (15.47%) Problem-Solving
11 394 (13.31%) DevOps
12 391 (13.20%) AI
13 384 (12.97%) Test Automation
14 372 (12.56%) Continuous Improvement
15 334 (11.28%) ETL
16 317 (10.71%) Business Intelligence
16 317 (10.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 308 (10.40%) Data Pipeline
18 303 (10.23%) Data Governance
19 300 (10.13%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 761 (25.70%) SQL
2 597 (20.16%) Python
3 142 (4.80%) Java
4 98 (3.31%) PowerShell
5 62 (2.09%) Bash
6 60 (2.03%) C#
7 56 (1.89%) JavaScript
8 36 (1.22%) TypeScript
9 35 (1.18%) C++
10 32 (1.08%) Apex Code
11 29 (0.98%) PL/SQL
11 29 (0.98%) R
12 28 (0.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 27 (0.91%) Bicep
14 26 (0.88%) C
15 24 (0.81%) Shell Script
16 19 (0.64%) T-SQL
17 17 (0.57%) VBA
18 16 (0.54%) MATLAB
19 13 (0.44%) Scala
Qualifications
1 572 (19.32%) Security Cleared
2 419 (14.15%) SC Cleared
3 191 (6.45%) Degree
4 78 (2.63%) DV Cleared
5 65 (2.20%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.69%) Cisco Certification
7 46 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
8 41 (1.38%) CCNP
9 28 (0.95%) ACCA
9 28 (0.95%) AWS Certification
9 28 (0.95%) CIMA
9 28 (0.95%) ISTQB
10 22 (0.74%) Azure Certification
11 20 (0.68%) PMI Certification
12 19 (0.64%) CCNA
13 18 (0.61%) PMP
14 17 (0.57%) Microsoft Certification
15 16 (0.54%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 16 (0.54%) CISSP
16 15 (0.51%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 600 (20.26%) Data Quality
2 379 (12.80%) QA
3 114 (3.85%) GDPR
4 50 (1.69%) Accessibility
5 45 (1.52%) SLA
6 42 (1.42%) NIST
7 40 (1.35%) GxP
8 35 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 35 (1.18%) PMO
9 24 (0.81%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 22 (0.74%) GRC
11 20 (0.68%) ISO 20022
12 17 (0.57%) GMP
12 17 (0.57%) WCAG
13 14 (0.47%) NCSC
14 12 (0.41%) Def Stans
15 11 (0.37%) HL7
15 11 (0.37%) IFRS
15 11 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 10 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 111 (3.75%) Docker
2 97 (3.28%) Active Directory
3 87 (2.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.22%) Virtual Machines
5 34 (1.15%) VMware ESXi
6 29 (0.98%) Firmware
7 26 (0.88%) Hyper-V
8 23 (0.78%) Virtual Desktop
8 23 (0.78%) vSphere
9 14 (0.47%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.17%) KVM
12 4 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.10%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.068%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.068%) OpenSSH
14 2 (0.068%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.034%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.034%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 1 (0.034%) NFS
Systems Management
1 142 (4.80%) Kubernetes
2 89 (3.01%) Ansible
3 44 (1.49%) Grafana
4 37 (1.25%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
6 26 (0.88%) FortiGate
7 18 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.54%) SCCM
9 15 (0.51%) vCenter Server
10 14 (0.47%) HP ALM
11 10 (0.34%) Failover Clustering
11 10 (0.34%) VxRail
12 7 (0.24%) Argo
13 6 (0.20%) Control-M
13 6 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
13 6 (0.20%) Progress Chef
14 5 (0.17%) Functional Safety
14 5 (0.17%) systemd
14 5 (0.17%) vMotion
14 5 (0.17%) vRealize
Vendors
1 449 (15.16%) Microsoft
2 259 (8.75%) SAP
3 247 (8.34%) Oracle
4 162 (5.47%) Databricks
5 101 (3.41%) Salesforce
6 99 (3.34%) VMware
7 82 (2.77%) Cisco
8 81 (2.74%) ServiceNow
9 49 (1.65%) Google
10 47 (1.59%) Workday
11 40 (1.35%) IBM
12 36 (1.22%) Informatica
13 31 (1.05%) Fortinet
14 29 (0.98%) Juniper
14 29 (0.98%) Zscaler
15 28 (0.95%) Palo Alto
16 23 (0.78%) MuleSoft
17 21 (0.71%) Splunk
18 18 (0.61%) Ariba
19 17 (0.57%) Sage