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

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 94 132
Rank change year-on-year +52 +38 +7
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,026 767 772
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.61% 2.64% 1.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.37% 2.91% 2.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,251 451 405
10th Percentile £350 £363 £325
25th Percentile £404 £421 £434
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £530 £533
Median % change year-on-year -8.02% -0.47% -3.18%
75th Percentile £588 £634 £623
90th Percentile £700 £715 £715
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £510 £500
% change year-on-year -6.86% +2.00% +0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 108 43 147
10th Percentile £22.25 £26.80 £20.52
25th Percentile £43.19 £47.50 £49.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £60.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.44% +0.83% -4.60%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.50 £75.25
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.20 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £60.50 £62.00
% change year-on-year +7.44% -2.42% -0.80%

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 37,733 26,318 38,291
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.81% 90.56% 86.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,910 17,091 24,889
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £746
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.89% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,221 949 2,344
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.19 £12.85
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.45 £16.00
Median hourly rate £34.50 £32.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.81% -1.54% -9.72%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £58.69
90th Percentile £76.00 £76.25 £71.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £31.52 £31.80
% change year-on-year -4.82% -0.88% -12.28%

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 26 March 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 26 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Validation in the UK

Validation
Top 17 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 26 March 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 +47 1,754 £492 -9.72% 872
UK excluding London +43 962 £475 -6.86% 714
London +70 817 £505 -8.18% 268
Work from Home +58 621 £500 -2.44% 341
North of England +38 235 £450 -6.49% 152
South East -1 201 £500 - 215
Midlands +42 188 £492 +3.58% 118
North West +27 151 £418 -9.62% 74
West Midlands +27 147 £486 -0.38% 77
South West +9 139 £475 -17.39% 89
East of England +19 121 £492 +9.38% 96
Yorkshire +7 75 £461 +9.75% 51
Scotland +47 53 £405 -10.00% 42
East Midlands -2 39 £525 +42.86% 41
Northern Ireland +15 23 £400 -27.27% 5
Wales - 17 £460 - 16
North East -5 12 £450 -37.93% 27

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 (4.00%) Confluence
2 41 (2.02%) Apache Spark
3 36 (1.78%) Apache Airflow
4 34 (1.68%) SAS
5 21 (1.04%) SharePoint
6 20 (0.99%) Apache
7 16 (0.79%) Microsoft Exchange
8 9 (0.44%) Appian
9 8 (0.39%) ArcGIS
9 8 (0.39%) Jupyter
10 7 (0.35%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
10 7 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.25%) Anypoint
11 5 (0.25%) CMS
12 4 (0.20%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.15%) CICS
13 3 (0.15%) GeoServer
13 3 (0.15%) Oracle Self-Service HR
13 3 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.15%) WebLogic
Applications
1 108 (5.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (1.48%) MS Visio
3 28 (1.38%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (1.04%) Spreadsheet
5 18 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 16 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
7 10 (0.49%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.20%) CATIA
8 4 (0.20%) Notion
9 3 (0.15%) LaTeX
10 2 (0.099%) Sketch
11 1 (0.049%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.049%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.049%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.049%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.049%) Simulink
11 1 (0.049%) UXPin
11 1 (0.049%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 96 (4.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (1.78%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.74%) Oracle General Ledger
3 15 (0.74%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.64%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 13 (0.64%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.59%) Oracle Receivables
6 11 (0.54%) Oracle Assets
7 10 (0.49%) SAP FI
8 9 (0.44%) Aladdin
8 9 (0.44%) NetSuite
9 8 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
9 8 (0.39%) OpenText VIM for SAP
9 8 (0.39%) Oracle EBS R12
9 8 (0.39%) SAP MM
10 7 (0.35%) iTrent
10 7 (0.35%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 7 (0.35%) SAP ERP
10 7 (0.35%) SAP MDG
10 7 (0.35%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 481 (23.74%) Azure
2 267 (13.18%) AWS
3 173 (8.54%) Power Platform
4 147 (7.26%) Azure DevOps
5 99 (4.89%) GitHub
6 94 (4.64%) GCP
7 62 (3.06%) GitHub Actions
7 62 (3.06%) Serverless
8 59 (2.91%) Amazon S3
8 59 (2.91%) Entra ID
9 57 (2.81%) Azure Data Factory
10 52 (2.57%) SaaS
11 49 (2.42%) OCI
12 44 (2.17%) Snowflake
13 38 (1.88%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 35 (1.73%) AWS Lambda
15 32 (1.58%) Microsoft 365
16 31 (1.53%) AWS CloudFormation
17 28 (1.38%) OpenShift
18 24 (1.18%) Boomi
Communications & Networking
1 74 (3.65%) Firewall
2 51 (2.52%) Network Security
3 35 (1.73%) TCP/IP
4 26 (1.28%) DNS
5 25 (1.23%) VPN
6 24 (1.18%) Ethernet
6 24 (1.18%) VLAN
7 21 (1.04%) HTTP
8 19 (0.94%) WAN
9 15 (0.74%) SAN
10 13 (0.64%) NAS
11 11 (0.54%) BGP
11 11 (0.54%) OSPF
11 11 (0.54%) SD-WAN
11 11 (0.54%) Wireless
12 9 (0.44%) Internet
12 9 (0.44%) LAN
12 9 (0.44%) SSL
13 8 (0.39%) Cisco ISE
14 7 (0.35%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 162 (8.00%) Power BI
2 109 (5.38%) Metadata
3 99 (4.89%) Data Warehouse
4 68 (3.36%) SQL Server
5 58 (2.86%) PostgreSQL
5 58 (2.86%) Tableau
6 46 (2.27%) Data Lake
7 35 (1.73%) Delta Lake
8 30 (1.48%) Azure SQL Database
8 30 (1.48%) Oracle Reports
9 28 (1.38%) Big Data
9 28 (1.38%) Relational Database
10 26 (1.28%) Amazon Redshift
11 25 (1.23%) NoSQL
12 22 (1.09%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 21 (1.04%) Oracle Database
14 20 (0.99%) Amazon Athena
14 20 (0.99%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 19 (0.94%) Geospatial Data
15 19 (0.94%) GIS
Development Applications
1 192 (9.48%) JIRA
2 122 (6.02%) Git
3 91 (4.49%) Jenkins
4 65 (3.21%) Selenium
5 56 (2.76%) GitLab
6 55 (2.71%) Postman
7 37 (1.83%) JUnit
8 36 (1.78%) Cucumber
9 35 (1.73%) JMeter
10 33 (1.63%) Rational DOORS
11 28 (1.38%) Oracle APEX
12 21 (1.04%) MLflow
13 20 (0.99%) Visual Studio
13 20 (0.99%) WebDriver
14 14 (0.69%) Eclipse
14 14 (0.69%) REST Assured
15 13 (0.64%) TestRail
16 12 (0.59%) Rational Rhapsody
16 12 (0.59%) SpecFlow
16 12 (0.59%) Zephyr
General
1 696 (34.35%) Social Skills
2 584 (28.83%) Finance
3 399 (19.69%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (9.13%) Public Sector
5 169 (8.34%) Banking
6 107 (5.28%) Documentation Skills
7 63 (3.11%) Manufacturing
8 53 (2.62%) Aerospace
9 49 (2.42%) Pharmaceutical
9 49 (2.42%) Presentation Skills
10 37 (1.83%) Organisational Skills
11 35 (1.73%) Electronics
11 35 (1.73%) Influencing Skills
12 34 (1.68%) Marketing
13 29 (1.43%) Billing
13 29 (1.43%) Legal
14 28 (1.38%) Military
14 28 (1.38%) Retail
15 27 (1.33%) Telecoms
16 26 (1.28%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 378 (18.66%) Analyst
2 208 (10.27%) Senior
3 201 (9.92%) Lead
4 175 (8.64%) Business Analyst
5 145 (7.16%) Consultant
6 139 (6.86%) Developer
7 135 (6.66%) Data Engineer
8 133 (6.56%) Architect
9 94 (4.64%) Data Analyst
10 77 (3.80%) Project Manager
11 62 (3.06%) Tester
12 49 (2.42%) Senior Analyst
12 49 (2.42%) Software Engineer
13 44 (2.17%) SAP Consultant
14 42 (2.07%) Test Analyst
15 40 (1.97%) Senior Developer
15 40 (1.97%) Test Engineer
16 39 (1.92%) Test Manager
17 36 (1.78%) Embedded Engineer
18 35 (1.73%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 136 (6.71%) REST
2 105 (5.18%) JSON
3 62 (3.06%) Oracle Fusion
4 61 (3.01%) XML
5 57 (2.81%) Kafka
6 53 (2.62%) OAuth
7 52 (2.57%) Middleware
8 50 (2.47%) PySpark
9 44 (2.17%) SOAP
10 42 (2.07%) Node.js
11 38 (1.88%) .NET
12 34 (1.68%) Playwright
13 32 (1.58%) RESTful
13 32 (1.58%) Swagger
13 32 (1.58%) Web Services
14 31 (1.53%) pytest
15 30 (1.48%) PyTorch
16 26 (1.28%) SAML
16 26 (1.28%) TensorFlow
17 25 (1.23%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 119 (5.87%) Legacy Systems
2 103 (5.08%) Data Structures
3 88 (4.34%) Onboarding
4 85 (4.20%) Product Ownership
5 59 (2.91%) Cloud Native
6 56 (2.76%) Management Information System
7 48 (2.37%) Data Centre
8 35 (1.73%) Analytical Mindset
9 33 (1.63%) Distributed Systems
10 30 (1.48%) Replication
11 25 (1.23%) Algorithms
12 24 (1.18%) Data Protection Act
13 23 (1.14%) Life Science
13 23 (1.14%) Virtual Team
14 22 (1.09%) Hybrid Cloud
15 21 (1.04%) Greenfield Project
15 21 (1.04%) NHS
16 20 (0.99%) Operational Technology
16 20 (0.99%) Public Cloud
17 19 (0.94%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 100 (4.94%) Windows
2 83 (4.10%) Linux
3 29 (1.43%) Unix
4 11 (0.54%) Android
4 11 (0.54%) Windows Server
5 6 (0.30%) Embedded Linux
5 6 (0.30%) Mac OS
5 6 (0.30%) zOS
6 5 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (0.20%) SUSE
8 3 (0.15%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.15%) VMS
9 2 (0.099%) Debian
9 2 (0.099%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.049%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.049%) FreeRTOS
10 1 (0.049%) pSOS
10 1 (0.049%) Robot Operating System
10 1 (0.049%) Solaris
10 1 (0.049%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 501 (24.73%) Migration
2 455 (22.46%) Agile
3 417 (20.58%) Problem-Solving
4 355 (17.52%) Stakeholder Management
5 351 (17.32%) CI/CD
6 345 (17.03%) Data Validation
7 309 (15.25%) Analytics
8 299 (14.76%) Data Migration
9 296 (14.61%) DevOps
10 285 (14.07%) Data Modelling
11 268 (13.23%) ETL
12 257 (12.69%) User Acceptance Testing
13 255 (12.59%) Test Automation
14 230 (11.35%) Continuous Improvement
15 222 (10.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 215 (10.61%) AI
17 211 (10.41%) Data Governance
18 206 (10.17%) Business Intelligence
19 172 (8.49%) Data Pipeline
20 166 (8.19%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 492 (24.28%) SQL
2 377 (18.61%) Python
3 100 (4.94%) Java
4 91 (4.49%) JavaScript
5 73 (3.60%) C#
6 53 (2.62%) PowerShell
7 52 (2.57%) PL/SQL
8 50 (2.47%) C++
9 45 (2.22%) C
10 36 (1.78%) Bash
10 36 (1.78%) TypeScript
11 26 (1.28%) Bicep
11 26 (1.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 24 (1.18%) R
13 21 (1.04%) Ada
14 19 (0.94%) T-SQL
15 17 (0.84%) Scala
16 16 (0.79%) Groovy
17 13 (0.64%) VBA
18 11 (0.54%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 427 (21.08%) Security Cleared
2 306 (15.10%) SC Cleared
3 188 (9.28%) Degree
4 63 (3.11%) BPSS Clearance
5 56 (2.76%) Computer Science Degree
6 40 (1.97%) DV Cleared
7 35 (1.73%) Master's Degree
8 31 (1.53%) ISTQB
9 28 (1.38%) PMI Certification
10 26 (1.28%) PMP
11 18 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
12 16 (0.79%) CISSP
13 15 (0.74%) CCNP
13 15 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
14 14 (0.69%) AWS Certification
15 13 (0.64%) CBAP
16 12 (0.59%) Azure Certification
17 10 (0.49%) CTC Cleared
17 10 (0.49%) Oracle Certification
18 9 (0.44%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 337 (16.63%) Data Quality
2 262 (12.93%) QA
3 115 (5.68%) GDPR
4 77 (3.80%) NIST
5 67 (3.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 31 (1.53%) Accessibility
7 27 (1.33%) SLA
8 24 (1.18%) GxP
9 22 (1.09%) IFRS
10 20 (0.99%) Def Stans
11 19 (0.94%) IFRS 17
12 18 (0.89%) PMO
13 16 (0.79%) GRC
14 15 (0.74%) GMP
15 14 (0.69%) HL7
15 14 (0.69%) PCI DSS
16 13 (0.64%) COBIT
16 13 (0.64%) NCSC
17 12 (0.59%) NIST 800
17 12 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 78 (3.85%) Docker
2 46 (2.27%) Active Directory
3 37 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.38%) Firmware
5 11 (0.54%) Hyper-V
5 11 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
5 11 (0.54%) VMware NSX
6 8 (0.39%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.35%) vSphere
8 5 (0.25%) NFS
9 4 (0.20%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 3 (0.15%) Embedded Firmware
11 2 (0.099%) Ceph
11 2 (0.099%) KVM
11 2 (0.099%) Lustre
11 2 (0.099%) OpenAM
11 2 (0.099%) OpenDJ
11 2 (0.099%) OpenIDM
11 2 (0.099%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 116 (5.73%) Kubernetes
2 88 (4.34%) Terraform
3 31 (1.53%) Prometheus
3 31 (1.53%) Single Sign-On
4 30 (1.48%) Ansible
5 28 (1.38%) Grafana
6 13 (0.64%) Microsoft Intune
7 11 (0.54%) Kibana
7 11 (0.54%) Puppet
8 9 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 7 (0.35%) SCCM
10 6 (0.30%) FortiGate
10 6 (0.30%) Nessus
11 5 (0.25%) CASB
11 5 (0.25%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.20%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.20%) Failover Clustering
12 4 (0.20%) RSA Archer
12 4 (0.20%) vMotion
12 4 (0.20%) VxRail
Vendors
1 263 (12.98%) Microsoft
2 206 (10.17%) Oracle
3 174 (8.59%) SAP
4 107 (5.28%) Databricks
5 85 (4.20%) ServiceNow
6 50 (2.47%) Google
7 46 (2.27%) Salesforce
8 45 (2.22%) VMware
9 43 (2.12%) Splunk
10 38 (1.88%) Cisco
11 33 (1.63%) Workday
12 31 (1.53%) MuleSoft
13 30 (1.48%) Informatica
14 28 (1.38%) Sage
15 22 (1.09%) IBM
15 22 (1.09%) Palo Alto
16 20 (0.99%) CyberArk
16 20 (0.99%) OpenAI
17 14 (0.69%) Dell
17 14 (0.69%) Murex