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

6 months to
22 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 99 136
Rank change year-on-year +52 +37 +3
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,987 776 769
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.53% 2.63% 1.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.26% 2.90% 2.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,226 459 407
10th Percentile £350 £363 £325
25th Percentile £404 £422 £434
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £487 £540 £533
Median % change year-on-year -9.81% +1.41% -3.18%
75th Percentile £588 £634 £623
90th Percentile £700 £721 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £511 £500
% change year-on-year -7.09% +2.25% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 106 43 146
10th Percentile £22.64 £25.46 £19.94
25th Percentile £49.38 £47.50 £48.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.55% -3.75% -4.08%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.50 £75.16
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.20 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £59.13 £61.82
% change year-on-year +9.94% -4.35% -1.10%

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 37,756 26,715 38,313
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.98% 90.47% 86.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,946 17,208 24,897
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 £740 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -1.33% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,227 936 2,327
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.22 £12.86
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £30.50 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.15% - -7.29%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.52 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.35 £71.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.50 £31.76 £31.50
% change year-on-year -10.26% +0.83% -12.01%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 +48 1,714 £492 -10.14% 924
UK excluding London +44 943 £475 -7.09% 759
London +70 798 £510 -7.27% 275
Work from Home +69 614 £492 -4.00% 373
North of England +31 230 £433 -8.95% 161
South East -3 198 £500 - 230
Midlands +39 183 £486 +2.24% 121
North West +34 149 £418 -7.11% 81
West Midlands +21 144 £486 -1.65% 77
South West +4 136 £475 -17.39% 91
East of England +22 118 £492 +9.38% 110
Yorkshire -2 72 £462 +9.93% 55
Scotland +37 52 £405 -10.00% 44
East Midlands -4 37 £550 +49.46% 44
Northern Ireland +20 25 £400 -27.27% 6
Wales - 16 £460 - 16
North East -7 12 £450 -37.93% 25

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 80 (4.03%) Confluence
2 41 (2.06%) Apache Spark
3 34 (1.71%) SAS
4 33 (1.66%) Apache Airflow
5 20 (1.01%) Apache
5 20 (1.01%) SharePoint
6 14 (0.70%) Microsoft Exchange
7 9 (0.45%) Appian
8 8 (0.40%) ArcGIS
8 8 (0.40%) Jupyter
9 7 (0.35%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
9 7 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.25%) Anypoint
10 5 (0.25%) CMS
11 4 (0.20%) Smallworld
12 3 (0.15%) CICS
12 3 (0.15%) GeoServer
12 3 (0.15%) Oracle Self-Service HR
12 3 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.15%) WebLogic
Applications
1 96 (4.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 27 (1.36%) MS Visio
3 26 (1.31%) Microsoft Office
4 16 (0.81%) Microsoft Project
4 16 (0.81%) Spreadsheet
5 15 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 10 (0.50%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.20%) Notion
8 3 (0.15%) CATIA
8 3 (0.15%) LaTeX
9 2 (0.10%) Sketch
10 1 (0.050%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.050%) CANalyzer
10 1 (0.050%) MicroStation
10 1 (0.050%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.050%) Simulink
10 1 (0.050%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 94 (4.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (1.71%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.75%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.65%) Oracle General Ledger
4 13 (0.65%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 13 (0.65%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.60%) Oracle Receivables
6 11 (0.55%) Oracle Assets
7 10 (0.50%) SAP FI
8 9 (0.45%) NetSuite
8 9 (0.45%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.40%) Aladdin
9 8 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
9 8 (0.40%) OpenText VIM for SAP
9 8 (0.40%) Oracle EBS R12
9 8 (0.40%) SAP MM
10 7 (0.35%) iTrent
10 7 (0.35%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 7 (0.35%) SAP ERP
11 6 (0.30%) Sage X3
Cloud Services
1 467 (23.50%) Azure
2 261 (13.14%) AWS
3 169 (8.51%) Power Platform
4 149 (7.50%) Azure DevOps
5 100 (5.03%) GitHub
6 88 (4.43%) GCP
7 64 (3.22%) GitHub Actions
8 62 (3.12%) Serverless
9 59 (2.97%) Amazon S3
10 57 (2.87%) Azure Data Factory
11 56 (2.82%) Entra ID
12 49 (2.47%) SaaS
13 48 (2.42%) OCI
14 42 (2.11%) Snowflake
15 37 (1.86%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 35 (1.76%) AWS Lambda
17 30 (1.51%) AWS CloudFormation
17 30 (1.51%) Microsoft 365
18 28 (1.41%) OpenShift
19 24 (1.21%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 66 (3.32%) Firewall
2 47 (2.37%) Network Security
3 35 (1.76%) TCP/IP
4 24 (1.21%) DNS
4 24 (1.21%) Ethernet
5 21 (1.06%) HTTP
5 21 (1.06%) VPN
6 18 (0.91%) WAN
7 16 (0.81%) VLAN
8 15 (0.75%) SAN
9 13 (0.65%) NAS
10 11 (0.55%) SD-WAN
11 10 (0.50%) Wireless
12 9 (0.45%) Internet
12 9 (0.45%) LAN
12 9 (0.45%) SSL
13 8 (0.40%) BGP
13 8 (0.40%) OSPF
14 7 (0.35%) Cisco ISE
14 7 (0.35%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (7.90%) Power BI
2 103 (5.18%) Metadata
3 96 (4.83%) Data Warehouse
4 66 (3.32%) SQL Server
5 57 (2.87%) PostgreSQL
6 53 (2.67%) Tableau
7 46 (2.32%) Data Lake
8 33 (1.66%) Delta Lake
9 30 (1.51%) Azure SQL Database
10 29 (1.46%) NoSQL
10 29 (1.46%) Oracle Reports
11 28 (1.41%) Relational Database
12 26 (1.31%) Big Data
13 25 (1.26%) Amazon Redshift
14 21 (1.06%) Oracle Database
15 20 (1.01%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 20 (1.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 19 (0.96%) Amazon Athena
16 19 (0.96%) Geospatial Data
16 19 (0.96%) Pinecone
Development Applications
1 191 (9.61%) JIRA
2 120 (6.04%) Git
3 90 (4.53%) Jenkins
4 63 (3.17%) Selenium
5 57 (2.87%) GitLab
6 55 (2.77%) Postman
7 37 (1.86%) JUnit
8 36 (1.81%) Cucumber
9 34 (1.71%) JMeter
10 33 (1.66%) Rational DOORS
11 29 (1.46%) Oracle APEX
12 21 (1.06%) MLflow
13 20 (1.01%) Visual Studio
13 20 (1.01%) WebDriver
14 14 (0.70%) Eclipse
14 14 (0.70%) REST Assured
14 14 (0.70%) TestRail
15 12 (0.60%) Bitbucket
15 12 (0.60%) Rational Rhapsody
15 12 (0.60%) SpecFlow
General
1 692 (34.83%) Social Skills
2 584 (29.39%) Finance
3 389 (19.58%) Analytical Skills
4 183 (9.21%) Public Sector
5 167 (8.40%) Banking
6 102 (5.13%) Documentation Skills
7 59 (2.97%) Manufacturing
8 51 (2.57%) Aerospace
9 49 (2.47%) Presentation Skills
10 48 (2.42%) Pharmaceutical
11 35 (1.76%) Influencing Skills
11 35 (1.76%) Organisational Skills
12 32 (1.61%) Electronics
13 30 (1.51%) Marketing
14 29 (1.46%) Billing
14 29 (1.46%) Legal
15 28 (1.41%) Retail
15 28 (1.41%) Telecoms
16 27 (1.36%) Military
17 26 (1.31%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 366 (18.42%) Analyst
2 207 (10.42%) Senior
3 199 (10.02%) Lead
4 168 (8.45%) Business Analyst
5 147 (7.40%) Consultant
6 136 (6.84%) Developer
7 132 (6.64%) Architect
8 131 (6.59%) Data Engineer
9 92 (4.63%) Data Analyst
10 77 (3.88%) Project Manager
11 62 (3.12%) Tester
12 51 (2.57%) Software Engineer
13 50 (2.52%) Senior Analyst
14 46 (2.32%) SAP Consultant
15 42 (2.11%) Test Analyst
16 39 (1.96%) Senior Developer
17 38 (1.91%) Test Manager
18 37 (1.86%) Test Engineer
19 36 (1.81%) Embedded Engineer
20 35 (1.76%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 134 (6.74%) REST
2 99 (4.98%) JSON
3 62 (3.12%) Oracle Fusion
4 61 (3.07%) XML
5 56 (2.82%) Kafka
6 53 (2.67%) OAuth
7 51 (2.57%) Middleware
8 49 (2.47%) PySpark
9 45 (2.26%) SOAP
10 41 (2.06%) Node.js
11 40 (2.01%) .NET
12 35 (1.76%) RESTful
13 34 (1.71%) Playwright
14 31 (1.56%) PyTorch
14 31 (1.56%) Swagger
14 31 (1.56%) Web Services
15 30 (1.51%) pytest
16 27 (1.36%) TensorFlow
17 26 (1.31%) SAML
18 25 (1.26%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 118 (5.94%) Legacy Systems
2 101 (5.08%) Data Structures
3 86 (4.33%) Product Ownership
4 79 (3.98%) Onboarding
5 60 (3.02%) Cloud Native
6 54 (2.72%) Management Information System
7 48 (2.42%) Data Centre
8 34 (1.71%) Analytical Mindset
8 34 (1.71%) Distributed Systems
9 26 (1.31%) Algorithms
9 26 (1.31%) Replication
10 25 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
11 23 (1.16%) Life Science
11 23 (1.16%) Virtual Team
12 21 (1.06%) Hybrid Cloud
12 21 (1.06%) Operational Technology
13 20 (1.01%) Derivative
13 20 (1.01%) NHS
14 19 (0.96%) Greenfield Project
14 19 (0.96%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 99 (4.98%) Windows
2 81 (4.08%) Linux
3 29 (1.46%) Unix
4 11 (0.55%) Windows Server
5 9 (0.45%) Android
6 6 (0.30%) Embedded Linux
6 6 (0.30%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.30%) zOS
7 3 (0.15%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.10%) Debian
8 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.050%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.050%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.050%) pSOS
9 1 (0.050%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.050%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.050%) Solaris
9 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 481 (24.21%) Migration
2 453 (22.80%) Agile
3 417 (20.99%) Problem-Solving
4 350 (17.61%) Stakeholder Management
5 349 (17.56%) CI/CD
6 335 (16.86%) Data Validation
7 303 (15.25%) Analytics
8 298 (15.00%) DevOps
9 289 (14.54%) Data Migration
10 277 (13.94%) Data Modelling
11 256 (12.88%) ETL
12 253 (12.73%) Test Automation
13 250 (12.58%) User Acceptance Testing
14 230 (11.58%) Continuous Improvement
15 220 (11.07%) AI
16 217 (10.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 203 (10.22%) Data Governance
18 199 (10.02%) Business Intelligence
19 169 (8.51%) Data Pipeline
20 165 (8.30%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 482 (24.26%) SQL
2 366 (18.42%) Python
3 98 (4.93%) Java
4 90 (4.53%) JavaScript
5 73 (3.67%) C#
6 51 (2.57%) PL/SQL
7 50 (2.52%) PowerShell
8 49 (2.47%) C++
9 44 (2.21%) C
10 36 (1.81%) TypeScript
11 35 (1.76%) Bash
12 26 (1.31%) Bicep
13 25 (1.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 23 (1.16%) R
15 21 (1.06%) Ada
16 18 (0.91%) T-SQL
17 17 (0.86%) Groovy
17 17 (0.86%) Scala
18 12 (0.60%) VBA
19 11 (0.55%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 423 (21.29%) Security Cleared
2 308 (15.50%) SC Cleared
3 183 (9.21%) Degree
4 62 (3.12%) BPSS Clearance
5 58 (2.92%) Computer Science Degree
6 41 (2.06%) DV Cleared
7 36 (1.81%) Master's Degree
8 30 (1.51%) ISTQB
9 28 (1.41%) PMI Certification
10 25 (1.26%) PMP
11 17 (0.86%) Cisco Certification
12 16 (0.81%) AWS Certification
12 16 (0.81%) CISSP
13 14 (0.70%) CBAP
13 14 (0.70%) CCNP
13 14 (0.70%) Microsoft Certification
14 10 (0.50%) CTC Cleared
14 10 (0.50%) Oracle Certification
15 9 (0.45%) Azure Certification
15 9 (0.45%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 321 (16.16%) Data Quality
2 258 (12.98%) QA
3 112 (5.64%) GDPR
4 80 (4.03%) NIST
5 66 (3.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 31 (1.56%) Accessibility
7 27 (1.36%) SLA
8 24 (1.21%) GxP
9 22 (1.11%) IFRS
10 20 (1.01%) Def Stans
11 19 (0.96%) IFRS 17
12 18 (0.91%) PMO
13 17 (0.86%) GRC
14 15 (0.75%) GMP
15 14 (0.70%) HL7
15 14 (0.70%) PCI DSS
16 13 (0.65%) COBIT
16 13 (0.65%) NCSC
17 12 (0.60%) NIST 800
17 12 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 76 (3.82%) Docker
2 47 (2.37%) Active Directory
3 34 (1.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (1.11%) Firmware
5 10 (0.50%) VMware NSX
6 8 (0.40%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.25%) NFS
9 4 (0.20%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
9 4 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.15%) Embedded Firmware
10 3 (0.15%) vSphere
11 2 (0.10%) Ceph
11 2 (0.10%) KVM
11 2 (0.10%) Lustre
11 2 (0.10%) OpenAM
11 2 (0.10%) OpenDJ
11 2 (0.10%) OpenIDM
11 2 (0.10%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 115 (5.79%) Kubernetes
2 87 (4.38%) Terraform
3 31 (1.56%) Prometheus
3 31 (1.56%) Single Sign-On
4 28 (1.41%) Ansible
4 28 (1.41%) Grafana
5 13 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
6 11 (0.55%) Kibana
6 11 (0.55%) Puppet
7 9 (0.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 7 (0.35%) SCCM
9 6 (0.30%) Nessus
10 5 (0.25%) CASB
11 4 (0.20%) EMC NetWorker
11 4 (0.20%) EMC VPLEX
11 4 (0.20%) FortiGate
11 4 (0.20%) RSA Archer
11 4 (0.20%) vMotion
12 3 (0.15%) CloudHub
12 3 (0.15%) Nmap
Vendors
1 256 (12.88%) Microsoft
2 202 (10.17%) Oracle
3 171 (8.61%) SAP
4 104 (5.23%) Databricks
5 84 (4.23%) ServiceNow
6 46 (2.32%) Google
6 46 (2.32%) Salesforce
7 41 (2.06%) Splunk
7 41 (2.06%) VMware
8 35 (1.76%) Cisco
9 33 (1.66%) Workday
10 31 (1.56%) MuleSoft
11 29 (1.46%) Informatica
11 29 (1.46%) Sage
12 22 (1.11%) IBM
13 20 (1.01%) OpenAI
13 20 (1.01%) Palo Alto
14 18 (0.91%) CyberArk
15 15 (0.75%) Murex
16 13 (0.65%) Bloomberg