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

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 100 131
Rank change year-on-year +54 +31 +8
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,954 765 788
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.52% 2.61% 1.77%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.25% 2.89% 2.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,203 448 420
10th Percentile £350 £363 £340
25th Percentile £402 £421 £437
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £545 £535
Median % change year-on-year -11.70% +1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £588 £632 £623
90th Percentile £700 £722 £703
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £515 £500
% change year-on-year -7.77% +3.00% +0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 100 41 148
10th Percentile £22.95 £25.26 £21.11
25th Percentile £48.75 £46.92 £49.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.54 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.96% -4.10% -4.60%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.75 £75.16
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.65 £61.82
% change year-on-year +12.76% -6.75% -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 37,207 26,505 38,501
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.99% 90.41% 86.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,564 17,019 25,049
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 £610 £638 £638
90th Percentile £721 £744 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,206 924 2,336
10th Percentile £14.93 £15.25 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.99 £16.05
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.52 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.41 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £31.64 £31.50
% change year-on-year -13.08% +0.44% -10.00%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 +49 1,688 £490 -10.91% 876
UK excluding London +45 932 £475 -7.77% 717
London +69 781 £506 -8.05% 271
Work from Home +65 593 £488 -5.34% 380
North of England +32 230 £435 -9.61% 145
South East -2 198 £500 - 228
Midlands +37 176 £481 - 117
North West +25 147 £418 -9.62% 70
West Midlands +25 140 £486 -2.88% 77
South West +5 134 £475 -17.39% 91
East of England +24 118 £489 +8.63% 95
Yorkshire 0 73 £462 +9.93% 49
Scotland +44 51 £404 -10.33% 44
East Midlands -11 34 £513 +39.27% 40
Northern Ireland +22 25 £400 -27.27% 5
Wales - 15 £460 - 16
North East -3 13 £463 -36.21% 26

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 79 (4.04%) Confluence
2 41 (2.10%) Apache Spark
3 33 (1.69%) SAS
4 31 (1.59%) Apache Airflow
5 20 (1.02%) Apache
5 20 (1.02%) SharePoint
6 13 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
7 9 (0.46%) Appian
8 8 (0.41%) Jupyter
9 7 (0.36%) ArcGIS
9 7 (0.36%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
9 7 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.26%) CMS
11 4 (0.20%) Anypoint
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 92 (4.71%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (1.23%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (1.23%) MS Visio
3 15 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
4 14 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (0.67%) Spreadsheet
6 10 (0.51%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.20%) Notion
8 3 (0.15%) CATIA
8 3 (0.15%) LaTeX
9 2 (0.10%) Sketch
10 1 (0.051%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.051%) CANalyzer
10 1 (0.051%) MicroStation
10 1 (0.051%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.051%) Simulink
10 1 (0.051%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 89 (4.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (1.64%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.77%) Oracle Payables
4 14 (0.72%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 13 (0.67%) Oracle General Ledger
5 13 (0.67%) Workday HCM
6 12 (0.61%) Oracle Receivables
7 11 (0.56%) Oracle Assets
8 10 (0.51%) SAP FI
9 9 (0.46%) NetSuite
9 9 (0.46%) Oracle EBS R12
9 9 (0.46%) SAP MDG
10 8 (0.41%) Aladdin
10 8 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
10 8 (0.41%) OpenText VIM for SAP
11 7 (0.36%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 7 (0.36%) SAP ERP
11 7 (0.36%) SAP MM
12 6 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
12 6 (0.31%) Sage X3
Cloud Services
1 462 (23.64%) Azure
2 257 (13.15%) AWS
3 167 (8.55%) Power Platform
4 143 (7.32%) Azure DevOps
5 101 (5.17%) GitHub
6 88 (4.50%) GCP
7 65 (3.33%) Serverless
8 62 (3.17%) GitHub Actions
9 58 (2.97%) Amazon S3
10 57 (2.92%) Entra ID
11 56 (2.87%) Azure Data Factory
12 49 (2.51%) SaaS
13 45 (2.30%) OCI
14 41 (2.10%) Snowflake
15 36 (1.84%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 35 (1.79%) AWS Lambda
17 30 (1.54%) AWS CloudFormation
18 28 (1.43%) OpenShift
19 26 (1.33%) Microsoft 365
20 24 (1.23%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 66 (3.38%) Firewall
2 47 (2.41%) Network Security
3 35 (1.79%) TCP/IP
4 24 (1.23%) DNS
4 24 (1.23%) Ethernet
5 21 (1.07%) VPN
6 19 (0.97%) HTTP
7 17 (0.87%) WAN
8 16 (0.82%) VLAN
9 15 (0.77%) SAN
10 13 (0.67%) NAS
11 10 (0.51%) SD-WAN
11 10 (0.51%) Wireless
12 9 (0.46%) Internet
12 9 (0.46%) LAN
12 9 (0.46%) SSL
13 8 (0.41%) BGP
13 8 (0.41%) OSPF
14 7 (0.36%) Cisco ISE
14 7 (0.36%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (7.98%) Power BI
2 103 (5.27%) Metadata
3 94 (4.81%) Data Warehouse
4 60 (3.07%) SQL Server
5 55 (2.81%) PostgreSQL
6 52 (2.66%) Tableau
7 46 (2.35%) Data Lake
8 33 (1.69%) Delta Lake
9 29 (1.48%) NoSQL
9 29 (1.48%) Oracle Reports
10 26 (1.33%) Azure SQL Database
11 25 (1.28%) Amazon Redshift
11 25 (1.28%) Big Data
11 25 (1.28%) Relational Database
12 20 (1.02%) Oracle Database
12 20 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 19 (0.97%) Amazon Athena
13 19 (0.97%) Geospatial Data
13 19 (0.97%) Pinecone
13 19 (0.97%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 184 (9.42%) JIRA
2 120 (6.14%) Git
3 88 (4.50%) Jenkins
4 64 (3.28%) Selenium
5 57 (2.92%) GitLab
5 57 (2.92%) Postman
6 35 (1.79%) JMeter
6 35 (1.79%) JUnit
7 34 (1.74%) Cucumber
8 31 (1.59%) Rational DOORS
9 29 (1.48%) Oracle APEX
10 20 (1.02%) MLflow
10 20 (1.02%) Visual Studio
11 19 (0.97%) WebDriver
12 14 (0.72%) Eclipse
12 14 (0.72%) REST Assured
12 14 (0.72%) TestRail
13 12 (0.61%) Bitbucket
13 12 (0.61%) SpecFlow
13 12 (0.61%) Zephyr
General
1 685 (35.06%) Social Skills
2 567 (29.02%) Finance
3 386 (19.75%) Analytical Skills
4 179 (9.16%) Public Sector
5 170 (8.70%) Banking
6 100 (5.12%) Documentation Skills
7 59 (3.02%) Manufacturing
8 51 (2.61%) Presentation Skills
9 48 (2.46%) Aerospace
10 44 (2.25%) Pharmaceutical
11 38 (1.94%) Influencing Skills
12 34 (1.74%) Organisational Skills
13 31 (1.59%) Electronics
14 30 (1.54%) Marketing
15 29 (1.48%) Billing
16 28 (1.43%) Legal
16 28 (1.43%) Telecoms
17 27 (1.38%) Military
18 26 (1.33%) Financial Institution
18 26 (1.33%) Retail
Job Titles
1 353 (18.07%) Analyst
2 205 (10.49%) Senior
3 197 (10.08%) Lead
4 157 (8.03%) Business Analyst
5 144 (7.37%) Consultant
6 137 (7.01%) Developer
7 129 (6.60%) Data Engineer
8 127 (6.50%) Architect
9 93 (4.76%) Data Analyst
10 71 (3.63%) Project Manager
11 60 (3.07%) Tester
12 51 (2.61%) Software Engineer
13 50 (2.56%) Senior Analyst
14 43 (2.20%) SAP Consultant
15 39 (2.00%) Senior Developer
15 39 (2.00%) Test Analyst
15 39 (2.00%) Test Manager
16 38 (1.94%) Test Engineer
17 35 (1.79%) Embedded Engineer
17 35 (1.79%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 130 (6.65%) REST
2 96 (4.91%) JSON
3 63 (3.22%) Oracle Fusion
4 60 (3.07%) XML
5 54 (2.76%) Kafka
6 52 (2.66%) OAuth
7 50 (2.56%) Middleware
7 50 (2.56%) PySpark
8 46 (2.35%) .NET
9 45 (2.30%) SOAP
10 41 (2.10%) Node.js
11 38 (1.94%) RESTful
12 36 (1.84%) PyTorch
13 35 (1.79%) Playwright
14 32 (1.64%) TensorFlow
15 31 (1.59%) Web Services
16 30 (1.54%) pytest
16 30 (1.54%) Swagger
17 26 (1.33%) SAML
18 25 (1.28%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 116 (5.94%) Legacy Systems
2 98 (5.02%) Data Structures
3 86 (4.40%) Product Ownership
4 74 (3.79%) Onboarding
5 66 (3.38%) Cloud Native
6 54 (2.76%) Management Information System
7 47 (2.41%) Data Centre
8 34 (1.74%) Analytical Mindset
9 31 (1.59%) Distributed Systems
10 30 (1.54%) Algorithms
11 27 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
12 25 (1.28%) Replication
13 21 (1.07%) Derivative
13 21 (1.07%) Operational Technology
14 20 (1.02%) Hybrid Cloud
14 20 (1.02%) Life Science
14 20 (1.02%) NHS
14 20 (1.02%) Virtual Team
15 18 (0.92%) Greenfield Project
16 17 (0.87%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 97 (4.96%) Windows
2 80 (4.09%) Linux
3 31 (1.59%) Unix
4 11 (0.56%) Windows Server
5 9 (0.46%) Android
6 6 (0.31%) Embedded Linux
6 6 (0.31%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.31%) zOS
7 3 (0.15%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.10%) Debian
8 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.051%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.051%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.051%) pSOS
9 1 (0.051%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.051%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.051%) Solaris
9 1 (0.051%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 465 (23.80%) Migration
2 454 (23.23%) Agile
3 420 (21.49%) Problem-Solving
4 349 (17.86%) Stakeholder Management
5 344 (17.60%) CI/CD
6 327 (16.73%) Data Validation
7 299 (15.30%) Analytics
8 290 (14.84%) DevOps
9 278 (14.23%) Data Migration
10 273 (13.97%) Data Modelling
11 257 (13.15%) Test Automation
12 250 (12.79%) ETL
13 237 (12.13%) User Acceptance Testing
14 232 (11.87%) Continuous Improvement
15 221 (11.31%) AI
16 217 (11.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 199 (10.18%) Data Governance
18 198 (10.13%) Business Intelligence
19 170 (8.70%) Data Pipeline
20 163 (8.34%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 474 (24.26%) SQL
2 371 (18.99%) Python
3 95 (4.86%) Java
4 90 (4.61%) JavaScript
5 74 (3.79%) C#
6 52 (2.66%) PL/SQL
7 50 (2.56%) PowerShell
8 49 (2.51%) C++
9 42 (2.15%) C
10 37 (1.89%) Bash
10 37 (1.89%) TypeScript
11 27 (1.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 26 (1.33%) Bicep
13 23 (1.18%) R
14 20 (1.02%) Ada
15 18 (0.92%) T-SQL
16 17 (0.87%) Groovy
16 17 (0.87%) Scala
17 12 (0.61%) Shell Script
17 12 (0.61%) VBA
Qualifications
1 417 (21.34%) Security Cleared
2 305 (15.61%) SC Cleared
3 181 (9.26%) Degree
4 61 (3.12%) BPSS Clearance
5 59 (3.02%) Computer Science Degree
6 41 (2.10%) DV Cleared
7 36 (1.84%) Master's Degree
8 32 (1.64%) ISTQB
9 27 (1.38%) PMI Certification
10 24 (1.23%) PMP
11 17 (0.87%) Cisco Certification
12 16 (0.82%) AWS Certification
12 16 (0.82%) CISSP
13 14 (0.72%) CBAP
13 14 (0.72%) CCNP
13 14 (0.72%) Microsoft Certification
14 10 (0.51%) Oracle Certification
15 9 (0.46%) Azure Certification
15 9 (0.46%) CCNA
15 9 (0.46%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 310 (15.86%) Data Quality
2 254 (13.00%) QA
3 108 (5.53%) GDPR
4 84 (4.30%) NIST
5 64 (3.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 31 (1.59%) Accessibility
7 27 (1.38%) SLA
8 22 (1.13%) IFRS
9 21 (1.07%) GxP
10 19 (0.97%) Def Stans
10 19 (0.97%) IFRS 17
11 18 (0.92%) PMO
12 17 (0.87%) GRC
13 15 (0.77%) GMP
13 15 (0.77%) PCI DSS
14 14 (0.72%) HL7
15 13 (0.67%) COBIT
15 13 (0.67%) NCSC
16 12 (0.61%) EU AI Act
17 11 (0.56%) NIST 800
System Software
1 77 (3.94%) Docker
2 45 (2.30%) Active Directory
3 34 (1.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (1.13%) Firmware
5 10 (0.51%) VMware NSX
6 8 (0.41%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.26%) 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
1 117 (5.99%) Kubernetes
2 87 (4.45%) Terraform
3 31 (1.59%) Prometheus
4 30 (1.54%) Ansible
4 30 (1.54%) Single Sign-On
5 28 (1.43%) Grafana
6 13 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
7 12 (0.61%) Kibana
7 12 (0.61%) Puppet
8 9 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 7 (0.36%) SCCM
10 6 (0.31%) Nessus
11 5 (0.26%) CASB
12 4 (0.20%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.20%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.20%) FortiGate
12 4 (0.20%) RSA Archer
12 4 (0.20%) vMotion
13 3 (0.15%) Nmap
13 3 (0.15%) OMEGAMON
Vendors
1 254 (13.00%) Microsoft
2 196 (10.03%) Oracle
3 163 (8.34%) SAP
4 102 (5.22%) Databricks
5 87 (4.45%) ServiceNow
6 46 (2.35%) Google
7 42 (2.15%) Salesforce
7 42 (2.15%) Splunk
8 40 (2.05%) VMware
9 36 (1.84%) Workday
10 35 (1.79%) Cisco
11 29 (1.48%) MuleSoft
12 28 (1.43%) Informatica
12 28 (1.43%) Sage
13 22 (1.13%) IBM
14 20 (1.02%) Palo Alto
15 19 (0.97%) OpenAI
16 17 (0.87%) CyberArk
17 15 (0.77%) Murex
18 13 (0.67%) Bloomberg