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 17 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 63 110 153
Rank change year-on-year +47 +43 -4
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,346 783 811
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.83% 2.16% 1.73%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.27% 2.50% 1.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 793 400 466
10th Percentile £358 £334 £350
25th Percentile £419 £406 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.96%
75th Percentile £615 £594 £625
90th Percentile £688 £672 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £491 £488 £514
% change year-on-year +0.72% -5.07% +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 90 77 95
10th Percentile £29.89 £28.00 £50.00
25th Percentile £41.25 £45.22 £56.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -7.41% +9.76%
75th Percentile £67.25 £66.00 £84.36
90th Percentile £75.23 £75.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £68.03
% change year-on-year +4.00% -8.13% +11.21%

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 31,532 31,312 41,582
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.80% 86.28% 88.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,731 18,831 28,017
10th Percentile £299 £310 £308
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,089 1,101 1,605
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.10 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.12 £19.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £43.84
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -20.16% +25.24%
75th Percentile £44.77 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.05 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.63 £33.93 £43.95
% change year-on-year -33.30% -22.80% +48.98%

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 17 November 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 17 November 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 17 November 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 +40 1,152 £500 - 1,268
UK excluding London +20 648 £491 +0.72% 837
London +73 521 £525 +5.00% 517
Work from Home +76 432 £500 -4.76% 559
South East +9 154 £500 +2.56% 266
North of England +19 124 £450 +7.14% 139
East of England +23 114 £500 +33.33% 151
South West +4 105 £475 -18.80% 136
Midlands -18 92 £492 -0.61% 114
North West +6 76 £428 -6.30% 99
West Midlands -18 74 £500 -3.61% 75
Scotland +25 40 £513 +12.64% 49
Yorkshire -13 36 £440 +4.76% 28
East Midlands -6 18 £430 +5.85% 37
Northern Ireland +4 14 £425 - 8
Wales +8 12 £500 - 16
North East +2 12 £515 -10.43% 12
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 52 (3.86%) Confluence
2 38 (2.82%) SharePoint
3 30 (2.23%) Apache Spark
4 23 (1.71%) Apache Airflow
4 23 (1.71%) SAS
5 16 (1.19%) Microsoft Exchange
6 15 (1.11%) Skype for Business
7 14 (1.04%) Apache
8 13 (0.97%) WebLogic
9 10 (0.74%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 9 (0.67%) Oracle Service Bus
11 8 (0.59%) CMS
12 7 (0.52%) Exchange Server 2013
12 7 (0.52%) Mattermost
13 6 (0.45%) OpenStack
14 4 (0.30%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.30%) Smallworld
15 3 (0.22%) Anypoint
15 3 (0.22%) ArcGIS
15 3 (0.22%) GeoServer
Applications
1 92 (6.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (3.12%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (1.93%) MS Visio
4 20 (1.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.52%) Chatbot
6 6 (0.45%) Sketch
6 6 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.22%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.22%) Simulink
8 2 (0.15%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.074%) CANalyzer
9 1 (0.074%) NASTRAN
9 1 (0.074%) Notion
9 1 (0.074%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.074%) Stateflow
9 1 (0.074%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 83 (6.17%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (1.11%) SAP MDG
3 13 (0.97%) Aladdin
3 13 (0.97%) SAP FI
4 12 (0.89%) Oracle EBS
4 12 (0.89%) SAP EHS
5 10 (0.74%) Remedy ITSM
6 9 (0.67%) Oracle BPM
7 7 (0.52%) OpenText VIM for SAP
7 7 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
7 7 (0.52%) SAP MM
7 7 (0.52%) Workday HCM
8 6 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
8 6 (0.45%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.45%) SAP PLM
9 5 (0.37%) Markit EDM
9 5 (0.37%) NetSuite
9 5 (0.37%) SAP CO
9 5 (0.37%) SAP FI/CO
10 4 (0.30%) SAP VC
Cloud Services
1 290 (21.55%) Azure
2 148 (11.00%) AWS
3 114 (8.47%) Power Platform
4 113 (8.40%) Azure DevOps
5 57 (4.23%) GCP
6 55 (4.09%) GitHub
7 37 (2.75%) SaaS
8 35 (2.60%) Entra ID
8 35 (2.60%) GitHub Actions
9 31 (2.30%) Serverless
10 30 (2.23%) Snowflake
11 27 (2.01%) Microsoft 365
12 24 (1.78%) OpenShift
13 23 (1.71%) Azure Data Factory
13 23 (1.71%) OCI
14 21 (1.56%) Amazon S3
15 19 (1.41%) Dynamics 365
16 17 (1.26%) dbt
17 15 (1.11%) Azure Functions
17 15 (1.11%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 35 (2.60%) Firewall
2 32 (2.38%) TCP/IP
3 30 (2.23%) DNS
4 22 (1.63%) BGP
4 22 (1.63%) Ethernet
4 22 (1.63%) VPN
5 21 (1.56%) MPLS
6 20 (1.49%) WAN
7 15 (1.11%) 3GPP
7 15 (1.11%) Skype
8 14 (1.04%) HTTP
8 14 (1.04%) LTE
9 13 (0.97%) OSPF
10 12 (0.89%) SSL
11 11 (0.82%) LAN
11 11 (0.82%) SD-WAN
12 10 (0.74%) Wireless
13 9 (0.67%) SNMP
14 8 (0.59%) Internet
14 8 (0.59%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 107 (7.95%) Power BI
2 70 (5.20%) Data Warehouse
3 47 (3.49%) Metadata
4 41 (3.05%) Tableau
5 30 (2.23%) NoSQL
5 30 (2.23%) SQL Server
6 27 (2.01%) Oracle Database
7 22 (1.63%) PostgreSQL
7 22 (1.63%) Relational Database
8 21 (1.56%) Data Lake
8 21 (1.56%) Oracle Reports
9 20 (1.49%) Azure SQL Database
10 18 (1.34%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 16 (1.19%) BigQuery
12 14 (1.04%) SAP HANA
13 13 (0.97%) Amazon Redshift
13 13 (0.97%) Big Data
13 13 (0.97%) Parquet
14 12 (0.89%) Geospatial Data
14 12 (0.89%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 132 (9.81%) JIRA
2 64 (4.75%) Git
3 59 (4.38%) Jenkins
4 41 (3.05%) Postman
5 36 (2.67%) Selenium
6 35 (2.60%) GitLab
7 32 (2.38%) Oracle APEX
8 27 (2.01%) Visual Studio
9 22 (1.63%) Eclipse
10 19 (1.41%) TestRail
11 17 (1.26%) Cucumber
12 16 (1.19%) Rational DOORS
13 15 (1.11%) JMeter
13 15 (1.11%) Zephyr
14 12 (0.89%) JUnit
15 10 (0.74%) SpecFlow
16 9 (0.67%) Bitbucket
16 9 (0.67%) Cypress.io
16 9 (0.67%) MLflow
16 9 (0.67%) REST Assured
General
1 553 (41.08%) Social Skills
2 356 (26.45%) Finance
3 303 (22.51%) Analytical Skills
4 119 (8.84%) Public Sector
5 91 (6.76%) Banking
6 82 (6.09%) Documentation Skills
7 56 (4.16%) Presentation Skills
8 39 (2.90%) Manufacturing
9 37 (2.75%) Pharmaceutical
10 35 (2.60%) Aerospace
11 33 (2.45%) Military
12 31 (2.30%) Marketing
12 31 (2.30%) Telecoms
13 27 (2.01%) Electronics
13 27 (2.01%) Front Office
14 26 (1.93%) Influencing Skills
15 25 (1.86%) Investment Banking
16 23 (1.71%) Billing
17 22 (1.63%) Organisational Skills
18 17 (1.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 268 (19.91%) Analyst
2 145 (10.77%) Consultant
3 131 (9.73%) Senior
4 120 (8.92%) Developer
5 115 (8.54%) Business Analyst
6 100 (7.43%) Lead
7 75 (5.57%) Data Analyst
8 56 (4.16%) Architect
9 52 (3.86%) Tester
10 51 (3.79%) SAP Consultant
11 47 (3.49%) Software Engineer
12 43 (3.19%) Data Engineer
13 38 (2.82%) Data Scientist
14 35 (2.60%) Senior Developer
15 32 (2.38%) Test Analyst
16 27 (2.01%) Senior Analyst
17 25 (1.86%) Project Manager
18 24 (1.78%) Oracle Consultant
18 24 (1.78%) QA Engineer
19 23 (1.71%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (5.79%) REST
2 69 (5.13%) JSON
3 50 (3.71%) XML
4 41 (3.05%) Node.js
5 40 (2.97%) SOAP
6 35 (2.60%) Oracle Fusion
7 34 (2.53%) RESTful
8 32 (2.38%) Web Services
9 30 (2.23%) .NET
10 29 (2.15%) OAuth
11 28 (2.08%) SAP Fiori
12 21 (1.56%) Middleware
13 20 (1.49%) Playwright
14 19 (1.41%) PySpark
14 19 (1.41%) Swagger
15 18 (1.34%) OAuth2
16 17 (1.26%) React
17 16 (1.19%) Kafka
17 16 (1.19%) OpenAPI
17 16 (1.19%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 63 (4.68%) Legacy Systems
2 47 (3.49%) Product Ownership
3 44 (3.27%) Data Structures
4 43 (3.19%) Management Information System
4 43 (3.19%) Onboarding
5 31 (2.30%) FPGA
6 29 (2.15%) Cloud Native
7 26 (1.93%) Data Centre
7 26 (1.93%) Data Protection Act
8 25 (1.86%) Virtual Team
9 20 (1.49%) Algorithms
10 19 (1.41%) Analytical Mindset
11 17 (1.26%) IoT
12 16 (1.19%) Derivative
12 16 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
13 15 (1.11%) NB-IoT
14 14 (1.04%) Hybrid Cloud
14 14 (1.04%) SCADA
15 13 (0.97%) Security Posture
15 13 (0.97%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 105 (7.80%) Linux
2 81 (6.02%) Windows
3 29 (2.15%) Unix
4 9 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (0.59%) Windows Server
6 5 (0.37%) Android
6 5 (0.37%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.30%) VMS
8 2 (0.15%) FreeRTOS
8 2 (0.15%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.15%) Windows Server 2003
8 2 (0.15%) zOS
9 1 (0.074%) Debian
9 1 (0.074%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.074%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.074%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.074%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.074%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.074%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.074%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 351 (26.08%) Agile
2 316 (23.48%) Problem-Solving
3 285 (21.17%) Migration
4 226 (16.79%) DevOps
5 216 (16.05%) CI/CD
6 209 (15.53%) Data Validation
7 204 (15.16%) Analytics
8 182 (13.52%) Stakeholder Management
9 167 (12.41%) Data Migration
10 160 (11.89%) Test Automation
11 137 (10.18%) Business Intelligence
11 137 (10.18%) Data Modelling
12 135 (10.03%) Data Analysis
12 135 (10.03%) ETL
13 133 (9.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 132 (9.81%) Data Governance
15 131 (9.73%) User Acceptance Testing
16 108 (8.02%) AI
16 108 (8.02%) Continuous Improvement
17 106 (7.88%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 343 (25.48%) SQL
2 298 (22.14%) Python
3 97 (7.21%) JavaScript
4 70 (5.20%) C#
5 69 (5.13%) Java
6 57 (4.23%) PL/SQL
7 48 (3.57%) C++
8 42 (3.12%) PowerShell
9 38 (2.82%) Bash
10 30 (2.23%) R
11 23 (1.71%) TypeScript
12 19 (1.41%) Shell Script
13 17 (1.26%) C
14 15 (1.11%) ABAP
14 15 (1.11%) VBA
15 14 (1.04%) T-SQL
16 11 (0.82%) Groovy
16 11 (0.82%) SystemVerilog
17 10 (0.74%) Apex Code
17 10 (0.74%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 310 (23.03%) Security Cleared
2 240 (17.83%) SC Cleared
3 151 (11.22%) Degree
4 39 (2.90%) BPSS Clearance
5 38 (2.82%) Computer Science Degree
6 33 (2.45%) DV Cleared
7 28 (2.08%) ISTQB
7 28 (2.08%) Master's Degree
8 22 (1.63%) PMI Certification
9 19 (1.41%) AWS Certification
9 19 (1.41%) Cisco Certification
10 17 (1.26%) PhD
11 15 (1.11%) CISSP
12 13 (0.97%) CBAP
13 12 (0.89%) CCNP
14 11 (0.82%) PMP
15 10 (0.74%) Oracle Certification
16 9 (0.67%) CCIE
16 9 (0.67%) CTC Cleared
16 9 (0.67%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 160 (11.89%) QA
2 151 (11.22%) Data Quality
3 65 (4.83%) GDPR
4 42 (3.12%) NIST
5 29 (2.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 26 (1.93%) Accessibility
7 14 (1.04%) EU AI Act
7 14 (1.04%) GxP
8 12 (0.89%) IFRS
8 12 (0.89%) MiFID
9 9 (0.67%) Def Stans
9 9 (0.67%) EMIR
10 8 (0.59%) PCI DSS
10 8 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 7 (0.52%) PMO
11 7 (0.52%) SLA
12 6 (0.45%) COBIT
12 6 (0.45%) MISRA
12 6 (0.45%) NCSC
12 6 (0.45%) NIST 800
System Software
1 50 (3.71%) Active Directory
2 40 (2.97%) Docker
3 37 (2.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (1.41%) VMware ESXi
5 16 (1.19%) Firmware
6 14 (1.04%) vSphere
7 9 (0.67%) VMware NSX
8 6 (0.45%) Dovecot
8 6 (0.45%) Postfix
9 4 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
10 3 (0.22%) Embedded Firmware
10 3 (0.22%) QEMU
10 3 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
11 1 (0.074%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.074%) Hyper-V
11 1 (0.074%) KVM
11 1 (0.074%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.074%) Squid
11 1 (0.074%) Time Sharing Option
11 1 (0.074%) Veritas Cluster Server
Systems Management
1 57 (4.23%) Kubernetes
2 48 (3.57%) Ansible
3 43 (3.19%) Terraform
4 14 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
5 11 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
6 10 (0.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 10 (0.74%) SCCM
7 9 (0.67%) Nessus
7 9 (0.67%) SCOM
8 8 (0.59%) Argo
8 8 (0.59%) Grafana
8 8 (0.59%) Istio
9 7 (0.52%) HP SiteScope
9 7 (0.52%) Puppet
10 6 (0.45%) HP ALM
10 6 (0.45%) Kibana
10 6 (0.45%) Nmap
11 5 (0.37%) RSA Archer
11 5 (0.37%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.30%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 199 (14.78%) Microsoft
2 157 (11.66%) Oracle
3 122 (9.06%) SAP
4 56 (4.16%) ServiceNow
5 54 (4.01%) VMware
6 44 (3.27%) Salesforce
7 39 (2.90%) Databricks
8 36 (2.67%) Cisco
9 30 (2.23%) Workday
10 27 (2.01%) Splunk
11 24 (1.78%) Google
12 16 (1.19%) Red Hat
13 14 (1.04%) Remedy
14 13 (0.97%) MuleSoft
15 12 (0.89%) IBM
16 11 (0.82%) CyberArk
16 11 (0.82%) EMC
17 10 (0.74%) F5
17 10 (0.74%) Fortinet
17 10 (0.74%) OpenText