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

6 months to
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 103 137
Rank change year-on-year +54 +34 -5
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,884 758 786
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.43% 2.57% 1.76%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.14% 2.85% 2.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,153 446 421
10th Percentile £350 £361 £325
25th Percentile £403 £413 £435
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £535 £545
Median % change year-on-year -8.88% -1.83% -0.91%
75th Percentile £595 £625 £623
90th Percentile £700 £718 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £515 £500
% change year-on-year -7.77% +3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 95 40 148
10th Percentile £23.52 £25.26 £21.11
25th Percentile £50.00 £45.57 £50.94
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.65 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.76% -4.72% -3.28%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.06 £75.16
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.03 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.75 £62.25
% change year-on-year +12.55% -7.23% -0.40%

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 36,632 26,629 38,749
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.08% 90.34% 86.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,216 16,983 25,185
10th Percentile £313 £306 £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 £743 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -1.84% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,179 898 2,347
10th Percentile £14.64 £15.57 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £29.61 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.89% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £64.75 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £74.68 £76.53 £71.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.55 £32.00 £31.80
% change year-on-year -17.02% +0.63% -9.14%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 +51 1,625 £492 -9.72% 934
UK excluding London +45 895 £475 -7.77% 751
London +63 753 £513 -6.82% 293
Work from Home +61 575 £492 -6.29% 422
North of England +31 219 £433 -10.13% 144
South East +2 189 £500 - 257
Midlands +32 171 £491 +0.56% 118
North West +23 141 £413 -8.33% 70
West Midlands +17 135 £492 +0.41% 75
South West +9 133 £475 -17.39% 98
East of England +23 109 £475 +5.56% 104
Yorkshire -8 69 £462 +9.93% 54
Scotland +49 50 £405 -10.50% 35
East Midlands -5 34 £513 +39.65% 43
Northern Ireland +20 25 £400 -27.27% 4
Wales - 14 £460 - 11
North East -5 12 £463 -36.21% 20

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 76 (4.03%) Confluence
2 42 (2.23%) Apache Spark
3 33 (1.75%) SAS
4 30 (1.59%) Apache Airflow
5 20 (1.06%) Apache
6 18 (0.96%) SharePoint
7 13 (0.69%) Microsoft Exchange
8 9 (0.48%) Appian
9 8 (0.42%) ArcGIS
10 7 (0.37%) Jupyter
10 7 (0.37%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
11 6 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
12 5 (0.27%) CMS
13 4 (0.21%) Anypoint
13 4 (0.21%) Smallworld
14 3 (0.16%) CICS
14 3 (0.16%) GeoServer
14 3 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 3 (0.16%) WebLogic
15 2 (0.11%) WebSphere
Applications
1 87 (4.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (1.33%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (1.22%) MS Visio
4 14 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
6 10 (0.53%) Chatbot
7 9 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
8 4 (0.21%) Notion
9 3 (0.16%) LaTeX
10 2 (0.11%) Sketch
11 1 (0.053%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.053%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.053%) CATIA
11 1 (0.053%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.053%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.053%) Simulink
11 1 (0.053%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 90 (4.78%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (1.70%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.74%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.69%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 12 (0.64%) Oracle General Ledger
5 12 (0.64%) Workday HCM
6 10 (0.53%) Oracle Assets
6 10 (0.53%) Oracle Receivables
6 10 (0.53%) SAP FI
7 9 (0.48%) NetSuite
7 9 (0.48%) Oracle EBS R12
7 9 (0.48%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.42%) OpenText VIM for SAP
9 7 (0.37%) Aladdin
9 7 (0.37%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 7 (0.37%) SAP ERP
9 7 (0.37%) SAP MM
10 6 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
10 6 (0.32%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 431 (22.88%) Azure
2 248 (13.16%) AWS
3 156 (8.28%) Power Platform
4 132 (7.01%) Azure DevOps
5 91 (4.83%) GitHub
6 89 (4.72%) GCP
7 59 (3.13%) Serverless
8 58 (3.08%) GitHub Actions
9 56 (2.97%) Entra ID
10 54 (2.87%) Amazon S3
11 49 (2.60%) Azure Data Factory
11 49 (2.60%) SaaS
12 45 (2.39%) OCI
13 41 (2.18%) Snowflake
14 33 (1.75%) AWS Lambda
15 30 (1.59%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 28 (1.49%) AWS CloudFormation
16 28 (1.49%) OpenShift
17 24 (1.27%) SuccessFactors
18 23 (1.22%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 60 (3.18%) Firewall
2 39 (2.07%) Network Security
3 34 (1.80%) TCP/IP
4 24 (1.27%) Ethernet
5 23 (1.22%) DNS
6 19 (1.01%) HTTP
7 16 (0.85%) VPN
8 15 (0.80%) VLAN
9 14 (0.74%) SAN
9 14 (0.74%) WAN
10 12 (0.64%) NAS
11 10 (0.53%) Wireless
12 9 (0.48%) Internet
12 9 (0.48%) LAN
12 9 (0.48%) SSL
13 8 (0.42%) BGP
13 8 (0.42%) OSPF
13 8 (0.42%) SD-WAN
14 7 (0.37%) MPLS
15 6 (0.32%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 146 (7.75%) Power BI
2 95 (5.04%) Metadata
3 84 (4.46%) Data Warehouse
4 53 (2.81%) SQL Server
5 50 (2.65%) PostgreSQL
6 47 (2.49%) Tableau
7 44 (2.34%) Data Lake
8 30 (1.59%) Delta Lake
9 29 (1.54%) NoSQL
10 26 (1.38%) Oracle Reports
11 25 (1.33%) Big Data
12 24 (1.27%) Relational Database
13 23 (1.22%) Amazon Redshift
13 23 (1.22%) Azure SQL Database
14 21 (1.11%) Geospatial Data
15 20 (1.06%) Oracle Database
16 19 (1.01%) Amazon Athena
16 19 (1.01%) GIS
16 19 (1.01%) Pinecone
16 19 (1.01%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 177 (9.39%) JIRA
2 115 (6.10%) Git
3 86 (4.56%) Jenkins
4 62 (3.29%) Selenium
5 56 (2.97%) GitLab
5 56 (2.97%) Postman
6 35 (1.86%) JMeter
7 34 (1.80%) JUnit
8 33 (1.75%) Cucumber
9 31 (1.65%) Oracle APEX
9 31 (1.65%) Rational DOORS
10 20 (1.06%) MLflow
10 20 (1.06%) Visual Studio
11 17 (0.90%) WebDriver
12 14 (0.74%) Eclipse
12 14 (0.74%) REST Assured
12 14 (0.74%) TestRail
13 12 (0.64%) SpecFlow
13 12 (0.64%) Zephyr
14 11 (0.58%) Cypress.io
General
1 668 (35.46%) Social Skills
2 553 (29.35%) Finance
3 378 (20.06%) Analytical Skills
4 178 (9.45%) Public Sector
5 166 (8.81%) Banking
6 95 (5.04%) Documentation Skills
7 57 (3.03%) Manufacturing
8 51 (2.71%) Presentation Skills
9 45 (2.39%) Aerospace
10 41 (2.18%) Pharmaceutical
11 38 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
12 34 (1.80%) Organisational Skills
13 32 (1.70%) Electronics
14 31 (1.65%) Marketing
15 30 (1.59%) Legal
15 30 (1.59%) Telecoms
16 28 (1.49%) Billing
16 28 (1.49%) Front Office
17 27 (1.43%) Military
18 25 (1.33%) Retail
Job Titles
1 342 (18.15%) Analyst
2 196 (10.40%) Senior
3 192 (10.19%) Lead
4 154 (8.17%) Business Analyst
5 139 (7.38%) Consultant
6 136 (7.22%) Developer
7 125 (6.63%) Architect
8 118 (6.26%) Data Engineer
9 91 (4.83%) Data Analyst
10 65 (3.45%) Project Manager
11 56 (2.97%) Tester
12 52 (2.76%) Software Engineer
13 50 (2.65%) Senior Analyst
14 40 (2.12%) SAP Consultant
15 39 (2.07%) Test Analyst
16 37 (1.96%) Senior Developer
16 37 (1.96%) Test Manager
17 36 (1.91%) Test Engineer
18 34 (1.80%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
18 34 (1.80%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 124 (6.58%) REST
2 92 (4.88%) JSON
3 62 (3.29%) Oracle Fusion
4 57 (3.03%) XML
5 52 (2.76%) OAuth
6 50 (2.65%) Kafka
7 48 (2.55%) Middleware
8 47 (2.49%) PySpark
9 44 (2.34%) SOAP
10 43 (2.28%) .NET
11 41 (2.18%) Node.js
12 38 (2.02%) RESTful
13 36 (1.91%) Playwright
13 36 (1.91%) PyTorch
14 32 (1.70%) TensorFlow
15 31 (1.65%) pytest
15 31 (1.65%) Web Services
16 30 (1.59%) Swagger
17 27 (1.43%) Pandas
18 26 (1.38%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 113 (6.00%) Legacy Systems
2 88 (4.67%) Data Structures
3 82 (4.35%) Product Ownership
4 71 (3.77%) Onboarding
5 63 (3.34%) Cloud Native
6 50 (2.65%) Management Information System
7 45 (2.39%) Data Centre
8 33 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
9 30 (1.59%) Algorithms
9 30 (1.59%) Distributed Systems
10 28 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
11 23 (1.22%) Derivative
12 22 (1.17%) Replication
13 21 (1.11%) Operational Technology
14 20 (1.06%) Hybrid Cloud
15 19 (1.01%) Virtual Team
16 18 (0.96%) NHS
17 17 (0.90%) Enterprise Software
17 17 (0.90%) Greenfield Project
17 17 (0.90%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 93 (4.94%) Windows
2 79 (4.19%) Linux
3 31 (1.65%) Unix
4 10 (0.53%) Windows Server
5 9 (0.48%) Android
6 6 (0.32%) Embedded Linux
6 6 (0.32%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.32%) zOS
7 3 (0.16%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.11%) Debian
8 2 (0.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.053%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.053%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.053%) pSOS
9 1 (0.053%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.053%) Solaris
9 1 (0.053%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 446 (23.67%) Agile
2 441 (23.41%) Migration
3 416 (22.08%) Problem-Solving
4 340 (18.05%) Stakeholder Management
5 327 (17.36%) CI/CD
6 313 (16.61%) Data Validation
7 292 (15.50%) Analytics
8 276 (14.65%) DevOps
9 260 (13.80%) Data Migration
10 259 (13.75%) Data Modelling
11 248 (13.16%) Test Automation
12 237 (12.58%) ETL
13 227 (12.05%) User Acceptance Testing
14 222 (11.78%) Continuous Improvement
15 219 (11.62%) AI
16 204 (10.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 187 (9.93%) Data Governance
18 186 (9.87%) Business Intelligence
19 162 (8.60%) Data Analysis
19 162 (8.60%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 450 (23.89%) SQL
2 368 (19.53%) Python
3 93 (4.94%) Java
3 93 (4.94%) JavaScript
4 73 (3.87%) C#
5 53 (2.81%) PL/SQL
6 49 (2.60%) C++
7 46 (2.44%) PowerShell
8 41 (2.18%) C
9 38 (2.02%) TypeScript
10 36 (1.91%) Bash
11 26 (1.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 25 (1.33%) Bicep
13 24 (1.27%) R
14 19 (1.01%) Ada
15 17 (0.90%) Groovy
16 16 (0.85%) Scala
16 16 (0.85%) T-SQL
17 12 (0.64%) Shell Script
18 11 (0.58%) VBA
Qualifications
1 413 (21.92%) Security Cleared
2 304 (16.14%) SC Cleared
3 180 (9.55%) Degree
4 60 (3.18%) Computer Science Degree
5 59 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
6 41 (2.18%) DV Cleared
7 36 (1.91%) Master's Degree
8 31 (1.65%) ISTQB
9 27 (1.43%) PMI Certification
10 23 (1.22%) PMP
11 16 (0.85%) AWS Certification
11 16 (0.85%) CISSP
12 14 (0.74%) CBAP
13 13 (0.69%) Cisco Certification
14 12 (0.64%) Microsoft Certification
14 12 (0.64%) Oracle Certification
15 10 (0.53%) CCNP
16 9 (0.48%) Azure Certification
16 9 (0.48%) CTC Cleared
17 8 (0.42%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 282 (14.97%) Data Quality
2 240 (12.74%) QA
3 101 (5.36%) GDPR
4 80 (4.25%) NIST
5 59 (3.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 31 (1.65%) Accessibility
7 26 (1.38%) SLA
8 22 (1.17%) IFRS
9 19 (1.01%) IFRS 17
10 18 (0.96%) Def Stans
10 18 (0.96%) GxP
11 16 (0.85%) GRC
11 16 (0.85%) PCI DSS
11 16 (0.85%) PMO
12 14 (0.74%) GMP
13 13 (0.69%) COBIT
13 13 (0.69%) EU AI Act
13 13 (0.69%) NCSC
14 11 (0.58%) HL7
14 11 (0.58%) MiFID
System Software
1 78 (4.14%) Docker
2 41 (2.18%) Active Directory
3 33 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (1.17%) Firmware
5 10 (0.53%) VMware NSX
6 8 (0.42%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.27%) NFS
9 4 (0.21%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
9 4 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
10 3 (0.16%) vSphere
11 2 (0.11%) Ceph
11 2 (0.11%) KVM
11 2 (0.11%) Lustre
11 2 (0.11%) OpenAM
11 2 (0.11%) OpenDJ
11 2 (0.11%) OpenIDM
11 2 (0.11%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 114 (6.05%) Kubernetes
2 81 (4.30%) Terraform
3 32 (1.70%) Ansible
4 30 (1.59%) Single Sign-On
5 29 (1.54%) Prometheus
6 26 (1.38%) Grafana
7 13 (0.69%) Kibana
7 13 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
7 13 (0.69%) Puppet
8 9 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 7 (0.37%) SCCM
10 6 (0.32%) Nessus
11 5 (0.27%) CASB
12 4 (0.21%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.21%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.21%) RSA Archer
12 4 (0.21%) vMotion
13 3 (0.16%) CloudHub
13 3 (0.16%) Istio
13 3 (0.16%) linkerd
Vendors
1 238 (12.63%) Microsoft
2 193 (10.24%) Oracle
3 156 (8.28%) SAP
4 97 (5.15%) Databricks
5 83 (4.41%) ServiceNow
6 46 (2.44%) Google
7 43 (2.28%) Splunk
8 39 (2.07%) Salesforce
8 39 (2.07%) VMware
9 36 (1.91%) Workday
10 35 (1.86%) Cisco
11 28 (1.49%) MuleSoft
11 28 (1.49%) Sage
12 25 (1.33%) Informatica
13 23 (1.22%) IBM
14 19 (1.01%) OpenAI
14 19 (1.01%) Palo Alto
15 17 (0.90%) CyberArk
15 17 (0.90%) Murex
16 14 (0.74%) Bloomberg