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 1 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 61 116 138
Rank change year-on-year +55 +22 -3
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,479 716 770
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.99% 2.16% 1.79%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.53% 2.44% 2.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 885 369 432
10th Percentile £357 £337 £351
25th Percentile £413 £402 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% -
75th Percentile £600 £591 £625
90th Percentile £700 £688 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £513
% change year-on-year - -7.41% +3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 47 96
10th Percentile £29.24 £27.90 £51.25
25th Percentile £41.25 £46.25 £58.94
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.54% -18.21% +9.66%
75th Percentile £67.25 £65.00 £85.46
90th Percentile £75.00 £69.26 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £55.81 £70.00
% change year-on-year +16.48% -20.28% +9.66%

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 32,670 29,303 37,803
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 88.06% 88.34% 87.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,630 17,837 25,180
10th Percentile £304 £308 £306
25th Percentile £406 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,024 946 1,523
10th Percentile £14.61 £15.62 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.30 £18.98
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -26.97% +27.14%
75th Percentile £52.72 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.25 £74.60 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.58 £30.45 £45.21
% change year-on-year -22.58% -32.65% +44.86%

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 1 January 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 1 January 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 1 January 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 +56 1,276 £500 - 849
UK excluding London +34 695 £475 - 669
London +74 597 £513 +2.50% 257
Work from Home +81 465 £500 -3.61% 360
North of England +22 157 £425 +1.19% 121
South East +13 153 £500 +3.90% 266
East of England +28 112 £489 +26.15% 98
South West +12 109 £475 -17.39% 99
Midlands +5 105 £515 +22.99% 78
North West +21 102 £400 -2.97% 73
West Midlands +8 88 £515 +8.42% 54
Scotland +33 38 £449 -1.43% 28
Yorkshire -26 37 £463 +10.12% 34
Northern Ireland +10 19 £413 - 3
North East +5 18 £475 -42.42% 14
East Midlands -11 17 £456 +25.43% 24
Wales +4 10 £536 - 13

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 (3.52%) Confluence
2 35 (2.37%) Apache Spark
3 30 (2.03%) SharePoint
4 28 (1.89%) SAS
5 21 (1.42%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (1.35%) Microsoft Exchange
7 16 (1.08%) Apache
8 14 (0.95%) Skype for Business
9 10 (0.68%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 10 (0.68%) WebLogic
10 9 (0.61%) Exchange Server 2013
10 9 (0.61%) Oracle Service Bus
11 8 (0.54%) CMS
12 7 (0.47%) Mattermost
13 6 (0.41%) OpenStack
14 4 (0.27%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.27%) Anypoint
14 4 (0.27%) ArcGIS
14 4 (0.27%) Jupyter
14 4 (0.27%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
Applications
1 86 (5.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 37 (2.50%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (1.76%) MS Visio
4 18 (1.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (0.61%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
7 6 (0.41%) Sketch
8 4 (0.27%) Notion
9 3 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
10 2 (0.14%) LaTeX
10 2 (0.14%) Oracle Smart View
10 2 (0.14%) Simulink
11 1 (0.068%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.068%) CATIA
11 1 (0.068%) NASTRAN
11 1 (0.068%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.068%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.068%) Stateflow
11 1 (0.068%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 82 (5.54%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (1.01%) Oracle EBS
3 12 (0.81%) SAP EHS
3 12 (0.81%) SAP FI
4 11 (0.74%) NetSuite
4 11 (0.74%) SAP MDG
5 10 (0.68%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.61%) Aladdin
6 9 (0.61%) Remedy ITSM
7 8 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
8 7 (0.47%) OpenText VIM for SAP
8 7 (0.47%) Oracle BPM
8 7 (0.47%) Oracle General Ledger
8 7 (0.47%) Oracle Receivables
8 7 (0.47%) SAP ERP
8 7 (0.47%) SAP MM
9 6 (0.41%) Oracle Assets
9 6 (0.41%) Workday HCM
10 5 (0.34%) Markit EDM
10 5 (0.34%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 341 (23.06%) Azure
2 173 (11.70%) AWS
3 126 (8.52%) Azure DevOps
4 118 (7.98%) Power Platform
5 69 (4.67%) GitHub
6 58 (3.92%) GCP
7 49 (3.31%) SaaS
8 44 (2.97%) Entra ID
8 44 (2.97%) GitHub Actions
9 42 (2.84%) Serverless
10 39 (2.64%) Azure Data Factory
11 31 (2.10%) Amazon S3
12 30 (2.03%) Microsoft 365
12 30 (2.03%) OpenShift
13 29 (1.96%) OCI
14 27 (1.83%) Snowflake
15 26 (1.76%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 22 (1.49%) Dynamics 365
17 18 (1.22%) AWS Lambda
18 17 (1.15%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 38 (2.57%) Firewall
2 32 (2.16%) TCP/IP
3 25 (1.69%) DNS
4 21 (1.42%) Ethernet
5 20 (1.35%) WAN
6 17 (1.15%) 3GPP
7 16 (1.08%) HTTP
7 16 (1.08%) Network Security
8 15 (1.01%) VPN
9 14 (0.95%) LTE
9 14 (0.95%) Skype
10 12 (0.81%) BGP
10 12 (0.81%) Internet
10 12 (0.81%) Wireless
11 11 (0.74%) LAN
11 11 (0.74%) MPLS
11 11 (0.74%) OSPF
11 11 (0.74%) SSL
12 10 (0.68%) DMARC
12 10 (0.68%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (7.44%) Power BI
2 66 (4.46%) Data Warehouse
3 64 (4.33%) Metadata
4 38 (2.57%) Tableau
5 36 (2.43%) SQL Server
6 33 (2.23%) Data Lake
7 27 (1.83%) NoSQL
8 26 (1.76%) PostgreSQL
9 25 (1.69%) Oracle Database
10 24 (1.62%) Azure SQL Database
11 21 (1.42%) Relational Database
11 21 (1.42%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 20 (1.35%) Delta Lake
13 18 (1.22%) Oracle Reports
14 16 (1.08%) Big Data
14 16 (1.08%) BigQuery
15 15 (1.01%) Parquet
15 15 (1.01%) SAP Data Services
16 14 (0.95%) Amazon Redshift
16 14 (0.95%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 138 (9.33%) JIRA
2 72 (4.87%) Git
3 71 (4.80%) Jenkins
4 45 (3.04%) GitLab
5 44 (2.97%) Postman
5 44 (2.97%) Selenium
6 33 (2.23%) Oracle APEX
7 21 (1.42%) Visual Studio
8 19 (1.28%) Rational DOORS
9 17 (1.15%) TestRail
10 16 (1.08%) Cucumber
10 16 (1.08%) Eclipse
10 16 (1.08%) JMeter
11 14 (0.95%) Zephyr
12 12 (0.81%) MLflow
12 12 (0.81%) SpecFlow
13 11 (0.74%) Bitbucket
13 11 (0.74%) Cypress.io
14 10 (0.68%) JUnit
14 10 (0.68%) REST Assured
General
1 569 (38.47%) Social Skills
2 392 (26.50%) Finance
3 309 (20.89%) Analytical Skills
4 143 (9.67%) Public Sector
5 109 (7.37%) Banking
6 78 (5.27%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (3.31%) Presentation Skills
8 39 (2.64%) Manufacturing
9 34 (2.30%) Pharmaceutical
10 31 (2.10%) Influencing Skills
10 31 (2.10%) Military
11 30 (2.03%) Electronics
12 29 (1.96%) Telecoms
13 26 (1.76%) Marketing
14 25 (1.69%) Aerospace
14 25 (1.69%) Investment Banking
15 24 (1.62%) Front Office
16 23 (1.56%) Legal
17 20 (1.35%) Billing
17 20 (1.35%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 292 (19.74%) Analyst
2 151 (10.21%) Senior
3 140 (9.47%) Consultant
4 126 (8.52%) Business Analyst
5 122 (8.25%) Developer
6 116 (7.84%) Lead
7 77 (5.21%) Architect
8 72 (4.87%) Data Analyst
9 59 (3.99%) Data Engineer
10 52 (3.52%) Software Engineer
10 52 (3.52%) Tester
11 46 (3.11%) SAP Consultant
12 41 (2.77%) Senior Analyst
13 39 (2.64%) Project Manager
14 37 (2.50%) Senior Developer
15 34 (2.30%) Test Analyst
16 33 (2.23%) Data Scientist
17 29 (1.96%) QA Engineer
18 27 (1.83%) Oracle Consultant
18 27 (1.83%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (6.49%) REST
2 84 (5.68%) JSON
3 61 (4.12%) XML
4 47 (3.18%) Oracle Fusion
5 45 (3.04%) SOAP
6 38 (2.57%) Middleware
6 38 (2.57%) Node.js
6 38 (2.57%) OAuth
7 36 (2.43%) PySpark
8 34 (2.30%) RESTful
9 30 (2.03%) .NET
10 28 (1.89%) Swagger
11 26 (1.76%) SAP Fiori
12 25 (1.69%) Playwright
12 25 (1.69%) Web Services
13 24 (1.62%) Kafka
14 23 (1.56%) OpenAPI
15 22 (1.49%) PyTorch
16 20 (1.35%) OAuth2
17 19 (1.28%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 77 (5.21%) Legacy Systems
2 58 (3.92%) Data Structures
3 55 (3.72%) Onboarding
4 47 (3.18%) Product Ownership
5 39 (2.64%) Management Information System
6 34 (2.30%) FPGA
7 30 (2.03%) Cloud Native
8 27 (1.83%) Data Centre
9 26 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
10 25 (1.69%) Algorithms
11 22 (1.49%) IoT
12 21 (1.42%) Analytical Mindset
13 20 (1.35%) Derivative
13 20 (1.35%) Virtual Team
14 15 (1.01%) Hybrid Cloud
14 15 (1.01%) NB-IoT
15 14 (0.95%) Replication
15 14 (0.95%) Security Posture
16 13 (0.88%) Embedded Systems
16 13 (0.88%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 109 (7.37%) Linux
2 81 (5.48%) Windows
3 34 (2.30%) Unix
4 10 (0.68%) Android
5 9 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.34%) Embedded Linux
6 5 (0.34%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.27%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.27%) zOS
8 2 (0.14%) Debian
8 2 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.14%) VMS
9 1 (0.068%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.068%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.068%) MVS
9 1 (0.068%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.068%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 397 (26.84%) Agile
2 336 (22.72%) Problem-Solving
3 328 (22.18%) Migration
4 262 (17.71%) DevOps
5 248 (16.77%) CI/CD
6 232 (15.69%) Data Validation
7 225 (15.21%) Stakeholder Management
8 219 (14.81%) Analytics
9 179 (12.10%) Data Migration
10 173 (11.70%) Test Automation
11 168 (11.36%) Data Modelling
12 160 (10.82%) ETL
13 153 (10.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 151 (10.21%) AI
14 151 (10.21%) User Acceptance Testing
15 142 (9.60%) Business Intelligence
16 138 (9.33%) Data Governance
17 137 (9.26%) Data Analysis
18 127 (8.59%) Data Pipeline
19 124 (8.38%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 384 (25.96%) SQL
2 332 (22.45%) Python
3 101 (6.83%) JavaScript
4 76 (5.14%) Java
5 72 (4.87%) C#
6 61 (4.12%) PL/SQL
7 52 (3.52%) C++
8 48 (3.25%) Bash
8 48 (3.25%) PowerShell
9 30 (2.03%) C
10 29 (1.96%) R
11 26 (1.76%) TypeScript
12 16 (1.08%) Shell Script
13 15 (1.01%) Groovy
14 14 (0.95%) T-SQL
15 12 (0.81%) ABAP
15 12 (0.81%) VBA
16 10 (0.68%) Bicep
16 10 (0.68%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 9 (0.61%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 336 (22.72%) Security Cleared
2 253 (17.11%) SC Cleared
3 151 (10.21%) Degree
4 57 (3.85%) Computer Science Degree
5 48 (3.25%) BPSS Clearance
6 34 (2.30%) DV Cleared
7 32 (2.16%) Master's Degree
8 28 (1.89%) ISTQB
9 25 (1.69%) PMI Certification
10 21 (1.42%) AWS Certification
11 18 (1.22%) PMP
12 15 (1.01%) CBAP
13 14 (0.95%) Cisco Certification
13 14 (0.95%) CISSP
13 14 (0.95%) Oracle Certification
14 13 (0.88%) Azure Certification
15 10 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
15 10 (0.68%) OCA
16 9 (0.61%) CCIE
16 9 (0.61%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 192 (12.98%) Data Quality
2 190 (12.85%) QA
3 81 (5.48%) GDPR
4 59 (3.99%) NIST
5 37 (2.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 36 (2.43%) Accessibility
7 18 (1.22%) GxP
8 14 (0.95%) EU AI Act
9 12 (0.81%) Def Stans
9 12 (0.81%) IFRS
10 11 (0.74%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 10 (0.68%) MiFID
11 10 (0.68%) MISRA
11 10 (0.68%) NCSC
12 9 (0.61%) DO-178B
12 9 (0.61%) PCI DSS
12 9 (0.61%) SLA
13 8 (0.54%) GMP
14 7 (0.47%) COBIT
14 7 (0.47%) GRC
System Software
1 51 (3.45%) Active Directory
1 51 (3.45%) Docker
2 26 (1.76%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (1.62%) Firmware
4 9 (0.61%) VMware NSX
5 8 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
5 8 (0.54%) vSphere
6 7 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.41%) Dovecot
7 6 (0.41%) Postfix
8 4 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.20%) QEMU
10 2 (0.14%) Ceph
10 2 (0.14%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.14%) KVM
10 2 (0.14%) Lustre
10 2 (0.14%) OpenAM
10 2 (0.14%) OpenDJ
10 2 (0.14%) OpenIDM
10 2 (0.14%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 71 (4.80%) Kubernetes
2 63 (4.26%) Terraform
3 51 (3.45%) Ansible
4 16 (1.08%) Single Sign-On
5 13 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
6 12 (0.81%) Kibana
6 12 (0.81%) Puppet
7 10 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 10 (0.68%) Grafana
7 10 (0.68%) SCCM
8 9 (0.61%) Nessus
8 9 (0.61%) SCOM
9 8 (0.54%) Argo
9 8 (0.54%) Istio
10 7 (0.47%) HP SiteScope
10 7 (0.47%) Nmap
11 5 (0.34%) CASB
11 5 (0.34%) Prometheus
11 5 (0.34%) RSA Archer
12 4 (0.27%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 203 (13.73%) Microsoft
2 167 (11.29%) Oracle
3 128 (8.65%) SAP
4 69 (4.67%) Databricks
5 55 (3.72%) ServiceNow
6 38 (2.57%) VMware
7 36 (2.43%) Cisco
7 36 (2.43%) Splunk
8 34 (2.30%) Salesforce
9 31 (2.10%) Google
10 28 (1.89%) Workday
11 19 (1.28%) MuleSoft
12 18 (1.22%) IBM
13 16 (1.08%) Red Hat
14 13 (0.88%) Adobe
14 13 (0.88%) Informatica
14 13 (0.88%) Remedy
15 12 (0.81%) Bloomberg
15 12 (0.81%) CyberArk
15 12 (0.81%) Murex