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 12 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 68 125
Rank change year-on-year +32 +57 +30
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,843 1,170 745
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.33% 3.55% 1.91%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.28% 3.92% 2.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,715 683 365
10th Percentile £340 £350 £342
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £488
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +5.53% -11.27%
75th Percentile £600 £618 £588
90th Percentile £703 £688 £669
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £514 £463
% change year-on-year -9.98% +11.08% -9.84%
Number of hourly rates quoted 184 85 121
10th Percentile £17.01 £20.50 £29.77
25th Percentile £27.16 £36.48 £51.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -7.69% -
75th Percentile £74.25 £65.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £83.53 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -3.85% - -

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 45,292 29,826 33,298
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.86% 90.48% 85.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,883 18,657 21,289
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £423 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,827 1,696 1,836
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.80 £17.30 £18.35
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £41.08
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -38.77% -1.96%
75th Percentile £68.00 £47.66 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.51 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.84 £42.50
% change year-on-year +92.47% -46.26% +17.24%

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 12 August 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 12 August 2026.

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 12 August 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 +34 2,464 £500 -3.24% 2,878
UK excluding London +30 1,332 £463 -9.98% 1,784
London +41 1,186 £525 +0.96% 1,409
Work from Home +34 803 £496 -0.90% 1,038
South East +3 322 £500 - 437
Midlands +36 314 £475 +4.51% 241
North of England +49 305 £450 -9.09% 308
West Midlands +35 223 £463 +2.78% 152
North West +26 155 £450 -21.40% 180
East of England +5 150 £475 -6.40% 262
Yorkshire +40 136 £460 +5.75% 74
South West +3 130 £525 -8.70% 275
Scotland +46 91 £420 -10.40% 198
East Midlands +28 86 £509 +11.99% 89
Wales 0 25 £369 -1.67% 55
North East -35 18 £425 -22.73% 60
Northern Ireland +12 10 £380 -35.59% 35
Channel Islands +2 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 82 (2.88%) Confluence
2 68 (2.39%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (1.93%) SAS
4 51 (1.79%) SharePoint
5 41 (1.44%) Apache Spark
6 32 (1.13%) Apache
7 14 (0.49%) Microsoft Exchange
8 13 (0.46%) Jupyter
9 12 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
10 10 (0.35%) CMS
11 9 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
12 7 (0.25%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.18%) IIS
13 5 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
13 5 (0.18%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.11%) JBoss
15 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
Applications
1 195 (6.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.44%) MS Visio
3 39 (1.37%) Microsoft Office
4 29 (1.02%) Spreadsheet
5 26 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 13 (0.46%) AutoCAD
7 10 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
8 8 (0.28%) CATIA
8 8 (0.28%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.28%) Revit
9 7 (0.25%) ProjectWise
10 6 (0.21%) Simulink
11 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.070%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.070%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.070%) Windchill
13 1 (0.035%) Autodesk Inventor
13 1 (0.035%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.035%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.035%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 121 (4.26%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.02%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.46%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.42%) iTrent
5 12 (0.42%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.42%) SAP ERP
6 11 (0.39%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 11 (0.39%) Teamcenter
7 10 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.32%) Aladdin
8 9 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.32%) SAP MDG
8 9 (0.32%) SAP SD
9 8 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
9 8 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
9 8 (0.28%) Sage X3
10 7 (0.25%) SAP HCM
10 7 (0.25%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 614 (21.60%) Azure
2 336 (11.82%) AWS
3 303 (10.66%) Power Platform
4 160 (5.63%) Azure DevOps
5 150 (5.28%) GCP
6 131 (4.61%) GitHub
7 97 (3.41%) Snowflake
8 75 (2.64%) Azure Data Factory
8 75 (2.64%) Entra ID
9 72 (2.53%) GitHub Actions
10 68 (2.39%) Serverless
11 55 (1.93%) Microsoft 365
12 54 (1.90%) Amazon S3
12 54 (1.90%) SaaS
13 46 (1.62%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 46 (1.62%) dbt
14 44 (1.55%) OCI
14 44 (1.55%) SuccessFactors
15 36 (1.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 34 (1.20%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 114 (4.01%) Firewall
2 66 (2.32%) DNS
2 66 (2.32%) Network Security
3 54 (1.90%) VLAN
4 53 (1.86%) VPN
5 46 (1.62%) TCP/IP
6 40 (1.41%) WAN
7 37 (1.30%) BGP
8 30 (1.06%) DHCP
9 25 (0.88%) OSPF
10 23 (0.81%) LAN
11 22 (0.77%) Internet
11 22 (0.77%) SD-WAN
12 21 (0.74%) SAN
13 20 (0.70%) Wireless
14 18 (0.63%) VXLAN
15 17 (0.60%) Ethernet
15 17 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
16 16 (0.56%) Ethernet VPN
17 15 (0.53%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 282 (9.92%) Power BI
2 169 (5.94%) Data Warehouse
3 118 (4.15%) Metadata
4 102 (3.59%) SQL Server
5 98 (3.45%) PostgreSQL
6 89 (3.13%) Data Lake
7 88 (3.10%) Relational Database
8 76 (2.67%) Tableau
9 39 (1.37%) Big Data
10 35 (1.23%) MongoDB
11 33 (1.16%) NoSQL
11 33 (1.16%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 32 (1.13%) Oracle Reports
13 31 (1.09%) Delta Lake
13 31 (1.09%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 30 (1.06%) Azure SQL Database
14 30 (1.06%) Oracle Database
15 28 (0.98%) BigQuery
15 28 (0.98%) MySQL
15 28 (0.98%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 252 (8.86%) JIRA
2 189 (6.65%) Git
3 106 (3.73%) Jenkins
4 83 (2.92%) GitLab
5 70 (2.46%) Selenium
6 49 (1.72%) JMeter
7 47 (1.65%) Postman
8 39 (1.37%) Cucumber
9 37 (1.30%) JUnit
10 35 (1.23%) WebDriver
11 24 (0.84%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.63%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.56%) Gatling
13 16 (0.56%) Visual Studio
14 14 (0.49%) REST Assured
15 13 (0.46%) Maven
15 13 (0.46%) Rational Rhapsody
16 12 (0.42%) Cypress.io
16 12 (0.42%) Gradle
16 12 (0.42%) Oracle Forms
General
1 807 (28.39%) Finance
1 807 (28.39%) Social Skills
2 550 (19.35%) Analytical Skills
3 244 (8.58%) Public Sector
4 208 (7.32%) Banking
5 149 (5.24%) Documentation Skills
6 107 (3.76%) Manufacturing
7 95 (3.34%) Retail
8 69 (2.43%) Aerospace
9 63 (2.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 62 (2.18%) Pharmaceutical
11 57 (2.00%) Telecoms
12 53 (1.86%) Organisational Skills
13 49 (1.72%) Automotive
14 45 (1.58%) Legal
15 43 (1.51%) Front Office
15 43 (1.51%) Marketing
16 41 (1.44%) Local Government
17 39 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
17 39 (1.37%) Law
Job Titles
1 497 (17.48%) Analyst
2 304 (10.69%) Senior
3 282 (9.92%) Lead
4 235 (8.27%) Business Analyst
5 231 (8.13%) Data Engineer
6 216 (7.60%) Consultant
7 172 (6.05%) Developer
8 146 (5.14%) Architect
9 143 (5.03%) Data Analyst
10 106 (3.73%) Test Engineer
11 85 (2.99%) Tester
12 75 (2.64%) Project Manager
13 65 (2.29%) Network Engineer
14 59 (2.08%) Administrator
14 59 (2.08%) Systems Engineer
15 54 (1.90%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 54 (1.90%) Technical Analyst
16 51 (1.79%) Senior Data Engineer
17 45 (1.58%) Senior Analyst
18 44 (1.55%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 154 (5.42%) REST
2 85 (2.99%) JSON
3 74 (2.60%) Kafka
3 74 (2.60%) XML
4 73 (2.57%) PySpark
5 62 (2.18%) Middleware
6 51 (1.79%) Oracle Fusion
7 50 (1.76%) .NET
8 47 (1.65%) Spring
9 45 (1.58%) Playwright
10 44 (1.55%) pytest
11 41 (1.44%) SOAP
12 38 (1.34%) Web Services
13 35 (1.23%) OAuth
14 33 (1.16%) Pandas
15 32 (1.13%) RESTful
16 29 (1.02%) Node.js
17 28 (0.98%) Spring Boot
18 26 (0.91%) WireMock
19 24 (0.84%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 158 (5.56%) Onboarding
2 155 (5.45%) Data Structures
3 130 (4.57%) Legacy Systems
4 125 (4.40%) Cloud Native
5 121 (4.26%) Product Ownership
6 88 (3.10%) Management Information System
7 83 (2.92%) Data Centre
8 53 (1.86%) Distributed Systems
9 47 (1.65%) Analytical Mindset
10 45 (1.58%) Enterprise Software
11 43 (1.51%) Life Science
12 41 (1.44%) AI Agents
13 40 (1.41%) SCADA
14 39 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
15 38 (1.34%) Replication
16 34 (1.20%) NHS
16 34 (1.20%) Operational Technology
17 33 (1.16%) Algorithms
17 33 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
17 33 (1.16%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 171 (6.01%) Windows
2 119 (4.19%) Linux
3 62 (2.18%) Windows Server
4 45 (1.58%) Unix
5 19 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.39%) Android
6 11 (0.39%) Ubuntu
6 11 (0.39%) Windows 10
7 10 (0.35%) VMS
8 7 (0.25%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.21%) Windows 7
10 5 (0.18%) AIX
11 4 (0.14%) SUSE
11 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.070%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.070%) HPUX
12 2 (0.070%) VxWorks
13 1 (0.035%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.035%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.035%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 769 (27.05%) Migration
2 557 (19.59%) Agile
3 546 (19.21%) Stakeholder Management
4 510 (17.94%) CI/CD
5 466 (16.39%) Analytics
5 466 (16.39%) User Acceptance Testing
6 462 (16.25%) Data Modelling
7 457 (16.07%) Data Migration
8 453 (15.93%) Data Validation
9 447 (15.72%) Problem-Solving
10 369 (12.98%) AI
11 366 (12.87%) DevOps
12 356 (12.52%) Continuous Improvement
13 351 (12.35%) Test Automation
14 328 (11.54%) ETL
15 316 (11.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 315 (11.08%) Business Intelligence
17 296 (10.41%) Data Pipeline
18 286 (10.06%) Data Governance
19 270 (9.50%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 711 (25.01%) SQL
2 534 (18.78%) Python
3 135 (4.75%) Java
4 78 (2.74%) PowerShell
5 60 (2.11%) C#
6 56 (1.97%) Bash
7 51 (1.79%) JavaScript
8 41 (1.44%) C++
9 33 (1.16%) TypeScript
10 32 (1.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 30 (1.06%) Apex Code
12 28 (0.98%) Bicep
13 26 (0.91%) C
14 25 (0.88%) PL/SQL
15 24 (0.84%) VBA
16 23 (0.81%) R
17 18 (0.63%) T-SQL
18 17 (0.60%) Shell Script
19 16 (0.56%) MATLAB
20 13 (0.46%) Scala
Qualifications
1 521 (18.33%) Security Cleared
2 380 (13.37%) SC Cleared
3 181 (6.37%) Degree
4 68 (2.39%) DV Cleared
5 62 (2.18%) BPSS Clearance
6 44 (1.55%) Cisco Certification
7 43 (1.51%) Computer Science Degree
8 35 (1.23%) CCNP
9 27 (0.95%) ISTQB
10 25 (0.88%) ACCA
11 24 (0.84%) CIMA
12 22 (0.77%) Azure Certification
13 21 (0.74%) AWS Certification
13 21 (0.74%) PMI Certification
14 20 (0.70%) PMP
15 19 (0.67%) CISSP
15 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Certification
16 17 (0.60%) CCNA
17 12 (0.42%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 10 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 545 (19.17%) Data Quality
2 356 (12.52%) QA
3 125 (4.40%) GDPR
4 52 (1.83%) NIST
5 47 (1.65%) Accessibility
6 46 (1.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 39 (1.37%) GxP
8 38 (1.34%) PMO
8 38 (1.34%) SLA
9 20 (0.70%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 20 (0.70%) GRC
9 20 (0.70%) ISO 20022
10 18 (0.63%) GMP
11 14 (0.49%) Def Stans
11 14 (0.49%) NCSC
11 14 (0.49%) WCAG
12 13 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 12 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.42%) HL7
14 11 (0.39%) IFRS
System Software
1 122 (4.29%) Docker
2 97 (3.41%) Active Directory
3 80 (2.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
5 27 (0.95%) VMware ESXi
6 23 (0.81%) Hyper-V
7 22 (0.77%) Firmware
8 20 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
8 20 (0.70%) vSphere
9 14 (0.49%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.14%) KVM
11 4 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.11%) NFS
12 3 (0.11%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.070%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.070%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.070%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.035%) Embedded Firmware
14 1 (0.035%) etcd
Systems Management
1 156 (5.49%) Kubernetes
2 141 (4.96%) Terraform
3 67 (2.36%) Ansible
4 54 (1.90%) Grafana
5 47 (1.65%) Prometheus
6 25 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
7 24 (0.84%) FortiGate
8 22 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
9 12 (0.42%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.35%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.35%) SCCM
10 10 (0.35%) VxRail
11 8 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
12 7 (0.25%) Argo
13 5 (0.18%) CASB
13 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Clustering
13 5 (0.18%) systemd
13 5 (0.18%) vRealize
14 4 (0.14%) Consul
14 4 (0.14%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 424 (14.91%) Microsoft
2 258 (9.07%) SAP
3 245 (8.62%) Oracle
4 153 (5.38%) Databricks
5 93 (3.27%) Salesforce
5 93 (3.27%) VMware
6 78 (2.74%) ServiceNow
7 62 (2.18%) Cisco
8 50 (1.76%) Google
9 46 (1.62%) Workday
10 39 (1.37%) Informatica
11 32 (1.13%) IBM
12 29 (1.02%) Fortinet
12 29 (1.02%) Juniper
12 29 (1.02%) MuleSoft
12 29 (1.02%) Palo Alto
13 27 (0.95%) Splunk
13 27 (0.95%) Zscaler
14 23 (0.81%) Sage
15 20 (0.70%) Ariba