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

6 months to
20 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 97 132
Rank change year-on-year +51 +35 +2
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,967 764 779
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.52% 2.61% 1.76%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.26% 2.89% 2.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,214 451 415
10th Percentile £350 £363 £340
25th Percentile £403 £421 £441
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £486 £530 £538
Median % change year-on-year -8.39% -1.40% -2.27%
75th Percentile £588 £630 £623
90th Percentile £700 £715 £715
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £511 £500
% change year-on-year -7.09% +2.25% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 104 42 146
10th Percentile £22.48 £25.36 £19.94
25th Percentile £48.75 £47.50 £48.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.65 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.76% -3.93% -4.08%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.69 £75.16
90th Percentile £82.25 £74.88 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.75 £61.32
% change year-on-year +12.55% -5.81% -1.90%

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 37,403 26,465 38,354
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.99% 90.45% 86.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,742 17,048 24,949
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 £611 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £743 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -1.54% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,201 924 2,323
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.25 £12.99
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.41 £70.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £31.64 £31.13
% change year-on-year -11.50% +1.65% -11.14%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 +48 1,700 £490 -10.09% 881
UK excluding London +41 937 £475 -7.09% 715
London +67 788 £510 -7.27% 273
Work from Home +67 602 £490 -4.44% 361
North of England +35 230 £433 -8.95% 149
South East -5 197 £500 - 220
Midlands +38 183 £486 +2.24% 114
North West +29 149 £418 -7.11% 77
West Midlands +22 144 £486 -1.65% 74
South West +6 134 £475 -17.39% 86
East of England +24 117 £492 +9.38% 105
Yorkshire -3 72 £462 +9.93% 49
Scotland +42 50 £404 -10.33% 40
East Midlands -6 37 £550 +49.46% 40
Northern Ireland +18 25 £400 -27.27% 4
Wales - 16 £460 - 15
North East -7 12 £450 -37.93% 23

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 80 (4.07%) Confluence
2 41 (2.08%) Apache Spark
3 33 (1.68%) Apache Airflow
3 33 (1.68%) SAS
4 20 (1.02%) Apache
5 19 (0.97%) SharePoint
6 13 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
7 9 (0.46%) Appian
8 8 (0.41%) ArcGIS
8 8 (0.41%) Jupyter
9 7 (0.36%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
9 7 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.25%) 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 96 (4.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 27 (1.37%) MS Visio
3 26 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
4 15 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
5 13 (0.66%) 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 92 (4.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (1.73%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.76%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.66%) Oracle General Ledger
4 13 (0.66%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 13 (0.66%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.61%) Oracle Receivables
6 11 (0.56%) Oracle Assets
7 10 (0.51%) SAP FI
8 9 (0.46%) NetSuite
8 9 (0.46%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.41%) Aladdin
9 8 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
9 8 (0.41%) OpenText VIM for SAP
9 8 (0.41%) Oracle EBS R12
10 7 (0.36%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 7 (0.36%) SAP ERP
10 7 (0.36%) SAP MM
11 6 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
11 6 (0.31%) Sage X3
Cloud Services
1 462 (23.49%) Azure
2 261 (13.27%) AWS
3 166 (8.44%) Power Platform
4 145 (7.37%) Azure DevOps
5 98 (4.98%) GitHub
6 88 (4.47%) GCP
7 63 (3.20%) GitHub Actions
8 62 (3.15%) Serverless
9 59 (3.00%) Amazon S3
10 57 (2.90%) Azure Data Factory
11 55 (2.80%) Entra ID
12 49 (2.49%) SaaS
13 46 (2.34%) OCI
14 42 (2.14%) Snowflake
15 37 (1.88%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 35 (1.78%) AWS Lambda
17 30 (1.53%) AWS CloudFormation
18 28 (1.42%) Microsoft 365
18 28 (1.42%) OpenShift
19 24 (1.22%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 66 (3.36%) Firewall
2 47 (2.39%) Network Security
3 35 (1.78%) TCP/IP
4 24 (1.22%) DNS
4 24 (1.22%) Ethernet
5 21 (1.07%) VPN
6 20 (1.02%) HTTP
7 17 (0.86%) WAN
8 16 (0.81%) VLAN
9 15 (0.76%) SAN
10 13 (0.66%) 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
1 154 (7.83%) Power BI
2 103 (5.24%) Metadata
3 95 (4.83%) Data Warehouse
4 66 (3.36%) SQL Server
5 57 (2.90%) PostgreSQL
6 52 (2.64%) Tableau
7 46 (2.34%) Data Lake
8 33 (1.68%) Delta Lake
9 30 (1.53%) Azure SQL Database
10 29 (1.47%) NoSQL
10 29 (1.47%) Oracle Reports
11 28 (1.42%) Relational Database
12 25 (1.27%) Amazon Redshift
12 25 (1.27%) Big Data
13 21 (1.07%) Oracle Database
14 20 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 19 (0.97%) Amazon Athena
15 19 (0.97%) GIS
15 19 (0.97%) Pinecone
15 19 (0.97%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 188 (9.56%) JIRA
2 120 (6.10%) Git
3 89 (4.52%) Jenkins
4 63 (3.20%) Selenium
5 57 (2.90%) GitLab
6 55 (2.80%) Postman
7 36 (1.83%) JUnit
8 35 (1.78%) Cucumber
9 34 (1.73%) JMeter
10 32 (1.63%) Rational DOORS
11 29 (1.47%) Oracle APEX
12 21 (1.07%) MLflow
13 20 (1.02%) Visual Studio
13 20 (1.02%) WebDriver
14 14 (0.71%) Eclipse
14 14 (0.71%) REST Assured
14 14 (0.71%) TestRail
15 12 (0.61%) Bitbucket
15 12 (0.61%) SpecFlow
15 12 (0.61%) Zephyr
General
1 685 (34.82%) Social Skills
2 575 (29.23%) Finance
3 383 (19.47%) Analytical Skills
4 182 (9.25%) Public Sector
5 166 (8.44%) Banking
6 98 (4.98%) Documentation Skills
7 59 (3.00%) Manufacturing
8 50 (2.54%) Aerospace
9 49 (2.49%) Presentation Skills
10 47 (2.39%) Pharmaceutical
11 35 (1.78%) Influencing Skills
12 34 (1.73%) Organisational Skills
13 32 (1.63%) Electronics
14 30 (1.53%) Marketing
15 29 (1.47%) Billing
15 29 (1.47%) Legal
16 28 (1.42%) Telecoms
17 27 (1.37%) Military
18 26 (1.32%) Financial Institution
18 26 (1.32%) Retail
Job Titles
1 360 (18.30%) Analyst
2 207 (10.52%) Senior
3 197 (10.02%) Lead
4 165 (8.39%) Business Analyst
5 145 (7.37%) Consultant
6 135 (6.86%) Developer
7 131 (6.66%) Architect
7 131 (6.66%) Data Engineer
8 91 (4.63%) Data Analyst
9 75 (3.81%) Project Manager
10 61 (3.10%) Tester
11 51 (2.59%) Software Engineer
12 50 (2.54%) Senior Analyst
13 45 (2.29%) SAP Consultant
14 41 (2.08%) Test Analyst
15 39 (1.98%) Senior Developer
16 37 (1.88%) Test Engineer
17 36 (1.83%) Test Manager
18 35 (1.78%) Embedded Engineer
18 35 (1.78%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 132 (6.71%) REST
2 98 (4.98%) JSON
3 62 (3.15%) Oracle Fusion
4 60 (3.05%) XML
5 55 (2.80%) Kafka
6 52 (2.64%) OAuth
7 50 (2.54%) Middleware
8 49 (2.49%) PySpark
9 45 (2.29%) SOAP
10 41 (2.08%) Node.js
11 40 (2.03%) .NET
12 35 (1.78%) RESTful
13 34 (1.73%) Playwright
14 31 (1.58%) PyTorch
14 31 (1.58%) Web Services
15 30 (1.53%) pytest
15 30 (1.53%) Swagger
16 27 (1.37%) TensorFlow
17 26 (1.32%) SAML
18 25 (1.27%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 118 (6.00%) Legacy Systems
2 99 (5.03%) Data Structures
3 85 (4.32%) Product Ownership
4 77 (3.91%) Onboarding
5 60 (3.05%) Cloud Native
6 53 (2.69%) Management Information System
7 48 (2.44%) Data Centre
8 34 (1.73%) Analytical Mindset
9 33 (1.68%) Distributed Systems
10 26 (1.32%) Algorithms
10 26 (1.32%) Replication
11 25 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
12 23 (1.17%) Virtual Team
13 22 (1.12%) Life Science
14 21 (1.07%) Hybrid Cloud
14 21 (1.07%) Operational Technology
15 20 (1.02%) Derivative
15 20 (1.02%) NHS
16 19 (0.97%) Greenfield Project
16 19 (0.97%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 98 (4.98%) Windows
2 79 (4.02%) Linux
3 29 (1.47%) 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
1 474 (24.10%) Migration
2 450 (22.88%) Agile
3 413 (21.00%) Problem-Solving
4 347 (17.64%) CI/CD
5 346 (17.59%) Stakeholder Management
6 333 (16.93%) Data Validation
7 300 (15.25%) Analytics
8 294 (14.95%) DevOps
9 286 (14.54%) Data Migration
10 274 (13.93%) Data Modelling
11 253 (12.86%) ETL
12 250 (12.71%) Test Automation
13 244 (12.40%) User Acceptance Testing
14 229 (11.64%) Continuous Improvement
15 219 (11.13%) AI
16 215 (10.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 203 (10.32%) Data Governance
18 196 (9.96%) Business Intelligence
19 169 (8.59%) Data Pipeline
20 163 (8.29%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 479 (24.35%) SQL
2 366 (18.61%) Python
3 97 (4.93%) Java
4 90 (4.58%) JavaScript
5 73 (3.71%) C#
6 51 (2.59%) PL/SQL
7 50 (2.54%) PowerShell
8 49 (2.49%) C++
9 42 (2.14%) C
10 36 (1.83%) TypeScript
11 35 (1.78%) Bash
12 26 (1.32%) Bicep
13 25 (1.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 23 (1.17%) R
15 20 (1.02%) Ada
16 18 (0.92%) T-SQL
17 17 (0.86%) Groovy
17 17 (0.86%) Scala
18 12 (0.61%) VBA
19 11 (0.56%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 421 (21.40%) Security Cleared
2 307 (15.61%) SC Cleared
3 182 (9.25%) Degree
4 62 (3.15%) BPSS Clearance
5 57 (2.90%) Computer Science Degree
6 41 (2.08%) DV Cleared
7 36 (1.83%) Master's Degree
8 29 (1.47%) ISTQB
9 28 (1.42%) PMI Certification
10 25 (1.27%) PMP
11 17 (0.86%) Cisco Certification
12 16 (0.81%) AWS Certification
12 16 (0.81%) CISSP
13 14 (0.71%) CBAP
13 14 (0.71%) CCNP
13 14 (0.71%) 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
1 317 (16.12%) Data Quality
2 255 (12.96%) QA
3 110 (5.59%) GDPR
4 79 (4.02%) NIST
5 65 (3.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 31 (1.58%) Accessibility
7 27 (1.37%) SLA
8 23 (1.17%) GxP
9 22 (1.12%) IFRS
10 19 (0.97%) Def Stans
10 19 (0.97%) IFRS 17
11 18 (0.92%) PMO
12 17 (0.86%) GRC
13 15 (0.76%) GMP
14 14 (0.71%) HL7
14 14 (0.71%) PCI DSS
15 13 (0.66%) COBIT
15 13 (0.66%) NCSC
16 12 (0.61%) NIST 800
17 11 (0.56%) MiFID
System Software
1 76 (3.86%) Docker
2 46 (2.34%) Active Directory
3 34 (1.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (1.12%) 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 (0.25%) 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
1 114 (5.80%) Kubernetes
2 87 (4.42%) Terraform
3 31 (1.58%) Prometheus
4 30 (1.53%) Single Sign-On
5 28 (1.42%) Ansible
5 28 (1.42%) Grafana
6 13 (0.66%) Microsoft Intune
7 11 (0.56%) Kibana
7 11 (0.56%) Puppet
8 9 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 7 (0.36%) SCCM
10 6 (0.31%) Nessus
11 5 (0.25%) 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%) CloudHub
13 3 (0.15%) linkerd
Vendors
1 254 (12.91%) Microsoft
2 199 (10.12%) Oracle
3 167 (8.49%) SAP
4 104 (5.29%) Databricks
5 84 (4.27%) ServiceNow
6 46 (2.34%) Google
7 45 (2.29%) Salesforce
8 41 (2.08%) Splunk
8 41 (2.08%) VMware
9 35 (1.78%) Cisco
10 33 (1.68%) Workday
11 29 (1.47%) Informatica
11 29 (1.47%) MuleSoft
11 29 (1.47%) Sage
12 22 (1.12%) IBM
13 20 (1.02%) OpenAI
13 20 (1.02%) Palo Alto
14 17 (0.86%) CyberArk
15 15 (0.76%) Murex
16 13 (0.66%) Bloomberg