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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 68 124
Rank change year-on-year +33 +56 +25
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,876 1,187 757
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.37% 3.62% 1.95%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.34% 4.00% 2.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,731 693 369
10th Percentile £340 £337 £344
25th Percentile £411 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% +1.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £605 £588
90th Percentile £706 £688 £668
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £505 £475
% change year-on-year -8.42% +6.32% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 83 118
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £29.24
25th Percentile £27.07 £38.87 £48.75
Median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -7.69% -
75th Percentile £73.50 £65.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £75.56
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 45,377 29,691 33,202
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.71% 90.48% 85.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,881 18,495 21,183
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.58%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,839 1,731 1,775
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.38 £17.30 £18.15
Median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +65.23% -38.57% +0.61%
75th Percentile £68.00 £49.63 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.05 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.30 £42.50
% change year-on-year +88.67% -45.18% +18.88%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +33 2,492 £500 -2.44% 2,197
UK excluding London +28 1,347 £463 -8.42% 1,569
London +44 1,194 £525 +2.44% 969
Work from Home +32 799 £500 - 862
North of England +35 321 £453 -8.48% 251
South East -1 320 £500 - 408
Midlands +38 311 £475 -5.00% 213
West Midlands +28 218 £468 -7.83% 140
North West +18 162 £453 -15.64% 145
East of England +4 151 £475 -6.40% 235
Yorkshire +42 144 £460 +2.22% 62
South West -1 133 £525 -8.70% 237
Scotland +40 96 £430 -7.03% 176
East Midlands +24 88 £505 +0.90% 73
Wales -5 24 £363 -3.33% 43
North East -29 20 £438 -20.45% 51
Northern Ireland +12 10 £380 -35.59% 31
Channel Islands 0 1 - - 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 (2.85%) Confluence
2 68 (2.36%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (1.95%) SAS
4 54 (1.88%) SharePoint
5 41 (1.43%) Apache Spark
6 30 (1.04%) Apache
7 16 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
8 13 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
9 11 (0.38%) Jupyter
10 9 (0.31%) CMS
10 9 (0.31%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.24%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
12 5 (0.17%) IIS
12 5 (0.17%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.14%) Sitecore CMS
13 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.10%) OpenStack
Applications
1 201 (6.99%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.43%) MS Visio
3 40 (1.39%) Microsoft Office
4 33 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 32 (1.11%) Spreadsheet
6 13 (0.45%) AutoCAD
7 10 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
8 8 (0.28%) CATIA
8 8 (0.28%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.28%) Revit
9 7 (0.24%) ProjectWise
10 6 (0.21%) Simulink
11 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.070%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.070%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.070%) Windchill
13 1 (0.035%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.035%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.035%) MicroStation
13 1 (0.035%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 119 (4.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (0.97%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
3 14 (0.49%) Workday HCM
4 12 (0.42%) NetSuite
4 12 (0.42%) Teamcenter
5 11 (0.38%) iTrent
5 11 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 10 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.35%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.35%) SAP SD
7 9 (0.31%) Aladdin
7 9 (0.31%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
7 9 (0.31%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.28%) SAP FI
9 7 (0.24%) Dynamics CRM
9 7 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
9 7 (0.24%) SAP HCM
9 7 (0.24%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 609 (21.18%) Azure
2 335 (11.65%) AWS
3 307 (10.67%) Power Platform
4 163 (5.67%) Azure DevOps
5 145 (5.04%) GCP
6 134 (4.66%) GitHub
7 101 (3.51%) Snowflake
8 79 (2.75%) Entra ID
9 74 (2.57%) Azure Data Factory
10 73 (2.54%) GitHub Actions
11 62 (2.16%) Serverless
12 59 (2.05%) Microsoft 365
13 54 (1.88%) SaaS
14 52 (1.81%) Amazon S3
15 46 (1.60%) dbt
16 45 (1.56%) SuccessFactors
17 44 (1.53%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 43 (1.50%) OCI
19 36 (1.25%) Amazon CloudWatch
20 34 (1.18%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 114 (3.96%) Firewall
2 67 (2.33%) DNS
3 65 (2.26%) Network Security
4 61 (2.12%) VLAN
5 51 (1.77%) VPN
6 45 (1.56%) TCP/IP
7 42 (1.46%) BGP
7 42 (1.46%) WAN
8 34 (1.18%) DHCP
9 25 (0.87%) OSPF
10 24 (0.83%) LAN
11 23 (0.80%) VXLAN
12 22 (0.76%) Internet
12 22 (0.76%) SAN
12 22 (0.76%) Wireless
13 21 (0.73%) Ethernet VPN
13 21 (0.73%) SD-WAN
14 20 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
15 19 (0.66%) Ethernet
16 16 (0.56%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 287 (9.98%) Power BI
2 168 (5.84%) Data Warehouse
3 125 (4.35%) Metadata
4 105 (3.65%) SQL Server
5 95 (3.30%) PostgreSQL
5 95 (3.30%) Relational Database
6 86 (2.99%) Data Lake
7 75 (2.61%) Tableau
8 37 (1.29%) Big Data
9 36 (1.25%) MongoDB
10 34 (1.18%) NoSQL
11 33 (1.15%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 32 (1.11%) Delta Lake
13 30 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
13 30 (1.04%) MySQL
13 30 (1.04%) Oracle Reports
14 29 (1.01%) Oracle Database
15 28 (0.97%) BigQuery
16 27 (0.94%) Power Query
16 27 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 247 (8.59%) JIRA
2 187 (6.50%) Git
3 105 (3.65%) Jenkins
4 87 (3.03%) GitLab
5 65 (2.26%) Selenium
6 48 (1.67%) Postman
7 40 (1.39%) JMeter
8 28 (0.97%) Cucumber
9 26 (0.90%) JUnit
9 26 (0.90%) WebDriver
10 24 (0.83%) Rational DOORS
11 18 (0.63%) Eclipse
12 16 (0.56%) Cypress.io
12 16 (0.56%) Gatling
12 16 (0.56%) Rational Rhapsody
12 16 (0.56%) Visual Studio
13 14 (0.49%) REST Assured
14 13 (0.45%) Maven
14 13 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
15 12 (0.42%) Gradle
General
1 815 (28.34%) Social Skills
2 797 (27.71%) Finance
3 569 (19.78%) Analytical Skills
4 253 (8.80%) Public Sector
5 205 (7.13%) Banking
6 153 (5.32%) Documentation Skills
7 107 (3.72%) Manufacturing
8 96 (3.34%) Retail
9 67 (2.33%) Aerospace
10 66 (2.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 59 (2.05%) Pharmaceutical
11 59 (2.05%) Telecoms
12 53 (1.84%) Automotive
13 52 (1.81%) Organisational Skills
14 49 (1.70%) Legal
15 45 (1.56%) Marketing
16 43 (1.50%) Local Government
17 42 (1.46%) Front Office
17 42 (1.46%) Law
18 37 (1.29%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 505 (17.56%) Analyst
2 315 (10.95%) Senior
3 281 (9.77%) Lead
4 235 (8.17%) Business Analyst
5 231 (8.03%) Data Engineer
6 224 (7.79%) Consultant
7 172 (5.98%) Developer
8 141 (4.90%) Data Analyst
9 139 (4.83%) Architect
10 108 (3.76%) Test Engineer
11 80 (2.78%) Tester
12 74 (2.57%) Network Engineer
12 74 (2.57%) Project Manager
13 63 (2.19%) Systems Engineer
14 60 (2.09%) Administrator
15 55 (1.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 55 (1.91%) Senior Data Engineer
16 54 (1.88%) Technical Analyst
17 48 (1.67%) Test Manager
18 47 (1.63%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 166 (5.77%) REST
2 91 (3.16%) JSON
3 77 (2.68%) XML
4 76 (2.64%) PySpark
5 73 (2.54%) Kafka
6 63 (2.19%) Middleware
7 51 (1.77%) Oracle Fusion
8 50 (1.74%) .NET
9 49 (1.70%) Playwright
10 46 (1.60%) pytest
11 42 (1.46%) SOAP
12 41 (1.43%) Spring
12 41 (1.43%) Web Services
13 36 (1.25%) OAuth
14 33 (1.15%) RESTful
15 31 (1.08%) Pandas
15 31 (1.08%) Spring Boot
16 28 (0.97%) Node.js
17 24 (0.83%) Lightning Web Components
17 24 (0.83%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 160 (5.56%) Onboarding
2 145 (5.04%) Data Structures
3 129 (4.49%) Cloud Native
4 122 (4.24%) Legacy Systems
4 122 (4.24%) Product Ownership
5 93 (3.23%) Management Information System
6 88 (3.06%) Data Centre
7 52 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
8 47 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
8 47 (1.63%) Distributed Systems
9 43 (1.50%) Life Science
10 42 (1.46%) SCADA
11 41 (1.43%) AI Agents
11 41 (1.43%) Data Protection Act
12 38 (1.32%) Replication
13 35 (1.22%) NHS
14 34 (1.18%) Algorithms
14 34 (1.18%) Operational Technology
15 33 (1.15%) CMDB
15 33 (1.15%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 179 (6.22%) Windows
2 118 (4.10%) Linux
3 68 (2.36%) Windows Server
4 40 (1.39%) Unix
5 19 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.45%) Windows 10
7 12 (0.42%) Android
8 11 (0.38%) Ubuntu
9 10 (0.35%) VMS
10 8 (0.28%) Apple iOS
11 7 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.21%) AIX
13 4 (0.14%) SUSE
13 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.070%) Data ONTAP
14 2 (0.070%) HPUX
14 2 (0.070%) VxWorks
14 2 (0.070%) Windows Server 2019
15 1 (0.035%) Mac OS X
15 1 (0.035%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 771 (26.81%) Migration
2 568 (19.75%) Agile
3 552 (19.19%) Stakeholder Management
4 519 (18.05%) CI/CD
5 480 (16.69%) User Acceptance Testing
6 468 (16.27%) Analytics
7 457 (15.89%) Data Modelling
8 456 (15.86%) Data Migration
9 452 (15.72%) Problem-Solving
10 442 (15.37%) Data Validation
11 375 (13.04%) AI
12 371 (12.90%) DevOps
13 359 (12.48%) Test Automation
14 354 (12.31%) Continuous Improvement
15 321 (11.16%) Business Intelligence
16 318 (11.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 317 (11.02%) ETL
18 303 (10.54%) Data Pipeline
19 288 (10.01%) Data Governance
20 277 (9.63%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 718 (24.97%) SQL
2 551 (19.16%) Python
3 139 (4.83%) Java
4 89 (3.09%) PowerShell
5 62 (2.16%) C#
6 59 (2.05%) Bash
7 54 (1.88%) JavaScript
8 45 (1.56%) C++
9 32 (1.11%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.04%) Apex Code
10 30 (1.04%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 28 (0.97%) Bicep
11 28 (0.97%) C
12 25 (0.87%) PL/SQL
13 24 (0.83%) R
14 21 (0.73%) VBA
15 18 (0.63%) Shell Script
16 17 (0.59%) T-SQL
17 16 (0.56%) MATLAB
18 13 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 537 (18.67%) Security Cleared
2 395 (13.73%) SC Cleared
3 185 (6.43%) Degree
4 69 (2.40%) DV Cleared
5 61 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
6 47 (1.63%) Cisco Certification
7 43 (1.50%) Computer Science Degree
8 38 (1.32%) CCNP
9 28 (0.97%) ISTQB
10 26 (0.90%) ACCA
10 26 (0.90%) CIMA
11 23 (0.80%) AWS Certification
12 22 (0.76%) Azure Certification
13 21 (0.73%) PMI Certification
14 20 (0.70%) PMP
15 19 (0.66%) CCNA
16 16 (0.56%) CISSP
17 15 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
18 13 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
19 11 (0.38%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 553 (19.23%) Data Quality
2 363 (12.62%) QA
3 121 (4.21%) GDPR
4 51 (1.77%) NIST
5 46 (1.60%) Accessibility
6 45 (1.56%) SLA
7 44 (1.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 39 (1.36%) GxP
8 39 (1.36%) PMO
9 22 (0.76%) GRC
10 21 (0.73%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 18 (0.63%) ISO 20022
12 16 (0.56%) GMP
13 14 (0.49%) Def Stans
13 14 (0.49%) NCSC
14 13 (0.45%) HL7
14 13 (0.45%) WCAG
15 12 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 11 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.38%) NIST 800
System Software
1 115 (4.00%) Docker
2 99 (3.44%) Active Directory
3 82 (2.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (1.29%) Virtual Machines
5 29 (1.01%) VMware ESXi
6 26 (0.90%) Firmware
7 25 (0.87%) Hyper-V
8 22 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
8 22 (0.76%) vSphere
9 15 (0.52%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.14%) KVM
10 4 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.10%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.070%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.070%) NFS
12 2 (0.070%) OpenSSH
12 2 (0.070%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.035%) Ceph
13 1 (0.035%) etcd
Systems Management
1 148 (5.15%) Kubernetes
2 147 (5.11%) Terraform
3 78 (2.71%) Ansible
4 45 (1.56%) Grafana
5 37 (1.29%) Prometheus
6 26 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
7 24 (0.83%) FortiGate
8 23 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.49%) vCenter Server
10 13 (0.45%) SCCM
11 10 (0.35%) HP ALM
11 10 (0.35%) VxRail
12 9 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
13 7 (0.24%) Argo
14 6 (0.21%) Microsoft Clustering
14 6 (0.21%) Progress Chef
15 5 (0.17%) systemd
15 5 (0.17%) vRealize
16 4 (0.14%) Consul
16 4 (0.14%) Istio
Vendors
1 435 (15.13%) Microsoft
2 251 (8.73%) SAP
3 241 (8.38%) Oracle
4 155 (5.39%) Databricks
5 95 (3.30%) VMware
6 93 (3.23%) Salesforce
7 88 (3.06%) ServiceNow
8 74 (2.57%) Cisco
9 52 (1.81%) Google
10 45 (1.56%) Workday
11 35 (1.22%) Informatica
12 32 (1.11%) IBM
13 29 (1.01%) Fortinet
13 29 (1.01%) Juniper
14 27 (0.94%) Palo Alto
14 27 (0.94%) Zscaler
15 21 (0.73%) Ariba
15 21 (0.73%) MuleSoft
16 20 (0.70%) Sage
16 20 (0.70%) Splunk