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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 68 109
Rank change year-on-year +37 +41 +41
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,144 1,230 805
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.73% 3.72% 2.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.78% 4.10% 2.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,846 702 402
10th Percentile £339 £332 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £507 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.28% +1.30% -7.19%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £588
90th Percentile £700 £688 £659
UK excluding London median daily rate £464 £500 £482
% change year-on-year -7.28% +3.73% -6.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 202 84 98
10th Percentile £17.17 £21.85 £28.00
25th Percentile £26.61 £41.25 £47.63
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £63.75
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% +1.96% -4.48%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £66.88
90th Percentile £81.93 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% - -3.79%

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 46,382 29,970 32,481
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.48% 90.66% 85.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,008 18,622 19,630
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £733 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,245 1,858 1,349
10th Percentile £13.70 £14.32 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.19 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £39.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.07% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £65.60 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.64 £65.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.50 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.01% -48.10% +1.18%

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 October 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 October 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 1 October 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 2,688 £500 -2.91% 4,568
UK excluding London +31 1,442 £464 -7.28% 2,781
London +41 1,306 £525 - 2,181
Work from Home +29 865 £500 - 1,636
North of England +48 358 £456 +3.64% 466
South East +5 332 £525 +5.00% 734
Midlands +35 304 £463 -4.96% 379
West Midlands +31 213 £463 -7.40% 260
North West +21 175 £464 +9.06% 250
South West +22 171 £525 -4.55% 373
Yorkshire +52 154 £461 -2.89% 144
Scotland +46 140 £450 -11.07% 350
East of England -7 140 £463 -7.50% 373
East Midlands +29 87 £488 -4.88% 119
North East -15 34 £425 -11.92% 74
Wales -2 25 £394 +5.00% 68
Northern Ireland +6 4 £363 -33.49% 67
Channel Islands -4 1 - - 3

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 96 (3.05%) Confluence
2 66 (2.10%) Apache Airflow
3 62 (1.97%) SharePoint
4 50 (1.59%) Apache Spark
4 50 (1.59%) SAS
5 42 (1.34%) Apache
6 18 (0.57%) CMS
6 18 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
7 14 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
8 12 (0.38%) Jupyter
9 9 (0.29%) IIS
9 9 (0.29%) SharePoint 2013
10 8 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
11 7 (0.22%) Sitecore CMS
11 7 (0.22%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.19%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.19%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.16%) CICS
13 5 (0.16%) Tomcat
13 5 (0.16%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 206 (6.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
3 40 (1.27%) MS Visio
4 31 (0.99%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 16 (0.51%) AutoCAD
7 11 (0.35%) Navisworks
7 11 (0.35%) Revit
8 10 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
8 10 (0.32%) ProjectWise
9 7 (0.22%) Simulink
10 5 (0.16%) Chatbot
11 4 (0.13%) CATIA
12 2 (0.064%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.064%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.064%) OrCAD
13 1 (0.032%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.032%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.032%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.032%) Trello
Business Applications
1 113 (3.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
2 16 (0.51%) SAP FI
2 16 (0.51%) Workday HCM
3 15 (0.48%) SAP SD
4 14 (0.45%) Integrated Workplace Management System
4 14 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
4 14 (0.45%) SAP HCM
5 13 (0.41%) NetSuite
5 13 (0.41%) Teamcenter
6 12 (0.38%) Aladdin
6 12 (0.38%) SAP MDG
7 10 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
7 10 (0.32%) iTrent
7 10 (0.32%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.32%) SAP MM
8 9 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.29%) SAP CO
8 9 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.29%) SAP PS
Cloud Services
1 607 (19.31%) Azure
2 354 (11.26%) AWS
3 319 (10.15%) Power Platform
4 189 (6.01%) Azure DevOps
5 159 (5.06%) GCP
6 148 (4.71%) GitHub
7 111 (3.53%) Snowflake
8 100 (3.18%) Entra ID
9 78 (2.48%) GitHub Actions
10 75 (2.39%) Azure Data Factory
11 65 (2.07%) Amazon S3
12 62 (1.97%) Serverless
13 61 (1.94%) Microsoft 365
13 61 (1.94%) SaaS
14 60 (1.91%) dbt
15 42 (1.34%) SuccessFactors
16 41 (1.30%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 37 (1.18%) Dynamics 365
18 36 (1.15%) Azure Monitor
19 34 (1.08%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 109 (3.47%) Firewall
2 80 (2.54%) DNS
3 61 (1.94%) VLAN
4 60 (1.91%) Network Security
5 56 (1.78%) VPN
6 49 (1.56%) BGP
6 49 (1.56%) TCP/IP
7 42 (1.34%) WAN
8 35 (1.11%) DHCP
9 30 (0.95%) VXLAN
10 28 (0.89%) OSPF
11 27 (0.86%) Ethernet VPN
12 25 (0.80%) Ethernet
12 25 (0.80%) Wireless
13 23 (0.73%) LAN
14 22 (0.70%) Internet
14 22 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
15 21 (0.67%) SD-WAN
16 20 (0.64%) 5G
16 20 (0.64%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 296 (9.41%) Power BI
2 170 (5.41%) Data Warehouse
3 140 (4.45%) Metadata
4 123 (3.91%) Relational Database
5 109 (3.47%) SQL Server
6 98 (3.12%) PostgreSQL
7 86 (2.74%) Data Lake
8 69 (2.19%) Tableau
9 41 (1.30%) Oracle Database
10 40 (1.27%) MongoDB
11 39 (1.24%) Delta Lake
12 38 (1.21%) BigQuery
13 36 (1.15%) Big Data
13 36 (1.15%) Power Query
14 34 (1.08%) NoSQL
15 33 (1.05%) Redis
16 31 (0.99%) Oracle Reports
17 29 (0.92%) Amazon Athena
18 28 (0.89%) MySQL
19 27 (0.86%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 278 (8.84%) JIRA
2 235 (7.47%) Git
3 106 (3.37%) Jenkins
4 100 (3.18%) GitLab
5 80 (2.54%) Selenium
6 41 (1.30%) Postman
7 34 (1.08%) JMeter
8 25 (0.80%) Cucumber
9 23 (0.73%) Rational DOORS
10 21 (0.67%) JUnit
11 20 (0.64%) WebDriver
12 17 (0.54%) Eclipse
12 17 (0.54%) REST Assured
12 17 (0.54%) Visual Studio
12 17 (0.54%) Zephyr
13 16 (0.51%) Cypress.io
14 14 (0.45%) Gatling
14 14 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
15 12 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
16 11 (0.35%) TestRail
General
1 898 (28.56%) Social Skills
2 894 (28.44%) Finance
3 629 (20.01%) Analytical Skills
4 282 (8.97%) Banking
5 271 (8.62%) Public Sector
6 135 (4.29%) Documentation Skills
7 132 (4.20%) Manufacturing
8 95 (3.02%) Retail
9 74 (2.35%) Automotive
10 72 (2.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 71 (2.26%) Telecoms
12 62 (1.97%) Organisational Skills
13 59 (1.88%) Legal
14 56 (1.78%) Aerospace
15 53 (1.69%) Pharmaceutical
16 51 (1.62%) Marketing
17 46 (1.46%) Billing
17 46 (1.46%) Front Office
18 45 (1.43%) Local Government
19 43 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 532 (16.92%) Analyst
2 371 (11.80%) Senior
3 283 (9.00%) Lead
4 257 (8.17%) Data Engineer
5 254 (8.08%) Consultant
6 237 (7.54%) Business Analyst
7 204 (6.49%) Developer
8 171 (5.44%) Data Analyst
9 164 (5.22%) Architect
10 111 (3.53%) Test Engineer
11 79 (2.51%) Tester
12 76 (2.42%) Network Engineer
13 65 (2.07%) Senior Data Engineer
14 62 (1.97%) Administrator
15 60 (1.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 60 (1.91%) Systems Engineer
16 58 (1.84%) Senior Analyst
17 52 (1.65%) Software Engineer
18 49 (1.56%) Project Manager
19 46 (1.46%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 204 (6.49%) REST
2 196 (6.23%) Terraform
3 100 (3.18%) JSON
4 92 (2.93%) PySpark
5 91 (2.89%) Middleware
6 84 (2.67%) XML
7 75 (2.39%) Kafka
8 61 (1.94%) Playwright
9 58 (1.84%) .NET
9 58 (1.84%) OAuth
10 56 (1.78%) Web Services
11 55 (1.75%) SOAP
12 49 (1.56%) pytest
13 48 (1.53%) Oracle Fusion
14 46 (1.46%) RESTful
15 44 (1.40%) OpenID
16 41 (1.30%) OAuth2
17 37 (1.18%) Pandas
18 36 (1.15%) Spring
19 35 (1.11%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 178 (5.66%) Onboarding
2 169 (5.38%) Data Structures
3 146 (4.64%) Cloud Native
4 126 (4.01%) Legacy Systems
5 123 (3.91%) Management Information System
6 121 (3.85%) Product Ownership
7 96 (3.05%) Data Centre
8 65 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
9 61 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
10 59 (1.88%) AI Agents
11 45 (1.43%) Analytical Mindset
11 45 (1.43%) Life Science
12 44 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
13 42 (1.34%) Algorithms
13 42 (1.34%) SCADA
14 38 (1.21%) Operational Technology
15 36 (1.15%) NHS
16 35 (1.11%) Replication
17 34 (1.08%) CMDB
18 33 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 219 (6.97%) Windows
2 141 (4.48%) Linux
3 88 (2.80%) Windows Server
4 59 (1.88%) Unix
5 20 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.51%) Windows 10
7 14 (0.45%) Android
8 11 (0.35%) Ubuntu
9 10 (0.32%) AIX
10 9 (0.29%) Apple iOS
11 8 (0.25%) VMS
12 7 (0.22%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.19%) zOS
14 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
14 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
15 3 (0.095%) CentOS
15 3 (0.095%) VxWorks
16 2 (0.064%) HPUX
16 2 (0.064%) Solaris
16 2 (0.064%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 854 (27.16%) Migration
2 700 (22.26%) Stakeholder Management
3 628 (19.97%) CI/CD
4 607 (19.31%) Agile
5 514 (16.35%) Data Modelling
6 509 (16.19%) User Acceptance Testing
7 502 (15.97%) Data Migration
8 494 (15.71%) Analytics
9 486 (15.46%) Problem-Solving
10 480 (15.27%) Data Validation
11 445 (14.15%) AI
12 434 (13.80%) Continuous Improvement
13 431 (13.71%) DevOps
14 424 (13.49%) Test Automation
15 350 (11.13%) ETL
16 339 (10.78%) Business Intelligence
17 325 (10.34%) Data Analysis
18 323 (10.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 320 (10.18%) Data Governance
20 311 (9.89%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 831 (26.43%) SQL
2 669 (21.28%) Python
3 154 (4.90%) Java
4 121 (3.85%) PowerShell
5 77 (2.45%) C#
6 76 (2.42%) JavaScript
7 67 (2.13%) Bash
8 48 (1.53%) TypeScript
9 44 (1.40%) C++
10 30 (0.95%) Shell Script
11 29 (0.92%) Apex Code
12 28 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 28 (0.89%) R
13 26 (0.83%) Bicep
13 26 (0.83%) PL/SQL
14 24 (0.76%) C
15 23 (0.73%) Go
16 19 (0.60%) T-SQL
16 19 (0.60%) VBA
17 16 (0.51%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 633 (20.13%) Security Cleared
2 476 (15.14%) SC Cleared
3 213 (6.77%) Degree
4 91 (2.89%) DV Cleared
5 76 (2.42%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.59%) Computer Science Degree
7 46 (1.46%) Cisco Certification
8 37 (1.18%) CCNP
9 34 (1.08%) ACCA
9 34 (1.08%) AWS Certification
9 34 (1.08%) CIMA
10 26 (0.83%) ISTQB
11 24 (0.76%) Azure Certification
11 24 (0.76%) PMI Certification
12 22 (0.70%) CISSP
12 22 (0.70%) PMP
13 20 (0.64%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 19 (0.60%) DBS Check
15 18 (0.57%) Master's Degree
16 15 (0.48%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 658 (20.93%) Data Quality
2 374 (11.90%) QA
3 101 (3.21%) GDPR
4 54 (1.72%) Accessibility
4 54 (1.72%) SLA
5 38 (1.21%) PMO
6 36 (1.15%) GxP
6 36 (1.15%) NIST
7 33 (1.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 24 (0.76%) GRC
9 23 (0.73%) ISO 20022
10 22 (0.70%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 19 (0.60%) WCAG
12 17 (0.54%) GMP
13 16 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
14 14 (0.45%) NCSC
15 12 (0.38%) IFRS
16 11 (0.35%) MiFID
17 10 (0.32%) Def Stans
17 10 (0.32%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 117 (3.72%) Active Directory
2 115 (3.66%) Docker
3 94 (2.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (1.24%) Virtual Machines
5 36 (1.15%) VMware ESXi
6 27 (0.86%) Firmware
7 25 (0.80%) Hyper-V
7 25 (0.80%) Virtual Desktop
8 23 (0.73%) vSphere
9 16 (0.51%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.16%) KVM
12 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.13%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.064%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.064%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.064%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.032%) Ceph
14 1 (0.032%) etcd
14 1 (0.032%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 155 (4.93%) Kubernetes
2 108 (3.44%) Ansible
3 42 (1.34%) Grafana
4 33 (1.05%) Prometheus
5 26 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
6 25 (0.80%) FortiGate
7 21 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
8 20 (0.64%) SCCM
9 14 (0.45%) HP ALM
10 11 (0.35%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.32%) Functional Safety
11 10 (0.32%) Progress Chef
12 9 (0.29%) Argo
12 9 (0.29%) Control-M
13 6 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
13 6 (0.19%) Kibana
13 6 (0.19%) VxRail
14 5 (0.16%) systemd
14 5 (0.16%) vMotion
14 5 (0.16%) vRealize
Vendors
1 486 (15.46%) Microsoft
2 258 (8.21%) SAP
3 251 (7.98%) Oracle
4 177 (5.63%) Databricks
5 108 (3.44%) VMware
6 96 (3.05%) ServiceNow
7 94 (2.99%) Salesforce
8 89 (2.83%) Cisco
9 71 (2.26%) Google
10 57 (1.81%) Workday
11 53 (1.69%) IBM
12 34 (1.08%) Informatica
13 33 (1.05%) Fortinet
14 30 (0.95%) Zscaler
15 29 (0.92%) Palo Alto
16 28 (0.89%) Juniper
17 22 (0.70%) Splunk
18 20 (0.64%) CyberArk
18 20 (0.64%) Red Hat
19 19 (0.60%) MuleSoft