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

6 months to
7 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 52 109 128
Rank change year-on-year +57 +19 +7
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,655 729 855
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.24% 2.34% 1.89%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.87% 2.62% 2.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,013 391 471
10th Percentile £350 £356 £325
25th Percentile £402 £409 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £613
90th Percentile £700 £720 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% +3.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 34 154
10th Percentile £31.50 £27.08 £23.55
25th Percentile £43.61 £47.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £59.13 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.94% -9.04% +2.80%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.75 £75.25
90th Percentile £73.75 £67.05 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.75 £65.98
% change year-on-year +12.55% -12.47% +2.91%

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 33,986 27,793 39,321
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.08% 89.38% 87.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,549 16,924 25,862
10th Percentile £306 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £716 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £477 £496 £500
% change year-on-year -3.88% -0.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,070 859 2,130
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.35
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +7.69%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.50 £61.13
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.51 £35.00
% change year-on-year -20.20% -9.97% +11.43%

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 7 February 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 7 February 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 7 February 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 +52 1,434 £500 -4.76% 794
UK excluding London +41 762 £475 -5.00% 623
London +78 676 £513 -4.21% 255
Work from Home +75 517 £500 -4.76% 357
North of England +25 194 £420 - 134
South East +11 173 £500 - 186
North West +22 128 £400 +1.27% 82
Midlands +18 125 £500 +2.25% 121
South West +12 121 £475 -17.39% 74
West Midlands +15 104 £500 +2.15% 82
East of England +16 90 £482 +20.44% 87
Yorkshire -7 56 £487 -0.10% 42
Scotland +30 43 £440 -3.30% 31
East Midlands -13 21 £475 +58.33% 39
Northern Ireland +14 19 £425 - 1
North East -8 12 £450 -37.93% 10
Wales +4 6 £461 - 9

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 63 (3.81%) Confluence
2 39 (2.36%) Apache Spark
3 33 (1.99%) SharePoint
4 28 (1.69%) SAS
5 22 (1.33%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (1.21%) Microsoft Exchange
7 15 (0.91%) Apache
8 14 (0.85%) Skype for Business
9 9 (0.54%) Exchange Server 2013
10 8 (0.48%) Appian
10 8 (0.48%) CMS
11 7 (0.42%) Mattermost
12 6 (0.36%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.30%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
14 4 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.24%) Anypoint
14 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
14 4 (0.24%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.18%) GeoServer
15 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 81 (4.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (2.54%) Microsoft Office
3 29 (1.75%) MS Visio
4 16 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 11 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
6 10 (0.60%) Chatbot
7 8 (0.48%) Sketch
8 7 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
9 4 (0.24%) Notion
10 3 (0.18%) LaTeX
11 2 (0.12%) Simulink
12 1 (0.060%) CANalyzer
12 1 (0.060%) CATIA
12 1 (0.060%) OrCAD
12 1 (0.060%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.060%) Stateflow
12 1 (0.060%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 79 (4.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 20 (1.21%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.79%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.73%) SAP EHS
5 11 (0.66%) Oracle General Ledger
5 11 (0.66%) Workday HCM
6 10 (0.60%) Oracle Receivables
7 9 (0.54%) Aladdin
7 9 (0.54%) NetSuite
7 9 (0.54%) Remedy ITSM
7 9 (0.54%) SAP FI
7 9 (0.54%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.48%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.48%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 8 (0.48%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 7 (0.42%) SAP MM
10 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
10 6 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
10 6 (0.36%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 379 (22.90%) Azure
2 204 (12.33%) AWS
3 134 (8.10%) Azure DevOps
4 124 (7.49%) Power Platform
5 76 (4.59%) GitHub
6 66 (3.99%) GCP
7 56 (3.38%) Entra ID
8 48 (2.90%) SaaS
9 47 (2.84%) GitHub Actions
9 47 (2.84%) Serverless
10 46 (2.78%) Azure Data Factory
11 40 (2.42%) Amazon S3
12 35 (2.11%) Snowflake
13 33 (1.99%) OCI
14 32 (1.93%) Microsoft 365
15 25 (1.51%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 24 (1.45%) OpenShift
17 23 (1.39%) AWS Lambda
18 20 (1.21%) Dynamics 365
19 19 (1.15%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 50 (3.02%) Firewall
2 24 (1.45%) TCP/IP
3 22 (1.33%) Network Security
4 19 (1.15%) Ethernet
5 18 (1.09%) HTTP
6 17 (1.03%) VPN
7 16 (0.97%) WAN
8 15 (0.91%) DNS
8 15 (0.91%) VLAN
9 14 (0.85%) Skype
9 14 (0.85%) Wireless
10 12 (0.73%) BGP
11 11 (0.66%) LAN
11 11 (0.66%) MPLS
11 11 (0.66%) OSPF
12 9 (0.54%) TACACS
13 8 (0.48%) SD-WAN
14 7 (0.42%) Internet
15 6 (0.36%) SAN
15 6 (0.36%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (7.13%) Power BI
2 75 (4.53%) Metadata
3 58 (3.50%) Data Warehouse
4 43 (2.60%) SQL Server
5 38 (2.30%) Tableau
6 35 (2.11%) Data Lake
7 31 (1.87%) NoSQL
8 27 (1.63%) PostgreSQL
9 23 (1.39%) Delta Lake
10 22 (1.33%) Relational Database
11 21 (1.27%) Azure SQL Database
12 19 (1.15%) Amazon Redshift
12 19 (1.15%) Big Data
13 18 (1.09%) Pinecone
13 18 (1.09%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 17 (1.03%) Oracle Database
15 16 (0.97%) Geospatial Data
15 16 (0.97%) GIS
16 15 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
16 15 (0.91%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 160 (9.67%) JIRA
2 83 (5.02%) Git
3 72 (4.35%) Jenkins
4 52 (3.14%) Postman
5 50 (3.02%) GitLab
6 43 (2.60%) Selenium
7 32 (1.93%) Oracle APEX
8 24 (1.45%) Rational DOORS
9 19 (1.15%) JMeter
10 17 (1.03%) TestRail
11 16 (0.97%) Cucumber
11 16 (0.97%) MLflow
11 16 (0.97%) Visual Studio
12 13 (0.79%) Zephyr
13 12 (0.73%) JUnit
13 12 (0.73%) REST Assured
14 11 (0.66%) SpecFlow
15 10 (0.60%) Eclipse
16 9 (0.54%) Bitbucket
17 8 (0.48%) Cypress.io
General
1 621 (37.52%) Social Skills
2 467 (28.22%) Finance
3 338 (20.42%) Analytical Skills
4 150 (9.06%) Public Sector
5 144 (8.70%) Banking
6 89 (5.38%) Documentation Skills
7 45 (2.72%) Presentation Skills
8 44 (2.66%) Manufacturing
9 38 (2.30%) Influencing Skills
10 36 (2.18%) Pharmaceutical
11 32 (1.93%) Telecoms
12 30 (1.81%) Front Office
13 29 (1.75%) Aerospace
13 29 (1.75%) Electronics
13 29 (1.75%) Marketing
14 28 (1.69%) Legal
14 28 (1.69%) Organisational Skills
15 26 (1.57%) Military
16 22 (1.33%) Billing
16 22 (1.33%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 332 (20.06%) Analyst
2 171 (10.33%) Senior
3 150 (9.06%) Business Analyst
4 140 (8.46%) Lead
5 135 (8.16%) Consultant
6 122 (7.37%) Developer
7 99 (5.98%) Architect
8 77 (4.65%) Data Analyst
9 76 (4.59%) Data Engineer
10 52 (3.14%) Tester
11 51 (3.08%) Software Engineer
12 49 (2.96%) Senior Analyst
13 46 (2.78%) Project Manager
14 41 (2.48%) SAP Consultant
14 41 (2.48%) Test Analyst
15 36 (2.18%) Test Manager
16 35 (2.11%) Senior Developer
17 31 (1.87%) Solutions Architect
18 30 (1.81%) Embedded Engineer
19 29 (1.75%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (6.47%) REST
2 85 (5.14%) JSON
3 57 (3.44%) XML
4 50 (3.02%) Oracle Fusion
5 46 (2.78%) OAuth
6 41 (2.48%) Middleware
6 41 (2.48%) SOAP
7 38 (2.30%) PySpark
8 36 (2.18%) RESTful
9 35 (2.11%) Kafka
10 33 (1.99%) .NET
10 33 (1.99%) Node.js
11 30 (1.81%) PyTorch
12 29 (1.75%) Swagger
13 28 (1.69%) Playwright
14 27 (1.63%) TensorFlow
15 26 (1.57%) Web Services
16 24 (1.45%) Pandas
16 24 (1.45%) pytest
17 23 (1.39%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 95 (5.74%) Legacy Systems
2 67 (4.05%) Data Structures
3 64 (3.87%) Onboarding
4 60 (3.63%) Product Ownership
5 51 (3.08%) Management Information System
6 48 (2.90%) Cloud Native
7 33 (1.99%) Data Centre
8 28 (1.69%) Algorithms
9 27 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
10 26 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
11 22 (1.33%) FPGA
12 20 (1.21%) Derivative
12 20 (1.21%) Life Science
13 19 (1.15%) Distributed Systems
13 19 (1.15%) Hybrid Cloud
14 18 (1.09%) Replication
15 16 (0.97%) Operational Technology
16 15 (0.91%) SCADA
16 15 (0.91%) Security Posture
17 14 (0.85%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 92 (5.56%) Linux
2 86 (5.20%) Windows
3 30 (1.81%) Unix
4 11 (0.66%) Android
5 6 (0.36%) Embedded Linux
5 6 (0.36%) Windows Server
5 6 (0.36%) zOS
6 5 (0.30%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.24%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.12%) Debian
8 2 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.12%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.060%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.060%) pSOS
9 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 422 (25.50%) Agile
2 386 (23.32%) Problem-Solving
3 376 (22.72%) Migration
4 280 (16.92%) Stakeholder Management
5 272 (16.44%) DevOps
6 265 (16.01%) CI/CD
6 265 (16.01%) Data Validation
7 237 (14.32%) Analytics
8 211 (12.75%) Test Automation
9 205 (12.39%) Data Modelling
10 203 (12.27%) Data Migration
11 202 (12.21%) User Acceptance Testing
12 186 (11.24%) AI
13 180 (10.88%) ETL
14 170 (10.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 157 (9.49%) Continuous Improvement
16 155 (9.37%) Business Intelligence
17 154 (9.31%) Data Governance
18 148 (8.94%) Data Analysis
19 134 (8.10%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 409 (24.71%) SQL
2 351 (21.21%) Python
3 94 (5.68%) JavaScript
4 88 (5.32%) Java
5 65 (3.93%) C#
6 55 (3.32%) PowerShell
7 53 (3.20%) PL/SQL
8 49 (2.96%) Bash
9 47 (2.84%) C++
10 42 (2.54%) C
11 32 (1.93%) TypeScript
12 24 (1.45%) R
13 20 (1.21%) Bicep
14 17 (1.03%) Groovy
15 16 (0.97%) Ada
15 16 (0.97%) Shell Script
16 15 (0.91%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 15 (0.91%) Scala
17 12 (0.73%) T-SQL
18 9 (0.54%) XPath
Qualifications
1 359 (21.69%) Security Cleared
2 264 (15.95%) SC Cleared
3 173 (10.45%) Degree
4 61 (3.69%) Computer Science Degree
5 56 (3.38%) BPSS Clearance
6 39 (2.36%) DV Cleared
6 39 (2.36%) Master's Degree
7 32 (1.93%) ISTQB
8 29 (1.75%) PMI Certification
9 22 (1.33%) AWS Certification
10 21 (1.27%) PMP
11 17 (1.03%) CBAP
12 14 (0.85%) Cisco Certification
12 14 (0.85%) Oracle Certification
13 11 (0.66%) Azure Certification
14 10 (0.60%) CCNP
14 10 (0.60%) OCA
15 9 (0.54%) CISSP
15 9 (0.54%) CTC Cleared
15 9 (0.54%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 228 (13.78%) Data Quality
2 208 (12.57%) QA
3 89 (5.38%) GDPR
4 67 (4.05%) NIST
5 46 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 35 (2.11%) Accessibility
7 19 (1.15%) GxP
8 18 (1.09%) IFRS
9 16 (0.97%) IFRS 17
10 15 (0.91%) Def Stans
10 15 (0.91%) PCI DSS
11 14 (0.85%) SLA
12 13 (0.79%) EU AI Act
12 13 (0.79%) PMO
13 12 (0.73%) GMP
13 12 (0.73%) NCSC
14 11 (0.66%) COBIT
15 10 (0.60%) GRC
15 10 (0.60%) MiFID
15 10 (0.60%) MISRA
System Software
1 59 (3.56%) Docker
2 46 (2.78%) Active Directory
3 32 (1.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (1.33%) Firmware
5 12 (0.73%) Virtual Desktop
5 12 (0.73%) VMware NSX
6 7 (0.42%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.24%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
7 4 (0.24%) Embedded Firmware
7 4 (0.24%) vSphere
8 3 (0.18%) KVM
8 3 (0.18%) NFS
8 3 (0.18%) QEMU
9 2 (0.12%) Ceph
9 2 (0.12%) Lustre
9 2 (0.12%) OpenAM
9 2 (0.12%) OpenDJ
9 2 (0.12%) OpenIDM
9 2 (0.12%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 82 (4.95%) Kubernetes
2 72 (4.35%) Terraform
3 41 (2.48%) Ansible
4 21 (1.27%) Single Sign-On
5 18 (1.09%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (0.91%) Kibana
6 15 (0.91%) SCCM
7 14 (0.85%) Puppet
8 13 (0.79%) Grafana
9 11 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 11 (0.66%) Prometheus
10 9 (0.54%) Nmap
11 8 (0.48%) SCOM
12 7 (0.42%) HP SiteScope
13 6 (0.36%) Nessus
14 5 (0.30%) RSA Archer
15 4 (0.24%) Iperf
16 3 (0.18%) CloudHub
16 3 (0.18%) EMC VPLEX
16 3 (0.18%) vMotion
Vendors
1 221 (13.35%) Microsoft
2 165 (9.97%) Oracle
3 137 (8.28%) SAP
4 80 (4.83%) Databricks
5 65 (3.93%) ServiceNow
6 42 (2.54%) Cisco
6 42 (2.54%) Splunk
7 41 (2.48%) Google
8 38 (2.30%) Salesforce
8 38 (2.30%) VMware
9 32 (1.93%) Workday
10 20 (1.21%) MuleSoft
11 19 (1.15%) IBM
11 19 (1.15%) Murex
11 19 (1.15%) Palo Alto
12 17 (1.03%) Informatica
13 15 (0.91%) OpenAI
14 14 (0.85%) Avaloq
14 14 (0.85%) Sage
15 13 (0.79%) CheckPoint