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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 69 118
Rank change year-on-year +34 +49 +29
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,881 1,198 759
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.38% 3.65% 1.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.36% 4.03% 2.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,733 701 370
10th Percentile £336 £331 £349
25th Percentile £412 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £588
90th Percentile £706 £688 £668
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £503 £475
% change year-on-year -7.96% +5.79% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 188 85 118
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £29.24
25th Percentile £26.80 £36.48 £48.75
Median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -7.69% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £65.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £75.56
UK excluding London median hourly rate £61.25 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -5.77% - -0.38%

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 45,331 29,700 33,127
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.72% 90.46% 85.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,838 18,524 21,130
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 £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,836 1,729 1,767
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.31 £17.33 £18.14
Median hourly rate £41.63 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +65.54% -38.57% -0.24%
75th Percentile £67.99 £49.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +83.17% -43.53% +17.65%

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 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 20 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 20 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 2,496 £500 -2.44% 2,341
UK excluding London +28 1,341 £463 -7.96% 1,610
London +42 1,203 £525 +2.44% 1,040
Work from Home +27 796 £500 - 897
North of England +43 320 £453 -8.48% 268
South East 0 316 £501 +0.25% 424
Midlands +31 309 £475 -5.00% 211
West Midlands +27 216 £461 -9.21% 138
North West +22 161 £456 -16.10% 153
East of England +7 151 £475 -5.00% 252
Yorkshire +43 144 £460 +2.22% 68
South West +3 134 £525 -8.70% 247
Scotland +41 96 £430 -7.03% 161
East Midlands +23 88 £505 +0.90% 73
Wales -5 24 £363 -3.33% 44
North East -29 20 £438 -20.45% 54
Northern Ireland +11 10 £380 -35.59% 32
Channel Islands -1 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 54 (1.87%) SAS
3 54 (1.87%) SharePoint
4 42 (1.46%) Apache Spark
5 30 (1.04%) Apache
6 17 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
7 13 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
8 11 (0.38%) Jupyter
9 10 (0.35%) 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%) Sitecore CMS
12 5 (0.17%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.10%) OpenStack
Applications
1 202 (7.01%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.42%) Microsoft Office
2 41 (1.42%) MS Visio
3 33 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 32 (1.11%) Spreadsheet
5 13 (0.45%) AutoCAD
6 10 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.28%) CATIA
7 8 (0.28%) Navisworks
7 8 (0.28%) Revit
8 7 (0.24%) ProjectWise
9 6 (0.21%) Simulink
10 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.069%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.069%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.069%) Windchill
12 1 (0.035%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.035%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.035%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.035%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 118 (4.10%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (0.97%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.45%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.42%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.42%) Teamcenter
6 11 (0.38%) iTrent
6 11 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 11 (0.38%) SAP SD
7 10 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
7 10 (0.35%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.31%) Aladdin
8 9 (0.31%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.31%) SAP FI
8 9 (0.31%) SAP MDG
9 7 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
9 7 (0.24%) Sage X3
9 7 (0.24%) SAP Payroll
9 7 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 616 (21.38%) Azure
2 335 (11.63%) AWS
3 306 (10.62%) Power Platform
4 163 (5.66%) Azure DevOps
5 147 (5.10%) GCP
6 132 (4.58%) GitHub
7 100 (3.47%) Snowflake
8 79 (2.74%) Entra ID
9 74 (2.57%) Azure Data Factory
10 71 (2.46%) GitHub Actions
11 65 (2.26%) Serverless
12 60 (2.08%) Microsoft 365
13 57 (1.98%) SaaS
14 53 (1.84%) Amazon S3
15 46 (1.60%) dbt
16 44 (1.53%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 43 (1.49%) SuccessFactors
18 42 (1.46%) OCI
19 35 (1.21%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 35 (1.21%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 115 (3.99%) Firewall
2 69 (2.40%) DNS
3 66 (2.29%) Network Security
4 63 (2.19%) VLAN
5 52 (1.80%) VPN
6 46 (1.60%) TCP/IP
7 42 (1.46%) BGP
7 42 (1.46%) WAN
8 35 (1.21%) 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
14 20 (0.69%) SD-WAN
15 19 (0.66%) Ethernet
15 19 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
16 16 (0.56%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 286 (9.93%) Power BI
2 170 (5.90%) Data Warehouse
3 125 (4.34%) Metadata
4 107 (3.71%) SQL Server
5 97 (3.37%) PostgreSQL
6 95 (3.30%) Relational Database
7 84 (2.92%) Data Lake
8 74 (2.57%) Tableau
9 37 (1.28%) Big Data
9 37 (1.28%) MongoDB
10 35 (1.21%) NoSQL
11 34 (1.18%) Delta Lake
12 32 (1.11%) SAS Enterprise Guide
13 31 (1.08%) MySQL
13 31 (1.08%) Oracle Reports
14 30 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
14 30 (1.04%) Oracle Database
15 28 (0.97%) BigQuery
15 28 (0.97%) Redis
16 27 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 248 (8.61%) JIRA
2 190 (6.59%) Git
3 104 (3.61%) Jenkins
4 86 (2.99%) GitLab
5 65 (2.26%) Selenium
6 48 (1.67%) Postman
7 40 (1.39%) JMeter
8 26 (0.90%) Cucumber
8 26 (0.90%) WebDriver
9 23 (0.80%) Rational DOORS
10 22 (0.76%) JUnit
11 18 (0.62%) 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
1 814 (28.25%) Social Skills
2 797 (27.66%) Finance
3 572 (19.85%) Analytical Skills
4 252 (8.75%) Public Sector
5 206 (7.15%) Banking
6 154 (5.35%) Documentation Skills
7 107 (3.71%) Manufacturing
8 94 (3.26%) Retail
9 66 (2.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 65 (2.26%) Aerospace
11 61 (2.12%) Telecoms
12 58 (2.01%) Pharmaceutical
13 53 (1.84%) Automotive
13 53 (1.84%) Organisational Skills
14 49 (1.70%) Legal
15 46 (1.60%) Marketing
16 43 (1.49%) Law
17 42 (1.46%) Front Office
17 42 (1.46%) Local Government
18 38 (1.32%) Billing
Job Titles
1 505 (17.53%) Analyst
2 316 (10.97%) Senior
3 278 (9.65%) Lead
4 236 (8.19%) Business Analyst
5 234 (8.12%) Data Engineer
6 224 (7.78%) Consultant
7 176 (6.11%) Developer
8 142 (4.93%) Architect
9 140 (4.86%) Data Analyst
10 108 (3.75%) Test Engineer
11 81 (2.81%) Tester
12 75 (2.60%) Network Engineer
13 74 (2.57%) Project Manager
14 61 (2.12%) Systems Engineer
15 60 (2.08%) Administrator
16 56 (1.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 55 (1.91%) Senior Data Engineer
18 54 (1.87%) Technical Analyst
19 48 (1.67%) Test Manager
20 47 (1.63%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 170 (5.90%) REST
2 146 (5.07%) Terraform
3 92 (3.19%) JSON
4 80 (2.78%) PySpark
5 78 (2.71%) XML
6 73 (2.53%) Kafka
7 65 (2.26%) Middleware
8 52 (1.80%) .NET
9 51 (1.77%) Oracle Fusion
9 51 (1.77%) Playwright
10 44 (1.53%) pytest
11 42 (1.46%) SOAP
12 41 (1.42%) Spring
12 41 (1.42%) Web Services
13 36 (1.25%) OAuth
14 34 (1.18%) RESTful
15 33 (1.15%) Pandas
16 31 (1.08%) Spring Boot
17 28 (0.97%) Node.js
18 25 (0.87%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 163 (5.66%) Onboarding
2 145 (5.03%) Data Structures
3 128 (4.44%) Cloud Native
4 122 (4.23%) Legacy Systems
5 121 (4.20%) Product Ownership
6 93 (3.23%) Management Information System
7 89 (3.09%) Data Centre
8 54 (1.87%) Enterprise Software
9 47 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
9 47 (1.63%) Distributed Systems
10 43 (1.49%) Life Science
11 42 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
11 42 (1.46%) SCADA
12 41 (1.42%) AI Agents
13 38 (1.32%) Replication
14 35 (1.21%) NHS
15 34 (1.18%) Algorithms
16 33 (1.15%) CMDB
16 33 (1.15%) Operational Technology
17 32 (1.11%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 183 (6.35%) Windows
2 120 (4.17%) Linux
3 68 (2.36%) Windows Server
4 40 (1.39%) Unix
5 19 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.45%) Android
6 13 (0.45%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.38%) Ubuntu
8 10 (0.35%) VMS
9 8 (0.28%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.21%) AIX
12 4 (0.14%) SUSE
12 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.069%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.069%) HPUX
13 2 (0.069%) VxWorks
13 2 (0.069%) Windows Server 2019
14 1 (0.035%) Alpine Linux
14 1 (0.035%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 773 (26.83%) Migration
2 569 (19.75%) Agile
3 553 (19.19%) Stakeholder Management
4 523 (18.15%) CI/CD
5 483 (16.77%) User Acceptance Testing
6 470 (16.31%) Analytics
7 459 (15.93%) Data Modelling
8 455 (15.79%) Data Migration
9 452 (15.69%) Problem-Solving
10 442 (15.34%) Data Validation
11 376 (13.05%) AI
12 370 (12.84%) DevOps
13 360 (12.50%) Continuous Improvement
14 357 (12.39%) Test Automation
15 323 (11.21%) Business Intelligence
16 322 (11.18%) ETL
17 318 (11.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 306 (10.62%) Data Pipeline
19 288 (10.00%) Data Governance
20 278 (9.65%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 725 (25.16%) SQL
2 556 (19.30%) Python
3 138 (4.79%) Java
4 92 (3.19%) PowerShell
5 64 (2.22%) C#
6 60 (2.08%) Bash
7 54 (1.87%) JavaScript
8 45 (1.56%) C++
9 32 (1.11%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.08%) Apex Code
11 30 (1.04%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 29 (1.01%) Bicep
13 28 (0.97%) C
14 27 (0.94%) R
15 25 (0.87%) PL/SQL
16 21 (0.73%) VBA
17 20 (0.69%) Shell Script
18 17 (0.59%) T-SQL
19 16 (0.56%) MATLAB
20 13 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 535 (18.57%) Security Cleared
2 392 (13.61%) SC Cleared
3 190 (6.59%) Degree
4 70 (2.43%) DV Cleared
5 61 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
6 48 (1.67%) Cisco Certification
7 44 (1.53%) Computer Science Degree
8 39 (1.35%) CCNP
9 27 (0.94%) 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 (0.69%) CCNA
14 20 (0.69%) PMP
15 16 (0.56%) CISSP
15 16 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
16 14 (0.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 14 (0.49%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 559 (19.40%) Data Quality
2 361 (12.53%) QA
3 121 (4.20%) GDPR
4 49 (1.70%) NIST
4 49 (1.70%) SLA
5 46 (1.60%) Accessibility
6 43 (1.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 39 (1.35%) GxP
7 39 (1.35%) PMO
8 22 (0.76%) GRC
9 21 (0.73%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 19 (0.66%) ISO 20022
11 16 (0.56%) GMP
12 14 (0.49%) Def Stans
12 14 (0.49%) NCSC
13 13 (0.45%) HL7
13 13 (0.45%) WCAG
14 12 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 11 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.38%) IFRS
System Software
1 115 (3.99%) Docker
2 101 (3.51%) Active Directory
3 82 (2.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (1.28%) Virtual Machines
5 29 (1.01%) VMware ESXi
6 27 (0.94%) 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 (0.069%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.069%) NFS
12 2 (0.069%) OpenSSH
12 2 (0.069%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.035%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.035%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 143 (4.96%) Kubernetes
2 79 (2.74%) Ansible
3 46 (1.60%) Grafana
4 38 (1.32%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
6 24 (0.83%) FortiGate
7 23 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.49%) vCenter Server
9 13 (0.45%) SCCM
10 10 (0.35%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.35%) VxRail
11 9 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
12 7 (0.24%) Argo
13 6 (0.21%) Microsoft Clustering
13 6 (0.21%) Progress Chef
14 5 (0.17%) systemd
14 5 (0.17%) vRealize
15 4 (0.14%) Consul
15 4 (0.14%) Functional Safety
15 4 (0.14%) vMotion
Vendors
1 440 (15.27%) Microsoft
2 251 (8.71%) SAP
3 243 (8.43%) Oracle
4 159 (5.52%) Databricks
5 96 (3.33%) Salesforce
6 95 (3.30%) VMware
7 89 (3.09%) ServiceNow
8 75 (2.60%) Cisco
9 52 (1.80%) Google
10 44 (1.53%) Workday
11 35 (1.21%) 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%) MuleSoft
15 21 (0.73%) Splunk
16 20 (0.69%) Ariba
16 20 (0.69%) Sage