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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 66 111
Rank change year-on-year +34 +45 +30
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,146 1,235 808
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.73% 3.73% 2.12%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.78% 4.12% 2.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,841 702 403
10th Percentile £340 £332 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £502 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.35% +0.35% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £588
90th Percentile £701 £688 £662
UK excluding London median daily rate £467 £500 £482
% change year-on-year -6.60% +3.73% -6.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 207 86 98
10th Percentile £17.17 £22.75 £28.00
25th Percentile £26.71 £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 £82.25 £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 30,011 32,696
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.49% 90.62% 85.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,976 18,637 19,780
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 £734 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,269 1,869 1,352
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.32 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.17 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £38.72 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.96% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £65.60 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.02 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.86% -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 2 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 2 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 2 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 +32 2,688 £500 -2.91% 4,561
UK excluding London +30 1,446 £467 -6.60% 2,790
London +41 1,307 £525 - 2,173
Work from Home +26 867 £500 - 1,671
North of England +48 359 £459 +4.26% 464
South East +2 330 £520 +4.00% 739
Midlands +34 302 £463 -7.40% 371
West Midlands +26 213 £461 -9.21% 252
North West +24 176 £464 +9.06% 249
South West +16 173 £525 -4.55% 376
Yorkshire +52 154 £463 -2.63% 143
Scotland +45 145 £467 -7.71% 360
East of England -6 140 £463 -7.50% 374
East Midlands +30 86 £489 -4.63% 119
North East -20 34 £425 -11.92% 74
Wales 0 25 £394 +5.00% 68
Northern Ireland +6 4 £363 -33.49% 66
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 95 (3.02%) Confluence
2 64 (2.03%) Apache Airflow
3 61 (1.94%) SharePoint
4 50 (1.59%) Apache Spark
5 46 (1.46%) SAS
6 42 (1.34%) Apache
7 19 (0.60%) CMS
8 18 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
9 14 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
10 12 (0.38%) Jupyter
11 9 (0.29%) IIS
11 9 (0.29%) SharePoint 2013
12 8 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
13 7 (0.22%) Sitecore CMS
14 6 (0.19%) ArcGIS
14 6 (0.19%) OpenStack
14 6 (0.19%) WebLogic
15 5 (0.16%) CICS
15 5 (0.16%) Tomcat
15 5 (0.16%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 203 (6.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 48 (1.53%) Microsoft Office
3 39 (1.24%) MS Visio
4 30 (0.95%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 17 (0.54%) AutoCAD
7 12 (0.38%) Navisworks
7 12 (0.38%) Revit
8 10 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
8 10 (0.32%) ProjectWise
9 9 (0.29%) Simulink
10 5 (0.16%) CATIA
10 5 (0.16%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.064%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.064%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.064%) LaTeX
11 2 (0.064%) OrCAD
12 1 (0.032%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.032%) Trello
12 1 (0.032%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 114 (3.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.54%) Workday HCM
3 16 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
3 16 (0.51%) SAP FI
4 15 (0.48%) SAP SD
5 14 (0.45%) Integrated Workplace Management System
5 14 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
5 14 (0.45%) SAP HCM
6 13 (0.41%) NetSuite
6 13 (0.41%) Teamcenter
7 12 (0.38%) Aladdin
7 12 (0.38%) SAP MDG
8 11 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
8 11 (0.35%) SAP MM
9 10 (0.32%) iTrent
9 10 (0.32%) SAP ERP
10 9 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
10 9 (0.29%) SAP CO
10 9 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
10 9 (0.29%) SAP PS
Cloud Services
1 604 (19.20%) Azure
2 348 (11.06%) AWS
3 319 (10.14%) Power Platform
4 187 (5.94%) Azure DevOps
5 161 (5.12%) GCP
6 151 (4.80%) GitHub
7 110 (3.50%) Snowflake
8 101 (3.21%) Entra ID
9 78 (2.48%) GitHub Actions
10 75 (2.38%) Azure Data Factory
11 63 (2.00%) Amazon S3
12 62 (1.97%) Serverless
13 61 (1.94%) Microsoft 365
14 59 (1.88%) SaaS
15 57 (1.81%) dbt
16 43 (1.37%) SuccessFactors
17 41 (1.30%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 39 (1.24%) Dynamics 365
19 36 (1.14%) Azure Monitor
20 34 (1.08%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 107 (3.40%) Firewall
2 79 (2.51%) DNS
3 61 (1.94%) VLAN
4 59 (1.88%) Network Security
5 56 (1.78%) VPN
6 49 (1.56%) BGP
6 49 (1.56%) TCP/IP
7 42 (1.34%) WAN
8 34 (1.08%) DHCP
9 30 (0.95%) VXLAN
10 28 (0.89%) OSPF
11 27 (0.86%) Ethernet VPN
12 25 (0.79%) Ethernet
12 25 (0.79%) 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
1 295 (9.38%) Power BI
2 172 (5.47%) Data Warehouse
3 141 (4.48%) Metadata
4 124 (3.94%) Relational Database
5 109 (3.46%) SQL Server
6 100 (3.18%) PostgreSQL
7 86 (2.73%) Data Lake
8 69 (2.19%) Tableau
9 40 (1.27%) MongoDB
10 39 (1.24%) Delta Lake
10 39 (1.24%) Oracle Database
11 38 (1.21%) BigQuery
12 36 (1.14%) Big Data
12 36 (1.14%) Power Query
13 34 (1.08%) NoSQL
13 34 (1.08%) Redis
14 30 (0.95%) Oracle Reports
15 28 (0.89%) MySQL
16 27 (0.86%) Azure SQL Database
17 26 (0.83%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 280 (8.90%) JIRA
2 237 (7.53%) Git
3 106 (3.37%) Jenkins
4 102 (3.24%) GitLab
5 82 (2.61%) Selenium
6 44 (1.40%) Postman
7 35 (1.11%) JMeter
8 27 (0.86%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.76%) Rational DOORS
10 23 (0.73%) JUnit
11 20 (0.64%) REST Assured
11 20 (0.64%) WebDriver
12 19 (0.60%) Zephyr
13 17 (0.54%) Eclipse
13 17 (0.54%) Visual Studio
14 16 (0.51%) Cypress.io
15 14 (0.45%) Gatling
15 14 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
16 13 (0.41%) TestRail
17 12 (0.38%) Maven
General
1 896 (28.48%) Finance
2 893 (28.39%) Social Skills
3 628 (19.96%) Analytical Skills
4 284 (9.03%) Banking
5 269 (8.55%) Public Sector
6 135 (4.29%) Manufacturing
7 132 (4.20%) Documentation Skills
8 94 (2.99%) Retail
9 76 (2.42%) Automotive
10 72 (2.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 71 (2.26%) Telecoms
12 61 (1.94%) Organisational Skills
13 60 (1.91%) Legal
14 56 (1.78%) Aerospace
15 53 (1.68%) Pharmaceutical
16 51 (1.62%) Marketing
17 46 (1.46%) Billing
18 45 (1.43%) Front Office
18 45 (1.43%) Local Government
19 43 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 531 (16.88%) Analyst
2 377 (11.98%) Senior
3 285 (9.06%) Lead
4 258 (8.20%) Consultant
5 253 (8.04%) Data Engineer
6 234 (7.44%) Business Analyst
7 207 (6.58%) Developer
8 172 (5.47%) Data Analyst
9 166 (5.28%) Architect
10 113 (3.59%) Test Engineer
11 79 (2.51%) Tester
12 76 (2.42%) Network Engineer
13 66 (2.10%) Senior Data Engineer
14 61 (1.94%) Administrator
15 60 (1.91%) Systems Engineer
16 59 (1.88%) Senior Analyst
17 57 (1.81%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 52 (1.65%) Software Engineer
19 48 (1.53%) Project Manager
20 46 (1.46%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 210 (6.68%) REST
2 196 (6.23%) Terraform
3 102 (3.24%) JSON
4 92 (2.92%) PySpark
5 91 (2.89%) Middleware
6 84 (2.67%) XML
7 76 (2.42%) Kafka
8 62 (1.97%) Playwright
9 59 (1.88%) .NET
9 59 (1.88%) OAuth
10 56 (1.78%) Web Services
11 54 (1.72%) SOAP
12 51 (1.62%) pytest
13 47 (1.49%) Oracle Fusion
14 46 (1.46%) RESTful
15 44 (1.40%) OpenID
16 42 (1.34%) OAuth2
17 37 (1.18%) Pandas
18 36 (1.14%) Spring
18 36 (1.14%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 179 (5.69%) Onboarding
2 171 (5.44%) Data Structures
3 147 (4.67%) Cloud Native
4 125 (3.97%) Legacy Systems
5 122 (3.88%) Management Information System
6 121 (3.85%) Product Ownership
7 95 (3.02%) Data Centre
8 65 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
9 61 (1.94%) AI Agents
9 61 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
10 45 (1.43%) Analytical Mindset
10 45 (1.43%) Life Science
11 44 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
12 42 (1.34%) Algorithms
12 42 (1.34%) SCADA
13 39 (1.24%) Replication
14 36 (1.14%) NHS
14 36 (1.14%) Operational Technology
15 34 (1.08%) CMDB
16 33 (1.05%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 219 (6.96%) Windows
2 140 (4.45%) Linux
3 90 (2.86%) Windows Server
4 60 (1.91%) Unix
5 22 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.51%) Windows 10
7 14 (0.45%) Android
8 11 (0.35%) AIX
8 11 (0.35%) Ubuntu
9 9 (0.29%) Apple iOS
10 8 (0.25%) VMS
11 7 (0.22%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.19%) zOS
13 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
14 3 (0.095%) CentOS
14 3 (0.095%) VxWorks
15 2 (0.064%) HPUX
15 2 (0.064%) Solaris
15 2 (0.064%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 853 (27.11%) Migration
2 698 (22.19%) Stakeholder Management
3 629 (19.99%) CI/CD
4 606 (19.26%) Agile
5 517 (16.43%) Data Modelling
6 509 (16.18%) User Acceptance Testing
7 503 (15.99%) Data Migration
8 496 (15.77%) Analytics
9 483 (15.35%) Problem-Solving
10 482 (15.32%) Data Validation
11 448 (14.24%) AI
12 434 (13.80%) Continuous Improvement
13 430 (13.67%) DevOps
14 425 (13.51%) Test Automation
15 352 (11.19%) ETL
16 340 (10.81%) Business Intelligence
17 321 (10.20%) Data Analysis
17 321 (10.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 320 (10.17%) Data Governance
19 307 (9.76%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 830 (26.38%) SQL
2 674 (21.42%) Python
3 157 (4.99%) Java
4 122 (3.88%) PowerShell
5 80 (2.54%) C#
5 80 (2.54%) JavaScript
6 67 (2.13%) Bash
7 50 (1.59%) TypeScript
8 45 (1.43%) C++
9 32 (1.02%) Shell Script
10 28 (0.89%) Apex Code
10 28 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 28 (0.89%) R
11 26 (0.83%) Bicep
11 26 (0.83%) PL/SQL
12 25 (0.79%) C
13 23 (0.73%) Go
14 19 (0.60%) T-SQL
14 19 (0.60%) VBA
15 18 (0.57%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 632 (20.09%) Security Cleared
2 475 (15.10%) SC Cleared
3 217 (6.90%) Degree
4 92 (2.92%) 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%) AWS Certification
10 33 (1.05%) ACCA
10 33 (1.05%) CIMA
11 26 (0.83%) ISTQB
12 24 (0.76%) Azure Certification
12 24 (0.76%) PMI Certification
13 22 (0.70%) CISSP
13 22 (0.70%) PMP
14 20 (0.64%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 19 (0.60%) DBS Check
15 19 (0.60%) Master's Degree
16 15 (0.48%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 657 (20.88%) Data Quality
2 375 (11.92%) QA
3 102 (3.24%) GDPR
4 55 (1.75%) Accessibility
5 51 (1.62%) SLA
6 37 (1.18%) PMO
7 36 (1.14%) GxP
7 36 (1.14%) NIST
8 32 (1.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 23 (0.73%) ISO 20022
10 22 (0.70%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 22 (0.70%) GRC
11 18 (0.57%) 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%) ISO 19650
16 11 (0.35%) MiFID
17 10 (0.32%) Def Stans
System Software
1 118 (3.75%) Active Directory
2 113 (3.59%) Docker
3 94 (2.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 38 (1.21%) Virtual Machines
5 37 (1.18%) VMware ESXi
6 27 (0.86%) Firmware
7 26 (0.83%) Hyper-V
8 25 (0.79%) Virtual Desktop
9 23 (0.73%) vSphere
10 16 (0.51%) VMware NSX
11 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.16%) KVM
13 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
13 4 (0.13%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.064%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.064%) OpenSSH
14 2 (0.064%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.032%) Ceph
15 1 (0.032%) HDFS
15 1 (0.032%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 155 (4.93%) Kubernetes
2 110 (3.50%) Ansible
3 40 (1.27%) Grafana
4 34 (1.08%) Prometheus
5 25 (0.79%) FortiGate
5 25 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
6 21 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
7 20 (0.64%) SCCM
8 14 (0.45%) HP ALM
9 11 (0.35%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.32%) Functional Safety
10 10 (0.32%) Progress Chef
11 9 (0.29%) Argo
11 9 (0.29%) Control-M
12 6 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
12 6 (0.19%) Kibana
12 6 (0.19%) VxRail
13 5 (0.16%) vMotion
13 5 (0.16%) vRealize
14 4 (0.13%) Consul
Vendors
1 488 (15.51%) Microsoft
2 261 (8.30%) SAP
3 246 (7.82%) Oracle
4 179 (5.69%) Databricks
5 108 (3.43%) VMware
6 95 (3.02%) ServiceNow
7 92 (2.92%) Salesforce
8 89 (2.83%) Cisco
9 72 (2.29%) Google
10 58 (1.84%) Workday
11 52 (1.65%) IBM
12 35 (1.11%) Informatica
13 33 (1.05%) Fortinet
14 30 (0.95%) Zscaler
15 29 (0.92%) Palo Alto
16 27 (0.86%) Juniper
17 21 (0.67%) Splunk
18 20 (0.64%) CyberArk
18 20 (0.64%) Red Hat
18 20 (0.64%) Sage