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

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 69 117
Rank change year-on-year +33 +48 +38
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,771 1,142 803
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.25% 3.50% 1.94%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.18% 3.87% 2.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,668 676 407
10th Percentile £340 £350 £343
25th Percentile £412 £421 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £588
90th Percentile £700 £700 £673
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £525 £481
% change year-on-year -11.43% +9.15% -3.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 168 81 141
10th Percentile £17.43 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £27.16 £37.50 £48.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £57.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% -4.17% -7.69%
75th Percentile £75.25 £66.50 £68.75
90th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £63.75 £63.75
% change year-on-year -1.96% - +1.92%

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 44,825 29,480 35,296
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.99% 90.35% 85.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,802 18,519 22,641
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,641 1,572 2,187
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £13.06
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.44 £16.86
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -10.31%
75th Percentile £68.50 £50.75 £62.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £68.75 £73.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.34 £40.00
% change year-on-year +84.88% -39.15% -1.95%

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 22 July 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 22 July 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 22 July 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 2,401 £500 -4.76% 1,072
UK excluding London +27 1,287 £465 -11.43% 711
London +42 1,166 £513 -2.38% 462
Work from Home +46 794 £492 -1.60% 449
South East +3 312 £505 +1.00% 233
Midlands +35 306 £475 +5.56% 112
North of England +32 300 £450 -5.26% 149
West Midlands +28 225 £472 +7.77% 61
North West +21 163 £450 -14.69% 88
East of England 0 130 £500 - 88
Yorkshire +33 125 £460 +9.52% 37
South West -15 122 £520 -9.57% 84
Scotland +30 90 £425 -10.53% 41
East Midlands +20 76 £509 +11.99% 51
Wales +4 30 £450 +20.00% 14
North East -28 16 £425 -15.00% 24
Northern Ireland +10 10 £380 -35.59% 5

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 (2.96%) Confluence
2 68 (2.45%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (2.02%) SAS
4 50 (1.80%) SharePoint
5 45 (1.62%) Apache Spark
6 31 (1.12%) Apache
7 14 (0.51%) Oracle Workflow
8 12 (0.43%) Jupyter
9 11 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
10 9 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
11 8 (0.29%) ArcGIS
12 7 (0.25%) CMS
13 5 (0.18%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.14%) IIS
14 4 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
14 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
15 3 (0.11%) Appian
15 3 (0.11%) FactoryTalk
15 3 (0.11%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
Applications
1 182 (6.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.52%) MS Visio
3 35 (1.26%) Microsoft Office
4 30 (1.08%) Spreadsheet
5 28 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 12 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.29%) CATIA
8 6 (0.22%) AutoCAD
9 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.18%) Simulink
10 2 (0.072%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.072%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.072%) Sketch
10 2 (0.072%) Windchill
11 1 (0.036%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.036%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.036%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.036%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.036%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.036%) Revit
Business Applications
1 125 (4.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (1.26%) Oracle EBS
3 17 (0.61%) Workday HCM
4 14 (0.51%) Teamcenter
5 13 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
6 11 (0.40%) Aladdin
6 11 (0.40%) NetSuite
6 11 (0.40%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 11 (0.40%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
7 10 (0.36%) iTrent
7 10 (0.36%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
8 9 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.32%) SAP MDG
8 9 (0.32%) SAP SD
9 8 (0.29%) Sage X3
9 8 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
9 8 (0.29%) SAP HCM
9 8 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 587 (21.18%) Azure
2 322 (11.62%) AWS
3 289 (10.43%) Power Platform
4 150 (5.41%) Azure DevOps
5 138 (4.98%) GCP
6 123 (4.44%) GitHub
7 97 (3.50%) Snowflake
8 71 (2.56%) GitHub Actions
9 69 (2.49%) Azure Data Factory
9 69 (2.49%) Entra ID
9 69 (2.49%) Serverless
10 62 (2.24%) Amazon S3
11 51 (1.84%) Microsoft 365
12 50 (1.80%) SaaS
13 46 (1.66%) dbt
13 46 (1.66%) OCI
14 44 (1.59%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 39 (1.41%) SuccessFactors
16 36 (1.30%) AWS Lambda
17 34 (1.23%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 120 (4.33%) Firewall
2 71 (2.56%) Network Security
3 58 (2.09%) DNS
4 51 (1.84%) VLAN
4 51 (1.84%) VPN
5 42 (1.52%) WAN
6 41 (1.48%) TCP/IP
7 35 (1.26%) BGP
8 27 (0.97%) DHCP
9 26 (0.94%) OSPF
10 24 (0.87%) LAN
11 23 (0.83%) SAN
11 23 (0.83%) SD-WAN
11 23 (0.83%) Wireless
12 20 (0.72%) Internet
13 18 (0.65%) Ethernet
14 17 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.47%) HTTP
15 13 (0.47%) NAS
15 13 (0.47%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 268 (9.67%) Power BI
2 158 (5.70%) Data Warehouse
3 113 (4.08%) Metadata
4 100 (3.61%) SQL Server
5 88 (3.18%) PostgreSQL
6 85 (3.07%) Data Lake
7 77 (2.78%) Tableau
8 76 (2.74%) Relational Database
9 42 (1.52%) Big Data
10 33 (1.19%) Oracle Database
10 33 (1.19%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 32 (1.15%) Oracle Reports
12 30 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 29 (1.05%) Delta Lake
13 29 (1.05%) Power Query
14 27 (0.97%) Amazon Redshift
14 27 (0.97%) BigQuery
15 26 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
15 26 (0.94%) NoSQL
16 24 (0.87%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 248 (8.95%) JIRA
2 169 (6.10%) Git
3 94 (3.39%) Jenkins
4 71 (2.56%) GitLab
5 60 (2.17%) Selenium
6 49 (1.77%) JMeter
7 44 (1.59%) Postman
8 39 (1.41%) JUnit
9 38 (1.37%) Cucumber
10 31 (1.12%) WebDriver
11 22 (0.79%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.65%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.58%) Gatling
14 14 (0.51%) Visual Studio
15 13 (0.47%) Oracle Forms
15 13 (0.47%) Rational Rhapsody
16 12 (0.43%) REST Assured
17 11 (0.40%) Cypress.io
17 11 (0.40%) MLflow
18 10 (0.36%) Zephyr
General
1 815 (29.41%) Finance
2 794 (28.65%) Social Skills
3 522 (18.84%) Analytical Skills
4 228 (8.23%) Public Sector
5 208 (7.51%) Banking
6 156 (5.63%) Documentation Skills
7 102 (3.68%) Manufacturing
8 85 (3.07%) Retail
9 67 (2.42%) Aerospace
10 61 (2.20%) Pharmaceutical
11 56 (2.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 55 (1.98%) Telecoms
13 52 (1.88%) Organisational Skills
14 45 (1.62%) Legal
15 42 (1.52%) Front Office
16 39 (1.41%) Automotive
16 39 (1.41%) Marketing
17 38 (1.37%) Billing
18 37 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
19 35 (1.26%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 502 (18.12%) Analyst
2 284 (10.25%) Senior
3 278 (10.03%) Lead
4 241 (8.70%) Business Analyst
5 225 (8.12%) Data Engineer
6 205 (7.40%) Consultant
7 164 (5.92%) Developer
8 150 (5.41%) Architect
9 139 (5.02%) Data Analyst
10 91 (3.28%) Test Engineer
11 81 (2.92%) Tester
12 80 (2.89%) Project Manager
13 64 (2.31%) Network Engineer
14 54 (1.95%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 52 (1.88%) Systems Engineer
16 49 (1.77%) Senior Data Engineer
16 49 (1.77%) Technical Analyst
17 45 (1.62%) Senior Analyst
18 44 (1.59%) Administrator
18 44 (1.59%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 133 (4.80%) REST
2 84 (3.03%) JSON
3 73 (2.63%) Kafka
4 65 (2.35%) PySpark
5 60 (2.17%) XML
6 56 (2.02%) Middleware
7 52 (1.88%) Oracle Fusion
8 48 (1.73%) .NET
9 45 (1.62%) Spring
10 40 (1.44%) pytest
10 40 (1.44%) SOAP
11 38 (1.37%) OAuth
11 38 (1.37%) Web Services
12 34 (1.23%) Playwright
13 31 (1.12%) Pandas
13 31 (1.12%) RESTful
14 28 (1.01%) Node.js
15 25 (0.90%) Spring Boot
15 25 (0.90%) Swagger
15 25 (0.90%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 155 (5.59%) Onboarding
2 153 (5.52%) Data Structures
3 133 (4.80%) Legacy Systems
4 125 (4.51%) Cloud Native
5 123 (4.44%) Product Ownership
6 80 (2.89%) Data Centre
7 72 (2.60%) Management Information System
8 55 (1.98%) Distributed Systems
9 49 (1.77%) Analytical Mindset
10 42 (1.52%) Life Science
11 41 (1.48%) AI Agents
11 41 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
12 40 (1.44%) Hybrid Cloud
13 38 (1.37%) SCADA
14 36 (1.30%) Enterprise Software
15 35 (1.26%) NHS
15 35 (1.26%) Virtual Team
16 33 (1.19%) Reference Data
17 30 (1.08%) Public Cloud
17 30 (1.08%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 164 (5.92%) Windows
2 107 (3.86%) Linux
3 53 (1.91%) Windows Server
4 39 (1.41%) Unix
5 19 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.36%) Android
6 10 (0.36%) Ubuntu
7 9 (0.32%) VMS
8 7 (0.25%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.22%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.14%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.14%) SUSE
11 3 (0.11%) AIX
11 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.072%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.072%) HPUX
12 2 (0.072%) Solaris
12 2 (0.072%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.072%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.072%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 760 (27.43%) Migration
2 547 (19.74%) Agile
3 518 (18.69%) Stakeholder Management
4 470 (16.96%) Analytics
5 466 (16.82%) CI/CD
6 457 (16.49%) Data Validation
7 454 (16.38%) Data Migration
7 454 (16.38%) User Acceptance Testing
8 447 (16.13%) Data Modelling
9 441 (15.91%) Problem-Solving
10 353 (12.74%) AI
11 345 (12.45%) ETL
12 341 (12.31%) Continuous Improvement
13 338 (12.20%) Test Automation
14 335 (12.09%) DevOps
15 312 (11.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 311 (11.22%) Business Intelligence
17 284 (10.25%) Data Pipeline
18 280 (10.10%) Data Governance
19 267 (9.64%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 663 (23.93%) SQL
2 502 (18.12%) Python
3 122 (4.40%) Java
4 80 (2.89%) PowerShell
5 63 (2.27%) C#
6 59 (2.13%) Bash
7 40 (1.44%) JavaScript
8 34 (1.23%) C++
8 34 (1.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 32 (1.15%) Bicep
9 32 (1.15%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.08%) Apex Code
11 27 (0.97%) C
12 26 (0.94%) PL/SQL
13 23 (0.83%) R
13 23 (0.83%) VBA
14 19 (0.69%) T-SQL
15 15 (0.54%) Ada
15 15 (0.54%) MATLAB
15 15 (0.54%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 500 (18.04%) Security Cleared
2 362 (13.06%) SC Cleared
3 186 (6.71%) Degree
4 62 (2.24%) BPSS Clearance
4 62 (2.24%) DV Cleared
5 44 (1.59%) Cisco Certification
6 35 (1.26%) CCNP
6 35 (1.26%) Computer Science Degree
7 26 (0.94%) ISTQB
8 23 (0.83%) PMI Certification
9 22 (0.79%) PMP
10 21 (0.76%) ACCA
11 20 (0.72%) Azure Certification
11 20 (0.72%) CIMA
12 19 (0.69%) CISSP
13 17 (0.61%) Microsoft Certification
14 16 (0.58%) CCNA
15 15 (0.54%) DBS Check
16 13 (0.47%) AWS Certification
16 13 (0.47%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 511 (18.44%) Data Quality
2 339 (12.23%) QA
3 127 (4.58%) GDPR
4 56 (2.02%) NIST
5 49 (1.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 46 (1.66%) Accessibility
7 39 (1.41%) PMO
7 39 (1.41%) SLA
8 38 (1.37%) GxP
9 21 (0.76%) GRC
10 18 (0.65%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 18 (0.65%) GMP
11 16 (0.58%) HL7
11 16 (0.58%) ISO 20022
12 15 (0.54%) IFRS
13 14 (0.51%) NCSC
14 13 (0.47%) Def Stans
14 13 (0.47%) WCAG
15 12 (0.43%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.43%) Solvency II
System Software
1 113 (4.08%) Docker
2 89 (3.21%) Active Directory
3 76 (2.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
5 26 (0.94%) VMware ESXi
6 21 (0.76%) Hyper-V
7 20 (0.72%) Virtual Desktop
8 19 (0.69%) vSphere
9 17 (0.61%) VMware NSX
10 16 (0.58%) Firmware
11 6 (0.22%) NFS
12 4 (0.14%) KVM
12 4 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
13 3 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
14 2 (0.072%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.072%) OpenSSH
14 2 (0.072%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.072%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.036%) etcd
15 1 (0.036%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 159 (5.74%) Kubernetes
2 136 (4.91%) Terraform
3 58 (2.09%) Ansible
4 55 (1.98%) Prometheus
5 54 (1.95%) Grafana
6 25 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
7 24 (0.87%) FortiGate
8 22 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.47%) SCCM
10 12 (0.43%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.36%) HP ALM
12 8 (0.29%) VxRail
13 6 (0.22%) Nessus
13 6 (0.22%) vMotion
14 5 (0.18%) Argo
14 5 (0.18%) CASB
14 5 (0.18%) Failover Clustering
14 5 (0.18%) Istio
14 5 (0.18%) vRealize
15 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 402 (14.51%) Microsoft
2 259 (9.35%) SAP
3 250 (9.02%) Oracle
4 143 (5.16%) Databricks
5 93 (3.36%) Salesforce
6 90 (3.25%) VMware
7 71 (2.56%) ServiceNow
8 64 (2.31%) Cisco
9 50 (1.80%) Workday
10 47 (1.70%) Google
11 40 (1.44%) Informatica
12 38 (1.37%) Splunk
13 33 (1.19%) Fortinet
14 32 (1.15%) Palo Alto
15 31 (1.12%) IBM
16 29 (1.05%) Juniper
17 27 (0.97%) MuleSoft
18 26 (0.94%) Sage
18 26 (0.94%) Zscaler
19 20 (0.72%) IFS