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

6 months to
3 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 66 119
Rank change year-on-year +34 +53 +32
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,953 1,211 771
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.51% 3.73% 2.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.51% 4.12% 2.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,769 707 373
10th Percentile £331 £329 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £591
90th Percentile £701 £688 £670
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -7.50% +5.26% -7.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 183 88 112
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £26.52 £41.25 £51.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.00% -3.85% -2.61%
75th Percentile £73.25 £66.63 £71.50
90th Percentile £82.90 £75.00 £76.67
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -17.69% - -3.70%

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 45,377 29,398 32,720
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.63% 90.44% 85.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,769 18,279 20,543
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% -3.49%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,906 1,760 1,592
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.73 £17.30 £18.69
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +2.41%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.03 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.58 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +88.14% -47.37% +14.67%

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 3 September 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 3 September 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 3 September 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 +30 2,543 £500 -1.96% 3,318
UK excluding London +24 1,349 £463 -7.50% 2,096
London +42 1,251 £525 +2.19% 1,689
Work from Home +30 821 £500 - 1,279
North of England +48 335 £456 +7.29% 322
South East -1 324 £500 - 526
Midlands +31 297 £464 -2.40% 271
West Midlands +27 212 £458 -3.68% 182
North West +20 169 £453 +6.59% 194
Yorkshire +43 148 £462 -0.17% 77
East of England -1 144 £475 -6.40% 316
South West +3 131 £525 -8.70% 323
Scotland +37 112 £440 -7.37% 264
East Midlands +20 81 £500 - 89
Wales -6 23 £363 -3.33% 50
North East -30 23 £438 -2.78% 59
Northern Ireland +4 5 £381 -37.24% 61
Channel Islands -2 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 80 (2.71%) Confluence
2 66 (2.24%) Apache Airflow
3 60 (2.03%) SharePoint
4 54 (1.83%) SAS
5 39 (1.32%) Apache Spark
6 30 (1.02%) Apache
7 19 (0.64%) Microsoft Exchange
8 14 (0.47%) Oracle Workflow
9 12 (0.41%) CMS
10 10 (0.34%) Jupyter
11 9 (0.30%) SharePoint 2013
12 7 (0.24%) ArcGIS
12 7 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
12 7 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
13 5 (0.17%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.17%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.14%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.14%) IIS
14 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
Applications
1 200 (6.77%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.42%) Microsoft Office
3 39 (1.32%) MS Visio
4 35 (1.19%) Spreadsheet
5 30 (1.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 14 (0.47%) AutoCAD
7 10 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
8 9 (0.30%) Navisworks
8 9 (0.30%) Revit
9 8 (0.27%) CATIA
9 8 (0.27%) ProjectWise
10 6 (0.20%) Simulink
11 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.068%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.068%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.068%) Windchill
13 1 (0.034%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.034%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.034%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.034%) Trello
Business Applications
1 116 (3.93%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.64%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.44%) NetSuite
4 13 (0.44%) SAP SD
4 13 (0.44%) Teamcenter
4 13 (0.44%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.37%) Aladdin
5 11 (0.37%) iTrent
5 11 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
5 11 (0.37%) SAP FI
5 11 (0.37%) SAP MDG
6 10 (0.34%) SAP MM
7 9 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.30%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.30%) SAP HCM
8 8 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 8 (0.27%) SAP PS
8 8 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 629 (21.30%) Azure
2 339 (11.48%) AWS
3 302 (10.23%) Power Platform
4 182 (6.16%) Azure DevOps
5 140 (4.74%) GCP
6 133 (4.50%) GitHub
7 102 (3.45%) Snowflake
8 83 (2.81%) Entra ID
9 77 (2.61%) Azure Data Factory
10 70 (2.37%) GitHub Actions
11 68 (2.30%) Serverless
12 62 (2.10%) SaaS
13 61 (2.07%) Microsoft 365
14 50 (1.69%) Amazon S3
15 48 (1.63%) dbt
16 45 (1.52%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 38 (1.29%) SuccessFactors
18 36 (1.22%) OCI
19 35 (1.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 35 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 117 (3.96%) Firewall
2 73 (2.47%) DNS
3 70 (2.37%) VLAN
4 66 (2.24%) Network Security
5 56 (1.90%) VPN
6 46 (1.56%) BGP
7 45 (1.52%) WAN
8 42 (1.42%) TCP/IP
9 38 (1.29%) DHCP
10 28 (0.95%) OSPF
11 26 (0.88%) VXLAN
12 24 (0.81%) LAN
12 24 (0.81%) Wireless
13 23 (0.78%) Internet
13 23 (0.78%) SD-WAN
14 22 (0.75%) Ethernet VPN
15 21 (0.71%) HTTP
15 21 (0.71%) SAN
15 21 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
16 18 (0.61%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 279 (9.45%) Power BI
2 173 (5.86%) Data Warehouse
3 130 (4.40%) Metadata
4 112 (3.79%) Relational Database
5 106 (3.59%) SQL Server
6 97 (3.28%) PostgreSQL
7 83 (2.81%) Data Lake
8 73 (2.47%) Tableau
9 41 (1.39%) Delta Lake
10 39 (1.32%) Oracle Database
11 38 (1.29%) MongoDB
12 34 (1.15%) Big Data
12 34 (1.15%) NoSQL
13 31 (1.05%) Azure SQL Database
13 31 (1.05%) MySQL
13 31 (1.05%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 30 (1.02%) BigQuery
14 30 (1.02%) Oracle Reports
14 30 (1.02%) Redis
15 29 (0.98%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 264 (8.94%) JIRA
2 206 (6.98%) Git
3 105 (3.56%) Jenkins
4 91 (3.08%) GitLab
5 76 (2.57%) Selenium
6 45 (1.52%) Postman
7 38 (1.29%) JMeter
8 25 (0.85%) Cucumber
8 25 (0.85%) WebDriver
9 20 (0.68%) JUnit
10 17 (0.58%) Cypress.io
10 17 (0.58%) Rational DOORS
11 15 (0.51%) Gatling
12 14 (0.47%) Oracle Forms
12 14 (0.47%) REST Assured
13 13 (0.44%) Rational Rhapsody
13 13 (0.44%) Zephyr
14 12 (0.41%) Maven
14 12 (0.41%) TestRail
15 11 (0.37%) Gradle
General
1 836 (28.31%) Social Skills
2 827 (28.01%) Finance
3 589 (19.95%) Analytical Skills
4 253 (8.57%) Public Sector
5 232 (7.86%) Banking
6 151 (5.11%) Documentation Skills
7 106 (3.59%) Manufacturing
8 96 (3.25%) Retail
9 69 (2.34%) Telecoms
10 67 (2.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 59 (2.00%) Pharmaceutical
12 58 (1.96%) Automotive
13 56 (1.90%) Organisational Skills
14 53 (1.79%) Aerospace
15 48 (1.63%) Legal
15 48 (1.63%) Marketing
16 45 (1.52%) Law
17 43 (1.46%) Front Office
18 41 (1.39%) Local Government
19 37 (1.25%) Billing
Job Titles
1 523 (17.71%) Analyst
2 334 (11.31%) Senior
3 268 (9.08%) Lead
4 237 (8.03%) Business Analyst
4 237 (8.03%) Data Engineer
5 234 (7.92%) Consultant
6 183 (6.20%) Developer
7 155 (5.25%) Data Analyst
8 146 (4.94%) Architect
9 114 (3.86%) Test Engineer
10 79 (2.68%) Tester
11 77 (2.61%) Network Engineer
12 65 (2.20%) Project Manager
12 65 (2.20%) Systems Engineer
13 62 (2.10%) Administrator
14 57 (1.93%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 56 (1.90%) Senior Data Engineer
16 51 (1.73%) Test Manager
17 50 (1.69%) Senior Analyst
17 50 (1.69%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 181 (6.13%) REST
2 158 (5.35%) Terraform
3 101 (3.42%) JSON
4 85 (2.88%) PySpark
5 84 (2.84%) XML
6 75 (2.54%) Kafka
7 71 (2.40%) Middleware
8 55 (1.86%) Playwright
9 53 (1.79%) .NET
10 46 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
10 46 (1.56%) pytest
11 44 (1.49%) SOAP
12 41 (1.39%) OAuth
13 39 (1.32%) Spring
14 37 (1.25%) RESTful
14 37 (1.25%) Web Services
15 36 (1.22%) Pandas
16 32 (1.08%) Spring Boot
17 28 (0.95%) YAML
18 27 (0.91%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 169 (5.72%) Data Structures
2 163 (5.52%) Onboarding
3 129 (4.37%) Cloud Native
4 127 (4.30%) Legacy Systems
5 117 (3.96%) Product Ownership
6 105 (3.56%) Management Information System
7 87 (2.95%) Data Centre
8 54 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
9 51 (1.73%) Distributed Systems
10 46 (1.56%) Analytical Mindset
11 44 (1.49%) AI Agents
11 44 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
11 44 (1.49%) Life Science
12 41 (1.39%) SCADA
13 39 (1.32%) NHS
14 38 (1.29%) Replication
15 33 (1.12%) CMDB
16 32 (1.08%) Algorithms
16 32 (1.08%) Operational Technology
17 30 (1.02%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 180 (6.10%) Windows
2 121 (4.10%) Linux
3 75 (2.54%) Windows Server
4 48 (1.63%) Unix
5 21 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (0.51%) Android
7 13 (0.44%) Windows 10
8 11 (0.37%) Ubuntu
8 11 (0.37%) VMS
9 10 (0.34%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.24%) AIX
10 7 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 4 (0.14%) SUSE
11 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.068%) CentOS
13 2 (0.068%) HPUX
13 2 (0.068%) VxWorks
14 1 (0.034%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.034%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 797 (26.99%) Migration
2 599 (20.28%) Stakeholder Management
3 575 (19.47%) Agile
4 552 (18.69%) CI/CD
5 488 (16.53%) User Acceptance Testing
6 478 (16.19%) Data Modelling
7 471 (15.95%) Analytics
7 471 (15.95%) Data Migration
8 462 (15.65%) Data Validation
9 454 (15.37%) Problem-Solving
10 395 (13.38%) DevOps
11 389 (13.17%) AI
12 378 (12.80%) Test Automation
13 370 (12.53%) Continuous Improvement
14 336 (11.38%) ETL
15 320 (10.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 318 (10.77%) Business Intelligence
17 309 (10.46%) Data Pipeline
18 300 (10.16%) Data Governance
19 298 (10.09%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 758 (25.67%) SQL
2 593 (20.08%) Python
3 142 (4.81%) Java
4 100 (3.39%) PowerShell
5 62 (2.10%) Bash
6 59 (2.00%) C#
7 55 (1.86%) JavaScript
8 36 (1.22%) TypeScript
9 34 (1.15%) C++
10 30 (1.02%) Apex Code
11 29 (0.98%) PL/SQL
11 29 (0.98%) R
12 28 (0.95%) Bicep
12 28 (0.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 24 (0.81%) C
13 24 (0.81%) Shell Script
14 18 (0.61%) T-SQL
15 17 (0.58%) VBA
16 16 (0.54%) MATLAB
17 13 (0.44%) Scala
Qualifications
1 565 (19.13%) Security Cleared
2 415 (14.05%) SC Cleared
3 191 (6.47%) Degree
4 77 (2.61%) DV Cleared
5 64 (2.17%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.69%) Cisco Certification
7 46 (1.56%) Computer Science Degree
8 41 (1.39%) CCNP
9 28 (0.95%) ACCA
9 28 (0.95%) AWS Certification
9 28 (0.95%) CIMA
9 28 (0.95%) ISTQB
10 22 (0.75%) Azure Certification
11 20 (0.68%) PMI Certification
12 19 (0.64%) CCNA
13 18 (0.61%) PMP
14 16 (0.54%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 16 (0.54%) Microsoft Certification
15 15 (0.51%) CISSP
15 15 (0.51%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 595 (20.15%) Data Quality
2 377 (12.77%) QA
3 115 (3.89%) GDPR
4 50 (1.69%) Accessibility
5 46 (1.56%) SLA
6 42 (1.42%) NIST
7 40 (1.35%) GxP
8 35 (1.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 35 (1.19%) PMO
9 24 (0.81%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 22 (0.75%) GRC
11 20 (0.68%) ISO 20022
12 17 (0.58%) GMP
12 17 (0.58%) WCAG
13 14 (0.47%) NCSC
14 12 (0.41%) Def Stans
15 11 (0.37%) HL7
15 11 (0.37%) IFRS
15 11 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 10 (0.34%) Solvency II
System Software
1 111 (3.76%) Docker
2 96 (3.25%) Active Directory
3 87 (2.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (1.25%) Virtual Machines
5 34 (1.15%) VMware ESXi
6 29 (0.98%) Firmware
7 26 (0.88%) Hyper-V
8 23 (0.78%) Virtual Desktop
8 23 (0.78%) vSphere
9 14 (0.47%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.17%) KVM
12 4 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.10%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.068%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.068%) OpenSSH
14 2 (0.068%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.034%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.034%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 1 (0.034%) NFS
Systems Management
1 142 (4.81%) Kubernetes
2 90 (3.05%) Ansible
3 44 (1.49%) Grafana
4 37 (1.25%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
6 26 (0.88%) FortiGate
7 18 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.54%) SCCM
9 15 (0.51%) vCenter Server
10 14 (0.47%) HP ALM
11 10 (0.34%) Failover Clustering
11 10 (0.34%) VxRail
12 7 (0.24%) Argo
12 7 (0.24%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
14 5 (0.17%) systemd
14 5 (0.17%) vMotion
14 5 (0.17%) vRealize
15 4 (0.14%) Functional Safety
15 4 (0.14%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 449 (15.20%) Microsoft
2 259 (8.77%) SAP
3 245 (8.30%) Oracle
4 162 (5.49%) Databricks
5 99 (3.35%) Salesforce
5 99 (3.35%) VMware
6 83 (2.81%) Cisco
7 81 (2.74%) ServiceNow
8 49 (1.66%) Google
9 47 (1.59%) Workday
10 39 (1.32%) IBM
11 36 (1.22%) Informatica
12 32 (1.08%) Fortinet
13 29 (0.98%) Juniper
13 29 (0.98%) Zscaler
14 28 (0.95%) Palo Alto
15 21 (0.71%) MuleSoft
15 21 (0.71%) Splunk
16 18 (0.61%) Ariba
17 17 (0.58%) Sage