Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 19 October 2021

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Validation skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Validation over the 6 months to 19 October 2021 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Validation
UK
6 months to
19 Oct 2021		 Same period 2020 Same period 2019
Rank 141 176 208
Rank change year-on-year +35 +32 -2
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,540 497 1,172
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.83% 1.59% 1.39%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.05% 1.83% 1.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 855 277 685
10th Percentile £309 £270 £300
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% - +5.88%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £538
90th Percentile £675 £625 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £431 £420
% change year-on-year -1.28% +2.50% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 105 53 53
10th Percentile £12.25 £20.85 £17.08
25th Percentile £14.46 £37.25 £26.25
Median hourly rate £45.50 £45.00 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.11% +8.43% +2.47%
75th Percentile £60.00 £52.50 £50.00
90th Percentile £68.22 £61.00 £53.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.87 £45.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +8.60% +5.88% +6.25%

Validation is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK
Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 75,024 27,163 73,704
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.10% 87.12% 87.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 52,140 18,394 49,366
10th Percentile £320 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £378 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +7.37% - +5.56%
75th Percentile £613 £575 £575
90th Percentile £700 £668 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £443 £438
% change year-on-year +3.95% +1.14% +2.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,689 776 2,168
10th Percentile £12.05 £11.88 £11.57
25th Percentile £14.55 £15.50 £14.84
Median hourly rate £25.00 £25.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year - +11.11% +15.38%
75th Percentile £50.00 £45.00 £45.00
90th Percentile £63.75 £55.00 £52.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.75 £22.50 £22.00
% change year-on-year -7.78% +2.27% +14.29%

Validation
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Validation as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Validation in the UK

Validation
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Validation.

Daily rate trend for Validation in the UK

Validation
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Validation over the 6 months to 19 October 2021.

Daily rate histogram for Validation in the UK

Validation
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Validation.

Hourly rate trend for Validation in the UK

Validation
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Validation over the 6 months to 19 October 2021.

Hourly rate histogram for Validation in the UK

Validation
Top 17 Contract 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 19 October 2021. 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
Job
Vacancies
England +19 1,180 £480 +6.67% 396
UK excluding London +5 648 £425 -1.28% 340
London +19 508 £539 +7.75% 89
Work from Home +23 487 £500 +2.56% 45
South East -9 168 £440 +2.92% 77
North of England -54 106 £375 -14.47% 58
Midlands -27 104 £450 - 55
South West +15 101 £425 +16.44% 50
East of England -4 98 £306 -30.11% 63
West Midlands -21 66 £425 -5.56% 38
North West -46 63 £375 -16.67% 25
Scotland -50 48 £490 +50.77% 17
East Midlands -22 35 £450 -28.00% 17
Yorkshire -42 26 £376 -14.42% 24
Wales -11 22 £376 -13.18% 14
North East +1 18 £425 +40.26% 9
Northern Ireland -5 2 £325 - 6

For the 6 months to 19 October 2021, IT contractor jobs citing Validation also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads with a requirement for Validation.

1 417 (27.08%) Social Skills
2 410 (26.62%) Agile Software Development
3 331 (21.49%) Finance
4 321 (20.84%) SQL
5 237 (15.39%) Security Cleared
6 228 (14.81%) Analytical Skills
7 225 (14.61%) Migration
8 181 (11.75%) SC Cleared
9 177 (11.49%) Data Validation
10 173 (11.23%) DevOps
10 173 (11.23%) Problem-Solving
11 167 (10.84%) Python
12 166 (10.78%) Degree
13 163 (10.58%) Azure
13 163 (10.58%) Analytics
14 161 (10.45%) Scrum
15 157 (10.19%) Microsoft
15 157 (10.19%) QA
16 147 (9.55%) SAP
17 146 (9.48%) Oracle
18 142 (9.22%) ETL
19 138 (8.96%) Project Management
20 136 (8.83%) Data Migration
21 132 (8.57%) Data Quality
22 130 (8.44%) Software Engineering
23 126 (8.18%) Data Analysis
24 124 (8.05%) Java
25 122 (7.92%) AWS
26 117 (7.60%) Business Intelligence
27 113 (7.34%) Microsoft Excel

Validation
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same job type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 59 (3.83%) Confluence
2 45 (2.92%) SharePoint
3 34 (2.21%) Apache Spark
4 28 (1.82%) SAS
5 20 (1.30%) Apache
6 15 (0.97%) nginx
6 15 (0.97%) OpenStack
7 9 (0.58%) CMS
8 8 (0.52%) JBoss
9 7 (0.45%) CICS
9 7 (0.45%) Drupal
9 7 (0.45%) Jupyter
9 7 (0.45%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.39%) BizTalk Server
11 5 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 5 (0.32%) WebSphere
12 4 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
12 4 (0.26%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.26%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.19%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 113 (7.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 74 (4.81%) Microsoft Office
3 43 (2.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 33 (2.14%) MS Visio
5 20 (1.30%) Simulink
6 13 (0.84%) Figma
6 13 (0.84%) Microsoft Project
6 13 (0.84%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.65%) Photoshop
7 10 (0.65%) Stateflow
8 8 (0.52%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 8 (0.52%) PTC Creo
9 5 (0.32%) InVision
9 5 (0.32%) Sketch
9 5 (0.32%) Windchill
10 2 (0.13%) FrameMaker
10 2 (0.13%) InfoPath
10 2 (0.13%) SPSS
11 1 (0.065%) AutoCAD
11 1 (0.065%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 36 (2.34%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (1.36%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (1.04%) Dynamics AX
4 15 (0.97%) Oracle EBS
5 13 (0.84%) SAP MDG
6 10 (0.65%) Teamcenter
7 8 (0.52%) Oracle Receivables
8 7 (0.45%) SAP CO
8 7 (0.45%) SAP FI
8 7 (0.45%) SAP FI/CO
9 6 (0.39%) Oracle EBS R12
9 6 (0.39%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 5 (0.32%) Endur
10 5 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
10 5 (0.32%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 5 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
11 4 (0.26%) Oracle Applications
11 4 (0.26%) SAP MDM
11 4 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
12 3 (0.19%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 163 (10.58%) Azure
2 122 (7.92%) AWS
3 85 (5.52%) Power Platform
4 46 (2.99%) GCP
5 39 (2.53%) Serverless
6 38 (2.47%) PaaS
7 36 (2.34%) GitHub
8 33 (2.14%) IaaS
9 32 (2.08%) Amazon EC2
10 31 (2.01%) AWS Lambda
11 30 (1.95%) Dynamics 365
12 28 (1.82%) Salesforce Service Cloud
13 27 (1.75%) SaaS
14 25 (1.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 23 (1.49%) AWS CloudFormation
15 23 (1.49%) OpenShift
16 22 (1.43%) Amazon S3
16 22 (1.43%) Route 53
17 21 (1.36%) Microsoft 365
17 21 (1.36%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 34 (2.21%) Firewall
2 31 (2.01%) 4G
3 23 (1.49%) LAN
4 22 (1.43%) 5G
5 21 (1.36%) Internet
6 20 (1.30%) DNS
6 20 (1.30%) Wireless
7 19 (1.23%) 3G
7 19 (1.23%) Radio Access Network
8 17 (1.10%) 2G
9 15 (0.97%) WAN
10 13 (0.84%) VPN
11 12 (0.78%) VXLAN
12 11 (0.71%) RNC
13 10 (0.65%) Ethernet
13 10 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
14 9 (0.58%) LTE
14 9 (0.58%) MGW
14 9 (0.58%) TCP/IP
15 8 (0.52%) DMVPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 87 (5.65%) SQL Server
2 77 (5.00%) Power BI
3 75 (4.87%) Data Warehouse
4 65 (4.22%) Relational Database
5 63 (4.09%) Big Data
6 37 (2.40%) Hadoop
6 37 (2.40%) Tableau
7 34 (2.21%) MongoDB
8 33 (2.14%) Oracle Reports
9 30 (1.95%) Metadata
10 29 (1.88%) Data Lake
10 29 (1.88%) NoSQL
10 29 (1.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 27 (1.75%) MySQL
12 26 (1.69%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 24 (1.56%) Apache Hive
14 23 (1.49%) Oracle Database
15 18 (1.17%) BusinessObjects
16 16 (1.04%) PostgreSQL
17 15 (0.97%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 111 (7.21%) JIRA
2 79 (5.13%) Git (software)
3 74 (4.81%) Jenkins
4 33 (2.14%) Selenium
5 24 (1.56%) Rational DOORS
6 23 (1.49%) Eclipse
7 22 (1.43%) Artifactory
7 22 (1.43%) Maven
8 21 (1.36%) Sonatype Nexus
9 19 (1.23%) JUnit
9 19 (1.23%) SonarQube
10 18 (1.17%) Cucumber
10 18 (1.17%) TeamCity
11 17 (1.10%) Visual Studio
12 14 (0.91%) CircleCI
12 14 (0.91%) GitLab
13 13 (0.84%) Subversion
13 13 (0.84%) webpack
14 12 (0.78%) Mocha
14 12 (0.78%) PVCS
General
1 417 (27.08%) Social Skills
2 331 (21.49%) Finance
3 228 (14.81%) Analytical Skills
4 81 (5.26%) Telecoms
5 76 (4.94%) Banking
5 76 (4.94%) Public Sector
6 70 (4.55%) Presentation Skills
7 59 (3.83%) Manufacturing
8 46 (2.99%) Automotive
9 44 (2.86%) Marketing
9 44 (2.86%) Pharmaceutical
10 36 (2.34%) Front Office
10 36 (2.34%) Retail
11 29 (1.88%) Legal
12 24 (1.56%) Law
13 22 (1.43%) Aerospace
14 21 (1.36%) Documentation Skills
14 21 (1.36%) Influencing Skills
15 20 (1.30%) Publishing
16 17 (1.10%) Military
Job Titles
1 343 (22.27%) Analyst
2 237 (15.39%) Developer
3 135 (8.77%) Business Analyst
4 130 (8.44%) Consultant
5 103 (6.69%) Architect
6 83 (5.39%) Data Analyst
7 62 (4.03%) Data Engineer
8 53 (3.44%) Test Engineer
9 48 (3.12%) Java Developer
9 48 (3.12%) Project Manager
10 44 (2.86%) Data Consultant
11 41 (2.66%) Systems Engineer
12 40 (2.60%) C# Developer
12 40 (2.60%) Software Developer
12 40 (2.60%) Software Engineer
13 39 (2.53%) DevOps Engineer
14 37 (2.40%) Network Engineer
15 35 (2.27%) Salesforce Developer
16 34 (2.21%) Azure Engineer
16 34 (2.21%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (3.64%) JSON
2 54 (3.51%) CSS
3 51 (3.31%) REST
4 48 (3.12%) .NET
5 42 (2.73%) HTML
5 42 (2.73%) Node.js
6 40 (2.60%) Spring
7 38 (2.47%) XML
8 34 (2.21%) Kafka
8 34 (2.21%) SOAP
9 32 (2.08%) Visualforce
9 32 (2.08%) Web Services
10 30 (1.95%) RESTful
11 26 (1.69%) React
11 26 (1.69%) YAML
12 24 (1.56%) AngularJS
13 23 (1.49%) GraphQL
14 20 (1.30%) gRPC
14 20 (1.30%) Middleware
15 19 (1.23%) J2EE
Miscellaneous
1 82 (5.32%) Management Information System
2 80 (5.19%) User Experience
3 51 (3.31%) Algorithms
4 37 (2.40%) NHS
4 37 (2.40%) Public Cloud
5 32 (2.08%) Self-Motivation
6 31 (2.01%) Data Protection Act
6 31 (2.01%) Virtual Team
7 29 (1.88%) Data Structures
8 25 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
9 21 (1.36%) iPad
10 19 (1.23%) FMCG
10 19 (1.23%) Reference Data
11 16 (1.04%) Enterprise Software
11 16 (1.04%) Replication
12 15 (0.97%) Greenfield Project
12 15 (0.97%) Market Risk
12 15 (0.97%) Social Media
13 14 (0.91%) Embedded Systems
13 14 (0.91%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 111 (7.21%) Linux
2 81 (5.26%) Windows
3 46 (2.99%) Unix
4 19 (1.23%) VMS
5 16 (1.04%) Apple iOS
6 15 (0.97%) CoreOS
7 13 (0.84%) Solaris
8 12 (0.78%) Mac OS X
9 9 (0.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 9 (0.58%) Windows 10
9 9 (0.58%) Windows Server
10 6 (0.39%) AIX
11 5 (0.32%) Android
11 5 (0.32%) Debian
11 5 (0.32%) Embedded Linux
11 5 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.26%) FreeRTOS
12 4 (0.26%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 410 (26.62%) Agile Software Development
2 225 (14.61%) Migration
3 177 (11.49%) Data Validation
4 173 (11.23%) DevOps
4 173 (11.23%) Problem-Solving
5 163 (10.58%) Analytics
6 161 (10.45%) Scrum
7 142 (9.22%) ETL
8 138 (8.96%) Project Management
9 136 (8.83%) Data Migration
10 130 (8.44%) Software Engineering
11 126 (8.18%) Data Analysis
12 117 (7.60%) Business Intelligence
13 113 (7.34%) Test Automation
14 104 (6.75%) Data Cleansing
15 103 (6.69%) Visualisation
16 101 (6.56%) Data Modelling
17 99 (6.43%) Requirements Gathering
17 99 (6.43%) User Acceptance Testing
18 94 (6.10%) Data Management
Programming Languages
1 321 (20.84%) SQL
2 167 (10.84%) Python
3 124 (8.05%) Java
4 104 (6.75%) C++
5 70 (4.55%) C#
6 67 (4.35%) C
7 60 (3.90%) JavaScript
8 53 (3.44%) R
9 34 (2.21%) Scala
10 33 (2.14%) Apex Code
11 32 (2.08%) MATLAB
12 30 (1.95%) TypeScript
13 27 (1.75%) Java 8
14 25 (1.62%) PowerShell
15 24 (1.56%) PL/SQL
16 22 (1.43%) Embedded C
17 20 (1.30%) VBA
18 17 (1.10%) Perl
18 17 (1.10%) Ruby
19 15 (0.97%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 237 (15.39%) Security Cleared
2 181 (11.75%) SC Cleared
3 166 (10.78%) Degree
4 43 (2.79%) ISTQB
5 30 (1.95%) BPSS Clearance
6 29 (1.88%) ISEB
7 26 (1.69%) DV Cleared
7 26 (1.69%) Master's Degree
8 21 (1.36%) Cisco Certification
9 19 (1.23%) PMI Certification
9 19 (1.23%) PMP
10 18 (1.17%) Computer Science Degree
11 17 (1.10%) CISSP
12 15 (0.97%) ISEB Practitioner
12 15 (0.97%) MBA
13 12 (0.78%) CISM
13 12 (0.78%) PhD
14 11 (0.71%) CCNP
15 9 (0.58%) MBCS
16 7 (0.45%) OCPJP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 157 (10.19%) QA
2 132 (8.57%) Data Quality
3 23 (1.49%) GDPR
4 21 (1.36%) GMP
5 18 (1.17%) GxP
6 17 (1.10%) Accessibility
6 17 (1.10%) SLA
7 13 (0.84%) PMO
8 12 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 10 (0.65%) Disclosure Scotland
10 7 (0.45%) IEC 61508
10 7 (0.45%) ISO 13485
11 6 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 17025
11 6 (0.39%) JTAG
11 6 (0.39%) MiFID
12 4 (0.26%) EMIR
12 4 (0.26%) GLP
12 4 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 4 (0.26%) MISRA
12 4 (0.26%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 69 (4.48%) Docker
2 26 (1.69%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (1.56%) Active Directory
4 17 (1.10%) Virtual Machines
5 13 (0.84%) Firmware
6 10 (0.65%) HDFS
7 7 (0.45%) KVM
8 5 (0.32%) vCloud
8 5 (0.32%) Xen
9 4 (0.26%) iptables
10 3 (0.19%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
12 1 (0.065%) Hyper-V
12 1 (0.065%) LXC
12 1 (0.065%) Snort
12 1 (0.065%) Virtual Servers
12 1 (0.065%) VMware ESXi
12 1 (0.065%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 88 (5.71%) Kubernetes
2 73 (4.74%) Terraform
3 54 (3.51%) Ansible
4 16 (1.04%) HP Quality Center
5 15 (0.97%) HP ALM
5 15 (0.97%) Puppet
6 10 (0.65%) Trend Micro Deep Security
7 8 (0.52%) Packer
8 6 (0.39%) vCenter Server
9 5 (0.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 5 (0.32%) Consul
9 5 (0.32%) Fluentd
9 5 (0.32%) Grafana
9 5 (0.32%) HAProxy
9 5 (0.32%) Opscode Chef
9 5 (0.32%) Prometheus
9 5 (0.32%) StackStorm
9 5 (0.32%) ZABBIX
10 4 (0.26%) Ionix
10 4 (0.26%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 157 (10.19%) Microsoft
2 147 (9.55%) SAP
3 146 (9.48%) Oracle
4 88 (5.71%) Salesforce.com
5 40 (2.60%) VMware
6 39 (2.53%) Google
7 33 (2.14%) Cisco
8 30 (1.95%) Adobe
9 28 (1.82%) IBM
9 28 (1.82%) Informatica
10 24 (1.56%) CA
11 20 (1.30%) Remedy
12 19 (1.23%) JD Edwards
13 18 (1.17%) HP
14 17 (1.10%) Ariba
14 17 (1.10%) Databricks
15 15 (0.97%) Juniper
16 14 (0.91%) Atlassian
17 13 (0.84%) Red Hat
17 13 (0.84%) ServiceNow
455 Validation job vacancies Nationwide