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

6 months to
4 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 66 129
Rank change year-on-year +30 +63 +23
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,778 1,161 741
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.26% 3.53% 1.89%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.19% 3.90% 2.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,673 679 371
10th Percentile £340 £351 £340
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £495
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +6.06% -10.00%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £588
90th Percentile £700 £700 £670
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £525 £463
% change year-on-year -11.90% +13.51% -7.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 177 85 120
10th Percentile £17.33 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £26.90 £41.25 £51.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -7.69% -
75th Percentile £74.25 £67.00 £69.16
90th Percentile £83.85 £75.00 £75.19
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -3.85% - +3.17%

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 44,879 29,748 33,534
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.93% 90.41% 85.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,704 18,653 21,488
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
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 2,741 1,659 1,873
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.30 £18.14
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £74.91
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.05 £40.94
% change year-on-year +90.72% -43.70% +3.38%

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 4 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 4 August 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 4 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 +32 2,406 £500 -4.76% 1,552
UK excluding London +23 1,302 £463 -11.90% 1,007
London +43 1,157 £525 - 656
Work from Home +41 796 £498 -0.45% 596
South East +5 313 £505 +1.00% 309
Midlands +34 310 £475 +5.56% 155
North of England +46 304 £450 -9.09% 190
West Midlands +28 223 £472 +7.77% 98
North West +24 158 £450 -21.40% 108
East of England +2 138 £488 -3.94% 133
Yorkshire +38 134 £453 +4.08% 45
South West -19 120 £525 -8.70% 158
Scotland +43 94 £425 -9.33% 63
East Midlands +24 81 £525 +15.51% 57
Wales 0 27 £438 +16.67% 16
North East -35 16 £425 -22.73% 40
Northern Ireland +10 10 £380 -35.59% 4

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 (2.88%) Confluence
2 68 (2.45%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (2.02%) SAS
4 48 (1.73%) SharePoint
5 40 (1.44%) Apache Spark
6 32 (1.15%) Apache
7 13 (0.47%) Jupyter
7 13 (0.47%) Oracle Workflow
8 11 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
9 9 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
10 8 (0.29%) CMS
11 7 (0.25%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
12 5 (0.18%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.14%) IIS
13 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.11%) JBoss
14 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
Applications
1 190 (6.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.48%) MS Visio
3 37 (1.33%) Microsoft Office
4 28 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (1.01%) Spreadsheet
5 11 (0.40%) Microsoft Project
6 10 (0.36%) AutoCAD
7 8 (0.29%) CATIA
8 6 (0.22%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.22%) Simulink
9 5 (0.18%) Navisworks
9 5 (0.18%) Revit
10 4 (0.14%) ProjectWise
11 2 (0.072%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.072%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.072%) Sketch
11 2 (0.072%) Windchill
12 1 (0.036%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.036%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.036%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 122 (4.39%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.08%) Oracle EBS
3 17 (0.61%) Workday HCM
4 14 (0.50%) Oracle Payables
5 12 (0.43%) iTrent
5 12 (0.43%) Teamcenter
6 11 (0.40%) NetSuite
6 11 (0.40%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 11 (0.40%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.36%) Aladdin
7 10 (0.36%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
8 9 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
8 9 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.32%) Sage X3
8 9 (0.32%) SAP MDG
8 9 (0.32%) SAP SD
9 8 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
9 8 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
10 7 (0.25%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 597 (21.49%) Azure
2 328 (11.81%) AWS
3 296 (10.66%) Power Platform
4 148 (5.33%) Azure DevOps
5 147 (5.29%) GCP
6 124 (4.46%) GitHub
7 100 (3.60%) Snowflake
8 71 (2.56%) Azure Data Factory
8 71 (2.56%) GitHub Actions
9 70 (2.52%) Entra ID
10 66 (2.38%) Serverless
11 56 (2.02%) Amazon S3
12 54 (1.94%) SaaS
13 52 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
14 45 (1.62%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 45 (1.62%) dbt
15 43 (1.55%) OCI
16 41 (1.48%) SuccessFactors
17 33 (1.19%) AWS Lambda
17 33 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 113 (4.07%) Firewall
2 69 (2.48%) Network Security
3 60 (2.16%) DNS
4 53 (1.91%) VLAN
5 52 (1.87%) VPN
6 41 (1.48%) TCP/IP
6 41 (1.48%) WAN
7 35 (1.26%) BGP
8 28 (1.01%) DHCP
9 26 (0.94%) OSPF
10 25 (0.90%) LAN
11 22 (0.79%) Internet
11 22 (0.79%) SD-WAN
12 21 (0.76%) SAN
12 21 (0.76%) Wireless
13 17 (0.61%) Ethernet
14 16 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
15 15 (0.54%) VXLAN
16 13 (0.47%) Ethernet VPN
17 12 (0.43%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 276 (9.94%) Power BI
2 170 (6.12%) Data Warehouse
3 113 (4.07%) Metadata
4 95 (3.42%) SQL Server
5 88 (3.17%) PostgreSQL
6 87 (3.13%) Data Lake
7 81 (2.92%) Relational Database
8 80 (2.88%) Tableau
9 39 (1.40%) Big Data
10 34 (1.22%) Oracle Reports
11 33 (1.19%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 31 (1.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 30 (1.08%) BigQuery
13 30 (1.08%) Oracle Database
14 29 (1.04%) Delta Lake
14 29 (1.04%) NoSQL
14 29 (1.04%) Power Query
15 27 (0.97%) Azure SQL Database
16 24 (0.86%) Amazon Athena
16 24 (0.86%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 247 (8.89%) JIRA
2 172 (6.19%) Git
3 95 (3.42%) Jenkins
4 71 (2.56%) GitLab
5 60 (2.16%) Selenium
6 49 (1.76%) JMeter
7 45 (1.62%) Postman
8 39 (1.40%) JUnit
9 38 (1.37%) Cucumber
10 32 (1.15%) WebDriver
11 22 (0.79%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.65%) Eclipse
13 17 (0.61%) Gatling
14 14 (0.50%) REST Assured
14 14 (0.50%) Visual Studio
15 13 (0.47%) Oracle Forms
16 11 (0.40%) Cypress.io
16 11 (0.40%) Rational Rhapsody
16 11 (0.40%) Zephyr
17 10 (0.36%) Maven
General
1 807 (29.05%) Finance
2 797 (28.69%) Social Skills
3 536 (19.29%) Analytical Skills
4 236 (8.50%) Public Sector
5 200 (7.20%) Banking
6 149 (5.36%) Documentation Skills
7 103 (3.71%) Manufacturing
8 92 (3.31%) Retail
9 68 (2.45%) Aerospace
10 61 (2.20%) Pharmaceutical
11 60 (2.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 52 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
12 52 (1.87%) Telecoms
13 44 (1.58%) Automotive
14 43 (1.55%) Legal
15 41 (1.48%) Front Office
16 40 (1.44%) Marketing
17 39 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
18 38 (1.37%) Law
19 36 (1.30%) Billing
Job Titles
1 500 (18.00%) Analyst
2 291 (10.48%) Senior
3 278 (10.01%) Lead
4 237 (8.53%) Business Analyst
5 232 (8.35%) Data Engineer
6 207 (7.45%) Consultant
7 165 (5.94%) Developer
8 145 (5.22%) Architect
9 139 (5.00%) Data Analyst
10 99 (3.56%) Test Engineer
11 79 (2.84%) Tester
12 76 (2.74%) Project Manager
13 66 (2.38%) Network Engineer
14 55 (1.98%) Systems Engineer
15 54 (1.94%) Technical Analyst
16 52 (1.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 50 (1.80%) Senior Data Engineer
18 49 (1.76%) Administrator
19 44 (1.58%) Migration Engineer
19 44 (1.58%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 142 (5.11%) REST
2 81 (2.92%) JSON
3 72 (2.59%) PySpark
4 69 (2.48%) Kafka
5 66 (2.38%) XML
6 60 (2.16%) Middleware
7 51 (1.84%) Oracle Fusion
8 50 (1.80%) .NET
9 45 (1.62%) Spring
10 41 (1.48%) pytest
10 41 (1.48%) SOAP
11 40 (1.44%) Playwright
12 37 (1.33%) Web Services
13 36 (1.30%) OAuth
14 31 (1.12%) Pandas
15 29 (1.04%) Node.js
15 29 (1.04%) RESTful
16 26 (0.94%) Spring Boot
17 25 (0.90%) WireMock
18 24 (0.86%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 156 (5.62%) Onboarding
2 154 (5.54%) Data Structures
3 129 (4.64%) Legacy Systems
4 123 (4.43%) Cloud Native
5 116 (4.18%) Product Ownership
6 80 (2.88%) Data Centre
7 79 (2.84%) Management Information System
8 55 (1.98%) Distributed Systems
9 45 (1.62%) Analytical Mindset
10 42 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
10 42 (1.51%) Life Science
11 41 (1.48%) AI Agents
11 41 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
12 40 (1.44%) SCADA
13 36 (1.30%) Hybrid Cloud
14 33 (1.19%) Public Cloud
15 32 (1.15%) NHS
15 32 (1.15%) Operational Technology
15 32 (1.15%) Reference Data
16 31 (1.12%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 159 (5.72%) Windows
2 107 (3.85%) Linux
3 56 (2.02%) Windows Server
4 40 (1.44%) Unix
5 19 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.40%) Android
6 11 (0.40%) Ubuntu
7 10 (0.36%) Windows 10
8 9 (0.32%) VMS
9 6 (0.22%) Apple iOS
10 5 (0.18%) Windows 7
11 4 (0.14%) AIX
11 4 (0.14%) SUSE
12 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.072%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.072%) HPUX
13 2 (0.072%) Solaris
13 2 (0.072%) VxWorks
14 1 (0.036%) Mac OS X
14 1 (0.036%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 757 (27.25%) Migration
2 550 (19.80%) Agile
3 531 (19.11%) Stakeholder Management
4 477 (17.17%) CI/CD
5 474 (17.06%) Analytics
6 460 (16.56%) Data Modelling
7 457 (16.45%) User Acceptance Testing
8 456 (16.41%) Data Migration
9 446 (16.05%) Data Validation
10 436 (15.69%) Problem-Solving
11 362 (13.03%) AI
12 347 (12.49%) Continuous Improvement
13 340 (12.24%) DevOps
14 332 (11.95%) ETL
15 330 (11.88%) Test Automation
16 316 (11.38%) Business Intelligence
17 313 (11.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 294 (10.58%) Data Pipeline
19 291 (10.48%) Data Governance
20 273 (9.83%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 682 (24.55%) SQL
2 512 (18.43%) Python
3 125 (4.50%) Java
4 75 (2.70%) PowerShell
5 60 (2.16%) C#
6 53 (1.91%) Bash
7 43 (1.55%) JavaScript
8 35 (1.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 34 (1.22%) C++
10 33 (1.19%) TypeScript
11 30 (1.08%) Apex Code
12 26 (0.94%) Bicep
12 26 (0.94%) PL/SQL
13 24 (0.86%) C
13 24 (0.86%) VBA
14 23 (0.83%) R
15 18 (0.65%) T-SQL
16 16 (0.58%) MATLAB
17 14 (0.50%) Shell Script
18 13 (0.47%) Ada
Qualifications
1 497 (17.89%) Security Cleared
2 362 (13.03%) SC Cleared
3 181 (6.52%) Degree
4 63 (2.27%) DV Cleared
5 58 (2.09%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (1.62%) Cisco Certification
7 37 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
8 36 (1.30%) CCNP
9 24 (0.86%) ISTQB
10 23 (0.83%) ACCA
11 22 (0.79%) CIMA
11 22 (0.79%) PMI Certification
12 21 (0.76%) PMP
13 20 (0.72%) Azure Certification
14 19 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
15 18 (0.65%) CCNA
15 18 (0.65%) CISSP
16 13 (0.47%) AWS Certification
17 12 (0.43%) DBS Check
17 12 (0.43%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 531 (19.11%) Data Quality
2 351 (12.63%) QA
3 125 (4.50%) GDPR
4 51 (1.84%) NIST
5 46 (1.66%) Accessibility
5 46 (1.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 39 (1.40%) SLA
7 37 (1.33%) GxP
8 36 (1.30%) PMO
9 19 (0.68%) GRC
10 18 (0.65%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 17 (0.61%) GMP
12 15 (0.54%) ISO 20022
13 14 (0.50%) NCSC
13 14 (0.50%) WCAG
14 13 (0.47%) HL7
14 13 (0.47%) IFRS
15 12 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.43%) Def Stans
16 11 (0.40%) NIST 800
System Software
1 115 (4.14%) Docker
2 94 (3.38%) Active Directory
3 73 (2.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
5 26 (0.94%) VMware ESXi
6 20 (0.72%) Firmware
6 20 (0.72%) Hyper-V
7 19 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
7 19 (0.68%) vSphere
8 13 (0.47%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.14%) KVM
10 4 (0.14%) NFS
10 4 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.072%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.072%) OpenSSH
11 2 (0.072%) VirtualBox
11 2 (0.072%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.036%) Ceph
12 1 (0.036%) etcd
Systems Management
1 152 (5.47%) Kubernetes
2 128 (4.61%) Terraform
3 59 (2.12%) Ansible
4 52 (1.87%) Grafana
5 50 (1.80%) Prometheus
6 26 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
7 24 (0.86%) FortiGate
8 21 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
9 12 (0.43%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.36%) HP ALM
11 9 (0.32%) SCCM
12 8 (0.29%) VxRail
13 5 (0.18%) Argo
13 5 (0.18%) CASB
13 5 (0.18%) Failover Clustering
13 5 (0.18%) systemd
13 5 (0.18%) vRealize
14 4 (0.14%) Consul
14 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Clustering
14 4 (0.14%) vMotion
Vendors
1 409 (14.72%) Microsoft
2 251 (9.04%) SAP
3 243 (8.75%) Oracle
4 155 (5.58%) Databricks
5 93 (3.35%) Salesforce
6 86 (3.10%) VMware
7 72 (2.59%) ServiceNow
8 62 (2.23%) Cisco
9 52 (1.87%) Google
10 50 (1.80%) Workday
11 40 (1.44%) Informatica
12 32 (1.15%) Splunk
13 31 (1.12%) IBM
14 30 (1.08%) Fortinet
14 30 (1.08%) Juniper
14 30 (1.08%) MuleSoft
14 30 (1.08%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.01%) Zscaler
16 24 (0.86%) Sage
17 20 (0.72%) IFS