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

6 months to
7 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 65 107
Rank change year-on-year +34 +42 +44
Contract jobs citing Validation 3,177 1,236 805
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.79% 3.74% 2.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.84% 4.13% 2.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,866 707 405
10th Percentile £342 £345 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -7.41%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £594
90th Percentile £700 £688 £666
UK excluding London median daily rate £470 £500 £485
% change year-on-year -6.00% +3.15% -5.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 207 88 96
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £26.93 £41.25 £47.19
Median hourly rate £53.50 £62.50 £63.75
Median % change year-on-year -14.40% -1.96% -5.60%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £65.63
90th Percentile £80.30 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £65.00 £63.75
% change year-on-year -11.54% +1.96% -8.93%

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 46,438 29,893 32,352
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.57% 90.54% 85.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,948 18,567 19,512
10th Percentile £325 £295 £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 £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,331 1,864 1,314
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.35 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.08 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.87 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +50.56% -39.40% -2.92%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.20 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.00 £65.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.13 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +70.85% -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 7 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 7 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 7 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 +34 2,717 £500 -2.44% 4,457
UK excluding London +34 1,469 £470 -6.00% 2,738
London +38 1,319 £525 - 2,034
Work from Home +26 877 £500 - 1,553
North of England +49 363 £460 +6.98% 460
South East +8 340 £525 +5.00% 729
Midlands +39 301 £463 -7.50% 391
West Midlands +28 214 £453 -10.69% 256
North West +29 185 £472 +11.06% 247
South West +16 176 £525 -4.55% 329
Scotland +51 150 £459 -9.39% 341
Yorkshire +52 148 £463 -2.63% 149
East of England -3 143 £469 -3.85% 376
East Midlands +26 84 £490 -4.39% 135
North East -17 35 £425 -11.92% 64
Wales 0 24 £394 +5.00% 61
Northern Ireland +4 4 £363 -27.50% 81
Channel Islands -5 1 - - 2

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 96 (3.02%) Confluence
2 64 (2.01%) Apache Airflow
3 63 (1.98%) SharePoint
4 50 (1.57%) Apache Spark
5 46 (1.45%) SAS
6 41 (1.29%) Apache
7 21 (0.66%) CMS
8 20 (0.63%) Microsoft Exchange
9 14 (0.44%) Oracle Workflow
10 11 (0.35%) Jupyter
11 9 (0.28%) IIS
11 9 (0.28%) SharePoint 2013
12 8 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
13 7 (0.22%) Sitecore CMS
13 7 (0.22%) WebLogic
14 6 (0.19%) OpenStack
15 5 (0.16%) CICS
15 5 (0.16%) Tomcat
15 5 (0.16%) Tuxedo
16 4 (0.13%) JBoss
Applications
1 207 (6.52%) Microsoft Excel
2 48 (1.51%) Microsoft Office
3 41 (1.29%) MS Visio
4 31 (0.98%) Spreadsheet
5 30 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 17 (0.54%) AutoCAD
7 12 (0.38%) Navisworks
7 12 (0.38%) Revit
8 10 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
8 10 (0.31%) ProjectWise
9 9 (0.28%) Simulink
10 5 (0.16%) CATIA
10 5 (0.16%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.094%) OrCAD
12 2 (0.063%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.063%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.063%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.031%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.031%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.031%) Trello
Business Applications
1 115 (3.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.60%) SAP FI
3 17 (0.54%) Workday HCM
4 16 (0.50%) Oracle Payables
5 15 (0.47%) SAP SD
6 14 (0.44%) Integrated Workplace Management System
6 14 (0.44%) Oracle EBS
6 14 (0.44%) SAP HCM
7 13 (0.41%) Aladdin
7 13 (0.41%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.41%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.38%) SAP MDG
9 11 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
9 11 (0.35%) SAP MM
10 10 (0.31%) iTrent
10 10 (0.31%) SAP CO
10 10 (0.31%) SAP ERP
11 9 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
11 9 (0.28%) SAP Payroll
11 9 (0.28%) SAP PS
Cloud Services
1 613 (19.29%) Azure
2 355 (11.17%) AWS
3 321 (10.10%) Power Platform
4 192 (6.04%) Azure DevOps
5 163 (5.13%) GCP
6 156 (4.91%) GitHub
7 113 (3.56%) Snowflake
8 106 (3.34%) Entra ID
9 79 (2.49%) GitHub Actions
10 74 (2.33%) Azure Data Factory
11 64 (2.01%) SaaS
12 63 (1.98%) Amazon S3
13 62 (1.95%) Serverless
14 61 (1.92%) Microsoft 365
15 58 (1.83%) dbt
16 50 (1.57%) SuccessFactors
17 41 (1.29%) Azure Monitor
18 40 (1.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 40 (1.26%) Dynamics 365
19 35 (1.10%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 110 (3.46%) Firewall
2 81 (2.55%) DNS
3 61 (1.92%) Network Security
3 61 (1.92%) VLAN
4 59 (1.86%) VPN
5 52 (1.64%) TCP/IP
6 51 (1.61%) BGP
7 43 (1.35%) WAN
8 36 (1.13%) DHCP
9 30 (0.94%) OSPF
9 30 (0.94%) VXLAN
10 27 (0.85%) Ethernet VPN
11 26 (0.82%) Ethernet
11 26 (0.82%) Wireless
12 24 (0.76%) LAN
13 22 (0.69%) Internet
13 22 (0.69%) SD-WAN
13 22 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
14 20 (0.63%) 5G
14 20 (0.63%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 296 (9.32%) Power BI
2 174 (5.48%) Data Warehouse
3 147 (4.63%) Metadata
4 126 (3.97%) Relational Database
5 112 (3.53%) SQL Server
6 102 (3.21%) PostgreSQL
7 85 (2.68%) Data Lake
8 66 (2.08%) Tableau
9 42 (1.32%) MongoDB
10 41 (1.29%) Delta Lake
11 40 (1.26%) Oracle Database
12 38 (1.20%) BigQuery
12 38 (1.20%) Power Query
13 37 (1.16%) Redis
14 36 (1.13%) Big Data
15 35 (1.10%) NoSQL
16 29 (0.91%) MySQL
16 29 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
17 28 (0.88%) Azure SQL Database
18 25 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 286 (9.00%) JIRA
2 233 (7.33%) Git
3 108 (3.40%) Jenkins
4 101 (3.18%) GitLab
5 81 (2.55%) Selenium
6 45 (1.42%) Postman
7 35 (1.10%) JMeter
8 26 (0.82%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.76%) Rational DOORS
10 21 (0.66%) JUnit
11 20 (0.63%) WebDriver
11 20 (0.63%) Zephyr
12 19 (0.60%) REST Assured
13 18 (0.57%) Cypress.io
14 17 (0.54%) Eclipse
14 17 (0.54%) Visual Studio
15 14 (0.44%) Oracle Forms
16 13 (0.41%) Gatling
16 13 (0.41%) TestRail
17 12 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 913 (28.74%) Finance
2 903 (28.42%) Social Skills
3 637 (20.05%) Analytical Skills
4 293 (9.22%) Banking
5 280 (8.81%) Public Sector
6 139 (4.38%) Manufacturing
7 129 (4.06%) Documentation Skills
8 94 (2.96%) Retail
9 77 (2.42%) Automotive
10 73 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 72 (2.27%) Telecoms
12 59 (1.86%) Aerospace
12 59 (1.86%) Organisational Skills
13 58 (1.83%) Legal
14 54 (1.70%) Pharmaceutical
15 51 (1.61%) Marketing
16 47 (1.48%) Billing
16 47 (1.48%) Local Government
17 43 (1.35%) Front Office
18 42 (1.32%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 536 (16.87%) Analyst
2 392 (12.34%) Senior
3 286 (9.00%) Lead
4 264 (8.31%) Consultant
5 255 (8.03%) Data Engineer
6 240 (7.55%) Business Analyst
7 208 (6.55%) Developer
8 171 (5.38%) Data Analyst
9 167 (5.26%) Architect
10 113 (3.56%) Test Engineer
11 82 (2.58%) Tester
12 78 (2.46%) Network Engineer
13 67 (2.11%) Senior Data Engineer
14 64 (2.01%) Administrator
15 60 (1.89%) Senior Analyst
16 59 (1.86%) Systems Engineer
17 57 (1.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 52 (1.64%) Software Engineer
19 47 (1.48%) Project Manager
19 47 (1.48%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 208 (6.55%) REST
2 203 (6.39%) Terraform
3 101 (3.18%) JSON
4 93 (2.93%) Middleware
5 92 (2.90%) PySpark
6 86 (2.71%) XML
7 75 (2.36%) Kafka
8 63 (1.98%) Playwright
9 60 (1.89%) OAuth
10 58 (1.83%) .NET
11 56 (1.76%) Web Services
12 52 (1.64%) pytest
12 52 (1.64%) SOAP
13 48 (1.51%) Oracle Fusion
14 46 (1.45%) RESTful
15 45 (1.42%) OpenID
16 43 (1.35%) OAuth2
17 36 (1.13%) FastAPI
17 36 (1.13%) Pandas
17 36 (1.13%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 188 (5.92%) Onboarding
2 174 (5.48%) Data Structures
3 147 (4.63%) Cloud Native
4 128 (4.03%) Management Information System
5 125 (3.93%) Legacy Systems
6 119 (3.75%) Product Ownership
7 96 (3.02%) Data Centre
8 71 (2.23%) Enterprise Software
9 64 (2.01%) AI Agents
10 62 (1.95%) Distributed Systems
11 47 (1.48%) Analytical Mindset
12 46 (1.45%) Life Science
13 43 (1.35%) Algorithms
14 42 (1.32%) SCADA
15 41 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
15 41 (1.29%) Replication
16 36 (1.13%) NHS
16 36 (1.13%) Operational Technology
17 35 (1.10%) CMDB
18 34 (1.07%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 222 (6.99%) Windows
2 146 (4.60%) Linux
3 91 (2.86%) Windows Server
4 60 (1.89%) Unix
5 22 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.50%) Windows 10
7 14 (0.44%) Android
8 11 (0.35%) AIX
8 11 (0.35%) Ubuntu
9 9 (0.28%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.22%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.19%) VMS
11 6 (0.19%) zOS
12 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
12 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.094%) CentOS
13 3 (0.094%) VxWorks
14 2 (0.063%) HPUX
14 2 (0.063%) Solaris
14 2 (0.063%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 859 (27.04%) Migration
2 711 (22.38%) Stakeholder Management
3 635 (19.99%) CI/CD
4 606 (19.07%) Agile
5 517 (16.27%) Data Modelling
6 510 (16.05%) User Acceptance Testing
7 508 (15.99%) Data Migration
8 502 (15.80%) Analytics
9 488 (15.36%) Problem-Solving
10 487 (15.33%) Data Validation
11 456 (14.35%) AI
12 447 (14.07%) Continuous Improvement
13 436 (13.72%) DevOps
14 427 (13.44%) Test Automation
15 355 (11.17%) ETL
16 341 (10.73%) Business Intelligence
17 328 (10.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 327 (10.29%) Data Governance
19 322 (10.14%) Data Analysis
20 307 (9.66%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 841 (26.47%) SQL
2 684 (21.53%) Python
3 157 (4.94%) Java
4 125 (3.93%) PowerShell
5 81 (2.55%) C#
5 81 (2.55%) JavaScript
6 67 (2.11%) Bash
7 51 (1.61%) TypeScript
8 45 (1.42%) C++
9 32 (1.01%) Shell Script
10 31 (0.98%) Bicep
11 29 (0.91%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 29 (0.91%) R
12 27 (0.85%) PL/SQL
13 26 (0.82%) Apex Code
13 26 (0.82%) C
14 23 (0.72%) Go
15 20 (0.63%) VBA
16 19 (0.60%) T-SQL
17 17 (0.54%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 645 (20.30%) Security Cleared
2 488 (15.36%) SC Cleared
3 223 (7.02%) Degree
4 95 (2.99%) DV Cleared
5 79 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.57%) Computer Science Degree
7 46 (1.45%) Cisco Certification
8 38 (1.20%) AWS Certification
9 37 (1.16%) CCNP
10 34 (1.07%) ACCA
10 34 (1.07%) CIMA
11 28 (0.88%) ISTQB
12 26 (0.82%) Azure Certification
13 25 (0.79%) PMI Certification
14 23 (0.72%) CISSP
14 23 (0.72%) PMP
15 22 (0.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 20 (0.63%) Master's Degree
17 19 (0.60%) DBS Check
18 15 (0.47%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 668 (21.03%) Data Quality
2 378 (11.90%) QA
3 101 (3.18%) GDPR
4 55 (1.73%) Accessibility
5 51 (1.61%) SLA
6 37 (1.16%) GxP
6 37 (1.16%) NIST
7 36 (1.13%) PMO
8 34 (1.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 23 (0.72%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 23 (0.72%) GRC
10 22 (0.69%) ISO 20022
11 18 (0.57%) GMP
11 18 (0.57%) WCAG
12 16 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
13 14 (0.44%) NCSC
14 12 (0.38%) IFRS
15 11 (0.35%) ISO 19650
15 11 (0.35%) MiFID
16 10 (0.31%) Def Stans
System Software
1 121 (3.81%) Active Directory
2 112 (3.53%) Docker
3 93 (2.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (1.16%) VMware ESXi
5 34 (1.07%) Virtual Machines
6 27 (0.85%) Firmware
7 25 (0.79%) Hyper-V
7 25 (0.79%) Virtual Desktop
8 23 (0.72%) vSphere
9 16 (0.50%) VMware NSX
10 7 (0.22%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.16%) KVM
12 4 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.13%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.063%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.063%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.031%) HDFS
14 1 (0.031%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.031%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 1 (0.031%) NFS
Systems Management
1 161 (5.07%) Kubernetes
2 115 (3.62%) Ansible
3 44 (1.38%) Grafana
4 35 (1.10%) Prometheus
5 27 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
6 26 (0.82%) FortiGate
7 21 (0.66%) SCCM
8 19 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.44%) HP ALM
10 11 (0.35%) Progress Chef
10 11 (0.35%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.31%) Functional Safety
12 9 (0.28%) Argo
12 9 (0.28%) Control-M
13 6 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
13 6 (0.19%) Kibana
13 6 (0.19%) VxRail
14 5 (0.16%) Puppet
14 5 (0.16%) vMotion
14 5 (0.16%) vRealize
Vendors
1 494 (15.55%) Microsoft
2 272 (8.56%) SAP
3 247 (7.77%) Oracle
4 182 (5.73%) Databricks
5 108 (3.40%) VMware
6 98 (3.08%) ServiceNow
7 90 (2.83%) Cisco
7 90 (2.83%) Salesforce
8 74 (2.33%) Google
9 58 (1.83%) Workday
10 51 (1.61%) IBM
11 35 (1.10%) Informatica
12 34 (1.07%) Fortinet
13 30 (0.94%) Palo Alto
13 30 (0.94%) Zscaler
14 27 (0.85%) Juniper
15 22 (0.69%) CyberArk
16 20 (0.63%) MuleSoft
16 20 (0.63%) Red Hat
16 20 (0.63%) Sage