Validation Contracts

Validation
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Validation skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Validation over the 6 months leading up to 4 August 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Aug 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 67 128 154
Rank change year-on-year +61 +26 +18
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,151 742 904
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 3.49% 1.89% 1.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.87% 2.21% 1.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 675 372 520
10th Percentile £353 £341 £375
25th Percentile £414 £400 £458
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £498 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.53% -9.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £588 £689
90th Percentile £700 £670 £978
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £463 £500
% change year-on-year +13.51% -7.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 85 120 132
10th Percentile £20.50 £28.00 £42.50
25th Percentile £41.25 £51.25 £55.00
Median hourly rate £60.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - +30.00%
75th Percentile £67.00 £69.16 £72.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.19 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £63.00
% change year-on-year - +3.17% +26.00%

All Process and 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 29,778 33,530 47,608
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.41% 85.52% 89.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,631 21,488 32,626
10th Percentile £300 £310 £322
25th Percentile £404 £413 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £731 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,664 1,872 1,558
10th Percentile £14.15 £14.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £18.14 £18.57
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.33 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -37.63% -5.12% +60.38%
75th Percentile £50.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £74.95 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 £40.94 £40.00
% change year-on-year -43.82% +2.35% +85.19%

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 4 August 2025.

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 4 August 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Validation in the UK

Validation
Top 18 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 4 August 2025. 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 +46 1,007 £525 +7.69% 1,442
UK excluding London +27 549 £525 +13.51% 1,039
London +81 470 £525 +5.00% 558
Work from Home +66 332 £500 - 617
South East +37 156 £500 +3.73% 270
North of England +13 91 £495 +16.47% 159
South West +3 91 £575 - 162
East of England +22 88 £500 -20.00% 174
Midlands -3 78 £450 +5.88% 188
North West +23 56 £573 +23.78% 103
West Midlands -14 50 £425 -10.53% 123
Scotland +22 30 £475 - 79
East Midlands +8 27 £459 +12.98% 62
Yorkshire -9 27 £435 +1.75% 48
Wales +16 13 £375 - 26
North East +2 9 £500 +20.48% 11
Northern Ireland -9 5 £590 +7.27% 20
Channel Islands - 1 - -

Validation
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

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

Application Platforms
1 83 (7.21%) Confluence
2 23 (2.00%) SharePoint
3 21 (1.82%) Apache Spark
4 14 (1.22%) WebLogic
5 13 (1.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 12 (1.04%) Apache Airflow
7 11 (0.96%) Apache
8 9 (0.78%) Oracle Service Bus
9 7 (0.61%) SAS
10 4 (0.35%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.26%) Smallworld
12 2 (0.17%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.17%) Documentum
12 2 (0.17%) Oracle Spatial
12 2 (0.17%) TPMS
13 1 (0.087%) IBM Domino
13 1 (0.087%) MS Project Server
13 1 (0.087%) OpenStack
13 1 (0.087%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 83 (7.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 37 (3.21%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (1.56%) MS Visio
4 17 (1.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.61%) Oracle Smart View
5 7 (0.61%) Simulink
6 4 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.17%) CANalyzer
9 1 (0.087%) Adobe Captivate
9 1 (0.087%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.087%) Fusion 360
9 1 (0.087%) NASTRAN
9 1 (0.087%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.087%) Stateflow
9 1 (0.087%) Trello
9 1 (0.087%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 59 (5.13%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (2.78%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (1.22%) Teamcenter
4 13 (1.13%) SAP MDG
5 9 (0.78%) Oracle BPM
6 8 (0.70%) Oracle Payables
6 8 (0.70%) SAP CO
6 8 (0.70%) SAP FI
6 8 (0.70%) SAP FI/CO
7 7 (0.61%) Oracle Assets
7 7 (0.61%) Oracle E-Business Tax
7 7 (0.61%) Oracle General Ledger
7 7 (0.61%) Payment Gateway
8 6 (0.52%) Aladdin
8 6 (0.52%) SAP PLM
8 6 (0.52%) SAP PM
9 5 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
9 5 (0.43%) SAP PS
9 5 (0.43%) Workday HCM
10 4 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 136 (11.82%) Azure
2 103 (8.95%) AWS
3 88 (7.65%) Power Platform
4 45 (3.91%) Azure DevOps
5 36 (3.13%) GCP
5 36 (3.13%) SaaS
6 32 (2.78%) OCI
7 20 (1.74%) GitHub
8 18 (1.56%) Cloud Computing
8 18 (1.56%) Serverless
9 17 (1.48%) Azure Data Factory
10 16 (1.39%) PaaS
11 15 (1.30%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 15 (1.30%) dbt
12 14 (1.22%) Amazon S3
12 14 (1.22%) AWS Lambda
12 14 (1.22%) Dynamics 365
13 13 (1.13%) Entra ID
13 13 (1.13%) Snowflake
14 11 (0.96%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 56 (4.87%) Firewall
2 38 (3.30%) VPN
3 29 (2.52%) BGP
4 27 (2.35%) DNS
4 27 (2.35%) Network Security
5 22 (1.91%) MPLS
6 21 (1.82%) OSPF
6 21 (1.82%) TCP/IP
7 17 (1.48%) LTE
8 16 (1.39%) Ethernet
9 15 (1.30%) WAN
10 14 (1.22%) 3GPP
10 14 (1.22%) SSL
11 13 (1.13%) Internet
12 12 (1.04%) Wireless
13 10 (0.87%) Cisco IOS
13 10 (0.87%) IPsec
13 10 (0.87%) VoIP
14 9 (0.78%) PBX
14 9 (0.78%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 78 (6.78%) Power BI
2 63 (5.47%) Data Warehouse
3 36 (3.13%) Oracle Reports
4 32 (2.78%) Tableau
5 27 (2.35%) SQL Server
6 22 (1.91%) Metadata
7 21 (1.82%) NoSQL
8 16 (1.39%) Data Lake
8 16 (1.39%) Oracle Database
8 16 (1.39%) Relational Database
9 14 (1.22%) Amazon Redshift
10 13 (1.13%) PostgreSQL
11 12 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
12 11 (0.96%) SAP Data Services
13 10 (0.87%) SAP HANA
14 9 (0.78%) BigQuery
14 9 (0.78%) Delta Lake
14 9 (0.78%) MySQL
15 8 (0.70%) Big Data
15 8 (0.70%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 129 (11.21%) JIRA
2 61 (5.30%) Git
3 57 (4.95%) Jenkins
4 32 (2.78%) Postman
5 24 (2.09%) Selenium
6 19 (1.65%) Cucumber
7 18 (1.56%) Bitbucket
8 16 (1.39%) Cypress.io
8 16 (1.39%) Visual Studio
9 15 (1.30%) Eclipse
9 15 (1.30%) GitLab
10 14 (1.22%) REST Assured
11 10 (0.87%) JMeter
11 10 (0.87%) Rational DOORS
12 6 (0.52%) SoapUI
12 6 (0.52%) Zephyr
13 5 (0.43%) Oracle Forms
13 5 (0.43%) Robot Framework
13 5 (0.43%) TestRail
13 5 (0.43%) Toad
General
1 470 (40.83%) Social Skills
2 293 (25.46%) Finance
3 264 (22.94%) Analytical Skills
4 73 (6.34%) Banking
5 69 (5.99%) Public Sector
6 64 (5.56%) Presentation Skills
7 50 (4.34%) Documentation Skills
8 46 (4.00%) Front Office
9 42 (3.65%) Telecoms
10 28 (2.43%) Manufacturing
10 28 (2.43%) Marketing
11 27 (2.35%) Aerospace
11 27 (2.35%) Retail
12 25 (2.17%) Investment Banking
12 25 (2.17%) Pharmaceutical
13 22 (1.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 22 (1.91%) Military
14 21 (1.82%) Electronics
14 21 (1.82%) Organisational Skills
15 18 (1.56%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 229 (19.90%) Analyst
2 115 (9.99%) Consultant
3 105 (9.12%) Business Analyst
4 103 (8.95%) Senior
5 79 (6.86%) Lead
6 73 (6.34%) Data Analyst
7 55 (4.78%) Developer
8 49 (4.26%) Data Engineer
9 48 (4.17%) Architect
10 44 (3.82%) Network Engineer
11 37 (3.21%) Tester
12 36 (3.13%) SAP Consultant
12 36 (3.13%) Systems Engineer
13 33 (2.87%) Test Engineer
14 31 (2.69%) Project Manager
15 29 (2.52%) FPGA Engineer
16 27 (2.35%) Senior Analyst
17 26 (2.26%) Data Consultant
17 26 (2.26%) Test Analyst
18 25 (2.17%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (4.69%) REST
2 37 (3.21%) Web Services
3 35 (3.04%) JSON
4 34 (2.95%) SOAP
5 29 (2.52%) XML
6 28 (2.43%) RESTful
7 25 (2.17%) Oracle Fusion
8 22 (1.91%) Kafka
8 22 (1.91%) Middleware
9 21 (1.82%) Node.js
10 15 (1.30%) OAuth
11 14 (1.22%) Pandas
11 14 (1.22%) SAP Fiori
11 14 (1.22%) Swagger
12 13 (1.13%) OpenAPI
13 12 (1.04%) CSS
14 11 (0.96%) HTML
15 10 (0.87%) OAuth2
15 10 (0.87%) PySpark
15 10 (0.87%) React
Miscellaneous
1 66 (5.73%) Legacy Systems
2 41 (3.56%) Management Information System
2 41 (3.56%) Product Ownership
3 38 (3.30%) Onboarding
4 36 (3.13%) FPGA
5 33 (2.87%) Data Structures
6 25 (2.17%) Data Centre
7 22 (1.91%) Self-Motivation
8 21 (1.82%) IoT
9 20 (1.74%) Analytical Mindset
9 20 (1.74%) Cloud Native
9 20 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
10 19 (1.65%) Virtual Team
11 18 (1.56%) SCADA
12 17 (1.48%) Verilog
13 14 (1.22%) Derivative
13 14 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
13 14 (1.22%) NB-IoT
13 14 (1.22%) Replication
14 13 (1.13%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 95 (8.25%) Linux
2 74 (6.43%) Windows
3 30 (2.61%) Unix
4 18 (1.56%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 7 (0.61%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.43%) VMS
8 4 (0.35%) Android
9 2 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.087%) FreeRTOS
10 1 (0.087%) MVS
10 1 (0.087%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.087%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.087%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.087%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.087%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 304 (26.41%) Problem-Solving
2 278 (24.15%) Migration
3 263 (22.85%) Agile
4 173 (15.03%) Data Validation
5 161 (13.99%) Data Migration
6 137 (11.90%) Test Automation
7 133 (11.56%) ETL
8 128 (11.12%) Analytics
9 125 (10.86%) CI/CD
10 124 (10.77%) Data Analysis
11 123 (10.69%) Stakeholder Management
11 123 (10.69%) User Acceptance Testing
12 122 (10.60%) DevOps
13 117 (10.17%) Business Intelligence
14 110 (9.56%) Data Modelling
15 101 (8.77%) Data Governance
16 86 (7.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 85 (7.38%) Project Delivery
18 79 (6.86%) Project Management
19 78 (6.78%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 288 (25.02%) SQL
2 230 (19.98%) Python
3 50 (4.34%) Java
4 39 (3.39%) C#
4 39 (3.39%) C++
4 39 (3.39%) JavaScript
5 38 (3.30%) PL/SQL
6 34 (2.95%) Bash
7 30 (2.61%) PowerShell
8 24 (2.09%) R
9 22 (1.91%) Shell Script
10 19 (1.65%) VBA
11 18 (1.56%) Tcl
12 17 (1.48%) SystemVerilog
13 12 (1.04%) ABAP
14 11 (0.96%) TypeScript
15 10 (0.87%) Apex Code
15 10 (0.87%) MATLAB
16 9 (0.78%) Perl
16 9 (0.78%) Scala
Qualifications
1 223 (19.37%) Security Cleared
2 184 (15.99%) SC Cleared
3 153 (13.29%) Degree
4 62 (5.39%) Cisco Certification
5 53 (4.60%) CCNP
6 39 (3.39%) Computer Science Degree
7 34 (2.95%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 33 (2.87%) BPSS Clearance
9 28 (2.43%) DV Cleared
9 28 (2.43%) Master's Degree
10 23 (2.00%) CCNA
11 18 (1.56%) PhD
12 15 (1.30%) CISSP
12 15 (1.30%) ISTQB
13 14 (1.22%) AWS Certification
13 14 (1.22%) PMI Certification
14 12 (1.04%) CBAP
15 10 (0.87%) OCA
15 10 (0.87%) Oracle Certification
15 10 (0.87%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 137 (11.90%) Data Quality
2 117 (10.17%) QA
3 35 (3.04%) GDPR
4 22 (1.91%) MiFID
5 20 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 18 (1.56%) IFRS
7 17 (1.48%) NIST
8 13 (1.13%) EMIR
9 12 (1.04%) GxP
9 12 (1.04%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 10 (0.87%) Accessibility
10 10 (0.87%) IFRS 9
11 9 (0.78%) PCI DSS
11 9 (0.78%) PMO
12 6 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
12 6 (0.52%) COBIT
12 6 (0.52%) GRC
12 6 (0.52%) HL7
13 5 (0.43%) SEPA
14 4 (0.35%) HIPAA
System Software
1 55 (4.78%) VMware Infrastructure
2 28 (2.43%) VMware ESXi
3 24 (2.09%) Active Directory
4 18 (1.56%) Docker
5 15 (1.30%) vSphere
6 14 (1.22%) VMware NSX
7 10 (0.87%) Firmware
8 6 (0.52%) Dovecot
8 6 (0.52%) Postfix
9 3 (0.26%) OpenAM
10 2 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
10 2 (0.17%) FreeRADIUS
10 2 (0.17%) iptables
10 2 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
11 1 (0.087%) KVM
11 1 (0.087%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.087%) QEMU
11 1 (0.087%) Time Sharing Option
11 1 (0.087%) Veritas Cluster Server
11 1 (0.087%) Xen
Systems Management
1 58 (5.04%) Ansible
2 31 (2.69%) Kubernetes
3 29 (2.52%) vCenter Server
4 26 (2.26%) Terraform
5 16 (1.39%) Puppet
6 13 (1.13%) Progress Chef
7 9 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.61%) HP ALM
9 6 (0.52%) Argo
9 6 (0.52%) CASB
9 6 (0.52%) Istio
10 5 (0.43%) Nessus
11 4 (0.35%) Control-M
11 4 (0.35%) Functional Safety
11 4 (0.35%) PowerCLI
12 3 (0.26%) Grafana
12 3 (0.26%) Kubeflow
12 3 (0.26%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 3 (0.26%) vRealize
13 2 (0.17%) Netcool
Vendors
1 147 (12.77%) Microsoft
2 136 (11.82%) Oracle
3 106 (9.21%) SAP
4 77 (6.69%) VMware
5 59 (5.13%) Cisco
6 47 (4.08%) Salesforce
7 41 (3.56%) ServiceNow
8 30 (2.61%) Databricks
9 27 (2.35%) Workday
10 24 (2.09%) Atlassian
11 16 (1.39%) Splunk
12 15 (1.30%) EMC
12 15 (1.30%) Red Hat
12 15 (1.30%) Xilinx
13 14 (1.22%) Google
14 13 (1.13%) F5
14 13 (1.13%) Informatica
14 13 (1.13%) Juniper
14 13 (1.13%) Palo Alto
15 11 (0.96%) Nokia