Validation Contracts

Validation
UK

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 20 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
20 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 120 151 186
Rank change year-on-year +31 +35 -16
Contract jobs citing Validation 794 1,000 1,356
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.87% 1.75% 1.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.17% 1.95% 1.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 391 569 781
10th Percentile £325 £375 £350
25th Percentile £419 £458 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £550 £513
Median % change year-on-year -9.00% +7.21% +14.00%
75th Percentile £600 £694 £615
90th Percentile £688 £950 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £495 £475
% change year-on-year +1.01% +4.21% +13.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 166 165 78
10th Percentile £25.53 £42.50 £26.38
25th Percentile £52.50 £51.75 £42.50
Median hourly rate £60.00 £63.23 £54.92
Median % change year-on-year -5.11% +15.13% +37.30%
75th Percentile £72.50 £68.75 £64.50
90th Percentile £76.86 £77.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £50.00
% change year-on-year - +25.00% +14.29%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 36,622 51,397 80,021
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.09% 89.76% 90.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,613 35,611 56,174
10th Percentile £300 £325 £344
25th Percentile £413 £439 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +3.77% +7.07%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £480
% change year-on-year - +4.17% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,439 1,690 1,913
10th Percentile £12.75 £10.63 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.00 £15.77 £15.50
Median hourly rate £36.50 £36.00 £25.68
Median % change year-on-year +1.39% +40.19% +7.00%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £49.50
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.00 £35.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year +8.57% +75.00% -6.54%

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 20 May 2024.

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 20 May 2024.

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 20 May 2024. 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 +31 718 £500 -9.50% 1,028
UK excluding London +30 439 £500 +1.01% 830
London +12 277 £538 -17.31% 220
Work from Home +51 268 £525 -4.55% 315
South East +7 100 £500 - 239
South West +7 99 £400 -30.07% 112
East of England +5 87 £488 -2.50% 156
North of England +75 86 £463 -11.06% 132
Midlands +7 51 £500 +25.00% 165
North West +32 45 £500 -1.96% 87
West Midlands +18 38 £475 +5.56% 116
Yorkshire +43 34 £430 -42.67% 37
East Midlands +12 15 £540 +35.00% 49
Northern Ireland +12 11 £600 - 3
North East +14 7 £500 -9.09% 9
Scotland +5 7 £575 +21.05% 43
Isle of Man - 2 - - 1
Wales +16 1 - - 15

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 33 (4.16%) Confluence
2 22 (2.77%) SAS
3 20 (2.52%) SharePoint
4 12 (1.51%) Apache Spark
5 8 (1.01%) CMS
6 6 (0.76%) Apache
6 6 (0.76%) Sitecore CMS
7 4 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.38%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (0.38%) WebSphere
9 2 (0.25%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 1 (0.13%) Jupyter
10 1 (0.13%) WordPress
Applications
1 47 (5.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 36 (4.53%) Simulink
3 34 (4.28%) Microsoft Office
4 29 (3.65%) Stateflow
5 18 (2.27%) AutoCAD
6 16 (2.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 7 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
8 6 (0.76%) MS Visio
9 5 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
9 5 (0.63%) TargetLink
10 3 (0.38%) Sketch
11 1 (0.13%) InfoPath
11 1 (0.13%) InVision
11 1 (0.13%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 32 (4.03%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.76%) Magento
3 5 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.50%) SAP SD
5 3 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
5 3 (0.38%) SAP CO
5 3 (0.38%) SAP FI
5 3 (0.38%) SAP FI/CO
5 3 (0.38%) SAP Hybris
5 3 (0.38%) SAP MDG
5 3 (0.38%) Teamcenter
6 2 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
6 2 (0.25%) NEC Housing
6 2 (0.25%) SAP Business One
6 2 (0.25%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.25%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.25%) SAP Retail
6 2 (0.25%) Workday HCM
7 1 (0.13%) SAP PM
7 1 (0.13%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 86 (10.83%) Azure
2 51 (6.42%) Power Platform
3 40 (5.04%) AWS
4 28 (3.53%) GCP
5 17 (2.14%) SAP Commerce Cloud
6 14 (1.76%) dbt
7 13 (1.64%) Azure DevOps
8 12 (1.51%) Microsoft 365
9 11 (1.39%) Dynamics 365
9 11 (1.39%) OCI
9 11 (1.39%) Serverless
10 10 (1.26%) SaaS
11 9 (1.13%) AWS Lambda
11 9 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
11 9 (1.13%) BrowserStack
12 8 (1.01%) Amazon S3
12 8 (1.01%) Azure Functions
12 8 (1.01%) BlazeMeter
12 8 (1.01%) Firebase
13 7 (0.88%) Veeva
Communications & Networking
1 18 (2.27%) SNMP
2 17 (2.14%) TCP/IP
3 15 (1.89%) Software-Defined Radio
4 14 (1.76%) Ethernet
5 13 (1.64%) Internet
6 12 (1.51%) WAN
7 11 (1.39%) LAN
8 9 (1.13%) Firewall
8 9 (1.13%) SSL
9 7 (0.88%) MPLS
9 7 (0.88%) VPN
10 6 (0.76%) DNS
10 6 (0.76%) VSAN
10 6 (0.76%) Wireless
11 5 (0.63%) WLAN
12 4 (0.50%) DHCP
12 4 (0.50%) Network Security
12 4 (0.50%) SD-WAN
12 4 (0.50%) VLAN
12 4 (0.50%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 48 (6.05%) Data Warehouse
2 38 (4.79%) Power BI
3 16 (2.02%) SQL Server
4 12 (1.51%) Data Lake
4 12 (1.51%) Relational Database
5 10 (1.26%) Electronic Patient Records
6 8 (1.01%) Big Data
6 8 (1.01%) Couchbase
6 8 (1.01%) Oracle Database
6 8 (1.01%) SAP HANA
7 7 (0.88%) Amazon Redshift
7 7 (0.88%) Oracle Reports
7 7 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 7 (0.88%) Tableau
8 6 (0.76%) Hadoop
9 5 (0.63%) NoSQL
10 4 (0.50%) PostgreSQL
10 4 (0.50%) SAP Data Services
11 3 (0.38%) Data Mining
11 3 (0.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 66 (8.31%) JIRA
2 46 (5.79%) Git
3 31 (3.90%) Rational DOORS
4 28 (3.53%) Eclipse
5 19 (2.39%) Bitbucket
6 15 (1.89%) JMeter
7 14 (1.76%) GoogleTest
7 14 (1.76%) Robot Framework
8 12 (1.51%) Jenkins
8 12 (1.51%) Selenium
8 12 (1.51%) Subversion
8 12 (1.51%) Visual Studio
9 10 (1.26%) Postman
9 10 (1.26%) Rational Rhapsody
10 8 (1.01%) Appium
10 8 (1.01%) Cypress.io
10 8 (1.01%) GitLab
11 4 (0.50%) LSMW
12 3 (0.38%) IntelliJ
12 3 (0.38%) PVCS
General
1 199 (25.06%) Social Skills
2 178 (22.42%) Finance
3 114 (14.36%) Analytical Skills
4 47 (5.92%) Public Sector
5 41 (5.16%) Automotive
6 40 (5.04%) Manufacturing
7 39 (4.91%) Aerospace
8 37 (4.66%) Legal
8 37 (4.66%) Presentation Skills
9 34 (4.28%) Banking
10 32 (4.03%) Marketing
11 28 (3.53%) Electronics
11 28 (3.53%) Military
12 25 (3.15%) Telecoms
13 21 (2.64%) Retail
14 19 (2.39%) Organisational Skills
15 16 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
16 15 (1.89%) Pharmaceutical
17 14 (1.76%) Documentation Skills
18 13 (1.64%) Law
Job Titles
1 134 (16.88%) Analyst
2 89 (11.21%) Software Engineer
3 68 (8.56%) Architect
4 55 (6.93%) Lead
5 54 (6.80%) Senior
6 51 (6.42%) Business Analyst
7 49 (6.17%) Developer
8 46 (5.79%) Systems Engineer
9 41 (5.16%) Consultant
10 34 (4.28%) Embedded Engineer
11 31 (3.90%) Embedded Software Engineer
12 30 (3.78%) Data Analyst
13 28 (3.53%) Project Manager
14 25 (3.15%) Data Engineer
15 23 (2.90%) C++ Software Engineer
16 22 (2.77%) Principal Engineer
17 20 (2.52%) Integration Engineer
17 20 (2.52%) Principal Systems Engineer
17 20 (2.52%) Test Engineer
18 19 (2.39%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (2.90%) CSS
1 23 (2.90%) HTML
2 19 (2.39%) Node.js
3 16 (2.02%) Web Services
4 13 (1.64%) PySpark
5 12 (1.51%) Kafka
6 11 (1.39%) REST
7 10 (1.26%) ADO
8 9 (1.13%) JSON
8 9 (1.13%) Middleware
9 8 (1.01%) Swagger
9 8 (1.01%) WebdriverIO
10 7 (0.88%) Pandas
10 7 (0.88%) React
11 6 (0.76%) AngularJS
11 6 (0.76%) OpenAPI
11 6 (0.76%) RESTful
12 5 (0.63%) Flash
12 5 (0.63%) XML
13 4 (0.50%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 43 (5.42%) Algorithms
2 35 (4.41%) Management Information System
3 29 (3.65%) Product Ownership
4 21 (2.64%) Self-Motivation
5 12 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
5 12 (1.51%) NHS
6 11 (1.39%) Life Science
7 10 (1.26%) Data Structures
8 9 (1.13%) Linux Command Line
8 9 (1.13%) Operational Technology
9 8 (1.01%) LIMS
9 8 (1.01%) Mobile App
9 8 (1.01%) Onboarding
10 7 (0.88%) CMDB
10 7 (0.88%) Credit Risk
10 7 (0.88%) Data Centre
10 7 (0.88%) Data Protection Act
10 7 (0.88%) Embedded Systems
11 6 (0.76%) DataPower
12 5 (0.63%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 46 (5.79%) Linux
2 41 (5.16%) Windows
3 16 (2.02%) Unix
4 6 (0.76%) Oracle Linux
4 6 (0.76%) Solaris
4 6 (0.76%) VMS
5 5 (0.63%) Android
5 5 (0.63%) Windows Server 2016
6 4 (0.50%) Apple iOS
6 4 (0.50%) SafeRTOS
7 3 (0.38%) Windows Server 2012
7 3 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 148 (18.64%) Agile
2 144 (18.14%) Verification and Validation
3 127 (15.99%) Software Engineering
4 123 (15.49%) Problem-Solving
5 118 (14.86%) Migration
6 83 (10.45%) Computer Science
7 79 (9.95%) Data Migration
8 73 (9.19%) User Acceptance Testing
9 70 (8.82%) Project Management
10 68 (8.56%) Data Validation
11 65 (8.19%) Data Modelling
12 64 (8.06%) Test Automation
13 63 (7.93%) Scrum
14 59 (7.43%) ETL
15 58 (7.30%) Data Management
16 52 (6.55%) Use Case
17 51 (6.42%) Analytics
17 51 (6.42%) CI/CD
17 51 (6.42%) Systems Engineering
18 49 (6.17%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 103 (12.97%) SQL
2 76 (9.57%) Python
3 71 (8.94%) C++
4 56 (7.05%) C
5 51 (6.42%) JavaScript
6 44 (5.54%) Java
7 40 (5.04%) MATLAB
8 33 (4.16%) C#
9 15 (1.89%) PowerShell
10 14 (1.76%) Bash
10 14 (1.76%) Embedded C
11 13 (1.64%) R
12 12 (1.51%) Ada
13 10 (1.26%) Embedded C++
14 9 (1.13%) Shell Script
15 8 (1.01%) Assembly Language
16 7 (0.88%) VB
17 6 (0.76%) T-SQL
18 5 (0.63%) Perl
18 5 (0.63%) VBA
Qualifications
1 143 (18.01%) Degree
2 104 (13.10%) Security Cleared
3 71 (8.94%) SC Cleared
4 45 (5.67%) Master's Degree
5 30 (3.78%) DV Cleared
6 26 (3.27%) Computer Science Degree
7 13 (1.64%) PhD
8 12 (1.51%) BPSS Clearance
9 11 (1.39%) Cisco Certification
9 11 (1.39%) ISTQB
10 10 (1.26%) ITIL Certification
11 9 (1.13%) CCNA
12 7 (0.88%) Chartered Engineer
12 7 (0.88%) PMI Certification
12 7 (0.88%) PMP
12 7 (0.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 4 (0.50%) CCNP
13 4 (0.50%) SAP Certification
14 3 (0.38%) CCA
14 3 (0.38%) Citrix Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (11.71%) QA
2 67 (8.44%) Data Quality
3 29 (3.65%) NIST
4 18 (2.27%) GxP
5 17 (2.14%) GDPR
6 13 (1.64%) PMO
7 12 (1.51%) PCI DSS
8 11 (1.39%) AUTOSAR
9 8 (1.01%) CDISC
9 8 (1.01%) HL7
9 8 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 6 (0.76%) GAMP
10 6 (0.76%) ISO 26262
11 5 (0.63%) Accessibility
11 5 (0.63%) IFRS
11 5 (0.63%) IFRS 9
11 5 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 17025
11 5 (0.63%) MISRA
11 5 (0.63%) MISRA C
12 4 (0.50%) ISO17020
System Software
1 27 (3.40%) Firmware
2 20 (2.52%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (1.39%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.88%) Docker
4 7 (0.88%) VMware ESXi
4 7 (0.88%) VMware NSX
5 6 (0.76%) Active Directory
5 6 (0.76%) Embedded Firmware
5 6 (0.76%) KVM
6 2 (0.25%) vSphere
7 1 (0.13%) HDFS
7 1 (0.13%) NFS
7 1 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 7 (0.88%) Kubernetes
2 6 (0.76%) Ansible
2 6 (0.76%) vCenter Server
3 4 (0.50%) FortiGate
3 4 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.38%) HP Quality Center
4 3 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (0.25%) Functional Safety
5 2 (0.25%) Nmap
5 2 (0.25%) OpenNMS
6 1 (0.13%) Kibana
6 1 (0.13%) QRadar
6 1 (0.13%) SCCM
6 1 (0.13%) Trend Micro Deep Security
Vendors
1 93 (11.71%) Microsoft
2 85 (10.71%) SAP
3 42 (5.29%) Oracle
4 32 (4.03%) Google
5 23 (2.90%) VMware
6 21 (2.64%) Atlassian
7 18 (2.27%) Salesforce
8 16 (2.02%) Databricks
8 16 (2.02%) EMC
9 15 (1.89%) IBM
10 13 (1.64%) Cisco
11 7 (0.88%) Sitecore
11 7 (0.88%) Workday
12 6 (0.76%) ServiceNow
13 5 (0.63%) Adobe
13 5 (0.63%) Cadence
13 5 (0.63%) MathWorks
14 4 (0.50%) Aruba
14 4 (0.50%) Barracuda Networks
14 4 (0.50%) Remedy