Validation Contract Job Trends in England

Validation
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Validation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 64 111
Rank change year-on-year +31 +47 +39
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,591 1,052 717
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.60% 3.78% 2.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.59% 4.17% 2.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,549 634 348
10th Percentile £337 £336 £329
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £502 £488
Median % change year-on-year -0.30% +2.82% -11.32%
75th Percentile £600 £621 £588
90th Percentile £710 £688 £661
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 170 81 104
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £28.13 £41.25 £51.19
Median hourly rate £54.25 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.54% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £73.25 £67.00 £71.60
90th Percentile £82.55 £75.00 £76.30
UK median hourly rate £52.75 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -18.85% - -3.70%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

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 in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 39,304 25,245 28,138
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.88% 90.83% 85.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,151 16,024 17,695
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.95% -2.87% -4.55%
75th Percentile £636 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,693 1,483 1,349
10th Percentile £14.01 £14.31 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.85 £17.87 £20.22
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £66.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +2.87%

Validation
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Validation relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Validation job vacancy trend in England

Validation
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Validation.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Validation

Validation
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Validation in England over the 6 months to 10 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Validation in England

Validation
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Validation.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Validation

Validation
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Validation in England over the 6 months to 10 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Validation in England

Validation
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Validation within the England region over the 6 months to 10 September 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
London +40 1,280 £525 +0.96% 1,560
North of England +42 338 £453 +6.59% 304
South East 0 330 £501 +0.25% 469
Midlands +32 302 £464 -2.40% 278
West Midlands +30 214 £459 -3.37% 200
North West +16 168 £453 +6.59% 175
Yorkshire +45 150 £460 -0.54% 88
East of England -4 143 £475 -5.00% 290
South West +13 136 £525 -4.55% 298
East Midlands +23 84 £495 -1.00% 78
North East -32 25 £425 -5.56% 50
Validation
UK

Validation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 71 (2.74%) Confluence
2 64 (2.47%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (2.12%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.74%) SAS
5 38 (1.47%) Apache Spark
6 27 (1.04%) Apache
7 17 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
8 12 (0.46%) CMS
9 10 (0.39%) Jupyter
10 8 (0.31%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.27%) Palantir Foundry
11 7 (0.27%) Sitecore CMS
12 5 (0.19%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.19%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.19%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.15%) Headless CMS
13 4 (0.15%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.12%) IIS
Applications
1 193 (7.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 39 (1.51%) Microsoft Office
3 36 (1.39%) Spreadsheet
4 33 (1.27%) MS Visio
5 29 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 13 (0.50%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
8 8 (0.31%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.31%) Revit
9 6 (0.23%) ProjectWise
9 6 (0.23%) Simulink
10 4 (0.15%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.12%) CATIA
12 2 (0.077%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.077%) EPLAN
13 1 (0.039%) Autodesk Inventor
13 1 (0.039%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.039%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.039%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.039%) Trello
Business Applications
1 103 (3.98%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.66%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.58%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.50%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.46%) Teamcenter
5 12 (0.46%) Workday HCM
6 11 (0.42%) SAP MDG
6 11 (0.42%) SAP SD
7 10 (0.39%) Aladdin
7 10 (0.39%) iTrent
8 9 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.35%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.35%) SAP FI
8 9 (0.35%) SAP MM
9 8 (0.31%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
10 7 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 7 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
10 7 (0.27%) SAP HCM
10 7 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 563 (21.73%) Azure
2 306 (11.81%) AWS
3 257 (9.92%) Power Platform
4 158 (6.10%) Azure DevOps
5 127 (4.90%) GCP
6 125 (4.82%) GitHub
7 94 (3.63%) Snowflake
8 76 (2.93%) Entra ID
9 72 (2.78%) Azure Data Factory
10 67 (2.59%) GitHub Actions
11 54 (2.08%) Serverless
12 53 (2.05%) Microsoft 365
13 51 (1.97%) SaaS
14 50 (1.93%) dbt
15 45 (1.74%) Amazon S3
16 43 (1.66%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 34 (1.31%) SuccessFactors
18 30 (1.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 30 (1.16%) Azure Monitor
19 29 (1.12%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.01%) Firewall
2 66 (2.55%) DNS
3 59 (2.28%) Network Security
4 57 (2.20%) VLAN
5 48 (1.85%) VPN
6 39 (1.51%) WAN
7 37 (1.43%) BGP
8 35 (1.35%) TCP/IP
9 32 (1.24%) DHCP
10 22 (0.85%) Internet
11 21 (0.81%) OSPF
11 21 (0.81%) SAN
11 21 (0.81%) SD-WAN
12 20 (0.77%) Wireless
13 19 (0.73%) 5G
13 19 (0.73%) VXLAN
14 18 (0.69%) LAN
15 15 (0.58%) Ethernet VPN
15 15 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
16 13 (0.50%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 237 (9.15%) Power BI
2 145 (5.60%) Data Warehouse
3 107 (4.13%) Metadata
4 90 (3.47%) Relational Database
5 82 (3.16%) SQL Server
6 71 (2.74%) PostgreSQL
7 70 (2.70%) Data Lake
8 65 (2.51%) Tableau
9 38 (1.47%) Delta Lake
10 36 (1.39%) MongoDB
11 34 (1.31%) Big Data
12 33 (1.27%) Oracle Database
13 31 (1.20%) BigQuery
13 31 (1.20%) NoSQL
14 29 (1.12%) Redis
15 28 (1.08%) Power Query
16 26 (1.00%) SAS Enterprise Guide
17 25 (0.96%) MySQL
18 23 (0.89%) Oracle Reports
19 22 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 234 (9.03%) JIRA
2 187 (7.22%) Git
3 91 (3.51%) Jenkins
4 82 (3.16%) GitLab
5 68 (2.62%) Selenium
6 36 (1.39%) Postman
7 32 (1.24%) JMeter
8 22 (0.85%) Cucumber
9 21 (0.81%) WebDriver
10 20 (0.77%) Rational DOORS
11 16 (0.62%) JUnit
12 13 (0.50%) Rational Rhapsody
13 11 (0.42%) Cypress.io
13 11 (0.42%) Eclipse
13 11 (0.42%) Gatling
14 10 (0.39%) Maven
14 10 (0.39%) Visual Studio Code
15 9 (0.35%) ERwin
15 9 (0.35%) TestRail
15 9 (0.35%) Zephyr
General
1 744 (28.71%) Finance
2 742 (28.64%) Social Skills
3 506 (19.53%) Analytical Skills
4 211 (8.14%) Banking
5 208 (8.03%) Public Sector
6 129 (4.98%) Documentation Skills
7 101 (3.90%) Manufacturing
8 89 (3.43%) Retail
9 59 (2.28%) Automotive
10 58 (2.24%) Telecoms
11 57 (2.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 49 (1.89%) Aerospace
13 47 (1.81%) Marketing
13 47 (1.81%) Pharmaceutical
14 45 (1.74%) Organisational Skills
15 41 (1.58%) Local Government
16 39 (1.51%) Front Office
17 36 (1.39%) Law
17 36 (1.39%) Legal
18 33 (1.27%) Billing
Job Titles
1 454 (17.52%) Analyst
2 296 (11.42%) Senior
3 241 (9.30%) Lead
4 209 (8.07%) Data Engineer
5 204 (7.87%) Business Analyst
6 196 (7.56%) Consultant
7 150 (5.79%) Developer
8 133 (5.13%) Data Analyst
9 132 (5.09%) Architect
10 104 (4.01%) Test Engineer
11 66 (2.55%) Tester
12 63 (2.43%) Network Engineer
13 60 (2.32%) Systems Engineer
14 55 (2.12%) Administrator
15 54 (2.08%) Senior Data Engineer
16 53 (2.05%) Project Manager
17 46 (1.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 43 (1.66%) Software Engineer
19 42 (1.62%) Test Manager
20 40 (1.54%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 152 (5.87%) REST
2 142 (5.48%) Terraform
3 81 (3.13%) JSON
3 81 (3.13%) PySpark
4 70 (2.70%) Kafka
5 65 (2.51%) XML
6 49 (1.89%) Middleware
7 46 (1.78%) Playwright
8 45 (1.74%) Oracle Fusion
9 38 (1.47%) pytest
10 37 (1.43%) .NET
11 35 (1.35%) SOAP
11 35 (1.35%) Spring
12 34 (1.31%) Pandas
13 32 (1.24%) OAuth
13 32 (1.24%) RESTful
14 29 (1.12%) Spring Boot
15 27 (1.04%) HTML
16 25 (0.96%) Lightning Web Components
16 25 (0.96%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 141 (5.44%) Data Structures
1 141 (5.44%) Onboarding
2 115 (4.44%) Cloud Native
3 111 (4.28%) Legacy Systems
4 96 (3.71%) Product Ownership
5 94 (3.63%) Management Information System
6 77 (2.97%) Data Centre
7 49 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
8 45 (1.74%) AI Agents
9 43 (1.66%) Analytical Mindset
10 42 (1.62%) SCADA
11 40 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
11 40 (1.54%) Distributed Systems
12 36 (1.39%) Life Science
13 33 (1.27%) Algorithms
14 32 (1.24%) CMDB
14 32 (1.24%) Operational Technology
15 31 (1.20%) Replication
16 30 (1.16%) NHS
16 30 (1.16%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 143 (5.52%) Windows
2 92 (3.55%) Linux
3 52 (2.01%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.89%) Unix
5 20 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.54%) Android
7 11 (0.42%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.31%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.27%) VMS
9 7 (0.27%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.15%) SUSE
10 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.12%) VxWorks
11 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.077%) CentOS
12 2 (0.077%) HPUX
12 2 (0.077%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.039%) Alpine Linux
13 1 (0.039%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.039%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 700 (27.02%) Migration
2 534 (20.61%) Stakeholder Management
3 499 (19.26%) CI/CD
4 488 (18.83%) Agile
5 414 (15.98%) Data Migration
6 413 (15.94%) User Acceptance Testing
7 400 (15.44%) Data Modelling
7 400 (15.44%) Data Validation
8 398 (15.36%) Analytics
9 394 (15.21%) Problem-Solving
10 354 (13.66%) DevOps
11 352 (13.59%) AI
12 340 (13.12%) Test Automation
13 323 (12.47%) Continuous Improvement
14 291 (11.23%) ETL
15 279 (10.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 273 (10.54%) Data Analysis
17 270 (10.42%) Business Intelligence
18 269 (10.38%) Data Pipeline
19 264 (10.19%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 663 (25.59%) SQL
2 513 (19.80%) Python
3 120 (4.63%) Java
4 90 (3.47%) PowerShell
5 52 (2.01%) Bash
6 49 (1.89%) JavaScript
7 40 (1.54%) C#
8 33 (1.27%) C++
9 30 (1.16%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.12%) Apex Code
11 28 (1.08%) PL/SQL
11 28 (1.08%) R
12 25 (0.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 24 (0.93%) C
14 22 (0.85%) Bicep
15 19 (0.73%) Shell Script
15 19 (0.73%) VBA
16 15 (0.58%) MATLAB
17 13 (0.50%) Scala
17 13 (0.50%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 501 (19.34%) Security Cleared
2 360 (13.89%) SC Cleared
3 184 (7.10%) Degree
4 81 (3.13%) DV Cleared
5 51 (1.97%) BPSS Clearance
6 42 (1.62%) Computer Science Degree
7 40 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
8 32 (1.24%) CCNP
9 27 (1.04%) AWS Certification
10 25 (0.96%) ACCA
10 25 (0.96%) CIMA
11 22 (0.85%) PMI Certification
12 20 (0.77%) ISTQB
13 19 (0.73%) Azure Certification
14 17 (0.66%) PMP
15 16 (0.62%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 16 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
16 15 (0.58%) CISSP
16 15 (0.58%) Master's Degree
17 11 (0.42%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 534 (20.61%) Data Quality
2 317 (12.23%) QA
3 89 (3.43%) GDPR
4 41 (1.58%) Accessibility
4 41 (1.58%) NIST
5 36 (1.39%) SLA
6 34 (1.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 32 (1.24%) PMO
8 24 (0.93%) GxP
9 16 (0.62%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 15 (0.58%) GRC
10 15 (0.58%) WCAG
11 14 (0.54%) ISO 20022
12 12 (0.46%) Def Stans
13 11 (0.42%) NCSC
14 10 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
14 10 (0.39%) HL7
14 10 (0.39%) IFRS
14 10 (0.39%) MiFID
14 10 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 100 (3.86%) Docker
2 84 (3.24%) Active Directory
3 60 (2.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.73%) Firmware
7 17 (0.66%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.66%) vSphere
8 14 (0.54%) Hyper-V
9 11 (0.42%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
10 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.12%) VirtualBox
11 2 (0.077%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.077%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.039%) Embedded Firmware
12 1 (0.039%) etcd
12 1 (0.039%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.039%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 126 (4.86%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.01%) Ansible
3 39 (1.51%) Grafana
4 34 (1.31%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.93%) FortiGate
6 23 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
7 17 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (0.50%) SCCM
8 13 (0.50%) vCenter Server
9 10 (0.39%) HP ALM
9 10 (0.39%) VxRail
10 8 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
11 7 (0.27%) Argo
12 6 (0.23%) Functional Safety
12 6 (0.23%) Progress Chef
13 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
13 5 (0.19%) systemd
13 5 (0.19%) vRealize
14 4 (0.15%) Kustomize
14 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 400 (15.44%) Microsoft
2 219 (8.45%) SAP
3 206 (7.95%) Oracle
4 148 (5.71%) Databricks
5 90 (3.47%) Salesforce
6 70 (2.70%) Cisco
6 70 (2.70%) ServiceNow
7 69 (2.66%) VMware
8 45 (1.74%) Workday
9 42 (1.62%) Google
10 37 (1.43%) IBM
11 29 (1.12%) Fortinet
11 29 (1.12%) Juniper
11 29 (1.12%) Zscaler
12 28 (1.08%) Informatica
13 22 (0.85%) Palo Alto
14 21 (0.81%) Splunk
15 17 (0.66%) MuleSoft
16 16 (0.62%) CrowdStrike
17 15 (0.58%) IFS