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

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 68 111
Rank change year-on-year +35 +43 +40
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,489 1,028 686
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.45% 3.70% 2.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.41% 4.07% 2.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,516 627 339
10th Percentile £340 £350 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £488
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +5.13% -11.36%
75th Percentile £600 £614 £588
90th Percentile £711 £688 £664
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £500
% change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 169 77 117
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £29.91
25th Percentile £29.25 £36.48 £51.00
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £74.25 £67.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £83.15 £75.00 £75.74
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £61.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year -10.20% -5.77% -

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 38,847 25,245 28,472
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.01% 90.81% 85.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,107 16,076 18,544
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.40% -4.53%
75th Percentile £626 £627 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,555 1,444 1,611
10th Percentile £14.28 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.87 £18.25
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +4.83%
75th Percentile £68.55 £50.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.97
% change year-on-year +67.00% -38.61% -1.28%

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 17 August 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 17 August 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 17 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
London +41 1,197 £525 +2.44% 1,027
South East +2 328 £500 - 398
Midlands +35 319 £475 -5.00% 228
North of England +37 303 £450 -9.09% 266
West Midlands +25 226 £459 -9.56% 149
North West +20 150 £440 -18.06% 152
East of England +6 149 £475 -6.40% 228
Yorkshire +44 139 £460 +5.75% 69
South West +1 132 £525 -8.70% 234
East Midlands +22 88 £500 - 79
North East -35 18 £425 -22.73% 51
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 79 (3.17%) Confluence
2 64 (2.57%) Apache Airflow
3 46 (1.85%) SAS
3 46 (1.85%) SharePoint
4 39 (1.57%) Apache Spark
5 27 (1.08%) Apache
6 14 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
7 11 (0.44%) CMS
7 11 (0.44%) Jupyter
8 8 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.24%) ArcGIS
11 5 (0.20%) Palantir Foundry
11 5 (0.20%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) IIS
12 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.12%) JBoss
13 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 177 (7.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.33%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (1.33%) MS Visio
3 28 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 28 (1.12%) Spreadsheet
4 12 (0.48%) AutoCAD
5 9 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
6 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.28%) Revit
7 6 (0.24%) Simulink
8 5 (0.20%) ProjectWise
9 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
10 3 (0.12%) CATIA
11 2 (0.080%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.080%) EPLAN
12 1 (0.040%) Adobe XD
12 1 (0.040%) Autodesk Inventor
12 1 (0.040%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.040%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.040%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 110 (4.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (1.08%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.48%) NetSuite
4 12 (0.48%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.44%) iTrent
5 11 (0.44%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 10 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.40%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.40%) Teamcenter
7 9 (0.36%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.32%) Aladdin
8 8 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
8 8 (0.32%) SAP SD
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
9 7 (0.28%) Sage X3
9 7 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.24%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 562 (22.58%) Azure
2 306 (12.29%) AWS
3 265 (10.65%) Power Platform
4 141 (5.66%) Azure DevOps
4 141 (5.66%) GCP
5 127 (5.10%) GitHub
6 86 (3.46%) Snowflake
7 72 (2.89%) Azure Data Factory
8 70 (2.81%) GitHub Actions
9 69 (2.77%) Entra ID
10 52 (2.09%) Serverless
11 48 (1.93%) Microsoft 365
12 44 (1.77%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 44 (1.77%) dbt
13 43 (1.73%) SaaS
14 41 (1.65%) Amazon S3
15 40 (1.61%) OCI
15 40 (1.61%) SuccessFactors
16 30 (1.21%) Azure Monitor
17 29 (1.17%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.06%) Firewall
2 61 (2.45%) DNS
2 61 (2.45%) Network Security
3 47 (1.89%) VLAN
4 46 (1.85%) VPN
5 40 (1.61%) TCP/IP
6 35 (1.41%) BGP
6 35 (1.41%) WAN
7 29 (1.17%) DHCP
8 22 (0.88%) Internet
8 22 (0.88%) SAN
9 20 (0.80%) SD-WAN
10 19 (0.76%) LAN
10 19 (0.76%) OSPF
10 19 (0.76%) Wireless
11 17 (0.68%) VXLAN
12 16 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.60%) Ethernet
13 15 (0.60%) Ethernet VPN
14 13 (0.52%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 246 (9.88%) Power BI
2 143 (5.75%) Data Warehouse
3 103 (4.14%) Metadata
4 79 (3.17%) PostgreSQL
4 79 (3.17%) SQL Server
5 77 (3.09%) Data Lake
6 71 (2.85%) Relational Database
7 70 (2.81%) Tableau
8 38 (1.53%) Big Data
9 34 (1.37%) MongoDB
10 32 (1.29%) NoSQL
11 29 (1.17%) Delta Lake
12 28 (1.12%) BigQuery
12 28 (1.12%) SAS Enterprise Guide
13 27 (1.08%) Oracle Database
14 26 (1.04%) Redis
15 25 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 23 (0.92%) MySQL
16 23 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
16 23 (0.92%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 229 (9.20%) JIRA
2 172 (6.91%) Git
3 98 (3.94%) Jenkins
4 82 (3.29%) GitLab
5 63 (2.53%) Selenium
6 42 (1.69%) JMeter
7 39 (1.57%) Postman
8 38 (1.53%) Cucumber
9 35 (1.41%) JUnit
10 33 (1.33%) WebDriver
11 23 (0.92%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.72%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.64%) Visual Studio
14 13 (0.52%) Rational Rhapsody
15 12 (0.48%) Gatling
16 11 (0.44%) Maven
17 10 (0.40%) Gradle
17 10 (0.40%) REST Assured
18 9 (0.36%) Cypress.io
18 9 (0.36%) TestRail
General
1 723 (29.05%) Social Skills
2 707 (28.40%) Finance
3 491 (19.73%) Analytical Skills
4 209 (8.40%) Public Sector
5 186 (7.47%) Banking
6 133 (5.34%) Documentation Skills
7 89 (3.58%) Manufacturing
7 89 (3.58%) Retail
8 58 (2.33%) Aerospace
9 56 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 47 (1.89%) Automotive
10 47 (1.89%) Pharmaceutical
11 46 (1.85%) Telecoms
12 45 (1.81%) Organisational Skills
13 40 (1.61%) Local Government
13 40 (1.61%) Marketing
14 37 (1.49%) Front Office
14 37 (1.49%) Law
15 34 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
16 33 (1.33%) Military
Job Titles
1 425 (17.08%) Analyst
2 270 (10.85%) Senior
3 249 (10.00%) Lead
4 209 (8.40%) Data Engineer
5 201 (8.08%) Business Analyst
6 187 (7.51%) Consultant
7 143 (5.75%) Developer
8 124 (4.98%) Architect
9 120 (4.82%) Data Analyst
10 103 (4.14%) Test Engineer
11 74 (2.97%) Tester
12 64 (2.57%) Project Manager
13 57 (2.29%) Network Engineer
14 54 (2.17%) Systems Engineer
15 50 (2.01%) Administrator
15 50 (2.01%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 47 (1.89%) Senior Data Engineer
17 41 (1.65%) Software Engineer
18 40 (1.61%) Migration Engineer
18 40 (1.61%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 136 (5.46%) REST
2 78 (3.13%) JSON
3 68 (2.73%) Kafka
4 67 (2.69%) PySpark
5 62 (2.49%) XML
6 49 (1.97%) Oracle Fusion
7 46 (1.85%) Spring
8 40 (1.61%) Middleware
9 39 (1.57%) .NET
9 39 (1.57%) pytest
10 38 (1.53%) Playwright
11 31 (1.25%) SOAP
12 30 (1.21%) RESTful
13 29 (1.17%) Node.js
13 29 (1.17%) Pandas
13 29 (1.17%) Web Services
14 27 (1.08%) OAuth
14 27 (1.08%) Spring Boot
15 26 (1.04%) WireMock
16 22 (0.88%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 138 (5.54%) Onboarding
2 133 (5.34%) Data Structures
3 114 (4.58%) Legacy Systems
4 111 (4.46%) Cloud Native
5 104 (4.18%) Product Ownership
6 78 (3.13%) Management Information System
7 75 (3.01%) Data Centre
8 47 (1.89%) Analytical Mindset
8 47 (1.89%) Distributed Systems
9 41 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
9 41 (1.65%) SCADA
10 39 (1.57%) AI Agents
11 35 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
12 34 (1.37%) Algorithms
13 33 (1.33%) Life Science
14 32 (1.29%) Operational Technology
14 32 (1.29%) Public Cloud
14 32 (1.29%) Replication
15 28 (1.12%) Distributed Architecture
15 28 (1.12%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 133 (5.34%) Windows
2 93 (3.74%) Linux
3 44 (1.77%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.80%) Unix
5 18 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.48%) Android
7 11 (0.44%) Ubuntu
8 7 (0.28%) Apple iOS
8 7 (0.28%) VMS
9 5 (0.20%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.16%) SUSE
10 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.080%) HPUX
11 2 (0.080%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.040%) Debian
12 1 (0.040%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.040%) Solaris
12 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.040%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 687 (27.60%) Migration
2 485 (19.49%) Agile
3 482 (19.37%) Stakeholder Management
4 467 (18.76%) CI/CD
5 414 (16.63%) Data Migration
6 406 (16.31%) User Acceptance Testing
7 399 (16.03%) Analytics
8 396 (15.91%) Problem-Solving
9 386 (15.51%) Data Modelling
9 386 (15.51%) Data Validation
10 331 (13.30%) AI
11 330 (13.26%) DevOps
12 326 (13.10%) Test Automation
13 304 (12.21%) Continuous Improvement
14 291 (11.69%) ETL
15 278 (11.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 274 (11.01%) Business Intelligence
17 261 (10.49%) Data Pipeline
18 260 (10.45%) Data Governance
19 241 (9.68%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 623 (25.03%) SQL
2 471 (18.92%) Python
3 122 (4.90%) Java
4 78 (3.13%) PowerShell
5 49 (1.97%) C#
6 48 (1.93%) Bash
7 47 (1.89%) JavaScript
8 41 (1.65%) C++
9 28 (1.12%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 27 (1.08%) Apex Code
10 27 (1.08%) TypeScript
11 24 (0.96%) Bicep
11 24 (0.96%) PL/SQL
12 23 (0.92%) C
12 23 (0.92%) R
13 21 (0.84%) VBA
14 15 (0.60%) MATLAB
15 13 (0.52%) Scala
16 12 (0.48%) Ada
16 12 (0.48%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 468 (18.80%) Security Cleared
2 338 (13.58%) SC Cleared
3 171 (6.87%) Degree
4 68 (2.73%) DV Cleared
5 47 (1.89%) BPSS Clearance
6 40 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
7 36 (1.45%) Cisco Certification
8 28 (1.12%) CCNP
9 23 (0.92%) ACCA
10 22 (0.88%) AWS Certification
10 22 (0.88%) CIMA
11 21 (0.84%) PMI Certification
12 20 (0.80%) ISTQB
13 18 (0.72%) Azure Certification
14 17 (0.68%) PMP
15 14 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
16 13 (0.52%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 13 (0.52%) CISSP
17 11 (0.44%) CCNA
17 11 (0.44%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 483 (19.41%) Data Quality
2 307 (12.33%) QA
3 99 (3.98%) GDPR
4 51 (2.05%) NIST
5 44 (1.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 37 (1.49%) Accessibility
7 33 (1.33%) PMO
8 29 (1.17%) SLA
9 22 (0.88%) GxP
10 17 (0.68%) GRC
11 14 (0.56%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 14 (0.56%) Def Stans
12 12 (0.48%) ISO 20022
12 12 (0.48%) NCSC
12 12 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.44%) HL7
13 11 (0.44%) IFRS
13 11 (0.44%) NIST 800
13 11 (0.44%) WCAG
System Software
1 112 (4.50%) Docker
2 78 (3.13%) Active Directory
3 59 (2.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.21%) Virtual Machines
5 23 (0.92%) VMware ESXi
6 16 (0.64%) Firmware
7 15 (0.60%) vSphere
8 14 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
9 13 (0.52%) Hyper-V
10 12 (0.48%) VMware NSX
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.12%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.080%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.080%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.040%) etcd
13 1 (0.040%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.040%) NFS
Systems Management
1 143 (5.75%) Kubernetes
2 130 (5.22%) Terraform
3 70 (2.81%) Ansible
4 48 (1.93%) Grafana
5 42 (1.69%) Prometheus
6 23 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
7 22 (0.88%) FortiGate
7 22 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
8 12 (0.48%) vCenter Server
9 10 (0.40%) SCCM
9 10 (0.40%) VxRail
10 7 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
11 6 (0.24%) Argo
11 6 (0.24%) HP ALM
12 5 (0.20%) Progress Chef
12 5 (0.20%) systemd
12 5 (0.20%) vRealize
13 4 (0.16%) Functional Safety
13 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Clustering
13 4 (0.16%) Puppet
Vendors
1 374 (15.03%) Microsoft
2 220 (8.84%) SAP
3 205 (8.24%) Oracle
4 141 (5.66%) Databricks
5 82 (3.29%) Salesforce
6 72 (2.89%) ServiceNow
7 69 (2.77%) VMware
8 59 (2.37%) Cisco
9 42 (1.69%) Workday
10 40 (1.61%) Google
11 32 (1.29%) Informatica
12 29 (1.17%) Juniper
13 27 (1.08%) Fortinet
13 27 (1.08%) IBM
14 26 (1.04%) Zscaler
15 21 (0.84%) Palo Alto
15 21 (0.84%) Splunk
16 20 (0.80%) IFS
16 20 (0.80%) MuleSoft
16 20 (0.80%) Sage