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

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 63 103
Rank change year-on-year +31 +40 +43
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,697 1,065 746
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.80% 3.80% 2.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.84% 4.18% 2.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,574 633 377
10th Percentile £341 £350 £323
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -7.83%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £588
90th Percentile £710 £700 £650
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -6.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 194 79 96
10th Percentile £17.34 £20.50 £28.89
25th Percentile £28.13 £38.87 £47.88
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% - -2.61%
75th Percentile £70.94 £67.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £81.28 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £63.75
% change year-on-year -17.69% +1.96% -3.38%

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 39,417 25,490 28,010
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.73% 90.96% 86.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,890 16,169 17,141
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £645
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 2,936 1,564 1,197
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.44 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.59 £17.87 £20.25
Median hourly rate £40.08 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.36% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.00 £67.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.43 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £25.15 £42.27
% change year-on-year +53.96% -40.49% -0.55%

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 3 October 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 3 October 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 3 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
London +41 1,314 £525 - 2,243
North of England +46 360 £459 +6.69% 608
South East +5 331 £525 +5.00% 895
Midlands +37 302 £463 -7.50% 483
West Midlands +29 213 £458 -9.85% 300
North West +25 179 £467 +9.88% 305
South West +15 174 £525 -4.55% 454
Yorkshire +53 152 £463 -2.63% 197
East of England -7 140 £475 -5.00% 467
East Midlands +28 86 £489 -4.63% 183
North East -23 34 £425 -11.92% 109
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 83 (3.08%) Confluence
2 59 (2.19%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (2.04%) SharePoint
4 47 (1.74%) Apache Spark
5 40 (1.48%) SAS
6 37 (1.37%) Apache
7 20 (0.74%) CMS
8 16 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
9 11 (0.41%) Jupyter
10 8 (0.30%) Palantir Foundry
10 8 (0.30%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.26%) IIS
11 7 (0.26%) Sitecore CMS
11 7 (0.26%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.22%) OpenStack
12 6 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
13 5 (0.19%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.15%) JBoss
14 4 (0.15%) Tomcat
Applications
1 182 (6.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.56%) Microsoft Office
3 32 (1.19%) MS Visio
4 30 (1.11%) Spreadsheet
5 27 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 14 (0.52%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.33%) Navisworks
7 9 (0.33%) Revit
7 9 (0.33%) Simulink
8 8 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
9 7 (0.26%) ProjectWise
10 4 (0.15%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.11%) CATIA
11 3 (0.11%) OrCAD
12 2 (0.074%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.074%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.074%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.037%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.037%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.037%) Trello
Business Applications
1 103 (3.82%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.59%) Workday HCM
3 15 (0.56%) Oracle Payables
4 14 (0.52%) SAP FI
5 13 (0.48%) NetSuite
5 13 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
6 12 (0.44%) Integrated Workplace Management System
6 12 (0.44%) SAP MDG
6 12 (0.44%) SAP SD
6 12 (0.44%) Teamcenter
7 11 (0.41%) Aladdin
7 11 (0.41%) SAP HCM
7 11 (0.41%) SAP MM
8 10 (0.37%) Dynamics CRM
8 10 (0.37%) iTrent
9 9 (0.33%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
10 8 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
10 8 (0.30%) SAP CO
11 7 (0.26%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 535 (19.84%) Azure
2 307 (11.38%) AWS
3 273 (10.12%) Power Platform
4 156 (5.78%) Azure DevOps
5 150 (5.56%) GCP
6 127 (4.71%) GitHub
7 99 (3.67%) Snowflake
8 90 (3.34%) Entra ID
9 70 (2.60%) Azure Data Factory
10 67 (2.48%) GitHub Actions
11 55 (2.04%) Amazon S3
12 54 (2.00%) Microsoft 365
13 53 (1.97%) dbt
14 51 (1.89%) Serverless
15 47 (1.74%) SaaS
16 40 (1.48%) SuccessFactors
17 37 (1.37%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 37 (1.37%) Dynamics 365
18 32 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
19 31 (1.15%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 97 (3.60%) Firewall
2 72 (2.67%) DNS
3 53 (1.97%) Network Security
4 51 (1.89%) VPN
5 50 (1.85%) VLAN
6 44 (1.63%) TCP/IP
7 42 (1.56%) BGP
8 39 (1.45%) WAN
9 30 (1.11%) DHCP
10 23 (0.85%) OSPF
10 23 (0.85%) VXLAN
11 22 (0.82%) Ethernet
11 22 (0.82%) Internet
12 21 (0.78%) SD-WAN
12 21 (0.78%) Wireless
13 20 (0.74%) 5G
13 20 (0.74%) Ethernet VPN
13 20 (0.74%) LAN
13 20 (0.74%) SAN
14 18 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 252 (9.34%) Power BI
2 145 (5.38%) Data Warehouse
3 112 (4.15%) Metadata
4 95 (3.52%) Relational Database
5 83 (3.08%) SQL Server
6 73 (2.71%) PostgreSQL
7 72 (2.67%) Data Lake
8 64 (2.37%) Tableau
9 39 (1.45%) MongoDB
10 37 (1.37%) BigQuery
11 35 (1.30%) Big Data
12 34 (1.26%) Delta Lake
13 32 (1.19%) NoSQL
13 32 (1.19%) Power Query
13 32 (1.19%) Redis
14 30 (1.11%) Oracle Database
15 24 (0.89%) MySQL
16 23 (0.85%) Amazon Athena
16 23 (0.85%) Amazon Redshift
17 20 (0.74%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 243 (9.01%) JIRA
2 200 (7.42%) Git
3 93 (3.45%) GitLab
4 88 (3.26%) Jenkins
5 71 (2.63%) Selenium
6 37 (1.37%) Postman
7 31 (1.15%) JMeter
8 25 (0.93%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.89%) Rational DOORS
10 18 (0.67%) JUnit
11 17 (0.63%) Eclipse
11 17 (0.63%) Visual Studio
12 15 (0.56%) WebDriver
13 14 (0.52%) REST Assured
14 12 (0.44%) Cypress.io
14 12 (0.44%) Visual Studio Code
14 12 (0.44%) Zephyr
15 11 (0.41%) Gatling
15 11 (0.41%) Rational Rhapsody
15 11 (0.41%) TestRail
General
1 782 (29.00%) Finance
2 767 (28.44%) Social Skills
3 535 (19.84%) Analytical Skills
4 246 (9.12%) Banking
5 217 (8.05%) Public Sector
6 122 (4.52%) Manufacturing
7 111 (4.12%) Documentation Skills
8 85 (3.15%) Retail
9 72 (2.67%) Automotive
10 61 (2.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 61 (2.26%) Telecoms
11 52 (1.93%) Aerospace
12 49 (1.82%) Marketing
13 47 (1.74%) Organisational Skills
14 46 (1.71%) Legal
15 43 (1.59%) Local Government
16 40 (1.48%) Front Office
16 40 (1.48%) Pharmaceutical
17 38 (1.41%) Billing
17 38 (1.41%) Military
Job Titles
1 457 (16.94%) Analyst
2 317 (11.75%) Senior
3 250 (9.27%) Lead
4 223 (8.27%) Data Engineer
5 210 (7.79%) Consultant
6 203 (7.53%) Business Analyst
7 163 (6.04%) Developer
8 146 (5.41%) Architect
8 146 (5.41%) Data Analyst
9 106 (3.93%) Test Engineer
10 65 (2.41%) Network Engineer
10 65 (2.41%) Tester
11 61 (2.26%) Senior Data Engineer
12 57 (2.11%) Administrator
13 52 (1.93%) Systems Engineer
14 50 (1.85%) Software Engineer
15 41 (1.52%) QA Engineer
15 41 (1.52%) Senior Analyst
16 40 (1.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 39 (1.45%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 170 (6.30%) Terraform
2 167 (6.19%) REST
3 80 (2.97%) PySpark
4 78 (2.89%) JSON
5 66 (2.45%) Kafka
6 64 (2.37%) XML
7 63 (2.34%) Middleware
8 54 (2.00%) Playwright
9 46 (1.71%) pytest
10 44 (1.63%) Oracle Fusion
11 43 (1.59%) OAuth
12 42 (1.56%) SOAP
13 41 (1.52%) Web Services
14 39 (1.45%) RESTful
15 36 (1.33%) .NET
16 35 (1.30%) Node.js
17 34 (1.26%) Pandas
18 32 (1.19%) HTML
19 31 (1.15%) Spring
20 30 (1.11%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 160 (5.93%) Onboarding
2 142 (5.27%) Data Structures
3 128 (4.75%) Cloud Native
4 110 (4.08%) Legacy Systems
5 102 (3.78%) Management Information System
5 102 (3.78%) Product Ownership
6 85 (3.15%) Data Centre
7 58 (2.15%) Enterprise Software
8 56 (2.08%) AI Agents
9 43 (1.59%) Distributed Systems
10 42 (1.56%) Algorithms
10 42 (1.56%) Analytical Mindset
10 42 (1.56%) SCADA
11 40 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
12 37 (1.37%) Life Science
13 33 (1.22%) CMDB
13 33 (1.22%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 32 (1.19%) Operational Technology
15 29 (1.08%) Replication
16 28 (1.04%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 173 (6.41%) Windows
2 102 (3.78%) Linux
3 65 (2.41%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.22%) Unix
5 19 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.48%) Android
7 11 (0.41%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.33%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.30%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.15%) VMS
10 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.15%) zOS
11 3 (0.11%) CentOS
11 3 (0.11%) VxWorks
11 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.074%) HPUX
12 2 (0.074%) Solaris
12 2 (0.074%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.037%) AIX
13 1 (0.037%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 732 (27.14%) Migration
2 603 (22.36%) Stakeholder Management
3 538 (19.95%) CI/CD
4 512 (18.98%) Agile
5 433 (16.05%) User Acceptance Testing
6 429 (15.91%) Data Migration
7 427 (15.83%) Data Modelling
8 419 (15.54%) Analytics
9 411 (15.24%) Data Validation
10 408 (15.13%) Problem-Solving
11 387 (14.35%) AI
12 370 (13.72%) DevOps
13 369 (13.68%) Test Automation
14 368 (13.64%) Continuous Improvement
15 304 (11.27%) ETL
16 286 (10.60%) Business Intelligence
17 285 (10.57%) Data Analysis
18 275 (10.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 269 (9.97%) Decision-Making
20 268 (9.94%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 709 (26.29%) SQL
2 562 (20.84%) Python
3 123 (4.56%) Java
4 111 (4.12%) PowerShell
5 71 (2.63%) JavaScript
6 55 (2.04%) Bash
7 52 (1.93%) C#
8 43 (1.59%) C++
9 40 (1.48%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.04%) R
11 25 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 25 (0.93%) Shell Script
12 24 (0.89%) Apex Code
12 24 (0.89%) C
12 24 (0.89%) PL/SQL
13 22 (0.82%) Bicep
14 20 (0.74%) VBA
15 17 (0.63%) MATLAB
16 15 (0.56%) Go
17 14 (0.52%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 540 (20.02%) Security Cleared
2 402 (14.91%) SC Cleared
3 205 (7.60%) Degree
4 90 (3.34%) DV Cleared
5 55 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.71%) Computer Science Degree
7 36 (1.33%) Cisco Certification
8 34 (1.26%) AWS Certification
9 30 (1.11%) ACCA
9 30 (1.11%) CIMA
10 28 (1.04%) CCNP
11 25 (0.93%) PMI Certification
12 20 (0.74%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 20 (0.74%) Azure Certification
12 20 (0.74%) CISSP
12 20 (0.74%) ISTQB
12 20 (0.74%) Master's Degree
12 20 (0.74%) PMP
13 19 (0.70%) DBS Check
14 14 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 563 (20.88%) Data Quality
2 322 (11.94%) QA
3 78 (2.89%) GDPR
4 45 (1.67%) Accessibility
4 45 (1.67%) SLA
5 33 (1.22%) NIST
6 32 (1.19%) PMO
7 30 (1.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 22 (0.82%) GxP
9 16 (0.59%) WCAG
10 15 (0.56%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 15 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
10 15 (0.56%) ISO 20022
11 14 (0.52%) GRC
12 12 (0.44%) IFRS
13 10 (0.37%) Def Stans
13 10 (0.37%) MiFID
13 10 (0.37%) NCSC
14 9 (0.33%) GMP
15 8 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 101 (3.74%) Active Directory
2 97 (3.60%) Docker
3 65 (2.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.08%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
7 18 (0.67%) Firmware
8 16 (0.59%) vSphere
9 15 (0.56%) Hyper-V
10 13 (0.48%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.15%) VirtualBox
12 3 (0.11%) KVM
12 3 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.074%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.074%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.037%) Ceph
14 1 (0.037%) etcd
14 1 (0.037%) HDFS
14 1 (0.037%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 131 (4.86%) Kubernetes
2 93 (3.45%) Ansible
3 33 (1.22%) Grafana
4 30 (1.11%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.89%) FortiGate
6 22 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
7 20 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.59%) SCCM
9 11 (0.41%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.37%) Functional Safety
11 9 (0.33%) Progress Chef
11 9 (0.33%) vCenter Server
12 8 (0.30%) Argo
13 6 (0.22%) Control-M
13 6 (0.22%) VxRail
14 5 (0.19%) vRealize
15 4 (0.15%) Failover Clustering
15 4 (0.15%) Kibana
15 4 (0.15%) systemd
15 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 427 (15.83%) Microsoft
2 222 (8.23%) SAP
3 194 (7.19%) Oracle
4 161 (5.97%) Databricks
5 84 (3.11%) ServiceNow
6 78 (2.89%) Cisco
6 78 (2.89%) Salesforce
7 72 (2.67%) VMware
8 62 (2.30%) Google
9 53 (1.97%) Workday
10 46 (1.71%) IBM
11 32 (1.19%) Fortinet
12 29 (1.08%) Zscaler
13 27 (1.00%) Informatica
13 27 (1.00%) Juniper
14 24 (0.89%) Palo Alto
15 19 (0.70%) Splunk
16 18 (0.67%) Red Hat
17 17 (0.63%) Sage
17 17 (0.63%) Siemens