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

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 66 102
Rank change year-on-year +34 +36 +48
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,692 1,055 730
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.81% 3.80% 2.27%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.86% 4.18% 2.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,573 630 369
10th Percentile £350 £350 £324
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £591
90th Percentile £709 £700 £652
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 192 79 95
10th Percentile £17.23 £20.50 £28.71
25th Percentile £27.81 £36.37 £47.75
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £79.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £53.50 £62.50 £63.75
% change year-on-year -14.40% -1.96% -4.48%

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 39,251 25,237 27,768
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.73% 90.91% 86.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,728 16,010 16,947
10th Percentile £325 £297 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £642
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,965 1,563 1,177
10th Percentile £13.82 £14.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.57 £17.87 £20.30
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.47 £45.75 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.50 £25.15 £41.08
% change year-on-year +53.08% -38.77% -3.91%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 1,310 £525 - 1,971
North of England +47 357 £459 +6.69% 471
South East +4 335 £525 +5.00% 717
Midlands +36 299 £463 -7.50% 401
West Midlands +24 213 £456 -10.15% 256
North West +24 179 £467 +9.88% 251
South West +20 174 £525 -4.55% 314
Yorkshire +51 148 £463 -2.63% 149
East of England -6 142 £475 -2.56% 355
East Midlands +30 83 £489 -4.63% 144
North East -14 35 £425 -11.92% 71
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 46 (1.71%) Apache Spark
5 40 (1.49%) SAS
6 36 (1.34%) Apache
7 21 (0.78%) CMS
8 18 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
9 10 (0.37%) 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%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.15%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 183 (6.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.56%) Microsoft Office
3 33 (1.23%) 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
1 104 (3.86%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.59%) SAP FI
2 16 (0.59%) Workday HCM
3 15 (0.56%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.48%) NetSuite
4 13 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
5 12 (0.45%) Aladdin
5 12 (0.45%) Integrated Workplace Management System
5 12 (0.45%) SAP MDG
5 12 (0.45%) SAP SD
5 12 (0.45%) Teamcenter
6 11 (0.41%) SAP HCM
6 11 (0.41%) SAP MM
7 10 (0.37%) Dynamics CRM
7 10 (0.37%) iTrent
8 9 (0.33%) SAP CO
8 9 (0.33%) SAP ERP
9 8 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
10 7 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 533 (19.80%) Azure
2 305 (11.33%) AWS
3 271 (10.07%) Power Platform
4 158 (5.87%) Azure DevOps
5 149 (5.53%) GCP
6 128 (4.75%) GitHub
7 99 (3.68%) Snowflake
8 93 (3.45%) Entra ID
9 69 (2.56%) Azure Data Factory
10 67 (2.49%) GitHub Actions
11 54 (2.01%) Amazon S3
12 53 (1.97%) dbt
12 53 (1.97%) Microsoft 365
13 50 (1.86%) SaaS
14 49 (1.82%) Serverless
15 42 (1.56%) SuccessFactors
16 37 (1.37%) Dynamics 365
17 36 (1.34%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 35 (1.30%) Azure Monitor
19 32 (1.19%) 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 (1.86%) 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
1 249 (9.25%) Power BI
2 145 (5.39%) Data Warehouse
3 114 (4.23%) Metadata
4 96 (3.57%) Relational Database
5 84 (3.12%) SQL Server
6 74 (2.75%) PostgreSQL
7 71 (2.64%) Data Lake
8 61 (2.27%) Tableau
9 39 (1.45%) MongoDB
10 37 (1.37%) BigQuery
11 35 (1.30%) Big Data
12 34 (1.26%) Delta Lake
13 33 (1.23%) Redis
14 32 (1.19%) NoSQL
14 32 (1.19%) Oracle Database
14 32 (1.19%) Power Query
15 24 (0.89%) MySQL
16 23 (0.85%) Amazon Redshift
17 22 (0.82%) Amazon Athena
18 20 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 244 (9.06%) JIRA
2 195 (7.24%) Git
3 90 (3.34%) GitLab
4 86 (3.19%) Jenkins
5 69 (2.56%) Selenium
6 36 (1.34%) Postman
7 30 (1.11%) JMeter
8 24 (0.89%) Cucumber
8 24 (0.89%) Rational DOORS
9 17 (0.63%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.63%) Visual Studio
10 16 (0.59%) JUnit
11 15 (0.56%) WebDriver
12 13 (0.48%) REST Assured
13 12 (0.45%) Cypress.io
13 12 (0.45%) Visual Studio Code
13 12 (0.45%) Zephyr
14 11 (0.41%) Rational Rhapsody
14 11 (0.41%) TestRail
15 10 (0.37%) Gatling
General
1 787 (29.23%) Finance
2 768 (28.53%) Social Skills
3 533 (19.80%) Analytical Skills
4 250 (9.29%) Banking
5 226 (8.40%) Public Sector
6 121 (4.49%) Manufacturing
7 108 (4.01%) Documentation Skills
8 85 (3.16%) Retail
9 72 (2.67%) Automotive
10 62 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 61 (2.27%) Telecoms
12 52 (1.93%) Aerospace
13 49 (1.82%) Marketing
14 45 (1.67%) Organisational Skills
15 43 (1.60%) Legal
15 43 (1.60%) Local Government
16 41 (1.52%) Pharmaceutical
17 38 (1.41%) Billing
17 38 (1.41%) Front Office
17 38 (1.41%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 457 (16.98%) Analyst
2 318 (11.81%) Senior
3 251 (9.32%) Lead
4 222 (8.25%) Data Engineer
5 211 (7.84%) Consultant
6 205 (7.62%) Business Analyst
7 163 (6.05%) Developer
8 147 (5.46%) Architect
9 144 (5.35%) Data Analyst
10 105 (3.90%) Test Engineer
11 66 (2.45%) Tester
12 65 (2.41%) Network Engineer
13 61 (2.27%) Senior Data Engineer
14 57 (2.12%) Administrator
15 52 (1.93%) Systems Engineer
16 50 (1.86%) Software Engineer
17 40 (1.49%) QA Engineer
17 40 (1.49%) Senior Analyst
18 39 (1.45%) Technical Analyst
19 38 (1.41%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 171 (6.35%) Terraform
2 163 (6.05%) REST
3 79 (2.93%) PySpark
4 76 (2.82%) JSON
5 65 (2.41%) Middleware
5 65 (2.41%) XML
6 64 (2.38%) Kafka
7 53 (1.97%) Playwright
8 46 (1.71%) pytest
9 45 (1.67%) Oracle Fusion
10 44 (1.63%) OAuth
11 41 (1.52%) Web Services
12 39 (1.45%) RESTful
12 39 (1.45%) SOAP
13 35 (1.30%) .NET
14 34 (1.26%) Node.js
15 33 (1.23%) HTML
16 32 (1.19%) Pandas
17 31 (1.15%) OpenID
17 31 (1.15%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 161 (5.98%) Onboarding
2 145 (5.39%) Data Structures
3 128 (4.75%) Cloud Native
4 113 (4.20%) Legacy Systems
5 105 (3.90%) Management Information System
6 100 (3.71%) Product Ownership
7 84 (3.12%) Data Centre
8 61 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
9 58 (2.15%) AI Agents
10 43 (1.60%) Analytical Mindset
10 43 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
11 42 (1.56%) Algorithms
11 42 (1.56%) SCADA
12 37 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
12 37 (1.37%) Life Science
13 33 (1.23%) CMDB
14 32 (1.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 32 (1.19%) Operational Technology
15 30 (1.11%) Replication
16 29 (1.08%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 172 (6.39%) Windows
2 103 (3.83%) Linux
3 64 (2.38%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.23%) Unix
5 19 (0.71%) 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%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.15%) zOS
11 3 (0.11%) CentOS
11 3 (0.11%) VMS
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%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 736 (27.34%) Migration
2 605 (22.47%) Stakeholder Management
3 534 (19.84%) CI/CD
4 507 (18.83%) Agile
5 433 (16.08%) Data Migration
6 432 (16.05%) User Acceptance Testing
7 423 (15.71%) Data Modelling
8 416 (15.45%) Analytics
9 410 (15.23%) Data Validation
10 407 (15.12%) Problem-Solving
11 385 (14.30%) AI
12 371 (13.78%) Continuous Improvement
13 369 (13.71%) DevOps
14 363 (13.48%) Test Automation
15 304 (11.29%) ETL
16 284 (10.55%) Data Analysis
17 281 (10.44%) Business Intelligence
18 277 (10.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 270 (10.03%) Data Governance
20 269 (9.99%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 708 (26.30%) SQL
2 555 (20.62%) Python
3 121 (4.49%) Java
4 108 (4.01%) PowerShell
5 71 (2.64%) JavaScript
6 52 (1.93%) Bash
7 51 (1.89%) C#
8 43 (1.60%) C++
9 40 (1.49%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.00%) R
11 25 (0.93%) Bicep
11 25 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 25 (0.93%) PL/SQL
11 25 (0.93%) Shell Script
12 24 (0.89%) Apex Code
12 24 (0.89%) C
13 20 (0.74%) VBA
14 17 (0.63%) MATLAB
15 15 (0.56%) Go
16 14 (0.52%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 543 (20.17%) Security Cleared
2 406 (15.08%) SC Cleared
3 204 (7.58%) Degree
4 90 (3.34%) DV Cleared
5 56 (2.08%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.71%) Computer Science Degree
7 36 (1.34%) Cisco Certification
8 34 (1.26%) AWS Certification
9 31 (1.15%) ACCA
9 31 (1.15%) CIMA
10 28 (1.04%) CCNP
11 25 (0.93%) PMI Certification
12 22 (0.82%) Azure Certification
13 20 (0.74%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 20 (0.74%) CISSP
13 20 (0.74%) ISTQB
13 20 (0.74%) Master's Degree
13 20 (0.74%) PMP
14 19 (0.71%) DBS Check
15 14 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 561 (20.84%) Data Quality
2 321 (11.92%) QA
3 77 (2.86%) GDPR
4 45 (1.67%) Accessibility
5 44 (1.63%) SLA
6 33 (1.23%) NIST
7 31 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 31 (1.15%) PMO
8 23 (0.85%) GxP
9 16 (0.59%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 16 (0.59%) WCAG
10 15 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
10 15 (0.56%) GRC
11 14 (0.52%) ISO 20022
12 12 (0.45%) IFRS
13 10 (0.37%) Def Stans
13 10 (0.37%) GMP
13 10 (0.37%) MiFID
13 10 (0.37%) NCSC
14 8 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 103 (3.83%) Active Directory
2 96 (3.57%) Docker
3 64 (2.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.63%) 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%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.037%) Ceph
14 1 (0.037%) HDFS
14 1 (0.037%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.037%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 1 (0.037%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 134 (4.98%) Kubernetes
2 93 (3.45%) Ansible
3 36 (1.34%) Grafana
4 30 (1.11%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.89%) FortiGate
6 22 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
7 18 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (0.56%) 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%) Kibana
15 4 (0.15%) Podman
15 4 (0.15%) systemd
15 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 427 (15.86%) Microsoft
2 225 (8.36%) SAP
3 193 (7.17%) Oracle
4 160 (5.94%) Databricks
5 85 (3.16%) ServiceNow
6 78 (2.90%) Cisco
7 77 (2.86%) Salesforce
8 71 (2.64%) VMware
9 62 (2.30%) Google
10 52 (1.93%) Workday
11 46 (1.71%) IBM
12 32 (1.19%) Fortinet
13 29 (1.08%) Zscaler
14 27 (1.00%) Informatica
14 27 (1.00%) Juniper
15 24 (0.89%) Palo Alto
16 18 (0.67%) CyberArk
16 18 (0.67%) Red Hat
17 17 (0.63%) Sage
17 17 (0.63%) Siemens