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

6 months to
15 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 64 107
Rank change year-on-year +33 +43 +45
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,496 1,022 688
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.45% 3.69% 2.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.40% 4.06% 2.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,523 622 335
10th Percentile £340 £350 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £480
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +7.29% -12.73%
75th Percentile £600 £618 £588
90th Percentile £712 £688 £666
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £490
% change year-on-year -2.44% +4.59% -10.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 167 76 121
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £28.88 £36.42 £51.00
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £74.63 £67.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £83.30 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% -3.85%

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 38,995 25,146 28,578
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.11% 90.84% 85.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,229 16,020 18,598
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% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £629 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £755
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,544 1,434 1,645
10th Percentile £14.45 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.87 £18.35
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +3.61%
75th Percentile £68.60 £50.38 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £41.50
% change year-on-year +67.00% -39.40% -1.19%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +43 1,204 £525 +2.44% 1,311
South East +3 326 £500 - 398
Midlands +36 320 £475 -5.00% 206
North of England +46 305 £450 -9.09% 216
West Midlands +31 228 £459 -9.56% 133
North West +13 152 £447 -17.76% 127
East of England +6 149 £475 -6.40% 231
Yorkshire +47 139 £460 +5.75% 52
South West -5 131 £525 -8.70% 217
East Midlands +23 87 £505 +0.90% 73
North East -36 18 £425 -22.73% 40
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 65 (2.60%) Apache Airflow
3 46 (1.84%) SAS
4 45 (1.80%) SharePoint
5 40 (1.60%) Apache Spark
6 28 (1.12%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
8 12 (0.48%) Jupyter
9 11 (0.44%) CMS
10 8 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
12 6 (0.24%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.20%) Palantir Foundry
13 5 (0.20%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.16%) IIS
14 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.12%) JBoss
15 3 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
15 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 178 (7.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (1.32%) MS Visio
3 28 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 27 (1.08%) Spreadsheet
5 12 (0.48%) AutoCAD
6 9 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
7 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
7 7 (0.28%) Revit
8 6 (0.24%) Simulink
9 5 (0.20%) ProjectWise
10 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.12%) CATIA
12 2 (0.080%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.080%) EPLAN
13 1 (0.040%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.040%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.040%) MicroStation
13 1 (0.040%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.040%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 110 (4.41%) 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
5 11 (0.44%) SAP ERP
5 11 (0.44%) Teamcenter
6 10 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
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%) Sage X3
8 8 (0.32%) SAP SD
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
9 7 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.24%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 566 (22.68%) Azure
2 306 (12.26%) AWS
3 266 (10.66%) Power Platform
4 142 (5.69%) GCP
5 141 (5.65%) Azure DevOps
6 126 (5.05%) GitHub
7 85 (3.41%) Snowflake
8 73 (2.92%) Azure Data Factory
9 70 (2.80%) GitHub Actions
10 69 (2.76%) Entra ID
11 54 (2.16%) Serverless
12 47 (1.88%) Microsoft 365
13 46 (1.84%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 44 (1.76%) dbt
15 42 (1.68%) SaaS
16 41 (1.64%) Amazon S3
17 40 (1.60%) OCI
17 40 (1.60%) SuccessFactors
18 30 (1.20%) Azure Monitor
19 29 (1.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.17%) Firewall
2 63 (2.52%) DNS
3 62 (2.48%) Network Security
4 47 (1.88%) VLAN
5 46 (1.84%) VPN
6 41 (1.64%) TCP/IP
7 35 (1.40%) WAN
8 33 (1.32%) BGP
9 29 (1.16%) DHCP
10 22 (0.88%) Internet
10 22 (0.88%) SAN
11 20 (0.80%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.76%) LAN
12 19 (0.76%) OSPF
12 19 (0.76%) Wireless
13 16 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
14 15 (0.60%) Ethernet
14 15 (0.60%) VXLAN
15 13 (0.52%) 5G
15 13 (0.52%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 247 (9.90%) Power BI
2 147 (5.89%) Data Warehouse
3 105 (4.21%) Metadata
4 80 (3.21%) PostgreSQL
5 79 (3.17%) Data Lake
6 78 (3.13%) SQL Server
7 70 (2.80%) Relational Database
8 69 (2.76%) Tableau
9 38 (1.52%) Big Data
10 34 (1.36%) MongoDB
11 32 (1.28%) NoSQL
12 30 (1.20%) Delta Lake
13 29 (1.16%) BigQuery
14 28 (1.12%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 27 (1.08%) Oracle Database
16 26 (1.04%) Redis
17 25 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 24 (0.96%) Power Query
19 23 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
20 22 (0.88%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 228 (9.13%) JIRA
2 172 (6.89%) Git
3 97 (3.89%) Jenkins
4 80 (3.21%) GitLab
5 63 (2.52%) Selenium
6 42 (1.68%) JMeter
7 39 (1.56%) Postman
8 38 (1.52%) Cucumber
9 35 (1.40%) JUnit
10 33 (1.32%) 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
1 724 (29.01%) Social Skills
2 712 (28.53%) Finance
3 493 (19.75%) Analytical Skills
4 207 (8.29%) Public Sector
5 186 (7.45%) Banking
6 132 (5.29%) Documentation Skills
7 93 (3.73%) Manufacturing
8 89 (3.57%) Retail
9 59 (2.36%) Aerospace
10 55 (2.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 47 (1.88%) Pharmaceutical
11 47 (1.88%) Telecoms
12 46 (1.84%) Automotive
13 45 (1.80%) Organisational Skills
14 40 (1.60%) Local Government
14 40 (1.60%) Marketing
15 37 (1.48%) Front Office
16 36 (1.44%) Law
17 35 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
18 33 (1.32%) Military
Job Titles
1 427 (17.11%) Analyst
2 272 (10.90%) Senior
3 252 (10.10%) Lead
4 209 (8.37%) Data Engineer
5 202 (8.09%) Business Analyst
6 188 (7.53%) Consultant
7 144 (5.77%) Developer
8 124 (4.97%) Architect
9 123 (4.93%) Data Analyst
10 103 (4.13%) Test Engineer
11 74 (2.96%) Tester
12 64 (2.56%) Project Manager
13 58 (2.32%) Network Engineer
14 52 (2.08%) Systems Engineer
15 50 (2.00%) Administrator
15 50 (2.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 47 (1.88%) Senior Data Engineer
17 40 (1.60%) Migration Engineer
17 40 (1.60%) Software Engineer
17 40 (1.60%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 135 (5.41%) REST
2 76 (3.04%) JSON
3 69 (2.76%) Kafka
3 69 (2.76%) PySpark
4 62 (2.48%) XML
5 49 (1.96%) Oracle Fusion
6 46 (1.84%) Spring
7 40 (1.60%) Middleware
8 39 (1.56%) .NET
8 39 (1.56%) Playwright
8 39 (1.56%) pytest
9 31 (1.24%) RESTful
9 31 (1.24%) SOAP
10 29 (1.16%) Node.js
10 29 (1.16%) Pandas
10 29 (1.16%) Web Services
11 27 (1.08%) OAuth
11 27 (1.08%) Spring Boot
12 26 (1.04%) WireMock
13 22 (0.88%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 139 (5.57%) Onboarding
2 133 (5.33%) Data Structures
3 114 (4.57%) Legacy Systems
4 111 (4.45%) Cloud Native
5 105 (4.21%) Product Ownership
6 77 (3.08%) Management Information System
7 73 (2.92%) Data Centre
8 47 (1.88%) Analytical Mindset
8 47 (1.88%) Distributed Systems
9 41 (1.64%) Enterprise Software
9 41 (1.64%) SCADA
10 40 (1.60%) AI Agents
11 36 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
12 34 (1.36%) Algorithms
13 33 (1.32%) Life Science
14 32 (1.28%) Operational Technology
14 32 (1.28%) Public Cloud
14 32 (1.28%) Replication
15 28 (1.12%) Distributed Architecture
15 28 (1.12%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 134 (5.37%) Windows
2 94 (3.77%) Linux
3 44 (1.76%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.84%) 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
1 686 (27.48%) Migration
2 486 (19.47%) Agile
3 482 (19.31%) Stakeholder Management
4 467 (18.71%) CI/CD
5 412 (16.51%) Data Migration
6 407 (16.31%) User Acceptance Testing
7 401 (16.07%) Analytics
8 396 (15.87%) Problem-Solving
9 391 (15.67%) Data Validation
10 388 (15.54%) Data Modelling
11 333 (13.34%) AI
12 332 (13.30%) DevOps
13 326 (13.06%) Test Automation
14 308 (12.34%) Continuous Improvement
15 295 (11.82%) ETL
16 281 (11.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 275 (11.02%) Business Intelligence
18 260 (10.42%) Data Governance
18 260 (10.42%) Data Pipeline
19 242 (9.70%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 629 (25.20%) SQL
2 472 (18.91%) Python
3 121 (4.85%) Java
4 78 (3.13%) PowerShell
5 48 (1.92%) Bash
5 48 (1.92%) C#
6 46 (1.84%) JavaScript
7 40 (1.60%) C++
8 29 (1.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 27 (1.08%) Apex Code
9 27 (1.08%) TypeScript
10 24 (0.96%) Bicep
10 24 (0.96%) PL/SQL
11 23 (0.92%) C
11 23 (0.92%) R
12 22 (0.88%) VBA
13 15 (0.60%) MATLAB
14 13 (0.52%) Scala
14 13 (0.52%) T-SQL
15 12 (0.48%) Ada
Qualifications
1 467 (18.71%) Security Cleared
2 338 (13.54%) SC Cleared
3 171 (6.85%) Degree
4 67 (2.68%) DV Cleared
5 48 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
6 40 (1.60%) Computer Science Degree
7 37 (1.48%) Cisco Certification
8 29 (1.16%) CCNP
9 22 (0.88%) ACCA
9 22 (0.88%) AWS Certification
10 21 (0.84%) CIMA
10 21 (0.84%) PMI Certification
11 20 (0.80%) ISTQB
12 18 (0.72%) Azure Certification
13 17 (0.68%) PMP
14 15 (0.60%) CISSP
14 15 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
15 13 (0.52%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 11 (0.44%) CCNA
16 11 (0.44%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 487 (19.51%) Data Quality
2 308 (12.34%) QA
3 99 (3.97%) GDPR
4 51 (2.04%) NIST
5 44 (1.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 38 (1.52%) Accessibility
7 33 (1.32%) PMO
8 29 (1.16%) 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%) Actionable Recommendations
12 12 (0.48%) ISO 20022
12 12 (0.48%) NCSC
12 12 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.44%) HL7
13 11 (0.44%) IFRS
13 11 (0.44%) NIST 800
13 11 (0.44%) WCAG
System Software
1 113 (4.53%) Docker
2 79 (3.17%) Active Directory
3 58 (2.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.20%) 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 12 (0.48%) Hyper-V
10 11 (0.44%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.12%) KVM
12 3 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.12%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.080%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.080%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.040%) Ceph
14 1 (0.040%) etcd
14 1 (0.040%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.040%) NFS
Systems Management
1 144 (5.77%) Kubernetes
2 132 (5.29%) Terraform
3 68 (2.72%) Ansible
4 48 (1.92%) Grafana
5 42 (1.68%) 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%) systemd
12 5 (0.20%) vRealize
13 4 (0.16%) Functional Safety
13 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Clustering
13 4 (0.16%) Progress Chef
13 4 (0.16%) Puppet
Vendors
1 374 (14.98%) Microsoft
2 221 (8.85%) SAP
3 205 (8.21%) Oracle
4 144 (5.77%) Databricks
5 83 (3.33%) Salesforce
6 69 (2.76%) ServiceNow
7 68 (2.72%) VMware
8 59 (2.36%) Cisco
9 42 (1.68%) Workday
10 40 (1.60%) Google
11 32 (1.28%) Informatica
12 29 (1.16%) Juniper
13 27 (1.08%) Fortinet
13 27 (1.08%) IBM
14 26 (1.04%) Zscaler
15 23 (0.92%) Palo Alto
16 22 (0.88%) Splunk
17 20 (0.80%) IFS
17 20 (0.80%) MuleSoft
17 20 (0.80%) Sage