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

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 67 111
Rank change year-on-year +34 +44 +41
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,505 1,032 691
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.49% 3.75% 2.08%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.46% 4.12% 2.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,526 630 338
10th Percentile £340 £337 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £488
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +4.56% -11.32%
75th Percentile £600 £609 £588
90th Percentile £713 £688 £664
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 169 78 116
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £29.89
25th Percentile £28.50 £36.31 £50.25
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £66.13 £69.44
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £75.93
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £61.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year -10.20% -5.77% -0.76%

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 38,779 25,035 28,563
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.92% 90.85% 85.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,017 15,949 18,476
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £626 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,559 1,455 1,574
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.22 £14.05
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.92 £17.80
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -40.82% +3.61%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.05 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.50
% change year-on-year +67.00% -37.90% -1.22%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 1,211 £525 +2.44% 357
North of England +45 326 £455 -8.18% 167
South East -2 314 £501 +0.25% 295
Midlands +35 308 £475 -2.56% 157
West Midlands +29 215 £461 -7.85% 99
North West +26 166 £463 -12.32% 91
East of England +6 148 £475 -5.00% 136
Yorkshire +42 144 £460 +2.22% 42
South West +2 135 £525 -8.70% 150
East Midlands +23 88 £505 +0.90% 58
North East -26 21 £438 -20.45% 36
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 73 (2.91%) Confluence
2 63 (2.51%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (1.88%) SAS
4 46 (1.84%) SharePoint
5 40 (1.60%) Apache Spark
6 25 (1.00%) Apache
7 14 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
8 11 (0.44%) Jupyter
9 10 (0.40%) CMS
10 8 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
12 6 (0.24%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.20%) Sitecore CMS
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%) Tomcat
Applications
1 181 (7.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
3 33 (1.32%) MS Visio
4 30 (1.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 29 (1.16%) Spreadsheet
6 12 (0.48%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
8 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
8 7 (0.28%) Revit
9 6 (0.24%) Simulink
10 5 (0.20%) ProjectWise
11 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
12 3 (0.12%) CATIA
13 2 (0.080%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.080%) EPLAN
14 1 (0.040%) Autodesk Inventor
14 1 (0.040%) Gliffy
14 1 (0.040%) LaTeX
14 1 (0.040%) MicroStation
14 1 (0.040%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 107 (4.27%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.00%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.48%) NetSuite
4 12 (0.48%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.44%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 11 (0.44%) Teamcenter
6 10 (0.40%) iTrent
6 10 (0.40%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
7 9 (0.36%) SAP MDG
7 9 (0.36%) SAP SD
8 8 (0.32%) Aladdin
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
9 7 (0.28%) SAP FI
9 7 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle EBS R12
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
Cloud Services
1 560 (22.36%) Azure
2 295 (11.78%) AWS
3 261 (10.42%) Power Platform
4 146 (5.83%) Azure DevOps
5 135 (5.39%) GCP
6 122 (4.87%) GitHub
7 86 (3.43%) Snowflake
8 71 (2.83%) Azure Data Factory
9 68 (2.71%) Entra ID
10 65 (2.59%) GitHub Actions
11 55 (2.20%) Serverless
12 51 (2.04%) Microsoft 365
13 47 (1.88%) SaaS
14 44 (1.76%) dbt
15 43 (1.72%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 42 (1.68%) Amazon S3
17 39 (1.56%) SuccessFactors
18 37 (1.48%) OCI
19 30 (1.20%) Azure Monitor
20 29 (1.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.11%) Firewall
2 62 (2.48%) DNS
3 61 (2.44%) Network Security
4 53 (2.12%) VLAN
5 44 (1.76%) VPN
6 41 (1.64%) TCP/IP
7 38 (1.52%) WAN
8 35 (1.40%) BGP
9 31 (1.24%) DHCP
10 22 (0.88%) Internet
10 22 (0.88%) SAN
11 20 (0.80%) LAN
12 19 (0.76%) OSPF
12 19 (0.76%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.76%) Wireless
13 17 (0.68%) VXLAN
14 16 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
15 15 (0.60%) Ethernet
15 15 (0.60%) Ethernet VPN
16 14 (0.56%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 244 (9.74%) Power BI
2 148 (5.91%) Data Warehouse
3 108 (4.31%) Metadata
4 80 (3.19%) SQL Server
5 74 (2.95%) PostgreSQL
5 74 (2.95%) Relational Database
6 73 (2.91%) Data Lake
7 67 (2.67%) Tableau
8 38 (1.52%) Big Data
9 35 (1.40%) MongoDB
10 33 (1.32%) NoSQL
11 31 (1.24%) Delta Lake
12 29 (1.16%) BigQuery
13 28 (1.12%) Oracle Database
14 27 (1.08%) Redis
14 27 (1.08%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 24 (0.96%) MySQL
16 22 (0.88%) Azure SQL Database
17 21 (0.84%) Oracle Reports
17 21 (0.84%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 222 (8.86%) JIRA
2 170 (6.79%) Git
3 94 (3.75%) Jenkins
4 79 (3.15%) GitLab
5 57 (2.28%) Selenium
6 41 (1.64%) Postman
7 34 (1.36%) JMeter
8 25 (1.00%) Cucumber
8 25 (1.00%) WebDriver
9 20 (0.80%) JUnit
9 20 (0.80%) Rational DOORS
10 18 (0.72%) Eclipse
11 16 (0.64%) Visual Studio
12 14 (0.56%) Rational Rhapsody
13 12 (0.48%) Gatling
14 11 (0.44%) Cypress.io
14 11 (0.44%) Maven
15 10 (0.40%) Gradle
15 10 (0.40%) REST Assured
16 9 (0.36%) Zephyr
General
1 710 (28.34%) Social Skills
2 705 (28.14%) Finance
3 494 (19.72%) Analytical Skills
4 211 (8.42%) Public Sector
5 188 (7.50%) Banking
6 132 (5.27%) Documentation Skills
7 91 (3.63%) Manufacturing
8 87 (3.47%) Retail
9 56 (2.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 52 (2.08%) Aerospace
11 51 (2.04%) Telecoms
12 47 (1.88%) Automotive
13 46 (1.84%) Organisational Skills
14 44 (1.76%) Marketing
14 44 (1.76%) Pharmaceutical
15 41 (1.64%) Local Government
16 37 (1.48%) Front Office
16 37 (1.48%) Law
17 34 (1.36%) Legal
18 33 (1.32%) Military
Job Titles
1 431 (17.21%) Analyst
2 277 (11.06%) Senior
3 247 (9.86%) Lead
4 208 (8.30%) Data Engineer
5 198 (7.90%) Business Analyst
6 194 (7.74%) Consultant
7 142 (5.67%) Developer
8 125 (4.99%) Architect
9 122 (4.87%) Data Analyst
10 102 (4.07%) Test Engineer
11 70 (2.79%) Tester
12 63 (2.51%) Network Engineer
13 62 (2.48%) Project Manager
14 54 (2.16%) Systems Engineer
15 51 (2.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 51 (2.04%) Senior Data Engineer
16 50 (2.00%) Administrator
17 42 (1.68%) Software Engineer
18 41 (1.64%) Test Manager
19 40 (1.60%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 141 (5.63%) REST
2 130 (5.19%) Terraform
3 80 (3.19%) JSON
4 74 (2.95%) PySpark
5 67 (2.67%) Kafka
6 63 (2.51%) XML
7 48 (1.92%) Oracle Fusion
8 43 (1.72%) Middleware
8 43 (1.72%) Playwright
9 40 (1.60%) .NET
10 37 (1.48%) Spring
11 36 (1.44%) pytest
12 32 (1.28%) RESTful
13 30 (1.20%) Pandas
13 30 (1.20%) SOAP
13 30 (1.20%) Web Services
14 29 (1.16%) Node.js
15 28 (1.12%) OAuth
16 27 (1.08%) Spring Boot
17 23 (0.92%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 141 (5.63%) Onboarding
2 128 (5.11%) Data Structures
3 112 (4.47%) Cloud Native
4 107 (4.27%) Legacy Systems
5 102 (4.07%) Product Ownership
6 79 (3.15%) Management Information System
7 78 (3.11%) Data Centre
8 45 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
9 44 (1.76%) Analytical Mindset
10 42 (1.68%) Distributed Systems
11 41 (1.64%) SCADA
12 39 (1.56%) AI Agents
13 36 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
14 34 (1.36%) Algorithms
15 33 (1.32%) CMDB
15 33 (1.32%) Life Science
16 32 (1.28%) Replication
17 31 (1.24%) Operational Technology
17 31 (1.24%) Public Cloud
18 29 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 143 (5.71%) Windows
2 95 (3.79%) Linux
3 47 (1.88%) Windows Server
4 19 (0.76%) Unix
5 18 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.56%) Android
7 11 (0.44%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.32%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.28%) VMS
10 6 (0.24%) Windows 10
11 4 (0.16%) SUSE
11 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.080%) HPUX
12 2 (0.080%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.080%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.080%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.040%) Alpine Linux
13 1 (0.040%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.040%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 685 (27.35%) Migration
2 481 (19.20%) Agile
3 479 (19.12%) Stakeholder Management
4 469 (18.72%) CI/CD
5 417 (16.65%) User Acceptance Testing
6 408 (16.29%) Data Migration
7 401 (16.01%) Analytics
8 390 (15.57%) Problem-Solving
9 385 (15.37%) Data Modelling
10 380 (15.17%) Data Validation
11 335 (13.37%) DevOps
12 332 (13.25%) AI
13 319 (12.73%) Test Automation
14 306 (12.22%) Continuous Improvement
15 285 (11.38%) ETL
16 274 (10.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 273 (10.90%) Business Intelligence
18 265 (10.58%) Data Pipeline
19 255 (10.18%) Data Governance
20 244 (9.74%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 629 (25.11%) SQL
2 483 (19.28%) Python
3 120 (4.79%) Java
4 85 (3.39%) PowerShell
5 50 (2.00%) Bash
5 50 (2.00%) C#
6 47 (1.88%) JavaScript
7 42 (1.68%) C++
8 28 (1.12%) Apex Code
9 26 (1.04%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 26 (1.04%) R
10 25 (1.00%) TypeScript
11 24 (0.96%) Bicep
12 23 (0.92%) C
12 23 (0.92%) PL/SQL
13 20 (0.80%) VBA
14 16 (0.64%) Shell Script
15 15 (0.60%) MATLAB
16 13 (0.52%) Scala
17 12 (0.48%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 467 (18.64%) Security Cleared
2 337 (13.45%) SC Cleared
3 176 (7.03%) Degree
4 69 (2.75%) DV Cleared
5 47 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
6 41 (1.64%) Computer Science Degree
7 39 (1.56%) Cisco Certification
8 31 (1.24%) CCNP
9 23 (0.92%) ACCA
9 23 (0.92%) AWS Certification
9 23 (0.92%) CIMA
10 20 (0.80%) PMI Certification
11 19 (0.76%) ISTQB
12 18 (0.72%) Azure Certification
13 15 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
13 15 (0.60%) PMP
14 14 (0.56%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 14 (0.56%) CISSP
14 14 (0.56%) Master's Degree
15 13 (0.52%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 493 (19.68%) Data Quality
2 307 (12.26%) QA
3 94 (3.75%) GDPR
4 47 (1.88%) NIST
5 42 (1.68%) SLA
6 41 (1.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 37 (1.48%) Accessibility
8 34 (1.36%) PMO
9 22 (0.88%) GxP
10 19 (0.76%) GRC
11 14 (0.56%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 14 (0.56%) ISO 20022
12 12 (0.48%) Def Stans
12 12 (0.48%) HL7
12 12 (0.48%) NCSC
13 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.44%) IFRS
13 11 (0.44%) NIST 800
13 11 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.44%) WCAG
System Software
1 105 (4.19%) Docker
2 83 (3.31%) Active Directory
3 60 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 31 (1.24%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.96%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.76%) Firmware
7 16 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
7 16 (0.64%) vSphere
8 14 (0.56%) Hyper-V
9 12 (0.48%) 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 (0.080%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.080%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.040%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.040%) NFS
12 1 (0.040%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 129 (5.15%) Kubernetes
2 74 (2.95%) Ansible
3 41 (1.64%) Grafana
4 35 (1.40%) Prometheus
5 23 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
6 22 (0.88%) FortiGate
6 22 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
7 13 (0.52%) vCenter Server
8 10 (0.40%) SCCM
8 10 (0.40%) VxRail
9 8 (0.32%) Failover Clustering
10 6 (0.24%) Argo
10 6 (0.24%) HP ALM
10 6 (0.24%) Progress Chef
11 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
11 5 (0.20%) systemd
11 5 (0.20%) vRealize
12 4 (0.16%) Functional Safety
12 4 (0.16%) Puppet
13 3 (0.12%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 379 (15.13%) Microsoft
2 214 (8.54%) SAP
3 200 (7.98%) Oracle
4 145 (5.79%) Databricks
5 86 (3.43%) Salesforce
6 79 (3.15%) ServiceNow
7 70 (2.79%) VMware
8 64 (2.55%) Cisco
9 42 (1.68%) Google
9 42 (1.68%) Workday
10 30 (1.20%) Informatica
11 29 (1.16%) Juniper
12 28 (1.12%) IBM
13 27 (1.08%) Fortinet
14 26 (1.04%) Zscaler
15 21 (0.84%) Palo Alto
15 21 (0.84%) Splunk
16 18 (0.72%) IFS
17 17 (0.68%) CrowdStrike
17 17 (0.68%) Sage