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

6 months to
8 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 66 104
Rank change year-on-year +34 +38 +40
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,707 1,053 737
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.85% 3.76% 2.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.90% 4.14% 2.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,585 628 374
10th Percentile £350 £350 £325
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 £635 £591
90th Percentile £706 £700 £650
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -7.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 194 80 95
10th Percentile £17.34 £20.50 £28.71
25th Percentile £27.25 £36.42 £47.75
Median hourly rate £55.00 £63.75 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.73% -1.92% -3.75%
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% -5.56%

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 39,226 25,436 27,906
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.80% 90.90% 86.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,709 16,124 17,045
10th Percentile £325 £294 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £641
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 2,969 1,568 1,160
10th Percentile £13.70 £14.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.43 £17.87 £20.28
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.69
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.09% -4.07%
75th Percentile £67.25 £45.80 £67.14
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.33
% change year-on-year +49.11% -37.63% -7.56%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 +39 1,319 £525 - 1,952
North of England +54 361 £460 +4.55% 446
South East +6 336 £525 +5.00% 679
Midlands +38 298 £463 -2.63% 385
West Midlands +25 211 £451 -11.23% 249
North West +28 184 £472 +11.06% 241
South West +19 176 £525 -4.55% 315
Yorkshire +51 147 £463 -2.63% 144
East of England -7 143 £469 -3.85% 343
East Midlands +32 84 £490 +5.95% 136
North East -17 35 £425 -11.92% 61
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 (3.07%) Confluence
2 59 (2.18%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (2.07%) SharePoint
4 47 (1.74%) Apache Spark
5 39 (1.44%) SAS
6 36 (1.33%) Apache
7 21 (0.78%) CMS
8 18 (0.66%) 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 (0.18%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.15%) JBoss
14 4 (0.15%) Tomcat
Applications
1 186 (6.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.51%) Microsoft Office
3 33 (1.22%) MS Visio
4 31 (1.15%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (1.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 14 (0.52%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.33%) Navisworks
7 9 (0.33%) Revit
7 9 (0.33%) Simulink
8 7 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
8 7 (0.26%) ProjectWise
9 4 (0.15%) Chatbot
10 3 (0.11%) CATIA
10 3 (0.11%) OrCAD
11 2 (0.074%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.074%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.074%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.037%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.037%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.037%) Trello
Business Applications
1 104 (3.84%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.63%) SAP FI
3 16 (0.59%) Workday HCM
4 14 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
5 13 (0.48%) NetSuite
6 12 (0.44%) Aladdin
6 12 (0.44%) Integrated Workplace Management System
6 12 (0.44%) Oracle EBS
6 12 (0.44%) SAP MDG
6 12 (0.44%) SAP SD
6 12 (0.44%) Teamcenter
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 CO
10 8 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
10 8 (0.30%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.30%) SAP PM
11 7 (0.26%) Oracle Financials
Cloud Services
1 539 (19.91%) Azure
2 313 (11.56%) AWS
3 270 (9.97%) Power Platform
4 160 (5.91%) Azure DevOps
5 152 (5.62%) GCP
6 128 (4.73%) GitHub
7 97 (3.58%) Snowflake
8 95 (3.51%) Entra ID
9 69 (2.55%) Azure Data Factory
10 68 (2.51%) GitHub Actions
11 55 (2.03%) Amazon S3
11 55 (2.03%) dbt
12 53 (1.96%) Microsoft 365
13 50 (1.85%) SaaS
14 49 (1.81%) Serverless
15 45 (1.66%) SuccessFactors
16 39 (1.44%) Dynamics 365
17 37 (1.37%) Azure Monitor
18 35 (1.29%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 31 (1.15%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 97 (3.58%) Firewall
2 75 (2.77%) DNS
3 55 (2.03%) Network Security
4 53 (1.96%) VPN
5 51 (1.88%) VLAN
6 47 (1.74%) TCP/IP
7 43 (1.59%) BGP
8 37 (1.37%) WAN
9 32 (1.18%) DHCP
10 24 (0.89%) OSPF
11 23 (0.85%) VXLAN
12 22 (0.81%) Ethernet
12 22 (0.81%) Internet
13 21 (0.78%) SAN
14 20 (0.74%) 5G
14 20 (0.74%) Ethernet VPN
14 20 (0.74%) Wireless
15 19 (0.70%) LAN
15 19 (0.70%) SD-WAN
16 17 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 248 (9.16%) Power BI
2 145 (5.36%) Data Warehouse
3 118 (4.36%) Metadata
4 96 (3.55%) Relational Database
5 84 (3.10%) SQL Server
6 73 (2.70%) PostgreSQL
7 69 (2.55%) Data Lake
8 60 (2.22%) Tableau
9 39 (1.44%) MongoDB
10 38 (1.40%) Delta Lake
11 36 (1.33%) BigQuery
12 35 (1.29%) Big Data
13 34 (1.26%) Power Query
14 33 (1.22%) NoSQL
14 33 (1.22%) Redis
15 31 (1.15%) Oracle Database
16 24 (0.89%) MySQL
17 23 (0.85%) Amazon Redshift
18 22 (0.81%) Amazon Athena
19 20 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 242 (8.94%) JIRA
2 197 (7.28%) Git
3 91 (3.36%) GitLab
4 88 (3.25%) Jenkins
5 70 (2.59%) Selenium
6 37 (1.37%) 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 (0.55%) WebDriver
12 13 (0.48%) Cypress.io
12 13 (0.48%) REST Assured
13 12 (0.44%) Visual Studio Code
13 12 (0.44%) Zephyr
14 11 (0.41%) Rational Rhapsody
14 11 (0.41%) TestRail
15 10 (0.37%) Gatling
General
1 786 (29.04%) Finance
2 767 (28.33%) Social Skills
3 536 (19.80%) Analytical Skills
4 247 (9.12%) Banking
5 224 (8.27%) Public Sector
6 126 (4.65%) Manufacturing
7 107 (3.95%) Documentation Skills
8 83 (3.07%) Retail
9 71 (2.62%) Automotive
10 64 (2.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 62 (2.29%) Telecoms
12 55 (2.03%) Aerospace
13 49 (1.81%) Marketing
14 44 (1.63%) Organisational Skills
15 43 (1.59%) Local Government
16 42 (1.55%) Legal
16 42 (1.55%) Pharmaceutical
17 39 (1.44%) Billing
18 38 (1.40%) Front Office
18 38 (1.40%) Military
Job Titles
1 457 (16.88%) Analyst
2 324 (11.97%) Senior
3 253 (9.35%) Lead
4 222 (8.20%) Data Engineer
5 214 (7.91%) Consultant
6 204 (7.54%) Business Analyst
7 161 (5.95%) Developer
8 149 (5.50%) Architect
9 145 (5.36%) Data Analyst
10 105 (3.88%) Test Engineer
11 67 (2.48%) Tester
12 66 (2.44%) Network Engineer
13 60 (2.22%) Senior Data Engineer
14 58 (2.14%) Administrator
15 52 (1.92%) Systems Engineer
16 51 (1.88%) Software Engineer
17 41 (1.51%) QA Engineer
18 40 (1.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 40 (1.48%) Senior Analyst
19 39 (1.44%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 177 (6.54%) Terraform
2 165 (6.10%) REST
3 80 (2.96%) PySpark
4 75 (2.77%) JSON
5 65 (2.40%) XML
6 64 (2.36%) Kafka
7 61 (2.25%) Middleware
8 54 (1.99%) Playwright
9 47 (1.74%) pytest
10 45 (1.66%) Oracle Fusion
11 44 (1.63%) OAuth
12 41 (1.51%) Web Services
13 39 (1.44%) SOAP
14 38 (1.40%) RESTful
15 33 (1.22%) .NET
15 33 (1.22%) HTML
15 33 (1.22%) Spring
16 32 (1.18%) Node.js
16 32 (1.18%) Pandas
17 31 (1.15%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 166 (6.13%) Onboarding
2 145 (5.36%) Data Structures
3 127 (4.69%) Cloud Native
4 112 (4.14%) Legacy Systems
5 108 (3.99%) Management Information System
6 102 (3.77%) Product Ownership
7 86 (3.18%) Data Centre
8 64 (2.36%) Enterprise Software
9 58 (2.14%) AI Agents
10 43 (1.59%) Algorithms
10 43 (1.59%) Analytical Mindset
11 42 (1.55%) Distributed Systems
12 41 (1.51%) SCADA
13 37 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
13 37 (1.37%) Life Science
14 33 (1.22%) CMDB
15 32 (1.18%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 32 (1.18%) Operational Technology
16 31 (1.15%) Replication
17 29 (1.07%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 175 (6.46%) Windows
2 106 (3.92%) Linux
3 67 (2.48%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.22%) Unix
5 19 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.44%) Android
7 11 (0.41%) Ubuntu
8 10 (0.37%) Windows 10
9 7 (0.26%) 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%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 735 (27.15%) Migration
2 610 (22.53%) Stakeholder Management
3 541 (19.99%) CI/CD
4 507 (18.73%) Agile
5 432 (15.96%) Data Migration
6 428 (15.81%) User Acceptance Testing
7 425 (15.70%) Data Modelling
8 419 (15.48%) Analytics
9 412 (15.22%) Data Validation
10 409 (15.11%) Problem-Solving
11 391 (14.44%) AI
12 382 (14.11%) Continuous Improvement
13 375 (13.85%) DevOps
14 369 (13.63%) Test Automation
15 304 (11.23%) ETL
16 287 (10.60%) Data Analysis
17 281 (10.38%) Business Intelligence
18 279 (10.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 268 (9.90%) Data Governance
20 267 (9.86%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 714 (26.38%) SQL
2 564 (20.83%) Python
3 122 (4.51%) Java
4 113 (4.17%) PowerShell
5 71 (2.62%) JavaScript
6 55 (2.03%) Bash
7 52 (1.92%) C#
8 43 (1.59%) C++
9 41 (1.51%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.00%) Bicep
10 27 (1.00%) R
11 26 (0.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 25 (0.92%) PL/SQL
12 25 (0.92%) Shell Script
13 24 (0.89%) Apex Code
13 24 (0.89%) C
14 21 (0.78%) VBA
15 17 (0.63%) MATLAB
16 14 (0.52%) Go
16 14 (0.52%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 557 (20.58%) Security Cleared
2 419 (15.48%) SC Cleared
3 208 (7.68%) Degree
4 94 (3.47%) DV Cleared
5 58 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
7 36 (1.33%) AWS Certification
8 35 (1.29%) Cisco Certification
9 31 (1.15%) ACCA
9 31 (1.15%) CIMA
10 27 (1.00%) CCNP
11 24 (0.89%) PMI Certification
12 22 (0.81%) CISSP
13 21 (0.78%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 21 (0.78%) Azure Certification
13 21 (0.78%) ISTQB
14 19 (0.70%) DBS Check
14 19 (0.70%) Master's Degree
14 19 (0.70%) PMP
15 14 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 570 (21.06%) Data Quality
2 321 (11.86%) QA
3 74 (2.73%) GDPR
4 45 (1.66%) Accessibility
5 43 (1.59%) SLA
6 33 (1.22%) NIST
7 32 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 29 (1.07%) PMO
9 23 (0.85%) GxP
10 16 (0.59%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 16 (0.59%) WCAG
11 15 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
11 15 (0.55%) GRC
12 13 (0.48%) ISO 20022
13 12 (0.44%) IFRS
14 10 (0.37%) Def Stans
14 10 (0.37%) GMP
14 10 (0.37%) NCSC
15 9 (0.33%) MiFID
16 8 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 106 (3.92%) Active Directory
2 98 (3.62%) Docker
3 64 (2.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (0.96%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.63%) Firmware
8 16 (0.59%) vSphere
9 15 (0.55%) 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%) NFS
Systems Management
1 135 (4.99%) Kubernetes
2 95 (3.51%) Ansible
3 36 (1.33%) Grafana
4 30 (1.11%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.89%) FortiGate
6 23 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
7 19 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.66%) SCCM
9 10 (0.37%) Functional Safety
9 10 (0.37%) HP ALM
9 10 (0.37%) Progress Chef
10 9 (0.33%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.30%) Argo
12 6 (0.22%) Control-M
12 6 (0.22%) VxRail
13 5 (0.18%) vRealize
14 4 (0.15%) Data Guard
14 4 (0.15%) Failover Clustering
14 4 (0.15%) Oracle RMAN
14 4 (0.15%) Puppet
Vendors
1 433 (16.00%) Microsoft
2 231 (8.53%) SAP
3 191 (7.06%) Oracle
4 165 (6.10%) Databricks
5 85 (3.14%) ServiceNow
6 79 (2.92%) Salesforce
7 76 (2.81%) Cisco
8 73 (2.70%) VMware
9 65 (2.40%) Google
10 52 (1.92%) Workday
11 46 (1.70%) IBM
12 31 (1.15%) Fortinet
13 29 (1.07%) Zscaler
14 26 (0.96%) Informatica
14 26 (0.96%) Juniper
15 23 (0.85%) Palo Alto
16 20 (0.74%) CyberArk
17 18 (0.66%) Red Hat
17 18 (0.66%) Splunk
18 17 (0.63%) Sage