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

6 months to
5 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 67 117
Rank change year-on-year +32 +50 +38
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,432 1,017 678
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.35% 3.68% 2.02%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.29% 4.06% 2.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,486 621 345
10th Percentile £350 £356 £327
25th Percentile £413 £419 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £488
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +7.69% -11.36%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £588
90th Percentile £709 £700 £666
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £495
% change year-on-year -4.76% +6.06% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 161 78 118
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £29.24
25th Percentile £28.50 £37.67 £51.25
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% +3.92%
75th Percentile £75.00 £67.00 £69.72
90th Percentile £83.75 £75.75 £75.56
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -8.33% -7.69% -

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 38,695 25,047 28,792
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.19% 90.72% 85.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,133 16,039 18,801
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 £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £758
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,478 1,391 1,685
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £20.69 £17.87 £18.16
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +78.93% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £68.75 £50.88 £65.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -37.90% -4.71%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 1,165 £525 - 770
South East +4 319 £515 +3.00% 326
Midlands +34 313 £475 +5.56% 177
North of England +47 305 £450 -9.09% 205
West Midlands +30 225 £473 +8.11% 112
North West +25 158 £450 -21.40% 118
East of England +4 144 £475 -6.40% 152
Yorkshire +38 135 £455 +4.60% 47
South West -17 121 £525 -8.70% 165
East Midlands +24 82 £525 +15.51% 65
North East -34 16 £425 -22.73% 43
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 74 (3.04%) Confluence
2 64 (2.63%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (1.93%) SAS
4 41 (1.69%) SharePoint
5 38 (1.56%) Apache Spark
6 29 (1.19%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.33%) CMS
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.33%) SharePoint 2013
10 6 (0.25%) ArcGIS
11 5 (0.21%) Palantir Foundry
11 5 (0.21%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.12%) IIS
13 3 (0.12%) JBoss
13 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 175 (7.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (1.44%) MS Visio
3 33 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
4 25 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 24 (0.99%) Spreadsheet
6 10 (0.41%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
8 6 (0.25%) Simulink
9 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.21%) Navisworks
9 5 (0.21%) Revit
10 4 (0.16%) ProjectWise
11 3 (0.12%) CATIA
12 2 (0.082%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.082%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.082%) Sketch
13 1 (0.041%) Adobe XD
13 1 (0.041%) Autodesk Inventor
13 1 (0.041%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.041%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 110 (4.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.15%) Oracle EBS
3 16 (0.66%) Workday HCM
4 13 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
5 11 (0.45%) iTrent
5 11 (0.45%) NetSuite
5 11 (0.45%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 11 (0.45%) SAP ERP
5 11 (0.45%) Teamcenter
6 9 (0.37%) Aladdin
6 9 (0.37%) Dynamics CRM
6 9 (0.37%) Oracle Assets
6 9 (0.37%) Sage X3
6 9 (0.37%) SAP MDG
7 8 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
7 8 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
7 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
8 7 (0.29%) SAP SD
8 7 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 6 (0.25%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 548 (22.53%) Azure
2 286 (11.76%) AWS
3 259 (10.65%) Power Platform
4 136 (5.59%) GCP
5 134 (5.51%) Azure DevOps
6 115 (4.73%) GitHub
7 87 (3.58%) Snowflake
8 71 (2.92%) Azure Data Factory
9 66 (2.71%) Entra ID
9 66 (2.71%) GitHub Actions
10 54 (2.22%) Serverless
11 44 (1.81%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 44 (1.81%) dbt
11 44 (1.81%) Microsoft 365
11 44 (1.81%) SaaS
12 40 (1.64%) Amazon S3
12 40 (1.64%) OCI
13 37 (1.52%) SuccessFactors
14 30 (1.23%) Azure Monitor
15 27 (1.11%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.24%) Firewall
2 63 (2.59%) Network Security
3 60 (2.47%) DNS
4 45 (1.85%) VLAN
5 44 (1.81%) VPN
6 41 (1.69%) TCP/IP
7 36 (1.48%) WAN
8 28 (1.15%) BGP
9 26 (1.07%) DHCP
10 23 (0.95%) Internet
11 21 (0.86%) LAN
11 21 (0.86%) SAN
12 20 (0.82%) OSPF
12 20 (0.82%) SD-WAN
12 20 (0.82%) Wireless
13 15 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
14 13 (0.53%) Ethernet
15 12 (0.49%) 5G
15 12 (0.49%) Cisco ISE
16 11 (0.45%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 241 (9.91%) Power BI
2 148 (6.09%) Data Warehouse
3 98 (4.03%) Metadata
4 78 (3.21%) Data Lake
5 73 (3.00%) Tableau
6 71 (2.92%) SQL Server
7 70 (2.88%) PostgreSQL
8 65 (2.67%) Relational Database
9 38 (1.56%) Big Data
10 30 (1.23%) BigQuery
10 30 (1.23%) NoSQL
11 28 (1.15%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 27 (1.11%) Delta Lake
13 26 (1.07%) Oracle Database
13 26 (1.07%) Power Query
13 26 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 25 (1.03%) MongoDB
15 24 (0.99%) Oracle Reports
16 22 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
17 20 (0.82%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 225 (9.25%) JIRA
2 160 (6.58%) Git
3 89 (3.66%) Jenkins
4 66 (2.71%) GitLab
5 58 (2.38%) Selenium
6 41 (1.69%) JMeter
7 37 (1.52%) Cucumber
7 37 (1.52%) Postman
8 36 (1.48%) JUnit
9 31 (1.27%) WebDriver
10 21 (0.86%) Rational DOORS
11 18 (0.74%) Eclipse
12 14 (0.58%) Visual Studio
13 13 (0.53%) Gatling
14 11 (0.45%) Maven
14 11 (0.45%) Rational Rhapsody
15 10 (0.41%) ERwin
15 10 (0.41%) Gradle
15 10 (0.41%) REST Assured
16 9 (0.37%) MLflow
General
1 718 (29.52%) Finance
2 708 (29.11%) Social Skills
3 480 (19.74%) Analytical Skills
4 196 (8.06%) Public Sector
5 182 (7.48%) Banking
6 132 (5.43%) Documentation Skills
7 87 (3.58%) Manufacturing
8 86 (3.54%) Retail
9 57 (2.34%) Aerospace
10 51 (2.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 47 (1.93%) Pharmaceutical
12 45 (1.85%) Telecoms
13 43 (1.77%) Organisational Skills
14 39 (1.60%) Automotive
15 37 (1.52%) Marketing
16 36 (1.48%) Front Office
17 35 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
17 35 (1.44%) Local Government
18 34 (1.40%) Law
19 33 (1.36%) Military
Job Titles
1 428 (17.60%) Analyst
2 255 (10.49%) Senior
3 248 (10.20%) Lead
4 211 (8.68%) Data Engineer
5 200 (8.22%) Business Analyst
6 179 (7.36%) Consultant
7 141 (5.80%) Developer
8 130 (5.35%) Architect
9 124 (5.10%) Data Analyst
10 95 (3.91%) Test Engineer
11 70 (2.88%) Tester
12 67 (2.75%) Project Manager
13 55 (2.26%) Network Engineer
14 48 (1.97%) Systems Engineer
15 47 (1.93%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 46 (1.89%) Senior Data Engineer
17 40 (1.64%) Administrator
17 40 (1.64%) Technical Analyst
18 39 (1.60%) Migration Engineer
19 38 (1.56%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 124 (5.10%) REST
2 73 (3.00%) JSON
3 68 (2.80%) Kafka
4 63 (2.59%) PySpark
5 58 (2.38%) XML
6 48 (1.97%) Oracle Fusion
7 41 (1.69%) Spring
8 40 (1.64%) .NET
9 38 (1.56%) Middleware
9 38 (1.56%) pytest
10 35 (1.44%) Playwright
11 32 (1.32%) RESTful
12 31 (1.27%) Pandas
13 30 (1.23%) SOAP
14 28 (1.15%) Node.js
14 28 (1.15%) Web Services
15 26 (1.07%) OAuth
16 25 (1.03%) WireMock
17 22 (0.90%) Lightning Web Components
17 22 (0.90%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 135 (5.55%) Onboarding
2 134 (5.51%) Data Structures
3 116 (4.77%) Legacy Systems
4 104 (4.28%) Cloud Native
5 96 (3.95%) Product Ownership
6 66 (2.71%) Management Information System
7 64 (2.63%) Data Centre
8 48 (1.97%) Distributed Systems
9 47 (1.93%) Analytical Mindset
10 41 (1.69%) SCADA
11 39 (1.60%) AI Agents
12 37 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
13 36 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
14 33 (1.36%) Hybrid Cloud
14 33 (1.36%) Life Science
15 32 (1.32%) Public Cloud
16 30 (1.23%) Operational Technology
17 29 (1.19%) Reference Data
18 28 (1.15%) Algorithms
18 28 (1.15%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 126 (5.18%) Windows
2 90 (3.70%) Linux
3 38 (1.56%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.90%) Unix
5 18 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.45%) Android
6 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
7 6 (0.25%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.25%) VMS
8 5 (0.21%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.16%) SUSE
10 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.082%) HPUX
11 2 (0.082%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.041%) Debian
12 1 (0.041%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.041%) Solaris
12 1 (0.041%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.041%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 670 (27.55%) Migration
2 473 (19.45%) Agile
3 464 (19.08%) Stakeholder Management
4 430 (17.68%) CI/CD
5 414 (17.02%) Analytics
6 408 (16.78%) Data Migration
7 396 (16.28%) User Acceptance Testing
8 389 (16.00%) Data Modelling
8 389 (16.00%) Data Validation
9 378 (15.54%) Problem-Solving
10 324 (13.32%) AI
11 316 (12.99%) DevOps
12 300 (12.34%) ETL
13 293 (12.05%) Continuous Improvement
14 292 (12.01%) Test Automation
15 276 (11.35%) Business Intelligence
15 276 (11.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 261 (10.73%) Data Governance
17 258 (10.61%) Data Pipeline
18 240 (9.87%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 605 (24.88%) SQL
2 449 (18.46%) Python
3 113 (4.65%) Java
4 69 (2.84%) PowerShell
5 49 (2.01%) C#
6 44 (1.81%) Bash
7 40 (1.64%) JavaScript
8 33 (1.36%) C++
8 33 (1.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 27 (1.11%) Apex Code
10 26 (1.07%) TypeScript
11 25 (1.03%) Bicep
11 25 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.99%) VBA
13 22 (0.90%) R
14 21 (0.86%) C
15 15 (0.62%) MATLAB
16 13 (0.53%) Ada
16 13 (0.53%) Scala
16 13 (0.53%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 442 (18.17%) Security Cleared
2 317 (13.03%) SC Cleared
3 169 (6.95%) Degree
4 62 (2.55%) DV Cleared
5 46 (1.89%) BPSS Clearance
6 39 (1.60%) Computer Science Degree
7 36 (1.48%) Cisco Certification
8 28 (1.15%) CCNP
9 22 (0.90%) PMI Certification
10 20 (0.82%) ACCA
11 19 (0.78%) CIMA
12 18 (0.74%) ISTQB
12 18 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
12 18 (0.74%) PMP
13 17 (0.70%) CISSP
14 16 (0.66%) Azure Certification
15 12 (0.49%) AWS Certification
15 12 (0.49%) CCNA
15 12 (0.49%) Master's Degree
16 9 (0.37%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 475 (19.53%) Data Quality
2 303 (12.46%) QA
3 101 (4.15%) GDPR
4 49 (2.01%) NIST
5 43 (1.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 36 (1.48%) Accessibility
7 33 (1.36%) PMO
8 28 (1.15%) SLA
9 21 (0.86%) GxP
10 15 (0.62%) GRC
11 13 (0.53%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 13 (0.53%) IFRS
12 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
12 12 (0.49%) Def Stans
12 12 (0.49%) HL7
12 12 (0.49%) ISO 20022
12 12 (0.49%) NCSC
13 11 (0.45%) NIST 800
13 11 (0.45%) WCAG
14 10 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 110 (4.52%) Docker
2 78 (3.21%) Active Directory
3 52 (2.14%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.11%) Virtual Machines
5 21 (0.86%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (0.58%) Firmware
6 14 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.53%) vSphere
8 10 (0.41%) VMware NSX
9 9 (0.37%) Hyper-V
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) NFS
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
10 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.082%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.082%) VirtualBox
11 2 (0.082%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.041%) Ceph
12 1 (0.041%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.041%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 143 (5.88%) Kubernetes
2 112 (4.61%) Terraform
3 55 (2.26%) Ansible
4 47 (1.93%) Grafana
4 47 (1.93%) Prometheus
5 22 (0.90%) FortiGate
5 22 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
6 20 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
8 9 (0.37%) SCCM
9 8 (0.33%) VxRail
10 6 (0.25%) HP ALM
11 5 (0.21%) CASB
11 5 (0.21%) systemd
11 5 (0.21%) vRealize
12 4 (0.16%) Argo
12 4 (0.16%) Failover Clustering
12 4 (0.16%) Nessus
12 4 (0.16%) Puppet
13 3 (0.12%) Istio
Vendors
1 358 (14.72%) Microsoft
2 217 (8.92%) SAP
3 206 (8.47%) Oracle
4 141 (5.80%) Databricks
5 83 (3.41%) Salesforce
6 62 (2.55%) VMware
7 60 (2.47%) ServiceNow
8 52 (2.14%) Cisco
9 47 (1.93%) Workday
10 41 (1.69%) Google
11 33 (1.36%) Informatica
12 31 (1.27%) Splunk
13 29 (1.19%) Juniper
14 27 (1.11%) Fortinet
15 26 (1.07%) Zscaler
16 25 (1.03%) IBM
17 23 (0.95%) MuleSoft
17 23 (0.95%) Palo Alto
18 22 (0.90%) Sage
19 20 (0.82%) IFS