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 12 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 63 107
Rank change year-on-year +30 +44 +48
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,601 1,045 727
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.61% 3.76% 2.20%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.61% 4.13% 2.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,548 628 359
10th Percentile £339 £335 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £488
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +5.13% -11.36%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £588
90th Percentile £710 £700 £652
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 171 81 103
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £28.50 £41.25 £51.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £73.25 £67.00 £71.70
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £76.49
UK median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -17.69% - -3.70%

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 39,332 25,280 28,365
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.86% 90.86% 86.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,139 16,057 17,805
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,708 1,495 1,348
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.36 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.85 £17.79 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +0.58%
75th Percentile £68.00 £49.88 £66.53
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.65 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.92%

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 12 September 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 12 September 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 12 September 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 +40 1,287 £525 +0.96% 1,258
North of England +39 336 £450 +5.32% 277
South East +2 332 £501 -0.74% 466
Midlands +33 300 £473 -0.42% 272
West Midlands +27 211 £463 -2.53% 180
North West +22 167 £450 +5.88% 153
Yorkshire +43 148 £461 -2.89% 81
East of England -5 142 £478 -4.40% 253
South West +13 139 £525 -4.55% 261
East Midlands +24 85 £490 -2.00% 91
North East -30 26 £425 -5.56% 46
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 72 (2.77%) Confluence
2 64 (2.46%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (2.15%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.73%) SAS
5 40 (1.54%) Apache Spark
6 27 (1.04%) Apache
7 17 (0.65%) Microsoft Exchange
8 12 (0.46%) CMS
9 10 (0.38%) Jupyter
10 8 (0.31%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.27%) Palantir Foundry
11 7 (0.27%) Sitecore CMS
12 6 (0.23%) WebLogic
13 5 (0.19%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.19%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.15%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.15%) JBoss
15 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 195 (7.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 40 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (1.35%) Spreadsheet
4 34 (1.31%) MS Visio
5 30 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 13 (0.50%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
8 8 (0.31%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.31%) Revit
9 6 (0.23%) ProjectWise
9 6 (0.23%) Simulink
10 3 (0.12%) CATIA
10 3 (0.12%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.077%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.077%) EPLAN
12 1 (0.038%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.038%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.038%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.038%) Trello
12 1 (0.038%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 105 (4.04%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.65%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.58%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.50%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.46%) SAP SD
5 12 (0.46%) Teamcenter
5 12 (0.46%) Workday HCM
6 11 (0.42%) SAP FI
6 11 (0.42%) SAP MDG
7 10 (0.38%) Aladdin
7 10 (0.38%) iTrent
7 10 (0.38%) SAP MM
8 9 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.35%) SAP ERP
9 8 (0.31%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
9 8 (0.31%) SAP CO
9 8 (0.31%) SAP HCM
10 7 (0.27%) Oracle Financials
10 7 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 558 (21.45%) Azure
2 307 (11.80%) AWS
3 256 (9.84%) Power Platform
4 157 (6.04%) Azure DevOps
5 126 (4.84%) GCP
6 122 (4.69%) GitHub
7 96 (3.69%) Snowflake
8 78 (3.00%) Entra ID
9 72 (2.77%) Azure Data Factory
10 65 (2.50%) GitHub Actions
11 55 (2.11%) Serverless
12 53 (2.04%) Microsoft 365
13 52 (2.00%) dbt
14 50 (1.92%) SaaS
15 45 (1.73%) Amazon S3
16 42 (1.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 34 (1.31%) SuccessFactors
18 31 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
19 30 (1.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
20 29 (1.11%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.00%) Firewall
2 66 (2.54%) DNS
3 59 (2.27%) Network Security
4 57 (2.19%) VLAN
5 49 (1.88%) VPN
6 40 (1.54%) TCP/IP
7 39 (1.50%) WAN
8 37 (1.42%) BGP
9 32 (1.23%) DHCP
10 22 (0.85%) Internet
11 21 (0.81%) OSPF
11 21 (0.81%) SAN
11 21 (0.81%) SD-WAN
12 20 (0.77%) Wireless
13 19 (0.73%) 5G
13 19 (0.73%) VXLAN
14 18 (0.69%) LAN
15 16 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
16 15 (0.58%) Ethernet
16 15 (0.58%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 236 (9.07%) Power BI
2 144 (5.54%) Data Warehouse
3 107 (4.11%) Metadata
4 91 (3.50%) Relational Database
5 81 (3.11%) SQL Server
6 70 (2.69%) Data Lake
7 69 (2.65%) PostgreSQL
8 67 (2.58%) Tableau
9 38 (1.46%) Delta Lake
10 36 (1.38%) Big Data
10 36 (1.38%) MongoDB
11 34 (1.31%) Oracle Database
12 32 (1.23%) BigQuery
13 31 (1.19%) NoSQL
14 29 (1.11%) Power Query
14 29 (1.11%) Redis
15 26 (1.00%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 25 (0.96%) MySQL
17 22 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
18 21 (0.81%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 236 (9.07%) JIRA
2 186 (7.15%) Git
3 90 (3.46%) Jenkins
4 81 (3.11%) GitLab
5 67 (2.58%) Selenium
6 35 (1.35%) Postman
7 30 (1.15%) JMeter
8 21 (0.81%) Cucumber
8 21 (0.81%) Rational DOORS
9 18 (0.69%) WebDriver
10 16 (0.62%) Eclipse
11 15 (0.58%) JUnit
12 13 (0.50%) Rational Rhapsody
13 12 (0.46%) Visual Studio
14 11 (0.42%) Gatling
15 10 (0.38%) Cypress.io
15 10 (0.38%) Maven
15 10 (0.38%) REST Assured
15 10 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
15 10 (0.38%) Zephyr
General
1 750 (28.84%) Finance
2 741 (28.49%) Social Skills
3 505 (19.42%) Analytical Skills
4 218 (8.38%) Banking
5 209 (8.04%) Public Sector
6 126 (4.84%) Documentation Skills
7 102 (3.92%) Manufacturing
8 89 (3.42%) Retail
9 62 (2.38%) Automotive
10 58 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 55 (2.11%) Telecoms
12 48 (1.85%) Aerospace
12 48 (1.85%) Marketing
13 47 (1.81%) Organisational Skills
14 43 (1.65%) Pharmaceutical
15 41 (1.58%) Local Government
16 40 (1.54%) Front Office
17 38 (1.46%) Law
18 37 (1.42%) Legal
19 34 (1.31%) Military
Job Titles
1 460 (17.69%) Analyst
2 296 (11.38%) Senior
3 240 (9.23%) Lead
4 206 (7.92%) Data Engineer
5 205 (7.88%) Business Analyst
6 199 (7.65%) Consultant
7 153 (5.88%) Developer
8 136 (5.23%) Architect
9 134 (5.15%) Data Analyst
10 102 (3.92%) Test Engineer
11 65 (2.50%) Tester
12 63 (2.42%) Network Engineer
13 58 (2.23%) Systems Engineer
14 54 (2.08%) Administrator
14 54 (2.08%) Senior Data Engineer
15 51 (1.96%) Project Manager
16 48 (1.85%) Software Engineer
17 44 (1.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 41 (1.58%) Test Manager
19 39 (1.50%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 153 (5.88%) REST
2 145 (5.57%) Terraform
3 81 (3.11%) JSON
3 81 (3.11%) PySpark
4 68 (2.61%) Kafka
5 64 (2.46%) XML
6 51 (1.96%) Middleware
7 45 (1.73%) Playwright
8 44 (1.69%) Oracle Fusion
9 38 (1.46%) pytest
10 36 (1.38%) SOAP
11 34 (1.31%) .NET
11 34 (1.31%) Pandas
12 33 (1.27%) RESTful
12 33 (1.27%) Spring
13 32 (1.23%) OAuth
14 31 (1.19%) Web Services
15 29 (1.11%) Node.js
15 29 (1.11%) Spring Boot
16 28 (1.08%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 140 (5.38%) Onboarding
2 135 (5.19%) Data Structures
3 116 (4.46%) Cloud Native
4 110 (4.23%) Legacy Systems
5 94 (3.61%) Product Ownership
6 93 (3.58%) Management Information System
7 76 (2.92%) Data Centre
8 49 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
9 45 (1.73%) AI Agents
10 42 (1.61%) Analytical Mindset
10 42 (1.61%) SCADA
11 40 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
12 39 (1.50%) Distributed Systems
13 34 (1.31%) Life Science
14 33 (1.27%) Algorithms
15 32 (1.23%) Operational Technology
16 31 (1.19%) CMDB
16 31 (1.19%) Replication
17 30 (1.15%) Reference Data
18 29 (1.11%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 151 (5.81%) Windows
2 99 (3.81%) Linux
3 54 (2.08%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.96%) Unix
5 21 (0.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.54%) Android
7 11 (0.42%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.31%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.31%) Windows 10
9 7 (0.27%) VMS
10 4 (0.15%) SUSE
10 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.12%) VxWorks
11 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.077%) CentOS
12 2 (0.077%) HPUX
12 2 (0.077%) Solaris
12 2 (0.077%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.038%) AIX
13 1 (0.038%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 705 (27.10%) Migration
2 542 (20.84%) Stakeholder Management
3 501 (19.26%) CI/CD
4 490 (18.84%) Agile
5 414 (15.92%) Data Migration
6 412 (15.84%) User Acceptance Testing
7 403 (15.49%) Analytics
7 403 (15.49%) Data Validation
8 402 (15.46%) Data Modelling
9 395 (15.19%) Problem-Solving
10 357 (13.73%) DevOps
11 356 (13.69%) AI
12 338 (13.00%) Test Automation
13 320 (12.30%) Continuous Improvement
14 297 (11.42%) ETL
15 276 (10.61%) Data Analysis
16 275 (10.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 269 (10.34%) Business Intelligence
18 267 (10.27%) Data Pipeline
19 261 (10.03%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 670 (25.76%) SQL
2 517 (19.88%) Python
3 124 (4.77%) Java
4 93 (3.58%) PowerShell
5 57 (2.19%) JavaScript
6 52 (2.00%) Bash
7 45 (1.73%) C#
8 38 (1.46%) C++
9 31 (1.19%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.11%) Apex Code
10 29 (1.11%) PL/SQL
10 29 (1.11%) R
11 25 (0.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 24 (0.92%) C
13 22 (0.85%) Bicep
14 19 (0.73%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.73%) VBA
15 15 (0.58%) MATLAB
16 13 (0.50%) Scala
16 13 (0.50%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 505 (19.42%) Security Cleared
2 364 (13.99%) SC Cleared
3 181 (6.96%) Degree
4 82 (3.15%) DV Cleared
5 52 (2.00%) BPSS Clearance
6 42 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
7 40 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
8 32 (1.23%) CCNP
9 28 (1.08%) AWS Certification
10 26 (1.00%) ACCA
10 26 (1.00%) CIMA
11 22 (0.85%) PMI Certification
12 20 (0.77%) Azure Certification
13 19 (0.73%) ISTQB
14 17 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 17 (0.65%) PMP
15 15 (0.58%) CISSP
15 15 (0.58%) Master's Degree
16 14 (0.54%) Microsoft Certification
17 11 (0.42%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 531 (20.42%) Data Quality
2 314 (12.07%) QA
3 87 (3.34%) GDPR
4 42 (1.61%) Accessibility
5 39 (1.50%) NIST
6 35 (1.35%) SLA
7 33 (1.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 33 (1.27%) PMO
8 22 (0.85%) GxP
9 15 (0.58%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 15 (0.58%) WCAG
10 14 (0.54%) GRC
10 14 (0.54%) ISO 20022
11 12 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
11 12 (0.46%) Def Stans
12 11 (0.42%) IFRS
12 11 (0.42%) NCSC
13 10 (0.38%) MiFID
13 10 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 9 (0.35%) GMP
System Software
1 99 (3.81%) Docker
2 87 (3.34%) Active Directory
3 60 (2.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.11%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.92%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.73%) Firmware
7 17 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.65%) vSphere
8 14 (0.54%) Hyper-V
9 11 (0.42%) 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 (0.077%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.077%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.038%) etcd
12 1 (0.038%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.038%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.038%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 123 (4.73%) Kubernetes
2 79 (3.04%) Ansible
3 37 (1.42%) Grafana
4 31 (1.19%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.92%) FortiGate
5 24 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
6 17 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
7 15 (0.58%) SCCM
8 13 (0.50%) vCenter Server
9 11 (0.42%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.38%) VxRail
11 8 (0.31%) Argo
11 8 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
12 7 (0.27%) Functional Safety
13 6 (0.23%) Progress Chef
14 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
14 5 (0.19%) systemd
14 5 (0.19%) vRealize
15 4 (0.15%) Control-M
15 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 399 (15.34%) Microsoft
2 221 (8.50%) SAP
3 207 (7.96%) Oracle
4 151 (5.81%) Databricks
5 90 (3.46%) Salesforce
6 70 (2.69%) Cisco
7 69 (2.65%) ServiceNow
7 69 (2.65%) VMware
8 45 (1.73%) Workday
9 43 (1.65%) Google
10 38 (1.46%) IBM
11 29 (1.11%) Fortinet
11 29 (1.11%) Juniper
11 29 (1.11%) Zscaler
12 27 (1.04%) Informatica
13 22 (0.85%) Palo Alto
14 20 (0.77%) Splunk
15 16 (0.62%) CrowdStrike
15 16 (0.62%) MuleSoft
16 14 (0.54%) IFS