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

6 months to
13 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 68 102
Rank change year-on-year +37 +34 +41
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,761 1,030 743
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.93% 3.69% 2.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.99% 4.06% 2.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,622 619 379
10th Percentile £350 £350 £324
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -8.68%
75th Percentile £600 £634 £592
90th Percentile £706 £700 £652
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 194 75 95
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £28.71
25th Percentile £28.13 £35.58 £47.75
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £64.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% +1.56% -5.19%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £65.50
90th Percentile £79.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £53.50 £63.75 £63.25
% change year-on-year -16.08% +0.79% -6.30%

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 39,523 25,365 27,653
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.90% 90.87% 86.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,845 16,097 16,849
10th Percentile £325 £293 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
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 3,022 1,590 1,111
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.36 £17.87 £20.27
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -5.56%
75th Percentile £67.44 £44.80 £66.80
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.28 £74.44
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -10.11%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +41 1,333 £525 - 1,265
North of England +51 368 £460 +6.98% 238
South East +10 340 £525 +5.00% 326
Midlands +42 319 £453 -4.58% 165
West Midlands +29 234 £450 -11.28% 108
North West +21 187 £472 +11.06% 128
South West +22 176 £525 -4.11% 164
Yorkshire +58 151 £466 -1.84% 79
East of England 0 149 £475 -5.00% 163
East Midlands +32 82 £490 +8.89% 56
North East -18 35 £425 -11.92% 32
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 94 (3.40%) Confluence
2 60 (2.17%) SharePoint
3 59 (2.14%) Apache Airflow
4 54 (1.96%) SAS
5 50 (1.81%) Apache Spark
6 38 (1.38%) Apache
7 23 (0.83%) CMS
8 19 (0.69%) Microsoft Exchange
9 10 (0.36%) Jupyter
10 9 (0.33%) WebLogic
11 8 (0.29%) Palantir Foundry
11 8 (0.29%) SharePoint 2013
12 7 (0.25%) IIS
12 7 (0.25%) Sitecore CMS
13 6 (0.22%) OpenStack
14 5 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
14 5 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
14 5 (0.18%) Tuxedo
15 4 (0.14%) Headless CMS
15 4 (0.14%) JBoss
Applications
1 188 (6.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (1.27%) MS Visio
4 31 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 31 (1.12%) Spreadsheet
5 15 (0.54%) AutoCAD
6 10 (0.36%) Navisworks
7 9 (0.33%) Revit
7 9 (0.33%) Simulink
8 7 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
8 7 (0.25%) ProjectWise
9 3 (0.11%) CATIA
9 3 (0.11%) Chatbot
9 3 (0.11%) LaTeX
9 3 (0.11%) OrCAD
10 2 (0.072%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.072%) EPLAN
11 1 (0.036%) Gliffy
11 1 (0.036%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.036%) Trello
Business Applications
1 103 (3.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.65%) SAP FI
3 16 (0.58%) Workday HCM
4 14 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
5 13 (0.47%) NetSuite
6 12 (0.43%) Aladdin
6 12 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
6 12 (0.43%) Integrated Workplace Management System
6 12 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
6 12 (0.43%) SAP SD
7 11 (0.40%) SAP HCM
7 11 (0.40%) SAP MDG
7 11 (0.40%) SAP MM
7 11 (0.40%) Teamcenter
8 10 (0.36%) iTrent
9 9 (0.33%) SAP CO
10 8 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
10 8 (0.29%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.29%) SAP PM
11 7 (0.25%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 543 (19.67%) Azure
2 333 (12.06%) AWS
3 268 (9.71%) Power Platform
4 166 (6.01%) Azure DevOps
5 150 (5.43%) GCP
6 129 (4.67%) GitHub
7 99 (3.59%) Entra ID
8 98 (3.55%) Snowflake
9 69 (2.50%) Azure Data Factory
10 68 (2.46%) GitHub Actions
11 57 (2.06%) Amazon S3
12 56 (2.03%) dbt
12 56 (2.03%) Microsoft 365
13 51 (1.85%) Serverless
14 50 (1.81%) SaaS
15 45 (1.63%) SuccessFactors
16 40 (1.45%) Dynamics 365
17 37 (1.34%) Azure Monitor
18 33 (1.20%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 33 (1.20%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 98 (3.55%) Firewall
2 79 (2.86%) DNS
3 56 (2.03%) VPN
4 54 (1.96%) Network Security
5 53 (1.92%) VLAN
6 51 (1.85%) TCP/IP
7 46 (1.67%) BGP
8 38 (1.38%) WAN
9 33 (1.20%) DHCP
10 27 (0.98%) OSPF
11 23 (0.83%) Ethernet
12 22 (0.80%) Internet
12 22 (0.80%) VXLAN
13 21 (0.76%) Ethernet VPN
13 21 (0.76%) SAN
14 20 (0.72%) 5G
14 20 (0.72%) Wireless
15 19 (0.69%) SD-WAN
16 18 (0.65%) LAN
17 17 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 244 (8.84%) Power BI
2 144 (5.22%) Data Warehouse
3 122 (4.42%) Metadata
4 97 (3.51%) Relational Database
5 84 (3.04%) SQL Server
6 77 (2.79%) PostgreSQL
7 70 (2.54%) Data Lake
8 59 (2.14%) Tableau
9 41 (1.48%) Delta Lake
9 41 (1.48%) MongoDB
10 36 (1.30%) Power Query
11 35 (1.27%) Big Data
11 35 (1.27%) BigQuery
12 33 (1.20%) NoSQL
12 33 (1.20%) Redis
13 32 (1.16%) Oracle Database
14 24 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
14 24 (0.87%) MySQL
15 23 (0.83%) Amazon Athena
16 21 (0.76%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 256 (9.27%) JIRA
2 208 (7.53%) Git
3 95 (3.44%) Jenkins
4 92 (3.33%) GitLab
5 71 (2.57%) Selenium
6 39 (1.41%) Postman
7 31 (1.12%) JMeter
8 24 (0.87%) Cucumber
8 24 (0.87%) Rational DOORS
9 17 (0.62%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.62%) JUnit
9 17 (0.62%) Visual Studio
10 15 (0.54%) REST Assured
10 15 (0.54%) WebDriver
11 14 (0.51%) Cypress.io
12 13 (0.47%) Zephyr
13 12 (0.43%) TestRail
13 12 (0.43%) Visual Studio Code
14 11 (0.40%) Rational Rhapsody
15 10 (0.36%) Gatling
General
1 801 (29.01%) Finance
2 773 (28.00%) Social Skills
3 546 (19.78%) Analytical Skills
4 252 (9.13%) Banking
5 228 (8.26%) Public Sector
6 133 (4.82%) Manufacturing
7 106 (3.84%) Documentation Skills
8 83 (3.01%) Retail
9 71 (2.57%) Automotive
10 64 (2.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 63 (2.28%) Telecoms
12 54 (1.96%) Aerospace
13 48 (1.74%) Marketing
14 43 (1.56%) Local Government
14 43 (1.56%) Organisational Skills
14 43 (1.56%) Pharmaceutical
15 42 (1.52%) Legal
16 39 (1.41%) Billing
16 39 (1.41%) General Ledger
17 38 (1.38%) Military
Job Titles
1 472 (17.10%) Analyst
2 332 (12.02%) Senior
3 254 (9.20%) Lead
4 234 (8.48%) Data Engineer
5 216 (7.82%) Consultant
6 210 (7.61%) Business Analyst
7 157 (5.69%) Developer
8 152 (5.51%) Architect
8 152 (5.51%) Data Analyst
9 106 (3.84%) Test Engineer
10 68 (2.46%) Network Engineer
11 67 (2.43%) Tester
12 60 (2.17%) Administrator
12 60 (2.17%) Senior Data Engineer
13 53 (1.92%) Systems Engineer
14 50 (1.81%) Software Engineer
15 43 (1.56%) Senior Analyst
16 42 (1.52%) Test Analyst
17 41 (1.48%) QA Engineer
18 39 (1.41%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 184 (6.66%) Terraform
2 168 (6.08%) REST
3 83 (3.01%) PySpark
4 78 (2.83%) JSON
5 68 (2.46%) XML
6 65 (2.35%) Kafka
7 62 (2.25%) Middleware
8 56 (2.03%) Playwright
9 48 (1.74%) pytest
10 47 (1.70%) Oracle Fusion
11 44 (1.59%) OAuth
12 41 (1.48%) Web Services
13 38 (1.38%) RESTful
13 38 (1.38%) SOAP
14 35 (1.27%) .NET
15 33 (1.20%) HTML
15 33 (1.20%) OpenID
15 33 (1.20%) Spring
16 31 (1.12%) Pandas
17 30 (1.09%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 166 (6.01%) Onboarding
2 147 (5.32%) Data Structures
3 133 (4.82%) Cloud Native
4 111 (4.02%) Management Information System
5 110 (3.98%) Legacy Systems
6 103 (3.73%) Product Ownership
7 87 (3.15%) Data Centre
8 66 (2.39%) Enterprise Software
9 63 (2.28%) AI Agents
10 45 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
11 43 (1.56%) SCADA
12 42 (1.52%) Algorithms
12 42 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
13 40 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
14 39 (1.41%) Life Science
15 38 (1.38%) CMDB
16 34 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 34 (1.23%) Operational Technology
17 31 (1.12%) Replication
18 30 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 178 (6.45%) Windows
2 107 (3.88%) Linux
3 68 (2.46%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.20%) Unix
5 19 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.43%) Android
7 11 (0.40%) Ubuntu
8 10 (0.36%) Windows 10
9 7 (0.25%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.14%) 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 (0.072%) HPUX
12 2 (0.072%) Solaris
12 2 (0.072%) SUSE
12 2 (0.072%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.036%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 751 (27.20%) Migration
2 631 (22.85%) Stakeholder Management
3 569 (20.61%) CI/CD
4 525 (19.01%) Agile
5 447 (16.19%) Data Migration
6 444 (16.08%) User Acceptance Testing
7 428 (15.50%) Data Modelling
8 422 (15.28%) Data Validation
9 419 (15.18%) Problem-Solving
10 416 (15.07%) Analytics
11 398 (14.42%) AI
12 388 (14.05%) DevOps
12 388 (14.05%) Test Automation
13 387 (14.02%) Continuous Improvement
14 319 (11.55%) ETL
15 284 (10.29%) Data Analysis
16 283 (10.25%) Data Pipeline
17 282 (10.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 278 (10.07%) Data Governance
19 276 (10.00%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 736 (26.66%) SQL
2 588 (21.30%) Python
3 123 (4.45%) Java
4 116 (4.20%) PowerShell
5 70 (2.54%) JavaScript
6 55 (1.99%) Bash
7 52 (1.88%) C#
8 41 (1.48%) C++
8 41 (1.48%) TypeScript
9 30 (1.09%) Bicep
10 27 (0.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 27 (0.98%) Shell Script
11 26 (0.94%) R
12 25 (0.91%) PL/SQL
13 23 (0.83%) Apex Code
14 22 (0.80%) C
14 22 (0.80%) VBA
15 17 (0.62%) MATLAB
16 14 (0.51%) Go
16 14 (0.51%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 572 (20.72%) Security Cleared
2 435 (15.76%) SC Cleared
3 212 (7.68%) Degree
4 95 (3.44%) DV Cleared
5 59 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
7 43 (1.56%) AWS Certification
8 34 (1.23%) ACCA
8 34 (1.23%) CIMA
8 34 (1.23%) Cisco Certification
9 32 (1.16%) ISTQB
10 25 (0.91%) CCNP
11 24 (0.87%) PMI Certification
12 23 (0.83%) CISSP
13 22 (0.80%) Azure Certification
14 21 (0.76%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 20 (0.72%) Master's Degree
16 19 (0.69%) DBS Check
16 19 (0.69%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 19 (0.69%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 575 (20.83%) Data Quality
2 320 (11.59%) QA
3 84 (3.04%) GDPR
4 47 (1.70%) Accessibility
5 43 (1.56%) SLA
6 34 (1.23%) NIST
7 33 (1.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 30 (1.09%) PMO
9 24 (0.87%) GxP
10 18 (0.65%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 18 (0.65%) Actionable Recommendations
11 16 (0.58%) WCAG
12 15 (0.54%) GRC
13 13 (0.47%) ISO 20022
14 12 (0.43%) IFRS
15 11 (0.40%) GMP
16 10 (0.36%) Def Stans
16 10 (0.36%) NCSC
17 9 (0.33%) MiFID
18 8 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 109 (3.95%) Active Directory
2 107 (3.88%) Docker
3 65 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (0.98%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.87%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.69%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.62%) Firmware
8 16 (0.58%) vSphere
9 15 (0.54%) Hyper-V
10 13 (0.47%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.14%) VirtualBox
12 3 (0.11%) KVM
13 2 (0.072%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.072%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.072%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.036%) Ceph
14 1 (0.036%) etcd
14 1 (0.036%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.036%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 1 (0.036%) NFS
Systems Management
1 143 (5.18%) Kubernetes
2 98 (3.55%) Ansible
3 36 (1.30%) Grafana
4 30 (1.09%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
6 23 (0.83%) FortiGate
7 19 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.65%) SCCM
9 10 (0.36%) Functional Safety
9 10 (0.36%) HP ALM
9 10 (0.36%) Progress Chef
10 9 (0.33%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.29%) Argo
12 6 (0.22%) Control-M
12 6 (0.22%) VxRail
13 5 (0.18%) vRealize
14 4 (0.14%) Failover Clustering
14 4 (0.14%) Kibana
14 4 (0.14%) systemd
14 4 (0.14%) vMotion
Vendors
1 439 (15.90%) Microsoft
2 233 (8.44%) SAP
3 197 (7.14%) Oracle
4 169 (6.12%) Databricks
5 88 (3.19%) ServiceNow
6 80 (2.90%) Salesforce
7 78 (2.83%) Cisco
8 74 (2.68%) VMware
9 68 (2.46%) Google
10 53 (1.92%) Workday
11 50 (1.81%) IBM
12 32 (1.16%) Fortinet
13 29 (1.05%) Juniper
14 28 (1.01%) Zscaler
15 26 (0.94%) Informatica
16 25 (0.91%) Palo Alto
17 22 (0.80%) Splunk
18 20 (0.72%) CyberArk
19 19 (0.69%) Arista
20 18 (0.65%) Red Hat