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

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 66 104
Rank change year-on-year +34 +38 +46
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,612 1,040 734
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.67% 3.77% 2.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.70% 4.15% 2.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,545 620 363
10th Percentile £336 £331 £325
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 £631 £589
90th Percentile £711 £700 £658
UK median daily rate £500 £502 £500
% change year-on-year -0.35% +0.35% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 177 78 100
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £29.98
25th Percentile £26.95 £41.25 £50.25
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £72.75 £67.00 £71.50
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -19.23% - -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 38,989 25,060 28,269
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.56% 90.87% 86.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,802 15,892 17,554
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £423
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £627 £645
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 2,803 1,513 1,284
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.74 £17.69 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -2.27%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.71 £66.61
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +0.58%

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 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 21 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 21 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 +36 1,275 £525 - 2,457
North of England +47 341 £450 +4.65% 455
South East +2 331 £525 +5.00% 704
Midlands +36 305 £473 +2.27% 385
West Midlands +27 214 £464 +3.02% 258
North West +18 163 £450 +5.88% 271
Yorkshire +52 153 £460 -3.16% 125
South West +16 150 £523 -5.00% 381
East of England -7 138 £450 -11.33% 398
East Midlands +28 87 £489 -2.25% 126
North East -23 30 £425 -11.92% 68
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 75 (2.87%) Confluence
2 62 (2.37%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (2.11%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.72%) SAS
5 41 (1.57%) Apache Spark
6 28 (1.07%) Apache
7 17 (0.65%) Microsoft Exchange
8 15 (0.57%) CMS
9 10 (0.38%) Jupyter
10 8 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
10 8 (0.31%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.27%) Sitecore CMS
12 6 (0.23%) OpenStack
12 6 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
12 6 (0.23%) WebLogic
13 5 (0.19%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.15%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.15%) JBoss
15 3 (0.11%) IIS
Applications
1 196 (7.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.57%) Microsoft Office
3 32 (1.23%) MS Visio
4 31 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 31 (1.19%) Spreadsheet
5 14 (0.54%) AutoCAD
6 9 (0.34%) Navisworks
6 9 (0.34%) Revit
7 7 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
7 7 (0.27%) ProjectWise
8 6 (0.23%) Simulink
9 3 (0.11%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.077%) CATIA
10 2 (0.077%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.077%) EPLAN
11 1 (0.038%) Gliffy
11 1 (0.038%) LaTeX
11 1 (0.038%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.038%) Trello
11 1 (0.038%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 103 (3.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.54%) Oracle EBS
2 14 (0.54%) Oracle Payables
3 13 (0.50%) NetSuite
4 12 (0.46%) SAP MDG
4 12 (0.46%) SAP SD
4 12 (0.46%) Teamcenter
5 11 (0.42%) SAP FI
5 11 (0.42%) Workday HCM
6 10 (0.38%) Aladdin
6 10 (0.38%) iTrent
6 10 (0.38%) SAP MM
7 9 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
7 9 (0.34%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.34%) SAP HCM
8 8 (0.31%) SAP CO
9 7 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
9 7 (0.27%) Oracle Financials
9 7 (0.27%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 536 (20.52%) Azure
2 308 (11.79%) AWS
3 262 (10.03%) Power Platform
4 152 (5.82%) Azure DevOps
5 139 (5.32%) GCP
6 123 (4.71%) GitHub
7 95 (3.64%) Snowflake
8 82 (3.14%) Entra ID
9 64 (2.45%) Azure Data Factory
10 63 (2.41%) GitHub Actions
11 55 (2.11%) dbt
12 50 (1.91%) Serverless
13 49 (1.88%) Amazon S3
14 48 (1.84%) Microsoft 365
14 48 (1.84%) SaaS
15 35 (1.34%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 35 (1.34%) SuccessFactors
16 33 (1.26%) Azure Monitor
17 30 (1.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 28 (1.07%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 102 (3.91%) Firewall
2 69 (2.64%) DNS
3 59 (2.26%) VLAN
4 55 (2.11%) Network Security
5 49 (1.88%) VPN
6 42 (1.61%) BGP
6 42 (1.61%) TCP/IP
7 40 (1.53%) WAN
8 31 (1.19%) DHCP
9 24 (0.92%) OSPF
10 22 (0.84%) Internet
10 22 (0.84%) VXLAN
11 21 (0.80%) SD-WAN
11 21 (0.80%) Wireless
12 20 (0.77%) 5G
12 20 (0.77%) LAN
12 20 (0.77%) SAN
13 19 (0.73%) Ethernet
13 19 (0.73%) Ethernet VPN
14 16 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 244 (9.34%) Power BI
2 141 (5.40%) Data Warehouse
3 106 (4.06%) Metadata
4 90 (3.45%) Relational Database
5 75 (2.87%) SQL Server
6 72 (2.76%) Data Lake
7 66 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
7 66 (2.53%) Tableau
8 36 (1.38%) MongoDB
9 35 (1.34%) Big Data
9 35 (1.34%) BigQuery
10 34 (1.30%) Delta Lake
11 33 (1.26%) Oracle Database
12 32 (1.23%) Power Query
13 31 (1.19%) NoSQL
14 30 (1.15%) Redis
15 26 (1.00%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 25 (0.96%) Amazon Athena
17 24 (0.92%) MySQL
18 22 (0.84%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 231 (8.84%) JIRA
2 198 (7.58%) Git
3 89 (3.41%) Jenkins
4 84 (3.22%) GitLab
5 72 (2.76%) Selenium
6 36 (1.38%) Postman
7 30 (1.15%) JMeter
8 23 (0.88%) Cucumber
8 23 (0.88%) Rational DOORS
9 17 (0.65%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.65%) WebDriver
10 16 (0.61%) Visual Studio
11 15 (0.57%) JUnit
12 12 (0.46%) Cypress.io
12 12 (0.46%) Rational Rhapsody
13 11 (0.42%) Gatling
13 11 (0.42%) REST Assured
13 11 (0.42%) Visual Studio Code
14 10 (0.38%) Zephyr
15 9 (0.34%) Gradle
General
1 756 (28.94%) Finance
2 750 (28.71%) Social Skills
3 524 (20.06%) Analytical Skills
4 234 (8.96%) Banking
5 205 (7.85%) Public Sector
6 121 (4.63%) Documentation Skills
7 108 (4.13%) Manufacturing
8 87 (3.33%) Retail
9 66 (2.53%) Automotive
10 60 (2.30%) Telecoms
11 59 (2.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 51 (1.95%) Marketing
13 48 (1.84%) Aerospace
14 46 (1.76%) Organisational Skills
15 43 (1.65%) Legal
16 41 (1.57%) Front Office
17 40 (1.53%) Local Government
18 39 (1.49%) Influencing Skills
18 39 (1.49%) Pharmaceutical
19 36 (1.38%) Law
Job Titles
1 450 (17.23%) Analyst
2 299 (11.45%) Senior
3 246 (9.42%) Lead
4 207 (7.92%) Data Engineer
5 203 (7.77%) Business Analyst
6 193 (7.39%) Consultant
7 160 (6.13%) Developer
8 140 (5.36%) Architect
9 135 (5.17%) Data Analyst
10 104 (3.98%) Test Engineer
11 67 (2.57%) Network Engineer
12 64 (2.45%) Tester
13 56 (2.14%) Systems Engineer
14 55 (2.11%) Administrator
15 53 (2.03%) Senior Data Engineer
16 50 (1.91%) Software Engineer
17 42 (1.61%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 40 (1.53%) Project Manager
18 40 (1.53%) Senior Analyst
19 39 (1.49%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 156 (5.97%) REST
2 154 (5.90%) Terraform
3 78 (2.99%) JSON
3 78 (2.99%) PySpark
4 66 (2.53%) Kafka
5 61 (2.34%) XML
6 54 (2.07%) Middleware
7 52 (1.99%) Playwright
8 43 (1.65%) Oracle Fusion
8 43 (1.65%) pytest
9 39 (1.49%) SOAP
10 37 (1.42%) .NET
10 37 (1.42%) Web Services
11 36 (1.38%) OAuth
12 35 (1.34%) Pandas
12 35 (1.34%) RESTful
13 34 (1.30%) Node.js
14 33 (1.26%) HTML
14 33 (1.26%) Spring
15 30 (1.15%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 149 (5.70%) Onboarding
2 133 (5.09%) Data Structures
3 122 (4.67%) Cloud Native
4 109 (4.17%) Legacy Systems
5 96 (3.68%) Management Information System
5 96 (3.68%) Product Ownership
6 80 (3.06%) Data Centre
7 50 (1.91%) AI Agents
8 48 (1.84%) Enterprise Software
9 42 (1.61%) Analytical Mindset
9 42 (1.61%) Distributed Systems
9 42 (1.61%) SCADA
10 39 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
11 37 (1.42%) Algorithms
12 34 (1.30%) Operational Technology
13 33 (1.26%) CMDB
13 33 (1.26%) Life Science
14 31 (1.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 31 (1.19%) Reference Data
15 30 (1.15%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 161 (6.16%) Windows
2 102 (3.91%) Linux
3 57 (2.18%) Windows Server
4 30 (1.15%) Unix
5 21 (0.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (0.57%) Android
7 11 (0.42%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.34%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.31%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.27%) VMS
11 4 (0.15%) SUSE
11 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.11%) VxWorks
12 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.077%) CentOS
13 2 (0.077%) HPUX
13 2 (0.077%) Solaris
13 2 (0.077%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.038%) AIX
14 1 (0.038%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 703 (26.91%) Migration
2 571 (21.86%) Stakeholder Management
3 519 (19.87%) CI/CD
4 496 (18.99%) Agile
5 412 (15.77%) Analytics
6 410 (15.70%) Data Modelling
6 410 (15.70%) User Acceptance Testing
7 404 (15.47%) Data Validation
8 401 (15.35%) Data Migration
9 397 (15.20%) Problem-Solving
10 367 (14.05%) AI
11 356 (13.63%) DevOps
12 352 (13.48%) Test Automation
13 334 (12.79%) Continuous Improvement
14 299 (11.45%) ETL
15 277 (10.60%) Business Intelligence
15 277 (10.60%) Data Analysis
16 270 (10.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 265 (10.15%) Data Pipeline
18 262 (10.03%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 678 (25.96%) SQL
2 541 (20.71%) Python
3 123 (4.71%) Java
4 94 (3.60%) PowerShell
5 65 (2.49%) JavaScript
6 54 (2.07%) Bash
7 52 (1.99%) C#
8 42 (1.61%) C++
9 35 (1.34%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.11%) Apex Code
10 29 (1.11%) R
11 27 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 26 (1.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 24 (0.92%) Shell Script
14 23 (0.88%) C
15 21 (0.80%) Bicep
16 18 (0.69%) VBA
17 14 (0.54%) MATLAB
18 13 (0.50%) T-SQL
19 12 (0.46%) Scala
Qualifications
1 507 (19.41%) Security Cleared
2 371 (14.20%) SC Cleared
3 192 (7.35%) Degree
4 83 (3.18%) DV Cleared
5 50 (1.91%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (1.72%) Computer Science Degree
7 37 (1.42%) Cisco Certification
8 33 (1.26%) AWS Certification
9 29 (1.11%) CCNP
10 28 (1.07%) ACCA
10 28 (1.07%) CIMA
11 23 (0.88%) Azure Certification
11 23 (0.88%) PMI Certification
12 20 (0.77%) ISTQB
13 19 (0.73%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 19 (0.73%) CISSP
13 19 (0.73%) PMP
14 17 (0.65%) Master's Degree
15 15 (0.57%) Microsoft Certification
16 11 (0.42%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 537 (20.56%) Data Quality
2 314 (12.02%) QA
3 81 (3.10%) GDPR
4 45 (1.72%) Accessibility
5 38 (1.45%) SLA
6 35 (1.34%) NIST
7 32 (1.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 31 (1.19%) PMO
9 21 (0.80%) GxP
10 18 (0.69%) WCAG
11 16 (0.61%) ISO 20022
12 15 (0.57%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 15 (0.57%) GRC
13 13 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.42%) Def Stans
14 11 (0.42%) IFRS
14 11 (0.42%) NCSC
15 10 (0.38%) MiFID
16 9 (0.34%) GMP
17 8 (0.31%) HL7
System Software
1 100 (3.83%) Docker
2 86 (3.29%) Active Directory
3 63 (2.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.15%) Virtual Machines
5 25 (0.96%) VMware ESXi
6 21 (0.80%) Firmware
7 19 (0.73%) vSphere
8 17 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
9 15 (0.57%) Hyper-V
10 13 (0.50%) VMware NSX
11 3 (0.11%) KVM
11 3 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.11%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.077%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.077%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.038%) etcd
13 1 (0.038%) HDFS
13 1 (0.038%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.038%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 122 (4.67%) Kubernetes
2 86 (3.29%) Ansible
3 38 (1.45%) 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 16 (0.61%) 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
11 8 (0.31%) Functional Safety
11 8 (0.31%) Progress Chef
12 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
12 5 (0.19%) systemd
12 5 (0.19%) vRealize
13 4 (0.15%) Kibana
13 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 402 (15.39%) Microsoft
2 212 (8.12%) SAP
3 197 (7.54%) Oracle
4 151 (5.78%) Databricks
5 85 (3.25%) Salesforce
6 76 (2.91%) Cisco
7 75 (2.87%) ServiceNow
8 71 (2.72%) VMware
9 52 (1.99%) Google
10 47 (1.80%) Workday
11 41 (1.57%) IBM
12 31 (1.19%) Fortinet
13 30 (1.15%) Zscaler
14 29 (1.11%) Juniper
15 27 (1.03%) Informatica
16 23 (0.88%) Palo Alto
17 22 (0.84%) Splunk
18 17 (0.65%) Red Hat
19 16 (0.61%) Siemens
20 14 (0.54%) Sage