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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 66 109
Rank change year-on-year +33 +43 +42
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,496 1,035 692
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.47% 3.75% 2.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.44% 4.13% 2.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,518 633 340
10th Percentile £339 £339 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £488
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +5.02% -11.27%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £588
90th Percentile £713 £688 £663
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 169 77 116
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £29.89
25th Percentile £28.50 £36.25 £50.25
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £73.75 £66.50 £69.44
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £75.93
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 38,776 25,061 28,469
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.95% 90.80% 85.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,043 15,975 18,472
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £530
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -3.77% -3.64%
75th Percentile £630 £626 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,543 1,444 1,583
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.22 £14.05
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.88 £18.12
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +4.83%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.21 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.63 £25.15 £40.94
% change year-on-year +65.54% -38.57% -0.24%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 +42 1,203 £525 +2.44% 1,040
North of England +43 320 £453 -8.48% 268
South East 0 316 £501 +0.25% 424
Midlands +31 309 £475 -5.00% 211
West Midlands +27 216 £461 -9.21% 138
North West +22 161 £456 -16.10% 153
East of England +7 151 £475 -5.00% 252
Yorkshire +43 144 £460 +2.22% 68
South West +3 134 £525 -8.70% 247
East Midlands +23 88 £505 +0.90% 73
North East -29 20 £438 -20.45% 54
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 (2.88%) Confluence
2 64 (2.56%) Apache Airflow
3 46 (1.84%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.80%) SAS
5 40 (1.60%) Apache Spark
6 26 (1.04%) Apache
7 14 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
8 11 (0.44%) Jupyter
9 10 (0.40%) CMS
10 8 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
12 6 (0.24%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.20%) Sitecore CMS
13 5 (0.20%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.16%) IIS
14 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.12%) JBoss
15 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 182 (7.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
3 33 (1.32%) MS Visio
4 30 (1.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 28 (1.12%) Spreadsheet
6 12 (0.48%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
8 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
8 7 (0.28%) Revit
9 6 (0.24%) Simulink
10 5 (0.20%) ProjectWise
11 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
12 3 (0.12%) CATIA
13 2 (0.080%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.080%) EPLAN
14 1 (0.040%) Autodesk Inventor
14 1 (0.040%) Gliffy
14 1 (0.040%) LaTeX
14 1 (0.040%) MicroStation
14 1 (0.040%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 105 (4.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.04%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.48%) NetSuite
4 12 (0.48%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.44%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 11 (0.44%) Teamcenter
6 10 (0.40%) iTrent
6 10 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.40%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.36%) SAP MDG
7 9 (0.36%) SAP SD
8 8 (0.32%) Aladdin
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
9 7 (0.28%) Sage X3
9 7 (0.28%) SAP FI
9 7 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
Cloud Services
1 562 (22.52%) Azure
2 297 (11.90%) AWS
3 265 (10.62%) Power Platform
4 143 (5.73%) Azure DevOps
5 135 (5.41%) GCP
6 121 (4.85%) GitHub
7 87 (3.49%) Snowflake
8 71 (2.84%) Azure Data Factory
9 69 (2.76%) Entra ID
10 65 (2.60%) GitHub Actions
11 54 (2.16%) Serverless
12 51 (2.04%) Microsoft 365
13 47 (1.88%) SaaS
14 44 (1.76%) dbt
15 43 (1.72%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 41 (1.64%) Amazon S3
17 38 (1.52%) OCI
17 38 (1.52%) SuccessFactors
18 31 (1.24%) Azure Monitor
19 28 (1.12%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.17%) Firewall
2 63 (2.52%) DNS
3 61 (2.44%) Network Security
4 53 (2.12%) VLAN
5 45 (1.80%) VPN
6 41 (1.64%) TCP/IP
7 38 (1.52%) WAN
8 35 (1.40%) BGP
9 31 (1.24%) DHCP
10 22 (0.88%) Internet
10 22 (0.88%) SAN
11 20 (0.80%) LAN
12 19 (0.76%) OSPF
12 19 (0.76%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.76%) Wireless
13 17 (0.68%) VXLAN
14 16 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
15 15 (0.60%) Ethernet
15 15 (0.60%) Ethernet VPN
16 14 (0.56%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 247 (9.90%) Power BI
2 147 (5.89%) Data Warehouse
3 108 (4.33%) Metadata
4 80 (3.21%) SQL Server
5 74 (2.96%) Data Lake
5 74 (2.96%) PostgreSQL
6 73 (2.92%) Relational Database
7 67 (2.68%) Tableau
8 37 (1.48%) Big Data
9 35 (1.40%) MongoDB
10 33 (1.32%) NoSQL
11 31 (1.24%) Delta Lake
12 28 (1.12%) BigQuery
13 27 (1.08%) Oracle Database
13 27 (1.08%) Redis
13 27 (1.08%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 24 (0.96%) MySQL
15 23 (0.92%) Power Query
16 22 (0.88%) Azure SQL Database
17 21 (0.84%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 219 (8.77%) JIRA
2 168 (6.73%) Git
3 92 (3.69%) Jenkins
4 78 (3.13%) GitLab
5 55 (2.20%) Selenium
6 40 (1.60%) Postman
7 33 (1.32%) JMeter
8 25 (1.00%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.96%) WebDriver
10 23 (0.92%) Rational DOORS
11 20 (0.80%) JUnit
12 18 (0.72%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.64%) Rational Rhapsody
13 16 (0.64%) Visual Studio
14 12 (0.48%) Gatling
15 11 (0.44%) Cypress.io
15 11 (0.44%) Maven
16 10 (0.40%) Gradle
16 10 (0.40%) REST Assured
17 9 (0.36%) TestRail
General
1 710 (28.45%) Social Skills
2 705 (28.25%) Finance
3 493 (19.75%) Analytical Skills
4 209 (8.37%) Public Sector
5 185 (7.41%) Banking
6 135 (5.41%) Documentation Skills
7 91 (3.65%) Manufacturing
8 86 (3.45%) Retail
9 56 (2.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 54 (2.16%) Aerospace
11 51 (2.04%) Telecoms
12 48 (1.92%) Automotive
13 45 (1.80%) Organisational Skills
14 44 (1.76%) Pharmaceutical
15 43 (1.72%) Marketing
16 41 (1.64%) Local Government
17 37 (1.48%) Front Office
17 37 (1.48%) Law
18 34 (1.36%) Legal
19 33 (1.32%) Military
Job Titles
1 427 (17.11%) Analyst
2 274 (10.98%) Senior
3 246 (9.86%) Lead
4 208 (8.33%) Data Engineer
5 198 (7.93%) Business Analyst
6 193 (7.73%) Consultant
7 144 (5.77%) Developer
8 125 (5.01%) Architect
9 121 (4.85%) Data Analyst
10 102 (4.09%) Test Engineer
11 70 (2.80%) Tester
12 63 (2.52%) Network Engineer
12 63 (2.52%) Project Manager
13 53 (2.12%) Systems Engineer
14 51 (2.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 50 (2.00%) Administrator
15 50 (2.00%) Senior Data Engineer
16 41 (1.64%) Software Engineer
17 40 (1.60%) Technical Analyst
17 40 (1.60%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 140 (5.61%) REST
2 130 (5.21%) Terraform
3 78 (3.13%) JSON
4 73 (2.92%) PySpark
5 66 (2.64%) Kafka
6 62 (2.48%) XML
7 48 (1.92%) Oracle Fusion
8 42 (1.68%) Middleware
8 42 (1.68%) Playwright
9 39 (1.56%) .NET
10 37 (1.48%) Spring
11 36 (1.44%) pytest
12 32 (1.28%) RESTful
13 30 (1.20%) Pandas
13 30 (1.20%) SOAP
13 30 (1.20%) Web Services
14 28 (1.12%) Node.js
14 28 (1.12%) OAuth
15 27 (1.08%) Spring Boot
16 23 (0.92%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 140 (5.61%) Onboarding
2 126 (5.05%) Data Structures
3 113 (4.53%) Cloud Native
4 108 (4.33%) Legacy Systems
5 101 (4.05%) Product Ownership
6 78 (3.13%) Management Information System
7 77 (3.08%) Data Centre
8 45 (1.80%) Analytical Mindset
8 45 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
9 42 (1.68%) Distributed Systems
9 42 (1.68%) SCADA
10 39 (1.56%) AI Agents
11 37 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
12 34 (1.36%) Algorithms
13 33 (1.32%) Life Science
14 32 (1.28%) CMDB
14 32 (1.28%) Replication
15 31 (1.24%) Operational Technology
15 31 (1.24%) Public Cloud
16 29 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 143 (5.73%) Windows
2 95 (3.81%) Linux
3 47 (1.88%) Windows Server
4 18 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 18 (0.72%) Unix
5 13 (0.52%) Android
6 11 (0.44%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.28%) Apple iOS
7 7 (0.28%) VMS
8 6 (0.24%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.16%) SUSE
9 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.080%) HPUX
10 2 (0.080%) VxWorks
10 2 (0.080%) Windows 7
10 2 (0.080%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.040%) Alpine Linux
11 1 (0.040%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.040%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 681 (27.28%) Migration
2 480 (19.23%) Agile
3 479 (19.19%) Stakeholder Management
4 467 (18.71%) CI/CD
5 414 (16.59%) User Acceptance Testing
6 404 (16.19%) Analytics
7 403 (16.15%) Data Migration
8 389 (15.58%) Problem-Solving
9 385 (15.42%) Data Modelling
10 377 (15.10%) Data Validation
11 331 (13.26%) AI
12 330 (13.22%) DevOps
13 316 (12.66%) Test Automation
14 305 (12.22%) Continuous Improvement
15 287 (11.50%) ETL
16 277 (11.10%) Business Intelligence
17 275 (11.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 267 (10.70%) Data Pipeline
19 257 (10.30%) Data Governance
20 242 (9.70%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 627 (25.12%) SQL
2 479 (19.19%) Python
3 118 (4.73%) Java
4 85 (3.41%) PowerShell
5 50 (2.00%) Bash
6 49 (1.96%) C#
7 46 (1.84%) JavaScript
8 43 (1.72%) C++
9 28 (1.12%) Apex Code
9 28 (1.12%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 26 (1.04%) R
11 25 (1.00%) Bicep
11 25 (1.00%) C
11 25 (1.00%) TypeScript
12 24 (0.96%) PL/SQL
13 21 (0.84%) VBA
14 15 (0.60%) MATLAB
14 15 (0.60%) Shell Script
15 13 (0.52%) Scala
16 12 (0.48%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 463 (18.55%) Security Cleared
2 333 (13.34%) SC Cleared
3 177 (7.09%) Degree
4 69 (2.76%) DV Cleared
5 46 (1.84%) BPSS Clearance
6 41 (1.64%) Computer Science Degree
7 39 (1.56%) Cisco Certification
8 31 (1.24%) CCNP
9 23 (0.92%) ACCA
9 23 (0.92%) CIMA
10 22 (0.88%) AWS Certification
11 21 (0.84%) PMI Certification
12 19 (0.76%) ISTQB
13 18 (0.72%) Azure Certification
14 17 (0.68%) PMP
15 15 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
16 14 (0.56%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 14 (0.56%) CISSP
16 14 (0.56%) Master's Degree
17 13 (0.52%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 492 (19.71%) Data Quality
2 303 (12.14%) QA
3 97 (3.89%) GDPR
4 47 (1.88%) NIST
5 41 (1.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 40 (1.60%) SLA
7 37 (1.48%) Accessibility
8 34 (1.36%) PMO
9 22 (0.88%) GxP
10 17 (0.68%) GRC
11 14 (0.56%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 14 (0.56%) Def Stans
12 13 (0.52%) ISO 20022
13 12 (0.48%) HL7
13 12 (0.48%) NCSC
14 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.44%) IFRS
14 11 (0.44%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.44%) WCAG
System Software
1 105 (4.21%) Docker
2 83 (3.33%) Active Directory
3 60 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 31 (1.24%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.96%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.76%) Firmware
7 16 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
7 16 (0.64%) vSphere
8 14 (0.56%) Hyper-V
9 12 (0.48%) 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 (0.080%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.080%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.040%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.040%) NFS
12 1 (0.040%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 129 (5.17%) Kubernetes
2 74 (2.96%) Ansible
3 41 (1.64%) Grafana
4 35 (1.40%) Prometheus
5 23 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
6 22 (0.88%) FortiGate
6 22 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
7 13 (0.52%) vCenter Server
8 10 (0.40%) SCCM
8 10 (0.40%) VxRail
9 8 (0.32%) Failover Clustering
10 6 (0.24%) Argo
10 6 (0.24%) HP ALM
10 6 (0.24%) Progress Chef
11 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
11 5 (0.20%) systemd
11 5 (0.20%) vRealize
12 4 (0.16%) Functional Safety
12 4 (0.16%) Puppet
13 3 (0.12%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 383 (15.34%) Microsoft
2 211 (8.45%) SAP
3 199 (7.97%) Oracle
4 146 (5.85%) Databricks
5 85 (3.41%) Salesforce
6 78 (3.13%) ServiceNow
7 70 (2.80%) VMware
8 64 (2.56%) Cisco
9 42 (1.68%) Google
9 42 (1.68%) Workday
10 29 (1.16%) Juniper
11 28 (1.12%) Informatica
12 27 (1.08%) Fortinet
12 27 (1.08%) IBM
13 26 (1.04%) Zscaler
14 21 (0.84%) Palo Alto
14 21 (0.84%) Splunk
15 19 (0.76%) IFS
16 18 (0.72%) Sage
17 17 (0.68%) CrowdStrike