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

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 65 104
Rank change year-on-year +33 +39 +45
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,686 1,065 742
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.80% 3.79% 2.29%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.85% 4.17% 2.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,564 637 375
10th Percentile £350 £350 £322
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -7.83%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £589
90th Percentile £710 £700 £650
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -6.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 192 79 96
10th Percentile £17.23 £20.50 £28.89
25th Percentile £27.81 £38.87 £47.88
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £63.75
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% +1.96% -4.48%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £65.63
90th Percentile £79.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -17.69% +4.00% -5.27%

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 39,229 25,540 27,994
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.68% 90.96% 86.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,740 16,195 17,136
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £512 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.54% -2.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £643
90th Percentile £738 £734 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,947 1,574 1,191
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.54 £17.87 £20.50
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.47 £46.55 £67.01
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.62 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +53.57% -40.82% -

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 +38 1,308 £525 - 2,038
North of England +46 356 £457 +6.22% 590
South East +6 332 £525 +5.00% 811
Midlands +41 300 £463 -7.50% 475
West Midlands +22 213 £458 -9.85% 298
North West +27 178 £467 +9.88% 296
South West +22 174 £525 -4.55% 408
Yorkshire +54 149 £461 -2.89% 189
East of England -7 140 £475 -5.00% 415
East Midlands +32 84 £488 -4.88% 177
North East -17 34 £425 -11.92% 106
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 83 (3.09%) Confluence
2 59 (2.20%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (2.05%) SharePoint
4 47 (1.75%) Apache Spark
5 40 (1.49%) SAS
6 37 (1.38%) Apache
7 20 (0.74%) CMS
8 16 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
9 11 (0.41%) Jupyter
10 8 (0.30%) Palantir Foundry
10 8 (0.30%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.26%) IIS
11 7 (0.26%) Sitecore CMS
11 7 (0.26%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.22%) OpenStack
12 6 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
13 5 (0.19%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.15%) JBoss
14 4 (0.15%) Tomcat
Applications
1 182 (6.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.56%) Microsoft Office
3 32 (1.19%) MS Visio
4 30 (1.12%) Spreadsheet
5 27 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 14 (0.52%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.34%) Navisworks
7 9 (0.34%) Revit
7 9 (0.34%) Simulink
8 8 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
9 7 (0.26%) ProjectWise
10 4 (0.15%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.11%) CATIA
11 3 (0.11%) OrCAD
12 2 (0.074%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.074%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.074%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.037%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.037%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.037%) Trello
Business Applications
1 103 (3.83%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.60%) Workday HCM
3 15 (0.56%) Oracle Payables
3 15 (0.56%) SAP FI
4 13 (0.48%) NetSuite
4 13 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
5 12 (0.45%) Integrated Workplace Management System
5 12 (0.45%) SAP MDG
5 12 (0.45%) SAP SD
5 12 (0.45%) Teamcenter
6 11 (0.41%) Aladdin
6 11 (0.41%) SAP HCM
6 11 (0.41%) SAP MM
7 10 (0.37%) Dynamics CRM
7 10 (0.37%) iTrent
8 9 (0.34%) SAP ERP
9 8 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
9 8 (0.30%) SAP CO
10 7 (0.26%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 531 (19.77%) Azure
2 306 (11.39%) AWS
3 271 (10.09%) Power Platform
4 155 (5.77%) Azure DevOps
5 150 (5.58%) GCP
6 125 (4.65%) GitHub
7 99 (3.69%) Snowflake
8 90 (3.35%) Entra ID
9 69 (2.57%) Azure Data Factory
10 67 (2.49%) GitHub Actions
11 55 (2.05%) Amazon S3
12 53 (1.97%) dbt
12 53 (1.97%) Microsoft 365
13 50 (1.86%) Serverless
14 47 (1.75%) SaaS
15 41 (1.53%) SuccessFactors
16 37 (1.38%) Dynamics 365
17 36 (1.34%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 32 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
19 31 (1.15%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 97 (3.61%) Firewall
2 72 (2.68%) DNS
3 53 (1.97%) Network Security
4 51 (1.90%) VPN
5 50 (1.86%) VLAN
6 44 (1.64%) TCP/IP
7 42 (1.56%) BGP
8 39 (1.45%) WAN
9 30 (1.12%) DHCP
10 23 (0.86%) OSPF
10 23 (0.86%) VXLAN
11 22 (0.82%) Ethernet
11 22 (0.82%) Internet
12 21 (0.78%) SD-WAN
12 21 (0.78%) Wireless
13 20 (0.74%) 5G
13 20 (0.74%) Ethernet VPN
13 20 (0.74%) LAN
13 20 (0.74%) SAN
14 18 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 250 (9.31%) Power BI
2 144 (5.36%) Data Warehouse
3 111 (4.13%) Metadata
4 95 (3.54%) Relational Database
5 83 (3.09%) SQL Server
6 73 (2.72%) PostgreSQL
7 71 (2.64%) Data Lake
8 63 (2.35%) Tableau
9 39 (1.45%) MongoDB
10 37 (1.38%) BigQuery
11 35 (1.30%) Big Data
12 34 (1.27%) Delta Lake
13 32 (1.19%) NoSQL
13 32 (1.19%) Power Query
13 32 (1.19%) Redis
14 30 (1.12%) Oracle Database
15 24 (0.89%) MySQL
16 23 (0.86%) Amazon Athena
16 23 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
17 20 (0.74%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 243 (9.05%) JIRA
2 197 (7.33%) Git
3 91 (3.39%) GitLab
4 87 (3.24%) Jenkins
5 70 (2.61%) Selenium
6 36 (1.34%) Postman
7 30 (1.12%) JMeter
8 24 (0.89%) Cucumber
8 24 (0.89%) Rational DOORS
9 17 (0.63%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.63%) JUnit
9 17 (0.63%) Visual Studio
10 15 (0.56%) WebDriver
11 13 (0.48%) REST Assured
12 12 (0.45%) Cypress.io
12 12 (0.45%) Visual Studio Code
12 12 (0.45%) Zephyr
13 11 (0.41%) Rational Rhapsody
13 11 (0.41%) TestRail
14 10 (0.37%) Gatling
General
1 782 (29.11%) Finance
2 766 (28.52%) Social Skills
3 536 (19.96%) Analytical Skills
4 247 (9.20%) Banking
5 219 (8.15%) Public Sector
6 121 (4.50%) Manufacturing
7 110 (4.10%) Documentation Skills
8 85 (3.16%) Retail
9 72 (2.68%) Automotive
10 63 (2.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 61 (2.27%) Telecoms
12 51 (1.90%) Aerospace
13 49 (1.82%) Marketing
14 46 (1.71%) Organisational Skills
15 45 (1.68%) Legal
16 43 (1.60%) Local Government
17 40 (1.49%) Pharmaceutical
18 39 (1.45%) Front Office
19 38 (1.41%) Billing
19 38 (1.41%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 453 (16.87%) Analyst
2 318 (11.84%) Senior
3 250 (9.31%) Lead
4 222 (8.27%) Data Engineer
5 211 (7.86%) Consultant
6 201 (7.48%) Business Analyst
7 162 (6.03%) Developer
8 145 (5.40%) Architect
9 144 (5.36%) Data Analyst
10 105 (3.91%) Test Engineer
11 65 (2.42%) Network Engineer
11 65 (2.42%) Tester
12 61 (2.27%) Senior Data Engineer
13 57 (2.12%) Administrator
14 52 (1.94%) Systems Engineer
15 50 (1.86%) Software Engineer
16 41 (1.53%) QA Engineer
16 41 (1.53%) Senior Analyst
17 39 (1.45%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 38 (1.41%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 169 (6.29%) Terraform
2 165 (6.14%) REST
3 80 (2.98%) PySpark
4 78 (2.90%) JSON
5 65 (2.42%) Kafka
6 64 (2.38%) Middleware
6 64 (2.38%) XML
7 53 (1.97%) Playwright
8 46 (1.71%) pytest
9 44 (1.64%) Oracle Fusion
10 43 (1.60%) OAuth
11 41 (1.53%) SOAP
11 41 (1.53%) Web Services
12 39 (1.45%) RESTful
13 35 (1.30%) .NET
14 34 (1.27%) Node.js
14 34 (1.27%) Pandas
15 32 (1.19%) HTML
16 31 (1.15%) Spring
17 30 (1.12%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 158 (5.88%) Onboarding
2 143 (5.32%) Data Structures
3 127 (4.73%) Cloud Native
4 109 (4.06%) Legacy Systems
5 101 (3.76%) Management Information System
5 101 (3.76%) Product Ownership
6 85 (3.16%) Data Centre
7 59 (2.20%) Enterprise Software
8 58 (2.16%) AI Agents
9 43 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
10 42 (1.56%) Algorithms
10 42 (1.56%) Analytical Mindset
10 42 (1.56%) SCADA
11 38 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
12 36 (1.34%) Life Science
13 33 (1.23%) CMDB
14 32 (1.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 32 (1.19%) Operational Technology
15 29 (1.08%) Replication
16 28 (1.04%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 171 (6.37%) Windows
2 102 (3.80%) Linux
3 64 (2.38%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.23%) Unix
5 19 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.48%) Android
7 11 (0.41%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.34%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.30%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.15%) 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 (0.074%) HPUX
12 2 (0.074%) Solaris
12 2 (0.074%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.037%) AIX
13 1 (0.037%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 732 (27.25%) Migration
2 603 (22.45%) Stakeholder Management
3 535 (19.92%) CI/CD
4 510 (18.99%) Agile
5 434 (16.16%) User Acceptance Testing
6 429 (15.97%) Data Migration
7 423 (15.75%) Data Modelling
8 418 (15.56%) Analytics
9 409 (15.23%) Data Validation
9 409 (15.23%) Problem-Solving
10 386 (14.37%) AI
11 368 (13.70%) Continuous Improvement
11 368 (13.70%) DevOps
12 367 (13.66%) Test Automation
13 303 (11.28%) ETL
14 284 (10.57%) Business Intelligence
15 283 (10.54%) Data Analysis
16 274 (10.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 268 (9.98%) Decision-Making
18 266 (9.90%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 706 (26.28%) SQL
2 561 (20.89%) Python
3 122 (4.54%) Java
4 109 (4.06%) PowerShell
5 71 (2.64%) JavaScript
6 54 (2.01%) Bash
7 51 (1.90%) C#
8 43 (1.60%) C++
9 40 (1.49%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.04%) R
11 25 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 25 (0.93%) Shell Script
12 24 (0.89%) Apex Code
12 24 (0.89%) C
12 24 (0.89%) PL/SQL
13 22 (0.82%) Bicep
14 20 (0.74%) VBA
15 17 (0.63%) MATLAB
16 15 (0.56%) Go
17 14 (0.52%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 535 (19.92%) Security Cleared
2 398 (14.82%) SC Cleared
3 203 (7.56%) Degree
4 90 (3.35%) DV Cleared
5 55 (2.05%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.71%) Computer Science Degree
7 36 (1.34%) Cisco Certification
8 34 (1.27%) AWS Certification
9 31 (1.15%) ACCA
9 31 (1.15%) CIMA
10 28 (1.04%) CCNP
11 25 (0.93%) PMI Certification
12 20 (0.74%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 20 (0.74%) Azure Certification
12 20 (0.74%) CISSP
12 20 (0.74%) ISTQB
12 20 (0.74%) Master's Degree
12 20 (0.74%) PMP
13 19 (0.71%) DBS Check
14 14 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 561 (20.89%) Data Quality
2 320 (11.91%) QA
3 79 (2.94%) GDPR
4 45 (1.68%) SLA
5 44 (1.64%) Accessibility
6 32 (1.19%) NIST
7 31 (1.15%) PMO
8 29 (1.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 22 (0.82%) GxP
10 16 (0.60%) WCAG
11 15 (0.56%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 15 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
12 14 (0.52%) GRC
12 14 (0.52%) ISO 20022
13 12 (0.45%) IFRS
14 10 (0.37%) Def Stans
14 10 (0.37%) MiFID
14 10 (0.37%) NCSC
15 9 (0.34%) GMP
16 8 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 101 (3.76%) Active Directory
2 96 (3.57%) Docker
3 64 (2.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.01%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.63%) Firmware
8 16 (0.60%) vSphere
9 15 (0.56%) Hyper-V
10 13 (0.48%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.15%) VirtualBox
12 3 (0.11%) KVM
12 3 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.074%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.037%) BitLocker
14 1 (0.037%) etcd
14 1 (0.037%) HDFS
14 1 (0.037%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.037%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 130 (4.84%) Kubernetes
2 93 (3.46%) Ansible
3 33 (1.23%) Grafana
4 30 (1.12%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.89%) FortiGate
6 22 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
7 19 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (0.56%) SCCM
9 11 (0.41%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.37%) Functional Safety
11 9 (0.34%) Progress Chef
11 9 (0.34%) vCenter Server
12 8 (0.30%) Argo
13 6 (0.22%) Control-M
13 6 (0.22%) VxRail
14 5 (0.19%) vRealize
15 4 (0.15%) Failover Clustering
15 4 (0.15%) Kibana
15 4 (0.15%) systemd
15 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 424 (15.79%) Microsoft
2 222 (8.27%) SAP
3 194 (7.22%) Oracle
4 160 (5.96%) Databricks
5 84 (3.13%) ServiceNow
6 78 (2.90%) Cisco
6 78 (2.90%) Salesforce
7 71 (2.64%) VMware
8 62 (2.31%) Google
9 52 (1.94%) Workday
10 46 (1.71%) IBM
11 32 (1.19%) Fortinet
12 29 (1.08%) Zscaler
13 27 (1.01%) Informatica
13 27 (1.01%) Juniper
14 24 (0.89%) Palo Alto
15 18 (0.67%) Red Hat
15 18 (0.67%) Splunk
16 17 (0.63%) Sage
16 17 (0.63%) Siemens