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

6 months to
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 67 116
Rank change year-on-year +32 +49 +34
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,430 1,020 674
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.34% 3.69% 2.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.27% 4.07% 2.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,482 623 339
10th Percentile £342 £356 £325
25th Percentile £413 £419 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £480
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +9.38% -12.73%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £588
90th Percentile £701 £700 £668
UK median daily rate £500 £523 £490
% change year-on-year -4.31% +6.63% -10.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 162 78 120
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £29.59
25th Percentile £28.69 £37.67 £51.19
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% +3.92%
75th Percentile £75.00 £67.00 £69.16
90th Percentile £83.68 £75.75 £75.19
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 38,782 25,081 28,761
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.18% 90.77% 85.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,156 16,055 18,761
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £760
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,506 1,391 1,691
10th Percentile £14.94 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £20.31 £17.87 £18.21
Median hourly rate £44.23 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +75.86% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £68.75 £50.88 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.50 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.33
% change year-on-year +74.79% -37.63% -5.12%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 +44 1,156 £525 - 739
South East +6 319 £505 +1.00% 328
Midlands +31 311 £475 +5.56% 178
North of England +50 308 £450 -9.09% 206
West Midlands +30 223 £473 +5.11% 112
North West +24 161 £450 -21.40% 121
East of England +6 149 £475 -6.40% 147
Yorkshire +35 134 £451 +3.56% 47
South West -17 124 £524 -8.91% 157
East Midlands +26 82 £525 +15.51% 66
North East -34 17 £425 -22.73% 41
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 74 (3.05%) Confluence
2 64 (2.63%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (1.93%) SAS
4 41 (1.69%) SharePoint
5 38 (1.56%) Apache Spark
6 28 (1.15%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.37%) CMS
8 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.33%) SharePoint 2013
10 6 (0.25%) ArcGIS
11 5 (0.21%) Palantir Foundry
11 5 (0.21%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.12%) IIS
13 3 (0.12%) JBoss
13 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 175 (7.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (1.44%) Microsoft Office
3 34 (1.40%) MS Visio
4 24 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 24 (0.99%) Spreadsheet
5 11 (0.45%) AutoCAD
6 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
7 6 (0.25%) Navisworks
7 6 (0.25%) Revit
7 6 (0.25%) Simulink
8 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.21%) ProjectWise
9 3 (0.12%) CATIA
10 2 (0.082%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.082%) EPLAN
11 1 (0.041%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.041%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.041%) Gliffy
11 1 (0.041%) LaTeX
11 1 (0.041%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 109 (4.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.15%) Oracle EBS
3 16 (0.66%) Workday HCM
4 13 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
5 11 (0.45%) iTrent
5 11 (0.45%) NetSuite
5 11 (0.45%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 11 (0.45%) SAP ERP
5 11 (0.45%) Teamcenter
6 9 (0.37%) Aladdin
6 9 (0.37%) Dynamics CRM
6 9 (0.37%) Oracle Assets
6 9 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
6 9 (0.37%) Sage X3
6 9 (0.37%) SAP MDG
7 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
8 7 (0.29%) Oracle Financials
8 7 (0.29%) SAP SD
8 7 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 6 (0.25%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 548 (22.55%) Azure
2 286 (11.77%) AWS
3 258 (10.62%) Power Platform
4 136 (5.60%) Azure DevOps
5 135 (5.56%) GCP
6 117 (4.81%) GitHub
7 84 (3.46%) Snowflake
8 70 (2.88%) Azure Data Factory
9 66 (2.72%) Entra ID
9 66 (2.72%) GitHub Actions
10 54 (2.22%) Serverless
11 44 (1.81%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 44 (1.81%) dbt
11 44 (1.81%) Microsoft 365
11 44 (1.81%) SaaS
12 41 (1.69%) OCI
13 40 (1.65%) Amazon S3
14 37 (1.52%) SuccessFactors
15 30 (1.23%) Azure Monitor
16 27 (1.11%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 102 (4.20%) Firewall
2 63 (2.59%) Network Security
3 60 (2.47%) DNS
4 45 (1.85%) VLAN
5 44 (1.81%) VPN
6 41 (1.69%) TCP/IP
7 35 (1.44%) WAN
8 28 (1.15%) BGP
9 26 (1.07%) DHCP
10 23 (0.95%) Internet
11 21 (0.86%) SAN
12 20 (0.82%) LAN
12 20 (0.82%) OSPF
12 20 (0.82%) Wireless
13 19 (0.78%) SD-WAN
14 14 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.53%) Ethernet
16 12 (0.49%) 5G
16 12 (0.49%) Cisco ISE
17 11 (0.45%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 240 (9.88%) Power BI
2 147 (6.05%) Data Warehouse
3 98 (4.03%) Metadata
4 79 (3.25%) Data Lake
5 72 (2.96%) Tableau
6 70 (2.88%) PostgreSQL
6 70 (2.88%) SQL Server
7 66 (2.72%) Relational Database
8 38 (1.56%) Big Data
9 30 (1.23%) NoSQL
10 29 (1.19%) BigQuery
11 28 (1.15%) Delta Lake
11 28 (1.15%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 26 (1.07%) Oracle Database
12 26 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 25 (1.03%) MongoDB
14 24 (0.99%) Oracle Reports
14 24 (0.99%) Power Query
15 22 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
16 20 (0.82%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 225 (9.26%) JIRA
2 161 (6.63%) Git
3 89 (3.66%) Jenkins
4 68 (2.80%) GitLab
5 57 (2.35%) Selenium
6 41 (1.69%) JMeter
7 37 (1.52%) Cucumber
8 36 (1.48%) JUnit
8 36 (1.48%) Postman
9 31 (1.28%) WebDriver
10 23 (0.95%) Rational DOORS
11 18 (0.74%) Eclipse
12 15 (0.62%) Visual Studio
13 13 (0.53%) Gatling
13 13 (0.53%) Rational Rhapsody
14 11 (0.45%) Maven
15 10 (0.41%) ERwin
15 10 (0.41%) Gradle
15 10 (0.41%) REST Assured
16 9 (0.37%) MLflow
General
1 712 (29.30%) Finance
2 705 (29.01%) Social Skills
3 477 (19.63%) Analytical Skills
4 195 (8.02%) Public Sector
5 182 (7.49%) Banking
6 131 (5.39%) Documentation Skills
7 88 (3.62%) Manufacturing
8 86 (3.54%) Retail
9 58 (2.39%) Aerospace
10 52 (2.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 48 (1.98%) Pharmaceutical
12 46 (1.89%) Telecoms
13 42 (1.73%) Organisational Skills
14 40 (1.65%) Automotive
15 37 (1.52%) Marketing
16 36 (1.48%) Front Office
16 36 (1.48%) Law
17 35 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
17 35 (1.44%) Local Government
18 33 (1.36%) Military
Job Titles
1 426 (17.53%) Analyst
2 253 (10.41%) Senior
3 245 (10.08%) Lead
4 207 (8.52%) Data Engineer
5 197 (8.11%) Business Analyst
6 177 (7.28%) Consultant
7 142 (5.84%) Developer
8 128 (5.27%) Architect
9 125 (5.14%) Data Analyst
10 95 (3.91%) Test Engineer
11 70 (2.88%) Tester
12 67 (2.76%) Project Manager
13 56 (2.30%) Network Engineer
14 48 (1.98%) Systems Engineer
15 47 (1.93%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 45 (1.85%) Senior Data Engineer
17 41 (1.69%) Administrator
18 40 (1.65%) Technical Analyst
19 39 (1.60%) Migration Engineer
20 38 (1.56%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 123 (5.06%) REST
2 72 (2.96%) JSON
3 66 (2.72%) Kafka
4 63 (2.59%) PySpark
5 58 (2.39%) XML
6 49 (2.02%) Oracle Fusion
7 41 (1.69%) Spring
8 40 (1.65%) pytest
9 39 (1.60%) .NET
10 38 (1.56%) Middleware
11 35 (1.44%) Playwright
12 32 (1.32%) RESTful
13 31 (1.28%) Pandas
14 30 (1.23%) SOAP
15 28 (1.15%) Node.js
15 28 (1.15%) Web Services
16 26 (1.07%) OAuth
17 25 (1.03%) WireMock
18 22 (0.91%) Lightning Web Components
18 22 (0.91%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 136 (5.60%) Data Structures
2 135 (5.56%) Onboarding
3 117 (4.81%) Legacy Systems
4 104 (4.28%) Cloud Native
5 98 (4.03%) Product Ownership
6 68 (2.80%) Management Information System
7 64 (2.63%) Data Centre
8 47 (1.93%) Analytical Mindset
8 47 (1.93%) Distributed Systems
9 40 (1.65%) SCADA
10 39 (1.60%) AI Agents
11 37 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
12 36 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
13 33 (1.36%) Life Science
14 32 (1.32%) Hybrid Cloud
14 32 (1.32%) Public Cloud
15 30 (1.23%) Operational Technology
16 29 (1.19%) Reference Data
17 28 (1.15%) Algorithms
17 28 (1.15%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 126 (5.19%) Windows
2 90 (3.70%) Linux
3 38 (1.56%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.91%) Unix
5 18 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.45%) Android
6 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
7 6 (0.25%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.25%) VMS
8 5 (0.21%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.16%) SUSE
10 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.082%) HPUX
11 2 (0.082%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.041%) Debian
12 1 (0.041%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.041%) Solaris
12 1 (0.041%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.041%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 671 (27.61%) Migration
2 470 (19.34%) Agile
3 469 (19.30%) Stakeholder Management
4 433 (17.82%) CI/CD
5 408 (16.79%) Data Migration
6 407 (16.75%) Analytics
7 396 (16.30%) User Acceptance Testing
8 390 (16.05%) Data Validation
9 383 (15.76%) Data Modelling
10 378 (15.56%) Problem-Solving
11 320 (13.17%) DevOps
12 319 (13.13%) AI
13 300 (12.35%) ETL
14 299 (12.30%) Test Automation
15 296 (12.18%) Continuous Improvement
16 276 (11.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 271 (11.15%) Business Intelligence
18 259 (10.66%) Data Governance
19 256 (10.53%) Data Pipeline
20 235 (9.67%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 600 (24.69%) SQL
2 445 (18.31%) Python
3 112 (4.61%) Java
4 69 (2.84%) PowerShell
5 49 (2.02%) C#
6 44 (1.81%) Bash
7 40 (1.65%) JavaScript
8 35 (1.44%) C++
9 32 (1.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 27 (1.11%) Apex Code
11 26 (1.07%) TypeScript
12 25 (1.03%) Bicep
12 25 (1.03%) PL/SQL
13 24 (0.99%) VBA
14 23 (0.95%) C
15 22 (0.91%) R
16 15 (0.62%) MATLAB
17 13 (0.53%) Ada
17 13 (0.53%) Scala
17 13 (0.53%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 444 (18.27%) Security Cleared
2 316 (13.00%) SC Cleared
3 168 (6.91%) Degree
4 64 (2.63%) DV Cleared
5 45 (1.85%) BPSS Clearance
6 40 (1.65%) Computer Science Degree
7 36 (1.48%) Cisco Certification
8 28 (1.15%) CCNP
9 21 (0.86%) PMI Certification
10 20 (0.82%) ACCA
11 19 (0.78%) CIMA
12 18 (0.74%) ISTQB
12 18 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
13 17 (0.70%) CISSP
13 17 (0.70%) PMP
14 16 (0.66%) Azure Certification
15 12 (0.49%) AWS Certification
16 11 (0.45%) CCNA
16 11 (0.45%) Master's Degree
17 9 (0.37%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 473 (19.47%) Data Quality
2 303 (12.47%) QA
3 102 (4.20%) GDPR
4 49 (2.02%) NIST
5 43 (1.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 35 (1.44%) Accessibility
7 32 (1.32%) PMO
8 28 (1.15%) SLA
9 21 (0.86%) GxP
10 15 (0.62%) GRC
11 14 (0.58%) Def Stans
12 13 (0.53%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.49%) HL7
13 12 (0.49%) IFRS
13 12 (0.49%) ISO 20022
13 12 (0.49%) NCSC
13 12 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.45%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.45%) WCAG
System Software
1 110 (4.53%) Docker
2 78 (3.21%) Active Directory
3 52 (2.14%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.11%) Virtual Machines
5 21 (0.86%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (0.58%) Firmware
6 14 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.53%) vSphere
8 10 (0.41%) VMware NSX
9 9 (0.37%) Hyper-V
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) NFS
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
10 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.082%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.082%) VirtualBox
11 2 (0.082%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.041%) etcd
12 1 (0.041%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.041%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 142 (5.84%) Kubernetes
2 111 (4.57%) Terraform
3 55 (2.26%) Ansible
4 47 (1.93%) Grafana
5 46 (1.89%) Prometheus
6 22 (0.91%) FortiGate
6 22 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
7 20 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
8 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
9 9 (0.37%) SCCM
10 8 (0.33%) VxRail
11 6 (0.25%) HP ALM
12 5 (0.21%) CASB
12 5 (0.21%) systemd
12 5 (0.21%) vRealize
13 4 (0.16%) Argo
13 4 (0.16%) Failover Clustering
13 4 (0.16%) Nessus
13 4 (0.16%) Puppet
14 3 (0.12%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 359 (14.77%) Microsoft
2 217 (8.93%) SAP
3 205 (8.44%) Oracle
4 137 (5.64%) Databricks
5 82 (3.37%) Salesforce
6 62 (2.55%) VMware
7 60 (2.47%) ServiceNow
8 52 (2.14%) Cisco
9 47 (1.93%) Workday
10 40 (1.65%) Google
11 32 (1.32%) Informatica
12 30 (1.23%) Splunk
13 28 (1.15%) Juniper
14 27 (1.11%) Fortinet
15 26 (1.07%) Zscaler
16 25 (1.03%) IBM
17 23 (0.95%) MuleSoft
17 23 (0.95%) Palo Alto
18 22 (0.91%) Sage
19 20 (0.82%) IFS