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

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 66 110
Rank change year-on-year +33 +44 +41
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,598 1,047 720
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.60% 3.76% 2.18%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.60% 4.14% 2.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,551 628 349
10th Percentile £338 £335 £329
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £488
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% +4.10% -11.36%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £588
90th Percentile £710 £688 £661
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 169 81 104
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £28.50 £41.25 £51.19
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £73.25 £67.00 £71.60
90th Percentile £82.60 £75.00 £76.30
UK median hourly rate £53.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -18.46% - -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 39,380 25,274 28,344
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.88% 90.84% 85.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,176 16,039 17,819
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £634 £625 £650
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 2,707 1,489 1,353
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.33 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.85 £17.79 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.19% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £66.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +3.61%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 +41 1,283 £525 +0.96% 860
North of England +37 337 £452 +6.29% 212
South East +5 334 £500 -0.50% 369
Midlands +33 301 £473 -0.42% 215
West Midlands +31 213 £463 -2.58% 157
North West +22 167 £450 +5.88% 113
Yorkshire +44 149 £461 -2.89% 64
East of England -5 140 £477 -4.70% 188
South West +9 139 £525 -4.55% 203
East Midlands +28 84 £495 -1.00% 58
North East -31 26 £425 -5.56% 37
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 (2.77%) Confluence
2 64 (2.46%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (2.12%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.73%) SAS
5 40 (1.54%) Apache Spark
6 27 (1.04%) Apache
7 17 (0.65%) Microsoft Exchange
8 12 (0.46%) CMS
9 10 (0.38%) Jupyter
10 8 (0.31%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.27%) Palantir Foundry
11 7 (0.27%) Sitecore CMS
12 5 (0.19%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.19%) Tuxedo
12 5 (0.19%) WebLogic
13 4 (0.15%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.15%) Headless CMS
14 3 (0.12%) IIS
Applications
1 192 (7.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 39 (1.50%) Microsoft Office
3 36 (1.39%) Spreadsheet
4 33 (1.27%) MS Visio
5 30 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 13 (0.50%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
8 8 (0.31%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.31%) Revit
9 6 (0.23%) ProjectWise
9 6 (0.23%) Simulink
10 3 (0.12%) CATIA
10 3 (0.12%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.077%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.077%) EPLAN
12 1 (0.038%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.038%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.038%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.038%) Trello
12 1 (0.038%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 105 (4.04%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.65%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.58%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.50%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.46%) SAP SD
5 12 (0.46%) Teamcenter
5 12 (0.46%) Workday HCM
6 11 (0.42%) SAP FI
6 11 (0.42%) SAP MDG
7 10 (0.38%) Aladdin
7 10 (0.38%) iTrent
7 10 (0.38%) SAP MM
8 9 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.35%) SAP ERP
9 8 (0.31%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
9 8 (0.31%) SAP CO
9 8 (0.31%) SAP HCM
10 7 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 7 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 558 (21.48%) Azure
2 308 (11.86%) AWS
3 258 (9.93%) Power Platform
4 156 (6.00%) Azure DevOps
5 127 (4.89%) GCP
6 123 (4.73%) GitHub
7 96 (3.70%) Snowflake
8 76 (2.93%) Entra ID
9 72 (2.77%) Azure Data Factory
10 66 (2.54%) GitHub Actions
11 54 (2.08%) Serverless
12 53 (2.04%) Microsoft 365
13 52 (2.00%) dbt
14 50 (1.92%) SaaS
15 45 (1.73%) Amazon S3
16 42 (1.62%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 34 (1.31%) SuccessFactors
18 30 (1.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 30 (1.15%) Azure Monitor
19 29 (1.12%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.00%) Firewall
2 66 (2.54%) DNS
3 59 (2.27%) Network Security
4 57 (2.19%) VLAN
5 48 (1.85%) VPN
6 39 (1.50%) WAN
7 37 (1.42%) BGP
8 35 (1.35%) TCP/IP
9 32 (1.23%) DHCP
10 21 (0.81%) Internet
10 21 (0.81%) OSPF
10 21 (0.81%) SAN
10 21 (0.81%) SD-WAN
11 20 (0.77%) Wireless
12 19 (0.73%) 5G
12 19 (0.73%) VXLAN
13 18 (0.69%) LAN
14 15 (0.58%) Ethernet VPN
14 15 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.50%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 238 (9.16%) Power BI
2 145 (5.58%) Data Warehouse
3 108 (4.16%) Metadata
4 91 (3.50%) Relational Database
5 81 (3.12%) SQL Server
6 70 (2.69%) Data Lake
6 70 (2.69%) PostgreSQL
7 68 (2.62%) Tableau
8 37 (1.42%) Delta Lake
9 36 (1.39%) Big Data
9 36 (1.39%) MongoDB
10 34 (1.31%) Oracle Database
11 32 (1.23%) BigQuery
12 31 (1.19%) NoSQL
13 29 (1.12%) Redis
14 28 (1.08%) Power Query
15 26 (1.00%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 25 (0.96%) MySQL
17 23 (0.89%) Oracle Reports
18 21 (0.81%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 234 (9.01%) JIRA
2 187 (7.20%) Git
3 91 (3.50%) Jenkins
4 82 (3.16%) GitLab
5 67 (2.58%) Selenium
6 35 (1.35%) Postman
7 31 (1.19%) JMeter
8 21 (0.81%) Cucumber
8 21 (0.81%) Rational DOORS
9 20 (0.77%) WebDriver
10 15 (0.58%) JUnit
11 13 (0.50%) Rational Rhapsody
12 11 (0.42%) Eclipse
12 11 (0.42%) Gatling
13 10 (0.38%) Cypress.io
13 10 (0.38%) Maven
13 10 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
14 9 (0.35%) Gradle
14 9 (0.35%) Robot Framework
14 9 (0.35%) Zephyr
General
1 748 (28.79%) Finance
2 742 (28.56%) Social Skills
3 504 (19.40%) Analytical Skills
4 212 (8.16%) Banking
5 208 (8.01%) Public Sector
6 127 (4.89%) Documentation Skills
7 101 (3.89%) Manufacturing
8 89 (3.43%) Retail
9 62 (2.39%) Automotive
10 58 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 57 (2.19%) Telecoms
12 49 (1.89%) Aerospace
13 47 (1.81%) Marketing
14 46 (1.77%) Organisational Skills
15 44 (1.69%) Pharmaceutical
16 41 (1.58%) Local Government
17 39 (1.50%) Front Office
18 37 (1.42%) Law
19 36 (1.39%) Legal
20 33 (1.27%) Billing
Job Titles
1 457 (17.59%) Analyst
2 297 (11.43%) Senior
3 241 (9.28%) Lead
4 208 (8.01%) Data Engineer
5 203 (7.81%) Business Analyst
6 200 (7.70%) Consultant
7 152 (5.85%) Developer
8 135 (5.20%) Data Analyst
9 134 (5.16%) Architect
10 104 (4.00%) Test Engineer
11 65 (2.50%) Tester
12 63 (2.42%) Network Engineer
13 60 (2.31%) Systems Engineer
14 55 (2.12%) Administrator
15 54 (2.08%) Senior Data Engineer
16 51 (1.96%) Project Manager
17 45 (1.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 43 (1.66%) Software Engineer
19 41 (1.58%) Test Manager
20 39 (1.50%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 151 (5.81%) REST
2 144 (5.54%) Terraform
3 81 (3.12%) JSON
4 80 (3.08%) PySpark
5 69 (2.66%) Kafka
6 64 (2.46%) XML
7 51 (1.96%) Middleware
8 45 (1.73%) Playwright
9 44 (1.69%) Oracle Fusion
10 38 (1.46%) pytest
11 37 (1.42%) .NET
12 35 (1.35%) SOAP
13 34 (1.31%) Pandas
13 34 (1.31%) Spring
14 33 (1.27%) RESTful
15 32 (1.23%) OAuth
16 29 (1.12%) Spring Boot
17 28 (1.08%) HTML
18 26 (1.00%) Web Services
19 25 (0.96%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 142 (5.47%) Onboarding
2 140 (5.39%) Data Structures
3 117 (4.50%) Cloud Native
4 112 (4.31%) Legacy Systems
5 95 (3.66%) Product Ownership
6 94 (3.62%) Management Information System
7 76 (2.93%) Data Centre
8 50 (1.92%) Enterprise Software
9 45 (1.73%) AI Agents
10 42 (1.62%) Analytical Mindset
10 42 (1.62%) SCADA
11 40 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
12 39 (1.50%) Distributed Systems
13 35 (1.35%) Life Science
14 33 (1.27%) Algorithms
15 32 (1.23%) CMDB
15 32 (1.23%) Operational Technology
16 31 (1.19%) Replication
17 30 (1.15%) NHS
17 30 (1.15%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 143 (5.50%) Windows
2 93 (3.58%) Linux
3 52 (2.00%) Windows Server
4 24 (0.92%) Unix
5 20 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.54%) Android
7 11 (0.42%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.31%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.27%) VMS
9 7 (0.27%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.15%) SUSE
10 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.12%) VxWorks
11 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.077%) CentOS
12 2 (0.077%) HPUX
12 2 (0.077%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.038%) Solaris
13 1 (0.038%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.038%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 702 (27.02%) Migration
2 538 (20.71%) Stakeholder Management
3 501 (19.28%) CI/CD
4 488 (18.78%) Agile
5 414 (15.94%) Data Migration
6 412 (15.86%) User Acceptance Testing
7 403 (15.51%) Analytics
8 402 (15.47%) Data Modelling
9 400 (15.40%) Data Validation
10 396 (15.24%) Problem-Solving
11 357 (13.74%) AI
12 355 (13.66%) DevOps
13 340 (13.09%) Test Automation
14 323 (12.43%) Continuous Improvement
15 295 (11.35%) ETL
16 276 (10.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 272 (10.47%) Data Analysis
18 271 (10.43%) Business Intelligence
19 268 (10.32%) Data Pipeline
20 262 (10.08%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 669 (25.75%) SQL
2 518 (19.94%) Python
3 122 (4.70%) Java
4 90 (3.46%) PowerShell
5 52 (2.00%) Bash
5 52 (2.00%) JavaScript
6 40 (1.54%) C#
7 33 (1.27%) C++
8 31 (1.19%) TypeScript
9 29 (1.12%) Apex Code
9 29 (1.12%) R
10 28 (1.08%) PL/SQL
11 25 (0.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 24 (0.92%) C
13 22 (0.85%) Bicep
14 19 (0.73%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.73%) VBA
15 15 (0.58%) MATLAB
16 13 (0.50%) Scala
16 13 (0.50%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 502 (19.32%) Security Cleared
2 362 (13.93%) SC Cleared
3 183 (7.04%) Degree
4 82 (3.16%) DV Cleared
5 50 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
6 42 (1.62%) Computer Science Degree
7 40 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
8 32 (1.23%) CCNP
9 28 (1.08%) AWS Certification
10 25 (0.96%) ACCA
10 25 (0.96%) CIMA
11 22 (0.85%) PMI Certification
12 20 (0.77%) ISTQB
13 19 (0.73%) Azure Certification
14 17 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 17 (0.65%) PMP
15 16 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
16 15 (0.58%) CISSP
16 15 (0.58%) Master's Degree
17 11 (0.42%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 535 (20.59%) Data Quality
2 318 (12.24%) QA
3 89 (3.43%) GDPR
4 41 (1.58%) Accessibility
5 40 (1.54%) NIST
6 34 (1.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 34 (1.31%) SLA
7 33 (1.27%) PMO
8 23 (0.89%) GxP
9 15 (0.58%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 15 (0.58%) GRC
9 15 (0.58%) WCAG
10 14 (0.54%) ISO 20022
11 12 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
11 12 (0.46%) Def Stans
12 11 (0.42%) NCSC
13 10 (0.38%) GMP
13 10 (0.38%) HL7
13 10 (0.38%) IFRS
13 10 (0.38%) MiFID
System Software
1 100 (3.85%) Docker
2 84 (3.23%) Active Directory
3 60 (2.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.92%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.73%) Firmware
7 17 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.65%) vSphere
8 14 (0.54%) Hyper-V
9 11 (0.42%) 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 (0.077%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.077%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.038%) etcd
12 1 (0.038%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.038%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.038%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 125 (4.81%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.00%) Ansible
3 38 (1.46%) Grafana
4 33 (1.27%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.92%) FortiGate
6 23 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
7 17 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (0.50%) SCCM
8 13 (0.50%) vCenter Server
9 10 (0.38%) HP ALM
9 10 (0.38%) VxRail
10 8 (0.31%) Argo
10 8 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
11 7 (0.27%) Functional Safety
12 6 (0.23%) Progress Chef
13 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
13 5 (0.19%) systemd
13 5 (0.19%) vRealize
14 4 (0.15%) Control-M
14 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 398 (15.32%) Microsoft
2 221 (8.51%) SAP
3 206 (7.93%) Oracle
4 149 (5.74%) Databricks
5 90 (3.46%) Salesforce
6 70 (2.69%) Cisco
6 70 (2.69%) ServiceNow
7 69 (2.66%) VMware
8 45 (1.73%) Workday
9 43 (1.66%) Google
10 38 (1.46%) IBM
11 29 (1.12%) Fortinet
11 29 (1.12%) Juniper
11 29 (1.12%) Zscaler
12 28 (1.08%) Informatica
13 22 (0.85%) Palo Alto
14 21 (0.81%) Splunk
15 17 (0.65%) MuleSoft
16 16 (0.62%) CrowdStrike
17 14 (0.54%) IFS