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

6 months to
25 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 68 113
Rank change year-on-year +33 +45 +33
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,427 1,016 716
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.38% 3.71% 2.06%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.30% 4.09% 2.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,485 624 362
10th Percentile £345 £356 £331
25th Percentile £413 £424 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £490
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +7.14% -12.89%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £588
90th Percentile £701 £700 £672
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 156 76 135
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £29.06 £37.25 £51.25
Median hourly rate £62.50 £61.25 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -5.77% +3.92%
75th Percentile £76.00 £67.00 £69.44
90th Percentile £83.88 £76.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% -3.85%

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 38,549 24,860 29,801
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.39% 90.73% 85.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,182 15,935 19,502
10th Percentile £325 £300 £311
25th Percentile £420 £405 £413
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 £756
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,381 1,342 1,889
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.26 £13.67
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.90 £17.50
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -37.13% -6.98%
75th Percentile £69.50 £52.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%

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 25 July 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 25 July 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 25 July 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 1,175 £513 -2.38% 404
Midlands +34 314 £475 +5.56% 109
South East +4 312 £510 +2.00% 222
North of England +38 303 £450 -7.22% 145
West Midlands +32 230 £469 +7.14% 64
North West +15 165 £450 -15.09% 81
East of England 0 134 £500 - 85
Yorkshire +30 127 £453 +4.08% 35
South West -10 124 £521 -9.35% 88
East Midlands +22 79 £505 +9.91% 45
North East -35 15 £425 -15.00% 30
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 62 (2.55%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (1.94%) SAS
4 43 (1.77%) SharePoint
5 40 (1.65%) Apache Spark
6 28 (1.15%) Apache
7 13 (0.54%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.33%) SharePoint 2013
10 7 (0.29%) CMS
11 6 (0.25%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.21%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
13 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.12%) Apache Pulsar
14 3 (0.12%) Appian
14 3 (0.12%) IIS
14 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 170 (7.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.40%) MS Visio
3 31 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
4 26 (1.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 26 (1.07%) Spreadsheet
5 10 (0.41%) Microsoft Project
6 7 (0.29%) AutoCAD
7 5 (0.21%) Simulink
8 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
9 3 (0.12%) CATIA
10 2 (0.082%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.082%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.082%) Navisworks
10 2 (0.082%) ProjectWise
10 2 (0.082%) Revit
10 2 (0.082%) Sketch
11 1 (0.041%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.041%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.041%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.041%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 112 (4.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.24%) Oracle EBS
3 17 (0.70%) Workday HCM
4 12 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.49%) Teamcenter
5 11 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
5 11 (0.45%) NetSuite
5 11 (0.45%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 11 (0.45%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.41%) Aladdin
6 10 (0.41%) SAP MDG
7 9 (0.37%) iTrent
7 9 (0.37%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.37%) Sage X3
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
8 8 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
9 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
9 7 (0.29%) SAP HCM
9 7 (0.29%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 540 (22.25%) Azure
2 282 (11.62%) AWS
3 253 (10.42%) Power Platform
4 133 (5.48%) Azure DevOps
5 128 (5.27%) GCP
6 117 (4.82%) GitHub
7 82 (3.38%) Snowflake
8 72 (2.97%) Azure Data Factory
9 68 (2.80%) GitHub Actions
10 64 (2.64%) Entra ID
11 55 (2.27%) Serverless
12 44 (1.81%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 44 (1.81%) dbt
12 44 (1.81%) Microsoft 365
13 43 (1.77%) Amazon S3
14 42 (1.73%) SaaS
15 41 (1.69%) OCI
16 33 (1.36%) SuccessFactors
17 31 (1.28%) Azure Monitor
18 27 (1.11%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 111 (4.57%) Firewall
2 64 (2.64%) Network Security
3 55 (2.27%) DNS
4 46 (1.90%) VLAN
5 45 (1.85%) VPN
6 39 (1.61%) TCP/IP
7 36 (1.48%) WAN
8 30 (1.24%) BGP
9 25 (1.03%) DHCP
10 23 (0.95%) SAN
11 22 (0.91%) OSPF
11 22 (0.91%) Wireless
12 21 (0.87%) Internet
12 21 (0.87%) LAN
13 20 (0.82%) SD-WAN
14 15 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
15 14 (0.58%) Ethernet
16 13 (0.54%) NAS
17 12 (0.49%) Cisco ISE
18 10 (0.41%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 234 (9.64%) Power BI
2 140 (5.77%) Data Warehouse
3 97 (4.00%) Metadata
4 78 (3.21%) Data Lake
5 76 (3.13%) SQL Server
6 71 (2.93%) Tableau
7 68 (2.80%) PostgreSQL
8 62 (2.55%) Relational Database
9 38 (1.57%) Big Data
10 30 (1.24%) Oracle Database
11 29 (1.19%) Delta Lake
12 28 (1.15%) SAS Enterprise Guide
13 27 (1.11%) BigQuery
14 26 (1.07%) NoSQL
14 26 (1.07%) Power Query
14 26 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 25 (1.03%) Amazon Redshift
16 23 (0.95%) Oracle Reports
17 20 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
17 20 (0.82%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 225 (9.27%) JIRA
2 147 (6.06%) Git
3 85 (3.50%) Jenkins
4 65 (2.68%) GitLab
5 56 (2.31%) Selenium
6 40 (1.65%) JMeter
7 38 (1.57%) Postman
8 37 (1.52%) Cucumber
9 36 (1.48%) JUnit
10 30 (1.24%) WebDriver
11 21 (0.87%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.74%) Eclipse
13 14 (0.58%) Visual Studio
14 12 (0.49%) Gatling
14 12 (0.49%) MLflow
14 12 (0.49%) Rational Rhapsody
15 10 (0.41%) ERwin
16 9 (0.37%) Maven
16 9 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
16 9 (0.37%) REST Assured
General
1 730 (30.08%) Finance
2 708 (29.17%) Social Skills
3 467 (19.24%) Analytical Skills
4 193 (7.95%) Public Sector
5 184 (7.58%) Banking
6 135 (5.56%) Documentation Skills
7 84 (3.46%) Manufacturing
8 82 (3.38%) Retail
9 57 (2.35%) Aerospace
10 49 (2.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 46 (1.90%) Pharmaceutical
11 46 (1.90%) Telecoms
12 43 (1.77%) Organisational Skills
13 37 (1.52%) Automotive
13 37 (1.52%) Front Office
13 37 (1.52%) Marketing
14 34 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
14 34 (1.40%) Law
15 33 (1.36%) Local Government
15 33 (1.36%) Military
Job Titles
1 430 (17.72%) Analyst
2 245 (10.09%) Senior
3 242 (9.97%) Lead
4 204 (8.41%) Business Analyst
5 203 (8.36%) Data Engineer
6 174 (7.17%) Consultant
7 141 (5.81%) Developer
8 133 (5.48%) Architect
9 126 (5.19%) Data Analyst
10 89 (3.67%) Test Engineer
11 74 (3.05%) Tester
12 70 (2.88%) Project Manager
13 54 (2.22%) Network Engineer
14 49 (2.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 46 (1.90%) Systems Engineer
16 44 (1.81%) Senior Data Engineer
17 39 (1.61%) Migration Engineer
18 38 (1.57%) Security Engineer
18 38 (1.57%) Technical Analyst
19 37 (1.52%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 117 (4.82%) REST
2 74 (3.05%) JSON
3 68 (2.80%) Kafka
4 59 (2.43%) PySpark
5 51 (2.10%) XML
6 47 (1.94%) Oracle Fusion
7 42 (1.73%) Spring
8 40 (1.65%) .NET
9 38 (1.57%) Middleware
10 35 (1.44%) pytest
11 32 (1.32%) OAuth
11 32 (1.32%) Web Services
12 31 (1.28%) Pandas
12 31 (1.28%) Playwright
12 31 (1.28%) SOAP
13 29 (1.19%) RESTful
14 27 (1.11%) Node.js
15 25 (1.03%) WireMock
16 22 (0.91%) Spring Boot
16 22 (0.91%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 134 (5.52%) Data Structures
2 131 (5.40%) Onboarding
3 124 (5.11%) Legacy Systems
4 100 (4.12%) Product Ownership
5 99 (4.08%) Cloud Native
6 66 (2.72%) Data Centre
7 60 (2.47%) Management Information System
8 49 (2.02%) Distributed Systems
9 46 (1.90%) Analytical Mindset
10 40 (1.65%) SCADA
11 39 (1.61%) AI Agents
12 37 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
13 36 (1.48%) Hybrid Cloud
14 33 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
15 32 (1.32%) Life Science
16 31 (1.28%) Reference Data
17 28 (1.15%) Operational Technology
17 28 (1.15%) Public Cloud
17 28 (1.15%) Virtual Team
18 27 (1.11%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 137 (5.64%) Windows
2 86 (3.54%) Linux
3 38 (1.57%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.91%) Unix
5 18 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.41%) Android
6 10 (0.41%) Ubuntu
7 6 (0.25%) VMS
7 6 (0.25%) Windows 10
8 5 (0.21%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.16%) SUSE
10 3 (0.12%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.082%) HPUX
11 2 (0.082%) VxWorks
11 2 (0.082%) zOS
12 1 (0.041%) Debian
12 1 (0.041%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.041%) Solaris
12 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 677 (27.89%) Migration
2 467 (19.24%) Agile
3 458 (18.87%) Stakeholder Management
4 415 (17.10%) CI/CD
5 413 (17.02%) Analytics
6 410 (16.89%) Data Migration
7 394 (16.23%) User Acceptance Testing
8 392 (16.15%) Data Validation
9 377 (15.53%) Data Modelling
9 377 (15.53%) Problem-Solving
10 314 (12.94%) AI
11 309 (12.73%) ETL
12 302 (12.44%) DevOps
13 294 (12.11%) Test Automation
14 288 (11.87%) Continuous Improvement
15 270 (11.12%) Business Intelligence
15 270 (11.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 250 (10.30%) Data Governance
17 248 (10.22%) Data Pipeline
18 241 (9.93%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 591 (24.35%) SQL
2 437 (18.01%) Python
3 109 (4.49%) Java
4 76 (3.13%) PowerShell
5 52 (2.14%) C#
6 45 (1.85%) Bash
7 38 (1.57%) JavaScript
8 33 (1.36%) C++
9 32 (1.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 30 (1.24%) Bicep
11 27 (1.11%) Apex Code
11 27 (1.11%) TypeScript
12 26 (1.07%) PL/SQL
13 24 (0.99%) C
14 23 (0.95%) VBA
15 22 (0.91%) R
16 15 (0.62%) Ada
17 14 (0.58%) MATLAB
17 14 (0.58%) T-SQL
18 12 (0.49%) Scala
Qualifications
1 443 (18.25%) Security Cleared
2 314 (12.94%) SC Cleared
3 171 (7.05%) Degree
4 62 (2.55%) DV Cleared
5 51 (2.10%) BPSS Clearance
6 37 (1.52%) Cisco Certification
7 33 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
8 29 (1.19%) CCNP
9 23 (0.95%) PMI Certification
10 19 (0.78%) ACCA
10 19 (0.78%) PMP
11 18 (0.74%) CIMA
11 18 (0.74%) ISTQB
11 18 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
12 17 (0.70%) CISSP
13 16 (0.66%) Azure Certification
14 13 (0.54%) Master's Degree
15 12 (0.49%) AWS Certification
15 12 (0.49%) CCNA
16 10 (0.41%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 458 (18.87%) Data Quality
2 288 (11.87%) QA
3 105 (4.33%) GDPR
4 52 (2.14%) NIST
5 44 (1.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 39 (1.61%) Accessibility
7 34 (1.40%) PMO
8 29 (1.19%) SLA
9 20 (0.82%) GxP
10 17 (0.70%) GRC
11 14 (0.58%) HL7
11 14 (0.58%) IFRS
12 13 (0.54%) Def Stans
12 13 (0.54%) NCSC
13 12 (0.49%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.45%) ISO 20022
14 11 (0.45%) Solvency II
14 11 (0.45%) WCAG
System Software
1 105 (4.33%) Docker
2 76 (3.13%) Active Directory
3 59 (2.43%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.11%) Virtual Machines
5 21 (0.87%) VMware ESXi
6 18 (0.74%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.58%) Firmware
8 13 (0.54%) VMware NSX
8 13 (0.54%) vSphere
9 12 (0.49%) Hyper-V
10 5 (0.21%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.082%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.082%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.082%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.082%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.041%) Ceph
13 1 (0.041%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.041%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 146 (6.02%) Kubernetes
2 117 (4.82%) Terraform
3 53 (2.18%) Ansible
4 50 (2.06%) Prometheus
5 48 (1.98%) Grafana
6 23 (0.95%) Microsoft Intune
7 22 (0.91%) FortiGate
8 21 (0.87%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.54%) SCCM
10 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.33%) VxRail
12 6 (0.25%) HP ALM
13 5 (0.21%) CASB
13 5 (0.21%) vMotion
13 5 (0.21%) vRealize
14 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.16%) Failover Clustering
14 4 (0.16%) Nessus
14 4 (0.16%) Puppet
14 4 (0.16%) systemd
Vendors
1 351 (14.46%) Microsoft
2 220 (9.06%) SAP
3 211 (8.69%) Oracle
4 137 (5.64%) Databricks
5 84 (3.46%) Salesforce
6 70 (2.88%) VMware
7 58 (2.39%) ServiceNow
8 55 (2.27%) Cisco
9 48 (1.98%) Workday
10 38 (1.57%) Splunk
11 36 (1.48%) Google
12 35 (1.44%) Informatica
13 29 (1.19%) Fortinet
14 28 (1.15%) Juniper
15 27 (1.11%) Palo Alto
16 25 (1.03%) IBM
17 24 (0.99%) Sage
17 24 (0.99%) Zscaler
18 23 (0.95%) MuleSoft
19 20 (0.82%) IFS