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

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 68 113
Rank change year-on-year +34 +45 +35
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,464 1,017 681
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.41% 3.67% 2.04%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.35% 4.05% 2.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,506 620 338
10th Percentile £350 £350 £325
25th Percentile £413 £414 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £517 £480
Median % change year-on-year -3.24% +7.66% -12.73%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £588
90th Percentile £713 £700 £664
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £488
% change year-on-year -2.91% +5.53% -11.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 166 78 119
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £29.95
25th Percentile £29.51 £36.31 £51.25
Median hourly rate £62.50 £61.25 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -5.77% -
75th Percentile £74.81 £66.88 £69.38
90th Percentile £83.38 £75.00 £75.37
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 38,794 25,132 28,630
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.10% 90.79% 85.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,129 16,058 18,629
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £423
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 £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,535 1,418 1,653
10th Percentile £14.56 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.87 £18.50
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +3.61%
75th Percentile £68.75 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £41.08
% change year-on-year +68.99% -38.77% -1.96%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 +41 1,186 £525 +0.96% 1,462
South East +3 322 £500 - 450
Midlands +36 314 £475 +4.51% 250
North of England +49 305 £450 -9.09% 318
West Midlands +35 223 £463 +2.78% 158
North West +26 155 £450 -21.40% 189
East of England +5 150 £475 -6.40% 268
Yorkshire +40 136 £460 +5.75% 73
South West +3 130 £525 -8.70% 291
East Midlands +28 86 £509 +11.99% 92
North East -35 18 £425 -22.73% 62
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 (3.00%) Confluence
2 64 (2.60%) Apache Airflow
3 46 (1.87%) SAS
4 44 (1.79%) SharePoint
5 39 (1.58%) Apache Spark
6 28 (1.14%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) Jupyter
8 12 (0.49%) Microsoft Exchange
9 10 (0.41%) CMS
10 8 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
12 6 (0.24%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.20%) Palantir Foundry
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%) Sitecore CMS
15 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 176 (7.14%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.34%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (1.34%) MS Visio
3 25 (1.01%) Spreadsheet
4 23 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.49%) AutoCAD
6 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
7 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
7 7 (0.28%) Revit
8 6 (0.24%) Simulink
9 5 (0.20%) ProjectWise
10 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.12%) CATIA
12 2 (0.081%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.081%) EPLAN
13 1 (0.041%) Autodesk Inventor
13 1 (0.041%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.041%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.041%) MicroStation
13 1 (0.041%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 108 (4.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (1.10%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.49%) NetSuite
4 12 (0.49%) SAP ERP
4 12 (0.49%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.45%) iTrent
5 11 (0.45%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 10 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.41%) Teamcenter
7 9 (0.37%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.32%) Aladdin
8 8 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
8 8 (0.32%) Sage X3
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
9 7 (0.28%) SAP SD
9 7 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.24%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 558 (22.65%) Azure
2 295 (11.97%) AWS
3 262 (10.63%) Power Platform
4 140 (5.68%) Azure DevOps
5 139 (5.64%) GCP
6 121 (4.91%) GitHub
7 84 (3.41%) Snowflake
8 72 (2.92%) Azure Data Factory
9 67 (2.72%) Entra ID
9 67 (2.72%) GitHub Actions
10 54 (2.19%) Serverless
11 47 (1.91%) Microsoft 365
12 45 (1.83%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 44 (1.79%) dbt
13 44 (1.79%) SaaS
14 41 (1.66%) Amazon S3
15 40 (1.62%) OCI
16 39 (1.58%) SuccessFactors
17 30 (1.22%) Azure Monitor
18 28 (1.14%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.18%) Firewall
2 63 (2.56%) DNS
3 61 (2.48%) Network Security
4 46 (1.87%) VLAN
5 45 (1.83%) VPN
6 43 (1.75%) TCP/IP
7 35 (1.42%) WAN
8 30 (1.22%) BGP
9 28 (1.14%) DHCP
10 22 (0.89%) Internet
11 21 (0.85%) SAN
12 20 (0.81%) SD-WAN
13 19 (0.77%) LAN
13 19 (0.77%) OSPF
13 19 (0.77%) Wireless
14 16 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.53%) 5G
15 13 (0.53%) Ethernet
16 12 (0.49%) Cisco ISE
16 12 (0.49%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 243 (9.86%) Power BI
2 146 (5.93%) Data Warehouse
3 101 (4.10%) Metadata
4 79 (3.21%) Data Lake
5 77 (3.13%) PostgreSQL
6 76 (3.08%) SQL Server
7 69 (2.80%) Tableau
8 68 (2.76%) Relational Database
9 39 (1.58%) Big Data
10 33 (1.34%) MongoDB
11 31 (1.26%) NoSQL
12 28 (1.14%) BigQuery
12 28 (1.14%) Delta Lake
12 28 (1.14%) SAS Enterprise Guide
13 27 (1.10%) Oracle Database
14 25 (1.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 24 (0.97%) Power Query
16 23 (0.93%) Oracle Reports
16 23 (0.93%) Redis
17 22 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 225 (9.13%) JIRA
2 168 (6.82%) Git
3 94 (3.81%) Jenkins
4 75 (3.04%) GitLab
5 62 (2.52%) Selenium
6 42 (1.70%) JMeter
7 39 (1.58%) Postman
8 38 (1.54%) Cucumber
9 35 (1.42%) JUnit
10 33 (1.34%) WebDriver
11 23 (0.93%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.73%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.65%) Visual Studio
14 13 (0.53%) Rational Rhapsody
15 12 (0.49%) Gatling
16 11 (0.45%) Maven
17 10 (0.41%) Gradle
17 10 (0.41%) REST Assured
18 9 (0.37%) Cypress.io
18 9 (0.37%) TestRail
General
1 714 (28.98%) Finance
2 705 (28.61%) Social Skills
3 478 (19.40%) Analytical Skills
4 201 (8.16%) Public Sector
5 187 (7.59%) Banking
6 129 (5.24%) Documentation Skills
7 90 (3.65%) Manufacturing
8 88 (3.57%) Retail
9 58 (2.35%) Aerospace
10 54 (2.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 47 (1.91%) Pharmaceutical
11 47 (1.91%) Telecoms
12 44 (1.79%) Automotive
12 44 (1.79%) Organisational Skills
13 40 (1.62%) Local Government
13 40 (1.62%) Marketing
14 38 (1.54%) Front Office
15 35 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
15 35 (1.42%) Law
16 32 (1.30%) Military
Job Titles
1 421 (17.09%) Analyst
2 262 (10.63%) Senior
3 248 (10.06%) Lead
4 207 (8.40%) Data Engineer
5 198 (8.04%) Business Analyst
6 185 (7.51%) Consultant
7 143 (5.80%) Developer
8 128 (5.19%) Architect
9 125 (5.07%) Data Analyst
10 101 (4.10%) Test Engineer
11 74 (3.00%) Tester
12 65 (2.64%) Project Manager
13 54 (2.19%) Network Engineer
14 51 (2.07%) Systems Engineer
15 49 (1.99%) Administrator
15 49 (1.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 46 (1.87%) Senior Data Engineer
17 40 (1.62%) Technical Analyst
18 39 (1.58%) Migration Engineer
19 37 (1.50%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 126 (5.11%) REST
2 73 (2.96%) JSON
3 68 (2.76%) Kafka
4 65 (2.64%) PySpark
5 61 (2.48%) XML
6 48 (1.95%) Oracle Fusion
7 43 (1.75%) Spring
8 39 (1.58%) .NET
8 39 (1.58%) Middleware
9 38 (1.54%) Playwright
9 38 (1.54%) pytest
10 31 (1.26%) RESTful
11 30 (1.22%) Pandas
11 30 (1.22%) SOAP
12 28 (1.14%) Node.js
12 28 (1.14%) Web Services
13 26 (1.06%) OAuth
13 26 (1.06%) WireMock
14 24 (0.97%) Spring Boot
15 22 (0.89%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 137 (5.56%) Onboarding
2 134 (5.44%) Data Structures
3 116 (4.71%) Legacy Systems
4 109 (4.42%) Cloud Native
5 102 (4.14%) Product Ownership
6 72 (2.92%) Management Information System
7 69 (2.80%) Data Centre
8 47 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
9 46 (1.87%) Analytical Mindset
10 40 (1.62%) SCADA
11 39 (1.58%) AI Agents
12 37 (1.50%) Enterprise Software
13 34 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
14 33 (1.34%) Algorithms
14 33 (1.34%) Life Science
15 32 (1.30%) Public Cloud
15 32 (1.30%) Replication
16 31 (1.26%) Operational Technology
17 30 (1.22%) Hybrid Cloud
18 28 (1.14%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 135 (5.48%) Windows
2 94 (3.81%) Linux
3 43 (1.75%) Windows Server
4 24 (0.97%) Unix
5 18 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.45%) Android
6 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.28%) VMS
8 6 (0.24%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.20%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.16%) SUSE
10 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.081%) HPUX
11 2 (0.081%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.041%) Debian
12 1 (0.041%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.041%) Solaris
12 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.041%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 678 (27.52%) Migration
2 473 (19.20%) Stakeholder Management
3 472 (19.16%) Agile
4 455 (18.47%) CI/CD
5 407 (16.52%) Data Migration
6 403 (16.36%) Analytics
7 399 (16.19%) User Acceptance Testing
8 389 (15.79%) Data Modelling
8 389 (15.79%) Data Validation
9 384 (15.58%) Problem-Solving
10 327 (13.27%) DevOps
11 324 (13.15%) AI
12 312 (12.66%) Test Automation
13 301 (12.22%) Continuous Improvement
14 293 (11.89%) ETL
15 274 (11.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 270 (10.96%) Business Intelligence
17 258 (10.47%) Data Pipeline
18 254 (10.31%) Data Governance
19 237 (9.62%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 616 (25.00%) SQL
2 462 (18.75%) Python
3 117 (4.75%) Java
4 72 (2.92%) PowerShell
5 48 (1.95%) C#
6 46 (1.87%) Bash
7 45 (1.83%) JavaScript
8 40 (1.62%) C++
9 30 (1.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 27 (1.10%) Apex Code
11 26 (1.06%) TypeScript
12 24 (0.97%) Bicep
12 24 (0.97%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.97%) VBA
13 23 (0.93%) C
14 22 (0.89%) R
15 15 (0.61%) MATLAB
16 13 (0.53%) Scala
16 13 (0.53%) T-SQL
17 12 (0.49%) Ada
Qualifications
1 453 (18.38%) Security Cleared
2 325 (13.19%) SC Cleared
3 166 (6.74%) Degree
4 67 (2.72%) DV Cleared
5 48 (1.95%) BPSS Clearance
6 40 (1.62%) Computer Science Degree
7 35 (1.42%) Cisco Certification
8 27 (1.10%) CCNP
9 22 (0.89%) ACCA
10 21 (0.85%) CIMA
10 21 (0.85%) PMI Certification
11 20 (0.81%) AWS Certification
12 19 (0.77%) ISTQB
13 18 (0.73%) Azure Certification
13 18 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
14 17 (0.69%) CISSP
14 17 (0.69%) PMP
15 12 (0.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 11 (0.45%) CCNA
17 10 (0.41%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 481 (19.52%) Data Quality
2 300 (12.18%) QA
3 100 (4.06%) GDPR
4 49 (1.99%) NIST
5 43 (1.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 37 (1.50%) Accessibility
7 33 (1.34%) PMO
8 29 (1.18%) SLA
9 22 (0.89%) GxP
10 15 (0.61%) GRC
11 14 (0.57%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 14 (0.57%) Def Stans
11 14 (0.57%) ISO 20022
12 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
12 12 (0.49%) NCSC
12 12 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.45%) HL7
13 11 (0.45%) IFRS
13 11 (0.45%) NIST 800
13 11 (0.45%) WCAG
System Software
1 112 (4.55%) Docker
2 79 (3.21%) Active Directory
3 58 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.22%) Virtual Machines
5 22 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.61%) Firmware
7 14 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.57%) vSphere
8 12 (0.49%) Hyper-V
9 11 (0.45%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.12%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.081%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.081%) NFS
12 2 (0.081%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.041%) Ceph
13 1 (0.041%) etcd
13 1 (0.041%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 142 (5.76%) Kubernetes
2 124 (5.03%) Terraform
3 62 (2.52%) Ansible
4 48 (1.95%) Grafana
5 43 (1.75%) Prometheus
6 22 (0.89%) FortiGate
6 22 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
7 21 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
8 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
9 10 (0.41%) VxRail
10 9 (0.37%) SCCM
11 7 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
12 6 (0.24%) Argo
12 6 (0.24%) HP ALM
13 5 (0.20%) CASB
13 5 (0.20%) systemd
13 5 (0.20%) vRealize
14 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Clustering
14 4 (0.16%) Nessus
14 4 (0.16%) Puppet
Vendors
1 368 (14.94%) Microsoft
2 220 (8.93%) SAP
3 203 (8.24%) Oracle
4 140 (5.68%) Databricks
5 83 (3.37%) Salesforce
6 68 (2.76%) VMware
7 66 (2.68%) ServiceNow
8 52 (2.11%) Cisco
9 43 (1.75%) Workday
10 40 (1.62%) Google
11 32 (1.30%) Informatica
12 28 (1.14%) Juniper
13 27 (1.10%) IBM
14 26 (1.06%) Fortinet
14 26 (1.06%) Splunk
14 26 (1.06%) Zscaler
15 22 (0.89%) MuleSoft
15 22 (0.89%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.85%) Sage
17 20 (0.81%) IFS