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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 65 112
Rank change year-on-year +30 +47 +40
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,407 1,014 693
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.37% 3.69% 2.03%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.30% 4.06% 2.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,465 620 357
10th Percentile £350 £355 £325
25th Percentile £413 £424 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £480
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +9.38% -13.51%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £585
90th Percentile £701 £700 £663
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £493
% change year-on-year -4.76% +6.60% -10.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 157 76 125
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £28.71
25th Percentile £28.50 £40.06 £51.25
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% +4.00%
75th Percentile £76.00 £67.13 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.85 £76.25 £75.00
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 38,210 24,959 29,249
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.22% 90.75% 85.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,914 15,999 19,151
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 £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,406 1,365 1,791
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.22 £13.87
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.88 £17.75
Median hourly rate £46.62 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +85.35% -39.40% -2.35%
75th Percentile £69.49 £51.65 £65.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £70.10 £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 29 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 29 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 29 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 +45 1,162 £525 - 471
South East +4 315 £504 +0.75% 254
Midlands +32 306 £475 +5.56% 125
North of England +36 299 £450 -9.09% 167
West Midlands +28 223 £473 +8.11% 72
North West +18 161 £450 -17.20% 93
East of England 0 134 £500 - 102
Yorkshire +34 127 £455 +4.60% 41
South West -10 124 £523 -9.13% 113
East Midlands +23 78 £509 +10.89% 53
North East -40 15 £425 -15.00% 35
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 (2.99%) Confluence
2 62 (2.58%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (1.95%) SAS
4 42 (1.74%) SharePoint
5 39 (1.62%) Apache Spark
6 28 (1.16%) Apache
7 13 (0.54%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.33%) CMS
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.33%) SharePoint 2013
10 6 (0.25%) ArcGIS
11 5 (0.21%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.17%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
12 4 (0.17%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.12%) Apache Pulsar
13 3 (0.12%) IIS
13 3 (0.12%) JBoss
13 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 172 (7.15%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.37%) MS Visio
3 31 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
4 25 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 24 (1.00%) Spreadsheet
6 10 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
7 7 (0.29%) AutoCAD
8 5 (0.21%) Simulink
9 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
10 3 (0.12%) CATIA
11 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.083%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.083%) Navisworks
11 2 (0.083%) ProjectWise
11 2 (0.083%) Revit
11 2 (0.083%) Sketch
12 1 (0.042%) Adobe XD
12 1 (0.042%) Autodesk Inventor
12 1 (0.042%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.042%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 110 (4.57%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.25%) Oracle EBS
3 17 (0.71%) Workday HCM
4 12 (0.50%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.50%) Teamcenter
5 11 (0.46%) NetSuite
5 11 (0.46%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
6 10 (0.42%) iTrent
6 10 (0.42%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 10 (0.42%) SAP MDG
7 9 (0.37%) Aladdin
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
1 538 (22.35%) Azure
2 282 (11.72%) AWS
3 255 (10.59%) Power Platform
4 132 (5.48%) GCP
5 131 (5.44%) Azure DevOps
6 115 (4.78%) GitHub
7 84 (3.49%) Snowflake
8 69 (2.87%) Azure Data Factory
9 68 (2.83%) GitHub Actions
10 62 (2.58%) Entra ID
11 53 (2.20%) Serverless
12 44 (1.83%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 44 (1.83%) Microsoft 365
13 42 (1.74%) SaaS
14 41 (1.70%) OCI
15 40 (1.66%) Amazon S3
15 40 (1.66%) dbt
16 37 (1.54%) SuccessFactors
17 31 (1.29%) Azure Monitor
18 27 (1.12%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 109 (4.53%) Firewall
2 63 (2.62%) Network Security
3 56 (2.33%) DNS
4 45 (1.87%) VLAN
5 43 (1.79%) VPN
6 38 (1.58%) TCP/IP
7 36 (1.50%) WAN
8 29 (1.20%) BGP
9 25 (1.04%) DHCP
10 23 (0.96%) Internet
11 22 (0.91%) SAN
12 21 (0.87%) LAN
12 21 (0.87%) OSPF
12 21 (0.87%) Wireless
13 20 (0.83%) SD-WAN
14 15 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
15 14 (0.58%) Ethernet
16 12 (0.50%) Cisco ISE
16 12 (0.50%) NAS
17 9 (0.37%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 236 (9.80%) Power BI
2 145 (6.02%) Data Warehouse
3 97 (4.03%) Metadata
4 78 (3.24%) Data Lake
5 73 (3.03%) SQL Server
6 71 (2.95%) Tableau
7 68 (2.83%) PostgreSQL
8 63 (2.62%) Relational Database
9 38 (1.58%) Big Data
10 28 (1.16%) Delta Lake
10 28 (1.16%) Oracle Database
10 28 (1.16%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 27 (1.12%) BigQuery
11 27 (1.12%) Power Query
11 27 (1.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 26 (1.08%) NoSQL
13 23 (0.96%) Oracle Reports
14 21 (0.87%) MongoDB
15 20 (0.83%) Amazon Redshift
15 20 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 221 (9.18%) JIRA
2 149 (6.19%) Git
3 84 (3.49%) Jenkins
4 65 (2.70%) GitLab
5 54 (2.24%) Selenium
6 40 (1.66%) JMeter
7 37 (1.54%) Postman
8 36 (1.50%) Cucumber
8 36 (1.50%) JUnit
9 30 (1.25%) WebDriver
10 20 (0.83%) Rational DOORS
11 18 (0.75%) Eclipse
12 14 (0.58%) Visual Studio
13 12 (0.50%) Gatling
14 11 (0.46%) MLflow
14 11 (0.46%) Rational Rhapsody
15 10 (0.42%) ERwin
16 9 (0.37%) Maven
16 9 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
16 9 (0.37%) REST Assured
General
1 720 (29.91%) Finance
2 698 (29.00%) Social Skills
3 462 (19.19%) Analytical Skills
4 190 (7.89%) Public Sector
5 181 (7.52%) Banking
6 135 (5.61%) Documentation Skills
7 85 (3.53%) Manufacturing
8 82 (3.41%) Retail
9 55 (2.29%) Aerospace
10 50 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 46 (1.91%) Pharmaceutical
12 44 (1.83%) Organisational Skills
13 43 (1.79%) Telecoms
14 38 (1.58%) Marketing
15 37 (1.54%) Automotive
15 37 (1.54%) Front Office
16 35 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
16 35 (1.45%) Military
17 34 (1.41%) Law
18 32 (1.33%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 427 (17.74%) Analyst
2 247 (10.26%) Senior
3 241 (10.01%) Lead
4 206 (8.56%) Data Engineer
5 200 (8.31%) Business Analyst
6 173 (7.19%) Consultant
7 139 (5.77%) Developer
8 133 (5.53%) Architect
9 124 (5.15%) Data Analyst
10 89 (3.70%) Test Engineer
11 72 (2.99%) Tester
12 69 (2.87%) Project Manager
13 54 (2.24%) Network Engineer
14 48 (1.99%) Systems Engineer
15 47 (1.95%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 45 (1.87%) Senior Data Engineer
17 40 (1.66%) Administrator
18 39 (1.62%) Migration Engineer
19 38 (1.58%) Technical Analyst
20 37 (1.54%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (4.78%) REST
2 71 (2.95%) JSON
3 69 (2.87%) Kafka
4 61 (2.53%) PySpark
5 50 (2.08%) XML
6 47 (1.95%) Oracle Fusion
7 41 (1.70%) Spring
8 39 (1.62%) .NET
9 37 (1.54%) Middleware
10 36 (1.50%) pytest
11 32 (1.33%) Playwright
12 30 (1.25%) Pandas
13 29 (1.20%) SOAP
13 29 (1.20%) Web Services
14 28 (1.16%) OAuth
15 27 (1.12%) Node.js
15 27 (1.12%) RESTful
16 25 (1.04%) WireMock
17 22 (0.91%) Lightning Web Components
17 22 (0.91%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 132 (5.48%) Data Structures
2 130 (5.40%) Onboarding
3 121 (5.03%) Legacy Systems
4 101 (4.20%) Cloud Native
5 94 (3.91%) Product Ownership
6 66 (2.74%) Data Centre
7 62 (2.58%) Management Information System
8 49 (2.04%) Distributed Systems
9 44 (1.83%) Analytical Mindset
10 40 (1.66%) SCADA
11 39 (1.62%) AI Agents
12 36 (1.50%) Data Protection Act
13 33 (1.37%) Hybrid Cloud
14 32 (1.33%) Enterprise Software
14 32 (1.33%) Life Science
15 30 (1.25%) Reference Data
16 29 (1.20%) Operational Technology
17 28 (1.16%) Public Cloud
17 28 (1.16%) Virtual Team
18 27 (1.12%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 137 (5.69%) Windows
2 86 (3.57%) Linux
3 38 (1.58%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.91%) Unix
5 18 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.42%) Android
6 10 (0.42%) Ubuntu
7 6 (0.25%) VMS
8 5 (0.21%) Apple iOS
8 5 (0.21%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.17%) SUSE
10 3 (0.12%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.083%) HPUX
11 2 (0.083%) VxWorks
11 2 (0.083%) zOS
12 1 (0.042%) Debian
12 1 (0.042%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.042%) Solaris
12 1 (0.042%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 671 (27.88%) Migration
2 462 (19.19%) Agile
3 448 (18.61%) Stakeholder Management
4 419 (17.41%) CI/CD
5 409 (16.99%) Analytics
6 408 (16.95%) Data Migration
7 391 (16.24%) User Acceptance Testing
8 386 (16.04%) Data Validation
9 379 (15.75%) Data Modelling
10 366 (15.21%) Problem-Solving
11 314 (13.05%) AI
12 302 (12.55%) ETL
13 301 (12.51%) DevOps
14 289 (12.01%) Continuous Improvement
14 289 (12.01%) Test Automation
15 269 (11.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 268 (11.13%) Business Intelligence
17 253 (10.51%) Data Governance
18 250 (10.39%) Data Pipeline
19 237 (9.85%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 588 (24.43%) SQL
2 438 (18.20%) Python
3 107 (4.45%) Java
4 74 (3.07%) PowerShell
5 50 (2.08%) C#
6 44 (1.83%) Bash
7 38 (1.58%) JavaScript
8 33 (1.37%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 32 (1.33%) C++
10 27 (1.12%) Apex Code
10 27 (1.12%) Bicep
11 26 (1.08%) PL/SQL
11 26 (1.08%) TypeScript
12 23 (0.96%) C
12 23 (0.96%) VBA
13 22 (0.91%) R
14 14 (0.58%) Ada
14 14 (0.58%) MATLAB
14 14 (0.58%) T-SQL
15 12 (0.50%) Scala
Qualifications
1 437 (18.16%) Security Cleared
2 312 (12.96%) SC Cleared
3 163 (6.77%) Degree
4 61 (2.53%) DV Cleared
5 48 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
6 36 (1.50%) Cisco Certification
7 33 (1.37%) Computer Science Degree
8 28 (1.16%) CCNP
9 23 (0.96%) PMI Certification
10 19 (0.79%) ACCA
10 19 (0.79%) PMP
11 18 (0.75%) CIMA
11 18 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
12 17 (0.71%) ISTQB
13 16 (0.66%) Azure Certification
13 16 (0.66%) CISSP
14 12 (0.50%) AWS Certification
14 12 (0.50%) CCNA
14 12 (0.50%) Master's Degree
15 9 (0.37%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 460 (19.11%) Data Quality
2 289 (12.01%) QA
3 102 (4.24%) GDPR
4 52 (2.16%) NIST
5 43 (1.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 39 (1.62%) Accessibility
7 33 (1.37%) PMO
8 28 (1.16%) SLA
9 20 (0.83%) GxP
10 15 (0.62%) GRC
11 13 (0.54%) HL7
11 13 (0.54%) IFRS
12 12 (0.50%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 12 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
12 12 (0.50%) Def Stans
12 12 (0.50%) NCSC
12 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
13 11 (0.46%) ISO 20022
13 11 (0.46%) WCAG
14 10 (0.42%) Solvency II
System Software
1 105 (4.36%) Docker
2 77 (3.20%) Active Directory
3 58 (2.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
5 21 (0.87%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.58%) Firmware
8 13 (0.54%) vSphere
9 12 (0.50%) VMware NSX
10 10 (0.42%) Hyper-V
11 4 (0.17%) NFS
12 3 (0.12%) KVM
12 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.083%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.083%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.083%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.083%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.042%) Ceph
14 1 (0.042%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.042%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 144 (5.98%) Kubernetes
2 115 (4.78%) Terraform
3 54 (2.24%) Ansible
4 49 (2.04%) Prometheus
5 48 (1.99%) Grafana
6 24 (1.00%) Microsoft Intune
7 22 (0.91%) FortiGate
8 19 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.54%) SCCM
10 11 (0.46%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.33%) VxRail
12 6 (0.25%) HP ALM
13 5 (0.21%) CASB
13 5 (0.21%) Istio
13 5 (0.21%) vRealize
14 4 (0.17%) Failover Clustering
14 4 (0.17%) Nessus
14 4 (0.17%) Puppet
14 4 (0.17%) systemd
14 4 (0.17%) vMotion
Vendors
1 351 (14.58%) Microsoft
2 218 (9.06%) SAP
3 208 (8.64%) Oracle
4 140 (5.82%) Databricks
5 83 (3.45%) Salesforce
6 69 (2.87%) VMware
7 58 (2.41%) ServiceNow
8 54 (2.24%) Cisco
9 48 (1.99%) Workday
10 37 (1.54%) Google
11 36 (1.50%) Splunk
12 34 (1.41%) Informatica
13 29 (1.20%) Fortinet
14 28 (1.16%) Juniper
15 25 (1.04%) IBM
15 25 (1.04%) Palo Alto
15 25 (1.04%) Zscaler
16 23 (0.96%) MuleSoft
16 23 (0.96%) Sage
17 20 (0.83%) IFS