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

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 64 105
Rank change year-on-year +32 +41 +43
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,651 1,052 749
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.70% 3.78% 2.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.73% 4.16% 2.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,557 628 372
10th Percentile £335 £336 £321
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +3.00% -7.41%
75th Percentile £600 £633 £588
90th Percentile £710 £700 £650
UK median daily rate £500 £511 £500
% change year-on-year -2.20% +2.25% -6.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 180 78 99
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £29.42
25th Percentile £28.38 £41.25 £48.00
Median hourly rate £54.25 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.54% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £73.25 £67.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -17.69% - -2.61%

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 39,385 25,311 28,279
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.63% 90.87% 86.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,009 16,087 17,408
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £421
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £645
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 2,837 1,536 1,254
10th Percentile £13.99 £14.41 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.72 £17.87 £20.14
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -2.05%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.22 £66.61
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -

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 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 25 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 25 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 +32 1,295 £525 - 1,930
North of England +55 348 £450 +4.65% 436
South East +2 331 £510 +2.00% 647
Midlands +32 306 £463 -5.13% 343
West Midlands +32 216 £463 -7.50% 236
North West +15 166 £452 +6.29% 246
Yorkshire +50 156 £460 -3.16% 125
South West +17 152 £524 -4.77% 317
East of England -10 143 £450 -10.00% 324
East Midlands +29 86 £475 -7.32% 106
North East -24 31 £425 -11.92% 67
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 81 (3.06%) Confluence
2 63 (2.38%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (2.07%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.70%) SAS
5 42 (1.58%) Apache Spark
6 30 (1.13%) Apache
7 17 (0.64%) CMS
8 16 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
9 11 (0.41%) Jupyter
10 8 (0.30%) Palantir Foundry
10 8 (0.30%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.26%) Sitecore CMS
12 6 (0.23%) OpenStack
12 6 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
12 6 (0.23%) WebLogic
13 5 (0.19%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.15%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.15%) JBoss
Applications
1 192 (7.24%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.55%) Microsoft Office
3 31 (1.17%) MS Visio
4 29 (1.09%) Spreadsheet
5 28 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 14 (0.53%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.34%) Navisworks
7 9 (0.34%) Revit
8 8 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
9 7 (0.26%) ProjectWise
9 7 (0.26%) Simulink
10 3 (0.11%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.075%) CATIA
11 2 (0.075%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.075%) EPLAN
12 1 (0.038%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.038%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.038%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.038%) OrCAD
12 1 (0.038%) Trello
Business Applications
1 101 (3.81%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.57%) Oracle Payables
3 13 (0.49%) NetSuite
4 12 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
4 12 (0.45%) SAP FI
4 12 (0.45%) SAP MDG
4 12 (0.45%) SAP SD
4 12 (0.45%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.41%) Teamcenter
6 10 (0.38%) Aladdin
6 10 (0.38%) iTrent
6 10 (0.38%) SAP HCM
6 10 (0.38%) SAP MM
7 9 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
7 9 (0.34%) SAP ERP
8 8 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.30%) SAP CO
9 7 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
9 7 (0.26%) Oracle Financials
9 7 (0.26%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 537 (20.26%) Azure
2 314 (11.84%) AWS
3 266 (10.03%) Power Platform
4 156 (5.88%) Azure DevOps
5 147 (5.55%) GCP
6 126 (4.75%) GitHub
7 97 (3.66%) Snowflake
8 83 (3.13%) Entra ID
9 66 (2.49%) Azure Data Factory
10 64 (2.41%) GitHub Actions
11 56 (2.11%) dbt
12 53 (2.00%) Amazon S3
13 52 (1.96%) Serverless
14 51 (1.92%) Microsoft 365
15 47 (1.77%) SaaS
16 35 (1.32%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 35 (1.32%) SuccessFactors
17 32 (1.21%) Azure Monitor
18 30 (1.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 30 (1.13%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 101 (3.81%) Firewall
2 68 (2.57%) DNS
3 57 (2.15%) VLAN
4 54 (2.04%) Network Security
5 50 (1.89%) VPN
6 44 (1.66%) BGP
7 42 (1.58%) TCP/IP
8 41 (1.55%) WAN
9 31 (1.17%) DHCP
10 25 (0.94%) OSPF
11 23 (0.87%) VXLAN
12 22 (0.83%) Internet
12 22 (0.83%) LAN
13 21 (0.79%) 5G
13 21 (0.79%) Ethernet
13 21 (0.79%) SD-WAN
13 21 (0.79%) Wireless
14 20 (0.75%) Ethernet VPN
14 20 (0.75%) SAN
15 18 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 246 (9.28%) Power BI
2 144 (5.43%) Data Warehouse
3 109 (4.11%) Metadata
4 92 (3.47%) Relational Database
5 76 (2.87%) SQL Server
6 72 (2.72%) Data Lake
7 69 (2.60%) PostgreSQL
8 65 (2.45%) Tableau
9 37 (1.40%) MongoDB
10 36 (1.36%) BigQuery
11 33 (1.24%) Delta Lake
11 33 (1.24%) NoSQL
11 33 (1.24%) Oracle Database
12 32 (1.21%) Big Data
12 32 (1.21%) Power Query
13 30 (1.13%) Redis
14 27 (1.02%) Amazon Athena
15 26 (0.98%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 24 (0.91%) Amazon Redshift
16 24 (0.91%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 236 (8.90%) JIRA
2 203 (7.66%) Git
3 89 (3.36%) Jenkins
4 86 (3.24%) GitLab
5 70 (2.64%) Selenium
6 35 (1.32%) Postman
7 30 (1.13%) JMeter
8 24 (0.91%) Rational DOORS
9 23 (0.87%) Cucumber
10 17 (0.64%) Eclipse
10 17 (0.64%) Visual Studio
10 17 (0.64%) WebDriver
11 16 (0.60%) JUnit
12 12 (0.45%) Cypress.io
12 12 (0.45%) Visual Studio Code
13 11 (0.41%) Gatling
13 11 (0.41%) Rational Rhapsody
13 11 (0.41%) REST Assured
14 10 (0.38%) Zephyr
15 9 (0.34%) Robot Framework
General
1 767 (28.93%) Finance
2 758 (28.59%) Social Skills
3 526 (19.84%) Analytical Skills
4 241 (9.09%) Banking
5 211 (7.96%) Public Sector
6 116 (4.38%) Documentation Skills
7 109 (4.11%) Manufacturing
8 87 (3.28%) Retail
9 68 (2.57%) Automotive
10 64 (2.41%) Telecoms
11 59 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 48 (1.81%) Aerospace
13 47 (1.77%) Marketing
14 46 (1.74%) Organisational Skills
15 44 (1.66%) Legal
16 43 (1.62%) Local Government
17 41 (1.55%) Front Office
17 41 (1.55%) Influencing Skills
18 40 (1.51%) Pharmaceutical
19 36 (1.36%) Military
Job Titles
1 447 (16.86%) Analyst
2 301 (11.35%) Senior
3 248 (9.35%) Lead
4 220 (8.30%) Data Engineer
5 203 (7.66%) Business Analyst
6 195 (7.36%) Consultant
7 161 (6.07%) Developer
8 144 (5.43%) Architect
9 137 (5.17%) Data Analyst
10 104 (3.92%) Test Engineer
11 68 (2.57%) Network Engineer
12 66 (2.49%) Tester
13 56 (2.11%) Systems Engineer
14 54 (2.04%) Administrator
14 54 (2.04%) Senior Data Engineer
15 51 (1.92%) Software Engineer
16 42 (1.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 41 (1.55%) Project Manager
18 40 (1.51%) QA Engineer
18 40 (1.51%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 161 (6.07%) REST
2 160 (6.04%) Terraform
3 79 (2.98%) PySpark
4 77 (2.90%) JSON
5 69 (2.60%) Kafka
6 61 (2.30%) XML
7 55 (2.07%) Middleware
8 52 (1.96%) Playwright
9 44 (1.66%) pytest
10 42 (1.58%) Oracle Fusion
11 41 (1.55%) SOAP
12 39 (1.47%) RESTful
13 38 (1.43%) .NET
13 38 (1.43%) OAuth
13 38 (1.43%) Web Services
14 36 (1.36%) Node.js
15 33 (1.24%) Pandas
15 33 (1.24%) Spring
16 32 (1.21%) HTML
17 30 (1.13%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 156 (5.88%) Onboarding
2 134 (5.05%) Data Structures
3 128 (4.83%) Cloud Native
4 108 (4.07%) Legacy Systems
5 101 (3.81%) Product Ownership
6 97 (3.66%) Management Information System
7 84 (3.17%) Data Centre
8 52 (1.96%) AI Agents
9 49 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
10 44 (1.66%) Distributed Systems
11 42 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
11 42 (1.58%) SCADA
12 41 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
13 38 (1.43%) Algorithms
14 34 (1.28%) CMDB
14 34 (1.28%) Life Science
14 34 (1.28%) Operational Technology
15 32 (1.21%) Reference Data
16 31 (1.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 28 (1.06%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 169 (6.37%) Windows
2 105 (3.96%) Linux
3 58 (2.19%) Windows Server
4 31 (1.17%) Unix
5 20 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.53%) Android
7 11 (0.41%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.34%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.30%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.23%) VMS
11 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.15%) zOS
12 3 (0.11%) CentOS
12 3 (0.11%) VxWorks
12 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.075%) HPUX
13 2 (0.075%) Solaris
13 2 (0.075%) SUSE
13 2 (0.075%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.038%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 715 (26.97%) Migration
2 586 (22.10%) Stakeholder Management
3 532 (20.07%) CI/CD
4 503 (18.97%) Agile
5 417 (15.73%) Data Modelling
6 416 (15.69%) Data Migration
7 415 (15.65%) User Acceptance Testing
8 414 (15.62%) Analytics
9 402 (15.16%) Data Validation
10 400 (15.09%) Problem-Solving
11 379 (14.30%) AI
12 368 (13.88%) DevOps
13 365 (13.77%) Test Automation
14 348 (13.13%) Continuous Improvement
15 303 (11.43%) ETL
16 282 (10.64%) Data Analysis
17 281 (10.60%) Business Intelligence
18 274 (10.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 267 (10.07%) Data Pipeline
20 263 (9.92%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 687 (25.91%) SQL
2 555 (20.94%) Python
3 124 (4.68%) Java
4 100 (3.77%) PowerShell
5 66 (2.49%) JavaScript
6 54 (2.04%) Bash
7 53 (2.00%) C#
8 43 (1.62%) C++
9 37 (1.40%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.09%) Apex Code
10 29 (1.09%) R
11 25 (0.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 25 (0.94%) PL/SQL
11 25 (0.94%) Shell Script
12 22 (0.83%) C
13 21 (0.79%) Bicep
14 19 (0.72%) VBA
15 15 (0.57%) MATLAB
16 14 (0.53%) Go
17 13 (0.49%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 521 (19.65%) Security Cleared
2 385 (14.52%) SC Cleared
3 199 (7.51%) Degree
4 83 (3.13%) DV Cleared
5 54 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
6 47 (1.77%) Computer Science Degree
7 37 (1.40%) Cisco Certification
8 33 (1.24%) AWS Certification
9 29 (1.09%) ACCA
9 29 (1.09%) CCNP
9 29 (1.09%) CIMA
10 25 (0.94%) PMI Certification
11 22 (0.83%) Azure Certification
12 20 (0.75%) CISSP
12 20 (0.75%) PMP
13 19 (0.72%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 19 (0.72%) ISTQB
14 18 (0.68%) Master's Degree
15 14 (0.53%) Microsoft Certification
16 11 (0.41%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 541 (20.41%) Data Quality
2 318 (12.00%) QA
3 78 (2.94%) GDPR
4 45 (1.70%) Accessibility
5 40 (1.51%) SLA
6 34 (1.28%) NIST
7 33 (1.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 31 (1.17%) PMO
9 22 (0.83%) GxP
10 18 (0.68%) WCAG
11 16 (0.60%) GRC
11 16 (0.60%) ISO 20022
12 15 (0.57%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 14 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.41%) IFRS
14 11 (0.41%) NCSC
15 10 (0.38%) Def Stans
15 10 (0.38%) MiFID
16 9 (0.34%) GMP
17 8 (0.30%) EMIR
System Software
1 101 (3.81%) Docker
2 88 (3.32%) Active Directory
3 65 (2.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 32 (1.21%) Virtual Machines
5 23 (0.87%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.72%) Firmware
7 18 (0.68%) vSphere
8 17 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
9 14 (0.53%) Hyper-V
9 14 (0.53%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.11%) KVM
10 3 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
10 3 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.11%) VirtualBox
11 2 (0.075%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.075%) 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 (4.72%) Kubernetes
2 88 (3.32%) Ansible
3 38 (1.43%) Grafana
4 31 (1.17%) Prometheus
5 25 (0.94%) FortiGate
6 24 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
7 17 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.60%) SCCM
9 11 (0.41%) HP ALM
9 11 (0.41%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.38%) Functional Safety
11 8 (0.30%) Argo
11 8 (0.30%) Progress Chef
11 8 (0.30%) VxRail
12 6 (0.23%) Control-M
12 6 (0.23%) Failover Clustering
13 5 (0.19%) systemd
13 5 (0.19%) vRealize
14 4 (0.15%) Kibana
14 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 410 (15.47%) Microsoft
2 210 (7.92%) SAP
3 194 (7.32%) Oracle
4 154 (5.81%) Databricks
5 85 (3.21%) Salesforce
6 80 (3.02%) ServiceNow
7 79 (2.98%) Cisco
8 72 (2.72%) VMware
9 58 (2.19%) Google
10 48 (1.81%) Workday
11 42 (1.58%) IBM
12 32 (1.21%) Fortinet
13 30 (1.13%) Zscaler
14 29 (1.09%) Juniper
15 27 (1.02%) Informatica
16 24 (0.91%) Palo Alto
17 20 (0.75%) Splunk
18 18 (0.68%) Red Hat
19 16 (0.60%) CyberArk
19 16 (0.60%) Siemens