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

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 62 110
Rank change year-on-year +29 +48 +42
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,520 1,048 702
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.51% 3.80% 2.12%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.49% 4.19% 2.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,522 644 343
10th Percentile £331 £336 £334
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £482
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% +5.29% -12.36%
75th Percentile £600 £616 £588
90th Percentile £712 £688 £662
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 165 80 113
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £28.50 £40.06 £51.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% -3.85% -1.13%
75th Percentile £73.25 £66.63 £71.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £76.49
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £61.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year -14.29% -5.77% -1.49%

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 38,831 25,009 28,459
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.83% 90.78% 85.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,961 15,919 18,268
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £421
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £753
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,587 1,463 1,501
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.68 £17.87 £18.11
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £69.47 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £40.50
% change year-on-year +63.02% -37.90% -4.71%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 +35 1,233 £525 +2.44% 948
North of England +42 332 £451 +2.39% 237
South East 0 317 £500 - 382
Midlands +39 298 £473 -2.97% 186
West Midlands +27 208 £451 -9.90% 124
North West +23 170 £450 +5.88% 129
Yorkshire +40 145 £460 +2.22% 63
East of England +1 145 £475 -7.77% 191
South West +11 131 £525 -8.70% 224
East Midlands +24 86 £500 - 62
North East -29 21 £438 -2.78% 47
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 70 (2.78%) Confluence
2 63 (2.50%) Apache Airflow
3 49 (1.94%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.79%) SAS
5 38 (1.51%) Apache Spark
6 24 (0.95%) Apache
7 14 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
8 11 (0.44%) CMS
8 11 (0.44%) Jupyter
9 8 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
10 7 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
11 6 (0.24%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.20%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) IIS
13 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.12%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 184 (7.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 36 (1.43%) Microsoft Office
3 32 (1.27%) MS Visio
4 30 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 30 (1.19%) Spreadsheet
5 12 (0.48%) AutoCAD
6 9 (0.36%) 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 (0.079%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.079%) EPLAN
13 1 (0.040%) Autodesk Inventor
13 1 (0.040%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.040%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.040%) MicroStation
13 1 (0.040%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 106 (4.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.91%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.56%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.52%) NetSuite
4 13 (0.52%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.48%) Teamcenter
6 11 (0.44%) SAP SD
7 10 (0.40%) Aladdin
7 10 (0.40%) iTrent
7 10 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
7 10 (0.40%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 10 (0.40%) SAP MDG
8 9 (0.36%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.36%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.36%) SAP MM
9 8 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
9 8 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
9 8 (0.32%) SAP FI
10 7 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 6 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
Cloud Services
1 566 (22.46%) Azure
2 295 (11.71%) AWS
3 259 (10.28%) Power Platform
4 157 (6.23%) Azure DevOps
5 129 (5.12%) GCP
6 120 (4.76%) GitHub
7 88 (3.49%) Snowflake
8 73 (2.90%) Azure Data Factory
9 69 (2.74%) Entra ID
10 62 (2.46%) GitHub Actions
11 56 (2.22%) Serverless
12 53 (2.10%) Microsoft 365
13 50 (1.98%) SaaS
14 45 (1.79%) dbt
15 43 (1.71%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 42 (1.67%) Amazon S3
17 37 (1.47%) SuccessFactors
18 35 (1.39%) OCI
19 30 (1.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 30 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.13%) Firewall
2 64 (2.54%) DNS
3 63 (2.50%) Network Security
4 55 (2.18%) VLAN
5 45 (1.79%) VPN
6 40 (1.59%) WAN
7 37 (1.47%) TCP/IP
8 36 (1.43%) BGP
9 31 (1.23%) DHCP
10 22 (0.87%) Internet
11 21 (0.83%) LAN
11 21 (0.83%) SAN
12 20 (0.79%) OSPF
12 20 (0.79%) SD-WAN
12 20 (0.79%) Wireless
13 17 (0.67%) 5G
13 17 (0.67%) VXLAN
13 17 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
14 15 (0.60%) Ethernet VPN
15 13 (0.52%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 239 (9.48%) Power BI
2 146 (5.79%) Data Warehouse
3 109 (4.33%) Metadata
4 79 (3.13%) SQL Server
5 76 (3.02%) Relational Database
6 73 (2.90%) PostgreSQL
7 72 (2.86%) Data Lake
8 67 (2.66%) Tableau
9 37 (1.47%) Delta Lake
10 36 (1.43%) MongoDB
11 35 (1.39%) Big Data
12 33 (1.31%) NoSQL
13 29 (1.15%) BigQuery
13 29 (1.15%) Redis
14 28 (1.11%) Oracle Database
15 27 (1.07%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 26 (1.03%) MySQL
17 24 (0.95%) Power Query
18 22 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
19 20 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 224 (8.89%) JIRA
2 168 (6.67%) Git
3 92 (3.65%) Jenkins
4 81 (3.21%) GitLab
5 58 (2.30%) Selenium
6 40 (1.59%) Postman
7 31 (1.23%) JMeter
8 23 (0.91%) Cucumber
9 22 (0.87%) WebDriver
10 18 (0.71%) Rational DOORS
11 17 (0.67%) JUnit
12 14 (0.56%) Rational Rhapsody
13 11 (0.44%) Cypress.io
13 11 (0.44%) Gatling
14 10 (0.40%) Eclipse
14 10 (0.40%) Maven
14 10 (0.40%) TestRail
15 9 (0.36%) Gradle
15 9 (0.36%) Visual Studio Code
15 9 (0.36%) Zephyr
General
1 722 (28.65%) Finance
2 718 (28.49%) Social Skills
3 491 (19.48%) Analytical Skills
4 207 (8.21%) Public Sector
5 197 (7.82%) Banking
6 132 (5.24%) Documentation Skills
7 91 (3.61%) Manufacturing
8 85 (3.37%) Retail
9 57 (2.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 56 (2.22%) Telecoms
11 51 (2.02%) Automotive
12 49 (1.94%) Aerospace
13 46 (1.83%) Pharmaceutical
14 45 (1.79%) Organisational Skills
15 44 (1.75%) Marketing
16 39 (1.55%) Local Government
17 38 (1.51%) Front Office
18 36 (1.43%) Law
19 32 (1.27%) General Ledger
19 32 (1.27%) Legal
Job Titles
1 449 (17.82%) Analyst
2 279 (11.07%) Senior
3 236 (9.37%) Lead
4 209 (8.29%) Data Engineer
5 205 (8.13%) Business Analyst
6 197 (7.82%) Consultant
7 144 (5.71%) Developer
8 130 (5.16%) Data Analyst
9 125 (4.96%) Architect
10 106 (4.21%) Test Engineer
11 68 (2.70%) Tester
12 66 (2.62%) Network Engineer
13 58 (2.30%) Systems Engineer
14 56 (2.22%) Project Manager
15 50 (1.98%) Administrator
15 50 (1.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 50 (1.98%) Senior Data Engineer
16 43 (1.71%) Test Manager
17 40 (1.59%) Technical Analyst
18 38 (1.51%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 144 (5.71%) REST
2 134 (5.32%) Terraform
3 81 (3.21%) JSON
4 77 (3.06%) PySpark
5 68 (2.70%) Kafka
6 64 (2.54%) XML
7 45 (1.79%) Oracle Fusion
8 44 (1.75%) Playwright
9 43 (1.71%) Middleware
10 39 (1.55%) pytest
11 37 (1.47%) .NET
12 34 (1.35%) RESTful
12 34 (1.35%) Spring
13 32 (1.27%) Pandas
14 31 (1.23%) SOAP
15 29 (1.15%) OAuth
16 27 (1.07%) Spring Boot
17 24 (0.95%) Web Services
18 23 (0.91%) Lightning Web Components
19 22 (0.87%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 138 (5.48%) Onboarding
2 134 (5.32%) Data Structures
3 114 (4.52%) Cloud Native
4 110 (4.37%) Legacy Systems
5 99 (3.93%) Product Ownership
6 83 (3.29%) Management Information System
7 78 (3.10%) Data Centre
8 45 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
9 44 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
10 42 (1.67%) AI Agents
11 41 (1.63%) Distributed Systems
11 41 (1.63%) SCADA
12 38 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
13 34 (1.35%) Life Science
14 32 (1.27%) Replication
15 31 (1.23%) Algorithms
15 31 (1.23%) CMDB
15 31 (1.23%) NHS
16 30 (1.19%) Hybrid Cloud
16 30 (1.19%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 136 (5.40%) Windows
2 89 (3.53%) Linux
3 48 (1.90%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.83%) Unix
5 18 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.56%) Android
7 11 (0.44%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.32%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.28%) VMS
10 6 (0.24%) Windows 10
11 4 (0.16%) SUSE
11 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.079%) HPUX
12 2 (0.079%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.079%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.079%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.040%) Alpine Linux
13 1 (0.040%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 692 (27.46%) Migration
2 499 (19.80%) Stakeholder Management
3 474 (18.81%) Agile
4 468 (18.57%) CI/CD
5 419 (16.63%) User Acceptance Testing
6 413 (16.39%) Data Migration
7 398 (15.79%) Analytics
8 388 (15.40%) Data Modelling
9 384 (15.24%) Problem-Solving
10 383 (15.20%) Data Validation
11 347 (13.77%) DevOps
12 336 (13.33%) AI
13 322 (12.78%) Test Automation
14 302 (11.98%) Continuous Improvement
15 288 (11.43%) ETL
16 277 (10.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 271 (10.75%) Business Intelligence
18 266 (10.56%) Data Pipeline
19 260 (10.32%) Data Governance
20 255 (10.12%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 638 (25.32%) SQL
2 488 (19.37%) Python
3 120 (4.76%) Java
4 87 (3.45%) PowerShell
5 53 (2.10%) Bash
6 42 (1.67%) JavaScript
7 39 (1.55%) C#
8 33 (1.31%) C++
9 29 (1.15%) R
10 28 (1.11%) Apex Code
11 26 (1.03%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 24 (0.95%) Bicep
12 24 (0.95%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.95%) TypeScript
13 23 (0.91%) C
14 19 (0.75%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.75%) VBA
15 16 (0.63%) MATLAB
16 13 (0.52%) Scala
17 12 (0.48%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 462 (18.33%) Security Cleared
2 338 (13.41%) SC Cleared
3 180 (7.14%) Degree
4 66 (2.62%) DV Cleared
5 46 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
6 42 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
7 39 (1.55%) Cisco Certification
8 32 (1.27%) CCNP
9 25 (0.99%) ACCA
9 25 (0.99%) CIMA
10 24 (0.95%) AWS Certification
11 20 (0.79%) ISTQB
11 20 (0.79%) PMI Certification
12 18 (0.71%) Azure Certification
13 15 (0.60%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 15 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
13 15 (0.60%) PMP
14 14 (0.56%) Master's Degree
15 13 (0.52%) CISSP
16 12 (0.48%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 504 (20.00%) Data Quality
2 313 (12.42%) QA
3 91 (3.61%) GDPR
4 43 (1.71%) NIST
5 42 (1.67%) SLA
6 38 (1.51%) Accessibility
7 36 (1.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 32 (1.27%) PMO
9 22 (0.87%) GxP
10 18 (0.71%) GRC
11 14 (0.56%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 13 (0.52%) Def Stans
12 13 (0.52%) ISO 20022
13 12 (0.48%) WCAG
14 11 (0.44%) HL7
14 11 (0.44%) IFRS
14 11 (0.44%) NCSC
15 10 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
15 10 (0.40%) NIST 800
15 10 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 101 (4.01%) Docker
2 82 (3.25%) Active Directory
3 59 (2.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
5 23 (0.91%) VMware ESXi
6 18 (0.71%) Firmware
7 16 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
7 16 (0.63%) vSphere
8 14 (0.56%) Hyper-V
9 11 (0.44%) 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 (0.079%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.079%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.040%) etcd
12 1 (0.040%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.040%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 126 (5.00%) Kubernetes
2 75 (2.98%) Ansible
3 40 (1.59%) Grafana
4 34 (1.35%) Prometheus
5 23 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
6 22 (0.87%) FortiGate
6 22 (0.87%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (0.48%) vCenter Server
8 11 (0.44%) SCCM
9 10 (0.40%) HP ALM
9 10 (0.40%) VxRail
10 8 (0.32%) Failover Clustering
11 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
12 6 (0.24%) Argo
13 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
13 5 (0.20%) systemd
13 5 (0.20%) vRealize
14 4 (0.16%) Functional Safety
14 4 (0.16%) Puppet
15 3 (0.12%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 386 (15.32%) Microsoft
2 215 (8.53%) SAP
3 198 (7.86%) Oracle
4 146 (5.79%) Databricks
5 86 (3.41%) Salesforce
6 75 (2.98%) ServiceNow
7 69 (2.74%) VMware
8 67 (2.66%) Cisco
9 43 (1.71%) Workday
10 42 (1.67%) Google
11 33 (1.31%) IBM
12 29 (1.15%) Informatica
12 29 (1.15%) Juniper
13 27 (1.07%) Fortinet
13 27 (1.07%) Zscaler
14 22 (0.87%) Splunk
15 21 (0.83%) Palo Alto
16 17 (0.67%) CrowdStrike
16 17 (0.67%) IFS
17 16 (0.63%) Foundry