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

6 months to
14 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 66 108
Rank change year-on-year +33 +42 +41
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,574 1,029 720
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.60% 3.73% 2.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.61% 4.11% 2.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,530 619 357
10th Percentile £337 £332 £317
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £488
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +5.02% -11.27%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £588
90th Percentile £710 £700 £654
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £500
% change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 171 80 104
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £28.50 £41.25 £51.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £73.00 £67.00 £71.60
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £76.30
UK median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -17.69% - -3.70%

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 38,948 25,051 28,234
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.68% 90.90% 86.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,873 15,912 17,703
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £648
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 2,701 1,483 1,330
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.25 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.85 £17.65 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -1.71%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.73 £66.58
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 +41 1,272 £525 - 1,988
North of England +40 330 £450 +5.88% 369
South East +4 328 £501 -0.99% 563
Midlands +37 297 £473 -0.42% 300
West Midlands +29 208 £463 -2.46% 209
North West +14 160 £450 +5.88% 218
Yorkshire +55 148 £461 -2.89% 99
East of England -4 142 £478 -4.40% 352
South West +8 139 £525 -4.55% 338
East Midlands +26 85 £490 -2.00% 89
North East -23 27 £425 -5.56% 63
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 (2.80%) Confluence
2 63 (2.45%) Apache Airflow
3 54 (2.10%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.75%) SAS
5 40 (1.55%) Apache Spark
6 27 (1.05%) Apache
7 17 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
8 12 (0.47%) CMS
9 9 (0.35%) Jupyter
10 8 (0.31%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.27%) Palantir Foundry
11 7 (0.27%) Sitecore CMS
12 6 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
12 6 (0.23%) WebLogic
13 5 (0.19%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.19%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.16%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.16%) JBoss
15 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 192 (7.46%) Microsoft Excel
2 40 (1.55%) Microsoft Office
3 34 (1.32%) MS Visio
4 33 (1.28%) Spreadsheet
5 30 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 13 (0.51%) AutoCAD
7 8 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.31%) Navisworks
7 8 (0.31%) Revit
8 6 (0.23%) ProjectWise
8 6 (0.23%) Simulink
9 3 (0.12%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.078%) CATIA
10 2 (0.078%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.078%) EPLAN
11 1 (0.039%) Gliffy
11 1 (0.039%) LaTeX
11 1 (0.039%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.039%) Trello
11 1 (0.039%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 104 (4.04%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.66%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.54%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.51%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.47%) SAP SD
5 12 (0.47%) Teamcenter
6 11 (0.43%) SAP FI
6 11 (0.43%) SAP MDG
6 11 (0.43%) Workday HCM
7 10 (0.39%) Aladdin
7 10 (0.39%) iTrent
7 10 (0.39%) SAP MM
8 9 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.35%) SAP ERP
9 8 (0.31%) SAP CO
9 8 (0.31%) SAP HCM
10 7 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
10 7 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
10 7 (0.27%) Oracle Financials
10 7 (0.27%) Oracle General Ledger
Cloud Services
1 544 (21.13%) Azure
2 299 (11.62%) AWS
3 254 (9.87%) Power Platform
4 154 (5.98%) Azure DevOps
5 127 (4.93%) GCP
6 120 (4.66%) GitHub
7 96 (3.73%) Snowflake
8 77 (2.99%) Entra ID
9 70 (2.72%) Azure Data Factory
10 64 (2.49%) GitHub Actions
11 53 (2.06%) dbt
12 52 (2.02%) Microsoft 365
13 50 (1.94%) Serverless
14 48 (1.86%) SaaS
15 42 (1.63%) Amazon S3
16 39 (1.52%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 34 (1.32%) SuccessFactors
18 30 (1.17%) Azure Monitor
19 29 (1.13%) OCI
20 28 (1.09%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 99 (3.85%) Firewall
2 65 (2.53%) DNS
3 56 (2.18%) VLAN
4 54 (2.10%) Network Security
5 45 (1.75%) VPN
6 40 (1.55%) TCP/IP
7 39 (1.52%) WAN
8 38 (1.48%) BGP
9 31 (1.20%) DHCP
10 22 (0.85%) Internet
10 22 (0.85%) OSPF
11 21 (0.82%) SD-WAN
12 20 (0.78%) SAN
12 20 (0.78%) Wireless
13 19 (0.74%) 5G
13 19 (0.74%) VXLAN
14 18 (0.70%) LAN
15 17 (0.66%) Ethernet
16 16 (0.62%) Ethernet VPN
16 16 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 235 (9.13%) Power BI
2 139 (5.40%) Data Warehouse
3 105 (4.08%) Metadata
4 90 (3.50%) Relational Database
5 79 (3.07%) SQL Server
6 68 (2.64%) Data Lake
7 67 (2.60%) PostgreSQL
7 67 (2.60%) Tableau
8 36 (1.40%) Delta Lake
9 35 (1.36%) Big Data
9 35 (1.36%) MongoDB
10 34 (1.32%) Oracle Database
11 32 (1.24%) BigQuery
12 29 (1.13%) NoSQL
12 29 (1.13%) Power Query
12 29 (1.13%) Redis
13 26 (1.01%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 24 (0.93%) MySQL
15 20 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
15 20 (0.78%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 233 (9.05%) JIRA
2 187 (7.26%) Git
3 89 (3.46%) Jenkins
4 80 (3.11%) GitLab
5 67 (2.60%) Selenium
6 35 (1.36%) Postman
7 30 (1.17%) JMeter
8 21 (0.82%) Cucumber
9 20 (0.78%) Rational DOORS
10 18 (0.70%) WebDriver
11 17 (0.66%) Eclipse
12 15 (0.58%) JUnit
13 13 (0.51%) Visual Studio
14 12 (0.47%) Rational Rhapsody
15 11 (0.43%) Gatling
15 11 (0.43%) Visual Studio Code
16 10 (0.39%) Cypress.io
16 10 (0.39%) Maven
16 10 (0.39%) REST Assured
16 10 (0.39%) Zephyr
General
1 743 (28.87%) Finance
2 737 (28.63%) Social Skills
3 503 (19.54%) Analytical Skills
4 218 (8.47%) Banking
5 205 (7.96%) Public Sector
6 124 (4.82%) Documentation Skills
7 100 (3.89%) Manufacturing
8 89 (3.46%) Retail
9 62 (2.41%) Automotive
10 56 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 55 (2.14%) Telecoms
12 48 (1.86%) Marketing
13 46 (1.79%) Organisational Skills
14 45 (1.75%) Aerospace
15 43 (1.67%) Pharmaceutical
16 41 (1.59%) Local Government
17 40 (1.55%) Front Office
18 37 (1.44%) Law
18 37 (1.44%) Legal
19 34 (1.32%) Military
Job Titles
1 456 (17.72%) Analyst
2 293 (11.38%) Senior
3 239 (9.29%) Lead
4 205 (7.96%) Business Analyst
5 203 (7.89%) Data Engineer
6 198 (7.69%) Consultant
7 152 (5.91%) Developer
8 134 (5.21%) Architect
9 133 (5.17%) Data Analyst
10 102 (3.96%) Test Engineer
11 64 (2.49%) Tester
12 61 (2.37%) Network Engineer
13 58 (2.25%) Systems Engineer
14 54 (2.10%) Administrator
15 52 (2.02%) Senior Data Engineer
16 48 (1.86%) Project Manager
16 48 (1.86%) Software Engineer
17 43 (1.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 41 (1.59%) Test Manager
19 39 (1.52%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 152 (5.91%) REST
2 140 (5.44%) Terraform
3 81 (3.15%) JSON
4 79 (3.07%) PySpark
5 66 (2.56%) Kafka
6 63 (2.45%) XML
7 51 (1.98%) Middleware
8 45 (1.75%) Playwright
9 43 (1.67%) Oracle Fusion
10 38 (1.48%) pytest
11 36 (1.40%) SOAP
12 34 (1.32%) .NET
12 34 (1.32%) Pandas
13 32 (1.24%) OAuth
13 32 (1.24%) RESTful
13 32 (1.24%) Spring
13 32 (1.24%) Web Services
14 29 (1.13%) HTML
14 29 (1.13%) Node.js
15 28 (1.09%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 140 (5.44%) Onboarding
2 131 (5.09%) Data Structures
3 114 (4.43%) Cloud Native
4 108 (4.20%) Legacy Systems
5 92 (3.57%) Product Ownership
6 90 (3.50%) Management Information System
7 75 (2.91%) Data Centre
8 49 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
9 46 (1.79%) AI Agents
10 42 (1.63%) SCADA
11 41 (1.59%) Analytical Mindset
12 40 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
12 40 (1.55%) Distributed Systems
13 34 (1.32%) Life Science
14 33 (1.28%) Algorithms
15 32 (1.24%) Operational Technology
16 31 (1.20%) CMDB
17 30 (1.17%) Reference Data
18 28 (1.09%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 28 (1.09%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 150 (5.83%) Windows
2 99 (3.85%) Linux
3 54 (2.10%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.97%) Unix
5 21 (0.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.54%) Android
7 11 (0.43%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.31%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.31%) Windows 10
9 7 (0.27%) VMS
10 4 (0.16%) SUSE
10 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.12%) VxWorks
11 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.078%) CentOS
12 2 (0.078%) HPUX
12 2 (0.078%) Solaris
12 2 (0.078%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.039%) AIX
13 1 (0.039%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 699 (27.16%) Migration
2 542 (21.06%) Stakeholder Management
3 494 (19.19%) CI/CD
4 487 (18.92%) Agile
5 411 (15.97%) User Acceptance Testing
6 410 (15.93%) Data Migration
7 400 (15.54%) Data Validation
8 399 (15.50%) Data Modelling
9 395 (15.35%) Analytics
10 388 (15.07%) Problem-Solving
11 354 (13.75%) AI
12 350 (13.60%) DevOps
13 335 (13.01%) Test Automation
14 316 (12.28%) Continuous Improvement
15 293 (11.38%) ETL
16 275 (10.68%) Data Analysis
16 275 (10.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 267 (10.37%) Business Intelligence
18 264 (10.26%) Data Pipeline
19 256 (9.95%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 663 (25.76%) SQL
2 514 (19.97%) Python
3 122 (4.74%) Java
4 91 (3.54%) PowerShell
5 59 (2.29%) JavaScript
6 50 (1.94%) Bash
7 46 (1.79%) C#
8 39 (1.52%) C++
9 32 (1.24%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.13%) Apex Code
10 29 (1.13%) R
11 28 (1.09%) PL/SQL
12 25 (0.97%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 23 (0.89%) C
14 21 (0.82%) Bicep
15 19 (0.74%) Shell Script
16 18 (0.70%) VBA
17 15 (0.58%) MATLAB
18 13 (0.51%) T-SQL
19 12 (0.47%) Scala
Qualifications
1 499 (19.39%) Security Cleared
2 360 (13.99%) SC Cleared
3 180 (6.99%) Degree
4 81 (3.15%) DV Cleared
5 51 (1.98%) BPSS Clearance
6 42 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
7 37 (1.44%) Cisco Certification
8 29 (1.13%) CCNP
9 28 (1.09%) AWS Certification
10 26 (1.01%) ACCA
10 26 (1.01%) CIMA
11 21 (0.82%) PMI Certification
12 20 (0.78%) Azure Certification
13 19 (0.74%) ISTQB
14 17 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 16 (0.62%) PMP
16 15 (0.58%) CISSP
16 15 (0.58%) Master's Degree
17 14 (0.54%) Microsoft Certification
18 10 (0.39%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 523 (20.32%) Data Quality
2 312 (12.12%) QA
3 84 (3.26%) GDPR
4 41 (1.59%) Accessibility
5 37 (1.44%) NIST
6 34 (1.32%) SLA
7 32 (1.24%) PMO
8 31 (1.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 22 (0.85%) GxP
10 15 (0.58%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 14 (0.54%) GRC
11 14 (0.54%) ISO 20022
11 14 (0.54%) WCAG
12 12 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.43%) Def Stans
13 11 (0.43%) IFRS
13 11 (0.43%) NCSC
14 10 (0.39%) MiFID
14 10 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 9 (0.35%) GMP
System Software
1 98 (3.81%) Docker
2 85 (3.30%) Active Directory
3 60 (2.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.13%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.74%) Firmware
7 17 (0.66%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.66%) vSphere
8 14 (0.54%) Hyper-V
9 11 (0.43%) 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 (0.078%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.078%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.039%) Ceph
12 1 (0.039%) etcd
12 1 (0.039%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.039%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 121 (4.70%) Kubernetes
2 79 (3.07%) Ansible
3 37 (1.44%) Grafana
4 31 (1.20%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.93%) Microsoft Intune
6 23 (0.89%) FortiGate
7 17 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (0.58%) SCCM
9 13 (0.51%) vCenter Server
10 11 (0.43%) HP ALM
11 10 (0.39%) VxRail
12 8 (0.31%) Argo
12 8 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
13 7 (0.27%) Functional Safety
14 6 (0.23%) Progress Chef
15 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
15 5 (0.19%) systemd
15 5 (0.19%) vRealize
16 4 (0.16%) Control-M
16 4 (0.16%) vMotion
Vendors
1 397 (15.42%) Microsoft
2 217 (8.43%) SAP
3 204 (7.93%) Oracle
4 148 (5.75%) Databricks
5 89 (3.46%) Salesforce
6 70 (2.72%) Cisco
7 69 (2.68%) VMware
8 67 (2.60%) ServiceNow
9 45 (1.75%) Google
10 44 (1.71%) Workday
11 39 (1.52%) IBM
12 29 (1.13%) Fortinet
12 29 (1.13%) Juniper
12 29 (1.13%) Zscaler
13 27 (1.05%) Informatica
14 21 (0.82%) Palo Alto
14 21 (0.82%) Splunk
15 16 (0.62%) CrowdStrike
15 16 (0.62%) MuleSoft
16 15 (0.58%) Siemens