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

6 months to
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 65 107
Rank change year-on-year +32 +42 +45
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,583 1,040 731
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.59% 3.75% 2.22%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.60% 4.12% 2.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,537 625 362
10th Percentile £339 £333 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £488
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +5.13% -11.36%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £588
90th Percentile £710 £700 £650
UK median daily rate £500 £503 £495
% change year-on-year -0.60% +1.62% -10.00%
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 £73.25 £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 39,153 25,217 28,330
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.77% 90.89% 86.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,009 16,021 17,785
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 £650
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 2,713 1,491 1,342
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.30 £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% -
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £66.50
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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +36 1,275 £525 - 1,334
North of England +44 336 £450 +5.32% 276
South East -2 328 £503 +0.50% 437
Midlands +35 299 £473 -0.42% 246
West Midlands +30 210 £463 -2.46% 174
North West +18 166 £450 +5.88% 162
Yorkshire +50 148 £461 -2.89% 71
East of England -1 141 £478 -4.40% 249
South West +9 138 £525 -4.55% 252
East Midlands +24 85 £490 -2.00% 70
North East -25 27 £425 -5.56% 46
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 (2.79%) Confluence
2 63 (2.44%) Apache Airflow
3 54 (2.09%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.74%) SAS
5 40 (1.55%) Apache Spark
6 27 (1.05%) Apache
7 17 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
8 12 (0.46%) CMS
9 10 (0.39%) 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 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.15%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.15%) JBoss
15 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 192 (7.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 40 (1.55%) Microsoft Office
3 34 (1.32%) MS Visio
3 34 (1.32%) Spreadsheet
4 30 (1.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (0.50%) AutoCAD
6 8 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.31%) Navisworks
6 8 (0.31%) Revit
7 6 (0.23%) ProjectWise
7 6 (0.23%) Simulink
8 3 (0.12%) Chatbot
9 2 (0.077%) CATIA
9 2 (0.077%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.077%) EPLAN
10 1 (0.039%) Gliffy
10 1 (0.039%) LaTeX
10 1 (0.039%) Oracle Smart View
10 1 (0.039%) Trello
10 1 (0.039%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 104 (4.03%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.66%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.54%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.50%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.46%) SAP SD
5 12 (0.46%) Teamcenter
5 12 (0.46%) Workday HCM
6 11 (0.43%) SAP FI
6 11 (0.43%) SAP MDG
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
1 552 (21.37%) Azure
2 304 (11.77%) AWS
3 255 (9.87%) Power Platform
4 155 (6.00%) Azure DevOps
5 126 (4.88%) GCP
6 120 (4.65%) GitHub
7 96 (3.72%) Snowflake
8 77 (2.98%) Entra ID
9 71 (2.75%) Azure Data Factory
10 65 (2.52%) GitHub Actions
11 54 (2.09%) Serverless
12 52 (2.01%) dbt
12 52 (2.01%) Microsoft 365
13 49 (1.90%) SaaS
14 44 (1.70%) Amazon S3
15 41 (1.59%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 34 (1.32%) SuccessFactors
17 30 (1.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 30 (1.16%) Azure Monitor
18 29 (1.12%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 103 (3.99%) Firewall
2 65 (2.52%) DNS
3 58 (2.25%) Network Security
4 57 (2.21%) VLAN
5 48 (1.86%) VPN
6 39 (1.51%) WAN
7 38 (1.47%) BGP
7 38 (1.47%) TCP/IP
8 31 (1.20%) DHCP
9 22 (0.85%) Internet
9 22 (0.85%) OSPF
10 21 (0.81%) SD-WAN
11 20 (0.77%) SAN
11 20 (0.77%) Wireless
12 19 (0.74%) 5G
12 19 (0.74%) VXLAN
13 18 (0.70%) LAN
14 16 (0.62%) Ethernet VPN
14 16 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
15 15 (0.58%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 235 (9.10%) Power BI
2 140 (5.42%) Data Warehouse
3 105 (4.07%) Metadata
4 90 (3.48%) Relational Database
5 79 (3.06%) SQL Server
6 69 (2.67%) Data Lake
7 67 (2.59%) PostgreSQL
7 67 (2.59%) Tableau
8 37 (1.43%) Delta Lake
9 36 (1.39%) MongoDB
10 35 (1.36%) Big Data
11 34 (1.32%) Oracle Database
12 32 (1.24%) BigQuery
13 30 (1.16%) NoSQL
14 29 (1.12%) Power Query
14 29 (1.12%) Redis
15 26 (1.01%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 25 (0.97%) MySQL
17 21 (0.81%) Azure SQL Database
17 21 (0.81%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 233 (9.02%) JIRA
2 186 (7.20%) Git
3 89 (3.45%) Jenkins
4 80 (3.10%) GitLab
5 67 (2.59%) Selenium
6 35 (1.36%) Postman
7 30 (1.16%) JMeter
8 21 (0.81%) Cucumber
8 21 (0.81%) Rational DOORS
9 18 (0.70%) WebDriver
10 15 (0.58%) Eclipse
10 15 (0.58%) JUnit
11 13 (0.50%) Rational Rhapsody
12 11 (0.43%) Gatling
12 11 (0.43%) Visual Studio
13 10 (0.39%) Cypress.io
13 10 (0.39%) Maven
13 10 (0.39%) REST Assured
13 10 (0.39%) Visual Studio Code
13 10 (0.39%) Zephyr
General
1 744 (28.80%) Finance
2 738 (28.57%) Social Skills
3 502 (19.43%) Analytical Skills
4 218 (8.44%) Banking
5 206 (7.98%) Public Sector
6 125 (4.84%) Documentation Skills
7 101 (3.91%) Manufacturing
8 89 (3.45%) Retail
9 62 (2.40%) Automotive
10 56 (2.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 55 (2.13%) Telecoms
12 48 (1.86%) Marketing
13 47 (1.82%) Aerospace
14 46 (1.78%) Organisational Skills
15 43 (1.66%) Pharmaceutical
16 41 (1.59%) Local Government
17 40 (1.55%) Front Office
18 38 (1.47%) Law
19 37 (1.43%) Legal
20 32 (1.24%) Military
Job Titles
1 458 (17.73%) Analyst
2 295 (11.42%) Senior
3 239 (9.25%) Lead
4 205 (7.94%) Business Analyst
5 204 (7.90%) Data Engineer
6 198 (7.67%) Consultant
7 151 (5.85%) Developer
8 134 (5.19%) Architect
9 133 (5.15%) Data Analyst
10 102 (3.95%) Test Engineer
11 64 (2.48%) Network Engineer
11 64 (2.48%) Tester
12 58 (2.25%) Systems Engineer
13 54 (2.09%) Administrator
14 53 (2.05%) Senior Data Engineer
15 48 (1.86%) Project Manager
15 48 (1.86%) Software Engineer
16 43 (1.66%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 41 (1.59%) Test Manager
18 39 (1.51%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 153 (5.92%) REST
2 142 (5.50%) Terraform
3 81 (3.14%) JSON
4 80 (3.10%) PySpark
5 67 (2.59%) Kafka
6 63 (2.44%) XML
7 51 (1.97%) Middleware
8 45 (1.74%) Playwright
9 43 (1.66%) Oracle Fusion
10 38 (1.47%) pytest
11 36 (1.39%) SOAP
12 34 (1.32%) .NET
12 34 (1.32%) Pandas
13 33 (1.28%) RESTful
13 33 (1.28%) Spring
14 32 (1.24%) OAuth
15 30 (1.16%) Web Services
16 29 (1.12%) Spring Boot
17 28 (1.08%) HTML
17 28 (1.08%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 140 (5.42%) Onboarding
2 131 (5.07%) Data Structures
3 115 (4.45%) Cloud Native
4 108 (4.18%) Legacy Systems
5 94 (3.64%) Product Ownership
6 91 (3.52%) Management Information System
7 75 (2.90%) Data Centre
8 49 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
9 45 (1.74%) AI Agents
10 42 (1.63%) SCADA
11 41 (1.59%) Analytical Mindset
12 40 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
13 39 (1.51%) Distributed Systems
14 34 (1.32%) Life Science
15 33 (1.28%) Algorithms
16 32 (1.24%) Operational Technology
17 31 (1.20%) CMDB
18 30 (1.16%) Reference Data
19 29 (1.12%) Replication
20 28 (1.08%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 148 (5.73%) Windows
2 97 (3.76%) Linux
3 54 (2.09%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.97%) Unix
5 21 (0.81%) 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 (0.15%) SUSE
10 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.12%) VxWorks
11 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.077%) CentOS
12 2 (0.077%) HPUX
12 2 (0.077%) Solaris
12 2 (0.077%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.039%) AIX
13 1 (0.039%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 699 (27.06%) Migration
2 541 (20.94%) Stakeholder Management
3 495 (19.16%) CI/CD
4 486 (18.82%) Agile
5 411 (15.91%) User Acceptance Testing
6 410 (15.87%) Data Migration
7 400 (15.49%) Data Validation
8 398 (15.41%) Data Modelling
9 397 (15.37%) Analytics
10 389 (15.06%) Problem-Solving
11 355 (13.74%) AI
12 353 (13.67%) DevOps
13 336 (13.01%) Test Automation
14 319 (12.35%) Continuous Improvement
15 294 (11.38%) ETL
16 276 (10.69%) Data Analysis
17 274 (10.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 267 (10.34%) Business Intelligence
19 265 (10.26%) Data Pipeline
20 257 (9.95%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 665 (25.75%) SQL
2 515 (19.94%) Python
3 123 (4.76%) Java
4 91 (3.52%) PowerShell
5 56 (2.17%) JavaScript
6 50 (1.94%) Bash
7 44 (1.70%) C#
8 37 (1.43%) C++
9 31 (1.20%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.12%) Apex Code
10 29 (1.12%) R
11 28 (1.08%) PL/SQL
12 25 (0.97%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 24 (0.93%) C
14 21 (0.81%) Bicep
15 19 (0.74%) Shell Script
16 18 (0.70%) VBA
17 15 (0.58%) MATLAB
18 13 (0.50%) T-SQL
19 12 (0.46%) Scala
Qualifications
1 501 (19.40%) Security Cleared
2 361 (13.98%) SC Cleared
3 180 (6.97%) Degree
4 81 (3.14%) DV Cleared
5 51 (1.97%) BPSS Clearance
6 42 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
7 40 (1.55%) Cisco Certification
8 32 (1.24%) CCNP
9 28 (1.08%) AWS Certification
10 26 (1.01%) ACCA
10 26 (1.01%) CIMA
11 21 (0.81%) PMI Certification
12 20 (0.77%) 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 11 (0.43%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 525 (20.33%) Data Quality
2 313 (12.12%) QA
3 84 (3.25%) GDPR
4 42 (1.63%) Accessibility
5 39 (1.51%) NIST
6 34 (1.32%) SLA
7 33 (1.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 32 (1.24%) PMO
9 22 (0.85%) GxP
10 15 (0.58%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 15 (0.58%) WCAG
11 14 (0.54%) GRC
11 14 (0.54%) ISO 20022
12 12 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
12 12 (0.46%) 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 99 (3.83%) Docker
2 85 (3.29%) Active Directory
3 60 (2.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.12%) 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 (0.077%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.077%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.039%) etcd
12 1 (0.039%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.039%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.039%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 122 (4.72%) Kubernetes
2 79 (3.06%) Ansible
3 37 (1.43%) Grafana
4 31 (1.20%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.93%) FortiGate
5 24 (0.93%) Microsoft Intune
6 17 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
7 15 (0.58%) SCCM
8 13 (0.50%) vCenter Server
9 11 (0.43%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.39%) VxRail
11 8 (0.31%) Argo
11 8 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
12 7 (0.27%) Functional Safety
13 6 (0.23%) Progress Chef
14 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
14 5 (0.19%) systemd
14 5 (0.19%) vRealize
15 4 (0.15%) Control-M
15 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 396 (15.33%) Microsoft
2 217 (8.40%) SAP
3 206 (7.98%) Oracle
4 149 (5.77%) Databricks
5 89 (3.45%) Salesforce
6 71 (2.75%) Cisco
7 69 (2.67%) VMware
8 68 (2.63%) ServiceNow
9 45 (1.74%) Workday
10 44 (1.70%) Google
11 39 (1.51%) IBM
12 29 (1.12%) Fortinet
12 29 (1.12%) Juniper
12 29 (1.12%) Zscaler
13 27 (1.05%) Informatica
14 22 (0.85%) Palo Alto
15 21 (0.81%) Splunk
16 16 (0.62%) CrowdStrike
16 16 (0.62%) MuleSoft
17 15 (0.58%) Siemens