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

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 65 102
Rank change year-on-year +33 +37 +47
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,629 1,050 742
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.70% 3.79% 2.27%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.74% 4.16% 2.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,548 627 371
10th Percentile £340 £350 £320
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 £636 £588
90th Percentile £710 £700 £650
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £500
% change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -6.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 178 76 96
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £28.89
25th Percentile £27.43 £40.06 £47.88
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £72.75 £67.00 £67.81
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £73.75
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 39,007 25,232 28,124
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.55% 90.97% 86.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,733 16,031 17,231
10th Percentile £325 £295 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -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 2,853 1,544 1,222
10th Percentile £13.90 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.60 £17.85 £20.26
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.00 £67.02
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £39.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +55.07% -40.82% -1.16%

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 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 28 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 28 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 +37 1,282 £525 - 1,638
North of England +46 344 £453 +5.35% 419
South East +4 330 £525 +5.00% 550
Midlands +38 302 £463 -5.03% 315
West Midlands +29 212 £463 -7.45% 220
North West +13 164 £455 +7.00% 231
South West +17 157 £524 -4.77% 294
Yorkshire +50 154 £461 -2.89% 128
East of England -6 136 £450 -10.00% 287
East Midlands +28 86 £488 -4.88% 95
North East -19 31 £425 -11.92% 62
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 (3.08%) Confluence
2 61 (2.32%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (2.09%) SharePoint
4 44 (1.67%) SAS
5 42 (1.60%) Apache Spark
6 30 (1.14%) Apache
7 18 (0.68%) CMS
8 16 (0.61%) Microsoft Exchange
9 11 (0.42%) Jupyter
10 8 (0.30%) Palantir Foundry
10 8 (0.30%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.27%) 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
1 185 (7.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.56%) Microsoft Office
3 31 (1.18%) MS Visio
4 28 (1.07%) Spreadsheet
5 27 (1.03%) 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 (0.27%) ProjectWise
9 7 (0.27%) Simulink
10 4 (0.15%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.076%) CATIA
11 2 (0.076%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.076%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.076%) OrCAD
12 1 (0.038%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.038%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.038%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.038%) Trello
Business Applications
1 101 (3.84%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.57%) Oracle Payables
3 13 (0.49%) NetSuite
3 13 (0.49%) SAP FI
3 13 (0.49%) Workday HCM
4 12 (0.46%) Oracle EBS
4 12 (0.46%) SAP MDG
4 12 (0.46%) SAP SD
4 12 (0.46%) Teamcenter
5 11 (0.42%) Aladdin
5 11 (0.42%) SAP HCM
6 10 (0.38%) iTrent
6 10 (0.38%) SAP MM
7 9 (0.34%) SAP ERP
8 8 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
8 8 (0.30%) SAP CO
9 7 (0.27%) SAP HR
9 7 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 527 (20.05%) Azure
2 308 (11.72%) AWS
3 260 (9.89%) Power Platform
4 156 (5.93%) Azure DevOps
5 146 (5.55%) GCP
6 124 (4.72%) GitHub
7 96 (3.65%) Snowflake
8 84 (3.20%) Entra ID
9 66 (2.51%) Azure Data Factory
10 65 (2.47%) GitHub Actions
11 55 (2.09%) dbt
12 52 (1.98%) Amazon S3
12 52 (1.98%) Microsoft 365
13 51 (1.94%) Serverless
14 47 (1.79%) SaaS
15 36 (1.37%) SuccessFactors
16 35 (1.33%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 30 (1.14%) Azure Monitor
17 30 (1.14%) Dynamics 365
17 30 (1.14%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 97 (3.69%) Firewall
2 68 (2.59%) DNS
3 52 (1.98%) Network Security
4 50 (1.90%) VLAN
5 49 (1.86%) VPN
6 41 (1.56%) BGP
6 41 (1.56%) TCP/IP
7 38 (1.45%) WAN
8 30 (1.14%) DHCP
9 23 (0.87%) VXLAN
10 22 (0.84%) Internet
10 22 (0.84%) OSPF
11 21 (0.80%) Ethernet
12 20 (0.76%) 5G
12 20 (0.76%) Ethernet VPN
12 20 (0.76%) LAN
12 20 (0.76%) SAN
12 20 (0.76%) SD-WAN
12 20 (0.76%) Wireless
13 18 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 241 (9.17%) Power BI
2 140 (5.33%) Data Warehouse
3 103 (3.92%) Metadata
4 93 (3.54%) Relational Database
5 76 (2.89%) SQL Server
6 72 (2.74%) Data Lake
7 69 (2.62%) PostgreSQL
8 63 (2.40%) Tableau
9 36 (1.37%) BigQuery
9 36 (1.37%) MongoDB
10 34 (1.29%) Delta Lake
11 32 (1.22%) NoSQL
11 32 (1.22%) Oracle Database
11 32 (1.22%) Power Query
12 31 (1.18%) Big Data
12 31 (1.18%) Redis
13 26 (0.99%) Amazon Athena
14 25 (0.95%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 23 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
15 23 (0.87%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 234 (8.90%) JIRA
2 199 (7.57%) Git
3 87 (3.31%) Jenkins
4 86 (3.27%) GitLab
5 69 (2.62%) Selenium
6 35 (1.33%) Postman
7 30 (1.14%) JMeter
8 23 (0.87%) Cucumber
8 23 (0.87%) Rational DOORS
9 17 (0.65%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.65%) Visual Studio
10 16 (0.61%) JUnit
10 16 (0.61%) WebDriver
11 12 (0.46%) Cypress.io
11 12 (0.46%) Visual Studio Code
12 11 (0.42%) Gatling
12 11 (0.42%) Rational Rhapsody
12 11 (0.42%) REST Assured
13 10 (0.38%) Zephyr
14 9 (0.34%) Gradle
General
1 767 (29.17%) Finance
2 759 (28.87%) Social Skills
3 522 (19.86%) Analytical Skills
4 240 (9.13%) Banking
5 215 (8.18%) Public Sector
6 113 (4.30%) Documentation Skills
7 111 (4.22%) Manufacturing
8 85 (3.23%) Retail
9 68 (2.59%) Automotive
10 60 (2.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 60 (2.28%) Telecoms
11 49 (1.86%) Marketing
12 46 (1.75%) Aerospace
13 45 (1.71%) Legal
13 45 (1.71%) Organisational Skills
14 42 (1.60%) Local Government
15 40 (1.52%) Front Office
16 39 (1.48%) Pharmaceutical
17 38 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
18 36 (1.37%) Billing
Job Titles
1 445 (16.93%) Analyst
2 304 (11.56%) Senior
3 242 (9.21%) Lead
4 216 (8.22%) Data Engineer
5 202 (7.68%) Business Analyst
6 196 (7.46%) Consultant
7 161 (6.12%) Developer
8 143 (5.44%) Architect
9 139 (5.29%) Data Analyst
10 101 (3.84%) Test Engineer
11 66 (2.51%) Tester
12 65 (2.47%) Network Engineer
13 55 (2.09%) Administrator
13 55 (2.09%) Senior Data Engineer
14 53 (2.02%) Systems Engineer
15 51 (1.94%) Software Engineer
16 41 (1.56%) Project Manager
17 40 (1.52%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 40 (1.52%) QA Engineer
17 40 (1.52%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 160 (6.09%) Terraform
2 158 (6.01%) REST
3 79 (3.00%) PySpark
4 73 (2.78%) JSON
5 66 (2.51%) Kafka
6 61 (2.32%) XML
7 58 (2.21%) Middleware
8 52 (1.98%) Playwright
9 44 (1.67%) Oracle Fusion
9 44 (1.67%) pytest
10 41 (1.56%) SOAP
11 38 (1.45%) .NET
11 38 (1.45%) OAuth
11 38 (1.45%) RESTful
11 38 (1.45%) Web Services
12 35 (1.33%) Node.js
13 33 (1.26%) Pandas
14 32 (1.22%) HTML
14 32 (1.22%) Spring
15 29 (1.10%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 155 (5.90%) Onboarding
2 134 (5.10%) Data Structures
3 125 (4.75%) Cloud Native
4 107 (4.07%) Legacy Systems
5 100 (3.80%) Product Ownership
6 99 (3.77%) Management Information System
7 82 (3.12%) Data Centre
8 54 (2.05%) AI Agents
9 51 (1.94%) Enterprise Software
10 43 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
11 42 (1.60%) SCADA
12 41 (1.56%) Analytical Mindset
13 40 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
14 38 (1.45%) Algorithms
15 36 (1.37%) Life Science
16 34 (1.29%) Operational Technology
17 33 (1.26%) CMDB
17 33 (1.26%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 29 (1.10%) Reference Data
19 28 (1.07%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 166 (6.31%) Windows
2 101 (3.84%) Linux
3 57 (2.17%) Windows Server
4 30 (1.14%) Unix
5 18 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.49%) Android
7 11 (0.42%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.34%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.30%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.15%) VMS
10 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.15%) zOS
11 3 (0.11%) CentOS
11 3 (0.11%) VxWorks
11 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.076%) HPUX
12 2 (0.076%) Solaris
12 2 (0.076%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.038%) AIX
13 1 (0.038%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 715 (27.20%) Migration
2 588 (22.37%) Stakeholder Management
3 526 (20.01%) CI/CD
4 500 (19.02%) Agile
5 420 (15.98%) Data Migration
6 415 (15.79%) User Acceptance Testing
7 408 (15.52%) Analytics
7 408 (15.52%) Data Modelling
8 402 (15.29%) Data Validation
9 394 (14.99%) Problem-Solving
10 380 (14.45%) AI
11 364 (13.85%) DevOps
12 362 (13.77%) Test Automation
13 348 (13.24%) Continuous Improvement
14 294 (11.18%) ETL
15 285 (10.84%) Data Analysis
16 273 (10.38%) Business Intelligence
17 270 (10.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 261 (9.93%) Data Pipeline
19 259 (9.85%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 682 (25.94%) SQL
2 547 (20.81%) Python
3 122 (4.64%) Java
4 99 (3.77%) PowerShell
5 66 (2.51%) JavaScript
6 55 (2.09%) Bash
7 52 (1.98%) C#
8 42 (1.60%) C++
9 37 (1.41%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.03%) Apex Code
11 26 (0.99%) R
12 24 (0.91%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 24 (0.91%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.91%) Shell Script
13 22 (0.84%) C
14 21 (0.80%) Bicep
15 18 (0.68%) VBA
16 15 (0.57%) MATLAB
17 14 (0.53%) Go
17 14 (0.53%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 511 (19.44%) Security Cleared
2 380 (14.45%) SC Cleared
3 196 (7.46%) Degree
4 84 (3.20%) DV Cleared
5 54 (2.05%) BPSS Clearance
6 47 (1.79%) Computer Science Degree
7 36 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
8 33 (1.26%) AWS Certification
9 30 (1.14%) ACCA
9 30 (1.14%) CIMA
10 28 (1.07%) CCNP
11 25 (0.95%) PMI Certification
12 20 (0.76%) Azure Certification
12 20 (0.76%) CISSP
12 20 (0.76%) 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 (0.42%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 537 (20.43%) Data Quality
2 316 (12.02%) QA
3 78 (2.97%) GDPR
4 44 (1.67%) Accessibility
5 39 (1.48%) SLA
6 33 (1.26%) NIST
7 32 (1.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 31 (1.18%) PMO
9 22 (0.84%) GxP
10 17 (0.65%) WCAG
11 16 (0.61%) GRC
11 16 (0.61%) ISO 20022
12 15 (0.57%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 14 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.42%) IFRS
15 10 (0.38%) Def Stans
15 10 (0.38%) MiFID
15 10 (0.38%) NCSC
16 9 (0.34%) GMP
17 8 (0.30%) HL7
System Software
1 100 (3.80%) Docker
2 88 (3.35%) Active Directory
3 62 (2.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.14%) Virtual Machines
5 21 (0.80%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.65%) Firmware
6 17 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
7 16 (0.61%) vSphere
8 13 (0.49%) VMware NSX
9 12 (0.46%) Hyper-V
10 3 (0.11%) KVM
10 3 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
10 3 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.11%) VirtualBox
11 2 (0.076%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.076%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.038%) Embedded Firmware
12 1 (0.038%) etcd
12 1 (0.038%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.038%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 123 (4.68%) Kubernetes
2 87 (3.31%) Ansible
3 36 (1.37%) Grafana
4 30 (1.14%) Prometheus
5 23 (0.87%) FortiGate
5 23 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
6 18 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
7 16 (0.61%) SCCM
8 11 (0.42%) HP ALM
9 10 (0.38%) Functional Safety
10 9 (0.34%) Progress Chef
10 9 (0.34%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.30%) Argo
12 6 (0.23%) Control-M
12 6 (0.23%) VxRail
13 5 (0.19%) systemd
13 5 (0.19%) vRealize
14 4 (0.15%) Failover Clustering
14 4 (0.15%) Kibana
14 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 408 (15.52%) Microsoft
2 212 (8.06%) SAP
3 195 (7.42%) Oracle
4 153 (5.82%) Databricks
5 82 (3.12%) Salesforce
6 80 (3.04%) ServiceNow
7 76 (2.89%) Cisco
8 69 (2.62%) VMware
9 60 (2.28%) Google
10 49 (1.86%) Workday
11 43 (1.64%) IBM
12 31 (1.18%) Fortinet
13 29 (1.10%) Zscaler
14 28 (1.07%) Juniper
15 25 (0.95%) Informatica
16 22 (0.84%) Palo Alto
17 20 (0.76%) Splunk
18 18 (0.68%) Red Hat
19 17 (0.65%) CyberArk
20 16 (0.61%) Siemens