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

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 65 112
Rank change year-on-year +32 +47 +37
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,502 1,027 685
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.47% 3.72% 2.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.44% 4.10% 2.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,527 625 339
10th Percentile £341 £350 £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 £613 £588
90th Percentile £712 £688 £664
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £500
% change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 170 76 116
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £29.89
25th Percentile £29.51 £36.42 £50.25
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £74.25 £66.63 £69.44
90th Percentile £83.08 £75.00 £75.93
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -8.33% -7.69% -0.38%

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 38,860 25,068 28,450
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.96% 90.79% 85.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,105 15,945 18,530
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £626 £627 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,559 1,442 1,597
10th Percentile £14.28 £14.20 £14.15
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.87 £18.16
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +5.94%
75th Percentile £68.55 £50.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.94
% change year-on-year +67.00% -38.57% +0.86%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 +41 1,203 £525 +2.44% 1,048
South East +2 325 £500 - 414
North of England +43 315 £450 -9.04% 264
Midlands +35 315 £475 -5.00% 228
West Midlands +33 221 £463 -8.87% 151
North West +17 158 £450 -16.20% 153
East of England +6 150 £475 -6.40% 240
Yorkshire +37 142 £460 +5.75% 68
South West -1 131 £525 -8.70% 236
East Midlands +21 89 £500 - 77
North East -30 20 £438 -20.45% 50
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 76 (3.04%) Confluence
2 64 (2.56%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (1.88%) SAS
4 46 (1.84%) SharePoint
5 39 (1.56%) Apache Spark
6 27 (1.08%) 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%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
11 6 (0.24%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.20%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) IIS
13 4 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
13 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.12%) JBoss
14 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 178 (7.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (1.32%) MS Visio
3 29 (1.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (1.12%) 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 (0.080%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.080%) 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
1 109 (4.36%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (1.08%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.48%) NetSuite
4 12 (0.48%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.44%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 10 (0.40%) iTrent
6 10 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.40%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.40%) Teamcenter
7 9 (0.36%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.32%) Aladdin
8 8 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
8 8 (0.32%) SAP SD
9 7 (0.28%) Sage X3
9 7 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle EBS R12
10 6 (0.24%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 560 (22.38%) Azure
2 304 (12.15%) AWS
3 265 (10.59%) Power Platform
4 142 (5.68%) Azure DevOps
5 139 (5.56%) GCP
6 125 (5.00%) GitHub
7 87 (3.48%) Snowflake
8 72 (2.88%) Azure Data Factory
9 69 (2.76%) Entra ID
9 69 (2.76%) GitHub Actions
10 52 (2.08%) Serverless
11 50 (2.00%) Microsoft 365
12 44 (1.76%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 44 (1.76%) dbt
12 44 (1.76%) SaaS
13 41 (1.64%) Amazon S3
14 40 (1.60%) OCI
14 40 (1.60%) SuccessFactors
15 30 (1.20%) Azure Monitor
16 29 (1.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.04%) Firewall
2 61 (2.44%) DNS
3 59 (2.36%) Network Security
4 50 (2.00%) VLAN
5 44 (1.76%) VPN
6 40 (1.60%) TCP/IP
7 38 (1.52%) WAN
8 35 (1.40%) BGP
9 29 (1.16%) DHCP
10 22 (0.88%) Internet
11 20 (0.80%) LAN
11 20 (0.80%) SAN
11 20 (0.80%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.76%) OSPF
12 19 (0.76%) Wireless
13 17 (0.68%) VXLAN
13 17 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
14 15 (0.60%) Ethernet
14 15 (0.60%) Ethernet VPN
15 13 (0.52%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 246 (9.83%) Power BI
2 145 (5.80%) Data Warehouse
3 107 (4.28%) Metadata
4 79 (3.16%) SQL Server
5 77 (3.08%) Data Lake
5 77 (3.08%) PostgreSQL
6 73 (2.92%) Relational Database
7 69 (2.76%) Tableau
8 37 (1.48%) Big Data
9 34 (1.36%) MongoDB
10 33 (1.32%) NoSQL
11 29 (1.16%) Delta Lake
12 28 (1.12%) BigQuery
12 28 (1.12%) SAS Enterprise Guide
13 27 (1.08%) Oracle Database
14 26 (1.04%) Redis
15 24 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 23 (0.92%) MySQL
16 23 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
16 23 (0.92%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 226 (9.03%) JIRA
2 171 (6.83%) Git
3 95 (3.80%) Jenkins
4 80 (3.20%) GitLab
5 59 (2.36%) Selenium
6 39 (1.56%) Postman
7 38 (1.52%) JMeter
8 34 (1.36%) Cucumber
9 31 (1.24%) JUnit
10 29 (1.16%) WebDriver
11 23 (0.92%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.72%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.64%) Visual Studio
14 14 (0.56%) Rational Rhapsody
15 12 (0.48%) Gatling
16 11 (0.44%) Maven
17 10 (0.40%) Cypress.io
17 10 (0.40%) Gradle
17 10 (0.40%) REST Assured
18 9 (0.36%) TestRail
General
1 723 (28.90%) Social Skills
2 712 (28.46%) Finance
3 494 (19.74%) Analytical Skills
4 212 (8.47%) Public Sector
5 187 (7.47%) Banking
6 134 (5.36%) Documentation Skills
7 90 (3.60%) Manufacturing
8 89 (3.56%) Retail
9 59 (2.36%) Aerospace
10 56 (2.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 48 (1.92%) Telecoms
12 47 (1.88%) Automotive
12 47 (1.88%) Organisational Skills
13 46 (1.84%) Pharmaceutical
14 42 (1.68%) Marketing
15 40 (1.60%) Local Government
16 37 (1.48%) Front Office
16 37 (1.48%) Law
17 34 (1.36%) Influencing Skills
17 34 (1.36%) Legal
Job Titles
1 429 (17.15%) Analyst
2 274 (10.95%) Senior
3 250 (9.99%) Lead
4 209 (8.35%) Data Engineer
5 199 (7.95%) Business Analyst
6 189 (7.55%) Consultant
7 144 (5.76%) Developer
8 123 (4.92%) Architect
9 121 (4.84%) Data Analyst
10 102 (4.08%) Test Engineer
11 71 (2.84%) Tester
12 64 (2.56%) Project Manager
13 61 (2.44%) Network Engineer
14 54 (2.16%) Systems Engineer
15 50 (2.00%) Administrator
15 50 (2.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 49 (1.96%) Senior Data Engineer
17 41 (1.64%) Software Engineer
18 40 (1.60%) Migration Engineer
18 40 (1.60%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 137 (5.48%) REST
2 78 (3.12%) JSON
3 69 (2.76%) PySpark
4 68 (2.72%) Kafka
5 62 (2.48%) XML
6 49 (1.96%) Oracle Fusion
7 42 (1.68%) Spring
8 40 (1.60%) Middleware
9 39 (1.56%) .NET
9 39 (1.56%) Playwright
10 38 (1.52%) pytest
11 31 (1.24%) RESTful
11 31 (1.24%) SOAP
12 30 (1.20%) Web Services
13 29 (1.16%) Node.js
13 29 (1.16%) Pandas
14 28 (1.12%) OAuth
15 27 (1.08%) Spring Boot
16 22 (0.88%) Lightning Web Components
16 22 (0.88%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 137 (5.48%) Onboarding
2 131 (5.24%) Data Structures
3 115 (4.60%) Cloud Native
4 112 (4.48%) Legacy Systems
5 103 (4.12%) Product Ownership
6 79 (3.16%) Management Information System
7 76 (3.04%) Data Centre
8 47 (1.88%) Analytical Mindset
9 44 (1.76%) Distributed Systems
10 42 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
11 41 (1.64%) SCADA
12 39 (1.56%) AI Agents
13 35 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
14 34 (1.36%) Algorithms
15 33 (1.32%) Life Science
16 32 (1.28%) Operational Technology
16 32 (1.28%) Public Cloud
16 32 (1.28%) Replication
17 31 (1.24%) CMDB
18 29 (1.16%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 137 (5.48%) Windows
2 92 (3.68%) Linux
3 45 (1.80%) Windows Server
4 18 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 18 (0.72%) Unix
5 12 (0.48%) Android
6 11 (0.44%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.28%) Apple iOS
7 7 (0.28%) VMS
8 6 (0.24%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.16%) SUSE
9 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.080%) HPUX
10 2 (0.080%) VxWorks
10 2 (0.080%) Windows 7
10 2 (0.080%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.040%) Alpine Linux
11 1 (0.040%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.040%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 689 (27.54%) Migration
2 483 (19.30%) Agile
3 479 (19.14%) Stakeholder Management
4 467 (18.67%) CI/CD
5 411 (16.43%) Data Migration
6 406 (16.23%) User Acceptance Testing
7 401 (16.03%) Analytics
8 396 (15.83%) Problem-Solving
9 387 (15.47%) Data Modelling
10 381 (15.23%) Data Validation
11 332 (13.27%) DevOps
12 331 (13.23%) AI
13 324 (12.95%) Test Automation
14 304 (12.15%) Continuous Improvement
15 288 (11.51%) ETL
16 276 (11.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 273 (10.91%) Business Intelligence
18 264 (10.55%) Data Pipeline
19 260 (10.39%) Data Governance
20 242 (9.67%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 625 (24.98%) SQL
2 477 (19.06%) Python
3 123 (4.92%) Java
4 80 (3.20%) PowerShell
5 49 (1.96%) C#
6 48 (1.92%) Bash
7 46 (1.84%) JavaScript
8 41 (1.64%) C++
9 28 (1.12%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 27 (1.08%) Apex Code
10 27 (1.08%) TypeScript
11 24 (0.96%) Bicep
11 24 (0.96%) PL/SQL
12 23 (0.92%) C
12 23 (0.92%) R
13 21 (0.84%) VBA
14 15 (0.60%) MATLAB
15 13 (0.52%) Scala
15 13 (0.52%) Shell Script
16 12 (0.48%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 470 (18.78%) Security Cleared
2 340 (13.59%) SC Cleared
3 173 (6.91%) Degree
4 68 (2.72%) DV Cleared
5 47 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
6 40 (1.60%) Computer Science Degree
7 37 (1.48%) Cisco Certification
8 29 (1.16%) CCNP
9 23 (0.92%) ACCA
10 22 (0.88%) AWS Certification
10 22 (0.88%) CIMA
11 21 (0.84%) PMI Certification
12 20 (0.80%) ISTQB
13 18 (0.72%) Azure Certification
14 17 (0.68%) PMP
15 14 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
16 13 (0.52%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 13 (0.52%) CISSP
17 12 (0.48%) CCNA
18 11 (0.44%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 485 (19.38%) Data Quality
2 308 (12.31%) QA
3 98 (3.92%) GDPR
4 51 (2.04%) NIST
5 44 (1.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 37 (1.48%) Accessibility
7 35 (1.40%) SLA
8 33 (1.32%) PMO
9 22 (0.88%) GxP
10 17 (0.68%) GRC
11 14 (0.56%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 14 (0.56%) Def Stans
12 12 (0.48%) HL7
12 12 (0.48%) ISO 20022
12 12 (0.48%) NCSC
13 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.44%) IFRS
13 11 (0.44%) NIST 800
13 11 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.44%) WCAG
System Software
1 110 (4.40%) Docker
2 80 (3.20%) Active Directory
3 59 (2.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.20%) Virtual Machines
5 23 (0.92%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.68%) Firmware
7 16 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
8 15 (0.60%) vSphere
9 13 (0.52%) Hyper-V
10 12 (0.48%) VMware NSX
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.12%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.080%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.080%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.040%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.040%) NFS
13 1 (0.040%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 141 (5.64%) Kubernetes
2 130 (5.20%) Terraform
3 71 (2.84%) Ansible
4 45 (1.80%) Grafana
5 39 (1.56%) Prometheus
6 22 (0.88%) FortiGate
6 22 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
6 22 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (0.48%) vCenter Server
8 10 (0.40%) SCCM
8 10 (0.40%) VxRail
9 7 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
10 6 (0.24%) Argo
10 6 (0.24%) HP ALM
11 5 (0.20%) Progress Chef
11 5 (0.20%) systemd
11 5 (0.20%) vRealize
12 4 (0.16%) Functional Safety
12 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Clustering
12 4 (0.16%) Puppet
Vendors
1 377 (15.07%) Microsoft
2 217 (8.67%) SAP
3 204 (8.15%) Oracle
4 141 (5.64%) Databricks
5 82 (3.28%) Salesforce
6 77 (3.08%) ServiceNow
7 69 (2.76%) VMware
8 62 (2.48%) Cisco
9 42 (1.68%) Google
9 42 (1.68%) Workday
10 31 (1.24%) Informatica
11 29 (1.16%) Juniper
12 27 (1.08%) Fortinet
13 26 (1.04%) IBM
13 26 (1.04%) Zscaler
14 21 (0.84%) Palo Alto
15 20 (0.80%) IFS
15 20 (0.80%) Splunk
16 19 (0.76%) MuleSoft
16 19 (0.76%) Sage