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

6 months to
26 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 65 107
Rank change year-on-year +33 +42 +43
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,658 1,054 744
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.71% 3.77% 2.27%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.75% 4.15% 2.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,561 629 371
10th Percentile £340 £336 £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 £634 £588
90th Percentile £710 £700 £650
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £500
% change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -6.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 182 77 97
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £29.06
25th Percentile £28.13 £41.25 £48.00
Median hourly rate £54.25 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.54% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £73.12 £67.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £73.50
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 39,398 25,390 28,245
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.63% 90.87% 86.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,997 16,126 17,350
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £423
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 2,849 1,543 1,244
10th Percentile £13.90 £14.41 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.60 £17.87 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.23% -41.51% -1.94%
75th Percentile £67.70 £47.50 £66.61
90th Percentile £79.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 +38 1,296 £525 - 2,030
North of England +48 346 £453 +5.35% 448
South East +2 334 £510 +2.00% 712
Midlands +39 306 £463 -5.08% 353
West Midlands +30 215 £463 -7.45% 242
North West +20 165 £454 +6.71% 253
South West +20 157 £524 -4.77% 344
Yorkshire +51 155 £461 -2.89% 135
East of England -9 140 £450 -10.00% 361
East Midlands +28 87 £475 -7.32% 110
North East -20 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 (3.05%) Confluence
2 62 (2.33%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (2.07%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.69%) SAS
5 42 (1.58%) Apache Spark
6 30 (1.13%) Apache
7 18 (0.68%) CMS
8 16 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
9 11 (0.41%) Jupyter
10 8 (0.30%) Palantir Foundry
10 8 (0.30%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.26%) 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
1 190 (7.15%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
3 31 (1.17%) MS Visio
4 28 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (1.05%) Spreadsheet
5 14 (0.53%) AutoCAD
6 9 (0.34%) Navisworks
6 9 (0.34%) Revit
7 8 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
8 7 (0.26%) ProjectWise
8 7 (0.26%) Simulink
9 4 (0.15%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.075%) CATIA
10 2 (0.075%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.075%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.075%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.038%) Gliffy
11 1 (0.038%) LaTeX
11 1 (0.038%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.038%) Trello
Business Applications
1 101 (3.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.56%) Oracle Payables
3 13 (0.49%) NetSuite
3 13 (0.49%) Workday HCM
4 12 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
4 12 (0.45%) SAP FI
4 12 (0.45%) SAP MDG
4 12 (0.45%) SAP SD
4 12 (0.45%) Teamcenter
5 11 (0.41%) SAP HCM
6 10 (0.38%) Aladdin
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 (0.26%) SAP HR
9 7 (0.26%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 535 (20.13%) Azure
2 313 (11.78%) AWS
3 265 (9.97%) Power Platform
4 158 (5.94%) Azure DevOps
5 148 (5.57%) GCP
6 125 (4.70%) GitHub
7 97 (3.65%) Snowflake
8 85 (3.20%) Entra ID
9 67 (2.52%) Azure Data Factory
10 65 (2.45%) GitHub Actions
11 55 (2.07%) dbt
12 52 (1.96%) Amazon S3
12 52 (1.96%) Microsoft 365
13 51 (1.92%) Serverless
14 47 (1.77%) SaaS
15 36 (1.35%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 36 (1.35%) SuccessFactors
16 30 (1.13%) Azure Monitor
16 30 (1.13%) Dynamics 365
16 30 (1.13%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 98 (3.69%) Firewall
2 68 (2.56%) DNS
3 52 (1.96%) Network Security
4 51 (1.92%) VLAN
5 49 (1.84%) VPN
6 42 (1.58%) TCP/IP
7 41 (1.54%) BGP
8 39 (1.47%) WAN
9 30 (1.13%) DHCP
10 23 (0.87%) VXLAN
11 22 (0.83%) Internet
11 22 (0.83%) OSPF
12 21 (0.79%) 5G
12 21 (0.79%) Ethernet
12 21 (0.79%) LAN
13 20 (0.75%) Ethernet VPN
13 20 (0.75%) SAN
13 20 (0.75%) SD-WAN
13 20 (0.75%) Wireless
14 18 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 245 (9.22%) Power BI
2 143 (5.38%) Data Warehouse
3 106 (3.99%) Metadata
4 94 (3.54%) Relational Database
5 75 (2.82%) SQL Server
6 73 (2.75%) Data Lake
7 69 (2.60%) PostgreSQL
8 63 (2.37%) Tableau
9 36 (1.35%) BigQuery
9 36 (1.35%) MongoDB
10 34 (1.28%) Delta Lake
11 33 (1.24%) Oracle Database
12 32 (1.20%) Big Data
12 32 (1.20%) NoSQL
12 32 (1.20%) Power Query
13 31 (1.17%) Redis
14 26 (0.98%) Amazon Athena
14 26 (0.98%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 23 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
15 23 (0.87%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 237 (8.92%) JIRA
2 202 (7.60%) Git
3 88 (3.31%) Jenkins
4 86 (3.24%) GitLab
5 70 (2.63%) Selenium
6 35 (1.32%) Postman
7 30 (1.13%) JMeter
8 24 (0.90%) Rational DOORS
9 23 (0.87%) Cucumber
10 17 (0.64%) Eclipse
10 17 (0.64%) Visual Studio
10 17 (0.64%) WebDriver
11 16 (0.60%) JUnit
12 12 (0.45%) Cypress.io
12 12 (0.45%) Visual Studio Code
13 11 (0.41%) Gatling
13 11 (0.41%) Rational Rhapsody
13 11 (0.41%) REST Assured
14 10 (0.38%) Zephyr
15 9 (0.34%) Gradle
General
1 775 (29.16%) Finance
2 767 (28.86%) Social Skills
3 528 (19.86%) Analytical Skills
4 244 (9.18%) Banking
5 216 (8.13%) Public Sector
6 116 (4.36%) Documentation Skills
7 112 (4.21%) Manufacturing
8 87 (3.27%) Retail
9 68 (2.56%) Automotive
10 64 (2.41%) Telecoms
11 59 (2.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 49 (1.84%) Aerospace
12 49 (1.84%) Marketing
13 46 (1.73%) Legal
13 46 (1.73%) Organisational Skills
14 43 (1.62%) Local Government
15 41 (1.54%) Front Office
16 40 (1.50%) Influencing Skills
17 39 (1.47%) Pharmaceutical
18 37 (1.39%) Billing
Job Titles
1 449 (16.89%) Analyst
2 303 (11.40%) Senior
3 247 (9.29%) Lead
4 221 (8.31%) Data Engineer
5 204 (7.67%) Business Analyst
6 197 (7.41%) Consultant
7 162 (6.09%) Developer
8 145 (5.46%) Architect
9 139 (5.23%) Data Analyst
10 103 (3.88%) Test Engineer
11 66 (2.48%) Network Engineer
11 66 (2.48%) Tester
12 55 (2.07%) Administrator
12 55 (2.07%) Senior Data Engineer
12 55 (2.07%) Systems Engineer
13 51 (1.92%) Software Engineer
14 42 (1.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 41 (1.54%) Project Manager
16 40 (1.50%) QA Engineer
16 40 (1.50%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 161 (6.06%) Terraform
2 159 (5.98%) REST
3 79 (2.97%) PySpark
4 74 (2.78%) JSON
5 67 (2.52%) Kafka
6 61 (2.29%) XML
7 57 (2.14%) Middleware
8 52 (1.96%) Playwright
9 44 (1.66%) Oracle Fusion
9 44 (1.66%) pytest
10 41 (1.54%) SOAP
11 38 (1.43%) .NET
11 38 (1.43%) OAuth
11 38 (1.43%) RESTful
11 38 (1.43%) Web Services
12 35 (1.32%) Node.js
13 33 (1.24%) Pandas
14 32 (1.20%) HTML
14 32 (1.20%) Spring
15 29 (1.09%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 156 (5.87%) Onboarding
2 136 (5.12%) Data Structures
3 128 (4.82%) Cloud Native
4 108 (4.06%) Legacy Systems
5 101 (3.80%) Product Ownership
6 99 (3.72%) Management Information System
7 83 (3.12%) Data Centre
8 53 (1.99%) AI Agents
9 50 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
10 44 (1.66%) Distributed Systems
11 42 (1.58%) SCADA
12 41 (1.54%) Analytical Mindset
13 40 (1.50%) Data Protection Act
14 38 (1.43%) Algorithms
15 36 (1.35%) Life Science
16 34 (1.28%) CMDB
16 34 (1.28%) Operational Technology
17 33 (1.24%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 30 (1.13%) Reference Data
19 28 (1.05%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 168 (6.32%) Windows
2 102 (3.84%) Linux
3 58 (2.18%) Windows Server
4 31 (1.17%) Unix
5 18 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.49%) Android
7 11 (0.41%) 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 (0.075%) HPUX
12 2 (0.075%) Solaris
12 2 (0.075%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.038%) AIX
13 1 (0.038%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 718 (27.01%) Migration
2 591 (22.23%) Stakeholder Management
3 533 (20.05%) CI/CD
4 504 (18.96%) Agile
5 419 (15.76%) Data Migration
6 417 (15.69%) Analytics
7 416 (15.65%) Data Modelling
7 416 (15.65%) User Acceptance Testing
8 406 (15.27%) Data Validation
9 403 (15.16%) Problem-Solving
10 381 (14.33%) AI
11 370 (13.92%) DevOps
12 365 (13.73%) Test Automation
13 353 (13.28%) Continuous Improvement
14 301 (11.32%) ETL
15 286 (10.76%) Data Analysis
16 279 (10.50%) Business Intelligence
17 276 (10.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 266 (10.01%) Data Pipeline
19 264 (9.93%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 689 (25.92%) SQL
2 553 (20.81%) Python
3 123 (4.63%) Java
4 99 (3.72%) PowerShell
5 66 (2.48%) JavaScript
6 55 (2.07%) Bash
7 53 (1.99%) C#
8 42 (1.58%) C++
9 37 (1.39%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.09%) Apex Code
11 28 (1.05%) R
12 25 (0.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 25 (0.94%) PL/SQL
12 25 (0.94%) Shell Script
13 22 (0.83%) C
14 21 (0.79%) Bicep
15 18 (0.68%) VBA
16 15 (0.56%) MATLAB
17 14 (0.53%) Go
18 13 (0.49%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 517 (19.45%) Security Cleared
2 385 (14.48%) SC Cleared
3 198 (7.45%) Degree
4 84 (3.16%) DV Cleared
5 55 (2.07%) BPSS Clearance
6 47 (1.77%) Computer Science Degree
7 36 (1.35%) Cisco Certification
8 33 (1.24%) AWS Certification
9 29 (1.09%) ACCA
9 29 (1.09%) CIMA
10 28 (1.05%) CCNP
11 25 (0.94%) PMI Certification
12 20 (0.75%) Azure Certification
12 20 (0.75%) CISSP
12 20 (0.75%) PMP
13 19 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 19 (0.71%) ISTQB
14 18 (0.68%) Master's Degree
15 14 (0.53%) Microsoft Certification
16 11 (0.41%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 543 (20.43%) Data Quality
2 319 (12.00%) QA
3 80 (3.01%) GDPR
4 44 (1.66%) Accessibility
5 40 (1.50%) SLA
6 35 (1.32%) NIST
7 34 (1.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 31 (1.17%) PMO
9 22 (0.83%) GxP
10 17 (0.64%) WCAG
11 16 (0.60%) GRC
11 16 (0.60%) ISO 20022
12 15 (0.56%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 14 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.41%) IFRS
14 11 (0.41%) NCSC
15 10 (0.38%) Def Stans
15 10 (0.38%) MiFID
16 9 (0.34%) GMP
17 8 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 100 (3.76%) Docker
2 89 (3.35%) Active Directory
3 62 (2.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.13%) Virtual Machines
5 21 (0.79%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.64%) Firmware
6 17 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
7 16 (0.60%) vSphere
8 13 (0.49%) VMware NSX
9 12 (0.45%) 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 (0.075%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.075%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.038%) etcd
12 1 (0.038%) HDFS
12 1 (0.038%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.038%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 124 (4.67%) Kubernetes
2 87 (3.27%) Ansible
3 37 (1.39%) Grafana
4 30 (1.13%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
6 23 (0.87%) FortiGate
7 18 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.60%) SCCM
9 11 (0.41%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.38%) Functional Safety
11 9 (0.34%) Progress Chef
11 9 (0.34%) vCenter Server
12 8 (0.30%) Argo
13 6 (0.23%) Control-M
13 6 (0.23%) VxRail
14 5 (0.19%) systemd
14 5 (0.19%) vRealize
15 4 (0.15%) Failover Clustering
15 4 (0.15%) Kibana
15 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 413 (15.54%) Microsoft
2 212 (7.98%) SAP
3 196 (7.37%) Oracle
4 154 (5.79%) Databricks
5 85 (3.20%) Salesforce
6 81 (3.05%) ServiceNow
7 76 (2.86%) Cisco
8 69 (2.60%) VMware
9 60 (2.26%) Google
10 50 (1.88%) Workday
11 43 (1.62%) IBM
12 31 (1.17%) Fortinet
13 29 (1.09%) Zscaler
14 28 (1.05%) Juniper
15 26 (0.98%) Informatica
16 22 (0.83%) Palo Alto
17 20 (0.75%) Splunk
18 18 (0.68%) Red Hat
19 17 (0.64%) CyberArk
20 16 (0.60%) Siemens