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

6 months to
8 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 65 116
Rank change year-on-year +30 +51 +36
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,453 1,018 673
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.36% 3.69% 2.02%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.29% 4.06% 2.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,498 617 334
10th Percentile £347 £354 £325
25th Percentile £413 £419 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £480
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +8.33% -12.73%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £588
90th Percentile £712 £700 £666
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £488
% change year-on-year -2.91% +5.53% -11.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 163 80 121
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £29.77
25th Percentile £28.88 £36.42 £51.25
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% +3.96%
75th Percentile £75.00 £67.00 £68.88
90th Percentile £83.60 £75.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -8.33% -7.69% -

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 39,026 25,062 28,650
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.26% 90.78% 85.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,293 16,024 18,683
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £626 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,529 1,392 1,676
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £14.09
25th Percentile £19.85 £17.87 £18.25
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £68.75 £50.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.27 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £40.50
% change year-on-year +68.99% -37.90% -4.71%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 +40 1,174 £525 +0.96% 749
South East +8 319 £503 +0.50% 318
Midlands +37 314 £475 +5.56% 182
North of England +40 308 £450 -9.09% 221
West Midlands +34 223 £468 +3.94% 115
North West +29 159 £450 -21.40% 126
East of England +6 148 £475 -6.40% 147
Yorkshire +41 135 £453 +4.08% 53
South West -7 128 £525 -8.70% 170
East Midlands +25 85 £509 +11.99% 67
North East -36 18 £425 -22.73% 45
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 73 (2.98%) Confluence
2 65 (2.65%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (1.92%) SAS
4 42 (1.71%) SharePoint
5 38 (1.55%) Apache Spark
6 28 (1.14%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) Jupyter
8 10 (0.41%) Microsoft Exchange
9 9 (0.37%) CMS
10 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
10 8 (0.33%) SharePoint 2013
11 6 (0.24%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.20%) Palantir Foundry
12 5 (0.20%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) IIS
13 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.12%) JBoss
14 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 176 (7.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.39%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (1.39%) MS Visio
3 25 (1.02%) Spreadsheet
4 24 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.49%) AutoCAD
6 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
7 7 (0.29%) Navisworks
7 7 (0.29%) Revit
8 6 (0.24%) Simulink
9 5 (0.20%) ProjectWise
10 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.12%) CATIA
12 2 (0.082%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.082%) EPLAN
13 1 (0.041%) Autodesk Inventor
13 1 (0.041%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.041%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.041%) MicroStation
13 1 (0.041%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 110 (4.48%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.14%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
3 13 (0.53%) Workday HCM
4 12 (0.49%) NetSuite
5 11 (0.45%) iTrent
5 11 (0.45%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 11 (0.45%) SAP ERP
5 11 (0.45%) Teamcenter
6 9 (0.37%) Aladdin
6 9 (0.37%) Oracle Assets
6 9 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
6 9 (0.37%) Sage X3
6 9 (0.37%) SAP MDG
7 8 (0.33%) Dynamics CRM
7 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
8 7 (0.29%) Oracle Financials
8 7 (0.29%) SAP SD
8 7 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 6 (0.24%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 554 (22.58%) Azure
2 293 (11.94%) AWS
3 261 (10.64%) Power Platform
4 137 (5.58%) Azure DevOps
4 137 (5.58%) GCP
5 119 (4.85%) GitHub
6 85 (3.47%) Snowflake
7 71 (2.89%) Azure Data Factory
8 66 (2.69%) Entra ID
8 66 (2.69%) GitHub Actions
9 55 (2.24%) Serverless
10 45 (1.83%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 45 (1.83%) SaaS
11 44 (1.79%) dbt
11 44 (1.79%) Microsoft 365
12 41 (1.67%) Amazon S3
12 41 (1.67%) OCI
13 38 (1.55%) SuccessFactors
14 30 (1.22%) Azure Monitor
15 26 (1.06%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 102 (4.16%) Firewall
2 63 (2.57%) Network Security
3 62 (2.53%) DNS
4 46 (1.88%) VLAN
5 44 (1.79%) VPN
6 43 (1.75%) TCP/IP
7 35 (1.43%) WAN
8 30 (1.22%) BGP
9 27 (1.10%) DHCP
10 23 (0.94%) Internet
11 20 (0.82%) LAN
11 20 (0.82%) OSPF
11 20 (0.82%) SAN
11 20 (0.82%) Wireless
12 19 (0.77%) SD-WAN
13 15 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
14 13 (0.53%) Ethernet
15 12 (0.49%) 5G
15 12 (0.49%) Cisco ISE
16 11 (0.45%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 242 (9.87%) Power BI
2 149 (6.07%) Data Warehouse
3 97 (3.95%) Metadata
4 79 (3.22%) Data Lake
5 74 (3.02%) PostgreSQL
5 74 (3.02%) SQL Server
6 72 (2.94%) Tableau
7 67 (2.73%) Relational Database
8 38 (1.55%) Big Data
9 30 (1.22%) NoSQL
10 29 (1.18%) BigQuery
11 28 (1.14%) Delta Lake
11 28 (1.14%) MongoDB
11 28 (1.14%) Oracle Database
11 28 (1.14%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 25 (1.02%) Power Query
12 25 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 24 (0.98%) Oracle Reports
14 22 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
15 20 (0.82%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 226 (9.21%) JIRA
2 165 (6.73%) Git
3 91 (3.71%) Jenkins
4 70 (2.85%) GitLab
5 62 (2.53%) Selenium
6 40 (1.63%) JMeter
7 37 (1.51%) Cucumber
8 36 (1.47%) Postman
9 35 (1.43%) JUnit
10 33 (1.35%) WebDriver
11 23 (0.94%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.73%) Eclipse
13 15 (0.61%) Visual Studio
14 13 (0.53%) Rational Rhapsody
15 12 (0.49%) Gatling
16 10 (0.41%) ERwin
16 10 (0.41%) Maven
17 9 (0.37%) Cypress.io
17 9 (0.37%) Gradle
17 9 (0.37%) REST Assured
General
1 717 (29.23%) Finance
2 711 (28.98%) Social Skills
3 480 (19.57%) Analytical Skills
4 201 (8.19%) Public Sector
5 187 (7.62%) Banking
6 129 (5.26%) Documentation Skills
7 90 (3.67%) Manufacturing
8 87 (3.55%) Retail
9 58 (2.36%) Aerospace
10 53 (2.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 47 (1.92%) Pharmaceutical
12 46 (1.88%) Telecoms
13 43 (1.75%) Organisational Skills
14 41 (1.67%) Automotive
15 39 (1.59%) Local Government
16 38 (1.55%) Marketing
17 37 (1.51%) Front Office
18 36 (1.47%) Law
19 34 (1.39%) Influencing Skills
20 33 (1.35%) Military
Job Titles
1 422 (17.20%) Analyst
2 258 (10.52%) Senior
3 249 (10.15%) Lead
4 208 (8.48%) Data Engineer
5 196 (7.99%) Business Analyst
6 179 (7.30%) Consultant
7 142 (5.79%) Developer
8 130 (5.30%) Architect
9 126 (5.14%) Data Analyst
10 99 (4.04%) Test Engineer
11 72 (2.94%) Tester
12 67 (2.73%) Project Manager
13 56 (2.28%) Network Engineer
14 49 (2.00%) Systems Engineer
15 47 (1.92%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 45 (1.83%) Senior Data Engineer
17 43 (1.75%) Administrator
18 40 (1.63%) Technical Analyst
19 39 (1.59%) Migration Engineer
20 38 (1.55%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 124 (5.06%) REST
2 74 (3.02%) JSON
3 71 (2.89%) Kafka
4 64 (2.61%) PySpark
5 61 (2.49%) XML
6 49 (2.00%) Oracle Fusion
7 42 (1.71%) Spring
8 40 (1.63%) pytest
9 39 (1.59%) .NET
9 39 (1.59%) Middleware
10 35 (1.43%) Playwright
11 32 (1.30%) RESTful
12 31 (1.26%) Pandas
13 30 (1.22%) SOAP
14 28 (1.14%) Node.js
14 28 (1.14%) Web Services
15 26 (1.06%) OAuth
16 25 (1.02%) WireMock
17 23 (0.94%) Spring Boot
18 22 (0.90%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 137 (5.58%) Data Structures
2 136 (5.54%) Onboarding
3 118 (4.81%) Legacy Systems
4 105 (4.28%) Cloud Native
5 100 (4.08%) Product Ownership
6 71 (2.89%) Management Information System
7 68 (2.77%) Data Centre
8 47 (1.92%) Analytical Mindset
8 47 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
9 40 (1.63%) SCADA
10 39 (1.59%) AI Agents
11 38 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
12 35 (1.43%) Data Protection Act
13 33 (1.35%) Life Science
14 32 (1.30%) Hybrid Cloud
14 32 (1.30%) Public Cloud
15 30 (1.22%) Operational Technology
16 29 (1.18%) Algorithms
17 28 (1.14%) NHS
17 28 (1.14%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 131 (5.34%) Windows
2 92 (3.75%) Linux
3 41 (1.67%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.94%) Unix
5 18 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.45%) Android
6 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.29%) VMS
8 6 (0.24%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.20%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.16%) SUSE
10 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.082%) HPUX
11 2 (0.082%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.041%) Debian
12 1 (0.041%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.041%) Solaris
12 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.041%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 677 (27.60%) Migration
2 472 (19.24%) Stakeholder Management
3 470 (19.16%) Agile
4 445 (18.14%) CI/CD
5 412 (16.80%) Analytics
6 408 (16.63%) Data Migration
7 398 (16.23%) User Acceptance Testing
8 396 (16.14%) Data Validation
9 390 (15.90%) Data Modelling
10 385 (15.70%) Problem-Solving
11 323 (13.17%) DevOps
12 321 (13.09%) AI
13 306 (12.47%) Test Automation
14 303 (12.35%) Continuous Improvement
15 301 (12.27%) ETL
16 279 (11.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 273 (11.13%) Business Intelligence
18 260 (10.60%) Data Governance
19 258 (10.52%) Data Pipeline
20 235 (9.58%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 613 (24.99%) SQL
2 457 (18.63%) Python
3 116 (4.73%) Java
4 70 (2.85%) PowerShell
5 49 (2.00%) C#
6 45 (1.83%) Bash
7 44 (1.79%) JavaScript
8 37 (1.51%) C++
9 32 (1.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 27 (1.10%) Apex Code
11 26 (1.06%) TypeScript
12 25 (1.02%) Bicep
12 25 (1.02%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.02%) VBA
13 24 (0.98%) C
14 22 (0.90%) R
15 15 (0.61%) MATLAB
16 13 (0.53%) Ada
16 13 (0.53%) Scala
16 13 (0.53%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 451 (18.39%) Security Cleared
2 321 (13.09%) SC Cleared
3 169 (6.89%) Degree
4 65 (2.65%) DV Cleared
5 48 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
6 40 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
7 36 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
8 28 (1.14%) CCNP
9 21 (0.86%) ACCA
9 21 (0.86%) PMI Certification
10 20 (0.82%) CIMA
11 18 (0.73%) ISTQB
11 18 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
12 17 (0.69%) Azure Certification
12 17 (0.69%) CISSP
12 17 (0.69%) PMP
13 15 (0.61%) AWS Certification
14 11 (0.45%) CCNA
14 11 (0.45%) Master's Degree
15 9 (0.37%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 480 (19.57%) Data Quality
2 303 (12.35%) QA
3 102 (4.16%) GDPR
4 50 (2.04%) NIST
5 44 (1.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 35 (1.43%) Accessibility
7 32 (1.30%) PMO
8 28 (1.14%) SLA
9 21 (0.86%) GxP
10 15 (0.61%) GRC
11 14 (0.57%) Def Stans
11 14 (0.57%) ISO 20022
12 13 (0.53%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.49%) HL7
13 12 (0.49%) IFRS
13 12 (0.49%) NCSC
13 12 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.45%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.45%) WCAG
System Software
1 111 (4.53%) Docker
2 79 (3.22%) Active Directory
3 55 (2.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.22%) Virtual Machines
5 22 (0.90%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.61%) Firmware
7 14 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
8 13 (0.53%) vSphere
9 10 (0.41%) Hyper-V
9 10 (0.41%) 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 (0.082%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.082%) NFS
11 2 (0.082%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.041%) etcd
12 1 (0.041%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.041%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 144 (5.87%) Kubernetes
2 116 (4.73%) Terraform
3 58 (2.36%) Ansible
4 47 (1.92%) Grafana
5 46 (1.88%) Prometheus
6 22 (0.90%) FortiGate
6 22 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
7 20 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
8 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
9 10 (0.41%) VxRail
10 9 (0.37%) SCCM
11 6 (0.24%) Failover Clustering
11 6 (0.24%) HP ALM
12 5 (0.20%) Argo
12 5 (0.20%) CASB
12 5 (0.20%) systemd
12 5 (0.20%) vRealize
13 4 (0.16%) Nessus
13 4 (0.16%) Puppet
14 3 (0.12%) Data Guard
Vendors
1 362 (14.76%) Microsoft
2 218 (8.89%) SAP
3 206 (8.40%) Oracle
4 137 (5.58%) Databricks
5 81 (3.30%) Salesforce
6 65 (2.65%) VMware
7 64 (2.61%) ServiceNow
8 54 (2.20%) Cisco
9 44 (1.79%) Workday
10 40 (1.63%) Google
11 31 (1.26%) Informatica
12 30 (1.22%) Splunk
13 28 (1.14%) Juniper
14 27 (1.10%) Fortinet
14 27 (1.10%) IBM
15 26 (1.06%) Zscaler
16 23 (0.94%) Palo Alto
17 22 (0.90%) MuleSoft
17 22 (0.90%) Sage
18 20 (0.82%) IFS