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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 66 108
Rank change year-on-year +33 +42 +45
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,529 1,045 709
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.54% 3.79% 2.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.53% 4.17% 2.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,522 638 346
10th Percentile £335 £332 £340
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £485
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% +4.69% -11.86%
75th Percentile £600 £620 £588
90th Percentile £710 £688 £665
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 168 80 112
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £28.50 £40.06 £51.19
Median hourly rate £55.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% -3.85% -1.49%
75th Percentile £73.25 £66.63 £71.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £76.67
UK median hourly rate £53.50 £61.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year -12.65% -5.77% -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 38,738 25,035 28,393
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.83% 90.79% 85.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,882 15,942 18,107
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £753
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,595 1,467 1,443
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.25 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.87 £18.63
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.09 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +63.39% -40.82% +2.41%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 +40 1,236 £525 +1.94% 1,649
North of England +45 331 £455 +6.94% 354
South East -2 327 £500 - 519
Midlands +36 298 £463 -2.58% 273
West Midlands +27 212 £453 -4.58% 188
North West +17 167 £450 +5.88% 212
Yorkshire +44 146 £462 +2.60% 86
East of England -1 142 £475 -6.40% 300
South West +7 132 £525 -8.70% 320
East Midlands +25 82 £495 -1.00% 85
North East -33 23 £438 -2.78% 64
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 70 (2.77%) Confluence
2 62 (2.45%) Apache Airflow
3 52 (2.06%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.78%) SAS
5 38 (1.50%) Apache Spark
6 24 (0.95%) Apache
7 15 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
8 11 (0.43%) CMS
8 11 (0.43%) Jupyter
9 8 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
10 7 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
11 6 (0.24%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.20%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) IIS
13 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.12%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 180 (7.12%) Microsoft Excel
2 36 (1.42%) Microsoft Office
3 32 (1.27%) MS Visio
4 31 (1.23%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 12 (0.47%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
8 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
8 7 (0.28%) Revit
9 6 (0.24%) Simulink
10 5 (0.20%) ProjectWise
11 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
12 3 (0.12%) CATIA
13 2 (0.079%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.079%) EPLAN
14 1 (0.040%) Autodesk Inventor
14 1 (0.040%) Gliffy
14 1 (0.040%) LaTeX
14 1 (0.040%) MicroStation
14 1 (0.040%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 102 (4.03%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.75%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.51%) NetSuite
3 13 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.47%) Teamcenter
4 12 (0.47%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
5 11 (0.43%) SAP MDG
5 11 (0.43%) SAP SD
6 10 (0.40%) Aladdin
6 10 (0.40%) iTrent
6 10 (0.40%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 9 (0.36%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.36%) SAP MM
8 8 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.32%) SAP FI
9 7 (0.28%) SAP HCM
9 7 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.24%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 569 (22.50%) Azure
2 303 (11.98%) AWS
3 257 (10.16%) Power Platform
4 158 (6.25%) Azure DevOps
5 131 (5.18%) GCP
6 123 (4.86%) GitHub
7 89 (3.52%) Snowflake
8 72 (2.85%) Azure Data Factory
9 70 (2.77%) Entra ID
10 64 (2.53%) GitHub Actions
11 57 (2.25%) Serverless
12 52 (2.06%) Microsoft 365
13 51 (2.02%) SaaS
14 45 (1.78%) dbt
15 43 (1.70%) Amazon S3
15 43 (1.70%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 33 (1.30%) SuccessFactors
17 32 (1.27%) OCI
18 30 (1.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 30 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 105 (4.15%) Firewall
2 66 (2.61%) DNS
3 61 (2.41%) Network Security
4 60 (2.37%) VLAN
5 48 (1.90%) VPN
6 42 (1.66%) WAN
7 39 (1.54%) BGP
8 38 (1.50%) TCP/IP
9 33 (1.30%) DHCP
10 23 (0.91%) Internet
10 23 (0.91%) OSPF
11 22 (0.87%) SD-WAN
12 21 (0.83%) LAN
13 20 (0.79%) Wireless
14 19 (0.75%) SAN
14 19 (0.75%) VXLAN
15 17 (0.67%) 5G
15 17 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
16 15 (0.59%) Ethernet VPN
17 13 (0.51%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 237 (9.37%) Power BI
2 147 (5.81%) Data Warehouse
3 110 (4.35%) Metadata
4 83 (3.28%) Relational Database
5 80 (3.16%) SQL Server
6 74 (2.93%) PostgreSQL
7 73 (2.89%) Data Lake
8 66 (2.61%) Tableau
9 38 (1.50%) Delta Lake
10 36 (1.42%) MongoDB
11 35 (1.38%) Big Data
12 34 (1.34%) NoSQL
13 30 (1.19%) BigQuery
13 30 (1.19%) Redis
14 29 (1.15%) Oracle Database
15 26 (1.03%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 25 (0.99%) MySQL
17 22 (0.87%) Power Query
18 21 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
19 20 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 224 (8.86%) JIRA
2 177 (7.00%) Git
3 94 (3.72%) Jenkins
4 83 (3.28%) GitLab
5 63 (2.49%) Selenium
6 40 (1.58%) Postman
7 31 (1.23%) JMeter
8 23 (0.91%) Cucumber
9 22 (0.87%) WebDriver
10 18 (0.71%) Rational DOORS
11 17 (0.67%) JUnit
12 14 (0.55%) Rational Rhapsody
13 11 (0.43%) Cypress.io
13 11 (0.43%) Gatling
14 10 (0.40%) Eclipse
14 10 (0.40%) Maven
14 10 (0.40%) TestRail
15 9 (0.36%) Gradle
15 9 (0.36%) Visual Studio Code
15 9 (0.36%) Zephyr
General
1 717 (28.35%) Finance
1 717 (28.35%) Social Skills
2 495 (19.57%) Analytical Skills
3 202 (7.99%) Public Sector
4 200 (7.91%) Banking
5 132 (5.22%) Documentation Skills
6 92 (3.64%) Manufacturing
7 86 (3.40%) Retail
8 56 (2.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 56 (2.21%) Telecoms
9 52 (2.06%) Automotive
10 49 (1.94%) Aerospace
11 46 (1.82%) Pharmaceutical
12 44 (1.74%) Marketing
12 44 (1.74%) Organisational Skills
13 40 (1.58%) Local Government
14 38 (1.50%) Front Office
15 36 (1.42%) Law
16 32 (1.27%) Billing
16 32 (1.27%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 449 (17.75%) Analyst
2 283 (11.19%) Senior
3 237 (9.37%) Lead
4 207 (8.19%) Data Engineer
5 204 (8.07%) Business Analyst
6 190 (7.51%) Consultant
7 148 (5.85%) Developer
8 133 (5.26%) Data Analyst
9 129 (5.10%) Architect
10 106 (4.19%) Test Engineer
11 68 (2.69%) Tester
12 66 (2.61%) Network Engineer
13 59 (2.33%) Systems Engineer
14 54 (2.14%) Project Manager
15 51 (2.02%) Administrator
15 51 (2.02%) Senior Data Engineer
16 48 (1.90%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 43 (1.70%) Test Manager
18 40 (1.58%) QA Engineer
18 40 (1.58%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 152 (6.01%) REST
2 137 (5.42%) Terraform
3 82 (3.24%) JSON
4 79 (3.12%) PySpark
5 70 (2.77%) Kafka
6 65 (2.57%) XML
7 47 (1.86%) Playwright
8 46 (1.82%) Oracle Fusion
9 45 (1.78%) Middleware
10 39 (1.54%) .NET
10 39 (1.54%) pytest
11 35 (1.38%) RESTful
11 35 (1.38%) Spring
12 32 (1.27%) OAuth
12 32 (1.27%) SOAP
13 31 (1.23%) Pandas
14 28 (1.11%) Spring Boot
15 25 (0.99%) HTML
15 25 (0.99%) Web Services
16 24 (0.95%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 139 (5.50%) Onboarding
2 137 (5.42%) Data Structures
3 114 (4.51%) Cloud Native
4 112 (4.43%) Legacy Systems
5 98 (3.88%) Product Ownership
6 84 (3.32%) Management Information System
7 78 (3.08%) Data Centre
8 45 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
9 44 (1.74%) AI Agents
10 43 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
11 41 (1.62%) Distributed Systems
11 41 (1.62%) SCADA
12 39 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
13 34 (1.34%) Life Science
14 32 (1.27%) CMDB
15 31 (1.23%) Algorithms
15 31 (1.23%) NHS
15 31 (1.23%) Operational Technology
15 31 (1.23%) Replication
16 30 (1.19%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 134 (5.30%) Windows
2 89 (3.52%) Linux
3 50 (1.98%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.87%) Unix
5 18 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.55%) Android
7 11 (0.43%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.32%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.28%) VMS
10 6 (0.24%) Windows 10
11 4 (0.16%) SUSE
11 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.079%) HPUX
12 2 (0.079%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.079%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.079%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.040%) Alpine Linux
13 1 (0.040%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 690 (27.28%) Migration
2 500 (19.77%) Stakeholder Management
3 480 (18.98%) Agile
4 479 (18.94%) CI/CD
5 416 (16.45%) User Acceptance Testing
6 410 (16.21%) Data Migration
7 394 (15.58%) Analytics
8 391 (15.46%) Data Modelling
9 388 (15.34%) Data Validation
10 384 (15.18%) Problem-Solving
11 348 (13.76%) DevOps
12 342 (13.52%) AI
13 331 (13.09%) Test Automation
14 304 (12.02%) Continuous Improvement
15 287 (11.35%) ETL
16 274 (10.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 269 (10.64%) Business Intelligence
18 265 (10.48%) Data Pipeline
19 261 (10.32%) Data Governance
20 255 (10.08%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 646 (25.54%) SQL
2 501 (19.81%) Python
3 120 (4.74%) Java
4 89 (3.52%) PowerShell
5 53 (2.10%) Bash
6 45 (1.78%) JavaScript
7 42 (1.66%) C#
8 32 (1.27%) C++
9 29 (1.15%) R
10 28 (1.11%) Apex Code
11 27 (1.07%) TypeScript
12 25 (0.99%) PL/SQL
13 24 (0.95%) Bicep
13 24 (0.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 23 (0.91%) C
15 19 (0.75%) Shell Script
16 17 (0.67%) VBA
17 15 (0.59%) MATLAB
18 13 (0.51%) Scala
19 12 (0.47%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 474 (18.74%) Security Cleared
2 344 (13.60%) SC Cleared
3 177 (7.00%) Degree
4 72 (2.85%) DV Cleared
5 47 (1.86%) BPSS Clearance
6 42 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
7 41 (1.62%) Cisco Certification
8 32 (1.27%) CCNP
9 25 (0.99%) ACCA
9 25 (0.99%) CIMA
10 24 (0.95%) AWS Certification
11 20 (0.79%) ISTQB
11 20 (0.79%) PMI Certification
12 18 (0.71%) Azure Certification
13 15 (0.59%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 15 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
13 15 (0.59%) PMP
14 14 (0.55%) Master's Degree
15 13 (0.51%) CISSP
16 12 (0.47%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 505 (19.97%) Data Quality
2 313 (12.38%) QA
3 91 (3.60%) GDPR
4 43 (1.70%) NIST
5 41 (1.62%) Accessibility
5 41 (1.62%) SLA
6 36 (1.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 31 (1.23%) PMO
8 24 (0.95%) GxP
9 16 (0.63%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 16 (0.63%) GRC
10 15 (0.59%) WCAG
11 13 (0.51%) Def Stans
11 13 (0.51%) ISO 20022
12 11 (0.43%) IFRS
12 11 (0.43%) NCSC
13 10 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
13 10 (0.40%) HL7
13 10 (0.40%) NIST 800
13 10 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 101 (3.99%) Docker
2 78 (3.08%) Active Directory
3 58 (2.29%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.95%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.75%) Firmware
7 17 (0.67%) vSphere
8 16 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
9 14 (0.55%) Hyper-V
10 11 (0.43%) 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 (0.079%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.079%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.040%) etcd
13 1 (0.040%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.040%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 129 (5.10%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.16%) Ansible
3 40 (1.58%) Grafana
4 34 (1.34%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.95%) FortiGate
6 23 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
7 19 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (0.51%) vCenter Server
9 12 (0.47%) SCCM
10 10 (0.40%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.40%) VxRail
11 8 (0.32%) Failover Clustering
12 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.24%) Argo
14 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
14 5 (0.20%) systemd
14 5 (0.20%) vRealize
15 4 (0.16%) Functional Safety
15 4 (0.16%) Puppet
15 4 (0.16%) vMotion
Vendors
1 384 (15.18%) Microsoft
2 212 (8.38%) SAP
3 195 (7.71%) Oracle
4 148 (5.85%) Databricks
5 87 (3.44%) Salesforce
6 75 (2.97%) ServiceNow
7 71 (2.81%) Cisco
8 67 (2.65%) VMware
9 42 (1.66%) Google
9 42 (1.66%) Workday
10 33 (1.30%) IBM
11 30 (1.19%) Fortinet
11 30 (1.19%) Juniper
12 29 (1.15%) Informatica
13 28 (1.11%) Zscaler
14 22 (0.87%) Splunk
15 21 (0.83%) Palo Alto
16 17 (0.67%) CrowdStrike
16 17 (0.67%) Foundry
16 17 (0.67%) IFS