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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 66 109
Rank change year-on-year +33 +43 +42
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,593 1,039 719
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.62% 3.74% 2.20%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.64% 4.12% 2.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,540 622 356
10th Percentile £337 £332 £320
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £498
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +3.02% -9.55%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £588
90th Percentile £710 £700 £655
UK median daily rate £500 £507 £500
% change year-on-year -1.28% +1.30% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 174 81 100
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £28.13 £41.25 £51.19
Median hourly rate £54.25 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.54% - -2.61%
75th Percentile £73.12 £67.00 £71.50
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £75.00
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 39,062 25,238 28,145
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.72% 90.90% 86.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,917 16,041 17,545
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 2,725 1,497 1,306
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.38 £14.92
25th Percentile £17.85 £17.87 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -1.91%
75th Percentile £68.00 £49.75 £66.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 +36 1,282 £525 - 2,371
North of England +42 332 £451 +5.38% 489
South East +3 329 £505 +1.00% 695
Midlands +39 301 £473 -0.42% 412
West Midlands +24 210 £468 -1.41% 282
North West +17 162 £450 +5.88% 295
Yorkshire +44 148 £461 -2.89% 136
South West +12 143 £525 -4.55% 392
East of England -4 139 £463 -8.87% 444
East Midlands +32 87 £490 -2.00% 129
North East -23 27 £425 -5.56% 69
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 75 (2.89%) Confluence
2 63 (2.43%) Apache Airflow
3 54 (2.08%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.74%) SAS
5 40 (1.54%) Apache Spark
6 27 (1.04%) Apache
7 17 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
8 12 (0.46%) CMS
9 9 (0.35%) Jupyter
10 8 (0.31%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.27%) Palantir Foundry
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%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.15%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.15%) JBoss
15 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 194 (7.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.58%) Microsoft Office
3 36 (1.39%) MS Visio
4 33 (1.27%) Spreadsheet
5 31 (1.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 13 (0.50%) AutoCAD
7 8 (0.31%) Navisworks
7 8 (0.31%) Revit
8 7 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
9 6 (0.23%) ProjectWise
9 6 (0.23%) Simulink
10 3 (0.12%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.077%) CATIA
11 2 (0.077%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.077%) EPLAN
12 1 (0.039%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.039%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.039%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.039%) Trello
12 1 (0.039%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 108 (4.17%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.66%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.54%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.50%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.46%) SAP MDG
5 12 (0.46%) SAP SD
5 12 (0.46%) Teamcenter
6 11 (0.42%) SAP FI
6 11 (0.42%) Workday HCM
7 10 (0.39%) Aladdin
7 10 (0.39%) iTrent
7 10 (0.39%) SAP MM
8 9 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.35%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.35%) SAP HCM
9 8 (0.31%) SAP CO
10 7 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
10 7 (0.27%) Oracle Financials
10 7 (0.27%) Oracle General Ledger
10 7 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 542 (20.90%) Azure
2 306 (11.80%) AWS
3 255 (9.83%) Power Platform
4 152 (5.86%) Azure DevOps
5 130 (5.01%) GCP
6 119 (4.59%) GitHub
7 96 (3.70%) Snowflake
8 79 (3.05%) Entra ID
9 66 (2.55%) Azure Data Factory
10 65 (2.51%) GitHub Actions
11 54 (2.08%) dbt
12 52 (2.01%) Serverless
13 50 (1.93%) Microsoft 365
14 49 (1.89%) SaaS
15 48 (1.85%) Amazon S3
16 36 (1.39%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 34 (1.31%) SuccessFactors
18 31 (1.20%) Azure Monitor
19 29 (1.12%) Amazon CloudWatch
20 28 (1.08%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 99 (3.82%) Firewall
2 68 (2.62%) DNS
3 57 (2.20%) VLAN
4 53 (2.04%) Network Security
5 46 (1.77%) VPN
6 41 (1.58%) TCP/IP
7 38 (1.47%) BGP
7 38 (1.47%) WAN
8 31 (1.20%) DHCP
9 22 (0.85%) Internet
9 22 (0.85%) OSPF
10 20 (0.77%) 5G
10 20 (0.77%) SAN
10 20 (0.77%) Wireless
11 19 (0.73%) SD-WAN
11 19 (0.73%) VXLAN
12 18 (0.69%) LAN
13 17 (0.66%) Ethernet
14 16 (0.62%) Ethernet VPN
14 16 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 236 (9.10%) Power BI
2 141 (5.44%) Data Warehouse
3 105 (4.05%) Metadata
4 90 (3.47%) Relational Database
5 77 (2.97%) SQL Server
6 70 (2.70%) Data Lake
7 68 (2.62%) PostgreSQL
8 66 (2.55%) Tableau
9 36 (1.39%) MongoDB
10 35 (1.35%) Big Data
11 34 (1.31%) Delta Lake
11 34 (1.31%) Oracle Database
12 32 (1.23%) BigQuery
13 31 (1.20%) NoSQL
14 30 (1.16%) Redis
15 29 (1.12%) Power Query
16 26 (1.00%) SAS Enterprise Guide
17 25 (0.96%) MySQL
18 24 (0.93%) Amazon Athena
19 20 (0.77%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 233 (8.99%) JIRA
2 191 (7.37%) Git
3 90 (3.47%) Jenkins
4 82 (3.16%) GitLab
5 71 (2.74%) Selenium
6 35 (1.35%) Postman
7 30 (1.16%) JMeter
8 24 (0.93%) Cucumber
9 22 (0.85%) Rational DOORS
10 18 (0.69%) WebDriver
11 17 (0.66%) Eclipse
12 15 (0.58%) JUnit
12 15 (0.58%) Visual Studio
13 12 (0.46%) Rational Rhapsody
14 11 (0.42%) Gatling
14 11 (0.42%) Visual Studio Code
15 10 (0.39%) Cypress.io
15 10 (0.39%) Maven
15 10 (0.39%) REST Assured
15 10 (0.39%) Zephyr
General
1 755 (29.12%) Finance
2 745 (28.73%) Social Skills
3 512 (19.75%) Analytical Skills
4 225 (8.68%) Banking
5 203 (7.83%) Public Sector
6 123 (4.74%) Documentation Skills
7 104 (4.01%) Manufacturing
8 88 (3.39%) Retail
9 62 (2.39%) Automotive
10 58 (2.24%) Telecoms
11 56 (2.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 48 (1.85%) Marketing
13 47 (1.81%) Organisational Skills
14 45 (1.74%) Aerospace
15 44 (1.70%) Pharmaceutical
16 41 (1.58%) Front Office
16 41 (1.58%) Legal
17 40 (1.54%) Local Government
18 37 (1.43%) Influencing Skills
18 37 (1.43%) Law
Job Titles
1 460 (17.74%) Analyst
2 291 (11.22%) Senior
3 240 (9.26%) Lead
4 208 (8.02%) Business Analyst
5 205 (7.91%) Data Engineer
6 196 (7.56%) Consultant
7 151 (5.82%) Developer
8 136 (5.24%) Architect
9 135 (5.21%) Data Analyst
10 106 (4.09%) Test Engineer
11 63 (2.43%) Network Engineer
11 63 (2.43%) Tester
12 58 (2.24%) Systems Engineer
13 54 (2.08%) Administrator
14 52 (2.01%) Senior Data Engineer
15 49 (1.89%) Software Engineer
16 46 (1.77%) Project Manager
17 42 (1.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 41 (1.58%) Test Manager
19 39 (1.50%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (5.78%) REST
2 144 (5.55%) Terraform
3 80 (3.09%) JSON
4 77 (2.97%) PySpark
5 67 (2.58%) Kafka
6 64 (2.47%) XML
7 52 (2.01%) Middleware
8 47 (1.81%) Playwright
9 43 (1.66%) Oracle Fusion
10 39 (1.50%) pytest
11 36 (1.39%) .NET
11 36 (1.39%) SOAP
12 35 (1.35%) Pandas
13 34 (1.31%) Spring
13 34 (1.31%) Web Services
14 33 (1.27%) RESTful
15 32 (1.23%) OAuth
16 30 (1.16%) HTML
16 30 (1.16%) Spring Boot
17 29 (1.12%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 145 (5.59%) Onboarding
2 132 (5.09%) Data Structures
3 115 (4.44%) Cloud Native
4 109 (4.20%) Legacy Systems
5 92 (3.55%) Management Information System
5 92 (3.55%) Product Ownership
6 77 (2.97%) Data Centre
7 50 (1.93%) Enterprise Software
8 47 (1.81%) AI Agents
9 42 (1.62%) SCADA
10 41 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
11 40 (1.54%) Distributed Systems
12 39 (1.50%) Data Protection Act
13 35 (1.35%) Algorithms
13 35 (1.35%) Life Science
14 34 (1.31%) Operational Technology
15 31 (1.20%) Reference Data
16 30 (1.16%) CMDB
16 30 (1.16%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 30 (1.16%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 156 (6.02%) Windows
2 102 (3.93%) Linux
3 56 (2.16%) Windows Server
4 27 (1.04%) Unix
5 21 (0.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.54%) Android
7 11 (0.42%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.31%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.31%) Windows 10
9 7 (0.27%) VMS
10 4 (0.15%) SUSE
10 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.12%) VxWorks
11 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.077%) CentOS
12 2 (0.077%) HPUX
12 2 (0.077%) Solaris
12 2 (0.077%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.039%) AIX
13 1 (0.039%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 699 (26.96%) Migration
2 560 (21.60%) Stakeholder Management
3 503 (19.40%) CI/CD
4 495 (19.09%) Agile
5 415 (16.00%) User Acceptance Testing
6 407 (15.70%) Analytics
7 406 (15.66%) Data Migration
8 404 (15.58%) Data Modelling
9 403 (15.54%) Data Validation
10 391 (15.08%) Problem-Solving
11 363 (14.00%) AI
12 350 (13.50%) DevOps
13 341 (13.15%) Test Automation
14 325 (12.53%) Continuous Improvement
15 295 (11.38%) ETL
16 277 (10.68%) Data Analysis
17 273 (10.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 268 (10.34%) Business Intelligence
19 267 (10.30%) Data Pipeline
20 262 (10.10%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 672 (25.92%) SQL
2 521 (20.09%) Python
3 122 (4.70%) Java
4 90 (3.47%) PowerShell
5 61 (2.35%) JavaScript
6 52 (2.01%) Bash
7 49 (1.89%) C#
8 41 (1.58%) C++
9 32 (1.23%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.12%) Apex Code
10 29 (1.12%) R
11 27 (1.04%) PL/SQL
12 25 (0.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 23 (0.89%) C
14 22 (0.85%) Shell Script
15 21 (0.81%) Bicep
16 18 (0.69%) VBA
17 15 (0.58%) MATLAB
18 12 (0.46%) Scala
19 11 (0.42%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 502 (19.36%) Security Cleared
2 364 (14.04%) SC Cleared
3 188 (7.25%) Degree
4 81 (3.12%) DV Cleared
5 50 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
6 44 (1.70%) Computer Science Degree
7 37 (1.43%) Cisco Certification
8 30 (1.16%) AWS Certification
9 29 (1.12%) CCNP
10 28 (1.08%) ACCA
10 28 (1.08%) CIMA
11 25 (0.96%) PMI Certification
12 22 (0.85%) Azure Certification
13 21 (0.81%) PMP
14 19 (0.73%) ISTQB
15 18 (0.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 17 (0.66%) Master's Degree
17 15 (0.58%) CISSP
18 14 (0.54%) Microsoft Certification
19 11 (0.42%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 534 (20.59%) Data Quality
2 312 (12.03%) QA
3 84 (3.24%) GDPR
4 41 (1.58%) Accessibility
5 37 (1.43%) NIST
6 34 (1.31%) SLA
7 33 (1.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 31 (1.20%) PMO
9 23 (0.89%) GxP
10 16 (0.62%) ISO 20022
11 15 (0.58%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 15 (0.58%) GRC
12 14 (0.54%) WCAG
13 13 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.42%) Def Stans
14 11 (0.42%) IFRS
14 11 (0.42%) NCSC
15 10 (0.39%) MiFID
15 10 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 9 (0.35%) GMP
System Software
1 100 (3.86%) Docker
2 85 (3.28%) Active Directory
3 61 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.16%) Virtual Machines
5 25 (0.96%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.73%) Firmware
6 19 (0.73%) vSphere
7 17 (0.66%) Virtual Desktop
8 15 (0.58%) Hyper-V
9 11 (0.42%) 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 (0.077%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.077%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.039%) etcd
12 1 (0.039%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.039%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.039%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 121 (4.67%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.09%) Ansible
3 38 (1.47%) Grafana
4 32 (1.23%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.93%) Microsoft Intune
6 23 (0.89%) FortiGate
7 18 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (0.58%) SCCM
9 13 (0.50%) vCenter Server
10 11 (0.42%) HP ALM
11 10 (0.39%) VxRail
12 8 (0.31%) Argo
12 8 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
13 7 (0.27%) Functional Safety
13 7 (0.27%) Progress Chef
14 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
14 5 (0.19%) systemd
14 5 (0.19%) vRealize
15 4 (0.15%) Control-M
15 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 400 (15.43%) Microsoft
2 218 (8.41%) SAP
3 202 (7.79%) Oracle
4 149 (5.75%) Databricks
5 89 (3.43%) Salesforce
6 71 (2.74%) Cisco
7 70 (2.70%) VMware
8 66 (2.55%) ServiceNow
9 45 (1.74%) Google
9 45 (1.74%) Workday
10 38 (1.47%) IBM
11 29 (1.12%) Fortinet
12 28 (1.08%) Juniper
12 28 (1.08%) Zscaler
13 25 (0.96%) Informatica
14 22 (0.85%) Splunk
15 21 (0.81%) Palo Alto
16 16 (0.62%) CrowdStrike
16 16 (0.62%) MuleSoft
16 16 (0.62%) Siemens