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

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 66 118
Rank change year-on-year +31 +52 +36
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,436 1,021 672
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.34% 3.70% 2.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.27% 4.08% 2.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,487 621 338
10th Percentile £347 £355 £325
25th Percentile £413 £419 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £480
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +9.38% -12.73%
75th Percentile £600 £627 £588
90th Percentile £709 £700 £669
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £490
% change year-on-year -3.85% +6.12% -10.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 162 79 120
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £29.59
25th Percentile £28.69 £36.37 £51.19
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% +3.17%
75th Percentile £75.00 £67.00 £69.16
90th Percentile £83.68 £75.50 £75.19
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 38,882 25,041 28,684
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.21% 90.76% 85.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,206 16,026 18,694
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 2,519 1,388 1,683
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £20.01 £17.88 £18.15
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 £42.68 £25.15 £40.33
% change year-on-year +69.69% -37.63% -5.12%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 +42 1,165 £525 - 731
South East +4 318 £504 +0.75% 320
Midlands +30 312 £475 +5.56% 179
North of England +42 306 £450 -9.09% 220
West Midlands +29 223 £468 +3.94% 111
North West +31 159 £450 -21.40% 126
East of England +3 148 £475 -6.40% 145
Yorkshire +40 134 £451 +3.56% 54
South West -13 125 £525 -8.70% 169
East Midlands +24 83 £525 +15.51% 68
North East -36 17 £425 -22.73% 43
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 (3.00%) Confluence
2 65 (2.67%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (1.93%) SAS
4 41 (1.68%) SharePoint
5 38 (1.56%) Apache Spark
6 28 (1.15%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.37%) CMS
8 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.33%) SharePoint 2013
10 6 (0.25%) ArcGIS
11 5 (0.21%) Palantir Foundry
11 5 (0.21%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) IIS
12 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.12%) JBoss
13 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 175 (7.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.40%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (1.40%) MS Visio
3 25 (1.03%) Spreadsheet
4 24 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 11 (0.45%) AutoCAD
6 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
7 6 (0.25%) Navisworks
7 6 (0.25%) Revit
7 6 (0.25%) Simulink
8 5 (0.21%) ProjectWise
9 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
10 3 (0.12%) CATIA
11 2 (0.082%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.082%) EPLAN
12 1 (0.041%) Autodesk Inventor
12 1 (0.041%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.041%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.041%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.041%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 110 (4.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.15%) 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 (0.25%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 550 (22.58%) Azure
2 289 (11.86%) AWS
3 259 (10.63%) Power Platform
4 137 (5.62%) Azure DevOps
5 135 (5.54%) GCP
6 116 (4.76%) GitHub
7 85 (3.49%) Snowflake
8 70 (2.87%) Azure Data Factory
9 66 (2.71%) Entra ID
10 65 (2.67%) GitHub Actions
11 55 (2.26%) Serverless
12 44 (1.81%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 44 (1.81%) dbt
12 44 (1.81%) SaaS
13 43 (1.77%) Microsoft 365
14 41 (1.68%) Amazon S3
14 41 (1.68%) OCI
15 38 (1.56%) SuccessFactors
16 30 (1.23%) Azure Monitor
17 26 (1.07%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 102 (4.19%) Firewall
2 63 (2.59%) Network Security
3 61 (2.50%) DNS
4 45 (1.85%) VLAN
5 44 (1.81%) VPN
6 42 (1.72%) TCP/IP
7 35 (1.44%) WAN
8 28 (1.15%) BGP
9 26 (1.07%) 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 (0.78%) SD-WAN
13 15 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
14 13 (0.53%) Ethernet
15 12 (0.49%) 5G
15 12 (0.49%) Cisco ISE
16 10 (0.41%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 241 (9.89%) Power BI
2 148 (6.08%) Data Warehouse
3 97 (3.98%) Metadata
4 79 (3.24%) Data Lake
5 73 (3.00%) SQL Server
6 72 (2.96%) PostgreSQL
6 72 (2.96%) Tableau
7 66 (2.71%) Relational Database
8 38 (1.56%) Big Data
9 30 (1.23%) NoSQL
10 29 (1.19%) BigQuery
11 28 (1.15%) Delta Lake
11 28 (1.15%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 27 (1.11%) MongoDB
12 27 (1.11%) Oracle Database
13 25 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 24 (0.99%) Oracle Reports
14 24 (0.99%) Power Query
15 22 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
16 20 (0.82%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 224 (9.20%) JIRA
2 164 (6.73%) Git
3 90 (3.69%) Jenkins
4 67 (2.75%) GitLab
5 61 (2.50%) Selenium
6 40 (1.64%) JMeter
7 37 (1.52%) Cucumber
8 35 (1.44%) JUnit
8 35 (1.44%) Postman
9 33 (1.35%) WebDriver
10 23 (0.94%) Rational DOORS
11 18 (0.74%) Eclipse
12 15 (0.62%) Visual Studio
13 13 (0.53%) Rational Rhapsody
14 12 (0.49%) Gatling
15 10 (0.41%) ERwin
15 10 (0.41%) Maven
16 9 (0.37%) Gradle
16 9 (0.37%) MLflow
16 9 (0.37%) REST Assured
General
1 716 (29.39%) Finance
2 704 (28.90%) Social Skills
3 479 (19.66%) Analytical Skills
4 199 (8.17%) Public Sector
5 186 (7.64%) Banking
6 129 (5.30%) Documentation Skills
7 89 (3.65%) Manufacturing
8 87 (3.57%) Retail
9 58 (2.38%) Aerospace
10 53 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 47 (1.93%) Pharmaceutical
12 46 (1.89%) Telecoms
13 43 (1.77%) Organisational Skills
14 40 (1.64%) Automotive
15 37 (1.52%) Local Government
15 37 (1.52%) Marketing
16 36 (1.48%) Front Office
16 36 (1.48%) Law
17 34 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
18 33 (1.35%) Military
Job Titles
1 421 (17.28%) Analyst
2 255 (10.47%) Senior
3 248 (10.18%) Lead
4 207 (8.50%) Data Engineer
5 196 (8.05%) Business Analyst
6 178 (7.31%) Consultant
7 142 (5.83%) Developer
8 128 (5.25%) Architect
9 126 (5.17%) Data Analyst
10 96 (3.94%) Test Engineer
11 71 (2.91%) Tester
12 67 (2.75%) Project Manager
13 56 (2.30%) Network Engineer
14 49 (2.01%) Systems Engineer
15 47 (1.93%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 45 (1.85%) Senior Data Engineer
17 42 (1.72%) Administrator
18 40 (1.64%) Technical Analyst
19 38 (1.56%) Data Scientist
19 38 (1.56%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 122 (5.01%) REST
2 72 (2.96%) JSON
3 71 (2.91%) Kafka
4 63 (2.59%) PySpark
5 61 (2.50%) XML
6 49 (2.01%) Oracle Fusion
7 41 (1.68%) Spring
8 40 (1.64%) pytest
9 39 (1.60%) .NET
9 39 (1.60%) Middleware
10 34 (1.40%) Playwright
11 32 (1.31%) RESTful
12 31 (1.27%) Pandas
13 30 (1.23%) SOAP
14 28 (1.15%) Node.js
14 28 (1.15%) Web Services
15 26 (1.07%) OAuth
16 25 (1.03%) WireMock
17 22 (0.90%) Lightning Web Components
17 22 (0.90%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 136 (5.58%) Data Structures
1 136 (5.58%) Onboarding
2 118 (4.84%) Legacy Systems
3 105 (4.31%) Cloud Native
4 100 (4.11%) Product Ownership
5 70 (2.87%) Management Information System
6 65 (2.67%) Data Centre
7 47 (1.93%) Analytical Mindset
7 47 (1.93%) Distributed Systems
8 40 (1.64%) SCADA
9 39 (1.60%) AI Agents
10 37 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
11 35 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
12 33 (1.35%) Life Science
13 32 (1.31%) Hybrid Cloud
13 32 (1.31%) Public Cloud
14 30 (1.23%) Operational Technology
15 28 (1.15%) Algorithms
15 28 (1.15%) Distributed Architecture
15 28 (1.15%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 128 (5.25%) Windows
2 91 (3.74%) Linux
3 40 (1.64%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.90%) Unix
5 18 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.45%) Android
6 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.29%) VMS
8 6 (0.25%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.21%) 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
1 672 (27.59%) Migration
2 469 (19.25%) Stakeholder Management
3 468 (19.21%) Agile
4 439 (18.02%) CI/CD
5 409 (16.79%) Analytics
6 406 (16.67%) Data Migration
7 396 (16.26%) User Acceptance Testing
8 392 (16.09%) Data Validation
9 385 (15.80%) Data Modelling
10 378 (15.52%) Problem-Solving
11 321 (13.18%) DevOps
12 319 (13.10%) AI
13 303 (12.44%) Test Automation
14 300 (12.32%) Continuous Improvement
15 299 (12.27%) ETL
16 276 (11.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 272 (11.17%) Business Intelligence
18 259 (10.63%) Data Governance
19 257 (10.55%) Data Pipeline
20 234 (9.61%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 605 (24.84%) SQL
2 452 (18.56%) Python
3 115 (4.72%) Java
4 69 (2.83%) PowerShell
5 49 (2.01%) C#
6 45 (1.85%) Bash
7 44 (1.81%) JavaScript
8 36 (1.48%) C++
9 32 (1.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 27 (1.11%) Apex Code
11 26 (1.07%) TypeScript
12 25 (1.03%) Bicep
12 25 (1.03%) PL/SQL
13 24 (0.99%) C
13 24 (0.99%) VBA
14 22 (0.90%) R
15 15 (0.62%) MATLAB
16 13 (0.53%) Ada
16 13 (0.53%) Scala
16 13 (0.53%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 448 (18.39%) Security Cleared
2 320 (13.14%) SC Cleared
3 169 (6.94%) Degree
4 64 (2.63%) DV Cleared
5 47 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
6 40 (1.64%) Computer Science Degree
7 36 (1.48%) Cisco Certification
8 28 (1.15%) CCNP
9 21 (0.86%) ACCA
9 21 (0.86%) PMI Certification
10 20 (0.82%) CIMA
11 18 (0.74%) ISTQB
11 18 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
12 17 (0.70%) Azure Certification
12 17 (0.70%) CISSP
12 17 (0.70%) PMP
13 14 (0.57%) AWS Certification
14 11 (0.45%) CCNA
14 11 (0.45%) Master's Degree
15 9 (0.37%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 476 (19.54%) Data Quality
2 300 (12.32%) QA
3 102 (4.19%) GDPR
4 49 (2.01%) NIST
5 43 (1.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 35 (1.44%) Accessibility
7 32 (1.31%) PMO
8 28 (1.15%) SLA
9 21 (0.86%) GxP
10 15 (0.62%) 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
1 110 (4.52%) Docker
2 79 (3.24%) Active Directory
3 53 (2.18%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
5 22 (0.90%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.62%) Firmware
7 14 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
8 13 (0.53%) vSphere
9 10 (0.41%) VMware NSX
10 9 (0.37%) Hyper-V
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.082%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.082%) NFS
12 2 (0.082%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.082%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.041%) Ceph
13 1 (0.041%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.041%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 142 (5.83%) Kubernetes
2 113 (4.64%) Terraform
3 55 (2.26%) Ansible
4 47 (1.93%) Grafana
5 46 (1.89%) 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 9 (0.37%) SCCM
9 9 (0.37%) VxRail
10 6 (0.25%) HP ALM
11 5 (0.21%) CASB
11 5 (0.21%) Failover Clustering
11 5 (0.21%) systemd
11 5 (0.21%) vRealize
12 4 (0.16%) Argo
12 4 (0.16%) Nessus
12 4 (0.16%) Puppet
13 3 (0.12%) Istio
Vendors
1 359 (14.74%) Microsoft
2 218 (8.95%) SAP
3 205 (8.42%) Oracle
4 136 (5.58%) Databricks
5 81 (3.33%) Salesforce
6 63 (2.59%) VMware
7 60 (2.46%) ServiceNow
8 52 (2.13%) Cisco
9 44 (1.81%) Workday
10 40 (1.64%) Google
11 31 (1.27%) Informatica
12 30 (1.23%) Splunk
13 28 (1.15%) Juniper
14 27 (1.11%) Fortinet
14 27 (1.11%) IBM
15 26 (1.07%) Zscaler
16 23 (0.94%) Palo Alto
17 22 (0.90%) MuleSoft
17 22 (0.90%) Sage
18 20 (0.82%) IFS