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

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 66 109
Rank change year-on-year +33 +43 +42
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,620 1,039 719
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.64% 3.74% 2.20%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.66% 4.12% 2.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,553 622 356
10th Percentile £338 £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 177 81 100
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £28.00 £41.25 £51.19
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% - -2.61%
75th Percentile £73.25 £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 39,349 25,238 28,145
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.76% 90.90% 86.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,108 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 2,747 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 17 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 17 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 17 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 1,293 £525 - 2,043
North of England +42 336 £450 +5.32% 426
South East +2 330 £510 +2.00% 643
Midlands +37 307 £475 - 365
West Midlands +25 216 £473 -0.42% 248
North West +20 162 £450 +5.88% 243
Yorkshire +44 150 £463 -2.63% 122
South West +16 145 £525 -4.55% 334
East of England -4 141 £463 -8.87% 397
East Midlands +33 87 £490 -2.00% 116
North East -23 29 £425 -5.56% 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 77 (2.94%) Confluence
2 63 (2.40%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (2.10%) SharePoint
4 46 (1.76%) SAS
5 41 (1.56%) Apache Spark
6 27 (1.03%) Apache
7 17 (0.65%) Microsoft Exchange
8 12 (0.46%) CMS
9 9 (0.34%) Jupyter
10 8 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
10 8 (0.31%) SharePoint 2013
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 (0.11%) Tomcat
Applications
1 195 (7.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.56%) Microsoft Office
3 36 (1.37%) MS Visio
4 33 (1.26%) Spreadsheet
5 31 (1.18%) 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 (0.11%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.076%) CATIA
11 2 (0.076%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.076%) EPLAN
12 1 (0.038%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.038%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.038%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.038%) Trello
12 1 (0.038%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 108 (4.12%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.65%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.53%) 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%) Aladdin
6 11 (0.42%) SAP FI
6 11 (0.42%) Workday HCM
7 10 (0.38%) iTrent
7 10 (0.38%) SAP MM
8 9 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.34%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.34%) SAP HCM
9 8 (0.31%) SAP CO
10 7 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
10 7 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
10 7 (0.27%) Oracle Financials
10 7 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 550 (20.99%) Azure
2 310 (11.83%) AWS
3 261 (9.96%) Power Platform
4 156 (5.95%) Azure DevOps
5 134 (5.11%) GCP
6 123 (4.69%) GitHub
7 96 (3.66%) Snowflake
8 81 (3.09%) Entra ID
9 66 (2.52%) Azure Data Factory
9 66 (2.52%) GitHub Actions
10 55 (2.10%) dbt
11 52 (1.98%) Serverless
12 50 (1.91%) Microsoft 365
13 49 (1.87%) Amazon S3
13 49 (1.87%) SaaS
14 36 (1.37%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 34 (1.30%) SuccessFactors
16 33 (1.26%) Azure Monitor
17 30 (1.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 29 (1.11%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 100 (3.82%) Firewall
2 69 (2.63%) DNS
3 58 (2.21%) VLAN
4 54 (2.06%) Network Security
5 47 (1.79%) VPN
6 42 (1.60%) BGP
6 42 (1.60%) TCP/IP
7 40 (1.53%) WAN
8 31 (1.18%) DHCP
9 24 (0.92%) OSPF
10 22 (0.84%) Internet
10 22 (0.84%) VXLAN
11 21 (0.80%) SD-WAN
12 20 (0.76%) 5G
12 20 (0.76%) LAN
12 20 (0.76%) SAN
12 20 (0.76%) Wireless
13 19 (0.73%) Ethernet VPN
14 17 (0.65%) Ethernet
15 16 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 242 (9.24%) Power BI
2 144 (5.50%) Data Warehouse
3 107 (4.08%) Metadata
4 91 (3.47%) Relational Database
5 79 (3.02%) SQL Server
6 71 (2.71%) Data Lake
7 68 (2.60%) PostgreSQL
7 68 (2.60%) Tableau
8 36 (1.37%) MongoDB
9 35 (1.34%) Big Data
10 34 (1.30%) Delta Lake
10 34 (1.30%) Oracle Database
11 32 (1.22%) BigQuery
12 31 (1.18%) NoSQL
12 31 (1.18%) Power Query
13 30 (1.15%) Redis
14 27 (1.03%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 25 (0.95%) Amazon Athena
15 25 (0.95%) MySQL
16 21 (0.80%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 236 (9.01%) JIRA
2 200 (7.63%) Git
3 90 (3.44%) Jenkins
4 84 (3.21%) GitLab
5 72 (2.75%) Selenium
6 35 (1.34%) Postman
7 30 (1.15%) JMeter
8 24 (0.92%) Cucumber
9 23 (0.88%) Rational DOORS
10 18 (0.69%) WebDriver
11 17 (0.65%) Eclipse
12 16 (0.61%) Visual Studio
13 15 (0.57%) JUnit
14 12 (0.46%) Rational Rhapsody
15 11 (0.42%) Cypress.io
15 11 (0.42%) Gatling
15 11 (0.42%) Visual Studio Code
16 10 (0.38%) Maven
16 10 (0.38%) REST Assured
16 10 (0.38%) Zephyr
General
1 763 (29.12%) Finance
2 749 (28.59%) Social Skills
3 520 (19.85%) Analytical Skills
4 229 (8.74%) Banking
5 206 (7.86%) Public Sector
6 123 (4.69%) Documentation Skills
7 105 (4.01%) Manufacturing
8 88 (3.36%) Retail
9 63 (2.40%) Automotive
10 60 (2.29%) Telecoms
11 56 (2.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 49 (1.87%) Marketing
13 47 (1.79%) Organisational Skills
14 46 (1.76%) Aerospace
15 44 (1.68%) Pharmaceutical
16 41 (1.56%) Front Office
16 41 (1.56%) Legal
17 40 (1.53%) Local Government
18 38 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
19 37 (1.41%) Law
Job Titles
1 462 (17.63%) Analyst
2 296 (11.30%) Senior
3 241 (9.20%) Lead
4 210 (8.02%) Business Analyst
5 209 (7.98%) Data Engineer
6 197 (7.52%) Consultant
7 155 (5.92%) Developer
8 140 (5.34%) Architect
9 136 (5.19%) Data Analyst
10 106 (4.05%) Test Engineer
11 66 (2.52%) Network Engineer
12 65 (2.48%) Tester
13 58 (2.21%) Systems Engineer
14 54 (2.06%) Administrator
14 54 (2.06%) Senior Data Engineer
15 50 (1.91%) Software Engineer
16 46 (1.76%) Project Manager
17 42 (1.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 41 (1.56%) Test Manager
19 39 (1.49%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 156 (5.95%) REST
2 147 (5.61%) Terraform
3 82 (3.13%) JSON
4 78 (2.98%) PySpark
5 67 (2.56%) Kafka
6 64 (2.44%) XML
7 54 (2.06%) Middleware
8 50 (1.91%) Playwright
9 43 (1.64%) Oracle Fusion
10 39 (1.49%) pytest
11 37 (1.41%) .NET
11 37 (1.41%) SOAP
12 35 (1.34%) OAuth
12 35 (1.34%) Pandas
12 35 (1.34%) Web Services
13 34 (1.30%) RESTful
13 34 (1.30%) Spring
14 32 (1.22%) HTML
14 32 (1.22%) Node.js
15 30 (1.15%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 148 (5.65%) Onboarding
2 136 (5.19%) Data Structures
3 116 (4.43%) Cloud Native
4 110 (4.20%) Legacy Systems
5 94 (3.59%) Product Ownership
6 92 (3.51%) Management Information System
7 81 (3.09%) Data Centre
8 50 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
9 47 (1.79%) AI Agents
10 42 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
10 42 (1.60%) SCADA
11 41 (1.56%) Analytical Mindset
12 39 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
13 36 (1.37%) Algorithms
14 35 (1.34%) Life Science
15 34 (1.30%) Operational Technology
16 31 (1.18%) CMDB
16 31 (1.18%) Reference Data
17 30 (1.15%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 30 (1.15%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 159 (6.07%) Windows
2 103 (3.93%) Linux
3 56 (2.14%) Windows Server
4 30 (1.15%) Unix
5 21 (0.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.53%) 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 (0.11%) VxWorks
11 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.076%) CentOS
12 2 (0.076%) HPUX
12 2 (0.076%) Solaris
12 2 (0.076%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.038%) Debian
13 1 (0.038%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 709 (27.06%) Migration
2 565 (21.56%) Stakeholder Management
3 515 (19.66%) CI/CD
4 500 (19.08%) Agile
5 417 (15.92%) User Acceptance Testing
6 414 (15.80%) Data Modelling
7 411 (15.69%) Analytics
8 410 (15.65%) Data Migration
9 408 (15.57%) Data Validation
10 399 (15.23%) Problem-Solving
11 368 (14.05%) AI
12 357 (13.63%) DevOps
13 349 (13.32%) Test Automation
14 331 (12.63%) Continuous Improvement
15 302 (11.53%) ETL
16 277 (10.57%) Data Analysis
17 275 (10.50%) Business Intelligence
17 275 (10.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 269 (10.27%) Data Pipeline
19 265 (10.11%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 682 (26.03%) SQL
2 531 (20.27%) Python
3 123 (4.69%) Java
4 91 (3.47%) PowerShell
5 63 (2.40%) JavaScript
6 53 (2.02%) Bash
7 51 (1.95%) C#
8 42 (1.60%) C++
9 34 (1.30%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.11%) Apex Code
10 29 (1.11%) R
11 27 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 26 (0.99%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 24 (0.92%) Shell Script
14 23 (0.88%) C
15 21 (0.80%) Bicep
16 18 (0.69%) VBA
17 15 (0.57%) MATLAB
18 12 (0.46%) Scala
18 12 (0.46%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 508 (19.39%) Security Cleared
2 370 (14.12%) SC Cleared
3 192 (7.33%) Degree
4 81 (3.09%) DV Cleared
5 51 (1.95%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (1.72%) Computer Science Degree
7 38 (1.45%) Cisco Certification
8 30 (1.15%) AWS Certification
8 30 (1.15%) CCNP
9 28 (1.07%) ACCA
9 28 (1.07%) CIMA
10 26 (0.99%) PMI Certification
11 22 (0.84%) Azure Certification
11 22 (0.84%) PMP
12 19 (0.73%) ISTQB
13 18 (0.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 18 (0.69%) Master's Degree
14 15 (0.57%) CISSP
15 14 (0.53%) Microsoft Certification
16 11 (0.42%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 544 (20.76%) Data Quality
2 315 (12.02%) QA
3 85 (3.24%) GDPR
4 43 (1.64%) Accessibility
5 37 (1.41%) NIST
6 35 (1.34%) SLA
7 34 (1.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 31 (1.18%) PMO
9 23 (0.88%) GxP
10 16 (0.61%) ISO 20022
10 16 (0.61%) WCAG
11 15 (0.57%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 15 (0.57%) GRC
12 13 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.42%) Def Stans
13 11 (0.42%) IFRS
13 11 (0.42%) NCSC
14 10 (0.38%) MiFID
14 10 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 9 (0.34%) GMP
System Software
1 102 (3.89%) Docker
2 85 (3.24%) Active Directory
3 63 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.15%) Virtual Machines
5 25 (0.95%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.73%) Firmware
6 19 (0.73%) vSphere
7 17 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
8 15 (0.57%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.50%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.11%) KVM
10 3 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
10 3 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.11%) VirtualBox
11 2 (0.076%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.076%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.038%) etcd
12 1 (0.038%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.038%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.038%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 122 (4.66%) Kubernetes
2 85 (3.24%) Ansible
3 39 (1.49%) Grafana
4 32 (1.22%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.92%) FortiGate
5 24 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
6 18 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
7 15 (0.57%) SCCM
8 13 (0.50%) vCenter Server
9 12 (0.46%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.38%) VxRail
11 8 (0.31%) Argo
11 8 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
12 7 (0.27%) Functional Safety
12 7 (0.27%) Progress Chef
13 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
13 5 (0.19%) systemd
13 5 (0.19%) vRealize
14 4 (0.15%) Kustomize
14 4 (0.15%) Podman
Vendors
1 401 (15.31%) Microsoft
2 218 (8.32%) SAP
3 203 (7.75%) Oracle
4 151 (5.76%) Databricks
5 89 (3.40%) Salesforce
6 76 (2.90%) Cisco
7 72 (2.75%) VMware
8 71 (2.71%) ServiceNow
9 47 (1.79%) Google
10 45 (1.72%) Workday
11 39 (1.49%) IBM
12 30 (1.15%) Fortinet
13 29 (1.11%) Juniper
14 28 (1.07%) Informatica
14 28 (1.07%) Zscaler
15 22 (0.84%) Palo Alto
15 22 (0.84%) Splunk
16 16 (0.61%) MuleSoft
16 16 (0.61%) Red Hat
16 16 (0.61%) Siemens