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

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 65 106
Rank change year-on-year +33 +41 +42
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,618 1,047 730
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.67% 3.76% 2.22%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.69% 4.14% 2.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,549 625 361
10th Percentile £340 £331 £320
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £490
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +4.59% -10.91%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £588
90th Percentile £712 £700 £660
UK median daily rate £500 £503 £500
% change year-on-year -0.60% +0.60% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 80 101
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £27.10 £41.25 £51.00
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £73.00 £67.00 £71.50
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £53.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -18.46% - -3.70%

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 39,123 25,281 28,365
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.74% 90.90% 86.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,918 16,062 17,635
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £420
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 2,776 1,509 1,303
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.75 £17.79 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £66.55
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% -1.91%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 1,287 £525 - 1,833
North of England +43 339 £450 +4.65% 408
South East +3 329 £525 +5.00% 611
Midlands +38 307 £475 +2.70% 346
West Midlands +29 214 £473 +5.11% 238
North West +17 162 £450 +5.88% 232
Yorkshire +51 153 £460 -3.16% 115
South West +20 151 £525 -4.55% 308
East of England -6 137 £450 -10.00% 338
East Midlands +29 89 £490 -2.00% 108
North East -30 29 £425 -11.92% 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 76 (2.90%) Confluence
2 62 (2.37%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (2.14%) SharePoint
4 46 (1.76%) SAS
5 41 (1.57%) Apache Spark
6 27 (1.03%) Apache
7 17 (0.65%) Microsoft Exchange
8 13 (0.50%) 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%) IIS
Applications
1 197 (7.52%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (1.64%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (1.34%) MS Visio
4 33 (1.26%) Spreadsheet
5 30 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 14 (0.53%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.34%) Navisworks
7 9 (0.34%) Revit
8 7 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
8 7 (0.27%) 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
1 105 (4.01%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.61%) 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%) SAP FI
6 11 (0.42%) Workday HCM
7 10 (0.38%) Aladdin
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 Financials
10 7 (0.27%) Oracle General Ledger
10 7 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 543 (20.74%) Azure
2 307 (11.73%) AWS
3 262 (10.01%) Power Platform
4 155 (5.92%) Azure DevOps
5 135 (5.16%) GCP
6 124 (4.74%) GitHub
7 96 (3.67%) Snowflake
8 82 (3.13%) Entra ID
9 65 (2.48%) Azure Data Factory
10 64 (2.44%) GitHub Actions
11 56 (2.14%) dbt
12 51 (1.95%) Serverless
13 50 (1.91%) Amazon S3
14 49 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
15 48 (1.83%) SaaS
16 36 (1.38%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 35 (1.34%) SuccessFactors
18 33 (1.26%) Azure Monitor
19 30 (1.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
20 28 (1.07%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 99 (3.78%) Firewall
2 69 (2.64%) DNS
3 59 (2.25%) VLAN
4 53 (2.02%) Network Security
5 46 (1.76%) 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
11 21 (0.80%) Wireless
12 20 (0.76%) 5G
12 20 (0.76%) LAN
12 20 (0.76%) SAN
13 19 (0.73%) Ethernet
13 19 (0.73%) Ethernet VPN
14 16 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 243 (9.28%) Power BI
2 144 (5.50%) Data Warehouse
3 106 (4.05%) Metadata
4 89 (3.40%) Relational Database
5 77 (2.94%) SQL Server
6 72 (2.75%) Data Lake
7 67 (2.56%) PostgreSQL
7 67 (2.56%) Tableau
8 36 (1.38%) MongoDB
9 35 (1.34%) Big Data
10 34 (1.30%) Delta Lake
10 34 (1.30%) Oracle Database
11 32 (1.22%) BigQuery
11 32 (1.22%) Power Query
12 31 (1.18%) NoSQL
13 30 (1.15%) Redis
14 27 (1.03%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 25 (0.95%) Amazon Athena
16 24 (0.92%) MySQL
17 22 (0.84%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 234 (8.94%) JIRA
2 197 (7.52%) Git
3 89 (3.40%) Jenkins
4 84 (3.21%) GitLab
5 72 (2.75%) Selenium
6 36 (1.38%) Postman
7 30 (1.15%) JMeter
8 24 (0.92%) Cucumber
8 24 (0.92%) Rational DOORS
9 17 (0.65%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.65%) WebDriver
10 16 (0.61%) Visual Studio
11 14 (0.53%) JUnit
12 12 (0.46%) Cypress.io
12 12 (0.46%) Rational Rhapsody
13 11 (0.42%) Gatling
13 11 (0.42%) REST Assured
13 11 (0.42%) Visual Studio Code
14 10 (0.38%) Zephyr
15 9 (0.34%) Gradle
General
1 764 (29.18%) Finance
2 748 (28.57%) Social Skills
3 524 (20.02%) Analytical Skills
4 232 (8.86%) Banking
5 206 (7.87%) Public Sector
6 122 (4.66%) Documentation Skills
7 109 (4.16%) Manufacturing
8 88 (3.36%) Retail
9 65 (2.48%) Automotive
10 60 (2.29%) Telecoms
11 57 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 48 (1.83%) Aerospace
12 48 (1.83%) Marketing
13 47 (1.80%) Organisational Skills
14 42 (1.60%) Legal
15 41 (1.57%) Front Office
15 41 (1.57%) Local Government
15 41 (1.57%) Pharmaceutical
16 39 (1.49%) Influencing Skills
17 37 (1.41%) Law
Job Titles
1 456 (17.42%) Analyst
2 297 (11.34%) Senior
3 243 (9.28%) Lead
4 208 (7.94%) Business Analyst
5 207 (7.91%) Data Engineer
6 196 (7.49%) Consultant
7 158 (6.04%) Developer
8 144 (5.50%) Architect
9 135 (5.16%) Data Analyst
10 104 (3.97%) Test Engineer
11 66 (2.52%) Tester
12 65 (2.48%) Network Engineer
13 58 (2.22%) Systems Engineer
14 55 (2.10%) Administrator
15 53 (2.02%) Senior Data Engineer
16 50 (1.91%) Software Engineer
17 43 (1.64%) Project Manager
18 42 (1.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
19 40 (1.53%) Senior Analyst
19 40 (1.53%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 155 (5.92%) REST
2 149 (5.69%) Terraform
3 79 (3.02%) JSON
4 78 (2.98%) PySpark
5 67 (2.56%) Kafka
6 62 (2.37%) XML
7 55 (2.10%) Middleware
8 52 (1.99%) Playwright
9 43 (1.64%) Oracle Fusion
10 40 (1.53%) pytest
11 37 (1.41%) .NET
11 37 (1.41%) SOAP
12 36 (1.38%) OAuth
13 35 (1.34%) Pandas
13 35 (1.34%) Web Services
14 34 (1.30%) RESTful
15 33 (1.26%) Node.js
15 33 (1.26%) Spring
16 32 (1.22%) HTML
17 30 (1.15%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 148 (5.65%) Onboarding
2 135 (5.16%) Data Structures
3 118 (4.51%) Cloud Native
4 109 (4.16%) Legacy Systems
5 96 (3.67%) Management Information System
5 96 (3.67%) Product Ownership
6 80 (3.06%) Data Centre
7 50 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
8 49 (1.87%) AI Agents
9 43 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
10 42 (1.60%) SCADA
11 41 (1.57%) Analytical Mindset
12 39 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
13 36 (1.38%) Algorithms
14 35 (1.34%) Life Science
15 34 (1.30%) Operational Technology
16 31 (1.18%) CMDB
16 31 (1.18%) Reference Data
16 31 (1.18%) Replication
17 30 (1.15%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 160 (6.11%) Windows
2 102 (3.90%) Linux
3 56 (2.14%) Windows Server
4 30 (1.15%) Unix
5 21 (0.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (0.57%) 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%) AIX
13 1 (0.038%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 703 (26.85%) Migration
2 568 (21.70%) Stakeholder Management
3 516 (19.71%) CI/CD
4 498 (19.02%) Agile
5 418 (15.97%) User Acceptance Testing
6 412 (15.74%) Analytics
7 410 (15.66%) Data Modelling
8 406 (15.51%) Data Validation
9 405 (15.47%) Data Migration
10 397 (15.16%) Problem-Solving
11 370 (14.13%) AI
12 359 (13.71%) DevOps
13 348 (13.29%) Test Automation
14 329 (12.57%) Continuous Improvement
15 300 (11.46%) ETL
16 279 (10.66%) Data Analysis
17 276 (10.54%) Business Intelligence
18 270 (10.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 265 (10.12%) Data Pipeline
20 264 (10.08%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 680 (25.97%) SQL
2 534 (20.40%) Python
3 123 (4.70%) Java
4 91 (3.48%) PowerShell
5 62 (2.37%) JavaScript
6 53 (2.02%) Bash
7 52 (1.99%) C#
8 42 (1.60%) C++
9 35 (1.34%) 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%) C
13 24 (0.92%) Shell Script
14 21 (0.80%) Bicep
15 18 (0.69%) VBA
16 14 (0.53%) MATLAB
17 12 (0.46%) Scala
17 12 (0.46%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 505 (19.29%) Security Cleared
2 367 (14.02%) SC Cleared
3 194 (7.41%) Degree
4 83 (3.17%) DV Cleared
5 49 (1.87%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.76%) Computer Science Degree
7 37 (1.41%) Cisco Certification
8 31 (1.18%) AWS Certification
9 29 (1.11%) CCNP
10 28 (1.07%) ACCA
10 28 (1.07%) CIMA
11 25 (0.95%) PMI Certification
12 22 (0.84%) Azure Certification
13 21 (0.80%) PMP
14 20 (0.76%) ISTQB
15 19 (0.73%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 17 (0.65%) CISSP
16 17 (0.65%) Master's Degree
17 15 (0.57%) Microsoft Certification
18 11 (0.42%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 542 (20.70%) Data Quality
2 314 (11.99%) QA
3 83 (3.17%) GDPR
4 44 (1.68%) Accessibility
5 36 (1.38%) NIST
5 36 (1.38%) SLA
6 33 (1.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 31 (1.18%) PMO
8 23 (0.88%) GxP
9 17 (0.65%) WCAG
10 16 (0.61%) ISO 20022
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
15 9 (0.34%) GMP
15 9 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 100 (3.82%) Docker
2 85 (3.25%) Active Directory
3 63 (2.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.15%) Virtual Machines
5 25 (0.95%) VMware ESXi
6 21 (0.80%) Firmware
7 19 (0.73%) vSphere
8 17 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
9 15 (0.57%) Hyper-V
10 13 (0.50%) VMware NSX
11 3 (0.11%) KVM
11 3 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.11%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.076%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.076%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.038%) etcd
13 1 (0.038%) HDFS
13 1 (0.038%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.038%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 121 (4.62%) Kubernetes
2 85 (3.25%) Ansible
3 37 (1.41%) Grafana
4 31 (1.18%) 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
11 8 (0.31%) 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%) Control-M
14 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 403 (15.39%) Microsoft
2 216 (8.25%) SAP
3 202 (7.72%) Oracle
4 151 (5.77%) Databricks
5 88 (3.36%) Salesforce
6 76 (2.90%) Cisco
7 73 (2.79%) ServiceNow
8 71 (2.71%) VMware
9 48 (1.83%) Google
10 46 (1.76%) Workday
11 41 (1.57%) IBM
12 30 (1.15%) Fortinet
12 30 (1.15%) Zscaler
13 29 (1.11%) Juniper
14 28 (1.07%) Informatica
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