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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 66 103
Rank change year-on-year +33 +37 +50
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,492 1,028 691
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.45% 3.73% 2.08%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.42% 4.10% 2.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,517 627 339
10th Percentile £341 £350 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £488
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +5.13% -11.36%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £588
90th Percentile £713 £688 £664
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £500
% change year-on-year -0.99% +1.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 172 76 116
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £29.89
25th Percentile £29.06 £36.42 £50.25
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £74.25 £66.63 £69.44
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £75.93
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 38,841 25,050 28,543
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.95% 90.82% 85.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,105 15,945 18,525
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £511 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.68% -2.61% -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £626 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,548 1,450 1,590
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £14.12
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.87 £18.14
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +5.81%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.45 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £40.94
% change year-on-year +65.23% -38.57% +0.61%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +44 1,194 £525 +2.44% 975
North of England +35 321 £453 -8.48% 257
South East -1 320 £500 - 408
Midlands +38 311 £475 -5.00% 212
West Midlands +28 218 £468 -7.83% 139
North West +18 162 £453 -15.64% 150
East of England +4 151 £475 -6.40% 235
Yorkshire +42 144 £460 +2.22% 64
South West -1 133 £525 -8.70% 240
East Midlands +24 88 £505 +0.90% 73
North East -29 20 £438 -20.45% 50
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 72 (2.89%) Confluence
2 64 (2.57%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (1.89%) SAS
4 46 (1.85%) SharePoint
5 39 (1.57%) Apache Spark
6 26 (1.04%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
8 11 (0.44%) Jupyter
9 9 (0.36%) CMS
10 8 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
12 6 (0.24%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.20%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.16%) IIS
14 4 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
14 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.12%) JBoss
15 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 181 (7.26%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (1.32%) MS Visio
3 30 (1.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (1.12%) Spreadsheet
5 12 (0.48%) AutoCAD
6 9 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
7 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
7 7 (0.28%) Revit
8 6 (0.24%) Simulink
9 5 (0.20%) ProjectWise
10 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.12%) CATIA
12 2 (0.080%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.080%) EPLAN
13 1 (0.040%) Autodesk Inventor
13 1 (0.040%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.040%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.040%) MicroStation
13 1 (0.040%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 106 (4.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.04%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
3 13 (0.52%) Workday HCM
4 12 (0.48%) NetSuite
5 11 (0.44%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 11 (0.44%) Teamcenter
6 10 (0.40%) iTrent
6 10 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.40%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.36%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.32%) Aladdin
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
8 8 (0.32%) SAP SD
9 7 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
9 7 (0.28%) Sage X3
9 7 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle EBS R12
10 6 (0.24%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 555 (22.27%) Azure
2 297 (11.92%) AWS
3 266 (10.67%) Power Platform
4 143 (5.74%) Azure DevOps
5 133 (5.34%) GCP
6 123 (4.94%) GitHub
7 88 (3.53%) Snowflake
8 71 (2.85%) Azure Data Factory
9 69 (2.77%) Entra ID
10 67 (2.69%) GitHub Actions
11 51 (2.05%) Serverless
12 50 (2.01%) Microsoft 365
13 44 (1.77%) dbt
13 44 (1.77%) SaaS
14 43 (1.73%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 40 (1.61%) Amazon S3
15 40 (1.61%) SuccessFactors
16 39 (1.57%) OCI
17 30 (1.20%) Azure Monitor
18 29 (1.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.13%) Firewall
2 61 (2.45%) DNS
3 60 (2.41%) Network Security
4 51 (2.05%) VLAN
5 44 (1.77%) VPN
6 40 (1.61%) TCP/IP
7 38 (1.52%) WAN
8 35 (1.40%) BGP
9 30 (1.20%) DHCP
10 22 (0.88%) Internet
10 22 (0.88%) SAN
11 20 (0.80%) LAN
11 20 (0.80%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.76%) OSPF
12 19 (0.76%) Wireless
13 17 (0.68%) VXLAN
13 17 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
14 15 (0.60%) Ethernet
14 15 (0.60%) Ethernet VPN
15 13 (0.52%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 248 (9.95%) Power BI
2 145 (5.82%) Data Warehouse
3 108 (4.33%) Metadata
4 78 (3.13%) SQL Server
5 76 (3.05%) Data Lake
6 73 (2.93%) Relational Database
7 72 (2.89%) PostgreSQL
8 68 (2.73%) Tableau
9 37 (1.48%) Big Data
10 34 (1.36%) MongoDB
11 32 (1.28%) NoSQL
12 29 (1.16%) Delta Lake
13 28 (1.12%) BigQuery
13 28 (1.12%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 26 (1.04%) Oracle Database
14 26 (1.04%) Redis
15 23 (0.92%) MySQL
15 23 (0.92%) Power Query
16 22 (0.88%) Azure SQL Database
17 21 (0.84%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 218 (8.75%) JIRA
2 165 (6.62%) Git
3 93 (3.73%) Jenkins
4 79 (3.17%) GitLab
5 55 (2.21%) Selenium
6 40 (1.61%) Postman
7 33 (1.32%) JMeter
8 27 (1.08%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.96%) JUnit
9 24 (0.96%) Rational DOORS
9 24 (0.96%) WebDriver
10 18 (0.72%) Eclipse
11 16 (0.64%) Rational Rhapsody
11 16 (0.64%) Visual Studio
12 12 (0.48%) Gatling
13 11 (0.44%) Cypress.io
13 11 (0.44%) Maven
14 10 (0.40%) Gradle
14 10 (0.40%) REST Assured
15 9 (0.36%) TestRail
General
1 711 (28.53%) Social Skills
2 705 (28.29%) Finance
3 491 (19.70%) Analytical Skills
4 210 (8.43%) Public Sector
5 184 (7.38%) Banking
6 134 (5.38%) Documentation Skills
7 91 (3.65%) Manufacturing
8 88 (3.53%) Retail
9 56 (2.25%) Aerospace
9 56 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 49 (1.97%) Telecoms
11 48 (1.93%) Automotive
12 45 (1.81%) Pharmaceutical
13 44 (1.77%) Organisational Skills
14 42 (1.69%) Local Government
14 42 (1.69%) Marketing
15 37 (1.48%) Front Office
15 37 (1.48%) Law
16 34 (1.36%) Legal
17 33 (1.32%) Military
Job Titles
1 427 (17.13%) Analyst
2 273 (10.96%) Senior
3 249 (9.99%) Lead
4 206 (8.27%) Data Engineer
5 197 (7.91%) Business Analyst
6 193 (7.74%) Consultant
7 141 (5.66%) Developer
8 122 (4.90%) Architect
8 122 (4.90%) Data Analyst
9 102 (4.09%) Test Engineer
10 69 (2.77%) Tester
11 63 (2.53%) Project Manager
12 62 (2.49%) Network Engineer
13 55 (2.21%) Systems Engineer
14 50 (2.01%) Administrator
14 50 (2.01%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 50 (2.01%) Senior Data Engineer
15 41 (1.65%) Software Engineer
16 40 (1.61%) Technical Analyst
16 40 (1.61%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 136 (5.46%) REST
2 78 (3.13%) JSON
3 69 (2.77%) PySpark
4 66 (2.65%) Kafka
5 62 (2.49%) XML
6 48 (1.93%) Oracle Fusion
7 40 (1.61%) Middleware
7 40 (1.61%) Playwright
8 38 (1.52%) pytest
9 37 (1.48%) .NET
9 37 (1.48%) Spring
10 31 (1.24%) RESTful
11 30 (1.20%) SOAP
11 30 (1.20%) Web Services
12 28 (1.12%) Node.js
12 28 (1.12%) OAuth
12 28 (1.12%) Pandas
13 27 (1.08%) Spring Boot
14 22 (0.88%) Lightning Web Components
15 20 (0.80%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 137 (5.50%) Onboarding
2 126 (5.06%) Data Structures
3 114 (4.57%) Cloud Native
4 108 (4.33%) Legacy Systems
5 102 (4.09%) Product Ownership
6 78 (3.13%) Management Information System
7 76 (3.05%) Data Centre
8 45 (1.81%) Analytical Mindset
9 43 (1.73%) Enterprise Software
10 42 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
10 42 (1.69%) SCADA
11 39 (1.57%) AI Agents
12 36 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
13 34 (1.36%) Algorithms
14 33 (1.32%) Life Science
15 32 (1.28%) CMDB
15 32 (1.28%) Operational Technology
15 32 (1.28%) Public Cloud
15 32 (1.28%) Replication
16 29 (1.16%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 139 (5.58%) Windows
2 93 (3.73%) Linux
3 47 (1.89%) Windows Server
4 18 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 18 (0.72%) Unix
5 12 (0.48%) Android
6 11 (0.44%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.28%) Apple iOS
7 7 (0.28%) VMS
8 6 (0.24%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.16%) SUSE
9 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.080%) HPUX
10 2 (0.080%) VxWorks
10 2 (0.080%) Windows 7
10 2 (0.080%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.040%) Alpine Linux
11 1 (0.040%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.040%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 679 (27.25%) Migration
2 480 (19.26%) Agile
3 478 (19.18%) Stakeholder Management
4 463 (18.58%) CI/CD
5 411 (16.49%) User Acceptance Testing
6 404 (16.21%) Data Migration
7 402 (16.13%) Analytics
8 390 (15.65%) Problem-Solving
9 383 (15.37%) Data Modelling
10 377 (15.13%) Data Validation
11 331 (13.28%) DevOps
12 330 (13.24%) AI
13 318 (12.76%) Test Automation
14 300 (12.04%) Continuous Improvement
15 283 (11.36%) ETL
16 275 (11.04%) Business Intelligence
16 275 (11.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 264 (10.59%) Data Pipeline
18 257 (10.31%) Data Governance
19 241 (9.67%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 620 (24.88%) SQL
2 475 (19.06%) Python
3 120 (4.82%) Java
4 82 (3.29%) PowerShell
5 49 (1.97%) Bash
6 47 (1.89%) C#
7 46 (1.85%) JavaScript
8 43 (1.73%) C++
9 28 (1.12%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 27 (1.08%) Apex Code
11 25 (1.00%) C
11 25 (1.00%) TypeScript
12 24 (0.96%) Bicep
12 24 (0.96%) PL/SQL
13 23 (0.92%) R
14 21 (0.84%) VBA
15 15 (0.60%) MATLAB
16 13 (0.52%) Scala
16 13 (0.52%) Shell Script
17 12 (0.48%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 466 (18.70%) Security Cleared
2 337 (13.52%) SC Cleared
3 172 (6.90%) Degree
4 68 (2.73%) DV Cleared
5 46 (1.85%) BPSS Clearance
6 40 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
7 38 (1.52%) Cisco Certification
8 30 (1.20%) CCNP
9 23 (0.92%) ACCA
9 23 (0.92%) CIMA
10 22 (0.88%) AWS Certification
11 21 (0.84%) PMI Certification
12 20 (0.80%) ISTQB
13 18 (0.72%) Azure Certification
14 17 (0.68%) PMP
15 14 (0.56%) CISSP
15 14 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
16 13 (0.52%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 12 (0.48%) CCNA
18 11 (0.44%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 486 (19.50%) Data Quality
2 305 (12.24%) QA
3 97 (3.89%) GDPR
4 49 (1.97%) NIST
5 42 (1.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 37 (1.48%) Accessibility
7 36 (1.44%) SLA
8 34 (1.36%) PMO
9 22 (0.88%) GxP
10 17 (0.68%) GRC
11 14 (0.56%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 14 (0.56%) Def Stans
12 12 (0.48%) HL7
12 12 (0.48%) ISO 20022
12 12 (0.48%) NCSC
13 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.44%) IFRS
13 11 (0.44%) NIST 800
13 11 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.44%) WCAG
System Software
1 105 (4.21%) Docker
2 81 (3.25%) Active Directory
3 60 (2.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 31 (1.24%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.96%) VMware ESXi
6 18 (0.72%) Firmware
7 16 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
7 16 (0.64%) vSphere
8 14 (0.56%) Hyper-V
9 12 (0.48%) 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 (0.080%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.080%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.040%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.040%) NFS
12 1 (0.040%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 134 (5.38%) Kubernetes
2 131 (5.26%) Terraform
3 73 (2.93%) Ansible
4 40 (1.61%) Grafana
5 34 (1.36%) Prometheus
6 22 (0.88%) FortiGate
6 22 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
6 22 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
7 13 (0.52%) vCenter Server
8 10 (0.40%) SCCM
8 10 (0.40%) VxRail
9 8 (0.32%) Failover Clustering
10 6 (0.24%) Argo
10 6 (0.24%) HP ALM
10 6 (0.24%) Progress Chef
11 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
11 5 (0.20%) systemd
11 5 (0.20%) vRealize
12 4 (0.16%) Functional Safety
12 4 (0.16%) Puppet
Vendors
1 378 (15.17%) Microsoft
2 211 (8.47%) SAP
3 197 (7.91%) Oracle
4 142 (5.70%) Databricks
5 82 (3.29%) Salesforce
6 77 (3.09%) ServiceNow
7 70 (2.81%) VMware
8 63 (2.53%) Cisco
9 43 (1.73%) Workday
10 42 (1.69%) Google
11 29 (1.16%) Juniper
12 28 (1.12%) Informatica
13 27 (1.08%) Fortinet
13 27 (1.08%) IBM
14 26 (1.04%) Zscaler
15 21 (0.84%) Palo Alto
16 20 (0.80%) Splunk
17 19 (0.76%) IFS
18 18 (0.72%) Sage
19 17 (0.68%) CrowdStrike