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

6 months to
3 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 67 117
Rank change year-on-year +32 +50 +30
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,420 1,013 673
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.34% 3.65% 2.02%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.26% 4.02% 2.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,481 617 346
10th Percentile £341 £356 £328
25th Percentile £413 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £488
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +7.69% -11.36%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £588
90th Percentile £701 £700 £665
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £498
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.53% -9.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 160 78 118
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £29.24
25th Percentile £28.50 £37.67 £51.25
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% +3.92%
75th Percentile £75.25 £67.00 £69.72
90th Percentile £83.78 £75.75 £75.56
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 38,664 25,206 28,667
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.24% 90.74% 85.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,131 16,135 18,803
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 £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £757
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,474 1,396 1,685
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £20.69 £17.87 £18.16
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +78.93% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £68.75 £51.14 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.85 £70.08 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.33
% change year-on-year +74.79% -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 3 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 3 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 3 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 1,167 £523 -0.48% 655
South East +7 318 £505 +1.00% 307
Midlands +36 308 £475 +5.56% 155
North of England +46 305 £450 -9.09% 190
West Midlands +31 224 £470 +10.59% 98
North West +21 161 £450 -21.40% 108
East of England +2 138 £488 -2.50% 135
Yorkshire +36 132 £450 +3.51% 45
South West -15 119 £525 -8.70% 155
East Midlands +21 79 £509 +10.89% 57
North East -31 16 £425 -15.00% 40
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 (2.98%) Confluence
2 64 (2.64%) Apache Airflow
3 46 (1.90%) SAS
4 42 (1.74%) SharePoint
5 38 (1.57%) Apache Spark
6 29 (1.20%) Apache
7 13 (0.54%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.33%) CMS
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 (0.17%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.17%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.12%) IIS
13 3 (0.12%) JBoss
13 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 173 (7.15%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (1.36%) MS Visio
3 25 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 25 (1.03%) Spreadsheet
4 10 (0.41%) AutoCAD
5 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
6 6 (0.25%) Simulink
7 5 (0.21%) Navisworks
7 5 (0.21%) Revit
8 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.17%) ProjectWise
9 3 (0.12%) CATIA
10 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.083%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.083%) Sketch
11 1 (0.041%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.041%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.041%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.041%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 108 (4.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.24%) Oracle EBS
3 18 (0.74%) Workday HCM
4 13 (0.54%) Oracle Payables
5 11 (0.45%) iTrent
5 11 (0.45%) NetSuite
5 11 (0.45%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 11 (0.45%) SAP ERP
5 11 (0.45%) Teamcenter
6 10 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
6 10 (0.41%) SAP MDG
7 9 (0.37%) Aladdin
7 9 (0.37%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.37%) Sage X3
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
8 8 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
9 7 (0.29%) SAP HCM
9 7 (0.29%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 545 (22.52%) Azure
2 286 (11.82%) AWS
3 260 (10.74%) Power Platform
4 136 (5.62%) GCP
5 133 (5.50%) Azure DevOps
6 117 (4.83%) GitHub
7 86 (3.55%) Snowflake
8 69 (2.85%) Azure Data Factory
8 69 (2.85%) GitHub Actions
9 63 (2.60%) Entra ID
10 54 (2.23%) Serverless
11 44 (1.82%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 44 (1.82%) Microsoft 365
12 43 (1.78%) dbt
13 42 (1.74%) SaaS
14 41 (1.69%) OCI
15 40 (1.65%) Amazon S3
16 37 (1.53%) SuccessFactors
17 30 (1.24%) Azure Monitor
18 27 (1.12%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 107 (4.42%) Firewall
2 64 (2.64%) Network Security
3 57 (2.36%) DNS
4 45 (1.86%) VLAN
5 44 (1.82%) VPN
6 38 (1.57%) TCP/IP
7 36 (1.49%) WAN
8 28 (1.16%) BGP
9 26 (1.07%) DHCP
10 23 (0.95%) Internet
11 21 (0.87%) LAN
11 21 (0.87%) SAN
11 21 (0.87%) Wireless
12 20 (0.83%) OSPF
12 20 (0.83%) SD-WAN
13 15 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
14 13 (0.54%) Ethernet
15 12 (0.50%) Cisco ISE
16 11 (0.45%) NAS
17 9 (0.37%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 241 (9.96%) Power BI
2 147 (6.07%) Data Warehouse
3 99 (4.09%) Metadata
4 79 (3.26%) Data Lake
5 73 (3.02%) Tableau
6 71 (2.93%) SQL Server
7 67 (2.77%) PostgreSQL
8 63 (2.60%) Relational Database
9 38 (1.57%) Big Data
10 30 (1.24%) BigQuery
11 27 (1.12%) Delta Lake
11 27 (1.12%) NoSQL
11 27 (1.12%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 26 (1.07%) Oracle Database
12 26 (1.07%) Power Query
12 26 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 24 (0.99%) Oracle Reports
14 22 (0.91%) MongoDB
15 21 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
16 20 (0.83%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 221 (9.13%) JIRA
2 155 (6.40%) Git
3 85 (3.51%) Jenkins
4 64 (2.64%) GitLab
5 54 (2.23%) Selenium
6 40 (1.65%) JMeter
7 37 (1.53%) Cucumber
7 37 (1.53%) Postman
8 36 (1.49%) JUnit
9 30 (1.24%) WebDriver
10 21 (0.87%) Rational DOORS
11 18 (0.74%) Eclipse
12 14 (0.58%) Visual Studio
13 12 (0.50%) Gatling
14 11 (0.45%) Rational Rhapsody
15 10 (0.41%) ERwin
15 10 (0.41%) Maven
15 10 (0.41%) MLflow
15 10 (0.41%) REST Assured
16 9 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
General
1 720 (29.75%) Finance
2 701 (28.97%) Social Skills
3 471 (19.46%) Analytical Skills
4 193 (7.98%) Public Sector
5 182 (7.52%) Banking
6 130 (5.37%) Documentation Skills
7 86 (3.55%) Manufacturing
7 86 (3.55%) Retail
8 57 (2.36%) Aerospace
9 51 (2.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 46 (1.90%) Pharmaceutical
11 45 (1.86%) Organisational Skills
12 42 (1.74%) Telecoms
13 39 (1.61%) Automotive
14 38 (1.57%) Marketing
15 37 (1.53%) Front Office
16 35 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
17 34 (1.40%) Local Government
18 33 (1.36%) Law
18 33 (1.36%) Military
Job Titles
1 428 (17.69%) Analyst
2 248 (10.25%) Senior
3 245 (10.12%) Lead
4 207 (8.55%) Data Engineer
5 198 (8.18%) Business Analyst
6 179 (7.40%) Consultant
7 139 (5.74%) Developer
8 131 (5.41%) Architect
9 126 (5.21%) Data Analyst
10 92 (3.80%) Test Engineer
11 69 (2.85%) Tester
12 67 (2.77%) Project Manager
13 55 (2.27%) Network Engineer
14 48 (1.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 48 (1.98%) Systems Engineer
15 45 (1.86%) Senior Data Engineer
16 40 (1.65%) Administrator
17 39 (1.61%) Migration Engineer
17 39 (1.61%) Technical Analyst
18 38 (1.57%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 118 (4.88%) REST
2 71 (2.93%) JSON
3 66 (2.73%) Kafka
4 62 (2.56%) PySpark
5 52 (2.15%) XML
6 49 (2.02%) Oracle Fusion
7 41 (1.69%) Spring
8 40 (1.65%) .NET
9 38 (1.57%) Middleware
10 36 (1.49%) pytest
11 34 (1.40%) Playwright
12 30 (1.24%) SOAP
13 29 (1.20%) Pandas
14 28 (1.16%) Node.js
14 28 (1.16%) RESTful
14 28 (1.16%) Web Services
15 26 (1.07%) OAuth
16 25 (1.03%) WireMock
17 22 (0.91%) Lightning Web Components
17 22 (0.91%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 134 (5.54%) Onboarding
2 132 (5.45%) Data Structures
3 117 (4.83%) Legacy Systems
4 103 (4.26%) Cloud Native
5 95 (3.93%) Product Ownership
6 66 (2.73%) Management Information System
7 64 (2.64%) Data Centre
8 49 (2.02%) Distributed Systems
9 44 (1.82%) Analytical Mindset
10 40 (1.65%) AI Agents
10 40 (1.65%) SCADA
11 36 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
12 34 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
13 33 (1.36%) Hybrid Cloud
14 32 (1.32%) Life Science
15 30 (1.24%) Reference Data
16 29 (1.20%) Operational Technology
16 29 (1.20%) Public Cloud
17 28 (1.16%) Algorithms
18 27 (1.12%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 128 (5.29%) Windows
2 85 (3.51%) Linux
3 38 (1.57%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.87%) Unix
5 18 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.45%) Android
6 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
7 6 (0.25%) VMS
8 5 (0.21%) Apple iOS
8 5 (0.21%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.17%) SUSE
10 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.083%) HPUX
11 2 (0.083%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.041%) Debian
12 1 (0.041%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.041%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.041%) Solaris
12 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.041%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 668 (27.60%) Migration
2 466 (19.26%) Agile
3 456 (18.84%) Stakeholder Management
4 425 (17.56%) CI/CD
5 411 (16.98%) Analytics
6 406 (16.78%) Data Migration
7 392 (16.20%) User Acceptance Testing
8 386 (15.95%) Data Validation
9 385 (15.91%) Data Modelling
10 374 (15.45%) Problem-Solving
11 318 (13.14%) AI
12 305 (12.60%) DevOps
13 300 (12.40%) ETL
14 294 (12.15%) Continuous Improvement
15 293 (12.11%) Test Automation
16 273 (11.28%) Business Intelligence
17 271 (11.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 257 (10.62%) Data Governance
19 254 (10.50%) Data Pipeline
20 242 (10.00%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 597 (24.67%) SQL
2 443 (18.31%) Python
3 109 (4.50%) Java
4 70 (2.89%) PowerShell
5 49 (2.02%) C#
6 43 (1.78%) Bash
7 39 (1.61%) JavaScript
8 33 (1.36%) C++
8 33 (1.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 27 (1.12%) Apex Code
10 26 (1.07%) TypeScript
11 25 (1.03%) Bicep
11 25 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 23 (0.95%) VBA
13 22 (0.91%) R
14 21 (0.87%) C
15 15 (0.62%) MATLAB
16 13 (0.54%) Ada
16 13 (0.54%) T-SQL
17 12 (0.50%) Scala
Qualifications
1 436 (18.02%) Security Cleared
2 311 (12.85%) SC Cleared
3 167 (6.90%) Degree
4 63 (2.60%) DV Cleared
5 48 (1.98%) BPSS Clearance
6 36 (1.49%) Cisco Certification
7 35 (1.45%) Computer Science Degree
8 28 (1.16%) CCNP
9 23 (0.95%) PMI Certification
10 20 (0.83%) ACCA
11 19 (0.79%) CIMA
11 19 (0.79%) PMP
12 18 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
13 17 (0.70%) ISTQB
14 16 (0.66%) Azure Certification
14 16 (0.66%) CISSP
15 14 (0.58%) Master's Degree
16 13 (0.54%) AWS Certification
17 12 (0.50%) CCNA
18 10 (0.41%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 464 (19.17%) Data Quality
2 295 (12.19%) QA
3 100 (4.13%) GDPR
4 51 (2.11%) NIST
5 44 (1.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 38 (1.57%) Accessibility
7 32 (1.32%) PMO
8 28 (1.16%) SLA
9 20 (0.83%) GxP
10 15 (0.62%) GRC
11 13 (0.54%) IFRS
12 12 (0.50%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 12 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
12 12 (0.50%) Def Stans
12 12 (0.50%) HL7
12 12 (0.50%) ISO 20022
12 12 (0.50%) NCSC
12 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
13 11 (0.45%) WCAG
14 10 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 105 (4.34%) Docker
2 78 (3.22%) Active Directory
3 54 (2.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
5 21 (0.87%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.58%) Firmware
8 13 (0.54%) vSphere
9 11 (0.45%) VMware NSX
10 9 (0.37%) Hyper-V
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.083%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.083%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.083%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.041%) Ceph
13 1 (0.041%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.041%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 141 (5.83%) Kubernetes
2 114 (4.71%) Terraform
3 54 (2.23%) Ansible
4 47 (1.94%) Prometheus
5 46 (1.90%) Grafana
6 23 (0.95%) Microsoft Intune
7 22 (0.91%) FortiGate
8 19 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (0.45%) SCCM
9 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
10 8 (0.33%) VxRail
11 6 (0.25%) HP ALM
12 5 (0.21%) CASB
12 5 (0.21%) systemd
12 5 (0.21%) vRealize
13 4 (0.17%) Argo
13 4 (0.17%) Failover Clustering
13 4 (0.17%) Istio
13 4 (0.17%) Nessus
13 4 (0.17%) Puppet
Vendors
1 355 (14.67%) Microsoft
2 216 (8.93%) SAP
3 208 (8.60%) Oracle
4 142 (5.87%) Databricks
5 85 (3.51%) Salesforce
6 65 (2.69%) VMware
7 57 (2.36%) ServiceNow
8 53 (2.19%) Cisco
9 49 (2.02%) Workday
10 40 (1.65%) Google
11 34 (1.40%) Informatica
12 33 (1.36%) Splunk
13 29 (1.20%) Juniper
14 28 (1.16%) Fortinet
15 26 (1.07%) Zscaler
16 25 (1.03%) IBM
17 24 (0.99%) Palo Alto
18 23 (0.95%) MuleSoft
19 22 (0.91%) Sage
20 20 (0.83%) IFS