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 27 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 67 113
Rank change year-on-year +32 +46 +33
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,409 1,022 699
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.35% 3.70% 2.03%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.28% 4.08% 2.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,472 627 355
10th Percentile £350 £356 £334
25th Percentile £413 £422 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £488
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +7.69% -11.36%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £586
90th Percentile £701 £700 £666
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 158 77 131
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £29.77
25th Percentile £28.69 £37.50 £51.25
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% +3.92%
75th Percentile £75.75 £67.00 £69.44
90th Percentile £83.83 £76.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% -3.85%

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 38,369 25,044 29,488
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.25% 90.72% 85.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,058 16,057 19,314
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £423 £405 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £633 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,388 1,359 1,834
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.87 £17.69
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -37.63% -5.12%
75th Percentile £69.56 £51.77 £65.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%

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 27 July 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 27 July 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 27 July 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 +47 1,164 £521 -0.86% 395
Midlands +34 312 £475 +5.56% 117
South East +3 311 £505 +1.00% 222
North of England +37 301 £450 -5.26% 153
West Midlands +35 229 £469 +7.14% 70
North West +20 163 £450 -14.69% 83
East of England -1 133 £500 - 90
Yorkshire +32 127 £453 +4.08% 38
South West -13 123 £523 -9.13% 95
East Midlands +21 78 £509 +10.89% 47
North East -33 15 £425 -15.00% 33
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 74 (3.07%) Confluence
2 62 (2.57%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (1.95%) SAS
4 42 (1.74%) SharePoint
5 40 (1.66%) Apache Spark
6 28 (1.16%) Apache
7 13 (0.54%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.33%) SharePoint 2013
10 7 (0.29%) CMS
11 6 (0.25%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.21%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.17%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
13 4 (0.17%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.12%) Apache Pulsar
14 3 (0.12%) IIS
14 3 (0.12%) JBoss
14 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 171 (7.10%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.41%) MS Visio
3 31 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
4 26 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 25 (1.04%) Spreadsheet
6 10 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
7 7 (0.29%) AutoCAD
8 5 (0.21%) Simulink
9 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
10 3 (0.12%) CATIA
11 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.083%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.083%) Navisworks
11 2 (0.083%) ProjectWise
11 2 (0.083%) Revit
11 2 (0.083%) Sketch
12 1 (0.042%) Autodesk Inventor
12 1 (0.042%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.042%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.042%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 110 (4.57%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.25%) Oracle EBS
3 17 (0.71%) Workday HCM
4 12 (0.50%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.50%) Teamcenter
5 11 (0.46%) NetSuite
5 11 (0.46%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.42%) Aladdin
6 10 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
6 10 (0.42%) iTrent
6 10 (0.42%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 10 (0.42%) SAP MDG
7 9 (0.37%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.37%) Sage X3
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
8 8 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
9 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
9 7 (0.29%) SAP HCM
9 7 (0.29%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 538 (22.33%) Azure
2 279 (11.58%) AWS
3 252 (10.46%) Power Platform
4 133 (5.52%) Azure DevOps
5 127 (5.27%) GCP
6 117 (4.86%) GitHub
7 82 (3.40%) Snowflake
8 71 (2.95%) Azure Data Factory
9 68 (2.82%) GitHub Actions
10 62 (2.57%) Entra ID
11 55 (2.28%) Serverless
12 44 (1.83%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 44 (1.83%) dbt
13 43 (1.78%) Amazon S3
13 43 (1.78%) Microsoft 365
14 41 (1.70%) OCI
14 41 (1.70%) SaaS
15 33 (1.37%) SuccessFactors
16 31 (1.29%) Azure Monitor
17 27 (1.12%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 110 (4.57%) Firewall
2 63 (2.62%) Network Security
3 55 (2.28%) DNS
4 45 (1.87%) VLAN
5 44 (1.83%) VPN
6 38 (1.58%) TCP/IP
7 36 (1.49%) WAN
8 29 (1.20%) BGP
9 25 (1.04%) DHCP
10 23 (0.95%) SAN
11 22 (0.91%) Wireless
12 21 (0.87%) Internet
12 21 (0.87%) LAN
12 21 (0.87%) OSPF
13 20 (0.83%) SD-WAN
14 15 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
15 14 (0.58%) Ethernet
16 13 (0.54%) NAS
17 12 (0.50%) Cisco ISE
18 9 (0.37%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 233 (9.67%) Power BI
2 140 (5.81%) Data Warehouse
3 96 (3.99%) Metadata
4 78 (3.24%) Data Lake
5 74 (3.07%) SQL Server
6 71 (2.95%) Tableau
7 68 (2.82%) PostgreSQL
8 61 (2.53%) Relational Database
9 38 (1.58%) Big Data
10 30 (1.25%) Oracle Database
11 29 (1.20%) Delta Lake
12 28 (1.16%) SAS Enterprise Guide
13 27 (1.12%) BigQuery
14 26 (1.08%) NoSQL
14 26 (1.08%) Power Query
14 26 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 25 (1.04%) Amazon Redshift
16 23 (0.95%) Oracle Reports
17 20 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
17 20 (0.83%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 225 (9.34%) JIRA
2 146 (6.06%) Git
3 85 (3.53%) Jenkins
4 65 (2.70%) GitLab
5 56 (2.32%) Selenium
6 40 (1.66%) JMeter
7 38 (1.58%) Postman
8 37 (1.54%) Cucumber
9 36 (1.49%) JUnit
10 30 (1.25%) WebDriver
11 21 (0.87%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.75%) Eclipse
13 14 (0.58%) Visual Studio
14 12 (0.50%) Gatling
14 12 (0.50%) Rational Rhapsody
15 11 (0.46%) MLflow
16 10 (0.42%) ERwin
17 9 (0.37%) Maven
17 9 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
17 9 (0.37%) REST Assured
General
1 720 (29.89%) Finance
2 701 (29.10%) Social Skills
3 466 (19.34%) Analytical Skills
4 192 (7.97%) Public Sector
5 183 (7.60%) Banking
6 135 (5.60%) Documentation Skills
7 84 (3.49%) Manufacturing
8 81 (3.36%) Retail
9 56 (2.32%) Aerospace
10 49 (2.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 46 (1.91%) Pharmaceutical
12 44 (1.83%) Telecoms
13 43 (1.78%) Organisational Skills
14 38 (1.58%) Automotive
15 37 (1.54%) Front Office
15 37 (1.54%) Marketing
16 34 (1.41%) Influencing Skills
17 33 (1.37%) Law
17 33 (1.37%) Local Government
17 33 (1.37%) Military
Job Titles
1 429 (17.81%) Analyst
2 244 (10.13%) Senior
3 240 (9.96%) Lead
4 204 (8.47%) Data Engineer
5 203 (8.43%) Business Analyst
6 173 (7.18%) Consultant
7 141 (5.85%) Developer
8 132 (5.48%) Architect
9 126 (5.23%) Data Analyst
10 89 (3.69%) Test Engineer
11 74 (3.07%) Tester
12 69 (2.86%) Project Manager
13 54 (2.24%) Network Engineer
14 49 (2.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 47 (1.95%) Systems Engineer
16 44 (1.83%) Senior Data Engineer
17 39 (1.62%) Migration Engineer
18 38 (1.58%) Administrator
18 38 (1.58%) Technical Analyst
19 37 (1.54%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 116 (4.82%) REST
2 74 (3.07%) JSON
3 68 (2.82%) Kafka
4 59 (2.45%) PySpark
5 51 (2.12%) XML
6 47 (1.95%) Oracle Fusion
7 41 (1.70%) Spring
8 40 (1.66%) .NET
9 38 (1.58%) Middleware
10 34 (1.41%) pytest
11 31 (1.29%) Playwright
11 31 (1.29%) SOAP
11 31 (1.29%) Web Services
12 30 (1.25%) Pandas
13 29 (1.20%) OAuth
14 28 (1.16%) RESTful
15 27 (1.12%) Node.js
16 25 (1.04%) WireMock
17 22 (0.91%) Lightning Web Components
17 22 (0.91%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 133 (5.52%) Data Structures
2 129 (5.35%) Onboarding
3 120 (4.98%) Legacy Systems
4 98 (4.07%) Cloud Native
5 97 (4.03%) Product Ownership
6 65 (2.70%) Data Centre
7 59 (2.45%) Management Information System
8 49 (2.03%) Distributed Systems
9 45 (1.87%) Analytical Mindset
10 40 (1.66%) SCADA
11 39 (1.62%) AI Agents
12 37 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
13 36 (1.49%) Hybrid Cloud
14 33 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
15 32 (1.33%) Life Science
16 31 (1.29%) Reference Data
17 28 (1.16%) Operational Technology
17 28 (1.16%) Public Cloud
17 28 (1.16%) Virtual Team
18 27 (1.12%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 137 (5.69%) Windows
2 86 (3.57%) Linux
3 38 (1.58%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.91%) Unix
5 18 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.42%) Android
6 10 (0.42%) Ubuntu
7 6 (0.25%) VMS
7 6 (0.25%) Windows 10
8 5 (0.21%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.17%) SUSE
10 3 (0.12%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.083%) HPUX
11 2 (0.083%) VxWorks
11 2 (0.083%) zOS
12 1 (0.042%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.042%) pSOS
12 1 (0.042%) Solaris
12 1 (0.042%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 668 (27.73%) Migration
2 465 (19.30%) Agile
3 449 (18.64%) Stakeholder Management
4 413 (17.14%) CI/CD
5 411 (17.06%) Analytics
6 404 (16.77%) Data Migration
7 390 (16.19%) Data Validation
8 387 (16.06%) User Acceptance Testing
9 376 (15.61%) Data Modelling
10 371 (15.40%) Problem-Solving
11 312 (12.95%) AI
12 306 (12.70%) ETL
13 301 (12.49%) DevOps
14 292 (12.12%) Test Automation
15 284 (11.79%) Continuous Improvement
16 269 (11.17%) Business Intelligence
17 267 (11.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 247 (10.25%) Data Pipeline
19 245 (10.17%) Data Governance
20 237 (9.84%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 589 (24.45%) SQL
2 436 (18.10%) Python
3 108 (4.48%) Java
4 76 (3.15%) PowerShell
5 52 (2.16%) C#
6 44 (1.83%) Bash
7 38 (1.58%) JavaScript
8 33 (1.37%) C++
9 32 (1.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 29 (1.20%) Bicep
11 27 (1.12%) Apex Code
11 27 (1.12%) TypeScript
12 26 (1.08%) PL/SQL
13 24 (1.00%) C
14 23 (0.95%) R
14 23 (0.95%) VBA
15 15 (0.62%) Ada
16 14 (0.58%) MATLAB
16 14 (0.58%) T-SQL
17 12 (0.50%) Scala
Qualifications
1 442 (18.35%) Security Cleared
2 313 (12.99%) SC Cleared
3 168 (6.97%) Degree
4 62 (2.57%) DV Cleared
5 48 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
6 36 (1.49%) Cisco Certification
7 33 (1.37%) Computer Science Degree
8 28 (1.16%) CCNP
9 23 (0.95%) PMI Certification
10 19 (0.79%) ACCA
10 19 (0.79%) PMP
11 18 (0.75%) CIMA
11 18 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
12 17 (0.71%) ISTQB
13 16 (0.66%) Azure Certification
13 16 (0.66%) CISSP
14 12 (0.50%) AWS Certification
14 12 (0.50%) CCNA
14 12 (0.50%) Master's Degree
15 10 (0.42%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 456 (18.93%) Data Quality
2 284 (11.79%) QA
3 102 (4.23%) GDPR
4 51 (2.12%) NIST
5 42 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 39 (1.62%) Accessibility
7 34 (1.41%) PMO
8 29 (1.20%) SLA
9 20 (0.83%) GxP
10 15 (0.62%) GRC
11 14 (0.58%) HL7
12 13 (0.54%) Def Stans
12 13 (0.54%) IFRS
13 12 (0.50%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 12 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.50%) NCSC
13 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.46%) ISO 20022
14 11 (0.46%) WCAG
15 10 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 104 (4.32%) Docker
2 76 (3.15%) Active Directory
3 59 (2.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
5 21 (0.87%) VMware ESXi
6 18 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.58%) Firmware
8 13 (0.54%) VMware NSX
8 13 (0.54%) vSphere
9 12 (0.50%) Hyper-V
10 5 (0.21%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.083%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.083%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.083%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.083%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.042%) etcd
13 1 (0.042%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.042%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 143 (5.94%) Kubernetes
2 116 (4.82%) Terraform
3 52 (2.16%) Ansible
4 50 (2.08%) Prometheus
5 48 (1.99%) Grafana
6 23 (0.95%) Microsoft Intune
7 22 (0.91%) FortiGate
8 19 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.54%) SCCM
10 11 (0.46%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.33%) VxRail
12 6 (0.25%) HP ALM
13 5 (0.21%) CASB
13 5 (0.21%) vMotion
13 5 (0.21%) vRealize
14 4 (0.17%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.17%) Failover Clustering
14 4 (0.17%) Nessus
14 4 (0.17%) Puppet
14 4 (0.17%) systemd
Vendors
1 348 (14.45%) Microsoft
2 216 (8.97%) SAP
3 209 (8.68%) Oracle
4 137 (5.69%) Databricks
5 83 (3.45%) Salesforce
6 70 (2.91%) VMware
7 58 (2.41%) ServiceNow
8 54 (2.24%) Cisco
9 48 (1.99%) Workday
10 37 (1.54%) Splunk
11 36 (1.49%) Google
12 34 (1.41%) Informatica
13 28 (1.16%) Fortinet
13 28 (1.16%) Juniper
14 26 (1.08%) Palo Alto
15 25 (1.04%) IBM
16 24 (1.00%) Zscaler
17 23 (0.95%) MuleSoft
17 23 (0.95%) Sage
18 20 (0.83%) IFS