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

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 63 112
Rank change year-on-year +30 +49 +41
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,547 1,036 703
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.58% 3.81% 2.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.57% 4.19% 2.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,535 632 343
10th Percentile £336 £332 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £504 £488
Median % change year-on-year -0.79% +3.38% -11.36%
75th Percentile £600 £620 £589
90th Percentile £712 £688 £667
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 165 79 107
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £28.50 £41.25 £51.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% - -1.49%
75th Percentile £73.25 £67.00 £71.70
90th Percentile £82.80 £75.00 £76.86
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £63.75 £65.00
% change year-on-year -17.65% -1.92% -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 38,742 24,707 27,973
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.90% 90.77% 85.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,892 15,711 17,811
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £636 £626 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £751
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,598 1,453 1,393
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.25 £14.41
25th Percentile £18.34 £17.87 £20.00
Median hourly rate £43.56 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.20% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £66.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +2.41%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 +39 1,256 £525 +0.96% 1,545
North of England +39 337 £453 +6.59% 307
South East -3 320 £500 - 498
Midlands +34 294 £464 -2.40% 262
West Midlands +28 209 £458 -3.68% 178
North West +27 168 £450 +5.88% 188
Yorkshire +42 150 £462 -0.17% 73
East of England -3 144 £475 -5.00% 301
South West +8 132 £525 -7.69% 303
East Midlands +21 81 £500 - 84
North East -24 24 £425 -5.56% 54
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 71 (2.79%) Confluence
2 63 (2.47%) Apache Airflow
3 54 (2.12%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.77%) SAS
5 37 (1.45%) Apache Spark
6 26 (1.02%) Apache
7 16 (0.63%) Microsoft Exchange
8 12 (0.47%) CMS
9 10 (0.39%) Jupyter
10 8 (0.31%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.27%) Palantir Foundry
11 7 (0.27%) Sitecore CMS
12 6 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
13 5 (0.20%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.20%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.16%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.12%) IIS
Applications
1 183 (7.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 36 (1.41%) Microsoft Office
3 33 (1.30%) MS Visio
4 32 (1.26%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (1.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 12 (0.47%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
8 7 (0.27%) Navisworks
8 7 (0.27%) Revit
9 6 (0.24%) Simulink
10 5 (0.20%) ProjectWise
11 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
12 3 (0.12%) CATIA
13 2 (0.079%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.079%) EPLAN
14 1 (0.039%) Gliffy
14 1 (0.039%) LaTeX
14 1 (0.039%) MicroStation
14 1 (0.039%) Oracle Smart View
14 1 (0.039%) Trello
Business Applications
1 105 (4.12%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.71%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.59%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.51%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.47%) Teamcenter
5 12 (0.47%) Workday HCM
6 11 (0.43%) SAP MDG
6 11 (0.43%) SAP SD
7 10 (0.39%) Aladdin
7 10 (0.39%) iTrent
7 10 (0.39%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.35%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.35%) SAP FI
8 9 (0.35%) SAP MM
9 8 (0.31%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
9 8 (0.31%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 7 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
10 7 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
10 7 (0.27%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 564 (22.14%) Azure
2 300 (11.78%) AWS
3 256 (10.05%) Power Platform
4 159 (6.24%) Azure DevOps
5 129 (5.06%) GCP
6 121 (4.75%) GitHub
7 89 (3.49%) Snowflake
8 72 (2.83%) Azure Data Factory
8 72 (2.83%) Entra ID
9 64 (2.51%) GitHub Actions
10 55 (2.16%) Serverless
11 52 (2.04%) Microsoft 365
12 51 (2.00%) SaaS
13 46 (1.81%) dbt
14 43 (1.69%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 41 (1.61%) Amazon S3
16 34 (1.33%) SuccessFactors
17 31 (1.22%) OCI
18 30 (1.18%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 29 (1.14%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.08%) Firewall
2 65 (2.55%) DNS
3 60 (2.36%) Network Security
4 57 (2.24%) VLAN
5 48 (1.88%) VPN
6 39 (1.53%) WAN
7 37 (1.45%) BGP
8 35 (1.37%) TCP/IP
9 32 (1.26%) DHCP
10 22 (0.86%) Internet
11 21 (0.82%) OSPF
11 21 (0.82%) SAN
11 21 (0.82%) SD-WAN
12 20 (0.79%) Wireless
13 19 (0.75%) VXLAN
14 18 (0.71%) LAN
15 17 (0.67%) 5G
16 15 (0.59%) Ethernet VPN
16 15 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
17 13 (0.51%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 236 (9.27%) Power BI
2 144 (5.65%) Data Warehouse
3 108 (4.24%) Metadata
4 85 (3.34%) Relational Database
5 81 (3.18%) SQL Server
6 72 (2.83%) PostgreSQL
7 70 (2.75%) Data Lake
8 65 (2.55%) Tableau
9 37 (1.45%) Delta Lake
10 36 (1.41%) MongoDB
11 34 (1.33%) Big Data
12 32 (1.26%) NoSQL
13 31 (1.22%) BigQuery
13 31 (1.22%) Oracle Database
14 29 (1.14%) Redis
15 26 (1.02%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 25 (0.98%) MySQL
17 24 (0.94%) Power Query
18 21 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
19 19 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 232 (9.11%) JIRA
2 180 (7.07%) Git
3 92 (3.61%) Jenkins
4 83 (3.26%) GitLab
5 66 (2.59%) Selenium
6 38 (1.49%) Postman
7 33 (1.30%) JMeter
8 23 (0.90%) Cucumber
9 22 (0.86%) WebDriver
10 19 (0.75%) Rational DOORS
11 17 (0.67%) JUnit
12 13 (0.51%) Rational Rhapsody
13 12 (0.47%) Cypress.io
14 11 (0.43%) Eclipse
14 11 (0.43%) Gatling
15 10 (0.39%) Maven
15 10 (0.39%) TestRail
16 9 (0.35%) Robot Framework
16 9 (0.35%) Visual Studio Code
16 9 (0.35%) Zephyr
General
1 729 (28.62%) Finance
2 726 (28.50%) Social Skills
3 499 (19.59%) Analytical Skills
4 208 (8.17%) Banking
5 205 (8.05%) Public Sector
6 129 (5.06%) Documentation Skills
7 94 (3.69%) Manufacturing
8 89 (3.49%) Retail
9 59 (2.32%) Telecoms
10 56 (2.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 55 (2.16%) Automotive
12 46 (1.81%) Aerospace
13 45 (1.77%) Marketing
13 45 (1.77%) Pharmaceutical
14 44 (1.73%) Organisational Skills
15 40 (1.57%) Local Government
16 38 (1.49%) Front Office
17 36 (1.41%) Law
18 33 (1.30%) General Ledger
18 33 (1.30%) Legal
Job Titles
1 449 (17.63%) Analyst
2 291 (11.43%) Senior
3 240 (9.42%) Lead
4 205 (8.05%) Data Engineer
5 202 (7.93%) Business Analyst
6 195 (7.66%) Consultant
7 148 (5.81%) Developer
8 132 (5.18%) Data Analyst
9 131 (5.14%) Architect
10 104 (4.08%) Test Engineer
11 68 (2.67%) Tester
12 63 (2.47%) Network Engineer
13 60 (2.36%) Systems Engineer
14 54 (2.12%) Project Manager
15 53 (2.08%) Administrator
16 51 (2.00%) Senior Data Engineer
17 45 (1.77%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 43 (1.69%) Test Manager
19 41 (1.61%) QA Engineer
20 40 (1.57%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 152 (5.97%) REST
2 136 (5.34%) Terraform
3 81 (3.18%) JSON
4 76 (2.98%) PySpark
5 69 (2.71%) Kafka
6 65 (2.55%) XML
7 47 (1.85%) Playwright
8 46 (1.81%) Middleware
9 44 (1.73%) Oracle Fusion
10 39 (1.53%) pytest
11 37 (1.45%) .NET
12 35 (1.37%) Spring
13 34 (1.33%) SOAP
14 33 (1.30%) RESTful
15 32 (1.26%) OAuth
16 31 (1.22%) Pandas
17 28 (1.10%) Spring Boot
18 26 (1.02%) HTML
19 25 (0.98%) Lightning Web Components
19 25 (0.98%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 140 (5.50%) Data Structures
1 140 (5.50%) Onboarding
2 115 (4.52%) Cloud Native
3 112 (4.40%) Legacy Systems
4 98 (3.85%) Product Ownership
5 89 (3.49%) Management Information System
6 76 (2.98%) Data Centre
7 46 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
8 42 (1.65%) AI Agents
9 41 (1.61%) Analytical Mindset
9 41 (1.61%) Distributed Systems
9 41 (1.61%) SCADA
10 39 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
11 34 (1.33%) Life Science
12 33 (1.30%) Algorithms
13 32 (1.26%) CMDB
14 31 (1.22%) NHS
14 31 (1.22%) Operational Technology
14 31 (1.22%) Replication
15 29 (1.14%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 137 (5.38%) Windows
2 91 (3.57%) Linux
3 51 (2.00%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.90%) Unix
5 20 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.55%) Android
7 11 (0.43%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.31%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.27%) VMS
10 6 (0.24%) Windows 10
11 4 (0.16%) SUSE
11 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.12%) VxWorks
12 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.079%) CentOS
13 2 (0.079%) HPUX
13 2 (0.079%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.039%) Solaris
14 1 (0.039%) Windows Server 2003
14 1 (0.039%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 694 (27.25%) Migration
2 515 (20.22%) Stakeholder Management
3 487 (19.12%) CI/CD
4 484 (19.00%) Agile
5 414 (16.25%) User Acceptance Testing
6 412 (16.18%) Data Migration
7 396 (15.55%) Data Modelling
8 394 (15.47%) Data Validation
9 391 (15.35%) Analytics
9 391 (15.35%) Problem-Solving
10 349 (13.70%) DevOps
11 344 (13.51%) AI
12 337 (13.23%) Test Automation
13 309 (12.13%) Continuous Improvement
14 290 (11.39%) ETL
15 274 (10.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 267 (10.48%) Business Intelligence
17 266 (10.44%) Data Pipeline
18 263 (10.33%) Data Analysis
19 262 (10.29%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 647 (25.40%) SQL
2 504 (19.79%) Python
3 118 (4.63%) Java
4 88 (3.46%) PowerShell
5 52 (2.04%) Bash
6 47 (1.85%) JavaScript
7 40 (1.57%) C#
8 33 (1.30%) C++
9 29 (1.14%) Apex Code
10 28 (1.10%) R
10 28 (1.10%) TypeScript
11 27 (1.06%) PL/SQL
12 25 (0.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 24 (0.94%) C
14 22 (0.86%) Bicep
15 19 (0.75%) Shell Script
16 17 (0.67%) VBA
17 15 (0.59%) MATLAB
18 13 (0.51%) T-SQL
19 12 (0.47%) Scala
Qualifications
1 489 (19.20%) Security Cleared
2 353 (13.86%) SC Cleared
3 179 (7.03%) Degree
4 77 (3.02%) DV Cleared
5 48 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
6 42 (1.65%) Computer Science Degree
7 40 (1.57%) Cisco Certification
8 32 (1.26%) CCNP
9 27 (1.06%) AWS Certification
10 25 (0.98%) ACCA
10 25 (0.98%) CIMA
11 20 (0.79%) ISTQB
11 20 (0.79%) PMI Certification
12 18 (0.71%) Azure Certification
13 16 (0.63%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 16 (0.63%) Microsoft Certification
14 15 (0.59%) Master's Degree
14 15 (0.59%) PMP
15 14 (0.55%) CISSP
16 11 (0.43%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 517 (20.30%) Data Quality
2 319 (12.52%) QA
3 90 (3.53%) GDPR
4 41 (1.61%) Accessibility
5 40 (1.57%) NIST
6 38 (1.49%) SLA
7 33 (1.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 30 (1.18%) PMO
9 24 (0.94%) GxP
10 16 (0.63%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 16 (0.63%) GRC
11 15 (0.59%) WCAG
12 14 (0.55%) ISO 20022
13 12 (0.47%) Def Stans
14 11 (0.43%) IFRS
14 11 (0.43%) NCSC
15 10 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
15 10 (0.39%) HL7
15 10 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 9 (0.35%) GMP
System Software
1 100 (3.93%) Docker
2 81 (3.18%) Active Directory
3 60 (2.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.14%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.94%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.75%) Firmware
7 17 (0.67%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.67%) vSphere
8 14 (0.55%) Hyper-V
9 11 (0.43%) 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 (0.079%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.079%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.039%) etcd
12 1 (0.039%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.039%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.039%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 125 (4.91%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.06%) Ansible
3 39 (1.53%) Grafana
4 34 (1.33%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.94%) FortiGate
6 23 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
7 18 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (0.51%) vCenter Server
9 12 (0.47%) SCCM
10 10 (0.39%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.39%) VxRail
11 8 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
12 6 (0.24%) Argo
12 6 (0.24%) Progress Chef
13 5 (0.20%) Functional Safety
13 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
13 5 (0.20%) systemd
13 5 (0.20%) vRealize
14 4 (0.16%) Control-M
14 4 (0.16%) vMotion
Vendors
1 388 (15.23%) Microsoft
2 216 (8.48%) SAP
3 198 (7.77%) Oracle
4 145 (5.69%) Databricks
5 88 (3.46%) Salesforce
6 72 (2.83%) ServiceNow
7 70 (2.75%) Cisco
8 69 (2.71%) VMware
9 43 (1.69%) Workday
10 42 (1.65%) Google
11 34 (1.33%) IBM
12 29 (1.14%) Fortinet
12 29 (1.14%) Juniper
13 28 (1.10%) Informatica
13 28 (1.10%) Zscaler
14 22 (0.86%) Palo Alto
15 21 (0.82%) Splunk
16 17 (0.67%) CrowdStrike
16 17 (0.67%) MuleSoft
17 16 (0.63%) IFS