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

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 66 104
Rank change year-on-year +34 +38 +44
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,622 1,048 735
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.66% 3.77% 2.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.69% 4.15% 2.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,552 627 363
10th Percentile £340 £332 £321
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £495
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +3.54% -10.00%
75th Percentile £600 £632 £589
90th Percentile £712 £700 £658
UK median daily rate £500 £511 £500
% change year-on-year -2.20% +2.25% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 177 79 100
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £29.98
25th Percentile £26.95 £41.25 £50.25
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £72.75 £67.00 £71.50
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £52.75 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -18.85% - -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 39,208 25,244 28,362
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.66% 90.88% 86.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,936 16,028 17,611
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £421
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £626 £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 2,812 1,512 1,298
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.74 £17.77 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.41 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.61% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £68.00 £49.56 £66.50
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 20 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 20 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 20 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 +32 1,284 £525 - 1,950
North of England +47 341 £450 +4.65% 395
South East +5 331 £525 +5.00% 617
Midlands +37 305 £473 +2.27% 337
West Midlands +25 214 £464 +3.02% 230
North West +18 163 £450 +5.88% 222
Yorkshire +46 153 £460 -3.16% 110
South West +16 151 £525 -4.55% 324
East of England -3 138 £450 -11.33% 348
East Midlands +25 87 £489 -2.25% 106
North East -25 30 £425 -11.92% 65
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 75 (2.86%) Confluence
2 62 (2.36%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (2.10%) SharePoint
4 46 (1.75%) SAS
5 41 (1.56%) Apache Spark
6 28 (1.07%) Apache
7 17 (0.65%) Microsoft Exchange
8 15 (0.57%) CMS
9 10 (0.38%) 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
1 195 (7.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.56%) Microsoft Office
3 33 (1.26%) Spreadsheet
4 32 (1.22%) MS Visio
5 30 (1.14%) 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
1 103 (3.93%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.53%) Oracle EBS
2 14 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
3 13 (0.50%) NetSuite
4 12 (0.46%) SAP MDG
4 12 (0.46%) SAP SD
4 12 (0.46%) Teamcenter
5 11 (0.42%) SAP FI
5 11 (0.42%) Workday HCM
6 10 (0.38%) Aladdin
6 10 (0.38%) iTrent
6 10 (0.38%) SAP MM
7 9 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
7 9 (0.34%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.34%) SAP HCM
8 8 (0.31%) SAP CO
9 7 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
9 7 (0.27%) Oracle Financials
9 7 (0.27%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 539 (20.56%) Azure
2 308 (11.75%) AWS
3 262 (9.99%) Power Platform
4 154 (5.87%) Azure DevOps
5 139 (5.30%) GCP
6 124 (4.73%) GitHub
7 95 (3.62%) Snowflake
8 83 (3.17%) Entra ID
9 64 (2.44%) Azure Data Factory
9 64 (2.44%) GitHub Actions
10 55 (2.10%) dbt
11 50 (1.91%) Serverless
12 49 (1.87%) Amazon S3
13 48 (1.83%) Microsoft 365
13 48 (1.83%) SaaS
14 35 (1.33%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 35 (1.33%) SuccessFactors
15 33 (1.26%) Azure Monitor
16 30 (1.14%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 28 (1.07%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 102 (3.89%) Firewall
2 69 (2.63%) DNS
3 59 (2.25%) VLAN
4 55 (2.10%) Network Security
5 49 (1.87%) 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 (0.72%) Ethernet
13 19 (0.72%) Ethernet VPN
14 16 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 244 (9.31%) Power BI
2 142 (5.42%) Data Warehouse
3 106 (4.04%) Metadata
4 90 (3.43%) Relational Database
5 75 (2.86%) SQL Server
6 72 (2.75%) Data Lake
7 66 (2.52%) PostgreSQL
7 66 (2.52%) Tableau
8 36 (1.37%) Big Data
8 36 (1.37%) MongoDB
9 35 (1.33%) BigQuery
10 34 (1.30%) Delta Lake
11 33 (1.26%) Oracle Database
12 32 (1.22%) Power Query
13 31 (1.18%) NoSQL
14 30 (1.14%) Redis
15 27 (1.03%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 25 (0.95%) Amazon Athena
17 24 (0.92%) MySQL
18 22 (0.84%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 233 (8.89%) JIRA
2 198 (7.55%) Git
3 90 (3.43%) Jenkins
4 84 (3.20%) GitLab
5 72 (2.75%) Selenium
6 36 (1.37%) Postman
7 30 (1.14%) JMeter
8 24 (0.92%) Cucumber
9 23 (0.88%) Rational DOORS
10 17 (0.65%) Eclipse
10 17 (0.65%) WebDriver
11 16 (0.61%) JUnit
11 16 (0.61%) Visual Studio
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
1 761 (29.02%) Finance
2 755 (28.79%) Social Skills
3 527 (20.10%) Analytical Skills
4 235 (8.96%) Banking
5 206 (7.86%) Public Sector
6 122 (4.65%) Documentation Skills
7 108 (4.12%) Manufacturing
8 88 (3.36%) Retail
9 66 (2.52%) Automotive
10 60 (2.29%) Telecoms
11 59 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 50 (1.91%) Marketing
13 48 (1.83%) Aerospace
14 47 (1.79%) Organisational Skills
15 43 (1.64%) Legal
16 41 (1.56%) Front Office
17 40 (1.53%) Local Government
18 39 (1.49%) Influencing Skills
18 39 (1.49%) Pharmaceutical
19 36 (1.37%) Law
Job Titles
1 453 (17.28%) Analyst
2 299 (11.40%) Senior
3 246 (9.38%) Lead
4 207 (7.89%) Data Engineer
5 204 (7.78%) Business Analyst
6 194 (7.40%) Consultant
7 161 (6.14%) Developer
8 141 (5.38%) Architect
9 135 (5.15%) Data Analyst
10 104 (3.97%) Test Engineer
11 67 (2.56%) Network Engineer
12 65 (2.48%) Tester
13 57 (2.17%) Systems Engineer
14 55 (2.10%) Administrator
15 53 (2.02%) Senior Data Engineer
16 50 (1.91%) Software Engineer
17 42 (1.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 41 (1.56%) Project Manager
19 40 (1.53%) Senior Analyst
19 40 (1.53%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 158 (6.03%) REST
2 154 (5.87%) Terraform
3 79 (3.01%) JSON
4 78 (2.97%) PySpark
5 67 (2.56%) Kafka
6 62 (2.36%) XML
7 55 (2.10%) Middleware
8 52 (1.98%) Playwright
9 43 (1.64%) Oracle Fusion
9 43 (1.64%) pytest
10 39 (1.49%) SOAP
11 37 (1.41%) .NET
11 37 (1.41%) OAuth
11 37 (1.41%) Web Services
12 35 (1.33%) Pandas
12 35 (1.33%) RESTful
13 34 (1.30%) Node.js
14 33 (1.26%) HTML
14 33 (1.26%) Spring
15 30 (1.14%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 150 (5.72%) Onboarding
2 134 (5.11%) Data Structures
3 122 (4.65%) Cloud Native
4 109 (4.16%) Legacy Systems
5 96 (3.66%) Management Information System
5 96 (3.66%) Product Ownership
6 80 (3.05%) Data Centre
7 50 (1.91%) AI Agents
8 48 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
9 43 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
10 42 (1.60%) Analytical Mindset
10 42 (1.60%) SCADA
11 39 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
12 37 (1.41%) Algorithms
13 34 (1.30%) Operational Technology
14 33 (1.26%) CMDB
14 33 (1.26%) Life Science
15 31 (1.18%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 31 (1.18%) Reference Data
16 30 (1.14%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 161 (6.14%) Windows
2 104 (3.97%) Linux
3 57 (2.17%) Windows Server
4 30 (1.14%) Unix
5 21 (0.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (0.57%) Android
7 11 (0.42%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.34%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.31%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.27%) VMS
11 4 (0.15%) SUSE
11 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.11%) VxWorks
12 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.076%) CentOS
13 2 (0.076%) HPUX
13 2 (0.076%) Solaris
13 2 (0.076%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.038%) AIX
14 1 (0.038%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 704 (26.85%) Migration
2 573 (21.85%) Stakeholder Management
3 521 (19.87%) CI/CD
4 497 (18.95%) Agile
5 415 (15.83%) User Acceptance Testing
6 411 (15.68%) Analytics
6 411 (15.68%) Data Modelling
7 406 (15.48%) Data Validation
8 403 (15.37%) Data Migration
9 399 (15.22%) Problem-Solving
10 368 (14.04%) AI
11 358 (13.65%) DevOps
12 354 (13.50%) Test Automation
13 335 (12.78%) Continuous Improvement
14 301 (11.48%) ETL
15 277 (10.56%) Business Intelligence
15 277 (10.56%) Data Analysis
16 271 (10.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 265 (10.11%) Data Pipeline
18 262 (9.99%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 680 (25.93%) SQL
2 541 (20.63%) Python
3 124 (4.73%) Java
4 94 (3.59%) PowerShell
5 65 (2.48%) JavaScript
6 54 (2.06%) Bash
7 52 (1.98%) C#
8 42 (1.60%) C++
9 35 (1.33%) 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 13 (0.50%) T-SQL
18 12 (0.46%) Scala
Qualifications
1 509 (19.41%) Security Cleared
2 372 (14.19%) SC Cleared
3 192 (7.32%) Degree
4 83 (3.17%) DV Cleared
5 50 (1.91%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.75%) Computer Science Degree
7 37 (1.41%) Cisco Certification
8 33 (1.26%) AWS Certification
9 29 (1.11%) CCNP
10 28 (1.07%) ACCA
10 28 (1.07%) CIMA
11 23 (0.88%) Azure Certification
11 23 (0.88%) PMI Certification
12 21 (0.80%) ISTQB
13 19 (0.72%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 19 (0.72%) CISSP
13 19 (0.72%) PMP
14 17 (0.65%) Master's Degree
15 15 (0.57%) Microsoft Certification
16 11 (0.42%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 539 (20.56%) Data Quality
2 316 (12.05%) QA
3 82 (3.13%) GDPR
4 45 (1.72%) Accessibility
5 38 (1.45%) SLA
6 36 (1.37%) NIST
7 33 (1.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 31 (1.18%) PMO
9 21 (0.80%) GxP
10 18 (0.69%) WCAG
11 16 (0.61%) ISO 20022
12 15 (0.57%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 15 (0.57%) GRC
13 13 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.42%) Def Stans
14 11 (0.42%) IFRS
14 11 (0.42%) NCSC
15 10 (0.38%) MiFID
16 9 (0.34%) GMP
17 8 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 100 (3.81%) Docker
2 86 (3.28%) Active Directory
3 63 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.14%) Virtual Machines
5 25 (0.95%) VMware ESXi
6 21 (0.80%) Firmware
7 19 (0.72%) 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
1 123 (4.69%) Kubernetes
2 86 (3.28%) Ansible
3 38 (1.45%) 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 16 (0.61%) 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
11 8 (0.31%) Progress Chef
12 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
12 5 (0.19%) systemd
12 5 (0.19%) vRealize
13 4 (0.15%) Kibana
13 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 402 (15.33%) Microsoft
2 213 (8.12%) SAP
3 199 (7.59%) Oracle
4 151 (5.76%) Databricks
5 86 (3.28%) Salesforce
6 76 (2.90%) Cisco
7 75 (2.86%) ServiceNow
8 71 (2.71%) VMware
9 52 (1.98%) Google
10 47 (1.79%) Workday
11 41 (1.56%) IBM
12 31 (1.18%) Fortinet
13 30 (1.14%) Zscaler
14 29 (1.11%) Juniper
15 27 (1.03%) Informatica
16 23 (0.88%) Palo Alto
17 22 (0.84%) Splunk
18 17 (0.65%) Red Hat
19 16 (0.61%) MuleSoft
19 16 (0.61%) Siemens