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 15 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 70 105
Rank change year-on-year +39 +35 +43
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,804 1,036 749
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.99% 3.68% 2.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 7.05% 4.05% 2.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,650 622 385
10th Percentile £350 £350 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -8.26%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £591
90th Percentile £705 £699 £650
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -6.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 198 77 94
10th Percentile £17.58 £20.50 £28.53
25th Percentile £27.25 £34.91 £47.63
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £63.25
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% +2.77% -6.30%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £53.50 £63.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year -16.08% +2.00% -7.41%

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 39,799 25,590 27,763
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.96% 90.90% 86.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,011 16,250 16,937
10th Percentile £325 £294 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,071 1,598 1,107
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.53 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £20.50
Median hourly rate £38.72 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.96% -40.82% -5.56%
75th Percentile £67.25 £44.78 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.50 £74.18
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -10.11%

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 15 October 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 15 October 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 15 October 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 +42 1,353 £525 - 219
North of England +49 380 £463 +2.78% 87
South East +9 339 £525 +5.00% 176
Midlands +46 328 £450 -5.26% 84
West Midlands +30 238 £451 -9.90% 53
North West +21 194 £470 +10.59% 40
South West +17 177 £525 -4.55% 102
Yorkshire +55 155 £471 -0.95% 29
East of England +2 150 £475 -5.00% 82
East Midlands +37 87 £438 -2.67% 31
North East -12 36 £425 -11.92% 19
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 96 (3.42%) Confluence
2 60 (2.14%) Apache Airflow
2 60 (2.14%) SharePoint
3 56 (2.00%) SAS
4 50 (1.78%) Apache Spark
5 39 (1.39%) Apache
6 23 (0.82%) CMS
7 19 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
8 10 (0.36%) Jupyter
9 9 (0.32%) IIS
9 9 (0.32%) WebLogic
10 8 (0.29%) Palantir Foundry
10 8 (0.29%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.25%) Sitecore CMS
12 6 (0.21%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
13 5 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 5 (0.18%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.14%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 192 (6.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (1.53%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (1.25%) MS Visio
4 33 (1.18%) Spreadsheet
5 31 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 15 (0.53%) AutoCAD
7 10 (0.36%) Navisworks
8 9 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
8 9 (0.32%) Revit
8 9 (0.32%) Simulink
9 7 (0.25%) ProjectWise
10 3 (0.11%) CATIA
10 3 (0.11%) Chatbot
10 3 (0.11%) LaTeX
10 3 (0.11%) OrCAD
11 2 (0.071%) Adobe XD
11 2 (0.071%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.071%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.071%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.036%) Trello
Business Applications
1 105 (3.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.64%) SAP FI
3 16 (0.57%) Workday HCM
4 15 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
5 13 (0.46%) NetSuite
6 12 (0.43%) Aladdin
6 12 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
6 12 (0.43%) Integrated Workplace Management System
6 12 (0.43%) SAP MDG
6 12 (0.43%) SAP SD
7 11 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
7 11 (0.39%) SAP HCM
7 11 (0.39%) SAP MM
7 11 (0.39%) Teamcenter
8 10 (0.36%) iTrent
9 9 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
9 9 (0.32%) SAP CO
10 8 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
10 8 (0.29%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.29%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 551 (19.65%) Azure
2 339 (12.09%) AWS
3 273 (9.74%) Power Platform
4 169 (6.03%) Azure DevOps
5 151 (5.39%) GCP
6 137 (4.89%) GitHub
7 102 (3.64%) Entra ID
8 100 (3.57%) Snowflake
9 70 (2.50%) Azure Data Factory
10 68 (2.43%) GitHub Actions
11 58 (2.07%) Amazon S3
11 58 (2.07%) Microsoft 365
12 55 (1.96%) dbt
13 53 (1.89%) SaaS
13 53 (1.89%) Serverless
14 45 (1.60%) SuccessFactors
15 42 (1.50%) Dynamics 365
16 37 (1.32%) Azure Monitor
17 34 (1.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 34 (1.21%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 103 (3.67%) Firewall
2 83 (2.96%) DNS
3 57 (2.03%) VPN
4 55 (1.96%) Network Security
5 54 (1.93%) VLAN
6 51 (1.82%) TCP/IP
7 47 (1.68%) BGP
8 40 (1.43%) WAN
9 33 (1.18%) DHCP
10 28 (1.00%) OSPF
11 23 (0.82%) Ethernet
11 23 (0.82%) VXLAN
12 22 (0.78%) Internet
13 21 (0.75%) Ethernet VPN
13 21 (0.75%) SAN
14 20 (0.71%) 5G
14 20 (0.71%) SD-WAN
14 20 (0.71%) Wireless
15 18 (0.64%) LAN
16 17 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 248 (8.84%) Power BI
2 147 (5.24%) Data Warehouse
3 124 (4.42%) Metadata
4 100 (3.57%) Relational Database
5 86 (3.07%) SQL Server
6 78 (2.78%) PostgreSQL
7 72 (2.57%) Data Lake
8 59 (2.10%) Tableau
9 41 (1.46%) Delta Lake
9 41 (1.46%) MongoDB
10 36 (1.28%) Power Query
11 35 (1.25%) Big Data
12 34 (1.21%) BigQuery
13 33 (1.18%) NoSQL
13 33 (1.18%) Redis
14 32 (1.14%) Oracle Database
15 24 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
15 24 (0.86%) MySQL
16 23 (0.82%) Amazon Athena
17 21 (0.75%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 258 (9.20%) JIRA
2 215 (7.67%) Git
3 98 (3.50%) Jenkins
4 97 (3.46%) GitLab
5 73 (2.60%) Selenium
6 40 (1.43%) Postman
7 32 (1.14%) JMeter
8 26 (0.93%) Cucumber
9 23 (0.82%) Rational DOORS
10 20 (0.71%) JUnit
11 17 (0.61%) Eclipse
11 17 (0.61%) Visual Studio
12 16 (0.57%) Cypress.io
12 16 (0.57%) REST Assured
13 15 (0.53%) WebDriver
14 13 (0.46%) Zephyr
15 12 (0.43%) TestRail
15 12 (0.43%) Visual Studio Code
16 11 (0.39%) Rational Rhapsody
17 10 (0.36%) Gradle
General
1 814 (29.03%) Finance
2 779 (27.78%) Social Skills
3 552 (19.69%) Analytical Skills
4 261 (9.31%) Banking
5 233 (8.31%) Public Sector
6 135 (4.81%) Manufacturing
7 108 (3.85%) Documentation Skills
8 82 (2.92%) Retail
9 71 (2.53%) Automotive
10 63 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 63 (2.25%) Telecoms
11 57 (2.03%) Aerospace
12 50 (1.78%) Marketing
13 46 (1.64%) Legal
14 44 (1.57%) Organisational Skills
14 44 (1.57%) Pharmaceutical
15 43 (1.53%) Local Government
16 40 (1.43%) General Ledger
17 39 (1.39%) Billing
17 39 (1.39%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 480 (17.12%) Analyst
2 335 (11.95%) Senior
3 257 (9.17%) Lead
4 241 (8.59%) Data Engineer
5 215 (7.67%) Consultant
6 214 (7.63%) Business Analyst
7 158 (5.63%) Developer
8 156 (5.56%) Data Analyst
9 153 (5.46%) Architect
10 107 (3.82%) Test Engineer
11 69 (2.46%) Network Engineer
12 67 (2.39%) Tester
13 61 (2.18%) Administrator
14 60 (2.14%) Senior Data Engineer
15 52 (1.85%) Systems Engineer
16 51 (1.82%) Software Engineer
17 43 (1.53%) Senior Analyst
18 42 (1.50%) QA Engineer
18 42 (1.50%) Test Analyst
19 40 (1.43%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 188 (6.70%) Terraform
2 171 (6.10%) REST
3 83 (2.96%) PySpark
4 81 (2.89%) JSON
5 71 (2.53%) Kafka
6 67 (2.39%) XML
7 63 (2.25%) Middleware
8 61 (2.18%) Playwright
9 49 (1.75%) OAuth
9 49 (1.75%) pytest
10 47 (1.68%) Oracle Fusion
11 40 (1.43%) Web Services
12 39 (1.39%) Spring
13 38 (1.36%) RESTful
13 38 (1.36%) SOAP
14 37 (1.32%) .NET
14 37 (1.32%) OpenID
15 36 (1.28%) Spring Boot
16 33 (1.18%) HTML
17 31 (1.11%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 169 (6.03%) Onboarding
2 151 (5.39%) Data Structures
3 141 (5.03%) Cloud Native
4 112 (3.99%) Management Information System
5 111 (3.96%) Legacy Systems
6 104 (3.71%) Product Ownership
7 88 (3.14%) Data Centre
8 69 (2.46%) Enterprise Software
9 65 (2.32%) AI Agents
10 46 (1.64%) Analytical Mindset
10 46 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
11 43 (1.53%) Algorithms
12 42 (1.50%) SCADA
13 40 (1.43%) Data Protection Act
14 39 (1.39%) Life Science
15 37 (1.32%) CMDB
16 35 (1.25%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 34 (1.21%) Operational Technology
18 32 (1.14%) Replication
19 31 (1.11%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 178 (6.35%) Windows
2 108 (3.85%) Linux
3 67 (2.39%) Windows Server
4 34 (1.21%) Unix
5 18 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.43%) Android
7 11 (0.39%) Ubuntu
8 10 (0.36%) Windows 10
9 7 (0.25%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.14%) zOS
11 3 (0.11%) CentOS
11 3 (0.11%) VMS
11 3 (0.11%) VxWorks
11 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.071%) HPUX
12 2 (0.071%) Solaris
12 2 (0.071%) SUSE
12 2 (0.071%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.036%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 767 (27.35%) Migration
2 642 (22.90%) Stakeholder Management
3 581 (20.72%) CI/CD
4 532 (18.97%) Agile
5 456 (16.26%) Data Migration
6 452 (16.12%) User Acceptance Testing
7 436 (15.55%) Data Modelling
8 426 (15.19%) Data Validation
9 423 (15.09%) Problem-Solving
10 422 (15.05%) Analytics
11 406 (14.48%) AI
12 399 (14.23%) Test Automation
13 395 (14.09%) DevOps
14 394 (14.05%) Continuous Improvement
15 324 (11.55%) ETL
16 291 (10.38%) Data Analysis
17 288 (10.27%) Data Pipeline
18 287 (10.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 281 (10.02%) Business Intelligence
19 281 (10.02%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 753 (26.85%) SQL
2 605 (21.58%) Python
3 130 (4.64%) Java
4 117 (4.17%) PowerShell
5 75 (2.67%) JavaScript
6 56 (2.00%) Bash
7 55 (1.96%) C#
8 47 (1.68%) TypeScript
9 42 (1.50%) C++
10 30 (1.07%) Bicep
11 28 (1.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 27 (0.96%) R
12 27 (0.96%) Shell Script
13 24 (0.86%) PL/SQL
14 23 (0.82%) Apex Code
15 22 (0.78%) C
15 22 (0.78%) VBA
16 17 (0.61%) MATLAB
17 16 (0.57%) Go
18 14 (0.50%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 577 (20.58%) Security Cleared
2 441 (15.73%) SC Cleared
3 216 (7.70%) Degree
4 95 (3.39%) DV Cleared
5 60 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.64%) Computer Science Degree
7 45 (1.60%) AWS Certification
8 35 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
9 34 (1.21%) ACCA
9 34 (1.21%) CIMA
10 32 (1.14%) ISTQB
11 27 (0.96%) PMI Certification
12 25 (0.89%) CCNP
13 24 (0.86%) Azure Certification
14 23 (0.82%) CISSP
15 22 (0.78%) PMP
16 21 (0.75%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 21 (0.75%) Master's Degree
17 19 (0.68%) DBS Check
17 19 (0.68%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 592 (21.11%) Data Quality
2 325 (11.59%) QA
3 84 (3.00%) GDPR
4 51 (1.82%) Accessibility
5 45 (1.60%) SLA
6 34 (1.21%) NIST
7 33 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 30 (1.07%) PMO
9 24 (0.86%) GxP
10 18 (0.64%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 18 (0.64%) Actionable Recommendations
11 17 (0.61%) WCAG
12 15 (0.53%) GRC
13 13 (0.46%) IFRS
13 13 (0.46%) ISO 20022
14 11 (0.39%) GMP
15 10 (0.36%) Def Stans
15 10 (0.36%) NCSC
16 9 (0.32%) MiFID
17 8 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 116 (4.14%) Docker
2 112 (3.99%) Active Directory
3 66 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.00%) Virtual Machines
5 25 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.61%) Firmware
8 16 (0.57%) vSphere
9 15 (0.53%) Hyper-V
10 14 (0.50%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.14%) VirtualBox
12 3 (0.11%) KVM
13 2 (0.071%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.071%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.071%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.036%) Ceph
14 1 (0.036%) HDFS
14 1 (0.036%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.036%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 1 (0.036%) NFS
Systems Management
1 148 (5.28%) Kubernetes
2 97 (3.46%) Ansible
3 38 (1.36%) Grafana
4 32 (1.14%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.86%) Microsoft Intune
6 23 (0.82%) FortiGate
7 21 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.64%) SCCM
9 10 (0.36%) Functional Safety
9 10 (0.36%) HP ALM
9 10 (0.36%) Progress Chef
10 9 (0.32%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.29%) Argo
12 6 (0.21%) Control-M
12 6 (0.21%) VxRail
13 5 (0.18%) vRealize
14 4 (0.14%) Kibana
14 4 (0.14%) Podman
14 4 (0.14%) systemd
14 4 (0.14%) vMotion
Vendors
1 453 (16.16%) Microsoft
2 238 (8.49%) SAP
3 198 (7.06%) Oracle
4 173 (6.17%) Databricks
5 88 (3.14%) ServiceNow
6 83 (2.96%) Salesforce
7 79 (2.82%) Cisco
8 75 (2.67%) VMware
9 73 (2.60%) Google
10 52 (1.85%) Workday
11 51 (1.82%) IBM
12 32 (1.14%) Fortinet
13 30 (1.07%) Juniper
14 28 (1.00%) Informatica
14 28 (1.00%) Zscaler
15 24 (0.86%) Palo Alto
16 23 (0.82%) CyberArk
16 23 (0.82%) Splunk
17 19 (0.68%) Arista
18 17 (0.61%) Sage