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

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 67 113
Rank change year-on-year +33 +46 +41
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,447 1,025 675
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.37% 3.68% 2.03%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.31% 4.06% 2.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,494 624 338
10th Percentile £350 £350 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £478
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +8.90% -13.18%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £588
90th Percentile £712 £700 £664
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £488
% change year-on-year -2.91% +5.53% -11.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 165 80 119
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £29.95
25th Percentile £29.25 £36.42 £51.25
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% +3.17%
75th Percentile £75.00 £67.00 £69.38
90th Percentile £83.45 £75.25 £75.37
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 38,771 25,264 28,522
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.11% 90.78% 85.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,101 16,147 18,629
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 £756
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,535 1,418 1,654
10th Percentile £14.56 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.87 £18.39
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +2.19%
75th Percentile £68.75 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.05 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £40.94
% change year-on-year +68.99% -38.57% -3.67%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 +40 1,175 £525 +0.96% 764
South East +3 317 £501 +0.25% 314
Midlands +36 315 £475 +5.56% 189
North of England +52 303 £450 -9.09% 209
West Midlands +32 223 £468 +3.94% 117
North West +24 154 £450 -21.40% 121
East of England +6 148 £475 -6.40% 150
Yorkshire +41 135 £453 +4.08% 48
South West -8 127 £525 -8.70% 171
East Midlands +28 87 £505 +11.00% 72
North East -35 18 £425 -22.73% 43
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 73 (2.98%) Confluence
2 65 (2.66%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (1.92%) SAS
4 42 (1.72%) SharePoint
5 38 (1.55%) Apache Spark
6 28 (1.14%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) Jupyter
8 10 (0.41%) CMS
8 10 (0.41%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.33%) SharePoint 2013
10 6 (0.25%) ArcGIS
11 5 (0.20%) Palantir Foundry
11 5 (0.20%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) IIS
12 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.12%) JBoss
13 3 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 176 (7.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.39%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (1.39%) MS Visio
3 25 (1.02%) Spreadsheet
4 24 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.49%) AutoCAD
6 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
7 7 (0.29%) Navisworks
7 7 (0.29%) Revit
8 6 (0.25%) Simulink
9 5 (0.20%) ProjectWise
10 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.12%) CATIA
12 2 (0.082%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.082%) EPLAN
13 1 (0.041%) Adobe XD
13 1 (0.041%) Autodesk Inventor
13 1 (0.041%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.041%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.041%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 108 (4.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (1.10%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.57%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.53%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.49%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.49%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 11 (0.45%) iTrent
6 11 (0.45%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
7 10 (0.41%) Teamcenter
8 9 (0.37%) Aladdin
8 9 (0.37%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.37%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.33%) Dynamics CRM
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
9 8 (0.33%) Sage X3
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle Financials
10 7 (0.29%) SAP SD
10 7 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 6 (0.25%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 551 (22.52%) Azure
2 295 (12.06%) AWS
3 257 (10.50%) Power Platform
4 137 (5.60%) Azure DevOps
5 136 (5.56%) GCP
6 119 (4.86%) GitHub
7 84 (3.43%) Snowflake
8 70 (2.86%) Azure Data Factory
9 66 (2.70%) Entra ID
9 66 (2.70%) GitHub Actions
10 55 (2.25%) Serverless
11 45 (1.84%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 44 (1.80%) dbt
12 44 (1.80%) Microsoft 365
12 44 (1.80%) SaaS
13 41 (1.68%) Amazon S3
14 40 (1.63%) OCI
15 37 (1.51%) SuccessFactors
16 30 (1.23%) Azure Monitor
17 27 (1.10%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 102 (4.17%) Firewall
2 63 (2.57%) Network Security
3 61 (2.49%) DNS
4 46 (1.88%) VLAN
5 44 (1.80%) VPN
6 43 (1.76%) TCP/IP
7 35 (1.43%) WAN
8 30 (1.23%) BGP
9 27 (1.10%) DHCP
10 23 (0.94%) Internet
11 20 (0.82%) LAN
11 20 (0.82%) OSPF
11 20 (0.82%) SAN
11 20 (0.82%) Wireless
12 19 (0.78%) SD-WAN
13 15 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
14 13 (0.53%) Ethernet
15 12 (0.49%) 5G
15 12 (0.49%) Cisco ISE
16 11 (0.45%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 238 (9.73%) Power BI
2 146 (5.97%) Data Warehouse
3 97 (3.96%) Metadata
4 79 (3.23%) Data Lake
5 76 (3.11%) PostgreSQL
6 75 (3.06%) SQL Server
7 71 (2.90%) Tableau
8 67 (2.74%) Relational Database
9 38 (1.55%) Big Data
10 31 (1.27%) MongoDB
11 30 (1.23%) NoSQL
12 28 (1.14%) BigQuery
12 28 (1.14%) Delta Lake
12 28 (1.14%) Oracle Database
12 28 (1.14%) SAS Enterprise Guide
13 25 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 24 (0.98%) Power Query
15 23 (0.94%) Oracle Reports
16 22 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
17 21 (0.86%) Redis
Development Applications
1 226 (9.24%) JIRA
2 166 (6.78%) Git
3 91 (3.72%) Jenkins
4 70 (2.86%) GitLab
5 61 (2.49%) Selenium
6 40 (1.63%) JMeter
7 37 (1.51%) Cucumber
8 36 (1.47%) Postman
9 35 (1.43%) JUnit
10 33 (1.35%) WebDriver
11 23 (0.94%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.74%) Eclipse
13 15 (0.61%) Visual Studio
14 13 (0.53%) Rational Rhapsody
15 12 (0.49%) Gatling
16 10 (0.41%) Maven
17 9 (0.37%) ERwin
17 9 (0.37%) Gradle
17 9 (0.37%) REST Assured
18 8 (0.33%) TestRail
General
1 714 (29.18%) Finance
2 705 (28.81%) Social Skills
3 474 (19.37%) Analytical Skills
4 203 (8.30%) Public Sector
5 189 (7.72%) Banking
6 128 (5.23%) Documentation Skills
7 88 (3.60%) Manufacturing
8 87 (3.56%) Retail
9 58 (2.37%) Aerospace
10 53 (2.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 47 (1.92%) Pharmaceutical
12 46 (1.88%) Telecoms
13 43 (1.76%) Organisational Skills
14 42 (1.72%) Automotive
15 39 (1.59%) Local Government
15 39 (1.59%) Marketing
16 37 (1.51%) Front Office
17 35 (1.43%) Law
18 34 (1.39%) Influencing Skills
19 33 (1.35%) Military
Job Titles
1 418 (17.08%) Analyst
2 260 (10.63%) Senior
3 247 (10.09%) Lead
4 207 (8.46%) Data Engineer
5 196 (8.01%) Business Analyst
6 179 (7.32%) Consultant
7 142 (5.80%) Developer
8 129 (5.27%) Architect
9 123 (5.03%) Data Analyst
10 100 (4.09%) Test Engineer
11 72 (2.94%) Tester
12 65 (2.66%) Project Manager
13 55 (2.25%) Network Engineer
14 50 (2.04%) Systems Engineer
15 47 (1.92%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 46 (1.88%) Administrator
17 45 (1.84%) Senior Data Engineer
18 40 (1.63%) Technical Analyst
19 39 (1.59%) Migration Engineer
20 38 (1.55%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 123 (5.03%) REST
2 74 (3.02%) JSON
3 71 (2.90%) Kafka
4 64 (2.62%) PySpark
5 61 (2.49%) XML
6 49 (2.00%) Oracle Fusion
7 42 (1.72%) Spring
8 39 (1.59%) .NET
8 39 (1.59%) Middleware
9 38 (1.55%) pytest
10 34 (1.39%) Playwright
11 31 (1.27%) RESTful
12 30 (1.23%) Pandas
12 30 (1.23%) SOAP
13 28 (1.14%) Node.js
14 27 (1.10%) Web Services
15 25 (1.02%) OAuth
15 25 (1.02%) WireMock
16 23 (0.94%) Spring Boot
17 22 (0.90%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 136 (5.56%) Onboarding
2 134 (5.48%) Data Structures
3 115 (4.70%) Legacy Systems
4 105 (4.29%) Cloud Native
5 100 (4.09%) Product Ownership
6 71 (2.90%) Management Information System
7 68 (2.78%) Data Centre
8 47 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
9 46 (1.88%) Analytical Mindset
10 40 (1.63%) SCADA
11 39 (1.59%) AI Agents
12 37 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
13 35 (1.43%) Data Protection Act
14 33 (1.35%) Life Science
15 32 (1.31%) Hybrid Cloud
15 32 (1.31%) Public Cloud
16 30 (1.23%) Algorithms
16 30 (1.23%) Operational Technology
16 30 (1.23%) Replication
17 28 (1.14%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 131 (5.35%) Windows
2 91 (3.72%) Linux
3 41 (1.68%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.94%) Unix
5 18 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.45%) Android
6 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.29%) VMS
8 6 (0.25%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.20%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.16%) SUSE
10 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.082%) HPUX
11 2 (0.082%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.041%) Debian
12 1 (0.041%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.041%) Solaris
12 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.041%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 674 (27.54%) Migration
2 470 (19.21%) Stakeholder Management
3 467 (19.08%) Agile
4 447 (18.27%) CI/CD
5 408 (16.67%) Analytics
6 405 (16.55%) Data Migration
7 397 (16.22%) User Acceptance Testing
8 390 (15.94%) Data Modelling
8 390 (15.94%) Data Validation
9 381 (15.57%) Problem-Solving
10 323 (13.20%) DevOps
11 318 (13.00%) AI
12 304 (12.42%) Test Automation
13 300 (12.26%) Continuous Improvement
14 298 (12.18%) ETL
15 275 (11.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 268 (10.95%) Business Intelligence
17 257 (10.50%) Data Pipeline
18 256 (10.46%) Data Governance
19 233 (9.52%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 609 (24.89%) SQL
2 457 (18.68%) Python
3 116 (4.74%) Java
4 70 (2.86%) PowerShell
5 49 (2.00%) C#
6 45 (1.84%) Bash
7 44 (1.80%) JavaScript
8 37 (1.51%) C++
9 31 (1.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 27 (1.10%) Apex Code
11 26 (1.06%) TypeScript
12 25 (1.02%) Bicep
12 25 (1.02%) PL/SQL
13 24 (0.98%) VBA
14 23 (0.94%) C
15 22 (0.90%) R
16 15 (0.61%) MATLAB
17 13 (0.53%) Scala
17 13 (0.53%) T-SQL
18 12 (0.49%) Ada
Qualifications
1 451 (18.43%) Security Cleared
2 323 (13.20%) SC Cleared
3 169 (6.91%) Degree
4 65 (2.66%) DV Cleared
5 49 (2.00%) BPSS Clearance
6 40 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
7 35 (1.43%) Cisco Certification
8 27 (1.10%) CCNP
9 22 (0.90%) ACCA
10 21 (0.86%) CIMA
10 21 (0.86%) PMI Certification
11 18 (0.74%) AWS Certification
11 18 (0.74%) ISTQB
11 18 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
12 17 (0.69%) Azure Certification
12 17 (0.69%) CISSP
12 17 (0.69%) PMP
13 11 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 11 (0.45%) CCNA
13 11 (0.45%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 478 (19.53%) Data Quality
2 300 (12.26%) QA
3 101 (4.13%) GDPR
4 49 (2.00%) NIST
5 43 (1.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 35 (1.43%) Accessibility
7 32 (1.31%) PMO
8 28 (1.14%) SLA
9 21 (0.86%) GxP
10 15 (0.61%) GRC
11 14 (0.57%) Def Stans
11 14 (0.57%) ISO 20022
12 13 (0.53%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.49%) HL7
13 12 (0.49%) NCSC
13 12 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.45%) IFRS
14 11 (0.45%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.45%) WCAG
System Software
1 110 (4.50%) Docker
2 79 (3.23%) Active Directory
3 55 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.23%) Virtual Machines
5 22 (0.90%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.61%) Firmware
7 14 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
8 13 (0.53%) vSphere
9 10 (0.41%) Hyper-V
9 10 (0.41%) 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 (0.082%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.082%) NFS
11 2 (0.082%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.041%) Embedded Firmware
12 1 (0.041%) etcd
12 1 (0.041%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 143 (5.84%) Kubernetes
2 119 (4.86%) Terraform
3 58 (2.37%) Ansible
4 47 (1.92%) Grafana
5 46 (1.88%) Prometheus
6 22 (0.90%) FortiGate
6 22 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
7 20 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
8 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
9 10 (0.41%) VxRail
10 9 (0.37%) SCCM
11 6 (0.25%) Failover Clustering
11 6 (0.25%) HP ALM
12 5 (0.20%) Argo
12 5 (0.20%) CASB
12 5 (0.20%) systemd
12 5 (0.20%) vRealize
13 4 (0.16%) Nessus
13 4 (0.16%) Puppet
14 3 (0.12%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 362 (14.79%) Microsoft
2 215 (8.79%) SAP
3 205 (8.38%) Oracle
4 137 (5.60%) Databricks
5 81 (3.31%) Salesforce
6 65 (2.66%) VMware
7 63 (2.57%) ServiceNow
8 53 (2.17%) Cisco
9 44 (1.80%) Workday
10 40 (1.63%) Google
11 31 (1.27%) Informatica
12 30 (1.23%) Splunk
13 28 (1.14%) Juniper
14 27 (1.10%) Fortinet
14 27 (1.10%) IBM
15 26 (1.06%) Zscaler
16 23 (0.94%) Palo Alto
17 22 (0.90%) MuleSoft
18 21 (0.86%) Sage
19 20 (0.82%) IFS