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

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 63 100
Rank change year-on-year +31 +37 +50
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,724 1,039 743
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.89% 3.70% 2.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.94% 4.07% 2.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,603 620 380
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% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £591
90th Percentile £710 £700 £651
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 79 94
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £28.53
25th Percentile £28.25 £36.37 £47.63
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £63.25
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% +2.77% -6.34%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £53.50 £62.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year -14.40% - -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 39,257 25,497 27,959
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.86% 90.90% 86.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,690 16,157 17,059
10th Percentile £325 £293 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £416
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% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,996 1,590 1,150
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.54 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.33 £17.87 £20.30
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -4.49%
75th Percentile £67.47 £45.00 £67.38
90th Percentile £78.88 £67.28 £74.88
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.16
% change year-on-year +49.11% -37.38% -8.38%

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 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 10 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 10 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 +39 1,321 £525 - 1,959
North of England +52 366 £460 +4.55% 407
South East +9 333 £525 +5.00% 605
Midlands +41 306 £458 -3.68% 376
West Midlands +34 221 £451 -11.23% 243
North West +22 187 £472 +11.06% 217
South West +21 177 £525 -4.33% 306
Yorkshire +61 150 £463 -2.63% 131
East of England -5 146 £475 -5.00% 349
East Midlands +34 82 £490 +8.89% 133
North East -20 34 £425 -11.92% 60
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 88 (3.23%) Confluence
2 59 (2.17%) Apache Airflow
3 58 (2.13%) SharePoint
4 48 (1.76%) Apache Spark
5 42 (1.54%) SAS
6 38 (1.40%) Apache
7 23 (0.84%) CMS
8 19 (0.70%) Microsoft Exchange
9 10 (0.37%) Jupyter
10 8 (0.29%) Palantir Foundry
10 8 (0.29%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.26%) IIS
11 7 (0.26%) Sitecore CMS
11 7 (0.26%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 5 (0.18%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.15%) JBoss
14 4 (0.15%) Tomcat
Applications
1 187 (6.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.51%) Microsoft Office
3 34 (1.25%) MS Visio
4 31 (1.14%) Spreadsheet
5 30 (1.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 15 (0.55%) AutoCAD
7 10 (0.37%) Navisworks
8 9 (0.33%) Revit
8 9 (0.33%) Simulink
9 7 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
9 7 (0.26%) ProjectWise
10 3 (0.11%) CATIA
10 3 (0.11%) Chatbot
10 3 (0.11%) LaTeX
10 3 (0.11%) OrCAD
11 2 (0.073%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.073%) EPLAN
12 1 (0.037%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.037%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.037%) Trello
Business Applications
1 101 (3.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.62%) SAP FI
3 16 (0.59%) Workday HCM
4 14 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
5 13 (0.48%) NetSuite
6 12 (0.44%) Aladdin
6 12 (0.44%) Integrated Workplace Management System
6 12 (0.44%) Oracle EBS
6 12 (0.44%) SAP SD
7 11 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
7 11 (0.40%) SAP HCM
7 11 (0.40%) SAP MDG
7 11 (0.40%) SAP MM
7 11 (0.40%) Teamcenter
8 10 (0.37%) iTrent
9 9 (0.33%) SAP CO
10 8 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
10 8 (0.29%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.29%) SAP PM
11 7 (0.26%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 541 (19.86%) Azure
2 317 (11.64%) AWS
3 267 (9.80%) Power Platform
4 165 (6.06%) Azure DevOps
5 150 (5.51%) GCP
6 127 (4.66%) GitHub
7 98 (3.60%) Entra ID
8 97 (3.56%) Snowflake
9 69 (2.53%) Azure Data Factory
10 67 (2.46%) GitHub Actions
11 56 (2.06%) dbt
12 55 (2.02%) Amazon S3
13 54 (1.98%) Microsoft 365
14 51 (1.87%) SaaS
15 48 (1.76%) Serverless
16 44 (1.62%) SuccessFactors
17 39 (1.43%) Dynamics 365
18 37 (1.36%) Azure Monitor
19 33 (1.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
20 32 (1.17%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 97 (3.56%) Firewall
2 78 (2.86%) DNS
3 56 (2.06%) VPN
4 54 (1.98%) Network Security
5 52 (1.91%) VLAN
6 50 (1.84%) TCP/IP
7 46 (1.69%) BGP
8 38 (1.40%) WAN
9 33 (1.21%) DHCP
10 27 (0.99%) OSPF
11 23 (0.84%) Ethernet
12 22 (0.81%) Internet
12 22 (0.81%) VXLAN
13 21 (0.77%) Ethernet VPN
13 21 (0.77%) SAN
14 20 (0.73%) 5G
14 20 (0.73%) Wireless
15 19 (0.70%) SD-WAN
16 18 (0.66%) LAN
17 17 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 244 (8.96%) Power BI
2 144 (5.29%) Data Warehouse
3 121 (4.44%) Metadata
4 97 (3.56%) Relational Database
5 84 (3.08%) SQL Server
6 76 (2.79%) PostgreSQL
7 70 (2.57%) Data Lake
8 59 (2.17%) Tableau
9 40 (1.47%) MongoDB
10 39 (1.43%) Delta Lake
11 35 (1.28%) Big Data
11 35 (1.28%) BigQuery
11 35 (1.28%) Power Query
12 34 (1.25%) NoSQL
13 33 (1.21%) Redis
14 32 (1.17%) Oracle Database
15 24 (0.88%) MySQL
16 23 (0.84%) Amazon Redshift
17 22 (0.81%) Amazon Athena
18 21 (0.77%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 246 (9.03%) JIRA
2 201 (7.38%) Git
3 90 (3.30%) GitLab
4 88 (3.23%) Jenkins
5 71 (2.61%) Selenium
6 39 (1.43%) Postman
7 30 (1.10%) JMeter
8 24 (0.88%) Cucumber
8 24 (0.88%) Rational DOORS
9 17 (0.62%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.62%) Visual Studio
10 16 (0.59%) JUnit
11 15 (0.55%) WebDriver
12 14 (0.51%) Cypress.io
12 14 (0.51%) REST Assured
13 13 (0.48%) Zephyr
14 12 (0.44%) TestRail
14 12 (0.44%) Visual Studio Code
15 11 (0.40%) Rational Rhapsody
16 10 (0.37%) Gatling
General
1 788 (28.93%) Finance
2 767 (28.16%) Social Skills
3 537 (19.71%) Analytical Skills
4 252 (9.25%) Banking
5 223 (8.19%) Public Sector
6 127 (4.66%) Manufacturing
7 105 (3.85%) Documentation Skills
8 83 (3.05%) Retail
9 71 (2.61%) Automotive
10 63 (2.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 62 (2.28%) Telecoms
12 54 (1.98%) Aerospace
13 48 (1.76%) Marketing
14 43 (1.58%) Local Government
14 43 (1.58%) Organisational Skills
15 42 (1.54%) Legal
16 41 (1.51%) Pharmaceutical
17 39 (1.43%) Billing
18 38 (1.40%) General Ledger
18 38 (1.40%) Military
Job Titles
1 462 (16.96%) Analyst
2 325 (11.93%) Senior
3 251 (9.21%) Lead
4 226 (8.30%) Data Engineer
5 214 (7.86%) Consultant
6 206 (7.56%) Business Analyst
7 158 (5.80%) Developer
8 150 (5.51%) Architect
9 147 (5.40%) Data Analyst
10 105 (3.85%) Test Engineer
11 68 (2.50%) Network Engineer
12 67 (2.46%) Tester
13 60 (2.20%) Administrator
13 60 (2.20%) Senior Data Engineer
14 52 (1.91%) Systems Engineer
15 51 (1.87%) Software Engineer
16 41 (1.51%) QA Engineer
17 40 (1.47%) Senior Analyst
18 39 (1.43%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 39 (1.43%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 181 (6.64%) Terraform
2 166 (6.09%) REST
3 82 (3.01%) PySpark
4 77 (2.83%) JSON
5 65 (2.39%) Kafka
5 65 (2.39%) XML
6 61 (2.24%) Middleware
7 55 (2.02%) Playwright
8 47 (1.73%) pytest
9 45 (1.65%) Oracle Fusion
10 44 (1.62%) OAuth
11 41 (1.51%) Web Services
12 39 (1.43%) RESTful
13 38 (1.40%) SOAP
14 34 (1.25%) .NET
15 33 (1.21%) HTML
15 33 (1.21%) Spring
16 32 (1.17%) OpenID
17 31 (1.14%) Node.js
17 31 (1.14%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 167 (6.13%) Onboarding
2 145 (5.32%) Data Structures
3 127 (4.66%) Cloud Native
4 111 (4.07%) Management Information System
5 110 (4.04%) Legacy Systems
6 103 (3.78%) Product Ownership
7 86 (3.16%) Data Centre
8 65 (2.39%) Enterprise Software
9 57 (2.09%) AI Agents
10 44 (1.62%) Analytical Mindset
11 43 (1.58%) Distributed Systems
12 42 (1.54%) Algorithms
13 41 (1.51%) SCADA
14 39 (1.43%) Data Protection Act
15 38 (1.40%) CMDB
16 36 (1.32%) Life Science
17 33 (1.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 32 (1.17%) Operational Technology
19 31 (1.14%) Replication
20 29 (1.06%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 175 (6.42%) Windows
2 107 (3.93%) Linux
3 67 (2.46%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.21%) Unix
5 19 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.44%) Android
7 11 (0.40%) Ubuntu
8 10 (0.37%) Windows 10
9 7 (0.26%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.15%) 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 (0.073%) HPUX
12 2 (0.073%) Solaris
12 2 (0.073%) SUSE
12 2 (0.073%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.037%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 734 (26.95%) Migration
2 619 (22.72%) Stakeholder Management
3 553 (20.30%) CI/CD
4 511 (18.76%) Agile
5 433 (15.90%) Data Migration
6 428 (15.71%) User Acceptance Testing
7 423 (15.53%) Data Modelling
8 414 (15.20%) Analytics
9 412 (15.12%) Problem-Solving
10 411 (15.09%) Data Validation
11 391 (14.35%) AI
12 382 (14.02%) Continuous Improvement
13 381 (13.99%) DevOps
14 377 (13.84%) Test Automation
15 307 (11.27%) ETL
16 285 (10.46%) Data Analysis
17 280 (10.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 276 (10.13%) Business Intelligence
19 270 (9.91%) Data Governance
19 270 (9.91%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 720 (26.43%) SQL
2 572 (21.00%) Python
3 120 (4.41%) Java
4 115 (4.22%) PowerShell
5 70 (2.57%) JavaScript
6 55 (2.02%) Bash
7 52 (1.91%) C#
8 42 (1.54%) C++
9 39 (1.43%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.06%) Bicep
11 27 (0.99%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 26 (0.95%) R
12 26 (0.95%) Shell Script
13 25 (0.92%) PL/SQL
14 23 (0.84%) Apex Code
14 23 (0.84%) C
15 21 (0.77%) VBA
16 17 (0.62%) MATLAB
17 14 (0.51%) Go
17 14 (0.51%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 557 (20.45%) Security Cleared
2 421 (15.46%) SC Cleared
3 208 (7.64%) Degree
4 95 (3.49%) DV Cleared
5 58 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (1.65%) Computer Science Degree
7 37 (1.36%) AWS Certification
8 34 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
9 31 (1.14%) ACCA
9 31 (1.14%) CIMA
10 25 (0.92%) CCNP
10 25 (0.92%) ISTQB
11 24 (0.88%) PMI Certification
12 23 (0.84%) CISSP
13 22 (0.81%) Azure Certification
14 21 (0.77%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 19 (0.70%) DBS Check
15 19 (0.70%) Master's Degree
15 19 (0.70%) PMP
16 14 (0.51%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 568 (20.85%) Data Quality
2 321 (11.78%) QA
3 74 (2.72%) GDPR
4 45 (1.65%) Accessibility
5 43 (1.58%) SLA
6 33 (1.21%) NIST
7 32 (1.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 29 (1.06%) PMO
9 22 (0.81%) GxP
10 17 (0.62%) Actionable Recommendations
11 16 (0.59%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 16 (0.59%) WCAG
12 15 (0.55%) GRC
13 13 (0.48%) ISO 20022
14 12 (0.44%) IFRS
15 10 (0.37%) Def Stans
15 10 (0.37%) GMP
15 10 (0.37%) NCSC
16 9 (0.33%) MiFID
17 8 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 109 (4.00%) Active Directory
2 99 (3.63%) Docker
3 64 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (0.99%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.88%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.62%) Firmware
8 16 (0.59%) vSphere
9 15 (0.55%) Hyper-V
10 13 (0.48%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.15%) VirtualBox
12 3 (0.11%) KVM
13 2 (0.073%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.073%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.073%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.037%) Ceph
14 1 (0.037%) etcd
14 1 (0.037%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.037%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 1 (0.037%) NFS
Systems Management
1 136 (4.99%) Kubernetes
2 98 (3.60%) Ansible
3 36 (1.32%) Grafana
4 30 (1.10%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
6 23 (0.84%) FortiGate
7 19 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.66%) SCCM
9 10 (0.37%) Functional Safety
9 10 (0.37%) HP ALM
9 10 (0.37%) Progress Chef
10 9 (0.33%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.29%) Argo
12 6 (0.22%) Control-M
12 6 (0.22%) VxRail
13 5 (0.18%) vRealize
14 4 (0.15%) Failover Clustering
14 4 (0.15%) Kibana
14 4 (0.15%) systemd
14 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 435 (15.97%) Microsoft
2 229 (8.41%) SAP
3 192 (7.05%) Oracle
4 166 (6.09%) Databricks
5 88 (3.23%) ServiceNow
6 79 (2.90%) Salesforce
7 78 (2.86%) Cisco
8 73 (2.68%) VMware
9 67 (2.46%) Google
10 53 (1.95%) Workday
11 50 (1.84%) IBM
12 32 (1.17%) Fortinet
13 29 (1.06%) Juniper
14 28 (1.03%) Zscaler
15 26 (0.95%) Informatica
16 25 (0.92%) Palo Alto
17 22 (0.81%) Splunk
18 20 (0.73%) CyberArk
19 19 (0.70%) Arista
20 18 (0.66%) Red Hat