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

6 months to
7 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 66 102
Rank change year-on-year +34 +36 +44
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,717 1,060 730
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.84% 3.79% 2.27%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.88% 4.17% 2.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,591 634 369
10th Percentile £350 £350 £324
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 £634 £591
90th Percentile £705 £700 £652
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 193 79 95
10th Percentile £17.28 £20.50 £28.71
25th Percentile £28.00 £36.37 £47.75
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% - -3.79%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £79.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £53.50 £62.50 £63.75
% change year-on-year -14.40% -1.96% -5.60%

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 39,476 25,411 27,744
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.80% 90.93% 86.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,882 16,117 16,935
10th Percentile £325 £295 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £642
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 2,976 1,567 1,167
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.50 £17.87 £20.50
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.47 £45.75 £67.01
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.35 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £37.87 £25.15 £41.50
% change year-on-year +50.56% -39.40% -2.92%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 +38 1,319 £525 - 2,034
North of England +49 363 £460 +6.98% 478
South East +8 340 £525 +5.00% 743
Midlands +39 301 £463 -7.50% 393
West Midlands +28 214 £453 -10.69% 250
North West +29 185 £472 +11.06% 252
South West +16 176 £525 -4.55% 332
Yorkshire +52 148 £463 -2.63% 157
East of England -3 143 £469 -3.85% 388
East Midlands +26 84 £490 -4.39% 142
North East -17 35 £425 -11.92% 69
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 84 (3.09%) Confluence
2 59 (2.17%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (2.06%) SharePoint
4 47 (1.73%) Apache Spark
5 40 (1.47%) SAS
6 36 (1.32%) Apache
7 21 (0.77%) CMS
8 18 (0.66%) 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
12 6 (0.22%) 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
1 185 (6.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.55%) Microsoft Office
3 34 (1.25%) MS Visio
4 30 (1.10%) Spreadsheet
5 28 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 14 (0.52%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.33%) Navisworks
7 9 (0.33%) Revit
7 9 (0.33%) Simulink
8 8 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
9 7 (0.26%) ProjectWise
10 4 (0.15%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.11%) CATIA
11 3 (0.11%) OrCAD
12 2 (0.074%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.074%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.074%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.037%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.037%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.037%) Trello
Business Applications
1 105 (3.86%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.63%) SAP FI
3 16 (0.59%) Workday HCM
4 15 (0.55%) Oracle Payables
5 13 (0.48%) NetSuite
5 13 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
6 12 (0.44%) Aladdin
6 12 (0.44%) Integrated Workplace Management System
6 12 (0.44%) SAP MDG
6 12 (0.44%) SAP SD
6 12 (0.44%) Teamcenter
7 11 (0.40%) SAP HCM
7 11 (0.40%) SAP MM
8 10 (0.37%) Dynamics CRM
8 10 (0.37%) iTrent
9 9 (0.33%) SAP CO
9 9 (0.33%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
10 8 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
11 7 (0.26%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 540 (19.87%) Azure
2 309 (11.37%) AWS
3 272 (10.01%) Power Platform
4 161 (5.93%) Azure DevOps
5 151 (5.56%) GCP
6 129 (4.75%) GitHub
7 99 (3.64%) Snowflake
8 95 (3.50%) Entra ID
9 69 (2.54%) Azure Data Factory
10 68 (2.50%) GitHub Actions
11 55 (2.02%) Amazon S3
12 54 (1.99%) dbt
13 53 (1.95%) Microsoft 365
14 51 (1.88%) SaaS
15 50 (1.84%) Serverless
16 45 (1.66%) SuccessFactors
17 38 (1.40%) Dynamics 365
18 37 (1.36%) Azure Monitor
19 36 (1.32%) Azure Synapse Analytics
20 32 (1.18%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 99 (3.64%) Firewall
2 74 (2.72%) DNS
3 55 (2.02%) Network Security
4 53 (1.95%) VPN
5 51 (1.88%) VLAN
6 47 (1.73%) TCP/IP
7 43 (1.58%) BGP
8 39 (1.44%) WAN
9 32 (1.18%) DHCP
10 24 (0.88%) OSPF
11 23 (0.85%) VXLAN
12 22 (0.81%) Ethernet
12 22 (0.81%) Internet
13 21 (0.77%) SD-WAN
13 21 (0.77%) Wireless
14 20 (0.74%) 5G
14 20 (0.74%) Ethernet VPN
14 20 (0.74%) LAN
14 20 (0.74%) SAN
15 18 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 250 (9.20%) Power BI
2 146 (5.37%) Data Warehouse
3 116 (4.27%) Metadata
4 96 (3.53%) Relational Database
5 85 (3.13%) SQL Server
6 74 (2.72%) PostgreSQL
7 71 (2.61%) Data Lake
8 61 (2.25%) Tableau
9 39 (1.44%) MongoDB
10 37 (1.36%) BigQuery
11 36 (1.32%) Delta Lake
12 35 (1.29%) Big Data
13 33 (1.21%) NoSQL
13 33 (1.21%) Redis
14 32 (1.18%) Power Query
15 31 (1.14%) Oracle Database
16 24 (0.88%) MySQL
17 23 (0.85%) Amazon Redshift
18 22 (0.81%) Amazon Athena
19 20 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 246 (9.05%) JIRA
2 196 (7.21%) Git
3 91 (3.35%) GitLab
4 88 (3.24%) Jenkins
5 70 (2.58%) Selenium
6 37 (1.36%) Postman
7 30 (1.10%) JMeter
8 24 (0.88%) Cucumber
8 24 (0.88%) Rational DOORS
9 17 (0.63%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.63%) Visual Studio
10 16 (0.59%) JUnit
11 15 (0.55%) WebDriver
12 13 (0.48%) Cypress.io
12 13 (0.48%) REST Assured
13 12 (0.44%) Visual Studio Code
13 12 (0.44%) Zephyr
14 11 (0.40%) Rational Rhapsody
14 11 (0.40%) TestRail
15 10 (0.37%) Gatling
General
1 794 (29.22%) Finance
2 772 (28.41%) Social Skills
3 538 (19.80%) Analytical Skills
4 250 (9.20%) Banking
5 228 (8.39%) Public Sector
6 123 (4.53%) Manufacturing
7 108 (3.97%) Documentation Skills
8 85 (3.13%) Retail
9 72 (2.65%) Automotive
10 63 (2.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 62 (2.28%) Telecoms
12 54 (1.99%) Aerospace
13 49 (1.80%) Marketing
14 45 (1.66%) Organisational Skills
15 44 (1.62%) Local Government
16 43 (1.58%) Legal
17 41 (1.51%) Pharmaceutical
18 39 (1.44%) Billing
18 39 (1.44%) General Ledger
19 38 (1.40%) Military
Job Titles
1 462 (17.00%) Analyst
2 328 (12.07%) Senior
3 253 (9.31%) Lead
4 223 (8.21%) Data Engineer
5 215 (7.91%) Consultant
6 209 (7.69%) Business Analyst
7 163 (6.00%) Developer
8 148 (5.45%) Architect
9 145 (5.34%) Data Analyst
10 105 (3.86%) Test Engineer
11 68 (2.50%) Tester
12 66 (2.43%) Network Engineer
13 62 (2.28%) Senior Data Engineer
14 58 (2.13%) Administrator
15 52 (1.91%) Systems Engineer
16 51 (1.88%) Software Engineer
17 41 (1.51%) QA Engineer
17 41 (1.51%) Senior Analyst
18 40 (1.47%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 40 (1.47%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 175 (6.44%) Terraform
2 165 (6.07%) REST
3 80 (2.94%) PySpark
4 76 (2.80%) JSON
5 65 (2.39%) Middleware
5 65 (2.39%) XML
6 64 (2.36%) Kafka
7 54 (1.99%) Playwright
8 46 (1.69%) pytest
9 45 (1.66%) Oracle Fusion
10 44 (1.62%) OAuth
11 41 (1.51%) Web Services
12 39 (1.44%) RESTful
12 39 (1.44%) SOAP
13 35 (1.29%) .NET
14 34 (1.25%) Node.js
15 33 (1.21%) HTML
16 32 (1.18%) Pandas
16 32 (1.18%) Spring
17 31 (1.14%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 169 (6.22%) Onboarding
2 144 (5.30%) Data Structures
3 128 (4.71%) Cloud Native
4 113 (4.16%) Legacy Systems
5 108 (3.97%) Management Information System
6 101 (3.72%) Product Ownership
7 85 (3.13%) Data Centre
8 64 (2.36%) Enterprise Software
9 58 (2.13%) AI Agents
10 43 (1.58%) Algorithms
10 43 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
10 43 (1.58%) Distributed Systems
11 42 (1.55%) SCADA
12 37 (1.36%) Data Protection Act
12 37 (1.36%) Life Science
13 33 (1.21%) CMDB
14 32 (1.18%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 32 (1.18%) Operational Technology
15 30 (1.10%) Replication
16 29 (1.07%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 176 (6.48%) Windows
2 107 (3.94%) Linux
3 67 (2.47%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.21%) Unix
5 19 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.48%) Android
7 11 (0.40%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.33%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.29%) 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 (0.074%) HPUX
12 2 (0.074%) Solaris
12 2 (0.074%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.037%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.037%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 740 (27.24%) Migration
2 612 (22.52%) Stakeholder Management
3 540 (19.87%) CI/CD
4 511 (18.81%) Agile
5 435 (16.01%) Data Migration
5 435 (16.01%) User Acceptance Testing
6 425 (15.64%) Data Modelling
7 421 (15.50%) Analytics
8 412 (15.16%) Data Validation
9 410 (15.09%) Problem-Solving
10 393 (14.46%) AI
11 377 (13.88%) Continuous Improvement
12 375 (13.80%) DevOps
13 368 (13.54%) Test Automation
14 305 (11.23%) ETL
15 286 (10.53%) Data Analysis
16 283 (10.42%) Business Intelligence
17 278 (10.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 271 (9.97%) Data Governance
19 269 (9.90%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 713 (26.24%) SQL
2 561 (20.65%) Python
3 122 (4.49%) Java
4 112 (4.12%) PowerShell
5 71 (2.61%) JavaScript
6 55 (2.02%) Bash
7 53 (1.95%) C#
8 43 (1.58%) C++
9 41 (1.51%) TypeScript
10 27 (0.99%) Bicep
10 27 (0.99%) R
11 25 (0.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 25 (0.92%) PL/SQL
11 25 (0.92%) Shell Script
12 24 (0.88%) Apex Code
12 24 (0.88%) C
13 20 (0.74%) VBA
14 17 (0.63%) MATLAB
15 15 (0.55%) Go
16 14 (0.52%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 552 (20.32%) Security Cleared
2 413 (15.20%) SC Cleared
3 209 (7.69%) Degree
4 93 (3.42%) DV Cleared
5 58 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
7 36 (1.32%) AWS Certification
7 36 (1.32%) Cisco Certification
8 31 (1.14%) ACCA
8 31 (1.14%) CIMA
9 28 (1.03%) CCNP
10 25 (0.92%) PMI Certification
11 22 (0.81%) Azure Certification
12 21 (0.77%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 21 (0.77%) CISSP
12 21 (0.77%) ISTQB
13 20 (0.74%) Master's Degree
13 20 (0.74%) PMP
14 19 (0.70%) DBS Check
15 14 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 567 (20.87%) Data Quality
2 323 (11.89%) QA
3 77 (2.83%) GDPR
4 45 (1.66%) Accessibility
5 44 (1.62%) SLA
6 34 (1.25%) NIST
7 32 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 31 (1.14%) PMO
9 23 (0.85%) GxP
10 16 (0.59%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 16 (0.59%) WCAG
11 15 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
11 15 (0.55%) GRC
12 14 (0.52%) ISO 20022
13 12 (0.44%) IFRS
14 10 (0.37%) Def Stans
14 10 (0.37%) GMP
14 10 (0.37%) MiFID
14 10 (0.37%) NCSC
15 8 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 106 (3.90%) Active Directory
2 97 (3.57%) Docker
3 64 (2.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (0.96%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.88%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.63%) 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
12 3 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.074%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.037%) Ceph
14 1 (0.037%) HDFS
14 1 (0.037%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.037%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 1 (0.037%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 135 (4.97%) Kubernetes
2 96 (3.53%) Ansible
3 36 (1.32%) Grafana
4 30 (1.10%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.88%) FortiGate
5 24 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
6 18 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
7 17 (0.63%) SCCM
8 11 (0.40%) HP ALM
9 10 (0.37%) Functional Safety
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%) Kibana
14 4 (0.15%) Oracle RMAN
14 4 (0.15%) systemd
14 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 433 (15.94%) Microsoft
2 232 (8.54%) SAP
3 193 (7.10%) Oracle
4 162 (5.96%) Databricks
5 86 (3.17%) ServiceNow
6 79 (2.91%) Salesforce
7 78 (2.87%) Cisco
8 72 (2.65%) VMware
9 64 (2.36%) Google
10 52 (1.91%) Workday
11 45 (1.66%) IBM
12 32 (1.18%) Fortinet
13 29 (1.07%) Zscaler
14 27 (0.99%) Informatica
14 27 (0.99%) Juniper
15 24 (0.88%) Palo Alto
16 19 (0.70%) CyberArk
17 18 (0.66%) Red Hat
17 18 (0.66%) Splunk
18 17 (0.63%) Siemens