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

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 65 108
Rank change year-on-year +32 +43 +42
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,591 1,041 711
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.59% 3.77% 2.18%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.59% 4.15% 2.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,554 627 346
10th Percentile £336 £334 £340
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £488
Median % change year-on-year - +2.46% -11.27%
75th Percentile £600 £620 £588
90th Percentile £711 £688 £661
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 169 79 103
10th Percentile £17.63 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £28.50 £41.25 £51.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% - -1.49%
75th Percentile £73.25 £67.00 £71.70
90th Percentile £82.60 £75.00 £76.49
UK median hourly rate £53.00 £63.75 £65.00
% change year-on-year -16.86% -1.92% -2.61%

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 39,321 25,058 28,015
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.90% 90.80% 85.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,195 15,905 17,612
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £636 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £752
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,661 1,475 1,343
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.27 £14.84
25th Percentile £18.00 £17.83 £20.24
Median hourly rate £43.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +72.96% -41.51% +0.58%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £66.61
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.03 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.17% -41.51% +1.96%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 +41 1,276 £525 +2.19% 1,710
North of England +45 341 £453 +6.59% 314
South East +2 331 £500 - 494
Midlands +30 300 £464 -2.40% 276
West Midlands +30 213 £458 -3.68% 191
North West +24 170 £450 +5.88% 183
Yorkshire +48 150 £462 -0.17% 84
East of England 0 145 £475 -5.00% 317
South West +11 135 £525 -8.70% 323
East Midlands +24 83 £500 - 85
North East -31 26 £425 -5.56% 55
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 72 (2.78%) Confluence
2 63 (2.43%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (2.12%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.74%) SAS
5 37 (1.43%) Apache Spark
6 26 (1.00%) Apache
7 17 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
8 12 (0.46%) CMS
9 10 (0.39%) Jupyter
10 8 (0.31%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.27%) Palantir Foundry
11 7 (0.27%) Sitecore CMS
12 6 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
13 5 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.19%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.19%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.15%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.15%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.12%) IIS
Applications
1 187 (7.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 37 (1.43%) Microsoft Office
3 33 (1.27%) MS Visio
3 33 (1.27%) Spreadsheet
4 29 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.46%) AutoCAD
6 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
7 7 (0.27%) Navisworks
7 7 (0.27%) Revit
8 6 (0.23%) Simulink
9 5 (0.19%) ProjectWise
10 4 (0.15%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.12%) CATIA
12 2 (0.077%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.077%) EPLAN
13 1 (0.039%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.039%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.039%) MicroStation
13 1 (0.039%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.039%) Trello
Business Applications
1 106 (4.09%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.69%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.58%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.50%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.46%) Teamcenter
5 12 (0.46%) Workday HCM
6 11 (0.42%) SAP MDG
6 11 (0.42%) SAP SD
7 10 (0.39%) Aladdin
7 10 (0.39%) iTrent
7 10 (0.39%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.35%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.35%) SAP FI
8 9 (0.35%) SAP MM
9 8 (0.31%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
9 8 (0.31%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 7 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
10 7 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
10 7 (0.27%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 568 (21.92%) Azure
2 308 (11.89%) AWS
3 257 (9.92%) Power Platform
4 160 (6.18%) Azure DevOps
5 129 (4.98%) GCP
6 126 (4.86%) GitHub
7 93 (3.59%) Snowflake
8 76 (2.93%) Entra ID
9 72 (2.78%) Azure Data Factory
10 68 (2.62%) GitHub Actions
11 55 (2.12%) Serverless
12 53 (2.05%) Microsoft 365
13 51 (1.97%) SaaS
14 49 (1.89%) dbt
15 44 (1.70%) Amazon S3
16 43 (1.66%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 35 (1.35%) SuccessFactors
18 31 (1.20%) Azure Monitor
18 31 (1.20%) OCI
19 30 (1.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.01%) Firewall
2 66 (2.55%) DNS
3 60 (2.32%) Network Security
4 57 (2.20%) VLAN
5 48 (1.85%) VPN
6 39 (1.51%) WAN
7 37 (1.43%) BGP
8 35 (1.35%) TCP/IP
9 32 (1.24%) DHCP
10 22 (0.85%) Internet
11 21 (0.81%) OSPF
11 21 (0.81%) SAN
11 21 (0.81%) SD-WAN
12 20 (0.77%) Wireless
13 19 (0.73%) 5G
13 19 (0.73%) VXLAN
14 18 (0.69%) LAN
15 15 (0.58%) Ethernet VPN
15 15 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
16 13 (0.50%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 237 (9.15%) Power BI
2 145 (5.60%) Data Warehouse
3 108 (4.17%) Metadata
4 90 (3.47%) Relational Database
5 82 (3.16%) SQL Server
6 73 (2.82%) PostgreSQL
7 70 (2.70%) Data Lake
8 65 (2.51%) Tableau
9 38 (1.47%) Delta Lake
10 36 (1.39%) MongoDB
11 34 (1.31%) Big Data
12 33 (1.27%) Oracle Database
13 32 (1.24%) NoSQL
14 31 (1.20%) BigQuery
15 29 (1.12%) Redis
16 26 (1.00%) SAS Enterprise Guide
17 25 (0.96%) MySQL
17 25 (0.96%) Power Query
18 22 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
19 20 (0.77%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 234 (9.03%) JIRA
2 188 (7.26%) Git
3 92 (3.55%) Jenkins
4 83 (3.20%) GitLab
5 70 (2.70%) Selenium
6 38 (1.47%) Postman
7 33 (1.27%) JMeter
8 23 (0.89%) Cucumber
9 22 (0.85%) WebDriver
10 19 (0.73%) Rational DOORS
11 17 (0.66%) JUnit
12 13 (0.50%) Rational Rhapsody
13 12 (0.46%) Cypress.io
14 11 (0.42%) Eclipse
14 11 (0.42%) Gatling
15 10 (0.39%) Maven
15 10 (0.39%) TestRail
15 10 (0.39%) Visual Studio Code
16 9 (0.35%) Robot Framework
16 9 (0.35%) Zephyr
General
1 743 (28.68%) Finance
2 742 (28.64%) Social Skills
3 506 (19.53%) Analytical Skills
4 212 (8.18%) Banking
5 208 (8.03%) Public Sector
6 130 (5.02%) Documentation Skills
7 98 (3.78%) Manufacturing
8 90 (3.47%) Retail
9 60 (2.32%) Telecoms
10 57 (2.20%) Automotive
10 57 (2.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 48 (1.85%) Aerospace
12 46 (1.78%) Marketing
12 46 (1.78%) Pharmaceutical
13 44 (1.70%) Organisational Skills
14 41 (1.58%) Local Government
15 39 (1.51%) Front Office
16 36 (1.39%) Law
17 33 (1.27%) Billing
17 33 (1.27%) Legal
Job Titles
1 452 (17.45%) Analyst
2 299 (11.54%) Senior
3 243 (9.38%) Lead
4 209 (8.07%) Data Engineer
5 202 (7.80%) Business Analyst
6 198 (7.64%) Consultant
7 151 (5.83%) Developer
8 132 (5.09%) Architect
8 132 (5.09%) Data Analyst
9 104 (4.01%) Test Engineer
10 68 (2.62%) Tester
11 63 (2.43%) Network Engineer
12 60 (2.32%) Systems Engineer
13 55 (2.12%) Project Manager
14 54 (2.08%) Administrator
14 54 (2.08%) Senior Data Engineer
15 46 (1.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 43 (1.66%) Test Manager
17 42 (1.62%) Software Engineer
18 41 (1.58%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 153 (5.91%) REST
2 141 (5.44%) Terraform
3 81 (3.13%) JSON
4 80 (3.09%) PySpark
5 69 (2.66%) Kafka
6 65 (2.51%) XML
7 48 (1.85%) Middleware
8 47 (1.81%) Playwright
9 45 (1.74%) Oracle Fusion
10 39 (1.51%) pytest
11 38 (1.47%) .NET
12 36 (1.39%) Spring
13 34 (1.31%) SOAP
14 33 (1.27%) RESTful
15 32 (1.24%) OAuth
15 32 (1.24%) Pandas
16 29 (1.12%) Spring Boot
17 27 (1.04%) HTML
18 26 (1.00%) Web Services
19 25 (0.96%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 144 (5.56%) Onboarding
2 141 (5.44%) Data Structures
3 115 (4.44%) Cloud Native
4 112 (4.32%) Legacy Systems
5 99 (3.82%) Product Ownership
6 90 (3.47%) Management Information System
7 77 (2.97%) Data Centre
8 47 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
9 44 (1.70%) AI Agents
10 42 (1.62%) Analytical Mindset
11 41 (1.58%) Distributed Systems
11 41 (1.58%) SCADA
12 40 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
13 34 (1.31%) Life Science
14 33 (1.27%) Algorithms
15 32 (1.24%) CMDB
16 31 (1.20%) NHS
16 31 (1.20%) Operational Technology
16 31 (1.20%) Replication
17 29 (1.12%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 139 (5.36%) Windows
2 91 (3.51%) Linux
3 52 (2.01%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.89%) Unix
5 20 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.54%) Android
7 11 (0.42%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.31%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.27%) VMS
9 7 (0.27%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.15%) SUSE
10 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.12%) VxWorks
11 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.077%) CentOS
12 2 (0.077%) HPUX
12 2 (0.077%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.039%) Solaris
13 1 (0.039%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.039%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 703 (27.13%) Migration
2 524 (20.22%) Stakeholder Management
3 502 (19.37%) CI/CD
4 493 (19.03%) Agile
5 417 (16.09%) Data Migration
5 417 (16.09%) User Acceptance Testing
6 403 (15.55%) Data Validation
7 402 (15.52%) Data Modelling
8 395 (15.25%) Analytics
8 395 (15.25%) Problem-Solving
9 356 (13.74%) DevOps
10 350 (13.51%) AI
11 344 (13.28%) Test Automation
12 321 (12.39%) Continuous Improvement
13 291 (11.23%) ETL
14 279 (10.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 270 (10.42%) Data Pipeline
16 268 (10.34%) Business Intelligence
17 266 (10.27%) Data Analysis
18 263 (10.15%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 661 (25.51%) SQL
2 512 (19.76%) Python
3 119 (4.59%) Java
4 90 (3.47%) PowerShell
5 52 (2.01%) Bash
6 48 (1.85%) JavaScript
7 41 (1.58%) C#
8 33 (1.27%) C++
9 29 (1.12%) Apex Code
9 29 (1.12%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.08%) R
11 27 (1.04%) PL/SQL
12 25 (0.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 24 (0.93%) C
14 22 (0.85%) Bicep
15 19 (0.73%) Shell Script
16 18 (0.69%) VBA
17 15 (0.58%) MATLAB
18 13 (0.50%) T-SQL
19 12 (0.46%) Scala
Qualifications
1 502 (19.37%) Security Cleared
2 360 (13.89%) SC Cleared
3 183 (7.06%) Degree
4 81 (3.13%) DV Cleared
5 50 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
6 42 (1.62%) Computer Science Degree
7 40 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
8 32 (1.24%) CCNP
9 27 (1.04%) AWS Certification
10 25 (0.96%) ACCA
10 25 (0.96%) CIMA
11 20 (0.77%) ISTQB
11 20 (0.77%) PMI Certification
12 19 (0.73%) Azure Certification
13 16 (0.62%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 16 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
14 15 (0.58%) Master's Degree
14 15 (0.58%) PMP
15 14 (0.54%) CISSP
16 11 (0.42%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 526 (20.30%) Data Quality
2 320 (12.35%) QA
3 91 (3.51%) GDPR
4 41 (1.58%) Accessibility
5 40 (1.54%) NIST
6 38 (1.47%) SLA
7 33 (1.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 30 (1.16%) PMO
9 24 (0.93%) GxP
10 16 (0.62%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 16 (0.62%) GRC
11 15 (0.58%) WCAG
12 14 (0.54%) ISO 20022
13 12 (0.46%) Def Stans
14 11 (0.42%) IFRS
14 11 (0.42%) NCSC
15 10 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
15 10 (0.39%) HL7
15 10 (0.39%) MiFID
15 10 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 100 (3.86%) Docker
2 85 (3.28%) Active Directory
3 60 (2.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.73%) Firmware
7 17 (0.66%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.66%) vSphere
8 14 (0.54%) Hyper-V
9 11 (0.42%) 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 (0.077%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.077%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.039%) etcd
12 1 (0.039%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.039%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.039%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 126 (4.86%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.01%) Ansible
3 39 (1.51%) Grafana
4 34 (1.31%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.93%) FortiGate
6 23 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
7 18 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (0.50%) SCCM
8 13 (0.50%) vCenter Server
9 10 (0.39%) HP ALM
9 10 (0.39%) VxRail
10 8 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
11 7 (0.27%) Argo
12 6 (0.23%) Functional Safety
12 6 (0.23%) Progress Chef
13 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
13 5 (0.19%) systemd
13 5 (0.19%) vRealize
14 4 (0.15%) Control-M
14 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 395 (15.25%) Microsoft
2 219 (8.45%) SAP
3 203 (7.83%) Oracle
4 147 (5.67%) Databricks
5 89 (3.43%) Salesforce
6 72 (2.78%) ServiceNow
7 70 (2.70%) Cisco
8 69 (2.66%) VMware
9 44 (1.70%) Workday
10 42 (1.62%) Google
11 36 (1.39%) IBM
12 29 (1.12%) Fortinet
12 29 (1.12%) Juniper
12 29 (1.12%) Zscaler
13 28 (1.08%) Informatica
14 22 (0.85%) Palo Alto
15 21 (0.81%) Splunk
16 17 (0.66%) CrowdStrike
16 17 (0.66%) MuleSoft
17 16 (0.62%) IFS