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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 63 109
Rank change year-on-year +30 +46 +41
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,533 1,043 709
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.55% 3.81% 2.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.55% 4.20% 2.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,533 636 346
10th Percentile £336 £332 £340
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £485
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% +4.69% -11.86%
75th Percentile £600 £620 £588
90th Percentile £712 £688 £665
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 166 81 112
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £28.50 £41.25 £51.19
Median hourly rate £55.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% -3.85% -1.49%
75th Percentile £73.25 £67.00 £71.50
90th Percentile £82.75 £75.00 £76.67
UK median hourly rate £53.00 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -15.20% -3.85% -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 38,700 24,856 28,392
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.86% 90.77% 85.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,864 15,818 18,112
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £753
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,605 1,463 1,438
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.25 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.87 £18.56
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +2.41%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 +39 1,245 £525 +1.94% 1,712
North of England +41 331 £455 +6.94% 346
South East -2 324 £500 - 520
Midlands +33 297 £463 -2.46% 268
West Midlands +30 211 £458 -3.68% 184
North West +18 167 £450 +5.88% 204
Yorkshire +42 146 £462 +2.60% 86
East of England +1 144 £475 -6.40% 312
South West +3 130 £525 -8.70% 329
East Midlands +24 82 £495 -1.00% 84
North East -33 23 £438 -2.78% 64
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 70 (2.76%) Confluence
2 62 (2.45%) Apache Airflow
3 52 (2.05%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.78%) SAS
5 38 (1.50%) Apache Spark
6 24 (0.95%) Apache
7 15 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
8 11 (0.43%) CMS
9 10 (0.39%) Jupyter
10 8 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
12 6 (0.24%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
12 6 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
13 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.20%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.16%) IIS
14 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.12%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 180 (7.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 36 (1.42%) Microsoft Office
3 33 (1.30%) MS Visio
4 32 (1.26%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (1.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 12 (0.47%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
8 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
8 7 (0.28%) Revit
9 6 (0.24%) Simulink
10 5 (0.20%) ProjectWise
11 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
12 3 (0.12%) CATIA
13 2 (0.079%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.079%) EPLAN
14 1 (0.039%) Gliffy
14 1 (0.039%) LaTeX
14 1 (0.039%) MicroStation
14 1 (0.039%) Oracle Smart View
14 1 (0.039%) Trello
Business Applications
1 102 (4.03%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.75%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.51%) NetSuite
3 13 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.47%) Teamcenter
4 12 (0.47%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
5 11 (0.43%) SAP MDG
5 11 (0.43%) SAP SD
6 10 (0.39%) Aladdin
6 10 (0.39%) iTrent
7 9 (0.36%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 9 (0.36%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.36%) SAP MM
8 8 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.32%) SAP FI
9 7 (0.28%) SAP HCM
9 7 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.24%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 568 (22.42%) Azure
2 301 (11.88%) AWS
3 257 (10.15%) Power Platform
4 159 (6.28%) Azure DevOps
5 132 (5.21%) GCP
6 122 (4.82%) GitHub
7 89 (3.51%) Snowflake
8 72 (2.84%) Azure Data Factory
9 71 (2.80%) Entra ID
10 64 (2.53%) GitHub Actions
11 57 (2.25%) Serverless
12 51 (2.01%) Microsoft 365
12 51 (2.01%) SaaS
13 45 (1.78%) dbt
14 43 (1.70%) Amazon S3
15 42 (1.66%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 33 (1.30%) SuccessFactors
17 32 (1.26%) OCI
18 30 (1.18%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 30 (1.18%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 105 (4.15%) Firewall
2 66 (2.61%) DNS
3 60 (2.37%) Network Security
4 59 (2.33%) VLAN
5 48 (1.89%) VPN
6 41 (1.62%) WAN
7 38 (1.50%) BGP
8 37 (1.46%) TCP/IP
9 33 (1.30%) DHCP
10 23 (0.91%) Internet
11 22 (0.87%) OSPF
11 22 (0.87%) SD-WAN
12 20 (0.79%) LAN
12 20 (0.79%) SAN
12 20 (0.79%) Wireless
13 19 (0.75%) VXLAN
14 18 (0.71%) 5G
15 17 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
16 15 (0.59%) Ethernet VPN
17 13 (0.51%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 237 (9.36%) Power BI
2 148 (5.84%) Data Warehouse
3 109 (4.30%) Metadata
4 84 (3.32%) Relational Database
5 80 (3.16%) SQL Server
6 74 (2.92%) PostgreSQL
7 73 (2.88%) Data Lake
8 67 (2.65%) Tableau
9 37 (1.46%) Delta Lake
10 36 (1.42%) MongoDB
11 35 (1.38%) Big Data
12 34 (1.34%) NoSQL
13 31 (1.22%) Oracle Database
14 30 (1.18%) BigQuery
14 30 (1.18%) Redis
15 26 (1.03%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 25 (0.99%) MySQL
17 23 (0.91%) Power Query
18 21 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
19 20 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 228 (9.00%) JIRA
2 181 (7.15%) Git
3 94 (3.71%) Jenkins
4 84 (3.32%) GitLab
5 64 (2.53%) Selenium
6 39 (1.54%) Postman
7 32 (1.26%) JMeter
8 23 (0.91%) Cucumber
9 22 (0.87%) WebDriver
10 18 (0.71%) Rational DOORS
11 17 (0.67%) JUnit
12 14 (0.55%) Rational Rhapsody
13 11 (0.43%) Cypress.io
13 11 (0.43%) Gatling
14 10 (0.39%) Eclipse
14 10 (0.39%) Maven
14 10 (0.39%) TestRail
15 9 (0.36%) ERwin
15 9 (0.36%) Oracle Forms
15 9 (0.36%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 721 (28.46%) Finance
2 720 (28.42%) Social Skills
3 496 (19.58%) Analytical Skills
4 203 (8.01%) Public Sector
5 202 (7.97%) Banking
6 132 (5.21%) Documentation Skills
7 90 (3.55%) Manufacturing
8 85 (3.36%) Retail
9 58 (2.29%) Telecoms
10 56 (2.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 52 (2.05%) Automotive
12 47 (1.86%) Aerospace
13 45 (1.78%) Pharmaceutical
14 44 (1.74%) Organisational Skills
15 43 (1.70%) Marketing
16 41 (1.62%) Local Government
17 38 (1.50%) Front Office
18 36 (1.42%) Law
19 32 (1.26%) Influencing Skills
20 31 (1.22%) Legal
Job Titles
1 448 (17.69%) Analyst
2 286 (11.29%) Senior
3 237 (9.36%) Lead
4 209 (8.25%) Data Engineer
5 202 (7.97%) Business Analyst
6 191 (7.54%) Consultant
7 149 (5.88%) Developer
8 134 (5.29%) Data Analyst
9 128 (5.05%) Architect
10 107 (4.22%) Test Engineer
11 67 (2.65%) Tester
12 65 (2.57%) Network Engineer
13 59 (2.33%) Systems Engineer
14 55 (2.17%) Project Manager
15 52 (2.05%) Administrator
16 51 (2.01%) Senior Data Engineer
17 46 (1.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 43 (1.70%) Test Manager
19 40 (1.58%) QA Engineer
20 39 (1.54%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 151 (5.96%) REST
2 137 (5.41%) Terraform
3 83 (3.28%) JSON
4 78 (3.08%) PySpark
5 70 (2.76%) Kafka
6 65 (2.57%) XML
7 47 (1.86%) Playwright
8 45 (1.78%) Middleware
8 45 (1.78%) Oracle Fusion
9 39 (1.54%) .NET
9 39 (1.54%) pytest
10 35 (1.38%) RESTful
10 35 (1.38%) Spring
11 32 (1.26%) OAuth
11 32 (1.26%) Pandas
11 32 (1.26%) SOAP
12 28 (1.11%) Spring Boot
13 25 (0.99%) HTML
13 25 (0.99%) Web Services
14 24 (0.95%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 140 (5.53%) Data Structures
1 140 (5.53%) Onboarding
2 114 (4.50%) Cloud Native
3 112 (4.42%) Legacy Systems
4 97 (3.83%) Product Ownership
5 84 (3.32%) Management Information System
6 76 (3.00%) Data Centre
7 45 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
8 43 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
9 42 (1.66%) AI Agents
10 41 (1.62%) Distributed Systems
10 41 (1.62%) SCADA
11 40 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
12 34 (1.34%) Life Science
13 32 (1.26%) Algorithms
13 32 (1.26%) NHS
14 31 (1.22%) CMDB
14 31 (1.22%) Operational Technology
14 31 (1.22%) Replication
15 28 (1.11%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 137 (5.41%) Windows
2 90 (3.55%) Linux
3 51 (2.01%) Windows Server
4 24 (0.95%) Unix
5 19 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.55%) Android
7 11 (0.43%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.32%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.28%) VMS
10 6 (0.24%) Windows 10
11 4 (0.16%) SUSE
11 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.079%) HPUX
13 2 (0.079%) VxWorks
13 2 (0.079%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.039%) Mac OS X
14 1 (0.039%) Solaris
14 1 (0.039%) Windows Server 2003
14 1 (0.039%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 690 (27.24%) Migration
2 501 (19.78%) Stakeholder Management
3 485 (19.15%) CI/CD
4 481 (18.99%) Agile
5 413 (16.30%) User Acceptance Testing
6 412 (16.27%) Data Migration
7 397 (15.67%) Data Modelling
8 395 (15.59%) Analytics
9 392 (15.48%) Data Validation
10 384 (15.16%) Problem-Solving
11 349 (13.78%) DevOps
12 344 (13.58%) AI
13 332 (13.11%) Test Automation
14 301 (11.88%) Continuous Improvement
15 290 (11.45%) ETL
16 276 (10.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 269 (10.62%) Business Intelligence
17 269 (10.62%) Data Pipeline
18 265 (10.46%) Data Governance
19 260 (10.26%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 650 (25.66%) SQL
2 504 (19.90%) Python
3 121 (4.78%) Java
4 90 (3.55%) PowerShell
5 53 (2.09%) Bash
6 46 (1.82%) JavaScript
7 42 (1.66%) C#
8 32 (1.26%) C++
9 28 (1.11%) R
9 28 (1.11%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.07%) Apex Code
11 26 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 25 (0.99%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 24 (0.95%) Bicep
14 23 (0.91%) C
15 20 (0.79%) Shell Script
16 17 (0.67%) VBA
17 15 (0.59%) MATLAB
18 13 (0.51%) Scala
18 13 (0.51%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 476 (18.79%) Security Cleared
2 346 (13.66%) SC Cleared
3 178 (7.03%) Degree
4 73 (2.88%) DV Cleared
5 47 (1.86%) BPSS Clearance
6 42 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
7 40 (1.58%) Cisco Certification
8 32 (1.26%) CCNP
9 25 (0.99%) ACCA
9 25 (0.99%) CIMA
10 24 (0.95%) AWS Certification
11 20 (0.79%) ISTQB
11 20 (0.79%) PMI Certification
12 18 (0.71%) Azure Certification
13 15 (0.59%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 15 (0.59%) Master's Degree
13 15 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
13 15 (0.59%) PMP
14 13 (0.51%) CISSP
15 11 (0.43%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 513 (20.25%) Data Quality
2 314 (12.40%) QA
3 90 (3.55%) GDPR
4 42 (1.66%) Accessibility
5 41 (1.62%) NIST
6 40 (1.58%) SLA
7 34 (1.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 30 (1.18%) PMO
9 24 (0.95%) GxP
10 16 (0.63%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 16 (0.63%) GRC
11 15 (0.59%) WCAG
12 13 (0.51%) Def Stans
12 13 (0.51%) ISO 20022
13 11 (0.43%) IFRS
13 11 (0.43%) NCSC
14 10 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
14 10 (0.39%) HL7
14 10 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 9 (0.36%) GMP
System Software
1 101 (3.99%) Docker
2 79 (3.12%) Active Directory
3 59 (2.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.18%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.95%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.75%) Firmware
7 17 (0.67%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.67%) vSphere
8 14 (0.55%) Hyper-V
9 11 (0.43%) 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 (0.079%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.079%) 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
1 127 (5.01%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.16%) Ansible
3 39 (1.54%) Grafana
4 34 (1.34%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.95%) FortiGate
6 23 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
7 19 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (0.51%) vCenter Server
9 12 (0.47%) SCCM
10 10 (0.39%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.39%) VxRail
11 8 (0.32%) Failover Clustering
12 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.24%) Argo
14 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
14 5 (0.20%) systemd
14 5 (0.20%) vRealize
15 4 (0.16%) Kustomize
15 4 (0.16%) Puppet
15 4 (0.16%) vMotion
Vendors
1 383 (15.12%) Microsoft
2 212 (8.37%) SAP
3 196 (7.74%) Oracle
4 147 (5.80%) Databricks
5 86 (3.40%) Salesforce
6 73 (2.88%) ServiceNow
7 70 (2.76%) Cisco
8 68 (2.68%) VMware
9 42 (1.66%) Google
9 42 (1.66%) Workday
10 33 (1.30%) IBM
11 30 (1.18%) Fortinet
12 29 (1.14%) Informatica
12 29 (1.14%) Juniper
13 28 (1.11%) Zscaler
14 22 (0.87%) Splunk
15 21 (0.83%) Palo Alto
16 17 (0.67%) CrowdStrike
17 16 (0.63%) IFS
18 15 (0.59%) MuleSoft