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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 64 105
Rank change year-on-year +32 +41 +40
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,718 1,047 743
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.88% 3.73% 2.29%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.93% 4.10% 2.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,598 624 379
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 £635 £591
90th Percentile £707 £700 £652
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 £54.25 £62.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year -13.20% - -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 39,199 25,531 28,009
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.82% 90.87% 86.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,678 16,181 17,100
10th Percentile £325 £294 £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 £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 2,975 1,587 1,157
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.36 £17.79 £20.19
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 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.25 £74.92
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -8.31%

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 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 9 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 9 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 +40 1,324 £525 - 2,085
North of England +56 365 £460 +6.98% 428
South East +7 333 £525 +5.00% 641
Midlands +41 299 £461 -3.00% 378
West Midlands +27 213 £451 -11.23% 245
North West +28 185 £472 +11.06% 231
South West +22 177 £525 -4.33% 327
Yorkshire +58 150 £463 -2.63% 137
East of England -5 144 £475 -2.56% 378
East Midlands +28 83 £490 +8.89% 130
North East -17 35 £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 84 (3.09%) Confluence
2 59 (2.17%) Apache Airflow
3 57 (2.10%) SharePoint
4 48 (1.77%) Apache Spark
5 39 (1.43%) SAS
6 38 (1.40%) Apache
7 23 (0.85%) 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
1 185 (6.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.51%) Microsoft Office
3 33 (1.21%) MS Visio
4 31 (1.14%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (1.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 14 (0.52%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.33%) Navisworks
7 9 (0.33%) Revit
7 9 (0.33%) Simulink
8 7 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
8 7 (0.26%) ProjectWise
9 4 (0.15%) Chatbot
10 3 (0.11%) CATIA
10 3 (0.11%) LaTeX
10 3 (0.11%) OrCAD
11 2 (0.074%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.074%) EPLAN
12 1 (0.037%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.037%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.037%) Trello
Business Applications
1 104 (3.83%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.63%) SAP FI
3 16 (0.59%) Workday HCM
4 14 (0.52%) 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 MDG
6 12 (0.44%) SAP SD
7 11 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
7 11 (0.40%) SAP HCM
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
1 536 (19.72%) Azure
2 314 (11.55%) AWS
3 265 (9.75%) Power Platform
4 160 (5.89%) Azure DevOps
5 152 (5.59%) GCP
6 126 (4.64%) GitHub
7 97 (3.57%) Entra ID
7 97 (3.57%) Snowflake
8 69 (2.54%) Azure Data Factory
9 67 (2.47%) GitHub Actions
10 56 (2.06%) dbt
11 55 (2.02%) Amazon S3
12 54 (1.99%) Microsoft 365
13 50 (1.84%) SaaS
14 48 (1.77%) Serverless
15 45 (1.66%) SuccessFactors
16 38 (1.40%) Dynamics 365
17 37 (1.36%) Azure Monitor
18 33 (1.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 31 (1.14%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 99 (3.64%) Firewall
2 77 (2.83%) DNS
3 57 (2.10%) VPN
4 55 (2.02%) Network Security
5 54 (1.99%) VLAN
6 50 (1.84%) TCP/IP
7 47 (1.73%) BGP
8 39 (1.43%) WAN
9 33 (1.21%) DHCP
10 28 (1.03%) OSPF
11 23 (0.85%) Ethernet
11 23 (0.85%) VXLAN
12 22 (0.81%) Internet
13 21 (0.77%) Ethernet VPN
13 21 (0.77%) SAN
14 20 (0.74%) 5G
14 20 (0.74%) SD-WAN
14 20 (0.74%) Wireless
15 19 (0.70%) LAN
16 17 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 243 (8.94%) Power BI
2 145 (5.33%) Data Warehouse
3 117 (4.30%) Metadata
4 96 (3.53%) Relational Database
5 83 (3.05%) SQL Server
6 74 (2.72%) PostgreSQL
7 69 (2.54%) Data Lake
8 59 (2.17%) Tableau
9 39 (1.43%) Delta Lake
9 39 (1.43%) MongoDB
10 35 (1.29%) Big Data
10 35 (1.29%) BigQuery
10 35 (1.29%) Power Query
11 33 (1.21%) NoSQL
11 33 (1.21%) Redis
12 32 (1.18%) Oracle Database
13 24 (0.88%) MySQL
14 23 (0.85%) Amazon Redshift
15 22 (0.81%) Amazon Athena
16 20 (0.74%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 242 (8.90%) JIRA
2 200 (7.36%) Git
3 90 (3.31%) GitLab
4 87 (3.20%) Jenkins
5 70 (2.58%) Selenium
6 38 (1.40%) 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
1 788 (28.99%) Finance
2 767 (28.22%) Social Skills
3 535 (19.68%) Analytical Skills
4 250 (9.20%) Banking
5 224 (8.24%) Public Sector
6 126 (4.64%) Manufacturing
7 106 (3.90%) Documentation Skills
8 82 (3.02%) Retail
9 71 (2.61%) Automotive
10 64 (2.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 63 (2.32%) Telecoms
12 54 (1.99%) Aerospace
13 48 (1.77%) Marketing
14 44 (1.62%) Local Government
15 43 (1.58%) Organisational Skills
16 42 (1.55%) Legal
16 42 (1.55%) Pharmaceutical
17 39 (1.43%) Billing
18 38 (1.40%) Front Office
18 38 (1.40%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 458 (16.85%) Analyst
2 325 (11.96%) Senior
3 253 (9.31%) Lead
4 226 (8.31%) Data Engineer
5 216 (7.95%) Consultant
6 206 (7.58%) Business Analyst
7 159 (5.85%) Developer
8 150 (5.52%) Architect
9 143 (5.26%) Data Analyst
10 105 (3.86%) Test Engineer
11 70 (2.58%) Network Engineer
12 67 (2.47%) Tester
13 60 (2.21%) 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
18 40 (1.47%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 40 (1.47%) Senior Analyst
19 38 (1.40%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 179 (6.59%) Terraform
2 166 (6.11%) REST
3 82 (3.02%) PySpark
4 77 (2.83%) JSON
5 65 (2.39%) Kafka
5 65 (2.39%) XML
6 61 (2.24%) Middleware
7 54 (1.99%) Playwright
8 47 (1.73%) pytest
9 46 (1.69%) Oracle Fusion
10 44 (1.62%) OAuth
11 41 (1.51%) Web Services
12 39 (1.43%) RESTful
12 39 (1.43%) SOAP
13 33 (1.21%) .NET
13 33 (1.21%) HTML
13 33 (1.21%) Spring
14 31 (1.14%) Node.js
14 31 (1.14%) OpenID
14 31 (1.14%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 167 (6.14%) Onboarding
2 146 (5.37%) Data Structures
3 125 (4.60%) Cloud Native
4 111 (4.08%) Legacy Systems
5 109 (4.01%) Management Information System
6 102 (3.75%) Product Ownership
7 88 (3.24%) Data Centre
8 64 (2.35%) Enterprise Software
9 57 (2.10%) AI Agents
10 44 (1.62%) Analytical Mindset
11 43 (1.58%) Algorithms
12 42 (1.55%) Distributed Systems
13 41 (1.51%) SCADA
14 38 (1.40%) CMDB
14 38 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
15 37 (1.36%) Life Science
16 33 (1.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 32 (1.18%) Operational Technology
18 31 (1.14%) Replication
19 29 (1.07%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 175 (6.44%) 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 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 (0.074%) HPUX
12 2 (0.074%) Solaris
12 2 (0.074%) SUSE
12 2 (0.074%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.037%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 735 (27.04%) Migration
2 615 (22.63%) Stakeholder Management
3 547 (20.13%) CI/CD
4 505 (18.58%) Agile
5 433 (15.93%) Data Migration
6 426 (15.67%) User Acceptance Testing
7 424 (15.60%) Data Modelling
8 416 (15.31%) Analytics
9 410 (15.08%) Problem-Solving
10 408 (15.01%) Data Validation
11 391 (14.39%) AI
12 381 (14.02%) Continuous Improvement
13 375 (13.80%) DevOps
14 372 (13.69%) Test Automation
15 307 (11.30%) ETL
16 286 (10.52%) Data Analysis
17 280 (10.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 276 (10.15%) Business Intelligence
19 268 (9.86%) Data Pipeline
20 267 (9.82%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 714 (26.27%) SQL
2 571 (21.01%) Python
3 120 (4.42%) Java
4 115 (4.23%) PowerShell
5 70 (2.58%) JavaScript
6 55 (2.02%) Bash
7 52 (1.91%) C#
8 42 (1.55%) C++
9 40 (1.47%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.03%) Bicep
11 27 (0.99%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 26 (0.96%) PL/SQL
12 26 (0.96%) R
12 26 (0.96%) Shell Script
13 24 (0.88%) Apex Code
14 23 (0.85%) C
15 21 (0.77%) VBA
16 17 (0.63%) MATLAB
17 14 (0.52%) Go
17 14 (0.52%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 558 (20.53%) Security Cleared
2 422 (15.53%) SC Cleared
3 207 (7.62%) Degree
4 95 (3.50%) DV Cleared
5 58 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (1.66%) 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 27 (0.99%) CCNP
10 24 (0.88%) PMI Certification
11 23 (0.85%) CISSP
12 21 (0.77%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 21 (0.77%) Azure Certification
12 21 (0.77%) ISTQB
13 19 (0.70%) DBS Check
13 19 (0.70%) Master's Degree
13 19 (0.70%) PMP
14 14 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 569 (20.93%) Data Quality
2 318 (11.70%) QA
3 71 (2.61%) GDPR
4 45 (1.66%) Accessibility
5 43 (1.58%) SLA
6 33 (1.21%) NIST
7 32 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 29 (1.07%) 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 13 (0.48%) ISO 20022
13 12 (0.44%) IFRS
14 10 (0.37%) Def Stans
14 10 (0.37%) GMP
14 10 (0.37%) NCSC
15 9 (0.33%) MiFID
16 8 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 109 (4.01%) Active Directory
2 97 (3.57%) 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 (0.63%) 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%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.074%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.074%) 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
1 135 (4.97%) Kubernetes
2 98 (3.61%) Ansible
3 36 (1.32%) Grafana
4 30 (1.10%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.88%) FortiGate
5 24 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
6 19 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
7 18 (0.66%) SCCM
8 10 (0.37%) Functional Safety
8 10 (0.37%) HP ALM
8 10 (0.37%) Progress Chef
9 9 (0.33%) vCenter Server
10 8 (0.29%) Argo
11 6 (0.22%) Control-M
11 6 (0.22%) VxRail
12 5 (0.18%) vRealize
13 4 (0.15%) Failover Clustering
13 4 (0.15%) Kibana
13 4 (0.15%) systemd
13 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 435 (16.00%) Microsoft
2 233 (8.57%) SAP
3 192 (7.06%) Oracle
4 166 (6.11%) Databricks
5 88 (3.24%) ServiceNow
6 80 (2.94%) Cisco
6 80 (2.94%) Salesforce
7 73 (2.69%) VMware
8 67 (2.47%) Google
9 52 (1.91%) Workday
10 47 (1.73%) IBM
11 34 (1.25%) Fortinet
12 29 (1.07%) Juniper
12 29 (1.07%) Zscaler
13 26 (0.96%) Informatica
13 26 (0.96%) Palo Alto
14 22 (0.81%) Splunk
15 20 (0.74%) CyberArk
16 19 (0.70%) Arista
17 18 (0.66%) Red Hat