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

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 68 116
Rank change year-on-year +33 +48 +35
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,416 1,014 700
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.36% 3.70% 2.04%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.29% 4.07% 2.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,472 623 356
10th Percentile £350 £355 £328
25th Percentile £413 £424 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £485
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +8.30% -11.86%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £586
90th Percentile £701 £700 £665
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 158 76 131
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £29.77
25th Percentile £28.69 £40.06 £51.25
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% +3.92%
75th Percentile £75.75 £67.13 £69.44
90th Percentile £83.83 £76.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% -3.85%

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 38,425 24,898 29,471
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.24% 90.75% 85.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,067 15,953 19,300
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £424 £405 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £521 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.10% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,400 1,362 1,833
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.21 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.87 £17.69
Median hourly rate £46.90 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +86.48% -37.63% -5.12%
75th Percentile £69.46 £51.65 £65.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%

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 28 July 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 28 July 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 28 July 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 +43 1,168 £523 -0.48% 402
South East -1 315 £505 +1.00% 226
Midlands +37 308 £475 +5.56% 120
North of England +40 301 £450 -9.09% 155
West Midlands +32 225 £470 +7.43% 72
North West +21 163 £450 -15.65% 86
East of England 0 134 £500 - 95
Yorkshire +37 127 £453 +4.08% 37
South West -9 124 £521 -9.35% 98
East Midlands +19 78 £509 +10.89% 48
North East -34 15 £425 -15.00% 33
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 73 (3.02%) Confluence
2 63 (2.61%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (1.95%) SAS
4 42 (1.74%) SharePoint
5 40 (1.66%) Apache Spark
6 28 (1.16%) Apache
7 13 (0.54%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.33%) CMS
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.33%) SharePoint 2013
10 6 (0.25%) ArcGIS
11 5 (0.21%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.17%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
12 4 (0.17%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.12%) Apache Pulsar
13 3 (0.12%) IIS
13 3 (0.12%) JBoss
13 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 170 (7.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.41%) MS Visio
3 32 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
4 26 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 24 (0.99%) Spreadsheet
6 10 (0.41%) Microsoft Project
7 7 (0.29%) AutoCAD
8 5 (0.21%) Simulink
9 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
10 3 (0.12%) CATIA
11 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.083%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.083%) Navisworks
11 2 (0.083%) ProjectWise
11 2 (0.083%) Revit
11 2 (0.083%) Sketch
12 1 (0.041%) Autodesk Inventor
12 1 (0.041%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.041%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.041%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 110 (4.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.24%) Oracle EBS
3 18 (0.75%) Workday HCM
4 12 (0.50%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.50%) Teamcenter
5 11 (0.46%) NetSuite
5 11 (0.46%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.41%) Aladdin
6 10 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
6 10 (0.41%) iTrent
6 10 (0.41%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 10 (0.41%) SAP MDG
7 9 (0.37%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.37%) Sage X3
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
8 8 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
9 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
9 7 (0.29%) SAP HCM
9 7 (0.29%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 541 (22.39%) Azure
2 282 (11.67%) AWS
3 253 (10.47%) Power Platform
4 132 (5.46%) Azure DevOps
5 130 (5.38%) GCP
6 117 (4.84%) GitHub
7 85 (3.52%) Snowflake
8 70 (2.90%) Azure Data Factory
9 68 (2.81%) GitHub Actions
10 62 (2.57%) Entra ID
11 56 (2.32%) Serverless
12 44 (1.82%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 44 (1.82%) Microsoft 365
13 43 (1.78%) Amazon S3
14 42 (1.74%) dbt
15 41 (1.70%) OCI
15 41 (1.70%) SaaS
16 36 (1.49%) SuccessFactors
17 31 (1.28%) Azure Monitor
18 27 (1.12%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 109 (4.51%) Firewall
2 63 (2.61%) Network Security
3 55 (2.28%) DNS
4 45 (1.86%) VLAN
5 43 (1.78%) VPN
6 38 (1.57%) TCP/IP
7 36 (1.49%) WAN
8 29 (1.20%) BGP
9 25 (1.03%) DHCP
10 23 (0.95%) SAN
11 22 (0.91%) Internet
12 21 (0.87%) LAN
12 21 (0.87%) OSPF
12 21 (0.87%) Wireless
13 20 (0.83%) SD-WAN
14 15 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
15 14 (0.58%) Ethernet
16 13 (0.54%) NAS
17 12 (0.50%) Cisco ISE
18 9 (0.37%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 234 (9.69%) Power BI
2 144 (5.96%) Data Warehouse
3 96 (3.97%) Metadata
4 78 (3.23%) Data Lake
5 74 (3.06%) SQL Server
6 71 (2.94%) Tableau
7 68 (2.81%) PostgreSQL
8 62 (2.57%) Relational Database
9 38 (1.57%) Big Data
10 29 (1.20%) Delta Lake
10 29 (1.20%) Oracle Database
11 28 (1.16%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 27 (1.12%) BigQuery
13 26 (1.08%) NoSQL
13 26 (1.08%) Power Query
13 26 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 23 (0.95%) Amazon Redshift
14 23 (0.95%) Oracle Reports
15 21 (0.87%) MongoDB
16 20 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 225 (9.31%) JIRA
2 148 (6.13%) Git
3 85 (3.52%) Jenkins
4 65 (2.69%) GitLab
5 56 (2.32%) Selenium
6 40 (1.66%) JMeter
7 38 (1.57%) Postman
8 37 (1.53%) Cucumber
9 36 (1.49%) JUnit
10 30 (1.24%) WebDriver
11 21 (0.87%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.75%) Eclipse
13 14 (0.58%) Visual Studio
14 12 (0.50%) Gatling
14 12 (0.50%) Rational Rhapsody
15 11 (0.46%) MLflow
16 10 (0.41%) ERwin
17 9 (0.37%) Maven
17 9 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
17 9 (0.37%) REST Assured
General
1 722 (29.88%) Finance
2 701 (29.01%) Social Skills
3 464 (19.21%) Analytical Skills
4 192 (7.95%) Public Sector
5 183 (7.57%) Banking
6 137 (5.67%) Documentation Skills
7 85 (3.52%) Manufacturing
8 82 (3.39%) Retail
9 56 (2.32%) Aerospace
10 50 (2.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 46 (1.90%) Pharmaceutical
12 45 (1.86%) Organisational Skills
13 44 (1.82%) Telecoms
14 39 (1.61%) Marketing
15 38 (1.57%) Automotive
16 37 (1.53%) Front Office
17 35 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
17 35 (1.45%) Military
18 33 (1.37%) Law
19 32 (1.32%) Billing
Job Titles
1 429 (17.76%) Analyst
2 246 (10.18%) Senior
3 242 (10.02%) Lead
4 207 (8.57%) Data Engineer
5 202 (8.36%) Business Analyst
6 172 (7.12%) Consultant
7 141 (5.84%) Developer
8 132 (5.46%) Architect
9 125 (5.17%) Data Analyst
10 89 (3.68%) Test Engineer
11 74 (3.06%) Tester
12 69 (2.86%) Project Manager
13 54 (2.24%) Network Engineer
14 49 (2.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 47 (1.95%) Systems Engineer
16 45 (1.86%) Senior Data Engineer
17 39 (1.61%) Migration Engineer
18 38 (1.57%) Administrator
18 38 (1.57%) Data Scientist
18 38 (1.57%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 117 (4.84%) REST
2 74 (3.06%) JSON
3 70 (2.90%) Kafka
4 61 (2.52%) PySpark
5 51 (2.11%) XML
6 47 (1.95%) Oracle Fusion
7 41 (1.70%) Spring
8 40 (1.66%) .NET
9 38 (1.57%) Middleware
10 34 (1.41%) pytest
11 31 (1.28%) Pandas
11 31 (1.28%) Playwright
11 31 (1.28%) SOAP
11 31 (1.28%) Web Services
12 29 (1.20%) OAuth
13 28 (1.16%) RESTful
14 27 (1.12%) Node.js
15 25 (1.03%) WireMock
16 22 (0.91%) Lightning Web Components
16 22 (0.91%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 132 (5.46%) Data Structures
2 131 (5.42%) Onboarding
3 120 (4.97%) Legacy Systems
4 100 (4.14%) Cloud Native
5 96 (3.97%) Product Ownership
6 65 (2.69%) Data Centre
7 62 (2.57%) Management Information System
8 49 (2.03%) Distributed Systems
9 45 (1.86%) Analytical Mindset
10 40 (1.66%) SCADA
11 39 (1.61%) AI Agents
12 36 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
12 36 (1.49%) Hybrid Cloud
13 33 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
14 32 (1.32%) Life Science
15 30 (1.24%) Reference Data
16 29 (1.20%) Operational Technology
17 28 (1.16%) Public Cloud
17 28 (1.16%) Virtual Team
18 27 (1.12%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 137 (5.67%) Windows
2 86 (3.56%) Linux
3 38 (1.57%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.91%) Unix
5 18 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.41%) Android
6 10 (0.41%) Ubuntu
7 6 (0.25%) VMS
8 5 (0.21%) Apple iOS
8 5 (0.21%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.17%) SUSE
10 3 (0.12%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.083%) HPUX
11 2 (0.083%) VxWorks
11 2 (0.083%) zOS
12 1 (0.041%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.041%) pSOS
12 1 (0.041%) Solaris
12 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 668 (27.65%) Migration
2 466 (19.29%) Agile
3 451 (18.67%) Stakeholder Management
4 416 (17.22%) CI/CD
5 412 (17.05%) Analytics
6 406 (16.80%) Data Migration
7 391 (16.18%) User Acceptance Testing
8 388 (16.06%) Data Validation
9 380 (15.73%) Data Modelling
10 368 (15.23%) Problem-Solving
11 314 (13.00%) AI
12 305 (12.62%) ETL
13 300 (12.42%) DevOps
14 293 (12.13%) Test Automation
15 290 (12.00%) Continuous Improvement
16 271 (11.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 268 (11.09%) Business Intelligence
18 251 (10.39%) Data Governance
18 251 (10.39%) Data Pipeline
19 236 (9.77%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 593 (24.54%) SQL
2 440 (18.21%) Python
3 108 (4.47%) Java
4 76 (3.15%) PowerShell
5 52 (2.15%) C#
6 44 (1.82%) Bash
7 38 (1.57%) JavaScript
8 33 (1.37%) C++
9 32 (1.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 29 (1.20%) Bicep
11 27 (1.12%) Apex Code
12 26 (1.08%) PL/SQL
12 26 (1.08%) TypeScript
13 24 (0.99%) C
14 23 (0.95%) R
14 23 (0.95%) VBA
15 15 (0.62%) Ada
16 14 (0.58%) MATLAB
16 14 (0.58%) T-SQL
17 12 (0.50%) Scala
Qualifications
1 442 (18.29%) Security Cleared
2 314 (13.00%) SC Cleared
3 168 (6.95%) Degree
4 62 (2.57%) DV Cleared
5 48 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
6 36 (1.49%) Cisco Certification
7 34 (1.41%) Computer Science Degree
8 28 (1.16%) CCNP
9 23 (0.95%) PMI Certification
10 19 (0.79%) ACCA
10 19 (0.79%) PMP
11 18 (0.75%) CIMA
11 18 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
12 17 (0.70%) ISTQB
13 16 (0.66%) Azure Certification
13 16 (0.66%) CISSP
14 12 (0.50%) AWS Certification
14 12 (0.50%) CCNA
14 12 (0.50%) Master's Degree
15 10 (0.41%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 459 (19.00%) Data Quality
2 286 (11.84%) QA
3 102 (4.22%) GDPR
4 52 (2.15%) NIST
5 43 (1.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 39 (1.61%) Accessibility
7 34 (1.41%) PMO
8 29 (1.20%) SLA
9 20 (0.83%) GxP
10 15 (0.62%) GRC
11 14 (0.58%) HL7
12 13 (0.54%) Def Stans
12 13 (0.54%) IFRS
13 12 (0.50%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 12 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.50%) NCSC
13 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.46%) ISO 20022
14 11 (0.46%) WCAG
15 10 (0.41%) Solvency II
System Software
1 104 (4.30%) Docker
2 77 (3.19%) Active Directory
3 58 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
5 21 (0.87%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.58%) Firmware
8 13 (0.54%) vSphere
9 12 (0.50%) Hyper-V
9 12 (0.50%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.21%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.083%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.083%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.083%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.083%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.041%) Ceph
13 1 (0.041%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.041%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 144 (5.96%) Kubernetes
2 116 (4.80%) Terraform
3 52 (2.15%) Ansible
4 50 (2.07%) Prometheus
5 48 (1.99%) Grafana
6 24 (0.99%) Microsoft Intune
7 22 (0.91%) FortiGate
8 19 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.54%) SCCM
10 11 (0.46%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.33%) VxRail
12 6 (0.25%) HP ALM
13 5 (0.21%) CASB
13 5 (0.21%) Istio
13 5 (0.21%) vMotion
13 5 (0.21%) vRealize
14 4 (0.17%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.17%) Failover Clustering
14 4 (0.17%) Nessus
14 4 (0.17%) systemd
Vendors
1 351 (14.53%) Microsoft
2 219 (9.06%) SAP
3 209 (8.65%) Oracle
4 141 (5.84%) Databricks
5 83 (3.44%) Salesforce
6 69 (2.86%) VMware
7 58 (2.40%) ServiceNow
8 53 (2.19%) Cisco
9 49 (2.03%) Workday
10 37 (1.53%) Google
10 37 (1.53%) Splunk
11 34 (1.41%) Informatica
12 28 (1.16%) Fortinet
12 28 (1.16%) Juniper
13 25 (1.03%) IBM
13 25 (1.03%) Palo Alto
14 24 (0.99%) Zscaler
15 23 (0.95%) MuleSoft
15 23 (0.95%) Sage
16 20 (0.83%) IFS