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

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 66 114
Rank change year-on-year +32 +48 +40
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,461 1,018 680
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.40% 3.68% 2.04%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.34% 4.06% 2.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,505 620 337
10th Percentile £350 £350 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £480
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +8.33% -12.73%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £588
90th Percentile £713 £700 £665
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £488
% change year-on-year -2.91% +5.53% -11.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 166 80 119
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £29.95
25th Percentile £29.51 £36.42 £51.25
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £74.81 £67.00 £69.38
90th Percentile £83.38 £75.25 £75.37
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -8.33% -7.69% -

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 38,792 25,089 28,626
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.08% 90.79% 85.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,117 16,022 18,624
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £422
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 £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,537 1,415 1,654
10th Percentile £14.56 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.87 £18.39
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +4.78%
75th Percentile £68.75 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £40.94
% change year-on-year +68.99% -38.57% -1.35%

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 11 August 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 11 August 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 11 August 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 +42 1,181 £525 +0.96% 765
South East +3 322 £500 - 323
Midlands +32 314 £475 +5.56% 187
North of England +50 307 £450 -9.09% 211
West Midlands +33 223 £463 +2.78% 114
North West +30 156 £450 -21.40% 124
East of England +5 149 £475 -6.40% 147
Yorkshire +39 137 £458 +5.17% 48
South West -3 129 £525 -8.70% 175
East Midlands +25 86 £509 +11.99% 73
North East -35 18 £425 -22.73% 42
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 74 (3.01%) Confluence
2 64 (2.60%) Apache Airflow
3 46 (1.87%) SAS
4 43 (1.75%) SharePoint
5 39 (1.58%) Apache Spark
6 28 (1.14%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) Jupyter
8 10 (0.41%) CMS
8 10 (0.41%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.33%) SharePoint 2013
10 6 (0.24%) ArcGIS
11 5 (0.20%) Palantir Foundry
11 5 (0.20%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) IIS
12 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.12%) JBoss
13 3 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 174 (7.07%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.34%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (1.34%) MS Visio
3 25 (1.02%) Spreadsheet
4 22 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.49%) AutoCAD
6 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
7 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
7 7 (0.28%) Revit
8 6 (0.24%) Simulink
9 5 (0.20%) ProjectWise
10 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.12%) CATIA
12 2 (0.081%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.081%) EPLAN
13 1 (0.041%) Autodesk Inventor
13 1 (0.041%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.041%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.041%) MicroStation
13 1 (0.041%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 108 (4.39%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (1.10%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.57%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.49%) NetSuite
4 12 (0.49%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 12 (0.49%) SAP ERP
4 12 (0.49%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.45%) iTrent
6 10 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.41%) Teamcenter
7 9 (0.37%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.37%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.33%) Aladdin
8 8 (0.33%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
8 8 (0.33%) Sage X3
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
9 7 (0.28%) SAP SD
9 7 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.24%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 557 (22.63%) Azure
2 294 (11.95%) AWS
3 259 (10.52%) Power Platform
4 141 (5.73%) Azure DevOps
5 139 (5.65%) GCP
6 122 (4.96%) GitHub
7 84 (3.41%) Snowflake
8 72 (2.93%) Azure Data Factory
9 68 (2.76%) GitHub Actions
10 67 (2.72%) Entra ID
11 55 (2.23%) Serverless
12 45 (1.83%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 45 (1.83%) Microsoft 365
13 44 (1.79%) dbt
13 44 (1.79%) SaaS
14 41 (1.67%) Amazon S3
15 40 (1.63%) OCI
16 38 (1.54%) SuccessFactors
17 30 (1.22%) Azure Monitor
18 27 (1.10%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.23%) Firewall
2 63 (2.56%) Network Security
3 62 (2.52%) DNS
4 47 (1.91%) VLAN
5 45 (1.83%) VPN
6 44 (1.79%) TCP/IP
7 36 (1.46%) WAN
8 30 (1.22%) BGP
9 28 (1.14%) DHCP
10 23 (0.93%) Internet
11 21 (0.85%) SAN
12 20 (0.81%) LAN
12 20 (0.81%) OSPF
12 20 (0.81%) SD-WAN
13 19 (0.77%) Wireless
14 16 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.53%) Ethernet
16 12 (0.49%) 5G
16 12 (0.49%) Cisco ISE
17 11 (0.45%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 240 (9.75%) Power BI
2 145 (5.89%) Data Warehouse
3 99 (4.02%) Metadata
4 79 (3.21%) Data Lake
5 76 (3.09%) PostgreSQL
5 76 (3.09%) SQL Server
6 69 (2.80%) Tableau
7 68 (2.76%) Relational Database
8 38 (1.54%) Big Data
9 32 (1.30%) MongoDB
10 30 (1.22%) NoSQL
11 28 (1.14%) BigQuery
11 28 (1.14%) Delta Lake
11 28 (1.14%) Oracle Database
11 28 (1.14%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 25 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 24 (0.98%) Power Query
14 23 (0.93%) Oracle Reports
15 22 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
15 22 (0.89%) Redis
Development Applications
1 226 (9.18%) JIRA
2 167 (6.79%) Git
3 94 (3.82%) Jenkins
4 74 (3.01%) GitLab
5 62 (2.52%) Selenium
6 41 (1.67%) JMeter
7 38 (1.54%) Cucumber
7 38 (1.54%) Postman
8 35 (1.42%) JUnit
9 33 (1.34%) WebDriver
10 23 (0.93%) Rational DOORS
11 18 (0.73%) Eclipse
12 16 (0.65%) Visual Studio
13 13 (0.53%) Rational Rhapsody
14 12 (0.49%) Gatling
15 11 (0.45%) Maven
16 10 (0.41%) Gradle
16 10 (0.41%) REST Assured
17 9 (0.37%) Cypress.io
17 9 (0.37%) TestRail
General
1 715 (29.05%) Finance
2 705 (28.65%) Social Skills
3 477 (19.38%) Analytical Skills
4 203 (8.25%) Public Sector
5 189 (7.68%) Banking
6 127 (5.16%) Documentation Skills
7 90 (3.66%) Manufacturing
8 87 (3.54%) Retail
9 58 (2.36%) Aerospace
10 53 (2.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 47 (1.91%) Pharmaceutical
11 47 (1.91%) Telecoms
12 44 (1.79%) Automotive
13 43 (1.75%) Organisational Skills
14 39 (1.58%) Local Government
14 39 (1.58%) Marketing
15 37 (1.50%) Front Office
16 35 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
16 35 (1.42%) Law
17 33 (1.34%) Military
Job Titles
1 419 (17.03%) Analyst
2 262 (10.65%) Senior
3 249 (10.12%) Lead
4 209 (8.49%) Data Engineer
5 198 (8.05%) Business Analyst
6 182 (7.40%) Consultant
7 143 (5.81%) Developer
8 128 (5.20%) Architect
9 123 (5.00%) Data Analyst
10 101 (4.10%) Test Engineer
11 74 (3.01%) Tester
12 65 (2.64%) Project Manager
13 55 (2.23%) Network Engineer
14 51 (2.07%) Systems Engineer
15 49 (1.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 48 (1.95%) Administrator
17 46 (1.87%) Senior Data Engineer
18 40 (1.63%) Technical Analyst
19 39 (1.58%) Migration Engineer
20 38 (1.54%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 124 (5.04%) REST
2 73 (2.97%) JSON
3 71 (2.89%) Kafka
4 65 (2.64%) PySpark
5 62 (2.52%) XML
6 49 (1.99%) Oracle Fusion
7 43 (1.75%) Spring
8 41 (1.67%) .NET
9 40 (1.63%) Middleware
10 38 (1.54%) pytest
11 37 (1.50%) Playwright
12 32 (1.30%) RESTful
13 30 (1.22%) Pandas
13 30 (1.22%) SOAP
14 28 (1.14%) Node.js
14 28 (1.14%) Web Services
15 27 (1.10%) OAuth
16 26 (1.06%) WireMock
17 24 (0.98%) Spring Boot
18 22 (0.89%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 137 (5.57%) Onboarding
2 133 (5.40%) Data Structures
3 117 (4.75%) Legacy Systems
4 108 (4.39%) Cloud Native
5 102 (4.14%) Product Ownership
6 71 (2.89%) Management Information System
7 68 (2.76%) Data Centre
8 47 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
9 46 (1.87%) Analytical Mindset
10 40 (1.63%) SCADA
11 39 (1.58%) AI Agents
12 37 (1.50%) Enterprise Software
13 34 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
14 33 (1.34%) Life Science
15 32 (1.30%) Algorithms
15 32 (1.30%) Public Cloud
16 31 (1.26%) Operational Technology
16 31 (1.26%) Replication
17 30 (1.22%) Hybrid Cloud
18 28 (1.14%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 132 (5.36%) Windows
2 93 (3.78%) Linux
3 42 (1.71%) Windows Server
4 24 (0.98%) Unix
5 18 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.45%) Android
6 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.28%) VMS
8 6 (0.24%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.20%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.16%) SUSE
10 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.081%) HPUX
11 2 (0.081%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.041%) Debian
12 1 (0.041%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.041%) Solaris
12 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.041%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 677 (27.51%) Migration
2 473 (19.22%) Stakeholder Management
3 471 (19.14%) Agile
4 453 (18.41%) CI/CD
5 407 (16.54%) Data Migration
6 406 (16.50%) Analytics
7 399 (16.21%) User Acceptance Testing
8 391 (15.89%) Data Validation
9 387 (15.73%) Data Modelling
10 380 (15.44%) Problem-Solving
11 328 (13.33%) DevOps
12 322 (13.08%) AI
13 313 (12.72%) Test Automation
14 300 (12.19%) Continuous Improvement
15 298 (12.11%) ETL
16 274 (11.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 270 (10.97%) Business Intelligence
18 260 (10.56%) Data Pipeline
19 256 (10.40%) Data Governance
20 234 (9.51%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 612 (24.87%) SQL
2 460 (18.69%) Python
3 117 (4.75%) Java
4 71 (2.89%) PowerShell
5 50 (2.03%) C#
6 46 (1.87%) Bash
7 45 (1.83%) JavaScript
8 39 (1.58%) C++
9 30 (1.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 27 (1.10%) Apex Code
11 26 (1.06%) TypeScript
12 25 (1.02%) Bicep
12 25 (1.02%) PL/SQL
13 24 (0.98%) VBA
14 23 (0.93%) C
15 22 (0.89%) R
16 14 (0.57%) MATLAB
17 13 (0.53%) Scala
17 13 (0.53%) T-SQL
18 12 (0.49%) Ada
Qualifications
1 455 (18.49%) Security Cleared
2 325 (13.21%) SC Cleared
3 167 (6.79%) Degree
4 67 (2.72%) DV Cleared
5 49 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
6 40 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
7 35 (1.42%) Cisco Certification
8 27 (1.10%) CCNP
9 22 (0.89%) ACCA
10 21 (0.85%) CIMA
10 21 (0.85%) PMI Certification
11 19 (0.77%) AWS Certification
11 19 (0.77%) ISTQB
12 18 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
13 17 (0.69%) Azure Certification
13 17 (0.69%) CISSP
13 17 (0.69%) PMP
14 11 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 11 (0.45%) CCNA
14 11 (0.45%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 480 (19.50%) Data Quality
2 301 (12.23%) QA
3 100 (4.06%) GDPR
4 49 (1.99%) NIST
5 43 (1.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 35 (1.42%) Accessibility
7 33 (1.34%) PMO
8 28 (1.14%) SLA
9 22 (0.89%) GxP
10 15 (0.61%) GRC
11 14 (0.57%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 14 (0.57%) Def Stans
11 14 (0.57%) ISO 20022
12 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
12 12 (0.49%) HL7
12 12 (0.49%) NCSC
12 12 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.45%) IFRS
13 11 (0.45%) NIST 800
13 11 (0.45%) WCAG
System Software
1 112 (4.55%) Docker
2 79 (3.21%) Active Directory
3 56 (2.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 31 (1.26%) Virtual Machines
5 22 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.61%) Firmware
7 14 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
8 13 (0.53%) vSphere
9 11 (0.45%) Hyper-V
10 10 (0.41%) VMware NSX
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.12%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.081%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.081%) NFS
12 2 (0.081%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.041%) etcd
13 1 (0.041%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.041%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 144 (5.85%) Kubernetes
2 123 (5.00%) Terraform
3 60 (2.44%) Ansible
4 48 (1.95%) Grafana
5 45 (1.83%) Prometheus
6 22 (0.89%) FortiGate
6 22 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
7 21 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
8 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
9 10 (0.41%) VxRail
10 9 (0.37%) SCCM
11 7 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
12 6 (0.24%) Argo
12 6 (0.24%) HP ALM
13 5 (0.20%) CASB
13 5 (0.20%) systemd
13 5 (0.20%) vRealize
14 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Clustering
14 4 (0.16%) Nessus
14 4 (0.16%) Puppet
Vendors
1 365 (14.83%) Microsoft
2 218 (8.86%) SAP
3 205 (8.33%) Oracle
4 139 (5.65%) Databricks
5 83 (3.37%) Salesforce
6 66 (2.68%) VMware
7 64 (2.60%) ServiceNow
8 52 (2.11%) Cisco
9 43 (1.75%) Workday
10 40 (1.63%) Google
11 31 (1.26%) Informatica
12 28 (1.14%) Juniper
12 28 (1.14%) Splunk
13 27 (1.10%) Fortinet
13 27 (1.10%) IBM
14 26 (1.06%) Zscaler
15 22 (0.89%) MuleSoft
15 22 (0.89%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.85%) Sage
17 20 (0.81%) IFS