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

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 68 110
Rank change year-on-year +35 +42 +40
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,471 1,023 688
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.42% 3.70% 2.06%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.38% 4.08% 2.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,508 623 337
10th Percentile £350 £350 £328
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £480
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +7.29% -12.73%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £588
90th Percentile £713 £688 £665
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £488
% change year-on-year -2.44% +5.02% -11.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 166 77 121
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £29.51 £36.25 £51.25
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £74.81 £67.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £83.38 £75.00 £75.00
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 38,759 25,103 28,648
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.06% 90.80% 85.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,089 16,021 18,628
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £425
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 2,530 1,424 1,656
10th Percentile £14.55 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.87 £18.50
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +3.24%
75th Percentile £68.75 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £41.50
% change year-on-year +68.99% -39.40% -1.55%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +40 1,191 £525 +1.45% 1,434
South East +5 325 £500 - 432
Midlands +33 315 £475 +2.70% 241
North of England +42 302 £450 -9.09% 305
West Midlands +33 224 £463 -4.15% 151
North West +19 152 £450 -17.20% 179
East of England +4 149 £475 -6.40% 256
Yorkshire +43 136 £460 +5.75% 74
South West -2 130 £525 -8.70% 281
East Midlands +24 86 £509 +13.11% 90
North East -35 18 £425 -22.73% 58
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 78 (3.16%) Confluence
2 65 (2.63%) Apache Airflow
3 46 (1.86%) SAS
4 44 (1.78%) SharePoint
5 39 (1.58%) Apache Spark
6 28 (1.13%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) Jupyter
8 12 (0.49%) Microsoft Exchange
9 10 (0.40%) CMS
10 8 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
12 6 (0.24%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.20%) Palantir Foundry
13 5 (0.20%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.16%) IIS
14 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.12%) JBoss
15 3 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
15 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 177 (7.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.34%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (1.34%) MS Visio
3 27 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 25 (1.01%) Spreadsheet
5 12 (0.49%) AutoCAD
6 9 (0.36%) 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 (0.040%) Autodesk Inventor
13 1 (0.040%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.040%) LaTeX
13 1 (0.040%) MicroStation
13 1 (0.040%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 107 (4.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (1.09%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.49%) NetSuite
4 12 (0.49%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.45%) iTrent
5 11 (0.45%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 11 (0.45%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.40%) Teamcenter
7 9 (0.36%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.32%) Aladdin
8 8 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
8 8 (0.32%) Sage X3
8 8 (0.32%) SAP SD
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
9 7 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.24%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 561 (22.70%) Azure
2 300 (12.14%) AWS
3 264 (10.68%) Power Platform
4 141 (5.71%) GCP
5 140 (5.67%) Azure DevOps
6 123 (4.98%) GitHub
7 85 (3.44%) Snowflake
8 72 (2.91%) Azure Data Factory
9 69 (2.79%) GitHub Actions
10 67 (2.71%) Entra ID
11 54 (2.19%) Serverless
12 47 (1.90%) Microsoft 365
13 46 (1.86%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 44 (1.78%) dbt
15 42 (1.70%) SaaS
16 41 (1.66%) Amazon S3
17 40 (1.62%) OCI
17 40 (1.62%) SuccessFactors
18 30 (1.21%) Azure Monitor
19 28 (1.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.17%) Firewall
2 63 (2.55%) DNS
3 60 (2.43%) Network Security
4 46 (1.86%) VLAN
5 45 (1.82%) VPN
6 42 (1.70%) TCP/IP
7 35 (1.42%) WAN
8 31 (1.25%) BGP
9 28 (1.13%) DHCP
10 22 (0.89%) Internet
11 21 (0.85%) SAN
12 20 (0.81%) SD-WAN
13 19 (0.77%) LAN
13 19 (0.77%) OSPF
13 19 (0.77%) Wireless
14 16 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
15 15 (0.61%) Ethernet
16 13 (0.53%) 5G
16 13 (0.53%) VXLAN
17 12 (0.49%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 245 (9.92%) Power BI
2 146 (5.91%) Data Warehouse
3 100 (4.05%) Metadata
4 79 (3.20%) Data Lake
5 78 (3.16%) PostgreSQL
6 76 (3.08%) SQL Server
7 70 (2.83%) Relational Database
8 69 (2.79%) Tableau
9 39 (1.58%) Big Data
10 33 (1.34%) MongoDB
11 31 (1.25%) NoSQL
12 29 (1.17%) BigQuery
13 28 (1.13%) Delta Lake
13 28 (1.13%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 27 (1.09%) Oracle Database
15 25 (1.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 24 (0.97%) Power Query
16 24 (0.97%) Redis
17 23 (0.93%) Oracle Reports
18 22 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 227 (9.19%) JIRA
2 168 (6.80%) Git
3 95 (3.84%) Jenkins
4 76 (3.08%) GitLab
5 63 (2.55%) Selenium
6 42 (1.70%) JMeter
7 39 (1.58%) Postman
8 38 (1.54%) Cucumber
9 35 (1.42%) JUnit
10 33 (1.34%) WebDriver
11 23 (0.93%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.73%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.65%) Visual Studio
14 13 (0.53%) Rational Rhapsody
15 12 (0.49%) Gatling
16 11 (0.45%) Maven
17 10 (0.40%) Gradle
17 10 (0.40%) REST Assured
18 9 (0.36%) Cypress.io
18 9 (0.36%) TestRail
General
1 713 (28.85%) Social Skills
2 710 (28.73%) Finance
3 485 (19.63%) Analytical Skills
4 202 (8.17%) Public Sector
5 186 (7.53%) Banking
6 131 (5.30%) Documentation Skills
7 91 (3.68%) Manufacturing
8 88 (3.56%) Retail
9 59 (2.39%) Aerospace
10 52 (2.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 47 (1.90%) Pharmaceutical
11 47 (1.90%) Telecoms
12 45 (1.82%) Automotive
13 44 (1.78%) Organisational Skills
14 40 (1.62%) Marketing
15 39 (1.58%) Local Government
16 38 (1.54%) Front Office
17 36 (1.46%) Law
18 35 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
19 32 (1.30%) Military
Job Titles
1 423 (17.12%) Analyst
2 264 (10.68%) Senior
3 249 (10.08%) Lead
4 208 (8.42%) Data Engineer
5 202 (8.17%) Business Analyst
6 187 (7.57%) Consultant
7 143 (5.79%) Developer
8 124 (5.02%) Architect
9 123 (4.98%) Data Analyst
10 101 (4.09%) Test Engineer
11 74 (2.99%) Tester
12 62 (2.51%) Project Manager
13 54 (2.19%) Network Engineer
14 52 (2.10%) Systems Engineer
15 49 (1.98%) Administrator
15 49 (1.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 46 (1.86%) Senior Data Engineer
17 40 (1.62%) Migration Engineer
17 40 (1.62%) Technical Analyst
18 38 (1.54%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 131 (5.30%) REST
2 73 (2.95%) JSON
3 68 (2.75%) Kafka
4 67 (2.71%) PySpark
5 62 (2.51%) XML
6 49 (1.98%) Oracle Fusion
7 44 (1.78%) Spring
8 39 (1.58%) .NET
8 39 (1.58%) Middleware
8 39 (1.58%) Playwright
9 38 (1.54%) pytest
10 31 (1.25%) RESTful
10 31 (1.25%) SOAP
11 30 (1.21%) Pandas
12 29 (1.17%) Node.js
12 29 (1.17%) Web Services
13 26 (1.05%) OAuth
13 26 (1.05%) WireMock
14 25 (1.01%) Spring Boot
15 22 (0.89%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 137 (5.54%) Onboarding
2 132 (5.34%) Data Structures
3 114 (4.61%) Legacy Systems
4 110 (4.45%) Cloud Native
5 104 (4.21%) Product Ownership
6 72 (2.91%) Management Information System
7 70 (2.83%) Data Centre
8 47 (1.90%) Analytical Mindset
8 47 (1.90%) Distributed Systems
9 41 (1.66%) SCADA
10 40 (1.62%) AI Agents
11 38 (1.54%) Enterprise Software
12 34 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
13 33 (1.34%) Algorithms
13 33 (1.34%) Life Science
14 32 (1.30%) Operational Technology
14 32 (1.30%) Public Cloud
14 32 (1.30%) Replication
15 29 (1.17%) Hybrid Cloud
16 28 (1.13%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 134 (5.42%) Windows
2 93 (3.76%) Linux
3 43 (1.74%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.93%) Unix
5 18 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.49%) Android
7 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
8 7 (0.28%) Apple iOS
8 7 (0.28%) VMS
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 (0.040%) Debian
12 1 (0.040%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.040%) Solaris
12 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.040%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 679 (27.48%) Migration
2 480 (19.43%) Agile
3 476 (19.26%) Stakeholder Management
4 458 (18.54%) CI/CD
5 407 (16.47%) Data Migration
6 405 (16.39%) User Acceptance Testing
7 403 (16.31%) Analytics
8 389 (15.74%) Data Validation
9 385 (15.58%) Data Modelling
9 385 (15.58%) Problem-Solving
10 328 (13.27%) AI
10 328 (13.27%) DevOps
11 316 (12.79%) Test Automation
12 304 (12.30%) Continuous Improvement
13 294 (11.90%) ETL
14 276 (11.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 273 (11.05%) Business Intelligence
16 259 (10.48%) Data Pipeline
17 255 (10.32%) Data Governance
18 239 (9.67%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 622 (25.17%) SQL
2 465 (18.82%) Python
3 119 (4.82%) Java
4 74 (2.99%) PowerShell
5 48 (1.94%) C#
6 46 (1.86%) Bash
7 45 (1.82%) JavaScript
8 40 (1.62%) C++
9 29 (1.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 27 (1.09%) Apex Code
10 27 (1.09%) TypeScript
11 24 (0.97%) Bicep
11 24 (0.97%) PL/SQL
12 23 (0.93%) C
13 22 (0.89%) R
13 22 (0.89%) VBA
14 15 (0.61%) MATLAB
15 13 (0.53%) Scala
15 13 (0.53%) T-SQL
16 12 (0.49%) Ada
Qualifications
1 462 (18.70%) Security Cleared
2 333 (13.48%) SC Cleared
3 170 (6.88%) Degree
4 67 (2.71%) DV Cleared
5 48 (1.94%) BPSS Clearance
6 40 (1.62%) Computer Science Degree
7 36 (1.46%) Cisco Certification
8 28 (1.13%) CCNP
9 22 (0.89%) ACCA
10 21 (0.85%) CIMA
10 21 (0.85%) PMI Certification
11 20 (0.81%) AWS Certification
11 20 (0.81%) ISTQB
12 18 (0.73%) Azure Certification
13 17 (0.69%) Microsoft Certification
13 17 (0.69%) PMP
14 16 (0.65%) CISSP
15 12 (0.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 11 (0.45%) CCNA
16 11 (0.45%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 480 (19.43%) Data Quality
2 302 (12.22%) QA
3 100 (4.05%) GDPR
4 49 (1.98%) NIST
5 43 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 36 (1.46%) Accessibility
7 33 (1.34%) PMO
8 29 (1.17%) 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
12 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
12 12 (0.49%) ISO 20022
12 12 (0.49%) NCSC
12 12 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.45%) HL7
13 11 (0.45%) IFRS
13 11 (0.45%) NIST 800
13 11 (0.45%) WCAG
System Software
1 112 (4.53%) Docker
2 79 (3.20%) Active Directory
3 58 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.21%) Virtual Machines
5 22 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.61%) Firmware
7 14 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.57%) vSphere
8 12 (0.49%) Hyper-V
9 11 (0.45%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.12%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.081%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.081%) NFS
12 2 (0.081%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.040%) Ceph
13 1 (0.040%) etcd
13 1 (0.040%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 142 (5.75%) Kubernetes
2 126 (5.10%) Terraform
3 62 (2.51%) Ansible
4 48 (1.94%) Grafana
5 42 (1.70%) Prometheus
6 23 (0.93%) Microsoft Intune
7 22 (0.89%) FortiGate
8 21 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.40%) VxRail
11 9 (0.36%) SCCM
12 7 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
13 6 (0.24%) Argo
13 6 (0.24%) HP ALM
14 5 (0.20%) systemd
14 5 (0.20%) vRealize
15 4 (0.16%) CASB
15 4 (0.16%) Functional Safety
15 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Clustering
15 4 (0.16%) Puppet
Vendors
1 369 (14.93%) Microsoft
2 219 (8.86%) SAP
3 204 (8.26%) Oracle
4 141 (5.71%) Databricks
5 82 (3.32%) Salesforce
6 68 (2.75%) VMware
7 66 (2.67%) ServiceNow
8 54 (2.19%) Cisco
9 42 (1.70%) Workday
10 40 (1.62%) Google
11 32 (1.30%) Informatica
12 29 (1.17%) Juniper
13 27 (1.09%) IBM
14 26 (1.05%) Fortinet
15 25 (1.01%) Zscaler
16 24 (0.97%) Splunk
17 22 (0.89%) Palo Alto
18 21 (0.85%) MuleSoft
19 20 (0.81%) IFS
19 20 (0.81%) Sage