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

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 69 103
Rank change year-on-year +38 +34 +48
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,787 1,039 743
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.95% 3.69% 2.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 7.01% 4.06% 2.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,641 625 378
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% -8.26%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £591
90th Percentile £706 £695 £649
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -6.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 197 75 95
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £28.71
25th Percentile £28.00 £35.58 £47.75
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £64.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% +1.56% -5.19%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £65.50
90th Percentile £79.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £53.50 £63.75 £63.25
% change year-on-year -16.08% +0.79% -6.30%

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 39,775 25,570 27,639
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.94% 90.90% 86.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,015 16,235 16,841
10th Percentile £325 £294 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £413
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% -2.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,044 1,594 1,106
10th Percentile £13.70 £14.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.41 £17.87 £20.30
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -5.56%
75th Percentile £67.47 £44.80 £66.90
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.25 £74.22
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -10.11%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 +41 1,344 £525 - 1,265
North of England +49 374 £460 +2.22% 239
South East +9 341 £525 +5.00% 335
Midlands +39 325 £450 -4.76% 159
West Midlands +31 235 £450 -10.00% 103
North West +18 191 £469 +10.24% 126
South West +16 177 £525 -4.55% 161
Yorkshire +61 153 £470 -1.05% 78
East of England -2 149 £475 -5.00% 174
East Midlands +35 87 £444 -1.33% 56
North East -18 35 £425 -11.92% 36
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 94 (3.37%) Confluence
2 60 (2.15%) SharePoint
3 59 (2.12%) Apache Airflow
4 56 (2.01%) SAS
5 50 (1.79%) Apache Spark
6 38 (1.36%) Apache
7 23 (0.83%) CMS
8 19 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
9 10 (0.36%) Jupyter
10 9 (0.32%) WebLogic
11 8 (0.29%) Palantir Foundry
11 8 (0.29%) SharePoint 2013
12 7 (0.25%) IIS
12 7 (0.25%) Sitecore CMS
13 6 (0.22%) OpenStack
14 5 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
14 5 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
14 5 (0.18%) Tuxedo
15 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 4 (0.14%) Tomcat
Applications
1 191 (6.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.51%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (1.26%) MS Visio
4 33 (1.18%) Spreadsheet
5 31 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 15 (0.54%) AutoCAD
7 10 (0.36%) Navisworks
8 9 (0.32%) Revit
8 9 (0.32%) Simulink
9 7 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
9 7 (0.25%) ProjectWise
10 3 (0.11%) CATIA
10 3 (0.11%) Chatbot
10 3 (0.11%) LaTeX
10 3 (0.11%) OrCAD
11 2 (0.072%) Adobe XD
11 2 (0.072%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.072%) EPLAN
12 1 (0.036%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.036%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 104 (3.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.65%) SAP FI
3 16 (0.57%) Workday HCM
4 14 (0.50%) Oracle Payables
5 13 (0.47%) NetSuite
6 12 (0.43%) Aladdin
6 12 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
6 12 (0.43%) Integrated Workplace Management System
6 12 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
6 12 (0.43%) SAP MDG
6 12 (0.43%) SAP SD
7 11 (0.39%) SAP HCM
7 11 (0.39%) SAP MM
7 11 (0.39%) Teamcenter
8 10 (0.36%) iTrent
9 9 (0.32%) SAP CO
10 8 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
10 8 (0.29%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.29%) SAP PM
11 7 (0.25%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 546 (19.59%) Azure
2 337 (12.09%) AWS
3 271 (9.72%) Power Platform
4 167 (5.99%) Azure DevOps
5 151 (5.42%) GCP
6 135 (4.84%) GitHub
7 100 (3.59%) Snowflake
8 99 (3.55%) Entra ID
9 69 (2.48%) Azure Data Factory
9 69 (2.48%) GitHub Actions
10 57 (2.05%) Amazon S3
10 57 (2.05%) Microsoft 365
11 56 (2.01%) dbt
12 51 (1.83%) SaaS
12 51 (1.83%) Serverless
13 45 (1.61%) SuccessFactors
14 40 (1.44%) Dynamics 365
15 37 (1.33%) Azure Monitor
16 33 (1.18%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 33 (1.18%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 99 (3.55%) Firewall
2 80 (2.87%) DNS
3 56 (2.01%) VPN
4 54 (1.94%) Network Security
5 53 (1.90%) VLAN
6 51 (1.83%) TCP/IP
7 46 (1.65%) BGP
8 39 (1.40%) WAN
9 33 (1.18%) DHCP
10 27 (0.97%) OSPF
11 23 (0.83%) Ethernet
12 22 (0.79%) Internet
12 22 (0.79%) VXLAN
13 21 (0.75%) Ethernet VPN
13 21 (0.75%) SAN
14 20 (0.72%) 5G
14 20 (0.72%) Wireless
15 19 (0.68%) SD-WAN
16 18 (0.65%) LAN
17 17 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 247 (8.86%) Power BI
2 148 (5.31%) Data Warehouse
3 123 (4.41%) Metadata
4 97 (3.48%) Relational Database
5 84 (3.01%) SQL Server
6 78 (2.80%) PostgreSQL
7 71 (2.55%) Data Lake
8 61 (2.19%) Tableau
9 41 (1.47%) Delta Lake
9 41 (1.47%) MongoDB
10 36 (1.29%) Power Query
11 35 (1.26%) Big Data
11 35 (1.26%) BigQuery
12 33 (1.18%) NoSQL
12 33 (1.18%) Redis
13 32 (1.15%) Oracle Database
14 24 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
14 24 (0.86%) MySQL
15 23 (0.83%) Amazon Athena
16 21 (0.75%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 255 (9.15%) JIRA
2 213 (7.64%) Git
3 98 (3.52%) GitLab
3 98 (3.52%) Jenkins
4 72 (2.58%) Selenium
5 39 (1.40%) Postman
6 31 (1.11%) JMeter
7 25 (0.90%) Cucumber
8 24 (0.86%) Rational DOORS
9 20 (0.72%) JUnit
10 17 (0.61%) Eclipse
10 17 (0.61%) Visual Studio
11 15 (0.54%) Cypress.io
11 15 (0.54%) REST Assured
11 15 (0.54%) WebDriver
12 13 (0.47%) Zephyr
13 12 (0.43%) TestRail
13 12 (0.43%) Visual Studio Code
14 11 (0.39%) Rational Rhapsody
15 10 (0.36%) Gradle
General
1 813 (29.17%) Finance
2 778 (27.92%) Social Skills
3 552 (19.81%) Analytical Skills
4 260 (9.33%) Banking
5 232 (8.32%) Public Sector
6 133 (4.77%) Manufacturing
7 107 (3.84%) Documentation Skills
8 83 (2.98%) Retail
9 71 (2.55%) Automotive
10 63 (2.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 63 (2.26%) Telecoms
11 55 (1.97%) Aerospace
12 48 (1.72%) Marketing
13 44 (1.58%) Legal
13 44 (1.58%) Local Government
14 43 (1.54%) Organisational Skills
14 43 (1.54%) Pharmaceutical
15 40 (1.44%) General Ledger
16 39 (1.40%) Billing
16 39 (1.40%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 479 (17.19%) Analyst
2 333 (11.95%) Senior
3 255 (9.15%) Lead
4 237 (8.50%) Data Engineer
5 217 (7.79%) Consultant
6 214 (7.68%) Business Analyst
7 157 (5.63%) Developer
8 156 (5.60%) Data Analyst
9 152 (5.45%) Architect
10 107 (3.84%) Test Engineer
11 69 (2.48%) Network Engineer
12 67 (2.40%) Tester
13 60 (2.15%) Administrator
13 60 (2.15%) Senior Data Engineer
14 53 (1.90%) Systems Engineer
15 51 (1.83%) Software Engineer
16 43 (1.54%) Senior Analyst
17 42 (1.51%) QA Engineer
17 42 (1.51%) Test Analyst
18 39 (1.40%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 186 (6.67%) Terraform
2 169 (6.06%) REST
3 83 (2.98%) PySpark
4 80 (2.87%) JSON
5 70 (2.51%) Kafka
6 67 (2.40%) XML
7 62 (2.22%) Middleware
8 59 (2.12%) Playwright
9 48 (1.72%) pytest
10 47 (1.69%) OAuth
10 47 (1.69%) Oracle Fusion
11 40 (1.44%) Web Services
12 39 (1.40%) Spring
13 38 (1.36%) RESTful
13 38 (1.36%) SOAP
14 36 (1.29%) .NET
14 36 (1.29%) Spring Boot
15 35 (1.26%) OpenID
16 33 (1.18%) HTML
17 31 (1.11%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 167 (5.99%) Onboarding
2 147 (5.27%) Data Structures
3 138 (4.95%) Cloud Native
4 111 (3.98%) Management Information System
5 110 (3.95%) Legacy Systems
6 104 (3.73%) Product Ownership
7 87 (3.12%) Data Centre
8 66 (2.37%) Enterprise Software
9 63 (2.26%) AI Agents
10 46 (1.65%) Distributed Systems
11 45 (1.61%) Analytical Mindset
12 42 (1.51%) Algorithms
12 42 (1.51%) SCADA
13 40 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
14 39 (1.40%) Life Science
15 38 (1.36%) CMDB
16 35 (1.26%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 34 (1.22%) Operational Technology
18 31 (1.11%) Derivative
18 31 (1.11%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 179 (6.42%) Windows
2 108 (3.88%) Linux
3 68 (2.44%) Windows Server
4 34 (1.22%) Unix
5 19 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.43%) Android
7 11 (0.39%) Ubuntu
8 10 (0.36%) Windows 10
9 7 (0.25%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.14%) 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 (0.072%) HPUX
12 2 (0.072%) Solaris
12 2 (0.072%) SUSE
12 2 (0.072%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.036%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 759 (27.23%) Migration
2 636 (22.82%) Stakeholder Management
3 578 (20.74%) CI/CD
4 532 (19.09%) Agile
5 452 (16.22%) Data Migration
6 450 (16.15%) User Acceptance Testing
7 432 (15.50%) Data Modelling
8 426 (15.29%) Data Validation
9 423 (15.18%) Problem-Solving
10 419 (15.03%) Analytics
11 403 (14.46%) AI
12 396 (14.21%) Test Automation
13 393 (14.10%) DevOps
14 391 (14.03%) Continuous Improvement
15 323 (11.59%) ETL
16 290 (10.41%) Data Analysis
17 287 (10.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 286 (10.26%) Data Pipeline
19 280 (10.05%) Data Governance
20 279 (10.01%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 748 (26.84%) SQL
2 596 (21.39%) Python
3 129 (4.63%) Java
4 117 (4.20%) PowerShell
5 73 (2.62%) JavaScript
6 56 (2.01%) Bash
7 52 (1.87%) C#
8 44 (1.58%) TypeScript
9 41 (1.47%) C++
10 30 (1.08%) Bicep
11 28 (1.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 27 (0.97%) Shell Script
13 26 (0.93%) R
14 25 (0.90%) PL/SQL
15 23 (0.83%) Apex Code
16 22 (0.79%) C
16 22 (0.79%) VBA
17 17 (0.61%) MATLAB
18 15 (0.54%) Go
19 14 (0.50%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 575 (20.63%) Security Cleared
2 438 (15.72%) SC Cleared
3 213 (7.64%) Degree
4 95 (3.41%) DV Cleared
5 59 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (1.61%) AWS Certification
6 45 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
7 34 (1.22%) ACCA
7 34 (1.22%) CIMA
7 34 (1.22%) Cisco Certification
8 32 (1.15%) ISTQB
9 25 (0.90%) CCNP
9 25 (0.90%) PMI Certification
10 23 (0.83%) Azure Certification
10 23 (0.83%) CISSP
11 21 (0.75%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 20 (0.72%) Master's Degree
12 20 (0.72%) PMP
13 19 (0.68%) DBS Check
13 19 (0.68%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 585 (20.99%) Data Quality
2 323 (11.59%) QA
3 85 (3.05%) GDPR
4 49 (1.76%) Accessibility
5 43 (1.54%) SLA
6 34 (1.22%) NIST
7 33 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 30 (1.08%) PMO
9 24 (0.86%) GxP
10 18 (0.65%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 18 (0.65%) Actionable Recommendations
11 17 (0.61%) WCAG
12 15 (0.54%) GRC
13 13 (0.47%) IFRS
13 13 (0.47%) ISO 20022
14 11 (0.39%) GMP
15 10 (0.36%) Def Stans
15 10 (0.36%) NCSC
16 9 (0.32%) MiFID
17 8 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 115 (4.13%) Docker
2 109 (3.91%) Active Directory
3 65 (2.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.86%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.61%) Firmware
8 16 (0.57%) vSphere
9 15 (0.54%) Hyper-V
10 13 (0.47%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.14%) VirtualBox
12 3 (0.11%) KVM
13 2 (0.072%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.072%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.072%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.036%) Ceph
14 1 (0.036%) HDFS
14 1 (0.036%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.036%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 1 (0.036%) NFS
Systems Management
1 148 (5.31%) Kubernetes
2 98 (3.52%) Ansible
3 38 (1.36%) Grafana
4 32 (1.15%) Prometheus
5 24 (0.86%) Microsoft Intune
6 23 (0.83%) FortiGate
7 19 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.65%) SCCM
9 10 (0.36%) Functional Safety
9 10 (0.36%) HP ALM
9 10 (0.36%) Progress Chef
10 9 (0.32%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.29%) Argo
12 6 (0.22%) Control-M
12 6 (0.22%) VxRail
13 5 (0.18%) vRealize
14 4 (0.14%) Kibana
14 4 (0.14%) Kustomize
14 4 (0.14%) Oracle RMAN
14 4 (0.14%) Podman
Vendors
1 443 (15.90%) Microsoft
2 235 (8.43%) SAP
3 198 (7.10%) Oracle
4 171 (6.14%) Databricks
5 89 (3.19%) ServiceNow
6 83 (2.98%) Salesforce
7 79 (2.83%) Cisco
8 74 (2.66%) VMware
9 72 (2.58%) Google
10 52 (1.87%) Workday
11 51 (1.83%) IBM
12 32 (1.15%) Fortinet
13 29 (1.04%) Juniper
14 28 (1.00%) Informatica
14 28 (1.00%) Zscaler
15 25 (0.90%) Palo Alto
16 22 (0.79%) Splunk
17 20 (0.72%) CyberArk
18 19 (0.68%) Arista
19 18 (0.65%) Red Hat