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

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 66 108
Rank change year-on-year +33 +42 +43
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,511 1,039 704
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.50% 3.77% 2.12%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.48% 4.15% 2.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,527 634 345
10th Percentile £340 £345 £327
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £488
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +5.13% -11.36%
75th Percentile £600 £618 £588
90th Percentile £712 £688 £662
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 166 80 115
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £29.86
25th Percentile £28.50 £36.42 £49.50
Median hourly rate £56.49 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.62% -3.85% -0.76%
75th Percentile £73.25 £66.63 £70.13
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £76.12
UK median hourly rate £53.00 £61.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year -13.47% -5.77% -0.76%

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 38,748 25,020 28,500
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.82% 90.83% 85.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,949 15,925 18,341
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £511 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.74% -2.67% -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £627 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £753
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,582 1,471 1,520
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.25 £14.05
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.87 £18.13
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.05 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £40.94
% change year-on-year +65.23% -38.57% -3.67%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 +41 1,218 £525 +2.44% 988
North of England +44 326 £453 -8.48% 257
South East 0 318 £503 +0.50% 343
Midlands +33 309 £475 -5.00% 200
West Midlands +31 215 £459 -9.56% 136
North West +22 166 £456 -13.55% 149
Yorkshire +43 143 £460 +2.22% 65
East of England -1 142 £475 -6.40% 223
South West +3 134 £524 -8.91% 271
East Midlands +24 89 £500 - 64
North East -29 21 £438 -20.45% 49
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 (2.91%) Confluence
2 63 (2.51%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (1.87%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.79%) SAS
5 39 (1.55%) Apache Spark
6 25 (1.00%) Apache
7 15 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
8 11 (0.44%) CMS
8 11 (0.44%) Jupyter
9 8 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
10 7 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
11 6 (0.24%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
12 5 (0.20%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) IIS
13 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.12%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 183 (7.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (1.39%) Microsoft Office
3 34 (1.35%) MS Visio
4 30 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 29 (1.15%) Spreadsheet
6 12 (0.48%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
8 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
8 7 (0.28%) Revit
9 6 (0.24%) Simulink
10 5 (0.20%) ProjectWise
11 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
12 3 (0.12%) CATIA
13 2 (0.080%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.080%) EPLAN
14 1 (0.040%) Autodesk Inventor
14 1 (0.040%) Gliffy
14 1 (0.040%) LaTeX
14 1 (0.040%) MicroStation
14 1 (0.040%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 106 (4.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.00%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.56%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.48%) NetSuite
4 12 (0.48%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.44%) Teamcenter
6 10 (0.40%) iTrent
6 10 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.40%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 10 (0.40%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.36%) Aladdin
7 9 (0.36%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.36%) SAP MDG
7 9 (0.36%) SAP SD
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
9 7 (0.28%) SAP MM
9 7 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
10 6 (0.24%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 564 (22.46%) Azure
2 296 (11.79%) AWS
3 262 (10.43%) Power Platform
4 149 (5.93%) Azure DevOps
5 135 (5.38%) GCP
6 120 (4.78%) GitHub
7 87 (3.46%) Snowflake
8 72 (2.87%) Azure Data Factory
9 67 (2.67%) Entra ID
10 64 (2.55%) GitHub Actions
11 56 (2.23%) Serverless
12 52 (2.07%) Microsoft 365
13 49 (1.95%) SaaS
14 44 (1.75%) dbt
15 43 (1.71%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 41 (1.63%) Amazon S3
17 39 (1.55%) SuccessFactors
18 37 (1.47%) OCI
19 30 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
20 29 (1.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.10%) Firewall
2 63 (2.51%) DNS
3 62 (2.47%) Network Security
4 53 (2.11%) VLAN
5 44 (1.75%) VPN
6 38 (1.51%) WAN
7 37 (1.47%) TCP/IP
8 35 (1.39%) BGP
9 31 (1.23%) DHCP
10 22 (0.88%) Internet
10 22 (0.88%) SAN
11 20 (0.80%) LAN
12 19 (0.76%) OSPF
12 19 (0.76%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.76%) Wireless
13 17 (0.68%) VXLAN
14 16 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
15 15 (0.60%) 5G
15 15 (0.60%) Ethernet VPN
16 13 (0.52%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 243 (9.68%) Power BI
2 147 (5.85%) Data Warehouse
3 111 (4.42%) Metadata
4 81 (3.23%) SQL Server
5 76 (3.03%) Relational Database
6 75 (2.99%) PostgreSQL
7 73 (2.91%) Data Lake
8 68 (2.71%) Tableau
9 37 (1.47%) Big Data
10 36 (1.43%) MongoDB
11 34 (1.35%) Delta Lake
12 33 (1.31%) NoSQL
13 29 (1.15%) BigQuery
14 28 (1.12%) Oracle Database
14 28 (1.12%) Redis
15 27 (1.08%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 25 (1.00%) MySQL
17 22 (0.88%) Azure SQL Database
18 21 (0.84%) Oracle Reports
19 20 (0.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 225 (8.96%) JIRA
2 172 (6.85%) Git
3 94 (3.74%) Jenkins
4 79 (3.15%) GitLab
5 59 (2.35%) Selenium
6 41 (1.63%) Postman
7 34 (1.35%) JMeter
8 25 (1.00%) Cucumber
8 25 (1.00%) WebDriver
9 20 (0.80%) JUnit
10 19 (0.76%) Rational DOORS
11 14 (0.56%) Rational Rhapsody
12 12 (0.48%) Eclipse
12 12 (0.48%) Gatling
13 11 (0.44%) Cypress.io
13 11 (0.44%) Maven
14 10 (0.40%) Gradle
14 10 (0.40%) REST Assured
14 10 (0.40%) Visual Studio
15 9 (0.36%) Zephyr
General
1 717 (28.55%) Social Skills
2 712 (28.36%) Finance
3 499 (19.87%) Analytical Skills
4 209 (8.32%) Public Sector
5 190 (7.57%) Banking
6 132 (5.26%) Documentation Skills
7 89 (3.54%) Manufacturing
8 88 (3.50%) Retail
9 56 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 52 (2.07%) Aerospace
10 52 (2.07%) Telecoms
11 48 (1.91%) Automotive
12 47 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
13 44 (1.75%) Marketing
13 44 (1.75%) Pharmaceutical
14 41 (1.63%) Local Government
15 38 (1.51%) Front Office
16 35 (1.39%) Law
17 34 (1.35%) Legal
18 33 (1.31%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 442 (17.60%) Analyst
2 277 (11.03%) Senior
3 243 (9.68%) Lead
4 207 (8.24%) Data Engineer
5 201 (8.00%) Business Analyst
6 194 (7.73%) Consultant
7 142 (5.66%) Developer
8 127 (5.06%) Data Analyst
9 126 (5.02%) Architect
10 104 (4.14%) Test Engineer
11 70 (2.79%) Tester
12 64 (2.55%) Network Engineer
13 60 (2.39%) Project Manager
14 57 (2.27%) Systems Engineer
15 50 (1.99%) Administrator
15 50 (1.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 50 (1.99%) Senior Data Engineer
16 42 (1.67%) Test Manager
17 39 (1.55%) Technical Analyst
18 38 (1.51%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 142 (5.66%) REST
2 130 (5.18%) Terraform
3 80 (3.19%) JSON
4 75 (2.99%) PySpark
5 68 (2.71%) Kafka
6 63 (2.51%) XML
7 48 (1.91%) Oracle Fusion
8 43 (1.71%) Middleware
8 43 (1.71%) Playwright
9 39 (1.55%) .NET
10 37 (1.47%) pytest
10 37 (1.47%) Spring
11 32 (1.27%) RESTful
12 31 (1.23%) Pandas
13 30 (1.19%) SOAP
14 28 (1.12%) OAuth
15 27 (1.08%) Spring Boot
16 25 (1.00%) Web Services
17 23 (0.92%) Lightning Web Components
17 23 (0.92%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 141 (5.62%) Onboarding
2 130 (5.18%) Data Structures
3 111 (4.42%) Cloud Native
4 107 (4.26%) Legacy Systems
5 102 (4.06%) Product Ownership
6 82 (3.27%) Management Information System
7 77 (3.07%) Data Centre
8 45 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
9 43 (1.71%) Analytical Mindset
10 42 (1.67%) Distributed Systems
11 41 (1.63%) SCADA
12 40 (1.59%) AI Agents
13 38 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
14 34 (1.35%) Algorithms
15 32 (1.27%) CMDB
15 32 (1.27%) Life Science
15 32 (1.27%) Replication
16 31 (1.23%) Operational Technology
16 31 (1.23%) Public Cloud
17 30 (1.19%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 136 (5.42%) Windows
2 89 (3.54%) Linux
3 47 (1.87%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.80%) Unix
5 18 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.56%) Android
7 11 (0.44%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.32%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.28%) VMS
10 6 (0.24%) Windows 10
11 4 (0.16%) SUSE
11 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.080%) HPUX
12 2 (0.080%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.080%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.080%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.040%) Alpine Linux
13 1 (0.040%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.040%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 689 (27.44%) Migration
2 491 (19.55%) Stakeholder Management
3 475 (18.92%) Agile
4 465 (18.52%) CI/CD
5 419 (16.69%) User Acceptance Testing
6 411 (16.37%) Data Migration
7 404 (16.09%) Analytics
8 394 (15.69%) Problem-Solving
9 390 (15.53%) Data Modelling
10 385 (15.33%) Data Validation
11 338 (13.46%) DevOps
12 335 (13.34%) AI
13 321 (12.78%) Test Automation
14 303 (12.07%) Continuous Improvement
15 284 (11.31%) ETL
16 275 (10.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 273 (10.87%) Business Intelligence
18 268 (10.67%) Data Pipeline
19 259 (10.31%) Data Governance
20 246 (9.80%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 636 (25.33%) SQL
2 486 (19.35%) Python
3 120 (4.78%) Java
4 86 (3.42%) PowerShell
5 52 (2.07%) Bash
6 43 (1.71%) C#
7 42 (1.67%) JavaScript
8 36 (1.43%) C++
9 28 (1.12%) Apex Code
10 27 (1.08%) R
11 25 (1.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 24 (0.96%) Bicep
12 24 (0.96%) TypeScript
13 23 (0.92%) C
13 23 (0.92%) PL/SQL
14 19 (0.76%) VBA
15 18 (0.72%) Shell Script
16 15 (0.60%) MATLAB
17 13 (0.52%) Scala
18 12 (0.48%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 464 (18.48%) Security Cleared
2 335 (13.34%) SC Cleared
3 180 (7.17%) Degree
4 67 (2.67%) DV Cleared
5 45 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
6 42 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
7 37 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
8 31 (1.23%) CCNP
9 25 (1.00%) ACCA
9 25 (1.00%) CIMA
10 23 (0.92%) AWS Certification
11 20 (0.80%) PMI Certification
12 19 (0.76%) ISTQB
13 18 (0.72%) Azure Certification
14 16 (0.64%) Microsoft Certification
15 15 (0.60%) PMP
16 14 (0.56%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 14 (0.56%) Master's Degree
17 13 (0.52%) CISSP
18 11 (0.44%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 504 (20.07%) Data Quality
2 311 (12.39%) QA
3 91 (3.62%) GDPR
4 46 (1.83%) NIST
5 43 (1.71%) SLA
6 39 (1.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 38 (1.51%) Accessibility
8 34 (1.35%) PMO
9 22 (0.88%) GxP
10 20 (0.80%) GRC
11 14 (0.56%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 14 (0.56%) ISO 20022
12 12 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
12 12 (0.48%) Def Stans
12 12 (0.48%) HL7
12 12 (0.48%) IFRS
13 11 (0.44%) NCSC
13 11 (0.44%) NIST 800
13 11 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.44%) WCAG
System Software
1 105 (4.18%) Docker
2 83 (3.31%) Active Directory
3 59 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 31 (1.23%) Virtual Machines
5 23 (0.92%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.76%) Firmware
7 16 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
7 16 (0.64%) vSphere
8 14 (0.56%) Hyper-V
9 11 (0.44%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
10 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.12%) VirtualBox
11 2 (0.080%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.080%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.040%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.040%) NFS
12 1 (0.040%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 128 (5.10%) Kubernetes
2 75 (2.99%) Ansible
3 42 (1.67%) Grafana
4 36 (1.43%) Prometheus
5 23 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
6 22 (0.88%) FortiGate
6 22 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (0.48%) vCenter Server
8 10 (0.40%) SCCM
8 10 (0.40%) VxRail
9 8 (0.32%) Failover Clustering
10 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
11 6 (0.24%) Argo
11 6 (0.24%) HP ALM
12 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
12 5 (0.20%) systemd
12 5 (0.20%) vRealize
13 4 (0.16%) Functional Safety
13 4 (0.16%) Puppet
14 3 (0.12%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 378 (15.05%) Microsoft
2 215 (8.56%) SAP
3 201 (8.00%) Oracle
4 147 (5.85%) Databricks
5 85 (3.39%) Salesforce
6 79 (3.15%) ServiceNow
7 69 (2.75%) VMware
8 64 (2.55%) Cisco
9 43 (1.71%) Workday
10 42 (1.67%) Google
11 30 (1.19%) Informatica
12 29 (1.15%) IBM
12 29 (1.15%) Juniper
13 27 (1.08%) Fortinet
14 26 (1.04%) Zscaler
15 21 (0.84%) Splunk
16 20 (0.80%) Palo Alto
17 18 (0.72%) IFS
18 17 (0.68%) CrowdStrike
19 16 (0.64%) Foundry