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

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 67 107
Rank change year-on-year +34 +40 +44
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,510 1,046 704
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.49% 3.80% 2.12%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.48% 4.18% 2.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,526 639 345
10th Percentile £336 £342 £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 £617 £588
90th Percentile £712 £688 £662
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 162 80 115
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £29.86
25th Percentile £28.50 £36.42 £49.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% -3.85% -0.76%
75th Percentile £73.25 £66.63 £70.13
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £76.12
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £61.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year -14.29% -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 38,747 25,016 28,488
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.82% 90.80% 85.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,944 15,923 18,325
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £423
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £626 £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 2,579 1,477 1,517
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.23 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.80 £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 £69.79 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.06 £25.15 £40.50
% change year-on-year +63.26% -37.90% -4.71%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 +39 1,223 £525 +2.44% 335
North of England +41 330 £452 -4.89% 165
South East -3 317 £501 +0.25% 220
Midlands +34 304 £475 -2.56% 131
West Midlands +22 212 £453 -9.35% 88
North West +20 169 £450 -14.29% 90
Yorkshire +47 144 £460 +2.22% 39
East of England 0 144 £475 -7.77% 127
South West 0 132 £525 -8.70% 178
East Midlands +26 88 £500 - 43
North East -32 21 £438 -12.50% 38
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 72 (2.87%) 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%) Palantir Foundry
11 6 (0.24%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.20%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) IIS
13 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.12%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 182 (7.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (1.39%) Microsoft Office
3 34 (1.35%) MS Visio
4 30 (1.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 30 (1.20%) Spreadsheet
5 12 (0.48%) 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 (0.080%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.080%) 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
1 104 (4.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (0.96%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.56%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.52%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.48%) NetSuite
6 11 (0.44%) Teamcenter
7 10 (0.40%) iTrent
7 10 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
7 10 (0.40%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 10 (0.40%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.36%) Aladdin
8 9 (0.36%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.36%) SAP MDG
8 9 (0.36%) SAP SD
9 8 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
9 8 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
10 7 (0.28%) SAP MM
10 7 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 6 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
11 6 (0.24%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 566 (22.55%) Azure
2 293 (11.67%) AWS
3 262 (10.44%) Power Platform
4 153 (6.10%) Azure DevOps
5 132 (5.26%) GCP
6 120 (4.78%) GitHub
7 87 (3.47%) Snowflake
8 71 (2.83%) 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 42 (1.67%) Amazon S3
17 38 (1.51%) SuccessFactors
18 36 (1.43%) OCI
19 30 (1.20%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 30 (1.20%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.10%) Firewall
2 64 (2.55%) DNS
3 62 (2.47%) Network Security
4 55 (2.19%) VLAN
5 44 (1.75%) VPN
6 40 (1.59%) WAN
7 37 (1.47%) TCP/IP
8 36 (1.43%) BGP
9 31 (1.24%) DHCP
10 22 (0.88%) Internet
10 22 (0.88%) SAN
11 21 (0.84%) LAN
12 20 (0.80%) OSPF
12 20 (0.80%) SD-WAN
12 20 (0.80%) Wireless
13 17 (0.68%) 5G
13 17 (0.68%) VXLAN
13 17 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
14 15 (0.60%) Ethernet VPN
15 13 (0.52%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 242 (9.64%) Power BI
2 147 (5.86%) Data Warehouse
3 111 (4.42%) Metadata
4 81 (3.23%) SQL Server
5 77 (3.07%) Relational Database
6 76 (3.03%) PostgreSQL
7 73 (2.91%) Data Lake
8 68 (2.71%) Tableau
9 37 (1.47%) Big Data
9 37 (1.47%) MongoDB
10 34 (1.35%) Delta Lake
10 34 (1.35%) NoSQL
11 29 (1.16%) BigQuery
11 29 (1.16%) Redis
12 28 (1.12%) Oracle Database
13 27 (1.08%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 26 (1.04%) MySQL
15 22 (0.88%) Azure SQL Database
16 21 (0.84%) Power Query
17 20 (0.80%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 226 (9.00%) JIRA
2 169 (6.73%) Git
3 95 (3.78%) Jenkins
4 80 (3.19%) GitLab
5 62 (2.47%) Selenium
6 40 (1.59%) Postman
7 33 (1.31%) JMeter
8 27 (1.08%) Cucumber
9 26 (1.04%) WebDriver
10 21 (0.84%) JUnit
11 18 (0.72%) Rational DOORS
12 14 (0.56%) Rational Rhapsody
13 11 (0.44%) Cypress.io
13 11 (0.44%) Gatling
14 10 (0.40%) Eclipse
14 10 (0.40%) Maven
14 10 (0.40%) REST Assured
15 9 (0.36%) ERwin
15 9 (0.36%) TestRail
15 9 (0.36%) Zephyr
General
1 719 (28.65%) Social Skills
2 717 (28.57%) Finance
3 495 (19.72%) Analytical Skills
4 207 (8.25%) Public Sector
5 193 (7.69%) Banking
6 132 (5.26%) Documentation Skills
7 88 (3.51%) Manufacturing
8 86 (3.43%) Retail
9 56 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 56 (2.23%) Telecoms
10 50 (1.99%) Aerospace
11 48 (1.91%) Automotive
12 47 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
13 44 (1.75%) Marketing
13 44 (1.75%) Pharmaceutical
14 40 (1.59%) Local Government
15 38 (1.51%) Front Office
16 35 (1.39%) Law
17 33 (1.31%) Legal
18 32 (1.27%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 444 (17.69%) Analyst
2 281 (11.20%) Senior
3 242 (9.64%) Lead
4 208 (8.29%) Data Engineer
5 202 (8.05%) Business Analyst
6 196 (7.81%) Consultant
7 141 (5.62%) Developer
8 127 (5.06%) Data Analyst
9 124 (4.94%) Architect
10 105 (4.18%) Test Engineer
11 69 (2.75%) Tester
12 66 (2.63%) Network Engineer
13 59 (2.35%) Project Manager
14 56 (2.23%) Systems Engineer
15 50 (1.99%) Administrator
15 50 (1.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 49 (1.95%) Senior Data Engineer
17 42 (1.67%) Test Manager
18 40 (1.59%) Technical Analyst
19 38 (1.51%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 145 (5.78%) REST
2 132 (5.26%) Terraform
3 80 (3.19%) JSON
4 75 (2.99%) PySpark
5 69 (2.75%) Kafka
6 63 (2.51%) XML
7 47 (1.87%) Oracle Fusion
8 44 (1.75%) Playwright
9 43 (1.71%) Middleware
10 38 (1.51%) .NET
10 38 (1.51%) pytest
11 37 (1.47%) Spring
12 32 (1.27%) Pandas
12 32 (1.27%) RESTful
13 31 (1.24%) SOAP
14 28 (1.12%) OAuth
15 27 (1.08%) Spring Boot
16 23 (0.92%) Lightning Web Components
16 23 (0.92%) Web Services
17 21 (0.84%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 140 (5.58%) Onboarding
2 131 (5.22%) Data Structures
3 112 (4.46%) Cloud Native
4 110 (4.38%) Legacy Systems
5 101 (4.02%) Product Ownership
6 82 (3.27%) Management Information System
7 79 (3.15%) Data Centre
8 46 (1.83%) 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 33 (1.31%) Replication
15 32 (1.27%) Life Science
16 31 (1.24%) Algorithms
16 31 (1.24%) CMDB
17 30 (1.20%) NHS
17 30 (1.20%) Operational Technology
17 30 (1.20%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 136 (5.42%) Windows
2 89 (3.55%) Linux
3 48 (1.91%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.84%) 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
1 691 (27.53%) Migration
2 494 (19.68%) Stakeholder Management
3 475 (18.92%) Agile
4 463 (18.45%) CI/CD
5 421 (16.77%) User Acceptance Testing
6 411 (16.37%) Data Migration
7 402 (16.02%) Analytics
8 391 (15.58%) Data Modelling
9 389 (15.50%) Problem-Solving
10 385 (15.34%) Data Validation
11 343 (13.67%) DevOps
12 333 (13.27%) AI
13 323 (12.87%) Test Automation
14 306 (12.19%) Continuous Improvement
15 288 (11.47%) ETL
16 276 (11.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 272 (10.84%) Business Intelligence
18 271 (10.80%) Data Pipeline
19 260 (10.36%) Data Governance
20 247 (9.84%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 639 (25.46%) SQL
2 484 (19.28%) Python
3 120 (4.78%) Java
4 86 (3.43%) PowerShell
5 53 (2.11%) Bash
6 41 (1.63%) C#
7 40 (1.59%) JavaScript
8 33 (1.31%) 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%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.96%) TypeScript
13 23 (0.92%) C
14 19 (0.76%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.76%) VBA
15 16 (0.64%) MATLAB
16 13 (0.52%) Scala
17 12 (0.48%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 462 (18.41%) Security Cleared
2 335 (13.35%) SC Cleared
3 178 (7.09%) Degree
4 67 (2.67%) DV Cleared
5 45 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
6 42 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
7 38 (1.51%) Cisco Certification
8 32 (1.27%) CCNP
9 25 (1.00%) ACCA
9 25 (1.00%) CIMA
10 23 (0.92%) AWS Certification
11 21 (0.84%) PMI Certification
12 18 (0.72%) Azure Certification
12 18 (0.72%) ISTQB
13 16 (0.64%) Microsoft Certification
13 16 (0.64%) PMP
14 14 (0.56%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 14 (0.56%) Master's Degree
15 13 (0.52%) CISSP
16 12 (0.48%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 504 (20.08%) Data Quality
2 313 (12.47%) QA
3 91 (3.63%) GDPR
4 44 (1.75%) NIST
5 43 (1.71%) SLA
6 38 (1.51%) Accessibility
7 37 (1.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 34 (1.35%) PMO
9 22 (0.88%) GxP
10 20 (0.80%) GRC
11 14 (0.56%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 13 (0.52%) ISO 20022
13 12 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.48%) Def Stans
13 12 (0.48%) WCAG
14 11 (0.44%) HL7
14 11 (0.44%) IFRS
14 11 (0.44%) NCSC
15 10 (0.40%) NIST 800
15 10 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 104 (4.14%) Docker
2 82 (3.27%) Active Directory
3 60 (2.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 31 (1.24%) 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
1 129 (5.14%) Kubernetes
2 75 (2.99%) Ansible
3 43 (1.71%) Grafana
4 37 (1.47%) 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 11 (0.44%) SCCM
9 10 (0.40%) VxRail
10 8 (0.32%) Failover Clustering
11 7 (0.28%) HP ALM
11 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
12 6 (0.24%) Argo
13 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Clustering
13 5 (0.20%) systemd
13 5 (0.20%) vRealize
14 4 (0.16%) Functional Safety
14 4 (0.16%) Puppet
15 3 (0.12%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 379 (15.10%) Microsoft
2 214 (8.53%) SAP
3 202 (8.05%) Oracle
4 148 (5.90%) Databricks
5 86 (3.43%) Salesforce
6 78 (3.11%) ServiceNow
7 70 (2.79%) VMware
8 66 (2.63%) Cisco
9 43 (1.71%) Workday
10 42 (1.67%) Google
11 30 (1.20%) IBM
11 30 (1.20%) Informatica
12 29 (1.16%) Juniper
13 27 (1.08%) Fortinet
13 27 (1.08%) Zscaler
14 21 (0.84%) Splunk
15 20 (0.80%) Palo Alto
16 18 (0.72%) IFS
17 17 (0.68%) CrowdStrike
18 16 (0.64%) Foundry