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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 64 106
Rank change year-on-year +32 +42 +42
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,688 1,061 738
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.77% 3.79% 2.27%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.82% 4.17% 2.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,572 631 370
10th Percentile £341 £350 £319
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £498
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +3.52% -7.87%
75th Percentile £600 £632 £588
90th Percentile £710 £700 £650
UK median daily rate £500 £502 £500
% change year-on-year -0.35% +0.35% -6.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 192 78 96
10th Percentile £17.23 £20.50 £28.89
25th Percentile £27.81 £41.25 £47.88
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £71.60 £67.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £81.93 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £63.75
% change year-on-year -17.69% +1.96% -4.48%

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 39,430 25,460 28,039
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.71% 90.97% 86.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,919 16,157 17,165
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £512 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.64% -2.57% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £645
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,918 1,560 1,201
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.42 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.60 £17.87 £20.25
Median hourly rate £40.08 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.36% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.00 £67.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.28 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +53.96% -40.82% -

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 1,307 £525 - 2,184
North of England +48 359 £459 +4.26% 477
South East +2 330 £520 +4.00% 756
Midlands +34 302 £463 -7.40% 379
West Midlands +26 213 £461 -9.21% 250
North West +24 176 £464 +9.06% 256
South West +16 173 £525 -4.55% 377
Yorkshire +52 154 £463 -2.63% 149
East of England -6 140 £463 -7.50% 379
East Midlands +30 86 £489 -4.63% 129
North East -20 34 £425 -11.92% 74
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 83 (3.09%) Confluence
2 59 (2.19%) Apache Airflow
3 54 (2.01%) SharePoint
4 47 (1.75%) Apache Spark
5 40 (1.49%) SAS
6 37 (1.38%) Apache
7 19 (0.71%) CMS
8 16 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
9 11 (0.41%) Jupyter
10 8 (0.30%) Palantir Foundry
10 8 (0.30%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.26%) IIS
11 7 (0.26%) Sitecore CMS
12 6 (0.22%) OpenStack
12 6 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
12 6 (0.22%) WebLogic
13 5 (0.19%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.15%) JBoss
14 4 (0.15%) Tomcat
Applications
1 182 (6.77%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.56%) Microsoft Office
3 32 (1.19%) MS Visio
4 30 (1.12%) Spreadsheet
5 27 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 14 (0.52%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.33%) Navisworks
7 9 (0.33%) Revit
7 9 (0.33%) Simulink
8 8 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
9 7 (0.26%) ProjectWise
10 4 (0.15%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.11%) CATIA
12 2 (0.074%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.074%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.074%) LaTeX
12 2 (0.074%) OrCAD
13 1 (0.037%) Gliffy
13 1 (0.037%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.037%) Trello
Business Applications
1 103 (3.83%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.60%) Workday HCM
3 15 (0.56%) Oracle Payables
4 14 (0.52%) SAP FI
5 13 (0.48%) NetSuite
5 13 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
6 12 (0.45%) Integrated Workplace Management System
6 12 (0.45%) SAP MDG
6 12 (0.45%) SAP SD
6 12 (0.45%) Teamcenter
7 11 (0.41%) Aladdin
7 11 (0.41%) SAP HCM
7 11 (0.41%) SAP MM
8 10 (0.37%) Dynamics CRM
8 10 (0.37%) iTrent
9 9 (0.33%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
10 8 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
10 8 (0.30%) SAP CO
11 7 (0.26%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 533 (19.83%) Azure
2 304 (11.31%) AWS
3 273 (10.16%) Power Platform
4 156 (5.80%) Azure DevOps
5 150 (5.58%) GCP
6 126 (4.69%) GitHub
7 98 (3.65%) Snowflake
8 90 (3.35%) Entra ID
9 70 (2.60%) Azure Data Factory
10 67 (2.49%) GitHub Actions
11 55 (2.05%) Amazon S3
12 53 (1.97%) dbt
12 53 (1.97%) Microsoft 365
13 50 (1.86%) Serverless
14 47 (1.75%) SaaS
15 38 (1.41%) SuccessFactors
16 37 (1.38%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 37 (1.38%) Dynamics 365
17 32 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
18 31 (1.15%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 96 (3.57%) Firewall
2 72 (2.68%) DNS
3 53 (1.97%) Network Security
4 50 (1.86%) VLAN
4 50 (1.86%) VPN
5 44 (1.64%) TCP/IP
6 41 (1.53%) BGP
7 38 (1.41%) WAN
8 30 (1.12%) DHCP
9 23 (0.86%) VXLAN
10 22 (0.82%) Internet
10 22 (0.82%) OSPF
11 21 (0.78%) Ethernet
12 20 (0.74%) 5G
12 20 (0.74%) Ethernet VPN
12 20 (0.74%) SAN
12 20 (0.74%) SD-WAN
12 20 (0.74%) Wireless
13 19 (0.71%) LAN
14 18 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 252 (9.38%) Power BI
2 145 (5.39%) Data Warehouse
3 111 (4.13%) Metadata
4 95 (3.53%) Relational Database
5 82 (3.05%) SQL Server
6 72 (2.68%) Data Lake
6 72 (2.68%) PostgreSQL
7 64 (2.38%) Tableau
8 37 (1.38%) BigQuery
8 37 (1.38%) MongoDB
9 35 (1.30%) Big Data
10 34 (1.26%) Delta Lake
11 32 (1.19%) NoSQL
11 32 (1.19%) Power Query
12 31 (1.15%) Redis
13 30 (1.12%) Oracle Database
14 23 (0.86%) Amazon Athena
14 23 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
14 23 (0.86%) MySQL
15 20 (0.74%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 241 (8.97%) JIRA
2 200 (7.44%) Git
3 93 (3.46%) GitLab
4 88 (3.27%) Jenkins
5 71 (2.64%) Selenium
6 37 (1.38%) Postman
7 31 (1.15%) JMeter
8 25 (0.93%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.89%) Rational DOORS
10 18 (0.67%) JUnit
11 17 (0.63%) Eclipse
11 17 (0.63%) Visual Studio
12 15 (0.56%) WebDriver
13 14 (0.52%) REST Assured
14 12 (0.45%) Cypress.io
14 12 (0.45%) Visual Studio Code
14 12 (0.45%) Zephyr
15 11 (0.41%) Gatling
15 11 (0.41%) Rational Rhapsody
15 11 (0.41%) TestRail
General
1 779 (28.98%) Finance
2 764 (28.42%) Social Skills
3 532 (19.79%) Analytical Skills
4 244 (9.08%) Banking
5 215 (8.00%) Public Sector
6 119 (4.43%) Manufacturing
7 111 (4.13%) Documentation Skills
8 85 (3.16%) Retail
9 71 (2.64%) Automotive
10 61 (2.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 61 (2.27%) Telecoms
11 51 (1.90%) Aerospace
12 49 (1.82%) Marketing
13 47 (1.75%) Organisational Skills
14 46 (1.71%) Legal
15 42 (1.56%) Local Government
16 40 (1.49%) Front Office
16 40 (1.49%) Pharmaceutical
17 38 (1.41%) Billing
17 38 (1.41%) Military
Job Titles
1 457 (17.00%) Analyst
2 315 (11.72%) Senior
3 250 (9.30%) Lead
4 222 (8.26%) Data Engineer
5 209 (7.78%) Consultant
6 203 (7.55%) Business Analyst
7 163 (6.06%) Developer
8 147 (5.47%) Architect
9 146 (5.43%) Data Analyst
10 106 (3.94%) Test Engineer
11 65 (2.42%) Tester
12 64 (2.38%) Network Engineer
13 61 (2.27%) Senior Data Engineer
14 55 (2.05%) Administrator
15 52 (1.93%) Systems Engineer
16 51 (1.90%) Software Engineer
17 41 (1.53%) QA Engineer
18 40 (1.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 40 (1.49%) Senior Analyst
19 39 (1.45%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 168 (6.25%) REST
1 168 (6.25%) Terraform
2 80 (2.98%) PySpark
3 78 (2.90%) JSON
4 67 (2.49%) Kafka
5 63 (2.34%) Middleware
5 63 (2.34%) XML
6 54 (2.01%) Playwright
7 45 (1.67%) pytest
8 44 (1.64%) OAuth
8 44 (1.64%) Oracle Fusion
9 42 (1.56%) SOAP
10 41 (1.53%) Web Services
11 39 (1.45%) RESTful
12 36 (1.34%) .NET
13 35 (1.30%) Node.js
14 33 (1.23%) Pandas
15 32 (1.19%) HTML
15 32 (1.19%) Spring
16 31 (1.15%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 159 (5.92%) Onboarding
2 142 (5.28%) Data Structures
3 128 (4.76%) Cloud Native
4 111 (4.13%) Legacy Systems
5 103 (3.83%) Product Ownership
6 102 (3.79%) Management Information System
7 84 (3.13%) Data Centre
8 58 (2.16%) Enterprise Software
9 56 (2.08%) AI Agents
10 43 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
11 42 (1.56%) Algorithms
11 42 (1.56%) SCADA
12 41 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
13 40 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
14 36 (1.34%) Life Science
15 33 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 32 (1.19%) CMDB
16 32 (1.19%) Operational Technology
17 28 (1.04%) Derivative
17 28 (1.04%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 172 (6.40%) Windows
2 102 (3.79%) Linux
3 65 (2.42%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.23%) Unix
5 19 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.48%) Android
7 11 (0.41%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.33%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.30%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.15%) VMS
10 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.15%) zOS
11 3 (0.11%) CentOS
11 3 (0.11%) VxWorks
11 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.074%) HPUX
12 2 (0.074%) Solaris
12 2 (0.074%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.037%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.037%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 731 (27.19%) Migration
2 598 (22.25%) Stakeholder Management
3 538 (20.01%) CI/CD
4 511 (19.01%) Agile
5 432 (16.07%) User Acceptance Testing
6 429 (15.96%) Data Migration
7 426 (15.85%) Data Modelling
8 416 (15.48%) Analytics
9 411 (15.29%) Data Validation
10 405 (15.07%) Problem-Solving
11 387 (14.40%) AI
12 370 (13.76%) DevOps
13 369 (13.73%) Test Automation
14 364 (13.54%) Continuous Improvement
15 304 (11.31%) ETL
16 285 (10.60%) Business Intelligence
16 285 (10.60%) Data Analysis
17 273 (10.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 268 (9.97%) Data Pipeline
19 267 (9.93%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 706 (26.26%) SQL
2 558 (20.76%) Python
3 123 (4.58%) Java
4 110 (4.09%) PowerShell
5 71 (2.64%) JavaScript
6 55 (2.05%) Bash
7 52 (1.93%) C#
8 43 (1.60%) C++
9 40 (1.49%) TypeScript
10 26 (0.97%) R
11 25 (0.93%) Apex Code
11 25 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 25 (0.93%) Shell Script
12 24 (0.89%) PL/SQL
13 23 (0.86%) C
14 22 (0.82%) Bicep
15 19 (0.71%) VBA
16 17 (0.63%) MATLAB
17 15 (0.56%) Go
18 14 (0.52%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 539 (20.05%) Security Cleared
2 401 (14.92%) SC Cleared
3 203 (7.55%) Degree
4 90 (3.35%) DV Cleared
5 55 (2.05%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.71%) Computer Science Degree
7 36 (1.34%) Cisco Certification
8 32 (1.19%) AWS Certification
9 30 (1.12%) ACCA
9 30 (1.12%) CIMA
10 28 (1.04%) CCNP
11 24 (0.89%) PMI Certification
12 20 (0.74%) Azure Certification
12 20 (0.74%) CISSP
13 19 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 19 (0.71%) DBS Check
13 19 (0.71%) ISTQB
13 19 (0.71%) Master's Degree
13 19 (0.71%) PMP
14 14 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 558 (20.76%) Data Quality
2 321 (11.94%) QA
3 78 (2.90%) GDPR
4 45 (1.67%) Accessibility
5 44 (1.64%) SLA
6 33 (1.23%) NIST
7 32 (1.19%) PMO
8 30 (1.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 22 (0.82%) GxP
10 16 (0.60%) ISO 20022
10 16 (0.60%) WCAG
11 15 (0.56%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 15 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
12 14 (0.52%) GRC
13 12 (0.45%) IFRS
14 10 (0.37%) Def Stans
14 10 (0.37%) MiFID
14 10 (0.37%) NCSC
15 9 (0.33%) GMP
16 8 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 101 (3.76%) Active Directory
2 98 (3.65%) Docker
3 65 (2.42%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.08%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.63%) Firmware
8 16 (0.60%) vSphere
9 15 (0.56%) Hyper-V
10 13 (0.48%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.15%) VirtualBox
12 3 (0.11%) KVM
12 3 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.074%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.074%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.037%) etcd
14 1 (0.037%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.037%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 1 (0.037%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 130 (4.84%) Kubernetes
2 92 (3.42%) Ansible
3 33 (1.23%) Grafana
4 30 (1.12%) Prometheus
5 23 (0.86%) FortiGate
6 22 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
7 20 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.60%) SCCM
9 11 (0.41%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.37%) Functional Safety
11 9 (0.33%) Progress Chef
11 9 (0.33%) vCenter Server
12 8 (0.30%) Argo
13 6 (0.22%) Control-M
13 6 (0.22%) VxRail
14 5 (0.19%) vRealize
15 4 (0.15%) Failover Clustering
15 4 (0.15%) Kustomize
15 4 (0.15%) Oracle RMAN
15 4 (0.15%) Podman
Vendors
1 426 (15.85%) Microsoft
2 219 (8.15%) SAP
3 193 (7.18%) Oracle
4 160 (5.95%) Databricks
5 83 (3.09%) ServiceNow
6 80 (2.98%) Salesforce
7 77 (2.86%) Cisco
8 72 (2.68%) VMware
9 62 (2.31%) Google
10 53 (1.97%) Workday
11 46 (1.71%) IBM
12 31 (1.15%) Fortinet
13 29 (1.08%) Zscaler
14 27 (1.00%) Informatica
14 27 (1.00%) Juniper
15 23 (0.86%) Palo Alto
16 19 (0.71%) Splunk
17 18 (0.67%) Red Hat
18 17 (0.63%) CyberArk
18 17 (0.63%) Siemens