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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 66 111
Rank change year-on-year +33 +45 +38
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,519 1,055 707
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.51% 3.80% 2.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.49% 4.19% 2.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,515 647 346
10th Percentile £334 £334 £340
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £485
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% +4.18% -11.86%
75th Percentile £600 £617 £588
90th Percentile £712 £688 £665
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 167 80 112
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £30.00
25th Percentile £28.50 £40.06 £51.19
Median hourly rate £55.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% -3.85% -1.49%
75th Percentile £73.25 £66.63 £71.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £76.67
UK median hourly rate £53.25 £61.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year -13.06% -5.77% -3.70%

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 38,818 25,195 28,384
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.84% 90.79% 85.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,932 16,050 18,115
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £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 2,599 1,473 1,445
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.25 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.87 £18.75
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +2.63%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +3.56%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 +36 1,233 £525 +1.94% 861
North of England +48 330 £453 +6.59% 224
South East -1 325 £500 - 364
Midlands +34 295 £463 -5.13% 166
West Midlands +31 207 £451 -9.90% 116
North West +19 167 £450 +5.88% 127
Yorkshire +42 145 £462 +2.60% 51
East of England +2 142 £475 -6.40% 169
South West +3 131 £525 -8.70% 210
East Midlands +26 84 £500 - 50
North East -24 23 £438 -2.78% 48
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 70 (2.78%) Confluence
2 62 (2.46%) Apache Airflow
3 51 (2.02%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.79%) SAS
5 38 (1.51%) Apache Spark
6 24 (0.95%) Apache
7 14 (0.56%) 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%) JBoss
Applications
1 181 (7.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 36 (1.43%) Microsoft Office
3 32 (1.27%) MS Visio
4 30 (1.19%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
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 (0.079%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.079%) EPLAN
14 1 (0.040%) Adobe XD
14 1 (0.040%) Autodesk Inventor
14 1 (0.040%) Gliffy
14 1 (0.040%) LaTeX
14 1 (0.040%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 102 (4.05%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (0.87%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.52%) NetSuite
3 13 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
3 13 (0.52%) Workday HCM
4 12 (0.48%) Teamcenter
5 11 (0.44%) SAP SD
6 10 (0.40%) Aladdin
6 10 (0.40%) iTrent
6 10 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.40%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 10 (0.40%) SAP MDG
7 9 (0.36%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.36%) SAP MM
8 8 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.32%) SAP FI
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.24%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 567 (22.51%) Azure
2 300 (11.91%) AWS
3 259 (10.28%) Power Platform
4 157 (6.23%) Azure DevOps
5 129 (5.12%) GCP
6 122 (4.84%) GitHub
7 89 (3.53%) Snowflake
8 72 (2.86%) Azure Data Factory
9 69 (2.74%) Entra ID
10 63 (2.50%) GitHub Actions
11 56 (2.22%) Serverless
12 53 (2.10%) Microsoft 365
13 51 (2.02%) SaaS
14 45 (1.79%) dbt
15 43 (1.71%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 42 (1.67%) Amazon S3
17 35 (1.39%) OCI
18 34 (1.35%) SuccessFactors
19 30 (1.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 30 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.09%) Firewall
2 66 (2.62%) DNS
3 59 (2.34%) Network Security
3 59 (2.34%) VLAN
4 47 (1.87%) VPN
5 41 (1.63%) WAN
6 38 (1.51%) BGP
6 38 (1.51%) TCP/IP
7 33 (1.31%) DHCP
8 22 (0.87%) Internet
8 22 (0.87%) OSPF
9 21 (0.83%) LAN
9 21 (0.83%) SD-WAN
10 20 (0.79%) SAN
10 20 (0.79%) Wireless
11 18 (0.71%) VXLAN
12 17 (0.67%) 5G
12 17 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.60%) Ethernet VPN
14 13 (0.52%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 239 (9.49%) Power BI
2 147 (5.84%) Data Warehouse
3 110 (4.37%) Metadata
4 81 (3.22%) Relational Database
5 79 (3.14%) SQL Server
6 73 (2.90%) Data Lake
6 73 (2.90%) PostgreSQL
7 66 (2.62%) Tableau
8 37 (1.47%) Delta Lake
9 36 (1.43%) MongoDB
10 35 (1.39%) Big Data
11 34 (1.35%) NoSQL
12 29 (1.15%) BigQuery
12 29 (1.15%) Redis
13 28 (1.11%) Oracle Database
14 26 (1.03%) MySQL
14 26 (1.03%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 22 (0.87%) Power Query
16 21 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
17 20 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 222 (8.81%) JIRA
2 173 (6.87%) Git
3 93 (3.69%) Jenkins
4 82 (3.26%) GitLab
5 62 (2.46%) Selenium
6 40 (1.59%) Postman
7 31 (1.23%) JMeter
8 23 (0.91%) Cucumber
9 22 (0.87%) WebDriver
10 18 (0.71%) Rational DOORS
11 17 (0.67%) JUnit
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%) TestRail
15 9 (0.36%) ERwin
15 9 (0.36%) Gradle
15 9 (0.36%) Zephyr
General
1 716 (28.42%) Social Skills
2 712 (28.27%) Finance
3 493 (19.57%) Analytical Skills
4 204 (8.10%) Public Sector
5 198 (7.86%) Banking
6 132 (5.24%) Documentation Skills
7 91 (3.61%) Manufacturing
8 84 (3.33%) Retail
9 57 (2.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 56 (2.22%) Telecoms
11 52 (2.06%) Automotive
12 49 (1.95%) Aerospace
13 46 (1.83%) Pharmaceutical
14 45 (1.79%) Marketing
14 45 (1.79%) Organisational Skills
15 40 (1.59%) Local Government
16 38 (1.51%) Front Office
17 36 (1.43%) Law
18 32 (1.27%) Influencing Skills
18 32 (1.27%) Legal
Job Titles
1 449 (17.82%) Analyst
2 281 (11.16%) Senior
3 237 (9.41%) Lead
4 208 (8.26%) Data Engineer
5 204 (8.10%) Business Analyst
6 192 (7.62%) Consultant
7 143 (5.68%) Developer
8 131 (5.20%) Data Analyst
9 128 (5.08%) Architect
10 106 (4.21%) Test Engineer
11 68 (2.70%) Tester
12 66 (2.62%) Network Engineer
13 58 (2.30%) Systems Engineer
14 54 (2.14%) Project Manager
15 51 (2.02%) Administrator
15 51 (2.02%) Senior Data Engineer
16 48 (1.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 43 (1.71%) Test Manager
18 40 (1.59%) Technical Analyst
19 39 (1.55%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 146 (5.80%) REST
2 136 (5.40%) Terraform
3 81 (3.22%) JSON
4 77 (3.06%) PySpark
5 68 (2.70%) Kafka
6 64 (2.54%) XML
7 45 (1.79%) Oracle Fusion
8 44 (1.75%) Middleware
8 44 (1.75%) Playwright
9 39 (1.55%) pytest
10 38 (1.51%) .NET
11 34 (1.35%) RESTful
11 34 (1.35%) Spring
12 31 (1.23%) Pandas
12 31 (1.23%) SOAP
13 29 (1.15%) OAuth
14 27 (1.07%) Spring Boot
15 24 (0.95%) Web Services
16 23 (0.91%) Lightning Web Components
17 22 (0.87%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 137 (5.44%) Onboarding
2 136 (5.40%) Data Structures
3 114 (4.53%) Cloud Native
4 109 (4.33%) Legacy Systems
5 98 (3.89%) Product Ownership
6 84 (3.33%) Management Information System
7 78 (3.10%) Data Centre
8 45 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
9 44 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
10 43 (1.71%) AI Agents
11 41 (1.63%) SCADA
12 40 (1.59%) Distributed Systems
13 38 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
14 34 (1.35%) Life Science
15 32 (1.27%) CMDB
16 31 (1.23%) Algorithms
16 31 (1.23%) NHS
16 31 (1.23%) Operational Technology
17 30 (1.19%) Hybrid Cloud
17 30 (1.19%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 135 (5.36%) Windows
2 89 (3.53%) Linux
3 49 (1.95%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.87%) Unix
5 18 (0.71%) 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
9 7 (0.28%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.16%) SUSE
10 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.079%) HPUX
11 2 (0.079%) VxWorks
11 2 (0.079%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.079%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.040%) Debian
12 1 (0.040%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.040%) Solaris
12 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 688 (27.31%) Migration
2 500 (19.85%) Stakeholder Management
3 478 (18.98%) Agile
4 473 (18.78%) CI/CD
5 414 (16.44%) User Acceptance Testing
6 408 (16.20%) Data Migration
7 393 (15.60%) Analytics
8 390 (15.48%) Data Modelling
9 384 (15.24%) Data Validation
10 383 (15.20%) Problem-Solving
11 346 (13.74%) DevOps
12 338 (13.42%) AI
13 327 (12.98%) Test Automation
14 302 (11.99%) Continuous Improvement
15 287 (11.39%) ETL
16 272 (10.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 271 (10.76%) Business Intelligence
18 265 (10.52%) Data Pipeline
19 260 (10.32%) Data Governance
20 254 (10.08%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 642 (25.49%) SQL
2 495 (19.65%) Python
3 120 (4.76%) Java
4 89 (3.53%) PowerShell
5 53 (2.10%) Bash
6 42 (1.67%) JavaScript
7 40 (1.59%) C#
8 33 (1.31%) C++
9 29 (1.15%) R
10 28 (1.11%) Apex Code
11 25 (0.99%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 25 (0.99%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.95%) Bicep
12 24 (0.95%) TypeScript
13 23 (0.91%) C
14 19 (0.75%) Shell Script
15 17 (0.67%) VBA
16 15 (0.60%) MATLAB
17 13 (0.52%) Scala
18 12 (0.48%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 470 (18.66%) Security Cleared
2 341 (13.54%) SC Cleared
3 178 (7.07%) Degree
4 71 (2.82%) DV Cleared
5 46 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
6 42 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
7 40 (1.59%) Cisco Certification
8 32 (1.27%) CCNP
9 25 (0.99%) ACCA
9 25 (0.99%) CIMA
10 24 (0.95%) AWS Certification
11 20 (0.79%) ISTQB
11 20 (0.79%) PMI Certification
12 18 (0.71%) Azure Certification
13 15 (0.60%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 15 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
13 15 (0.60%) PMP
14 14 (0.56%) Master's Degree
15 13 (0.52%) CISSP
16 12 (0.48%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 503 (19.97%) Data Quality
2 311 (12.35%) QA
3 91 (3.61%) GDPR
4 43 (1.71%) NIST
5 41 (1.63%) SLA
6 38 (1.51%) Accessibility
7 36 (1.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 32 (1.27%) PMO
9 23 (0.91%) GxP
10 17 (0.67%) GRC
11 15 (0.60%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 13 (0.52%) Def Stans
12 13 (0.52%) ISO 20022
13 12 (0.48%) WCAG
14 11 (0.44%) HL7
14 11 (0.44%) IFRS
14 11 (0.44%) NCSC
15 10 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
15 10 (0.40%) NIST 800
15 10 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 101 (4.01%) Docker
2 81 (3.22%) Active Directory
3 58 (2.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (0.95%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.75%) Firmware
7 17 (0.67%) vSphere
8 16 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
9 14 (0.56%) Hyper-V
10 11 (0.44%) VMware NSX
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.12%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.079%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.079%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.040%) Embedded Firmware
13 1 (0.040%) etcd
13 1 (0.040%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 127 (5.04%) Kubernetes
2 79 (3.14%) Ansible
3 40 (1.59%) Grafana
4 34 (1.35%) Prometheus
5 23 (0.91%) FortiGate
5 23 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
6 19 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
7 13 (0.52%) vCenter Server
8 12 (0.48%) SCCM
9 10 (0.40%) HP ALM
9 10 (0.40%) VxRail
10 8 (0.32%) Failover Clustering
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
14 4 (0.16%) vMotion
Vendors
1 383 (15.20%) Microsoft
2 211 (8.38%) SAP
3 196 (7.78%) Oracle
4 146 (5.80%) Databricks
5 86 (3.41%) Salesforce
6 75 (2.98%) ServiceNow
7 70 (2.78%) Cisco
8 67 (2.66%) VMware
9 43 (1.71%) Workday
10 41 (1.63%) Google
11 33 (1.31%) IBM
12 29 (1.15%) Fortinet
12 29 (1.15%) Informatica
12 29 (1.15%) Juniper
13 27 (1.07%) Zscaler
14 22 (0.87%) Splunk
15 21 (0.83%) Palo Alto
16 17 (0.67%) CrowdStrike
16 17 (0.67%) Foundry
16 17 (0.67%) IFS