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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 65 104
Rank change year-on-year +33 +39 +46
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,688 1,056 735
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.77% 3.78% 2.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.82% 4.15% 2.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,579 631 369
10th Percentile £340 £350 £319
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £495
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +4.04% -8.33%
75th Percentile £600 £634 £588
90th Percentile £706 £700 £649
UK median daily rate £500 £507 £500
% change year-on-year -1.28% +1.30% -7.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 187 76 96
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £28.89
25th Percentile £27.62 £40.06 £47.88
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £71.96 £67.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.30 £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 39,431 25,424 27,856
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.70% 90.99% 86.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,955 16,149 17,033
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 2,897 1,546 1,199
10th Percentile £13.87 £14.42 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.60 £17.87 £20.30
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.50 £46.55 £67.01
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £39.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +55.07% -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 1 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 1 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 1 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 1,306 £525 - 2,179
North of England +48 358 £456 +3.64% 462
South East +5 332 £525 +5.00% 732
Midlands +35 304 £463 -4.96% 375
West Midlands +31 213 £463 -7.40% 256
North West +21 175 £464 +9.06% 247
South West +22 171 £525 -4.55% 372
Yorkshire +52 154 £461 -2.89% 142
East of England -7 140 £463 -7.50% 373
East Midlands +29 87 £488 -4.88% 119
North East -15 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 84 (3.13%) Confluence
2 61 (2.27%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (2.05%) SharePoint
4 47 (1.75%) Apache Spark
5 42 (1.56%) SAS
6 37 (1.38%) Apache
7 18 (0.67%) 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
11 7 (0.26%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.22%) OpenStack
12 6 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
13 5 (0.19%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.15%) JBoss
14 4 (0.15%) Tomcat
Applications
1 185 (6.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.53%) Microsoft Office
3 33 (1.23%) MS Visio
4 31 (1.15%) Spreadsheet
5 27 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 14 (0.52%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.33%) Navisworks
7 9 (0.33%) Revit
8 8 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
9 7 (0.26%) ProjectWise
9 7 (0.26%) Simulink
10 4 (0.15%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.074%) CATIA
11 2 (0.074%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.074%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.074%) OrCAD
12 1 (0.037%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.037%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.037%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.037%) Trello
Business Applications
1 102 (3.79%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.56%) Oracle Payables
2 15 (0.56%) Workday HCM
3 14 (0.52%) SAP FI
4 13 (0.48%) NetSuite
4 13 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
5 12 (0.45%) Integrated Workplace Management System
5 12 (0.45%) SAP MDG
5 12 (0.45%) SAP SD
5 12 (0.45%) Teamcenter
6 11 (0.41%) Aladdin
6 11 (0.41%) SAP HCM
7 10 (0.37%) iTrent
7 10 (0.37%) SAP MM
8 9 (0.33%) Dynamics CRM
8 9 (0.33%) SAP ERP
9 8 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
9 8 (0.30%) SAP CO
10 7 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 536 (19.94%) Azure
2 310 (11.53%) AWS
3 273 (10.16%) Power Platform
4 158 (5.88%) Azure DevOps
5 148 (5.51%) GCP
6 126 (4.69%) GitHub
7 99 (3.68%) Snowflake
8 90 (3.35%) Entra ID
9 70 (2.60%) Azure Data Factory
10 67 (2.49%) GitHub Actions
11 57 (2.12%) Amazon S3
12 56 (2.08%) dbt
13 53 (1.97%) Microsoft 365
14 50 (1.86%) Serverless
15 48 (1.79%) SaaS
16 37 (1.38%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 37 (1.38%) SuccessFactors
17 35 (1.30%) Dynamics 365
18 32 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
19 31 (1.15%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 98 (3.65%) Firewall
2 73 (2.72%) DNS
3 54 (2.01%) 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 31 (1.15%) 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
1 253 (9.41%) Power BI
2 143 (5.32%) Data Warehouse
3 111 (4.13%) Metadata
4 95 (3.53%) Relational Database
5 83 (3.09%) SQL Server
6 72 (2.68%) Data Lake
7 71 (2.64%) PostgreSQL
8 64 (2.38%) Tableau
9 37 (1.38%) BigQuery
9 37 (1.38%) MongoDB
10 35 (1.30%) Big Data
11 34 (1.26%) Delta Lake
12 32 (1.19%) NoSQL
12 32 (1.19%) Oracle Database
12 32 (1.19%) Power Query
13 31 (1.15%) Redis
14 26 (0.97%) Amazon Athena
15 23 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
15 23 (0.86%) MySQL
15 23 (0.86%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 239 (8.89%) JIRA
2 201 (7.48%) Git
3 91 (3.39%) GitLab
4 89 (3.31%) Jenkins
5 69 (2.57%) Selenium
6 34 (1.26%) Postman
7 30 (1.12%) JMeter
8 23 (0.86%) Cucumber
8 23 (0.86%) Rational DOORS
9 17 (0.63%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.63%) Visual Studio
10 16 (0.60%) JUnit
11 15 (0.56%) WebDriver
12 12 (0.45%) Cypress.io
12 12 (0.45%) Visual Studio Code
13 11 (0.41%) Gatling
13 11 (0.41%) Rational Rhapsody
13 11 (0.41%) REST Assured
14 10 (0.37%) Zephyr
15 9 (0.33%) Gradle
General
1 778 (28.94%) Finance
2 769 (28.61%) Social Skills
3 534 (19.87%) Analytical Skills
4 243 (9.04%) Banking
5 216 (8.04%) Public Sector
6 116 (4.32%) Manufacturing
7 114 (4.24%) Documentation Skills
8 86 (3.20%) Retail
9 69 (2.57%) Automotive
10 61 (2.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 61 (2.27%) Telecoms
11 51 (1.90%) Aerospace
12 49 (1.82%) Marketing
13 48 (1.79%) Organisational Skills
14 45 (1.67%) Legal
15 42 (1.56%) Local Government
16 41 (1.53%) Front Office
17 40 (1.49%) Pharmaceutical
18 38 (1.41%) Billing
18 38 (1.41%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 458 (17.04%) Analyst
2 310 (11.53%) Senior
3 248 (9.23%) Lead
4 224 (8.33%) Data Engineer
5 205 (7.63%) Business Analyst
5 205 (7.63%) Consultant
6 163 (6.06%) Developer
7 146 (5.43%) Data Analyst
8 145 (5.39%) Architect
9 104 (3.87%) Test Engineer
10 65 (2.42%) Tester
11 64 (2.38%) Network Engineer
12 60 (2.23%) Senior Data Engineer
13 56 (2.08%) Administrator
14 52 (1.93%) Systems Engineer
15 51 (1.90%) Software Engineer
16 43 (1.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 41 (1.53%) QA Engineer
18 40 (1.49%) Project Manager
18 40 (1.49%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 170 (6.32%) Terraform
2 165 (6.14%) REST
3 80 (2.98%) PySpark
4 78 (2.90%) JSON
5 67 (2.49%) Kafka
6 63 (2.34%) Middleware
6 63 (2.34%) XML
7 53 (1.97%) Playwright
8 45 (1.67%) Oracle Fusion
9 44 (1.64%) OAuth
10 43 (1.60%) pytest
10 43 (1.60%) SOAP
11 41 (1.53%) Web Services
12 39 (1.45%) RESTful
13 36 (1.34%) .NET
14 35 (1.30%) Node.js
15 33 (1.23%) Pandas
16 32 (1.19%) HTML
16 32 (1.19%) OpenID
16 32 (1.19%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 158 (5.88%) Onboarding
2 140 (5.21%) Data Structures
3 127 (4.72%) Cloud Native
4 112 (4.17%) Legacy Systems
5 103 (3.83%) Management Information System
5 103 (3.83%) Product Ownership
6 85 (3.16%) Data Centre
7 58 (2.16%) Enterprise Software
8 54 (2.01%) AI Agents
9 43 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
10 42 (1.56%) Algorithms
10 42 (1.56%) SCADA
11 41 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
12 40 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
13 36 (1.34%) Life Science
14 34 (1.26%) Operational Technology
15 32 (1.19%) CMDB
15 32 (1.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 29 (1.08%) Reference Data
17 28 (1.04%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 173 (6.44%) Windows
2 105 (3.91%) Linux
3 64 (2.38%) 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%) AIX
13 1 (0.037%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 733 (27.27%) Migration
2 600 (22.32%) Stakeholder Management
3 540 (20.09%) CI/CD
4 509 (18.94%) Agile
5 431 (16.03%) User Acceptance Testing
6 428 (15.92%) Data Migration
7 423 (15.74%) Data Modelling
8 414 (15.40%) Analytics
9 408 (15.18%) Data Validation
9 408 (15.18%) Problem-Solving
10 387 (14.40%) AI
11 373 (13.88%) DevOps
12 369 (13.73%) Test Automation
13 364 (13.54%) Continuous Improvement
14 302 (11.24%) ETL
15 289 (10.75%) Data Analysis
16 285 (10.60%) Business Intelligence
17 275 (10.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 270 (10.04%) Data Pipeline
19 266 (9.90%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 705 (26.23%) SQL
2 555 (20.65%) Python
3 122 (4.54%) Java
4 109 (4.06%) PowerShell
5 67 (2.49%) JavaScript
6 57 (2.12%) Bash
7 50 (1.86%) C#
8 42 (1.56%) C++
9 38 (1.41%) TypeScript
10 26 (0.97%) Apex Code
10 26 (0.97%) R
11 25 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 25 (0.93%) Shell Script
12 24 (0.89%) PL/SQL
13 22 (0.82%) Bicep
13 22 (0.82%) C
14 19 (0.71%) VBA
15 15 (0.56%) Go
15 15 (0.56%) MATLAB
16 14 (0.52%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 538 (20.01%) Security Cleared
2 400 (14.88%) SC Cleared
3 199 (7.40%) Degree
4 89 (3.31%) DV Cleared
5 56 (2.08%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.71%) Computer Science Degree
7 36 (1.34%) Cisco Certification
8 32 (1.19%) AWS Certification
9 31 (1.15%) ACCA
9 31 (1.15%) 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%) PMP
14 18 (0.67%) Master's Degree
15 14 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 559 (20.80%) Data Quality
2 319 (11.87%) QA
3 77 (2.86%) GDPR
4 47 (1.75%) SLA
5 44 (1.64%) Accessibility
6 33 (1.23%) NIST
6 33 (1.23%) PMO
7 31 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 22 (0.82%) GxP
9 17 (0.63%) WCAG
10 16 (0.60%) GRC
10 16 (0.60%) ISO 20022
11 15 (0.56%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 15 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
12 12 (0.45%) IFRS
13 10 (0.37%) Def Stans
13 10 (0.37%) MiFID
13 10 (0.37%) NCSC
14 9 (0.33%) GMP
15 8 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 100 (3.72%) Active Directory
1 100 (3.72%) Docker
2 65 (2.42%) VMware Infrastructure
3 30 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
4 23 (0.86%) VMware ESXi
5 19 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.63%) Firmware
7 16 (0.60%) vSphere
8 14 (0.52%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.48%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.15%) VirtualBox
11 3 (0.11%) KVM
11 3 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.074%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.074%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.037%) Ceph
13 1 (0.037%) etcd
13 1 (0.037%) HDFS
13 1 (0.037%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 131 (4.87%) Kubernetes
2 92 (3.42%) Ansible
3 36 (1.34%) Grafana
4 30 (1.12%) Prometheus
5 23 (0.86%) FortiGate
5 23 (0.86%) Microsoft Intune
6 20 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
7 16 (0.60%) SCCM
8 11 (0.41%) HP ALM
9 10 (0.37%) Functional Safety
10 9 (0.33%) Progress Chef
10 9 (0.33%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.30%) Argo
12 6 (0.22%) Control-M
12 6 (0.22%) VxRail
13 5 (0.19%) systemd
13 5 (0.19%) vRealize
14 4 (0.15%) Failover Clustering
14 4 (0.15%) Kustomize
14 4 (0.15%) Podman
Vendors
1 425 (15.81%) Microsoft
2 216 (8.04%) SAP
3 199 (7.40%) Oracle
4 158 (5.88%) Databricks
5 84 (3.13%) ServiceNow
6 82 (3.05%) Salesforce
7 77 (2.86%) Cisco
8 72 (2.68%) VMware
9 61 (2.27%) Google
10 52 (1.93%) Workday
11 47 (1.75%) IBM
12 31 (1.15%) Fortinet
13 29 (1.08%) Zscaler
14 28 (1.04%) Juniper
15 26 (0.97%) Informatica
16 23 (0.86%) Palo Alto
17 20 (0.74%) Splunk
18 18 (0.67%) Red Hat
19 17 (0.63%) CyberArk
20 16 (0.60%) Siemens