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 24 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 65 101
Rank change year-on-year +33 +36 +48
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,661 1,051 742
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.71% 3.78% 2.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.75% 4.16% 2.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,571 627 368
10th Percentile £340 £331 £324
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £498
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +3.02% -7.87%
75th Percentile £600 £632 £588
90th Percentile £706 £700 £653
UK median daily rate £500 £501 £500
% change year-on-year -0.10% +0.10% -6.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 180 78 99
10th Percentile £17.17 £20.50 £29.42
25th Percentile £27.81 £41.25 £48.00
Median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% - -2.61%
75th Percentile £72.87 £67.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £53.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -17.69% - -1.49%

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 39,443 25,283 28,060
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.68% 90.86% 86.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,053 16,051 17,283
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £423
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -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 2,841 1,529 1,252
10th Percentile £13.99 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.72 £17.87 £20.09
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -2.39%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.12 £66.61
90th Percentile £79.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -

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 24 September 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 24 September 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 24 September 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 +40 1,304 £525 - 2,041
North of England +43 348 £450 +4.65% 441
South East +4 331 £525 +5.00% 672
Midlands +36 307 £473 -0.42% 346
West Midlands +29 215 £464 -2.40% 237
North West +16 166 £452 +6.29% 254
Yorkshire +54 156 £460 -3.16% 118
South West +17 153 £521 -5.23% 339
East of England -7 144 £450 -10.00% 355
East Midlands +26 88 £489 -2.25% 108
North East -25 31 £425 -11.92% 70
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 81 (3.04%) Confluence
2 65 (2.44%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (2.07%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.69%) SAS
5 41 (1.54%) Apache Spark
6 30 (1.13%) Apache
7 17 (0.64%) 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%) Sitecore CMS
12 6 (0.23%) OpenStack
12 6 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
12 6 (0.23%) WebLogic
13 5 (0.19%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.15%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.15%) JBoss
Applications
1 196 (7.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
3 34 (1.28%) MS Visio
4 32 (1.20%) Spreadsheet
5 30 (1.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 14 (0.53%) AutoCAD
7 9 (0.34%) Navisworks
7 9 (0.34%) Revit
8 7 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
8 7 (0.26%) ProjectWise
9 6 (0.23%) Simulink
10 3 (0.11%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.075%) CATIA
11 2 (0.075%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.075%) EPLAN
12 1 (0.038%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.038%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.038%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.038%) OrCAD
12 1 (0.038%) Trello
Business Applications
1 101 (3.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.56%) Oracle Payables
3 14 (0.53%) Oracle EBS
4 13 (0.49%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.45%) SAP FI
5 12 (0.45%) SAP MDG
5 12 (0.45%) SAP SD
5 12 (0.45%) Teamcenter
5 12 (0.45%) Workday HCM
6 10 (0.38%) Aladdin
6 10 (0.38%) iTrent
6 10 (0.38%) SAP HCM
6 10 (0.38%) SAP MM
7 9 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
7 9 (0.34%) SAP ERP
8 8 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.30%) SAP CO
9 7 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
9 7 (0.26%) Oracle Financials
9 7 (0.26%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 543 (20.41%) Azure
2 318 (11.95%) AWS
3 267 (10.03%) Power Platform
4 154 (5.79%) Azure DevOps
5 150 (5.64%) GCP
6 125 (4.70%) GitHub
7 97 (3.65%) Snowflake
8 84 (3.16%) Entra ID
9 66 (2.48%) Azure Data Factory
10 64 (2.41%) GitHub Actions
11 58 (2.18%) dbt
12 52 (1.95%) Amazon S3
13 51 (1.92%) Microsoft 365
13 51 (1.92%) Serverless
14 48 (1.80%) SaaS
15 35 (1.32%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 35 (1.32%) SuccessFactors
16 33 (1.24%) Azure Monitor
17 30 (1.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 30 (1.13%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 103 (3.87%) Firewall
2 68 (2.56%) DNS
3 59 (2.22%) VLAN
4 55 (2.07%) Network Security
5 51 (1.92%) VPN
6 44 (1.65%) BGP
7 42 (1.58%) TCP/IP
8 41 (1.54%) WAN
9 31 (1.16%) DHCP
10 25 (0.94%) OSPF
11 23 (0.86%) VXLAN
12 22 (0.83%) Internet
12 22 (0.83%) LAN
13 21 (0.79%) 5G
13 21 (0.79%) SD-WAN
13 21 (0.79%) Wireless
14 20 (0.75%) Ethernet
14 20 (0.75%) Ethernet VPN
14 20 (0.75%) SAN
15 18 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 247 (9.28%) Power BI
2 145 (5.45%) Data Warehouse
3 109 (4.10%) Metadata
4 92 (3.46%) Relational Database
5 75 (2.82%) SQL Server
6 72 (2.71%) Data Lake
7 71 (2.67%) PostgreSQL
8 67 (2.52%) Tableau
9 37 (1.39%) MongoDB
10 35 (1.32%) BigQuery
11 34 (1.28%) Big Data
11 34 (1.28%) Delta Lake
12 33 (1.24%) NoSQL
12 33 (1.24%) Oracle Database
12 33 (1.24%) Power Query
13 30 (1.13%) Redis
14 26 (0.98%) Amazon Athena
14 26 (0.98%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 24 (0.90%) MySQL
16 23 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 238 (8.94%) JIRA
2 203 (7.63%) Git
3 89 (3.34%) Jenkins
4 86 (3.23%) GitLab
5 71 (2.67%) Selenium
6 36 (1.35%) Postman
7 30 (1.13%) JMeter
8 23 (0.86%) Cucumber
8 23 (0.86%) Rational DOORS
9 17 (0.64%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.64%) Visual Studio
9 17 (0.64%) WebDriver
10 16 (0.60%) JUnit
11 12 (0.45%) Cypress.io
11 12 (0.45%) Visual Studio Code
12 11 (0.41%) Gatling
12 11 (0.41%) Rational Rhapsody
12 11 (0.41%) REST Assured
13 10 (0.38%) Zephyr
14 9 (0.34%) Gradle
General
1 769 (28.90%) Finance
2 761 (28.60%) Social Skills
3 532 (19.99%) Analytical Skills
4 241 (9.06%) Banking
5 213 (8.00%) Public Sector
6 119 (4.47%) Documentation Skills
7 108 (4.06%) Manufacturing
8 87 (3.27%) Retail
9 67 (2.52%) Automotive
10 63 (2.37%) Telecoms
11 59 (2.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 51 (1.92%) Marketing
13 49 (1.84%) Aerospace
14 47 (1.77%) Organisational Skills
15 44 (1.65%) Legal
16 41 (1.54%) Front Office
16 41 (1.54%) Influencing Skills
16 41 (1.54%) Local Government
16 41 (1.54%) Pharmaceutical
17 36 (1.35%) Law
Job Titles
1 455 (17.10%) Analyst
2 301 (11.31%) Senior
3 246 (9.24%) Lead
4 221 (8.31%) Data Engineer
5 207 (7.78%) Business Analyst
6 198 (7.44%) Consultant
7 163 (6.13%) Developer
8 144 (5.41%) Architect
9 138 (5.19%) Data Analyst
10 104 (3.91%) Test Engineer
11 68 (2.56%) Network Engineer
12 65 (2.44%) Tester
13 56 (2.10%) Systems Engineer
14 54 (2.03%) Administrator
14 54 (2.03%) Senior Data Engineer
15 51 (1.92%) Software Engineer
16 42 (1.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 41 (1.54%) Project Manager
17 41 (1.54%) Senior Analyst
18 40 (1.50%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 160 (6.01%) REST
1 160 (6.01%) Terraform
2 80 (3.01%) JSON
3 79 (2.97%) PySpark
4 69 (2.59%) Kafka
5 61 (2.29%) XML
6 55 (2.07%) Middleware
7 52 (1.95%) Playwright
8 44 (1.65%) pytest
9 43 (1.62%) Oracle Fusion
10 41 (1.54%) SOAP
11 39 (1.47%) RESTful
12 38 (1.43%) .NET
12 38 (1.43%) OAuth
12 38 (1.43%) Web Services
13 36 (1.35%) Node.js
14 34 (1.28%) HTML
14 34 (1.28%) Pandas
15 33 (1.24%) Spring
16 30 (1.13%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 156 (5.86%) Onboarding
2 134 (5.04%) Data Structures
3 127 (4.77%) Cloud Native
4 108 (4.06%) Legacy Systems
5 101 (3.80%) Product Ownership
6 96 (3.61%) Management Information System
7 83 (3.12%) Data Centre
8 51 (1.92%) AI Agents
9 48 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
10 44 (1.65%) Distributed Systems
11 42 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
11 42 (1.58%) SCADA
12 41 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
13 38 (1.43%) Algorithms
14 34 (1.28%) Life Science
14 34 (1.28%) Operational Technology
15 33 (1.24%) CMDB
16 32 (1.20%) Reference Data
17 31 (1.16%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 30 (1.13%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 166 (6.24%) Windows
2 106 (3.98%) Linux
3 58 (2.18%) Windows Server
4 31 (1.16%) Unix
5 21 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (0.56%) Android
7 11 (0.41%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.34%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.30%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.26%) VMS
11 4 (0.15%) SUSE
11 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.11%) VxWorks
12 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.075%) CentOS
13 2 (0.075%) HPUX
13 2 (0.075%) Solaris
13 2 (0.075%) Windows 7
13 2 (0.075%) zOS
14 1 (0.038%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 718 (26.98%) Migration
2 587 (22.06%) Stakeholder Management
3 529 (19.88%) CI/CD
4 509 (19.13%) Agile
5 418 (15.71%) Data Modelling
6 417 (15.67%) Analytics
7 414 (15.56%) User Acceptance Testing
8 413 (15.52%) Data Migration
9 409 (15.37%) Data Validation
10 401 (15.07%) Problem-Solving
11 376 (14.13%) AI
12 364 (13.68%) DevOps
13 361 (13.57%) Test Automation
14 346 (13.00%) Continuous Improvement
15 308 (11.57%) ETL
16 282 (10.60%) Business Intelligence
17 281 (10.56%) Data Analysis
18 277 (10.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 268 (10.07%) Data Pipeline
20 264 (9.92%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 694 (26.08%) SQL
2 561 (21.08%) Python
3 124 (4.66%) Java
4 100 (3.76%) PowerShell
5 67 (2.52%) JavaScript
6 54 (2.03%) Bash
7 53 (1.99%) C#
8 43 (1.62%) C++
9 37 (1.39%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.13%) R
11 29 (1.09%) Apex Code
12 27 (1.01%) PL/SQL
13 26 (0.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 25 (0.94%) Shell Script
15 22 (0.83%) C
16 21 (0.79%) Bicep
17 19 (0.71%) VBA
18 14 (0.53%) Go
18 14 (0.53%) MATLAB
19 13 (0.49%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 519 (19.50%) Security Cleared
2 381 (14.32%) SC Cleared
3 200 (7.52%) Degree
4 83 (3.12%) DV Cleared
5 54 (2.03%) BPSS Clearance
6 47 (1.77%) Computer Science Degree
7 37 (1.39%) Cisco Certification
8 33 (1.24%) AWS Certification
9 29 (1.09%) ACCA
9 29 (1.09%) CCNP
9 29 (1.09%) CIMA
10 26 (0.98%) PMI Certification
11 23 (0.86%) Azure Certification
12 21 (0.79%) PMP
13 20 (0.75%) CISSP
13 20 (0.75%) ISTQB
14 19 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 18 (0.68%) Master's Degree
16 14 (0.53%) Microsoft Certification
17 11 (0.41%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 542 (20.37%) Data Quality
2 319 (11.99%) QA
3 81 (3.04%) GDPR
4 45 (1.69%) Accessibility
5 39 (1.47%) SLA
6 35 (1.32%) NIST
7 34 (1.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 31 (1.16%) PMO
9 22 (0.83%) GxP
10 18 (0.68%) WCAG
11 16 (0.60%) GRC
11 16 (0.60%) ISO 20022
12 15 (0.56%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 14 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.41%) IFRS
14 11 (0.41%) NCSC
15 10 (0.38%) Def Stans
15 10 (0.38%) MiFID
16 9 (0.34%) GMP
17 8 (0.30%) HL7
System Software
1 101 (3.80%) Docker
2 87 (3.27%) Active Directory
3 66 (2.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (1.24%) Virtual Machines
5 25 (0.94%) VMware ESXi
6 22 (0.83%) Firmware
7 20 (0.75%) vSphere
8 17 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
9 16 (0.60%) Hyper-V
10 14 (0.53%) VMware NSX
11 3 (0.11%) KVM
11 3 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.11%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.075%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.075%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.038%) etcd
13 1 (0.038%) HDFS
13 1 (0.038%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.038%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 125 (4.70%) Kubernetes
2 88 (3.31%) Ansible
3 38 (1.43%) Grafana
4 31 (1.16%) Prometheus
5 25 (0.94%) FortiGate
6 24 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
7 17 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.60%) SCCM
9 13 (0.49%) vCenter Server
10 11 (0.41%) HP ALM
11 10 (0.38%) VxRail
12 9 (0.34%) Functional Safety
13 8 (0.30%) Argo
13 8 (0.30%) Failover Clustering
13 8 (0.30%) Progress Chef
14 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
14 5 (0.19%) systemd
14 5 (0.19%) vRealize
15 4 (0.15%) Kibana
15 4 (0.15%) vMotion
Vendors
1 410 (15.41%) Microsoft
2 211 (7.93%) SAP
3 195 (7.33%) Oracle
4 154 (5.79%) Databricks
5 86 (3.23%) Salesforce
6 79 (2.97%) Cisco
6 79 (2.97%) ServiceNow
7 74 (2.78%) VMware
8 59 (2.22%) Google
9 48 (1.80%) Workday
10 41 (1.54%) IBM
11 32 (1.20%) Fortinet
12 30 (1.13%) Zscaler
13 29 (1.09%) Juniper
14 27 (1.01%) Informatica
15 24 (0.90%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.79%) Splunk
17 18 (0.68%) Red Hat
18 17 (0.64%) Siemens
19 16 (0.60%) CyberArk