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 10 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 84 131
Rank change year-on-year +40 +47 +2
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,866 713 677
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.76% 2.93% 1.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.55% 3.22% 2.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,155 428 354
10th Percentile £333 £361 £314
25th Percentile £403 £420 £421
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £540 £519
Median % change year-on-year -9.26% +4.10% -5.68%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £609
90th Percentile £700 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £481 £540 £525
% change year-on-year -10.88% +2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 102 44 145
10th Percentile £29.17 £27.08 £23.65
25th Percentile £55.95 £49.38 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £59.13 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.94% -1.46% -4.00%
75th Percentile £76.69 £65.25 £75.25
90th Percentile £82.93 £75.18 £89.50
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £57.63 £60.00
% change year-on-year +12.80% -3.96% -4.08%

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 33,625 22,142 32,435
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.72% 90.94% 86.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,563 14,591 21,374
10th Percentile £313 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,074 866 2,196
10th Percentile £15.41 £14.95 £12.96
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.92 £15.93
Median hourly rate £40.00 £32.03 £34.11
Median % change year-on-year +24.90% -6.10% -9.05%
75th Percentile £65.81 £64.52 £58.69
90th Percentile £77.85 £75.88 £71.25
UK median hourly rate £36.71 £31.04 £33.07
% change year-on-year +18.27% -6.12% -8.15%

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 10 April 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 10 April 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 10 April 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 +72 872 £500 -9.09% 268
North of England +39 255 £450 - 152
South East -5 217 £500 - 215
Midlands +37 210 £492 +0.92% 118
West Midlands +25 161 £492 +2.23% 77
North West +37 154 £418 -5.80% 74
South West +8 131 £475 -17.39% 89
East of England +13 123 £496 +10.24% 96
Yorkshire +18 90 £461 +9.75% 51
East Midlands -1 46 £500 -9.09% 41
North East -8 14 £450 -37.93% 27
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 75 (4.02%) Confluence
2 41 (2.20%) SAS
3 35 (1.88%) Apache Airflow
3 35 (1.88%) Apache Spark
4 18 (0.96%) Apache
5 13 (0.70%) SharePoint
6 9 (0.48%) Appian
6 9 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
7 8 (0.43%) ArcGIS
7 8 (0.43%) Jupyter
8 7 (0.38%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.32%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
10 5 (0.27%) Anypoint
10 5 (0.27%) CMS
11 4 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.21%) WebLogic
12 3 (0.16%) CICS
12 3 (0.16%) Oracle Self-Service HR
13 2 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
13 2 (0.11%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 107 (5.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (1.50%) MS Visio
3 24 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
4 18 (0.96%) Spreadsheet
5 16 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 13 (0.70%) Microsoft Project
7 9 (0.48%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.21%) Notion
9 3 (0.16%) LaTeX
10 2 (0.11%) CATIA
10 2 (0.11%) Sketch
11 1 (0.054%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.054%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.054%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.054%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.054%) UXPin
11 1 (0.054%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 92 (4.93%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.77%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.80%) Oracle General Ledger
4 13 (0.70%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.70%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.64%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 10 (0.54%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.48%) Oracle Receivables
7 9 (0.48%) SAP FI
8 8 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.43%) OpenText VIM for SAP
8 8 (0.43%) Teamcenter
9 7 (0.38%) NetSuite
9 7 (0.38%) Oracle EBS R12
9 7 (0.38%) Payment Gateway
9 7 (0.38%) SAP MM
10 6 (0.32%) Aladdin
10 6 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
10 6 (0.32%) Sage X3
10 6 (0.32%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 433 (23.20%) Azure
2 225 (12.06%) AWS
3 173 (9.27%) Power Platform
4 129 (6.91%) Azure DevOps
5 90 (4.82%) GCP
6 87 (4.66%) GitHub
7 53 (2.84%) Serverless
8 52 (2.79%) Azure Data Factory
9 51 (2.73%) Entra ID
10 47 (2.52%) GitHub Actions
10 47 (2.52%) OCI
10 47 (2.52%) SaaS
11 41 (2.20%) Amazon S3
12 38 (2.04%) Snowflake
13 34 (1.82%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 27 (1.45%) OpenShift
15 25 (1.34%) AWS Lambda
15 25 (1.34%) dbt
16 23 (1.23%) Microsoft 365
17 22 (1.18%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 78 (4.18%) Firewall
2 52 (2.79%) Network Security
3 34 (1.82%) TCP/IP
4 27 (1.45%) VLAN
5 25 (1.34%) DNS
6 23 (1.23%) VPN
7 21 (1.13%) Ethernet
8 20 (1.07%) WAN
9 15 (0.80%) SAN
10 13 (0.70%) LAN
10 13 (0.70%) NAS
11 12 (0.64%) BGP
11 12 (0.64%) OSPF
11 12 (0.64%) SD-WAN
12 11 (0.59%) HTTP
12 11 (0.59%) Wireless
13 9 (0.48%) Cisco ISE
14 8 (0.43%) Internet
14 8 (0.43%) TACACS
14 8 (0.43%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 161 (8.63%) Power BI
2 98 (5.25%) Data Warehouse
3 94 (5.04%) Metadata
4 61 (3.27%) Tableau
5 60 (3.22%) SQL Server
6 42 (2.25%) Data Lake
7 41 (2.20%) PostgreSQL
8 29 (1.55%) Oracle Reports
9 26 (1.39%) Amazon Redshift
10 25 (1.34%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 24 (1.29%) Delta Lake
11 24 (1.29%) Oracle Database
12 23 (1.23%) Big Data
12 23 (1.23%) Relational Database
13 22 (1.18%) NoSQL
13 22 (1.18%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 21 (1.13%) Azure SQL Database
15 18 (0.96%) Pinecone
16 17 (0.91%) Amazon Athena
17 16 (0.86%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 180 (9.65%) JIRA
2 109 (5.84%) Git
3 81 (4.34%) Jenkins
4 62 (3.32%) Selenium
5 51 (2.73%) GitLab
6 41 (2.20%) Postman
7 38 (2.04%) JUnit
8 33 (1.77%) Cucumber
9 28 (1.50%) Oracle APEX
10 27 (1.45%) JMeter
10 27 (1.45%) Rational DOORS
11 22 (1.18%) WebDriver
12 18 (0.96%) Visual Studio
13 15 (0.80%) MLflow
14 14 (0.75%) Eclipse
15 13 (0.70%) REST Assured
16 11 (0.59%) Bitbucket
17 10 (0.54%) Rational Rhapsody
17 10 (0.54%) TestRail
18 9 (0.48%) Gatling
General
1 626 (33.55%) Social Skills
2 559 (29.96%) Finance
3 370 (19.83%) Analytical Skills
4 167 (8.95%) Public Sector
5 157 (8.41%) Banking
6 107 (5.73%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (2.63%) Aerospace
7 49 (2.63%) Manufacturing
8 48 (2.57%) Presentation Skills
9 35 (1.88%) Organisational Skills
10 32 (1.71%) Retail
11 31 (1.66%) Marketing
11 31 (1.66%) Pharmaceutical
12 30 (1.61%) Electronics
12 30 (1.61%) Financial Institution
12 30 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
12 30 (1.61%) Legal
13 29 (1.55%) Military
14 28 (1.50%) Front Office
14 28 (1.50%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 345 (18.49%) Analyst
2 190 (10.18%) Lead
3 187 (10.02%) Senior
4 162 (8.68%) Business Analyst
5 138 (7.40%) Data Engineer
6 129 (6.91%) Developer
7 122 (6.54%) Consultant
8 118 (6.32%) Architect
9 89 (4.77%) Data Analyst
10 73 (3.91%) Project Manager
11 54 (2.89%) Tester
12 41 (2.20%) Senior Analyst
12 41 (2.20%) Software Engineer
13 40 (2.14%) Senior Developer
14 38 (2.04%) SAP Consultant
15 36 (1.93%) Test Engineer
16 35 (1.88%) Network Engineer
16 35 (1.88%) Systems Engineer
16 35 (1.88%) Test Analyst
16 35 (1.88%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 125 (6.70%) REST
2 82 (4.39%) JSON
3 61 (3.27%) Kafka
4 60 (3.22%) Oracle Fusion
5 50 (2.68%) Middleware
5 50 (2.68%) XML
6 48 (2.57%) OAuth
7 41 (2.20%) Node.js
8 40 (2.14%) PySpark
8 40 (2.14%) SOAP
9 38 (2.04%) .NET
10 32 (1.71%) Swagger
11 30 (1.61%) Playwright
11 30 (1.61%) Web Services
12 29 (1.55%) PyTorch
13 28 (1.50%) Pandas
13 28 (1.50%) pytest
13 28 (1.50%) RESTful
14 26 (1.39%) TensorFlow
15 25 (1.34%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 114 (6.11%) Legacy Systems
2 95 (5.09%) Data Structures
3 78 (4.18%) Onboarding
4 73 (3.91%) Product Ownership
5 50 (2.68%) Cloud Native
6 43 (2.30%) Management Information System
7 41 (2.20%) Data Centre
8 33 (1.77%) Analytical Mindset
9 31 (1.66%) Distributed Systems
10 29 (1.55%) Replication
11 25 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
12 23 (1.23%) Hybrid Cloud
13 22 (1.18%) Algorithms
14 21 (1.13%) Greenfield Project
14 21 (1.13%) Public Cloud
15 19 (1.02%) Virtual Team
16 18 (0.96%) Derivative
16 18 (0.96%) Reference Data
17 16 (0.86%) AI Agents
17 16 (0.86%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 97 (5.20%) Windows
2 75 (4.02%) Linux
3 24 (1.29%) Unix
4 12 (0.64%) Android
5 9 (0.48%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.32%) zOS
7 4 (0.21%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (0.21%) SUSE
7 4 (0.21%) VMS
8 3 (0.16%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
9 2 (0.11%) Debian
9 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.054%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.054%) pSOS
10 1 (0.054%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 474 (25.40%) Migration
2 424 (22.72%) Agile
3 369 (19.77%) Problem-Solving
4 339 (18.17%) Stakeholder Management
5 322 (17.26%) Data Validation
6 312 (16.72%) CI/CD
7 310 (16.61%) Analytics
8 287 (15.38%) Data Migration
9 278 (14.90%) DevOps
10 266 (14.26%) Data Modelling
11 257 (13.77%) ETL
12 255 (13.67%) User Acceptance Testing
13 224 (12.00%) Test Automation
14 210 (11.25%) Business Intelligence
15 207 (11.09%) Continuous Improvement
16 202 (10.83%) AI
17 198 (10.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 182 (9.75%) Data Governance
19 168 (9.00%) Data Pipeline
20 158 (8.47%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 472 (25.29%) SQL
2 344 (18.44%) Python
3 98 (5.25%) Java
4 86 (4.61%) JavaScript
5 68 (3.64%) C#
6 52 (2.79%) PL/SQL
7 46 (2.47%) C++
8 43 (2.30%) PowerShell
9 36 (1.93%) C
10 30 (1.61%) TypeScript
11 29 (1.55%) Bash
12 25 (1.34%) R
13 24 (1.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 22 (1.18%) Bicep
15 21 (1.13%) Ada
16 17 (0.91%) Scala
17 16 (0.86%) T-SQL
18 15 (0.80%) Groovy
19 13 (0.70%) VBA
20 11 (0.59%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 396 (21.22%) Security Cleared
2 282 (15.11%) SC Cleared
3 163 (8.74%) Degree
4 52 (2.79%) BPSS Clearance
5 47 (2.52%) Computer Science Degree
6 38 (2.04%) DV Cleared
7 31 (1.66%) Master's Degree
8 30 (1.61%) PMI Certification
9 28 (1.50%) PMP
10 24 (1.29%) ISTQB
11 19 (1.02%) Cisco Certification
12 16 (0.86%) CCNP
13 15 (0.80%) Microsoft Certification
14 13 (0.70%) Azure Certification
14 13 (0.70%) CBAP
14 13 (0.70%) CISSP
15 12 (0.64%) AWS Certification
16 9 (0.48%) CCNA
17 8 (0.43%) IIBA
17 8 (0.43%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 309 (16.56%) Data Quality
2 231 (12.38%) QA
3 108 (5.79%) GDPR
4 72 (3.86%) NIST
5 58 (3.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 27 (1.45%) Accessibility
7 24 (1.29%) SLA
8 22 (1.18%) IFRS
9 20 (1.07%) PMO
10 19 (1.02%) IFRS 17
11 18 (0.96%) GRC
12 16 (0.86%) Def Stans
13 15 (0.80%) HL7
14 14 (0.75%) PCI DSS
15 13 (0.70%) NCSC
16 12 (0.64%) COBIT
16 12 (0.64%) GxP
16 12 (0.64%) MiFID
17 11 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 10 (0.54%) NIST 800
System Software
1 77 (4.13%) Docker
2 39 (2.09%) Active Directory
3 37 (1.98%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.23%) Firmware
5 12 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
6 11 (0.59%) VMware NSX
7 10 (0.54%) Hyper-V
7 10 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.32%) vSphere
10 5 (0.27%) NFS
11 4 (0.21%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 3 (0.16%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
13 2 (0.11%) Ceph
13 2 (0.11%) KVM
13 2 (0.11%) Lustre
13 2 (0.11%) OpenAM
13 2 (0.11%) OpenIDM
13 2 (0.11%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 112 (6.00%) Kubernetes
2 84 (4.50%) Terraform
3 30 (1.61%) Single Sign-On
4 29 (1.55%) Ansible
4 29 (1.55%) Prometheus
5 28 (1.50%) Grafana
6 15 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
7 9 (0.48%) Kibana
7 9 (0.48%) Puppet
8 7 (0.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 7 (0.38%) FortiGate
8 7 (0.38%) SCCM
9 6 (0.32%) Nessus
10 5 (0.27%) CASB
10 5 (0.27%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.21%) EMC VPLEX
11 4 (0.21%) Failover Clustering
11 4 (0.21%) Istio
11 4 (0.21%) vMotion
11 4 (0.21%) VxRail
Vendors
1 246 (13.18%) Microsoft
2 203 (10.88%) Oracle
3 160 (8.57%) SAP
4 87 (4.66%) Databricks
5 74 (3.97%) ServiceNow
6 52 (2.79%) Salesforce
7 43 (2.30%) Splunk
7 43 (2.30%) VMware
8 39 (2.09%) Cisco
9 37 (1.98%) Google
10 30 (1.61%) Informatica
11 29 (1.55%) MuleSoft
12 28 (1.50%) Workday
13 27 (1.45%) Sage
14 23 (1.23%) Palo Alto
15 20 (1.07%) CyberArk
16 18 (0.96%) IBM
17 16 (0.86%) OpenAI
18 14 (0.75%) Avaloq
18 14 (0.75%) IFS