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 21 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 67 112
Rank change year-on-year +32 +45 +37
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,402 997 734
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.36% 3.66% 2.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.28% 4.04% 2.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,461 607 377
10th Percentile £335 £351 £336
25th Percentile £413 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -13.04%
75th Percentile £600 £632 £588
90th Percentile £701 £700 £672
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 157 75 140
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £30.27 £36.99 £47.96
Median hourly rate £62.50 £60.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% - -4.08%
75th Percentile £76.00 £67.00 £68.78
90th Percentile £83.85 £76.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £58.99 £58.75 £60.00
% change year-on-year +0.40% -2.08% -7.69%

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 38,258 24,707 30,336
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.32% 90.66% 85.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,997 15,833 19,804
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £421 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £645
90th Percentile £735 £745 £751
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,373 1,323 1,986
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.22 £13.25
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.88 £17.00
Median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +88.87% -37.13% -6.43%
75th Percentile £69.50 £53.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £83.00 £71.03 £74.22
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -10.31%

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 21 July 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 21 July 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 21 July 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 +43 1,160 £513 -2.38% 414
South East +1 311 £504 +0.75% 203
Midlands +44 305 £475 +5.56% 109
North of England +38 304 £450 -5.26% 154
West Midlands +33 224 £475 +11.76% 57
North West +22 167 £450 -14.29% 90
East of England +2 134 £500 - 86
Yorkshire +27 127 £460 +9.52% 37
South West -13 125 £520 -9.57% 77
East Midlands +22 76 £509 +13.11% 52
North East -34 16 £425 -15.00% 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 74 (3.08%) Confluence
2 64 (2.66%) Apache Airflow
3 49 (2.04%) SAS
4 43 (1.79%) SharePoint
5 40 (1.67%) Apache Spark
6 28 (1.17%) Apache
7 12 (0.50%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.33%) SharePoint 2013
10 7 (0.29%) CMS
11 6 (0.25%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.21%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
14 3 (0.12%) Apache Pulsar
14 3 (0.12%) Appian
14 3 (0.12%) FactoryTalk
14 3 (0.12%) JBoss
14 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
Applications
1 168 (6.99%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.42%) MS Visio
3 30 (1.25%) Microsoft Office
4 26 (1.08%) Spreadsheet
5 25 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 8 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
7 6 (0.25%) AutoCAD
8 5 (0.21%) Simulink
9 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
10 3 (0.12%) CATIA
11 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.083%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.083%) Sketch
12 1 (0.042%) Adobe XD
12 1 (0.042%) Autodesk Inventor
12 1 (0.042%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.042%) Navisworks
12 1 (0.042%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.042%) ProjectWise
12 1 (0.042%) Revit
Business Applications
1 113 (4.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (1.33%) Oracle EBS
3 16 (0.67%) Workday HCM
4 14 (0.58%) Teamcenter
5 12 (0.50%) Oracle Payables
6 11 (0.46%) NetSuite
6 11 (0.46%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 11 (0.46%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.42%) Aladdin
8 9 (0.37%) Dynamics CRM
8 9 (0.37%) iTrent
8 9 (0.37%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.37%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
9 8 (0.33%) Sage X3
9 8 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
10 7 (0.29%) SAP HCM
10 7 (0.29%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 523 (21.77%) Azure
2 276 (11.49%) AWS
3 248 (10.32%) Power Platform
4 129 (5.37%) Azure DevOps
5 125 (5.20%) GCP
6 113 (4.70%) GitHub
7 82 (3.41%) Snowflake
8 66 (2.75%) Azure Data Factory
9 65 (2.71%) GitHub Actions
10 64 (2.66%) Entra ID
11 57 (2.37%) Serverless
12 45 (1.87%) Amazon S3
13 44 (1.83%) dbt
13 44 (1.83%) Microsoft 365
14 43 (1.79%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 42 (1.75%) OCI
15 42 (1.75%) SaaS
16 34 (1.42%) SuccessFactors
17 31 (1.29%) Azure Monitor
18 27 (1.12%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 111 (4.62%) Firewall
2 64 (2.66%) Network Security
3 53 (2.21%) DNS
4 44 (1.83%) VLAN
5 43 (1.79%) VPN
6 36 (1.50%) TCP/IP
6 36 (1.50%) WAN
7 29 (1.21%) BGP
8 23 (0.96%) DHCP
8 23 (0.96%) SAN
9 22 (0.92%) LAN
9 22 (0.92%) Wireless
10 21 (0.87%) OSPF
11 20 (0.83%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.79%) Internet
13 16 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
14 14 (0.58%) Ethernet
15 13 (0.54%) NAS
16 12 (0.50%) Cisco ISE
17 9 (0.37%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 230 (9.58%) Power BI
2 139 (5.79%) Data Warehouse
3 93 (3.87%) Metadata
4 76 (3.16%) Data Lake
4 76 (3.16%) SQL Server
5 71 (2.96%) Tableau
6 68 (2.83%) PostgreSQL
7 58 (2.41%) Relational Database
8 38 (1.58%) Big Data
9 29 (1.21%) Oracle Database
10 28 (1.17%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 27 (1.12%) BigQuery
12 26 (1.08%) NoSQL
12 26 (1.08%) Power Query
12 26 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 25 (1.04%) Amazon Redshift
13 25 (1.04%) Delta Lake
14 22 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
15 19 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
15 19 (0.79%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 220 (9.16%) JIRA
2 145 (6.04%) Git
3 84 (3.50%) Jenkins
4 63 (2.62%) GitLab
5 55 (2.29%) Selenium
6 39 (1.62%) JMeter
7 38 (1.58%) Postman
8 37 (1.54%) Cucumber
9 36 (1.50%) JUnit
10 30 (1.25%) WebDriver
11 25 (1.04%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.75%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.67%) Rational Rhapsody
14 14 (0.58%) Visual Studio
15 12 (0.50%) Gatling
16 11 (0.46%) MLflow
17 9 (0.37%) Maven
17 9 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
17 9 (0.37%) REST Assured
18 8 (0.33%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 720 (29.98%) Finance
2 701 (29.18%) Social Skills
3 456 (18.98%) Analytical Skills
4 188 (7.83%) Banking
5 186 (7.74%) Public Sector
6 139 (5.79%) Documentation Skills
7 85 (3.54%) Manufacturing
8 78 (3.25%) Retail
9 62 (2.58%) Aerospace
10 47 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 45 (1.87%) Pharmaceutical
11 45 (1.87%) Telecoms
12 43 (1.79%) Organisational Skills
13 38 (1.58%) Marketing
14 37 (1.54%) Front Office
15 36 (1.50%) Automotive
16 34 (1.42%) Billing
17 33 (1.37%) Law
18 32 (1.33%) Legal
18 32 (1.33%) Military
Job Titles
1 431 (17.94%) Analyst
2 242 (10.07%) Lead
3 241 (10.03%) Senior
4 203 (8.45%) Business Analyst
5 199 (8.28%) Data Engineer
6 171 (7.12%) Consultant
7 139 (5.79%) Developer
8 134 (5.58%) Architect
9 125 (5.20%) Data Analyst
10 86 (3.58%) Test Engineer
11 71 (2.96%) Tester
12 69 (2.87%) Project Manager
13 53 (2.21%) Network Engineer
14 48 (2.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 44 (1.83%) Senior Data Engineer
15 44 (1.83%) Systems Engineer
16 39 (1.62%) Migration Engineer
16 39 (1.62%) Security Engineer
17 37 (1.54%) Technical Analyst
18 36 (1.50%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 113 (4.70%) REST
2 73 (3.04%) JSON
3 69 (2.87%) Kafka
4 54 (2.25%) PySpark
5 50 (2.08%) XML
6 49 (2.04%) Oracle Fusion
7 42 (1.75%) Spring
8 38 (1.58%) .NET
9 36 (1.50%) Middleware
10 33 (1.37%) OAuth
10 33 (1.37%) pytest
11 30 (1.25%) Playwright
11 30 (1.25%) SOAP
12 29 (1.21%) RESTful
13 28 (1.17%) Pandas
13 28 (1.17%) Web Services
14 27 (1.12%) Node.js
15 25 (1.04%) WireMock
16 24 (1.00%) Swagger
17 22 (0.92%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 128 (5.33%) Onboarding
2 126 (5.25%) Data Structures
3 121 (5.04%) Legacy Systems
4 101 (4.20%) Cloud Native
5 98 (4.08%) Product Ownership
6 65 (2.71%) Data Centre
7 59 (2.46%) Management Information System
8 47 (1.96%) Analytical Mindset
8 47 (1.96%) Distributed Systems
9 38 (1.58%) AI Agents
9 38 (1.58%) SCADA
10 36 (1.50%) Data Protection Act
11 34 (1.42%) Hybrid Cloud
12 32 (1.33%) Life Science
13 28 (1.17%) Enterprise Software
13 28 (1.17%) Public Cloud
13 28 (1.17%) Virtual Team
14 27 (1.12%) Distributed Architecture
14 27 (1.12%) NHS
15 26 (1.08%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 135 (5.62%) Windows
2 84 (3.50%) Linux
3 36 (1.50%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.87%) Unix
5 18 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.42%) Android
7 9 (0.37%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.25%) VMS
8 6 (0.25%) Windows 10
9 5 (0.21%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.17%) SUSE
11 3 (0.12%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.083%) HPUX
12 2 (0.083%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.083%) zOS
13 1 (0.042%) Debian
13 1 (0.042%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.042%) Solaris
13 1 (0.042%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 665 (27.69%) Migration
2 461 (19.19%) Agile
3 443 (18.44%) Stakeholder Management
4 408 (16.99%) Analytics
4 408 (16.99%) CI/CD
5 402 (16.74%) Data Migration
6 393 (16.36%) Data Validation
7 388 (16.15%) User Acceptance Testing
8 374 (15.57%) Problem-Solving
9 368 (15.32%) Data Modelling
10 306 (12.74%) ETL
11 303 (12.61%) AI
12 296 (12.32%) DevOps
13 292 (12.16%) Test Automation
14 277 (11.53%) Continuous Improvement
15 268 (11.16%) Business Intelligence
16 267 (11.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 246 (10.24%) Data Governance
18 240 (9.99%) Data Pipeline
19 236 (9.83%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 578 (24.06%) SQL
2 425 (17.69%) Python
3 108 (4.50%) Java
4 73 (3.04%) PowerShell
5 51 (2.12%) C#
6 43 (1.79%) Bash
7 38 (1.58%) C++
8 37 (1.54%) JavaScript
9 33 (1.37%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 31 (1.29%) Bicep
11 29 (1.21%) C
12 27 (1.12%) Apex Code
12 27 (1.12%) TypeScript
13 25 (1.04%) PL/SQL
14 24 (1.00%) VBA
15 22 (0.92%) R
16 20 (0.83%) Ada
17 14 (0.58%) MATLAB
17 14 (0.58%) T-SQL
18 12 (0.50%) Scala
Qualifications
1 438 (18.23%) Security Cleared
2 309 (12.86%) SC Cleared
3 167 (6.95%) Degree
4 62 (2.58%) DV Cleared
5 50 (2.08%) BPSS Clearance
6 35 (1.46%) Cisco Certification
6 35 (1.46%) Computer Science Degree
7 27 (1.12%) CCNP
8 23 (0.96%) PMI Certification
9 19 (0.79%) PMP
10 18 (0.75%) ACCA
10 18 (0.75%) CISSP
10 18 (0.75%) ISTQB
11 17 (0.71%) CIMA
11 17 (0.71%) Microsoft Certification
12 16 (0.67%) Azure Certification
13 13 (0.54%) AWS Certification
13 13 (0.54%) Master's Degree
14 12 (0.50%) CCNA
15 10 (0.42%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 447 (18.61%) Data Quality
2 282 (11.74%) QA
3 107 (4.45%) GDPR
4 55 (2.29%) NIST
5 48 (2.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 38 (1.58%) Accessibility
7 36 (1.50%) PMO
8 29 (1.21%) SLA
9 20 (0.83%) GxP
10 17 (0.71%) Def Stans
10 17 (0.71%) GRC
11 15 (0.62%) IFRS
12 14 (0.58%) HL7
13 13 (0.54%) NCSC
14 12 (0.50%) ISO 20022
14 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.50%) Solvency II
15 11 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.46%) PCI DSS
15 11 (0.46%) WCAG
System Software
1 102 (4.25%) Docker
2 73 (3.04%) Active Directory
3 59 (2.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
5 21 (0.87%) VMware ESXi
6 18 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.58%) Firmware
7 14 (0.58%) VMware NSX
8 13 (0.54%) vSphere
9 12 (0.50%) Hyper-V
10 5 (0.21%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.083%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.083%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.083%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.042%) Ceph
13 1 (0.042%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.042%) OpenSSH
13 1 (0.042%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 146 (6.08%) Kubernetes
2 116 (4.83%) Terraform
3 51 (2.12%) Ansible
4 50 (2.08%) Prometheus
5 48 (2.00%) Grafana
6 23 (0.96%) Microsoft Intune
7 22 (0.92%) FortiGate
7 22 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (0.54%) SCCM
9 11 (0.46%) vCenter Server
10 8 (0.33%) VxRail
11 6 (0.25%) HP ALM
11 6 (0.25%) Nessus
12 5 (0.21%) CASB
12 5 (0.21%) vMotion
12 5 (0.21%) vRealize
13 4 (0.17%) Argo
13 4 (0.17%) EMC VPLEX
13 4 (0.17%) Failover Clustering
13 4 (0.17%) Istio
Vendors
1 344 (14.32%) Microsoft
2 220 (9.16%) SAP
3 208 (8.66%) Oracle
4 127 (5.29%) Databricks
5 85 (3.54%) Salesforce
6 70 (2.91%) VMware
7 56 (2.33%) ServiceNow
8 54 (2.25%) Cisco
9 47 (1.96%) Workday
10 38 (1.58%) Splunk
11 34 (1.42%) Google
11 34 (1.42%) Informatica
12 30 (1.25%) Fortinet
13 27 (1.12%) Juniper
14 26 (1.08%) Palo Alto
15 25 (1.04%) IBM
16 24 (1.00%) Sage
17 23 (0.96%) Zscaler
18 22 (0.92%) MuleSoft
19 20 (0.83%) IFS