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

6 months to
3 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 69 111
Rank change year-on-year +35 +42 +33
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,332 931 769
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.31% 3.57% 2.06%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.22% 3.92% 2.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,418 575 380
10th Percentile £347 £353 £325
25th Percentile £413 £422 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -11.50%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £589
90th Percentile £700 £700 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 156 64 177
10th Percentile £17.75 £18.90 £27.55
25th Percentile £29.06 £37.25 £47.83
Median hourly rate £62.82 £60.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.70% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75.25 £65.50 £70.66
90th Percentile £83.38 £76.75 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £61.25 £57.75 £60.00
% change year-on-year +6.06% -3.75% -5.11%

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 37,490 23,760 31,971
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.37% 91.05% 85.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,605 15,276 20,748
10th Percentile £325 £300 £305
25th Percentile £419 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.46% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £730 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £515 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +1.98% -3.81% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,362 1,184 2,308
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.23 £12.79
25th Percentile £20.79 £17.95 £16.06
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% +1.65%
75th Percentile £68.55 £55.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £82.25 £72.50 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +3.45%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 +46 1,124 £513 -6.82% 441
North of England +35 305 £450 - 163
Midlands +38 293 £489 +8.61% 125
South East -1 273 £505 +1.00% 266
West Midlands +32 213 £475 +17.77% 64
North West +25 166 £450 - 87
East of England +10 134 £500 - 91
South West +1 129 £514 -10.65% 115
Yorkshire +27 126 £462 +11.53% 49
East Midlands +23 75 £525 +15.51% 61
North East -26 16 £425 -22.73% 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 79 (3.39%) Confluence
2 60 (2.57%) Apache Airflow
3 48 (2.06%) SAS
4 44 (1.89%) SharePoint
5 38 (1.63%) Apache Spark
6 24 (1.03%) Apache
7 13 (0.56%) Jupyter
8 10 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.34%) SharePoint 2013
10 7 (0.30%) CMS
11 6 (0.26%) Appian
11 6 (0.26%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.21%) Tuxedo
13 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.13%) Apache Pulsar
13 3 (0.13%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
13 3 (0.13%) Oracle Self-Service HR
13 3 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
13 3 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 164 (7.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 36 (1.54%) MS Visio
3 31 (1.33%) Microsoft Office
4 27 (1.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 21 (0.90%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.21%) AutoCAD
7 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.17%) Simulink
9 3 (0.13%) CATIA
10 2 (0.086%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.086%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.086%) Sketch
11 1 (0.043%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.043%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.043%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.043%) LaTeX
11 1 (0.043%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.043%) UXPin
11 1 (0.043%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 112 (4.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.42%) Oracle EBS
3 16 (0.69%) Oracle Payables
4 15 (0.64%) Teamcenter
5 14 (0.60%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 12 (0.51%) Oracle General Ledger
6 12 (0.51%) Workday HCM
7 11 (0.47%) iTrent
7 11 (0.47%) Oracle Assets
8 10 (0.43%) SAP ERP
9 9 (0.39%) NetSuite
9 9 (0.39%) Oracle Financials
10 8 (0.34%) Aladdin
10 8 (0.34%) Oracle Receivables
10 8 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
11 7 (0.30%) Oracle EBS R12
11 7 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
11 7 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
11 7 (0.30%) Sage X3
12 6 (0.26%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 500 (21.44%) Azure
2 280 (12.01%) AWS
3 232 (9.95%) Power Platform
4 127 (5.45%) Azure DevOps
5 121 (5.19%) GCP
6 109 (4.67%) GitHub
7 77 (3.30%) Snowflake
8 62 (2.66%) GitHub Actions
9 61 (2.62%) Entra ID
10 60 (2.57%) Azure Data Factory
11 56 (2.40%) Serverless
12 44 (1.89%) Amazon S3
13 42 (1.80%) Microsoft 365
14 41 (1.76%) OCI
14 41 (1.76%) SaaS
15 39 (1.67%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 39 (1.67%) dbt
16 30 (1.29%) SuccessFactors
17 28 (1.20%) Salesforce Service Cloud
18 26 (1.11%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.33%) Firewall
2 60 (2.57%) Network Security
3 41 (1.76%) DNS
4 40 (1.72%) VLAN
5 36 (1.54%) WAN
6 33 (1.42%) VPN
7 27 (1.16%) BGP
7 27 (1.16%) TCP/IP
8 23 (0.99%) SAN
9 22 (0.94%) Wireless
10 21 (0.90%) LAN
11 20 (0.86%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.81%) OSPF
13 17 (0.73%) Internet
14 16 (0.69%) DHCP
14 16 (0.69%) Ethernet
14 16 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.56%) Cisco ISE
16 12 (0.51%) NAS
17 11 (0.47%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 216 (9.26%) Power BI
2 127 (5.45%) Data Warehouse
3 86 (3.69%) Metadata
4 80 (3.43%) SQL Server
5 70 (3.00%) Tableau
6 68 (2.92%) Data Lake
6 68 (2.92%) PostgreSQL
7 56 (2.40%) Relational Database
8 32 (1.37%) Big Data
9 30 (1.29%) Oracle Database
10 29 (1.24%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 26 (1.11%) Amazon Redshift
11 26 (1.11%) NoSQL
12 25 (1.07%) BigQuery
12 25 (1.07%) Delta Lake
12 25 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 23 (0.99%) Power Query
14 22 (0.94%) Oracle Reports
15 19 (0.81%) Amazon Athena
16 18 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 228 (9.78%) JIRA
2 134 (5.75%) Git
3 89 (3.82%) Jenkins
4 66 (2.83%) GitLab
5 56 (2.40%) Selenium
6 44 (1.89%) Postman
7 43 (1.84%) JMeter
8 37 (1.59%) Cucumber
9 36 (1.54%) JUnit
10 30 (1.29%) WebDriver
11 25 (1.07%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.77%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.69%) Gatling
13 16 (0.69%) Rational Rhapsody
13 16 (0.69%) Visual Studio
14 13 (0.56%) MLflow
15 10 (0.43%) Maven
15 10 (0.43%) REST Assured
16 9 (0.39%) Oracle Forms
17 8 (0.34%) Gradle
General
1 706 (30.27%) Finance
2 693 (29.72%) Social Skills
3 440 (18.87%) Analytical Skills
4 194 (8.32%) Public Sector
5 185 (7.93%) Banking
6 131 (5.62%) Documentation Skills
7 77 (3.30%) Manufacturing
8 65 (2.79%) Retail
9 62 (2.66%) Aerospace
10 43 (1.84%) Organisational Skills
11 42 (1.80%) Pharmaceutical
11 42 (1.80%) Telecoms
12 41 (1.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 35 (1.50%) Front Office
13 35 (1.50%) General Ledger
13 35 (1.50%) Marketing
14 33 (1.42%) Legal
15 32 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
15 32 (1.37%) Law
16 31 (1.33%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 405 (17.37%) Analyst
2 237 (10.16%) Lead
3 231 (9.91%) Senior
4 193 (8.28%) Business Analyst
5 186 (7.98%) Data Engineer
6 166 (7.12%) Consultant
7 142 (6.09%) Architect
8 133 (5.70%) Developer
9 119 (5.10%) Data Analyst
10 77 (3.30%) Test Engineer
11 72 (3.09%) Project Manager
12 63 (2.70%) Tester
13 46 (1.97%) Network Engineer
14 43 (1.84%) Test Manager
15 42 (1.80%) Security Engineer
16 41 (1.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 41 (1.76%) Senior Data Engineer
16 41 (1.76%) Systems Engineer
17 40 (1.72%) Software Engineer
18 39 (1.67%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (4.72%) REST
2 69 (2.96%) Kafka
3 68 (2.92%) JSON
4 50 (2.14%) Oracle Fusion
5 49 (2.10%) PySpark
6 47 (2.02%) XML
7 45 (1.93%) Middleware
8 41 (1.76%) Spring
9 40 (1.72%) OAuth
10 38 (1.63%) .NET
11 34 (1.46%) Playwright
11 34 (1.46%) pytest
12 33 (1.42%) RESTful
13 32 (1.37%) SOAP
13 32 (1.37%) Web Services
14 31 (1.33%) Pandas
15 30 (1.29%) Node.js
16 27 (1.16%) Swagger
17 25 (1.07%) WireMock
18 23 (0.99%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 121 (5.19%) Legacy Systems
2 114 (4.89%) Data Structures
3 109 (4.67%) Onboarding
4 94 (4.03%) Cloud Native
5 93 (3.99%) Product Ownership
6 69 (2.96%) Data Centre
7 55 (2.36%) Management Information System
8 49 (2.10%) Analytical Mindset
9 47 (2.02%) Distributed Systems
10 36 (1.54%) SCADA
11 33 (1.42%) AI Agents
12 30 (1.29%) Enterprise Software
13 29 (1.24%) Data Protection Act
13 29 (1.24%) Life Science
14 27 (1.16%) Distributed Architecture
14 27 (1.16%) NHS
14 27 (1.16%) Public Cloud
15 26 (1.11%) Hybrid Cloud
15 26 (1.11%) Virtual Team
16 25 (1.07%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 123 (5.27%) Windows
2 78 (3.34%) Linux
3 25 (1.07%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.86%) Unix
5 16 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (0.39%) Android
7 7 (0.30%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.26%) VMS
8 6 (0.26%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.17%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.17%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.17%) SUSE
10 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.086%) HPUX
11 2 (0.086%) VxWorks
11 2 (0.086%) zOS
12 1 (0.043%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.043%) pSOS
12 1 (0.043%) Solaris
12 1 (0.043%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 646 (27.70%) Migration
2 458 (19.64%) Agile
3 413 (17.71%) Stakeholder Management
4 400 (17.15%) CI/CD
5 398 (17.07%) Data Validation
6 383 (16.42%) Data Migration
7 380 (16.30%) Analytics
8 378 (16.21%) Problem-Solving
9 376 (16.12%) User Acceptance Testing
10 352 (15.09%) Data Modelling
11 300 (12.86%) AI
12 295 (12.65%) DevOps
13 294 (12.61%) ETL
14 290 (12.44%) Test Automation
15 261 (11.19%) Continuous Improvement
16 253 (10.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 252 (10.81%) Business Intelligence
18 230 (9.86%) Data Analysis
19 227 (9.73%) Data Governance
20 220 (9.43%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 564 (24.19%) SQL
2 407 (17.45%) Python
3 116 (4.97%) Java
4 62 (2.66%) PowerShell
5 53 (2.27%) C#
6 39 (1.67%) JavaScript
7 38 (1.63%) C++
8 37 (1.59%) Bash
9 32 (1.37%) C
9 32 (1.37%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 32 (1.37%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.20%) Apex Code
11 27 (1.16%) Bicep
12 25 (1.07%) PL/SQL
13 24 (1.03%) R
14 21 (0.90%) Ada
15 20 (0.86%) VBA
16 19 (0.81%) Scala
17 15 (0.64%) MATLAB
18 14 (0.60%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 420 (18.01%) Security Cleared
2 305 (13.08%) SC Cleared
3 171 (7.33%) Degree
4 54 (2.32%) BPSS Clearance
5 49 (2.10%) DV Cleared
6 40 (1.72%) Computer Science Degree
7 33 (1.42%) Cisco Certification
8 29 (1.24%) PMI Certification
9 25 (1.07%) CCNP
10 23 (0.99%) PMP
11 20 (0.86%) CISSP
12 17 (0.73%) ACCA
13 16 (0.69%) Master's Degree
14 15 (0.64%) Azure Certification
14 15 (0.64%) CIMA
14 15 (0.64%) ISTQB
14 15 (0.64%) Microsoft Certification
15 14 (0.60%) AWS Certification
16 12 (0.51%) CCNA
17 9 (0.39%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 413 (17.71%) Data Quality
2 280 (12.01%) QA
3 110 (4.72%) GDPR
4 60 (2.57%) NIST
5 55 (2.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 35 (1.50%) Accessibility
7 31 (1.33%) PMO
8 27 (1.16%) SLA
9 20 (0.86%) IFRS
10 18 (0.77%) GRC
10 18 (0.77%) GxP
11 17 (0.73%) Def Stans
12 14 (0.60%) HL7
13 13 (0.56%) NCSC
13 13 (0.56%) Solvency II
14 12 (0.51%) IFRS 17
14 12 (0.51%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.47%) ISO 20022
15 11 (0.47%) PCI DSS
16 10 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 102 (4.37%) Docker
2 64 (2.74%) Active Directory
3 55 (2.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.11%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (0.81%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (0.60%) Firmware
6 14 (0.60%) VMware NSX
7 13 (0.56%) Hyper-V
8 12 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
9 11 (0.47%) vSphere
10 5 (0.21%) NFS
11 4 (0.17%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 4 (0.17%) KVM
12 2 (0.086%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.086%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.086%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.086%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.043%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.043%) OpenSSH
13 1 (0.043%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 145 (6.22%) Kubernetes
2 107 (4.59%) Terraform
3 50 (2.14%) Prometheus
4 47 (2.02%) Grafana
5 45 (1.93%) Ansible
6 25 (1.07%) Single Sign-On
7 21 (0.90%) FortiGate
8 20 (0.86%) Microsoft Intune
9 9 (0.39%) vCenter Server
10 8 (0.34%) SCCM
11 6 (0.26%) Nessus
11 6 (0.26%) VxRail
12 5 (0.21%) CASB
12 5 (0.21%) HP ALM
12 5 (0.21%) Kibana
12 5 (0.21%) Puppet
12 5 (0.21%) vMotion
13 4 (0.17%) EMC VPLEX
13 4 (0.17%) Failover Clustering
13 4 (0.17%) Istio
Vendors
1 319 (13.68%) Microsoft
2 209 (8.96%) SAP
3 203 (8.70%) Oracle
4 113 (4.85%) Databricks
5 83 (3.56%) Salesforce
6 66 (2.83%) VMware
7 63 (2.70%) ServiceNow
8 52 (2.23%) Cisco
9 39 (1.67%) Splunk
9 39 (1.67%) Workday
10 34 (1.46%) Google
11 32 (1.37%) Informatica
12 27 (1.16%) Palo Alto
13 25 (1.07%) Fortinet
14 23 (0.99%) MuleSoft
14 23 (0.99%) Sage
15 22 (0.94%) IBM
16 21 (0.90%) Juniper
17 20 (0.86%) IFS
18 18 (0.77%) CyberArk