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

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 69 104
Rank change year-on-year +34 +35 +44
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,405 989 767
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.37% 3.64% 2.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.29% 4.01% 2.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,464 603 381
10th Percentile £331 £355 £330
25th Percentile £413 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -10.31%
75th Percentile £600 £635 £588
90th Percentile £704 £700 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 158 75 166
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £30.95 £36.99 £47.83
Median hourly rate £62.50 £60.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75.75 £66.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £83.83 £76.50 £75.20
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £58.75 £60.00
% change year-on-year +2.13% -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 38,234 24,648 31,320
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.43% 90.68% 85.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,071 15,798 20,362
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £420 £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 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,374 1,309 2,214
10th Percentile £15.57 £14.39 £13.00
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.98 £16.25
Median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +88.87% -34.02% -8.14%
75th Percentile £68.75 £54.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £71.70 £73.60
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -5.29%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 +44 1,161 £513 -5.96% 278
North of England +35 309 £450 -5.26% 123
South East +1 305 £504 +0.75% 198
Midlands +39 301 £478 +9.26% 98
West Midlands +33 219 £475 +17.28% 49
North West +20 171 £450 -14.29% 65
East of England +2 137 £520 +2.46% 71
Yorkshire +27 127 £460 +10.31% 33
South West -5 125 £520 -9.57% 64
East Midlands +23 77 £525 +15.51% 49
North East -28 17 £425 -22.73% 25
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 76 (3.16%) Confluence
2 63 (2.62%) Apache Airflow
3 49 (2.04%) SAS
4 44 (1.83%) SharePoint
5 39 (1.62%) Apache Spark
6 27 (1.12%) 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%) Appian
14 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.12%) Apache Pulsar
14 3 (0.12%) IIS
14 3 (0.12%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
14 3 (0.12%) Palantir Foundry
14 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 167 (6.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.41%) MS Visio
3 31 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
4 25 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 25 (1.04%) Spreadsheet
5 8 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
6 6 (0.25%) AutoCAD
7 5 (0.21%) Simulink
8 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
9 3 (0.12%) CATIA
10 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.083%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.083%) Sketch
11 1 (0.042%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.042%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.042%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.042%) ProjectWise
11 1 (0.042%) Revit
11 1 (0.042%) UXPin
11 1 (0.042%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 114 (4.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.37%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.58%) Teamcenter
3 14 (0.58%) Workday HCM
4 13 (0.54%) Oracle Payables
5 11 (0.46%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 11 (0.46%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.42%) NetSuite
6 10 (0.42%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.37%) Aladdin
7 9 (0.37%) iTrent
7 9 (0.37%) Oracle Financials
7 9 (0.37%) Oracle General Ledger
7 9 (0.37%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.33%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.33%) Sage X3
8 8 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
9 7 (0.29%) Oracle EBS R12
9 7 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
9 7 (0.29%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 516 (21.46%) Azure
2 277 (11.52%) AWS
3 241 (10.02%) Power Platform
4 130 (5.41%) Azure DevOps
5 122 (5.07%) GCP
6 112 (4.66%) GitHub
7 77 (3.20%) Snowflake
8 65 (2.70%) Azure Data Factory
9 64 (2.66%) GitHub Actions
10 60 (2.49%) Entra ID
11 56 (2.33%) Serverless
12 46 (1.91%) Amazon S3
13 45 (1.87%) SaaS
14 44 (1.83%) OCI
15 43 (1.79%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 43 (1.79%) Microsoft 365
16 42 (1.75%) dbt
17 33 (1.37%) SuccessFactors
18 28 (1.16%) Salesforce Service Cloud
19 26 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 107 (4.45%) Firewall
2 63 (2.62%) Network Security
3 48 (2.00%) DNS
4 44 (1.83%) VLAN
5 38 (1.58%) VPN
6 36 (1.50%) WAN
7 30 (1.25%) TCP/IP
8 29 (1.21%) BGP
9 24 (1.00%) Wireless
10 23 (0.96%) SAN
11 22 (0.91%) LAN
12 21 (0.87%) OSPF
13 20 (0.83%) SD-WAN
14 19 (0.79%) Internet
15 18 (0.75%) DHCP
16 16 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
17 14 (0.58%) Ethernet
18 13 (0.54%) Cisco ISE
18 13 (0.54%) NAS
19 10 (0.42%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 224 (9.31%) Power BI
2 137 (5.70%) Data Warehouse
3 92 (3.83%) Metadata
4 77 (3.20%) SQL Server
5 76 (3.16%) Data Lake
6 68 (2.83%) PostgreSQL
6 68 (2.83%) Tableau
7 58 (2.41%) Relational Database
8 37 (1.54%) Big Data
9 29 (1.21%) Oracle Database
10 28 (1.16%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 27 (1.12%) BigQuery
12 26 (1.08%) Amazon Redshift
12 26 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 25 (1.04%) Delta Lake
13 25 (1.04%) Power Query
14 23 (0.96%) NoSQL
15 22 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
16 19 (0.79%) Amazon Athena
17 18 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 222 (9.23%) JIRA
2 143 (5.95%) Git
3 84 (3.49%) 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 15 (0.62%) Visual Studio
15 12 (0.50%) Gatling
15 12 (0.50%) MLflow
16 10 (0.42%) Maven
17 9 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
17 9 (0.37%) REST Assured
18 8 (0.33%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 722 (30.02%) Finance
2 708 (29.44%) Social Skills
3 461 (19.17%) Analytical Skills
4 191 (7.94%) Banking
4 191 (7.94%) Public Sector
5 140 (5.82%) Documentation Skills
6 83 (3.45%) Manufacturing
7 75 (3.12%) Retail
8 63 (2.62%) Aerospace
9 46 (1.91%) Telecoms
10 45 (1.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 44 (1.83%) Pharmaceutical
12 42 (1.75%) Organisational Skills
13 37 (1.54%) Marketing
14 35 (1.46%) Front Office
15 34 (1.41%) Automotive
16 33 (1.37%) Law
17 32 (1.33%) Billing
17 32 (1.33%) General Ledger
17 32 (1.33%) Legal
Job Titles
1 428 (17.80%) Analyst
2 245 (10.19%) Lead
3 237 (9.85%) Senior
4 201 (8.36%) Business Analyst
5 197 (8.19%) Data Engineer
6 170 (7.07%) Consultant
7 137 (5.70%) Architect
7 137 (5.70%) Developer
8 126 (5.24%) Data Analyst
9 86 (3.58%) Test Engineer
10 71 (2.95%) Project Manager
11 69 (2.87%) Tester
12 55 (2.29%) Network Engineer
13 45 (1.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 43 (1.79%) Senior Data Engineer
14 43 (1.79%) Systems Engineer
15 42 (1.75%) Security Engineer
16 39 (1.62%) Migration Engineer
17 38 (1.58%) Software Engineer
17 38 (1.58%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 113 (4.70%) REST
2 71 (2.95%) JSON
3 68 (2.83%) Kafka
4 53 (2.20%) PySpark
5 50 (2.08%) Oracle Fusion
6 47 (1.95%) XML
7 42 (1.75%) Spring
8 41 (1.70%) Middleware
9 38 (1.58%) .NET
10 34 (1.41%) OAuth
10 34 (1.41%) pytest
11 30 (1.25%) Playwright
11 30 (1.25%) RESTful
11 30 (1.25%) SOAP
11 30 (1.25%) Web Services
12 29 (1.21%) Pandas
13 28 (1.16%) Node.js
14 25 (1.04%) Swagger
14 25 (1.04%) WireMock
15 23 (0.96%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 123 (5.11%) Data Structures
1 123 (5.11%) Legacy Systems
2 122 (5.07%) Onboarding
3 99 (4.12%) Cloud Native
4 97 (4.03%) Product Ownership
5 68 (2.83%) Data Centre
6 54 (2.25%) Management Information System
7 48 (2.00%) Distributed Systems
8 46 (1.91%) Analytical Mindset
9 38 (1.58%) SCADA
10 35 (1.46%) AI Agents
10 35 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
11 32 (1.33%) Life Science
12 29 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
12 29 (1.21%) Hybrid Cloud
13 28 (1.16%) Public Cloud
13 28 (1.16%) Virtual Team
14 27 (1.12%) Distributed Architecture
14 27 (1.12%) NHS
15 26 (1.08%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 129 (5.36%) Windows
2 80 (3.33%) Linux
3 30 (1.25%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.91%) 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%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.17%) SUSE
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%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.042%) pSOS
13 1 (0.042%) Solaris
13 1 (0.042%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 671 (27.90%) Migration
2 465 (19.33%) Agile
3 442 (18.38%) Stakeholder Management
4 405 (16.84%) Analytics
4 405 (16.84%) Data Migration
5 402 (16.72%) CI/CD
6 393 (16.34%) Data Validation
7 389 (16.17%) User Acceptance Testing
8 377 (15.68%) Problem-Solving
9 369 (15.34%) Data Modelling
10 305 (12.68%) ETL
11 302 (12.56%) AI
12 297 (12.35%) DevOps
13 289 (12.02%) Test Automation
14 278 (11.56%) Continuous Improvement
15 264 (10.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 262 (10.89%) Business Intelligence
17 242 (10.06%) Data Governance
18 239 (9.94%) Data Pipeline
19 235 (9.77%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 572 (23.78%) SQL
2 421 (17.51%) Python
3 108 (4.49%) Java
4 67 (2.79%) PowerShell
5 51 (2.12%) C#
6 39 (1.62%) Bash
6 39 (1.62%) C++
7 37 (1.54%) JavaScript
8 32 (1.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 30 (1.25%) C
10 28 (1.16%) Apex Code
11 26 (1.08%) Bicep
11 26 (1.08%) TypeScript
12 25 (1.04%) PL/SQL
13 23 (0.96%) VBA
14 22 (0.91%) R
15 21 (0.87%) Ada
16 15 (0.62%) MATLAB
17 14 (0.58%) T-SQL
18 12 (0.50%) Scala
Qualifications
1 437 (18.17%) Security Cleared
2 308 (12.81%) SC Cleared
3 164 (6.82%) Degree
4 59 (2.45%) DV Cleared
5 52 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
6 37 (1.54%) Computer Science Degree
7 36 (1.50%) Cisco Certification
8 28 (1.16%) CCNP
9 25 (1.04%) PMI Certification
10 21 (0.87%) PMP
11 18 (0.75%) ACCA
11 18 (0.75%) CISSP
12 17 (0.71%) CIMA
12 17 (0.71%) Microsoft Certification
13 16 (0.67%) Azure Certification
14 15 (0.62%) ISTQB
14 15 (0.62%) Master's Degree
15 13 (0.54%) AWS Certification
16 12 (0.50%) CCNA
17 10 (0.42%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 441 (18.34%) Data Quality
2 281 (11.68%) QA
3 108 (4.49%) GDPR
4 56 (2.33%) NIST
5 50 (2.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 38 (1.58%) Accessibility
7 36 (1.50%) PMO
8 30 (1.25%) 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%) ISO 20022
13 13 (0.54%) NCSC
14 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.50%) Solvency II
15 11 (0.46%) PCI DSS
15 11 (0.46%) WCAG
16 10 (0.42%) 21 CFR Part 11
System Software
1 102 (4.24%) Docker
2 68 (2.83%) Active Directory
3 58 (2.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
5 20 (0.83%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.58%) Firmware
8 13 (0.54%) 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
1 149 (6.20%) Kubernetes
2 112 (4.66%) Terraform
3 50 (2.08%) Prometheus
4 48 (2.00%) Ansible
4 48 (2.00%) Grafana
5 23 (0.96%) FortiGate
5 23 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
6 20 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
7 10 (0.42%) SCCM
7 10 (0.42%) vCenter Server
8 7 (0.29%) VxRail
9 6 (0.25%) HP ALM
9 6 (0.25%) Nessus
10 5 (0.21%) CASB
10 5 (0.21%) vMotion
11 4 (0.17%) EMC VPLEX
11 4 (0.17%) Failover Clustering
11 4 (0.17%) Istio
11 4 (0.17%) Kibana
11 4 (0.17%) vRealize
Vendors
1 335 (13.93%) Microsoft
2 218 (9.06%) SAP
3 207 (8.61%) Oracle
4 125 (5.20%) Databricks
5 85 (3.53%) Salesforce
6 69 (2.87%) VMware
7 58 (2.41%) Cisco
8 56 (2.33%) ServiceNow
9 45 (1.87%) Workday
10 39 (1.62%) Splunk
11 34 (1.41%) Informatica
12 32 (1.33%) Google
13 30 (1.25%) Fortinet
14 29 (1.21%) Palo Alto
15 27 (1.12%) Juniper
16 26 (1.08%) IBM
17 24 (1.00%) Sage
18 22 (0.91%) MuleSoft
18 22 (0.91%) Zscaler
19 20 (0.83%) IFS