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 29 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 55 109 126
Rank change year-on-year +54 +17 +12
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,369 619 728
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.17% 2.33% 1.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.74% 2.60% 2.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 835 327 413
10th Percentile £336 £346 £316
25th Percentile £402 £409 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £613 £618 £613
90th Percentile £700 £725 £731
UK median daily rate £492 £513 £538
% change year-on-year -3.96% -4.65% -1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 40 136
10th Percentile £31.54 £28.73 £29.89
25th Percentile £43.19 £47.19 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.65 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year +12.76% -12.63% +4.82%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.75 £77.50
90th Percentile £74.38 £66.15 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £57.65 £65.98
% change year-on-year +12.76% -12.63% +4.82%

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 28,878 23,799 32,593
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.87% 89.45% 87.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,472 14,557 21,833
10th Percentile £305 £310 £300
25th Percentile £410 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £625 £644 £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 1,785 763 1,818
10th Percentile £15.04 £15.62 £13.99
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.00 £17.02
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year -26.03% -6.85% +4.29%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.96
% change year-on-year -22.62% -9.62% +10.65%

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 29 January 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 29 January 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 29 January 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 +77 642 £513 -2.38% 210
North of England +21 182 £419 -4.34% 153
South East +13 163 £500 - 269
Midlands +12 120 £500 +3.90% 132
North West +24 117 £400 -2.08% 74
South West +16 117 £475 -17.39% 122
West Midlands +15 100 £511 +4.72% 76
East of England +21 95 £482 +20.44% 121
Yorkshire -10 52 £487 -0.10% 64
East Midlands -14 20 £475 +58.33% 54
North East -5 15 £463 -36.21% 16
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 53 (3.87%) Confluence
2 31 (2.26%) SAS
3 29 (2.12%) Apache Spark
3 29 (2.12%) SharePoint
4 25 (1.83%) Apache Airflow
5 19 (1.39%) Microsoft Exchange
6 14 (1.02%) Skype for Business
7 12 (0.88%) Apache
8 9 (0.66%) Exchange Server 2013
9 8 (0.58%) CMS
10 7 (0.51%) Appian
10 7 (0.51%) Mattermost
11 6 (0.44%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.29%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.29%) Jupyter
12 4 (0.29%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
13 3 (0.22%) ArcGIS
13 3 (0.22%) CICS
13 3 (0.22%) WebSphere
Applications
1 73 (5.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 38 (2.78%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (1.68%) MS Visio
4 13 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.51%) Chatbot
5 7 (0.51%) Microsoft Project
6 6 (0.44%) Sketch
7 5 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
8 4 (0.29%) Notion
9 3 (0.22%) LaTeX
10 2 (0.15%) Simulink
11 1 (0.073%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.073%) CATIA
11 1 (0.073%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.073%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.073%) Stateflow
11 1 (0.073%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 64 (4.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (1.10%) Oracle EBS
3 11 (0.80%) Oracle General Ledger
3 11 (0.80%) Oracle Payables
3 11 (0.80%) SAP EHS
4 9 (0.66%) Aladdin
4 9 (0.66%) Remedy ITSM
4 9 (0.66%) SAP FI
5 8 (0.58%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 8 (0.58%) Oracle Receivables
5 8 (0.58%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 7 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
6 7 (0.51%) NetSuite
6 7 (0.51%) OpenText VIM for SAP
6 7 (0.51%) SAP MDG
7 6 (0.44%) Markit EDM
7 6 (0.44%) Oracle Assets
7 6 (0.44%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.37%) Oracle EBS R12
9 4 (0.29%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 321 (23.45%) Azure
2 159 (11.61%) AWS
3 124 (9.06%) Azure DevOps
4 111 (8.11%) Power Platform
5 57 (4.16%) GCP
6 55 (4.02%) GitHub
7 53 (3.87%) Entra ID
8 46 (3.36%) SaaS
9 39 (2.85%) Serverless
10 37 (2.70%) Azure Data Factory
11 30 (2.19%) GitHub Actions
12 29 (2.12%) Snowflake
13 28 (2.05%) OCI
14 27 (1.97%) Microsoft 365
15 24 (1.75%) OpenShift
16 23 (1.68%) Amazon S3
17 19 (1.39%) AWS Lambda
18 18 (1.31%) Dynamics 365
19 17 (1.24%) PaaS
20 16 (1.17%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 38 (2.78%) Firewall
2 26 (1.90%) TCP/IP
3 20 (1.46%) Network Security
4 19 (1.39%) Ethernet
5 16 (1.17%) VPN
5 16 (1.17%) WAN
6 14 (1.02%) Skype
6 14 (1.02%) VLAN
7 13 (0.95%) BGP
7 13 (0.95%) Wireless
8 12 (0.88%) LAN
8 12 (0.88%) MPLS
8 12 (0.88%) OSPF
9 11 (0.80%) DNS
9 11 (0.80%) TACACS
10 7 (0.51%) HTTP
10 7 (0.51%) SD-WAN
10 7 (0.51%) SNMP
11 6 (0.44%) Cisco ISE
11 6 (0.44%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 104 (7.60%) Power BI
2 60 (4.38%) Metadata
3 55 (4.02%) Data Warehouse
4 39 (2.85%) Tableau
5 37 (2.70%) SQL Server
6 28 (2.05%) Data Lake
7 25 (1.83%) NoSQL
8 21 (1.53%) SAS Enterprise Guide
9 18 (1.31%) Amazon Redshift
9 18 (1.31%) Oracle Database
9 18 (1.31%) Relational Database
10 15 (1.10%) Oracle Reports
10 15 (1.10%) Pinecone
11 14 (1.02%) Big Data
11 14 (1.02%) Elasticsearch
12 13 (0.95%) Azure SQL Database
12 13 (0.95%) Delta Lake
13 12 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 11 (0.80%) BigQuery
15 10 (0.73%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 148 (10.81%) JIRA
2 67 (4.89%) Jenkins
3 63 (4.60%) Git
4 39 (2.85%) GitLab
5 37 (2.70%) Postman
5 37 (2.70%) Selenium
6 32 (2.34%) Oracle APEX
7 24 (1.75%) Rational DOORS
8 19 (1.39%) Visual Studio
9 15 (1.10%) JMeter
10 13 (0.95%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.95%) Eclipse
10 13 (0.95%) TestRail
11 11 (0.80%) MLflow
12 10 (0.73%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.73%) JUnit
12 10 (0.73%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.73%) Zephyr
13 7 (0.51%) SpecFlow
14 6 (0.44%) LoadRunner
General
1 519 (37.91%) Social Skills
2 382 (27.90%) Finance
3 294 (21.48%) Analytical Skills
4 132 (9.64%) Public Sector
5 116 (8.47%) Banking
6 71 (5.19%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (3.58%) Presentation Skills
8 29 (2.12%) Influencing Skills
8 29 (2.12%) Marketing
9 28 (2.05%) Manufacturing
9 28 (2.05%) Telecoms
10 27 (1.97%) Aerospace
10 27 (1.97%) Electronics
10 27 (1.97%) Front Office
10 27 (1.97%) Military
11 23 (1.68%) Investment Banking
12 21 (1.53%) Financial Institution
12 21 (1.53%) Legal
12 21 (1.53%) Pharmaceutical
13 18 (1.31%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 271 (19.80%) Analyst
2 144 (10.52%) Senior
3 123 (8.98%) Business Analyst
4 119 (8.69%) Lead
5 104 (7.60%) Consultant
5 104 (7.60%) Developer
6 76 (5.55%) Architect
7 65 (4.75%) Data Analyst
8 58 (4.24%) Data Engineer
9 50 (3.65%) Software Engineer
10 41 (2.99%) Project Manager
10 41 (2.99%) Tester
11 36 (2.63%) Senior Analyst
12 34 (2.48%) Senior Developer
13 33 (2.41%) Test Manager
14 32 (2.34%) SAP Consultant
15 30 (2.19%) Test Analyst
16 27 (1.97%) Data Scientist
16 27 (1.97%) Solutions Architect
17 25 (1.83%) Embedded Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (6.50%) REST
2 56 (4.09%) JSON
3 47 (3.43%) Oracle Fusion
3 47 (3.43%) XML
4 41 (2.99%) OAuth
5 38 (2.78%) Middleware
6 37 (2.70%) SOAP
7 31 (2.26%) Node.js
8 29 (2.12%) .NET
9 27 (1.97%) Kafka
9 27 (1.97%) PyTorch
9 27 (1.97%) RESTful
10 26 (1.90%) PySpark
10 26 (1.90%) Swagger
10 26 (1.90%) Web Services
11 24 (1.75%) TensorFlow
12 21 (1.53%) JWT
12 21 (1.53%) Playwright
12 21 (1.53%) SAML
13 20 (1.46%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 78 (5.70%) Legacy Systems
2 57 (4.16%) Data Structures
3 56 (4.09%) Product Ownership
4 49 (3.58%) Onboarding
5 39 (2.85%) Management Information System
6 37 (2.70%) Cloud Native
7 25 (1.83%) Analytical Mindset
7 25 (1.83%) Data Centre
8 24 (1.75%) Algorithms
9 23 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
10 19 (1.39%) Derivative
11 18 (1.31%) FPGA
12 16 (1.17%) Replication
13 14 (1.02%) Credit Risk
14 12 (0.88%) Distributed Systems
14 12 (0.88%) Greenfield Project
14 12 (0.88%) Security Posture
15 11 (0.80%) Embedded Systems
15 11 (0.80%) Hybrid Cloud
15 11 (0.80%) PCIe
Operating Systems
1 85 (6.21%) Linux
2 73 (5.33%) Windows
3 28 (2.05%) Unix
4 11 (0.80%) Android
5 5 (0.37%) Windows Server
5 5 (0.37%) zOS
6 4 (0.29%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.22%) Embedded Linux
8 2 (0.15%) Debian
8 2 (0.15%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.15%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.15%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.073%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.073%) pSOS
9 1 (0.073%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 387 (28.27%) Agile
2 327 (23.89%) Problem-Solving
3 305 (22.28%) Migration
4 262 (19.14%) DevOps
5 237 (17.31%) Stakeholder Management
6 224 (16.36%) CI/CD
7 221 (16.14%) Data Validation
8 207 (15.12%) Analytics
9 168 (12.27%) Test Automation
10 167 (12.20%) User Acceptance Testing
11 163 (11.91%) Data Modelling
12 156 (11.40%) Data Migration
13 152 (11.10%) AI
14 148 (10.81%) ETL
15 141 (10.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 137 (10.01%) Business Intelligence
17 123 (8.98%) Data Governance
18 118 (8.62%) Continuous Improvement
19 117 (8.55%) Data Analysis
20 112 (8.18%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 353 (25.79%) SQL
2 298 (21.77%) Python
3 93 (6.79%) JavaScript
4 80 (5.84%) Java
5 59 (4.31%) C#
6 50 (3.65%) PL/SQL
7 47 (3.43%) C++
8 44 (3.21%) Bash
9 40 (2.92%) PowerShell
10 37 (2.70%) C
11 26 (1.90%) TypeScript
12 24 (1.75%) R
13 16 (1.17%) Groovy
14 15 (1.10%) Ada
15 14 (1.02%) Shell Script
16 12 (0.88%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.88%) Scala
17 10 (0.73%) Bicep
17 10 (0.73%) T-SQL
18 9 (0.66%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 297 (21.69%) Security Cleared
2 216 (15.78%) SC Cleared
3 140 (10.23%) Degree
4 55 (4.02%) Computer Science Degree
5 37 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
6 35 (2.56%) DV Cleared
7 34 (2.48%) Master's Degree
8 26 (1.90%) ISTQB
8 26 (1.90%) PMI Certification
9 20 (1.46%) AWS Certification
10 19 (1.39%) PMP
11 16 (1.17%) CBAP
12 14 (1.02%) Cisco Certification
13 13 (0.95%) Oracle Certification
14 10 (0.73%) Azure Certification
14 10 (0.73%) CCIE
15 9 (0.66%) ITIL Certification
15 9 (0.66%) OCA
16 8 (0.58%) CCNP
16 8 (0.58%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 173 (12.64%) Data Quality
2 171 (12.49%) QA
3 78 (5.70%) GDPR
4 57 (4.16%) NIST
5 37 (2.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 28 (2.05%) Accessibility
7 18 (1.31%) IFRS
8 16 (1.17%) IFRS 17
9 15 (1.10%) Def Stans
10 13 (0.95%) EU AI Act
11 12 (0.88%) PCI DSS
12 11 (0.80%) NCSC
13 10 (0.73%) GxP
13 10 (0.73%) MiFID
13 10 (0.73%) MISRA
14 9 (0.66%) DO-178B
14 9 (0.66%) GRC
15 8 (0.58%) COBIT
15 8 (0.58%) PMO
16 7 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 55 (4.02%) Docker
2 42 (3.07%) Active Directory
3 24 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.53%) Firmware
5 12 (0.88%) VMware NSX
6 7 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
6 7 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.29%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
7 4 (0.29%) Embedded Firmware
7 4 (0.29%) vSphere
8 3 (0.22%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.22%) KVM
8 3 (0.22%) QEMU
9 2 (0.15%) Ceph
9 2 (0.15%) Lustre
9 2 (0.15%) OpenAM
9 2 (0.15%) OpenDJ
9 2 (0.15%) OpenIDM
9 2 (0.15%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.073%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 72 (5.26%) Kubernetes
2 61 (4.46%) Terraform
3 46 (3.36%) Ansible
4 21 (1.53%) Single Sign-On
5 15 (1.10%) Microsoft Intune
6 14 (1.02%) Kibana
6 14 (1.02%) Puppet
7 10 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 10 (0.73%) SCCM
8 9 (0.66%) Grafana
9 7 (0.51%) HP SiteScope
9 7 (0.51%) Nmap
9 7 (0.51%) SCOM
10 6 (0.44%) Nessus
11 4 (0.29%) Prometheus
12 3 (0.22%) Argo
12 3 (0.22%) CloudHub
12 3 (0.22%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.22%) Iperf
12 3 (0.22%) Istio
Vendors
1 192 (14.02%) Microsoft
2 147 (10.74%) Oracle
3 106 (7.74%) SAP
4 58 (4.24%) ServiceNow
5 50 (3.65%) Databricks
6 41 (2.99%) Cisco
7 36 (2.63%) Splunk
8 34 (2.48%) Salesforce
9 33 (2.41%) Google
10 29 (2.12%) VMware
11 19 (1.39%) Murex
11 19 (1.39%) Workday
12 18 (1.31%) IBM
12 18 (1.31%) MuleSoft
13 17 (1.24%) Palo Alto
14 14 (1.02%) Informatica
15 13 (0.95%) Sage
16 12 (0.88%) Adobe
16 12 (0.88%) Avaloq
16 12 (0.88%) Bloomberg