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 15 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 70 105 148
Rank change year-on-year +35 +43 +6
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,036 749 729
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.68% 2.33% 1.79%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.05% 2.70% 2.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 622 385 427
10th Percentile £350 £325 £350
25th Percentile £413 £400 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £545
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -8.26% -0.91%
75th Percentile £638 £591 £650
90th Percentile £699 £650 £950
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £538
% change year-on-year - -6.98% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 77 94 98
10th Percentile £20.50 £28.53 £50.84
25th Percentile £34.91 £47.63 £56.29
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.25 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.77% -6.30% +12.50%
75th Percentile £67.00 £65.00 £84.36
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £63.75 £62.50 £67.50
% change year-on-year +2.00% -7.41% +12.50%

All Process and 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 25,589 27,762 36,176
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 90.90% 86.46% 88.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,249 16,936 24,990
10th Percentile £294 £313 £313
25th Percentile £405 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,598 1,107 1,474
10th Percentile £14.53 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.50 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -40.82% -5.56% +36.36%
75th Percentile £44.78 £66.61 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £74.18 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -37.13% -10.11% +36.92%

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 15 October 2025.

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 15 October 2025.

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 15 October 2025. 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 +66 491 £525 +5.00% 237
South East +24 146 £500 +2.56% 204
North of England +22 109 £450 -2.70% 102
East of England +21 95 £500 -2.44% 81
Midlands -17 85 £475 - 101
South West -24 75 £550 -5.50% 104
North West +16 73 £425 -8.11% 72
West Midlands -18 67 £500 +2.25% 78
Yorkshire -10 25 £475 +13.10% 25
East Midlands +1 17 £450 +10.77% 23
North East +1 12 £483 -16.09% 7
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 49 (4.73%) Confluence
2 31 (2.99%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.83%) Apache Airflow
3 19 (1.83%) Apache Spark
4 16 (1.54%) Microsoft Exchange
5 15 (1.45%) Skype for Business
6 10 (0.97%) Apache
7 8 (0.77%) SAS
8 7 (0.68%) CMS
8 7 (0.68%) Exchange Server 2013
8 7 (0.68%) Mattermost
9 6 (0.58%) OpenStack
9 6 (0.58%) Smallworld
10 4 (0.39%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 3 (0.29%) ArcGIS
11 3 (0.29%) GeoServer
12 2 (0.19%) Jupyter
12 2 (0.19%) Oracle Spatial
12 2 (0.19%) WebSphere
Applications
1 76 (7.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (4.15%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (1.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 19 (1.83%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.68%) Simulink
5 6 (0.58%) Sketch
6 5 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.19%) CANalyzer
8 2 (0.19%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.19%) Stateflow
9 1 (0.097%) NASTRAN
9 1 (0.097%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.097%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 52 (5.02%) SAP S/4HANA
2 20 (1.93%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (1.25%) Aladdin
4 11 (1.06%) Oracle Payables
4 11 (1.06%) SAP EHS
5 10 (0.97%) SAP MDG
6 9 (0.87%) Oracle General Ledger
6 9 (0.87%) Remedy ITSM
7 8 (0.77%) Oracle Assets
7 8 (0.77%) Oracle E-Business Tax
8 6 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
9 5 (0.48%) Oracle EBS R12
9 5 (0.48%) Teamcenter
10 4 (0.39%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
10 4 (0.39%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.39%) SAP FI
10 4 (0.39%) SAP PM
11 3 (0.29%) Oracle Applications
11 3 (0.29%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 187 (18.05%) Azure
2 122 (11.78%) AWS
3 93 (8.98%) Power Platform
4 64 (6.18%) Azure DevOps
5 48 (4.63%) GCP
6 30 (2.90%) GitHub
6 30 (2.90%) SaaS
7 29 (2.80%) Entra ID
8 25 (2.41%) Microsoft 365
9 24 (2.32%) OCI
9 24 (2.32%) Serverless
10 23 (2.22%) Snowflake
11 18 (1.74%) Azure Data Factory
12 16 (1.54%) Dynamics 365
13 15 (1.45%) dbt
13 15 (1.45%) OpenShift
13 15 (1.45%) PaaS
14 14 (1.35%) OneDrive
15 13 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
16 12 (1.16%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 27 (2.61%) TCP/IP
2 26 (2.51%) Firewall
3 25 (2.41%) DNS
4 23 (2.22%) VPN
5 22 (2.12%) BGP
6 21 (2.03%) MPLS
7 19 (1.83%) Ethernet
7 19 (1.83%) WAN
8 17 (1.64%) LTE
9 15 (1.45%) 3GPP
9 15 (1.45%) Skype
10 13 (1.25%) OSPF
11 12 (1.16%) LAN
12 11 (1.06%) SD-WAN
13 9 (0.87%) Internet
13 9 (0.87%) SNMP
14 8 (0.77%) DMARC
14 8 (0.77%) IPsec
14 8 (0.77%) SSL
14 8 (0.77%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 86 (8.30%) Power BI
2 56 (5.41%) Data Warehouse
3 30 (2.90%) NoSQL
3 30 (2.90%) Tableau
4 25 (2.41%) Metadata
5 22 (2.12%) SQL Server
6 21 (2.03%) Oracle Reports
7 17 (1.64%) Oracle Database
7 17 (1.64%) Relational Database
8 14 (1.35%) BigQuery
8 14 (1.35%) Data Lake
9 13 (1.25%) Amazon Redshift
10 12 (1.16%) SAP HANA
11 10 (0.97%) Azure SQL Database
11 10 (0.97%) GIS
11 10 (0.97%) SAP BW
12 9 (0.87%) Delta Lake
12 9 (0.87%) Looker
12 9 (0.87%) SAP Data Services
13 8 (0.77%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 109 (10.52%) JIRA
2 45 (4.34%) Git
3 35 (3.38%) Jenkins
4 26 (2.51%) Postman
5 23 (2.22%) Visual Studio
6 19 (1.83%) Selenium
7 18 (1.74%) Eclipse
8 17 (1.64%) GitLab
9 12 (1.16%) JMeter
10 10 (0.97%) Rational DOORS
10 10 (0.97%) TestRail
11 9 (0.87%) Cucumber
12 7 (0.68%) MLflow
12 7 (0.68%) Zephyr
13 6 (0.58%) Bitbucket
14 5 (0.48%) JUnit
14 5 (0.48%) Oracle APEX
15 4 (0.39%) Cypress.io
15 4 (0.39%) Metasploit
15 4 (0.39%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 430 (41.51%) Social Skills
2 269 (25.97%) Finance
3 218 (21.04%) Analytical Skills
4 81 (7.82%) Public Sector
5 68 (6.56%) Banking
6 55 (5.31%) Documentation Skills
7 51 (4.92%) Presentation Skills
8 36 (3.47%) Telecoms
9 35 (3.38%) Front Office
10 32 (3.09%) Aerospace
11 29 (2.80%) Marketing
12 28 (2.70%) Military
13 22 (2.12%) Electronics
13 22 (2.12%) Pharmaceutical
14 21 (2.03%) Investment Banking
14 21 (2.03%) Manufacturing
15 20 (1.93%) Organisational Skills
16 18 (1.74%) General Ledger
16 18 (1.74%) Influencing Skills
16 18 (1.74%) Retail
Job Titles
1 216 (20.85%) Analyst
2 96 (9.27%) Consultant
3 92 (8.88%) Business Analyst
4 79 (7.63%) Senior
5 71 (6.85%) Lead
6 61 (5.89%) Data Analyst
7 56 (5.41%) Developer
8 40 (3.86%) Architect
9 38 (3.67%) Software Engineer
10 35 (3.38%) Data Engineer
11 34 (3.28%) Tester
12 30 (2.90%) Data Scientist
13 29 (2.80%) SAP Consultant
14 26 (2.51%) Project Manager
14 26 (2.51%) Test Engineer
15 22 (2.12%) Test Analyst
16 21 (2.03%) FPGA Engineer
17 20 (1.93%) C++ Software Engineer
17 20 (1.93%) Network Engineer
18 19 (1.83%) Migration Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (2.90%) REST
2 29 (2.80%) JSON
2 29 (2.80%) Web Services
3 27 (2.61%) RESTful
4 21 (2.03%) Node.js
4 21 (2.03%) XML
5 20 (1.93%) Oracle Fusion
6 18 (1.74%) .NET
7 17 (1.64%) Kafka
7 17 (1.64%) SOAP
8 15 (1.45%) Pandas
9 14 (1.35%) SAP Fiori
10 13 (1.25%) PyTorch
11 11 (1.06%) Middleware
11 11 (1.06%) TensorFlow
12 10 (0.97%) React
13 9 (0.87%) FastAPI
14 8 (0.77%) Keycloak
14 8 (0.77%) OAuth
14 8 (0.77%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 44 (4.25%) Legacy Systems
2 39 (3.76%) Onboarding
3 36 (3.47%) Data Structures
3 36 (3.47%) Product Ownership
4 34 (3.28%) Management Information System
5 32 (3.09%) FPGA
6 29 (2.80%) Cloud Native
6 29 (2.80%) Data Centre
7 22 (2.12%) Data Protection Act
8 19 (1.83%) IoT
9 17 (1.64%) SCADA
10 16 (1.54%) Algorithms
11 15 (1.45%) Derivative
11 15 (1.45%) NB-IoT
11 15 (1.45%) Virtual Team
12 14 (1.35%) Analytical Mindset
12 14 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
13 13 (1.25%) Self-Motivation
14 12 (1.16%) Security Posture
15 11 (1.06%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 98 (9.46%) Linux
2 68 (6.56%) Windows
3 30 (2.90%) Unix
4 8 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (0.48%) VMS
5 5 (0.48%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.19%) Android
6 2 (0.19%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2003
7 1 (0.097%) FreeRTOS
7 1 (0.097%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.097%) MVS
7 1 (0.097%) Robot Operating System
7 1 (0.097%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.097%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.097%) Windows Server 2008
7 1 (0.097%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (0.097%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 254 (24.52%) Agile
2 247 (23.84%) Problem-Solving
3 236 (22.78%) Migration
4 156 (15.06%) Data Validation
5 144 (13.90%) DevOps
6 143 (13.80%) CI/CD
7 140 (13.51%) Analytics
8 133 (12.84%) Stakeholder Management
9 131 (12.64%) Data Migration
10 123 (11.87%) Test Automation
11 114 (11.00%) Data Analysis
12 113 (10.91%) Business Intelligence
13 108 (10.42%) ETL
14 106 (10.23%) User Acceptance Testing
15 99 (9.56%) Data Modelling
16 98 (9.46%) Data Governance
17 92 (8.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 88 (8.49%) Visualisation
19 79 (7.63%) AI
20 76 (7.34%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 251 (24.23%) SQL
2 242 (23.36%) Python
3 47 (4.54%) C#
3 47 (4.54%) JavaScript
4 43 (4.15%) C++
4 43 (4.15%) Java
5 38 (3.67%) Bash
6 31 (2.99%) PowerShell
7 21 (2.03%) R
8 20 (1.93%) Shell Script
9 18 (1.74%) PL/SQL
10 16 (1.54%) VBA
11 15 (1.45%) C
12 13 (1.25%) Tcl
13 11 (1.06%) SystemVerilog
14 9 (0.87%) MATLAB
14 9 (0.87%) T-SQL
14 9 (0.87%) TypeScript
15 7 (0.68%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.68%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 192 (18.53%) Security Cleared
2 152 (14.67%) SC Cleared
3 120 (11.58%) Degree
4 29 (2.80%) Computer Science Degree
5 25 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
5 25 (2.41%) Master's Degree
6 21 (2.03%) DV Cleared
7 20 (1.93%) AWS Certification
8 19 (1.83%) Cisco Certification
9 18 (1.74%) PhD
9 18 (1.74%) PMI Certification
10 15 (1.45%) ISTQB
11 12 (1.16%) CBAP
11 12 (1.16%) CCNP
12 11 (1.06%) CISSP
13 9 (0.87%) CCIE
13 9 (0.87%) PMP
14 8 (0.77%) ITIL Certification
15 7 (0.68%) CIMA
16 6 (0.58%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 120 (11.58%) Data Quality
2 108 (10.42%) QA
3 45 (4.34%) GDPR
4 29 (2.80%) NIST
5 21 (2.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 18 (1.74%) Accessibility
6 18 (1.74%) MiFID
7 13 (1.25%) EMIR
7 13 (1.25%) EU AI Act
8 10 (0.97%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 9 (0.87%) IFRS
10 8 (0.77%) PCI DSS
11 7 (0.68%) Def Stans
11 7 (0.68%) GxP
11 7 (0.68%) PMO
12 6 (0.58%) COBIT
12 6 (0.58%) GRC
13 5 (0.48%) MISRA
14 4 (0.39%) DO-178B
14 4 (0.39%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 43 (4.15%) Active Directory
2 31 (2.99%) Docker
3 30 (2.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (2.12%) VMware ESXi
5 18 (1.74%) vSphere
6 11 (1.06%) Firmware
7 9 (0.87%) VMware NSX
8 6 (0.58%) Dovecot
8 6 (0.58%) Postfix
9 3 (0.29%) OpenAM
9 3 (0.29%) QEMU
9 3 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.097%) Embedded Firmware
11 1 (0.097%) Hyper-V
11 1 (0.097%) KVM
11 1 (0.097%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.097%) Squid
11 1 (0.097%) Time Sharing Option
11 1 (0.097%) Veritas Cluster Server
Systems Management
1 45 (4.34%) Ansible
2 44 (4.25%) Kubernetes
3 36 (3.47%) Terraform
4 13 (1.25%) Single Sign-On
5 10 (0.97%) Microsoft Intune
5 10 (0.97%) SCCM
6 9 (0.87%) Nessus
7 8 (0.77%) Argo
7 8 (0.77%) Istio
7 8 (0.77%) SCOM
8 7 (0.68%) HP SiteScope
8 7 (0.68%) Puppet
9 6 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 6 (0.58%) Grafana
9 6 (0.58%) HP ALM
9 6 (0.58%) Kibana
9 6 (0.58%) Nmap
10 5 (0.48%) CASB
10 5 (0.48%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.39%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 187 (18.05%) Microsoft
2 103 (9.94%) Oracle
3 80 (7.72%) SAP
4 51 (4.92%) VMware
5 39 (3.76%) Salesforce
6 38 (3.67%) ServiceNow
7 34 (3.28%) Cisco
8 23 (2.22%) Splunk
9 22 (2.12%) Databricks
10 18 (1.74%) Google
11 15 (1.45%) Red Hat
12 14 (1.35%) EMC
12 14 (1.35%) Workday
13 13 (1.25%) Informatica
13 13 (1.25%) Remedy
14 10 (0.97%) CyberArk
14 10 (0.97%) F5
14 10 (0.97%) Fortinet
15 9 (0.87%) IBM
15 9 (0.87%) Juniper