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 27 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 83 118
Rank change year-on-year +39 +35 +18
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,893 743 708
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.73% 3.04% 1.90%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.56% 3.33% 2.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,167 448 370
10th Percentile £324 £354 £313
25th Percentile £400 £418 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £538 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.51% +7.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £600
90th Percentile £700 £718 £700
UK median daily rate £475 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -9.52% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 108 50 154
10th Percentile £22.52 £25.25 £24.20
25th Percentile £51.25 £47.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.63 £61.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.80% -6.30% -
75th Percentile £73.13 £65.00 £75.16
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £88.75
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +13.04% -4.17% -4.00%

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 34,040 22,301 32,179
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.02% 91.14% 86.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,771 14,632 21,098
10th Percentile £316 £310 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £523 £525
% change year-on-year -4.40% -0.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,121 919 2,238
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.74 £12.90
25th Percentile £20.38 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £44.00 £30.45 £35.58
Median % change year-on-year +44.50% -14.41% -5.13%
75th Percentile £67.25 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £40.54 £29.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +39.07% -16.71% -5.41%

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 27 April 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 27 April 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 27 April 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 +69 906 £500 -9.09% 204
North of England +38 253 £435 -5.95% 98
South East -3 225 £500 - 191
Midlands +33 218 £475 - 86
West Midlands +29 159 £475 - 53
North West +25 151 £413 -5.71% 57
South West -1 122 £475 -17.39% 71
East of England +5 112 £480 +6.72% 79
Yorkshire +8 91 £458 +9.04% 28
East Midlands -3 55 £513 +11.66% 33
North East -9 14 £450 -37.93% 14
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 (4.01%) Confluence
2 40 (2.11%) Apache Airflow
3 38 (2.01%) Apache Spark
4 31 (1.64%) SAS
5 18 (0.95%) Apache
6 13 (0.69%) SharePoint
7 9 (0.48%) Appian
7 9 (0.48%) Jupyter
7 9 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
8 8 (0.42%) ArcGIS
9 7 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.32%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
11 5 (0.26%) CMS
12 4 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.21%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.16%) CICS
13 3 (0.16%) Oracle Self-Service HR
13 3 (0.16%) Tomcat
14 2 (0.11%) Documentum
14 2 (0.11%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 124 (6.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 29 (1.53%) MS Visio
3 26 (1.37%) Microsoft Office
4 18 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 18 (0.95%) Spreadsheet
5 12 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.42%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.16%) LaTeX
7 3 (0.16%) Notion
8 2 (0.11%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.11%) CATIA
8 2 (0.11%) EPLAN
8 2 (0.11%) Sketch
9 1 (0.053%) Autodesk Inventor
9 1 (0.053%) CANalyzer
9 1 (0.053%) MicroStation
9 1 (0.053%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.053%) UXPin
9 1 (0.053%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 88 (4.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.74%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.79%) Oracle General Ledger
4 13 (0.69%) Oracle Payables
5 12 (0.63%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 12 (0.63%) Workday HCM
6 11 (0.58%) Teamcenter
7 10 (0.53%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.48%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
10 7 (0.37%) Aladdin
10 7 (0.37%) Oracle EBS R12
10 7 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
11 6 (0.32%) NetSuite
11 6 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
11 6 (0.32%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 6 (0.32%) Sage X3
11 6 (0.32%) SAP ERP
12 5 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
12 5 (0.26%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 426 (22.50%) Azure
2 229 (12.10%) AWS
3 188 (9.93%) Power Platform
4 123 (6.50%) Azure DevOps
5 99 (5.23%) GCP
6 85 (4.49%) GitHub
7 52 (2.75%) Azure Data Factory
7 52 (2.75%) Serverless
8 50 (2.64%) Entra ID
9 47 (2.48%) OCI
10 44 (2.32%) Snowflake
11 43 (2.27%) GitHub Actions
12 42 (2.22%) SaaS
13 40 (2.11%) Amazon S3
14 34 (1.80%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 29 (1.53%) dbt
16 28 (1.48%) Microsoft 365
17 24 (1.27%) AWS Lambda
18 22 (1.16%) SuccessFactors
19 19 (1.00%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 77 (4.07%) Firewall
2 53 (2.80%) Network Security
3 34 (1.80%) TCP/IP
4 32 (1.69%) VLAN
5 24 (1.27%) VPN
6 23 (1.22%) DNS
7 21 (1.11%) Ethernet
7 21 (1.11%) WAN
8 16 (0.85%) SAN
9 14 (0.74%) LAN
10 13 (0.69%) BGP
10 13 (0.69%) NAS
10 13 (0.69%) OSPF
11 12 (0.63%) SD-WAN
11 12 (0.63%) Wireless
12 11 (0.58%) Cisco ISE
13 10 (0.53%) TACACS
13 10 (0.53%) Wi-Fi
14 9 (0.48%) HTTP
15 8 (0.42%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 176 (9.30%) Power BI
2 107 (5.65%) Data Warehouse
3 88 (4.65%) Metadata
4 69 (3.65%) Tableau
5 60 (3.17%) SQL Server
6 46 (2.43%) Data Lake
7 40 (2.11%) PostgreSQL
8 30 (1.58%) Relational Database
9 28 (1.48%) Amazon Redshift
9 28 (1.48%) Oracle Reports
10 27 (1.43%) Big Data
11 25 (1.32%) NoSQL
12 22 (1.16%) Delta Lake
12 22 (1.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 20 (1.06%) Oracle Database
14 18 (0.95%) Pinecone
15 17 (0.90%) Amazon Athena
15 17 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
15 17 (0.90%) BigQuery
15 17 (0.90%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 188 (9.93%) JIRA
2 109 (5.76%) Git
3 71 (3.75%) Jenkins
4 58 (3.06%) Selenium
5 45 (2.38%) GitLab
6 41 (2.17%) Postman
7 33 (1.74%) Cucumber
8 31 (1.64%) JUnit
9 29 (1.53%) JMeter
10 26 (1.37%) WebDriver
11 23 (1.22%) Oracle APEX
11 23 (1.22%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.95%) Visual Studio
13 15 (0.79%) MLflow
14 14 (0.74%) Eclipse
15 13 (0.69%) Bitbucket
16 12 (0.63%) REST Assured
16 12 (0.63%) SpecFlow
17 11 (0.58%) TestRail
18 10 (0.53%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 623 (32.91%) Social Skills
2 585 (30.90%) Finance
3 386 (20.39%) Analytical Skills
4 164 (8.66%) Banking
5 160 (8.45%) Public Sector
6 105 (5.55%) Documentation Skills
7 50 (2.64%) Manufacturing
8 47 (2.48%) Presentation Skills
9 46 (2.43%) Aerospace
10 41 (2.17%) Organisational Skills
11 39 (2.06%) Retail
12 35 (1.85%) Marketing
13 31 (1.64%) Influencing Skills
13 31 (1.64%) Legal
13 31 (1.64%) Pharmaceutical
14 30 (1.58%) Front Office
15 29 (1.53%) Financial Institution
15 29 (1.53%) Military
16 28 (1.48%) General Ledger
17 27 (1.43%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 366 (19.33%) Analyst
2 188 (9.93%) Lead
3 182 (9.61%) Senior
4 164 (8.66%) Business Analyst
5 143 (7.55%) Data Engineer
6 123 (6.50%) Consultant
7 119 (6.29%) Architect
7 119 (6.29%) Developer
8 99 (5.23%) Data Analyst
9 71 (3.75%) Project Manager
10 51 (2.69%) Tester
11 43 (2.27%) Senior Analyst
12 41 (2.17%) Test Engineer
13 40 (2.11%) Software Engineer
14 39 (2.06%) Test Manager
15 38 (2.01%) Network Engineer
16 36 (1.90%) Senior Developer
17 35 (1.85%) Systems Engineer
17 35 (1.85%) Test Analyst
18 34 (1.80%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 111 (5.86%) REST
2 69 (3.65%) JSON
3 66 (3.49%) Kafka
4 61 (3.22%) Oracle Fusion
5 50 (2.64%) Middleware
6 44 (2.32%) XML
7 41 (2.17%) OAuth
8 38 (2.01%) Node.js
9 37 (1.95%) PySpark
10 34 (1.80%) .NET
11 33 (1.74%) Swagger
12 30 (1.58%) SOAP
12 30 (1.58%) Web Services
13 29 (1.53%) Pandas
13 29 (1.53%) Playwright
13 29 (1.53%) PyTorch
14 27 (1.43%) RESTful
15 26 (1.37%) TensorFlow
16 25 (1.32%) OpenAPI
17 23 (1.22%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 114 (6.02%) Legacy Systems
2 99 (5.23%) Data Structures
3 83 (4.38%) Onboarding
4 78 (4.12%) Product Ownership
5 51 (2.69%) Cloud Native
6 48 (2.54%) Data Centre
7 46 (2.43%) Management Information System
8 35 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
9 33 (1.74%) Analytical Mindset
10 29 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
11 25 (1.32%) Replication
12 24 (1.27%) Hybrid Cloud
13 23 (1.22%) Public Cloud
14 22 (1.16%) Algorithms
14 22 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
15 20 (1.06%) Reference Data
16 19 (1.00%) Virtual Team
17 18 (0.95%) Derivative
18 17 (0.90%) Credit Risk
19 16 (0.85%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 97 (5.12%) Windows
2 80 (4.23%) Linux
3 27 (1.43%) Unix
4 12 (0.63%) Android
5 8 (0.42%) Windows Server
6 7 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 6 (0.32%) zOS
8 4 (0.21%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.21%) SUSE
8 4 (0.21%) VMS
9 3 (0.16%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
9 3 (0.16%) Windows 10
10 2 (0.11%) Debian
11 1 (0.053%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.053%) HPUX
11 1 (0.053%) pSOS
11 1 (0.053%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 496 (26.20%) Migration
2 414 (21.87%) Agile
3 367 (19.39%) Problem-Solving
4 338 (17.86%) Stakeholder Management
5 325 (17.17%) Data Validation
6 305 (16.11%) Data Migration
7 301 (15.90%) Analytics
8 291 (15.37%) CI/CD
9 281 (14.84%) Data Modelling
10 272 (14.37%) User Acceptance Testing
11 266 (14.05%) DevOps
12 259 (13.68%) ETL
13 226 (11.94%) Business Intelligence
14 223 (11.78%) Test Automation
15 202 (10.67%) AI
16 198 (10.46%) Continuous Improvement
17 193 (10.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 186 (9.83%) Data Governance
19 170 (8.98%) Data Pipeline
20 166 (8.77%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 487 (25.73%) SQL
2 347 (18.33%) Python
3 103 (5.44%) Java
4 69 (3.65%) JavaScript
5 64 (3.38%) C#
6 50 (2.64%) PL/SQL
7 49 (2.59%) C++
8 40 (2.11%) PowerShell
9 39 (2.06%) C
10 31 (1.64%) Bash
10 31 (1.64%) R
11 26 (1.37%) TypeScript
12 25 (1.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 22 (1.16%) Bicep
14 19 (1.00%) Ada
15 17 (0.90%) Scala
16 13 (0.69%) VBA
17 10 (0.53%) Apex Code
17 10 (0.53%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.53%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 373 (19.70%) Security Cleared
2 266 (14.05%) SC Cleared
3 159 (8.40%) Degree
4 50 (2.64%) BPSS Clearance
5 47 (2.48%) Computer Science Degree
6 33 (1.74%) DV Cleared
7 30 (1.58%) Master's Degree
8 29 (1.53%) PMI Certification
9 26 (1.37%) PMP
10 25 (1.32%) ISTQB
11 20 (1.06%) Cisco Certification
12 17 (0.90%) CCNP
13 13 (0.69%) Azure Certification
13 13 (0.69%) CBAP
13 13 (0.69%) CISSP
14 12 (0.63%) Microsoft Certification
15 11 (0.58%) AWS Certification
16 9 (0.48%) ACCA
16 9 (0.48%) CCNA
17 8 (0.42%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 316 (16.69%) Data Quality
2 240 (12.68%) QA
3 111 (5.86%) GDPR
4 64 (3.38%) NIST
5 56 (2.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 24 (1.27%) Accessibility
7 22 (1.16%) IFRS
7 22 (1.16%) SLA
8 20 (1.06%) PMO
9 19 (1.00%) IFRS 17
10 18 (0.95%) GRC
11 16 (0.85%) Def Stans
12 15 (0.79%) HL7
13 13 (0.69%) PCI DSS
14 12 (0.63%) COBIT
14 12 (0.63%) GxP
14 12 (0.63%) NCSC
15 11 (0.58%) MiFID
15 11 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 10 (0.53%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 73 (3.86%) Docker
2 38 (2.01%) Active Directory
3 34 (1.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.27%) Firmware
5 13 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
6 11 (0.58%) VMware NSX
7 10 (0.53%) Hyper-V
8 9 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
8 9 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.26%) NFS
9 5 (0.26%) vSphere
10 4 (0.21%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 3 (0.16%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
12 2 (0.11%) Ceph
12 2 (0.11%) KVM
12 2 (0.11%) Lustre
12 2 (0.11%) OpenDJ
12 2 (0.11%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 2 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 109 (5.76%) Kubernetes
2 84 (4.44%) Terraform
3 33 (1.74%) Prometheus
4 31 (1.64%) Ansible
4 31 (1.64%) Grafana
5 27 (1.43%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
7 10 (0.53%) FortiGate
7 10 (0.53%) Kibana
8 9 (0.48%) Puppet
9 8 (0.42%) SCCM
10 6 (0.32%) Nessus
11 5 (0.26%) CASB
11 5 (0.26%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.21%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.21%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.21%) Failover Clustering
12 4 (0.21%) Istio
12 4 (0.21%) VxRail
Vendors
1 257 (13.58%) Microsoft
2 188 (9.93%) Oracle
3 158 (8.35%) SAP
4 86 (4.54%) Databricks
5 67 (3.54%) ServiceNow
6 55 (2.91%) Salesforce
7 43 (2.27%) Cisco
8 40 (2.11%) VMware
9 38 (2.01%) Splunk
10 35 (1.85%) Google
11 30 (1.58%) Informatica
12 28 (1.48%) Workday
13 27 (1.43%) Sage
14 26 (1.37%) MuleSoft
15 25 (1.32%) Palo Alto
16 21 (1.11%) IBM
17 20 (1.06%) CyberArk
18 16 (0.85%) CheckPoint
18 16 (0.85%) IFS
18 16 (0.85%) OpenAI