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 6 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 63 109 138
Rank change year-on-year +46 +29 +1
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,212 689 707
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.90% 2.25% 1.84%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.36% 2.56% 2.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 733 353 421
10th Percentile £358 £321 £350
25th Percentile £417 £400 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £591 £638
90th Percentile £688 £670 £800
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 74 89
10th Percentile £30.15 £28.30 £51.25
25th Percentile £41.25 £45.47 £59.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -10.71% +12.90%
75th Percentile £67.25 £65.00 £88.75
90th Percentile £77.03 £75.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £68.50
% change year-on-year +4.00% -8.76% +10.48%

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 27,812 26,873 34,017
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 89.40% 87.89% 88.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,725 16,531 23,197
10th Percentile £300 £313 £313
25th Percentile £406 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £525 £548
Median % change year-on-year -4.29% -4.11% -0.45%
75th Percentile £625 £645 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,799 953 1,442
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.23 £14.78
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.24 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.25
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -20.90% +18.00%
75th Percentile £50.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.75 £42.50
% change year-on-year -23.21% -22.94% +21.43%

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 6 December 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 6 December 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 6 December 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 +73 569 £525 +5.00% 196
South East +12 158 £500 +15.94% 398
North of England +17 137 £425 -6.34% 242
East of England +24 114 £492 +31.25% 207
South West 0 99 £475 -18.24% 155
Midlands -4 93 £511 +25.66% 186
North West +12 85 £403 -2.42% 131
West Midlands +3 77 £515 +8.42% 107
Yorkshire -10 37 £424 +0.83% 91
East Midlands -11 16 £456 +14.06% 70
North East +9 15 £475 -32.14% 21
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 50 (4.13%) Confluence
2 28 (2.31%) SharePoint
3 25 (2.06%) SAS
4 23 (1.90%) Apache Spark
5 20 (1.65%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (1.40%) Microsoft Exchange
7 14 (1.16%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.91%) Apache
9 8 (0.66%) CMS
10 7 (0.58%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.58%) Mattermost
11 6 (0.50%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.33%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.25%) Anypoint
13 3 (0.25%) ArcGIS
13 3 (0.25%) CICS
13 3 (0.25%) GeoServer
13 3 (0.25%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
13 3 (0.25%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.25%) WebLogic
Applications
1 80 (6.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (2.89%) Microsoft Office
3 25 (2.06%) MS Visio
4 18 (1.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
6 7 (0.58%) Chatbot
7 6 (0.50%) Sketch
8 4 (0.33%) Notion
9 3 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
10 2 (0.17%) Simulink
11 1 (0.083%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.083%) NASTRAN
11 1 (0.083%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.083%) Stateflow
11 1 (0.083%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 56 (4.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.07%) Oracle EBS
3 11 (0.91%) SAP EHS
3 11 (0.91%) SAP FI
4 10 (0.83%) Aladdin
4 10 (0.83%) Remedy ITSM
5 8 (0.66%) SAP MDG
6 7 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
6 7 (0.58%) OpenText VIM for SAP
6 7 (0.58%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.50%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.50%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
8 5 (0.41%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.41%) Workday HCM
9 4 (0.33%) Markit EDM
9 4 (0.33%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.33%) SAP ERP
10 3 (0.25%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 280 (23.10%) Azure
2 130 (10.73%) AWS
3 119 (9.82%) Azure DevOps
4 112 (9.24%) Power Platform
5 51 (4.21%) GCP
6 49 (4.04%) GitHub
7 41 (3.38%) SaaS
8 36 (2.97%) Entra ID
9 30 (2.48%) GitHub Actions
10 29 (2.39%) OpenShift
11 28 (2.31%) Serverless
12 26 (2.15%) Microsoft 365
13 24 (1.98%) Azure Data Factory
14 23 (1.90%) Snowflake
15 20 (1.65%) OCI
16 18 (1.49%) Dynamics 365
17 16 (1.32%) Azure Functions
17 16 (1.32%) Tricentis Tosca
18 14 (1.16%) Amazon S3
18 14 (1.16%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 36 (2.97%) Firewall
2 34 (2.81%) TCP/IP
3 23 (1.90%) DNS
4 21 (1.73%) Ethernet
5 16 (1.32%) VPN
5 16 (1.32%) WAN
6 15 (1.24%) 3GPP
7 14 (1.16%) BGP
7 14 (1.16%) LTE
7 14 (1.16%) Skype
8 13 (1.07%) MPLS
8 13 (1.07%) OSPF
9 12 (0.99%) Network Security
10 10 (0.83%) SSL
10 10 (0.83%) VLAN
10 10 (0.83%) Wireless
11 9 (0.74%) LAN
11 9 (0.74%) SD-WAN
11 9 (0.74%) SNMP
12 8 (0.66%) DMARC
Database & Business Intelligence
1 107 (8.83%) Power BI
2 58 (4.79%) Data Warehouse
3 53 (4.37%) Metadata
4 39 (3.22%) Tableau
5 25 (2.06%) SQL Server
6 24 (1.98%) NoSQL
7 21 (1.73%) Data Lake
7 21 (1.73%) Relational Database
8 19 (1.57%) Oracle Database
9 17 (1.40%) Oracle Reports
9 17 (1.40%) SAS Enterprise Guide
10 14 (1.16%) Azure SQL Database
11 13 (1.07%) BigQuery
12 12 (0.99%) Amazon Redshift
12 12 (0.99%) Big Data
13 11 (0.91%) PostgreSQL
13 11 (0.91%) SAP HANA
13 11 (0.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 10 (0.83%) Amazon RDS
14 10 (0.83%) Looker
Development Applications
1 131 (10.81%) JIRA
2 65 (5.36%) Jenkins
3 63 (5.20%) Git
4 41 (3.38%) Selenium
5 35 (2.89%) GitLab
6 33 (2.72%) Postman
7 32 (2.64%) Oracle APEX
8 26 (2.15%) Visual Studio
9 21 (1.73%) Eclipse
10 19 (1.57%) Rational DOORS
11 17 (1.40%) TestRail
12 16 (1.32%) Cucumber
13 14 (1.16%) Zephyr
14 13 (1.07%) JUnit
15 12 (0.99%) Bitbucket
15 12 (0.99%) JMeter
16 10 (0.83%) REST Assured
17 8 (0.66%) SpecFlow
18 7 (0.58%) Cypress.io
19 6 (0.50%) MLflow
General
1 483 (39.85%) Social Skills
2 329 (27.15%) Finance
3 273 (22.52%) Analytical Skills
4 118 (9.74%) Public Sector
5 90 (7.43%) Banking
6 76 (6.27%) Documentation Skills
7 45 (3.71%) Presentation Skills
8 34 (2.81%) Military
9 31 (2.56%) Aerospace
10 29 (2.39%) Telecoms
11 28 (2.31%) Electronics
12 27 (2.23%) Marketing
13 26 (2.15%) Investment Banking
14 24 (1.98%) Influencing Skills
15 23 (1.90%) Front Office
15 23 (1.90%) Pharmaceutical
16 22 (1.82%) Manufacturing
16 22 (1.82%) Organisational Skills
17 16 (1.32%) Automotive
17 16 (1.32%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 245 (20.21%) Analyst
2 124 (10.23%) Senior
3 105 (8.66%) Developer
4 103 (8.50%) Business Analyst
5 99 (8.17%) Consultant
6 91 (7.51%) Lead
7 59 (4.87%) Data Analyst
8 53 (4.37%) Architect
9 50 (4.13%) Software Engineer
10 44 (3.63%) Tester
11 41 (3.38%) Data Engineer
12 37 (3.05%) Senior Developer
13 33 (2.72%) SAP Consultant
14 32 (2.64%) Data Scientist
14 32 (2.64%) Project Manager
15 31 (2.56%) Test Analyst
16 28 (2.31%) Senior Analyst
17 25 (2.06%) QA Engineer
18 22 (1.82%) Technical Analyst
18 22 (1.82%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (5.12%) REST
2 46 (3.80%) JSON
3 37 (3.05%) Oracle Fusion
4 36 (2.97%) Node.js
4 36 (2.97%) XML
5 28 (2.31%) SOAP
5 28 (2.31%) Web Services
6 27 (2.23%) .NET
7 24 (1.98%) Middleware
7 24 (1.98%) RESTful
8 21 (1.73%) OAuth
9 20 (1.65%) SAP Fiori
10 19 (1.57%) Playwright
10 19 (1.57%) PySpark
11 18 (1.49%) Kafka
12 16 (1.32%) PyTorch
12 16 (1.32%) SAML
13 14 (1.16%) React
13 14 (1.16%) TensorFlow
14 12 (0.99%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 53 (4.37%) Legacy Systems
2 46 (3.80%) Data Structures
3 44 (3.63%) Product Ownership
4 40 (3.30%) Onboarding
5 32 (2.64%) Management Information System
6 29 (2.39%) Cloud Native
7 28 (2.31%) FPGA
8 27 (2.23%) Data Centre
9 23 (1.90%) Data Protection Act
10 22 (1.82%) Derivative
11 19 (1.57%) IoT
12 18 (1.49%) Algorithms
13 17 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
14 16 (1.32%) Enterprise Software
15 15 (1.24%) NB-IoT
16 14 (1.16%) Security Posture
17 13 (1.07%) Replication
17 13 (1.07%) Self-Motivation
17 13 (1.07%) Virtual Team
18 12 (0.99%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 100 (8.25%) Linux
2 81 (6.68%) Windows
3 25 (2.06%) Unix
4 8 (0.66%) Windows Server
5 7 (0.58%) Android
5 7 (0.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.41%) zOS
7 4 (0.33%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.25%) VMS
9 2 (0.17%) Debian
9 2 (0.17%) Embedded Linux
9 2 (0.17%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.083%) FreeRTOS
10 1 (0.083%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.083%) MVS
10 1 (0.083%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.083%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.083%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.083%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 354 (29.21%) Agile
2 284 (23.43%) Problem-Solving
3 258 (21.29%) Migration
4 234 (19.31%) DevOps
5 205 (16.91%) CI/CD
6 190 (15.68%) Analytics
7 189 (15.59%) Data Validation
8 170 (14.03%) Stakeholder Management
9 148 (12.21%) Test Automation
10 139 (11.47%) Data Migration
11 130 (10.73%) Business Intelligence
12 127 (10.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 123 (10.15%) Data Modelling
14 121 (9.98%) User Acceptance Testing
15 117 (9.65%) ETL
16 114 (9.41%) AI
17 108 (8.91%) Data Governance
18 106 (8.75%) Data Analysis
19 99 (8.17%) Scrum
20 97 (8.00%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 302 (24.92%) SQL
2 275 (22.69%) Python
3 95 (7.84%) JavaScript
4 69 (5.69%) C#
5 65 (5.36%) Java
6 53 (4.37%) C++
7 48 (3.96%) PL/SQL
8 42 (3.47%) Bash
9 36 (2.97%) PowerShell
10 28 (2.31%) R
11 20 (1.65%) C
12 18 (1.49%) TypeScript
13 15 (1.24%) Groovy
14 14 (1.16%) Shell Script
14 14 (1.16%) T-SQL
15 13 (1.07%) VBA
16 10 (0.83%) ABAP
17 8 (0.66%) Apex Code
17 8 (0.66%) Assembly Language
17 8 (0.66%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 274 (22.61%) Security Cleared
2 206 (17.00%) SC Cleared
3 135 (11.14%) Degree
4 39 (3.22%) Computer Science Degree
5 31 (2.56%) Master's Degree
6 29 (2.39%) DV Cleared
7 26 (2.15%) BPSS Clearance
8 23 (1.90%) ISTQB
9 21 (1.73%) PMI Certification
10 17 (1.40%) CBAP
11 16 (1.32%) AWS Certification
12 15 (1.24%) PMP
13 12 (0.99%) Cisco Certification
13 12 (0.99%) CISSP
13 12 (0.99%) Oracle Certification
13 12 (0.99%) PhD
14 9 (0.74%) CCIE
14 9 (0.74%) ITIL Certification
14 9 (0.74%) OCA
15 8 (0.66%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 151 (12.46%) QA
2 143 (11.80%) Data Quality
3 60 (4.95%) GDPR
4 45 (3.71%) NIST
5 29 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 25 (2.06%) Accessibility
7 14 (1.16%) EU AI Act
8 12 (0.99%) Def Stans
9 10 (0.83%) COBIT
9 10 (0.83%) NCSC
10 9 (0.74%) IFRS
10 9 (0.74%) MISRA
11 8 (0.66%) DO-178B
11 8 (0.66%) GxP
11 8 (0.66%) MiFID
11 8 (0.66%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.50%) PMO
12 6 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 5 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials
14 4 (0.33%) Basel III
System Software
1 48 (3.96%) Active Directory
2 41 (3.38%) Docker
3 27 (2.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (1.57%) Firmware
5 11 (0.91%) vSphere
6 10 (0.83%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (0.83%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.50%) Dovecot
7 6 (0.50%) Postfix
8 5 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.25%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.25%) QEMU
10 2 (0.17%) OpenAM
10 2 (0.17%) OpenDJ
10 2 (0.17%) OpenIDM
10 2 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
11 1 (0.083%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.083%) Ceph
11 1 (0.083%) Lustre
11 1 (0.083%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 57 (4.70%) Kubernetes
2 53 (4.37%) Terraform
3 48 (3.96%) Ansible
4 14 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
5 11 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
6 10 (0.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 9 (0.74%) Grafana
7 9 (0.74%) Nessus
7 9 (0.74%) Puppet
8 8 (0.66%) Argo
8 8 (0.66%) Istio
8 8 (0.66%) Kibana
8 8 (0.66%) SCCM
8 8 (0.66%) SCOM
9 7 (0.58%) HP SiteScope
10 6 (0.50%) Nmap
11 5 (0.41%) CASB
11 5 (0.41%) HP ALM
11 5 (0.41%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.33%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 188 (15.51%) Microsoft
2 137 (11.30%) Oracle
3 89 (7.34%) SAP
4 59 (4.87%) ServiceNow
5 42 (3.47%) VMware
6 39 (3.22%) Salesforce
7 35 (2.89%) Databricks
8 33 (2.72%) Cisco
9 31 (2.56%) Splunk
10 22 (1.82%) Google
10 22 (1.82%) Workday
11 16 (1.32%) IBM
11 16 (1.32%) MuleSoft
12 14 (1.16%) Red Hat
12 14 (1.16%) Remedy
13 13 (1.07%) Informatica
14 12 (0.99%) Adobe
14 12 (0.99%) EMC
14 12 (0.99%) Palo Alto
15 10 (0.83%) F5