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

6 months to
15 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 70 109
Rank change year-on-year +35 +39 +37
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,227 882 753
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.20% 3.57% 2.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.11% 3.91% 2.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,348 548 372
10th Percentile £326 £350 £321
25th Percentile £410 £422 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £537 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.93% +7.45% -13.04%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £588
90th Percentile £700 £706 £672
UK median daily rate £495 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -5.71% +5.00% -11.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 149 57 176
10th Percentile £17.75 £17.53 £27.44
25th Percentile £33.00 £37.50 £50.44
Median hourly rate £62.50 £60.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £72.50
90th Percentile £83.80 £77.50 £76.86
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £57.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -5.11%

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 36,463 22,562 32,057
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.13% 91.37% 85.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,069 14,583 20,746
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £415 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.67% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £507 £525
% change year-on-year +1.08% -3.43% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,280 1,047 2,378
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £20.81 £18.13 £16.06
Median hourly rate £47.00 £27.50 £37.75
Median % change year-on-year +70.91% -27.15% +7.43%
75th Percentile £68.00 £57.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £26.75 £37.18
% change year-on-year +64.34% -28.05% +6.23%

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 June 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 15 June 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 15 June 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 +49 1,064 £511 -7.05% 269
North of England +42 308 £439 -2.50% 141
Midlands +32 270 £492 +9.39% 115
South East +2 258 £500 -0.50% 231
West Midlands +22 195 £484 +19.60% 68
North West +34 178 £425 -4.23% 71
South West +4 135 £500 -13.04% 104
East of England +9 130 £500 +5.26% 82
Yorkshire +22 114 £458 +5.17% 49
East Midlands +17 70 £525 +15.51% 47
North East -18 19 £425 -22.73% 24
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 77 (3.46%) Confluence
2 57 (2.56%) Apache Airflow
3 45 (2.02%) SAS
4 41 (1.84%) Apache Spark
5 31 (1.39%) SharePoint
6 21 (0.94%) Apache
7 14 (0.63%) Jupyter
8 10 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
9 9 (0.40%) Appian
10 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.27%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.27%) SharePoint 2013
12 5 (0.22%) CMS
12 5 (0.22%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 3 (0.13%) Apache Pulsar
14 3 (0.13%) IIS
14 3 (0.13%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
14 3 (0.13%) Oracle Self-Service HR
14 3 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 143 (6.42%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (1.35%) MS Visio
3 23 (1.03%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 20 (0.90%) Spreadsheet
6 7 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.22%) AutoCAD
7 5 (0.22%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.18%) Simulink
9 3 (0.13%) CATIA
9 3 (0.13%) LaTeX
10 2 (0.090%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.090%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.090%) Sketch
11 1 (0.045%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.045%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.045%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.045%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.045%) UXPin
11 1 (0.045%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 111 (4.98%) SAP S/4HANA
2 31 (1.39%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.67%) Teamcenter
4 14 (0.63%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 13 (0.58%) Oracle Payables
6 12 (0.54%) Workday HCM
7 11 (0.49%) Oracle General Ledger
8 10 (0.45%) SAP ERP
9 9 (0.40%) Oracle Assets
10 8 (0.36%) Aladdin
10 8 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
11 7 (0.31%) Oracle Financials
11 7 (0.31%) Oracle Receivables
11 7 (0.31%) Sage X3
11 7 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
12 6 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
12 6 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.27%) SAP Business One
12 6 (0.27%) SAP HCM
12 6 (0.27%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 460 (20.66%) Azure
2 277 (12.44%) AWS
3 207 (9.30%) Power Platform
4 117 (5.25%) GCP
5 115 (5.16%) Azure DevOps
6 110 (4.94%) GitHub
7 71 (3.19%) Snowflake
8 61 (2.74%) Entra ID
8 61 (2.74%) GitHub Actions
9 58 (2.60%) Azure Data Factory
10 55 (2.47%) Serverless
11 48 (2.16%) SaaS
12 43 (1.93%) Amazon S3
13 40 (1.80%) Microsoft 365
13 40 (1.80%) OCI
14 36 (1.62%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 36 (1.62%) dbt
15 28 (1.26%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 25 (1.12%) SuccessFactors
17 24 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 94 (4.22%) Firewall
2 62 (2.78%) Network Security
3 40 (1.80%) VLAN
4 38 (1.71%) DNS
5 36 (1.62%) WAN
6 31 (1.39%) TCP/IP
7 30 (1.35%) VPN
8 23 (1.03%) BGP
9 22 (0.99%) LAN
10 20 (0.90%) SAN
10 20 (0.90%) SD-WAN
10 20 (0.90%) Wireless
11 19 (0.85%) Ethernet
12 17 (0.76%) OSPF
13 15 (0.67%) DHCP
13 15 (0.67%) Internet
14 14 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.58%) Cisco ISE
16 12 (0.54%) NAS
16 12 (0.54%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 192 (8.62%) Power BI
2 119 (5.34%) Data Warehouse
3 78 (3.50%) SQL Server
4 77 (3.46%) Metadata
5 65 (2.92%) Tableau
6 62 (2.78%) Data Lake
6 62 (2.78%) PostgreSQL
7 50 (2.25%) Relational Database
8 32 (1.44%) Big Data
9 28 (1.26%) Amazon Redshift
9 28 (1.26%) Oracle Database
10 27 (1.21%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 25 (1.12%) NoSQL
12 24 (1.08%) Oracle Reports
13 23 (1.03%) BigQuery
13 23 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 22 (0.99%) Power Query
15 21 (0.94%) Delta Lake
16 20 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
17 17 (0.76%) SAS Visual Analytics
Development Applications
1 211 (9.47%) JIRA
2 127 (5.70%) Git
3 91 (4.09%) Jenkins
4 66 (2.96%) GitLab
5 53 (2.38%) Selenium
6 46 (2.07%) Postman
7 40 (1.80%) JMeter
8 36 (1.62%) JUnit
9 35 (1.57%) Cucumber
10 30 (1.35%) WebDriver
11 25 (1.12%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.81%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.72%) Rational Rhapsody
13 16 (0.72%) Visual Studio
14 15 (0.67%) MLflow
15 14 (0.63%) Gatling
16 10 (0.45%) Gradle
16 10 (0.45%) Maven
16 10 (0.45%) REST Assured
17 8 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 668 (30.00%) Finance
2 654 (29.37%) Social Skills
3 404 (18.14%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (8.31%) Public Sector
5 182 (8.17%) Banking
6 123 (5.52%) Documentation Skills
7 64 (2.87%) Manufacturing
8 61 (2.74%) Aerospace
9 54 (2.42%) Retail
10 40 (1.80%) Organisational Skills
11 38 (1.71%) Pharmaceutical
12 36 (1.62%) Front Office
12 36 (1.62%) Marketing
13 35 (1.57%) Telecoms
14 34 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 33 (1.48%) General Ledger
15 33 (1.48%) Influencing Skills
15 33 (1.48%) Legal
15 33 (1.48%) Presentation Skills
16 31 (1.39%) Military
Job Titles
1 385 (17.29%) Analyst
2 230 (10.33%) Lead
3 222 (9.97%) Senior
4 182 (8.17%) Business Analyst
5 172 (7.72%) Data Engineer
6 153 (6.87%) Consultant
7 138 (6.20%) Architect
8 128 (5.75%) Developer
9 112 (5.03%) Data Analyst
10 76 (3.41%) Project Manager
11 71 (3.19%) Test Engineer
12 58 (2.60%) Tester
13 46 (2.07%) Test Manager
14 45 (2.02%) Network Engineer
15 44 (1.98%) Systems Engineer
16 43 (1.93%) Software Engineer
17 39 (1.75%) Security Engineer
18 38 (1.71%) Senior Analyst
19 36 (1.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
19 36 (1.62%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 123 (5.52%) REST
2 68 (3.05%) JSON
2 68 (3.05%) Kafka
3 54 (2.42%) Oracle Fusion
4 48 (2.16%) XML
5 46 (2.07%) OAuth
6 41 (1.84%) PySpark
7 40 (1.80%) Middleware
8 37 (1.66%) .NET
8 37 (1.66%) SOAP
8 37 (1.66%) Swagger
9 36 (1.62%) Spring
10 35 (1.57%) RESTful
11 33 (1.48%) Web Services
12 32 (1.44%) Pandas
12 32 (1.44%) pytest
13 29 (1.30%) Node.js
13 29 (1.30%) Playwright
14 26 (1.17%) JWT
15 25 (1.12%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 130 (5.84%) Legacy Systems
2 107 (4.80%) Onboarding
3 104 (4.67%) Data Structures
4 93 (4.18%) Product Ownership
5 84 (3.77%) Cloud Native
6 64 (2.87%) Data Centre
7 52 (2.33%) Management Information System
8 49 (2.20%) Distributed Systems
9 43 (1.93%) Analytical Mindset
10 31 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
11 30 (1.35%) SCADA
12 28 (1.26%) AI Agents
12 28 (1.26%) Distributed Architecture
13 27 (1.21%) Life Science
13 27 (1.21%) Public Cloud
14 26 (1.17%) Algorithms
14 26 (1.17%) Hybrid Cloud
14 26 (1.17%) Replication
15 24 (1.08%) Operational Technology
15 24 (1.08%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 120 (5.39%) Windows
2 81 (3.64%) Linux
3 27 (1.21%) Unix
4 20 (0.90%) Windows Server
5 14 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.58%) Android
7 6 (0.27%) VMS
7 6 (0.27%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.18%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.18%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.18%) SUSE
8 4 (0.18%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.090%) HPUX
10 2 (0.090%) VxWorks
10 2 (0.090%) zOS
11 1 (0.045%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.045%) pSOS
11 1 (0.045%) Solaris
11 1 (0.045%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 609 (27.35%) Migration
2 422 (18.95%) Agile
3 389 (17.47%) Stakeholder Management
4 379 (17.02%) Data Validation
5 373 (16.75%) CI/CD
6 369 (16.57%) Data Migration
7 363 (16.30%) Problem-Solving
8 357 (16.03%) User Acceptance Testing
9 337 (15.13%) Analytics
9 337 (15.13%) Data Modelling
10 288 (12.93%) ETL
11 279 (12.53%) DevOps
12 273 (12.26%) AI
13 267 (11.99%) Test Automation
14 232 (10.42%) Business Intelligence
15 231 (10.37%) Continuous Improvement
15 231 (10.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 210 (9.43%) Data Analysis
17 209 (9.38%) Data Governance
18 202 (9.07%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 540 (24.25%) SQL
2 384 (17.24%) Python
3 110 (4.94%) Java
4 61 (2.74%) PowerShell
5 52 (2.33%) C#
6 39 (1.75%) C++
7 38 (1.71%) C
8 37 (1.66%) Bash
9 36 (1.62%) JavaScript
10 29 (1.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 28 (1.26%) TypeScript
12 27 (1.21%) Apex Code
12 27 (1.21%) Bicep
13 23 (1.03%) PL/SQL
13 23 (1.03%) R
14 21 (0.94%) Ada
15 17 (0.76%) Scala
16 16 (0.72%) MATLAB
17 14 (0.63%) T-SQL
17 14 (0.63%) VBA
Qualifications
1 412 (18.50%) Security Cleared
2 298 (13.38%) SC Cleared
3 160 (7.18%) Degree
4 55 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
5 46 (2.07%) DV Cleared
6 42 (1.89%) Computer Science Degree
7 31 (1.39%) PMI Certification
8 28 (1.26%) Cisco Certification
9 24 (1.08%) PMP
10 23 (1.03%) CCNP
11 20 (0.90%) Master's Degree
12 17 (0.76%) ACCA
13 16 (0.72%) CISSP
13 16 (0.72%) Microsoft Certification
14 15 (0.67%) CIMA
14 15 (0.67%) ISTQB
15 13 (0.58%) Azure Certification
16 12 (0.54%) AWS Certification
16 12 (0.54%) CCNA
17 8 (0.36%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 382 (17.15%) Data Quality
2 253 (11.36%) QA
3 109 (4.89%) GDPR
4 60 (2.69%) NIST
5 51 (2.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 31 (1.39%) Accessibility
7 27 (1.21%) IFRS
7 27 (1.21%) PMO
8 25 (1.12%) SLA
9 18 (0.81%) GRC
9 18 (0.81%) IFRS 17
10 16 (0.72%) Def Stans
11 15 (0.67%) GxP
12 14 (0.63%) HL7
13 13 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
13 13 (0.58%) PCI DSS
13 13 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 13 (0.58%) Solvency II
14 12 (0.54%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.49%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 98 (4.40%) Docker
2 55 (2.47%) Active Directory
3 45 (2.02%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (0.72%) Firmware
6 14 (0.63%) Hyper-V
6 14 (0.63%) VMware ESXi
7 13 (0.58%) VMware NSX
8 9 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
9 8 (0.36%) vSphere
10 5 (0.22%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 2 (0.090%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.090%) KVM
12 2 (0.090%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.090%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.090%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.045%) etcd
13 1 (0.045%) OpenSSH
13 1 (0.045%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 141 (6.33%) Kubernetes
2 103 (4.63%) Terraform
3 49 (2.20%) Prometheus
4 44 (1.98%) Grafana
5 43 (1.93%) Ansible
6 27 (1.21%) Single Sign-On
7 19 (0.85%) FortiGate
7 19 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
8 8 (0.36%) Kibana
8 8 (0.36%) SCCM
8 8 (0.36%) vCenter Server
9 7 (0.31%) Puppet
10 6 (0.27%) Nessus
11 5 (0.22%) vMotion
11 5 (0.22%) VxRail
12 4 (0.18%) Argo
12 4 (0.18%) CASB
12 4 (0.18%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.18%) Failover Clustering
12 4 (0.18%) Istio
Vendors
1 298 (13.38%) Microsoft
2 194 (8.71%) SAP
3 189 (8.49%) Oracle
4 106 (4.76%) Databricks
5 79 (3.55%) Salesforce
6 60 (2.69%) ServiceNow
7 55 (2.47%) VMware
8 49 (2.20%) Cisco
9 40 (1.80%) Splunk
10 33 (1.48%) Google
11 32 (1.44%) Workday
12 30 (1.35%) Informatica
13 26 (1.17%) Palo Alto
13 26 (1.17%) Sage
14 23 (1.03%) MuleSoft
15 22 (0.99%) Fortinet
16 21 (0.94%) IFS
17 20 (0.90%) IBM
18 19 (0.85%) CyberArk
19 17 (0.76%) CheckPoint