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

6 months to
3 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 78 118
Rank change year-on-year +36 +40 +24
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,927 759 717
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.76% 3.11% 1.93%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.61% 3.41% 2.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,194 460 365
10th Percentile £325 £350 £313
25th Percentile £400 £419 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £531 £500
Median % change year-on-year -8.71% +6.25% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £600
90th Percentile £700 £725 £700
UK median daily rate £475 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -9.52% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 117 52 159
10th Percentile £17.75 £25.16 £24.24
25th Percentile £43.61 £40.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £62.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -7.26% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £75.16
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £79.35
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £56.77 £60.50
% change year-on-year +14.50% -6.17% -3.28%

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 34,370 22,228 32,118
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.91% 91.19% 86.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,972 14,556 21,057
10th Percentile £316 £309 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,137 921 2,257
10th Percentile £15.34 £14.70 £12.97
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £30.00 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year +50.00% -16.67% -3.59%
75th Percentile £67.50 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £41.56 £29.00 £35.50
% change year-on-year +43.29% -18.31% -1.39%

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 3 May 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 3 May 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 3 May 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 +65 927 £500 -9.09% 327
North of England +41 261 £430 -7.03% 126
Midlands +33 225 £481 +1.26% 95
South East -8 223 £490 -2.00% 212
West Midlands +28 165 £475 - 56
North West +29 161 £420 -4.00% 73
East of England +9 117 £475 +5.56% 83
South West -4 115 £475 -17.39% 94
Yorkshire +18 90 £453 +7.86% 39
East Midlands +3 56 £525 +14.38% 39
North East -12 13 £450 -28.00% 15
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 79 (4.10%) Confluence
2 38 (1.97%) Apache Spark
3 37 (1.92%) Apache Airflow
4 33 (1.71%) SAS
5 17 (0.88%) Apache
6 13 (0.67%) SharePoint
7 9 (0.47%) Appian
7 9 (0.47%) Jupyter
7 9 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
8 8 (0.42%) ArcGIS
9 7 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.26%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
11 4 (0.21%) CMS
11 4 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.16%) CICS
12 3 (0.16%) Oracle Self-Service HR
12 3 (0.16%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.10%) Documentum
13 2 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2013
13 2 (0.10%) Umbraco
Applications
1 131 (6.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 29 (1.50%) MS Visio
3 25 (1.30%) Microsoft Office
4 17 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (0.88%) Spreadsheet
5 12 (0.62%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.42%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.16%) CATIA
7 3 (0.16%) LaTeX
7 3 (0.16%) Notion
8 2 (0.10%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.10%) EPLAN
8 2 (0.10%) Sketch
9 1 (0.052%) Autodesk Inventor
9 1 (0.052%) CANalyzer
9 1 (0.052%) MicroStation
9 1 (0.052%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.052%) UXPin
9 1 (0.052%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 90 (4.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (1.66%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.78%) Oracle General Ledger
4 14 (0.73%) Teamcenter
5 13 (0.67%) Oracle Payables
6 12 (0.62%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 12 (0.62%) Workday HCM
7 10 (0.52%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.47%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
9 8 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
9 8 (0.42%) SAP ERP
10 7 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
11 6 (0.31%) Aladdin
11 6 (0.31%) NetSuite
11 6 (0.31%) Oracle Financials
11 6 (0.31%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 6 (0.31%) Sage X3
12 5 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
12 5 (0.26%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 416 (21.59%) Azure
2 230 (11.94%) AWS
3 195 (10.12%) Power Platform
4 114 (5.92%) Azure DevOps
5 99 (5.14%) GCP
6 82 (4.26%) GitHub
7 55 (2.85%) Azure Data Factory
8 50 (2.59%) Entra ID
8 50 (2.59%) Serverless
9 47 (2.44%) Snowflake
10 45 (2.34%) SaaS
11 44 (2.28%) OCI
12 41 (2.13%) GitHub Actions
13 39 (2.02%) Amazon S3
14 36 (1.87%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 29 (1.50%) Microsoft 365
16 26 (1.35%) dbt
17 23 (1.19%) AWS Lambda
18 22 (1.14%) SuccessFactors
19 21 (1.09%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 77 (4.00%) Firewall
2 54 (2.80%) Network Security
3 36 (1.87%) VLAN
4 33 (1.71%) TCP/IP
5 25 (1.30%) DNS
6 24 (1.25%) VPN
7 23 (1.19%) WAN
8 21 (1.09%) Ethernet
9 16 (0.83%) LAN
9 16 (0.83%) SAN
10 14 (0.73%) Wireless
11 13 (0.67%) BGP
11 13 (0.67%) OSPF
11 13 (0.67%) SD-WAN
12 12 (0.62%) Cisco ISE
12 12 (0.62%) NAS
13 11 (0.57%) TACACS
13 11 (0.57%) Wi-Fi
14 8 (0.42%) HTTP
14 8 (0.42%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 183 (9.50%) Power BI
2 109 (5.66%) Data Warehouse
3 87 (4.51%) Metadata
4 72 (3.74%) Tableau
5 63 (3.27%) SQL Server
6 49 (2.54%) Data Lake
7 39 (2.02%) PostgreSQL
8 33 (1.71%) Relational Database
9 28 (1.45%) Amazon Redshift
10 27 (1.40%) Oracle Reports
11 26 (1.35%) Big Data
12 25 (1.30%) NoSQL
13 23 (1.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 22 (1.14%) Delta Lake
15 20 (1.04%) Oracle Database
16 19 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
16 19 (0.99%) BigQuery
17 18 (0.93%) Pinecone
17 18 (0.93%) Power Query
18 16 (0.83%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 188 (9.76%) JIRA
2 113 (5.86%) Git
3 70 (3.63%) Jenkins
4 55 (2.85%) Selenium
5 45 (2.34%) GitLab
6 40 (2.08%) Postman
7 31 (1.61%) JUnit
8 30 (1.56%) Cucumber
8 30 (1.56%) JMeter
9 26 (1.35%) WebDriver
10 23 (1.19%) Rational DOORS
11 17 (0.88%) Visual Studio
12 16 (0.83%) Eclipse
13 15 (0.78%) MLflow
14 14 (0.73%) Oracle APEX
15 12 (0.62%) Bitbucket
16 11 (0.57%) REST Assured
17 10 (0.52%) Rational Rhapsody
18 9 (0.47%) Gatling
18 9 (0.47%) SpecFlow
General
1 617 (32.02%) Social Skills
2 594 (30.83%) Finance
3 387 (20.08%) Analytical Skills
4 169 (8.77%) Banking
5 154 (7.99%) Public Sector
6 104 (5.40%) Documentation Skills
7 56 (2.91%) Manufacturing
8 47 (2.44%) Presentation Skills
9 46 (2.39%) Aerospace
10 42 (2.18%) Organisational Skills
11 39 (2.02%) Retail
12 34 (1.76%) Marketing
13 32 (1.66%) Pharmaceutical
14 31 (1.61%) Legal
15 30 (1.56%) Front Office
15 30 (1.56%) Influencing Skills
16 29 (1.50%) General Ledger
16 29 (1.50%) Military
17 28 (1.45%) Financial Institution
18 27 (1.40%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 367 (19.05%) Analyst
2 191 (9.91%) Lead
3 179 (9.29%) Senior
4 162 (8.41%) Business Analyst
5 150 (7.78%) Data Engineer
6 125 (6.49%) Consultant
7 118 (6.12%) Architect
8 113 (5.86%) Developer
9 103 (5.35%) Data Analyst
10 75 (3.89%) Project Manager
11 51 (2.65%) Tester
12 43 (2.23%) Software Engineer
12 43 (2.23%) Test Engineer
13 42 (2.18%) Senior Analyst
14 41 (2.13%) Network Engineer
15 38 (1.97%) Test Manager
16 36 (1.87%) Security Engineer
17 35 (1.82%) Systems Engineer
18 33 (1.71%) Technical Analyst
18 33 (1.71%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (5.55%) REST
2 68 (3.53%) JSON
3 66 (3.43%) Kafka
4 56 (2.91%) Oracle Fusion
5 48 (2.49%) Middleware
6 43 (2.23%) OAuth
7 41 (2.13%) XML
8 39 (2.02%) PySpark
9 38 (1.97%) Node.js
10 35 (1.82%) Swagger
11 32 (1.66%) .NET
11 32 (1.66%) SOAP
11 32 (1.66%) Web Services
12 29 (1.50%) Pandas
12 29 (1.50%) PyTorch
13 27 (1.40%) RESTful
14 26 (1.35%) OpenAPI
14 26 (1.35%) Playwright
14 26 (1.35%) TensorFlow
15 25 (1.30%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 113 (5.86%) Legacy Systems
2 103 (5.35%) Data Structures
3 89 (4.62%) Onboarding
4 78 (4.05%) Product Ownership
5 55 (2.85%) Cloud Native
6 53 (2.75%) Data Centre
7 46 (2.39%) Management Information System
8 36 (1.87%) Analytical Mindset
8 36 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
9 28 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
10 24 (1.25%) Hybrid Cloud
10 24 (1.25%) Replication
11 23 (1.19%) Algorithms
11 23 (1.19%) Public Cloud
12 21 (1.09%) Greenfield Project
13 20 (1.04%) Reference Data
14 19 (0.99%) Credit Risk
14 19 (0.99%) Derivative
14 19 (0.99%) Virtual Team
15 17 (0.88%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 93 (4.83%) Windows
2 77 (4.00%) Linux
3 25 (1.30%) Unix
4 12 (0.62%) Android
5 9 (0.47%) Windows Server
6 7 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 6 (0.31%) 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 (0.10%) Debian
11 1 (0.052%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.052%) HPUX
11 1 (0.052%) pSOS
11 1 (0.052%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 521 (27.04%) Migration
2 401 (20.81%) Agile
3 367 (19.05%) Problem-Solving
4 335 (17.38%) Stakeholder Management
5 331 (17.18%) Data Validation
6 316 (16.40%) Data Migration
7 298 (15.46%) Analytics
8 293 (15.20%) CI/CD
9 290 (15.05%) Data Modelling
10 281 (14.58%) User Acceptance Testing
11 267 (13.86%) ETL
12 255 (13.23%) DevOps
13 231 (11.99%) Business Intelligence
14 220 (11.42%) Test Automation
15 208 (10.79%) AI
16 197 (10.22%) Continuous Improvement
17 194 (10.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 191 (9.91%) Data Governance
19 174 (9.03%) Data Analysis
20 173 (8.98%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 487 (25.27%) SQL
2 348 (18.06%) Python
3 100 (5.19%) Java
4 60 (3.11%) C#
5 58 (3.01%) JavaScript
6 51 (2.65%) C++
7 40 (2.08%) C
8 39 (2.02%) PL/SQL
9 38 (1.97%) PowerShell
10 32 (1.66%) R
11 30 (1.56%) Bash
12 26 (1.35%) TypeScript
13 25 (1.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 22 (1.14%) Bicep
15 20 (1.04%) Ada
16 17 (0.88%) Scala
17 13 (0.67%) Apex Code
18 12 (0.62%) VBA
19 11 (0.57%) MATLAB
20 10 (0.52%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 370 (19.20%) Security Cleared
2 266 (13.80%) SC Cleared
3 158 (8.20%) Degree
4 48 (2.49%) Computer Science Degree
5 47 (2.44%) BPSS Clearance
6 32 (1.66%) DV Cleared
6 32 (1.66%) PMI Certification
7 30 (1.56%) Master's Degree
8 28 (1.45%) PMP
9 22 (1.14%) Cisco Certification
10 21 (1.09%) ISTQB
11 18 (0.93%) CCNP
12 15 (0.78%) CISSP
13 14 (0.73%) CBAP
14 12 (0.62%) Azure Certification
14 12 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
15 11 (0.57%) AWS Certification
16 9 (0.47%) ACCA
16 9 (0.47%) CCNA
17 7 (0.36%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 328 (17.02%) Data Quality
2 239 (12.40%) QA
3 107 (5.55%) GDPR
4 63 (3.27%) NIST
5 54 (2.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 24 (1.25%) Accessibility
6 24 (1.25%) IFRS
7 23 (1.19%) SLA
8 20 (1.04%) IFRS 17
9 19 (0.99%) PMO
10 18 (0.93%) GRC
11 16 (0.83%) Def Stans
12 14 (0.73%) HL7
13 13 (0.67%) GxP
13 13 (0.67%) PCI DSS
14 12 (0.62%) MiFID
14 12 (0.62%) NCSC
15 11 (0.57%) ISO 20022
15 11 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 10 (0.52%) NIST 800
System Software
1 75 (3.89%) Docker
2 39 (2.02%) Active Directory
3 34 (1.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.25%) Firmware
5 14 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
6 11 (0.57%) VMware NSX
7 10 (0.52%) Hyper-V
7 10 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.31%) vSphere
10 5 (0.26%) NFS
11 4 (0.21%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 3 (0.16%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
13 2 (0.10%) Ceph
13 2 (0.10%) KVM
13 2 (0.10%) Lustre
13 2 (0.10%) OpenAM
13 2 (0.10%) OpenIDM
13 2 (0.10%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 112 (5.81%) Kubernetes
2 79 (4.10%) Terraform
3 35 (1.82%) Prometheus
4 34 (1.76%) Ansible
5 33 (1.71%) Grafana
6 29 (1.50%) Single Sign-On
7 15 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
8 12 (0.62%) FortiGate
9 10 (0.52%) Kibana
10 9 (0.47%) Puppet
11 8 (0.42%) SCCM
12 6 (0.31%) Nessus
13 5 (0.26%) CASB
13 5 (0.26%) vCenter Server
13 5 (0.26%) vMotion
14 4 (0.21%) EMC NetWorker
14 4 (0.21%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.21%) Failover Clustering
14 4 (0.21%) Istio
14 4 (0.21%) VxRail
Vendors
1 263 (13.65%) Microsoft
2 175 (9.08%) Oracle
3 162 (8.41%) SAP
4 87 (4.51%) Databricks
5 66 (3.43%) ServiceNow
6 58 (3.01%) Salesforce
7 45 (2.34%) Cisco
8 42 (2.18%) VMware
9 38 (1.97%) Splunk
10 35 (1.82%) Google
11 31 (1.61%) Informatica
12 27 (1.40%) Sage
13 26 (1.35%) Palo Alto
14 25 (1.30%) Workday
15 23 (1.19%) MuleSoft
16 22 (1.14%) IBM
17 21 (1.09%) CyberArk
18 17 (0.88%) CheckPoint
19 16 (0.83%) IFS
19 16 (0.83%) OpenAI