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

6 months to
28 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 55 116 127
Rank change year-on-year +61 +11 +7
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,363 611 734
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.15% 2.31% 1.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.73% 2.58% 2.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 829 322 417
10th Percentile £348 £342 £314
25th Percentile £404 £408 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.41% -3.18%
75th Percentile £613 £618 £613
90th Percentile £700 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £523 £538
% change year-on-year -4.35% -2.79% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 40 136
10th Percentile £31.53 £28.73 £29.89
25th Percentile £42.78 £47.19 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.65 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year +12.76% -12.63% +5.29%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.75 £77.50
90th Percentile £74.50 £66.15 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £57.65 £65.98
% change year-on-year +12.76% -12.63% +5.29%

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 28,832 23,662 32,842
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.89% 89.43% 87.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,449 14,467 21,997
10th Percentile £305 £310 £300
25th Percentile £410 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.53% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £625 £642 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,786 760 1,829
10th Percentile £15.05 £15.62 £13.99
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.00 £17.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year -26.03% -6.85% +4.29%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.98
% change year-on-year -22.62% -9.67% +12.44%

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 28 January 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 28 January 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 28 January 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 +83 642 £513 -4.21% 214
North of England +19 181 £419 -4.34% 167
South East +17 162 £500 - 311
Midlands +18 118 £506 +5.14% 152
North West +21 117 £400 -2.08% 72
South West +10 116 £475 -17.82% 154
West Midlands +15 98 £515 +5.64% 81
East of England +20 94 £482 +20.44% 154
Yorkshire -8 51 £487 -0.10% 75
East Midlands -18 20 £475 +58.33% 68
North East -5 15 £463 -36.21% 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 53 (3.89%) Confluence
2 31 (2.27%) SAS
3 29 (2.13%) SharePoint
4 28 (2.05%) Apache Spark
5 23 (1.69%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (1.39%) Microsoft Exchange
7 14 (1.03%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.88%) Apache
9 9 (0.66%) Exchange Server 2013
10 8 (0.59%) CMS
11 7 (0.51%) Appian
11 7 (0.51%) Mattermost
12 6 (0.44%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.29%) Anypoint
13 4 (0.29%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.29%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
14 3 (0.22%) CICS
14 3 (0.22%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.22%) WebSphere
Applications
1 73 (5.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 38 (2.79%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (1.69%) MS Visio
4 13 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.51%) Chatbot
5 7 (0.51%) Microsoft Project
6 6 (0.44%) Sketch
7 5 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
8 4 (0.29%) Notion
9 3 (0.22%) LaTeX
10 2 (0.15%) Simulink
11 1 (0.073%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.073%) CATIA
11 1 (0.073%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.073%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.073%) Stateflow
11 1 (0.073%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 65 (4.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (1.10%) Oracle EBS
3 11 (0.81%) Oracle General Ledger
3 11 (0.81%) Oracle Payables
3 11 (0.81%) SAP EHS
4 10 (0.73%) SAP FI
5 9 (0.66%) Aladdin
5 9 (0.66%) Remedy ITSM
6 8 (0.59%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 8 (0.59%) Oracle Receivables
6 8 (0.59%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 7 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
7 7 (0.51%) NetSuite
7 7 (0.51%) OpenText VIM for SAP
7 7 (0.51%) SAP MDG
8 6 (0.44%) Markit EDM
8 6 (0.44%) Oracle Assets
8 6 (0.44%) SAP MM
9 5 (0.37%) Oracle EBS R12
10 4 (0.29%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 318 (23.33%) Azure
2 158 (11.59%) AWS
3 123 (9.02%) Azure DevOps
4 112 (8.22%) Power Platform
5 57 (4.18%) GCP
6 54 (3.96%) GitHub
7 53 (3.89%) Entra ID
8 46 (3.37%) SaaS
9 37 (2.71%) Serverless
10 36 (2.64%) Azure Data Factory
11 30 (2.20%) GitHub Actions
12 29 (2.13%) Snowflake
13 28 (2.05%) OCI
14 27 (1.98%) Microsoft 365
15 24 (1.76%) OpenShift
16 21 (1.54%) Amazon S3
17 18 (1.32%) Dynamics 365
18 17 (1.25%) AWS Lambda
18 17 (1.25%) PaaS
19 16 (1.17%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 38 (2.79%) Firewall
2 26 (1.91%) TCP/IP
3 21 (1.54%) Network Security
4 19 (1.39%) Ethernet
5 18 (1.32%) WAN
6 17 (1.25%) VPN
7 14 (1.03%) Skype
7 14 (1.03%) VLAN
8 13 (0.95%) BGP
8 13 (0.95%) Wireless
9 12 (0.88%) LAN
9 12 (0.88%) MPLS
9 12 (0.88%) OSPF
10 11 (0.81%) DNS
10 11 (0.81%) TACACS
11 9 (0.66%) SD-WAN
12 8 (0.59%) SNMP
13 7 (0.51%) HTTP
14 6 (0.44%) Cisco ISE
14 6 (0.44%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 105 (7.70%) Power BI
2 60 (4.40%) Metadata
3 55 (4.04%) Data Warehouse
4 39 (2.86%) Tableau
5 36 (2.64%) SQL Server
6 28 (2.05%) Data Lake
7 25 (1.83%) NoSQL
8 21 (1.54%) SAS Enterprise Guide
9 18 (1.32%) Relational Database
10 17 (1.25%) Oracle Database
11 16 (1.17%) Amazon Redshift
12 15 (1.10%) Oracle Reports
12 15 (1.10%) Pinecone
13 14 (1.03%) Big Data
13 14 (1.03%) Elasticsearch
14 13 (0.95%) Azure SQL Database
15 12 (0.88%) Delta Lake
15 12 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 11 (0.81%) BigQuery
17 10 (0.73%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 147 (10.79%) JIRA
2 66 (4.84%) Jenkins
3 62 (4.55%) Git
4 39 (2.86%) GitLab
5 37 (2.71%) Postman
6 36 (2.64%) Selenium
7 32 (2.35%) Oracle APEX
8 23 (1.69%) Rational DOORS
9 19 (1.39%) Visual Studio
10 15 (1.10%) JMeter
11 13 (0.95%) Eclipse
11 13 (0.95%) TestRail
12 12 (0.88%) Cucumber
13 11 (0.81%) MLflow
14 10 (0.73%) Bitbucket
14 10 (0.73%) JUnit
14 10 (0.73%) Zephyr
15 9 (0.66%) REST Assured
16 7 (0.51%) SpecFlow
17 6 (0.44%) Cypress.io
General
1 520 (38.15%) Social Skills
2 383 (28.10%) Finance
3 294 (21.57%) Analytical Skills
4 129 (9.46%) Public Sector
5 116 (8.51%) Banking
6 71 (5.21%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (3.60%) Presentation Skills
8 29 (2.13%) Aerospace
8 29 (2.13%) Influencing Skills
8 29 (2.13%) Telecoms
9 28 (2.05%) Manufacturing
9 28 (2.05%) Marketing
10 27 (1.98%) Electronics
10 27 (1.98%) Front Office
10 27 (1.98%) Military
11 23 (1.69%) Investment Banking
12 22 (1.61%) Pharmaceutical
13 21 (1.54%) Financial Institution
14 20 (1.47%) Legal
15 18 (1.32%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 271 (19.88%) Analyst
2 143 (10.49%) Senior
3 122 (8.95%) Business Analyst
4 118 (8.66%) Lead
5 105 (7.70%) Consultant
6 103 (7.56%) Developer
7 76 (5.58%) Architect
8 65 (4.77%) Data Analyst
9 56 (4.11%) Data Engineer
10 50 (3.67%) Software Engineer
11 41 (3.01%) Project Manager
11 41 (3.01%) Tester
12 35 (2.57%) Senior Analyst
13 34 (2.49%) Senior Developer
14 33 (2.42%) SAP Consultant
14 33 (2.42%) Test Manager
15 30 (2.20%) Test Analyst
16 27 (1.98%) Solutions Architect
17 26 (1.91%) Data Scientist
18 25 (1.83%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (6.53%) REST
2 56 (4.11%) JSON
3 47 (3.45%) Oracle Fusion
3 47 (3.45%) XML
4 41 (3.01%) OAuth
5 38 (2.79%) Middleware
6 37 (2.71%) SOAP
7 31 (2.27%) Node.js
8 28 (2.05%) .NET
9 27 (1.98%) Kafka
9 27 (1.98%) PyTorch
9 27 (1.98%) RESTful
10 26 (1.91%) PySpark
10 26 (1.91%) Swagger
10 26 (1.91%) Web Services
11 24 (1.76%) TensorFlow
12 21 (1.54%) JWT
12 21 (1.54%) Playwright
12 21 (1.54%) SAML
13 20 (1.47%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 77 (5.65%) Legacy Systems
2 56 (4.11%) Data Structures
3 55 (4.04%) Product Ownership
4 49 (3.60%) Onboarding
5 39 (2.86%) Management Information System
6 37 (2.71%) Cloud Native
7 25 (1.83%) Analytical Mindset
7 25 (1.83%) Data Centre
8 24 (1.76%) Algorithms
9 23 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
10 19 (1.39%) Derivative
11 18 (1.32%) FPGA
12 16 (1.17%) Replication
13 14 (1.03%) Credit Risk
14 12 (0.88%) Distributed Systems
14 12 (0.88%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 12 (0.88%) Security Posture
15 11 (0.81%) Embedded Systems
15 11 (0.81%) Enterprise Software
15 11 (0.81%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 86 (6.31%) Linux
2 73 (5.36%) Windows
3 29 (2.13%) Unix
4 11 (0.81%) Android
5 5 (0.37%) Windows Server
5 5 (0.37%) zOS
6 4 (0.29%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.22%) Embedded Linux
8 2 (0.15%) Debian
8 2 (0.15%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.15%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.15%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.073%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.073%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 386 (28.32%) Agile
2 325 (23.84%) Problem-Solving
3 302 (22.16%) Migration
4 261 (19.15%) DevOps
5 236 (17.31%) Stakeholder Management
6 223 (16.36%) CI/CD
7 220 (16.14%) Data Validation
8 204 (14.97%) Analytics
9 166 (12.18%) Test Automation
9 166 (12.18%) User Acceptance Testing
10 160 (11.74%) Data Modelling
11 156 (11.45%) Data Migration
12 151 (11.08%) AI
13 145 (10.64%) ETL
14 141 (10.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 137 (10.05%) Business Intelligence
16 123 (9.02%) Data Governance
17 118 (8.66%) Continuous Improvement
18 117 (8.58%) Data Analysis
19 110 (8.07%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 350 (25.68%) SQL
2 295 (21.64%) Python
3 93 (6.82%) JavaScript
4 79 (5.80%) Java
5 58 (4.26%) C#
6 50 (3.67%) PL/SQL
7 46 (3.37%) C++
8 44 (3.23%) Bash
9 40 (2.93%) PowerShell
10 36 (2.64%) C
11 25 (1.83%) TypeScript
12 23 (1.69%) R
13 16 (1.17%) Groovy
14 14 (1.03%) Ada
14 14 (1.03%) Shell Script
15 12 (0.88%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.88%) Scala
16 10 (0.73%) Bicep
16 10 (0.73%) T-SQL
17 9 (0.66%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 294 (21.57%) Security Cleared
2 214 (15.70%) SC Cleared
3 138 (10.12%) Degree
4 55 (4.04%) Computer Science Degree
5 37 (2.71%) BPSS Clearance
6 35 (2.57%) DV Cleared
7 34 (2.49%) Master's Degree
8 26 (1.91%) ISTQB
8 26 (1.91%) PMI Certification
9 20 (1.47%) AWS Certification
10 19 (1.39%) PMP
11 15 (1.10%) CBAP
12 14 (1.03%) Cisco Certification
13 13 (0.95%) Oracle Certification
14 10 (0.73%) Azure Certification
14 10 (0.73%) CCIE
15 9 (0.66%) ITIL Certification
15 9 (0.66%) OCA
16 8 (0.59%) CCNP
16 8 (0.59%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 171 (12.55%) Data Quality
1 171 (12.55%) QA
2 79 (5.80%) GDPR
3 57 (4.18%) NIST
4 37 (2.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 28 (2.05%) Accessibility
6 19 (1.39%) IFRS
7 16 (1.17%) IFRS 17
8 14 (1.03%) Def Stans
9 13 (0.95%) EU AI Act
10 12 (0.88%) PCI DSS
11 11 (0.81%) GxP
11 11 (0.81%) NCSC
12 10 (0.73%) MiFID
12 10 (0.73%) MISRA
13 9 (0.66%) DO-178B
13 9 (0.66%) GRC
14 8 (0.59%) COBIT
14 8 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 7 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 55 (4.04%) Docker
2 42 (3.08%) Active Directory
3 24 (1.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.54%) Firmware
5 12 (0.88%) VMware NSX
6 7 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
6 7 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.29%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
7 4 (0.29%) Embedded Firmware
7 4 (0.29%) vSphere
8 3 (0.22%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.22%) KVM
8 3 (0.22%) QEMU
9 2 (0.15%) Ceph
9 2 (0.15%) Lustre
9 2 (0.15%) OpenAM
9 2 (0.15%) OpenDJ
9 2 (0.15%) OpenIDM
9 2 (0.15%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.073%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 72 (5.28%) Kubernetes
2 61 (4.48%) Terraform
3 46 (3.37%) Ansible
4 21 (1.54%) Single Sign-On
5 15 (1.10%) Microsoft Intune
6 14 (1.03%) Kibana
6 14 (1.03%) Puppet
7 10 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 10 (0.73%) SCCM
8 9 (0.66%) Grafana
9 7 (0.51%) HP SiteScope
9 7 (0.51%) Nmap
9 7 (0.51%) SCOM
10 6 (0.44%) Nessus
11 4 (0.29%) Prometheus
12 3 (0.22%) Argo
12 3 (0.22%) CloudHub
12 3 (0.22%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.22%) Iperf
12 3 (0.22%) Istio
Vendors
1 192 (14.09%) Microsoft
2 146 (10.71%) Oracle
3 106 (7.78%) SAP
4 58 (4.26%) ServiceNow
5 49 (3.60%) Databricks
6 42 (3.08%) Cisco
7 36 (2.64%) Splunk
8 34 (2.49%) Salesforce
9 33 (2.42%) Google
10 29 (2.13%) VMware
11 19 (1.39%) Murex
11 19 (1.39%) Workday
12 18 (1.32%) IBM
12 18 (1.32%) MuleSoft
13 17 (1.25%) Palo Alto
14 14 (1.03%) Informatica
15 13 (0.95%) Sage
16 12 (0.88%) Adobe
16 12 (0.88%) Avaloq
16 12 (0.88%) Bloomberg