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

6 months to
6 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 85 130
Rank change year-on-year +41 +45 +4
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,820 692 676
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.71% 2.84% 1.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.49% 3.12% 2.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,132 416 357
10th Percentile £327 £362 £314
25th Percentile £402 £421 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £610
90th Percentile £700 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £485 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -7.62% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 100 42 143
10th Percentile £34.02 £26.53 £23.45
25th Percentile £59.61 £48.13 £51.88
Median hourly rate £65.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.69% +2.50% -3.23%
75th Percentile £77.31 £65.75 £75.25
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.23 £89.75
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £59.13 £60.00
% change year-on-year +9.94% -1.46% -4.08%

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 33,181 22,150 32,359
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.82% 90.86% 86.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,274 14,593 21,355
10th Percentile £313 £311 £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 £614 £638 £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 2,050 865 2,166
10th Percentile £15.49 £14.99 £12.89
25th Percentile £19.48 £19.00 £15.85
Median hourly rate £37.50 £32.50 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.38% -1.52% -13.95%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £58.69
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.95 £70.44
UK median hourly rate £35.91 £31.58 £32.50
% change year-on-year +13.71% -2.83% -13.33%

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 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 6 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 6 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 +70 852 £500 -9.09% 268
North of England +33 250 £450 -2.70% 152
South East 0 206 £500 - 215
Midlands +34 201 £491 +3.37% 118
West Midlands +30 155 £491 +2.03% 77
North West +29 153 £418 -5.80% 74
South West +14 131 £475 -17.39% 89
East of England +18 123 £492 +9.38% 96
Yorkshire +16 87 £462 +9.93% 51
East Midlands +1 43 £500 +35.87% 41
North East -6 13 £438 -39.66% 27
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 73 (4.01%) Confluence
2 40 (2.20%) SAS
3 35 (1.92%) Apache Airflow
4 33 (1.81%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.99%) Apache
6 15 (0.82%) SharePoint
7 11 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
8 9 (0.49%) Appian
8 9 (0.49%) Jupyter
9 8 (0.44%) ArcGIS
10 6 (0.33%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
10 6 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.27%) Anypoint
11 5 (0.27%) CMS
12 4 (0.22%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.16%) CICS
13 3 (0.16%) Oracle Self-Service HR
13 3 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 2 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
14 2 (0.11%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 106 (5.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 27 (1.48%) MS Visio
3 23 (1.26%) Microsoft Office
4 18 (0.99%) Spreadsheet
5 16 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 12 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.44%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.22%) Notion
9 3 (0.16%) LaTeX
10 2 (0.11%) CATIA
10 2 (0.11%) Sketch
11 1 (0.055%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.055%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.055%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.055%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.055%) UXPin
11 1 (0.055%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 87 (4.78%) SAP S/4HANA
2 31 (1.70%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.77%) Oracle General Ledger
4 13 (0.71%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.66%) Oracle Payables
5 12 (0.66%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 9 (0.49%) Oracle Assets
6 9 (0.49%) Oracle Receivables
6 9 (0.49%) SAP FI
7 8 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
7 8 (0.44%) OpenText VIM for SAP
8 7 (0.38%) Aladdin
8 7 (0.38%) NetSuite
8 7 (0.38%) Payment Gateway
8 7 (0.38%) SAP MM
8 7 (0.38%) Teamcenter
9 6 (0.33%) Oracle EBS R12
9 6 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
9 6 (0.33%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 6 (0.33%) Sage X3
Cloud Services
1 429 (23.57%) Azure
2 223 (12.25%) AWS
3 162 (8.90%) Power Platform
4 131 (7.20%) Azure DevOps
5 86 (4.73%) GCP
6 84 (4.62%) GitHub
7 53 (2.91%) Azure Data Factory
7 53 (2.91%) Entra ID
8 52 (2.86%) Serverless
9 48 (2.64%) SaaS
10 47 (2.58%) OCI
11 46 (2.53%) GitHub Actions
12 41 (2.25%) Amazon S3
13 36 (1.98%) Snowflake
14 32 (1.76%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 27 (1.48%) OpenShift
16 26 (1.43%) AWS Lambda
17 25 (1.37%) dbt
18 24 (1.32%) Microsoft 365
19 21 (1.15%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 73 (4.01%) Firewall
2 50 (2.75%) Network Security
3 34 (1.87%) TCP/IP
4 25 (1.37%) DNS
4 25 (1.37%) VLAN
5 21 (1.15%) Ethernet
5 21 (1.15%) VPN
6 17 (0.93%) WAN
7 15 (0.82%) SAN
8 13 (0.71%) NAS
9 11 (0.60%) BGP
9 11 (0.60%) HTTP
9 11 (0.60%) LAN
9 11 (0.60%) OSPF
10 10 (0.55%) Wireless
11 9 (0.49%) SD-WAN
12 8 (0.44%) Cisco ISE
12 8 (0.44%) Internet
13 7 (0.38%) MPLS
13 7 (0.38%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 150 (8.24%) Power BI
2 96 (5.27%) Data Warehouse
3 92 (5.05%) Metadata
4 58 (3.19%) SQL Server
4 58 (3.19%) Tableau
5 41 (2.25%) Data Lake
6 40 (2.20%) PostgreSQL
7 30 (1.65%) Oracle Reports
8 27 (1.48%) Amazon Redshift
9 25 (1.37%) SAS Enterprise Guide
10 24 (1.32%) Oracle Database
11 23 (1.26%) Big Data
11 23 (1.26%) Delta Lake
11 23 (1.26%) Relational Database
11 23 (1.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 21 (1.15%) NoSQL
13 20 (1.10%) Azure SQL Database
14 18 (0.99%) Amazon Athena
14 18 (0.99%) Pinecone
15 16 (0.88%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 173 (9.51%) JIRA
2 110 (6.04%) Git
3 81 (4.45%) Jenkins
4 63 (3.46%) Selenium
5 50 (2.75%) GitLab
6 42 (2.31%) Postman
7 38 (2.09%) JUnit
8 34 (1.87%) Cucumber
9 28 (1.54%) JMeter
9 28 (1.54%) Oracle APEX
10 27 (1.48%) Rational DOORS
11 22 (1.21%) WebDriver
12 19 (1.04%) Visual Studio
13 15 (0.82%) MLflow
14 14 (0.77%) Eclipse
15 13 (0.71%) REST Assured
16 12 (0.66%) Bitbucket
17 10 (0.55%) Rational Rhapsody
17 10 (0.55%) TestRail
18 9 (0.49%) Gatling
General
1 614 (33.74%) Social Skills
2 545 (29.95%) Finance
3 360 (19.78%) Analytical Skills
4 160 (8.79%) Public Sector
5 153 (8.41%) Banking
6 104 (5.71%) Documentation Skills
7 48 (2.64%) Aerospace
7 48 (2.64%) Manufacturing
7 48 (2.64%) Presentation Skills
8 33 (1.81%) Organisational Skills
9 32 (1.76%) Electronics
10 30 (1.65%) Marketing
10 30 (1.65%) Pharmaceutical
11 29 (1.59%) Front Office
11 29 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
11 29 (1.59%) Military
12 28 (1.54%) Financial Institution
12 28 (1.54%) Legal
12 28 (1.54%) Retail
13 27 (1.48%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 338 (18.57%) Analyst
2 185 (10.16%) Lead
3 181 (9.95%) Senior
4 157 (8.63%) Business Analyst
5 134 (7.36%) Data Engineer
6 125 (6.87%) Developer
7 117 (6.43%) Consultant
8 116 (6.37%) Architect
9 87 (4.78%) Data Analyst
10 71 (3.90%) Project Manager
11 53 (2.91%) Tester
12 42 (2.31%) Software Engineer
13 40 (2.20%) Senior Analyst
14 39 (2.14%) Senior Developer
15 38 (2.09%) Test Engineer
16 37 (2.03%) SAP Consultant
17 35 (1.92%) Test Analyst
18 34 (1.87%) Systems Engineer
18 34 (1.87%) Test Manager
19 33 (1.81%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 123 (6.76%) REST
2 80 (4.40%) JSON
3 61 (3.35%) Kafka
4 58 (3.19%) Oracle Fusion
5 50 (2.75%) XML
6 49 (2.69%) OAuth
7 46 (2.53%) Middleware
8 39 (2.14%) SOAP
9 38 (2.09%) Node.js
9 38 (2.09%) PySpark
10 37 (2.03%) .NET
11 32 (1.76%) Swagger
12 30 (1.65%) Playwright
12 30 (1.65%) Web Services
13 29 (1.59%) PyTorch
14 28 (1.54%) pytest
15 27 (1.48%) Pandas
15 27 (1.48%) RESTful
16 26 (1.43%) TensorFlow
17 25 (1.37%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 108 (5.93%) Legacy Systems
2 91 (5.00%) Data Structures
3 73 (4.01%) Onboarding
3 73 (4.01%) Product Ownership
4 46 (2.53%) Cloud Native
5 44 (2.42%) Management Information System
6 39 (2.14%) Data Centre
7 33 (1.81%) Analytical Mindset
8 30 (1.65%) Distributed Systems
9 28 (1.54%) Replication
10 25 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
11 22 (1.21%) Hybrid Cloud
12 20 (1.10%) Algorithms
12 20 (1.10%) Greenfield Project
13 19 (1.04%) Public Cloud
13 19 (1.04%) Virtual Team
14 18 (0.99%) Reference Data
15 17 (0.93%) Derivative
16 15 (0.82%) Credit Risk
17 14 (0.77%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 95 (5.22%) Windows
2 76 (4.18%) Linux
3 25 (1.37%) Unix
4 11 (0.60%) Android
5 9 (0.49%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.33%) zOS
7 4 (0.22%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (0.22%) SUSE
7 4 (0.22%) VMS
8 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
9 2 (0.11%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.11%) Debian
9 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.055%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.055%) pSOS
10 1 (0.055%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 457 (25.11%) Migration
2 414 (22.75%) Agile
3 367 (20.16%) Problem-Solving
4 328 (18.02%) Stakeholder Management
5 314 (17.25%) Data Validation
6 311 (17.09%) CI/CD
7 300 (16.48%) Analytics
8 280 (15.38%) DevOps
9 273 (15.00%) Data Migration
10 256 (14.07%) Data Modelling
11 250 (13.74%) ETL
12 239 (13.13%) User Acceptance Testing
13 222 (12.20%) Test Automation
14 202 (11.10%) Continuous Improvement
15 197 (10.82%) Business Intelligence
16 194 (10.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 192 (10.55%) AI
18 175 (9.62%) Data Governance
19 162 (8.90%) Data Pipeline
20 156 (8.57%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 460 (25.27%) SQL
2 337 (18.52%) Python
3 96 (5.27%) Java
4 85 (4.67%) JavaScript
5 68 (3.74%) C#
6 51 (2.80%) PL/SQL
7 46 (2.53%) C++
8 44 (2.42%) PowerShell
9 37 (2.03%) C
10 29 (1.59%) Bash
11 28 (1.54%) TypeScript
12 25 (1.37%) R
13 24 (1.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 22 (1.21%) Bicep
15 21 (1.15%) Ada
16 17 (0.93%) T-SQL
17 16 (0.88%) Groovy
17 16 (0.88%) Scala
18 13 (0.71%) VBA
19 10 (0.55%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 387 (21.26%) Security Cleared
2 278 (15.27%) SC Cleared
3 163 (8.96%) Degree
4 52 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
5 49 (2.69%) Computer Science Degree
6 37 (2.03%) DV Cleared
7 30 (1.65%) Master's Degree
8 29 (1.59%) PMI Certification
9 27 (1.48%) PMP
10 25 (1.37%) ISTQB
11 16 (0.88%) Cisco Certification
12 15 (0.82%) Microsoft Certification
13 14 (0.77%) CISSP
14 13 (0.71%) CBAP
14 13 (0.71%) CCNP
15 12 (0.66%) AWS Certification
15 12 (0.66%) Azure Certification
16 8 (0.44%) CCNA
16 8 (0.44%) IIBA
16 8 (0.44%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 299 (16.43%) Data Quality
2 227 (12.47%) QA
3 104 (5.71%) GDPR
4 72 (3.96%) NIST
5 61 (3.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 27 (1.48%) Accessibility
7 23 (1.26%) SLA
8 22 (1.21%) IFRS
9 19 (1.04%) IFRS 17
10 18 (0.99%) GRC
10 18 (0.99%) PMO
11 17 (0.93%) Def Stans
12 14 (0.77%) NCSC
12 14 (0.77%) PCI DSS
13 13 (0.71%) HL7
14 12 (0.66%) COBIT
15 11 (0.60%) GxP
15 11 (0.60%) MiFID
15 11 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 10 (0.55%) NIST 800
System Software
1 78 (4.29%) Docker
2 40 (2.20%) Active Directory
3 37 (2.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.37%) Firmware
5 12 (0.66%) Virtual Machines
6 11 (0.60%) VMware NSX
7 10 (0.55%) Hyper-V
7 10 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.33%) vSphere
10 5 (0.27%) NFS
11 4 (0.22%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 3 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
13 2 (0.11%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.11%) Ceph
13 2 (0.11%) KVM
13 2 (0.11%) Lustre
13 2 (0.11%) OpenAM
13 2 (0.11%) OpenDJ
13 2 (0.11%) OpenIDM
Systems Management
1 112 (6.15%) Kubernetes
2 82 (4.51%) Terraform
3 31 (1.70%) Single Sign-On
4 29 (1.59%) Ansible
4 29 (1.59%) Prometheus
5 28 (1.54%) Grafana
6 13 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
7 10 (0.55%) Kibana
7 10 (0.55%) Puppet
8 8 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 7 (0.38%) SCCM
10 6 (0.33%) FortiGate
10 6 (0.33%) Nessus
11 5 (0.27%) CASB
11 5 (0.27%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.22%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.22%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.22%) Failover Clustering
12 4 (0.22%) vMotion
12 4 (0.22%) VxRail
Vendors
1 240 (13.19%) Microsoft
2 196 (10.77%) Oracle
3 153 (8.41%) SAP
4 86 (4.73%) Databricks
5 72 (3.96%) ServiceNow
6 51 (2.80%) Salesforce
7 44 (2.42%) Splunk
8 43 (2.36%) VMware
9 37 (2.03%) Google
10 35 (1.92%) Cisco
11 30 (1.65%) Informatica
12 29 (1.59%) MuleSoft
13 28 (1.54%) Workday
14 27 (1.48%) Sage
15 21 (1.15%) Palo Alto
16 20 (1.10%) CyberArk
17 18 (0.99%) IBM
18 15 (0.82%) OpenAI
19 13 (0.71%) Dell
19 13 (0.71%) Murex