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

6 months to
25 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 72 113
Rank change year-on-year +33 +41 +37
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,020 809 726
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.88% 3.37% 1.99%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.76% 3.70% 2.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,237 500 364
10th Percentile £325 £350 £320
25th Percentile £403 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -11.11%
75th Percentile £590 £630 £588
90th Percentile £700 £704 £684
UK median daily rate £488 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -7.14% +5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 136 52 165
10th Percentile £17.49 £16.67 £26.88
25th Percentile £30.02 £37.25 £52.50
Median hourly rate £62.82 £57.63 £61.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.01% -5.53% -2.40%
75th Percentile £72.94 £65.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £76.86
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £56.04 £60.00
% change year-on-year +7.07% -6.60% -6.42%

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 35,064 21,889 31,425
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.71% 91.30% 86.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,297 14,308 20,582
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £510 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,170 926 2,283
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.35 £12.88
25th Percentile £20.39 £18.13 £16.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £28.18 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.69% -22.79% -2.46%
75th Percentile £67.84 £60.00 £61.25
90th Percentile £80.28 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.13 £27.59 £36.05
% change year-on-year +52.71% -23.47% -0.22%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 +55 978 £510 -7.27% 294
North of England +39 274 £435 -3.33% 140
Midlands +36 248 £495 +8.86% 92
South East -10 225 £490 -2.00% 190
West Midlands +29 176 £481 +9.94% 58
North West +26 164 £420 -4.00% 83
East of England +8 122 £475 +5.56% 86
South West +3 120 £475 -17.39% 94
Yorkshire +12 99 £451 +0.11% 37
East Midlands +18 68 £525 +14.38% 33
North East -16 14 £438 -25.53% 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 80 (3.96%) Confluence
2 47 (2.33%) Apache Airflow
3 36 (1.78%) Apache Spark
4 34 (1.68%) SAS
5 18 (0.89%) Apache
6 15 (0.74%) SharePoint
7 11 (0.54%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.45%) Appian
9 8 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
10 7 (0.35%) ArcGIS
10 7 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.20%) CMS
11 4 (0.20%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
11 4 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.15%) Oracle Self-Service HR
12 3 (0.15%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.099%) Documentum
13 2 (0.099%) Exchange Server 2013
13 2 (0.099%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.099%) Umbraco
Applications
1 140 (6.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (1.49%) MS Visio
3 24 (1.19%) Microsoft Office
4 19 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 18 (0.89%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.20%) CATIA
7 4 (0.20%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.15%) AutoCAD
8 3 (0.15%) LaTeX
8 3 (0.15%) Notion
8 3 (0.15%) Simulink
9 2 (0.099%) EPLAN
9 2 (0.099%) Sketch
10 1 (0.050%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.050%) CANalyzer
10 1 (0.050%) MicroStation
10 1 (0.050%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.050%) UXPin
10 1 (0.050%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 95 (4.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.49%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.74%) Teamcenter
4 14 (0.69%) Oracle General Ledger
4 14 (0.69%) Oracle Payables
4 14 (0.69%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 12 (0.59%) Workday HCM
6 10 (0.50%) NetSuite
6 10 (0.50%) Oracle Assets
7 8 (0.40%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
7 8 (0.40%) Oracle EBS R12
7 8 (0.40%) Oracle Receivables
7 8 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
7 8 (0.40%) SAP ERP
8 7 (0.35%) Oracle Financials
9 6 (0.30%) Sage X3
9 6 (0.30%) SAP Business One
10 5 (0.25%) Oracle E-Business Tax
10 5 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 397 (19.65%) Azure
2 241 (11.93%) AWS
3 200 (9.90%) Power Platform
4 103 (5.10%) GCP
5 96 (4.75%) Azure DevOps
6 93 (4.60%) GitHub
7 60 (2.97%) Snowflake
8 59 (2.92%) Azure Data Factory
9 51 (2.52%) Entra ID
9 51 (2.52%) SaaS
10 49 (2.43%) GitHub Actions
11 46 (2.28%) Serverless
12 41 (2.03%) OCI
13 38 (1.88%) Amazon S3
14 35 (1.73%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 32 (1.58%) dbt
16 30 (1.49%) Microsoft 365
17 21 (1.04%) Power Automate
17 21 (1.04%) SuccessFactors
18 20 (0.99%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 82 (4.06%) Firewall
2 56 (2.77%) Network Security
3 37 (1.83%) VLAN
4 31 (1.53%) DNS
5 30 (1.49%) TCP/IP
6 26 (1.29%) VPN
7 25 (1.24%) WAN
8 18 (0.89%) Ethernet
9 17 (0.84%) LAN
10 16 (0.79%) SAN
11 14 (0.69%) SD-WAN
12 13 (0.64%) BGP
12 13 (0.64%) OSPF
12 13 (0.64%) Wireless
13 12 (0.59%) DHCP
13 12 (0.59%) NAS
13 12 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
14 11 (0.54%) Cisco ISE
15 10 (0.50%) TACACS
16 9 (0.45%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 187 (9.26%) Power BI
2 114 (5.64%) Data Warehouse
3 77 (3.81%) Metadata
4 70 (3.47%) SQL Server
4 70 (3.47%) Tableau
5 60 (2.97%) Data Lake
6 47 (2.33%) PostgreSQL
7 36 (1.78%) Relational Database
8 26 (1.29%) Amazon Redshift
8 26 (1.29%) Big Data
9 25 (1.24%) NoSQL
10 24 (1.19%) Oracle Reports
11 23 (1.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 22 (1.09%) Delta Lake
13 21 (1.04%) BigQuery
13 21 (1.04%) Oracle Database
14 20 (0.99%) Power Query
15 19 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
16 18 (0.89%) SAS Enterprise Guide
17 16 (0.79%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 190 (9.41%) JIRA
2 105 (5.20%) Git
3 78 (3.86%) Jenkins
4 50 (2.48%) Selenium
5 49 (2.43%) GitLab
6 47 (2.33%) Postman
7 38 (1.88%) JMeter
8 31 (1.53%) JUnit
9 30 (1.49%) Cucumber
10 25 (1.24%) Rational DOORS
10 25 (1.24%) WebDriver
11 15 (0.74%) MLflow
12 14 (0.69%) Eclipse
12 14 (0.69%) Visual Studio
13 13 (0.64%) Rational Rhapsody
14 11 (0.54%) Gatling
15 10 (0.50%) Bitbucket
15 10 (0.50%) Gradle
15 10 (0.50%) Maven
15 10 (0.50%) REST Assured
General
1 619 (30.64%) Finance
2 617 (30.54%) Social Skills
3 380 (18.81%) Analytical Skills
4 171 (8.47%) Banking
5 165 (8.17%) Public Sector
6 109 (5.40%) Documentation Skills
7 62 (3.07%) Manufacturing
8 51 (2.52%) Aerospace
9 45 (2.23%) Retail
10 41 (2.03%) Presentation Skills
11 40 (1.98%) Organisational Skills
12 34 (1.68%) Pharmaceutical
13 32 (1.58%) Marketing
14 31 (1.53%) Front Office
14 31 (1.53%) General Ledger
14 31 (1.53%) Influencing Skills
15 30 (1.49%) Legal
16 28 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 28 (1.39%) Local Government
16 28 (1.39%) Military
Job Titles
1 366 (18.12%) Analyst
2 211 (10.45%) Lead
3 179 (8.86%) Senior
4 165 (8.17%) Data Engineer
5 163 (8.07%) Business Analyst
6 131 (6.49%) Consultant
7 128 (6.34%) Architect
8 108 (5.35%) Developer
9 104 (5.15%) Data Analyst
10 77 (3.81%) Project Manager
11 54 (2.67%) Tester
12 53 (2.62%) Test Engineer
13 43 (2.13%) Software Engineer
14 39 (1.93%) Network Engineer
14 39 (1.93%) Senior Analyst
14 39 (1.93%) Test Manager
15 38 (1.88%) Security Engineer
15 38 (1.88%) Systems Engineer
16 33 (1.63%) Migration Engineer
16 33 (1.63%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (5.10%) REST
2 73 (3.61%) JSON
3 68 (3.37%) Kafka
4 51 (2.52%) Oracle Fusion
5 47 (2.33%) XML
6 46 (2.28%) Middleware
7 44 (2.18%) OAuth
8 39 (1.93%) PySpark
9 37 (1.83%) Swagger
10 33 (1.63%) .NET
10 33 (1.63%) RESTful
11 32 (1.58%) Pandas
12 31 (1.53%) SOAP
13 30 (1.49%) Spring
14 29 (1.44%) Node.js
15 28 (1.39%) Web Services
16 26 (1.29%) PyTorch
17 25 (1.24%) OAuth2
17 25 (1.24%) pytest
18 24 (1.19%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 120 (5.94%) Legacy Systems
2 102 (5.05%) Data Structures
3 100 (4.95%) Onboarding
4 82 (4.06%) Product Ownership
5 69 (3.42%) Cloud Native
6 62 (3.07%) Data Centre
7 50 (2.48%) Management Information System
8 38 (1.88%) Analytical Mindset
9 35 (1.73%) Distributed Systems
10 30 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
11 26 (1.29%) Public Cloud
12 25 (1.24%) Replication
13 24 (1.19%) Greenfield Project
13 24 (1.19%) SCADA
14 23 (1.14%) Algorithms
14 23 (1.14%) Hybrid Cloud
15 21 (1.04%) Operational Technology
15 21 (1.04%) Reference Data
16 20 (0.99%) AI Agents
16 20 (0.99%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 102 (5.05%) Windows
2 77 (3.81%) Linux
3 26 (1.29%) Unix
4 14 (0.69%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.50%) Android
5 10 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.25%) VMS
6 5 (0.25%) Windows 10
7 4 (0.20%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.20%) SUSE
7 4 (0.20%) zOS
8 2 (0.099%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.050%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.050%) Debian
9 1 (0.050%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.050%) HPUX
9 1 (0.050%) pSOS
9 1 (0.050%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 557 (27.57%) Migration
2 389 (19.26%) Agile
3 360 (17.82%) Problem-Solving
4 348 (17.23%) Stakeholder Management
5 345 (17.08%) Data Validation
6 342 (16.93%) Data Migration
7 314 (15.54%) CI/CD
8 313 (15.50%) Data Modelling
9 309 (15.30%) User Acceptance Testing
10 302 (14.95%) Analytics
11 276 (13.66%) ETL
12 249 (12.33%) DevOps
13 228 (11.29%) Test Automation
14 226 (11.19%) Business Intelligence
15 224 (11.09%) AI
16 215 (10.64%) Continuous Improvement
17 209 (10.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 191 (9.46%) Data Governance
19 183 (9.06%) Data Analysis
20 180 (8.91%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 493 (24.41%) SQL
2 351 (17.38%) Python
3 103 (5.10%) Java
4 52 (2.57%) C#
5 46 (2.28%) PowerShell
6 41 (2.03%) C++
7 39 (1.93%) C
8 38 (1.88%) JavaScript
9 37 (1.83%) Bash
10 27 (1.34%) Bicep
10 27 (1.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 26 (1.29%) PL/SQL
11 26 (1.29%) TypeScript
12 25 (1.24%) R
13 21 (1.04%) Apex Code
14 20 (0.99%) Ada
15 18 (0.89%) Scala
16 14 (0.69%) MATLAB
17 12 (0.59%) VBA
18 10 (0.50%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 376 (18.61%) Security Cleared
2 271 (13.42%) SC Cleared
3 161 (7.97%) Degree
4 46 (2.28%) Computer Science Degree
5 45 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
6 37 (1.83%) DV Cleared
7 33 (1.63%) PMI Certification
8 27 (1.34%) PMP
9 25 (1.24%) Master's Degree
10 24 (1.19%) Cisco Certification
11 19 (0.94%) CCNP
12 16 (0.79%) CISSP
12 16 (0.79%) ISTQB
13 15 (0.74%) ACCA
13 15 (0.74%) CBAP
14 13 (0.64%) CIMA
14 13 (0.64%) Microsoft Certification
15 12 (0.59%) AWS Certification
16 11 (0.54%) Azure Certification
17 9 (0.45%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 346 (17.13%) Data Quality
2 238 (11.78%) QA
3 101 (5.00%) GDPR
4 64 (3.17%) NIST
5 53 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 24 (1.19%) Accessibility
6 24 (1.19%) SLA
7 23 (1.14%) IFRS
7 23 (1.14%) PMO
8 18 (0.89%) GRC
8 18 (0.89%) IFRS 17
9 17 (0.84%) Def Stans
10 14 (0.69%) GxP
10 14 (0.69%) HL7
11 13 (0.64%) MiFID
11 13 (0.64%) PCI DSS
12 12 (0.59%) NCSC
12 12 (0.59%) NIST 800
12 12 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.54%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 83 (4.11%) Docker
2 44 (2.18%) Active Directory
3 40 (1.98%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.94%) Firmware
4 19 (0.94%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (0.69%) Hyper-V
6 13 (0.64%) VMware NSX
7 11 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
9 8 (0.40%) vSphere
10 5 (0.25%) NFS
11 4 (0.20%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 2 (0.099%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.099%) Ceph
12 2 (0.099%) KVM
12 2 (0.099%) Lustre
12 2 (0.099%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 2 (0.099%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.099%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.050%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 128 (6.34%) Kubernetes
2 86 (4.26%) Terraform
3 45 (2.23%) Prometheus
4 43 (2.13%) Grafana
5 40 (1.98%) Ansible
6 26 (1.29%) Single Sign-On
7 16 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
8 11 (0.54%) FortiGate
8 11 (0.54%) Kibana
9 10 (0.50%) Puppet
10 8 (0.40%) SCCM
11 7 (0.35%) vCenter Server
12 6 (0.30%) Nessus
13 5 (0.25%) CASB
13 5 (0.25%) vMotion
14 4 (0.20%) Argo
14 4 (0.20%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.20%) Failover Clustering
14 4 (0.20%) Istio
14 4 (0.20%) VxRail
Vendors
1 275 (13.61%) Microsoft
2 174 (8.61%) SAP
3 173 (8.56%) Oracle
4 99 (4.90%) Databricks
5 69 (3.42%) Salesforce
6 57 (2.82%) ServiceNow
7 49 (2.43%) VMware
8 44 (2.18%) Cisco
9 40 (1.98%) Splunk
10 32 (1.58%) Google
11 30 (1.49%) Informatica
12 28 (1.39%) Workday
13 24 (1.19%) Palo Alto
13 24 (1.19%) Sage
14 22 (1.09%) MuleSoft
15 21 (1.04%) IFS
16 20 (0.99%) CyberArk
16 20 (0.99%) IBM
17 16 (0.79%) Fortinet
17 16 (0.79%) OpenAI