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

6 months to
6 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 71 113
Rank change year-on-year +34 +42 +37
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,128 845 736
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.05% 3.49% 1.99%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.93% 3.83% 2.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,294 520 368
10th Percentile £325 £350 £324
25th Percentile £410 £418 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -13.04%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £588
90th Percentile £704 £716 £675
UK median daily rate £496 £525 £515
% change year-on-year -5.62% +1.94% -7.21%
Number of hourly rates quoted 144 55 168
10th Percentile £17.75 £17.19 £26.88
25th Percentile £32.32 £36.99 £51.25
Median hourly rate £62.82 £57.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.77% -3.75% -4.00%
75th Percentile £74.44 £68.75 £72.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £76.50 £76.86
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £57.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -4.94%

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 35,884 22,080 31,645
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.08% 91.32% 85.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,739 14,300 20,579
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,242 984 2,330
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.82
25th Percentile £20.80 £18.12 £16.00
Median hourly rate £47.50 £28.53 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +66.52% -23.93% +1.99%
75th Percentile £68.00 £59.45 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.00 £74.63 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £27.76 £36.50
% change year-on-year +58.36% -23.95% +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 6 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 6 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 6 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 1,014 £513 -6.82% 393
North of England +43 293 £437 -5.46% 169
Midlands +35 264 £500 +14.29% 141
South East -2 245 £500 - 233
West Midlands +24 189 £490 +21.43% 88
North West +34 170 £420 -5.35% 91
South West +4 130 £500 -13.04% 124
East of England +9 127 £488 +8.33% 107
Yorkshire +15 110 £458 +1.67% 59
East Midlands +19 70 £525 +16.67% 53
North East -15 16 £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 74 (3.48%) Confluence
2 56 (2.63%) Apache Airflow
3 43 (2.02%) SAS
4 41 (1.93%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.17%) SharePoint
6 21 (0.99%) Apache
7 13 (0.61%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.42%) Appian
9 8 (0.38%) Microsoft Exchange
10 7 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.28%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.23%) CMS
13 4 (0.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 3 (0.14%) Anypoint
14 3 (0.14%) Apache Pulsar
14 3 (0.14%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
14 3 (0.14%) Oracle Self-Service HR
14 3 (0.14%) SharePoint 2013
14 3 (0.14%) Tomcat
15 2 (0.094%) IIS
Applications
1 138 (6.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (1.41%) MS Visio
3 23 (1.08%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 20 (0.94%) Spreadsheet
6 6 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.19%) AutoCAD
7 4 (0.19%) CATIA
7 4 (0.19%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.19%) Simulink
8 3 (0.14%) LaTeX
9 2 (0.094%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.094%) EPLAN
9 2 (0.094%) Sketch
10 1 (0.047%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.047%) CANalyzer
10 1 (0.047%) MicroStation
10 1 (0.047%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.047%) UXPin
10 1 (0.047%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 108 (5.08%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.32%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.70%) Teamcenter
4 14 (0.66%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 13 (0.61%) Oracle Payables
6 12 (0.56%) Oracle General Ledger
6 12 (0.56%) Workday HCM
7 10 (0.47%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.38%) Aladdin
8 8 (0.38%) Oracle Financials
8 8 (0.38%) Payment Gateway
8 8 (0.38%) SAP ERP
9 7 (0.33%) Oracle EBS R12
9 7 (0.33%) Oracle Receivables
9 7 (0.33%) Sage X3
9 7 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
10 6 (0.28%) NetSuite
10 6 (0.28%) SAP Business One
10 6 (0.28%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 439 (20.63%) Azure
2 268 (12.59%) AWS
3 202 (9.49%) Power Platform
4 117 (5.50%) GCP
5 109 (5.12%) Azure DevOps
6 105 (4.93%) GitHub
7 68 (3.20%) Snowflake
8 60 (2.82%) GitHub Actions
9 58 (2.73%) Azure Data Factory
9 58 (2.73%) Entra ID
10 50 (2.35%) Serverless
11 48 (2.26%) SaaS
12 41 (1.93%) Amazon S3
13 39 (1.83%) OCI
14 35 (1.64%) dbt
14 35 (1.64%) Microsoft 365
15 34 (1.60%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 26 (1.22%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 23 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
17 23 (1.08%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 84 (3.95%) Firewall
2 56 (2.63%) Network Security
3 37 (1.74%) VLAN
4 35 (1.64%) DNS
5 31 (1.46%) TCP/IP
6 28 (1.32%) VPN
6 28 (1.32%) WAN
7 19 (0.89%) Ethernet
7 19 (0.89%) SAN
8 18 (0.85%) LAN
9 16 (0.75%) BGP
9 16 (0.75%) SD-WAN
10 15 (0.70%) OSPF
10 15 (0.70%) Wireless
11 14 (0.66%) Internet
12 13 (0.61%) DHCP
12 13 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
13 12 (0.56%) NAS
14 11 (0.52%) Cisco ISE
15 10 (0.47%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 186 (8.74%) Power BI
2 114 (5.36%) Data Warehouse
3 74 (3.48%) Metadata
3 74 (3.48%) SQL Server
4 65 (3.05%) Tableau
5 63 (2.96%) Data Lake
6 53 (2.49%) PostgreSQL
7 38 (1.79%) Relational Database
8 30 (1.41%) Big Data
9 28 (1.32%) Amazon Redshift
9 28 (1.32%) Oracle Database
10 27 (1.27%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 25 (1.17%) NoSQL
12 23 (1.08%) BigQuery
12 23 (1.08%) Oracle Reports
13 21 (0.99%) Delta Lake
13 21 (0.99%) Power Query
13 21 (0.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 20 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
15 16 (0.75%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 200 (9.40%) JIRA
2 113 (5.31%) Git
3 87 (4.09%) Jenkins
4 61 (2.87%) GitLab
5 52 (2.44%) Selenium
6 45 (2.11%) Postman
7 40 (1.88%) JMeter
8 35 (1.64%) JUnit
9 34 (1.60%) Cucumber
10 30 (1.41%) WebDriver
11 26 (1.22%) Rational DOORS
12 16 (0.75%) Eclipse
12 16 (0.75%) Rational Rhapsody
12 16 (0.75%) Visual Studio
13 15 (0.70%) MLflow
14 10 (0.47%) Gradle
14 10 (0.47%) Maven
15 9 (0.42%) Gatling
15 9 (0.42%) REST Assured
16 8 (0.38%) Bitbucket
General
1 642 (30.17%) Finance
2 633 (29.75%) Social Skills
3 386 (18.14%) Analytical Skills
4 179 (8.41%) Banking
5 174 (8.18%) Public Sector
6 119 (5.59%) Documentation Skills
7 66 (3.10%) Manufacturing
8 58 (2.73%) Aerospace
9 49 (2.30%) Retail
10 40 (1.88%) Organisational Skills
11 38 (1.79%) Pharmaceutical
11 38 (1.79%) Presentation Skills
12 35 (1.64%) Marketing
13 34 (1.60%) Front Office
14 33 (1.55%) General Ledger
14 33 (1.55%) Legal
15 32 (1.50%) Influencing Skills
16 31 (1.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 29 (1.36%) Law
17 29 (1.36%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 366 (17.20%) Analyst
2 223 (10.48%) Lead
3 197 (9.26%) Senior
4 174 (8.18%) Business Analyst
5 165 (7.75%) Data Engineer
6 145 (6.81%) Consultant
7 133 (6.25%) Architect
8 120 (5.64%) Developer
9 103 (4.84%) Data Analyst
10 74 (3.48%) Project Manager
11 61 (2.87%) Test Engineer
12 57 (2.68%) Tester
13 44 (2.07%) Software Engineer
13 44 (2.07%) Test Manager
14 39 (1.83%) Network Engineer
14 39 (1.83%) Systems Engineer
15 38 (1.79%) Security Engineer
15 38 (1.79%) Senior Analyst
16 36 (1.69%) Migration Engineer
17 34 (1.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (5.26%) REST
2 70 (3.29%) JSON
3 67 (3.15%) Kafka
4 52 (2.44%) Oracle Fusion
5 46 (2.16%) XML
6 44 (2.07%) OAuth
7 41 (1.93%) Middleware
8 39 (1.83%) PySpark
9 37 (1.74%) Swagger
10 36 (1.69%) .NET
11 35 (1.64%) RESTful
12 34 (1.60%) SOAP
13 33 (1.55%) Spring
14 32 (1.50%) Pandas
15 31 (1.46%) Web Services
16 30 (1.41%) pytest
17 29 (1.36%) Node.js
18 26 (1.22%) PyTorch
19 25 (1.17%) OAuth2
20 24 (1.13%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 121 (5.69%) Legacy Systems
2 101 (4.75%) Data Structures
3 100 (4.70%) Onboarding
4 90 (4.23%) Product Ownership
5 79 (3.71%) Cloud Native
6 62 (2.91%) Data Centre
7 48 (2.26%) Management Information System
8 43 (2.02%) Analytical Mindset
8 43 (2.02%) Distributed Systems
9 31 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
10 29 (1.36%) SCADA
11 27 (1.27%) Public Cloud
12 26 (1.22%) AI Agents
12 26 (1.22%) Algorithms
12 26 (1.22%) Life Science
12 26 (1.22%) Replication
13 24 (1.13%) Greenfield Project
13 24 (1.13%) Hybrid Cloud
13 24 (1.13%) Operational Technology
14 23 (1.08%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 113 (5.31%) Windows
2 81 (3.81%) Linux
3 27 (1.27%) Unix
4 17 (0.80%) Windows Server
5 12 (0.56%) Android
5 12 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.28%) VMS
6 6 (0.28%) Windows 10
7 4 (0.19%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.19%) SUSE
8 3 (0.14%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.094%) HPUX
9 2 (0.094%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.094%) VxWorks
9 2 (0.094%) zOS
10 1 (0.047%) Debian
10 1 (0.047%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.047%) pSOS
10 1 (0.047%) Solaris
10 1 (0.047%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 578 (27.16%) Migration
2 406 (19.08%) Agile
3 371 (17.43%) Stakeholder Management
4 360 (16.92%) Data Validation
5 355 (16.68%) Problem-Solving
6 353 (16.59%) CI/CD
7 352 (16.54%) Data Migration
8 335 (15.74%) User Acceptance Testing
9 324 (15.23%) Analytics
10 322 (15.13%) Data Modelling
11 278 (13.06%) ETL
12 272 (12.78%) DevOps
13 259 (12.17%) AI
14 248 (11.65%) Test Automation
15 228 (10.71%) Business Intelligence
16 225 (10.57%) Continuous Improvement
17 220 (10.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 200 (9.40%) Data Analysis
18 200 (9.40%) Data Governance
19 192 (9.02%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 507 (23.83%) SQL
2 371 (17.43%) Python
3 108 (5.08%) Java
4 55 (2.58%) PowerShell
5 53 (2.49%) C#
6 42 (1.97%) C++
7 38 (1.79%) Bash
7 38 (1.79%) JavaScript
8 36 (1.69%) C
9 28 (1.32%) Bicep
9 28 (1.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 25 (1.17%) PL/SQL
10 25 (1.17%) TypeScript
11 24 (1.13%) Apex Code
12 23 (1.08%) R
13 22 (1.03%) Ada
14 17 (0.80%) Scala
15 16 (0.75%) MATLAB
16 12 (0.56%) VBA
17 10 (0.47%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 397 (18.66%) Security Cleared
2 289 (13.58%) SC Cleared
3 161 (7.57%) Degree
4 53 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
5 48 (2.26%) Computer Science Degree
6 43 (2.02%) DV Cleared
7 28 (1.32%) PMI Certification
8 24 (1.13%) Cisco Certification
9 22 (1.03%) PMP
10 21 (0.99%) Master's Degree
11 19 (0.89%) CCNP
12 17 (0.80%) ACCA
13 16 (0.75%) CISSP
13 16 (0.75%) ISTQB
14 15 (0.70%) CIMA
15 14 (0.66%) Microsoft Certification
16 12 (0.56%) AWS Certification
16 12 (0.56%) Azure Certification
17 9 (0.42%) CCNA
18 8 (0.38%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 366 (17.20%) Data Quality
2 249 (11.70%) QA
3 104 (4.89%) GDPR
4 62 (2.91%) NIST
5 52 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 31 (1.46%) Accessibility
7 27 (1.27%) IFRS
8 26 (1.22%) PMO
9 25 (1.17%) SLA
10 19 (0.89%) GRC
11 18 (0.85%) IFRS 17
12 17 (0.80%) Def Stans
12 17 (0.80%) GxP
13 14 (0.66%) HL7
14 13 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
14 13 (0.61%) PCI DSS
14 13 (0.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.52%) ISO 20022
16 11 (0.52%) Solvency II
System Software
1 92 (4.32%) Docker
2 49 (2.30%) Active Directory
3 43 (2.02%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.94%) Virtual Machines
5 18 (0.85%) Firmware
6 14 (0.66%) Hyper-V
7 12 (0.56%) VMware ESXi
7 12 (0.56%) VMware NSX
8 9 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
9 8 (0.38%) vSphere
10 5 (0.23%) NFS
11 4 (0.19%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 2 (0.094%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.094%) KVM
12 2 (0.094%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.094%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.094%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.047%) OpenSSH
13 1 (0.047%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.047%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 135 (6.34%) Kubernetes
2 93 (4.37%) Terraform
3 49 (2.30%) Prometheus
4 44 (2.07%) Grafana
5 39 (1.83%) Ansible
6 26 (1.22%) Single Sign-On
7 19 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
8 11 (0.52%) FortiGate
9 9 (0.42%) Kibana
10 8 (0.38%) Puppet
10 8 (0.38%) SCCM
11 7 (0.33%) vCenter Server
12 6 (0.28%) Nessus
13 5 (0.23%) vMotion
14 4 (0.19%) Argo
14 4 (0.19%) CASB
14 4 (0.19%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
14 4 (0.19%) Istio
14 4 (0.19%) VxRail
Vendors
1 287 (13.49%) Microsoft
2 190 (8.93%) SAP
3 181 (8.51%) Oracle
4 104 (4.89%) Databricks
5 75 (3.52%) Salesforce
6 59 (2.77%) ServiceNow
7 52 (2.44%) VMware
8 43 (2.02%) Cisco
9 42 (1.97%) Splunk
10 34 (1.60%) Google
11 30 (1.41%) Informatica
12 29 (1.36%) Workday
13 26 (1.22%) Sage
14 24 (1.13%) MuleSoft
15 23 (1.08%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.99%) IFS
17 19 (0.89%) CyberArk
17 19 (0.89%) IBM
18 18 (0.85%) Fortinet
19 16 (0.75%) OpenAI