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 21 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 66 109 146
Rank change year-on-year +43 +37 -2
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,167 710 702
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.82% 2.29% 1.79%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.24% 2.63% 2.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 700 369 416
10th Percentile £357 £325 £350
25th Percentile £419 £402 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% -2.27%
75th Percentile £622 £600 £638
90th Percentile £688 £673 £840
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 75 90
10th Percentile £30.30 £28.00 £51.08
25th Percentile £41.25 £45.73 £56.91
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £68.03
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -8.13% +10.62%
75th Percentile £67.25 £66.00 £84.36
90th Percentile £76.80 £75.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £67.53
% change year-on-year +4.00% -7.45% +9.80%

All Process and 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 27,528 26,989 34,839
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 90.13% 86.89% 88.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,469 16,492 23,819
10th Percentile £300 £313 £313
25th Percentile £405 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £545
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -3.67% -0.91%
75th Percentile £625 £644 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,814 971 1,471
10th Percentile £14.81 £15.10 £14.50
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £37.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -32.03% -16.85% +23.61%
75th Percentile £49.69 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.75 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £43.90
% change year-on-year -28.14% -20.27% +25.43%

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 21 November 2025.

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 21 November 2025.

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 21 November 2025. 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 +66 529 £525 +0.48% 492
South East +7 159 £500 - 278
North of England +14 126 £430 -11.79% 115
East of England +26 114 £500 +33.33% 145
South West -2 106 £475 -18.59% 122
Midlands -17 92 £493 -0.51% 117
North West +14 78 £425 -15.00% 70
West Midlands -15 75 £500 -3.61% 78
Yorkshire -18 36 £440 +4.76% 30
East Midlands -6 17 £438 +7.69% 37
North East 0 12 £515 -26.43% 16
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 46 (3.94%) Confluence
2 33 (2.83%) SharePoint
3 24 (2.06%) Apache Spark
4 23 (1.97%) Apache Airflow
5 22 (1.89%) SAS
6 16 (1.37%) Microsoft Exchange
7 15 (1.29%) Skype for Business
8 12 (1.03%) Apache
9 8 (0.69%) CMS
10 7 (0.60%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.60%) Mattermost
11 6 (0.51%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.34%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.34%) Smallworld
12 4 (0.34%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.26%) Anypoint
13 3 (0.26%) ArcGIS
13 3 (0.26%) GeoServer
14 2 (0.17%) Jupyter
14 2 (0.17%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
Applications
1 78 (6.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 40 (3.43%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (1.89%) MS Visio
4 18 (1.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.60%) Chatbot
6 6 (0.51%) Sketch
6 6 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.17%) Simulink
9 1 (0.086%) CANalyzer
9 1 (0.086%) NASTRAN
9 1 (0.086%) Notion
9 1 (0.086%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.086%) Stateflow
9 1 (0.086%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 57 (4.88%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (1.03%) Aladdin
3 11 (0.94%) Oracle EBS
3 11 (0.94%) SAP EHS
4 10 (0.86%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (0.86%) SAP FI
5 9 (0.77%) SAP MDG
6 7 (0.60%) OpenText VIM for SAP
7 6 (0.51%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
8 5 (0.43%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.43%) Workday HCM
9 4 (0.34%) Markit EDM
9 4 (0.34%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.34%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.34%) Payment Gateway
9 4 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.34%) Teamcenter
10 3 (0.26%) Oracle Applications
10 3 (0.26%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 259 (22.19%) Azure
2 128 (10.97%) AWS
3 108 (9.25%) Azure DevOps
4 103 (8.83%) Power Platform
5 53 (4.54%) GCP
6 44 (3.77%) GitHub
7 36 (3.08%) SaaS
8 34 (2.91%) Entra ID
9 28 (2.40%) Serverless
10 26 (2.23%) GitHub Actions
10 26 (2.23%) Microsoft 365
10 26 (2.23%) Snowflake
11 23 (1.97%) OpenShift
12 21 (1.80%) OCI
13 19 (1.63%) Azure Data Factory
14 16 (1.37%) Dynamics 365
15 15 (1.29%) Azure Functions
15 15 (1.29%) dbt
16 14 (1.20%) OneDrive
17 13 (1.11%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 34 (2.91%) TCP/IP
2 32 (2.74%) Firewall
3 28 (2.40%) DNS
4 23 (1.97%) Ethernet
5 22 (1.89%) BGP
5 22 (1.89%) VPN
6 21 (1.80%) MPLS
7 16 (1.37%) WAN
8 15 (1.29%) 3GPP
8 15 (1.29%) Skype
9 14 (1.20%) LTE
10 13 (1.11%) OSPF
11 10 (0.86%) LAN
11 10 (0.86%) SSL
12 9 (0.77%) SD-WAN
12 9 (0.77%) SNMP
12 9 (0.77%) Wireless
13 8 (0.69%) DMARC
13 8 (0.69%) HTTP
13 8 (0.69%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 98 (8.40%) Power BI
2 58 (4.97%) Data Warehouse
3 43 (3.68%) Metadata
4 35 (3.00%) Tableau
5 30 (2.57%) NoSQL
6 23 (1.97%) SQL Server
7 19 (1.63%) Data Lake
7 19 (1.63%) Oracle Database
7 19 (1.63%) Relational Database
8 17 (1.46%) SAS Enterprise Guide
9 16 (1.37%) Oracle Reports
10 14 (1.20%) Amazon Redshift
10 14 (1.20%) BigQuery
11 13 (1.11%) Azure SQL Database
12 12 (1.03%) Big Data
13 11 (0.94%) PostgreSQL
13 11 (0.94%) SAP HANA
14 10 (0.86%) Geospatial Data
14 10 (0.86%) Looker
15 9 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 123 (10.54%) JIRA
2 58 (4.97%) Git
3 57 (4.88%) Jenkins
4 35 (3.00%) Selenium
5 32 (2.74%) Oracle APEX
6 29 (2.49%) GitLab
6 29 (2.49%) Postman
7 28 (2.40%) Visual Studio
8 23 (1.97%) Eclipse
9 16 (1.37%) Rational DOORS
10 15 (1.29%) TestRail
11 14 (1.20%) Cucumber
12 12 (1.03%) JUnit
12 12 (1.03%) Zephyr
13 10 (0.86%) Bitbucket
13 10 (0.86%) JMeter
14 7 (0.60%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.60%) MLflow
14 7 (0.60%) REST Assured
15 6 (0.51%) SpecFlow
General
1 489 (41.90%) Social Skills
2 311 (26.65%) Finance
3 261 (22.37%) Analytical Skills
4 107 (9.17%) Public Sector
5 80 (6.86%) Banking
6 74 (6.34%) Documentation Skills
7 55 (4.71%) Presentation Skills
8 34 (2.91%) Military
9 32 (2.74%) Aerospace
10 29 (2.49%) Marketing
10 29 (2.49%) Telecoms
11 27 (2.31%) Electronics
11 27 (2.31%) Front Office
12 26 (2.23%) Investment Banking
13 24 (2.06%) Pharmaceutical
14 23 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
15 22 (1.89%) Manufacturing
16 21 (1.80%) Organisational Skills
17 17 (1.46%) Automotive
18 15 (1.29%) Legal
Job Titles
1 233 (19.97%) Analyst
2 113 (9.68%) Senior
3 102 (8.74%) Consultant
4 101 (8.65%) Developer
5 100 (8.57%) Business Analyst
6 87 (7.46%) Lead
7 64 (5.48%) Data Analyst
8 48 (4.11%) Architect
8 48 (4.11%) Software Engineer
9 43 (3.68%) Tester
10 37 (3.17%) Data Engineer
11 35 (3.00%) Senior Developer
12 34 (2.91%) SAP Consultant
13 33 (2.83%) Data Scientist
14 28 (2.40%) Test Analyst
15 24 (2.06%) Project Manager
15 24 (2.06%) QA Engineer
16 21 (1.80%) C# Software Engineer
16 21 (1.80%) C++ Software Engineer
16 21 (1.80%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 61 (5.23%) REST
2 43 (3.68%) JSON
3 37 (3.17%) Node.js
4 34 (2.91%) XML
5 31 (2.66%) Web Services
6 30 (2.57%) Oracle Fusion
7 29 (2.49%) SOAP
8 27 (2.31%) .NET
9 26 (2.23%) RESTful
10 19 (1.63%) OAuth
10 19 (1.63%) SAP Fiori
11 18 (1.54%) Middleware
12 17 (1.46%) Kafka
13 16 (1.37%) Playwright
14 15 (1.29%) PyTorch
15 13 (1.11%) Pandas
15 13 (1.11%) React
15 13 (1.11%) TensorFlow
16 12 (1.03%) pytest
16 12 (1.03%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 48 (4.11%) Legacy Systems
2 44 (3.77%) Product Ownership
3 40 (3.43%) Data Structures
4 37 (3.17%) Onboarding
5 35 (3.00%) Management Information System
6 30 (2.57%) FPGA
7 28 (2.40%) Cloud Native
8 24 (2.06%) Data Centre
9 22 (1.89%) Data Protection Act
10 18 (1.54%) Algorithms
10 18 (1.54%) Derivative
10 18 (1.54%) IoT
11 16 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
12 15 (1.29%) Analytical Mindset
12 15 (1.29%) NB-IoT
12 15 (1.29%) Virtual Team
13 13 (1.11%) SCADA
13 13 (1.11%) Security Posture
13 13 (1.11%) Self-Motivation
14 12 (1.03%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 102 (8.74%) Linux
2 81 (6.94%) Windows
3 26 (2.23%) Unix
4 8 (0.69%) Windows Server
5 7 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.51%) Android
7 4 (0.34%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.34%) VMS
8 2 (0.17%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
8 2 (0.17%) zOS
9 1 (0.086%) Debian
9 1 (0.086%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.086%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.086%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.086%) MVS
9 1 (0.086%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.086%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.086%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.086%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 329 (28.19%) Agile
2 276 (23.65%) Problem-Solving
3 235 (20.14%) Migration
4 208 (17.82%) DevOps
5 194 (16.62%) CI/CD
6 183 (15.68%) Analytics
7 175 (15.00%) Data Validation
8 163 (13.97%) Stakeholder Management
9 145 (12.43%) Test Automation
10 129 (11.05%) Data Migration
11 125 (10.71%) Business Intelligence
12 114 (9.77%) Data Analysis
13 113 (9.68%) Data Modelling
14 111 (9.51%) User Acceptance Testing
15 109 (9.34%) ETL
16 107 (9.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 106 (9.08%) Data Governance
18 105 (9.00%) AI
19 101 (8.65%) Visualisation
20 100 (8.57%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 292 (25.02%) SQL
2 271 (23.22%) Python
3 95 (8.14%) JavaScript
4 68 (5.83%) C#
5 63 (5.40%) Java
6 53 (4.54%) C++
7 47 (4.03%) PL/SQL
8 38 (3.26%) Bash
8 38 (3.26%) PowerShell
9 26 (2.23%) R
10 18 (1.54%) TypeScript
11 17 (1.46%) C
12 16 (1.37%) Shell Script
13 15 (1.29%) VBA
14 13 (1.11%) T-SQL
15 11 (0.94%) ABAP
15 11 (0.94%) Groovy
16 9 (0.77%) Apex Code
16 9 (0.77%) Tcl
17 8 (0.69%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 266 (22.79%) Security Cleared
2 206 (17.65%) SC Cleared
3 135 (11.57%) Degree
4 37 (3.17%) Computer Science Degree
5 30 (2.57%) DV Cleared
6 26 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
6 26 (2.23%) Master's Degree
7 23 (1.97%) ISTQB
8 19 (1.63%) Cisco Certification
9 17 (1.46%) AWS Certification
9 17 (1.46%) PMI Certification
10 14 (1.20%) PhD
11 12 (1.03%) CCNP
11 12 (1.03%) CISSP
12 10 (0.86%) CBAP
12 10 (0.86%) Oracle Certification
13 9 (0.77%) CCIE
13 9 (0.77%) ITIL Certification
13 9 (0.77%) PMP
14 8 (0.69%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 138 (11.83%) QA
2 129 (11.05%) Data Quality
3 50 (4.28%) GDPR
4 40 (3.43%) NIST
5 25 (2.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 22 (1.89%) Accessibility
7 14 (1.20%) EU AI Act
8 10 (0.86%) Def Stans
8 10 (0.86%) MiFID
9 8 (0.69%) COBIT
9 8 (0.69%) EMIR
9 8 (0.69%) GxP
9 8 (0.69%) PCI DSS
10 7 (0.60%) IFRS
10 7 (0.60%) MISRA
11 6 (0.51%) DO-178B
11 6 (0.51%) NCSC
11 6 (0.51%) PMO
11 6 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 4 (0.34%) HL7
System Software
1 46 (3.94%) Active Directory
2 37 (3.17%) Docker
3 35 (3.00%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (1.63%) VMware ESXi
5 16 (1.37%) Firmware
6 14 (1.20%) vSphere
7 9 (0.77%) VMware NSX
8 6 (0.51%) Dovecot
8 6 (0.51%) Postfix
9 3 (0.26%) QEMU
9 3 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
10 2 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.086%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.086%) Hyper-V
11 1 (0.086%) KVM
11 1 (0.086%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.086%) Squid
11 1 (0.086%) Time Sharing Option
11 1 (0.086%) Veritas Cluster Server
Systems Management
1 50 (4.28%) Kubernetes
2 47 (4.03%) Ansible
3 43 (3.68%) Terraform
4 14 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
5 11 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
6 10 (0.86%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 10 (0.86%) SCCM
7 9 (0.77%) Nessus
8 8 (0.69%) Argo
8 8 (0.69%) Istio
8 8 (0.69%) SCOM
9 7 (0.60%) Grafana
9 7 (0.60%) HP SiteScope
9 7 (0.60%) Puppet
10 6 (0.51%) Kibana
10 6 (0.51%) Nmap
11 5 (0.43%) HP ALM
11 5 (0.43%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.34%) CASB
12 4 (0.34%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 193 (16.54%) Microsoft
2 133 (11.40%) Oracle
3 89 (7.63%) SAP
4 52 (4.46%) VMware
5 51 (4.37%) ServiceNow
6 39 (3.34%) Salesforce
7 35 (3.00%) Cisco
8 28 (2.40%) Splunk
9 27 (2.31%) Databricks
10 23 (1.97%) Google
11 22 (1.89%) Workday
12 14 (1.20%) MuleSoft
12 14 (1.20%) Red Hat
12 14 (1.20%) Remedy
13 13 (1.11%) IBM
14 11 (0.94%) EMC
15 10 (0.86%) CyberArk
15 10 (0.86%) F5
15 10 (0.86%) Fortinet
15 10 (0.86%) Informatica