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

6 months to
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 83 118
Rank change year-on-year +40 +35 +25
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,900 743 708
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.73% 3.04% 1.92%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.57% 3.33% 2.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,172 448 369
10th Percentile £320 £354 £313
25th Percentile £400 £418 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £538 £500
Median % change year-on-year -11.16% +7.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £600
90th Percentile £700 £718 £700
UK median daily rate £475 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -9.52% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 111 50 153
10th Percentile £17.75 £25.25 £24.19
25th Percentile £50.63 £47.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.63 £61.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.80% -5.53% -1.21%
75th Percentile £72.00 £65.00 £75.16
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £86.40
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +13.04% -4.17% -4.04%

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 34,120 22,289 31,993
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.96% 91.13% 86.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,809 14,625 20,976
10th Percentile £318 £310 £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 £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £523 £525
% change year-on-year -4.40% -0.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,143 919 2,227
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.74 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.38 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £44.00 £30.45 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +44.50% -13.00% -6.67%
75th Percentile £67.25 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £40.25 £29.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +38.08% -16.71% -6.27%

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 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 28 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 28 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 +70 909 £500 -9.09% 296
North of England +39 257 £425 -8.11% 107
South East -2 225 £490 -2.00% 222
Midlands +29 218 £475 - 89
West Midlands +30 159 £475 - 56
North West +30 154 £413 -5.71% 64
South West -4 119 £475 -17.39% 87
East of England +9 114 £480 +6.72% 80
Yorkshire +8 92 £454 +8.10% 30
East Midlands -2 55 £513 +11.66% 33
North East -10 14 £450 -37.93% 15
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 76 (4.00%) Confluence
2 39 (2.05%) Apache Airflow
3 38 (2.00%) Apache Spark
4 31 (1.63%) SAS
5 17 (0.89%) Apache
6 13 (0.68%) SharePoint
7 9 (0.47%) Appian
7 9 (0.47%) Jupyter
7 9 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
8 8 (0.42%) ArcGIS
9 7 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.32%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
11 5 (0.26%) CMS
12 4 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.16%) CICS
13 3 (0.16%) Oracle Self-Service HR
13 3 (0.16%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.16%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.11%) Documentum
14 2 (0.11%) Umbraco
Applications
1 127 (6.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (1.58%) MS Visio
3 26 (1.37%) Microsoft Office
4 18 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 17 (0.89%) Spreadsheet
6 12 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.42%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.16%) LaTeX
8 3 (0.16%) Notion
9 2 (0.11%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.11%) CATIA
9 2 (0.11%) EPLAN
9 2 (0.11%) Sketch
10 1 (0.053%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.053%) CANalyzer
10 1 (0.053%) MicroStation
10 1 (0.053%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.053%) UXPin
10 1 (0.053%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 88 (4.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (1.79%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.79%) Oracle General Ledger
4 13 (0.68%) Oracle Payables
5 12 (0.63%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 12 (0.63%) Workday HCM
6 11 (0.58%) Teamcenter
7 10 (0.53%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.47%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
9 8 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
10 7 (0.37%) Aladdin
10 7 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
11 6 (0.32%) NetSuite
11 6 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
11 6 (0.32%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 6 (0.32%) Sage X3
11 6 (0.32%) SAP ERP
12 5 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
12 5 (0.26%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 425 (22.37%) Azure
2 227 (11.95%) AWS
3 190 (10.00%) Power Platform
4 121 (6.37%) Azure DevOps
5 99 (5.21%) GCP
6 84 (4.42%) GitHub
7 53 (2.79%) Azure Data Factory
8 51 (2.68%) Serverless
9 50 (2.63%) Entra ID
10 47 (2.47%) OCI
11 44 (2.32%) Snowflake
12 43 (2.26%) GitHub Actions
12 43 (2.26%) SaaS
13 39 (2.05%) Amazon S3
14 34 (1.79%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 30 (1.58%) Microsoft 365
16 28 (1.47%) dbt
17 23 (1.21%) AWS Lambda
18 22 (1.16%) SuccessFactors
19 19 (1.00%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 78 (4.11%) Firewall
2 53 (2.79%) Network Security
3 33 (1.74%) TCP/IP
3 33 (1.74%) VLAN
4 25 (1.32%) VPN
5 24 (1.26%) DNS
6 22 (1.16%) WAN
7 21 (1.11%) Ethernet
8 17 (0.89%) SAN
9 15 (0.79%) LAN
10 14 (0.74%) BGP
10 14 (0.74%) OSPF
11 13 (0.68%) NAS
11 13 (0.68%) Wireless
12 12 (0.63%) SD-WAN
13 11 (0.58%) Cisco ISE
14 10 (0.53%) TACACS
14 10 (0.53%) Wi-Fi
15 9 (0.47%) HTTP
16 8 (0.42%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 178 (9.37%) Power BI
2 107 (5.63%) Data Warehouse
3 90 (4.74%) Metadata
4 69 (3.63%) Tableau
5 60 (3.16%) SQL Server
6 45 (2.37%) Data Lake
7 39 (2.05%) PostgreSQL
8 29 (1.53%) Relational Database
9 28 (1.47%) Oracle Reports
10 27 (1.42%) Amazon Redshift
10 27 (1.42%) Big Data
11 25 (1.32%) NoSQL
12 22 (1.16%) Delta Lake
12 22 (1.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 20 (1.05%) Oracle Database
14 18 (0.95%) Pinecone
15 17 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
15 17 (0.89%) BigQuery
15 17 (0.89%) Power Query
16 16 (0.84%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 187 (9.84%) JIRA
2 108 (5.68%) Git
3 70 (3.68%) Jenkins
4 58 (3.05%) Selenium
5 43 (2.26%) GitLab
6 41 (2.16%) Postman
7 33 (1.74%) Cucumber
8 31 (1.63%) JUnit
9 29 (1.53%) JMeter
10 26 (1.37%) WebDriver
11 23 (1.21%) Rational DOORS
12 21 (1.11%) Oracle APEX
13 18 (0.95%) Visual Studio
14 15 (0.79%) MLflow
15 14 (0.74%) Eclipse
16 12 (0.63%) Bitbucket
16 12 (0.63%) REST Assured
16 12 (0.63%) SpecFlow
17 11 (0.58%) TestRail
18 10 (0.53%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 629 (33.11%) Social Skills
2 588 (30.95%) Finance
3 387 (20.37%) Analytical Skills
4 165 (8.68%) Banking
5 159 (8.37%) Public Sector
6 104 (5.47%) Documentation Skills
7 50 (2.63%) Manufacturing
8 47 (2.47%) Presentation Skills
9 46 (2.42%) Aerospace
10 42 (2.21%) Organisational Skills
11 39 (2.05%) Retail
12 35 (1.84%) Marketing
13 31 (1.63%) Influencing Skills
13 31 (1.63%) Legal
13 31 (1.63%) Pharmaceutical
14 30 (1.58%) Front Office
15 29 (1.53%) Financial Institution
15 29 (1.53%) General Ledger
16 28 (1.47%) Military
17 27 (1.42%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 365 (19.21%) Analyst
2 189 (9.95%) Lead
3 180 (9.47%) Senior
4 164 (8.63%) Business Analyst
5 143 (7.53%) Data Engineer
6 122 (6.42%) Consultant
7 119 (6.26%) Architect
8 117 (6.16%) Developer
9 100 (5.26%) Data Analyst
10 71 (3.74%) Project Manager
11 51 (2.68%) Tester
12 43 (2.26%) Senior Analyst
13 41 (2.16%) Test Engineer
14 40 (2.11%) Software Engineer
15 39 (2.05%) Network Engineer
15 39 (2.05%) Test Manager
16 35 (1.84%) Systems Engineer
17 34 (1.79%) Security Engineer
17 34 (1.79%) Senior Developer
17 34 (1.79%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 111 (5.84%) REST
2 69 (3.63%) JSON
3 66 (3.47%) Kafka
4 60 (3.16%) Oracle Fusion
5 50 (2.63%) Middleware
6 43 (2.26%) XML
7 41 (2.16%) OAuth
8 38 (2.00%) Node.js
9 37 (1.95%) PySpark
10 34 (1.79%) .NET
10 34 (1.79%) Swagger
11 30 (1.58%) SOAP
11 30 (1.58%) Web Services
12 29 (1.53%) Pandas
12 29 (1.53%) Playwright
12 29 (1.53%) PyTorch
13 27 (1.42%) RESTful
14 26 (1.37%) OpenAPI
14 26 (1.37%) TensorFlow
15 23 (1.21%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 114 (6.00%) Legacy Systems
2 101 (5.32%) Data Structures
3 84 (4.42%) Onboarding
4 79 (4.16%) Product Ownership
5 51 (2.68%) Data Centre
6 50 (2.63%) Cloud Native
7 47 (2.47%) Management Information System
8 35 (1.84%) Distributed Systems
9 33 (1.74%) Analytical Mindset
10 28 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
11 25 (1.32%) Replication
12 24 (1.26%) Hybrid Cloud
13 23 (1.21%) Public Cloud
14 22 (1.16%) Algorithms
14 22 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
15 20 (1.05%) Reference Data
16 19 (1.00%) Virtual Team
17 18 (0.95%) Derivative
18 17 (0.89%) Credit Risk
19 16 (0.84%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 96 (5.05%) Windows
2 79 (4.16%) Linux
3 27 (1.42%) Unix
4 11 (0.58%) Android
5 9 (0.47%) Windows Server
6 7 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 6 (0.32%) zOS
8 4 (0.21%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.21%) SUSE
8 4 (0.21%) VMS
9 3 (0.16%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
9 3 (0.16%) Windows 10
10 2 (0.11%) Debian
11 1 (0.053%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.053%) HPUX
11 1 (0.053%) pSOS
11 1 (0.053%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 501 (26.37%) Migration
2 412 (21.68%) Agile
3 367 (19.32%) Problem-Solving
4 341 (17.95%) Stakeholder Management
5 325 (17.11%) Data Validation
6 306 (16.11%) Data Migration
7 301 (15.84%) Analytics
8 288 (15.16%) CI/CD
9 284 (14.95%) Data Modelling
10 275 (14.47%) User Acceptance Testing
11 262 (13.79%) DevOps
12 258 (13.58%) ETL
13 227 (11.95%) Business Intelligence
14 221 (11.63%) Test Automation
15 203 (10.68%) AI
16 199 (10.47%) Continuous Improvement
17 193 (10.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 188 (9.89%) Data Governance
19 170 (8.95%) Data Pipeline
20 168 (8.84%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 484 (25.47%) SQL
2 348 (18.32%) Python
3 102 (5.37%) Java
4 66 (3.47%) JavaScript
5 64 (3.37%) C#
6 49 (2.58%) C++
7 46 (2.42%) PL/SQL
8 39 (2.05%) C
8 39 (2.05%) PowerShell
9 31 (1.63%) Bash
9 31 (1.63%) R
10 26 (1.37%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 26 (1.37%) TypeScript
11 21 (1.11%) Bicep
12 19 (1.00%) Ada
13 17 (0.89%) Scala
14 12 (0.63%) VBA
15 11 (0.58%) Apex Code
16 10 (0.53%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.53%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 371 (19.53%) Security Cleared
2 265 (13.95%) SC Cleared
3 160 (8.42%) Degree
4 49 (2.58%) BPSS Clearance
5 47 (2.47%) Computer Science Degree
6 33 (1.74%) DV Cleared
7 31 (1.63%) PMI Certification
8 30 (1.58%) Master's Degree
9 27 (1.42%) PMP
10 24 (1.26%) ISTQB
11 21 (1.11%) Cisco Certification
12 18 (0.95%) CCNP
13 14 (0.74%) CBAP
14 13 (0.68%) Azure Certification
14 13 (0.68%) CISSP
15 12 (0.63%) Microsoft Certification
16 11 (0.58%) AWS Certification
17 9 (0.47%) ACCA
17 9 (0.47%) CCNA
18 7 (0.37%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 320 (16.84%) Data Quality
2 243 (12.79%) QA
3 109 (5.74%) GDPR
4 64 (3.37%) NIST
5 56 (2.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 24 (1.26%) Accessibility
7 22 (1.16%) IFRS
7 22 (1.16%) SLA
8 20 (1.05%) PMO
9 19 (1.00%) IFRS 17
10 18 (0.95%) GRC
11 16 (0.84%) Def Stans
12 15 (0.79%) HL7
13 13 (0.68%) PCI DSS
14 12 (0.63%) COBIT
14 12 (0.63%) GxP
14 12 (0.63%) NCSC
15 11 (0.58%) MiFID
15 11 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 10 (0.53%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 73 (3.84%) Docker
2 39 (2.05%) Active Directory
3 35 (1.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.26%) Firmware
5 13 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
6 11 (0.58%) VMware NSX
7 10 (0.53%) Hyper-V
7 10 (0.53%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.32%) vSphere
10 5 (0.26%) NFS
11 4 (0.21%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 3 (0.16%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
13 2 (0.11%) Ceph
13 2 (0.11%) KVM
13 2 (0.11%) Lustre
13 2 (0.11%) OpenAM
13 2 (0.11%) OpenIDM
13 2 (0.11%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 109 (5.74%) Kubernetes
2 82 (4.32%) Terraform
3 33 (1.74%) Ansible
3 33 (1.74%) Prometheus
4 31 (1.63%) Grafana
5 27 (1.42%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
7 10 (0.53%) FortiGate
7 10 (0.53%) Kibana
8 9 (0.47%) Puppet
9 8 (0.42%) SCCM
10 6 (0.32%) Nessus
11 5 (0.26%) CASB
11 5 (0.26%) vCenter Server
11 5 (0.26%) vMotion
12 4 (0.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.21%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.21%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.21%) Failover Clustering
12 4 (0.21%) VxRail
Vendors
1 259 (13.63%) Microsoft
2 184 (9.68%) Oracle
3 157 (8.26%) SAP
4 87 (4.58%) Databricks
5 67 (3.53%) ServiceNow
6 55 (2.89%) Salesforce
7 44 (2.32%) Cisco
8 43 (2.26%) VMware
9 38 (2.00%) Splunk
10 34 (1.79%) Google
11 30 (1.58%) Informatica
12 28 (1.47%) Workday
13 27 (1.42%) Sage
14 26 (1.37%) MuleSoft
14 26 (1.37%) Palo Alto
15 21 (1.11%) IBM
16 20 (1.05%) CyberArk
17 16 (0.84%) CheckPoint
17 16 (0.84%) IFS
17 16 (0.84%) OpenAI