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

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 91 133
Rank change year-on-year +47 +42 0
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,800 684 672
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.72% 2.82% 1.78%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.48% 3.11% 2.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,119 418 357
10th Percentile £347 £362 £319
25th Percentile £402 £421 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £540 £525
Median % change year-on-year -9.26% +2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £613
90th Percentile £700 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £485 £525 £531
% change year-on-year -7.62% -1.18% -3.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 99 43 142
10th Percentile £31.57 £26.80 £23.35
25th Percentile £57.19 £48.75 £50.31
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -4.00%
75th Percentile £73.75 £65.50 £75.25
90th Percentile £82.40 £75.20 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £60.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +7.44% +0.83% -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 32,858 22,016 32,689
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.08% 90.81% 86.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,074 14,505 21,608
10th Percentile £313 £313 £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 2,007 857 2,166
10th Percentile £15.34 £15.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.27 £20.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £37.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.85% - -13.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £58.36
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.63 £71.25
UK median hourly rate £35.50 £32.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +10.94% -1.54% -11.33%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 +65 842 £500 -9.09% 268
North of England +35 242 £433 -6.49% 152
South East +1 204 £500 - 215
Midlands +36 198 £490 +3.16% 118
West Midlands +30 155 £490 +0.51% 77
North West +26 153 £416 -6.25% 74
South West +7 134 £475 -17.39% 89
East of England +20 125 £489 +8.63% 96
Yorkshire +8 80 £455 +8.33% 51
East Midlands -1 40 £513 +39.27% 41
North East -5 12 £450 -37.93% 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 (4.06%) Confluence
2 39 (2.17%) SAS
3 37 (2.06%) Apache Airflow
4 32 (1.78%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.94%) Apache
6 15 (0.83%) SharePoint
7 11 (0.61%) Microsoft Exchange
8 9 (0.50%) Appian
9 8 (0.44%) Jupyter
10 7 (0.39%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.33%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
11 6 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
12 5 (0.28%) Anypoint
12 5 (0.28%) CMS
13 4 (0.22%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.17%) CICS
14 3 (0.17%) Oracle Self-Service HR
14 3 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 2 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
15 2 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 108 (6.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 27 (1.50%) MS Visio
3 23 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
4 18 (1.00%) Spreadsheet
5 17 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 12 (0.67%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.44%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.22%) Notion
9 3 (0.17%) LaTeX
10 2 (0.11%) CATIA
10 2 (0.11%) Sketch
11 1 (0.056%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.056%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.056%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.056%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.056%) Simulink
11 1 (0.056%) UXPin
11 1 (0.056%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 85 (4.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (1.78%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.78%) Oracle General Ledger
4 13 (0.72%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 13 (0.72%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.67%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.50%) Oracle Assets
6 9 (0.50%) Oracle Receivables
6 9 (0.50%) SAP FI
7 8 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
7 8 (0.44%) OpenText VIM for SAP
8 7 (0.39%) Aladdin
8 7 (0.39%) NetSuite
8 7 (0.39%) Oracle EBS R12
8 7 (0.39%) SAP MM
8 7 (0.39%) Teamcenter
9 6 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
9 6 (0.33%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 6 (0.33%) Payment Gateway
9 6 (0.33%) Sage X3
Cloud Services
1 429 (23.83%) Azure
2 226 (12.56%) AWS
3 159 (8.83%) Power Platform
4 135 (7.50%) Azure DevOps
5 85 (4.72%) GCP
6 84 (4.67%) GitHub
7 54 (3.00%) Azure Data Factory
7 54 (3.00%) Entra ID
8 50 (2.78%) Serverless
9 49 (2.72%) SaaS
10 48 (2.67%) GitHub Actions
11 44 (2.44%) OCI
12 40 (2.22%) Amazon S3
13 38 (2.11%) Snowflake
14 31 (1.72%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 27 (1.50%) OpenShift
16 25 (1.39%) AWS Lambda
16 25 (1.39%) dbt
17 23 (1.28%) Microsoft 365
18 22 (1.22%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 73 (4.06%) Firewall
2 50 (2.78%) Network Security
3 34 (1.89%) TCP/IP
4 25 (1.39%) DNS
4 25 (1.39%) VLAN
5 21 (1.17%) Ethernet
5 21 (1.17%) VPN
6 17 (0.94%) WAN
7 15 (0.83%) SAN
8 13 (0.72%) NAS
9 11 (0.61%) BGP
9 11 (0.61%) HTTP
9 11 (0.61%) LAN
9 11 (0.61%) OSPF
10 10 (0.56%) Wireless
11 9 (0.50%) SD-WAN
12 8 (0.44%) Cisco ISE
12 8 (0.44%) Internet
13 7 (0.39%) MPLS
13 7 (0.39%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 147 (8.17%) Power BI
2 94 (5.22%) Data Warehouse
3 91 (5.06%) Metadata
4 58 (3.22%) SQL Server
5 55 (3.06%) Tableau
6 42 (2.33%) Data Lake
7 40 (2.22%) PostgreSQL
8 30 (1.67%) Oracle Reports
9 27 (1.50%) Amazon Redshift
10 25 (1.39%) Delta Lake
10 25 (1.39%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 23 (1.28%) Big Data
11 23 (1.28%) Oracle Database
11 23 (1.28%) Relational Database
11 23 (1.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 21 (1.17%) NoSQL
13 20 (1.11%) Azure SQL Database
14 18 (1.00%) Pinecone
15 17 (0.94%) Amazon Athena
16 16 (0.89%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 176 (9.78%) JIRA
2 109 (6.06%) Git
3 82 (4.56%) Jenkins
4 61 (3.39%) Selenium
5 47 (2.61%) GitLab
6 41 (2.28%) Postman
7 36 (2.00%) JUnit
8 33 (1.83%) Cucumber
9 29 (1.61%) Rational DOORS
10 28 (1.56%) Oracle APEX
11 27 (1.50%) JMeter
12 22 (1.22%) WebDriver
13 19 (1.06%) Visual Studio
14 17 (0.94%) MLflow
15 14 (0.78%) Eclipse
16 12 (0.67%) Bitbucket
16 12 (0.67%) REST Assured
17 10 (0.56%) Rational Rhapsody
17 10 (0.56%) TestRail
18 9 (0.50%) SpecFlow
General
1 614 (34.11%) Social Skills
2 540 (30.00%) Finance
3 358 (19.89%) Analytical Skills
4 161 (8.94%) Public Sector
5 152 (8.44%) Banking
6 100 (5.56%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (2.72%) Manufacturing
8 47 (2.61%) Aerospace
8 47 (2.61%) Presentation Skills
9 32 (1.78%) Electronics
9 32 (1.78%) Marketing
9 32 (1.78%) Organisational Skills
9 32 (1.78%) Pharmaceutical
10 30 (1.67%) Retail
11 28 (1.56%) Influencing Skills
11 28 (1.56%) Military
11 28 (1.56%) Telecoms
12 27 (1.50%) Financial Institution
12 27 (1.50%) Front Office
13 25 (1.39%) Legal
Job Titles
1 333 (18.50%) Analyst
2 185 (10.28%) Lead
3 182 (10.11%) Senior
4 153 (8.50%) Business Analyst
5 129 (7.17%) Data Engineer
6 124 (6.89%) Developer
7 118 (6.56%) Consultant
8 112 (6.22%) Architect
9 83 (4.61%) Data Analyst
10 70 (3.89%) Project Manager
11 53 (2.94%) Tester
12 42 (2.33%) Software Engineer
13 39 (2.17%) Senior Analyst
13 39 (2.17%) Senior Developer
14 37 (2.06%) SAP Consultant
14 37 (2.06%) Test Engineer
15 35 (1.94%) Test Analyst
16 34 (1.89%) Systems Engineer
16 34 (1.89%) Test Manager
17 33 (1.83%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 119 (6.61%) REST
2 80 (4.44%) JSON
3 58 (3.22%) Kafka
3 58 (3.22%) Oracle Fusion
4 53 (2.94%) XML
5 49 (2.72%) OAuth
6 47 (2.61%) Middleware
7 39 (2.17%) SOAP
8 37 (2.06%) Node.js
8 37 (2.06%) PySpark
9 36 (2.00%) .NET
10 31 (1.72%) Swagger
11 30 (1.67%) PyTorch
11 30 (1.67%) Web Services
12 29 (1.61%) Playwright
13 28 (1.56%) pytest
14 27 (1.50%) RESTful
15 26 (1.44%) TensorFlow
16 24 (1.33%) JWT
16 24 (1.33%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 107 (5.94%) Legacy Systems
2 90 (5.00%) Data Structures
3 72 (4.00%) Onboarding
4 70 (3.89%) Product Ownership
5 45 (2.50%) Cloud Native
5 45 (2.50%) Management Information System
6 38 (2.11%) Data Centre
7 34 (1.89%) Analytical Mindset
8 29 (1.61%) Distributed Systems
9 28 (1.56%) Replication
10 22 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
10 22 (1.22%) Hybrid Cloud
11 20 (1.11%) Algorithms
11 20 (1.11%) Greenfield Project
12 19 (1.06%) Public Cloud
13 17 (0.94%) Derivative
13 17 (0.94%) Virtual Team
14 16 (0.89%) Reference Data
15 15 (0.83%) CMDB
15 15 (0.83%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 93 (5.17%) Windows
2 77 (4.28%) Linux
3 27 (1.50%) Unix
4 11 (0.61%) Android
5 8 (0.44%) 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
8 3 (0.17%) Embedded Linux
8 3 (0.17%) VMS
9 2 (0.11%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.11%) Debian
9 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.056%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.056%) FreeRTOS
10 1 (0.056%) pSOS
10 1 (0.056%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 448 (24.89%) Migration
2 410 (22.78%) Agile
3 366 (20.33%) Problem-Solving
4 325 (18.06%) Stakeholder Management
5 310 (17.22%) Data Validation
6 306 (17.00%) CI/CD
7 294 (16.33%) Analytics
8 282 (15.67%) DevOps
9 266 (14.78%) Data Migration
10 250 (13.89%) Data Modelling
11 245 (13.61%) ETL
12 235 (13.06%) User Acceptance Testing
13 214 (11.89%) Test Automation
14 199 (11.06%) Continuous Improvement
15 194 (10.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 191 (10.61%) Business Intelligence
17 190 (10.56%) AI
18 174 (9.67%) Data Governance
19 156 (8.67%) Data Pipeline
20 152 (8.44%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 455 (25.28%) SQL
2 336 (18.67%) Python
3 93 (5.17%) Java
4 88 (4.89%) JavaScript
5 67 (3.72%) C#
6 52 (2.89%) PL/SQL
7 47 (2.61%) C++
8 43 (2.39%) PowerShell
9 38 (2.11%) C
10 29 (1.61%) Bash
11 28 (1.56%) TypeScript
12 26 (1.44%) R
13 24 (1.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 22 (1.22%) Bicep
15 21 (1.17%) Ada
16 17 (0.94%) T-SQL
17 16 (0.89%) Groovy
18 14 (0.78%) Scala
19 13 (0.72%) VBA
20 10 (0.56%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 384 (21.33%) Security Cleared
2 273 (15.17%) SC Cleared
3 162 (9.00%) Degree
4 52 (2.89%) BPSS Clearance
5 49 (2.72%) Computer Science Degree
6 39 (2.17%) DV Cleared
7 30 (1.67%) Master's Degree
8 29 (1.61%) PMI Certification
9 27 (1.50%) PMP
10 25 (1.39%) ISTQB
11 16 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
12 15 (0.83%) CISSP
12 15 (0.83%) Microsoft Certification
13 13 (0.72%) CBAP
13 13 (0.72%) CCNP
14 12 (0.67%) AWS Certification
14 12 (0.67%) Azure Certification
15 8 (0.44%) CCNA
15 8 (0.44%) IIBA
15 8 (0.44%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 293 (16.28%) Data Quality
2 225 (12.50%) QA
3 103 (5.72%) GDPR
4 72 (4.00%) NIST
5 61 (3.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 26 (1.44%) Accessibility
7 22 (1.22%) IFRS
7 22 (1.22%) SLA
8 19 (1.06%) IFRS 17
9 18 (1.00%) GRC
10 17 (0.94%) Def Stans
10 17 (0.94%) PMO
11 14 (0.78%) NCSC
11 14 (0.78%) PCI DSS
12 12 (0.67%) COBIT
12 12 (0.67%) HL7
13 11 (0.61%) GxP
13 11 (0.61%) MiFID
13 11 (0.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 10 (0.56%) Solvency II
System Software
1 78 (4.33%) Docker
2 40 (2.22%) Active Directory
3 36 (2.00%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.33%) Firmware
5 11 (0.61%) VMware ESXi
5 11 (0.61%) VMware NSX
6 10 (0.56%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.39%) vSphere
10 5 (0.28%) NFS
11 4 (0.22%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 3 (0.17%) 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%) OpenDJ
13 2 (0.11%) OpenIDM
13 2 (0.11%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 113 (6.28%) Kubernetes
2 82 (4.56%) Terraform
3 30 (1.67%) Ansible
3 30 (1.67%) Grafana
4 29 (1.61%) Prometheus
4 29 (1.61%) Single Sign-On
5 13 (0.72%) Microsoft Intune
6 11 (0.61%) Kibana
6 11 (0.61%) Puppet
7 8 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 6 (0.33%) FortiGate
8 6 (0.33%) Nessus
8 6 (0.33%) SCCM
9 5 (0.28%) CASB
9 5 (0.28%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.22%) EMC NetWorker
10 4 (0.22%) EMC VPLEX
10 4 (0.22%) Failover Clustering
10 4 (0.22%) vMotion
10 4 (0.22%) VxRail
Vendors
1 239 (13.28%) Microsoft
2 193 (10.72%) Oracle
3 150 (8.33%) SAP
4 85 (4.72%) Databricks
5 75 (4.17%) ServiceNow
6 48 (2.67%) Salesforce
7 43 (2.39%) Splunk
7 43 (2.39%) VMware
8 38 (2.11%) Google
9 35 (1.94%) Cisco
10 31 (1.72%) Informatica
11 30 (1.67%) MuleSoft
12 28 (1.56%) Workday
13 27 (1.50%) Sage
14 21 (1.17%) Palo Alto
15 20 (1.11%) CyberArk
16 18 (1.00%) IBM
17 15 (0.83%) OpenAI
18 13 (0.72%) Bloomberg
18 13 (0.72%) Murex