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

6 months to
19 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 68 111
Rank change year-on-year +33 +43 +37
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,419 999 748
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.37% 3.65% 2.08%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.29% 4.02% 2.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,471 609 377
10th Percentile £326 £351 £340
25th Percentile £413 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -12.28%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £588
90th Percentile £712 £700 £673
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 161 75 152
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £28.00
25th Percentile £30.27 £36.99 £47.96
Median hourly rate £62.50 £60.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% - -4.08%
75th Percentile £75.00 £67.00 £67.81
90th Percentile £83.75 £76.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £61.25 £58.75 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.26% -2.08% -7.69%

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 38,476 24,845 30,896
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.41% 90.65% 85.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,188 15,947 20,132
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £420 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £645
90th Percentile £735 £745 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,382 1,317 2,080
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.26 £13.18
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.88 £16.84
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.50
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -34.68% -9.41%
75th Percentile £68.75 £53.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £83.00 £71.47 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -9.24%

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 19 July 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 19 July 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 19 July 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 +46 1,164 £513 -2.38% 267
North of England +40 310 £450 -5.26% 122
South East +3 310 £510 +2.00% 181
Midlands +45 306 £475 +5.56% 97
West Midlands +29 224 £475 +11.76% 49
North West +22 170 £450 -14.29% 64
East of England +3 136 £510 +2.00% 70
Yorkshire +29 129 £460 +9.52% 33
South West -16 125 £520 -9.57% 65
East Midlands +20 77 £517 +14.89% 48
North East -27 17 £425 -15.00% 25
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 (3.14%) Confluence
2 64 (2.65%) Apache Airflow
3 49 (2.03%) SAS
4 44 (1.82%) SharePoint
5 39 (1.61%) Apache Spark
6 27 (1.12%) Apache
7 12 (0.50%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.33%) SharePoint 2013
10 7 (0.29%) CMS
11 6 (0.25%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.21%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.17%) Appian
14 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.12%) Apache Pulsar
14 3 (0.12%) FactoryTalk
14 3 (0.12%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
14 3 (0.12%) Palantir Foundry
14 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 168 (6.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.41%) MS Visio
3 31 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
4 26 (1.07%) Spreadsheet
5 25 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 8 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
7 6 (0.25%) AutoCAD
8 5 (0.21%) Simulink
9 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
10 3 (0.12%) CATIA
11 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.083%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.083%) Sketch
12 1 (0.041%) Adobe XD
12 1 (0.041%) Autodesk Inventor
12 1 (0.041%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.041%) Navisworks
12 1 (0.041%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.041%) ProjectWise
12 1 (0.041%) Revit
Business Applications
1 114 (4.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (1.32%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.62%) Workday HCM
4 14 (0.58%) Teamcenter
5 12 (0.50%) Oracle Payables
6 11 (0.45%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 11 (0.45%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.41%) Aladdin
7 10 (0.41%) NetSuite
8 9 (0.37%) Dynamics CRM
8 9 (0.37%) iTrent
8 9 (0.37%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.37%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
9 8 (0.33%) Sage X3
9 8 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
10 7 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
10 7 (0.29%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 525 (21.70%) Azure
2 279 (11.53%) AWS
3 245 (10.13%) Power Platform
4 131 (5.42%) Azure DevOps
5 122 (5.04%) GCP
6 113 (4.67%) GitHub
7 81 (3.35%) Snowflake
8 67 (2.77%) Azure Data Factory
9 65 (2.69%) GitHub Actions
10 64 (2.65%) Entra ID
11 58 (2.40%) Serverless
12 46 (1.90%) Amazon S3
13 44 (1.82%) dbt
13 44 (1.82%) SaaS
14 43 (1.78%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 43 (1.78%) Microsoft 365
15 42 (1.74%) OCI
16 33 (1.36%) SuccessFactors
17 30 (1.24%) Azure Monitor
18 28 (1.16%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 110 (4.55%) Firewall
2 63 (2.60%) Network Security
3 52 (2.15%) DNS
4 44 (1.82%) VLAN
5 42 (1.74%) VPN
6 36 (1.49%) WAN
7 35 (1.45%) TCP/IP
8 29 (1.20%) BGP
9 24 (0.99%) Wireless
10 23 (0.95%) SAN
11 22 (0.91%) DHCP
11 22 (0.91%) LAN
12 21 (0.87%) OSPF
13 20 (0.83%) SD-WAN
14 19 (0.79%) Internet
15 16 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
16 14 (0.58%) Ethernet
17 13 (0.54%) NAS
18 12 (0.50%) Cisco ISE
19 9 (0.37%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 227 (9.38%) Power BI
2 138 (5.70%) Data Warehouse
3 93 (3.84%) Metadata
4 77 (3.18%) Data Lake
4 77 (3.18%) SQL Server
5 69 (2.85%) Tableau
6 68 (2.81%) PostgreSQL
7 58 (2.40%) Relational Database
8 37 (1.53%) Big Data
9 29 (1.20%) Oracle Database
10 28 (1.16%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 27 (1.12%) BigQuery
12 26 (1.07%) Amazon Redshift
12 26 (1.07%) NoSQL
12 26 (1.07%) Power Query
12 26 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 25 (1.03%) Delta Lake
14 22 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
15 19 (0.79%) Amazon Athena
15 19 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 220 (9.09%) JIRA
2 145 (5.99%) Git
3 85 (3.51%) Jenkins
4 63 (2.60%) GitLab
5 55 (2.27%) Selenium
6 39 (1.61%) JMeter
7 38 (1.57%) Postman
8 37 (1.53%) Cucumber
9 36 (1.49%) JUnit
10 30 (1.24%) WebDriver
11 25 (1.03%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.74%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.66%) Rational Rhapsody
14 15 (0.62%) Visual Studio
15 12 (0.50%) Gatling
15 12 (0.50%) MLflow
16 10 (0.41%) Maven
17 9 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
17 9 (0.37%) REST Assured
18 8 (0.33%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 727 (30.05%) Finance
2 709 (29.31%) Social Skills
3 460 (19.02%) Analytical Skills
4 192 (7.94%) Banking
5 191 (7.90%) Public Sector
6 140 (5.79%) Documentation Skills
7 85 (3.51%) Manufacturing
8 77 (3.18%) Retail
9 63 (2.60%) Aerospace
10 46 (1.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 46 (1.90%) Telecoms
11 44 (1.82%) Pharmaceutical
12 43 (1.78%) Organisational Skills
13 38 (1.57%) Marketing
14 37 (1.53%) Front Office
15 36 (1.49%) Automotive
16 34 (1.41%) Billing
17 33 (1.36%) Law
18 32 (1.32%) Influencing Skills
18 32 (1.32%) Military
Job Titles
1 433 (17.90%) Analyst
2 243 (10.05%) Lead
3 242 (10.00%) Senior
4 206 (8.52%) Business Analyst
5 199 (8.23%) Data Engineer
6 169 (6.99%) Consultant
7 140 (5.79%) Developer
8 136 (5.62%) Architect
9 125 (5.17%) Data Analyst
10 87 (3.60%) Test Engineer
11 71 (2.94%) Project Manager
12 70 (2.89%) Tester
13 53 (2.19%) Network Engineer
14 48 (1.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 45 (1.86%) Systems Engineer
16 43 (1.78%) Senior Data Engineer
17 42 (1.74%) Security Engineer
18 39 (1.61%) Migration Engineer
19 38 (1.57%) Software Engineer
19 38 (1.57%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (4.75%) REST
2 71 (2.94%) JSON
3 69 (2.85%) Kafka
4 53 (2.19%) PySpark
5 49 (2.03%) Oracle Fusion
6 47 (1.94%) XML
7 42 (1.74%) Spring
8 41 (1.69%) Middleware
9 39 (1.61%) .NET
10 35 (1.45%) OAuth
11 34 (1.41%) pytest
12 31 (1.28%) RESTful
13 30 (1.24%) Playwright
13 30 (1.24%) SOAP
14 29 (1.20%) Pandas
14 29 (1.20%) Web Services
15 28 (1.16%) Node.js
16 25 (1.03%) Swagger
16 25 (1.03%) WireMock
17 23 (0.95%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 128 (5.29%) Data Structures
2 127 (5.25%) Onboarding
3 123 (5.08%) Legacy Systems
4 101 (4.18%) Cloud Native
5 97 (4.01%) Product Ownership
6 69 (2.85%) Data Centre
7 58 (2.40%) Management Information System
8 48 (1.98%) Distributed Systems
9 47 (1.94%) Analytical Mindset
10 39 (1.61%) SCADA
11 36 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
12 35 (1.45%) AI Agents
13 33 (1.36%) Hybrid Cloud
13 33 (1.36%) Life Science
14 29 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
15 28 (1.16%) Operational Technology
15 28 (1.16%) Public Cloud
15 28 (1.16%) Virtual Team
16 27 (1.12%) Distributed Architecture
16 27 (1.12%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 133 (5.50%) Windows
2 83 (3.43%) Linux
3 35 (1.45%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.87%) Unix
5 18 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.41%) Android
7 9 (0.37%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.25%) VMS
8 6 (0.25%) Windows 10
9 5 (0.21%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.17%) SUSE
11 3 (0.12%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.083%) HPUX
12 2 (0.083%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.083%) zOS
13 1 (0.041%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.041%) pSOS
13 1 (0.041%) Solaris
13 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 672 (27.78%) Migration
2 467 (19.31%) Agile
3 448 (18.52%) Stakeholder Management
4 408 (16.87%) Analytics
4 408 (16.87%) CI/CD
5 404 (16.70%) Data Migration
6 398 (16.45%) Data Validation
7 391 (16.16%) User Acceptance Testing
8 379 (15.67%) Problem-Solving
9 372 (15.38%) Data Modelling
10 306 (12.65%) ETL
11 301 (12.44%) AI
11 301 (12.44%) DevOps
12 291 (12.03%) Test Automation
13 280 (11.58%) Continuous Improvement
14 269 (11.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 265 (10.95%) Business Intelligence
16 245 (10.13%) Data Governance
17 240 (9.92%) Data Pipeline
18 237 (9.80%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 577 (23.85%) SQL
2 425 (17.57%) Python
3 107 (4.42%) Java
4 72 (2.98%) PowerShell
5 52 (2.15%) C#
6 42 (1.74%) Bash
7 39 (1.61%) C++
8 38 (1.57%) JavaScript
9 33 (1.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 30 (1.24%) Bicep
11 29 (1.20%) C
12 28 (1.16%) Apex Code
13 27 (1.12%) TypeScript
14 25 (1.03%) PL/SQL
15 24 (0.99%) VBA
16 22 (0.91%) R
17 21 (0.87%) Ada
18 15 (0.62%) MATLAB
19 14 (0.58%) T-SQL
20 11 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 441 (18.23%) Security Cleared
2 309 (12.77%) SC Cleared
3 165 (6.82%) Degree
4 63 (2.60%) DV Cleared
5 52 (2.15%) BPSS Clearance
6 36 (1.49%) Computer Science Degree
7 35 (1.45%) Cisco Certification
8 27 (1.12%) CCNP
9 25 (1.03%) PMI Certification
10 21 (0.87%) PMP
11 18 (0.74%) ACCA
11 18 (0.74%) CISSP
12 17 (0.70%) CIMA
12 17 (0.70%) Microsoft Certification
13 16 (0.66%) Azure Certification
14 15 (0.62%) ISTQB
15 14 (0.58%) Master's Degree
16 13 (0.54%) AWS Certification
17 12 (0.50%) CCNA
18 10 (0.41%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 447 (18.48%) Data Quality
2 283 (11.70%) QA
3 110 (4.55%) GDPR
4 56 (2.32%) NIST
5 50 (2.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 39 (1.61%) Accessibility
7 36 (1.49%) PMO
8 29 (1.20%) SLA
9 21 (0.87%) GxP
10 17 (0.70%) Def Stans
10 17 (0.70%) GRC
11 15 (0.62%) IFRS
12 14 (0.58%) HL7
13 13 (0.54%) ISO 20022
13 13 (0.54%) NCSC
14 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.50%) Solvency II
15 11 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.45%) PCI DSS
15 11 (0.45%) WCAG
System Software
1 101 (4.18%) Docker
2 73 (3.02%) Active Directory
3 58 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
5 20 (0.83%) VMware ESXi
6 18 (0.74%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.58%) Firmware
8 13 (0.54%) VMware NSX
8 13 (0.54%) vSphere
9 12 (0.50%) Hyper-V
10 5 (0.21%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.083%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.083%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.083%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.041%) Ceph
13 1 (0.041%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.041%) OpenSSH
13 1 (0.041%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 147 (6.08%) Kubernetes
2 117 (4.84%) Terraform
3 50 (2.07%) Ansible
3 50 (2.07%) Prometheus
4 48 (1.98%) Grafana
5 23 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
6 22 (0.91%) FortiGate
6 22 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
7 12 (0.50%) SCCM
8 10 (0.41%) vCenter Server
9 7 (0.29%) VxRail
10 6 (0.25%) HP ALM
10 6 (0.25%) Nessus
11 5 (0.21%) CASB
11 5 (0.21%) vMotion
12 4 (0.17%) Argo
12 4 (0.17%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.17%) Failover Clustering
12 4 (0.17%) Istio
12 4 (0.17%) vRealize
Vendors
1 342 (14.14%) Microsoft
2 218 (9.01%) SAP
3 205 (8.47%) Oracle
4 126 (5.21%) Databricks
5 86 (3.56%) Salesforce
6 69 (2.85%) VMware
7 56 (2.32%) Cisco
7 56 (2.32%) ServiceNow
8 46 (1.90%) Workday
9 38 (1.57%) Splunk
10 34 (1.41%) Informatica
11 32 (1.32%) Google
12 30 (1.24%) Fortinet
13 28 (1.16%) Palo Alto
14 27 (1.12%) Juniper
15 25 (1.03%) IBM
15 25 (1.03%) Sage
16 23 (0.95%) Zscaler
17 22 (0.91%) MuleSoft
18 20 (0.83%) IFS