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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 72 112
Rank change year-on-year +35 +40 +41
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,053 806 723
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.93% 3.39% 1.98%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.81% 3.71% 2.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,258 497 362
10th Percentile £325 £350 £320
25th Percentile £404 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -12.59%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £588
90th Percentile £713 £708 £686
UK median daily rate £488 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -7.14% +5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 143 52 164
10th Percentile £17.75 £16.67 £26.88
25th Percentile £30.27 £37.25 £52.50
Median hourly rate £63.14 £57.63 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year +9.56% -4.75% -3.20%
75th Percentile £74.25 £65.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £76.86
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £56.04 £60.00
% change year-on-year +11.53% -6.60% -6.42%

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 35,337 21,704 31,436
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.82% 91.29% 85.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,449 14,185 20,585
10th Percentile £325 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.10% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £512 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.14% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,203 923 2,285
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.13 £15.95
Median hourly rate £45.00 £28.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +60.71% -23.29% -2.67%
75th Percentile £68.00 £60.00 £61.25
90th Percentile £81.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £41.94 £27.45 £36.02
% change year-on-year +52.79% -23.80% -2.64%

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 27 May 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 27 May 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 27 May 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 +53 991 £510 -7.27% 341
North of England +37 275 £436 -3.11% 155
Midlands +29 251 £492 +8.25% 103
South East -3 233 £500 - 195
West Midlands +27 177 £481 +9.94% 63
North West +30 164 £420 -4.00% 90
East of England +11 126 £475 +5.56% 93
South West +3 123 £488 -15.22% 101
Yorkshire +19 103 £452 +0.39% 45
East Midlands +15 70 £525 +14.38% 40
North East -18 11 £438 -25.53% 20
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 77 (3.75%) Confluence
2 47 (2.29%) Apache Airflow
3 39 (1.90%) Apache Spark
4 34 (1.66%) SAS
5 19 (0.93%) Apache
5 19 (0.93%) SharePoint
6 11 (0.54%) Jupyter
7 9 (0.44%) Appian
8 7 (0.34%) ArcGIS
8 7 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
8 7 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
9 4 (0.19%) CMS
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.15%) Apache Pulsar
10 3 (0.15%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
10 3 (0.15%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 3 (0.15%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.097%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 2 (0.097%) Documentum
11 2 (0.097%) Umbraco
Applications
1 144 (7.01%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (1.46%) MS Visio
3 22 (1.07%) Microsoft Office
4 19 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 19 (0.93%) Spreadsheet
5 11 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.19%) CATIA
6 4 (0.19%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.19%) Simulink
7 3 (0.15%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.15%) LaTeX
7 3 (0.15%) Notion
8 2 (0.097%) EPLAN
8 2 (0.097%) Sketch
9 1 (0.049%) Autodesk Inventor
9 1 (0.049%) CANalyzer
9 1 (0.049%) MicroStation
9 1 (0.049%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.049%) UXPin
9 1 (0.049%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 98 (4.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.41%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.73%) Teamcenter
4 14 (0.68%) Oracle General Ledger
4 14 (0.68%) Oracle Payables
4 14 (0.68%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 12 (0.58%) Oracle Assets
5 12 (0.58%) Workday HCM
6 9 (0.44%) NetSuite
7 8 (0.39%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.39%) Oracle EBS R12
7 8 (0.39%) Oracle Receivables
7 8 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
7 8 (0.39%) SAP ERP
8 7 (0.34%) Oracle Financials
9 6 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
9 6 (0.29%) Sage X3
9 6 (0.29%) SAP Business One
10 5 (0.24%) Oracle E-Business Tax
10 5 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 410 (19.97%) Azure
2 247 (12.03%) AWS
3 205 (9.99%) Power Platform
4 108 (5.26%) GCP
5 103 (5.02%) Azure DevOps
6 95 (4.63%) GitHub
7 63 (3.07%) Snowflake
8 59 (2.87%) Azure Data Factory
9 53 (2.58%) Entra ID
10 52 (2.53%) GitHub Actions
11 50 (2.44%) SaaS
12 46 (2.24%) Serverless
13 41 (2.00%) OCI
14 38 (1.85%) Amazon S3
15 34 (1.66%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 32 (1.56%) dbt
17 29 (1.41%) Microsoft 365
18 22 (1.07%) Salesforce Service Cloud
19 21 (1.02%) Power Automate
19 21 (1.02%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 80 (3.90%) Firewall
2 54 (2.63%) Network Security
3 36 (1.75%) VLAN
4 30 (1.46%) DNS
5 28 (1.36%) TCP/IP
6 26 (1.27%) VPN
7 25 (1.22%) WAN
8 18 (0.88%) Ethernet
9 17 (0.83%) LAN
10 16 (0.78%) SAN
11 14 (0.68%) SD-WAN
12 13 (0.63%) BGP
12 13 (0.63%) OSPF
12 13 (0.63%) Wireless
13 12 (0.58%) DHCP
13 12 (0.58%) NAS
13 12 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
14 11 (0.54%) Internet
15 10 (0.49%) Cisco ISE
16 9 (0.44%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 191 (9.30%) Power BI
2 115 (5.60%) Data Warehouse
3 76 (3.70%) Metadata
4 70 (3.41%) SQL Server
4 70 (3.41%) Tableau
5 63 (3.07%) Data Lake
6 49 (2.39%) PostgreSQL
7 37 (1.80%) Relational Database
8 28 (1.36%) Amazon Redshift
8 28 (1.36%) Big Data
9 25 (1.22%) NoSQL
10 24 (1.17%) Oracle Reports
10 24 (1.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 23 (1.12%) BigQuery
11 23 (1.12%) Delta Lake
12 21 (1.02%) Oracle Database
12 21 (1.02%) Power Query
13 19 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
14 18 (0.88%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 16 (0.78%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 190 (9.25%) JIRA
2 105 (5.11%) Git
3 76 (3.70%) Jenkins
4 49 (2.39%) GitLab
4 49 (2.39%) Selenium
5 47 (2.29%) Postman
6 37 (1.80%) JMeter
7 31 (1.51%) JUnit
8 30 (1.46%) Cucumber
9 29 (1.41%) Rational DOORS
10 24 (1.17%) WebDriver
11 16 (0.78%) Rational Rhapsody
12 15 (0.73%) MLflow
12 15 (0.73%) Visual Studio
13 14 (0.68%) Eclipse
14 10 (0.49%) Gatling
14 10 (0.49%) Gradle
14 10 (0.49%) Maven
14 10 (0.49%) REST Assured
15 9 (0.44%) Bitbucket
General
1 633 (30.83%) Finance
2 620 (30.20%) Social Skills
3 377 (18.36%) Analytical Skills
4 170 (8.28%) Banking
5 165 (8.04%) Public Sector
6 109 (5.31%) Documentation Skills
7 64 (3.12%) Manufacturing
8 53 (2.58%) Aerospace
9 46 (2.24%) Retail
10 40 (1.95%) Organisational Skills
11 38 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
12 34 (1.66%) General Ledger
12 34 (1.66%) Marketing
12 34 (1.66%) Pharmaceutical
13 32 (1.56%) Front Office
14 31 (1.51%) Influencing Skills
14 31 (1.51%) Legal
15 29 (1.41%) Military
16 28 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 28 (1.36%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 368 (17.92%) Analyst
2 219 (10.67%) Lead
3 186 (9.06%) Senior
4 167 (8.13%) Business Analyst
5 165 (8.04%) Data Engineer
6 135 (6.58%) Consultant
7 129 (6.28%) Architect
8 112 (5.46%) Developer
9 105 (5.11%) Data Analyst
10 76 (3.70%) Project Manager
11 54 (2.63%) Tester
12 52 (2.53%) Test Engineer
13 45 (2.19%) Software Engineer
14 42 (2.05%) Test Manager
15 41 (2.00%) Systems Engineer
16 40 (1.95%) Senior Analyst
17 38 (1.85%) Security Engineer
18 37 (1.80%) Network Engineer
19 34 (1.66%) Migration Engineer
19 34 (1.66%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (5.36%) REST
2 73 (3.56%) JSON
3 68 (3.31%) Kafka
4 53 (2.58%) Oracle Fusion
5 48 (2.34%) XML
6 46 (2.24%) Middleware
7 43 (2.09%) OAuth
8 39 (1.90%) PySpark
9 37 (1.80%) Swagger
10 35 (1.70%) .NET
11 34 (1.66%) RESTful
12 33 (1.61%) SOAP
13 32 (1.56%) Pandas
14 30 (1.46%) Spring
15 29 (1.41%) Node.js
16 28 (1.36%) Web Services
17 27 (1.32%) pytest
18 26 (1.27%) PyTorch
19 25 (1.22%) OAuth2
20 24 (1.17%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 121 (5.89%) Legacy Systems
2 103 (5.02%) Data Structures
3 102 (4.97%) Onboarding
4 82 (3.99%) Product Ownership
5 70 (3.41%) Cloud Native
6 61 (2.97%) Data Centre
7 49 (2.39%) Management Information System
8 39 (1.90%) Analytical Mindset
8 39 (1.90%) Distributed Systems
9 32 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
10 26 (1.27%) Public Cloud
10 26 (1.27%) SCADA
11 25 (1.22%) Replication
12 24 (1.17%) Algorithms
12 24 (1.17%) Greenfield Project
13 23 (1.12%) AI Agents
13 23 (1.12%) Hybrid Cloud
14 22 (1.07%) Operational Technology
14 22 (1.07%) Reference Data
15 21 (1.02%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 103 (5.02%) Windows
2 76 (3.70%) Linux
3 25 (1.22%) Unix
4 14 (0.68%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.49%) Android
5 10 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.29%) Windows 10
7 5 (0.24%) VMS
8 4 (0.19%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.19%) SUSE
8 4 (0.19%) zOS
9 2 (0.097%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.097%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.049%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.049%) Debian
10 1 (0.049%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.049%) HPUX
10 1 (0.049%) pSOS
10 1 (0.049%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.049%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 561 (27.33%) Migration
2 392 (19.09%) Agile
3 356 (17.34%) Problem-Solving
4 350 (17.05%) Stakeholder Management
5 347 (16.90%) Data Migration
5 347 (16.90%) Data Validation
6 320 (15.59%) CI/CD
7 319 (15.54%) Data Modelling
8 315 (15.34%) User Acceptance Testing
9 313 (15.25%) Analytics
10 277 (13.49%) ETL
11 255 (12.42%) DevOps
12 239 (11.64%) AI
13 230 (11.20%) Business Intelligence
13 230 (11.20%) Test Automation
14 218 (10.62%) Continuous Improvement
15 210 (10.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 193 (9.40%) Data Governance
17 191 (9.30%) Data Analysis
18 184 (8.96%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 500 (24.35%) SQL
2 360 (17.54%) Python
3 106 (5.16%) Java
4 54 (2.63%) C#
5 47 (2.29%) PowerShell
6 41 (2.00%) C++
7 38 (1.85%) JavaScript
8 37 (1.80%) C
9 36 (1.75%) Bash
10 28 (1.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 26 (1.27%) Bicep
11 26 (1.27%) PL/SQL
11 26 (1.27%) R
11 26 (1.27%) TypeScript
12 23 (1.12%) Apex Code
13 22 (1.07%) Ada
14 18 (0.88%) Scala
15 16 (0.78%) MATLAB
16 12 (0.58%) VBA
17 10 (0.49%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 381 (18.56%) Security Cleared
2 271 (13.20%) SC Cleared
3 162 (7.89%) Degree
4 46 (2.24%) BPSS Clearance
4 46 (2.24%) Computer Science Degree
5 41 (2.00%) DV Cleared
6 32 (1.56%) PMI Certification
7 26 (1.27%) PMP
8 23 (1.12%) Cisco Certification
9 22 (1.07%) Master's Degree
10 18 (0.88%) CCNP
11 17 (0.83%) ACCA
12 16 (0.78%) CISSP
12 16 (0.78%) ISTQB
13 15 (0.73%) CIMA
14 14 (0.68%) CBAP
14 14 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
15 12 (0.58%) AWS Certification
15 12 (0.58%) Azure Certification
16 9 (0.44%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 350 (17.05%) Data Quality
2 239 (11.64%) QA
3 106 (5.16%) GDPR
4 63 (3.07%) NIST
5 52 (2.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 28 (1.36%) Accessibility
7 27 (1.32%) IFRS
8 24 (1.17%) PMO
8 24 (1.17%) SLA
9 18 (0.88%) Def Stans
9 18 (0.88%) GRC
9 18 (0.88%) IFRS 17
10 14 (0.68%) GxP
10 14 (0.68%) HL7
11 13 (0.63%) PCI DSS
11 13 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 12 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
12 12 (0.58%) MiFID
12 12 (0.58%) NCSC
12 12 (0.58%) NIST 800
System Software
1 84 (4.09%) Docker
2 46 (2.24%) Active Directory
3 40 (1.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.97%) Firmware
4 20 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (0.68%) Hyper-V
6 13 (0.63%) VMware NSX
7 11 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
9 8 (0.39%) vSphere
10 5 (0.24%) NFS
11 4 (0.19%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 2 (0.097%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.097%) Ceph
12 2 (0.097%) KVM
12 2 (0.097%) Lustre
12 2 (0.097%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 2 (0.097%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.097%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.049%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 130 (6.33%) Kubernetes
2 87 (4.24%) Terraform
3 45 (2.19%) Prometheus
4 43 (2.09%) Grafana
5 39 (1.90%) Ansible
6 27 (1.32%) Single Sign-On
7 17 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
8 10 (0.49%) FortiGate
8 10 (0.49%) Kibana
9 9 (0.44%) Puppet
10 8 (0.39%) SCCM
11 7 (0.34%) vCenter Server
12 6 (0.29%) Nessus
13 5 (0.24%) CASB
13 5 (0.24%) vMotion
14 4 (0.19%) Argo
14 4 (0.19%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
14 4 (0.19%) Istio
14 4 (0.19%) VxRail
Vendors
1 280 (13.64%) Microsoft
2 179 (8.72%) SAP
3 176 (8.57%) Oracle
4 103 (5.02%) Databricks
5 70 (3.41%) Salesforce
6 57 (2.78%) ServiceNow
7 49 (2.39%) VMware
8 41 (2.00%) Cisco
9 40 (1.95%) Splunk
10 32 (1.56%) Google
11 31 (1.51%) Informatica
12 30 (1.46%) Workday
13 24 (1.17%) Sage
14 23 (1.12%) MuleSoft
15 22 (1.07%) Palo Alto
16 21 (1.02%) IBM
16 21 (1.02%) IFS
17 19 (0.93%) CyberArk
18 16 (0.78%) Fortinet
18 16 (0.78%) OpenAI