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

6 months to
8 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 70 109
Rank change year-on-year +35 +39 +33
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,383 949 767
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.36% 3.56% 2.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.27% 3.91% 2.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,447 586 382
10th Percentile £341 £350 £325
25th Percentile £413 £422 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -11.50%
75th Percentile £600 £632 £592
90th Percentile £700 £700 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 159 66 173
10th Percentile £17.75 £19.36 £27.10
25th Percentile £30.27 £38.44 £47.83
Median hourly rate £62.50 £60.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75.50 £65.00 £68.88
90th Percentile £83.80 £76.25 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £57.75 £60.00
% change year-on-year +8.23% -3.75% -5.11%

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 37,991 24,251 31,775
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.46% 90.90% 85.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,934 15,590 20,626
10th Percentile £325 £300 £305
25th Percentile £419 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £524 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.65% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £645
90th Percentile £729 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £517 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +2.28% -3.81% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,364 1,224 2,273
10th Percentile £15.32 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £20.88 £17.98 £16.06
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% -4.70%
75th Percentile £68.75 £54.81 £61.60
90th Percentile £82.25 £72.20 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% -6.25%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 +44 1,142 £514 -6.59% 397
North of England +38 310 £450 - 153
Midlands +38 299 £484 +10.71% 124
South East -1 294 £518 +3.50% 229
West Midlands +36 219 £475 +17.28% 57
North West +23 167 £450 -4.10% 83
East of England +10 134 £500 +5.26% 76
South West -5 131 £514 -10.65% 92
Yorkshire +35 130 £461 +10.53% 50
East Midlands +25 75 £525 +15.51% 67
North East -27 16 £425 -22.73% 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 79 (3.32%) Confluence
2 60 (2.52%) Apache Airflow
3 48 (2.01%) SAS
4 44 (1.85%) SharePoint
5 39 (1.64%) Apache Spark
6 24 (1.01%) Apache
7 13 (0.55%) Jupyter
8 10 (0.42%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.34%) SharePoint 2013
10 7 (0.29%) CMS
11 6 (0.25%) Appian
11 6 (0.25%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.21%) Tuxedo
13 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.13%) IIS
13 3 (0.13%) JBoss
13 3 (0.13%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
13 3 (0.13%) Oracle Self-Service HR
13 3 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 168 (7.05%) Microsoft Excel
2 37 (1.55%) MS Visio
3 31 (1.30%) Microsoft Office
4 27 (1.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 22 (0.92%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.21%) AutoCAD
7 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 5 (0.21%) Simulink
8 3 (0.13%) CATIA
9 2 (0.084%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.084%) EPLAN
9 2 (0.084%) Sketch
10 1 (0.042%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.042%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.042%) CANalyzer
10 1 (0.042%) LaTeX
10 1 (0.042%) MicroStation
10 1 (0.042%) UXPin
10 1 (0.042%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 113 (4.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.38%) Oracle EBS
3 16 (0.67%) Oracle Payables
4 15 (0.63%) Teamcenter
5 14 (0.59%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 13 (0.55%) Workday HCM
7 12 (0.50%) Oracle General Ledger
8 11 (0.46%) iTrent
8 11 (0.46%) Oracle Assets
9 10 (0.42%) NetSuite
9 10 (0.42%) SAP ERP
10 9 (0.38%) Aladdin
10 9 (0.38%) Oracle Financials
11 8 (0.34%) Oracle Receivables
11 8 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
12 7 (0.29%) Oracle EBS R12
12 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
12 7 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
12 7 (0.29%) Sage X3
13 6 (0.25%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 509 (21.36%) Azure
2 280 (11.75%) AWS
3 238 (9.99%) Power Platform
4 131 (5.50%) Azure DevOps
5 123 (5.16%) GCP
6 109 (4.57%) GitHub
7 77 (3.23%) Snowflake
8 63 (2.64%) GitHub Actions
9 61 (2.56%) Azure Data Factory
9 61 (2.56%) Entra ID
10 57 (2.39%) Serverless
11 44 (1.85%) Amazon S3
12 43 (1.80%) Microsoft 365
13 42 (1.76%) OCI
13 42 (1.76%) SaaS
14 40 (1.68%) dbt
15 39 (1.64%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 31 (1.30%) SuccessFactors
17 28 (1.17%) Salesforce Service Cloud
18 26 (1.09%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.32%) Firewall
2 61 (2.56%) Network Security
3 46 (1.93%) DNS
4 40 (1.68%) VLAN
5 36 (1.51%) WAN
6 34 (1.43%) VPN
7 28 (1.17%) TCP/IP
8 27 (1.13%) BGP
9 23 (0.97%) Wireless
10 22 (0.92%) LAN
10 22 (0.92%) SAN
11 20 (0.84%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.80%) OSPF
13 18 (0.76%) Internet
14 16 (0.67%) DHCP
14 16 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
15 15 (0.63%) Ethernet
16 13 (0.55%) Cisco ISE
17 12 (0.50%) NAS
18 10 (0.42%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 222 (9.32%) Power BI
2 129 (5.41%) Data Warehouse
3 88 (3.69%) Metadata
4 79 (3.32%) SQL Server
5 71 (2.98%) Tableau
6 69 (2.90%) Data Lake
6 69 (2.90%) PostgreSQL
7 57 (2.39%) Relational Database
8 33 (1.38%) Big Data
9 30 (1.26%) Oracle Database
10 29 (1.22%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 26 (1.09%) Amazon Redshift
11 26 (1.09%) NoSQL
12 25 (1.05%) BigQuery
12 25 (1.05%) Delta Lake
12 25 (1.05%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 23 (0.97%) Power Query
14 22 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
15 19 (0.80%) Amazon Athena
16 18 (0.76%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 228 (9.57%) JIRA
2 137 (5.75%) Git
3 90 (3.78%) Jenkins
4 67 (2.81%) GitLab
5 56 (2.35%) Selenium
6 44 (1.85%) Postman
7 43 (1.80%) JMeter
8 37 (1.55%) Cucumber
9 36 (1.51%) JUnit
10 30 (1.26%) WebDriver
11 26 (1.09%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.76%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.67%) Gatling
13 16 (0.67%) Rational Rhapsody
13 16 (0.67%) Visual Studio
14 13 (0.55%) MLflow
15 10 (0.42%) Maven
15 10 (0.42%) REST Assured
16 9 (0.38%) Oracle Forms
17 8 (0.34%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 717 (30.09%) Finance
2 710 (29.79%) Social Skills
3 448 (18.80%) Analytical Skills
4 195 (8.18%) Public Sector
5 190 (7.97%) Banking
6 134 (5.62%) Documentation Skills
7 81 (3.40%) Manufacturing
8 65 (2.73%) Aerospace
8 65 (2.73%) Retail
9 46 (1.93%) Telecoms
10 43 (1.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 43 (1.80%) Organisational Skills
10 43 (1.80%) Pharmaceutical
11 36 (1.51%) Front Office
11 36 (1.51%) Marketing
12 35 (1.47%) General Ledger
13 33 (1.38%) Legal
14 32 (1.34%) Law
15 31 (1.30%) Automotive
15 31 (1.30%) Military
Job Titles
1 415 (17.42%) Analyst
2 240 (10.07%) Lead
3 237 (9.95%) Senior
4 196 (8.22%) Business Analyst
5 195 (8.18%) Data Engineer
6 170 (7.13%) Consultant
7 141 (5.92%) Architect
8 136 (5.71%) Developer
9 121 (5.08%) Data Analyst
10 85 (3.57%) Test Engineer
11 71 (2.98%) Project Manager
12 62 (2.60%) Tester
13 48 (2.01%) Network Engineer
14 44 (1.85%) Senior Data Engineer
14 44 (1.85%) Test Manager
15 43 (1.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 43 (1.80%) Security Engineer
16 42 (1.76%) Systems Engineer
17 41 (1.72%) Software Engineer
18 39 (1.64%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 111 (4.66%) REST
2 70 (2.94%) Kafka
3 69 (2.90%) JSON
4 50 (2.10%) Oracle Fusion
4 50 (2.10%) PySpark
5 48 (2.01%) XML
6 43 (1.80%) Middleware
7 42 (1.76%) Spring
8 39 (1.64%) .NET
8 39 (1.64%) OAuth
9 35 (1.47%) pytest
10 34 (1.43%) Playwright
11 33 (1.38%) RESTful
12 32 (1.34%) Web Services
13 31 (1.30%) Pandas
14 30 (1.26%) Node.js
14 30 (1.26%) SOAP
15 26 (1.09%) Swagger
16 25 (1.05%) WireMock
17 23 (0.97%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 126 (5.29%) Legacy Systems
2 119 (4.99%) Onboarding
3 115 (4.83%) Data Structures
4 99 (4.15%) Cloud Native
5 95 (3.99%) Product Ownership
6 68 (2.85%) Data Centre
7 54 (2.27%) Management Information System
8 47 (1.97%) Analytical Mindset
8 47 (1.97%) Distributed Systems
9 38 (1.59%) SCADA
10 34 (1.43%) AI Agents
11 32 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
12 31 (1.30%) Life Science
13 30 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
14 27 (1.13%) Distributed Architecture
14 27 (1.13%) NHS
14 27 (1.13%) Public Cloud
14 27 (1.13%) Virtual Team
15 26 (1.09%) Operational Technology
15 26 (1.09%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 127 (5.33%) Windows
2 78 (3.27%) Linux
3 29 (1.22%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.84%) Unix
5 16 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (0.38%) Android
7 7 (0.29%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.25%) VMS
8 6 (0.25%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.17%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.17%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.17%) SUSE
10 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.084%) HPUX
11 2 (0.084%) VxWorks
11 2 (0.084%) zOS
12 1 (0.042%) Debian
12 1 (0.042%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.042%) Solaris
12 1 (0.042%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 657 (27.57%) Migration
2 459 (19.26%) Agile
3 423 (17.75%) Stakeholder Management
4 409 (17.16%) CI/CD
5 401 (16.83%) Data Validation
6 392 (16.45%) Data Migration
7 390 (16.37%) Analytics
8 381 (15.99%) Problem-Solving
9 380 (15.95%) User Acceptance Testing
10 361 (15.15%) Data Modelling
11 305 (12.80%) AI
12 301 (12.63%) DevOps
12 301 (12.63%) ETL
13 296 (12.42%) Test Automation
14 268 (11.25%) Continuous Improvement
15 260 (10.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 258 (10.83%) Business Intelligence
17 234 (9.82%) Data Analysis
18 230 (9.65%) Data Governance
19 227 (9.53%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 568 (23.84%) SQL
2 419 (17.58%) Python
3 118 (4.95%) Java
4 63 (2.64%) PowerShell
5 54 (2.27%) C#
6 41 (1.72%) C++
7 39 (1.64%) JavaScript
8 38 (1.59%) Bash
9 33 (1.38%) C
9 33 (1.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 32 (1.34%) TypeScript
11 28 (1.17%) Apex Code
12 27 (1.13%) Bicep
13 25 (1.05%) PL/SQL
14 24 (1.01%) R
15 23 (0.97%) VBA
16 22 (0.92%) Ada
17 20 (0.84%) Scala
18 17 (0.71%) MATLAB
19 14 (0.59%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 435 (18.25%) Security Cleared
2 314 (13.18%) SC Cleared
3 173 (7.26%) Degree
4 55 (2.31%) DV Cleared
5 53 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
6 39 (1.64%) Computer Science Degree
7 33 (1.38%) Cisco Certification
8 27 (1.13%) PMI Certification
9 25 (1.05%) CCNP
10 22 (0.92%) PMP
11 20 (0.84%) CISSP
12 18 (0.76%) ACCA
13 17 (0.71%) Master's Degree
13 17 (0.71%) Microsoft Certification
14 16 (0.67%) Azure Certification
14 16 (0.67%) CIMA
14 16 (0.67%) ISTQB
15 14 (0.59%) AWS Certification
16 12 (0.50%) CCNA
17 9 (0.38%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 421 (17.67%) Data Quality
2 281 (11.79%) QA
3 109 (4.57%) GDPR
4 59 (2.48%) NIST
5 54 (2.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 36 (1.51%) Accessibility
7 34 (1.43%) PMO
8 27 (1.13%) SLA
9 20 (0.84%) IFRS
10 19 (0.80%) GxP
11 18 (0.76%) GRC
12 17 (0.71%) Def Stans
13 14 (0.59%) HL7
14 13 (0.55%) NCSC
14 13 (0.55%) Solvency II
15 12 (0.50%) IFRS 17
15 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.46%) ISO 20022
16 11 (0.46%) PCI DSS
17 10 (0.42%) WCAG
System Software
1 103 (4.32%) Docker
2 65 (2.73%) Active Directory
3 57 (2.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.09%) Virtual Machines
5 18 (0.76%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (0.59%) Firmware
6 14 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
6 14 (0.59%) VMware NSX
7 13 (0.55%) vSphere
8 12 (0.50%) Hyper-V
9 5 (0.21%) NFS
10 4 (0.17%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 3 (0.13%) KVM
11 3 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.084%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.084%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.084%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.042%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.042%) OpenSSH
13 1 (0.042%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 148 (6.21%) Kubernetes
2 109 (4.57%) Terraform
3 50 (2.10%) Prometheus
4 47 (1.97%) Grafana
5 44 (1.85%) Ansible
6 25 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
7 21 (0.88%) FortiGate
8 20 (0.84%) Microsoft Intune
9 10 (0.42%) SCCM
10 9 (0.38%) vCenter Server
11 6 (0.25%) Nessus
11 6 (0.25%) VxRail
12 5 (0.21%) CASB
12 5 (0.21%) HP ALM
12 5 (0.21%) Kibana
12 5 (0.21%) Puppet
12 5 (0.21%) vMotion
13 4 (0.17%) EMC VPLEX
13 4 (0.17%) Failover Clustering
13 4 (0.17%) Istio
Vendors
1 327 (13.72%) Microsoft
2 210 (8.81%) SAP
3 204 (8.56%) Oracle
4 117 (4.91%) Databricks
5 84 (3.52%) Salesforce
6 68 (2.85%) VMware
7 62 (2.60%) ServiceNow
8 53 (2.22%) Cisco
9 41 (1.72%) Workday
10 39 (1.64%) Splunk
11 34 (1.43%) Google
12 32 (1.34%) Informatica
13 27 (1.13%) Palo Alto
14 26 (1.09%) Fortinet
15 25 (1.05%) IBM
16 23 (0.97%) Sage
17 22 (0.92%) Juniper
17 22 (0.92%) MuleSoft
18 20 (0.84%) IFS
19 18 (0.76%) CyberArk