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

6 months to
11 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 71 109
Rank change year-on-year +37 +38 +41
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,433 967 766
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.40% 3.57% 2.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.31% 3.93% 2.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,482 596 381
10th Percentile £338 £353 £325
25th Percentile £413 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -11.11%
75th Percentile £600 £634 £588
90th Percentile £700 £700 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 161 69 169
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.04 £27.78
25th Percentile £30.27 £36.48 £47.83
Median hourly rate £62.50 £60.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75.00 £65.00 £68.88
90th Percentile £83.75 £75.50 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £57.63 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.12% -3.96% -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 38,535 24,596 31,653
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.57% 90.73% 85.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,284 15,811 20,551
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £514 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.14% -2.10% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £645
90th Percentile £733 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £518 £501 £525
% change year-on-year +3.40% -4.67% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,389 1,270 2,240
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.98 £16.25
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% -6.09%
75th Percentile £68.75 £54.94 £62.50
90th Percentile £82.60 £72.50 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -4.70%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 +45 1,172 £513 -6.82% 324
North of England +39 319 £450 -5.26% 113
South East +3 305 £505 +1.00% 220
Midlands +35 302 £489 +11.71% 113
West Midlands +30 219 £475 +17.28% 55
North West +22 172 £450 -14.29% 56
Yorkshire +32 135 £461 +10.53% 39
East of England +8 134 £500 +5.26% 75
South West -8 130 £514 -10.65% 73
East Midlands +20 78 £525 +15.51% 58
North East -22 17 £425 -22.73% 18
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 (3.25%) Confluence
2 62 (2.55%) Apache Airflow
3 48 (1.97%) SAS
4 44 (1.81%) SharePoint
5 42 (1.73%) Apache Spark
6 25 (1.03%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) Jupyter
8 10 (0.41%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.33%) SharePoint 2013
10 7 (0.29%) CMS
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.25%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.21%) Appian
12 5 (0.21%) Tuxedo
13 3 (0.12%) Apache Pulsar
13 3 (0.12%) IIS
13 3 (0.12%) JBoss
13 3 (0.12%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
13 3 (0.12%) Palantir Foundry
13 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 170 (6.99%) Microsoft Excel
2 37 (1.52%) MS Visio
3 33 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
4 27 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 23 (0.95%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
7 6 (0.25%) AutoCAD
8 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.21%) Simulink
9 3 (0.12%) CATIA
10 2 (0.082%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.082%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.082%) Sketch
11 1 (0.041%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.041%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.041%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.041%) LaTeX
11 1 (0.041%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.041%) Revit
11 1 (0.041%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 116 (4.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.36%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.62%) Oracle Payables
3 15 (0.62%) Teamcenter
4 14 (0.58%) Workday HCM
5 13 (0.53%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 11 (0.45%) iTrent
6 11 (0.45%) Oracle General Ledger
6 11 (0.45%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.41%) NetSuite
7 10 (0.41%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.37%) Aladdin
8 9 (0.37%) Oracle Financials
9 8 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
9 8 (0.33%) SAP MDG
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle EBS R12
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
10 7 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
10 7 (0.29%) Sage X3
Cloud Services
1 521 (21.41%) Azure
2 287 (11.80%) AWS
3 242 (9.95%) Power Platform
4 134 (5.51%) Azure DevOps
5 128 (5.26%) GCP
6 109 (4.48%) GitHub
7 78 (3.21%) Snowflake
8 64 (2.63%) Entra ID
9 63 (2.59%) Azure Data Factory
9 63 (2.59%) GitHub Actions
10 57 (2.34%) Serverless
11 44 (1.81%) Amazon S3
11 44 (1.81%) OCI
11 44 (1.81%) SaaS
12 43 (1.77%) Microsoft 365
13 41 (1.69%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 41 (1.69%) dbt
14 33 (1.36%) SuccessFactors
15 28 (1.15%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 26 (1.07%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 106 (4.36%) Firewall
2 62 (2.55%) Network Security
3 47 (1.93%) DNS
4 41 (1.69%) VLAN
5 36 (1.48%) WAN
6 34 (1.40%) VPN
7 28 (1.15%) TCP/IP
8 27 (1.11%) BGP
9 23 (0.95%) SAN
9 23 (0.95%) Wireless
10 22 (0.90%) LAN
11 20 (0.82%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.78%) OSPF
13 18 (0.74%) Internet
14 16 (0.66%) DHCP
14 16 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
15 15 (0.62%) Ethernet
16 13 (0.53%) Cisco ISE
16 13 (0.53%) NAS
17 10 (0.41%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 226 (9.29%) Power BI
2 134 (5.51%) Data Warehouse
3 89 (3.66%) Metadata
4 79 (3.25%) SQL Server
5 73 (3.00%) Data Lake
6 71 (2.92%) Tableau
7 69 (2.84%) PostgreSQL
8 59 (2.42%) Relational Database
9 37 (1.52%) Big Data
10 30 (1.23%) Oracle Database
11 29 (1.19%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 26 (1.07%) Amazon Redshift
12 26 (1.07%) NoSQL
12 26 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 25 (1.03%) BigQuery
13 25 (1.03%) Delta Lake
14 23 (0.95%) Power Query
15 22 (0.90%) Oracle Reports
16 19 (0.78%) Amazon Athena
17 18 (0.74%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 230 (9.45%) JIRA
2 140 (5.75%) Git
3 90 (3.70%) Jenkins
4 67 (2.75%) GitLab
5 56 (2.30%) Selenium
6 45 (1.85%) Postman
7 43 (1.77%) JMeter
8 37 (1.52%) Cucumber
9 36 (1.48%) JUnit
10 30 (1.23%) WebDriver
11 26 (1.07%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.74%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.66%) Gatling
13 16 (0.66%) Rational Rhapsody
13 16 (0.66%) Visual Studio
14 12 (0.49%) MLflow
15 10 (0.41%) Maven
15 10 (0.41%) REST Assured
16 9 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
17 8 (0.33%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 736 (30.25%) Finance
2 724 (29.76%) Social Skills
3 463 (19.03%) Analytical Skills
4 196 (8.06%) Banking
4 196 (8.06%) Public Sector
5 139 (5.71%) Documentation Skills
6 84 (3.45%) Manufacturing
7 69 (2.84%) Retail
8 65 (2.67%) Aerospace
9 46 (1.89%) Telecoms
10 45 (1.85%) Pharmaceutical
11 44 (1.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 43 (1.77%) Organisational Skills
13 38 (1.56%) Marketing
14 36 (1.48%) Front Office
15 34 (1.40%) General Ledger
15 34 (1.40%) Law
16 33 (1.36%) Legal
17 31 (1.27%) Automotive
17 31 (1.27%) Billing
Job Titles
1 427 (17.55%) Analyst
2 246 (10.11%) Lead
3 242 (9.95%) Senior
4 201 (8.26%) Business Analyst
5 196 (8.06%) Data Engineer
6 171 (7.03%) Consultant
7 143 (5.88%) Architect
8 139 (5.71%) Developer
9 125 (5.14%) Data Analyst
10 85 (3.49%) Test Engineer
11 72 (2.96%) Project Manager
12 66 (2.71%) Tester
13 49 (2.01%) Network Engineer
14 45 (1.85%) Senior Data Engineer
15 44 (1.81%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 44 (1.81%) Security Engineer
16 43 (1.77%) Test Manager
17 42 (1.73%) Systems Engineer
18 41 (1.69%) Software Engineer
19 39 (1.60%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (4.73%) REST
2 73 (3.00%) JSON
3 71 (2.92%) Kafka
4 54 (2.22%) PySpark
5 51 (2.10%) Oracle Fusion
6 49 (2.01%) XML
7 43 (1.77%) Middleware
7 43 (1.77%) Spring
8 40 (1.64%) .NET
9 38 (1.56%) OAuth
10 36 (1.48%) Playwright
11 34 (1.40%) pytest
12 32 (1.32%) RESTful
13 31 (1.27%) Web Services
14 30 (1.23%) Node.js
14 30 (1.23%) Pandas
14 30 (1.23%) SOAP
15 25 (1.03%) Swagger
15 25 (1.03%) WireMock
16 23 (0.95%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 130 (5.34%) Legacy Systems
2 122 (5.01%) Onboarding
3 120 (4.93%) Data Structures
4 105 (4.32%) Cloud Native
5 97 (3.99%) Product Ownership
6 68 (2.79%) Data Centre
7 57 (2.34%) Management Information System
8 47 (1.93%) Analytical Mindset
8 47 (1.93%) Distributed Systems
9 39 (1.60%) SCADA
10 35 (1.44%) AI Agents
11 34 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
12 33 (1.36%) Life Science
13 30 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
14 27 (1.11%) Distributed Architecture
14 27 (1.11%) NHS
14 27 (1.11%) Operational Technology
14 27 (1.11%) Public Cloud
14 27 (1.11%) Virtual Team
15 26 (1.07%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 130 (5.34%) Windows
2 78 (3.21%) Linux
3 31 (1.27%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.86%) Unix
5 18 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.41%) Android
7 7 (0.29%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.25%) VMS
8 6 (0.25%) Windows 10
9 5 (0.21%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.16%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.16%) SUSE
11 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.082%) HPUX
12 2 (0.082%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.082%) zOS
13 1 (0.041%) Debian
13 1 (0.041%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.041%) Solaris
13 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 673 (27.66%) Migration
2 471 (19.36%) Agile
3 434 (17.84%) Stakeholder Management
4 415 (17.06%) CI/CD
5 407 (16.73%) Data Validation
6 403 (16.56%) Data Migration
7 402 (16.52%) Analytics
8 393 (16.15%) User Acceptance Testing
9 390 (16.03%) Problem-Solving
10 366 (15.04%) Data Modelling
11 308 (12.66%) AI
11 308 (12.66%) ETL
12 306 (12.58%) DevOps
13 301 (12.37%) Test Automation
14 280 (11.51%) Continuous Improvement
15 270 (11.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 262 (10.77%) Business Intelligence
17 240 (9.86%) Data Governance
18 239 (9.82%) Data Analysis
19 238 (9.78%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 579 (23.80%) SQL
2 426 (17.51%) Python
3 119 (4.89%) Java
4 67 (2.75%) PowerShell
5 54 (2.22%) C#
6 40 (1.64%) C++
7 39 (1.60%) JavaScript
8 38 (1.56%) Bash
9 33 (1.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 32 (1.32%) C
10 32 (1.32%) TypeScript
11 28 (1.15%) Apex Code
12 27 (1.11%) Bicep
13 25 (1.03%) PL/SQL
14 24 (0.99%) R
15 23 (0.95%) VBA
16 22 (0.90%) Ada
17 20 (0.82%) Scala
18 17 (0.70%) MATLAB
19 14 (0.58%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 442 (18.17%) Security Cleared
2 316 (12.99%) SC Cleared
3 173 (7.11%) Degree
4 58 (2.38%) DV Cleared
5 56 (2.30%) BPSS Clearance
6 38 (1.56%) Computer Science Degree
7 34 (1.40%) Cisco Certification
8 27 (1.11%) PMI Certification
9 26 (1.07%) CCNP
10 22 (0.90%) PMP
11 20 (0.82%) CISSP
12 18 (0.74%) ACCA
12 18 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
13 17 (0.70%) Azure Certification
13 17 (0.70%) CIMA
13 17 (0.70%) ISTQB
13 17 (0.70%) Master's Degree
14 14 (0.58%) AWS Certification
15 12 (0.49%) CCNA
16 10 (0.41%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 436 (17.92%) Data Quality
2 291 (11.96%) QA
3 112 (4.60%) GDPR
4 59 (2.42%) NIST
5 54 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 38 (1.56%) Accessibility
7 35 (1.44%) PMO
8 29 (1.19%) SLA
9 20 (0.82%) GxP
9 20 (0.82%) IFRS
10 18 (0.74%) GRC
11 17 (0.70%) Def Stans
12 14 (0.58%) HL7
13 13 (0.53%) NCSC
13 13 (0.53%) Solvency II
14 12 (0.49%) IFRS 17
14 12 (0.49%) ISO 20022
14 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.45%) PCI DSS
15 11 (0.45%) WCAG
System Software
1 103 (4.23%) Docker
2 67 (2.75%) Active Directory
3 60 (2.47%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.11%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (0.78%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.58%) Firmware
7 14 (0.58%) VMware NSX
8 13 (0.53%) vSphere
9 12 (0.49%) Hyper-V
10 5 (0.21%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 3 (0.12%) KVM
12 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.082%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.082%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.082%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.041%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.041%) OpenSSH
14 1 (0.041%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 150 (6.17%) Kubernetes
2 110 (4.52%) Terraform
3 50 (2.06%) Prometheus
4 47 (1.93%) Grafana
5 44 (1.81%) Ansible
6 25 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
7 21 (0.86%) FortiGate
8 20 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
9 10 (0.41%) SCCM
10 9 (0.37%) 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%) vMotion
13 4 (0.16%) Argo
13 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
13 4 (0.16%) Istio
13 4 (0.16%) Kibana
13 4 (0.16%) Puppet
Vendors
1 336 (13.81%) Microsoft
2 218 (8.96%) SAP
3 208 (8.55%) Oracle
4 123 (5.06%) Databricks
5 84 (3.45%) Salesforce
6 71 (2.92%) VMware
7 62 (2.55%) ServiceNow
8 55 (2.26%) Cisco
9 44 (1.81%) Workday
10 39 (1.60%) Splunk
11 36 (1.48%) Google
12 32 (1.32%) Informatica
13 28 (1.15%) Fortinet
14 27 (1.11%) IBM
14 27 (1.11%) Palo Alto
15 23 (0.95%) Juniper
16 22 (0.90%) MuleSoft
16 22 (0.90%) Sage
17 20 (0.82%) IFS
18 19 (0.78%) CyberArk