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 17 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 70 111
Rank change year-on-year +36 +41 +37
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,252 881 752
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.25% 3.56% 2.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.16% 3.90% 2.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,370 548 372
10th Percentile £325 £350 £321
25th Percentile £410 £422 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% +7.50% -13.04%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £588
90th Percentile £706 £715 £672
UK median daily rate £500 £530 £500
% change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -10.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 151 57 176
10th Percentile £17.75 £17.53 £27.44
25th Percentile £31.64 £37.50 £50.44
Median hourly rate £62.50 £60.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £72.50
90th Percentile £83.75 £77.50 £76.86
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £57.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -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 36,560 22,594 31,972
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.16% 91.33% 85.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,106 14,607 20,685
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £415 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.48% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £726 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,294 1,062 2,382
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £21.00 £18.10 £16.06
Median hourly rate £47.00 £27.45 £37.75
Median % change year-on-year +71.22% -27.28% +7.09%
75th Percentile £68.00 £57.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £26.27 £37.34
% change year-on-year +67.37% -29.66% +6.69%

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 17 June 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 17 June 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 17 June 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 1,070 £513 -6.82% 309
North of England +47 311 £449 -0.33% 162
Midlands +33 270 £492 +9.39% 117
South East 0 266 £500 -0.50% 238
West Midlands +27 197 £484 +19.60% 66
North West +30 178 £440 -0.85% 77
South West +7 137 £500 -13.04% 123
East of England +14 132 £500 - 95
Yorkshire +24 116 £458 +5.17% 54
East Midlands +17 68 £525 +15.51% 51
North East -16 20 £425 -22.73% 34
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 (3.51%) Confluence
2 59 (2.62%) Apache Airflow
3 45 (2.00%) SAS
4 42 (1.87%) Apache Spark
5 33 (1.47%) SharePoint
6 22 (0.98%) Apache
7 15 (0.67%) Jupyter
8 10 (0.44%) Microsoft Exchange
9 9 (0.40%) Appian
10 8 (0.36%) SharePoint 2013
11 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
12 6 (0.27%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.27%) CMS
13 5 (0.22%) Tuxedo
14 3 (0.13%) Apache Pulsar
14 3 (0.13%) IIS
14 3 (0.13%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
14 3 (0.13%) Oracle Self-Service HR
14 3 (0.13%) Tomcat
15 2 (0.089%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 150 (6.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (1.42%) MS Visio
3 28 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
4 24 (1.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 21 (0.93%) Spreadsheet
6 7 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.22%) AutoCAD
7 5 (0.22%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.18%) Simulink
9 3 (0.13%) CATIA
9 3 (0.13%) LaTeX
10 2 (0.089%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.089%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.089%) Sketch
11 1 (0.044%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.044%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.044%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.044%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.044%) UXPin
11 1 (0.044%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 111 (4.93%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (1.42%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.67%) Oracle Payables
3 15 (0.67%) Teamcenter
4 14 (0.62%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 12 (0.53%) Oracle General Ledger
5 12 (0.53%) Workday HCM
6 10 (0.44%) Oracle Assets
6 10 (0.44%) SAP ERP
7 8 (0.36%) Aladdin
8 7 (0.31%) Oracle EBS R12
8 7 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
8 7 (0.31%) Oracle Financials
8 7 (0.31%) Oracle Receivables
8 7 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
8 7 (0.31%) Sage X3
8 7 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
8 7 (0.31%) Unit4 Business World
9 6 (0.27%) SAP Business One
9 6 (0.27%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 463 (20.56%) Azure
2 279 (12.39%) AWS
3 212 (9.41%) Power Platform
4 118 (5.24%) GCP
5 115 (5.11%) Azure DevOps
6 109 (4.84%) GitHub
7 73 (3.24%) Snowflake
8 61 (2.71%) GitHub Actions
9 60 (2.66%) Entra ID
10 59 (2.62%) Azure Data Factory
11 56 (2.49%) Serverless
12 47 (2.09%) SaaS
13 43 (1.91%) Amazon S3
14 40 (1.78%) Microsoft 365
14 40 (1.78%) OCI
15 37 (1.64%) dbt
16 36 (1.60%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 28 (1.24%) Salesforce Service Cloud
18 27 (1.20%) SuccessFactors
19 24 (1.07%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 94 (4.17%) Firewall
2 62 (2.75%) Network Security
3 40 (1.78%) VLAN
4 39 (1.73%) DNS
5 37 (1.64%) WAN
6 31 (1.38%) TCP/IP
6 31 (1.38%) VPN
7 25 (1.11%) BGP
8 22 (0.98%) LAN
9 21 (0.93%) Wireless
10 20 (0.89%) SAN
10 20 (0.89%) SD-WAN
11 19 (0.84%) Ethernet
12 18 (0.80%) OSPF
13 17 (0.75%) Internet
14 15 (0.67%) DHCP
14 15 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.58%) Cisco ISE
16 12 (0.53%) NAS
16 12 (0.53%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 198 (8.79%) Power BI
2 120 (5.33%) Data Warehouse
3 80 (3.55%) Metadata
4 78 (3.46%) SQL Server
5 68 (3.02%) Tableau
6 63 (2.80%) Data Lake
6 63 (2.80%) PostgreSQL
7 51 (2.26%) Relational Database
8 32 (1.42%) Big Data
9 28 (1.24%) Amazon Redshift
9 28 (1.24%) Oracle Database
10 27 (1.20%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 25 (1.11%) NoSQL
12 24 (1.07%) BigQuery
12 24 (1.07%) Oracle Reports
13 23 (1.02%) Power Query
13 23 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 20 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
14 20 (0.89%) Delta Lake
15 17 (0.75%) SAS Visual Analytics
Development Applications
1 215 (9.55%) JIRA
2 130 (5.77%) Git
3 90 (4.00%) Jenkins
4 66 (2.93%) GitLab
5 53 (2.35%) Selenium
6 43 (1.91%) Postman
7 40 (1.78%) JMeter
8 36 (1.60%) JUnit
9 35 (1.55%) Cucumber
10 30 (1.33%) WebDriver
11 25 (1.11%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.80%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.71%) Rational Rhapsody
13 16 (0.71%) Visual Studio
14 15 (0.67%) MLflow
15 14 (0.62%) Gatling
16 10 (0.44%) Gradle
16 10 (0.44%) Maven
16 10 (0.44%) REST Assured
17 8 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 678 (30.11%) Finance
2 664 (29.48%) Social Skills
3 412 (18.29%) Analytical Skills
4 186 (8.26%) Public Sector
5 182 (8.08%) Banking
6 126 (5.60%) Documentation Skills
7 66 (2.93%) Manufacturing
8 62 (2.75%) Aerospace
9 54 (2.40%) Retail
10 41 (1.82%) Organisational Skills
11 38 (1.69%) Pharmaceutical
11 38 (1.69%) Telecoms
12 37 (1.64%) Front Office
13 36 (1.60%) General Ledger
13 36 (1.60%) Marketing
14 34 (1.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 34 (1.51%) Influencing Skills
14 34 (1.51%) Legal
15 33 (1.47%) Presentation Skills
16 32 (1.42%) Law
Job Titles
1 383 (17.01%) Analyst
2 230 (10.21%) Senior
3 229 (10.17%) Lead
4 182 (8.08%) Business Analyst
5 175 (7.77%) Data Engineer
6 161 (7.15%) Consultant
7 138 (6.13%) Architect
8 131 (5.82%) Developer
9 114 (5.06%) Data Analyst
10 76 (3.37%) Project Manager
11 73 (3.24%) Test Engineer
12 58 (2.58%) Tester
13 47 (2.09%) Test Manager
14 46 (2.04%) Network Engineer
15 45 (2.00%) Systems Engineer
16 43 (1.91%) Software Engineer
17 39 (1.73%) Security Engineer
17 39 (1.73%) Senior Data Engineer
18 38 (1.69%) Senior Analyst
19 36 (1.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 121 (5.37%) REST
2 68 (3.02%) JSON
2 68 (3.02%) Kafka
3 53 (2.35%) Oracle Fusion
4 46 (2.04%) XML
5 44 (1.95%) OAuth
5 44 (1.95%) PySpark
6 43 (1.91%) Middleware
7 37 (1.64%) .NET
8 36 (1.60%) Spring
9 35 (1.55%) Swagger
10 34 (1.51%) RESTful
11 33 (1.47%) SOAP
11 33 (1.47%) Web Services
12 32 (1.42%) Pandas
12 32 (1.42%) pytest
13 29 (1.29%) Node.js
13 29 (1.29%) Playwright
14 26 (1.15%) JWT
15 25 (1.11%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 130 (5.77%) Legacy Systems
2 107 (4.75%) Data Structures
3 104 (4.62%) Onboarding
4 93 (4.13%) Product Ownership
5 84 (3.73%) Cloud Native
6 64 (2.84%) Data Centre
7 51 (2.26%) Distributed Systems
7 51 (2.26%) Management Information System
8 44 (1.95%) Analytical Mindset
9 31 (1.38%) SCADA
10 29 (1.29%) AI Agents
10 29 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
11 28 (1.24%) Distributed Architecture
12 27 (1.20%) Public Cloud
13 26 (1.15%) Algorithms
13 26 (1.15%) Hybrid Cloud
13 26 (1.15%) Life Science
13 26 (1.15%) Replication
14 24 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
14 24 (1.07%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 119 (5.28%) Windows
2 80 (3.55%) Linux
3 26 (1.15%) Unix
4 20 (0.89%) Windows Server
5 14 (0.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.58%) Android
7 6 (0.27%) VMS
7 6 (0.27%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.18%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.18%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.18%) SUSE
8 4 (0.18%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.089%) HPUX
10 2 (0.089%) VxWorks
10 2 (0.089%) zOS
11 1 (0.044%) Debian
11 1 (0.044%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.044%) Solaris
11 1 (0.044%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 618 (27.44%) Migration
2 426 (18.92%) Agile
3 399 (17.72%) Stakeholder Management
4 384 (17.05%) Data Validation
5 379 (16.83%) CI/CD
6 372 (16.52%) Data Migration
7 366 (16.25%) User Acceptance Testing
8 365 (16.21%) Problem-Solving
9 346 (15.36%) Analytics
10 341 (15.14%) Data Modelling
11 288 (12.79%) ETL
12 285 (12.66%) AI
13 279 (12.39%) DevOps
14 270 (11.99%) Test Automation
15 238 (10.57%) Business Intelligence
15 238 (10.57%) Continuous Improvement
16 233 (10.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 212 (9.41%) Data Analysis
18 211 (9.37%) Data Governance
19 206 (9.15%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 549 (24.38%) SQL
2 391 (17.36%) Python
3 111 (4.93%) Java
4 61 (2.71%) PowerShell
5 51 (2.26%) C#
6 38 (1.69%) C
6 38 (1.69%) C++
7 37 (1.64%) Bash
8 35 (1.55%) JavaScript
9 29 (1.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 28 (1.24%) TypeScript
11 27 (1.20%) Apex Code
11 27 (1.20%) Bicep
12 23 (1.02%) PL/SQL
12 23 (1.02%) R
13 21 (0.93%) Ada
14 17 (0.75%) Scala
15 16 (0.71%) MATLAB
15 16 (0.71%) VBA
16 14 (0.62%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 417 (18.52%) Security Cleared
2 301 (13.37%) SC Cleared
3 162 (7.19%) Degree
4 53 (2.35%) BPSS Clearance
5 47 (2.09%) DV Cleared
6 40 (1.78%) Computer Science Degree
7 31 (1.38%) PMI Certification
8 28 (1.24%) Cisco Certification
9 24 (1.07%) PMP
10 23 (1.02%) CCNP
11 20 (0.89%) Master's Degree
12 17 (0.75%) ACCA
12 17 (0.75%) ISTQB
13 16 (0.71%) CISSP
13 16 (0.71%) Microsoft Certification
14 15 (0.67%) CIMA
15 13 (0.58%) Azure Certification
16 12 (0.53%) AWS Certification
16 12 (0.53%) CCNA
17 8 (0.36%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 386 (17.14%) Data Quality
2 255 (11.32%) QA
3 109 (4.84%) GDPR
4 58 (2.58%) NIST
5 51 (2.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 33 (1.47%) Accessibility
7 29 (1.29%) PMO
8 27 (1.20%) IFRS
9 26 (1.15%) SLA
10 18 (0.80%) IFRS 17
11 16 (0.71%) Def Stans
12 15 (0.67%) GRC
12 15 (0.67%) GxP
13 14 (0.62%) HL7
14 13 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
14 13 (0.58%) Solvency II
15 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.49%) ISO 20022
16 11 (0.49%) PCI DSS
16 11 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 99 (4.40%) Docker
2 54 (2.40%) Active Directory
3 46 (2.04%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (0.71%) Firmware
6 15 (0.67%) VMware ESXi
7 14 (0.62%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.62%) VMware NSX
8 9 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
9 8 (0.36%) vSphere
10 5 (0.22%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 2 (0.089%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.089%) KVM
12 2 (0.089%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.089%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.089%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.044%) etcd
13 1 (0.044%) OpenSSH
13 1 (0.044%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 141 (6.26%) Kubernetes
2 104 (4.62%) Terraform
3 49 (2.18%) Prometheus
4 44 (1.95%) Ansible
4 44 (1.95%) Grafana
5 26 (1.15%) Single Sign-On
6 19 (0.84%) FortiGate
6 19 (0.84%) Microsoft Intune
7 9 (0.40%) vCenter Server
8 7 (0.31%) Kibana
8 7 (0.31%) SCCM
9 6 (0.27%) Nessus
9 6 (0.27%) Puppet
9 6 (0.27%) VxRail
10 5 (0.22%) vMotion
11 4 (0.18%) Argo
11 4 (0.18%) CASB
11 4 (0.18%) EMC VPLEX
11 4 (0.18%) Failover Clustering
11 4 (0.18%) Istio
Vendors
1 300 (13.32%) Microsoft
2 198 (8.79%) SAP
3 192 (8.53%) Oracle
4 107 (4.75%) Databricks
5 79 (3.51%) Salesforce
6 61 (2.71%) ServiceNow
7 56 (2.49%) VMware
8 50 (2.22%) Cisco
9 40 (1.78%) Splunk
10 34 (1.51%) Workday
11 33 (1.47%) Google
12 30 (1.33%) Informatica
13 26 (1.15%) Palo Alto
13 26 (1.15%) Sage
14 24 (1.07%) MuleSoft
15 23 (1.02%) Fortinet
16 21 (0.93%) IFS
17 20 (0.89%) IBM
18 19 (0.84%) CyberArk
19 17 (0.75%) CheckPoint