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

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 69 108
Rank change year-on-year +35 +39 +40
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,417 974 767
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.39% 3.57% 2.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.31% 3.93% 2.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,466 597 382
10th Percentile £336 £354 £325
25th Percentile £413 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.91%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £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 160 71 167
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £27.55
25th Percentile £30.27 £36.37 £47.83
Median hourly rate £62.50 £57.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.23% -3.75% -4.08%
75th Percentile £75.25 £65.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £83.78 £75.00 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £57.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -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 38,320 24,760 31,431
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.46% 90.73% 85.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,128 15,919 20,389
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
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 £735 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £501 £525
% change year-on-year +3.81% -4.67% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,389 1,284 2,227
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.33 £13.00
25th Percentile £21.00 £18.08 £16.25
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% -5.96%
75th Percentile £68.75 £54.81 £62.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £72.20 £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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +47 1,160 £513 -2.38% 527
North of England +38 317 £450 -5.26% 137
South East -2 305 £505 +1.00% 236
Midlands +43 302 £481 +10.00% 110
West Midlands +33 218 £475 +17.28% 56
North West +19 172 £450 -14.29% 74
East of England +7 134 £500 +5.26% 85
Yorkshire +30 133 £460 +10.31% 45
South West -6 128 £520 -9.57% 149
East Midlands +25 79 £525 +15.51% 54
North East -24 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 (3.27%) Confluence
2 61 (2.52%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (1.94%) SAS
4 44 (1.82%) SharePoint
5 41 (1.70%) Apache Spark
6 25 (1.03%) Apache
7 12 (0.50%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.37%) 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
1 169 (6.99%) Microsoft Excel
2 37 (1.53%) MS Visio
3 33 (1.37%) Microsoft Office
4 27 (1.12%) 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 (0.083%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.083%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.083%) Sketch
11 1 (0.041%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.041%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.041%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.041%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.041%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.041%) Revit
11 1 (0.041%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 115 (4.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.37%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.62%) Teamcenter
4 14 (0.58%) Oracle Payables
4 14 (0.58%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.50%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 11 (0.46%) iTrent
6 11 (0.46%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.41%) Aladdin
7 10 (0.41%) NetSuite
7 10 (0.41%) Oracle Assets
7 10 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
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%) Payment Gateway
10 7 (0.29%) Sage X3
11 6 (0.25%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 513 (21.22%) Azure
2 285 (11.79%) AWS
3 242 (10.01%) Power Platform
4 132 (5.46%) Azure DevOps
5 127 (5.25%) GCP
6 109 (4.51%) GitHub
7 75 (3.10%) Snowflake
8 64 (2.65%) Entra ID
9 63 (2.61%) GitHub Actions
10 62 (2.57%) Azure Data Factory
11 56 (2.32%) Serverless
12 44 (1.82%) Amazon S3
12 44 (1.82%) OCI
12 44 (1.82%) SaaS
13 43 (1.78%) Microsoft 365
14 41 (1.70%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 40 (1.65%) dbt
16 32 (1.32%) SuccessFactors
17 28 (1.16%) Salesforce Service Cloud
18 26 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 105 (4.34%) Firewall
2 62 (2.57%) Network Security
3 47 (1.94%) DNS
4 41 (1.70%) VLAN
5 36 (1.49%) WAN
6 34 (1.41%) VPN
7 28 (1.16%) TCP/IP
8 27 (1.12%) BGP
9 23 (0.95%) SAN
9 23 (0.95%) Wireless
10 22 (0.91%) LAN
11 20 (0.83%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.79%) OSPF
13 18 (0.74%) Internet
14 16 (0.66%) DHCP
14 16 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
15 14 (0.58%) Ethernet
16 13 (0.54%) Cisco ISE
16 13 (0.54%) NAS
17 10 (0.41%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 227 (9.39%) Power BI
2 133 (5.50%) Data Warehouse
3 89 (3.68%) Metadata
4 78 (3.23%) SQL Server
5 72 (2.98%) Data Lake
6 71 (2.94%) Tableau
7 68 (2.81%) PostgreSQL
8 58 (2.40%) Relational Database
9 36 (1.49%) Big Data
10 29 (1.20%) Oracle Database
11 28 (1.16%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 26 (1.08%) Amazon Redshift
12 26 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 25 (1.03%) BigQuery
13 25 (1.03%) Delta Lake
14 24 (0.99%) NoSQL
15 23 (0.95%) Power Query
16 22 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
17 19 (0.79%) Amazon Athena
18 18 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 230 (9.52%) JIRA
2 139 (5.75%) Git
3 89 (3.68%) Jenkins
4 66 (2.73%) GitLab
5 55 (2.28%) Selenium
6 44 (1.82%) Postman
7 43 (1.78%) JMeter
8 37 (1.53%) Cucumber
9 36 (1.49%) JUnit
10 30 (1.24%) WebDriver
11 26 (1.08%) 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 (0.50%) MLflow
15 10 (0.41%) Maven
15 10 (0.41%) REST Assured
16 9 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
17 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
General
1 728 (30.12%) Finance
2 719 (29.75%) Social Skills
3 463 (19.16%) Analytical Skills
4 196 (8.11%) Public Sector
5 194 (8.03%) Banking
6 139 (5.75%) Documentation Skills
7 84 (3.48%) Manufacturing
8 69 (2.85%) Retail
9 64 (2.65%) Aerospace
10 46 (1.90%) Telecoms
11 45 (1.86%) Pharmaceutical
12 44 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 42 (1.74%) Organisational Skills
14 38 (1.57%) Marketing
15 35 (1.45%) Front Office
16 34 (1.41%) Law
17 33 (1.37%) General Ledger
17 33 (1.37%) Legal
18 32 (1.32%) Automotive
19 31 (1.28%) Billing
Job Titles
1 422 (17.46%) Analyst
2 246 (10.18%) Lead
3 240 (9.93%) Senior
4 198 (8.19%) Business Analyst
5 196 (8.11%) Data Engineer
6 168 (6.95%) Consultant
7 142 (5.88%) Architect
8 139 (5.75%) Developer
9 123 (5.09%) Data Analyst
10 87 (3.60%) Test Engineer
11 71 (2.94%) Project Manager
12 66 (2.73%) Tester
13 50 (2.07%) Network Engineer
14 44 (1.82%) Security Engineer
14 44 (1.82%) Senior Data Engineer
15 43 (1.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 43 (1.78%) Test Manager
16 42 (1.74%) Systems Engineer
17 41 (1.70%) Software Engineer
18 39 (1.61%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 114 (4.72%) REST
2 72 (2.98%) JSON
3 69 (2.85%) Kafka
4 54 (2.23%) PySpark
5 50 (2.07%) Oracle Fusion
6 48 (1.99%) XML
7 43 (1.78%) Middleware
8 42 (1.74%) Spring
9 39 (1.61%) .NET
10 38 (1.57%) OAuth
11 36 (1.49%) Playwright
12 33 (1.37%) pytest
13 32 (1.32%) RESTful
14 31 (1.28%) Web Services
15 30 (1.24%) Node.js
15 30 (1.24%) Pandas
15 30 (1.24%) SOAP
16 25 (1.03%) Swagger
16 25 (1.03%) WireMock
17 23 (0.95%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 129 (5.34%) Legacy Systems
2 120 (4.96%) Data Structures
2 120 (4.96%) Onboarding
3 104 (4.30%) Cloud Native
4 96 (3.97%) Product Ownership
5 68 (2.81%) Data Centre
6 57 (2.36%) Management Information System
7 47 (1.94%) Analytical Mindset
7 47 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
8 39 (1.61%) SCADA
9 35 (1.45%) AI Agents
10 34 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
11 33 (1.37%) Life Science
12 29 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
13 28 (1.16%) Virtual Team
14 27 (1.12%) Distributed Architecture
14 27 (1.12%) NHS
14 27 (1.12%) Operational Technology
15 26 (1.08%) Hybrid Cloud
15 26 (1.08%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 130 (5.38%) Windows
2 78 (3.23%) Linux
3 31 (1.28%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.87%) 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 (0.17%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.17%) SUSE
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%) Debian
13 1 (0.041%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.041%) Solaris
13 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 665 (27.51%) Migration
2 468 (19.36%) Agile
3 434 (17.96%) Stakeholder Management
4 410 (16.96%) CI/CD
5 404 (16.71%) Data Validation
6 401 (16.59%) Analytics
6 401 (16.59%) Data Migration
7 388 (16.05%) User Acceptance Testing
8 385 (15.93%) Problem-Solving
9 363 (15.02%) Data Modelling
10 305 (12.62%) ETL
11 304 (12.58%) AI
11 304 (12.58%) DevOps
12 299 (12.37%) Test Automation
13 280 (11.58%) Continuous Improvement
14 269 (11.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 263 (10.88%) Business Intelligence
16 239 (9.89%) Data Governance
17 238 (9.85%) Data Analysis
18 237 (9.81%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 572 (23.67%) SQL
2 424 (17.54%) Python
3 118 (4.88%) Java
4 67 (2.77%) PowerShell
5 53 (2.19%) C#
6 40 (1.65%) C++
7 38 (1.57%) Bash
7 38 (1.57%) JavaScript
8 33 (1.37%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 32 (1.32%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.28%) C
11 28 (1.16%) Apex Code
12 27 (1.12%) Bicep
13 25 (1.03%) PL/SQL
14 24 (0.99%) R
15 23 (0.95%) VBA
16 22 (0.91%) Ada
17 19 (0.79%) Scala
18 16 (0.66%) MATLAB
19 14 (0.58%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 440 (18.20%) Security Cleared
2 314 (12.99%) SC Cleared
3 173 (7.16%) Degree
4 58 (2.40%) DV Cleared
5 56 (2.32%) BPSS Clearance
6 38 (1.57%) Computer Science Degree
7 34 (1.41%) Cisco Certification
8 26 (1.08%) CCNP
8 26 (1.08%) PMI Certification
9 21 (0.87%) PMP
10 20 (0.83%) CISSP
11 18 (0.74%) ACCA
11 18 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
12 17 (0.70%) Azure Certification
12 17 (0.70%) CIMA
12 17 (0.70%) Master's Degree
13 15 (0.62%) ISTQB
14 14 (0.58%) AWS Certification
15 12 (0.50%) CCNA
16 10 (0.41%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 433 (17.91%) Data Quality
2 288 (11.92%) QA
3 110 (4.55%) GDPR
4 58 (2.40%) NIST
5 52 (2.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 38 (1.57%) Accessibility
7 35 (1.45%) PMO
8 29 (1.20%) SLA
9 20 (0.83%) GxP
10 19 (0.79%) IFRS
11 18 (0.74%) GRC
12 17 (0.70%) Def Stans
13 14 (0.58%) HL7
14 13 (0.54%) NCSC
15 12 (0.50%) ISO 20022
15 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.50%) Solvency II
16 11 (0.46%) IFRS 17
16 11 (0.46%) PCI DSS
16 11 (0.46%) WCAG
System Software
1 102 (4.22%) Docker
2 67 (2.77%) Active Directory
3 59 (2.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (0.79%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.62%) 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 4 (0.17%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 3 (0.12%) KVM
12 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.083%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.083%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.083%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.041%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.041%) OpenSSH
14 1 (0.041%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 149 (6.16%) Kubernetes
2 110 (4.55%) Terraform
3 50 (2.07%) Prometheus
4 47 (1.94%) Grafana
5 44 (1.82%) Ansible
6 25 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
7 21 (0.87%) FortiGate
8 20 (0.83%) 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 (0.17%) EMC VPLEX
13 4 (0.17%) Failover Clustering
13 4 (0.17%) Istio
13 4 (0.17%) Kibana
13 4 (0.17%) Puppet
Vendors
1 335 (13.86%) Microsoft
2 216 (8.94%) SAP
3 206 (8.52%) Oracle
4 121 (5.01%) Databricks
5 84 (3.48%) Salesforce
6 70 (2.90%) VMware
7 62 (2.57%) ServiceNow
8 55 (2.28%) Cisco
9 44 (1.82%) Workday
10 39 (1.61%) Splunk
11 36 (1.49%) Google
12 31 (1.28%) Informatica
13 28 (1.16%) Fortinet
14 27 (1.12%) Palo Alto
15 26 (1.08%) IBM
16 23 (0.95%) Juniper
17 22 (0.91%) MuleSoft
17 22 (0.91%) Sage
18 20 (0.83%) IFS
19 18 (0.74%) CyberArk