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

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 72 113
Rank change year-on-year +34 +41 +36
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,040 809 722
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.91% 3.40% 1.98%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.80% 3.72% 2.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,248 499 362
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% -12.05%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £588
90th Percentile £713 £705 £686
UK median daily rate £487 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -7.19% +5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 142 52 164
10th Percentile £17.75 £16.67 £26.88
25th Percentile £30.95 £37.25 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.63 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.80% -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% -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 35,194 21,730 31,440
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.78% 91.29% 86.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,373 14,199 20,591
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £510 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,179 923 2,284
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.22 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.13 £15.99
Median hourly rate £45.59 £28.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +62.80% -23.29% -2.67%
75th Percentile £68.00 £60.00 £61.11
90th Percentile £81.01 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.28 £27.45 £36.00
% change year-on-year +54.01% -23.75% -3.49%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 +49 981 £510 -7.27% 338
North of England +39 275 £430 -4.44% 145
Midlands +32 248 £492 +8.25% 97
South East -8 231 £490 -2.00% 191
West Midlands +26 176 £478 +9.26% 56
North West +30 165 £420 -4.00% 87
East of England +9 126 £475 +5.56% 89
South West +3 124 £475 -17.39% 101
Yorkshire +16 100 £451 +0.11% 38
East Midlands +12 68 £525 +14.38% 40
North East -14 13 £425 -27.66% 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 (3.87%) Confluence
2 47 (2.30%) Apache Airflow
3 37 (1.81%) Apache Spark
4 34 (1.67%) SAS
5 18 (0.88%) Apache
6 16 (0.78%) SharePoint
7 11 (0.54%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.44%) Appian
9 7 (0.34%) ArcGIS
9 7 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
9 7 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.20%) CMS
10 4 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 3 (0.15%) Apache Pulsar
11 3 (0.15%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
11 3 (0.15%) Oracle Self-Service HR
11 3 (0.15%) Tomcat
12 2 (0.098%) Documentum
12 2 (0.098%) Exchange Server 2013
12 2 (0.098%) Umbraco
Applications
1 141 (6.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 29 (1.42%) MS Visio
3 24 (1.18%) Microsoft Office
4 19 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 19 (0.93%) Spreadsheet
5 11 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.20%) CATIA
6 4 (0.20%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.20%) Simulink
7 3 (0.15%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.15%) LaTeX
7 3 (0.15%) Notion
8 2 (0.098%) EPLAN
8 2 (0.098%) 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 96 (4.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.42%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.74%) Teamcenter
4 14 (0.69%) Oracle General Ledger
4 14 (0.69%) Oracle Payables
4 14 (0.69%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 12 (0.59%) Oracle Assets
5 12 (0.59%) 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 (0.25%) Oracle E-Business Tax
10 5 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 401 (19.66%) Azure
2 242 (11.86%) AWS
3 201 (9.85%) Power Platform
4 106 (5.20%) GCP
5 97 (4.75%) Azure DevOps
6 92 (4.51%) GitHub
7 61 (2.99%) Snowflake
8 59 (2.89%) Azure Data Factory
9 52 (2.55%) Entra ID
10 50 (2.45%) SaaS
11 49 (2.40%) GitHub Actions
12 46 (2.25%) Serverless
13 41 (2.01%) OCI
14 37 (1.81%) Amazon S3
15 34 (1.67%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 32 (1.57%) dbt
17 29 (1.42%) Microsoft 365
18 21 (1.03%) SuccessFactors
19 20 (0.98%) AWS Lambda
19 20 (0.98%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 80 (3.92%) Firewall
2 54 (2.65%) Network Security
3 36 (1.76%) VLAN
4 30 (1.47%) DNS
5 29 (1.42%) TCP/IP
6 25 (1.23%) VPN
6 25 (1.23%) WAN
7 18 (0.88%) Ethernet
8 17 (0.83%) LAN
9 16 (0.78%) SAN
10 14 (0.69%) SD-WAN
11 13 (0.64%) BGP
11 13 (0.64%) OSPF
11 13 (0.64%) Wireless
12 12 (0.59%) DHCP
12 12 (0.59%) NAS
12 12 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
13 10 (0.49%) Cisco ISE
14 9 (0.44%) Internet
14 9 (0.44%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 188 (9.22%) Power BI
2 114 (5.59%) Data Warehouse
3 76 (3.73%) Metadata
4 70 (3.43%) SQL Server
4 70 (3.43%) Tableau
5 60 (2.94%) Data Lake
6 48 (2.35%) PostgreSQL
7 36 (1.76%) Relational Database
8 27 (1.32%) Amazon Redshift
8 27 (1.32%) Big Data
9 25 (1.23%) NoSQL
10 24 (1.18%) Oracle Reports
11 23 (1.13%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 22 (1.08%) BigQuery
12 22 (1.08%) Delta Lake
13 21 (1.03%) Oracle Database
13 21 (1.03%) Power Query
14 19 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
15 18 (0.88%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 16 (0.78%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 190 (9.31%) JIRA
2 105 (5.15%) Git
3 76 (3.73%) Jenkins
4 50 (2.45%) Selenium
5 47 (2.30%) GitLab
5 47 (2.30%) Postman
6 37 (1.81%) JMeter
7 31 (1.52%) JUnit
8 30 (1.47%) Cucumber
9 29 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
10 25 (1.23%) WebDriver
11 16 (0.78%) Rational Rhapsody
12 15 (0.74%) MLflow
12 15 (0.74%) Visual Studio
13 14 (0.69%) Eclipse
14 10 (0.49%) Bitbucket
14 10 (0.49%) Gatling
14 10 (0.49%) Gradle
14 10 (0.49%) Maven
14 10 (0.49%) REST Assured
General
1 629 (30.83%) Finance
2 618 (30.29%) Social Skills
3 378 (18.53%) Analytical Skills
4 170 (8.33%) Banking
5 164 (8.04%) Public Sector
6 109 (5.34%) Documentation Skills
7 63 (3.09%) Manufacturing
8 53 (2.60%) Aerospace
9 46 (2.25%) Retail
10 40 (1.96%) Organisational Skills
11 38 (1.86%) Presentation Skills
12 34 (1.67%) General Ledger
12 34 (1.67%) Pharmaceutical
13 32 (1.57%) Front Office
13 32 (1.57%) Marketing
14 31 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
15 30 (1.47%) Legal
16 29 (1.42%) Military
17 28 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 28 (1.37%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 369 (18.09%) Analyst
2 216 (10.59%) Lead
3 178 (8.73%) Senior
4 166 (8.14%) Business Analyst
5 163 (7.99%) Data Engineer
6 135 (6.62%) Consultant
7 128 (6.27%) Architect
8 110 (5.39%) Developer
9 105 (5.15%) Data Analyst
10 76 (3.73%) Project Manager
11 54 (2.65%) Tester
12 52 (2.55%) Test Engineer
13 46 (2.25%) Software Engineer
14 41 (2.01%) Systems Engineer
14 41 (2.01%) Test Manager
15 39 (1.91%) Senior Analyst
16 38 (1.86%) Network Engineer
16 38 (1.86%) Security Engineer
17 34 (1.67%) Technical Analyst
18 33 (1.62%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (5.20%) REST
2 73 (3.58%) JSON
3 68 (3.33%) Kafka
4 53 (2.60%) Oracle Fusion
5 48 (2.35%) XML
6 46 (2.25%) Middleware
7 44 (2.16%) OAuth
8 39 (1.91%) PySpark
9 37 (1.81%) Swagger
10 34 (1.67%) .NET
10 34 (1.67%) RESTful
11 32 (1.57%) SOAP
12 31 (1.52%) Pandas
13 30 (1.47%) Spring
14 29 (1.42%) Node.js
15 28 (1.37%) Web Services
16 26 (1.27%) PyTorch
17 25 (1.23%) OAuth2
17 25 (1.23%) pytest
18 24 (1.18%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 121 (5.93%) Legacy Systems
2 103 (5.05%) Data Structures
3 102 (5.00%) Onboarding
4 82 (4.02%) Product Ownership
5 70 (3.43%) Cloud Native
6 61 (2.99%) Data Centre
7 49 (2.40%) Management Information System
8 38 (1.86%) Analytical Mindset
8 38 (1.86%) Distributed Systems
9 31 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
10 26 (1.27%) Public Cloud
11 25 (1.23%) Replication
12 24 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
12 24 (1.18%) SCADA
13 23 (1.13%) Algorithms
13 23 (1.13%) Hybrid Cloud
14 22 (1.08%) AI Agents
14 22 (1.08%) Operational Technology
15 21 (1.03%) Life Science
15 21 (1.03%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 104 (5.10%) Windows
2 77 (3.77%) Linux
3 25 (1.23%) Unix
4 14 (0.69%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.49%) Android
5 10 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.29%) Windows 10
7 5 (0.25%) VMS
8 4 (0.20%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.20%) SUSE
8 4 (0.20%) zOS
9 2 (0.098%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.098%) 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
1 560 (27.45%) Migration
2 392 (19.22%) Agile
3 359 (17.60%) Problem-Solving
4 349 (17.11%) Stakeholder Management
5 347 (17.01%) Data Migration
6 344 (16.86%) Data Validation
7 316 (15.49%) User Acceptance Testing
8 314 (15.39%) CI/CD
8 314 (15.39%) Data Modelling
9 307 (15.05%) Analytics
10 275 (13.48%) ETL
11 247 (12.11%) DevOps
12 230 (11.27%) Test Automation
13 228 (11.18%) AI
13 228 (11.18%) Business Intelligence
14 216 (10.59%) Continuous Improvement
15 210 (10.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 192 (9.41%) Data Governance
17 188 (9.22%) Data Analysis
18 181 (8.87%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 497 (24.36%) SQL
2 356 (17.45%) Python
3 105 (5.15%) Java
4 53 (2.60%) C#
5 46 (2.25%) PowerShell
6 41 (2.01%) C++
7 38 (1.86%) C
7 38 (1.86%) JavaScript
8 36 (1.76%) Bash
9 28 (1.37%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 26 (1.27%) Bicep
10 26 (1.27%) PL/SQL
10 26 (1.27%) R
10 26 (1.27%) TypeScript
11 22 (1.08%) Ada
12 21 (1.03%) Apex Code
13 18 (0.88%) Scala
14 16 (0.78%) MATLAB
15 12 (0.59%) VBA
16 10 (0.49%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 382 (18.73%) Security Cleared
2 273 (13.38%) SC Cleared
3 159 (7.79%) Degree
4 45 (2.21%) Computer Science Degree
5 44 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
6 40 (1.96%) DV Cleared
7 32 (1.57%) PMI Certification
8 26 (1.27%) PMP
9 23 (1.13%) Cisco Certification
10 22 (1.08%) Master's Degree
11 18 (0.88%) CCNP
12 17 (0.83%) ACCA
13 16 (0.78%) CISSP
13 16 (0.78%) ISTQB
14 15 (0.74%) CIMA
15 14 (0.69%) CBAP
15 14 (0.69%) Microsoft Certification
16 12 (0.59%) AWS Certification
16 12 (0.59%) Azure Certification
17 9 (0.44%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 348 (17.06%) Data Quality
2 240 (11.76%) QA
3 102 (5.00%) GDPR
4 63 (3.09%) NIST
5 52 (2.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 27 (1.32%) IFRS
7 26 (1.27%) Accessibility
8 24 (1.18%) PMO
8 24 (1.18%) SLA
9 18 (0.88%) Def Stans
9 18 (0.88%) GRC
9 18 (0.88%) IFRS 17
10 14 (0.69%) GxP
10 14 (0.69%) HL7
11 13 (0.64%) PCI DSS
12 12 (0.59%) MiFID
12 12 (0.59%) NCSC
12 12 (0.59%) NIST 800
12 12 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 82 (4.02%) Docker
2 45 (2.21%) Active Directory
3 40 (1.96%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.03%) Firmware
5 20 (0.98%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (0.69%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.64%) VMware NSX
8 11 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
9 10 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
10 8 (0.39%) vSphere
11 5 (0.25%) NFS
12 4 (0.20%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 2 (0.098%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.098%) Ceph
13 2 (0.098%) KVM
13 2 (0.098%) Lustre
13 2 (0.098%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 2 (0.098%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.098%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.049%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 128 (6.27%) Kubernetes
2 85 (4.17%) Terraform
3 45 (2.21%) Prometheus
4 43 (2.11%) Grafana
5 39 (1.91%) Ansible
6 26 (1.27%) Single Sign-On
7 16 (0.78%) 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 (0.25%) CASB
13 5 (0.25%) vMotion
14 4 (0.20%) Argo
14 4 (0.20%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.20%) Failover Clustering
14 4 (0.20%) Istio
14 4 (0.20%) VxRail
Vendors
1 277 (13.58%) Microsoft
2 176 (8.63%) Oracle
2 176 (8.63%) SAP
3 101 (4.95%) Databricks
4 68 (3.33%) Salesforce
5 56 (2.75%) ServiceNow
6 49 (2.40%) VMware
7 41 (2.01%) Cisco
8 40 (1.96%) Splunk
9 32 (1.57%) Google
10 30 (1.47%) Informatica
10 30 (1.47%) Workday
11 24 (1.18%) Sage
12 23 (1.13%) MuleSoft
13 22 (1.08%) Palo Alto
14 21 (1.03%) IBM
14 21 (1.03%) IFS
15 19 (0.93%) CyberArk
16 16 (0.78%) Fortinet
16 16 (0.78%) OpenAI