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

6 months to
1 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 71 107
Rank change year-on-year +36 +36 +39
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,315 919 767
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.28% 3.58% 2.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.19% 3.93% 2.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,404 565 379
10th Percentile £340 £353 £320
25th Percentile £413 £420 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -11.50%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £591
90th Percentile £704 £700 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 156 63 179
10th Percentile £17.75 £18.68 £27.78
25th Percentile £29.06 £39.38 £47.83
Median hourly rate £62.82 £60.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.70% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75.25 £66.00 £70.33
90th Percentile £83.38 £77.00 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £58.88 £60.00
% change year-on-year +1.91% -1.88% -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 37,409 23,372 31,772
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.35% 91.17% 85.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,567 15,052 20,589
10th Percentile £325 £300 £304
25th Percentile £418 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.97% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £729 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £515 £501 £525
% change year-on-year +2.79% -4.57% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,348 1,165 2,330
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £20.97 £17.88 £16.06
Median hourly rate £46.90 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +86.48% -34.02% +1.65%
75th Percentile £68.50 £55.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £82.25 £72.50 £72.93
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +3.81%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 1,113 £513 -6.82% 466
North of England +41 307 £450 - 173
Midlands +35 286 £490 +8.89% 137
South East 0 273 £504 +0.75% 280
West Midlands +35 207 £475 +17.77% 65
North West +26 168 £444 -1.44% 95
East of England +13 133 £500 - 96
South West +3 131 £508 -11.74% 119
Yorkshire +29 125 £461 +10.53% 50
East Midlands +24 74 £525 +15.51% 72
North East -18 17 £425 -22.73% 28
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 80 (3.46%) Confluence
2 60 (2.59%) Apache Airflow
3 46 (1.99%) SAS
4 44 (1.90%) SharePoint
5 40 (1.73%) Apache Spark
6 23 (0.99%) Apache
7 13 (0.56%) Jupyter
8 10 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.35%) SharePoint 2013
10 7 (0.30%) Appian
10 7 (0.30%) CMS
10 7 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.26%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.22%) 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
1 162 (7.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (1.51%) MS Visio
3 32 (1.38%) Microsoft Office
4 27 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 21 (0.91%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.22%) AutoCAD
7 5 (0.22%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.17%) Simulink
9 3 (0.13%) CATIA
10 2 (0.086%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.086%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.086%) Sketch
11 1 (0.043%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.043%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.043%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.043%) LaTeX
11 1 (0.043%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.043%) UXPin
11 1 (0.043%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 111 (4.79%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.43%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.65%) Oracle Payables
3 15 (0.65%) Teamcenter
4 13 (0.56%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 12 (0.52%) Workday HCM
6 11 (0.48%) Oracle General Ledger
7 10 (0.43%) Oracle Assets
7 10 (0.43%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.39%) iTrent
8 9 (0.39%) NetSuite
9 8 (0.35%) Aladdin
9 8 (0.35%) Oracle Financials
10 7 (0.30%) Oracle EBS R12
10 7 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
10 7 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
10 7 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
10 7 (0.30%) Sage X3
10 7 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.26%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 494 (21.34%) Azure
2 280 (12.10%) AWS
3 228 (9.85%) Power Platform
4 126 (5.44%) Azure DevOps
5 121 (5.23%) GCP
6 109 (4.71%) GitHub
7 76 (3.28%) Snowflake
8 61 (2.63%) Azure Data Factory
8 61 (2.63%) Entra ID
8 61 (2.63%) GitHub Actions
9 56 (2.42%) Serverless
10 43 (1.86%) Amazon S3
11 42 (1.81%) Microsoft 365
11 42 (1.81%) SaaS
12 40 (1.73%) OCI
13 39 (1.68%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 39 (1.68%) dbt
14 30 (1.30%) SuccessFactors
15 28 (1.21%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 25 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 100 (4.32%) Firewall
2 60 (2.59%) Network Security
3 40 (1.73%) VLAN
4 39 (1.68%) DNS
5 37 (1.60%) WAN
6 33 (1.43%) VPN
7 29 (1.25%) TCP/IP
8 27 (1.17%) BGP
9 23 (0.99%) SAN
10 22 (0.95%) LAN
10 22 (0.95%) Wireless
11 20 (0.86%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.82%) OSPF
13 17 (0.73%) Internet
14 16 (0.69%) DHCP
14 16 (0.69%) Ethernet
14 16 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.56%) Cisco ISE
16 12 (0.52%) NAS
17 11 (0.48%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 212 (9.16%) Power BI
2 126 (5.44%) Data Warehouse
3 86 (3.71%) Metadata
4 80 (3.46%) SQL Server
5 69 (2.98%) Tableau
6 68 (2.94%) Data Lake
6 68 (2.94%) PostgreSQL
7 56 (2.42%) Relational Database
8 31 (1.34%) Big Data
9 30 (1.30%) Oracle Database
10 28 (1.21%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 26 (1.12%) Amazon Redshift
11 26 (1.12%) NoSQL
12 25 (1.08%) BigQuery
13 24 (1.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 23 (0.99%) Power Query
15 22 (0.95%) Delta Lake
15 22 (0.95%) Oracle Reports
16 19 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
17 18 (0.78%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 228 (9.85%) JIRA
2 135 (5.83%) Git
3 90 (3.89%) Jenkins
4 66 (2.85%) GitLab
5 55 (2.38%) Selenium
6 43 (1.86%) Postman
7 42 (1.81%) JMeter
8 36 (1.56%) Cucumber
8 36 (1.56%) JUnit
9 30 (1.30%) WebDriver
10 25 (1.08%) Rational DOORS
11 18 (0.78%) Eclipse
12 16 (0.69%) Rational Rhapsody
12 16 (0.69%) Visual Studio
13 15 (0.65%) Gatling
14 12 (0.52%) MLflow
15 10 (0.43%) Maven
15 10 (0.43%) REST Assured
16 9 (0.39%) Gradle
16 9 (0.39%) Oracle Forms
General
1 698 (30.15%) Finance
2 695 (30.02%) Social Skills
3 441 (19.05%) Analytical Skills
4 190 (8.21%) Public Sector
5 183 (7.90%) Banking
6 129 (5.57%) Documentation Skills
7 75 (3.24%) Manufacturing
8 65 (2.81%) Retail
9 63 (2.72%) Aerospace
10 43 (1.86%) Organisational Skills
11 42 (1.81%) Telecoms
12 41 (1.77%) Pharmaceutical
13 40 (1.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 37 (1.60%) Front Office
15 36 (1.56%) Marketing
16 35 (1.51%) General Ledger
17 32 (1.38%) Influencing Skills
17 32 (1.38%) Law
18 31 (1.34%) Legal
18 31 (1.34%) Military
Job Titles
1 403 (17.41%) Analyst
2 236 (10.19%) Senior
3 232 (10.02%) Lead
4 188 (8.12%) Business Analyst
5 181 (7.82%) Data Engineer
6 168 (7.26%) Consultant
7 143 (6.18%) Architect
8 135 (5.83%) Developer
9 118 (5.10%) Data Analyst
10 75 (3.24%) Test Engineer
11 70 (3.02%) Project Manager
12 62 (2.68%) Tester
13 47 (2.03%) Network Engineer
14 43 (1.86%) Test Manager
15 42 (1.81%) Security Engineer
15 42 (1.81%) Systems Engineer
16 41 (1.77%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 41 (1.77%) Software Engineer
17 40 (1.73%) Senior Data Engineer
18 39 (1.68%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (4.84%) REST
2 71 (3.07%) Kafka
3 69 (2.98%) JSON
4 50 (2.16%) Oracle Fusion
5 48 (2.07%) PySpark
6 47 (2.03%) XML
7 43 (1.86%) Middleware
8 41 (1.77%) OAuth
8 41 (1.77%) Spring
9 38 (1.64%) .NET
10 33 (1.43%) pytest
10 33 (1.43%) RESTful
11 32 (1.38%) Playwright
11 32 (1.38%) Web Services
12 31 (1.34%) SOAP
13 30 (1.30%) Node.js
13 30 (1.30%) Pandas
14 29 (1.25%) Swagger
15 25 (1.08%) WireMock
16 23 (0.99%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 120 (5.18%) Legacy Systems
2 114 (4.92%) Data Structures
3 108 (4.67%) Onboarding
4 92 (3.97%) Product Ownership
5 91 (3.93%) Cloud Native
6 69 (2.98%) Data Centre
7 55 (2.38%) Management Information System
8 49 (2.12%) Analytical Mindset
9 48 (2.07%) Distributed Systems
10 36 (1.56%) SCADA
11 33 (1.43%) AI Agents
12 29 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
13 28 (1.21%) Life Science
13 28 (1.21%) Public Cloud
14 27 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
14 27 (1.17%) Distributed Architecture
15 26 (1.12%) Hybrid Cloud
16 25 (1.08%) NHS
16 25 (1.08%) Replication
16 25 (1.08%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 124 (5.36%) Windows
2 80 (3.46%) Linux
3 23 (0.99%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.95%) Unix
5 16 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.48%) Android
7 7 (0.30%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.26%) VMS
8 6 (0.26%) 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 (0.086%) HPUX
11 2 (0.086%) VxWorks
11 2 (0.086%) zOS
12 1 (0.043%) Debian
12 1 (0.043%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.043%) Solaris
12 1 (0.043%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 639 (27.60%) Migration
2 453 (19.57%) Agile
3 409 (17.67%) Stakeholder Management
4 396 (17.11%) CI/CD
5 395 (17.06%) Data Validation
6 379 (16.37%) Data Migration
6 379 (16.37%) Problem-Solving
7 370 (15.98%) Analytics
7 370 (15.98%) User Acceptance Testing
8 348 (15.03%) Data Modelling
9 296 (12.79%) AI
10 295 (12.74%) DevOps
11 292 (12.61%) ETL
12 280 (12.10%) Test Automation
13 253 (10.93%) Continuous Improvement
14 249 (10.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 247 (10.67%) Business Intelligence
16 225 (9.72%) Data Analysis
17 224 (9.68%) Data Governance
18 214 (9.24%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 557 (24.06%) SQL
2 399 (17.24%) Python
3 116 (5.01%) Java
4 62 (2.68%) PowerShell
5 52 (2.25%) C#
6 39 (1.68%) JavaScript
7 38 (1.64%) C++
8 37 (1.60%) Bash
9 32 (1.38%) C
9 32 (1.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 30 (1.30%) TypeScript
11 28 (1.21%) Apex Code
12 25 (1.08%) PL/SQL
13 24 (1.04%) Bicep
14 21 (0.91%) Ada
14 21 (0.91%) R
15 19 (0.82%) Scala
15 19 (0.82%) VBA
16 15 (0.65%) MATLAB
17 14 (0.60%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 422 (18.23%) Security Cleared
2 307 (13.26%) SC Cleared
3 170 (7.34%) Degree
4 52 (2.25%) BPSS Clearance
5 49 (2.12%) DV Cleared
6 41 (1.77%) Computer Science Degree
7 32 (1.38%) Cisco Certification
8 29 (1.25%) PMI Certification
9 24 (1.04%) CCNP
10 23 (0.99%) PMP
11 20 (0.86%) CISSP
12 17 (0.73%) ACCA
12 17 (0.73%) Master's Degree
13 16 (0.69%) ISTQB
14 15 (0.65%) Azure Certification
14 15 (0.65%) CIMA
14 15 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
15 13 (0.56%) AWS Certification
16 12 (0.52%) CCNA
17 9 (0.39%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 405 (17.49%) Data Quality
2 271 (11.71%) QA
3 109 (4.71%) GDPR
4 59 (2.55%) NIST
5 53 (2.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 34 (1.47%) Accessibility
7 30 (1.30%) PMO
8 26 (1.12%) SLA
9 22 (0.95%) IFRS
10 18 (0.78%) GxP
11 17 (0.73%) Def Stans
11 17 (0.73%) GRC
12 14 (0.60%) HL7
12 14 (0.60%) IFRS 17
13 13 (0.56%) Solvency II
14 12 (0.52%) NCSC
14 12 (0.52%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.48%) ISO 20022
15 11 (0.48%) PCI DSS
16 10 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 103 (4.45%) Docker
2 62 (2.68%) Active Directory
3 55 (2.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (0.82%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (0.60%) Firmware
6 14 (0.60%) VMware NSX
7 13 (0.56%) Hyper-V
8 12 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
9 11 (0.48%) vSphere
10 5 (0.22%) NFS
11 4 (0.17%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 4 (0.17%) KVM
12 2 (0.086%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.086%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.086%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.086%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.043%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.043%) OpenSSH
13 1 (0.043%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 147 (6.35%) Kubernetes
2 105 (4.54%) Terraform
3 50 (2.16%) Prometheus
4 46 (1.99%) Grafana
5 45 (1.94%) Ansible
6 25 (1.08%) Single Sign-On
7 21 (0.91%) FortiGate
8 19 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
9 9 (0.39%) vCenter Server
10 8 (0.35%) SCCM
11 6 (0.26%) Nessus
11 6 (0.26%) VxRail
12 5 (0.22%) CASB
12 5 (0.22%) HP ALM
12 5 (0.22%) Kibana
12 5 (0.22%) Puppet
12 5 (0.22%) vMotion
13 4 (0.17%) EMC VPLEX
13 4 (0.17%) Failover Clustering
13 4 (0.17%) Istio
Vendors
1 317 (13.69%) Microsoft
2 205 (8.86%) SAP
3 201 (8.68%) Oracle
4 108 (4.67%) Databricks
5 83 (3.59%) Salesforce
6 66 (2.85%) VMware
7 63 (2.72%) ServiceNow
8 51 (2.20%) Cisco
9 39 (1.68%) Splunk
10 38 (1.64%) Workday
11 34 (1.47%) Google
12 32 (1.38%) Informatica
13 27 (1.17%) Palo Alto
14 24 (1.04%) Fortinet
14 24 (1.04%) Sage
15 23 (0.99%) MuleSoft
16 22 (0.95%) IBM
17 21 (0.91%) Juniper
18 20 (0.86%) IFS
19 18 (0.78%) CyberArk