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

6 months to
22 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 73 115
Rank change year-on-year +35 +42 +30
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,009 802 717
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.86% 3.34% 1.97%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.74% 3.66% 2.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,235 491 361
10th Percentile £325 £350 £320
25th Percentile £403 £413 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £498 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.24% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £630 £588
90th Percentile £700 £703 £688
UK median daily rate £486 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -7.52% +4.95% -9.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 129 53 164
10th Percentile £17.65 £19.18 £26.88
25th Percentile £34.13 £37.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -4.96% -3.20%
75th Percentile £74.25 £65.00 £72.88
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £76.86
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £55.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +13.64% -8.33% -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 34,973 21,894 31,367
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.68% 91.30% 86.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,266 14,295 20,565
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £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 2,148 929 2,246
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.42 £12.92
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £46.11 £29.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.98% -20.55% -0.73%
75th Percentile £68.00 £62.24 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.44 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £28.18 £36.05
% change year-on-year +50.82% -21.82% +0.13%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 +56 976 £501 -9.00% 286
North of England +39 271 £435 -0.57% 133
Midlands +27 243 £490 +4.93% 95
South East -9 225 £495 -1.00% 212
West Midlands +34 176 £478 +3.35% 62
North West +28 162 £420 -4.00% 81
East of England +9 120 £488 +8.33% 111
South West 0 118 £475 -17.39% 109
Yorkshire +24 99 £451 +8.03% 35
East Midlands +12 63 £525 +14.38% 33
North East -20 13 £450 -23.40% 19
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 82 (4.08%) Confluence
2 43 (2.14%) Apache Airflow
3 35 (1.74%) SAS
4 34 (1.69%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.80%) Apache
6 14 (0.70%) SharePoint
7 10 (0.50%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.45%) Appian
9 8 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
10 7 (0.35%) ArcGIS
10 7 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.20%) CMS
11 4 (0.20%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
11 4 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.15%) Oracle Self-Service HR
12 3 (0.15%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.100%) CICS
13 2 (0.100%) Documentum
13 2 (0.100%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.100%) Umbraco
Applications
1 138 (6.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (1.49%) MS Visio
3 25 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
4 19 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 18 (0.90%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.20%) CATIA
7 4 (0.20%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.15%) AutoCAD
8 3 (0.15%) LaTeX
8 3 (0.15%) Notion
8 3 (0.15%) Simulink
9 2 (0.100%) EPLAN
9 2 (0.100%) Sketch
10 1 (0.050%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.050%) CANalyzer
10 1 (0.050%) MicroStation
10 1 (0.050%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.050%) UXPin
10 1 (0.050%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 96 (4.78%) SAP S/4HANA
2 31 (1.54%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.75%) Teamcenter
4 14 (0.70%) Oracle General Ledger
4 14 (0.70%) Oracle Payables
4 14 (0.70%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 12 (0.60%) Workday HCM
6 10 (0.50%) NetSuite
6 10 (0.50%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.45%) SAP ERP
8 8 (0.40%) Aladdin
8 8 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.40%) Oracle EBS R12
8 8 (0.40%) Oracle Receivables
8 8 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
9 7 (0.35%) Oracle Financials
10 6 (0.30%) Sage X3
10 6 (0.30%) SAP Business One
11 5 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
11 5 (0.25%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 394 (19.61%) Azure
2 240 (11.95%) AWS
3 197 (9.81%) Power Platform
4 101 (5.03%) GCP
5 95 (4.73%) Azure DevOps
6 90 (4.48%) GitHub
7 58 (2.89%) Snowflake
8 54 (2.69%) Azure Data Factory
9 51 (2.54%) Entra ID
9 51 (2.54%) SaaS
10 48 (2.39%) Serverless
11 46 (2.29%) GitHub Actions
12 43 (2.14%) OCI
13 39 (1.94%) Amazon S3
14 34 (1.69%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 32 (1.59%) dbt
16 30 (1.49%) Microsoft 365
17 22 (1.10%) AWS Lambda
18 21 (1.05%) SuccessFactors
19 20 (1.00%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 83 (4.13%) Firewall
2 57 (2.84%) Network Security
3 37 (1.84%) VLAN
4 32 (1.59%) DNS
5 30 (1.49%) TCP/IP
6 27 (1.34%) VPN
7 25 (1.24%) WAN
8 18 (0.90%) Ethernet
9 17 (0.85%) LAN
10 16 (0.80%) SAN
11 14 (0.70%) SD-WAN
11 14 (0.70%) Wireless
12 13 (0.65%) BGP
12 13 (0.65%) OSPF
13 12 (0.60%) DHCP
13 12 (0.60%) NAS
13 12 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
14 11 (0.55%) Cisco ISE
15 10 (0.50%) TACACS
16 9 (0.45%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 184 (9.16%) Power BI
2 111 (5.53%) Data Warehouse
3 79 (3.93%) Metadata
4 70 (3.48%) Tableau
5 66 (3.29%) SQL Server
6 56 (2.79%) Data Lake
7 47 (2.34%) PostgreSQL
8 36 (1.79%) Relational Database
9 27 (1.34%) Amazon Redshift
10 25 (1.24%) Big Data
10 25 (1.24%) NoSQL
11 24 (1.19%) Oracle Reports
12 23 (1.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 21 (1.05%) BigQuery
13 21 (1.05%) Delta Lake
13 21 (1.05%) Oracle Database
14 19 (0.95%) Power Query
15 18 (0.90%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 16 (0.80%) Azure SQL Database
16 16 (0.80%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 191 (9.51%) JIRA
2 106 (5.28%) Git
3 78 (3.88%) Jenkins
4 51 (2.54%) Selenium
5 48 (2.39%) GitLab
6 46 (2.29%) Postman
7 38 (1.89%) JMeter
8 32 (1.59%) JUnit
9 30 (1.49%) Cucumber
10 25 (1.24%) Rational DOORS
10 25 (1.24%) WebDriver
11 15 (0.75%) MLflow
12 14 (0.70%) Eclipse
12 14 (0.70%) Visual Studio
13 13 (0.65%) Rational Rhapsody
14 11 (0.55%) Gatling
14 11 (0.55%) REST Assured
15 10 (0.50%) Bitbucket
15 10 (0.50%) Gradle
15 10 (0.50%) Maven
General
1 613 (30.51%) Social Skills
2 611 (30.41%) Finance
3 383 (19.06%) Analytical Skills
4 168 (8.36%) Banking
5 164 (8.16%) Public Sector
6 107 (5.33%) Documentation Skills
7 62 (3.09%) Manufacturing
8 51 (2.54%) Aerospace
9 46 (2.29%) Retail
10 41 (2.04%) Presentation Skills
11 40 (1.99%) Organisational Skills
12 33 (1.64%) Pharmaceutical
13 32 (1.59%) Marketing
14 31 (1.54%) Front Office
14 31 (1.54%) General Ledger
14 31 (1.54%) Influencing Skills
14 31 (1.54%) Legal
15 28 (1.39%) Local Government
15 28 (1.39%) Military
16 27 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 370 (18.42%) Analyst
2 211 (10.50%) Lead
3 177 (8.81%) Senior
4 163 (8.11%) Business Analyst
5 158 (7.86%) Data Engineer
6 132 (6.57%) Consultant
7 126 (6.27%) Architect
8 110 (5.48%) Developer
9 106 (5.28%) Data Analyst
10 75 (3.73%) Project Manager
11 53 (2.64%) Tester
12 50 (2.49%) Test Engineer
13 43 (2.14%) Software Engineer
14 41 (2.04%) Test Manager
15 40 (1.99%) Network Engineer
15 40 (1.99%) Senior Analyst
16 39 (1.94%) Security Engineer
17 38 (1.89%) Systems Engineer
18 33 (1.64%) Migration Engineer
18 33 (1.64%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (5.08%) REST
2 72 (3.58%) JSON
3 68 (3.38%) Kafka
4 53 (2.64%) Oracle Fusion
5 48 (2.39%) Middleware
6 45 (2.24%) XML
7 44 (2.19%) OAuth
8 39 (1.94%) PySpark
9 37 (1.84%) Swagger
10 33 (1.64%) .NET
10 33 (1.64%) RESTful
11 31 (1.54%) SOAP
12 30 (1.49%) Pandas
12 30 (1.49%) Spring
13 29 (1.44%) Node.js
14 28 (1.39%) Web Services
15 26 (1.29%) PyTorch
16 25 (1.24%) OAuth2
16 25 (1.24%) Playwright
17 24 (1.19%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 120 (5.97%) Legacy Systems
2 105 (5.23%) Data Structures
3 98 (4.88%) Onboarding
4 81 (4.03%) Product Ownership
5 67 (3.33%) Cloud Native
6 63 (3.14%) Data Centre
7 50 (2.49%) Management Information System
8 38 (1.89%) Analytical Mindset
9 34 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
10 30 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
11 26 (1.29%) Public Cloud
11 26 (1.29%) Replication
12 24 (1.19%) Hybrid Cloud
12 24 (1.19%) SCADA
13 22 (1.10%) Algorithms
13 22 (1.10%) Greenfield Project
14 21 (1.05%) Operational Technology
14 21 (1.05%) Reference Data
15 20 (1.00%) AI Agents
15 20 (1.00%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 99 (4.93%) Windows
2 77 (3.83%) Linux
3 26 (1.29%) Unix
4 13 (0.65%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.50%) Android
6 9 (0.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.25%) VMS
7 5 (0.25%) Windows 10
7 5 (0.25%) zOS
8 4 (0.20%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.20%) SUSE
9 2 (0.100%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.100%) Debian
9 2 (0.100%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.050%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.050%) HPUX
10 1 (0.050%) pSOS
10 1 (0.050%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 559 (27.82%) Migration
2 386 (19.21%) Agile
3 362 (18.02%) Problem-Solving
4 347 (17.27%) Stakeholder Management
5 343 (17.07%) Data Migration
6 342 (17.02%) Data Validation
7 311 (15.48%) CI/CD
8 307 (15.28%) Data Modelling
9 306 (15.23%) User Acceptance Testing
10 296 (14.73%) Analytics
11 274 (13.64%) ETL
12 246 (12.24%) DevOps
13 227 (11.30%) Business Intelligence
14 224 (11.15%) Test Automation
15 217 (10.80%) AI
16 214 (10.65%) Continuous Improvement
17 210 (10.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 193 (9.61%) Data Governance
19 178 (8.86%) Data Analysis
20 175 (8.71%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 486 (24.19%) SQL
2 348 (17.32%) Python
3 102 (5.08%) Java
4 53 (2.64%) C#
5 44 (2.19%) PowerShell
6 42 (2.09%) C++
7 39 (1.94%) C
8 38 (1.89%) JavaScript
9 36 (1.79%) Bash
10 27 (1.34%) Bicep
10 27 (1.34%) PL/SQL
11 26 (1.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 26 (1.29%) TypeScript
12 25 (1.24%) R
13 20 (1.00%) Ada
13 20 (1.00%) Apex Code
14 17 (0.85%) Scala
15 14 (0.70%) MATLAB
16 12 (0.60%) VBA
17 9 (0.45%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 373 (18.57%) Security Cleared
2 267 (13.29%) SC Cleared
3 161 (8.01%) Degree
4 45 (2.24%) BPSS Clearance
5 44 (2.19%) Computer Science Degree
6 37 (1.84%) DV Cleared
7 33 (1.64%) PMI Certification
8 27 (1.34%) PMP
9 26 (1.29%) Master's Degree
10 24 (1.19%) Cisco Certification
11 19 (0.95%) CCNP
12 16 (0.80%) CISSP
12 16 (0.80%) ISTQB
13 15 (0.75%) CBAP
14 13 (0.65%) ACCA
14 13 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
15 12 (0.60%) AWS Certification
16 11 (0.55%) Azure Certification
16 11 (0.55%) CIMA
17 9 (0.45%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 344 (17.12%) Data Quality
2 239 (11.90%) QA
3 104 (5.18%) GDPR
4 65 (3.24%) NIST
5 54 (2.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 26 (1.29%) Accessibility
6 26 (1.29%) IFRS
7 24 (1.19%) SLA
8 23 (1.14%) PMO
9 20 (1.00%) IFRS 17
10 18 (0.90%) GRC
11 17 (0.85%) Def Stans
12 14 (0.70%) HL7
13 13 (0.65%) GxP
13 13 (0.65%) MiFID
13 13 (0.65%) PCI DSS
14 12 (0.60%) NCSC
14 12 (0.60%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 11 (0.55%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 81 (4.03%) Docker
2 44 (2.19%) Active Directory
3 40 (1.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (1.00%) Firmware
5 19 (0.95%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (0.70%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.65%) VMware NSX
8 11 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
9 10 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
10 8 (0.40%) vSphere
11 5 (0.25%) NFS
12 4 (0.20%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 2 (0.100%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.100%) Ceph
13 2 (0.100%) Embedded Firmware
13 2 (0.100%) KVM
13 2 (0.100%) Lustre
13 2 (0.100%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 2 (0.100%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.100%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 126 (6.27%) Kubernetes
2 83 (4.13%) Terraform
3 44 (2.19%) Prometheus
4 42 (2.09%) Grafana
5 41 (2.04%) Ansible
6 26 (1.29%) Single Sign-On
7 16 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
8 11 (0.55%) FortiGate
8 11 (0.55%) Kibana
9 10 (0.50%) Puppet
10 8 (0.40%) SCCM
11 7 (0.35%) vCenter Server
12 6 (0.30%) 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
1 273 (13.59%) Microsoft
2 173 (8.61%) Oracle
2 173 (8.61%) SAP
3 91 (4.53%) Databricks
4 68 (3.38%) Salesforce
5 59 (2.94%) ServiceNow
6 49 (2.44%) VMware
7 45 (2.24%) Cisco
8 40 (1.99%) Splunk
9 32 (1.59%) Google
10 30 (1.49%) Informatica
11 28 (1.39%) Workday
12 25 (1.24%) Palo Alto
12 25 (1.24%) Sage
13 23 (1.14%) MuleSoft
14 21 (1.05%) IBM
14 21 (1.05%) IFS
15 20 (1.00%) CyberArk
16 16 (0.80%) Fortinet
16 16 (0.80%) OpenAI