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

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 66 106
Rank change year-on-year +31 +40 +42
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,409 983 768
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.38% 3.62% 2.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.30% 3.99% 2.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,467 597 382
10th Percentile £331 £353 £325
25th Percentile £413 £423 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -10.31%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £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 158 75 168
10th Percentile £17.75 £20.50 £27.66
25th Percentile £30.95 £36.99 £47.83
Median hourly rate £62.50 £60.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75.75 £66.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £83.83 £76.50 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £58.75 £60.00
% change year-on-year +2.13% -2.08% -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 38,219 24,611 31,409
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.42% 90.71% 85.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,063 15,813 20,400
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £420 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £645
90th Percentile £734 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,375 1,290 2,230
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.39 £13.00
25th Percentile £21.00 £18.10 £16.25
Median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +88.87% -34.02% -6.09%
75th Percentile £68.75 £54.56 £62.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £71.60 £72.58
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 15 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 15 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 15 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% 378
North of England +39 311 £450 -5.26% 218
South East +4 306 £505 +1.00% 300
Midlands +41 302 £481 +9.94% 155
West Midlands +30 218 £475 +17.28% 72
North West +18 170 £450 -14.29% 112
East of England 0 136 £510 +2.00% 118
Yorkshire +28 130 £460 +10.31% 73
South West -4 126 £520 -9.57% 119
East Midlands +25 79 £525 +15.51% 83
North East -29 17 £425 -22.73% 33
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 (3.28%) Confluence
2 62 (2.57%) Apache Airflow
3 48 (1.99%) SAS
4 44 (1.83%) SharePoint
5 40 (1.66%) Apache Spark
6 26 (1.08%) Apache
7 12 (0.50%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.33%) SharePoint 2013
10 7 (0.29%) CMS
11 6 (0.25%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.21%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.17%) Appian
14 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.12%) Apache Pulsar
14 3 (0.12%) IIS
14 3 (0.12%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
14 3 (0.12%) Palantir Foundry
14 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 167 (6.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.41%) MS Visio
3 32 (1.33%) Microsoft Office
4 25 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 25 (1.04%) Spreadsheet
5 8 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
6 6 (0.25%) AutoCAD
7 5 (0.21%) Simulink
8 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
9 3 (0.12%) CATIA
10 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.083%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.083%) Sketch
11 1 (0.042%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.042%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.042%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.042%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.042%) Revit
11 1 (0.042%) UXPin
11 1 (0.042%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 113 (4.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.37%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.58%) Oracle Payables
3 14 (0.58%) Teamcenter
3 14 (0.58%) Workday HCM
4 12 (0.50%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 11 (0.46%) iTrent
5 11 (0.46%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.42%) NetSuite
6 10 (0.42%) Oracle Assets
6 10 (0.42%) Oracle General Ledger
7 9 (0.37%) Aladdin
7 9 (0.37%) Oracle Financials
7 9 (0.37%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
9 7 (0.29%) Oracle EBS R12
9 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
9 7 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
9 7 (0.29%) Sage X3
9 7 (0.29%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 513 (21.30%) Azure
2 278 (11.54%) AWS
3 239 (9.92%) Power Platform
4 129 (5.35%) Azure DevOps
5 123 (5.11%) GCP
6 113 (4.69%) GitHub
7 76 (3.15%) Snowflake
8 64 (2.66%) GitHub Actions
9 63 (2.62%) Azure Data Factory
10 60 (2.49%) Entra ID
11 56 (2.32%) Serverless
12 46 (1.91%) Amazon S3
13 44 (1.83%) SaaS
14 43 (1.78%) Microsoft 365
14 43 (1.78%) OCI
15 42 (1.74%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 42 (1.74%) dbt
16 33 (1.37%) SuccessFactors
17 28 (1.16%) Salesforce Service Cloud
18 26 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 106 (4.40%) Firewall
2 63 (2.62%) Network Security
3 47 (1.95%) DNS
4 43 (1.78%) VLAN
5 37 (1.54%) VPN
6 36 (1.49%) WAN
7 29 (1.20%) BGP
7 29 (1.20%) TCP/IP
8 24 (1.00%) Wireless
9 23 (0.95%) SAN
10 22 (0.91%) LAN
11 21 (0.87%) OSPF
12 20 (0.83%) SD-WAN
13 19 (0.79%) Internet
14 17 (0.71%) DHCP
15 16 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
16 14 (0.58%) Ethernet
17 13 (0.54%) Cisco ISE
17 13 (0.54%) NAS
18 10 (0.42%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 224 (9.30%) Power BI
2 135 (5.60%) Data Warehouse
3 91 (3.78%) Metadata
4 76 (3.15%) SQL Server
5 74 (3.07%) Data Lake
6 68 (2.82%) PostgreSQL
6 68 (2.82%) Tableau
7 58 (2.41%) Relational Database
8 36 (1.49%) Big Data
9 29 (1.20%) Oracle Database
10 28 (1.16%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 27 (1.12%) BigQuery
12 26 (1.08%) Amazon Redshift
12 26 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 25 (1.04%) Power Query
14 24 (1.00%) Delta Lake
15 23 (0.95%) NoSQL
16 22 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
17 19 (0.79%) Amazon Athena
18 18 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 225 (9.34%) JIRA
2 142 (5.89%) Git
3 86 (3.57%) Jenkins
4 63 (2.62%) GitLab
5 55 (2.28%) Selenium
6 40 (1.66%) Postman
7 39 (1.62%) JMeter
8 37 (1.54%) Cucumber
9 36 (1.49%) JUnit
10 30 (1.25%) WebDriver
11 25 (1.04%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.75%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.66%) Rational Rhapsody
14 15 (0.62%) Visual Studio
15 12 (0.50%) Gatling
15 12 (0.50%) MLflow
16 10 (0.42%) Maven
16 10 (0.42%) REST Assured
17 9 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
18 8 (0.33%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 722 (29.97%) Finance
2 711 (29.51%) Social Skills
3 459 (19.05%) Analytical Skills
4 193 (8.01%) Banking
5 192 (7.97%) Public Sector
6 140 (5.81%) Documentation Skills
7 83 (3.45%) Manufacturing
8 74 (3.07%) Retail
9 63 (2.62%) Aerospace
10 46 (1.91%) Telecoms
11 45 (1.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 45 (1.87%) Pharmaceutical
12 42 (1.74%) Organisational Skills
13 40 (1.66%) Marketing
14 35 (1.45%) Front Office
15 33 (1.37%) Automotive
15 33 (1.37%) General Ledger
15 33 (1.37%) Law
16 32 (1.33%) Legal
17 31 (1.29%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 424 (17.60%) Analyst
2 248 (10.29%) Lead
3 238 (9.88%) Senior
4 201 (8.34%) Business Analyst
5 197 (8.18%) Data Engineer
6 170 (7.06%) Consultant
7 139 (5.77%) Architect
8 137 (5.69%) Developer
9 123 (5.11%) Data Analyst
10 86 (3.57%) Test Engineer
11 70 (2.91%) Project Manager
12 68 (2.82%) Tester
13 54 (2.24%) Network Engineer
14 44 (1.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 43 (1.78%) Security Engineer
15 43 (1.78%) Senior Data Engineer
15 43 (1.78%) Systems Engineer
16 39 (1.62%) Migration Engineer
16 39 (1.62%) Software Engineer
16 39 (1.62%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (4.65%) REST
2 72 (2.99%) JSON
3 67 (2.78%) Kafka
4 52 (2.16%) PySpark
5 50 (2.08%) Oracle Fusion
6 47 (1.95%) XML
7 42 (1.74%) Spring
8 41 (1.70%) Middleware
9 38 (1.58%) .NET
10 35 (1.45%) OAuth
11 34 (1.41%) pytest
12 32 (1.33%) Playwright
13 30 (1.25%) Pandas
13 30 (1.25%) RESTful
13 30 (1.25%) SOAP
13 30 (1.25%) Web Services
14 28 (1.16%) Node.js
15 25 (1.04%) Swagger
15 25 (1.04%) WireMock
16 23 (0.95%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 124 (5.15%) Legacy Systems
2 122 (5.06%) Onboarding
3 121 (5.02%) Data Structures
4 102 (4.23%) Cloud Native
5 96 (3.99%) Product Ownership
6 69 (2.86%) Data Centre
7 54 (2.24%) Management Information System
8 47 (1.95%) Distributed Systems
9 46 (1.91%) Analytical Mindset
10 38 (1.58%) SCADA
11 35 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
12 34 (1.41%) AI Agents
13 32 (1.33%) Life Science
14 29 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
15 28 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
15 28 (1.16%) Virtual Team
16 27 (1.12%) Distributed Architecture
16 27 (1.12%) NHS
16 27 (1.12%) Public Cloud
17 26 (1.08%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 129 (5.35%) Windows
2 78 (3.24%) Linux
3 30 (1.25%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.87%) Unix
5 18 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.42%) Android
7 8 (0.33%) 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 (0.042%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.042%) pSOS
13 1 (0.042%) Solaris
13 1 (0.042%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 668 (27.73%) Migration
2 465 (19.30%) Agile
3 437 (18.14%) Stakeholder Management
4 405 (16.81%) CI/CD
5 404 (16.77%) Analytics
6 403 (16.73%) Data Migration
7 395 (16.40%) Data Validation
8 388 (16.11%) User Acceptance Testing
9 378 (15.69%) Problem-Solving
10 365 (15.15%) Data Modelling
11 305 (12.66%) ETL
12 301 (12.49%) AI
13 298 (12.37%) DevOps
14 293 (12.16%) Test Automation
15 281 (11.66%) Continuous Improvement
16 264 (10.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 261 (10.83%) Business Intelligence
18 239 (9.92%) Data Governance
19 238 (9.88%) Data Pipeline
20 235 (9.76%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 571 (23.70%) SQL
2 422 (17.52%) Python
3 111 (4.61%) Java
4 66 (2.74%) PowerShell
5 51 (2.12%) C#
6 39 (1.62%) C++
7 38 (1.58%) Bash
8 37 (1.54%) JavaScript
9 32 (1.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 30 (1.25%) C
11 28 (1.16%) Apex Code
12 27 (1.12%) Bicep
12 27 (1.12%) TypeScript
13 25 (1.04%) PL/SQL
14 23 (0.95%) R
14 23 (0.95%) VBA
15 21 (0.87%) Ada
16 15 (0.62%) MATLAB
17 14 (0.58%) Scala
17 14 (0.58%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 436 (18.10%) Security Cleared
2 310 (12.87%) SC Cleared
3 166 (6.89%) Degree
4 59 (2.45%) DV Cleared
5 53 (2.20%) BPSS Clearance
6 37 (1.54%) Computer Science Degree
7 35 (1.45%) Cisco Certification
8 27 (1.12%) CCNP
9 25 (1.04%) PMI Certification
10 21 (0.87%) PMP
11 19 (0.79%) CISSP
12 18 (0.75%) ACCA
13 17 (0.71%) CIMA
13 17 (0.71%) Microsoft Certification
14 16 (0.66%) Azure Certification
15 15 (0.62%) ISTQB
15 15 (0.62%) Master's Degree
16 13 (0.54%) AWS Certification
17 12 (0.50%) CCNA
18 10 (0.42%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 438 (18.18%) Data Quality
2 282 (11.71%) QA
3 110 (4.57%) GDPR
4 57 (2.37%) NIST
5 51 (2.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 38 (1.58%) Accessibility
7 35 (1.45%) PMO
8 29 (1.20%) SLA
9 20 (0.83%) GxP
10 18 (0.75%) GRC
11 17 (0.71%) Def Stans
12 16 (0.66%) IFRS
13 14 (0.58%) HL7
14 13 (0.54%) ISO 20022
14 13 (0.54%) NCSC
15 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.50%) PCI DSS
15 12 (0.50%) Solvency II
16 11 (0.46%) WCAG
17 10 (0.42%) 21 CFR Part 11
System Software
1 102 (4.23%) Docker
2 67 (2.78%) Active Directory
3 58 (2.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
5 20 (0.83%) VMware ESXi
6 16 (0.66%) 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 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.083%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.083%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.083%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.042%) Ceph
13 1 (0.042%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.042%) OpenSSH
13 1 (0.042%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 149 (6.19%) Kubernetes
2 113 (4.69%) Terraform
3 50 (2.08%) Prometheus
4 48 (1.99%) Grafana
5 47 (1.95%) Ansible
6 24 (1.00%) Single Sign-On
7 23 (0.95%) FortiGate
8 20 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
9 10 (0.42%) SCCM
9 10 (0.42%) vCenter Server
10 7 (0.29%) VxRail
11 6 (0.25%) Nessus
12 5 (0.21%) CASB
12 5 (0.21%) HP ALM
12 5 (0.21%) vMotion
13 4 (0.17%) Argo
13 4 (0.17%) EMC VPLEX
13 4 (0.17%) Istio
13 4 (0.17%) Kibana
13 4 (0.17%) vRealize
Vendors
1 333 (13.82%) Microsoft
2 217 (9.01%) SAP
3 206 (8.55%) Oracle
4 123 (5.11%) Databricks
5 85 (3.53%) Salesforce
6 69 (2.86%) VMware
7 57 (2.37%) Cisco
7 57 (2.37%) ServiceNow
8 45 (1.87%) Workday
9 40 (1.66%) Splunk
10 34 (1.41%) Google
11 33 (1.37%) Informatica
12 30 (1.25%) Fortinet
13 29 (1.20%) Palo Alto
14 26 (1.08%) IBM
14 26 (1.08%) Juniper
15 23 (0.95%) Sage
16 22 (0.91%) MuleSoft
17 21 (0.87%) Zscaler
18 20 (0.83%) IFS