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 16 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 58 116 132
Rank change year-on-year +58 +16 +4
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,312 607 677
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.12% 2.25% 1.87%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.67% 2.53% 2.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 806 322 389
10th Percentile £356 £335 £344
25th Percentile £413 £406 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £530
Median % change year-on-year - -5.66% -3.64%
75th Percentile £613 £609 £619
90th Percentile £700 £700 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £538
% change year-on-year - -6.98% -0.97%
Number of hourly rates quoted 70 42 104
10th Percentile £31.24 £29.10 £51.21
25th Percentile £41.42 £46.56 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.40 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.25% -18.01% +10.71%
75th Percentile £67.25 £63.75 £85.46
90th Percentile £75.23 £67.35 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £57.40 £70.00
% change year-on-year +13.25% -18.01% +10.71%

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 28,110 24,036 31,774
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 88.29% 89.17% 87.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,964 14,778 21,397
10th Percentile £304 £309 £305
25th Percentile £409 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £649 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,739 771 1,493
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £14.18
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.63 £18.93
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -17.65% +21.43%
75th Percentile £57.50 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.38 £75.00 £76.91
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £40.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -19.75% +16.41%

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 16 January 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 16 January 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 16 January 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 +87 627 £513 -2.38% 173
North of England +29 168 £419 -0.36% 149
South East +13 153 £500 +2.56% 312
Midlands +10 112 £515 +14.44% 121
South West +11 111 £475 -17.39% 152
North West +26 106 £400 -3.03% 61
East of England +19 92 £478 +23.35% 160
West Midlands +7 91 £519 +9.16% 64
Yorkshire -14 47 £487 +15.95% 63
East Midlands -14 21 £475 +50.79% 57
North East -3 15 £475 -42.42% 27
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 50 (3.81%) Confluence
2 29 (2.21%) Apache Spark
2 29 (2.21%) SAS
3 27 (2.06%) SharePoint
4 20 (1.52%) Apache Airflow
4 20 (1.52%) Microsoft Exchange
5 14 (1.07%) Skype for Business
6 12 (0.91%) Apache
7 9 (0.69%) Exchange Server 2013
8 8 (0.61%) CMS
9 7 (0.53%) Mattermost
10 6 (0.46%) OpenStack
11 5 (0.38%) Appian
12 4 (0.30%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.30%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.30%) Jupyter
13 3 (0.23%) GeoServer
13 3 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.23%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.23%) WebSphere
Applications
1 73 (5.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 38 (2.90%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (1.83%) MS Visio
4 17 (1.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.61%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
7 6 (0.46%) Sketch
8 4 (0.30%) Notion
9 3 (0.23%) LaTeX
9 3 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
10 2 (0.15%) Simulink
11 1 (0.076%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.076%) CATIA
11 1 (0.076%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.076%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.076%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 65 (4.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.91%) Oracle EBS
3 11 (0.84%) SAP EHS
3 11 (0.84%) SAP FI
4 10 (0.76%) Oracle General Ledger
4 10 (0.76%) Oracle Payables
5 9 (0.69%) Aladdin
5 9 (0.69%) Remedy ITSM
6 7 (0.53%) NetSuite
6 7 (0.53%) OpenText VIM for SAP
6 7 (0.53%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 7 (0.53%) Oracle Receivables
6 7 (0.53%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 7 (0.53%) SAP MDG
7 6 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
7 6 (0.46%) Markit EDM
7 6 (0.46%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.38%) Oracle Assets
8 5 (0.38%) Workday HCM
9 4 (0.30%) iTrent
Cloud Services
1 314 (23.93%) Azure
2 147 (11.20%) AWS
3 123 (9.38%) Azure DevOps
4 112 (8.54%) Power Platform
5 56 (4.27%) GCP
6 55 (4.19%) GitHub
7 47 (3.58%) SaaS
8 46 (3.51%) Entra ID
9 36 (2.74%) Azure Data Factory
10 35 (2.67%) Serverless
11 31 (2.36%) GitHub Actions
12 26 (1.98%) Microsoft 365
12 26 (1.98%) OpenShift
12 26 (1.98%) Snowflake
13 25 (1.91%) OCI
14 17 (1.30%) Dynamics 365
15 16 (1.22%) Amazon S3
15 16 (1.22%) Azure Functions
15 16 (1.22%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 16 (1.22%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 33 (2.52%) Firewall
2 27 (2.06%) TCP/IP
3 19 (1.45%) DNS
3 19 (1.45%) Ethernet
4 17 (1.30%) WAN
5 16 (1.22%) Network Security
6 15 (1.14%) VPN
7 14 (1.07%) Skype
8 12 (0.91%) BGP
8 12 (0.91%) Internet
8 12 (0.91%) VLAN
9 11 (0.84%) LAN
9 11 (0.84%) MPLS
9 11 (0.84%) OSPF
9 11 (0.84%) Wireless
10 10 (0.76%) DMARC
10 10 (0.76%) TACACS
11 8 (0.61%) DKIM
11 8 (0.61%) SD-WAN
11 8 (0.61%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 104 (7.93%) Power BI
2 59 (4.50%) Metadata
3 57 (4.34%) Data Warehouse
4 37 (2.82%) Tableau
5 32 (2.44%) SQL Server
6 29 (2.21%) Data Lake
7 23 (1.75%) NoSQL
8 21 (1.60%) SAS Enterprise Guide
9 20 (1.52%) Oracle Database
10 18 (1.37%) Relational Database
11 16 (1.22%) Oracle Reports
12 15 (1.14%) Azure SQL Database
12 15 (1.14%) Big Data
12 15 (1.14%) Pinecone
13 13 (0.99%) Amazon Redshift
13 13 (0.99%) Elasticsearch
14 12 (0.91%) Delta Lake
14 12 (0.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 11 (0.84%) BigQuery
15 11 (0.84%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 140 (10.67%) JIRA
2 68 (5.18%) Jenkins
3 65 (4.95%) Git
4 40 (3.05%) Selenium
5 39 (2.97%) GitLab
6 38 (2.90%) Postman
7 32 (2.44%) Oracle APEX
8 20 (1.52%) Rational DOORS
9 19 (1.45%) Visual Studio
10 16 (1.22%) JMeter
11 14 (1.07%) Eclipse
12 13 (0.99%) Cucumber
12 13 (0.99%) TestRail
13 12 (0.91%) Bitbucket
14 10 (0.76%) JUnit
14 10 (0.76%) MLflow
14 10 (0.76%) Zephyr
15 9 (0.69%) REST Assured
16 8 (0.61%) SpecFlow
17 6 (0.46%) Cypress.io
General
1 504 (38.41%) Social Skills
2 369 (28.13%) Finance
3 285 (21.72%) Analytical Skills
4 127 (9.68%) Public Sector
5 108 (8.23%) Banking
6 65 (4.95%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (3.73%) Presentation Skills
8 28 (2.13%) Electronics
8 28 (2.13%) Influencing Skills
8 28 (2.13%) Marketing
8 28 (2.13%) Military
9 27 (2.06%) Front Office
10 26 (1.98%) Investment Banking
10 26 (1.98%) Manufacturing
10 26 (1.98%) Telecoms
11 23 (1.75%) Aerospace
11 23 (1.75%) Pharmaceutical
12 21 (1.60%) Financial Institution
13 19 (1.45%) Legal
14 18 (1.37%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 262 (19.97%) Analyst
2 136 (10.37%) Senior
3 117 (8.92%) Business Analyst
4 109 (8.31%) Lead
5 104 (7.93%) Consultant
6 102 (7.77%) Developer
7 71 (5.41%) Architect
8 62 (4.73%) Data Analyst
9 56 (4.27%) Data Engineer
10 50 (3.81%) Software Engineer
11 42 (3.20%) Project Manager
12 41 (3.13%) Tester
13 35 (2.67%) SAP Consultant
14 34 (2.59%) Senior Developer
15 32 (2.44%) Senior Analyst
16 29 (2.21%) Data Scientist
16 29 (2.21%) Test Analyst
16 29 (2.21%) Test Manager
17 26 (1.98%) QA Engineer
18 25 (1.91%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 84 (6.40%) REST
2 55 (4.19%) JSON
3 46 (3.51%) XML
4 44 (3.35%) Oracle Fusion
5 35 (2.67%) Middleware
5 35 (2.67%) OAuth
5 35 (2.67%) SOAP
6 31 (2.36%) Node.js
7 28 (2.13%) .NET
8 27 (2.06%) Kafka
8 27 (2.06%) PySpark
8 27 (2.06%) RESTful
9 25 (1.91%) PyTorch
10 24 (1.83%) Web Services
11 23 (1.75%) Playwright
12 22 (1.68%) Swagger
12 22 (1.68%) TensorFlow
13 21 (1.60%) SAP Fiori
14 19 (1.45%) JWT
14 19 (1.45%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 70 (5.34%) Legacy Systems
2 55 (4.19%) Data Structures
3 49 (3.73%) Onboarding
4 47 (3.58%) Product Ownership
5 36 (2.74%) Management Information System
6 32 (2.44%) Cloud Native
7 24 (1.83%) Algorithms
8 22 (1.68%) Analytical Mindset
8 22 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
9 21 (1.60%) Data Centre
10 20 (1.52%) Derivative
10 20 (1.52%) FPGA
11 15 (1.14%) Replication
12 13 (0.99%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 12 (0.91%) PCIe
14 11 (0.84%) Credit Risk
14 11 (0.84%) Embedded Systems
14 11 (0.84%) Fixed Income
14 11 (0.84%) Hybrid Cloud
14 11 (0.84%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 95 (7.24%) Linux
2 73 (5.56%) Windows
3 29 (2.21%) Unix
4 11 (0.84%) Android
5 7 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.46%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.38%) zOS
8 4 (0.30%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.23%) Embedded Linux
10 2 (0.15%) Debian
10 2 (0.15%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.076%) FreeRTOS
11 1 (0.076%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.076%) VMS
11 1 (0.076%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 380 (28.96%) Agile
2 308 (23.48%) Problem-Solving
3 284 (21.65%) Migration
4 255 (19.44%) DevOps
5 226 (17.23%) CI/CD
6 216 (16.46%) Stakeholder Management
7 209 (15.93%) Data Validation
8 197 (15.02%) Analytics
9 164 (12.50%) Test Automation
10 153 (11.66%) Data Modelling
11 148 (11.28%) User Acceptance Testing
12 146 (11.13%) AI
12 146 (11.13%) Data Migration
12 146 (11.13%) ETL
13 137 (10.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 132 (10.06%) Business Intelligence
15 117 (8.92%) Data Governance
16 116 (8.84%) Data Analysis
17 111 (8.46%) Data Pipeline
18 110 (8.38%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 345 (26.30%) SQL
2 297 (22.64%) Python
3 93 (7.09%) JavaScript
4 78 (5.95%) Java
5 64 (4.88%) C#
6 52 (3.96%) PL/SQL
7 48 (3.66%) C++
8 45 (3.43%) Bash
9 42 (3.20%) PowerShell
10 30 (2.29%) C
11 27 (2.06%) R
12 24 (1.83%) TypeScript
13 15 (1.14%) Groovy
14 14 (1.07%) Shell Script
15 11 (0.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.84%) Scala
15 11 (0.84%) T-SQL
16 10 (0.76%) ABAP
17 9 (0.69%) VBA
18 8 (0.61%) Ada
Qualifications
1 287 (21.88%) Security Cleared
2 214 (16.31%) SC Cleared
3 133 (10.14%) Degree
4 51 (3.89%) Computer Science Degree
5 35 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
6 31 (2.36%) DV Cleared
6 31 (2.36%) Master's Degree
7 28 (2.13%) PMI Certification
8 25 (1.91%) ISTQB
9 20 (1.52%) PMP
10 19 (1.45%) AWS Certification
11 15 (1.14%) CBAP
12 13 (0.99%) Cisco Certification
12 13 (0.99%) Oracle Certification
13 10 (0.76%) Azure Certification
14 9 (0.69%) CCIE
14 9 (0.69%) ITIL Certification
14 9 (0.69%) OCA
15 8 (0.61%) CISSP
16 7 (0.53%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 170 (12.96%) QA
2 163 (12.42%) Data Quality
3 76 (5.79%) GDPR
4 54 (4.12%) NIST
5 30 (2.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 29 (2.21%) Accessibility
7 18 (1.37%) IFRS
8 14 (1.07%) IFRS 17
9 13 (0.99%) EU AI Act
10 11 (0.84%) Def Stans
11 10 (0.76%) GxP
11 10 (0.76%) MiFID
11 10 (0.76%) MISRA
11 10 (0.76%) NCSC
11 10 (0.76%) PCI DSS
12 9 (0.69%) DO-178B
12 9 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 7 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
13 7 (0.53%) GRC
14 6 (0.46%) COBIT
System Software
1 52 (3.96%) Docker
2 44 (3.35%) Active Directory
3 26 (1.98%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.75%) Firmware
5 9 (0.69%) VMware NSX
6 7 (0.53%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.46%) Dovecot
7 6 (0.46%) Postfix
8 5 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.30%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
9 4 (0.30%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.30%) vSphere
10 3 (0.23%) Hyper-V
10 3 (0.23%) KVM
10 3 (0.23%) QEMU
11 2 (0.15%) Ceph
11 2 (0.15%) OpenAM
11 2 (0.15%) OpenDJ
11 2 (0.15%) OpenIDM
11 2 (0.15%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 66 (5.03%) Kubernetes
2 59 (4.50%) Terraform
3 46 (3.51%) Ansible
4 16 (1.22%) Single Sign-On
5 13 (0.99%) Kibana
5 13 (0.99%) Microsoft Intune
5 13 (0.99%) Puppet
6 10 (0.76%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 9 (0.69%) Grafana
7 9 (0.69%) SCCM
8 7 (0.53%) HP SiteScope
8 7 (0.53%) SCOM
9 6 (0.46%) Nmap
10 5 (0.38%) Argo
10 5 (0.38%) Istio
10 5 (0.38%) Nessus
11 4 (0.30%) Prometheus
12 3 (0.23%) CloudHub
12 3 (0.23%) OMEGAMON
12 3 (0.23%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 189 (14.41%) Microsoft
2 145 (11.05%) Oracle
3 103 (7.85%) SAP
4 58 (4.42%) ServiceNow
5 50 (3.81%) Databricks
6 35 (2.67%) Cisco
7 34 (2.59%) Splunk
7 34 (2.59%) VMware
8 32 (2.44%) Google
9 31 (2.36%) Salesforce
10 21 (1.60%) Workday
11 19 (1.45%) MuleSoft
12 18 (1.37%) IBM
13 17 (1.30%) Murex
14 15 (1.14%) Bloomberg
15 13 (0.99%) Adobe
15 13 (0.99%) Informatica
16 12 (0.91%) Palo Alto
17 11 (0.84%) Red Hat
18 10 (0.76%) Sage