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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 70 107
Rank change year-on-year +36 +37 +37
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,231 882 752
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.21% 3.57% 2.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.12% 3.91% 2.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,353 548 372
10th Percentile £325 £350 £321
25th Percentile £410 £422 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £537 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.93% +7.45% -13.04%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £588
90th Percentile £704 £706 £672
UK median daily rate £497 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -5.43% +5.00% -11.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 151 57 176
10th Percentile £17.75 £17.53 £27.44
25th Percentile £31.64 £37.50 £50.44
Median hourly rate £62.50 £60.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £72.50
90th Percentile £83.75 £77.50 £76.86
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £57.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -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 36,481 22,561 31,958
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.14% 91.35% 85.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,067 14,578 20,676
10th Percentile £325 £302 £300
25th Percentile £415 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.46% -0.98% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £506 £525
% change year-on-year +1.28% -3.62% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,283 1,053 2,381
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £20.81 £18.13 £16.06
Median hourly rate £47.00 £27.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +70.91% -26.67% +7.05%
75th Percentile £68.00 £56.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £26.32 £37.18
% change year-on-year +67.02% -29.21% +6.23%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 +48 1,062 £513 -6.82% 394
North of England +45 307 £444 -1.44% 156
Midlands +31 269 £492 +9.39% 134
South East +1 262 £500 -0.50% 249
West Midlands +23 197 £488 +20.37% 73
North West +32 177 £425 -4.23% 78
South West +3 137 £500 -13.04% 126
East of England +9 131 £500 +5.26% 92
Yorkshire +22 114 £458 +5.17% 55
East Midlands +15 67 £525 +15.51% 61
North East -18 19 £425 -22.73% 26
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 76 (3.41%) Confluence
2 57 (2.55%) Apache Airflow
3 45 (2.02%) SAS
4 41 (1.84%) Apache Spark
5 31 (1.39%) SharePoint
6 21 (0.94%) Apache
7 14 (0.63%) Jupyter
8 10 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
9 9 (0.40%) Appian
10 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.27%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.27%) SharePoint 2013
12 5 (0.22%) CMS
12 5 (0.22%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 3 (0.13%) Apache Pulsar
14 3 (0.13%) IIS
14 3 (0.13%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
14 3 (0.13%) Oracle Self-Service HR
14 3 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 146 (6.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 31 (1.39%) MS Visio
3 24 (1.08%) Microsoft Office
4 23 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 20 (0.90%) Spreadsheet
6 7 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.22%) AutoCAD
7 5 (0.22%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.18%) Simulink
9 3 (0.13%) CATIA
9 3 (0.13%) LaTeX
10 2 (0.090%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.090%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.090%) Sketch
11 1 (0.045%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.045%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.045%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.045%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.045%) UXPin
11 1 (0.045%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 111 (4.98%) SAP S/4HANA
2 31 (1.39%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.67%) Teamcenter
4 14 (0.63%) Oracle Payables
4 14 (0.63%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 12 (0.54%) Workday HCM
6 11 (0.49%) Oracle General Ledger
7 10 (0.45%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.40%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.36%) Aladdin
10 7 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
10 7 (0.31%) Oracle Financials
10 7 (0.31%) Oracle Receivables
10 7 (0.31%) Sage X3
10 7 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
10 7 (0.31%) Unit4 Business World
11 6 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
11 6 (0.27%) Oracle EBS R12
11 6 (0.27%) SAP Business One
11 6 (0.27%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 462 (20.71%) Azure
2 277 (12.42%) AWS
3 211 (9.46%) Power Platform
4 117 (5.24%) GCP
5 115 (5.15%) Azure DevOps
6 110 (4.93%) GitHub
7 72 (3.23%) Snowflake
8 61 (2.73%) GitHub Actions
9 59 (2.64%) Azure Data Factory
9 59 (2.64%) Entra ID
10 56 (2.51%) Serverless
11 48 (2.15%) SaaS
12 43 (1.93%) Amazon S3
13 41 (1.84%) OCI
14 40 (1.79%) Microsoft 365
15 36 (1.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 36 (1.61%) dbt
16 28 (1.26%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 25 (1.12%) SuccessFactors
18 24 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 94 (4.21%) Firewall
2 62 (2.78%) Network Security
3 40 (1.79%) VLAN
4 38 (1.70%) DNS
5 36 (1.61%) WAN
6 31 (1.39%) TCP/IP
7 30 (1.34%) VPN
8 23 (1.03%) BGP
9 22 (0.99%) LAN
10 20 (0.90%) SAN
10 20 (0.90%) SD-WAN
10 20 (0.90%) Wireless
11 19 (0.85%) Ethernet
12 17 (0.76%) OSPF
13 15 (0.67%) DHCP
13 15 (0.67%) Internet
14 14 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.58%) Cisco ISE
16 12 (0.54%) NAS
16 12 (0.54%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 196 (8.79%) Power BI
2 120 (5.38%) Data Warehouse
3 79 (3.54%) Metadata
4 77 (3.45%) SQL Server
5 67 (3.00%) Tableau
6 63 (2.82%) Data Lake
7 62 (2.78%) PostgreSQL
8 50 (2.24%) Relational Database
9 31 (1.39%) Big Data
10 28 (1.26%) Amazon Redshift
10 28 (1.26%) Oracle Database
11 27 (1.21%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 25 (1.12%) NoSQL
13 24 (1.08%) Oracle Reports
14 23 (1.03%) BigQuery
14 23 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 22 (0.99%) Power Query
16 21 (0.94%) Delta Lake
17 20 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
18 17 (0.76%) SAS Visual Analytics
Development Applications
1 211 (9.46%) JIRA
2 127 (5.69%) Git
3 90 (4.03%) Jenkins
4 65 (2.91%) GitLab
5 52 (2.33%) Selenium
6 43 (1.93%) Postman
7 40 (1.79%) JMeter
8 36 (1.61%) JUnit
9 35 (1.57%) Cucumber
10 30 (1.34%) WebDriver
11 25 (1.12%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.81%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.72%) Rational Rhapsody
13 16 (0.72%) Visual Studio
14 15 (0.67%) MLflow
15 14 (0.63%) Gatling
16 10 (0.45%) Gradle
16 10 (0.45%) Maven
16 10 (0.45%) REST Assured
17 8 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 670 (30.03%) Finance
2 658 (29.49%) Social Skills
3 408 (18.29%) Analytical Skills
4 184 (8.25%) Public Sector
5 180 (8.07%) Banking
6 123 (5.51%) Documentation Skills
7 65 (2.91%) Manufacturing
8 62 (2.78%) Aerospace
9 54 (2.42%) Retail
10 40 (1.79%) Organisational Skills
11 38 (1.70%) Pharmaceutical
12 36 (1.61%) Marketing
13 35 (1.57%) Telecoms
14 34 (1.52%) Front Office
14 34 (1.52%) General Ledger
14 34 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 33 (1.48%) Influencing Skills
15 33 (1.48%) Legal
15 33 (1.48%) Presentation Skills
16 32 (1.43%) Law
Job Titles
1 381 (17.08%) Analyst
2 229 (10.26%) Lead
3 225 (10.09%) Senior
4 181 (8.11%) Business Analyst
5 174 (7.80%) Data Engineer
6 154 (6.90%) Consultant
7 138 (6.19%) Architect
8 129 (5.78%) Developer
9 113 (5.06%) Data Analyst
10 76 (3.41%) Project Manager
11 72 (3.23%) Test Engineer
12 58 (2.60%) Tester
13 47 (2.11%) Test Manager
14 46 (2.06%) Network Engineer
15 45 (2.02%) Systems Engineer
16 43 (1.93%) Software Engineer
17 39 (1.75%) Security Engineer
18 38 (1.70%) Senior Analyst
18 38 (1.70%) Senior Data Engineer
19 36 (1.61%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 122 (5.47%) REST
2 68 (3.05%) Kafka
3 67 (3.00%) JSON
4 54 (2.42%) Oracle Fusion
5 47 (2.11%) XML
6 46 (2.06%) OAuth
7 43 (1.93%) PySpark
8 41 (1.84%) Middleware
9 36 (1.61%) .NET
9 36 (1.61%) Spring
10 35 (1.57%) SOAP
10 35 (1.57%) Swagger
11 34 (1.52%) RESTful
12 33 (1.48%) Web Services
13 32 (1.43%) Pandas
14 31 (1.39%) pytest
15 29 (1.30%) Node.js
15 29 (1.30%) Playwright
16 26 (1.17%) JWT
17 25 (1.12%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 129 (5.78%) Legacy Systems
2 105 (4.71%) Data Structures
2 105 (4.71%) Onboarding
3 92 (4.12%) Product Ownership
4 84 (3.77%) Cloud Native
5 64 (2.87%) Data Centre
6 51 (2.29%) Management Information System
7 49 (2.20%) Distributed Systems
8 43 (1.93%) Analytical Mindset
9 30 (1.34%) SCADA
10 29 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
11 28 (1.26%) AI Agents
11 28 (1.26%) Distributed Architecture
12 27 (1.21%) Public Cloud
13 26 (1.17%) Algorithms
13 26 (1.17%) Hybrid Cloud
13 26 (1.17%) Life Science
13 26 (1.17%) Replication
14 24 (1.08%) Operational Technology
14 24 (1.08%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 118 (5.29%) Windows
2 81 (3.63%) Linux
3 27 (1.21%) Unix
4 20 (0.90%) Windows Server
5 14 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.58%) Android
7 6 (0.27%) VMS
7 6 (0.27%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.18%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.18%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.18%) SUSE
8 4 (0.18%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.090%) HPUX
10 2 (0.090%) VxWorks
10 2 (0.090%) zOS
11 1 (0.045%) Debian
11 1 (0.045%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.045%) Solaris
11 1 (0.045%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 613 (27.48%) Migration
2 421 (18.87%) Agile
3 391 (17.53%) Stakeholder Management
4 380 (17.03%) Data Validation
5 373 (16.72%) CI/CD
6 370 (16.58%) Data Migration
7 363 (16.27%) Problem-Solving
8 358 (16.05%) User Acceptance Testing
9 341 (15.28%) Analytics
10 339 (15.19%) Data Modelling
11 289 (12.95%) ETL
12 279 (12.51%) DevOps
13 277 (12.42%) AI
14 267 (11.97%) Test Automation
15 237 (10.62%) Business Intelligence
16 233 (10.44%) Continuous Improvement
17 231 (10.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 211 (9.46%) Data Governance
19 209 (9.37%) Data Analysis
20 204 (9.14%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 544 (24.38%) SQL
2 386 (17.30%) Python
3 110 (4.93%) Java
4 60 (2.69%) PowerShell
5 50 (2.24%) C#
6 38 (1.70%) C
6 38 (1.70%) C++
7 37 (1.66%) Bash
8 35 (1.57%) JavaScript
9 29 (1.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 28 (1.26%) TypeScript
11 27 (1.21%) Apex Code
11 27 (1.21%) Bicep
12 23 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 23 (1.03%) R
13 21 (0.94%) Ada
14 17 (0.76%) Scala
15 16 (0.72%) MATLAB
16 14 (0.63%) T-SQL
16 14 (0.63%) VBA
Qualifications
1 412 (18.47%) Security Cleared
2 299 (13.40%) SC Cleared
3 159 (7.13%) Degree
4 54 (2.42%) BPSS Clearance
5 46 (2.06%) DV Cleared
6 41 (1.84%) Computer Science Degree
7 31 (1.39%) PMI Certification
8 28 (1.26%) Cisco Certification
9 24 (1.08%) PMP
10 23 (1.03%) CCNP
11 20 (0.90%) Master's Degree
12 17 (0.76%) ACCA
13 16 (0.72%) CISSP
13 16 (0.72%) Microsoft Certification
14 15 (0.67%) CIMA
14 15 (0.67%) ISTQB
15 13 (0.58%) Azure Certification
16 12 (0.54%) AWS Certification
16 12 (0.54%) CCNA
17 8 (0.36%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 385 (17.26%) Data Quality
2 255 (11.43%) QA
3 109 (4.89%) GDPR
4 57 (2.55%) NIST
5 51 (2.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 31 (1.39%) Accessibility
7 29 (1.30%) PMO
8 27 (1.21%) IFRS
9 26 (1.17%) SLA
10 18 (0.81%) IFRS 17
11 16 (0.72%) Def Stans
12 15 (0.67%) GRC
12 15 (0.67%) GxP
13 14 (0.63%) HL7
14 13 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
14 13 (0.58%) Solvency II
15 12 (0.54%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 11 (0.49%) ISO 20022
16 11 (0.49%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 98 (4.39%) Docker
2 53 (2.38%) Active Directory
3 46 (2.06%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (0.72%) Firmware
6 15 (0.67%) VMware ESXi
7 14 (0.63%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.63%) VMware NSX
8 9 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
9 8 (0.36%) vSphere
10 5 (0.22%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 2 (0.090%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.090%) KVM
12 2 (0.090%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.090%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.090%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.045%) etcd
13 1 (0.045%) OpenSSH
13 1 (0.045%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 141 (6.32%) Kubernetes
2 103 (4.62%) Terraform
3 49 (2.20%) Prometheus
4 44 (1.97%) Grafana
5 43 (1.93%) Ansible
6 26 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
7 19 (0.85%) FortiGate
7 19 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
8 9 (0.40%) vCenter Server
9 8 (0.36%) Kibana
10 7 (0.31%) Puppet
10 7 (0.31%) SCCM
11 6 (0.27%) Nessus
11 6 (0.27%) VxRail
12 5 (0.22%) vMotion
13 4 (0.18%) Argo
13 4 (0.18%) CASB
13 4 (0.18%) EMC VPLEX
13 4 (0.18%) Failover Clustering
13 4 (0.18%) Istio
Vendors
1 300 (13.45%) Microsoft
2 195 (8.74%) SAP
3 191 (8.56%) Oracle
4 108 (4.84%) Databricks
5 79 (3.54%) Salesforce
6 60 (2.69%) ServiceNow
7 56 (2.51%) VMware
8 50 (2.24%) Cisco
9 40 (1.79%) Splunk
10 33 (1.48%) Google
11 32 (1.43%) Workday
12 30 (1.34%) Informatica
13 26 (1.17%) Palo Alto
13 26 (1.17%) Sage
14 23 (1.03%) MuleSoft
15 22 (0.99%) Fortinet
16 21 (0.94%) IFS
17 20 (0.90%) IBM
18 19 (0.85%) CyberArk
19 17 (0.76%) CheckPoint