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

6 months to
10 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 71 108
Rank change year-on-year +37 +37 +37
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,417 963 768
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.39% 3.56% 2.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.30% 3.93% 2.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,475 595 381
10th Percentile £339 £353 £325
25th Percentile £413 £424 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -11.50%
75th Percentile £600 £635 £588
90th Percentile £700 £700 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 161 68 171
10th Percentile £17.75 £19.82 £26.88
25th Percentile £30.27 £37.25 £47.83
Median hourly rate £62.50 £60.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75.00 £65.38 £68.82
90th Percentile £83.75 £75.75 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £57.75 £60.00
% change year-on-year +3.90% -3.75% -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 38,339 24,527 31,778
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.54% 90.74% 85.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,173 15,771 20,632
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £645
90th Percentile £733 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £518 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +2.48% -3.81% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,381 1,262 2,268
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.21 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.98 £16.25
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% -6.09%
75th Percentile £68.75 £54.00 £62.00
90th Percentile £82.50 £70.16 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% -6.25%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 1,163 £513 -6.82% 431
North of England +35 315 £450 -5.26% 136
South East +4 304 £506 +1.15% 239
Midlands +36 299 £488 +11.43% 120
West Midlands +27 218 £475 +17.28% 60
North West +25 170 £450 -14.29% 71
East of England +3 134 £500 +5.26% 77
Yorkshire +32 132 £461 +10.53% 45
South West -5 130 £514 -10.65% 162
East Midlands +24 76 £525 +15.51% 60
North East -27 16 £425 -22.73% 20
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 (3.27%) Confluence
2 62 (2.57%) Apache Airflow
3 48 (1.99%) SAS
4 44 (1.82%) SharePoint
5 42 (1.74%) Apache Spark
6 25 (1.03%) Apache
7 13 (0.54%) Jupyter
8 10 (0.41%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.33%) SharePoint 2013
10 7 (0.29%) CMS
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.25%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.21%) Appian
12 5 (0.21%) Tuxedo
13 3 (0.12%) Apache Pulsar
13 3 (0.12%) IIS
13 3 (0.12%) JBoss
13 3 (0.12%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
13 3 (0.12%) Palantir Foundry
13 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 170 (7.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 37 (1.53%) MS Visio
3 32 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
4 27 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 23 (0.95%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.21%) AutoCAD
7 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 5 (0.21%) Simulink
8 3 (0.12%) CATIA
9 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.083%) EPLAN
9 2 (0.083%) Sketch
10 1 (0.041%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.041%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.041%) CANalyzer
10 1 (0.041%) LaTeX
10 1 (0.041%) MicroStation
10 1 (0.041%) UXPin
10 1 (0.041%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 116 (4.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.37%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.62%) Oracle Payables
3 15 (0.62%) Teamcenter
4 13 (0.54%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 13 (0.54%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.46%) Oracle General Ledger
5 11 (0.46%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.41%) iTrent
6 10 (0.41%) NetSuite
6 10 (0.41%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.37%) Aladdin
7 9 (0.37%) Oracle Financials
8 8 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
8 8 (0.33%) SAP MDG
9 7 (0.29%) Oracle EBS R12
9 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
9 7 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
9 7 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
9 7 (0.29%) Sage X3
Cloud Services
1 519 (21.47%) Azure
2 286 (11.83%) AWS
3 240 (9.93%) Power Platform
4 134 (5.54%) Azure DevOps
5 127 (5.25%) GCP
6 109 (4.51%) GitHub
7 78 (3.23%) Snowflake
8 64 (2.65%) Entra ID
9 63 (2.61%) Azure Data Factory
9 63 (2.61%) GitHub Actions
10 57 (2.36%) Serverless
11 44 (1.82%) Amazon S3
12 43 (1.78%) Microsoft 365
12 43 (1.78%) OCI
12 43 (1.78%) SaaS
13 41 (1.70%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 41 (1.70%) dbt
14 32 (1.32%) SuccessFactors
15 28 (1.16%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 26 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 105 (4.34%) Firewall
2 62 (2.57%) Network Security
3 47 (1.94%) DNS
4 41 (1.70%) VLAN
5 36 (1.49%) WAN
6 34 (1.41%) VPN
7 28 (1.16%) TCP/IP
8 27 (1.12%) BGP
9 23 (0.95%) Wireless
10 22 (0.91%) LAN
10 22 (0.91%) SAN
11 20 (0.83%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.79%) OSPF
13 18 (0.74%) Internet
14 16 (0.66%) DHCP
14 16 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
15 15 (0.62%) Ethernet
16 13 (0.54%) Cisco ISE
17 12 (0.50%) NAS
18 10 (0.41%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 224 (9.27%) Power BI
2 134 (5.54%) Data Warehouse
3 89 (3.68%) Metadata
4 79 (3.27%) SQL Server
5 73 (3.02%) Data Lake
6 71 (2.94%) Tableau
7 69 (2.85%) PostgreSQL
8 59 (2.44%) Relational Database
9 37 (1.53%) Big Data
10 30 (1.24%) Oracle Database
11 29 (1.20%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 26 (1.08%) Amazon Redshift
12 26 (1.08%) NoSQL
12 26 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 25 (1.03%) BigQuery
13 25 (1.03%) Delta Lake
14 23 (0.95%) Power Query
15 22 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
16 19 (0.79%) Amazon Athena
17 18 (0.74%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 230 (9.52%) JIRA
2 140 (5.79%) Git
3 90 (3.72%) Jenkins
4 67 (2.77%) GitLab
5 56 (2.32%) Selenium
6 44 (1.82%) Postman
7 43 (1.78%) JMeter
8 37 (1.53%) Cucumber
9 36 (1.49%) JUnit
10 30 (1.24%) WebDriver
11 26 (1.08%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.74%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.66%) Gatling
13 16 (0.66%) Rational Rhapsody
13 16 (0.66%) Visual Studio
14 12 (0.50%) MLflow
15 10 (0.41%) Maven
15 10 (0.41%) REST Assured
16 9 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
17 8 (0.33%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 730 (30.20%) Finance
2 721 (29.83%) Social Skills
3 461 (19.07%) Analytical Skills
4 194 (8.03%) Public Sector
5 193 (7.99%) Banking
6 139 (5.75%) Documentation Skills
7 83 (3.43%) Manufacturing
8 68 (2.81%) Retail
9 65 (2.69%) Aerospace
10 45 (1.86%) Pharmaceutical
10 45 (1.86%) Telecoms
11 43 (1.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 43 (1.78%) Organisational Skills
12 38 (1.57%) Marketing
13 36 (1.49%) Front Office
14 34 (1.41%) General Ledger
14 34 (1.41%) Law
15 33 (1.37%) Legal
16 31 (1.28%) Automotive
16 31 (1.28%) Billing
Job Titles
1 423 (17.50%) Analyst
2 243 (10.05%) Lead
3 240 (9.93%) Senior
4 200 (8.27%) Business Analyst
5 196 (8.11%) Data Engineer
6 171 (7.07%) Consultant
7 142 (5.88%) Architect
8 139 (5.75%) Developer
9 123 (5.09%) Data Analyst
10 85 (3.52%) Test Engineer
11 71 (2.94%) Project Manager
12 64 (2.65%) Tester
13 48 (1.99%) Network Engineer
14 45 (1.86%) Senior Data Engineer
15 44 (1.82%) Security Engineer
16 43 (1.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 43 (1.78%) Test Manager
17 42 (1.74%) Systems Engineer
18 41 (1.70%) Software Engineer
19 39 (1.61%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 114 (4.72%) REST
2 73 (3.02%) JSON
3 71 (2.94%) Kafka
4 54 (2.23%) PySpark
5 51 (2.11%) Oracle Fusion
6 49 (2.03%) XML
7 43 (1.78%) Middleware
7 43 (1.78%) Spring
8 39 (1.61%) .NET
9 38 (1.57%) OAuth
10 34 (1.41%) Playwright
10 34 (1.41%) pytest
11 32 (1.32%) RESTful
12 31 (1.28%) Web Services
13 30 (1.24%) Node.js
13 30 (1.24%) Pandas
13 30 (1.24%) SOAP
14 25 (1.03%) Swagger
14 25 (1.03%) WireMock
15 23 (0.95%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 127 (5.25%) Legacy Systems
2 121 (5.01%) Onboarding
3 117 (4.84%) Data Structures
4 104 (4.30%) Cloud Native
5 97 (4.01%) Product Ownership
6 68 (2.81%) Data Centre
7 53 (2.19%) Management Information System
8 47 (1.94%) Analytical Mindset
8 47 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
9 39 (1.61%) SCADA
10 34 (1.41%) AI Agents
10 34 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
11 33 (1.37%) Life Science
12 30 (1.24%) Enterprise Software
13 27 (1.12%) Distributed Architecture
13 27 (1.12%) NHS
13 27 (1.12%) Operational Technology
13 27 (1.12%) Public Cloud
13 27 (1.12%) Virtual Team
14 26 (1.08%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 129 (5.34%) Windows
2 77 (3.19%) Linux
3 31 (1.28%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.87%) Unix
5 17 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (0.37%) Android
7 7 (0.29%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.25%) VMS
8 6 (0.25%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.17%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.17%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.17%) SUSE
10 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.083%) HPUX
11 2 (0.083%) VxWorks
11 2 (0.083%) zOS
12 1 (0.041%) Debian
12 1 (0.041%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.041%) Solaris
12 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 666 (27.55%) Migration
2 468 (19.36%) Agile
3 431 (17.83%) Stakeholder Management
4 412 (17.05%) CI/CD
5 406 (16.80%) Data Validation
6 400 (16.55%) Analytics
7 399 (16.51%) Data Migration
8 392 (16.22%) User Acceptance Testing
9 386 (15.97%) Problem-Solving
10 365 (15.10%) Data Modelling
11 307 (12.70%) AI
11 307 (12.70%) ETL
12 306 (12.66%) DevOps
13 298 (12.33%) Test Automation
14 277 (11.46%) Continuous Improvement
15 266 (11.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 260 (10.76%) Business Intelligence
17 237 (9.81%) Data Analysis
17 237 (9.81%) Data Pipeline
18 236 (9.76%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 576 (23.83%) SQL
2 424 (17.54%) Python
3 119 (4.92%) Java
4 67 (2.77%) PowerShell
5 54 (2.23%) C#
6 40 (1.65%) C++
7 39 (1.61%) JavaScript
8 38 (1.57%) Bash
9 33 (1.37%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 32 (1.32%) C
10 32 (1.32%) TypeScript
11 28 (1.16%) Apex Code
12 27 (1.12%) Bicep
13 25 (1.03%) PL/SQL
14 24 (0.99%) R
15 23 (0.95%) VBA
16 22 (0.91%) Ada
17 20 (0.83%) Scala
18 17 (0.70%) MATLAB
19 14 (0.58%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 438 (18.12%) Security Cleared
2 315 (13.03%) SC Cleared
3 172 (7.12%) Degree
4 58 (2.40%) DV Cleared
5 54 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
6 38 (1.57%) Computer Science Degree
7 33 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
8 27 (1.12%) PMI Certification
9 25 (1.03%) CCNP
10 22 (0.91%) PMP
11 20 (0.83%) CISSP
12 18 (0.74%) ACCA
13 17 (0.70%) CIMA
13 17 (0.70%) Master's Degree
13 17 (0.70%) Microsoft Certification
14 16 (0.66%) Azure Certification
14 16 (0.66%) ISTQB
15 14 (0.58%) AWS Certification
16 12 (0.50%) CCNA
17 10 (0.41%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 433 (17.91%) Data Quality
2 288 (11.92%) QA
3 111 (4.59%) GDPR
4 59 (2.44%) NIST
5 54 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 36 (1.49%) Accessibility
7 35 (1.45%) PMO
8 29 (1.20%) SLA
9 20 (0.83%) GxP
9 20 (0.83%) IFRS
10 18 (0.74%) GRC
11 17 (0.70%) Def Stans
12 14 (0.58%) HL7
13 13 (0.54%) NCSC
13 13 (0.54%) Solvency II
14 12 (0.50%) IFRS 17
14 12 (0.50%) ISO 20022
14 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.46%) PCI DSS
16 10 (0.41%) WCAG
System Software
1 103 (4.26%) Docker
2 66 (2.73%) Active Directory
3 59 (2.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
5 18 (0.74%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.58%) Firmware
7 14 (0.58%) VMware NSX
8 13 (0.54%) vSphere
9 12 (0.50%) Hyper-V
10 5 (0.21%) NFS
11 4 (0.17%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 3 (0.12%) KVM
12 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.083%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.083%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.083%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.041%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.041%) OpenSSH
14 1 (0.041%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 149 (6.16%) Kubernetes
2 110 (4.55%) Terraform
3 50 (2.07%) Prometheus
4 47 (1.94%) Grafana
5 44 (1.82%) Ansible
6 25 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
7 21 (0.87%) FortiGate
8 20 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
9 10 (0.41%) SCCM
10 9 (0.37%) vCenter Server
11 6 (0.25%) Nessus
11 6 (0.25%) VxRail
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%) Puppet
Vendors
1 334 (13.82%) Microsoft
2 216 (8.94%) SAP
3 206 (8.52%) Oracle
4 122 (5.05%) Databricks
5 84 (3.48%) Salesforce
6 70 (2.90%) VMware
7 62 (2.57%) ServiceNow
8 54 (2.23%) Cisco
9 42 (1.74%) Workday
10 39 (1.61%) Splunk
11 35 (1.45%) Google
12 32 (1.32%) Informatica
13 27 (1.12%) Fortinet
13 27 (1.12%) IBM
13 27 (1.12%) Palo Alto
14 23 (0.95%) Juniper
15 22 (0.91%) MuleSoft
15 22 (0.91%) Sage
16 20 (0.83%) IFS
17 19 (0.79%) CyberArk