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

6 months to
12 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 98 130
Rank change year-on-year +51 +32 +7
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,639 665 697
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.50% 2.70% 1.83%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.20% 2.98% 2.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,008 396 389
10th Percentile £350 £363 £324
25th Percentile £404 £421 £434
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £491 £548 £533
Median % change year-on-year -10.32% +2.82% -3.18%
75th Percentile £594 £638 £623
90th Percentile £700 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £487 £540 £548
% change year-on-year -9.81% -1.37% -0.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 88 40 146
10th Percentile £32.58 £25.26 £23.75
25th Percentile £60.00 £46.00 £51.56
Median hourly rate £65.00 £59.13 £61.32
Median % change year-on-year +9.94% -3.57% -1.90%
75th Percentile £71.75 £64.06 £75.16
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.03 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £57.75 £60.00
% change year-on-year +12.55% -3.75% -4.08%

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 31,521 22,327 33,048
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.53% 90.61% 86.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,160 14,432 21,853
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £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 1,961 797 2,159
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.25 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.00 £34.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.04% +6.15% -9.72%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.63 £70.53
UK median hourly rate £29.61 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -8.89% - -7.14%

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 12 March 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 12 March 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 12 March 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 +65 757 £511 -7.05% 293
North of England +30 222 £435 -8.42% 145
South East +4 192 £500 - 256
Midlands +34 173 £481 -1.43% 119
North West +26 142 £413 -8.33% 70
West Midlands +15 137 £486 -0.89% 76
South West +8 135 £475 -17.39% 98
East of England +23 109 £475 +5.56% 105
Yorkshire -6 70 £462 +9.93% 54
East Midlands -3 34 £513 +39.65% 42
North East -5 13 £463 -36.21% 21
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 68 (4.15%) Confluence
2 33 (2.01%) Apache Spark
3 32 (1.95%) SAS
4 27 (1.65%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (0.98%) Apache
6 13 (0.79%) SharePoint
7 11 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
8 9 (0.55%) Appian
9 7 (0.43%) Jupyter
10 6 (0.37%) ArcGIS
10 6 (0.37%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
11 5 (0.31%) CMS
11 5 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.24%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.24%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.18%) CICS
13 3 (0.18%) GeoServer
13 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.18%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 78 (4.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 20 (1.22%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (1.16%) MS Visio
4 12 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.49%) Chatbot
5 8 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.24%) Notion
7 3 (0.18%) LaTeX
8 2 (0.12%) Sketch
9 1 (0.061%) Autodesk Inventor
9 1 (0.061%) CANalyzer
9 1 (0.061%) CATIA
9 1 (0.061%) MicroStation
9 1 (0.061%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.061%) Simulink
9 1 (0.061%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 81 (4.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.71%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.79%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 12 (0.73%) Oracle General Ledger
4 12 (0.73%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.73%) Workday HCM
5 9 (0.55%) Oracle Receivables
5 9 (0.55%) SAP FI
6 8 (0.49%) Dynamics CRM
6 8 (0.49%) OpenText VIM for SAP
6 8 (0.49%) Oracle Assets
6 8 (0.49%) Oracle EBS R12
7 7 (0.43%) Aladdin
7 7 (0.43%) NetSuite
7 7 (0.43%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 7 (0.43%) SAP MDG
7 7 (0.43%) SAP MM
8 6 (0.37%) Oracle Financials
8 6 (0.37%) Sage X3
8 6 (0.37%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 377 (23.00%) Azure
2 191 (11.65%) AWS
3 140 (8.54%) Power Platform
4 120 (7.32%) Azure DevOps
5 80 (4.88%) GCP
6 75 (4.58%) GitHub
7 51 (3.11%) Entra ID
8 47 (2.87%) Serverless
9 46 (2.81%) SaaS
10 45 (2.75%) Azure Data Factory
11 44 (2.68%) GitHub Actions
12 41 (2.50%) OCI
13 33 (2.01%) Snowflake
14 31 (1.89%) Amazon S3
15 28 (1.71%) OpenShift
16 23 (1.40%) AWS Lambda
17 22 (1.34%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 21 (1.28%) SuccessFactors
19 19 (1.16%) Boomi
20 18 (1.10%) Amazon GuardDuty
Communications & Networking
1 55 (3.36%) Firewall
2 37 (2.26%) Network Security
3 31 (1.89%) TCP/IP
4 20 (1.22%) DNS
4 20 (1.22%) Ethernet
5 14 (0.85%) SAN
5 14 (0.85%) VLAN
6 13 (0.79%) VPN
7 12 (0.73%) NAS
7 12 (0.73%) WAN
8 9 (0.55%) HTTP
8 9 (0.55%) LAN
8 9 (0.55%) Wireless
9 8 (0.49%) BGP
9 8 (0.49%) Internet
9 8 (0.49%) OSPF
10 7 (0.43%) MPLS
10 7 (0.43%) SD-WAN
10 7 (0.43%) SSL
11 6 (0.37%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 130 (7.93%) Power BI
2 79 (4.82%) Metadata
3 77 (4.70%) Data Warehouse
4 46 (2.81%) SQL Server
5 45 (2.75%) Tableau
6 39 (2.38%) Data Lake
7 32 (1.95%) PostgreSQL
8 27 (1.65%) Oracle Reports
9 25 (1.53%) NoSQL
10 23 (1.40%) Amazon Redshift
11 20 (1.22%) Delta Lake
11 20 (1.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 19 (1.16%) Big Data
12 19 (1.16%) Relational Database
13 18 (1.10%) Oracle Database
13 18 (1.10%) Pinecone
13 18 (1.10%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 14 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
15 13 (0.79%) Amazon Athena
16 12 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 163 (9.95%) JIRA
2 98 (5.98%) Git
3 79 (4.82%) Jenkins
4 59 (3.60%) Selenium
5 49 (2.99%) GitLab
6 42 (2.56%) Postman
7 34 (2.07%) JUnit
8 31 (1.89%) Cucumber
8 31 (1.89%) Oracle APEX
9 30 (1.83%) Rational DOORS
10 28 (1.71%) JMeter
11 19 (1.16%) Visual Studio
11 19 (1.16%) WebDriver
12 17 (1.04%) MLflow
13 13 (0.79%) Eclipse
14 12 (0.73%) REST Assured
15 10 (0.61%) TestRail
16 9 (0.55%) Bitbucket
16 9 (0.55%) Cypress.io
17 8 (0.49%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 585 (35.69%) Social Skills
2 496 (30.26%) Finance
3 338 (20.62%) Analytical Skills
4 149 (9.09%) Public Sector
5 144 (8.79%) Banking
6 84 (5.13%) Documentation Skills
7 50 (3.05%) Presentation Skills
8 43 (2.62%) Manufacturing
9 38 (2.32%) Aerospace
10 31 (1.89%) Electronics
10 31 (1.89%) Influencing Skills
11 30 (1.83%) Marketing
12 28 (1.71%) Front Office
12 28 (1.71%) Pharmaceutical
13 27 (1.65%) Military
14 26 (1.59%) Telecoms
15 25 (1.53%) Financial Institution
15 25 (1.53%) Organisational Skills
16 24 (1.46%) Legal
16 24 (1.46%) Retail
Job Titles
1 296 (18.06%) Analyst
2 170 (10.37%) Senior
3 168 (10.25%) Lead
4 135 (8.24%) Business Analyst
5 117 (7.14%) Developer
6 116 (7.08%) Consultant
7 107 (6.53%) Architect
8 106 (6.47%) Data Engineer
9 81 (4.94%) Data Analyst
10 59 (3.60%) Project Manager
11 47 (2.87%) Tester
12 46 (2.81%) Software Engineer
13 38 (2.32%) Senior Analyst
14 36 (2.20%) SAP Consultant
15 35 (2.14%) Senior Developer
16 33 (2.01%) Test Engineer
17 31 (1.89%) Embedded Engineer
17 31 (1.89%) Test Analyst
17 31 (1.89%) Test Manager
18 29 (1.77%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (6.47%) REST
2 67 (4.09%) JSON
3 61 (3.72%) Oracle Fusion
4 50 (3.05%) Kafka
5 49 (2.99%) XML
6 47 (2.87%) OAuth
7 44 (2.68%) Middleware
8 43 (2.62%) .NET
9 39 (2.38%) SOAP
10 36 (2.20%) PyTorch
11 35 (2.14%) Node.js
12 34 (2.07%) PySpark
13 32 (1.95%) RESTful
13 32 (1.95%) TensorFlow
14 30 (1.83%) Swagger
14 30 (1.83%) Web Services
15 29 (1.77%) Playwright
16 27 (1.65%) pytest
17 26 (1.59%) Pandas
18 23 (1.40%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 101 (6.16%) Legacy Systems
2 79 (4.82%) Data Structures
3 70 (4.27%) Product Ownership
4 56 (3.42%) Onboarding
5 47 (2.87%) Cloud Native
6 38 (2.32%) Management Information System
7 34 (2.07%) Data Centre
8 32 (1.95%) Analytical Mindset
9 26 (1.59%) Algorithms
9 26 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
9 26 (1.59%) Distributed Systems
10 22 (1.34%) Replication
11 21 (1.28%) Derivative
12 17 (1.04%) Greenfield Project
12 17 (1.04%) Hybrid Cloud
13 16 (0.98%) Credit Risk
14 15 (0.92%) Public Cloud
15 14 (0.85%) Enterprise Software
15 14 (0.85%) Taxonomies
16 13 (0.79%) FPGA
Operating Systems
1 84 (5.13%) Windows
2 68 (4.15%) Linux
3 28 (1.71%) Unix
4 9 (0.55%) Android
5 7 (0.43%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.37%) zOS
7 5 (0.31%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.18%) Embedded Linux
9 2 (0.12%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.12%) Debian
9 2 (0.12%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.061%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.061%) FreeRTOS
10 1 (0.061%) pSOS
10 1 (0.061%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.061%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 409 (24.95%) Agile
2 386 (23.55%) Migration
3 359 (21.90%) Problem-Solving
4 309 (18.85%) Stakeholder Management
5 275 (16.78%) CI/CD
5 275 (16.78%) Data Validation
6 267 (16.29%) Analytics
7 253 (15.44%) DevOps
8 231 (14.09%) Data Migration
9 224 (13.67%) Data Modelling
10 207 (12.63%) ETL
11 206 (12.57%) Test Automation
12 204 (12.45%) User Acceptance Testing
13 194 (11.84%) AI
14 187 (11.41%) Continuous Improvement
15 173 (10.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 169 (10.31%) Business Intelligence
17 152 (9.27%) Data Governance
18 139 (8.48%) Workshop Facilitation
19 138 (8.42%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 406 (24.77%) SQL
2 317 (19.34%) Python
3 89 (5.43%) JavaScript
4 83 (5.06%) Java
5 64 (3.90%) C#
6 52 (3.17%) PL/SQL
7 45 (2.75%) C++
8 37 (2.26%) C
9 36 (2.20%) PowerShell
10 30 (1.83%) TypeScript
11 27 (1.65%) Bash
12 24 (1.46%) R
13 23 (1.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 21 (1.28%) Bicep
15 19 (1.16%) Ada
16 17 (1.04%) Groovy
17 14 (0.85%) T-SQL
18 13 (0.79%) Scala
19 11 (0.67%) VBA
20 10 (0.61%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 361 (22.03%) Security Cleared
2 265 (16.17%) SC Cleared
3 152 (9.27%) Degree
4 53 (3.23%) Computer Science Degree
5 45 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
6 37 (2.26%) DV Cleared
7 33 (2.01%) Master's Degree
8 26 (1.59%) ISTQB
8 26 (1.59%) PMI Certification
9 22 (1.34%) PMP
10 15 (0.92%) CISSP
11 14 (0.85%) CBAP
11 14 (0.85%) Microsoft Certification
12 13 (0.79%) AWS Certification
13 11 (0.67%) Cisco Certification
14 10 (0.61%) Oracle Certification
15 9 (0.55%) Azure Certification
16 8 (0.49%) CCNP
17 7 (0.43%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
17 7 (0.43%) OCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 236 (14.40%) Data Quality
2 211 (12.87%) QA
3 87 (5.31%) GDPR
4 72 (4.39%) NIST
5 51 (3.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 24 (1.46%) Accessibility
7 22 (1.34%) IFRS
8 19 (1.16%) IFRS 17
9 18 (1.10%) Def Stans
10 17 (1.04%) GRC
10 17 (1.04%) SLA
11 15 (0.92%) PCI DSS
12 14 (0.85%) PMO
13 13 (0.79%) NCSC
14 12 (0.73%) COBIT
14 12 (0.73%) EU AI Act
15 11 (0.67%) MiFID
16 10 (0.61%) MISRA
17 9 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
17 9 (0.55%) GMP
System Software
1 76 (4.64%) Docker
2 35 (2.14%) Active Directory
3 31 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.28%) Firmware
5 10 (0.61%) VMware NSX
6 8 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.43%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.31%) NFS
9 4 (0.24%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
9 4 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
10 3 (0.18%) vSphere
11 2 (0.12%) Ceph
11 2 (0.12%) KVM
11 2 (0.12%) Lustre
11 2 (0.12%) OpenAM
11 2 (0.12%) OpenDJ
11 2 (0.12%) OpenIDM
11 2 (0.12%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 110 (6.71%) Kubernetes
2 72 (4.39%) Terraform
3 31 (1.89%) Ansible
4 28 (1.71%) Prometheus
4 28 (1.71%) Single Sign-On
5 24 (1.46%) Grafana
6 12 (0.73%) Kibana
6 12 (0.73%) Puppet
7 11 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
8 9 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 6 (0.37%) Nessus
9 6 (0.37%) SCCM
10 5 (0.31%) CASB
11 4 (0.24%) EMC NetWorker
11 4 (0.24%) EMC VPLEX
11 4 (0.24%) vMotion
12 3 (0.18%) CloudHub
12 3 (0.18%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.18%) NetBackup
12 3 (0.18%) OMEGAMON
Vendors
1 215 (13.12%) Microsoft
2 178 (10.86%) Oracle
3 136 (8.30%) SAP
4 73 (4.45%) Databricks
5 72 (4.39%) ServiceNow
6 42 (2.56%) Splunk
7 37 (2.26%) Salesforce
7 37 (2.26%) VMware
8 34 (2.07%) Google
9 32 (1.95%) Cisco
10 30 (1.83%) Workday
11 28 (1.71%) Sage
12 26 (1.59%) Informatica
12 26 (1.59%) MuleSoft
13 21 (1.28%) IBM
14 18 (1.10%) Palo Alto
15 17 (1.04%) Murex
16 16 (0.98%) CyberArk
17 14 (0.85%) Bloomberg
17 14 (0.85%) OpenAI