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

6 months to
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 86 129
Rank change year-on-year +42 +43 +7
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,866 722 673
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.76% 2.96% 1.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.57% 3.25% 2.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,150 429 352
10th Percentile £335 £357 £313
25th Percentile £402 £422 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £540 £509
Median % change year-on-year -9.26% +6.14% -7.50%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £601
90th Percentile £700 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £484 £540 £525
% change year-on-year -10.37% +2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 104 47 145
10th Percentile £27.74 £27.90 £23.65
25th Percentile £55.71 £48.75 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.55% -3.75% -4.00%
75th Percentile £75.56 £65.00 £75.25
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.10 £89.50
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +13.04% -4.17% -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 33,504 22,203 32,130
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.48% 91.02% 86.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,453 14,593 21,161
10th Percentile £313 £313 £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 £613 £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 2,080 880 2,196
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.83 £12.85
25th Percentile £20.07 £18.51 £15.75
Median hourly rate £41.56 £31.76 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year +30.84% -6.59% -9.33%
75th Percentile £66.50 £64.50 £58.69
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.28 £71.75
UK median hourly rate £37.00 £30.78 £33.07
% change year-on-year +20.21% -6.91% -8.79%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 +71 876 £500 -9.09% 208
North of England +35 247 £433 -6.49% 109
South East -4 219 £500 - 199
Midlands +38 212 £492 +2.23% 113
West Midlands +26 161 £492 +2.23% 74
North West +24 147 £413 -7.04% 56
South West +4 127 £475 -17.39% 88
East of England +13 123 £492 +9.38% 79
Yorkshire +17 89 £461 +10.53% 40
East Midlands +1 48 £500 -0.89% 39
North East -10 14 £450 -37.93% 15
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 75 (4.02%) Confluence
2 42 (2.25%) SAS
3 36 (1.93%) Apache Airflow
4 34 (1.82%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.91%) Apache
6 13 (0.70%) SharePoint
7 9 (0.48%) Appian
7 9 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
8 8 (0.43%) ArcGIS
8 8 (0.43%) Jupyter
9 7 (0.38%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.32%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
11 5 (0.27%) Anypoint
11 5 (0.27%) CMS
12 4 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.21%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.16%) CICS
13 3 (0.16%) Oracle Self-Service HR
14 2 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
14 2 (0.11%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 108 (5.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (1.50%) MS Visio
3 23 (1.23%) Microsoft Office
4 18 (0.96%) Spreadsheet
5 16 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 12 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
7 9 (0.48%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.21%) Notion
9 3 (0.16%) LaTeX
10 2 (0.11%) CATIA
10 2 (0.11%) Sketch
11 1 (0.054%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.054%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.054%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.054%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.054%) UXPin
11 1 (0.054%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 92 (4.93%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (1.82%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.80%) Oracle General Ledger
4 13 (0.70%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.70%) Workday HCM
5 12 (0.64%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 10 (0.54%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.48%) Oracle Receivables
7 9 (0.48%) SAP FI
8 8 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.43%) OpenText VIM for SAP
8 8 (0.43%) Teamcenter
9 7 (0.38%) NetSuite
9 7 (0.38%) Oracle EBS R12
9 7 (0.38%) Payment Gateway
9 7 (0.38%) SAP MM
10 6 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
10 6 (0.32%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 6 (0.32%) Sage X3
10 6 (0.32%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 431 (23.10%) Azure
2 223 (11.95%) AWS
3 172 (9.22%) Power Platform
4 128 (6.86%) Azure DevOps
5 90 (4.82%) GCP
6 88 (4.72%) GitHub
7 53 (2.84%) Serverless
8 51 (2.73%) Azure Data Factory
9 50 (2.68%) Entra ID
10 48 (2.57%) GitHub Actions
10 48 (2.57%) OCI
11 45 (2.41%) SaaS
12 41 (2.20%) Amazon S3
13 38 (2.04%) Snowflake
14 34 (1.82%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 27 (1.45%) OpenShift
16 26 (1.39%) dbt
17 25 (1.34%) AWS Lambda
18 24 (1.29%) Microsoft 365
19 22 (1.18%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 79 (4.23%) Firewall
2 53 (2.84%) Network Security
3 34 (1.82%) TCP/IP
4 28 (1.50%) VLAN
5 25 (1.34%) DNS
6 23 (1.23%) VPN
7 21 (1.13%) Ethernet
8 20 (1.07%) WAN
9 15 (0.80%) SAN
10 13 (0.70%) LAN
10 13 (0.70%) NAS
11 12 (0.64%) BGP
11 12 (0.64%) OSPF
11 12 (0.64%) SD-WAN
12 11 (0.59%) HTTP
12 11 (0.59%) Wireless
13 10 (0.54%) Cisco ISE
14 9 (0.48%) TACACS
15 8 (0.43%) Internet
15 8 (0.43%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 160 (8.57%) Power BI
2 99 (5.31%) Data Warehouse
3 92 (4.93%) Metadata
4 62 (3.32%) Tableau
5 61 (3.27%) SQL Server
6 42 (2.25%) Data Lake
7 41 (2.20%) PostgreSQL
8 28 (1.50%) Oracle Reports
9 26 (1.39%) Amazon Redshift
10 25 (1.34%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 24 (1.29%) Delta Lake
11 24 (1.29%) Oracle Database
12 23 (1.23%) NoSQL
12 23 (1.23%) Relational Database
12 23 (1.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 22 (1.18%) Big Data
14 21 (1.13%) Azure SQL Database
15 18 (0.96%) Pinecone
16 17 (0.91%) Amazon Athena
17 16 (0.86%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 181 (9.70%) JIRA
2 109 (5.84%) Git
3 81 (4.34%) Jenkins
4 62 (3.32%) Selenium
5 52 (2.79%) GitLab
6 41 (2.20%) Postman
7 38 (2.04%) JUnit
8 33 (1.77%) Cucumber
9 28 (1.50%) Oracle APEX
9 28 (1.50%) Rational DOORS
10 27 (1.45%) JMeter
11 22 (1.18%) WebDriver
12 18 (0.96%) Visual Studio
13 15 (0.80%) MLflow
14 14 (0.75%) Eclipse
15 13 (0.70%) REST Assured
16 11 (0.59%) Bitbucket
17 10 (0.54%) Rational Rhapsody
17 10 (0.54%) TestRail
18 9 (0.48%) Gatling
General
1 629 (33.71%) Social Skills
2 560 (30.01%) Finance
3 369 (19.77%) Analytical Skills
4 166 (8.90%) Public Sector
5 156 (8.36%) Banking
6 108 (5.79%) Documentation Skills
7 50 (2.68%) Manufacturing
8 49 (2.63%) Aerospace
9 47 (2.52%) Presentation Skills
10 37 (1.98%) Organisational Skills
11 34 (1.82%) Retail
12 31 (1.66%) Marketing
12 31 (1.66%) Pharmaceutical
13 30 (1.61%) Electronics
13 30 (1.61%) Financial Institution
13 30 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
13 30 (1.61%) Legal
14 29 (1.55%) Military
15 28 (1.50%) Front Office
16 26 (1.39%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 341 (18.27%) Analyst
2 192 (10.29%) Lead
3 185 (9.91%) Senior
4 161 (8.63%) Business Analyst
5 137 (7.34%) Data Engineer
6 128 (6.86%) Developer
7 125 (6.70%) Consultant
8 119 (6.38%) Architect
9 89 (4.77%) Data Analyst
10 71 (3.80%) Project Manager
11 54 (2.89%) Tester
12 42 (2.25%) Software Engineer
13 40 (2.14%) Senior Analyst
13 40 (2.14%) Senior Developer
14 38 (2.04%) SAP Consultant
15 37 (1.98%) Systems Engineer
16 36 (1.93%) Test Engineer
17 35 (1.88%) Network Engineer
17 35 (1.88%) Test Analyst
17 35 (1.88%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 122 (6.54%) REST
2 79 (4.23%) JSON
3 61 (3.27%) Kafka
3 61 (3.27%) Oracle Fusion
4 50 (2.68%) Middleware
5 48 (2.57%) OAuth
5 48 (2.57%) XML
6 42 (2.25%) Node.js
7 39 (2.09%) PySpark
8 37 (1.98%) .NET
8 37 (1.98%) SOAP
9 32 (1.71%) Swagger
10 31 (1.66%) Web Services
11 30 (1.61%) Playwright
12 29 (1.55%) PyTorch
12 29 (1.55%) RESTful
13 28 (1.50%) pytest
14 27 (1.45%) Pandas
15 26 (1.39%) TensorFlow
16 25 (1.34%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 112 (6.00%) Legacy Systems
2 95 (5.09%) Data Structures
3 81 (4.34%) Onboarding
4 74 (3.97%) Product Ownership
5 49 (2.63%) Cloud Native
6 42 (2.25%) Management Information System
7 41 (2.20%) Data Centre
8 32 (1.71%) Analytical Mindset
8 32 (1.71%) Distributed Systems
9 29 (1.55%) Replication
10 25 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
11 23 (1.23%) Hybrid Cloud
12 22 (1.18%) Algorithms
12 22 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
13 21 (1.13%) Public Cloud
14 19 (1.02%) Virtual Team
15 18 (0.96%) Derivative
15 18 (0.96%) Reference Data
16 16 (0.86%) Credit Risk
16 16 (0.86%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 98 (5.25%) Windows
2 77 (4.13%) Linux
3 24 (1.29%) Unix
4 12 (0.64%) Android
5 10 (0.54%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.32%) zOS
7 5 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 4 (0.21%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.21%) SUSE
8 4 (0.21%) VMS
9 3 (0.16%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
10 2 (0.11%) Debian
10 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.054%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.054%) pSOS
11 1 (0.054%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 478 (25.62%) Migration
2 421 (22.56%) Agile
3 367 (19.67%) Problem-Solving
4 337 (18.06%) Stakeholder Management
5 322 (17.26%) Data Validation
6 311 (16.67%) CI/CD
7 305 (16.35%) Analytics
8 288 (15.43%) Data Migration
9 276 (14.79%) DevOps
10 267 (14.31%) Data Modelling
11 257 (13.77%) ETL
11 257 (13.77%) User Acceptance Testing
12 223 (11.95%) Test Automation
13 209 (11.20%) Business Intelligence
14 204 (10.93%) AI
14 204 (10.93%) Continuous Improvement
15 197 (10.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 181 (9.70%) Data Governance
17 168 (9.00%) Data Pipeline
18 157 (8.41%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 475 (25.46%) SQL
2 344 (18.44%) Python
3 96 (5.14%) Java
4 83 (4.45%) JavaScript
5 65 (3.48%) C#
6 53 (2.84%) PL/SQL
7 47 (2.52%) C++
8 43 (2.30%) PowerShell
9 37 (1.98%) C
10 30 (1.61%) TypeScript
11 29 (1.55%) Bash
12 25 (1.34%) R
13 24 (1.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 22 (1.18%) Ada
14 22 (1.18%) Bicep
15 17 (0.91%) Scala
16 13 (0.70%) T-SQL
16 13 (0.70%) VBA
17 12 (0.64%) Groovy
18 11 (0.59%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 396 (21.22%) Security Cleared
2 283 (15.17%) SC Cleared
3 162 (8.68%) Degree
4 51 (2.73%) BPSS Clearance
5 47 (2.52%) Computer Science Degree
6 37 (1.98%) DV Cleared
7 31 (1.66%) Master's Degree
8 29 (1.55%) PMI Certification
9 27 (1.45%) PMP
10 24 (1.29%) ISTQB
11 19 (1.02%) Cisco Certification
12 16 (0.86%) CCNP
13 15 (0.80%) Microsoft Certification
14 13 (0.70%) Azure Certification
14 13 (0.70%) CBAP
14 13 (0.70%) CISSP
15 12 (0.64%) AWS Certification
16 9 (0.48%) CCNA
17 8 (0.43%) Oracle Certification
18 7 (0.38%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 308 (16.51%) Data Quality
2 231 (12.38%) QA
3 108 (5.79%) GDPR
4 70 (3.75%) NIST
5 58 (3.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 26 (1.39%) Accessibility
7 23 (1.23%) SLA
8 22 (1.18%) IFRS
9 20 (1.07%) PMO
10 19 (1.02%) IFRS 17
11 18 (0.96%) GRC
12 16 (0.86%) Def Stans
13 15 (0.80%) HL7
14 14 (0.75%) PCI DSS
15 12 (0.64%) COBIT
15 12 (0.64%) GxP
15 12 (0.64%) NCSC
16 11 (0.59%) MiFID
16 11 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 10 (0.54%) NIST 800
System Software
1 77 (4.13%) Docker
2 39 (2.09%) Active Directory
3 37 (1.98%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.23%) Firmware
5 12 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
6 11 (0.59%) VMware NSX
7 10 (0.54%) Hyper-V
8 9 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
8 9 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.27%) NFS
9 5 (0.27%) vSphere
10 4 (0.21%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 3 (0.16%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
12 2 (0.11%) Ceph
12 2 (0.11%) KVM
12 2 (0.11%) Lustre
12 2 (0.11%) OpenAM
12 2 (0.11%) OpenIDM
12 2 (0.11%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 112 (6.00%) Kubernetes
2 84 (4.50%) Terraform
3 30 (1.61%) Ansible
4 29 (1.55%) Prometheus
4 29 (1.55%) Single Sign-On
5 28 (1.50%) Grafana
6 14 (0.75%) Microsoft Intune
7 9 (0.48%) Kibana
7 9 (0.48%) Puppet
8 8 (0.43%) FortiGate
9 7 (0.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 7 (0.38%) SCCM
10 6 (0.32%) Nessus
11 5 (0.27%) CASB
11 5 (0.27%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.21%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.21%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.21%) Failover Clustering
12 4 (0.21%) Istio
12 4 (0.21%) vMotion
Vendors
1 244 (13.08%) Microsoft
2 204 (10.93%) Oracle
3 161 (8.63%) SAP
4 86 (4.61%) Databricks
5 73 (3.91%) ServiceNow
6 53 (2.84%) Salesforce
7 43 (2.30%) Splunk
8 42 (2.25%) VMware
9 40 (2.14%) Cisco
10 35 (1.88%) Google
11 30 (1.61%) Informatica
12 29 (1.55%) MuleSoft
12 29 (1.55%) Workday
13 27 (1.45%) Sage
14 24 (1.29%) Palo Alto
15 20 (1.07%) CyberArk
16 18 (0.96%) IBM
17 16 (0.86%) OpenAI
18 15 (0.80%) IFS
19 14 (0.75%) CheckPoint