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

6 months to
12 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 71 112
Rank change year-on-year +36 +41 +37
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,203 871 744
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.17% 3.55% 1.99%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.07% 3.89% 2.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,337 541 376
10th Percentile £326 £350 £325
25th Percentile £410 £420 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -13.04%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £588
90th Percentile £700 £715 £672
UK median daily rate £493 £525 £513
% change year-on-year -6.01% +2.44% -7.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 147 56 170
10th Percentile £17.75 £17.36 £26.88
25th Percentile £33.57 £37.25 £51.25
Median hourly rate £63.14 £58.88 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.24% -1.88% -4.00%
75th Percentile £75.50 £72.50 £72.50
90th Percentile £83.85 £77.50 £76.86
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £57.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -4.76%

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 36,315 22,393 32,018
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.15% 91.34% 85.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,987 14,479 20,805
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £414 £407 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,273 1,020 2,369
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.80
25th Percentile £20.82 £18.10 £16.00
Median hourly rate £47.50 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +69.64% -25.33% +5.63%
75th Percentile £68.00 £58.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £27.21 £36.50
% change year-on-year +61.56% -25.45% +4.20%

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 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 12 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 12 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 +53 1,049 £513 -6.82% 294
North of England +45 303 £437 -2.83% 157
Midlands +28 270 £492 +9.39% 120
South East 0 256 £500 - 240
West Midlands +27 195 £484 +20.10% 72
North West +33 174 £425 -4.23% 84
South West +5 134 £500 -13.04% 117
East of England +9 130 £500 +11.11% 83
Yorkshire +23 113 £455 +4.60% 51
East Midlands +19 70 £525 +15.51% 48
North East -19 19 £425 -22.73% 25
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 (3.40%) Confluence
2 57 (2.59%) Apache Airflow
3 42 (1.91%) SAS
4 41 (1.86%) Apache Spark
5 30 (1.36%) SharePoint
6 21 (0.95%) Apache
7 14 (0.64%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.41%) Appian
8 9 (0.41%) Microsoft Exchange
9 7 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.27%) ArcGIS
10 6 (0.27%) SharePoint 2013
11 5 (0.23%) CMS
11 5 (0.23%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.14%) Apache Pulsar
13 3 (0.14%) IIS
13 3 (0.14%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
13 3 (0.14%) Oracle Self-Service HR
13 3 (0.14%) Tomcat
Applications
1 142 (6.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (1.36%) MS Visio
3 22 (1.00%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 20 (0.91%) Spreadsheet
6 7 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.23%) AutoCAD
7 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.18%) Simulink
9 3 (0.14%) CATIA
9 3 (0.14%) LaTeX
10 2 (0.091%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.091%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.091%) 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 (5.04%) SAP S/4HANA
2 31 (1.41%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.68%) Teamcenter
4 14 (0.64%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 13 (0.59%) Oracle Payables
6 12 (0.54%) Workday HCM
7 11 (0.50%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.41%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.41%) SAP ERP
9 8 (0.36%) Aladdin
9 8 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
10 7 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
10 7 (0.32%) Oracle Receivables
10 7 (0.32%) Sage X3
10 7 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
11 6 (0.27%) SAP Business One
11 6 (0.27%) SAP HCM
11 6 (0.27%) SAP SD
11 6 (0.27%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 456 (20.70%) Azure
2 279 (12.66%) AWS
3 205 (9.31%) Power Platform
4 118 (5.36%) GCP
5 113 (5.13%) Azure DevOps
6 109 (4.95%) GitHub
7 71 (3.22%) Snowflake
8 61 (2.77%) GitHub Actions
9 59 (2.68%) Azure Data Factory
9 59 (2.68%) Entra ID
10 57 (2.59%) Serverless
11 49 (2.22%) SaaS
12 44 (2.00%) Amazon S3
13 40 (1.82%) OCI
14 38 (1.72%) Microsoft 365
15 36 (1.63%) dbt
16 35 (1.59%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 28 (1.27%) Salesforce Service Cloud
18 26 (1.18%) AWS Lambda
19 24 (1.09%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 92 (4.18%) Firewall
2 61 (2.77%) Network Security
3 39 (1.77%) VLAN
4 38 (1.72%) DNS
5 36 (1.63%) WAN
6 31 (1.41%) TCP/IP
7 29 (1.32%) VPN
8 22 (1.00%) BGP
8 22 (1.00%) LAN
9 20 (0.91%) SAN
9 20 (0.91%) SD-WAN
10 19 (0.86%) Ethernet
11 18 (0.82%) Wireless
12 16 (0.73%) Internet
12 16 (0.73%) OSPF
13 15 (0.68%) DHCP
14 14 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
15 12 (0.54%) Cisco ISE
15 12 (0.54%) NAS
15 12 (0.54%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 190 (8.62%) Power BI
2 118 (5.36%) Data Warehouse
3 78 (3.54%) SQL Server
4 76 (3.45%) Metadata
5 65 (2.95%) Tableau
6 62 (2.81%) Data Lake
6 62 (2.81%) PostgreSQL
7 49 (2.22%) Relational Database
8 31 (1.41%) Big Data
9 29 (1.32%) Amazon Redshift
10 28 (1.27%) Oracle Database
11 25 (1.13%) NoSQL
11 25 (1.13%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 24 (1.09%) Oracle Reports
13 23 (1.04%) BigQuery
13 23 (1.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 22 (1.00%) Power Query
15 21 (0.95%) Delta Lake
16 20 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
17 17 (0.77%) SAS Visual Analytics
Development Applications
1 208 (9.44%) JIRA
2 127 (5.76%) Git
3 90 (4.09%) Jenkins
4 64 (2.91%) GitLab
5 53 (2.41%) Selenium
6 46 (2.09%) Postman
7 40 (1.82%) JMeter
8 35 (1.59%) JUnit
9 34 (1.54%) Cucumber
10 30 (1.36%) WebDriver
11 25 (1.13%) Rational DOORS
12 17 (0.77%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.73%) Rational Rhapsody
13 16 (0.73%) Visual Studio
14 15 (0.68%) MLflow
15 13 (0.59%) 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
1 659 (29.91%) Finance
2 643 (29.19%) Social Skills
3 398 (18.07%) Analytical Skills
4 183 (8.31%) Public Sector
5 180 (8.17%) Banking
6 121 (5.49%) Documentation Skills
7 66 (3.00%) Manufacturing
8 59 (2.68%) Aerospace
9 53 (2.41%) Retail
10 40 (1.82%) Organisational Skills
11 39 (1.77%) Pharmaceutical
12 36 (1.63%) Front Office
12 36 (1.63%) Marketing
13 35 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
14 33 (1.50%) General Ledger
14 33 (1.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 33 (1.50%) Influencing Skills
14 33 (1.50%) Telecoms
15 32 (1.45%) Legal
16 31 (1.41%) Law
Job Titles
1 377 (17.11%) Analyst
2 228 (10.35%) Lead
3 221 (10.03%) Senior
4 179 (8.13%) Business Analyst
5 172 (7.81%) Data Engineer
6 152 (6.90%) Consultant
7 136 (6.17%) Architect
8 126 (5.72%) Developer
9 108 (4.90%) Data Analyst
10 76 (3.45%) Project Manager
11 67 (3.04%) Test Engineer
12 58 (2.63%) Tester
13 44 (2.00%) Software Engineer
13 44 (2.00%) Test Manager
14 43 (1.95%) Network Engineer
15 40 (1.82%) Security Engineer
15 40 (1.82%) Systems Engineer
16 39 (1.77%) Senior Analyst
17 36 (1.63%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 36 (1.63%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 121 (5.49%) REST
2 68 (3.09%) JSON
3 67 (3.04%) Kafka
4 54 (2.45%) Oracle Fusion
5 48 (2.18%) XML
6 46 (2.09%) OAuth
7 40 (1.82%) Middleware
7 40 (1.82%) PySpark
8 37 (1.68%) .NET
8 37 (1.68%) Swagger
9 36 (1.63%) SOAP
10 35 (1.59%) RESTful
10 35 (1.59%) Spring
11 32 (1.45%) Pandas
11 32 (1.45%) pytest
11 32 (1.45%) Web Services
12 29 (1.32%) Node.js
13 28 (1.27%) Playwright
14 26 (1.18%) JWT
15 25 (1.13%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 128 (5.81%) Legacy Systems
2 105 (4.77%) Onboarding
3 103 (4.68%) Data Structures
4 91 (4.13%) Product Ownership
5 84 (3.81%) Cloud Native
6 63 (2.86%) Data Centre
7 50 (2.27%) Management Information System
8 49 (2.22%) Distributed Systems
9 43 (1.95%) Analytical Mindset
10 32 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
11 29 (1.32%) SCADA
12 28 (1.27%) Distributed Architecture
13 27 (1.23%) Life Science
14 26 (1.18%) AI Agents
14 26 (1.18%) Algorithms
14 26 (1.18%) Public Cloud
14 26 (1.18%) Replication
15 25 (1.13%) Hybrid Cloud
16 24 (1.09%) Operational Technology
17 23 (1.04%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 119 (5.40%) Windows
2 80 (3.63%) Linux
3 27 (1.23%) Unix
4 20 (0.91%) Windows Server
5 14 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.54%) Android
7 6 (0.27%) VMS
7 6 (0.27%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.18%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.18%) SUSE
8 4 (0.18%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.14%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.091%) HPUX
10 2 (0.091%) VxWorks
10 2 (0.091%) zOS
11 1 (0.045%) Debian
11 1 (0.045%) pSOS
11 1 (0.045%) Solaris
11 1 (0.045%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 606 (27.51%) Migration
2 420 (19.06%) Agile
3 384 (17.43%) Stakeholder Management
4 371 (16.84%) Data Validation
5 370 (16.80%) CI/CD
5 370 (16.80%) Data Migration
6 363 (16.48%) Problem-Solving
7 353 (16.02%) User Acceptance Testing
8 335 (15.21%) Data Modelling
9 333 (15.12%) Analytics
10 286 (12.98%) ETL
11 277 (12.57%) DevOps
12 270 (12.26%) AI
13 265 (12.03%) Test Automation
14 230 (10.44%) Business Intelligence
15 227 (10.30%) Continuous Improvement
16 225 (10.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 208 (9.44%) Data Governance
18 204 (9.26%) Data Analysis
19 202 (9.17%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 532 (24.15%) SQL
2 384 (17.43%) Python
3 109 (4.95%) Java
4 61 (2.77%) PowerShell
5 53 (2.41%) C#
6 40 (1.82%) C++
7 39 (1.77%) C
8 38 (1.72%) Bash
9 36 (1.63%) JavaScript
10 29 (1.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 28 (1.27%) TypeScript
12 27 (1.23%) Bicep
13 26 (1.18%) Apex Code
14 23 (1.04%) PL/SQL
14 23 (1.04%) R
15 21 (0.95%) Ada
16 17 (0.77%) Scala
17 15 (0.68%) MATLAB
18 14 (0.64%) T-SQL
19 13 (0.59%) VBA
Qualifications
1 412 (18.70%) Security Cleared
2 298 (13.53%) SC Cleared
3 158 (7.17%) Degree
4 53 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
5 46 (2.09%) DV Cleared
6 42 (1.91%) Computer Science Degree
7 30 (1.36%) PMI Certification
8 27 (1.23%) Cisco Certification
9 24 (1.09%) PMP
10 22 (1.00%) CCNP
11 20 (0.91%) Master's Degree
12 17 (0.77%) ACCA
13 16 (0.73%) CISSP
13 16 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
14 15 (0.68%) CIMA
14 15 (0.68%) ISTQB
15 14 (0.64%) AWS Certification
15 14 (0.64%) Azure Certification
16 11 (0.50%) CCNA
17 8 (0.36%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 378 (17.16%) Data Quality
2 249 (11.30%) QA
3 107 (4.86%) GDPR
4 61 (2.77%) NIST
5 51 (2.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 30 (1.36%) Accessibility
7 27 (1.23%) IFRS
7 27 (1.23%) PMO
8 25 (1.13%) SLA
9 19 (0.86%) GRC
10 18 (0.82%) IFRS 17
11 17 (0.77%) Def Stans
11 17 (0.77%) GxP
12 14 (0.64%) HL7
13 13 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
13 13 (0.59%) PCI DSS
13 13 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 12 (0.54%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.54%) Solvency II
15 11 (0.50%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 98 (4.45%) Docker
2 53 (2.41%) Active Directory
3 45 (2.04%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.91%) Virtual Machines
5 17 (0.77%) Firmware
6 14 (0.64%) Hyper-V
6 14 (0.64%) VMware ESXi
7 13 (0.59%) VMware NSX
8 9 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
9 8 (0.36%) vSphere
10 5 (0.23%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 2 (0.091%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.091%) KVM
12 2 (0.091%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.091%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.091%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.045%) etcd
13 1 (0.045%) OpenSSH
13 1 (0.045%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 140 (6.35%) Kubernetes
2 104 (4.72%) Terraform
3 49 (2.22%) Prometheus
4 44 (2.00%) Grafana
5 42 (1.91%) Ansible
6 27 (1.23%) Single Sign-On
7 19 (0.86%) Microsoft Intune
8 18 (0.82%) FortiGate
9 8 (0.36%) Kibana
9 8 (0.36%) SCCM
9 8 (0.36%) vCenter Server
10 7 (0.32%) Puppet
11 6 (0.27%) Nessus
12 5 (0.23%) vMotion
12 5 (0.23%) VxRail
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
1 293 (13.30%) Microsoft
2 192 (8.72%) SAP
3 189 (8.58%) Oracle
4 108 (4.90%) Databricks
5 78 (3.54%) Salesforce
6 60 (2.72%) ServiceNow
7 55 (2.50%) VMware
8 47 (2.13%) Cisco
9 40 (1.82%) Splunk
10 33 (1.50%) Google
11 32 (1.45%) Workday
12 30 (1.36%) Informatica
13 26 (1.18%) Sage
14 25 (1.13%) Palo Alto
15 23 (1.04%) MuleSoft
16 21 (0.95%) Fortinet
16 21 (0.95%) IFS
17 20 (0.91%) IBM
18 19 (0.86%) CyberArk
19 17 (0.77%) CheckPoint