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

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 72 114
Rank change year-on-year +32 +42 +34
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,985 802 717
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.83% 3.30% 1.97%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.71% 3.62% 2.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,225 486 360
10th Percentile £325 £350 £320
25th Percentile £402 £413 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £531 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.39% +6.25% -9.50%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £588
90th Percentile £700 £715 £688
UK median daily rate £485 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -7.62% +5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 124 56 164
10th Percentile £17.39 £20.61 £26.88
25th Percentile £39.00 £37.25 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £56.77 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year +14.50% -6.17% -3.20%
75th Percentile £74.25 £65.00 £72.88
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £76.86
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £55.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +13.64% -8.33% -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 34,792 22,163 31,446
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.62% 91.27% 86.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,183 14,469 20,624
10th Percentile £325 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £510 £514 £525
% change year-on-year -0.88% -2.10% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,136 960 2,252
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.42 £12.93
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.20 £15.99
Median hourly rate £46.11 £28.75 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +60.37% -21.23% -1.75%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £28.17 £36.05
% change year-on-year +50.90% -21.86% +0.13%

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 20 May 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 20 May 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 20 May 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 +57 970 £500 -9.09% 340
North of England +42 270 £430 -3.10% 148
Midlands +29 235 £481 +3.05% 97
South East -12 223 £490 -2.00% 213
West Midlands +32 171 £475 - 58
North West +32 163 £420 -4.00% 87
East of England +10 117 £488 +8.33% 113
South West -8 114 £475 -17.39% 109
Yorkshire +19 97 £451 +8.03% 46
East Midlands +6 60 £525 +15.51% 39
North East -16 13 £450 -28.00% 16
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 81 (4.08%) Confluence
2 39 (1.96%) Apache Airflow
3 36 (1.81%) Apache Spark
4 33 (1.66%) SAS
5 17 (0.86%) Apache
6 13 (0.65%) SharePoint
7 10 (0.50%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.45%) Appian
9 8 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
10 7 (0.35%) ArcGIS
10 7 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.20%) CMS
11 4 (0.20%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
11 4 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.15%) Oracle Self-Service HR
12 3 (0.15%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.10%) CICS
13 2 (0.10%) Documentum
13 2 (0.10%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.10%) Umbraco
Applications
1 136 (6.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 29 (1.46%) MS Visio
3 25 (1.26%) Microsoft Office
4 19 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 18 (0.91%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.20%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.15%) CATIA
8 3 (0.15%) LaTeX
8 3 (0.15%) Notion
8 3 (0.15%) Simulink
9 2 (0.10%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.10%) EPLAN
9 2 (0.10%) Sketch
10 1 (0.050%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.050%) CANalyzer
10 1 (0.050%) MicroStation
10 1 (0.050%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.050%) UXPin
10 1 (0.050%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 96 (4.84%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.51%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.71%) Oracle General Ledger
3 14 (0.71%) Teamcenter
4 13 (0.65%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.65%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 12 (0.60%) Workday HCM
6 10 (0.50%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.45%) SAP ERP
8 8 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.40%) NetSuite
8 8 (0.40%) Oracle EBS R12
8 8 (0.40%) Oracle Receivables
8 8 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
9 7 (0.35%) Aladdin
10 6 (0.30%) Oracle Financials
10 6 (0.30%) Sage X3
10 6 (0.30%) SAP Business One
11 5 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
11 5 (0.25%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 390 (19.65%) Azure
2 239 (12.04%) AWS
3 195 (9.82%) Power Platform
4 100 (5.04%) GCP
5 94 (4.74%) Azure DevOps
6 87 (4.38%) GitHub
7 54 (2.72%) Azure Data Factory
7 54 (2.72%) Snowflake
8 51 (2.57%) Entra ID
9 50 (2.52%) SaaS
10 49 (2.47%) Serverless
11 45 (2.27%) GitHub Actions
12 43 (2.17%) OCI
13 39 (1.96%) Amazon S3
14 34 (1.71%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 31 (1.56%) dbt
16 29 (1.46%) Microsoft 365
17 23 (1.16%) AWS Lambda
18 21 (1.06%) SuccessFactors
19 20 (1.01%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 83 (4.18%) Firewall
2 56 (2.82%) Network Security
3 37 (1.86%) VLAN
4 30 (1.51%) DNS
4 30 (1.51%) TCP/IP
5 26 (1.31%) VPN
6 24 (1.21%) WAN
7 18 (0.91%) Ethernet
8 17 (0.86%) LAN
9 16 (0.81%) SAN
10 14 (0.71%) Wireless
11 13 (0.65%) SD-WAN
12 12 (0.60%) BGP
12 12 (0.60%) NAS
12 12 (0.60%) OSPF
12 12 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
13 11 (0.55%) Cisco ISE
14 10 (0.50%) DHCP
14 10 (0.50%) TACACS
15 9 (0.45%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 183 (9.22%) Power BI
2 112 (5.64%) Data Warehouse
3 82 (4.13%) Metadata
4 71 (3.58%) Tableau
5 66 (3.32%) SQL Server
6 56 (2.82%) Data Lake
7 45 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
8 37 (1.86%) Relational Database
9 28 (1.41%) Amazon Redshift
10 27 (1.36%) NoSQL
11 25 (1.26%) Big Data
12 24 (1.21%) Oracle Reports
13 23 (1.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 22 (1.11%) Delta Lake
15 21 (1.06%) BigQuery
15 21 (1.06%) Oracle Database
16 19 (0.96%) Power Query
17 17 (0.86%) Azure SQL Database
18 16 (0.81%) Amazon Athena
18 16 (0.81%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 187 (9.42%) JIRA
2 106 (5.34%) Git
3 77 (3.88%) Jenkins
4 51 (2.57%) Selenium
5 48 (2.42%) GitLab
6 45 (2.27%) Postman
7 38 (1.91%) JMeter
8 30 (1.51%) JUnit
9 28 (1.41%) Cucumber
10 25 (1.26%) Rational DOORS
10 25 (1.26%) WebDriver
11 15 (0.76%) MLflow
12 14 (0.71%) Eclipse
12 14 (0.71%) Visual Studio
13 13 (0.65%) Rational Rhapsody
14 11 (0.55%) Gatling
14 11 (0.55%) REST Assured
15 10 (0.50%) Bitbucket
15 10 (0.50%) Gradle
15 10 (0.50%) Maven
General
1 612 (30.83%) Social Skills
2 603 (30.38%) Finance
3 376 (18.94%) Analytical Skills
4 165 (8.31%) Banking
5 161 (8.11%) Public Sector
6 107 (5.39%) Documentation Skills
7 60 (3.02%) Manufacturing
8 50 (2.52%) Aerospace
9 46 (2.32%) Retail
10 41 (2.07%) Presentation Skills
11 40 (2.02%) Organisational Skills
12 33 (1.66%) Legal
12 33 (1.66%) Pharmaceutical
13 32 (1.61%) Marketing
14 30 (1.51%) Front Office
15 29 (1.46%) General Ledger
15 29 (1.46%) Influencing Skills
16 28 (1.41%) Military
17 27 (1.36%) Local Government
18 26 (1.31%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 367 (18.49%) Analyst
2 210 (10.58%) Lead
3 175 (8.82%) Senior
4 159 (8.01%) Business Analyst
5 156 (7.86%) Data Engineer
6 131 (6.60%) Consultant
7 123 (6.20%) Architect
8 110 (5.54%) Developer
9 105 (5.29%) Data Analyst
10 75 (3.78%) Project Manager
11 52 (2.62%) Tester
12 49 (2.47%) Test Engineer
13 43 (2.17%) Software Engineer
14 40 (2.02%) Network Engineer
14 40 (2.02%) Test Manager
15 38 (1.91%) Security Engineer
15 38 (1.91%) Senior Analyst
15 38 (1.91%) Systems Engineer
16 33 (1.66%) Migration Engineer
16 33 (1.66%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (5.04%) REST
2 71 (3.58%) JSON
3 69 (3.48%) Kafka
4 51 (2.57%) Oracle Fusion
5 48 (2.42%) Middleware
6 44 (2.22%) OAuth
7 43 (2.17%) XML
8 40 (2.02%) PySpark
9 35 (1.76%) Swagger
10 33 (1.66%) .NET
11 31 (1.56%) RESTful
11 31 (1.56%) SOAP
12 29 (1.46%) Node.js
12 29 (1.46%) Pandas
13 28 (1.41%) Spring
13 28 (1.41%) Web Services
14 26 (1.31%) PyTorch
15 25 (1.26%) Playwright
16 23 (1.16%) OAuth2
16 23 (1.16%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 120 (6.05%) Legacy Systems
2 102 (5.14%) Data Structures
3 97 (4.89%) Onboarding
4 83 (4.18%) Product Ownership
5 65 (3.27%) Cloud Native
6 62 (3.12%) Data Centre
7 48 (2.42%) Management Information System
8 35 (1.76%) Analytical Mindset
9 34 (1.71%) Distributed Systems
10 30 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
11 26 (1.31%) Replication
12 25 (1.26%) Public Cloud
13 24 (1.21%) Hybrid Cloud
14 22 (1.11%) Greenfield Project
14 22 (1.11%) SCADA
15 21 (1.06%) Reference Data
16 20 (1.01%) Algorithms
16 20 (1.01%) Operational Technology
16 20 (1.01%) Virtual Team
17 19 (0.96%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 96 (4.84%) Windows
2 77 (3.88%) Linux
3 26 (1.31%) Unix
4 11 (0.55%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.50%) Android
6 9 (0.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.25%) VMS
7 5 (0.25%) Windows 10
7 5 (0.25%) zOS
8 4 (0.20%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.20%) SUSE
9 2 (0.10%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.10%) Debian
9 2 (0.10%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.050%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.050%) HPUX
10 1 (0.050%) pSOS
10 1 (0.050%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 552 (27.81%) Migration
2 385 (19.40%) Agile
3 357 (17.98%) Problem-Solving
4 342 (17.23%) Stakeholder Management
5 341 (17.18%) Data Migration
5 341 (17.18%) Data Validation
6 306 (15.42%) CI/CD
6 306 (15.42%) Data Modelling
7 301 (15.16%) User Acceptance Testing
8 293 (14.76%) Analytics
9 272 (13.70%) ETL
10 242 (12.19%) DevOps
11 226 (11.39%) Business Intelligence
12 221 (11.13%) Test Automation
13 211 (10.63%) AI
14 209 (10.53%) Continuous Improvement
15 204 (10.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 192 (9.67%) Data Governance
17 174 (8.77%) Data Analysis
17 174 (8.77%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 482 (24.28%) SQL
2 344 (17.33%) Python
3 101 (5.09%) Java
4 53 (2.67%) C#
5 45 (2.27%) PowerShell
6 42 (2.12%) C++
7 39 (1.96%) C
7 39 (1.96%) JavaScript
8 36 (1.81%) Bash
9 27 (1.36%) Bicep
10 26 (1.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 26 (1.31%) PL/SQL
10 26 (1.31%) R
10 26 (1.31%) TypeScript
11 20 (1.01%) Ada
11 20 (1.01%) Apex Code
12 17 (0.86%) Scala
13 14 (0.71%) MATLAB
14 12 (0.60%) VBA
15 9 (0.45%) Korn
Qualifications
1 374 (18.84%) Security Cleared
2 267 (13.45%) SC Cleared
3 155 (7.81%) Degree
4 46 (2.32%) BPSS Clearance
5 40 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
6 37 (1.86%) DV Cleared
7 34 (1.71%) PMI Certification
8 28 (1.41%) PMP
9 26 (1.31%) Master's Degree
10 24 (1.21%) Cisco Certification
11 19 (0.96%) CCNP
12 16 (0.81%) CISSP
12 16 (0.81%) ISTQB
13 15 (0.76%) CBAP
14 13 (0.65%) ACCA
14 13 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
15 12 (0.60%) AWS Certification
15 12 (0.60%) Azure Certification
16 11 (0.55%) CIMA
17 9 (0.45%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 342 (17.23%) Data Quality
2 237 (11.94%) QA
3 104 (5.24%) GDPR
4 65 (3.27%) NIST
5 54 (2.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 25 (1.26%) Accessibility
6 25 (1.26%) IFRS
7 24 (1.21%) SLA
8 22 (1.11%) PMO
9 20 (1.01%) IFRS 17
10 18 (0.91%) GRC
11 17 (0.86%) Def Stans
12 14 (0.71%) HL7
13 13 (0.65%) GxP
13 13 (0.65%) MiFID
13 13 (0.65%) PCI DSS
14 12 (0.60%) NCSC
14 12 (0.60%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.55%) ISO 20022
15 11 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 80 (4.03%) Docker
2 43 (2.17%) Active Directory
3 38 (1.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (1.01%) Firmware
5 17 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
6 13 (0.65%) VMware NSX
7 12 (0.60%) Hyper-V
8 11 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
9 10 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
10 8 (0.40%) vSphere
11 5 (0.25%) NFS
12 4 (0.20%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 2 (0.10%) Ceph
13 2 (0.10%) Embedded Firmware
13 2 (0.10%) KVM
13 2 (0.10%) Lustre
13 2 (0.10%) OpenAM
13 2 (0.10%) OpenDJ
13 2 (0.10%) OpenIDM
13 2 (0.10%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 123 (6.20%) Kubernetes
2 83 (4.18%) Terraform
3 42 (2.12%) Prometheus
4 40 (2.02%) Grafana
5 39 (1.96%) Ansible
6 28 (1.41%) Single Sign-On
7 16 (0.81%) Microsoft Intune
8 11 (0.55%) FortiGate
8 11 (0.55%) Kibana
9 10 (0.50%) Puppet
10 8 (0.40%) SCCM
11 7 (0.35%) vCenter Server
12 6 (0.30%) Nessus
13 5 (0.25%) CASB
13 5 (0.25%) vMotion
14 4 (0.20%) Argo
14 4 (0.20%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.20%) Failover Clustering
14 4 (0.20%) Istio
14 4 (0.20%) VxRail
Vendors
1 272 (13.70%) Microsoft
2 171 (8.61%) SAP
3 169 (8.51%) Oracle
4 88 (4.43%) Databricks
5 67 (3.38%) Salesforce
6 60 (3.02%) ServiceNow
7 47 (2.37%) VMware
8 45 (2.27%) Cisco
9 41 (2.07%) Splunk
10 32 (1.61%) Google
11 30 (1.51%) Informatica
12 28 (1.41%) Workday
13 25 (1.26%) Palo Alto
13 25 (1.26%) Sage
14 23 (1.16%) MuleSoft
15 21 (1.06%) CyberArk
15 21 (1.06%) IBM
15 21 (1.06%) IFS
16 16 (0.81%) Fortinet
17 15 (0.76%) CheckPoint