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

6 months to
24 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 72 119
Rank change year-on-year +34 +47 +28
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,038 810 716
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.90% 3.38% 1.97%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.79% 3.70% 2.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,249 500 358
10th Percentile £325 £350 £320
25th Percentile £403 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -10.51%
75th Percentile £588 £630 £588
90th Percentile £700 £704 £689
UK median daily rate £487 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -7.24% +5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 136 53 165
10th Percentile £17.49 £16.84 £26.88
25th Percentile £30.02 £36.48 £52.50
Median hourly rate £62.82 £57.50 £61.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.25% -5.74% -2.40%
75th Percentile £72.94 £65.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £76.86
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £55.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -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 35,226 21,902 31,378
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.76% 91.29% 86.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,404 14,316 20,563
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £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 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,174 928 2,273
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.42 £12.92
25th Percentile £20.39 £18.20 £16.00
Median hourly rate £45.25 £28.48 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.88% -21.97% -2.14%
75th Percentile £67.84 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.17 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.28 £27.94 £36.00
% change year-on-year +51.31% -22.39% -

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 +50 988 £505 -8.18% 323
North of England +34 275 £430 -4.44% 149
Midlands +30 249 £495 +8.86% 95
South East -7 227 £495 -1.00% 191
West Midlands +30 178 £478 +9.26% 59
North West +31 165 £420 -4.00% 86
East of England +9 123 £475 +5.56% 89
South West +2 120 £475 -17.39% 98
Yorkshire +17 99 £451 +0.11% 42
East Midlands +15 67 £525 +14.38% 35
North East -18 14 £438 -25.53% 22
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 82 (4.02%) Confluence
2 47 (2.31%) Apache Airflow
3 36 (1.77%) Apache Spark
4 35 (1.72%) SAS
5 18 (0.88%) Apache
6 15 (0.74%) SharePoint
7 11 (0.54%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.44%) Appian
9 8 (0.39%) Microsoft Exchange
10 7 (0.34%) ArcGIS
10 7 (0.34%) 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 (0.098%) CICS
13 2 (0.098%) Documentum
13 2 (0.098%) Exchange Server 2013
13 2 (0.098%) Umbraco
Applications
1 140 (6.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (1.47%) MS Visio
3 25 (1.23%) Microsoft Office
4 19 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 18 (0.88%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.20%) CATIA
7 4 (0.20%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.15%) AutoCAD
8 3 (0.15%) LaTeX
8 3 (0.15%) Notion
8 3 (0.15%) Simulink
9 2 (0.098%) EPLAN
9 2 (0.098%) Sketch
10 1 (0.049%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.049%) CANalyzer
10 1 (0.049%) MicroStation
10 1 (0.049%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.049%) UXPin
10 1 (0.049%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 97 (4.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 31 (1.52%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.74%) Teamcenter
4 14 (0.69%) Oracle General Ledger
4 14 (0.69%) Oracle Payables
4 14 (0.69%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 12 (0.59%) Workday HCM
6 10 (0.49%) NetSuite
6 10 (0.49%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.44%) SAP ERP
8 8 (0.39%) Aladdin
8 8 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.39%) Oracle EBS R12
8 8 (0.39%) Oracle Receivables
8 8 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
9 7 (0.34%) Oracle Financials
10 6 (0.29%) Sage X3
10 6 (0.29%) SAP Business One
11 5 (0.25%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 5 (0.25%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 402 (19.73%) Azure
2 244 (11.97%) AWS
3 202 (9.91%) Power Platform
4 103 (5.05%) GCP
5 99 (4.86%) Azure DevOps
6 94 (4.61%) GitHub
7 60 (2.94%) Snowflake
8 59 (2.89%) Azure Data Factory
9 51 (2.50%) Entra ID
9 51 (2.50%) SaaS
10 50 (2.45%) GitHub Actions
11 48 (2.36%) Serverless
12 43 (2.11%) OCI
13 40 (1.96%) Amazon S3
14 35 (1.72%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 33 (1.62%) dbt
16 30 (1.47%) Microsoft 365
17 22 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
18 21 (1.03%) Power Automate
18 21 (1.03%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 83 (4.07%) Firewall
2 57 (2.80%) Network Security
3 37 (1.82%) VLAN
4 32 (1.57%) DNS
5 30 (1.47%) TCP/IP
6 27 (1.32%) VPN
7 25 (1.23%) WAN
8 18 (0.88%) Ethernet
9 17 (0.83%) LAN
10 16 (0.79%) SAN
11 14 (0.69%) SD-WAN
11 14 (0.69%) Wireless
12 13 (0.64%) BGP
12 13 (0.64%) OSPF
13 12 (0.59%) DHCP
13 12 (0.59%) NAS
13 12 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
14 11 (0.54%) Cisco ISE
15 10 (0.49%) TACACS
16 9 (0.44%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 189 (9.27%) Power BI
2 115 (5.64%) Data Warehouse
3 79 (3.88%) Metadata
4 71 (3.48%) SQL Server
5 70 (3.43%) Tableau
6 60 (2.94%) Data Lake
7 47 (2.31%) PostgreSQL
8 36 (1.77%) Relational Database
9 28 (1.37%) Amazon Redshift
10 26 (1.28%) Big Data
11 25 (1.23%) NoSQL
12 24 (1.18%) Oracle Reports
13 23 (1.13%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 22 (1.08%) BigQuery
14 22 (1.08%) Delta Lake
15 21 (1.03%) Oracle Database
16 20 (0.98%) Power Query
17 19 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
18 18 (0.88%) SAS Enterprise Guide
19 16 (0.79%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 193 (9.47%) JIRA
2 107 (5.25%) Git
3 80 (3.93%) Jenkins
4 51 (2.50%) Selenium
5 50 (2.45%) GitLab
6 48 (2.36%) Postman
7 38 (1.86%) JMeter
8 32 (1.57%) JUnit
9 30 (1.47%) Cucumber
10 25 (1.23%) Rational DOORS
10 25 (1.23%) WebDriver
11 15 (0.74%) MLflow
12 14 (0.69%) Eclipse
12 14 (0.69%) Visual Studio
13 13 (0.64%) Rational Rhapsody
14 11 (0.54%) Gatling
14 11 (0.54%) REST Assured
15 10 (0.49%) Bitbucket
15 10 (0.49%) Gradle
15 10 (0.49%) Maven
General
1 624 (30.62%) Social Skills
2 623 (30.57%) Finance
3 387 (18.99%) Analytical Skills
4 173 (8.49%) Banking
5 166 (8.15%) Public Sector
6 111 (5.45%) Documentation Skills
7 63 (3.09%) Manufacturing
8 51 (2.50%) Aerospace
9 46 (2.26%) Retail
10 41 (2.01%) Presentation Skills
11 40 (1.96%) Organisational Skills
12 34 (1.67%) Pharmaceutical
13 32 (1.57%) Marketing
14 31 (1.52%) Front Office
14 31 (1.52%) General Ledger
14 31 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
14 31 (1.52%) Legal
15 29 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 28 (1.37%) Local Government
16 28 (1.37%) Military
Job Titles
1 375 (18.40%) Analyst
2 211 (10.35%) Lead
3 182 (8.93%) Senior
4 165 (8.10%) Business Analyst
4 165 (8.10%) Data Engineer
5 133 (6.53%) Consultant
6 127 (6.23%) Architect
7 110 (5.40%) Developer
8 107 (5.25%) Data Analyst
9 77 (3.78%) Project Manager
10 54 (2.65%) Tester
11 52 (2.55%) Test Engineer
12 43 (2.11%) Software Engineer
13 41 (2.01%) Senior Analyst
13 41 (2.01%) Test Manager
14 40 (1.96%) Network Engineer
15 39 (1.91%) Security Engineer
16 38 (1.86%) Systems Engineer
17 33 (1.62%) Migration Engineer
17 33 (1.62%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (5.10%) REST
2 73 (3.58%) JSON
3 68 (3.34%) Kafka
4 53 (2.60%) Oracle Fusion
5 48 (2.36%) Middleware
6 47 (2.31%) XML
7 44 (2.16%) OAuth
8 41 (2.01%) PySpark
9 37 (1.82%) Swagger
10 33 (1.62%) .NET
10 33 (1.62%) RESTful
11 32 (1.57%) Pandas
12 31 (1.52%) SOAP
13 30 (1.47%) Spring
14 29 (1.42%) Node.js
15 28 (1.37%) Web Services
16 26 (1.28%) PyTorch
17 25 (1.23%) OAuth2
17 25 (1.23%) Playwright
17 25 (1.23%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 120 (5.89%) Legacy Systems
2 106 (5.20%) Data Structures
3 100 (4.91%) Onboarding
4 81 (3.97%) Product Ownership
5 69 (3.39%) Cloud Native
6 63 (3.09%) Data Centre
7 50 (2.45%) Management Information System
8 38 (1.86%) Analytical Mindset
9 35 (1.72%) Distributed Systems
10 30 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
11 26 (1.28%) Public Cloud
11 26 (1.28%) Replication
12 24 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
12 24 (1.18%) Hybrid Cloud
12 24 (1.18%) SCADA
13 23 (1.13%) Algorithms
14 21 (1.03%) Operational Technology
14 21 (1.03%) Reference Data
15 20 (0.98%) AI Agents
15 20 (0.98%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 102 (5.00%) Windows
2 78 (3.83%) Linux
3 26 (1.28%) Unix
4 14 (0.69%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.49%) Android
5 10 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.25%) VMS
6 5 (0.25%) Windows 10
6 5 (0.25%) zOS
7 4 (0.20%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.20%) SUSE
8 2 (0.098%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.098%) Debian
8 2 (0.098%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.049%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.049%) HPUX
9 1 (0.049%) pSOS
9 1 (0.049%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.049%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 561 (27.53%) Migration
2 392 (19.23%) Agile
3 365 (17.91%) Problem-Solving
4 352 (17.27%) Stakeholder Management
5 351 (17.22%) Data Validation
6 344 (16.88%) Data Migration
7 318 (15.60%) CI/CD
8 316 (15.51%) Data Modelling
9 312 (15.31%) User Acceptance Testing
10 303 (14.87%) Analytics
11 281 (13.79%) ETL
12 253 (12.41%) DevOps
13 230 (11.29%) Test Automation
14 229 (11.24%) Business Intelligence
15 225 (11.04%) AI
16 218 (10.70%) Continuous Improvement
17 213 (10.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 194 (9.52%) Data Governance
19 186 (9.13%) Data Analysis
20 181 (8.88%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 500 (24.53%) SQL
2 356 (17.47%) Python
3 104 (5.10%) Java
4 53 (2.60%) C#
5 46 (2.26%) PowerShell
6 42 (2.06%) C++
7 39 (1.91%) C
8 38 (1.86%) JavaScript
9 37 (1.82%) Bash
10 27 (1.32%) Bicep
10 27 (1.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 27 (1.32%) PL/SQL
11 26 (1.28%) TypeScript
12 25 (1.23%) R
13 20 (0.98%) Ada
13 20 (0.98%) Apex Code
14 18 (0.88%) Scala
15 14 (0.69%) MATLAB
16 12 (0.59%) VBA
17 10 (0.49%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 379 (18.60%) Security Cleared
2 272 (13.35%) SC Cleared
3 163 (8.00%) Degree
4 46 (2.26%) Computer Science Degree
5 45 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
6 37 (1.82%) DV Cleared
7 33 (1.62%) PMI Certification
8 27 (1.32%) PMP
9 26 (1.28%) Master's Degree
10 24 (1.18%) Cisco Certification
11 19 (0.93%) CCNP
12 16 (0.79%) CISSP
12 16 (0.79%) ISTQB
13 15 (0.74%) CBAP
14 14 (0.69%) ACCA
15 13 (0.64%) Microsoft Certification
16 12 (0.59%) AWS Certification
16 12 (0.59%) CIMA
17 11 (0.54%) Azure Certification
18 9 (0.44%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 351 (17.22%) Data Quality
2 243 (11.92%) QA
3 104 (5.10%) GDPR
4 65 (3.19%) NIST
5 54 (2.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 26 (1.28%) Accessibility
6 26 (1.28%) IFRS
7 24 (1.18%) SLA
8 23 (1.13%) PMO
9 20 (0.98%) IFRS 17
10 18 (0.88%) GRC
11 17 (0.83%) Def Stans
12 14 (0.69%) GxP
12 14 (0.69%) HL7
13 13 (0.64%) MiFID
13 13 (0.64%) PCI DSS
14 12 (0.59%) NCSC
14 12 (0.59%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 11 (0.54%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 83 (4.07%) Docker
2 44 (2.16%) Active Directory
3 40 (1.96%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.98%) Firmware
5 19 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (0.69%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.64%) VMware NSX
8 11 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
9 10 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
10 8 (0.39%) vSphere
11 5 (0.25%) NFS
12 4 (0.20%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 2 (0.098%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.098%) Ceph
13 2 (0.098%) Embedded Firmware
13 2 (0.098%) KVM
13 2 (0.098%) Lustre
13 2 (0.098%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 2 (0.098%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.098%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 128 (6.28%) Kubernetes
2 86 (4.22%) Terraform
3 45 (2.21%) Prometheus
4 43 (2.11%) Grafana
5 41 (2.01%) Ansible
6 26 (1.28%) Single Sign-On
7 16 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
8 11 (0.54%) FortiGate
8 11 (0.54%) Kibana
9 10 (0.49%) Puppet
10 8 (0.39%) SCCM
11 7 (0.34%) vCenter Server
12 6 (0.29%) 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
1 278 (13.64%) Microsoft
2 176 (8.64%) SAP
3 174 (8.54%) Oracle
4 99 (4.86%) Databricks
5 68 (3.34%) Salesforce
6 59 (2.89%) ServiceNow
7 49 (2.40%) VMware
8 45 (2.21%) Cisco
9 40 (1.96%) Splunk
10 33 (1.62%) Google
11 30 (1.47%) Informatica
12 28 (1.37%) Workday
13 25 (1.23%) Palo Alto
13 25 (1.23%) Sage
14 23 (1.13%) MuleSoft
15 21 (1.03%) IBM
15 21 (1.03%) IFS
16 20 (0.98%) CyberArk
17 16 (0.79%) Fortinet
17 16 (0.79%) OpenAI