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

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 69 106
Rank change year-on-year +34 +37 +39
Contract jobs citing Validation 2,314 926 767
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.27% 3.59% 2.05%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.18% 3.93% 2.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,402 571 379
10th Percentile £338 £350 £320
25th Percentile £413 £421 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -11.50%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £588
90th Percentile £701 £700 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 156 63 178
10th Percentile £17.75 £18.68 £27.66
25th Percentile £29.06 £39.38 £47.83
Median hourly rate £62.82 £60.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.70% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75.25 £66.00 £70.50
90th Percentile £83.38 £77.00 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £61.25 £58.88 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.03% -1.88% -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 37,451 23,541 31,946
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.35% 91.15% 85.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,583 15,155 20,721
10th Percentile £325 £300 £305
25th Percentile £419 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.97% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £729 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £515 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +2.08% -3.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,352 1,173 2,326
10th Percentile £15.26 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £20.79 £17.88 £16.06
Median hourly rate £46.62 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +85.35% -34.02% +1.65%
75th Percentile £68.50 £55.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £82.25 £72.50 £73.07
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +3.45%

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 2 July 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 2 July 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 2 July 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 +48 1,111 £513 -6.82% 452
North of England +42 306 £450 +1.41% 169
Midlands +39 289 £490 +8.89% 127
South East -4 274 £504 +0.75% 274
West Midlands +33 210 £475 +17.77% 64
North West +23 168 £444 -1.44% 91
East of England +14 132 £510 +2.00% 94
South West -1 129 £514 -10.65% 114
Yorkshire +31 124 £461 +11.34% 51
East Midlands +21 74 £525 +15.51% 63
North East -16 17 £425 -22.73% 27
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 79 (3.41%) Confluence
2 60 (2.59%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (2.03%) SAS
4 44 (1.90%) SharePoint
5 39 (1.69%) Apache Spark
6 23 (0.99%) Apache
7 13 (0.56%) Jupyter
8 10 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
9 8 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.35%) SharePoint 2013
10 7 (0.30%) Appian
10 7 (0.30%) CMS
11 6 (0.26%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.22%) Tuxedo
13 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.13%) IIS
13 3 (0.13%) JBoss
13 3 (0.13%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
13 3 (0.13%) Oracle Self-Service HR
13 3 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 163 (7.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (1.51%) MS Visio
3 32 (1.38%) Microsoft Office
4 27 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 21 (0.91%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.22%) AutoCAD
7 5 (0.22%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.17%) Simulink
9 3 (0.13%) CATIA
10 2 (0.086%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.086%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.086%) Sketch
11 1 (0.043%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.043%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.043%) CANalyzer
11 1 (0.043%) LaTeX
11 1 (0.043%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.043%) UXPin
11 1 (0.043%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 110 (4.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.43%) Oracle EBS
3 16 (0.69%) Oracle Payables
4 15 (0.65%) Teamcenter
5 14 (0.61%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 12 (0.52%) Oracle General Ledger
6 12 (0.52%) Workday HCM
7 11 (0.48%) Oracle Assets
8 10 (0.43%) iTrent
8 10 (0.43%) SAP ERP
9 9 (0.39%) NetSuite
9 9 (0.39%) Oracle Financials
10 8 (0.35%) Aladdin
10 8 (0.35%) Oracle Receivables
10 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
11 7 (0.30%) Oracle EBS R12
11 7 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
11 7 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
11 7 (0.30%) Sage X3
12 6 (0.26%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 494 (21.35%) Azure
2 278 (12.01%) AWS
3 230 (9.94%) Power Platform
4 125 (5.40%) Azure DevOps
5 121 (5.23%) GCP
6 109 (4.71%) GitHub
7 77 (3.33%) Snowflake
8 62 (2.68%) GitHub Actions
9 61 (2.64%) Azure Data Factory
9 61 (2.64%) Entra ID
10 56 (2.42%) Serverless
11 43 (1.86%) Amazon S3
12 42 (1.82%) Microsoft 365
13 41 (1.77%) OCI
13 41 (1.77%) SaaS
14 39 (1.69%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 39 (1.69%) dbt
15 29 (1.25%) SuccessFactors
16 28 (1.21%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 26 (1.12%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 100 (4.32%) Firewall
2 60 (2.59%) Network Security
3 40 (1.73%) DNS
3 40 (1.73%) VLAN
4 37 (1.60%) WAN
5 33 (1.43%) VPN
6 27 (1.17%) BGP
6 27 (1.17%) TCP/IP
7 23 (0.99%) SAN
8 22 (0.95%) LAN
8 22 (0.95%) Wireless
9 20 (0.86%) SD-WAN
10 19 (0.82%) OSPF
11 17 (0.73%) Internet
12 16 (0.69%) DHCP
12 16 (0.69%) Ethernet
12 16 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
13 13 (0.56%) Cisco ISE
14 12 (0.52%) NAS
15 11 (0.48%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 214 (9.25%) Power BI
2 126 (5.45%) Data Warehouse
3 86 (3.72%) Metadata
4 81 (3.50%) SQL Server
5 70 (3.03%) Tableau
6 68 (2.94%) Data Lake
6 68 (2.94%) PostgreSQL
7 56 (2.42%) Relational Database
8 32 (1.38%) Big Data
9 30 (1.30%) Oracle Database
10 28 (1.21%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 26 (1.12%) Amazon Redshift
11 26 (1.12%) NoSQL
12 25 (1.08%) BigQuery
12 25 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 23 (0.99%) Delta Lake
13 23 (0.99%) Power Query
14 22 (0.95%) Oracle Reports
15 19 (0.82%) Amazon Athena
16 18 (0.78%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 227 (9.81%) JIRA
2 134 (5.79%) Git
3 89 (3.85%) Jenkins
4 65 (2.81%) GitLab
5 56 (2.42%) Selenium
6 43 (1.86%) Postman
7 42 (1.82%) JMeter
8 37 (1.60%) Cucumber
9 36 (1.56%) JUnit
10 30 (1.30%) WebDriver
11 25 (1.08%) Rational DOORS
12 18 (0.78%) Eclipse
13 16 (0.69%) Rational Rhapsody
13 16 (0.69%) Visual Studio
14 15 (0.65%) Gatling
15 13 (0.56%) MLflow
16 10 (0.43%) Maven
16 10 (0.43%) REST Assured
17 9 (0.39%) Oracle Forms
18 8 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 702 (30.34%) Finance
2 694 (29.99%) Social Skills
3 439 (18.97%) Analytical Skills
4 192 (8.30%) Public Sector
5 183 (7.91%) Banking
6 131 (5.66%) Documentation Skills
7 75 (3.24%) Manufacturing
8 65 (2.81%) Retail
9 63 (2.72%) Aerospace
10 43 (1.86%) Organisational Skills
11 42 (1.82%) Telecoms
12 41 (1.77%) Pharmaceutical
13 40 (1.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 35 (1.51%) Front Office
14 35 (1.51%) General Ledger
14 35 (1.51%) Marketing
15 33 (1.43%) Influencing Skills
16 32 (1.38%) Law
17 31 (1.34%) Legal
17 31 (1.34%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 402 (17.37%) Analyst
2 232 (10.03%) Lead
2 232 (10.03%) Senior
3 190 (8.21%) Business Analyst
4 183 (7.91%) Data Engineer
5 167 (7.22%) Consultant
6 142 (6.14%) Architect
7 134 (5.79%) Developer
8 117 (5.06%) Data Analyst
9 76 (3.28%) Test Engineer
10 71 (3.07%) Project Manager
11 63 (2.72%) Tester
12 46 (1.99%) Network Engineer
13 43 (1.86%) Test Manager
14 42 (1.82%) Security Engineer
15 41 (1.77%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 41 (1.77%) Senior Data Engineer
15 41 (1.77%) Software Engineer
15 41 (1.77%) Systems Engineer
16 39 (1.69%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (4.71%) REST
2 69 (2.98%) Kafka
3 68 (2.94%) JSON
4 50 (2.16%) Oracle Fusion
5 48 (2.07%) PySpark
6 47 (2.03%) XML
7 41 (1.77%) Middleware
7 41 (1.77%) Spring
8 40 (1.73%) OAuth
9 38 (1.64%) .NET
10 34 (1.47%) RESTful
11 33 (1.43%) Playwright
11 33 (1.43%) pytest
11 33 (1.43%) Web Services
12 32 (1.38%) SOAP
13 30 (1.30%) Node.js
13 30 (1.30%) Pandas
14 28 (1.21%) Swagger
15 25 (1.08%) WireMock
16 23 (0.99%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 120 (5.19%) Legacy Systems
2 114 (4.93%) Data Structures
3 107 (4.62%) Onboarding
4 92 (3.98%) Product Ownership
5 91 (3.93%) Cloud Native
6 69 (2.98%) Data Centre
7 55 (2.38%) Management Information System
8 48 (2.07%) Analytical Mindset
8 48 (2.07%) Distributed Systems
9 36 (1.56%) SCADA
10 33 (1.43%) AI Agents
11 30 (1.30%) Enterprise Software
12 28 (1.21%) Life Science
13 27 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
13 27 (1.17%) Distributed Architecture
13 27 (1.17%) Public Cloud
14 26 (1.12%) Hybrid Cloud
14 26 (1.12%) NHS
15 25 (1.08%) Replication
15 25 (1.08%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 122 (5.27%) Windows
2 78 (3.37%) Linux
3 24 (1.04%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.86%) Unix
5 16 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.43%) Android
7 7 (0.30%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.26%) VMS
8 6 (0.26%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.17%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.17%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.17%) SUSE
10 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.086%) HPUX
11 2 (0.086%) VxWorks
11 2 (0.086%) zOS
12 1 (0.043%) Debian
12 1 (0.043%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.043%) Solaris
12 1 (0.043%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 642 (27.74%) Migration
2 453 (19.58%) Agile
3 412 (17.80%) Stakeholder Management
4 398 (17.20%) CI/CD
5 397 (17.16%) Data Validation
6 380 (16.42%) Data Migration
7 377 (16.29%) Problem-Solving
8 374 (16.16%) Analytics
9 372 (16.08%) User Acceptance Testing
10 348 (15.04%) Data Modelling
11 296 (12.79%) AI
12 294 (12.71%) ETL
13 292 (12.62%) DevOps
14 285 (12.32%) Test Automation
15 257 (11.11%) Continuous Improvement
16 250 (10.80%) Business Intelligence
16 250 (10.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 227 (9.81%) Data Analysis
18 225 (9.72%) Data Governance
19 216 (9.33%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 558 (24.11%) SQL
2 400 (17.29%) Python
3 115 (4.97%) Java
4 62 (2.68%) PowerShell
5 53 (2.29%) C#
6 38 (1.64%) C++
7 37 (1.60%) Bash
7 37 (1.60%) JavaScript
8 32 (1.38%) C
8 32 (1.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 30 (1.30%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.21%) Apex Code
11 25 (1.08%) Bicep
11 25 (1.08%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.95%) R
13 21 (0.91%) Ada
14 19 (0.82%) Scala
14 19 (0.82%) VBA
15 15 (0.65%) MATLAB
16 14 (0.61%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 420 (18.15%) Security Cleared
2 304 (13.14%) SC Cleared
3 169 (7.30%) Degree
4 53 (2.29%) BPSS Clearance
5 49 (2.12%) DV Cleared
6 40 (1.73%) Computer Science Degree
7 32 (1.38%) Cisco Certification
8 29 (1.25%) PMI Certification
9 24 (1.04%) CCNP
10 23 (0.99%) PMP
11 20 (0.86%) CISSP
12 17 (0.73%) ACCA
13 16 (0.69%) Master's Degree
14 15 (0.65%) Azure Certification
14 15 (0.65%) CIMA
14 15 (0.65%) ISTQB
14 15 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
15 14 (0.61%) AWS Certification
16 12 (0.52%) CCNA
17 9 (0.39%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 408 (17.63%) Data Quality
2 273 (11.80%) QA
3 107 (4.62%) GDPR
4 58 (2.51%) NIST
5 53 (2.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 32 (1.38%) Accessibility
7 31 (1.34%) PMO
8 27 (1.17%) SLA
9 22 (0.95%) IFRS
10 17 (0.73%) Def Stans
10 17 (0.73%) GRC
10 17 (0.73%) GxP
11 14 (0.61%) HL7
11 14 (0.61%) IFRS 17
12 13 (0.56%) Solvency II
13 12 (0.52%) NCSC
13 12 (0.52%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.48%) ISO 20022
14 11 (0.48%) PCI DSS
15 10 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 103 (4.45%) Docker
2 63 (2.72%) Active Directory
3 55 (2.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (0.82%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (0.61%) Firmware
6 14 (0.61%) VMware NSX
7 13 (0.56%) Hyper-V
8 12 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
9 11 (0.48%) vSphere
10 5 (0.22%) NFS
11 4 (0.17%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 4 (0.17%) KVM
12 2 (0.086%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.086%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.086%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.086%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.043%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.043%) OpenSSH
13 1 (0.043%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 146 (6.31%) Kubernetes
2 105 (4.54%) Terraform
3 50 (2.16%) Prometheus
4 46 (1.99%) Grafana
5 45 (1.94%) Ansible
6 25 (1.08%) Single Sign-On
7 21 (0.91%) FortiGate
8 19 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
9 9 (0.39%) vCenter Server
10 8 (0.35%) SCCM
11 6 (0.26%) Nessus
11 6 (0.26%) VxRail
12 5 (0.22%) CASB
12 5 (0.22%) HP ALM
12 5 (0.22%) Kibana
12 5 (0.22%) Puppet
12 5 (0.22%) vMotion
13 4 (0.17%) EMC VPLEX
13 4 (0.17%) Failover Clustering
13 4 (0.17%) Istio
Vendors
1 317 (13.70%) Microsoft
2 205 (8.86%) SAP
3 202 (8.73%) Oracle
4 109 (4.71%) Databricks
5 84 (3.63%) Salesforce
6 66 (2.85%) VMware
7 63 (2.72%) ServiceNow
8 51 (2.20%) Cisco
9 39 (1.69%) Splunk
10 38 (1.64%) Workday
11 34 (1.47%) Google
12 32 (1.38%) Informatica
13 27 (1.17%) Palo Alto
14 24 (1.04%) Fortinet
14 24 (1.04%) Sage
15 23 (0.99%) MuleSoft
16 22 (0.95%) IBM
17 21 (0.91%) Juniper
18 20 (0.86%) IFS
19 18 (0.78%) CyberArk