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

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 72 115
Rank change year-on-year +31 +43 +31
Contract jobs citing Validation 1,970 795 718
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.80% 3.28% 1.97%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.67% 3.59% 2.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,215 480 360
10th Percentile £323 £356 £320
25th Percentile £400 £419 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £540 £500
Median % change year-on-year -8.89% +8.00% -9.50%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £600
90th Percentile £700 £715 £700
UK median daily rate £485 £530 £505
% change year-on-year -8.49% +4.95% -8.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 122 54 164
10th Percentile £17.75 £23.65 £26.88
25th Percentile £40.00 £38.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £56.77 £61.50
Median % change year-on-year +14.50% -7.69% -1.60%
75th Percentile £72.25 £65.00 £74.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £76.96
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £55.00 £60.50
% change year-on-year +13.64% -9.09% -4.32%

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 34,754 22,136 31,448
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.71% 91.24% 86.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,164 14,481 20,585
10th Percentile £320 £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 £505 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,141 934 2,241
10th Percentile £15.34 £14.41 £12.87
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.41 £16.00
Median hourly rate £47.00 £29.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +62.07% -20.55% -2.14%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.06 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £28.41 £36.02
% change year-on-year +49.60% -21.13% +0.06%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 +56 961 £500 -9.05% 308
North of England +39 272 £425 -5.56% 135
Midlands +25 233 £481 +1.32% 93
South East -12 223 £500 - 187
West Midlands +21 169 £475 - 54
North West +34 165 £418 -4.46% 85
East of England +8 117 £500 +11.11% 86
South West -10 109 £475 -17.39% 104
Yorkshire +19 97 £451 +8.03% 36
East Midlands +9 60 £525 +4.06% 39
North East -14 13 £450 -28.00% 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 81 (4.11%) Confluence
2 39 (1.98%) Apache Airflow
3 36 (1.83%) Apache Spark
4 33 (1.68%) SAS
5 18 (0.91%) Apache
6 13 (0.66%) SharePoint
7 9 (0.46%) Appian
7 9 (0.46%) Jupyter
7 9 (0.46%) Microsoft Exchange
8 8 (0.41%) ArcGIS
9 7 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.25%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
11 4 (0.20%) CMS
11 4 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.15%) Oracle Self-Service HR
12 3 (0.15%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.10%) Anypoint
13 2 (0.10%) Apache Pulsar
13 2 (0.10%) CICS
13 2 (0.10%) Documentum
Applications
1 137 (6.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (1.42%) MS Visio
3 26 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
4 19 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 17 (0.86%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.25%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.15%) CATIA
8 3 (0.15%) LaTeX
8 3 (0.15%) Notion
9 2 (0.10%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.10%) EPLAN
9 2 (0.10%) Simulink
9 2 (0.10%) Sketch
10 1 (0.051%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.051%) CANalyzer
10 1 (0.051%) MicroStation
10 1 (0.051%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.051%) UXPin
10 1 (0.051%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 96 (4.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (1.62%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.71%) Oracle General Ledger
3 14 (0.71%) Teamcenter
4 13 (0.66%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.66%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 12 (0.61%) Workday HCM
6 10 (0.51%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.46%) SAP ERP
8 8 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
8 8 (0.41%) NetSuite
8 8 (0.41%) Oracle EBS R12
8 8 (0.41%) Oracle Receivables
8 8 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
9 7 (0.36%) 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 Payroll
Cloud Services
1 395 (20.05%) Azure
2 239 (12.13%) AWS
3 197 (10.00%) Power Platform
4 101 (5.13%) GCP
5 96 (4.87%) Azure DevOps
6 89 (4.52%) GitHub
7 55 (2.79%) Azure Data Factory
8 54 (2.74%) Snowflake
9 51 (2.59%) Entra ID
9 51 (2.59%) Serverless
10 49 (2.49%) SaaS
11 46 (2.34%) GitHub Actions
12 45 (2.28%) OCI
13 40 (2.03%) Amazon S3
14 35 (1.78%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 31 (1.57%) dbt
16 30 (1.52%) Microsoft 365
17 24 (1.22%) AWS Lambda
18 21 (1.07%) SuccessFactors
19 20 (1.02%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 83 (4.21%) Firewall
2 55 (2.79%) Network Security
3 37 (1.88%) VLAN
4 32 (1.62%) TCP/IP
5 29 (1.47%) DNS
6 26 (1.32%) VPN
7 24 (1.22%) WAN
8 19 (0.96%) Ethernet
9 17 (0.86%) LAN
10 16 (0.81%) SAN
11 14 (0.71%) Wireless
12 13 (0.66%) SD-WAN
13 12 (0.61%) BGP
13 12 (0.61%) NAS
13 12 (0.61%) OSPF
13 12 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
14 11 (0.56%) Cisco ISE
15 10 (0.51%) TACACS
16 9 (0.46%) DHCP
16 9 (0.46%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 185 (9.39%) Power BI
2 111 (5.63%) Data Warehouse
3 84 (4.26%) Metadata
4 70 (3.55%) Tableau
5 66 (3.35%) SQL Server
6 56 (2.84%) Data Lake
7 44 (2.23%) PostgreSQL
8 36 (1.83%) Relational Database
9 28 (1.42%) Amazon Redshift
10 27 (1.37%) NoSQL
11 25 (1.27%) Big Data
12 24 (1.22%) Oracle Reports
13 23 (1.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 22 (1.12%) BigQuery
14 22 (1.12%) Delta Lake
15 21 (1.07%) 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
1 188 (9.54%) JIRA
2 106 (5.38%) Git
3 77 (3.91%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.69%) Selenium
5 48 (2.44%) GitLab
6 43 (2.18%) Postman
7 37 (1.88%) JMeter
8 30 (1.52%) JUnit
9 28 (1.42%) Cucumber
10 25 (1.27%) WebDriver
11 24 (1.22%) Rational DOORS
12 15 (0.76%) Eclipse
12 15 (0.76%) MLflow
12 15 (0.76%) Visual Studio
13 12 (0.61%) Rational Rhapsody
14 11 (0.56%) Bitbucket
14 11 (0.56%) Gatling
14 11 (0.56%) REST Assured
15 10 (0.51%) Gradle
15 10 (0.51%) Maven
General
1 606 (30.76%) Social Skills
2 602 (30.56%) Finance
3 375 (19.04%) Analytical Skills
4 166 (8.43%) Banking
5 160 (8.12%) Public Sector
6 106 (5.38%) Documentation Skills
7 59 (2.99%) Manufacturing
8 49 (2.49%) Aerospace
9 44 (2.23%) Retail
10 42 (2.13%) Presentation Skills
11 41 (2.08%) Organisational Skills
12 32 (1.62%) Legal
12 32 (1.62%) Marketing
12 32 (1.62%) Pharmaceutical
13 31 (1.57%) Front Office
14 29 (1.47%) General Ledger
14 29 (1.47%) Military
15 28 (1.42%) Financial Institution
15 28 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
15 28 (1.42%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 368 (18.68%) Analyst
2 207 (10.51%) Lead
3 174 (8.83%) Senior
4 158 (8.02%) Business Analyst
5 156 (7.92%) Data Engineer
6 131 (6.65%) Consultant
7 121 (6.14%) Architect
8 108 (5.48%) Developer
9 103 (5.23%) Data Analyst
10 75 (3.81%) Project Manager
11 52 (2.64%) Tester
12 47 (2.39%) Test Engineer
13 46 (2.34%) Software Engineer
14 40 (2.03%) Network Engineer
14 40 (2.03%) Senior Analyst
15 39 (1.98%) Test Manager
16 37 (1.88%) Security Engineer
17 35 (1.78%) Systems Engineer
18 33 (1.68%) Migration Engineer
18 33 (1.68%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (5.18%) REST
2 69 (3.50%) Kafka
3 67 (3.40%) JSON
4 52 (2.64%) Oracle Fusion
5 47 (2.39%) Middleware
6 46 (2.34%) OAuth
7 40 (2.03%) PySpark
7 40 (2.03%) XML
8 36 (1.83%) Swagger
9 33 (1.68%) .NET
9 33 (1.68%) SOAP
10 32 (1.62%) Node.js
11 30 (1.52%) RESTful
11 30 (1.52%) Web Services
12 29 (1.47%) Pandas
13 28 (1.42%) Spring
14 27 (1.37%) PyTorch
15 26 (1.32%) Playwright
16 24 (1.22%) JWT
16 24 (1.22%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 117 (5.94%) Legacy Systems
2 103 (5.23%) Data Structures
3 97 (4.92%) Onboarding
4 81 (4.11%) Product Ownership
5 64 (3.25%) Cloud Native
6 61 (3.10%) Data Centre
7 47 (2.39%) Management Information System
8 35 (1.78%) Analytical Mindset
8 35 (1.78%) Distributed Systems
9 30 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
10 26 (1.32%) Replication
11 25 (1.27%) Public Cloud
12 24 (1.22%) Hybrid Cloud
13 22 (1.12%) Greenfield Project
13 22 (1.12%) SCADA
14 21 (1.07%) Algorithms
14 21 (1.07%) Reference Data
15 20 (1.02%) Derivative
15 20 (1.02%) Operational Technology
16 19 (0.96%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 94 (4.77%) Windows
2 78 (3.96%) Linux
3 26 (1.32%) Unix
4 11 (0.56%) Android
5 10 (0.51%) Windows Server
6 9 (0.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.25%) VMS
7 5 (0.25%) zOS
8 4 (0.20%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.20%) SUSE
9 3 (0.15%) Windows 10
10 2 (0.10%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.10%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.051%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.051%) Debian
11 1 (0.051%) HPUX
11 1 (0.051%) pSOS
11 1 (0.051%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 551 (27.97%) Migration
2 388 (19.70%) Agile
3 359 (18.22%) Problem-Solving
4 346 (17.56%) Stakeholder Management
5 343 (17.41%) Data Validation
6 339 (17.21%) Data Migration
7 306 (15.53%) CI/CD
8 302 (15.33%) Data Modelling
9 296 (15.03%) Analytics
10 294 (14.92%) User Acceptance Testing
11 273 (13.86%) ETL
12 243 (12.34%) DevOps
13 229 (11.62%) Business Intelligence
14 223 (11.32%) Test Automation
15 212 (10.76%) AI
16 206 (10.46%) Continuous Improvement
17 198 (10.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 195 (9.90%) Data Governance
19 175 (8.88%) Data Analysis
20 174 (8.83%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 485 (24.62%) SQL
2 346 (17.56%) Python
3 102 (5.18%) Java
4 56 (2.84%) C#
5 46 (2.34%) C++
6 43 (2.18%) PowerShell
7 41 (2.08%) JavaScript
8 40 (2.03%) C
9 35 (1.78%) Bash
10 27 (1.37%) Bicep
10 27 (1.37%) R
10 27 (1.37%) TypeScript
11 25 (1.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 25 (1.27%) PL/SQL
12 20 (1.02%) Ada
13 18 (0.91%) Apex Code
14 17 (0.86%) Scala
15 13 (0.66%) MATLAB
16 12 (0.61%) VBA
17 9 (0.46%) Korn
Qualifications
1 368 (18.68%) Security Cleared
2 262 (13.30%) SC Cleared
3 157 (7.97%) Degree
4 45 (2.28%) BPSS Clearance
4 45 (2.28%) Computer Science Degree
5 34 (1.73%) DV Cleared
5 34 (1.73%) PMI Certification
6 28 (1.42%) Master's Degree
6 28 (1.42%) PMP
7 24 (1.22%) Cisco Certification
8 19 (0.96%) CCNP
9 16 (0.81%) CISSP
9 16 (0.81%) ISTQB
10 15 (0.76%) CBAP
11 13 (0.66%) Microsoft Certification
12 12 (0.61%) ACCA
12 12 (0.61%) AWS Certification
12 12 (0.61%) Azure Certification
13 10 (0.51%) CIMA
14 9 (0.46%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 344 (17.46%) Data Quality
2 239 (12.13%) QA
3 104 (5.28%) GDPR
4 66 (3.35%) NIST
5 56 (2.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 25 (1.27%) IFRS
7 24 (1.22%) Accessibility
7 24 (1.22%) SLA
8 22 (1.12%) PMO
9 20 (1.02%) IFRS 17
10 18 (0.91%) GRC
11 17 (0.86%) Def Stans
12 14 (0.71%) HL7
12 14 (0.71%) MiFID
13 13 (0.66%) PCI DSS
14 12 (0.61%) GxP
14 12 (0.61%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.56%) ISO 20022
15 11 (0.56%) NCSC
15 11 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 79 (4.01%) Docker
2 40 (2.03%) Active Directory
3 36 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.07%) Firmware
5 16 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
6 12 (0.61%) VMware NSX
7 11 (0.56%) Hyper-V
8 10 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
8 10 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.36%) vSphere
10 5 (0.25%) NFS
11 4 (0.20%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 2 (0.10%) Ceph
12 2 (0.10%) Embedded Firmware
12 2 (0.10%) KVM
12 2 (0.10%) Lustre
12 2 (0.10%) OpenAM
12 2 (0.10%) OpenDJ
12 2 (0.10%) OpenIDM
12 2 (0.10%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 119 (6.04%) Kubernetes
2 84 (4.26%) Terraform
3 41 (2.08%) Prometheus
4 39 (1.98%) Grafana
5 37 (1.88%) Ansible
6 28 (1.42%) Single Sign-On
7 14 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
8 11 (0.56%) FortiGate
8 11 (0.56%) Kibana
9 10 (0.51%) Puppet
10 8 (0.41%) SCCM
11 6 (0.30%) Nessus
11 6 (0.30%) vCenter Server
12 5 (0.25%) CASB
12 5 (0.25%) vMotion
13 4 (0.20%) Argo
13 4 (0.20%) EMC VPLEX
13 4 (0.20%) Failover Clustering
13 4 (0.20%) Istio
13 4 (0.20%) VxRail
Vendors
1 272 (13.81%) Microsoft
2 171 (8.68%) SAP
3 168 (8.53%) Oracle
4 91 (4.62%) Databricks
5 65 (3.30%) Salesforce
6 60 (3.05%) ServiceNow
7 45 (2.28%) VMware
8 44 (2.23%) Cisco
9 41 (2.08%) Splunk
10 33 (1.68%) Google
11 31 (1.57%) Informatica
12 25 (1.27%) Palo Alto
12 25 (1.27%) Sage
12 25 (1.27%) Workday
13 23 (1.17%) MuleSoft
14 22 (1.12%) IBM
15 21 (1.07%) CyberArk
15 21 (1.07%) IFS
16 16 (0.81%) Fortinet
17 15 (0.76%) CheckPoint