Operational Stability Contract Job Trends in the South West

Operational Stability
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South West requiring Operational Stability skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 134 118 139
Rank change year-on-year -16 +21 -
Contract jobs citing Operational Stability 5 4 4
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 0.21% 0.20% 0.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.25% 0.23% 0.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 5 1 4
10th Percentile £398 - £457
25th Percentile £450 £525 £457
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £471
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% +16.71% -
75th Percentile - £575 £499
90th Percentile - - £513
England median daily rate £447 £528 £533
% change year-on-year -15.26% -0.94% -1.39%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South West

Operational Stability 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 the South West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,990 1,717 2,495
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 81.93% 87.83% 84.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,157 1,046 1,640
10th Percentile £263 £250 £275
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £724 £725
England median daily rate £500 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 310 106 264
10th Percentile £15.62 £18.51 £17.75
25th Percentile £20.82 £47.50 £45.00
Median hourly rate £38.22 £65.00 £59.84
Median % change year-on-year -41.20% +8.62% -2.70%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £66.13 £74.72 £83.40
England median hourly rate £25.15 £34.75 £43.84
% change year-on-year -27.63% -20.73% +25.25%

Operational Stability
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Operational Stability relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West.

Operational Stability job vacancy trend in the South West

Operational Stability
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Operational Stability.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Operational Stability

Operational Stability
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Operational Stability in the South West over the 6 months to 10 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Operational Stability in the South West

Operational Stability
Contract Job Locations in the South West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Operational Stability within the South West region over the 6 months to 10 January 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
Somerset - 4 £575 - 1
Bristol - 1 £375 -
Operational Stability
England

Operational Stability
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West 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 1 (20.00%) Microsoft Exchange
1 1 (20.00%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 4 (80.00%) Azure
2 3 (60.00%) Azure Monitor
2 3 (60.00%) Azure Sentinel
2 3 (60.00%) IaaS
2 3 (60.00%) PaaS
3 1 (20.00%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (20.00%) Entra ID
3 1 (20.00%) Microsoft 365
3 1 (20.00%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 3 (60.00%) DHCP
1 3 (60.00%) DNS
1 3 (60.00%) Firewall
1 3 (60.00%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (60.00%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (20.00%) JIRA
General
1 3 (60.00%) Analytical Skills
2 2 (40.00%) Social Skills
3 1 (20.00%) Law
3 1 (20.00%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 3 (60.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 1 (20.00%) Lead
2 1 (20.00%) Microsoft 365 Manager
2 1 (20.00%) Migration Manager
2 1 (20.00%) Test Manager
Operating Systems
1 4 (80.00%) Windows
2 3 (60.00%) Windows Server
3 1 (20.00%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (60.00%) Business Continuity
1 3 (60.00%) Capacity Planning
1 3 (60.00%) Change Management
1 3 (60.00%) Configuration Management
1 3 (60.00%) Cost Management
1 3 (60.00%) Disaster Recovery
1 3 (60.00%) Infrastructure as Code
1 3 (60.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
1 3 (60.00%) ITIL
1 3 (60.00%) Problem-Solving
1 3 (60.00%) Runbook
1 3 (60.00%) SIEM
1 3 (60.00%) SOAR
1 3 (60.00%) Zero Trust
2 1 (20.00%) Decision-Making
2 1 (20.00%) DevOps
2 1 (20.00%) Process Improvement
2 1 (20.00%) Project Delivery
2 1 (20.00%) Scenario Testing
2 1 (20.00%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 3 (60.00%) Bicep
1 3 (60.00%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 3 (60.00%) Azure Certification
System Software
1 4 (80.00%) Active Directory
2 3 (60.00%) Hyper-V
2 3 (60.00%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 3 (60.00%) Terraform
2 1 (20.00%) HP ALM
2 1 (20.00%) Microsoft Intune
2 1 (20.00%) SCCM
2 1 (20.00%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 4 (80.00%) Microsoft
2 3 (60.00%) VMware
3 1 (20.00%) HP