Validation Contract Job Trends in the South West

Validation
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South West requiring Validation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 53 34
Rank change year-on-year +12 -19 +66
Contract jobs citing Validation 143 66 152
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 3.85% 3.35% 5.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.95% 3.70% 6.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 66 37 45
10th Percentile £325 £435 £437
25th Percentile £407 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £582
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -5.50% +5.82%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £638
90th Percentile £718 £650 £670
England median daily rate £500 £513 £498
% change year-on-year -2.44% +3.02% -9.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 7 39
10th Percentile £17.75 £32.00 £28.00
25th Percentile £27.63 £49.17 £48.00
Median hourly rate £66.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.31% - -1.49%
75th Percentile £70.00 £74.38 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £75.00 -
England median hourly rate £54.25 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -16.54% - -2.61%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South West

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 the South West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,890 1,784 2,219
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 77.83% 90.42% 83.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,630 1,032 1,323
10th Percentile £325 £220 £271
25th Percentile £428 £375 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £706 £701
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 460 241 214
10th Percentile £14.85 £15.00 £16.18
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.51 £48.50
Median hourly rate £62.00 £25.15 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +146.52% -62.74% +7.14%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.75 £72.50
90th Percentile £78.71 £68.75 £75.00
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -1.91%

Validation
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

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

Validation job vacancy trend in the South West

Validation
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

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

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

Validation
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Validation in the South West over the 6 months to 16 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Validation in the South West

Validation
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Validation.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Validation

Validation
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Validation in the South West over the 6 months to 16 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Validation in the South West

Validation
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 Validation within the South West region over the 6 months to 16 September 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
Bristol +14 76 £550 +2.56% 143
Wiltshire -5 21 £393 -37.20% 41
Somerset -21 18 £525 -17.00% 39
Gloucestershire 0 9 £469 +4.17% 112
Devon -10 9 £463 -2.63% 23
Dorset - 8 £300 - 42
Cornwall - 1 - - 4
Validation
England

Validation
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 3 (2.10%) CMS
1 3 (2.10%) Confluence
1 3 (2.10%) Sitecore CMS
2 2 (1.40%) Apache
2 2 (1.40%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.70%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.70%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.70%) Palantir Foundry
3 1 (0.70%) SharePoint
Applications
1 12 (8.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (2.80%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (2.10%) MS Visio
4 2 (1.40%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.70%) LaTeX
5 1 (0.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (2.10%) Magento
1 3 (2.10%) SAP CRM
1 3 (2.10%) SAP HR
1 3 (2.10%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (1.40%) Oracle Assets
2 2 (1.40%) SAP MM
2 2 (1.40%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 2 (1.40%) Unit4 Business World
3 1 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.70%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.70%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 1 (0.70%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.70%) Sage 50
3 1 (0.70%) SAP PM
3 1 (0.70%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 27 (18.88%) Azure
2 13 (9.09%) GCP
3 11 (7.69%) AWS
4 7 (4.90%) dbt
4 7 (4.90%) GitHub
5 6 (4.20%) Dynamics 365
6 5 (3.50%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 5 (3.50%) Azure Monitor
6 5 (3.50%) Azure Sentinel
6 5 (3.50%) GitHub Actions
7 4 (2.80%) Power Platform
8 3 (2.10%) Microsoft 365
8 3 (2.10%) SAP Commerce Cloud
9 2 (1.40%) Azure Stack
9 2 (1.40%) Boomi
9 2 (1.40%) Entra ID
9 2 (1.40%) Lucidchart
9 2 (1.40%) Power Automate
9 2 (1.40%) PowerApps
9 2 (1.40%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 10 (6.99%) Firewall
2 9 (6.29%) DNS
2 9 (6.29%) TCP/IP
3 8 (5.59%) DHCP
4 6 (4.20%) BGP
5 5 (3.50%) VLAN
5 5 (3.50%) WAN
6 4 (2.80%) Ethernet
7 2 (1.40%) ATM
7 2 (1.40%) Network Security
7 2 (1.40%) VSAN
8 1 (0.70%) Ethernet VPN
8 1 (0.70%) Modbus
8 1 (0.70%) NX-OS
8 1 (0.70%) VXLAN
8 1 (0.70%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (4.20%) Metadata
2 4 (2.80%) Power BI
3 3 (2.10%) Oracle Reports
3 3 (2.10%) SQL Server
3 3 (2.10%) SQLite
4 1 (0.70%) BigQuery
4 1 (0.70%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.70%) Electronic Patient Records
4 1 (0.70%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.70%) Relational Database
4 1 (0.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.70%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 8 (5.59%) Rational DOORS
1 8 (5.59%) Rational Rhapsody
2 7 (4.90%) GitLab
2 7 (4.90%) JIRA
3 6 (4.20%) Jenkins
4 4 (2.80%) Cucumber
4 4 (2.80%) Eclipse
4 4 (2.80%) Visual Studio
5 3 (2.10%) Selenium
6 1 (0.70%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.70%) Gatling
6 1 (0.70%) Git
6 1 (0.70%) Oracle Forms
6 1 (0.70%) Postman
General
1 52 (36.36%) Social Skills
2 23 (16.08%) Finance
3 22 (15.38%) Analytical Skills
4 11 (7.69%) Manufacturing
4 11 (7.69%) Military
4 11 (7.69%) Public Sector
5 7 (4.90%) Aerospace
5 7 (4.90%) Organisational Skills
6 6 (4.20%) Banking
7 5 (3.50%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (2.80%) Influencing Skills
8 4 (2.80%) Local Government
9 3 (2.10%) Law
9 3 (2.10%) Marketing
9 3 (2.10%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (1.40%) General Ledger
10 2 (1.40%) Investment Banking
10 2 (1.40%) Publishing
11 1 (0.70%) Billing
11 1 (0.70%) Retail
Job Titles
1 16 (11.19%) Systems Engineer
2 15 (10.49%) Analyst
3 14 (9.79%) Test Engineer
4 12 (8.39%) Lead
4 12 (8.39%) Senior
5 10 (6.99%) Administrator
6 9 (6.29%) Architect
7 8 (5.59%) Business Analyst
7 8 (5.59%) Consultant
7 8 (5.59%) Software Engineer
8 7 (4.90%) Data Engineer
8 7 (4.90%) Systems Administrator
9 6 (4.20%) QA Engineer
9 6 (4.20%) Technical Analyst
9 6 (4.20%) Test Automation Engineer
10 5 (3.50%) Azure Consultant
10 5 (3.50%) Engineering Specialist
10 5 (3.50%) GCP Data Engineer
10 5 (3.50%) QA Test Engineer
10 5 (3.50%) Technical Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (8.39%) Terraform
2 7 (4.90%) Middleware
3 5 (3.50%) REST
4 4 (2.80%) JSON
4 4 (2.80%) Node.js
4 4 (2.80%) Oracle Fusion
4 4 (2.80%) Web Services
4 4 (2.80%) XML
5 3 (2.10%) EDI
5 3 (2.10%) FastAPI
5 3 (2.10%) Playwright
5 3 (2.10%) pydantic
6 2 (1.40%) Spring
6 2 (1.40%) Spring Boot
7 1 (0.70%) .NET Framework
7 1 (0.70%) Flash
7 1 (0.70%) Handlebars
7 1 (0.70%) Mustache
7 1 (0.70%) RESTful
7 1 (0.70%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 13 (9.09%) Management Information System
2 10 (6.99%) Legacy Systems
3 6 (4.20%) Self-Motivation
4 5 (3.50%) Onboarding
5 4 (2.80%) Data Protection Act
5 4 (2.80%) Data Structures
6 3 (2.10%) Data Centre
6 3 (2.10%) Enterprise Software
6 3 (2.10%) Linux Command Line
6 3 (2.10%) Operational Technology
7 2 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (1.40%) Clustering
7 2 (1.40%) Greenfield Project
7 2 (1.40%) Life Science
7 2 (1.40%) SCADA
7 2 (1.40%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 1 (0.70%) FMCG
8 1 (0.70%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 1 (0.70%) LIMS
8 1 (0.70%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 19 (13.29%) Windows
2 15 (10.49%) Linux
3 6 (4.20%) Windows Server
4 5 (3.50%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (27.27%) Migration
2 31 (21.68%) Verification and Validation
3 28 (19.58%) Stakeholder Management
4 23 (16.08%) Data Migration
4 23 (16.08%) Data Validation
4 23 (16.08%) Problem-Solving
5 20 (13.99%) ERP
6 18 (12.59%) Agile
6 18 (12.59%) CI/CD
6 18 (12.59%) User Acceptance Testing
7 17 (11.89%) Systems Engineering
8 16 (11.19%) Continuous Improvement
9 15 (10.49%) Data Cleansing
10 14 (9.79%) Infrastructure as Code
11 13 (9.09%) AI
11 13 (9.09%) Data Mapping
12 12 (8.39%) Data Modelling
12 12 (8.39%) Integration Testing
12 12 (8.39%) Software Engineering
12 12 (8.39%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 20 (13.99%) SQL
2 18 (12.59%) Python
3 11 (7.69%) C++
4 7 (4.90%) C
4 7 (4.90%) JavaScript
5 4 (2.80%) Ada
5 4 (2.80%) C#
6 2 (1.40%) Java
6 2 (1.40%) PowerShell
7 1 (0.70%) Kotlin
7 1 (0.70%) PL/SQL
7 1 (0.70%) T-SQL
7 1 (0.70%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 38 (26.57%) Security Cleared
2 31 (21.68%) SC Cleared
3 12 (8.39%) Degree
4 4 (2.80%) CIPD
4 4 (2.80%) DV Cleared
5 3 (2.10%) ACCA
5 3 (2.10%) BPSS Clearance
5 3 (2.10%) Chartered Engineer
5 3 (2.10%) CIMA
6 2 (1.40%) Azure Certification
6 2 (1.40%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (1.40%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.70%) CEH
7 1 (0.70%) CompTIA Security+
7 1 (0.70%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.70%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (12.59%) Data Quality
2 17 (11.89%) QA
3 6 (4.20%) GDPR
4 5 (3.50%) Def Stans
5 2 (1.40%) IFRS
5 2 (1.40%) ISO 20022
5 2 (1.40%) ISO/IEC 15288
5 2 (1.40%) SEPA
6 1 (0.70%) 21 CFR Part 11
6 1 (0.70%) ARP4761
6 1 (0.70%) DO-254
6 1 (0.70%) GAMP
6 1 (0.70%) GMP
6 1 (0.70%) IEC 61508
6 1 (0.70%) JSP 440
6 1 (0.70%) NCSC
6 1 (0.70%) NIST
6 1 (0.70%) SLA
6 1 (0.70%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 11 (7.69%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (4.20%) Hyper-V
3 5 (3.50%) Active Directory
3 5 (3.50%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (2.10%) VirtualBox
5 2 (1.40%) VMware Workstation
6 1 (0.70%) Docker
6 1 (0.70%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 1 (0.70%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.70%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 6 (4.20%) Ansible
2 5 (3.50%) FortiGate
2 5 (3.50%) Kubernetes
3 2 (1.40%) Failover Clustering
3 2 (1.40%) VxRail
4 1 (0.70%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 34 (23.78%) Microsoft
2 11 (7.69%) VMware
3 10 (6.99%) SAP
4 9 (6.29%) Oracle
5 8 (5.59%) IBM
6 5 (3.50%) Google
6 5 (3.50%) Zscaler
7 4 (2.80%) Workday
8 3 (2.10%) Atlassian
8 3 (2.10%) Databricks
8 3 (2.10%) ServiceNow
8 3 (2.10%) Sitecore
9 2 (1.40%) MuleSoft
9 2 (1.40%) Sage
9 2 (1.40%) Sparx
10 1 (0.70%) Alteryx
10 1 (0.70%) F5
10 1 (0.70%) Foundry
10 1 (0.70%) Palantir
10 1 (0.70%) Rockwell