Validation Contracts in the South West

Validation
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South West requiring Validation skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Validation over the 6 months leading up to 6 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 42 41 80
Rank change year-on-year -1 +39 +6
Contract jobs citing Validation 84 143 93
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South West 4.58% 4.38% 2.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.08% 5.29% 2.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 53 48 33
10th Percentile £428 £208 £440
25th Percentile £525 £400 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £531 £560
Median % change year-on-year +8.24% -5.13% +17.89%
75th Percentile £649 £638 £612
90th Percentile £688 £672 £629
England median daily rate £525 £500 £564
% change year-on-year +5.00% -11.31% +7.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 52 44
10th Percentile £46.00 £28.00 £50.00
25th Percentile £65.00 £47.83 £56.29
Median hourly rate £75.00 £65.00 £61.50
Median % change year-on-year +15.38% +5.69% +36.67%
75th Percentile - £72.50 £65.75
90th Percentile £80.25 - £77.50
England median hourly rate £60.00 £60.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year - -4.00% +25.00%

All Process and 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 1,655 2,705 3,124
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 90.24% 82.87% 88.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 992 1,714 2,246
10th Percentile £220 £260 £319
25th Percentile £363 £409 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% +7.32%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £650
90th Percentile £687 £700 £725
England median daily rate £515 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -1.90% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 186 379 285
10th Percentile £15.25 £13.86 £9.80
25th Percentile £18.60 £29.75 £35.00
Median hourly rate £28.10 £55.00 £61.50
Median % change year-on-year -48.92% -10.57% +26.16%
75th Percentile £65.00 £70.25 £71.90
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £83.40
England median hourly rate £25.15 £38.12 £39.55
% change year-on-year -34.02% -3.62% +54.01%

Validation
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Job postings citing Validation as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the South West.

Job vacancy trend for Validation in the South West

Validation
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the South West

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Validation in the South West.

Daily rate trend for Validation in the South West

Validation
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Validation in the South West over the 6 months to 6 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Validation in the South West

Validation
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Validation in the South West.

Hourly rate trend for Validation in the South West

Validation
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Validation in the South West over the 6 months to 6 July 2025.

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 6 July 2025. 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
Wiltshire +16 34 £600 +5.26% 13
Bristol -8 26 £550 - 86
Gloucestershire +22 10 £384 -4.08% 64
Somerset +2 9 £591 +337.96% 17
Dorset +2 4 £550 -8.33% 7
Devon -2 1 £400 - 5
Validation
England

Validation
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South West by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 27 (32.14%) Confluence
2 2 (2.38%) Documentum
Applications
1 17 (20.24%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (2.38%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 2 (2.38%) Oracle Payroll
2 1 (1.19%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 9 (10.71%) PaaS
1 9 (10.71%) SaaS
2 5 (5.95%) AWS
3 3 (3.57%) Azure
4 2 (2.38%) Azure DevOps
4 2 (2.38%) OCI
4 2 (2.38%) Power Platform
5 1 (1.19%) GCP
5 1 (1.19%) Google Workspace
5 1 (1.19%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 13 (15.48%) BGP
2 9 (10.71%) PBX
2 9 (10.71%) VoIP
3 8 (9.52%) Firewall
3 8 (9.52%) MPLS
3 8 (9.52%) Unified Communications
4 7 (8.33%) DNS
4 7 (8.33%) IPsec
4 7 (8.33%) VPN
5 5 (5.95%) Cisco IOS
5 5 (5.95%) Cisco Nexus
5 5 (5.95%) DMVPN
5 5 (5.95%) OSPF
5 5 (5.95%) VXLAN
6 4 (4.76%) 5G
7 3 (3.57%) LTE
8 2 (2.38%) VSAN
9 1 (1.19%) 4G
9 1 (1.19%) Ethernet
9 1 (1.19%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (2.38%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 27 (32.14%) JIRA
2 13 (15.48%) Jenkins
3 12 (14.29%) Git
4 11 (13.10%) Bitbucket
5 4 (4.76%) Cucumber
5 4 (4.76%) Cypress.io
6 2 (2.38%) Rational DOORS
6 2 (2.38%) Rational Statemate
7 1 (1.19%) Ant
7 1 (1.19%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (1.19%) Eclipse
7 1 (1.19%) Visual Studio
General
1 26 (30.95%) Social Skills
2 20 (23.81%) Analytical Skills
3 14 (16.67%) Public Sector
4 9 (10.71%) Telecoms
5 6 (7.14%) Aerospace
6 4 (4.76%) Finance
7 3 (3.57%) Military
8 2 (2.38%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (2.38%) Local Government
8 2 (2.38%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (1.19%) Aviation
9 1 (1.19%) Banking
9 1 (1.19%) Billing
9 1 (1.19%) Electronics
9 1 (1.19%) Manufacturing
9 1 (1.19%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 14 (16.67%) Network Engineer
2 11 (13.10%) Virtualisation Engineer
3 9 (10.71%) Lead
4 8 (9.52%) Systems Engineer
5 6 (7.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 6 (7.14%) Test Leader
6 5 (5.95%) Project Manager
7 4 (4.76%) Analyst
7 4 (4.76%) Automation Engineer
7 4 (4.76%) Software Engineer
8 3 (3.57%) Change Manager
8 3 (3.57%) Core Network Project Manager
8 3 (3.57%) Data Migration Lead
8 3 (3.57%) Delivery Manager
8 3 (3.57%) DevOps Engineer
8 3 (3.57%) Mobile Project Manager
8 3 (3.57%) Network Manager
8 3 (3.57%) Network Project Manager
9 2 (2.38%) Data Migration Analyst
9 2 (2.38%) Performance Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (14.29%) REST
1 12 (14.29%) SOAP
2 11 (13.10%) Flash
3 7 (8.33%) NETCONF
3 7 (8.33%) RESTCONF
4 5 (5.95%) Spine.js
5 1 (1.19%) CSS
5 1 (1.19%) HTML
5 1 (1.19%) Lightning Web Components
5 1 (1.19%) Node.js
5 1 (1.19%) PySpark
5 1 (1.19%) PyTorch
5 1 (1.19%) TensorFlow
5 1 (1.19%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 11 (13.10%) Clustering
2 9 (10.71%) Blackberry
2 9 (10.71%) Video Conferencing
3 7 (8.33%) PKI
4 6 (7.14%) Data Centre
5 3 (3.57%) Algorithms
5 3 (3.57%) Replication
6 2 (2.38%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (1.19%) Management Information System
7 1 (1.19%) Operational Technology
7 1 (1.19%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 15 (17.86%) Linux
2 13 (15.48%) Windows
3 12 (14.29%) Windows Server
4 2 (2.38%) Windows Server 2003
5 1 (1.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (1.19%) Windows 10
5 1 (1.19%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 36 (42.86%) System Testing
2 35 (41.67%) Service Management
3 32 (38.10%) NsoIT
4 26 (30.95%) Agile
5 22 (26.19%) Network Virtualisation
5 22 (26.19%) Problem-Solving
6 17 (20.24%) Critical Thinking
6 17 (20.24%) Migration
7 15 (17.86%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 12 (14.29%) DevOps
9 11 (13.10%) Configuration Management
9 11 (13.10%) Deployment Automation
9 11 (13.10%) High Availability
9 11 (13.10%) Infrastructure Automation
9 11 (13.10%) Power Management
9 11 (13.10%) Reverse Engineering
10 10 (11.90%) Computer Science
11 9 (10.71%) Commercial Awareness
11 9 (10.71%) Root Cause Analysis
11 9 (10.71%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 20 (23.81%) Python
2 11 (13.10%) Bash
3 10 (11.90%) PowerShell
4 6 (7.14%) JavaScript
5 4 (4.76%) Java
6 2 (2.38%) MATLAB
6 2 (2.38%) SQL
7 1 (1.19%) Apex Code
7 1 (1.19%) C#
7 1 (1.19%) C++
Qualifications
1 59 (70.24%) Security Cleared
2 50 (59.52%) SC Cleared
3 41 (48.81%) Cisco Certification
4 36 (42.86%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 32 (38.10%) CCNP
6 21 (25.00%) Degree
7 15 (17.86%) DV Cleared
8 10 (11.90%) Master's Degree
8 10 (11.90%) OCA
8 10 (11.90%) Oracle Certification
8 10 (11.90%) RHCA
8 10 (11.90%) RHCE
9 9 (10.71%) BPSS Clearance
9 9 (10.71%) CCNA
10 2 (2.38%) RIBA
11 1 (1.19%) MCSA
11 1 (1.19%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (1.19%) Data Quality
1 1 (1.19%) ISO 9001
1 1 (1.19%) QA
System Software
1 43 (51.19%) VMware Infrastructure
2 18 (21.43%) VMware ESXi
3 11 (13.10%) VMware NSX
4 1 (1.19%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 26 (30.95%) vCenter Server
2 18 (21.43%) Ansible
3 11 (13.10%) Progress Chef
3 11 (13.10%) Puppet
Vendors
1 43 (51.19%) Cisco
1 43 (51.19%) VMware
2 24 (28.57%) Atlassian
3 12 (14.29%) Oracle
4 9 (10.71%) Avaya
4 9 (10.71%) Ericsson
4 9 (10.71%) F5
4 9 (10.71%) Juniper
4 9 (10.71%) Nokia
4 9 (10.71%) Palo Alto
4 9 (10.71%) Ribbon
5 2 (2.38%) Ariba
5 2 (2.38%) EMC
5 2 (2.38%) McAfee
5 2 (2.38%) Microsoft
5 2 (2.38%) SAP
5 2 (2.38%) Sophos
6 1 (1.19%) Google
6 1 (1.19%) Salesforce
6 1 (1.19%) Workday