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 31 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 48 35
Rank change year-on-year +3 -13 +71
Contract jobs citing Validation 131 72 142
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 3.58% 3.70% 5.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.56% 4.12% 6.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 66 40 44
10th Percentile £328 £446 £452
25th Percentile £413 £516 £483
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £582
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% -1.20% +5.82%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £640
90th Percentile £725 £653 £671
England median daily rate £500 £505 £485
% change year-on-year -0.99% +4.18% -11.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 6 38
10th Percentile £17.75 £31.67 £28.00
25th Percentile £54.17 £41.26 £47.83
Median hourly rate £67.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.08% - -1.49%
75th Percentile £70.00 £72.50 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £75.00 -
England median hourly rate £55.00 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -12.00% -3.85% -1.49%

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 2,874 1,749 2,252
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 78.52% 89.92% 83.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,630 1,013 1,413
10th Percentile £325 £218 £263
25th Percentile £425 £363 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £623 £619 £630
90th Percentile £725 £700 £700
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 438 222 234
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.00 £14.02
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.51 £40.00
Median hourly rate £62.25 £25.15 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +147.51% -62.74% +7.14%
75th Percentile £69.69 £63.75 £72.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
England median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +2.63%

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 31 August 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 31 August 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 31 August 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 +5 62 £550 +6.02% 53
Somerset -13 21 £525 -17.00% 16
Wiltshire -13 19 £369 -41.00% 25
Devon -10 10 £463 -2.63% 10
Gloucestershire -4 9 £469 +4.17% 32
Dorset -1 8 £449 -18.36% 22
Cornwall - 1 - - 1
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 (2.29%) CMS
1 3 (2.29%) Sitecore CMS
2 2 (1.53%) Apache
2 2 (1.53%) Confluence
3 1 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.76%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.76%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.76%) Palantir Foundry
3 1 (0.76%) SharePoint
Applications
1 7 (5.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (3.05%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (2.29%) MS Visio
4 2 (1.53%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.76%) LaTeX
5 1 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (2.29%) Magento
1 3 (2.29%) SAP CRM
2 2 (1.53%) Oracle Assets
2 2 (1.53%) SAP MM
2 2 (1.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (1.53%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 2 (1.53%) Unit4 Business World
3 1 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.76%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.76%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 1 (0.76%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.76%) Sage 50
3 1 (0.76%) SAP PM
3 1 (0.76%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 30 (22.90%) Azure
2 12 (9.16%) AWS
3 8 (6.11%) GCP
4 7 (5.34%) GitHub
5 6 (4.58%) Dynamics 365
6 5 (3.82%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 5 (3.82%) Azure Monitor
6 5 (3.82%) Azure Sentinel
6 5 (3.82%) GitHub Actions
7 4 (3.05%) Power Platform
8 3 (2.29%) Microsoft 365
8 3 (2.29%) SAP Commerce Cloud
9 2 (1.53%) Azure Data Factory
9 2 (1.53%) Azure DevOps
9 2 (1.53%) Azure Stack
9 2 (1.53%) Entra ID
9 2 (1.53%) Lucidchart
9 2 (1.53%) Power Automate
9 2 (1.53%) PowerApps
9 2 (1.53%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 10 (7.63%) Firewall
2 9 (6.87%) DNS
3 8 (6.11%) DHCP
3 8 (6.11%) TCP/IP
4 6 (4.58%) BGP
5 5 (3.82%) VLAN
5 5 (3.82%) WAN
6 3 (2.29%) Ethernet
7 2 (1.53%) ATM
7 2 (1.53%) Network Security
7 2 (1.53%) VSAN
8 1 (0.76%) Ethernet VPN
8 1 (0.76%) Modbus
8 1 (0.76%) NX-OS
8 1 (0.76%) VXLAN
8 1 (0.76%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (3.82%) Metadata
2 4 (3.05%) Power BI
2 4 (3.05%) SQL Server
3 3 (2.29%) SQLite
4 2 (1.53%) Electronic Patient Records
5 1 (0.76%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.76%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.76%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 8 (6.11%) Rational DOORS
1 8 (6.11%) Rational Rhapsody
2 7 (5.34%) GitLab
3 6 (4.58%) Jenkins
3 6 (4.58%) JIRA
4 3 (2.29%) Eclipse
4 3 (2.29%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.76%) Cucumber
5 1 (0.76%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.76%) Gatling
5 1 (0.76%) Git
5 1 (0.76%) Oracle Forms
5 1 (0.76%) Postman
General
1 45 (34.35%) Social Skills
2 21 (16.03%) Analytical Skills
3 20 (15.27%) Finance
4 11 (8.40%) Public Sector
5 8 (6.11%) Manufacturing
5 8 (6.11%) Military
6 7 (5.34%) Organisational Skills
7 5 (3.82%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (3.05%) Aerospace
8 4 (3.05%) Influencing Skills
8 4 (3.05%) Local Government
9 3 (2.29%) Banking
9 3 (2.29%) Law
9 3 (2.29%) Marketing
10 2 (1.53%) General Ledger
10 2 (1.53%) Investment Banking
10 2 (1.53%) Police
10 2 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (1.53%) Publishing
11 1 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 16 (12.21%) Analyst
2 15 (11.45%) Systems Engineer
3 14 (10.69%) Senior
4 11 (8.40%) Lead
4 11 (8.40%) Test Engineer
5 9 (6.87%) Architect
5 9 (6.87%) Business Analyst
6 7 (5.34%) Administrator
6 7 (5.34%) Consultant
6 7 (5.34%) Software Engineer
6 7 (5.34%) Systems Administrator
7 6 (4.58%) QA Engineer
7 6 (4.58%) Technical Analyst
8 5 (3.82%) Azure Consultant
8 5 (3.82%) Data Architect
8 5 (3.82%) Engineering Specialist
8 5 (3.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 5 (3.82%) QA Test Engineer
8 5 (3.82%) Technical Business Analyst
9 4 (3.05%) Embedded Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (9.16%) Terraform
2 7 (5.34%) Middleware
3 5 (3.82%) REST
4 4 (3.05%) JSON
4 4 (3.05%) XML
5 3 (2.29%) .NET
5 3 (2.29%) .NET Framework
5 3 (2.29%) EDI
5 3 (2.29%) FastAPI
5 3 (2.29%) Node.js
5 3 (2.29%) pydantic
5 3 (2.29%) Web Services
6 2 (1.53%) Oracle Fusion
6 2 (1.53%) Playwright
7 1 (0.76%) Flash
7 1 (0.76%) Handlebars
7 1 (0.76%) Mustache
7 1 (0.76%) RESTful
7 1 (0.76%) XSLT
7 1 (0.76%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 10 (7.63%) Legacy Systems
2 9 (6.87%) Management Information System
3 8 (6.11%) Data Structures
4 5 (3.82%) Data Centre
5 4 (3.05%) Data Protection Act
5 4 (3.05%) Onboarding
6 3 (2.29%) Linux Command Line
6 3 (2.29%) Operational Technology
6 3 (2.29%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (1.53%) Clustering
7 2 (1.53%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (1.53%) Life Science
7 2 (1.53%) NHS
7 2 (1.53%) SCADA
8 1 (0.76%) Enterprise Cloud
8 1 (0.76%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 1 (0.76%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.76%) LIMS
8 1 (0.76%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 17 (12.98%) Windows
2 13 (9.92%) Linux
3 6 (4.58%) Windows Server
4 5 (3.82%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 36 (27.48%) Migration
2 28 (21.37%) Verification and Validation
3 23 (17.56%) Stakeholder Management
4 21 (16.03%) Data Migration
5 20 (15.27%) Problem-Solving
6 18 (13.74%) ERP
7 17 (12.98%) Systems Engineering
8 16 (12.21%) CI/CD
8 16 (12.21%) Data Validation
8 16 (12.21%) User Acceptance Testing
9 14 (10.69%) Continuous Improvement
10 13 (9.92%) Agile
10 13 (9.92%) Data Cleansing
10 13 (9.92%) Infrastructure as Code
11 12 (9.16%) Data Mapping
11 12 (9.16%) Integration Testing
12 11 (8.40%) Configuration Management
12 11 (8.40%) Software Engineering
12 11 (8.40%) System Testing
13 10 (7.63%) Logistics
Programming Languages
1 14 (10.69%) Python
2 12 (9.16%) SQL
3 10 (7.63%) C++
4 7 (5.34%) C
5 4 (3.05%) Ada
5 4 (3.05%) JavaScript
6 3 (2.29%) C#
7 2 (1.53%) Java
7 2 (1.53%) PowerShell
8 1 (0.76%) Kotlin
8 1 (0.76%) PL/SQL
8 1 (0.76%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 34 (25.95%) Security Cleared
2 27 (20.61%) SC Cleared
3 11 (8.40%) Degree
4 4 (3.05%) DV Cleared
5 3 (2.29%) ACCA
5 3 (2.29%) Chartered Engineer
5 3 (2.29%) CIMA
6 2 (1.53%) Azure Certification
6 2 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (1.53%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.76%) CEH
7 1 (0.76%) CIPD
7 1 (0.76%) CompTIA Security+
7 1 (0.76%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.76%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.76%) ISEB
7 1 (0.76%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (10.69%) QA
2 12 (9.16%) Data Quality
3 5 (3.82%) Def Stans
4 4 (3.05%) GDPR
5 2 (1.53%) IFRS
5 2 (1.53%) ISO/IEC 15288
5 2 (1.53%) SNOMED CT
6 1 (0.76%) 21 CFR Part 11
6 1 (0.76%) ARP4761
6 1 (0.76%) DO-254
6 1 (0.76%) GAMP
6 1 (0.76%) GMP
6 1 (0.76%) HL7
6 1 (0.76%) IEC 61508
6 1 (0.76%) JSP 440
6 1 (0.76%) NCSC
6 1 (0.76%) NIST
6 1 (0.76%) SLA
System Software
1 11 (8.40%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (4.58%) Hyper-V
3 5 (3.82%) Active Directory
3 5 (3.82%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (2.29%) VirtualBox
5 2 (1.53%) VMware Workstation
6 1 (0.76%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 1 (0.76%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.76%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 7 (5.34%) Kubernetes
2 6 (4.58%) Ansible
3 5 (3.82%) FortiGate
4 2 (1.53%) Failover Clustering
4 2 (1.53%) VxRail
5 1 (0.76%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 30 (22.90%) Microsoft
2 11 (8.40%) VMware
3 8 (6.11%) IBM
4 6 (4.58%) SAP
5 5 (3.82%) Zscaler
6 4 (3.05%) Oracle
7 3 (2.29%) Atlassian
7 3 (2.29%) ServiceNow
7 3 (2.29%) Sitecore
8 2 (1.53%) Databricks
8 2 (1.53%) MuleSoft
8 2 (1.53%) Sage
8 2 (1.53%) Sparx
9 1 (0.76%) Cisco
9 1 (0.76%) Civica
9 1 (0.76%) Informatica
9 1 (0.76%) InterSystems
9 1 (0.76%) Red Hat
9 1 (0.76%) Salesforce
9 1 (0.76%) Siemens