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 28 August 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Aug 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 53 37 106
Rank change year-on-year -16 +69 -23
DemandTrendContract jobs citing Validation 73 139 54
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South West 3.80% 5.08% 1.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.23% 6.12% 1.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 40 43 24
10th Percentile £446 £451 £413
25th Percentile £516 £476 £459
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £582 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% +5.82% +4.76%
75th Percentile £649 £643 £626
90th Percentile £653 £671 £693
England median daily rate £508 £482 £550
% change year-on-year +5.29% -12.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 38 22
10th Percentile £31.67 £28.00 £54.22
25th Percentile £41.26 £47.83 £56.54
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year - -1.49% +14.75%
75th Percentile £72.50 £72.50 £75.43
90th Percentile £75.00 - £80.00
England median hourly rate £62.50 £65.00 £65.74
% change year-on-year -3.85% -1.13% +19.53%

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.

DemandTrendContract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,725 2,270 2,902
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 89.84% 83.03% 87.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 998 1,432 2,034
10th Percentile £213 £263 £313
25th Percentile £363 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.42% +2.48%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £650
90th Percentile £700 £700 £725
England median daily rate £510 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 220 245 257
10th Percentile £14.98 £13.86 £20.50
25th Percentile £18.51 £36.25 £45.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £67.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -62.74% +3.85% +18.18%
75th Percentile £63.75 £72.50 £76.25
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £83.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -40.82% - +54.55%

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
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 28 August 2025.

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 28 August 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Validation in the South West

Validation
DemandTrendContract 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 28 August 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
DemandTrendContract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Bristol -8 28 £519 - 49
Wiltshire -5 22 £625 +7.11% 5
Gloucestershire +14 10 £450 +12.50% 24
Somerset -6 5 £633 - 15
Dorset +2 3 £550 -8.33% 3
Devon -3 1 £400 -15.79% 1
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 16 (21.92%) Confluence
2 2 (2.74%) Documentum
Applications
1 11 (15.07%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (2.74%) Simulink
3 1 (1.37%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (1.37%) NASTRAN
3 1 (1.37%) Siemens NX
3 1 (1.37%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 2 (2.74%) Oracle Payroll
1 2 (2.74%) SAP S/4HANA
1 2 (2.74%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 8 (10.96%) PaaS
1 8 (10.96%) SaaS
2 6 (8.22%) AWS
3 4 (5.48%) Azure
4 3 (4.11%) Azure DevOps
4 3 (4.11%) Power Platform
5 2 (2.74%) OCI
6 1 (1.37%) GCP
6 1 (1.37%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 10 (13.70%) BGP
2 8 (10.96%) MPLS
2 8 (10.96%) PBX
2 8 (10.96%) Unified Communications
2 8 (10.96%) VoIP
3 7 (9.59%) DNS
3 7 (9.59%) IPsec
3 7 (9.59%) VPN
4 5 (6.85%) Firewall
5 4 (5.48%) 5G
6 3 (4.11%) LTE
7 2 (2.74%) Cisco IOS
7 2 (2.74%) Cisco Nexus
7 2 (2.74%) DMVPN
7 2 (2.74%) Ethernet
7 2 (2.74%) OSPF
7 2 (2.74%) TCP/IP
7 2 (2.74%) VXLAN
8 1 (1.37%) 4G
8 1 (1.37%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (4.11%) Power BI
2 2 (2.74%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (2.74%) SAP BW
2 2 (2.74%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 16 (21.92%) JIRA
2 7 (9.59%) Jenkins
3 5 (6.85%) Bitbucket
3 5 (6.85%) Git
4 4 (5.48%) Cucumber
4 4 (5.48%) Cypress.io
5 2 (2.74%) Eclipse
5 2 (2.74%) Rational Statemate
5 2 (2.74%) Visual Studio
6 1 (1.37%) Oracle APEX
General
1 24 (32.88%) Social Skills
2 14 (19.18%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (15.07%) Public Sector
4 10 (13.70%) Aerospace
5 8 (10.96%) Telecoms
6 4 (5.48%) Military
7 2 (2.74%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (2.74%) Finance
8 1 (1.37%) Aviation
8 1 (1.37%) Banking
8 1 (1.37%) General Ledger
8 1 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 11 (15.07%) Network Engineer
2 10 (13.70%) Lead
3 7 (9.59%) Systems Engineer
4 6 (8.22%) Test Leader
5 5 (6.85%) Virtualisation Engineer
6 4 (5.48%) Analyst
6 4 (5.48%) Architect
6 4 (5.48%) Data Engineer
6 4 (5.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 4 (5.48%) Senior
6 4 (5.48%) Software Engineer
7 3 (4.11%) Automation Engineer
7 3 (4.11%) Core Network Project Manager
7 3 (4.11%) Data Migration Lead
7 3 (4.11%) Developer
7 3 (4.11%) Mobile Project Manager
7 3 (4.11%) Network Manager
7 3 (4.11%) Network Project Manager
7 3 (4.11%) Project Manager
8 2 (2.74%) Migration Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (9.59%) NETCONF
1 7 (9.59%) RESTCONF
2 5 (6.85%) Flash
2 5 (6.85%) REST
2 5 (6.85%) SOAP
3 2 (2.74%) Node.js
3 2 (2.74%) Spine.js
3 2 (2.74%) Web Services
4 1 (1.37%) PySpark
4 1 (1.37%) PyTorch
4 1 (1.37%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 8 (10.96%) Blackberry
1 8 (10.96%) Video Conferencing
2 7 (9.59%) PKI
3 6 (8.22%) Data Centre
4 5 (6.85%) Clustering
5 4 (5.48%) CMDB
5 4 (5.48%) Legacy Systems
5 4 (5.48%) SCADA
6 3 (4.11%) Algorithms
6 3 (4.11%) Replication
7 2 (2.74%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (2.74%) Management Information System
7 2 (2.74%) Operational Technology
8 1 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
8 1 (1.37%) Data Structures
8 1 (1.37%) FPGA
8 1 (1.37%) Robotics
8 1 (1.37%) Verilog
Operating Systems
1 10 (13.70%) Linux
2 7 (9.59%) Windows
3 5 (6.85%) Windows Server
4 2 (2.74%) Windows Server 2003
5 1 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (27.40%) Migration
2 19 (26.03%) Service Management
2 19 (26.03%) System Testing
3 18 (24.66%) NsoIT
4 16 (21.92%) Agile
5 14 (19.18%) Network Virtualisation
5 14 (19.18%) Problem-Solving
6 11 (15.07%) Critical Thinking
6 11 (15.07%) Roadmaps
7 9 (12.33%) DevOps
8 8 (10.96%) Commercial Awareness
8 8 (10.96%) Data Validation
8 8 (10.96%) Impact Assessments
8 8 (10.96%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 8 (10.96%) Root Cause Analysis
9 7 (9.59%) Cost Reduction
9 7 (9.59%) Customer Requirements
9 7 (9.59%) Product Roadmap
9 7 (9.59%) Service Design
9 7 (9.59%) Thought Leadership
Programming Languages
1 20 (27.40%) Python
2 7 (9.59%) JavaScript
3 5 (6.85%) Bash
3 5 (6.85%) PowerShell
3 5 (6.85%) SQL
4 4 (5.48%) Java
5 3 (4.11%) C++
6 2 (2.74%) ABAP
6 2 (2.74%) C#
6 2 (2.74%) MATLAB
6 2 (2.74%) Tcl
7 1 (1.37%) Assembly Language
7 1 (1.37%) C
7 1 (1.37%) Perl
7 1 (1.37%) PL/SQL
7 1 (1.37%) Shell Script
7 1 (1.37%) SystemVerilog
7 1 (1.37%) VBA
Qualifications
1 45 (61.64%) Security Cleared
2 38 (52.05%) SC Cleared
3 26 (35.62%) Cisco Certification
4 22 (30.14%) CCNP
5 19 (26.03%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 13 (17.81%) Degree
7 11 (15.07%) DV Cleared
8 9 (12.33%) BPSS Clearance
9 4 (5.48%) CCNA
9 4 (5.48%) Master's Degree
9 4 (5.48%) OCA
9 4 (5.48%) Oracle Certification
9 4 (5.48%) RHCA
9 4 (5.48%) RHCE
10 1 (1.37%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (2.74%) Data Quality
2 1 (1.37%) Cyber Essentials
2 1 (1.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
2 1 (1.37%) GDPR
2 1 (1.37%) ISO 22301
2 1 (1.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.37%) NIST
2 1 (1.37%) QA
2 1 (1.37%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 26 (35.62%) VMware Infrastructure
2 12 (16.44%) VMware ESXi
3 5 (6.85%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 12 (16.44%) Ansible
2 11 (15.07%) vCenter Server
3 5 (6.85%) Progress Chef
3 5 (6.85%) Puppet
Vendors
1 26 (35.62%) Cisco
1 26 (35.62%) VMware
2 13 (17.81%) Atlassian
3 8 (10.96%) Avaya
3 8 (10.96%) Ericsson
3 8 (10.96%) F5
3 8 (10.96%) Juniper
3 8 (10.96%) Nokia
3 8 (10.96%) Oracle
3 8 (10.96%) Palo Alto
3 8 (10.96%) Ribbon
4 4 (5.48%) Microsoft
4 4 (5.48%) ServiceNow
5 3 (4.11%) SAP
6 2 (2.74%) EMC
6 2 (2.74%) McAfee
6 2 (2.74%) Sophos
7 1 (1.37%) Google
7 1 (1.37%) Siemens
7 1 (1.37%) Twitter