Validation Contracts in the Thames Valley

Validation
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the Thames Valley 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 40 95 102
Rank change year-on-year +55 +7 -6
DemandTrendContract jobs citing Validation 83 30 39
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 5.02% 1.32% 1.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.49% 1.56% 1.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 51 13 26
10th Percentile £325 £270 £400
25th Percentile £400 £330 £477
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £375 £525
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% -28.57% -2.96%
75th Percentile £575 £450 £604
90th Percentile £620 £526 £619
South East median daily rate £500 £488 £531
% change year-on-year +2.56% -8.24% +1.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 2 3
10th Percentile £34.86 - -
25th Percentile £49.41 - -
Median hourly rate £60.00 £65.00 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% +364.29% -
75th Percentile £66.25 - £19.75
90th Percentile £73.00 - £23.20
South East median hourly rate £56.25 £76.86 £57.50
% change year-on-year -26.81% +33.67% +27.78%

All Process and Methodology Skills
Thames Valley

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 Thames Valley.

DemandTrendContract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,511 1,923 2,516
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 91.35% 84.86% 90.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 909 1,090 1,699
10th Percentile £300 £265 £300
25th Percentile £400 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £524
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -2.10% +4.70%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £688 £688 £700
South East median daily rate £500 £517 £520
% change year-on-year -3.34% -0.53% +3.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 105 103 84
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.90 £16.30
25th Percentile £15.12 £24.25 £24.88
Median hourly rate £25.15 £58.05 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -56.67% +16.09% +156.41%
75th Percentile £40.65 £68.59 £66.00
90th Percentile £75.10 £85.99 £74.94
South East median hourly rate £23.00 £57.35 £50.00
% change year-on-year -59.90% +14.70% +80.31%

Validation
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Job postings citing Validation as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

Job vacancy trend for Validation in the Thames Valley

Validation
Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Validation.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Validation

Validation
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Validation in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 28 August 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Validation in the Thames Valley

Validation
Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Validation.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Validation

Validation
Hourly Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Validation in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 28 August 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Validation in the Thames Valley

Validation
DemandTrendContract Job Locations in the Thames Valley

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Validation within the Thames Valley 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
Berkshire +53 60 £518 +33.55% 59
Buckinghamshire +23 19 £375 - 11
Oxfordshire -11 4 £475 +35.71% 13
Validation
South East

Validation
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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 4 (4.82%) Apache Airflow
1 4 (4.82%) OpenStack
2 3 (3.61%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 3 (3.61%) Smallworld
3 2 (2.41%) ArcGIS
3 2 (2.41%) Confluence
3 2 (2.41%) Oracle Spatial
3 2 (2.41%) SharePoint
4 1 (1.20%) Apache Spark
4 1 (1.20%) Jupyter
4 1 (1.20%) SAS
Applications
1 1 (1.20%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (1.20%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (1.20%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (9.64%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (2.41%) Oracle EBS R12
2 2 (2.41%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (1.20%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (1.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (1.20%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 16 (19.28%) AWS
2 10 (12.05%) Azure
3 9 (10.84%) Azure DevOps
4 6 (7.23%) Power Platform
5 4 (4.82%) Cloud Computing
5 4 (4.82%) dbt
5 4 (4.82%) GCP
5 4 (4.82%) OpenShift
6 3 (3.61%) Microsoft 365
6 3 (3.61%) OCI
7 2 (2.41%) Miro
7 2 (2.41%) SaaS
7 2 (2.41%) Serverless
8 1 (1.20%) Amazon S3
8 1 (1.20%) Amazon SageMaker
8 1 (1.20%) Azure Data Factory
8 1 (1.20%) Azure Logic Apps
8 1 (1.20%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 1 (1.20%) PaaS
8 1 (1.20%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 4 (4.82%) BGP
1 4 (4.82%) LAN
1 4 (4.82%) MPLS
1 4 (4.82%) OSPF
1 4 (4.82%) SNMP
1 4 (4.82%) TACACS
1 4 (4.82%) WAN
1 4 (4.82%) Wireless
2 3 (3.61%) Broadband
3 2 (2.41%) 5G
3 2 (2.41%) Diameter Protocol
3 2 (2.41%) Firewall
3 2 (2.41%) SIGTRAN
3 2 (2.41%) SMS
3 2 (2.41%) SS7
3 2 (2.41%) VoLTE
3 2 (2.41%) VoWiFi
3 2 (2.41%) Wireshark
4 1 (1.20%) PuTTY
4 1 (1.20%) RS-232
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (8.43%) Oracle Reports
2 6 (7.23%) NoSQL
2 6 (7.23%) Power BI
3 5 (6.02%) Data Warehouse
3 5 (6.02%) Relational Database
4 4 (4.82%) Tableau
5 3 (3.61%) BusinessObjects
5 3 (3.61%) Data Lake
5 3 (3.61%) GIS
5 3 (3.61%) Metadata
5 3 (3.61%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 3 (3.61%) Spatial Data
5 3 (3.61%) SQL Server
6 2 (2.41%) MS Access
7 1 (1.20%) Amazon RDS
7 1 (1.20%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (1.20%) Data Vault
7 1 (1.20%) MySQL
7 1 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
7 1 (1.20%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 14 (16.87%) JIRA
2 3 (3.61%) Git
2 3 (3.61%) Jenkins
3 2 (2.41%) QARun
3 2 (2.41%) Selenium
3 2 (2.41%) WinRunner
4 1 (1.20%) Bitbucket
4 1 (1.20%) GitLab
4 1 (1.20%) LabVIEW
4 1 (1.20%) Maven
4 1 (1.20%) MLflow
4 1 (1.20%) MSTest
4 1 (1.20%) NUnit
4 1 (1.20%) SpecFlow
4 1 (1.20%) TeamCity
4 1 (1.20%) Toad
4 1 (1.20%) WebDriver
General
1 38 (45.78%) Social Skills
2 23 (27.71%) Analytical Skills
3 13 (15.66%) Telecoms
4 6 (7.23%) Documentation Skills
5 4 (4.82%) Finance
6 3 (3.61%) Manufacturing
7 2 (2.41%) Aerospace
7 2 (2.41%) Avionics
7 2 (2.41%) Legal
7 2 (2.41%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (1.20%) Automotive
8 1 (1.20%) Banking
8 1 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (1.20%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (1.20%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 16 (19.28%) Analyst
2 9 (10.84%) Senior
3 7 (8.43%) DevOps Engineer
3 7 (8.43%) Test Analyst
4 6 (7.23%) Cloud Engineer
4 6 (7.23%) Consultant
4 6 (7.23%) Tester
4 6 (7.23%) VMware Engineer
5 5 (6.02%) AWS DevOps
5 5 (6.02%) AWS DevOps Engineer
5 5 (6.02%) AWS Engineer
5 5 (6.02%) Data Analyst
5 5 (6.02%) Lead
5 5 (6.02%) Senior Analyst
6 4 (4.82%) Architect
6 4 (4.82%) Data Engineer
6 4 (4.82%) Designer
6 4 (4.82%) Developer
6 4 (4.82%) IP Designer
6 4 (4.82%) Senior Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (7.23%) Web Services
2 4 (4.82%) Middleware
3 3 (3.61%) Oracle Fusion
4 2 (2.41%) CSS
4 2 (2.41%) Jest
4 2 (2.41%) PostGIS
4 2 (2.41%) React
4 2 (2.41%) Sass
5 1 (1.20%) JSON
5 1 (1.20%) Kafka
5 1 (1.20%) PyTorch
5 1 (1.20%) SAP Fiori
5 1 (1.20%) SAP PI
5 1 (1.20%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 5 (6.02%) Data Centre
1 5 (6.02%) Data Structures
2 4 (4.82%) Hybrid Cloud
2 4 (4.82%) Product Ownership
3 3 (3.61%) SCADA
4 2 (2.41%) Analytical Mindset
4 2 (2.41%) Cloud Native
4 2 (2.41%) Onboarding
4 2 (2.41%) Virtual Team
5 1 (1.20%) Algorithms
5 1 (1.20%) Credit Risk
5 1 (1.20%) EPoS
5 1 (1.20%) FPGA
5 1 (1.20%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (1.20%) Private Cloud
5 1 (1.20%) Public Cloud
5 1 (1.20%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 9 (10.84%) Windows
2 4 (4.82%) Linux
3 3 (3.61%) Unix
4 1 (1.20%) VMS
4 1 (1.20%) Windows 7
4 1 (1.20%) Windows Server
4 1 (1.20%) Windows Server 2008
4 1 (1.20%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (28.92%) Problem-Solving
2 20 (24.10%) DevOps
3 16 (19.28%) Test Automation
4 14 (16.87%) Agile
5 13 (15.66%) Data Migration
5 13 (15.66%) Migration
6 12 (14.46%) CI/CD
6 12 (14.46%) End-to-End Testing
7 10 (12.05%) Verification and Validation
8 9 (10.84%) Test Strategy
9 8 (9.64%) Business Intelligence
9 8 (9.64%) Data Modelling
9 8 (9.64%) Data Validation
9 8 (9.64%) Defect Management
9 8 (9.64%) Integration Testing
9 8 (9.64%) Scenario Testing
9 8 (9.64%) System Integration Testing
9 8 (9.64%) Test Scripting
9 8 (9.64%) Waterfall
10 7 (8.43%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 21 (25.30%) SQL
2 17 (20.48%) Python
3 8 (9.64%) PL/SQL
4 4 (4.82%) C#
5 3 (3.61%) Perl
6 2 (2.41%) Java
6 2 (2.41%) Magik
6 2 (2.41%) TypeScript
6 2 (2.41%) VB
7 1 (1.20%) C
7 1 (1.20%) Embedded C
7 1 (1.20%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 17 (20.48%) Security Cleared
2 12 (14.46%) SC Cleared
3 10 (12.05%) AWS Certification
4 8 (9.64%) Degree
5 5 (6.02%) DV Cleared
5 5 (6.02%) Master's Degree
6 4 (4.82%) CCIE
6 4 (4.82%) Cisco Certification
6 4 (4.82%) JNCIE
7 1 (1.20%) CISM
7 1 (1.20%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (13.25%) QA
2 9 (10.84%) Data Quality
3 4 (4.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (3.61%) GDPR
4 3 (3.61%) NIST
4 3 (3.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 2 (2.41%) COBIT
5 2 (2.41%) ISO 9001
5 2 (2.41%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 1 (1.20%) EU AI Act
6 1 (1.20%) GRC
6 1 (1.20%) IFRS
6 1 (1.20%) IFRS 9
6 1 (1.20%) PMO
6 1 (1.20%) RMADS
System Software
1 6 (7.23%) VMware ESXi
1 6 (7.23%) VMware Infrastructure
1 6 (7.23%) vSphere
2 4 (4.82%) VMware NSX
3 1 (1.20%) Active Directory
3 1 (1.20%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 6 (7.23%) Terraform
2 4 (4.82%) Ansible
3 1 (1.20%) Kubeflow
3 1 (1.20%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 14 (16.87%) Oracle
2 12 (14.46%) VMware
3 8 (9.64%) Microsoft
4 5 (6.02%) Cisco
4 5 (6.02%) F5
5 4 (4.82%) Fortinet
5 4 (4.82%) Juniper
5 4 (4.82%) ServiceNow
5 4 (4.82%) Virgin Media
6 3 (3.61%) Databricks
6 3 (3.61%) ESRI
7 2 (2.41%) Citrix
7 2 (2.41%) Remedy
7 2 (2.41%) Splunk
8 1 (1.20%) BMC
8 1 (1.20%) CheckPoint
8 1 (1.20%) Isilon
8 1 (1.20%) NetApp
8 1 (1.20%) Siemens
8 1 (1.20%) Veeam