Validation Job Trends in England

Validation
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in England requiring Validation skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 21 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 126 75 185
Rank change year-on-year -51 +110 -5
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,266 1,509 1,288
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.54% 3.84% 1.52%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.09% 4.12% 1.79%
Number of salaries quoted 746 415 716
10th Percentile £34,500 £40,000 £35,875
25th Percentile £43,500 £46,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.45% - -12.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £93,750 £95,000 £85,000
UK median annual salary £57,500 £56,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +2.68% +1.82% -12.00%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

Validation falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in England.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 60,622 36,670 71,820
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.76% 93.39% 84.79%
Number of salaries quoted 39,997 20,119 53,763
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £29,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £41,250 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £73,410
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,500 £93,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £58,033 £55,000
% change year-on-year +3.39% +5.51% -10.10%

Validation
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Validation relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in England.

Validation job vacancy trend in England

Validation
Salary Trend in England

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing Validation.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing Validation

Validation
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing Validation in England over the 6 months to 21 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Validation in England

Validation
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Validation within the England region over the 6 months to 21 May 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London +65 368 £75,000 +7.14% 294
South East -38 286 £55,000 +7.84% 211
North of England +52 244 £55,000 +15.35% 127
Midlands -82 156 £40,000 -28.89% 90
North West +57 153 £55,000 +15.35% 76
West Midlands -24 99 £44,000 -32.31% 62
East of England -82 96 £60,000 +5.26% 112
South West -52 95 £52,500 -2.78% 108
Yorkshire -10 57 £52,500 +10.53% 34
East Midlands -87 55 £30,000 -42.31% 28
North East -10 34 £52,500 +10.53% 19
Validation
UK

Validation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 46 (3.63%) Apache Airflow
2 32 (2.53%) Apache Spark
3 30 (2.37%) Apache
4 20 (1.58%) Confluence
5 15 (1.18%) Microsoft Exchange
6 10 (0.79%) Appian
6 10 (0.79%) SharePoint
7 8 (0.63%) CMS
8 6 (0.47%) Kinematics
8 6 (0.47%) SAS
9 5 (0.39%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 3 (0.24%) Artix
11 2 (0.16%) IIS
12 1 (0.079%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.079%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.079%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 85 (6.71%) Microsoft Excel
2 51 (4.03%) Microsoft Office
3 17 (1.34%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.95%) Microsoft Project
6 11 (0.87%) Simulink
7 6 (0.47%) SOLIDWORKS
7 6 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.39%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 4 (0.32%) Adobe XD
9 4 (0.32%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.32%) Fusion 360
9 4 (0.32%) Sketch
10 3 (0.24%) Autodesk Inventor
10 3 (0.24%) Productboard
10 3 (0.24%) Solid Edge
11 2 (0.16%) CATIA
11 2 (0.16%) Oracle Smart View
11 2 (0.16%) Stateflow
12 1 (0.079%) Revit
Business Applications
1 28 (2.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.90%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.79%) SAP ERP
4 7 (0.55%) SAP MDG
5 6 (0.47%) Loan IQ
6 5 (0.39%) SAP MDG-BP
7 4 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
8 3 (0.24%) iTrent
8 3 (0.24%) Oracle Applications
8 3 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.16%) Oracle Financials
9 2 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
9 2 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 2 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
9 2 (0.16%) Workday HCM
10 1 (0.079%) Elite 3E
10 1 (0.079%) SAP Business ByDesign
10 1 (0.079%) SAP EHS
10 1 (0.079%) SAP FSCM
10 1 (0.079%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 158 (12.48%) Azure
2 120 (9.48%) Power Platform
3 118 (9.32%) AWS
4 59 (4.66%) GCP
5 57 (4.50%) SaaS
6 44 (3.48%) Azure DevOps
7 38 (3.00%) Serverless
8 34 (2.69%) Microsoft 365
9 31 (2.45%) Amazon S3
10 30 (2.37%) Azure Data Factory
11 28 (2.21%) GitHub
12 26 (2.05%) Snowflake
13 25 (1.97%) Dynamics 365
14 22 (1.74%) Entra ID
14 22 (1.74%) Power Automate
15 19 (1.50%) dbt
16 14 (1.11%) OpenShift
17 13 (1.03%) Anthropic Claude
18 12 (0.95%) Azure AI
18 12 (0.95%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 52 (4.11%) Broadband
2 30 (2.37%) Firewall
3 23 (1.82%) CHAP
3 23 (1.82%) DNS
4 21 (1.66%) WAN
5 17 (1.34%) SD-WAN
6 16 (1.26%) 5G
6 16 (1.26%) Wireless
7 12 (0.95%) TCP/IP
8 11 (0.87%) Network Security
9 10 (0.79%) HTTP
9 10 (0.79%) MQTT
10 9 (0.71%) NAS
10 9 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
11 8 (0.63%) LAN
11 8 (0.63%) VPN
12 7 (0.55%) Ethernet
12 7 (0.55%) Modbus
13 6 (0.47%) Cisco ISE
13 6 (0.47%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (9.24%) Power BI
2 52 (4.11%) Tableau
3 50 (3.95%) SQL Server
4 43 (3.40%) PostgreSQL
5 35 (2.76%) Data Warehouse
6 31 (2.45%) Metadata
7 30 (2.37%) Relational Database
8 24 (1.90%) MongoDB
9 20 (1.58%) Azure SQL Database
9 20 (1.58%) Data Lake
10 19 (1.50%) BigQuery
11 18 (1.42%) Spark SQL
12 16 (1.26%) Oracle Database
12 16 (1.26%) Oracle Reports
13 15 (1.18%) Semantic Layer
14 14 (1.11%) MySQL
14 14 (1.11%) Parquet
15 13 (1.03%) Apache Hive
15 13 (1.03%) Impala
15 13 (1.03%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 69 (5.45%) Git
2 53 (4.19%) JIRA
3 33 (2.61%) Jenkins
4 32 (2.53%) Rational DOORS
5 23 (1.82%) GitLab
6 22 (1.74%) Snyk
7 15 (1.18%) LabVIEW
8 14 (1.11%) MLflow
8 14 (1.11%) Postman
9 13 (1.03%) IBM UrbanCode
10 12 (0.95%) Selenium
11 10 (0.79%) Cucumber
11 10 (0.79%) Eclipse
12 9 (0.71%) JMeter
13 7 (0.55%) TeamCity
14 6 (0.47%) TestRail
15 5 (0.39%) Cypress.io
15 5 (0.39%) LoadRunner
15 5 (0.39%) SonarQube
15 5 (0.39%) SpecFlow
General
1 375 (29.62%) Social Skills
2 318 (25.12%) Finance
3 279 (22.04%) Analytical Skills
4 97 (7.66%) Electronics
5 96 (7.58%) Aerospace
6 88 (6.95%) Manufacturing
7 82 (6.48%) Banking
8 76 (6.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 46 (3.63%) Legal
9 46 (3.63%) Retail
10 45 (3.55%) Law
10 45 (3.55%) Marketing
11 37 (2.92%) Public Sector
12 36 (2.84%) Pharmaceutical
13 32 (2.53%) Financial Institution
13 32 (2.53%) Games
14 29 (2.29%) Organisational Skills
15 28 (2.21%) Presentation Skills
16 22 (1.74%) Automotive
17 21 (1.66%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 217 (17.14%) Senior
2 211 (16.67%) Analyst
3 141 (11.14%) Systems Engineer
4 89 (7.03%) Lead
5 88 (6.95%) Architect
6 87 (6.87%) Test Engineer
7 82 (6.48%) Validation Engineer
8 73 (5.77%) Business Analyst
9 59 (4.66%) Data Analyst
10 56 (4.42%) Data Engineer
11 47 (3.71%) Integration Engineer
12 46 (3.63%) Principal Engineer
13 44 (3.48%) Developer
14 39 (3.08%) Junior
15 36 (2.84%) Systems Integration Engineer
16 35 (2.76%) Senior Systems Engineer
17 34 (2.69%) Consultant
17 34 (2.69%) Verification Engineer
18 32 (2.53%) Embedded Engineer
19 30 (2.37%) Software Validation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (3.32%) REST
2 31 (2.45%) RESTful
3 29 (2.29%) Pandas
4 27 (2.13%) JSON
4 27 (2.13%) pytest
5 25 (1.97%) PySpark
6 24 (1.90%) Middleware
7 22 (1.74%) Kafka
8 19 (1.50%) .NET
8 19 (1.50%) Swagger
9 18 (1.42%) Node.js
9 18 (1.42%) OAuth
9 18 (1.42%) XML
10 16 (1.26%) CSS
10 16 (1.26%) JWT
10 16 (1.26%) Playwright
10 16 (1.26%) PyTorch
10 16 (1.26%) TensorFlow
11 15 (1.18%) NumPy
12 13 (1.03%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 76 (6.00%) Management Information System
2 59 (4.66%) Onboarding
3 45 (3.55%) Cloud Native
4 44 (3.48%) Data Structures
4 44 (3.48%) Low-Code
5 34 (2.69%) Self-Motivation
6 31 (2.45%) Legacy Systems
7 30 (2.37%) Data Centre
8 28 (2.21%) Product Ownership
9 27 (2.13%) Analytical Mindset
9 27 (2.13%) Embedded Systems
10 25 (1.97%) Algorithms
11 24 (1.90%) Life Science
12 23 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
13 22 (1.74%) Video\Live Streaming
14 21 (1.66%) Driving Licence
15 20 (1.58%) Distributed Systems
16 18 (1.42%) Robotics
17 15 (1.18%) FPGA
17 15 (1.18%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 69 (5.45%) Linux
2 53 (4.19%) Windows
3 23 (1.82%) Unix
4 19 (1.50%) Windows Server
5 12 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.87%) Android
7 5 (0.39%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.32%) FreeRTOS
8 4 (0.32%) Mac OS X
9 3 (0.24%) AIX
9 3 (0.24%) Kali Linux
9 3 (0.24%) Robot Operating System
10 2 (0.16%) ThreadX
11 1 (0.079%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.079%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 276 (21.80%) Problem-Solving
2 234 (18.48%) Agile
3 217 (17.14%) Continuous Improvement
4 200 (15.80%) AI
5 197 (15.56%) Verification and Validation
6 194 (15.32%) CI/CD
7 179 (14.14%) Analytics
8 178 (14.06%) Test Automation
9 154 (12.16%) Data Validation
10 138 (10.90%) Business Intelligence
11 134 (10.58%) Data Modelling
12 127 (10.03%) Decision-Making
12 127 (10.03%) Migration
13 126 (9.95%) Data Governance
14 123 (9.72%) Software Engineering
15 122 (9.64%) DevOps
16 113 (8.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 109 (8.61%) Mentoring
18 108 (8.53%) Stakeholder Management
19 106 (8.37%) Systems Engineering
Programming Languages
1 281 (22.20%) Python
2 267 (21.09%) SQL
3 52 (4.11%) C++
4 49 (3.87%) Java
5 45 (3.55%) C
6 39 (3.08%) Go
7 29 (2.29%) C#
7 29 (2.29%) JavaScript
8 27 (2.13%) PowerShell
9 26 (2.05%) Bash
10 24 (1.90%) MATLAB
11 18 (1.42%) T-SQL
12 13 (1.03%) Embedded C
13 12 (0.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 12 (0.95%) TypeScript
14 10 (0.79%) Embedded C++
15 9 (0.71%) VBA
16 8 (0.63%) Scala
17 7 (0.55%) ABAP
18 6 (0.47%) VB
Qualifications
1 277 (21.88%) Degree
2 147 (11.61%) Security Cleared
3 112 (8.85%) BPSS Clearance
4 67 (5.29%) Master's Degree
5 61 (4.82%) SC Cleared
6 38 (3.00%) DV Cleared
7 36 (2.84%) Chartered Engineer
8 35 (2.76%) Computer Science Degree
9 33 (2.61%) CISA
9 33 (2.61%) CISSP
10 30 (2.37%) CISM
11 29 (2.29%) SANS
12 24 (1.90%) HNC
13 23 (1.82%) CGEIT
13 23 (1.82%) FFIEC
14 22 (1.74%) HND
15 16 (1.26%) PMI Certification
16 13 (1.03%) PMP
17 11 (0.87%) ISTQB
18 9 (0.71%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 196 (15.48%) Data Quality
2 120 (9.48%) QA
3 59 (4.66%) GDPR
4 40 (3.16%) GRC
5 38 (3.00%) Accessibility
6 29 (2.29%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 25 (1.97%) NIST
8 24 (1.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 23 (1.82%) COBIT
10 19 (1.50%) IFRS
11 16 (1.26%) SLA
12 15 (1.18%) IEC 61508
13 12 (0.95%) GAAP
13 12 (0.95%) PMO
14 11 (0.87%) GMP
15 10 (0.79%) Good Clinical Practice
16 9 (0.71%) ISO 9001
16 9 (0.71%) WCAG
17 8 (0.63%) ISO 13485
17 8 (0.63%) SOC 2
System Software
1 57 (4.50%) Docker
2 35 (2.76%) Firmware
3 31 (2.45%) Active Directory
4 22 (1.74%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (1.11%) vSphere
6 10 (0.79%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.63%) VMware Infrastructure
8 4 (0.32%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.16%) Terminal Services
9 2 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.079%) iptables
10 1 (0.079%) OpenAM
10 1 (0.079%) OpenDJ
10 1 (0.079%) OpenIDM
Systems Management
1 62 (4.90%) Kubernetes
2 49 (3.87%) Terraform
3 27 (2.13%) Grafana
4 17 (1.34%) Ansible
4 17 (1.34%) Functional Safety
4 17 (1.34%) Prometheus
5 14 (1.11%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
6 11 (0.87%) SCCM
7 8 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
8 7 (0.55%) Cilium
9 4 (0.32%) Argo
9 4 (0.32%) Rancher
9 4 (0.32%) yum
10 3 (0.24%) HP Fortify
10 3 (0.24%) Kibana
10 3 (0.24%) Puppet
11 2 (0.16%) BMC PATROL
11 2 (0.16%) Computer Incident Response Team
11 2 (0.16%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.16%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 167 (13.19%) Microsoft
2 75 (5.92%) Oracle
3 60 (4.74%) SAP
4 44 (3.48%) Salesforce
5 26 (2.05%) Databricks
5 26 (2.05%) Red Hat
6 25 (1.97%) CrowdStrike
7 22 (1.74%) Palo Alto
7 22 (1.74%) ServiceNow
7 22 (1.74%) Tenable
8 20 (1.58%) Adobe
8 20 (1.58%) VMware
9 18 (1.42%) Cisco
10 17 (1.34%) Google
11 14 (1.11%) Citrix
12 13 (1.03%) Foundry
12 13 (1.03%) OpenAI
13 10 (0.79%) Automation Anywhere
13 10 (0.79%) IBM
13 10 (0.79%) UiPath