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

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 80 179
Rank change year-on-year -5 +99 +26
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,935 1,589 1,078
As % of all permanent jobs in England 2.01% 3.63% 1.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.73% 4.08% 1.82%
Number of salaries quoted 1,174 480 461
10th Percentile £35,000 £38,750 £36,875
25th Percentile £42,500 £41,250 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £56,500 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.73% -8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £73,563 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £88,450 £92,750 £93,750
UK median annual salary £56,500 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +2.73% -8.33% -7.69%

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 70,812 38,908 59,129
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.46% 88.91% 81.00%
Number of salaries quoted 50,212 22,532 37,613
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £42,000 £37,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £56,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -1.79% -10.40%
75th Percentile £80,000 £76,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.33%

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 26 August 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 26 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London +65 514 £70,000 -12.50% 409
South East -19 441 £59,490 +13.31% 224
North of England +95 404 £55,000 +15.79% 167
North West +99 239 £55,000 +15.35% 91
Midlands -46 215 £47,122 -14.32% 130
South West -1 183 £55,000 +4.56% 186
East of England -63 145 £58,750 +23.68% 129
West Midlands +17 118 £46,110 -16.16% 88
East Midlands -62 96 £48,372 +13.82% 42
North East +4 83 £55,000 +57.14% 36
Yorkshire +11 82 £43,000 +1.18% 42
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 47 (2.43%) Apache Airflow
2 45 (2.33%) Apache Spark
3 43 (2.22%) Apache
4 32 (1.65%) Confluence
5 31 (1.60%) SharePoint
6 18 (0.93%) Jupyter
7 13 (0.67%) SAS
8 9 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
9 6 (0.31%) WinCC
10 5 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 5 (0.26%) CMS
11 4 (0.21%) Kinematics
12 3 (0.16%) Artix
12 3 (0.16%) IIS
12 3 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.10%) Cloud Foundry
14 1 (0.052%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.052%) OpenStack
14 1 (0.052%) Oracle Workflow
14 1 (0.052%) WebSphere
Applications
1 115 (5.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 61 (3.15%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (1.81%) Microsoft Project
3 35 (1.81%) Simulink
4 16 (0.83%) MS Visio
4 16 (0.83%) Spreadsheet
5 13 (0.67%) SOLIDWORKS
6 11 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 10 (0.52%) AutoCAD
8 5 (0.26%) Mathcad
9 4 (0.21%) Adobe XD
9 4 (0.21%) OrCAD
9 4 (0.21%) Revit
9 4 (0.21%) Sketch
10 3 (0.16%) Autodesk Inventor
10 3 (0.16%) LaTeX
10 3 (0.16%) Productboard
10 3 (0.16%) Stateflow
11 2 (0.10%) EPLAN
11 2 (0.10%) Navisworks
Business Applications
1 38 (1.96%) Dynamics CRM
2 37 (1.91%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (0.52%) SAP MDG
4 9 (0.47%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.41%) Oracle Applications
5 8 (0.41%) SAP ERP
6 7 (0.36%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.31%) Workday HCM
8 5 (0.26%) Elite 3E
8 5 (0.26%) iTrent
8 5 (0.26%) Loan IQ
8 5 (0.26%) SAP MDG-BP
9 4 (0.21%) Oracle Financials
9 4 (0.21%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
10 3 (0.16%) SystmOne
10 3 (0.16%) Teamcenter
11 2 (0.10%) Oracle Payables
11 2 (0.10%) Oracle Receivables
11 2 (0.10%) Refinitiv Enterprise Platform
Cloud Services
1 258 (13.33%) Azure
2 232 (11.99%) AWS
3 156 (8.06%) Power Platform
4 85 (4.39%) GCP
5 67 (3.46%) SaaS
6 62 (3.20%) Microsoft 365
7 58 (3.00%) Azure DevOps
8 52 (2.69%) GitHub
9 44 (2.27%) Serverless
10 38 (1.96%) Amazon S3
11 33 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
12 31 (1.60%) Entra ID
13 28 (1.45%) Microsoft Copilot
14 27 (1.40%) GitHub Actions
15 22 (1.14%) Amazon EMR
16 21 (1.09%) Amazon EC2
17 20 (1.03%) Cloud Computing
18 19 (0.98%) Microsoft Purview
18 19 (0.98%) PowerApps
18 19 (0.98%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 62 (3.20%) Broadband
2 59 (3.05%) DNS
3 58 (3.00%) Firewall
4 33 (1.71%) Network Security
5 32 (1.65%) Wireless
6 30 (1.55%) TCP/IP
6 30 (1.55%) WAN
7 29 (1.50%) VPN
8 24 (1.24%) Ethernet
9 22 (1.14%) LAN
10 20 (1.03%) SD-WAN
11 18 (0.93%) MQTT
12 17 (0.88%) VLAN
12 17 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
13 16 (0.83%) BGP
13 16 (0.83%) Modbus
13 16 (0.83%) OSPF
14 15 (0.78%) Wireshark
15 14 (0.72%) HTTP
16 13 (0.67%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 145 (7.49%) Power BI
2 55 (2.84%) Data Warehouse
3 52 (2.69%) PostgreSQL
4 45 (2.33%) Metadata
4 45 (2.33%) SQL Server
5 40 (2.07%) Data Lake
6 38 (1.96%) Tableau
7 34 (1.76%) MongoDB
8 28 (1.45%) Amazon Athena
8 28 (1.45%) Relational Database
9 25 (1.29%) BigQuery
9 25 (1.29%) DynamoDB
10 22 (1.14%) Semantic Layer
11 21 (1.09%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 19 (0.98%) Azure SQL Database
12 19 (0.98%) MySQL
13 17 (0.88%) Big Data
14 16 (0.83%) NoSQL
15 14 (0.72%) Amazon Redshift
16 13 (0.67%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 117 (6.05%) JIRA
2 100 (5.17%) Git
3 51 (2.64%) Jenkins
4 45 (2.33%) GitLab
5 32 (1.65%) Rational DOORS
6 23 (1.19%) Selenium
7 22 (1.14%) Snyk
8 18 (0.93%) Cypress.io
8 18 (0.93%) LabVIEW
8 18 (0.93%) Postman
9 14 (0.72%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.67%) JMeter
11 10 (0.52%) Burp Suite
11 10 (0.52%) Gatling
11 10 (0.52%) TeamCity
12 8 (0.41%) Rational Rhapsody
12 8 (0.41%) REST Assured
13 7 (0.36%) Hudson
13 7 (0.36%) LoadRunner
13 7 (0.36%) MLflow
General
1 638 (32.97%) Social Skills
2 499 (25.79%) Finance
3 476 (24.60%) Analytical Skills
4 179 (9.25%) Aerospace
5 174 (8.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 172 (8.89%) Manufacturing
7 167 (8.63%) Electronics
8 106 (5.48%) Law
9 96 (4.96%) Banking
10 79 (4.08%) Retail
11 78 (4.03%) Public Sector
12 70 (3.62%) Marketing
13 69 (3.57%) Pharmaceutical
14 66 (3.41%) Organisational Skills
15 55 (2.84%) Automotive
16 52 (2.69%) Legal
17 45 (2.33%) Games
17 45 (2.33%) Telecoms
18 39 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
19 35 (1.81%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 356 (18.40%) Senior
2 244 (12.61%) Analyst
3 192 (9.92%) Systems Engineer
4 161 (8.32%) Lead
5 122 (6.30%) Test Engineer
6 107 (5.53%) Architect
7 96 (4.96%) Data Engineer
8 85 (4.39%) Developer
9 75 (3.88%) Business Analyst
10 70 (3.62%) Software Engineer
11 69 (3.57%) Consultant
12 63 (3.26%) Principal Engineer
12 63 (3.26%) Validation Engineer
13 62 (3.20%) Data Analyst
14 49 (2.53%) Support Engineer
15 47 (2.43%) Data Scientist
15 47 (2.43%) Embedded Engineer
16 43 (2.22%) Network Engineer
17 41 (2.12%) IT Manager
18 40 (2.07%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (3.67%) Terraform
2 48 (2.48%) RESTful
3 46 (2.38%) Kafka
4 40 (2.07%) REST
5 36 (1.86%) Node.js
6 30 (1.55%) JSON
7 28 (1.45%) .NET
8 27 (1.40%) LDAP
8 27 (1.40%) XML
9 26 (1.34%) Playwright
9 26 (1.34%) PySpark
10 25 (1.29%) Middleware
11 23 (1.19%) CSS
12 22 (1.14%) HTML
13 21 (1.09%) ModSecurity
14 20 (1.03%) FastAPI
15 19 (0.98%) OAuth
15 19 (0.98%) Regular Expression
15 19 (0.98%) XMPP
16 18 (0.93%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 139 (7.18%) Cloud Native
2 122 (6.30%) Onboarding
3 107 (5.53%) Management Information System
4 73 (3.77%) Data Centre
5 71 (3.67%) Product Ownership
6 56 (2.89%) Enterprise Software
7 55 (2.84%) Data Structures
7 55 (2.84%) Driving Licence
8 54 (2.79%) Distributed Systems
8 54 (2.79%) Embedded Systems
9 48 (2.48%) Low-Code
10 45 (2.33%) Algorithms
11 41 (2.12%) Life Science
12 39 (2.02%) Analytical Mindset
13 35 (1.81%) Video\Live Streaming
14 34 (1.76%) AI Agents
14 34 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
14 34 (1.76%) Robotics
15 30 (1.55%) SCADA
16 28 (1.45%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 125 (6.46%) Linux
2 90 (4.65%) Windows
3 35 (1.81%) Windows Server
4 20 (1.03%) Unix
5 19 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.52%) Android
7 9 (0.47%) Embedded Linux
8 6 (0.31%) FreeRTOS
9 5 (0.26%) Kali Linux
9 5 (0.26%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.21%) Mac OS X
11 3 (0.16%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.10%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.10%) ThreadX
12 2 (0.10%) VMS
12 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.052%) AIX
13 1 (0.052%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 495 (25.58%) Problem-Solving
2 445 (23.00%) Continuous Improvement
3 381 (19.69%) Agile
4 345 (17.83%) AI
5 290 (14.99%) CI/CD
6 279 (14.42%) Verification and Validation
7 254 (13.13%) Stakeholder Management
8 251 (12.97%) Test Automation
9 238 (12.30%) Migration
10 232 (11.99%) Analytics
11 218 (11.27%) Mentoring
12 205 (10.59%) Decision-Making
12 205 (10.59%) Software Engineering
13 189 (9.77%) DevOps
14 179 (9.25%) Business Intelligence
15 172 (8.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 170 (8.79%) Machine Learning
17 166 (8.58%) Data Analysis
18 164 (8.48%) Roadmaps
19 158 (8.17%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 421 (21.76%) Python
2 360 (18.60%) SQL
3 85 (4.39%) C++
4 82 (4.24%) Java
5 77 (3.98%) C
6 59 (3.05%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.84%) Go
8 48 (2.48%) MATLAB
9 45 (2.33%) C#
10 30 (1.55%) Bash
11 28 (1.45%) PowerShell
12 25 (1.29%) Embedded C
13 22 (1.14%) Scala
14 18 (0.93%) Embedded C++
15 17 (0.88%) TypeScript
16 15 (0.78%) R
17 12 (0.62%) T-SQL
18 10 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 8 (0.41%) ABAP
19 8 (0.41%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 410 (21.19%) Degree
2 360 (18.60%) Security Cleared
3 234 (12.09%) SC Cleared
4 114 (5.89%) BPSS Clearance
5 97 (5.01%) DV Cleared
6 85 (4.39%) Master's Degree
7 43 (2.22%) Computer Science Degree
8 36 (1.86%) CISSP
9 31 (1.60%) PhD
10 30 (1.55%) PMI Certification
11 29 (1.50%) Chartered Engineer
12 28 (1.45%) CISM
12 28 (1.45%) HNC
13 26 (1.34%) HND
14 24 (1.24%) ACCA
14 24 (1.24%) AWS Certification
15 23 (1.19%) Azure Certification
15 23 (1.19%) CIMA
16 18 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
16 18 (0.93%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 294 (15.19%) Data Quality
2 269 (13.90%) QA
3 66 (3.41%) Accessibility
4 51 (2.64%) GDPR
5 37 (1.91%) GRC
6 25 (1.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 23 (1.19%) IEC 61508
8 21 (1.09%) GxP
9 19 (0.98%) NIST
10 18 (0.93%) PMO
11 16 (0.83%) SLA
12 15 (0.78%) ISO 26262
13 14 (0.72%) GAAP
13 14 (0.72%) IFRS
14 13 (0.67%) ISO 9001
14 13 (0.67%) WCAG
15 11 (0.57%) GMP
15 11 (0.57%) SOC 2
16 9 (0.47%) Def Stans
17 8 (0.41%) MISRA C
System Software
1 77 (3.98%) Docker
2 71 (3.67%) Firmware
3 47 (2.43%) Active Directory
4 33 (1.71%) Embedded Firmware
5 28 (1.45%) Virtual Machines
6 21 (1.09%) vSphere
7 10 (0.52%) VMware Infrastructure
8 4 (0.21%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.16%) KVM
10 2 (0.10%) iptables
10 2 (0.10%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.10%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.052%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.052%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 77 (3.98%) Kubernetes
2 40 (2.07%) Grafana
3 26 (1.34%) Functional Safety
4 23 (1.19%) Ansible
5 15 (0.78%) Prometheus
5 15 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (0.52%) Cilium
7 7 (0.36%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 7 (0.36%) Kibana
7 7 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
8 6 (0.31%) Nessus
8 6 (0.31%) Nmap
8 6 (0.31%) Puppet
9 5 (0.26%) FortiGate
9 5 (0.26%) SCCM
9 5 (0.26%) WMI
10 4 (0.21%) HP Fortify
10 4 (0.21%) Kubeflow
11 2 (0.10%) Argo
11 2 (0.10%) kaniko
Vendors
1 259 (13.39%) Microsoft
2 109 (5.63%) SAP
3 94 (4.86%) Oracle
4 54 (2.79%) Salesforce
5 51 (2.64%) Databricks
6 47 (2.43%) ServiceNow
7 46 (2.38%) Cisco
8 37 (1.91%) Google
9 29 (1.50%) CrowdStrike
9 29 (1.50%) VMware
10 26 (1.34%) Palo Alto
11 25 (1.29%) EMC
11 25 (1.29%) Red Hat
12 22 (1.14%) Tenable
13 15 (0.78%) McAfee
13 15 (0.78%) Workday
14 14 (0.72%) IBM
14 14 (0.72%) Splunk
15 12 (0.62%) Okta
15 12 (0.62%) Remedy