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 27 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 76 189
Rank change year-on-year -51 +113 -8
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,302 1,483 1,283
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.57% 3.91% 1.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.12% 4.18% 1.77%
Number of salaries quoted 774 391 715
10th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £36,100
25th Percentile £43,563 £46,250 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.68% +1.82% -12.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £93,375 £95,000 £85,000
UK median annual salary £56,500 £57,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -0.88% +3.64% -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 61,348 35,444 72,599
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.96% 93.35% 84.02%
Number of salaries quoted 40,742 18,936 54,252
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,750 £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 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,500 £93,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £58,375 £55,000
% change year-on-year +2.78% +6.14% -9.84%

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 27 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 27 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 +77 372 £75,000 - 340
South East -39 294 £55,000 +4.76% 195
North of England +71 259 £55,000 +15.35% 155
Midlands -81 164 £40,000 -30.43% 103
North West +55 162 £55,000 +15.35% 90
West Midlands -14 101 £43,250 -33.46% 63
East of England -87 99 £60,000 +5.26% 93
South West -49 93 £52,500 -3.67% 101
East Midlands -89 61 £30,000 -42.31% 40
Yorkshire -5 60 £51,250 +7.89% 45
North East -7 37 £52,500 -25.00% 20
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 (3.61%) Apache Airflow
2 33 (2.53%) Apache Spark
3 32 (2.46%) Apache
4 21 (1.61%) Confluence
5 15 (1.15%) Microsoft Exchange
6 11 (0.84%) SharePoint
7 9 (0.69%) Appian
8 8 (0.61%) CMS
9 7 (0.54%) Jupyter
10 6 (0.46%) Kinematics
10 6 (0.46%) SAS
11 5 (0.38%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.23%) Artix
13 2 (0.15%) IIS
14 1 (0.077%) Anypoint
14 1 (0.077%) ArcGIS
14 1 (0.077%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 85 (6.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 49 (3.76%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (1.46%) MS Visio
4 15 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (1.15%) Microsoft Project
5 13 (1.00%) Simulink
6 8 (0.61%) SOLIDWORKS
7 6 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.38%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 5 (0.38%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.31%) Adobe XD
9 4 (0.31%) Sketch
10 3 (0.23%) Autodesk Inventor
10 3 (0.23%) Fusion 360
10 3 (0.23%) Productboard
10 3 (0.23%) Solid Edge
11 2 (0.15%) CATIA
11 2 (0.15%) Stateflow
12 1 (0.077%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.077%) Revit
Business Applications
1 28 (2.15%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (2.00%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.77%) SAP ERP
4 7 (0.54%) SAP MDG
5 6 (0.46%) Loan IQ
6 5 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
6 5 (0.38%) SAP MDG-BP
7 4 (0.31%) iTrent
8 3 (0.23%) Oracle Applications
8 3 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
8 3 (0.23%) Oracle Financials
9 2 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
9 2 (0.15%) Oracle Receivables
10 1 (0.077%) Elite 3E
10 1 (0.077%) NetSuite
10 1 (0.077%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 1 (0.077%) SAP Business ByDesign
10 1 (0.077%) SAP EHS
10 1 (0.077%) SAP FSCM
10 1 (0.077%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 163 (12.52%) Azure
2 129 (9.91%) AWS
3 122 (9.37%) Power Platform
4 60 (4.61%) GCP
5 55 (4.22%) SaaS
6 48 (3.69%) Azure DevOps
7 38 (2.92%) Serverless
8 36 (2.76%) Microsoft 365
9 34 (2.61%) Amazon S3
9 34 (2.61%) GitHub
10 28 (2.15%) Azure Data Factory
11 26 (2.00%) Snowflake
12 25 (1.92%) Dynamics 365
13 22 (1.69%) Entra ID
14 21 (1.61%) Power Automate
15 18 (1.38%) dbt
16 14 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
16 14 (1.08%) OpenShift
17 12 (0.92%) Anthropic Claude
17 12 (0.92%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 52 (3.99%) Broadband
2 34 (2.61%) Firewall
3 24 (1.84%) DNS
4 23 (1.77%) CHAP
5 22 (1.69%) WAN
6 18 (1.38%) SD-WAN
6 18 (1.38%) Wireless
7 16 (1.23%) 5G
8 14 (1.08%) Network Security
9 13 (1.00%) TCP/IP
10 11 (0.84%) HTTP
10 11 (0.84%) MQTT
11 10 (0.77%) VPN
11 10 (0.77%) Wi-Fi
12 9 (0.69%) LAN
12 9 (0.69%) NAS
13 8 (0.61%) Ethernet
14 7 (0.54%) Modbus
15 6 (0.46%) Cisco ISE
15 6 (0.46%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 120 (9.22%) Power BI
2 54 (4.15%) Tableau
3 49 (3.76%) SQL Server
4 44 (3.38%) PostgreSQL
5 35 (2.69%) Data Warehouse
6 31 (2.38%) Relational Database
7 28 (2.15%) Metadata
8 24 (1.84%) MongoDB
9 20 (1.54%) Azure SQL Database
9 20 (1.54%) Data Lake
10 19 (1.46%) BigQuery
11 18 (1.38%) Spark SQL
12 16 (1.23%) Oracle Database
13 15 (1.15%) MySQL
13 15 (1.15%) Oracle Reports
14 14 (1.08%) Parquet
14 14 (1.08%) Semantic Layer
15 13 (1.00%) Apache Hive
15 13 (1.00%) Impala
15 13 (1.00%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 69 (5.30%) Git
2 56 (4.30%) JIRA
3 37 (2.84%) Jenkins
4 33 (2.53%) Rational DOORS
5 29 (2.23%) GitLab
6 22 (1.69%) Snyk
7 15 (1.15%) LabVIEW
7 15 (1.15%) Postman
8 13 (1.00%) IBM UrbanCode
8 13 (1.00%) MLflow
8 13 (1.00%) Selenium
9 10 (0.77%) Cucumber
9 10 (0.77%) Eclipse
10 9 (0.69%) JMeter
10 9 (0.69%) TeamCity
11 8 (0.61%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.46%) Rational Rhapsody
12 6 (0.46%) TestRail
13 5 (0.38%) SonarQube
13 5 (0.38%) SpecFlow
General
1 384 (29.49%) Social Skills
2 327 (25.12%) Finance
3 297 (22.81%) Analytical Skills
4 101 (7.76%) Electronics
5 99 (7.60%) Aerospace
6 92 (7.07%) Manufacturing
7 89 (6.84%) Banking
8 77 (5.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 50 (3.84%) Retail
10 47 (3.61%) Marketing
11 46 (3.53%) Law
11 46 (3.53%) Legal
12 39 (3.00%) Public Sector
13 38 (2.92%) Pharmaceutical
14 32 (2.46%) Financial Institution
14 32 (2.46%) Games
15 30 (2.30%) Organisational Skills
16 28 (2.15%) Presentation Skills
17 24 (1.84%) Automotive
18 22 (1.69%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 216 (16.59%) Analyst
2 215 (16.51%) Senior
3 147 (11.29%) Systems Engineer
4 90 (6.91%) Lead
4 90 (6.91%) Test Engineer
5 89 (6.84%) Architect
6 81 (6.22%) Validation Engineer
7 73 (5.61%) Business Analyst
8 59 (4.53%) Data Analyst
9 57 (4.38%) Data Engineer
10 52 (3.99%) Developer
11 46 (3.53%) Principal Engineer
12 45 (3.46%) Integration Engineer
13 39 (3.00%) Junior
14 37 (2.84%) Embedded Engineer
15 36 (2.76%) Consultant
16 35 (2.69%) Systems Integration Engineer
17 34 (2.61%) Verification Engineer
18 33 (2.53%) Senior Systems Engineer
19 31 (2.38%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (3.23%) REST
2 32 (2.46%) RESTful
3 28 (2.15%) Pandas
4 27 (2.07%) JSON
4 27 (2.07%) pytest
5 26 (2.00%) PySpark
6 25 (1.92%) Middleware
7 22 (1.69%) Kafka
8 21 (1.61%) .NET
9 20 (1.54%) XML
10 19 (1.46%) Node.js
10 19 (1.46%) Playwright
11 18 (1.38%) CSS
11 18 (1.38%) Swagger
12 17 (1.31%) OAuth
13 16 (1.23%) PyTorch
13 16 (1.23%) TensorFlow
14 15 (1.15%) JWT
15 14 (1.08%) HTML
15 14 (1.08%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 76 (5.84%) Management Information System
2 62 (4.76%) Onboarding
3 53 (4.07%) Cloud Native
4 48 (3.69%) Data Structures
5 43 (3.30%) Low-Code
6 34 (2.61%) Self-Motivation
7 32 (2.46%) Embedded Systems
8 30 (2.30%) Analytical Mindset
8 30 (2.30%) Data Centre
8 30 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
8 30 (2.30%) Product Ownership
9 26 (2.00%) Algorithms
10 25 (1.92%) Enterprise Software
10 25 (1.92%) Life Science
11 24 (1.84%) Driving Licence
12 22 (1.69%) Video\Live Streaming
13 21 (1.61%) Distributed Systems
14 18 (1.38%) Robotics
15 17 (1.31%) FPGA
16 16 (1.23%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 72 (5.53%) Linux
2 55 (4.22%) Windows
3 23 (1.77%) Unix
4 20 (1.54%) Windows Server
5 13 (1.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.84%) Android
7 5 (0.38%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.31%) FreeRTOS
8 4 (0.31%) Mac OS X
9 3 (0.23%) AIX
9 3 (0.23%) Kali Linux
9 3 (0.23%) Robot Operating System
10 2 (0.15%) ThreadX
11 1 (0.077%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.077%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 289 (22.20%) Problem-Solving
2 247 (18.97%) Agile
3 227 (17.43%) Continuous Improvement
4 207 (15.90%) AI
5 205 (15.75%) CI/CD
6 195 (14.98%) Verification and Validation
7 184 (14.13%) Test Automation
8 181 (13.90%) Analytics
9 154 (11.83%) Data Validation
10 142 (10.91%) Business Intelligence
11 134 (10.29%) Data Modelling
12 133 (10.22%) Decision-Making
13 132 (10.14%) DevOps
13 132 (10.14%) Migration
14 127 (9.75%) Data Governance
14 127 (9.75%) Software Engineering
15 118 (9.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 111 (8.53%) Mentoring
16 111 (8.53%) Stakeholder Management
17 108 (8.29%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 294 (22.58%) Python
2 276 (21.20%) SQL
3 56 (4.30%) C++
4 55 (4.22%) Java
5 49 (3.76%) C
6 41 (3.15%) Go
7 33 (2.53%) JavaScript
8 32 (2.46%) C#
9 27 (2.07%) Bash
9 27 (2.07%) PowerShell
10 26 (2.00%) MATLAB
11 18 (1.38%) T-SQL
12 14 (1.08%) Embedded C
12 14 (1.08%) TypeScript
13 13 (1.00%) Embedded C++
14 12 (0.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 9 (0.69%) VBA
16 8 (0.61%) Scala
17 7 (0.54%) ABAP
18 6 (0.46%) VB
Qualifications
1 283 (21.74%) Degree
2 154 (11.83%) Security Cleared
3 107 (8.22%) BPSS Clearance
4 68 (5.22%) Master's Degree
5 66 (5.07%) SC Cleared
6 40 (3.07%) DV Cleared
7 39 (3.00%) Computer Science Degree
8 36 (2.76%) Chartered Engineer
9 33 (2.53%) CISA
9 33 (2.53%) CISSP
10 30 (2.30%) CISM
10 30 (2.30%) SANS
11 24 (1.84%) HNC
12 23 (1.77%) CGEIT
12 23 (1.77%) FFIEC
13 22 (1.69%) HND
14 15 (1.15%) PMI Certification
15 12 (0.92%) PMP
16 10 (0.77%) ISTQB
17 9 (0.69%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 199 (15.28%) Data Quality
2 125 (9.60%) QA
3 58 (4.45%) GDPR
4 42 (3.23%) GRC
5 39 (3.00%) Accessibility
6 29 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 28 (2.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 25 (1.92%) NIST
9 23 (1.77%) COBIT
10 19 (1.46%) IFRS
11 16 (1.23%) IEC 61508
11 16 (1.23%) SLA
12 14 (1.08%) PMO
13 12 (0.92%) GAAP
14 11 (0.84%) GMP
15 10 (0.77%) Good Clinical Practice
15 10 (0.77%) ISO 9001
15 10 (0.77%) SOC 2
16 9 (0.69%) WCAG
17 8 (0.61%) GxP
System Software
1 57 (4.38%) Docker
2 42 (3.23%) Firmware
3 32 (2.46%) Active Directory
4 22 (1.69%) Virtual Machines
5 15 (1.15%) vSphere
6 14 (1.08%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.61%) VMware Infrastructure
8 4 (0.31%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.15%) Terminal Services
9 2 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.077%) OpenAM
10 1 (0.077%) OpenDJ
10 1 (0.077%) OpenIDM
Systems Management
1 62 (4.76%) Kubernetes
2 54 (4.15%) Terraform
3 26 (2.00%) Grafana
4 18 (1.38%) Functional Safety
5 16 (1.23%) Ansible
5 16 (1.23%) Prometheus
6 14 (1.08%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 11 (0.84%) SCCM
8 9 (0.69%) Cilium
9 8 (0.61%) Microsoft Intune
10 4 (0.31%) Argo
10 4 (0.31%) Kibana
10 4 (0.31%) Rancher
10 4 (0.31%) yum
11 3 (0.23%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.23%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.23%) Puppet
12 2 (0.15%) BMC PATROL
12 2 (0.15%) Computer Incident Response Team
12 2 (0.15%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 174 (13.36%) Microsoft
2 77 (5.91%) Oracle
3 67 (5.15%) SAP
4 45 (3.46%) Salesforce
5 28 (2.15%) Databricks
6 27 (2.07%) Red Hat
7 26 (2.00%) CrowdStrike
8 25 (1.92%) ServiceNow
9 22 (1.69%) Adobe
9 22 (1.69%) Palo Alto
9 22 (1.69%) Tenable
10 21 (1.61%) VMware
11 20 (1.54%) Cisco
12 17 (1.31%) Google
13 14 (1.08%) Citrix
14 13 (1.00%) Foundry
15 12 (0.92%) OpenAI
16 10 (0.77%) IBM
17 9 (0.69%) Automation Anywhere
17 9 (0.69%) McAfee