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 7 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 67 88 172
Rank change year-on-year +21 +84 +36
Permanent jobs citing Validation 2,405 1,501 1,037
As % of all permanent jobs in England 2.31% 3.47% 1.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.14% 3.89% 1.92%
Number of salaries quoted 1,420 409 385
10th Percentile £36,250 £38,686 £38,144
25th Percentile £42,750 £41,250 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -15.38%
75th Percentile £72,500 £78,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £86,250 £90,300 £95,000
UK median annual salary £59,490 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +8.16% -4.35% -11.54%

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 76,540 38,554 54,017
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.61% 89.02% 82.44%
Number of salaries quoted 53,822 21,790 29,076
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £41,750 £36,250 £43,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -1.64%
75th Percentile £80,000 £75,785 £78,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £97,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
% 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 7 October 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 7 October 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 +75 628 £68,000 -15.00% 2,027
South East -14 499 £62,500 +19.05% 730
North of England +125 489 £51,000 +6.96% 459
Midlands -12 308 £50,000 -9.09% 390
North West +110 301 £55,000 +9.94% 247
South West +21 245 £55,000 +4.56% 332
East of England -40 211 £55,000 -10.20% 377
West Midlands +47 173 £47,500 -13.64% 255
East Midlands -38 135 £50,000 +17.65% 135
Yorkshire +32 97 £42,500 - 150
North East +3 91 £55,000 +57.14% 62
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 52 (2.16%) Apache Spark
2 44 (1.83%) Apache
3 43 (1.79%) Apache Airflow
4 35 (1.46%) Confluence
4 35 (1.46%) SharePoint
5 25 (1.04%) CMS
6 19 (0.79%) Jupyter
7 13 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
7 13 (0.54%) SAS
8 10 (0.42%) WinCC
9 6 (0.25%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 6 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
10 3 (0.12%) Artix
10 3 (0.12%) nginx
10 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.083%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.083%) IIS
12 1 (0.042%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.042%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
Applications
1 152 (6.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 67 (2.79%) Microsoft Office
3 52 (2.16%) Simulink
4 38 (1.58%) Microsoft Project
5 26 (1.08%) Spreadsheet
6 20 (0.83%) AutoCAD
7 19 (0.79%) SOLIDWORKS
8 15 (0.62%) MS Visio
9 14 (0.58%) Revit
10 11 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
10 11 (0.46%) OrCAD
11 9 (0.37%) Navisworks
12 7 (0.29%) EPLAN
13 5 (0.21%) Mathcad
13 5 (0.21%) Stateflow
14 4 (0.17%) CANalyzer
14 4 (0.17%) Notion
15 3 (0.12%) Autodesk Inventor
15 3 (0.12%) Chatbot
15 3 (0.12%) Productboard
Business Applications
1 42 (1.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (1.54%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.42%) SAP MDG
3 10 (0.42%) Workday HCM
4 8 (0.33%) NetSuite
4 8 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
5 7 (0.29%) Infor M3
5 7 (0.29%) Oracle Applications
5 7 (0.29%) SAP ERP
6 5 (0.21%) Elite 3E
6 5 (0.21%) iTrent
6 5 (0.21%) Oracle Financials
7 4 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
7 4 (0.17%) SAP MDG-BP
7 4 (0.17%) SAP MM
7 4 (0.17%) Teamcenter
8 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
8 3 (0.12%) Maximo
8 3 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
8 3 (0.12%) Sage 200
Cloud Services
1 324 (13.47%) Azure
2 258 (10.73%) AWS
3 181 (7.53%) Power Platform
4 96 (3.99%) GCP
5 78 (3.24%) GitHub
6 75 (3.12%) Azure DevOps
7 69 (2.87%) SaaS
8 66 (2.74%) Microsoft 365
9 56 (2.33%) Serverless
10 46 (1.91%) Amazon S3
11 43 (1.79%) Entra ID
12 36 (1.50%) GitHub Actions
13 35 (1.46%) Microsoft Copilot
14 33 (1.37%) Dynamics 365
15 30 (1.25%) Microsoft Purview
16 28 (1.16%) Amazon EMR
17 27 (1.12%) Cloud Computing
18 26 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
19 24 (1.00%) Azure Service Bus
20 23 (0.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 70 (2.91%) DNS
2 63 (2.62%) Firewall
3 55 (2.29%) Broadband
4 44 (1.83%) VPN
5 41 (1.70%) TCP/IP
6 39 (1.62%) Modbus
7 38 (1.58%) Ethernet
8 37 (1.54%) Network Security
8 37 (1.54%) Wireless
9 34 (1.41%) VLAN
9 34 (1.41%) WAN
10 30 (1.25%) OSPF
11 29 (1.21%) LAN
12 27 (1.12%) MQTT
13 25 (1.04%) Wireshark
14 22 (0.91%) SD-WAN
15 21 (0.87%) BGP
16 18 (0.75%) 5G
16 18 (0.75%) DHCP
16 18 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 169 (7.03%) Power BI
2 66 (2.74%) Metadata
3 60 (2.49%) Data Warehouse
4 55 (2.29%) SQL Server
5 48 (2.00%) Data Lake
5 48 (2.00%) PostgreSQL
6 39 (1.62%) Amazon Athena
7 37 (1.54%) Relational Database
8 34 (1.41%) Tableau
9 30 (1.25%) MongoDB
10 27 (1.12%) Big Data
10 27 (1.12%) NoSQL
11 24 (1.00%) BigQuery
11 24 (1.00%) DynamoDB
12 22 (0.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 20 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
13 20 (0.83%) Power Query
14 19 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
14 19 (0.79%) MySQL
15 18 (0.75%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 137 (5.70%) JIRA
2 125 (5.20%) Git
3 60 (2.49%) Jenkins
4 58 (2.41%) GitLab
5 42 (1.75%) Rational DOORS
6 31 (1.29%) LabVIEW
7 21 (0.87%) Selenium
8 18 (0.75%) Postman
9 17 (0.71%) Cypress.io
10 16 (0.67%) Snyk
11 13 (0.54%) Claude Code
12 11 (0.46%) Burp Suite
12 11 (0.46%) Eclipse
12 11 (0.46%) Rational Rhapsody
13 9 (0.37%) Cucumber
13 9 (0.37%) JMeter
13 9 (0.37%) MLflow
13 9 (0.37%) Sonatype Nexus
14 8 (0.33%) Gatling
14 8 (0.33%) REST Assured
General
1 812 (33.76%) Social Skills
2 614 (25.53%) Finance
3 569 (23.66%) Analytical Skills
4 244 (10.15%) Manufacturing
5 234 (9.73%) Electronics
6 227 (9.44%) Aerospace
7 207 (8.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 124 (5.16%) Law
9 111 (4.62%) Public Sector
10 108 (4.49%) Marketing
11 107 (4.45%) Organisational Skills
12 103 (4.28%) Banking
13 98 (4.07%) Retail
14 88 (3.66%) Telecoms
15 83 (3.45%) Automotive
15 83 (3.45%) Pharmaceutical
16 52 (2.16%) Legal
17 46 (1.91%) Military
18 42 (1.75%) Documentation Skills
19 38 (1.58%) Games
Job Titles
1 432 (17.96%) Senior
2 261 (10.85%) Systems Engineer
3 252 (10.48%) Analyst
4 188 (7.82%) Lead
5 122 (5.07%) Data Engineer
6 120 (4.99%) Test Engineer
7 109 (4.53%) Architect
8 102 (4.24%) Developer
9 91 (3.78%) Software Engineer
10 82 (3.41%) Consultant
10 82 (3.41%) Principal Engineer
11 77 (3.20%) Electronics Engineer
12 75 (3.12%) Business Analyst
13 62 (2.58%) Data Analyst
14 58 (2.41%) Network Engineer
15 56 (2.33%) Validation Engineer
16 55 (2.29%) Automation Engineer
17 47 (1.95%) Administrator
17 47 (1.95%) Data Scientist
18 46 (1.91%) Principal Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (3.62%) Terraform
2 65 (2.70%) REST
3 61 (2.54%) RESTful
4 59 (2.45%) Kafka
5 51 (2.12%) Node.js
6 49 (2.04%) .NET
7 38 (1.58%) PySpark
8 37 (1.54%) JSON
8 37 (1.54%) Playwright
9 36 (1.50%) FastAPI
10 33 (1.37%) CSS
11 31 (1.29%) HTML
11 31 (1.29%) React
12 30 (1.25%) XML
13 29 (1.21%) Swagger
14 25 (1.04%) RabbitMQ
15 24 (1.00%) OpenAPI
16 23 (0.96%) LDAP
16 23 (0.96%) Middleware
16 23 (0.96%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 159 (6.61%) Cloud Native
2 150 (6.24%) Onboarding
3 142 (5.90%) Management Information System
4 79 (3.28%) Product Ownership
5 73 (3.04%) Data Centre
6 69 (2.87%) Driving Licence
7 64 (2.66%) Distributed Systems
7 64 (2.66%) Embedded Systems
8 63 (2.62%) Data Structures
9 62 (2.58%) Enterprise Software
10 56 (2.33%) SCADA
11 51 (2.12%) AI Agents
12 49 (2.04%) Algorithms
13 48 (2.00%) Life Science
14 40 (1.66%) Robotics
15 39 (1.62%) Analytical Mindset
16 38 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
17 37 (1.54%) Low-Code
18 35 (1.46%) Self-Motivation
19 32 (1.33%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 131 (5.45%) Linux
2 91 (3.78%) Windows
3 31 (1.29%) Windows Server
4 26 (1.08%) Unix
5 13 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.42%) Android
7 8 (0.33%) Embedded Linux
8 7 (0.29%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.21%) FreeRTOS
10 4 (0.17%) Kali Linux
10 4 (0.17%) Mac OS X
11 3 (0.12%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.083%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.083%) VMS
12 2 (0.083%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.042%) AIX
13 1 (0.042%) OpenWrt
13 1 (0.042%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 630 (26.20%) Problem-Solving
2 539 (22.41%) Continuous Improvement
3 436 (18.13%) Agile
4 422 (17.55%) AI
5 406 (16.88%) Verification and Validation
6 343 (14.26%) CI/CD
7 330 (13.72%) Stakeholder Management
8 308 (12.81%) Test Automation
9 303 (12.60%) Migration
10 261 (10.85%) Analytics
11 254 (10.56%) Mentoring
12 247 (10.27%) Software Engineering
13 231 (9.60%) Decision-Making
14 228 (9.48%) DevOps
15 210 (8.73%) Data Analysis
15 210 (8.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 208 (8.65%) Business Intelligence
17 206 (8.57%) Roadmaps
18 197 (8.19%) Data Migration
19 187 (7.78%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 498 (20.71%) Python
2 433 (18.00%) SQL
3 95 (3.95%) C++
4 94 (3.91%) Java
5 90 (3.74%) C
6 73 (3.04%) JavaScript
7 71 (2.95%) C#
8 66 (2.74%) MATLAB
9 46 (1.91%) Go
10 35 (1.46%) Bash
10 35 (1.46%) PowerShell
11 32 (1.33%) TypeScript
12 29 (1.21%) Embedded C
13 25 (1.04%) Scala
14 22 (0.91%) R
15 20 (0.83%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 17 (0.71%) Embedded C++
17 12 (0.50%) Shell Script
18 11 (0.46%) Apex Code
19 9 (0.37%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 520 (21.62%) Degree
2 498 (20.71%) Security Cleared
3 367 (15.26%) SC Cleared
4 114 (4.74%) BPSS Clearance
5 101 (4.20%) Master's Degree
6 96 (3.99%) DV Cleared
7 49 (2.04%) Computer Science Degree
8 42 (1.75%) HND
9 41 (1.70%) PhD
10 36 (1.50%) PMI Certification
11 34 (1.41%) Chartered Engineer
11 34 (1.41%) HNC
12 32 (1.33%) Azure Certification
12 32 (1.33%) CISSP
13 30 (1.25%) ACCA
14 27 (1.12%) AWS Certification
14 27 (1.12%) CIMA
15 26 (1.08%) PMP
16 22 (0.91%) Cisco Certification
17 21 (0.87%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 366 (15.22%) Data Quality
2 295 (12.27%) QA
3 74 (3.08%) Accessibility
4 59 (2.45%) GDPR
5 32 (1.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 30 (1.25%) GRC
7 27 (1.12%) GxP
8 20 (0.83%) SLA
9 19 (0.79%) IEC 61508
9 19 (0.79%) NIST
10 16 (0.67%) ISO 9001
11 15 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 15288
12 14 (0.58%) ISO 19650
13 13 (0.54%) GMP
14 12 (0.50%) ISO 26262
14 12 (0.50%) SOC 2
15 11 (0.46%) PMO
16 9 (0.37%) GAAP
16 9 (0.37%) WCAG
17 8 (0.33%) Automotive SPICE
System Software
1 110 (4.57%) Docker
2 94 (3.91%) Firmware
3 49 (2.04%) Active Directory
4 44 (1.83%) Embedded Firmware
5 22 (0.91%) Virtual Machines
6 15 (0.62%) vSphere
7 8 (0.33%) VMware Infrastructure
8 6 (0.25%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 2 (0.083%) iptables
10 2 (0.083%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.083%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.083%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.042%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 92 (3.83%) Kubernetes
2 40 (1.66%) Grafana
3 34 (1.41%) Ansible
4 29 (1.21%) Functional Safety
5 18 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (0.62%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
8 10 (0.42%) Puppet
9 8 (0.33%) BMC PATROL
9 8 (0.33%) Cilium
9 8 (0.33%) Kibana
9 8 (0.33%) Nessus
9 8 (0.33%) Nmap
10 5 (0.21%) WMI
11 4 (0.17%) Argo
11 4 (0.17%) FortiGate
11 4 (0.17%) Kubeflow
11 4 (0.17%) Rancher
11 4 (0.17%) SCCM
11 4 (0.17%) yum
Vendors
1 331 (13.76%) Microsoft
2 126 (5.24%) SAP
3 103 (4.28%) Oracle
4 90 (3.74%) Salesforce
5 67 (2.79%) EMC
6 60 (2.49%) Databricks
7 55 (2.29%) ServiceNow
8 52 (2.16%) Cisco
9 37 (1.54%) Google
10 32 (1.33%) Adobe
11 26 (1.08%) CrowdStrike
12 25 (1.04%) Sage
13 23 (0.96%) Samsung
14 22 (0.91%) Thales
15 21 (0.87%) Informatica
15 21 (0.87%) TikTok
15 21 (0.87%) VMware
16 20 (0.83%) Palo Alto
17 19 (0.79%) IBM
18 18 (0.75%) Siemens