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 4 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 81 178
Rank change year-on-year -2 +97 +25
Permanent jobs citing Validation 2,019 1,543 1,043
As % of all permanent jobs in England 2.07% 3.59% 1.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.83% 4.06% 1.84%
Number of salaries quoted 1,227 457 426
10th Percentile £36,250 £38,750 £39,000
25th Percentile £43,125 £41,250 £46,438
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £58,750
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -6.38% -9.62%
75th Percentile £71,250 £75,000 £74,688
90th Percentile £87,000 £91,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £57,500 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +4.55% -8.33% -6.25%

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 71,441 38,014 56,565
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.31% 88.54% 81.05%
Number of salaries quoted 50,865 21,889 34,478
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £42,500 £37,000 £41,254
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £76,250 £76,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%

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 4 September 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 4 September 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 +72 520 £70,000 -12.50% 1,692
South East -16 462 £60,000 +11.63% 520
North of England +100 408 £55,000 +15.79% 319
North West +93 242 £55,000 +15.35% 193
Midlands -38 232 £47,500 -13.64% 275
South West +15 204 £55,000 +4.56% 322
East of England -54 160 £55,000 -8.33% 320
West Midlands +35 132 £47,500 -13.64% 183
East Midlands -59 99 £46,743 +9.98% 92
Yorkshire +11 83 £43,000 +1.18% 76
North East 0 83 £55,000 +57.14% 58
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 43 (2.13%) Apache Airflow
2 42 (2.08%) Apache Spark
3 40 (1.98%) Apache
4 32 (1.58%) Confluence
5 31 (1.54%) SharePoint
6 18 (0.89%) Jupyter
7 13 (0.64%) SAS
8 9 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
9 7 (0.35%) WinCC
10 5 (0.25%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 5 (0.25%) CMS
11 3 (0.15%) Artix
11 3 (0.15%) Kinematics
11 3 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.099%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.099%) IIS
13 1 (0.050%) ArcGIS
13 1 (0.050%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.050%) Oracle Workflow
13 1 (0.050%) WebSphere
Applications
1 115 (5.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 61 (3.02%) Microsoft Office
3 41 (2.03%) Simulink
4 35 (1.73%) Microsoft Project
5 17 (0.84%) SOLIDWORKS
6 16 (0.79%) Spreadsheet
7 14 (0.69%) MS Visio
8 11 (0.54%) AutoCAD
8 11 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 5 (0.25%) Mathcad
9 5 (0.25%) Revit
10 4 (0.20%) Adobe XD
10 4 (0.20%) OrCAD
10 4 (0.20%) Sketch
11 3 (0.15%) Autodesk Inventor
11 3 (0.15%) LaTeX
11 3 (0.15%) Navisworks
11 3 (0.15%) Productboard
11 3 (0.15%) Stateflow
12 2 (0.099%) Solid Edge
Business Applications
1 38 (1.88%) Dynamics CRM
2 37 (1.83%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (0.50%) SAP MDG
4 9 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.40%) Oracle Applications
6 7 (0.35%) NetSuite
6 7 (0.35%) SAP ERP
6 7 (0.35%) Workday HCM
7 5 (0.25%) Elite 3E
7 5 (0.25%) iTrent
7 5 (0.25%) SAP MDG-BP
8 4 (0.20%) Oracle Financials
8 4 (0.20%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.15%) Infor M3
9 3 (0.15%) Loan IQ
9 3 (0.15%) Oracle ERP
9 3 (0.15%) SystmOne
9 3 (0.15%) Teamcenter
10 2 (0.099%) Oracle Payables
10 2 (0.099%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 266 (13.17%) Azure
2 233 (11.54%) AWS
3 161 (7.97%) Power Platform
4 87 (4.31%) GCP
5 65 (3.22%) SaaS
6 62 (3.07%) Microsoft 365
7 61 (3.02%) Azure DevOps
8 53 (2.63%) GitHub
9 43 (2.13%) Serverless
10 36 (1.78%) Amazon S3
11 35 (1.73%) Dynamics 365
12 32 (1.58%) Entra ID
13 28 (1.39%) Microsoft Copilot
14 27 (1.34%) GitHub Actions
15 22 (1.09%) Amazon EMR
15 22 (1.09%) Cloud Computing
16 20 (0.99%) Amazon EC2
16 20 (0.99%) PowerApps
17 19 (0.94%) Azure Data Factory
17 19 (0.94%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 65 (3.22%) DNS
2 62 (3.07%) Firewall
3 60 (2.97%) Broadband
4 35 (1.73%) VPN
5 34 (1.68%) Network Security
5 34 (1.68%) Wireless
6 33 (1.63%) TCP/IP
6 33 (1.63%) WAN
7 27 (1.34%) Ethernet
8 25 (1.24%) LAN
9 22 (1.09%) SD-WAN
10 21 (1.04%) Modbus
10 21 (1.04%) OSPF
10 21 (1.04%) VLAN
11 20 (0.99%) MQTT
12 19 (0.94%) BGP
13 18 (0.89%) Wireshark
14 17 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
15 14 (0.69%) 5G
15 14 (0.69%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 149 (7.38%) Power BI
2 55 (2.72%) Data Warehouse
3 51 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
4 46 (2.28%) Metadata
5 45 (2.23%) SQL Server
6 43 (2.13%) Data Lake
7 37 (1.83%) Tableau
8 33 (1.63%) MongoDB
9 30 (1.49%) Relational Database
10 29 (1.44%) Amazon Athena
11 25 (1.24%) BigQuery
11 25 (1.24%) DynamoDB
12 21 (1.04%) Semantic Layer
12 21 (1.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 19 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
13 19 (0.94%) Big Data
14 17 (0.84%) MySQL
15 16 (0.79%) NoSQL
16 15 (0.74%) Power Query
17 13 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 118 (5.84%) JIRA
2 103 (5.10%) Git
3 52 (2.58%) Jenkins
4 46 (2.28%) GitLab
5 33 (1.63%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.09%) LabVIEW
6 22 (1.09%) Selenium
6 22 (1.09%) Snyk
7 18 (0.89%) Cypress.io
7 18 (0.89%) Postman
8 12 (0.59%) Cucumber
9 11 (0.54%) Burp Suite
10 10 (0.50%) JMeter
10 10 (0.50%) TeamCity
11 9 (0.45%) Gatling
12 8 (0.40%) Rational Rhapsody
12 8 (0.40%) REST Assured
13 7 (0.35%) Eclipse
13 7 (0.35%) Hudson
13 7 (0.35%) Metasploit
General
1 659 (32.64%) Social Skills
2 511 (25.31%) Finance
3 486 (24.07%) Analytical Skills
4 186 (9.21%) Aerospace
5 182 (9.01%) Electronics
6 181 (8.96%) Manufacturing
7 175 (8.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 110 (5.45%) Law
9 93 (4.61%) Banking
10 81 (4.01%) Public Sector
11 79 (3.91%) Retail
12 74 (3.67%) Marketing
13 72 (3.57%) Pharmaceutical
14 70 (3.47%) Organisational Skills
15 59 (2.92%) Automotive
16 55 (2.72%) Legal
17 51 (2.53%) Telecoms
18 43 (2.13%) Games
19 41 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
20 36 (1.78%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 368 (18.23%) Senior
2 244 (12.09%) Analyst
3 227 (11.24%) Systems Engineer
4 168 (8.32%) Lead
5 124 (6.14%) Test Engineer
6 110 (5.45%) Architect
7 97 (4.80%) Data Engineer
8 89 (4.41%) Developer
9 74 (3.67%) Business Analyst
10 72 (3.57%) Software Engineer
11 70 (3.47%) Consultant
12 66 (3.27%) Principal Engineer
13 64 (3.17%) Validation Engineer
14 62 (3.07%) Data Analyst
15 49 (2.43%) Support Engineer
16 48 (2.38%) Data Scientist
16 48 (2.38%) Embedded Engineer
16 48 (2.38%) Network Engineer
17 44 (2.18%) Electronics Engineer
18 41 (2.03%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (3.57%) Terraform
2 50 (2.48%) RESTful
3 48 (2.38%) Kafka
4 45 (2.23%) REST
5 40 (1.98%) Node.js
6 30 (1.49%) JSON
7 29 (1.44%) XML
8 28 (1.39%) .NET
9 27 (1.34%) LDAP
9 27 (1.34%) Playwright
10 25 (1.24%) PySpark
11 24 (1.19%) CSS
11 24 (1.19%) Middleware
12 23 (1.14%) HTML
13 22 (1.09%) FastAPI
14 21 (1.04%) ModSecurity
14 21 (1.04%) React
14 21 (1.04%) Swagger
15 20 (0.99%) XMPP
16 19 (0.94%) Regular Expression
Miscellaneous
1 142 (7.03%) Cloud Native
2 122 (6.04%) Onboarding
3 114 (5.65%) Management Information System
4 77 (3.81%) Data Centre
5 75 (3.71%) Product Ownership
6 57 (2.82%) Embedded Systems
6 57 (2.82%) Enterprise Software
7 56 (2.77%) Data Structures
7 56 (2.77%) Driving Licence
8 54 (2.67%) Distributed Systems
9 48 (2.38%) Low-Code
10 47 (2.33%) Algorithms
11 44 (2.18%) Life Science
12 40 (1.98%) Analytical Mindset
13 39 (1.93%) Robotics
14 37 (1.83%) AI Agents
14 37 (1.83%) Legacy Systems
14 37 (1.83%) SCADA
15 34 (1.68%) Video\Live Streaming
16 29 (1.44%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 129 (6.39%) Linux
2 91 (4.51%) Windows
3 35 (1.73%) Windows Server
4 23 (1.14%) Unix
5 19 (0.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.50%) Android
7 9 (0.45%) Embedded Linux
8 6 (0.30%) FreeRTOS
8 6 (0.30%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.25%) Kali Linux
10 4 (0.20%) Mac OS X
11 3 (0.15%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.099%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.099%) ThreadX
12 2 (0.099%) VMS
12 2 (0.099%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.050%) AIX
13 1 (0.050%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 510 (25.26%) Problem-Solving
2 455 (22.54%) Continuous Improvement
3 380 (18.82%) Agile
4 355 (17.58%) AI
5 318 (15.75%) Verification and Validation
6 292 (14.46%) CI/CD
7 268 (13.27%) Stakeholder Management
8 255 (12.63%) Test Automation
9 246 (12.18%) Migration
10 233 (11.54%) Analytics
11 221 (10.95%) Mentoring
12 208 (10.30%) Software Engineering
13 205 (10.15%) Decision-Making
14 188 (9.31%) DevOps
15 187 (9.26%) Business Intelligence
16 175 (8.67%) Machine Learning
16 175 (8.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 174 (8.62%) Roadmaps
18 169 (8.37%) Data Analysis
19 161 (7.97%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 430 (21.30%) Python
2 367 (18.18%) SQL
3 88 (4.36%) C++
4 82 (4.06%) C
4 82 (4.06%) Java
5 60 (2.97%) JavaScript
6 54 (2.67%) Go
6 54 (2.67%) MATLAB
7 46 (2.28%) C#
8 31 (1.54%) Bash
9 28 (1.39%) Embedded C
10 27 (1.34%) PowerShell
11 22 (1.09%) Scala
12 20 (0.99%) TypeScript
13 18 (0.89%) Embedded C++
14 15 (0.74%) R
15 12 (0.59%) T-SQL
16 10 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 8 (0.40%) ABAP
17 8 (0.40%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 428 (21.20%) Degree
2 400 (19.81%) Security Cleared
3 275 (13.62%) SC Cleared
4 111 (5.50%) BPSS Clearance
5 98 (4.85%) DV Cleared
6 86 (4.26%) Master's Degree
7 46 (2.28%) Computer Science Degree
8 36 (1.78%) CISSP
9 32 (1.58%) PhD
9 32 (1.58%) PMI Certification
10 31 (1.54%) Chartered Engineer
11 29 (1.44%) HNC
12 28 (1.39%) HND
13 27 (1.34%) CISM
14 24 (1.19%) AWS Certification
15 23 (1.14%) ACCA
15 23 (1.14%) Azure Certification
16 22 (1.09%) CIMA
17 21 (1.04%) Cisco Certification
18 19 (0.94%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 304 (15.06%) Data Quality
2 268 (13.27%) QA
3 66 (3.27%) Accessibility
4 55 (2.72%) GDPR
5 37 (1.83%) GRC
6 28 (1.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 25 (1.24%) GxP
8 22 (1.09%) IEC 61508
9 20 (0.99%) NIST
10 17 (0.84%) PMO
11 15 (0.74%) ISO 26262
11 15 (0.74%) SLA
12 13 (0.64%) ISO 9001
13 11 (0.54%) GAAP
13 11 (0.54%) GMP
13 11 (0.54%) IFRS
13 11 (0.54%) SOC 2
13 11 (0.54%) WCAG
14 10 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 15288
15 9 (0.45%) Def Stans
System Software
1 79 (3.91%) Docker
2 77 (3.81%) Firmware
3 48 (2.38%) Active Directory
4 36 (1.78%) Embedded Firmware
5 28 (1.39%) Virtual Machines
6 21 (1.04%) vSphere
7 10 (0.50%) VMware Infrastructure
8 4 (0.20%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.15%) KVM
10 2 (0.099%) iptables
10 2 (0.099%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.099%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.050%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.050%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 78 (3.86%) Kubernetes
2 36 (1.78%) Grafana
3 29 (1.44%) Ansible
4 26 (1.29%) Functional Safety
5 15 (0.74%) Prometheus
5 15 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (0.50%) Cilium
7 7 (0.35%) Kibana
7 7 (0.35%) Microsoft Intune
7 7 (0.35%) Nessus
7 7 (0.35%) Nmap
7 7 (0.35%) Puppet
8 5 (0.25%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 5 (0.25%) FortiGate
8 5 (0.25%) SCCM
8 5 (0.25%) WMI
9 4 (0.20%) BMC PATROL
9 4 (0.20%) HP Fortify
9 4 (0.20%) Kubeflow
10 2 (0.099%) WSUS
Vendors
1 263 (13.03%) Microsoft
2 113 (5.60%) SAP
3 95 (4.71%) Oracle
4 57 (2.82%) Salesforce
5 51 (2.53%) Cisco
5 51 (2.53%) Databricks
6 50 (2.48%) ServiceNow
7 36 (1.78%) Google
8 30 (1.49%) CrowdStrike
9 29 (1.44%) VMware
10 27 (1.34%) EMC
11 26 (1.29%) Palo Alto
12 23 (1.14%) Red Hat
12 23 (1.14%) Tenable
13 15 (0.74%) McAfee
13 15 (0.74%) Splunk
14 14 (0.69%) IBM
14 14 (0.69%) Workday
15 13 (0.64%) Okta
16 12 (0.59%) ForgeRock