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

6 months to
11 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 126 77 189
Rank change year-on-year -49 +112 -7
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,251 1,514 1,296
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.55% 3.86% 1.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.10% 4.13% 1.81%
Number of salaries quoted 741 409 716
10th Percentile £33,250 £40,000 £35,875
25th Percentile £43,750 £46,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -12.00%
75th Percentile £76,250 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £85,000
UK median annual salary £58,500 £56,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.46% +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 59,619 36,635 71,719
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 74.07% 93.38% 85.22%
Number of salaries quoted 39,039 20,695 53,834
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,250 £29,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £42,000 £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 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,500 £93,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +9.09% -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 11 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 11 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 +68 370 £77,500 +10.71% 315
South East -40 284 £55,000 +7.84% 215
North of England +45 230 £55,000 +15.35% 121
Midlands -87 156 £40,000 -27.27% 88
North West +44 143 £55,000 +15.35% 75
West Midlands -8 101 £44,000 -32.31% 51
East of England -79 98 £60,000 +5.26% 94
South West -43 94 £52,500 -2.78% 94
Yorkshire -17 56 £55,000 +15.79% 37
East Midlands -96 53 £30,000 -41.18% 37
North East -16 31 £52,500 -7.49% 10
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 45 (3.60%) Apache Airflow
2 27 (2.16%) Apache
2 27 (2.16%) Apache Spark
3 20 (1.60%) Confluence
4 16 (1.28%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (0.96%) Appian
6 10 (0.80%) CMS
7 9 (0.72%) SharePoint
8 7 (0.56%) SAS
9 6 (0.48%) Kinematics
10 3 (0.24%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 2 (0.16%) Artix
11 2 (0.16%) Headless CMS
11 2 (0.16%) IIS
12 1 (0.080%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.080%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.080%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 86 (6.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 55 (4.40%) Microsoft Office
3 17 (1.36%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 10 (0.80%) Microsoft Project
6 9 (0.72%) Simulink
7 6 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.40%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 5 (0.40%) SOLIDWORKS
9 4 (0.32%) Fusion 360
10 3 (0.24%) Adobe XD
10 3 (0.24%) AutoCAD
10 3 (0.24%) Sketch
10 3 (0.24%) Solid Edge
11 2 (0.16%) Autodesk Inventor
11 2 (0.16%) CATIA
11 2 (0.16%) Oracle Smart View
11 2 (0.16%) Productboard
12 1 (0.080%) Navisworks
12 1 (0.080%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 28 (2.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (1.76%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.80%) SAP ERP
4 7 (0.56%) SAP MDG
5 6 (0.48%) Loan IQ
6 5 (0.40%) SAP MDG-BP
7 3 (0.24%) iTrent
7 3 (0.24%) Oracle Applications
7 3 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
7 3 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 2 (0.16%) Workday HCM
9 1 (0.080%) Magento
9 1 (0.080%) Oracle Financials
9 1 (0.080%) Oracle Payables
9 1 (0.080%) Oracle Receivables
9 1 (0.080%) SAP Business ByDesign
9 1 (0.080%) SAP EHS
9 1 (0.080%) SAP FSCM
9 1 (0.080%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 159 (12.71%) Azure
2 116 (9.27%) Power Platform
3 110 (8.79%) AWS
4 59 (4.72%) SaaS
5 52 (4.16%) GCP
6 42 (3.36%) Azure DevOps
7 36 (2.88%) Serverless
8 33 (2.64%) Microsoft 365
9 29 (2.32%) Azure Data Factory
10 28 (2.24%) Dynamics 365
11 27 (2.16%) Amazon S3
12 26 (2.08%) Snowflake
13 25 (2.00%) Power Automate
14 24 (1.92%) GitHub
15 22 (1.76%) Entra ID
16 19 (1.52%) dbt
17 15 (1.20%) Anthropic Claude
18 14 (1.12%) Azure AI
18 14 (1.12%) OpenShift
19 12 (0.96%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 48 (3.84%) Broadband
2 29 (2.32%) CHAP
2 29 (2.32%) Firewall
3 24 (1.92%) DNS
4 20 (1.60%) WAN
5 17 (1.36%) SD-WAN
6 16 (1.28%) 5G
7 15 (1.20%) Wireless
8 13 (1.04%) TCP/IP
9 12 (0.96%) HTTP
10 9 (0.72%) LAN
10 9 (0.72%) MQTT
10 9 (0.72%) NAS
11 8 (0.64%) Modbus
11 8 (0.64%) Network Security
11 8 (0.64%) VPN
11 8 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
12 7 (0.56%) Ethernet
13 6 (0.48%) Cisco ISE
13 6 (0.48%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (9.03%) Power BI
2 49 (3.92%) SQL Server
3 48 (3.84%) Tableau
4 44 (3.52%) PostgreSQL
5 32 (2.56%) Metadata
6 30 (2.40%) Data Warehouse
7 29 (2.32%) Relational Database
8 24 (1.92%) MongoDB
9 20 (1.60%) Data Lake
10 17 (1.36%) Azure SQL Database
10 17 (1.36%) Spark SQL
11 16 (1.28%) Oracle Reports
12 15 (1.20%) BigQuery
12 15 (1.20%) Oracle Database
13 14 (1.12%) MySQL
13 14 (1.12%) Parquet
14 13 (1.04%) Apache Hive
14 13 (1.04%) Impala
14 13 (1.04%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 12 (0.96%) Pinecone
Development Applications
1 66 (5.28%) Git
2 57 (4.56%) JIRA
3 35 (2.80%) Rational DOORS
4 26 (2.08%) Jenkins
5 21 (1.68%) GitLab
5 21 (1.68%) Snyk
6 17 (1.36%) Postman
7 15 (1.20%) LabVIEW
7 15 (1.20%) MLflow
8 13 (1.04%) IBM UrbanCode
8 13 (1.04%) Selenium
9 11 (0.88%) Cucumber
9 11 (0.88%) JMeter
10 10 (0.80%) Eclipse
11 7 (0.56%) LoadRunner
12 6 (0.48%) TestRail
13 5 (0.40%) Cypress.io
13 5 (0.40%) SonarQube
13 5 (0.40%) SpecFlow
13 5 (0.40%) Subversion
General
1 380 (30.38%) Social Skills
2 312 (24.94%) Finance
3 279 (22.30%) Analytical Skills
4 93 (7.43%) Electronics
5 90 (7.19%) Aerospace
5 90 (7.19%) Manufacturing
6 86 (6.87%) Banking
7 68 (5.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 45 (3.60%) Legal
9 44 (3.52%) Law
9 44 (3.52%) Marketing
9 44 (3.52%) Retail
10 39 (3.12%) Financial Institution
11 35 (2.80%) Games
11 35 (2.80%) Public Sector
12 34 (2.72%) Pharmaceutical
13 30 (2.40%) Organisational Skills
14 28 (2.24%) Presentation Skills
15 24 (1.92%) Automotive
16 22 (1.76%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 209 (16.71%) Analyst
1 209 (16.71%) Senior
2 147 (11.75%) Systems Engineer
3 89 (7.11%) Test Engineer
4 88 (7.03%) Lead
5 84 (6.71%) Architect
6 78 (6.24%) Validation Engineer
7 72 (5.76%) Business Analyst
8 59 (4.72%) Data Analyst
9 50 (4.00%) Data Engineer
10 45 (3.60%) Integration Engineer
11 43 (3.44%) Developer
12 42 (3.36%) Principal Engineer
13 38 (3.04%) Junior
14 37 (2.96%) Senior Systems Engineer
15 36 (2.88%) Systems Integration Engineer
16 34 (2.72%) Verification Engineer
17 32 (2.56%) Auditor
17 32 (2.56%) Consultant
18 30 (2.40%) Software Validation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (3.76%) REST
2 34 (2.72%) Pandas
3 32 (2.56%) RESTful
4 28 (2.24%) JSON
4 28 (2.24%) pytest
5 27 (2.16%) Middleware
6 21 (1.68%) PySpark
7 20 (1.60%) OAuth
7 20 (1.60%) Swagger
7 20 (1.60%) XML
8 19 (1.52%) .NET
9 18 (1.44%) JWT
10 17 (1.36%) Kafka
10 17 (1.36%) NumPy
10 17 (1.36%) PyTorch
10 17 (1.36%) TensorFlow
11 16 (1.28%) CSS
11 16 (1.28%) Playwright
12 14 (1.12%) Hugging Face
12 14 (1.12%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 82 (6.55%) Management Information System
2 54 (4.32%) Onboarding
3 47 (3.76%) Low-Code
4 43 (3.44%) Data Structures
5 36 (2.88%) Cloud Native
5 36 (2.88%) Self-Motivation
6 34 (2.72%) Legacy Systems
7 30 (2.40%) Analytical Mindset
8 29 (2.32%) Data Centre
8 29 (2.32%) Product Ownership
9 24 (1.92%) Algorithms
9 24 (1.92%) Embedded Systems
9 24 (1.92%) Life Science
10 23 (1.84%) Enterprise Software
11 22 (1.76%) Video\Live Streaming
12 20 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
13 18 (1.44%) Driving Licence
14 17 (1.36%) Robotics
15 16 (1.28%) IoT
16 15 (1.20%) Blockchain
Operating Systems
1 70 (5.60%) Linux
2 55 (4.40%) Windows
3 21 (1.68%) Unix
4 19 (1.52%) Windows Server
5 12 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.88%) Android
7 5 (0.40%) 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 (0.080%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.080%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 273 (21.82%) Problem-Solving
2 238 (19.02%) Agile
3 222 (17.75%) Continuous Improvement
4 201 (16.07%) Verification and Validation
5 190 (15.19%) AI
6 184 (14.71%) Analytics
7 181 (14.47%) CI/CD
8 176 (14.07%) Test Automation
9 154 (12.31%) Data Validation
10 135 (10.79%) Business Intelligence
11 130 (10.39%) Decision-Making
12 129 (10.31%) Data Modelling
13 125 (9.99%) Data Governance
13 125 (9.99%) Migration
14 117 (9.35%) Software Engineering
15 115 (9.19%) DevOps
16 114 (9.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 114 (9.11%) Systems Engineering
17 109 (8.71%) User Acceptance Testing
18 108 (8.63%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 271 (21.66%) Python
2 264 (21.10%) SQL
3 49 (3.92%) C++
4 45 (3.60%) Java
5 41 (3.28%) C
6 36 (2.88%) Go
7 29 (2.32%) PowerShell
8 28 (2.24%) JavaScript
9 25 (2.00%) Bash
10 24 (1.92%) C#
11 22 (1.76%) MATLAB
12 18 (1.44%) T-SQL
13 13 (1.04%) TypeScript
14 12 (0.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.88%) Embedded C
16 9 (0.72%) VBA
17 8 (0.64%) Embedded C++
18 7 (0.56%) VB
19 6 (0.48%) ABAP
19 6 (0.48%) PHP
Qualifications
1 275 (21.98%) Degree
2 143 (11.43%) Security Cleared
3 116 (9.27%) BPSS Clearance
4 62 (4.96%) Master's Degree
5 55 (4.40%) SC Cleared
6 39 (3.12%) CISA
6 39 (3.12%) CISSP
7 38 (3.04%) DV Cleared
8 36 (2.88%) CISM
9 35 (2.80%) Computer Science Degree
9 35 (2.80%) SANS
10 34 (2.72%) Chartered Engineer
11 29 (2.32%) CGEIT
11 29 (2.32%) FFIEC
12 24 (1.92%) HNC
13 21 (1.68%) HND
14 15 (1.20%) PMI Certification
15 12 (0.96%) ISTQB
15 12 (0.96%) PMP
16 8 (0.64%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 188 (15.03%) Data Quality
2 121 (9.67%) QA
3 65 (5.20%) GDPR
4 38 (3.04%) Accessibility
5 36 (2.88%) GRC
5 36 (2.88%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 31 (2.48%) NIST
7 29 (2.32%) COBIT
8 21 (1.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 20 (1.60%) IFRS
10 15 (1.20%) SLA
11 13 (1.04%) GAAP
11 13 (1.04%) IEC 61508
12 11 (0.88%) GMP
12 11 (0.88%) PMO
13 10 (0.80%) Good Clinical Practice
14 9 (0.72%) ISO 9001
14 9 (0.72%) WCAG
15 8 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 12207
16 7 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 50 (4.00%) Docker
2 31 (2.48%) Active Directory
2 31 (2.48%) Firmware
3 21 (1.68%) Virtual Machines
4 14 (1.12%) vSphere
5 8 (0.64%) Embedded Firmware
5 8 (0.64%) VMware Infrastructure
6 4 (0.32%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.16%) Terminal Services
7 2 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.080%) iptables
8 1 (0.080%) OpenAM
8 1 (0.080%) OpenDJ
8 1 (0.080%) OpenIDM
Systems Management
1 56 (4.48%) Kubernetes
2 43 (3.44%) Terraform
3 26 (2.08%) Grafana
4 17 (1.36%) Ansible
5 16 (1.28%) Prometheus
6 15 (1.20%) Functional Safety
7 14 (1.12%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 11 (0.88%) SCCM
9 8 (0.64%) Microsoft Intune
10 4 (0.32%) Argo
10 4 (0.32%) Cilium
10 4 (0.32%) Rancher
10 4 (0.32%) yum
11 3 (0.24%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.24%) Kibana
11 3 (0.24%) Puppet
12 2 (0.16%) BMC PATROL
12 2 (0.16%) Computer Incident Response Team
12 2 (0.16%) PowerCLI
13 1 (0.080%) SQL Sentry
Vendors
1 169 (13.51%) Microsoft
2 70 (5.60%) Oracle
3 59 (4.72%) SAP
4 42 (3.36%) Salesforce
5 26 (2.08%) Red Hat
6 24 (1.92%) CrowdStrike
7 23 (1.84%) Databricks
8 21 (1.68%) Palo Alto
8 21 (1.68%) Tenable
9 20 (1.60%) ServiceNow
9 20 (1.60%) VMware
10 19 (1.52%) Cisco
11 18 (1.44%) Adobe
12 17 (1.36%) Google
13 15 (1.20%) OpenAI
14 14 (1.12%) Citrix
15 13 (1.04%) IBM
16 12 (0.96%) Automation Anywhere
16 12 (0.96%) UiPath
17 10 (0.80%) Foundry