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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 125 78 187
Rank change year-on-year -47 +109 -6
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,260 1,509 1,293
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.56% 3.87% 1.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.11% 4.15% 1.81%
Number of salaries quoted 741 411 714
10th Percentile £33,250 £40,000 £35,825
25th Percentile £43,000 £46,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,000 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.57% +1.82% -12.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £85,000
UK median annual salary £57,500 £56,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +2.68% +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 59,806 36,392 71,544
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.87% 93.41% 85.15%
Number of salaries quoted 39,236 20,177 53,681
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £29,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £41,750 £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 15 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 15 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 +58 368 £77,500 +8.77% 317
South East -42 290 £55,000 +7.84% 193
North of England +56 237 £55,000 +15.35% 139
Midlands -86 155 £40,000 -30.43% 96
North West +56 149 £55,000 +15.35% 87
West Midlands -10 100 £44,000 -32.31% 55
East of England -78 96 £57,500 +0.88% 87
South West -45 94 £52,500 -2.78% 101
Yorkshire -21 55 £53,750 +13.16% 39
East Midlands -95 53 £30,000 -42.31% 41
North East -7 33 £52,500 -7.49% 14
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 44 (3.49%) Apache Airflow
2 28 (2.22%) Apache
3 27 (2.14%) Apache Spark
4 19 (1.51%) Confluence
5 16 (1.27%) Microsoft Exchange
6 11 (0.87%) Appian
7 9 (0.71%) CMS
7 9 (0.71%) SharePoint
8 6 (0.48%) Kinematics
8 6 (0.48%) SAS
9 4 (0.32%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.16%) Artix
10 2 (0.16%) IIS
11 1 (0.079%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.079%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.079%) Headless CMS
11 1 (0.079%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 87 (6.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 54 (4.29%) Microsoft Office
3 17 (1.35%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 11 (0.87%) Microsoft Project
6 9 (0.71%) Simulink
7 6 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.40%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 5 (0.40%) SOLIDWORKS
9 4 (0.32%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.32%) Fusion 360
10 3 (0.24%) Adobe XD
10 3 (0.24%) Autodesk Inventor
10 3 (0.24%) Sketch
10 3 (0.24%) Solid Edge
11 2 (0.16%) CATIA
11 2 (0.16%) Oracle Smart View
11 2 (0.16%) Productboard
12 1 (0.079%) Navisworks
12 1 (0.079%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 28 (2.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.83%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.79%) 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 (0.079%) Magento
9 1 (0.079%) Oracle Financials
9 1 (0.079%) Oracle Payables
9 1 (0.079%) Oracle Receivables
9 1 (0.079%) SAP Business ByDesign
9 1 (0.079%) SAP EHS
9 1 (0.079%) SAP FSCM
9 1 (0.079%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 158 (12.54%) Azure
2 116 (9.21%) Power Platform
3 114 (9.05%) AWS
4 58 (4.60%) SaaS
5 53 (4.21%) GCP
6 41 (3.25%) Azure DevOps
7 37 (2.94%) Serverless
8 33 (2.62%) Microsoft 365
9 29 (2.30%) Amazon S3
10 28 (2.22%) Azure Data Factory
11 27 (2.14%) Dynamics 365
11 27 (2.14%) GitHub
12 26 (2.06%) Snowflake
13 23 (1.83%) Power Automate
14 22 (1.75%) Entra ID
15 19 (1.51%) dbt
16 14 (1.11%) Anthropic Claude
16 14 (1.11%) OpenShift
17 13 (1.03%) Azure AI
18 12 (0.95%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 48 (3.81%) Broadband
2 30 (2.38%) Firewall
3 25 (1.98%) CHAP
4 23 (1.83%) DNS
5 21 (1.67%) WAN
6 17 (1.35%) SD-WAN
7 16 (1.27%) 5G
8 15 (1.19%) Wireless
9 12 (0.95%) TCP/IP
10 11 (0.87%) HTTP
10 11 (0.87%) Network Security
11 9 (0.71%) LAN
11 9 (0.71%) MQTT
11 9 (0.71%) NAS
12 8 (0.63%) Modbus
12 8 (0.63%) VPN
12 8 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
13 7 (0.56%) Ethernet
14 6 (0.48%) Cisco ISE
14 6 (0.48%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (8.97%) Power BI
2 49 (3.89%) SQL Server
3 48 (3.81%) Tableau
4 43 (3.41%) PostgreSQL
5 30 (2.38%) Data Warehouse
6 29 (2.30%) Metadata
6 29 (2.30%) Relational Database
7 24 (1.90%) MongoDB
8 20 (1.59%) Data Lake
9 17 (1.35%) Azure SQL Database
9 17 (1.35%) Spark SQL
10 16 (1.27%) Oracle Reports
11 15 (1.19%) Oracle Database
12 14 (1.11%) BigQuery
12 14 (1.11%) MySQL
12 14 (1.11%) Parquet
13 13 (1.03%) Apache Hive
13 13 (1.03%) Impala
13 13 (1.03%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 11 (0.87%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 65 (5.16%) Git
2 53 (4.21%) JIRA
3 34 (2.70%) Rational DOORS
4 26 (2.06%) Jenkins
5 22 (1.75%) GitLab
5 22 (1.75%) Snyk
6 15 (1.19%) LabVIEW
6 15 (1.19%) MLflow
6 15 (1.19%) Postman
7 13 (1.03%) IBM UrbanCode
7 13 (1.03%) Selenium
8 11 (0.87%) Cucumber
8 11 (0.87%) JMeter
9 10 (0.79%) Eclipse
10 7 (0.56%) LoadRunner
10 7 (0.56%) TeamCity
11 6 (0.48%) TestRail
12 5 (0.40%) Cypress.io
12 5 (0.40%) SonarQube
12 5 (0.40%) SpecFlow
General
1 375 (29.76%) Social Skills
2 318 (25.24%) Finance
3 282 (22.38%) Analytical Skills
4 94 (7.46%) Aerospace
5 93 (7.38%) Electronics
6 91 (7.22%) Manufacturing
7 84 (6.67%) Banking
8 71 (5.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 46 (3.65%) Legal
9 46 (3.65%) Retail
10 45 (3.57%) Law
11 43 (3.41%) Marketing
12 37 (2.94%) Public Sector
13 35 (2.78%) Financial Institution
13 35 (2.78%) Pharmaceutical
14 34 (2.70%) Games
15 30 (2.38%) Organisational Skills
16 28 (2.22%) Presentation Skills
17 23 (1.83%) Automotive
18 22 (1.75%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 214 (16.98%) Senior
2 210 (16.67%) Analyst
3 149 (11.83%) Systems Engineer
4 90 (7.14%) Test Engineer
5 87 (6.90%) Architect
5 87 (6.90%) Lead
6 81 (6.43%) Validation Engineer
7 73 (5.79%) Business Analyst
8 58 (4.60%) Data Analyst
9 50 (3.97%) Data Engineer
10 47 (3.73%) Integration Engineer
11 45 (3.57%) Principal Engineer
12 43 (3.41%) Developer
13 38 (3.02%) Junior
14 37 (2.94%) Senior Systems Engineer
15 36 (2.86%) Systems Integration Engineer
16 34 (2.70%) Verification Engineer
17 32 (2.54%) Consultant
18 30 (2.38%) Principal Systems Engineer
18 30 (2.38%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (3.57%) REST
2 31 (2.46%) Pandas
2 31 (2.46%) RESTful
3 27 (2.14%) JSON
3 27 (2.14%) pytest
4 26 (2.06%) Middleware
5 21 (1.67%) PySpark
6 19 (1.51%) OAuth
6 19 (1.51%) Swagger
7 18 (1.43%) .NET
7 18 (1.43%) XML
8 17 (1.35%) JWT
8 17 (1.35%) Kafka
9 16 (1.27%) CSS
9 16 (1.27%) NumPy
9 16 (1.27%) Playwright
9 16 (1.27%) PyTorch
9 16 (1.27%) TensorFlow
10 14 (1.11%) Hugging Face
11 13 (1.03%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 78 (6.19%) Management Information System
2 55 (4.37%) Onboarding
3 46 (3.65%) Low-Code
4 43 (3.41%) Data Structures
5 39 (3.10%) Cloud Native
6 35 (2.78%) Self-Motivation
7 32 (2.54%) Legacy Systems
8 30 (2.38%) Data Centre
9 28 (2.22%) Analytical Mindset
10 27 (2.14%) Product Ownership
11 25 (1.98%) Life Science
12 24 (1.90%) Algorithms
12 24 (1.90%) Embedded Systems
13 23 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
14 22 (1.75%) Video\Live Streaming
15 20 (1.59%) Distributed Systems
16 19 (1.51%) Driving Licence
17 17 (1.35%) Robotics
18 15 (1.19%) IoT
19 14 (1.11%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 70 (5.56%) Linux
2 55 (4.37%) Windows
3 21 (1.67%) Unix
4 19 (1.51%) Windows Server
5 12 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.87%) 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 (0.079%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.079%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 277 (21.98%) Problem-Solving
2 231 (18.33%) Agile
3 220 (17.46%) Continuous Improvement
4 205 (16.27%) Verification and Validation
5 192 (15.24%) AI
6 185 (14.68%) CI/CD
7 181 (14.37%) Analytics
8 172 (13.65%) Test Automation
9 154 (12.22%) Data Validation
10 135 (10.71%) Business Intelligence
11 131 (10.40%) Decision-Making
12 127 (10.08%) Data Modelling
13 125 (9.92%) Migration
14 123 (9.76%) Data Governance
15 122 (9.68%) Software Engineering
16 116 (9.21%) DevOps
17 113 (8.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 110 (8.73%) Systems Engineering
19 107 (8.49%) Stakeholder Management
19 107 (8.49%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 270 (21.43%) Python
2 257 (20.40%) SQL
3 49 (3.89%) C++
4 47 (3.73%) Java
5 41 (3.25%) C
6 39 (3.10%) Go
7 28 (2.22%) JavaScript
8 27 (2.14%) PowerShell
9 26 (2.06%) C#
10 25 (1.98%) Bash
11 22 (1.75%) MATLAB
12 18 (1.43%) T-SQL
13 13 (1.03%) TypeScript
14 12 (0.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.87%) Embedded C
16 9 (0.71%) VBA
17 8 (0.63%) Embedded C++
18 6 (0.48%) ABAP
18 6 (0.48%) PHP
18 6 (0.48%) VB
Qualifications
1 273 (21.67%) Degree
2 142 (11.27%) Security Cleared
3 117 (9.29%) BPSS Clearance
4 65 (5.16%) Master's Degree
5 55 (4.37%) SC Cleared
6 38 (3.02%) DV Cleared
7 36 (2.86%) Chartered Engineer
8 35 (2.78%) CISA
8 35 (2.78%) CISSP
8 35 (2.78%) Computer Science Degree
9 32 (2.54%) CISM
10 31 (2.46%) SANS
11 25 (1.98%) CGEIT
11 25 (1.98%) FFIEC
12 24 (1.90%) HNC
13 21 (1.67%) HND
14 15 (1.19%) PMI Certification
15 12 (0.95%) PMP
16 11 (0.87%) ISTQB
17 8 (0.63%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 188 (14.92%) Data Quality
2 119 (9.44%) QA
3 61 (4.84%) GDPR
4 40 (3.17%) GRC
5 38 (3.02%) Accessibility
6 33 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 27 (2.14%) NIST
8 25 (1.98%) COBIT
9 24 (1.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 20 (1.59%) IFRS
11 16 (1.27%) SLA
12 13 (1.03%) GAAP
12 13 (1.03%) IEC 61508
13 12 (0.95%) PMO
14 11 (0.87%) GMP
15 10 (0.79%) Good Clinical Practice
16 9 (0.71%) ISO 9001
16 9 (0.71%) WCAG
17 8 (0.63%) ISO 13485
17 8 (0.63%) SOC 2
System Software
1 52 (4.13%) Docker
2 31 (2.46%) Active Directory
2 31 (2.46%) Firmware
3 22 (1.75%) Virtual Machines
4 14 (1.11%) vSphere
5 8 (0.63%) Embedded Firmware
5 8 (0.63%) VMware Infrastructure
6 4 (0.32%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.16%) Terminal Services
7 2 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.079%) iptables
8 1 (0.079%) OpenAM
8 1 (0.079%) OpenDJ
8 1 (0.079%) OpenIDM
Systems Management
1 59 (4.68%) Kubernetes
2 48 (3.81%) Terraform
3 27 (2.14%) Grafana
4 17 (1.35%) Ansible
4 17 (1.35%) Prometheus
5 15 (1.19%) Functional Safety
6 14 (1.11%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 11 (0.87%) SCCM
8 8 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
9 7 (0.56%) Cilium
10 4 (0.32%) Argo
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%) FortiGate
12 2 (0.16%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 170 (13.49%) Microsoft
2 71 (5.63%) Oracle
3 60 (4.76%) SAP
4 42 (3.33%) Salesforce
5 26 (2.06%) Red Hat
6 25 (1.98%) CrowdStrike
7 23 (1.83%) Databricks
8 22 (1.75%) Palo Alto
8 22 (1.75%) Tenable
9 21 (1.67%) ServiceNow
10 20 (1.59%) VMware
11 19 (1.51%) Cisco
12 18 (1.43%) Adobe
13 16 (1.27%) Google
14 15 (1.19%) Foundry
15 14 (1.11%) Citrix
15 14 (1.11%) OpenAI
16 11 (0.87%) Automation Anywhere
16 11 (0.87%) UiPath
17 10 (0.79%) IBM