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 25 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 79 179
Rank change year-on-year -6 +100 +19
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,925 1,586 1,080
As % of all permanent jobs in England 2.00% 3.63% 1.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.72% 4.08% 1.83%
Number of salaries quoted 1,165 478 461
10th Percentile £35,400 £38,750 £36,875
25th Percentile £42,500 £41,250 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £56,500 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.73% -8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £93,250 £93,750
UK median annual salary £56,483 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +2.70% -8.33% -7.69%

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 70,697 38,871 59,141
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.46% 88.96% 81.02%
Number of salaries quoted 50,125 22,487 37,620
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £42,000 £37,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £56,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -1.79% -10.40%
75th Percentile £80,000 £76,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% 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 25 August 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 25 August 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 +68 517 £70,000 -12.50% 378
South East -19 438 £59,490 +13.31% 301
North of England +96 401 £55,000 +15.79% 175
North West +86 236 £55,000 +15.35% 95
Midlands -41 213 £45,198 -17.82% 158
South West +5 180 £55,000 +4.56% 194
East of England -64 143 £58,750 +23.68% 132
West Midlands +13 117 £44,720 -18.69% 108
East Midlands -64 95 £46,743 +9.98% 50
North East +9 83 £55,000 +57.14% 41
Yorkshire +4 82 £43,000 +1.18% 41
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 49 (2.55%) Apache Airflow
2 47 (2.44%) Apache Spark
3 45 (2.34%) Apache
4 32 (1.66%) Confluence
5 31 (1.61%) SharePoint
6 19 (0.99%) Jupyter
7 13 (0.68%) SAS
8 9 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
9 6 (0.31%) WinCC
10 5 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 5 (0.26%) CMS
11 4 (0.21%) Kinematics
12 3 (0.16%) Artix
12 3 (0.16%) IIS
12 3 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.10%) Cloud Foundry
14 1 (0.052%) FactoryTalk
14 1 (0.052%) Oracle Workflow
14 1 (0.052%) Palantir Foundry
14 1 (0.052%) WebSphere
Applications
1 116 (6.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 61 (3.17%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (1.82%) Microsoft Project
3 35 (1.82%) Simulink
4 18 (0.94%) MS Visio
5 16 (0.83%) Spreadsheet
6 13 (0.68%) SOLIDWORKS
7 12 (0.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
8 9 (0.47%) AutoCAD
9 5 (0.26%) Mathcad
10 4 (0.21%) Adobe XD
10 4 (0.21%) OrCAD
10 4 (0.21%) Sketch
11 3 (0.16%) Autodesk Inventor
11 3 (0.16%) LaTeX
11 3 (0.16%) Productboard
11 3 (0.16%) Revit
11 3 (0.16%) Stateflow
12 2 (0.10%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.10%) Solid Edge
Business Applications
1 38 (1.97%) Dynamics CRM
1 38 (1.97%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.52%) SAP MDG
3 9 (0.47%) Oracle EBS
3 9 (0.47%) SAP ERP
4 8 (0.42%) Oracle Applications
5 7 (0.36%) NetSuite
6 6 (0.31%) Workday HCM
7 5 (0.26%) Elite 3E
7 5 (0.26%) iTrent
7 5 (0.26%) Loan IQ
7 5 (0.26%) SAP MDG-BP
8 4 (0.21%) Oracle Financials
8 4 (0.21%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
9 3 (0.16%) SystmOne
9 3 (0.16%) Teamcenter
10 2 (0.10%) Refinitiv Enterprise Platform
10 2 (0.10%) SAP CO
10 2 (0.10%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 256 (13.30%) Azure
2 231 (12.00%) AWS
3 157 (8.16%) Power Platform
4 85 (4.42%) GCP
5 67 (3.48%) SaaS
6 62 (3.22%) Microsoft 365
7 58 (3.01%) Azure DevOps
8 51 (2.65%) GitHub
9 45 (2.34%) Serverless
10 40 (2.08%) Amazon S3
11 33 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
12 31 (1.61%) Entra ID
13 28 (1.45%) Microsoft Copilot
14 26 (1.35%) GitHub Actions
15 22 (1.14%) Amazon EMR
16 21 (1.09%) Amazon EC2
17 20 (1.04%) Cloud Computing
17 20 (1.04%) PowerApps
18 19 (0.99%) Microsoft Purview
18 19 (0.99%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 61 (3.17%) Broadband
2 58 (3.01%) DNS
2 58 (3.01%) Firewall
3 33 (1.71%) Network Security
4 31 (1.61%) Wireless
5 29 (1.51%) TCP/IP
5 29 (1.51%) VPN
5 29 (1.51%) WAN
6 24 (1.25%) Ethernet
7 21 (1.09%) LAN
8 19 (0.99%) SD-WAN
9 18 (0.94%) MQTT
10 17 (0.88%) VLAN
10 17 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
11 16 (0.83%) BGP
11 16 (0.83%) Modbus
11 16 (0.83%) OSPF
12 15 (0.78%) Wireshark
13 13 (0.68%) HTTP
13 13 (0.68%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 146 (7.58%) Power BI
2 55 (2.86%) Data Warehouse
3 51 (2.65%) PostgreSQL
4 46 (2.39%) SQL Server
5 45 (2.34%) Metadata
6 40 (2.08%) Data Lake
6 40 (2.08%) Tableau
7 33 (1.71%) MongoDB
8 28 (1.45%) Amazon Athena
8 28 (1.45%) Relational Database
9 25 (1.30%) BigQuery
9 25 (1.30%) DynamoDB
10 22 (1.14%) Semantic Layer
11 21 (1.09%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 20 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
13 18 (0.94%) MySQL
14 17 (0.88%) Big Data
15 15 (0.78%) NoSQL
16 14 (0.73%) Amazon Redshift
16 14 (0.73%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 116 (6.03%) JIRA
2 100 (5.19%) Git
3 49 (2.55%) Jenkins
4 43 (2.23%) GitLab
5 32 (1.66%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.14%) Selenium
6 22 (1.14%) Snyk
7 18 (0.94%) Cypress.io
7 18 (0.94%) LabVIEW
7 18 (0.94%) Postman
8 14 (0.73%) Cucumber
9 13 (0.68%) JMeter
10 10 (0.52%) Burp Suite
10 10 (0.52%) Gatling
10 10 (0.52%) TeamCity
11 8 (0.42%) Rational Rhapsody
11 8 (0.42%) REST Assured
12 7 (0.36%) Hudson
12 7 (0.36%) LoadRunner
12 7 (0.36%) MLflow
General
1 635 (32.99%) Social Skills
2 503 (26.13%) Finance
3 477 (24.78%) Analytical Skills
4 179 (9.30%) Aerospace
5 172 (8.94%) Manufacturing
6 171 (8.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 167 (8.68%) Electronics
8 106 (5.51%) Law
9 100 (5.19%) Banking
10 79 (4.10%) Retail
11 77 (4.00%) Public Sector
12 70 (3.64%) Marketing
13 69 (3.58%) Pharmaceutical
14 66 (3.43%) Organisational Skills
15 55 (2.86%) Automotive
16 52 (2.70%) Legal
17 45 (2.34%) Games
18 44 (2.29%) Telecoms
19 39 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
20 34 (1.77%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 353 (18.34%) Senior
2 247 (12.83%) Analyst
3 189 (9.82%) Systems Engineer
4 159 (8.26%) Lead
5 121 (6.29%) Test Engineer
6 106 (5.51%) Architect
7 96 (4.99%) Data Engineer
8 84 (4.36%) Developer
9 78 (4.05%) Business Analyst
10 69 (3.58%) Consultant
10 69 (3.58%) Software Engineer
11 63 (3.27%) Principal Engineer
11 63 (3.27%) Validation Engineer
12 62 (3.22%) Data Analyst
13 49 (2.55%) Support Engineer
14 47 (2.44%) Data Scientist
14 47 (2.44%) Embedded Engineer
15 42 (2.18%) Network Engineer
16 41 (2.13%) IT Manager
17 39 (2.03%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (3.69%) Terraform
2 47 (2.44%) RESTful
3 44 (2.29%) Kafka
4 38 (1.97%) REST
5 36 (1.87%) Node.js
6 30 (1.56%) JSON
7 29 (1.51%) PySpark
8 27 (1.40%) .NET
8 27 (1.40%) LDAP
8 27 (1.40%) XML
9 25 (1.30%) Middleware
9 25 (1.30%) Playwright
10 22 (1.14%) CSS
11 21 (1.09%) HTML
11 21 (1.09%) ModSecurity
12 19 (0.99%) FastAPI
12 19 (0.99%) OAuth
12 19 (0.99%) Regular Expression
12 19 (0.99%) XMPP
13 18 (0.94%) React
Miscellaneous
1 139 (7.22%) Cloud Native
2 123 (6.39%) Onboarding
3 109 (5.66%) Management Information System
4 72 (3.74%) Data Centre
5 70 (3.64%) Product Ownership
6 56 (2.91%) Enterprise Software
7 55 (2.86%) Data Structures
7 55 (2.86%) Driving Licence
8 53 (2.75%) Distributed Systems
8 53 (2.75%) Embedded Systems
9 48 (2.49%) Low-Code
10 45 (2.34%) Algorithms
11 40 (2.08%) Life Science
12 39 (2.03%) Analytical Mindset
13 35 (1.82%) Video\Live Streaming
14 34 (1.77%) AI Agents
14 34 (1.77%) Legacy Systems
15 33 (1.71%) Robotics
16 30 (1.56%) SCADA
17 28 (1.45%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 123 (6.39%) Linux
2 90 (4.68%) Windows
3 35 (1.82%) Windows Server
4 20 (1.04%) Unix
5 19 (0.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (0.47%) Android
6 9 (0.47%) Embedded Linux
7 6 (0.31%) FreeRTOS
8 5 (0.26%) Kali Linux
8 5 (0.26%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.21%) Mac OS X
10 2 (0.10%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.10%) Robot Operating System
10 2 (0.10%) ThreadX
10 2 (0.10%) VMS
10 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.052%) AIX
11 1 (0.052%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 495 (25.71%) Problem-Solving
2 438 (22.75%) Continuous Improvement
3 380 (19.74%) Agile
4 347 (18.03%) AI
5 288 (14.96%) CI/CD
6 275 (14.29%) Verification and Validation
7 252 (13.09%) Stakeholder Management
8 248 (12.88%) Test Automation
9 238 (12.36%) Migration
10 237 (12.31%) Analytics
11 215 (11.17%) Mentoring
12 207 (10.75%) Decision-Making
13 204 (10.60%) Software Engineering
14 184 (9.56%) DevOps
15 180 (9.35%) Business Intelligence
16 174 (9.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 169 (8.78%) Machine Learning
18 167 (8.68%) Data Analysis
19 165 (8.57%) Roadmaps
20 158 (8.21%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 420 (21.82%) Python
2 362 (18.81%) SQL
3 84 (4.36%) C++
4 80 (4.16%) Java
5 76 (3.95%) C
6 58 (3.01%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.86%) Go
8 48 (2.49%) MATLAB
9 44 (2.29%) C#
10 29 (1.51%) Bash
11 28 (1.45%) PowerShell
12 25 (1.30%) Embedded C
13 22 (1.14%) Scala
14 18 (0.94%) Embedded C++
15 17 (0.88%) TypeScript
16 15 (0.78%) R
17 14 (0.73%) T-SQL
18 11 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 8 (0.42%) ABAP
19 8 (0.42%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 408 (21.19%) Degree
2 355 (18.44%) Security Cleared
3 228 (11.84%) SC Cleared
4 115 (5.97%) BPSS Clearance
5 97 (5.04%) DV Cleared
6 84 (4.36%) Master's Degree
7 42 (2.18%) Computer Science Degree
8 38 (1.97%) CISSP
9 31 (1.61%) PhD
10 30 (1.56%) CISM
10 30 (1.56%) PMI Certification
11 29 (1.51%) Chartered Engineer
11 29 (1.51%) HNC
12 26 (1.35%) HND
13 24 (1.25%) ACCA
13 24 (1.25%) AWS Certification
14 23 (1.19%) Azure Certification
14 23 (1.19%) CIMA
15 19 (0.99%) SANS
16 18 (0.94%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 297 (15.43%) Data Quality
2 265 (13.77%) QA
3 66 (3.43%) Accessibility
4 53 (2.75%) GDPR
5 37 (1.92%) GRC
6 25 (1.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 23 (1.19%) IEC 61508
8 21 (1.09%) GxP
8 21 (1.09%) NIST
9 18 (0.94%) PMO
10 16 (0.83%) SLA
11 15 (0.78%) ISO 26262
12 14 (0.73%) GAAP
12 14 (0.73%) IFRS
13 13 (0.68%) ISO 9001
13 13 (0.68%) WCAG
14 11 (0.57%) GMP
14 11 (0.57%) SOC 2
15 9 (0.47%) COBIT
15 9 (0.47%) Def Stans
System Software
1 75 (3.90%) Docker
2 70 (3.64%) Firmware
3 47 (2.44%) Active Directory
4 32 (1.66%) Embedded Firmware
5 28 (1.45%) Virtual Machines
6 21 (1.09%) vSphere
7 10 (0.52%) VMware Infrastructure
8 4 (0.21%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.16%) KVM
10 2 (0.10%) iptables
10 2 (0.10%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.10%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.052%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.052%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 76 (3.95%) Kubernetes
2 39 (2.03%) Grafana
3 26 (1.35%) Functional Safety
4 23 (1.19%) Ansible
5 15 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (0.73%) Prometheus
7 10 (0.52%) Cilium
8 7 (0.36%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 7 (0.36%) Kibana
8 7 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
9 6 (0.31%) Nessus
9 6 (0.31%) Nmap
9 6 (0.31%) Puppet
10 5 (0.26%) FortiGate
10 5 (0.26%) SCCM
10 5 (0.26%) WMI
11 4 (0.21%) HP Fortify
11 4 (0.21%) Kubeflow
12 2 (0.10%) Argo
12 2 (0.10%) kaniko
Vendors
1 259 (13.45%) Microsoft
2 110 (5.71%) SAP
3 96 (4.99%) Oracle
4 54 (2.81%) Salesforce
5 51 (2.65%) Databricks
6 47 (2.44%) ServiceNow
7 45 (2.34%) Cisco
8 37 (1.92%) Google
9 29 (1.51%) CrowdStrike
9 29 (1.51%) VMware
10 27 (1.40%) Red Hat
11 26 (1.35%) Palo Alto
12 25 (1.30%) EMC
13 22 (1.14%) Tenable
14 15 (0.78%) McAfee
14 15 (0.78%) Workday
15 14 (0.73%) Splunk
16 13 (0.68%) IBM
17 12 (0.62%) ForgeRock
17 12 (0.62%) Remedy