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

6 months to
4 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 124 75 187
Rank change year-on-year -49 +112 -9
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,210 1,453 1,298
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.51% 3.78% 1.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.02% 4.06% 1.82%
Number of salaries quoted 713 398 718
10th Percentile £32,800 £40,000 £35,925
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 £77,500 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £85,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +7.14% +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 60,045 35,779 71,352
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 74.70% 93.09% 85.50%
Number of salaries quoted 38,092 20,632 53,699
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,625 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,750 £42,500 £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 £59,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -1.67% +9.09% -10.57%

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 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 4 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 +70 356 £77,500 +10.71% 355
South East -46 284 £55,000 +7.84% 246
North of England +27 219 £55,000 +15.35% 119
Midlands -88 148 £38,750 -29.55% 91
North West +25 135 £58,000 +21.64% 70
West Midlands -3 96 £44,000 -32.31% 55
East of England -85 96 £60,000 +5.26% 97
South West -48 87 £53,750 -1.38% 104
Yorkshire -28 53 £59,000 +24.21% 37
East Midlands -104 50 £30,000 -41.18% 36
North East -9 31 £52,500 -7.49% 13
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 46 (3.80%) Apache Airflow
2 28 (2.31%) Apache Spark
3 26 (2.15%) Apache
4 18 (1.49%) Confluence
5 16 (1.32%) Microsoft Exchange
6 12 (0.99%) Appian
7 11 (0.91%) CMS
8 7 (0.58%) SharePoint
9 6 (0.50%) Kinematics
10 3 (0.25%) Headless CMS
10 3 (0.25%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.17%) IIS
12 1 (0.083%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.083%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.083%) Artix
12 1 (0.083%) Palantir Foundry
12 1 (0.083%) SAS
12 1 (0.083%) WordPress
Applications
1 87 (7.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 56 (4.63%) Microsoft Office
3 17 (1.40%) MS Visio
4 14 (1.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.58%) Simulink
6 6 (0.50%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 6 (0.50%) Microsoft Project
6 6 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.33%) Fusion 360
8 3 (0.25%) Solid Edge
8 3 (0.25%) SOLIDWORKS
9 2 (0.17%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.17%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.17%) CATIA
9 2 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
9 2 (0.17%) Sketch
10 1 (0.083%) Elementor
10 1 (0.083%) Navisworks
10 1 (0.083%) Photoshop
10 1 (0.083%) Productboard
Business Applications
1 27 (2.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (1.49%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.83%) SAP ERP
4 6 (0.50%) Loan IQ
4 6 (0.50%) SAP MDG
5 4 (0.33%) SAP MDG-BP
6 3 (0.25%) iTrent
6 3 (0.25%) Oracle Applications
6 3 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
6 3 (0.25%) Workday HCM
7 2 (0.17%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 1 (0.083%) Magento
8 1 (0.083%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.083%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.083%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.083%) SAP Business ByDesign
8 1 (0.083%) SAP EHS
8 1 (0.083%) SAP FSCM
8 1 (0.083%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 158 (13.06%) Azure
2 110 (9.09%) Power Platform
3 100 (8.26%) AWS
4 51 (4.21%) GCP
5 49 (4.05%) SaaS
6 43 (3.55%) Azure DevOps
7 32 (2.64%) Serverless
8 31 (2.56%) Dynamics 365
9 30 (2.48%) Azure Data Factory
10 28 (2.31%) Microsoft 365
11 27 (2.23%) Amazon S3
12 26 (2.15%) Snowflake
13 25 (2.07%) Power Automate
14 22 (1.82%) Entra ID
14 22 (1.82%) GitHub
15 19 (1.57%) dbt
16 15 (1.24%) Anthropic Claude
17 13 (1.07%) OpenShift
18 12 (0.99%) Azure AI
19 11 (0.91%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 33 (2.73%) Broadband
2 29 (2.40%) CHAP
3 28 (2.31%) Firewall
4 23 (1.90%) DNS
5 19 (1.57%) WAN
6 17 (1.40%) SD-WAN
7 13 (1.07%) Wireless
8 12 (0.99%) TCP/IP
9 11 (0.91%) 5G
9 11 (0.91%) HTTP
10 9 (0.74%) LAN
10 9 (0.74%) NAS
11 8 (0.66%) Modbus
12 7 (0.58%) Ethernet
12 7 (0.58%) MQTT
12 7 (0.58%) Network Security
12 7 (0.58%) VPN
13 6 (0.50%) Cisco ISE
13 6 (0.50%) WebEx
13 6 (0.50%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 108 (8.93%) Power BI
2 48 (3.97%) SQL Server
3 45 (3.72%) Tableau
4 35 (2.89%) PostgreSQL
5 32 (2.64%) Metadata
5 32 (2.64%) Relational Database
6 30 (2.48%) Data Warehouse
7 20 (1.65%) Data Lake
8 17 (1.40%) Spark SQL
9 16 (1.32%) Azure SQL Database
9 16 (1.32%) Oracle Reports
10 15 (1.24%) MongoDB
10 15 (1.24%) Oracle Database
11 14 (1.16%) BigQuery
11 14 (1.16%) MySQL
11 14 (1.16%) Parquet
12 13 (1.07%) Apache Hive
12 13 (1.07%) Impala
12 13 (1.07%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 12 (0.99%) Pinecone
Development Applications
1 61 (5.04%) Git
2 53 (4.38%) JIRA
3 35 (2.89%) Rational DOORS
4 25 (2.07%) Jenkins
5 19 (1.57%) GitLab
6 17 (1.40%) Postman
6 17 (1.40%) Snyk
7 15 (1.24%) LabVIEW
7 15 (1.24%) MLflow
7 15 (1.24%) Selenium
8 13 (1.07%) IBM UrbanCode
9 11 (0.91%) Cucumber
9 11 (0.91%) JMeter
10 10 (0.83%) Eclipse
11 8 (0.66%) TestRail
12 7 (0.58%) LoadRunner
13 6 (0.50%) Cypress.io
14 5 (0.41%) SonarQube
14 5 (0.41%) SpecFlow
14 5 (0.41%) Subversion
General
1 374 (30.91%) Social Skills
2 311 (25.70%) Finance
3 267 (22.07%) Analytical Skills
4 90 (7.44%) Manufacturing
5 87 (7.19%) Aerospace
6 86 (7.11%) Banking
7 85 (7.02%) Electronics
8 64 (5.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 44 (3.64%) Legal
10 42 (3.47%) Law
10 42 (3.47%) Marketing
11 41 (3.39%) Retail
12 40 (3.31%) Financial Institution
13 35 (2.89%) Public Sector
14 34 (2.81%) Pharmaceutical
15 27 (2.23%) Organisational Skills
15 27 (2.23%) Presentation Skills
16 26 (2.15%) Games
17 24 (1.98%) Automotive
18 22 (1.82%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 205 (16.94%) Analyst
2 203 (16.78%) Senior
3 145 (11.98%) Systems Engineer
4 91 (7.52%) Test Engineer
5 83 (6.86%) Lead
6 81 (6.69%) Validation Engineer
7 77 (6.36%) Architect
8 72 (5.95%) Business Analyst
9 57 (4.71%) Data Analyst
10 50 (4.13%) Data Engineer
11 46 (3.80%) Integration Engineer
12 42 (3.47%) Principal Engineer
13 39 (3.22%) Developer
14 38 (3.14%) Junior
14 38 (3.14%) Senior Systems Engineer
15 37 (3.06%) Verification Engineer
16 36 (2.98%) Systems Integration Engineer
17 34 (2.81%) Software Validation Engineer
18 32 (2.64%) Auditor
19 29 (2.40%) Security Auditor
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (3.97%) REST
2 34 (2.81%) Pandas
3 29 (2.40%) JSON
4 27 (2.23%) Middleware
5 26 (2.15%) pytest
6 23 (1.90%) RESTful
7 22 (1.82%) PySpark
8 21 (1.74%) XML
9 20 (1.65%) OAuth
10 19 (1.57%) Swagger
11 18 (1.49%) JWT
12 17 (1.40%) .NET
12 17 (1.40%) Kafka
12 17 (1.40%) NumPy
12 17 (1.40%) Playwright
12 17 (1.40%) PyTorch
12 17 (1.40%) TensorFlow
13 15 (1.24%) React
14 14 (1.16%) OpenAPI
14 14 (1.16%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 76 (6.28%) Management Information System
2 50 (4.13%) Onboarding
3 42 (3.47%) Data Structures
4 39 (3.22%) Low-Code
5 36 (2.98%) Self-Motivation
6 33 (2.73%) Legacy Systems
7 27 (2.23%) Analytical Mindset
7 27 (2.23%) Cloud Native
7 27 (2.23%) Life Science
7 27 (2.23%) Product Ownership
8 25 (2.07%) Data Centre
9 20 (1.65%) Embedded Systems
9 20 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
10 17 (1.40%) Algorithms
11 16 (1.32%) Robotics
12 15 (1.24%) Blockchain
13 14 (1.16%) Driving Licence
13 14 (1.16%) IoT
13 14 (1.16%) Reinsurance
14 13 (1.07%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 67 (5.54%) Linux
2 52 (4.30%) Windows
3 20 (1.65%) Unix
4 19 (1.57%) Windows Server
5 12 (0.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.83%) Android
7 4 (0.33%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.33%) FreeRTOS
7 4 (0.33%) Mac OS X
8 3 (0.25%) AIX
8 3 (0.25%) Kali Linux
8 3 (0.25%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.17%) ThreadX
9 2 (0.17%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.083%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 267 (22.07%) Problem-Solving
2 234 (19.34%) Agile
3 210 (17.36%) Continuous Improvement
4 203 (16.78%) Verification and Validation
5 174 (14.38%) Analytics
6 165 (13.64%) AI
7 164 (13.55%) CI/CD
7 164 (13.55%) Test Automation
8 156 (12.89%) Data Validation
9 130 (10.74%) Business Intelligence
10 127 (10.50%) Data Modelling
11 125 (10.33%) Decision-Making
12 124 (10.25%) Migration
13 121 (10.00%) Data Governance
14 117 (9.67%) Systems Engineering
15 111 (9.17%) User Acceptance Testing
16 110 (9.09%) DevOps
17 109 (9.01%) Mentoring
18 106 (8.76%) Stakeholder Management
19 105 (8.68%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 256 (21.16%) SQL
2 252 (20.83%) Python
3 43 (3.55%) C++
4 41 (3.39%) Java
5 34 (2.81%) C
6 27 (2.23%) Go
6 27 (2.23%) JavaScript
6 27 (2.23%) PowerShell
7 23 (1.90%) Bash
8 21 (1.74%) MATLAB
9 19 (1.57%) C#
10 18 (1.49%) T-SQL
11 14 (1.16%) TypeScript
12 12 (0.99%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 9 (0.74%) Embedded C
13 9 (0.74%) VBA
14 7 (0.58%) VB
15 6 (0.50%) Embedded C++
15 6 (0.50%) PHP
15 6 (0.50%) R
Qualifications
1 265 (21.90%) Degree
2 140 (11.57%) Security Cleared
3 118 (9.75%) BPSS Clearance
4 60 (4.96%) Master's Degree
5 50 (4.13%) SC Cleared
6 39 (3.22%) CISSP
7 38 (3.14%) CISA
8 36 (2.98%) CISM
9 35 (2.89%) DV Cleared
10 33 (2.73%) Chartered Engineer
10 33 (2.73%) Computer Science Degree
10 33 (2.73%) SANS
11 29 (2.40%) CGEIT
11 29 (2.40%) FFIEC
12 25 (2.07%) HNC
13 21 (1.74%) HND
14 15 (1.24%) PMI Certification
15 12 (0.99%) ISTQB
15 12 (0.99%) PMP
16 8 (0.66%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 183 (15.12%) Data Quality
2 119 (9.83%) QA
3 63 (5.21%) GDPR
4 39 (3.22%) Accessibility
5 36 (2.98%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 32 (2.64%) GRC
7 31 (2.56%) NIST
8 29 (2.40%) COBIT
9 21 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 18 (1.49%) IFRS
11 15 (1.24%) SLA
12 12 (0.99%) GAAP
12 12 (0.99%) IEC 61508
13 11 (0.91%) GMP
14 10 (0.83%) Good Clinical Practice
14 10 (0.83%) PMO
15 9 (0.74%) ISO 9001
15 9 (0.74%) WCAG
16 8 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 12207
17 7 (0.58%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 51 (4.21%) Docker
2 31 (2.56%) Active Directory
3 25 (2.07%) Firmware
4 18 (1.49%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (1.16%) vSphere
6 8 (0.66%) VMware Infrastructure
7 5 (0.41%) Embedded Firmware
7 5 (0.41%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.17%) Terminal Services
8 2 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.083%) iptables
9 1 (0.083%) OpenAM
9 1 (0.083%) OpenDJ
9 1 (0.083%) OpenIDM
9 1 (0.083%) pfSense
Systems Management
1 56 (4.63%) Kubernetes
2 44 (3.64%) Terraform
3 28 (2.31%) Grafana
4 17 (1.40%) Ansible
4 17 (1.40%) Prometheus
5 14 (1.16%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
5 14 (1.16%) Functional Safety
6 10 (0.83%) SCCM
7 7 (0.58%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (0.33%) Argo
8 4 (0.33%) Cilium
8 4 (0.33%) Puppet
8 4 (0.33%) Rancher
8 4 (0.33%) yum
9 3 (0.25%) HP Fortify
10 2 (0.17%) BMC PATROL
10 2 (0.17%) Computer Incident Response Team
10 2 (0.17%) Kibana
10 2 (0.17%) PowerCLI
11 1 (0.083%) SQL Sentry
Vendors
1 163 (13.47%) Microsoft
2 66 (5.45%) Oracle
3 52 (4.30%) SAP
4 36 (2.98%) Salesforce
5 25 (2.07%) Red Hat
6 24 (1.98%) Databricks
7 21 (1.74%) VMware
8 19 (1.57%) CrowdStrike
9 18 (1.49%) Cisco
10 17 (1.40%) Palo Alto
10 17 (1.40%) Tenable
11 16 (1.32%) Adobe
11 16 (1.32%) Google
11 16 (1.32%) ServiceNow
12 14 (1.16%) Citrix
12 14 (1.16%) Foundry
13 13 (1.07%) IBM
13 13 (1.07%) OpenAI
14 12 (0.99%) Automation Anywhere
14 12 (0.99%) UiPath