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

6 months to
12 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 152 177 180
Rank change year-on-year +25 +3 -28
Permanent jobs citing Validation 874 766 1,096
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.49% 1.71% 1.67%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.87% 1.85% 1.90%
Number of salaries quoted 476 279 670
10th Percentile £36,250 £37,250 £35,000
25th Percentile £45,000 £47,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -12.00%
75th Percentile £79,000 £72,500 £73,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £83,875
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -15.20%

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 46,773 41,385 57,807
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 79.76% 92.14% 88.11%
Number of salaries quoted 28,477 20,477 45,736
10th Percentile £29,000 £35,000 £29,750
25th Percentile £38,750 £46,250 £40,702
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £62,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +13.64% -12.00%
75th Percentile £77,500 £82,100 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%

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 12 February 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 12 February 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 +58 301 £75,000 +3.45% 196
South East +21 188 £55,000 +4.76% 193
North of England -19 123 £60,000 +25.83% 115
Midlands 0 98 £37,500 -28.57% 122
North West +9 85 £55,000 +15.35% 76
East of England +16 82 £57,500 +4.55% 76
South West +6 69 £62,500 +18.82% 68
West Midlands +7 63 £41,108 -26.92% 86
East Midlands -4 34 £35,000 -32.69% 35
Yorkshire -31 29 £65,000 +60.60% 31
North East -10 9 £41,500 - 8
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 19 (2.17%) Apache Airflow
2 18 (2.06%) Confluence
3 12 (1.37%) Appian
3 12 (1.37%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (1.14%) Apache Spark
4 10 (1.14%) SharePoint
5 9 (1.03%) CMS
6 6 (0.69%) Apache
7 4 (0.46%) Headless CMS
8 2 (0.23%) Jupyter
8 2 (0.23%) Kinematics
8 2 (0.23%) SAS
8 2 (0.23%) SugarCRM
8 2 (0.23%) WordPress
9 1 (0.11%) Anypoint
9 1 (0.11%) FileNet
Applications
1 75 (8.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 55 (6.29%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (1.26%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.80%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 4 (0.46%) Fusion 360
6 4 (0.46%) Simulink
7 2 (0.23%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.23%) Adobe Captivate
7 2 (0.23%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.23%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.23%) Elementor
7 2 (0.23%) Oracle Smart View
7 2 (0.23%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.23%) Weka
8 1 (0.11%) GNU Octave
8 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.11%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.11%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 18 (2.06%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (1.26%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.46%) SAP BPC
4 3 (0.34%) SAP CX
4 3 (0.34%) Workday HCM
5 2 (0.23%) Endur
5 2 (0.23%) IBM Planning Analytics
5 2 (0.23%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.23%) Primavera
5 2 (0.23%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.11%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.11%) Magento
6 1 (0.11%) Oracle Financials
6 1 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.11%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.11%) SAP Business ByDesign
6 1 (0.11%) SAP FSCM
6 1 (0.11%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 131 (14.99%) Azure
2 76 (8.70%) Power Platform
3 52 (5.95%) AWS
4 46 (5.26%) SaaS
5 36 (4.12%) Azure DevOps
6 27 (3.09%) GCP
7 21 (2.40%) Azure Data Factory
8 20 (2.29%) Power Automate
9 19 (2.17%) Dynamics 365
9 19 (2.17%) Microsoft 365
9 19 (2.17%) Snowflake
10 18 (2.06%) Entra ID
11 15 (1.72%) dbt
11 15 (1.72%) GitHub
12 12 (1.37%) Anthropic Claude
12 12 (1.37%) Azure AI
13 11 (1.26%) Figma
14 10 (1.14%) Amazon S3
15 9 (1.03%) Datadog
15 9 (1.03%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 19 (2.17%) CHAP
2 13 (1.49%) WAN
3 12 (1.37%) Firewall
4 11 (1.26%) LAN
4 11 (1.26%) SD-WAN
5 10 (1.14%) 5G
6 9 (1.03%) DNS
7 8 (0.92%) HTTP
7 8 (0.92%) MQTT
8 7 (0.80%) TCP/IP
9 6 (0.69%) Modbus
10 5 (0.57%) Cisco IOS
10 5 (0.57%) Ethernet VPN
10 5 (0.57%) VoIP
10 5 (0.57%) WAAS
10 5 (0.57%) Wireless
11 4 (0.46%) BGP
11 4 (0.46%) OSPF
11 4 (0.46%) SMTP
12 3 (0.34%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 74 (8.47%) Power BI
2 35 (4.00%) SQL Server
3 24 (2.75%) Metadata
4 23 (2.63%) Data Warehouse
5 22 (2.52%) Relational Database
6 13 (1.49%) Oracle Reports
6 13 (1.49%) Tableau
7 12 (1.37%) Pinecone
8 11 (1.26%) Azure SQL Database
8 11 (1.26%) PostgreSQL
9 10 (1.14%) Spotfire
9 10 (1.14%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 9 (1.03%) Data Lake
11 8 (0.92%) Amazon Redshift
12 7 (0.80%) BigQuery
12 7 (0.80%) Data Vault
12 7 (0.80%) MySQL
13 6 (0.69%) Data Mining
13 6 (0.69%) DB2
13 6 (0.69%) GIS
Development Applications
1 55 (6.29%) JIRA
2 41 (4.69%) Git
3 36 (4.12%) Rational DOORS
4 22 (2.52%) Postman
5 18 (2.06%) Jenkins
6 14 (1.60%) GitLab
7 13 (1.49%) LabVIEW
7 13 (1.49%) MLflow
8 12 (1.37%) Selenium
9 11 (1.26%) Eclipse
10 10 (1.14%) Cucumber
10 10 (1.14%) TestRail
11 9 (1.03%) JMeter
11 9 (1.03%) SoapUI
12 7 (0.80%) LoadRunner
13 6 (0.69%) Subversion
14 5 (0.57%) SpecFlow
14 5 (0.57%) Zephyr
15 4 (0.46%) Charles Proxy
15 4 (0.46%) Locust
General
1 318 (36.38%) Social Skills
2 239 (27.35%) Finance
3 207 (23.68%) Analytical Skills
4 68 (7.78%) Banking
5 50 (5.72%) Electronics
5 50 (5.72%) Financial Institution
6 48 (5.49%) Marketing
7 42 (4.81%) Manufacturing
8 38 (4.35%) Presentation Skills
9 36 (4.12%) Law
10 34 (3.89%) Aerospace
11 29 (3.32%) Organisational Skills
11 29 (3.32%) Telecoms
12 26 (2.97%) Legal
12 26 (2.97%) Retail
13 24 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
14 23 (2.63%) Public Sector
15 22 (2.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 18 (2.06%) Billing
16 18 (2.06%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 140 (16.02%) Analyst
2 130 (14.87%) Senior
3 105 (12.01%) Systems Engineer
4 66 (7.55%) Lead
5 59 (6.75%) Architect
6 53 (6.06%) Test Engineer
7 48 (5.49%) Business Analyst
8 47 (5.38%) Validation Engineer
9 43 (4.92%) Integration Engineer
10 39 (4.46%) Data Analyst
11 33 (3.78%) Systems Integration Engineer
12 32 (3.66%) Junior
12 32 (3.66%) Principal Engineer
13 29 (3.32%) Data Engineer
14 27 (3.09%) Developer
14 27 (3.09%) Solutions Architect
15 26 (2.97%) Senior Systems Engineer
16 24 (2.75%) Principal Systems Engineer
16 24 (2.75%) Verification Engineer
17 23 (2.63%) Auditor
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (5.61%) REST
2 31 (3.55%) Middleware
3 29 (3.32%) JSON
4 27 (3.09%) Pandas
5 26 (2.97%) pytest
6 22 (2.52%) XML
7 19 (2.17%) PyTorch
7 19 (2.17%) TensorFlow
8 18 (2.06%) NumPy
8 18 (2.06%) scikit-learn
9 17 (1.95%) OAuth
10 16 (1.83%) JWT
10 16 (1.83%) Swagger
10 16 (1.83%) Web Services
11 15 (1.72%) FastAPI
12 14 (1.60%) CSS
12 14 (1.60%) Flask
12 14 (1.60%) RESTful
13 13 (1.49%) HTML
13 13 (1.49%) React
Miscellaneous
1 58 (6.64%) Management Information System
2 40 (4.58%) Onboarding
3 30 (3.43%) Data Structures
3 30 (3.43%) Self-Motivation
4 26 (2.97%) Legacy Systems
5 23 (2.63%) Low-Code
5 23 (2.63%) Product Ownership
6 19 (2.17%) Life Science
7 18 (2.06%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 16 (1.83%) Analytical Mindset
9 14 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
10 13 (1.49%) Reinsurance
10 13 (1.49%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 12 (1.37%) Algorithms
11 12 (1.37%) Blockchain
12 11 (1.26%) Data Centre
12 11 (1.26%) Self-Driving Car
13 10 (1.14%) IoT
14 8 (0.92%) CMDB
14 8 (0.92%) Embedded Systems
Operating Systems
1 39 (4.46%) Windows
2 36 (4.12%) Linux
3 12 (1.37%) Unix
4 10 (1.14%) Android
5 8 (0.92%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.46%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.34%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.23%) AIX
8 2 (0.23%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.23%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.11%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.11%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 212 (24.26%) Agile
2 193 (22.08%) Problem-Solving
3 155 (17.73%) Verification and Validation
4 124 (14.19%) Data Validation
5 116 (13.27%) Analytics
6 112 (12.81%) Continuous Improvement
7 107 (12.24%) Test Automation
8 99 (11.33%) DevOps
8 99 (11.33%) Migration
9 92 (10.53%) CI/CD
9 92 (10.53%) Systems Engineering
10 91 (10.41%) Business Intelligence
11 86 (9.84%) AI
12 85 (9.73%) Mentoring
13 81 (9.27%) Software Engineering
13 81 (9.27%) Stakeholder Management
14 80 (9.15%) Decision-Making
15 79 (9.04%) ETL
16 78 (8.92%) Data Modelling
16 78 (8.92%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 200 (22.88%) SQL
2 165 (18.88%) Python
3 33 (3.78%) Java
4 31 (3.55%) C
5 29 (3.32%) C++
6 26 (2.97%) PowerShell
7 24 (2.75%) JavaScript
8 19 (2.17%) MATLAB
9 17 (1.95%) Bash
10 14 (1.60%) T-SQL
11 12 (1.37%) TypeScript
12 9 (1.03%) C#
12 9 (1.03%) R
13 8 (0.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 6 (0.69%) Go
15 5 (0.57%) Bicep
15 5 (0.57%) PHP
16 4 (0.46%) VB
17 3 (0.34%) PL/SQL
17 3 (0.34%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 233 (26.66%) Degree
2 112 (12.81%) Security Cleared
3 103 (11.78%) BPSS Clearance
4 47 (5.38%) Master's Degree
5 44 (5.03%) SC Cleared
6 38 (4.35%) Computer Science Degree
7 24 (2.75%) CISA
7 24 (2.75%) CISSP
8 22 (2.52%) CISM
9 20 (2.29%) CGEIT
9 20 (2.29%) FFIEC
9 20 (2.29%) SANS
10 19 (2.17%) DV Cleared
11 16 (1.83%) HNC
11 16 (1.83%) ISTQB
12 14 (1.60%) Chartered Engineer
13 12 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
13 12 (1.37%) HND
14 11 (1.26%) PMI Certification
14 11 (1.26%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 108 (12.36%) Data Quality
2 87 (9.95%) QA
3 43 (4.92%) GDPR
4 35 (4.00%) ISO/IEC 15288
5 27 (3.09%) Accessibility
6 20 (2.29%) COBIT
6 20 (2.29%) NIST
7 17 (1.95%) SLA
8 16 (1.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 13 (1.49%) ISO 20022
9 13 (1.49%) SEPA
10 10 (1.14%) Good Clinical Practice
10 10 (1.14%) GRC
11 9 (1.03%) GxP
11 9 (1.03%) TARGET2
11 9 (1.03%) WCAG
12 8 (0.92%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 8 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 12207
13 7 (0.80%) IFRS
14 6 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 46 (5.26%) Docker
2 15 (1.72%) Firmware
3 14 (1.60%) Active Directory
4 4 (0.46%) Hyper-V
4 4 (0.46%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.34%) vSphere
6 2 (0.23%) Ceph
6 2 (0.23%) Lustre
6 2 (0.23%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 1 (0.11%) iptables
7 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 1 (0.11%) OpenAM
7 1 (0.11%) OpenDJ
7 1 (0.11%) OpenIDM
7 1 (0.11%) pfSense
7 1 (0.11%) Terminal Services
7 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 40 (4.58%) Kubernetes
2 26 (2.97%) Terraform
3 15 (1.72%) Ansible
4 12 (1.37%) Grafana
5 9 (1.03%) Prometheus
6 8 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
7 7 (0.80%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 6 (0.69%) SCCM
9 5 (0.57%) Argo
9 5 (0.57%) Rancher
9 5 (0.57%) yum
10 2 (0.23%) BMC PATROL
10 2 (0.23%) Nessus
10 2 (0.23%) PowerCLI
10 2 (0.23%) Puppet
11 1 (0.11%) Control-M
11 1 (0.11%) Kibana
11 1 (0.11%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.11%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 114 (13.04%) Microsoft
2 52 (5.95%) SAP
3 31 (3.55%) Oracle
4 27 (3.09%) Salesforce
5 23 (2.63%) Cisco
6 17 (1.95%) Foundry
7 14 (1.60%) IBM
7 14 (1.60%) OpenAI
7 14 (1.60%) ServiceNow
7 14 (1.60%) Software AG
8 12 (1.37%) Adobe
8 12 (1.37%) Automation Anywhere
8 12 (1.37%) UiPath
9 11 (1.26%) Databricks
10 10 (1.14%) F5
11 9 (1.03%) CheckPoint
12 8 (0.92%) Intapp
13 7 (0.80%) Google
13 7 (0.80%) Guidewire
14 6 (0.69%) VMware