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

6 months to
21 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 145 174 180
Rank change year-on-year +29 +6 -31
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,000 682 1,220
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.49% 1.80% 1.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.91% 1.93% 1.87%
Number of salaries quoted 579 327 712
10th Percentile £35,000 £38,200 £35,500
25th Percentile £45,000 £44,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -8.33%
75th Percentile £78,609 £71,250 £72,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,964 £85,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -11.41%

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 52,241 35,401 65,332
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 77.72% 93.58% 86.88%
Number of salaries quoted 32,434 20,236 50,834
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,000 £29,010
25th Percentile £40,000 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £77,500 £81,250 £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% -11.29%

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 21 March 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 21 March 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 +67 331 £75,000 +7.14% 271
South East +45 232 £54,250 +8.50% 226
North of England -10 148 £59,500 +25.26% 151
Midlands -5 120 £37,500 -31.82% 113
North West +9 100 £59,000 +23.73% 78
East of England -5 89 £60,000 +9.09% 104
West Midlands +3 75 £40,000 -38.46% 74
South West -28 66 £55,000 - 85
East Midlands -42 43 £35,000 -31.37% 39
Yorkshire -29 32 £60,000 +26.32% 50
North East -14 16 £47,500 +4.40% 23
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 39 (3.90%) Apache Airflow
2 27 (2.70%) Apache Spark
3 23 (2.30%) Apache
4 13 (1.30%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (1.20%) Appian
5 12 (1.20%) Confluence
6 11 (1.10%) CMS
7 10 (1.00%) SharePoint
8 4 (0.40%) Headless CMS
8 4 (0.40%) Kinematics
9 2 (0.20%) WordPress
10 1 (0.10%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.10%) IIS
10 1 (0.10%) Jupyter
10 1 (0.10%) SAS
Applications
1 89 (8.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 51 (5.10%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (1.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (1.70%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.70%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 5 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.40%) Fusion 360
7 4 (0.40%) Simulink
8 3 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
9 2 (0.20%) Adobe After Effects
9 2 (0.20%) Adobe Captivate
9 2 (0.20%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.20%) Adobe Premiere
9 2 (0.20%) Elementor
9 2 (0.20%) Oracle Smart View
9 2 (0.20%) Photoshop
9 2 (0.20%) Solid Edge
9 2 (0.20%) SOLIDWORKS
9 2 (0.20%) Weka
10 1 (0.10%) Navisworks
Business Applications
1 20 (2.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (1.10%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.50%) SAP ERP
4 4 (0.40%) Loan IQ
4 4 (0.40%) SAP BPC
5 3 (0.30%) Workday HCM
6 2 (0.20%) IBM Planning Analytics
6 2 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.20%) SAP CX
6 2 (0.20%) SAP MDG
7 1 (0.10%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.10%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.10%) Endur
7 1 (0.10%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.10%) Oracle Financials
7 1 (0.10%) Primavera
7 1 (0.10%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.10%) SAP Business ByDesign
7 1 (0.10%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 143 (14.30%) Azure
2 95 (9.50%) Power Platform
3 80 (8.00%) AWS
4 54 (5.40%) SaaS
5 39 (3.90%) Azure DevOps
6 37 (3.70%) GCP
7 24 (2.40%) Amazon S3
7 24 (2.40%) Power Automate
7 24 (2.40%) Snowflake
8 23 (2.30%) Azure Data Factory
8 23 (2.30%) Dynamics 365
9 19 (1.90%) dbt
9 19 (1.90%) Entra ID
10 18 (1.80%) GitHub
11 17 (1.70%) Microsoft 365
12 13 (1.30%) Anthropic Claude
12 13 (1.30%) Datadog
12 13 (1.30%) OpenShift
13 12 (1.20%) Azure AI
14 10 (1.00%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 25 (2.50%) CHAP
2 17 (1.70%) Broadband
3 15 (1.50%) WAN
4 13 (1.30%) SD-WAN
5 12 (1.20%) Firewall
6 11 (1.10%) 5G
6 11 (1.10%) DNS
7 9 (0.90%) HTTP
7 9 (0.90%) TCP/IP
8 8 (0.80%) MQTT
8 8 (0.80%) Wireless
9 7 (0.70%) LAN
10 6 (0.60%) Modbus
10 6 (0.60%) NAS
11 5 (0.50%) Cisco IOS
11 5 (0.50%) WAAS
12 4 (0.40%) SMTP
12 4 (0.40%) VoIP
12 4 (0.40%) VPN
13 3 (0.30%) PBX
Database & Business Intelligence
1 93 (9.30%) Power BI
2 42 (4.20%) SQL Server
3 38 (3.80%) Tableau
4 27 (2.70%) Relational Database
5 26 (2.60%) Metadata
6 24 (2.40%) Data Warehouse
6 24 (2.40%) PostgreSQL
7 14 (1.40%) Azure SQL Database
7 14 (1.40%) Oracle Reports
7 14 (1.40%) Spark SQL
8 13 (1.30%) Apache Hive
8 13 (1.30%) Impala
8 13 (1.30%) MySQL
8 13 (1.30%) Oracle Database
8 13 (1.30%) Parquet
9 12 (1.20%) Pinecone
9 12 (1.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 10 (1.00%) Amazon Redshift
10 10 (1.00%) Spotfire
11 9 (0.90%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 56 (5.60%) Git
2 48 (4.80%) JIRA
3 35 (3.50%) Rational DOORS
4 17 (1.70%) Postman
5 16 (1.60%) Jenkins
6 14 (1.40%) GitLab
6 14 (1.40%) LabVIEW
6 14 (1.40%) MLflow
7 13 (1.30%) IBM UrbanCode
8 12 (1.20%) Cucumber
9 11 (1.10%) Eclipse
9 11 (1.10%) JMeter
10 10 (1.00%) Selenium
10 10 (1.00%) TestRail
11 7 (0.70%) Locust
11 7 (0.70%) SoapUI
12 6 (0.60%) LoadRunner
12 6 (0.60%) Subversion
13 5 (0.50%) SpecFlow
14 4 (0.40%) Zephyr
General
1 355 (35.50%) Social Skills
2 260 (26.00%) Finance
3 242 (24.20%) Analytical Skills
4 89 (8.90%) Banking
5 59 (5.90%) Manufacturing
6 52 (5.20%) Electronics
7 45 (4.50%) Financial Institution
8 44 (4.40%) Marketing
9 42 (4.20%) Aerospace
10 40 (4.00%) Law
11 38 (3.80%) Legal
12 37 (3.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 33 (3.30%) Presentation Skills
14 31 (3.10%) Retail
15 27 (2.70%) Organisational Skills
16 26 (2.60%) Public Sector
17 23 (2.30%) Telecoms
18 22 (2.20%) Documentation Skills
19 18 (1.80%) Games
19 18 (1.80%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 176 (17.60%) Analyst
2 155 (15.50%) Senior
3 121 (12.10%) Systems Engineer
4 71 (7.10%) Lead
5 61 (6.10%) Validation Engineer
6 57 (5.70%) Business Analyst
7 56 (5.60%) Architect
7 56 (5.60%) Test Engineer
8 48 (4.80%) Integration Engineer
9 46 (4.60%) Data Analyst
10 38 (3.80%) Systems Integration Engineer
11 37 (3.70%) Principal Engineer
12 36 (3.60%) Developer
12 36 (3.60%) Senior Systems Engineer
13 35 (3.50%) Data Engineer
14 33 (3.30%) Junior
15 29 (2.90%) Verification Engineer
16 28 (2.80%) Auditor
16 28 (2.80%) Principal Systems Engineer
16 28 (2.80%) Software Validation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (5.40%) REST
2 37 (3.70%) Pandas
3 29 (2.90%) JSON
4 27 (2.70%) Middleware
5 24 (2.40%) pytest
6 22 (2.20%) XML
7 19 (1.90%) OAuth
8 18 (1.80%) JWT
8 18 (1.80%) NumPy
8 18 (1.80%) PySpark
8 18 (1.80%) PyTorch
8 18 (1.80%) Swagger
8 18 (1.80%) TensorFlow
9 16 (1.60%) RESTful
10 15 (1.50%) React
10 15 (1.50%) scikit-learn
10 15 (1.50%) Web Services
11 14 (1.40%) .NET
11 14 (1.40%) CSS
11 14 (1.40%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 70 (7.00%) Management Information System
2 51 (5.10%) Onboarding
3 40 (4.00%) Data Structures
4 35 (3.50%) Low-Code
5 31 (3.10%) Legacy Systems
6 29 (2.90%) Product Ownership
7 28 (2.80%) Self-Motivation
8 24 (2.40%) Life Science
9 22 (2.20%) Analytical Mindset
10 19 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
11 14 (1.40%) Blockchain
12 13 (1.30%) Algorithms
12 13 (1.30%) Reinsurance
13 12 (1.20%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 12 (1.20%) IoT
14 11 (1.10%) Robotics
14 11 (1.10%) Self-Driving Car
15 10 (1.00%) Data Centre
15 10 (1.00%) Hackathon
15 10 (1.00%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 46 (4.60%) Linux
2 41 (4.10%) Windows
3 17 (1.70%) Unix
4 10 (1.00%) Android
4 10 (1.00%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.40%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.30%) Robot Operating System
7 2 (0.20%) AIX
7 2 (0.20%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.20%) VxWorks
8 1 (0.10%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.10%) FreeRTOS
8 1 (0.10%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 238 (23.80%) Agile
2 224 (22.40%) Problem-Solving
3 173 (17.30%) Verification and Validation
4 168 (16.80%) Continuous Improvement
5 149 (14.90%) Analytics
6 144 (14.40%) Data Validation
7 130 (13.00%) Test Automation
8 117 (11.70%) Business Intelligence
9 115 (11.50%) CI/CD
10 112 (11.20%) AI
10 112 (11.20%) Systems Engineering
11 108 (10.80%) DevOps
12 104 (10.40%) Decision-Making
13 103 (10.30%) Migration
14 101 (10.10%) Data Modelling
15 99 (9.90%) User Acceptance Testing
16 97 (9.70%) ETL
17 95 (9.50%) Mentoring
18 93 (9.30%) Stakeholder Management
19 90 (9.00%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 229 (22.90%) SQL
2 206 (20.60%) Python
3 42 (4.20%) Java
4 30 (3.00%) PowerShell
5 29 (2.90%) JavaScript
6 26 (2.60%) C++
7 25 (2.50%) C
8 19 (1.90%) T-SQL
9 18 (1.80%) Bash
10 15 (1.50%) Go
11 14 (1.40%) MATLAB
11 14 (1.40%) TypeScript
12 13 (1.30%) C#
13 11 (1.10%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 9 (0.90%) R
14 9 (0.90%) VBA
15 7 (0.70%) VB
16 6 (0.60%) PHP
17 5 (0.50%) VBScript
18 4 (0.40%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 225 (22.50%) Degree
2 124 (12.40%) Security Cleared
3 111 (11.10%) BPSS Clearance
4 52 (5.20%) Master's Degree
5 47 (4.70%) SC Cleared
6 37 (3.70%) Computer Science Degree
7 32 (3.20%) CISA
7 32 (3.20%) CISSP
8 31 (3.10%) CISM
9 26 (2.60%) DV Cleared
10 25 (2.50%) CGEIT
10 25 (2.50%) FFIEC
10 25 (2.50%) SANS
11 23 (2.30%) Chartered Engineer
12 18 (1.80%) HNC
13 17 (1.70%) ISTQB
14 15 (1.50%) PMI Certification
14 15 (1.50%) PMP
15 13 (1.30%) HND
16 7 (0.70%) RIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 142 (14.20%) Data Quality
2 107 (10.70%) QA
3 57 (5.70%) GDPR
4 41 (4.10%) Accessibility
5 37 (3.70%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 26 (2.60%) NIST
7 25 (2.50%) COBIT
8 18 (1.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 18 (1.80%) SLA
9 15 (1.50%) IFRS
10 12 (1.20%) WCAG
11 11 (1.10%) GRC
11 11 (1.10%) ISO 20022
12 10 (1.00%) Good Clinical Practice
13 9 (0.90%) GAAP
13 9 (0.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 8 (0.80%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 8 (0.80%) GxP
14 8 (0.80%) ISO 9001
15 7 (0.70%) SEPA
System Software
1 55 (5.50%) Docker
2 19 (1.90%) Firmware
3 18 (1.80%) Active Directory
4 8 (0.80%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.60%) vSphere
6 5 (0.50%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.20%) Ceph
8 2 (0.20%) Lustre
8 2 (0.20%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 2 (0.20%) Terminal Services
9 1 (0.10%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.10%) iptables
9 1 (0.10%) OpenAM
9 1 (0.10%) OpenDJ
9 1 (0.10%) OpenIDM
9 1 (0.10%) pfSense
9 1 (0.10%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 51 (5.10%) Kubernetes
2 38 (3.80%) Terraform
3 19 (1.90%) Grafana
4 16 (1.60%) Ansible
5 12 (1.20%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
5 12 (1.20%) Prometheus
6 10 (1.00%) SCCM
7 7 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
8 5 (0.50%) Argo
8 5 (0.50%) Rancher
8 5 (0.50%) yum
9 2 (0.20%) BMC PATROL
9 2 (0.20%) Nessus
9 2 (0.20%) PowerCLI
9 2 (0.20%) Puppet
10 1 (0.10%) Control-M
10 1 (0.10%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.10%) Kibana
10 1 (0.10%) SQL Sentry
10 1 (0.10%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 140 (14.00%) Microsoft
2 52 (5.20%) Oracle
3 51 (5.10%) SAP
4 35 (3.50%) Salesforce
5 17 (1.70%) Cisco
6 16 (1.60%) Foundry
6 16 (1.60%) Red Hat
7 15 (1.50%) Adobe
7 15 (1.50%) ServiceNow
8 14 (1.40%) OpenAI
8 14 (1.40%) Software AG
9 13 (1.30%) Databricks
9 13 (1.30%) IBM
9 13 (1.30%) VMware
10 12 (1.20%) Automation Anywhere
10 12 (1.20%) UiPath
11 11 (1.10%) Google
12 10 (1.00%) Citrix
13 9 (0.90%) Intapp
13 9 (0.90%) Workday