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

6 months to
19 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 162 197
Rank change year-on-year +27 +35 -27
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,162 731 1,261
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.51% 1.96% 1.53%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.00% 2.11% 1.78%
Number of salaries quoted 693 376 726
10th Percentile £33,350 £40,000 £36,000
25th Percentile £44,000 £46,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -10.27%
75th Percentile £77,500 £71,250 £72,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,625 £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 58,241 34,721 70,843
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 75.47% 93.08% 85.88%
Number of salaries quoted 36,707 20,549 53,733
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £78,750 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £103,750 £93,750
UK median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% +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 19 April 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 19 April 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 +71 351 £76,250 +8.93% 281
South East +20 266 £55,000 +7.84% 214
North of England +29 203 £58,500 +22.69% 125
Midlands -22 143 £37,500 -33.33% 113
North West +32 126 £60,000 +25.83% 63
East of England -4 95 £60,000 +5.26% 93
West Midlands -12 90 £44,000 -33.58% 77
South West -42 88 £55,000 +0.92% 81
Yorkshire -19 53 £60,000 +26.32% 47
East Midlands -50 51 £32,000 -37.25% 36
North East -12 24 £53,250 -6.17% 17
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 (3.79%) Apache Airflow
2 27 (2.32%) Apache Spark
3 23 (1.98%) Apache
4 21 (1.81%) Confluence
5 17 (1.46%) Microsoft Exchange
6 12 (1.03%) Appian
6 12 (1.03%) CMS
7 8 (0.69%) SharePoint
8 6 (0.52%) Kinematics
9 4 (0.34%) Headless CMS
10 2 (0.17%) IIS
10 2 (0.17%) WordPress
11 1 (0.086%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.086%) Jupyter
11 1 (0.086%) Palantir Foundry
11 1 (0.086%) SAS
Applications
1 89 (7.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 55 (4.73%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (1.55%) MS Visio
4 15 (1.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.60%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 5 (0.43%) Simulink
6 5 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.34%) Fusion 360
7 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
8 3 (0.26%) Solid Edge
8 3 (0.26%) SOLIDWORKS
9 2 (0.17%) Adobe After Effects
9 2 (0.17%) Adobe Captivate
9 2 (0.17%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.17%) Adobe Premiere
9 2 (0.17%) CATIA
9 2 (0.17%) Elementor
9 2 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
9 2 (0.17%) Photoshop
9 2 (0.17%) Weka
Business Applications
1 22 (1.89%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (1.46%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.69%) SAP ERP
4 5 (0.43%) Loan IQ
4 5 (0.43%) SAP MDG
5 3 (0.26%) Oracle Applications
5 3 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
5 3 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
5 3 (0.26%) SAP MDG-BP
5 3 (0.26%) Workday HCM
6 2 (0.17%) iTrent
6 2 (0.17%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.17%) SAP CX
7 1 (0.086%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.086%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.086%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.086%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.086%) SAP BRIM
7 1 (0.086%) SAP Business ByDesign
7 1 (0.086%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 158 (13.60%) Azure
2 108 (9.29%) Power Platform
3 96 (8.26%) AWS
4 55 (4.73%) SaaS
5 46 (3.96%) GCP
6 42 (3.61%) Azure DevOps
7 29 (2.50%) Dynamics 365
8 28 (2.41%) Power Automate
9 27 (2.32%) Azure Data Factory
10 26 (2.24%) Snowflake
11 25 (2.15%) Microsoft 365
12 24 (2.07%) Amazon S3
12 24 (2.07%) dbt
12 24 (2.07%) Serverless
13 22 (1.89%) Entra ID
14 21 (1.81%) GitHub
15 14 (1.20%) Anthropic Claude
15 14 (1.20%) Datadog
16 13 (1.12%) OpenShift
17 12 (1.03%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 27 (2.32%) CHAP
2 22 (1.89%) Firewall
3 21 (1.81%) Broadband
4 18 (1.55%) WAN
5 17 (1.46%) DNS
6 16 (1.38%) SD-WAN
7 12 (1.03%) Wireless
8 10 (0.86%) 5G
8 10 (0.86%) TCP/IP
9 9 (0.77%) HTTP
9 9 (0.77%) LAN
10 8 (0.69%) Modbus
11 7 (0.60%) MQTT
11 7 (0.60%) NAS
12 6 (0.52%) Ethernet
12 6 (0.52%) Network Security
12 6 (0.52%) Wi-Fi
13 5 (0.43%) Cisco IOS
13 5 (0.43%) VPN
13 5 (0.43%) WAAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 106 (9.12%) Power BI
2 44 (3.79%) SQL Server
2 44 (3.79%) Tableau
3 32 (2.75%) Metadata
4 31 (2.67%) Relational Database
5 29 (2.50%) PostgreSQL
6 28 (2.41%) Data Warehouse
7 16 (1.38%) Oracle Reports
7 16 (1.38%) Spark SQL
8 15 (1.29%) Azure SQL Database
8 15 (1.29%) Oracle Database
9 14 (1.20%) Data Lake
9 14 (1.20%) Parquet
10 13 (1.12%) Apache Hive
10 13 (1.12%) Impala
10 13 (1.12%) MySQL
10 13 (1.12%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 12 (1.03%) Pinecone
12 11 (0.95%) Amazon Redshift
13 10 (0.86%) Spotfire
Development Applications
1 62 (5.34%) Git
2 57 (4.91%) JIRA
3 34 (2.93%) Rational DOORS
4 21 (1.81%) Jenkins
5 18 (1.55%) Postman
6 17 (1.46%) GitLab
7 16 (1.38%) Selenium
8 15 (1.29%) JMeter
8 15 (1.29%) MLflow
9 14 (1.20%) Cucumber
9 14 (1.20%) LabVIEW
10 13 (1.12%) IBM UrbanCode
11 11 (0.95%) Snyk
12 10 (0.86%) Eclipse
13 9 (0.77%) TestRail
14 8 (0.69%) Locust
15 7 (0.60%) LoadRunner
16 6 (0.52%) SoapUI
16 6 (0.52%) Subversion
17 5 (0.43%) SpecFlow
General
1 381 (32.79%) Social Skills
2 302 (25.99%) Finance
3 269 (23.15%) Analytical Skills
4 87 (7.49%) Banking
5 80 (6.88%) Manufacturing
6 77 (6.63%) Electronics
7 76 (6.54%) Aerospace
8 54 (4.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 46 (3.96%) Legal
10 45 (3.87%) Law
11 43 (3.70%) Retail
12 41 (3.53%) Financial Institution
12 41 (3.53%) Marketing
13 34 (2.93%) Public Sector
14 29 (2.50%) Presentation Skills
15 27 (2.32%) Pharmaceutical
16 26 (2.24%) Organisational Skills
17 23 (1.98%) Aviation
18 22 (1.89%) Documentation Skills
19 21 (1.81%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 206 (17.73%) Analyst
2 188 (16.18%) Senior
3 146 (12.56%) Systems Engineer
4 84 (7.23%) Lead
5 77 (6.63%) Test Engineer
6 76 (6.54%) Validation Engineer
7 72 (6.20%) Business Analyst
8 67 (5.77%) Architect
9 57 (4.91%) Data Analyst
10 50 (4.30%) Integration Engineer
11 44 (3.79%) Data Engineer
12 39 (3.36%) Principal Engineer
12 39 (3.36%) Senior Systems Engineer
12 39 (3.36%) Systems Integration Engineer
13 38 (3.27%) Developer
13 38 (3.27%) Junior
14 34 (2.93%) Software Validation Engineer
14 34 (2.93%) Verification Engineer
15 30 (2.58%) Auditor
16 29 (2.50%) Principal Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (4.65%) REST
2 37 (3.18%) Pandas
3 31 (2.67%) JSON
4 29 (2.50%) Middleware
5 26 (2.24%) pytest
6 25 (2.15%) XML
7 21 (1.81%) PySpark
8 20 (1.72%) OAuth
9 19 (1.64%) JWT
9 19 (1.64%) PyTorch
9 19 (1.64%) Swagger
9 19 (1.64%) TensorFlow
10 18 (1.55%) NumPy
11 17 (1.46%) RESTful
12 16 (1.38%) .NET
12 16 (1.38%) Kafka
12 16 (1.38%) React
13 15 (1.29%) CSS
13 15 (1.29%) scikit-learn
13 15 (1.29%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 75 (6.45%) Management Information System
2 52 (4.48%) Onboarding
3 41 (3.53%) Data Structures
4 36 (3.10%) Low-Code
5 35 (3.01%) Self-Motivation
6 32 (2.75%) Legacy Systems
7 29 (2.50%) Product Ownership
8 27 (2.32%) Analytical Mindset
9 24 (2.07%) Life Science
10 21 (1.81%) Data Centre
11 18 (1.55%) Embedded Systems
11 18 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
12 17 (1.46%) Algorithms
13 16 (1.38%) Robotics
14 15 (1.29%) Blockchain
14 15 (1.29%) IoT
15 14 (1.20%) Cloud Native
16 13 (1.12%) Reinsurance
17 11 (0.95%) Hackathon
17 11 (0.95%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 61 (5.25%) Linux
2 48 (4.13%) Windows
3 19 (1.64%) Unix
4 15 (1.29%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.86%) Android
6 8 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (0.34%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.34%) FreeRTOS
7 4 (0.34%) Mac OS X
8 3 (0.26%) AIX
8 3 (0.26%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.17%) Kali Linux
9 2 (0.17%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.17%) ThreadX
9 2 (0.17%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.086%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 258 (22.20%) Problem-Solving
2 235 (20.22%) Agile
3 209 (17.99%) Continuous Improvement
4 197 (16.95%) Verification and Validation
5 172 (14.80%) Analytics
6 153 (13.17%) Data Validation
7 148 (12.74%) AI
7 148 (12.74%) CI/CD
8 144 (12.39%) Test Automation
9 128 (11.02%) Business Intelligence
10 123 (10.59%) Systems Engineering
11 119 (10.24%) Migration
12 118 (10.15%) Data Modelling
12 118 (10.15%) Decision-Making
13 114 (9.81%) Data Governance
14 113 (9.72%) DevOps
15 110 (9.47%) Stakeholder Management
15 110 (9.47%) User Acceptance Testing
16 105 (9.04%) Mentoring
17 101 (8.69%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 252 (21.69%) SQL
2 237 (20.40%) Python
3 43 (3.70%) Java
4 36 (3.10%) C++
5 31 (2.67%) JavaScript
6 29 (2.50%) C
7 28 (2.41%) PowerShell
8 24 (2.07%) Bash
9 21 (1.81%) Go
10 18 (1.55%) T-SQL
11 17 (1.46%) MATLAB
12 16 (1.38%) C#
13 15 (1.29%) TypeScript
14 11 (0.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 9 (0.77%) R
15 9 (0.77%) VBA
16 7 (0.60%) Embedded C
16 7 (0.60%) VB
17 6 (0.52%) PHP
18 5 (0.43%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 263 (22.63%) Degree
2 136 (11.70%) Security Cleared
3 116 (9.98%) BPSS Clearance
4 59 (5.08%) Master's Degree
5 49 (4.22%) SC Cleared
6 39 (3.36%) Computer Science Degree
7 37 (3.18%) CISSP
8 35 (3.01%) CISA
9 34 (2.93%) CISM
10 32 (2.75%) DV Cleared
11 29 (2.50%) SANS
12 27 (2.32%) CGEIT
12 27 (2.32%) Chartered Engineer
12 27 (2.32%) FFIEC
13 23 (1.98%) HNC
14 18 (1.55%) HND
15 15 (1.29%) ISTQB
16 14 (1.20%) PMI Certification
17 11 (0.95%) PMP
18 8 (0.69%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 167 (14.37%) Data Quality
2 120 (10.33%) QA
3 62 (5.34%) GDPR
4 42 (3.61%) Accessibility
5 37 (3.18%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 29 (2.50%) NIST
7 27 (2.32%) COBIT
8 26 (2.24%) GRC
9 22 (1.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 19 (1.64%) SLA
11 17 (1.46%) IFRS
12 13 (1.12%) WCAG
13 12 (1.03%) GAAP
14 10 (0.86%) Good Clinical Practice
15 9 (0.77%) IEC 61508
15 9 (0.77%) ISO 9001
15 9 (0.77%) PMO
16 8 (0.69%) GMP
16 8 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 7 (0.60%) GxP
System Software
1 62 (5.34%) Docker
2 27 (2.32%) Active Directory
3 22 (1.89%) Firmware
4 12 (1.03%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.86%) vSphere
6 8 (0.69%) VMware Infrastructure
7 5 (0.43%) Embedded Firmware
7 5 (0.43%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.17%) Ceph
8 2 (0.17%) Lustre
8 2 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 2 (0.17%) Terminal Services
8 2 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.086%) iptables
9 1 (0.086%) OpenAM
9 1 (0.086%) OpenDJ
9 1 (0.086%) OpenIDM
9 1 (0.086%) pfSense
Systems Management
1 62 (5.34%) Kubernetes
2 49 (4.22%) Terraform
3 29 (2.50%) Grafana
4 18 (1.55%) Ansible
5 17 (1.46%) Prometheus
6 14 (1.20%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 11 (0.95%) Functional Safety
8 10 (0.86%) SCCM
9 7 (0.60%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.43%) Argo
10 5 (0.43%) Rancher
10 5 (0.43%) yum
11 4 (0.34%) Cilium
12 3 (0.26%) Puppet
13 2 (0.17%) BMC PATROL
13 2 (0.17%) Computer Incident Response Team
13 2 (0.17%) HP Fortify
13 2 (0.17%) Nessus
13 2 (0.17%) PowerCLI
14 1 (0.086%) SQL Sentry
Vendors
1 155 (13.34%) Microsoft
2 63 (5.42%) Oracle
3 51 (4.39%) SAP
4 37 (3.18%) Salesforce
5 21 (1.81%) Databricks
5 21 (1.81%) Red Hat
6 19 (1.64%) Cisco
7 17 (1.46%) VMware
8 16 (1.38%) Adobe
9 15 (1.29%) Foundry
10 14 (1.20%) Google
10 14 (1.20%) ServiceNow
11 13 (1.12%) IBM
11 13 (1.12%) OpenAI
12 12 (1.03%) Automation Anywhere
12 12 (1.03%) Citrix
12 12 (1.03%) UiPath
13 11 (0.95%) CrowdStrike
13 11 (0.95%) Palo Alto
13 11 (0.95%) Tenable