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

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 80 177
Rank change year-on-year -6 +97 +25
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,913 1,592 1,080
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.99% 3.63% 1.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.71% 4.08% 1.83%
Number of salaries quoted 1,155 482 462
10th Percentile £35,000 £38,750 £37,044
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 £74,375 £74,688
90th Percentile £90,000 £92,500 £93,750
UK median annual salary £56,465 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +2.66% -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 70,489 39,024 59,079
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.45% 89.04% 81.03%
Number of salaries quoted 49,966 22,592 37,637
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 24 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 24 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 +71 515 £70,500 -11.88% 353
South East -22 434 £59,490 +13.31% 290
North of England +105 398 £55,000 +15.79% 161
North West +89 234 £55,000 +15.35% 86
Midlands -48 209 £44,720 -18.69% 159
South West +2 180 £55,000 +4.56% 151
East of England -65 144 £60,000 +18.23% 131
West Midlands +25 116 £44,720 -18.69% 106
East Midlands -60 92 £46,209 +8.73% 53
North East +7 83 £55,000 +57.14% 36
Yorkshire +20 81 £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 56 (2.93%) Apache Airflow
2 53 (2.77%) Apache Spark
3 52 (2.72%) Apache
4 32 (1.67%) Confluence
5 31 (1.62%) 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%) ArcGIS
14 1 (0.052%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.052%) Oracle Workflow
14 1 (0.052%) WebSphere
Applications
1 115 (6.01%) Microsoft Excel
2 61 (3.19%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (1.83%) Microsoft Project
3 35 (1.83%) Simulink
4 24 (1.25%) MS Visio
5 16 (0.84%) Spreadsheet
6 13 (0.68%) SOLIDWORKS
7 12 (0.63%) 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 (1.99%) Dynamics CRM
1 38 (1.99%) 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 (0.37%) 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%) Oracle Payables
10 2 (0.10%) Oracle Receivables
10 2 (0.10%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 256 (13.38%) Azure
2 238 (12.44%) AWS
3 156 (8.15%) Power Platform
4 85 (4.44%) GCP
5 67 (3.50%) SaaS
6 62 (3.24%) Microsoft 365
7 58 (3.03%) Azure DevOps
8 51 (2.67%) GitHub
9 47 (2.46%) Amazon S3
10 46 (2.40%) Serverless
11 33 (1.73%) Dynamics 365
12 31 (1.62%) Entra ID
13 28 (1.46%) Microsoft Copilot
14 26 (1.36%) GitHub Actions
15 22 (1.15%) Amazon EC2
15 22 (1.15%) Amazon EMR
16 20 (1.05%) Cloud Computing
17 19 (0.99%) Microsoft Purview
17 19 (0.99%) PowerApps
17 19 (0.99%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 61 (3.19%) Broadband
2 57 (2.98%) DNS
2 57 (2.98%) Firewall
3 33 (1.73%) Network Security
4 30 (1.57%) Wireless
5 29 (1.52%) VPN
5 29 (1.52%) WAN
6 28 (1.46%) TCP/IP
7 24 (1.25%) Ethernet
8 20 (1.05%) LAN
9 19 (0.99%) SD-WAN
10 18 (0.94%) MQTT
11 17 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
12 16 (0.84%) BGP
12 16 (0.84%) OSPF
12 16 (0.84%) VLAN
13 15 (0.78%) Wireshark
14 14 (0.73%) Modbus
15 13 (0.68%) HTTP
15 13 (0.68%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 145 (7.58%) Power BI
2 55 (2.88%) Data Warehouse
3 52 (2.72%) PostgreSQL
4 46 (2.40%) SQL Server
4 46 (2.40%) Tableau
5 45 (2.35%) Metadata
6 40 (2.09%) Data Lake
7 33 (1.73%) MongoDB
8 28 (1.46%) Amazon Athena
8 28 (1.46%) Relational Database
9 26 (1.36%) DynamoDB
10 25 (1.31%) BigQuery
11 22 (1.15%) Semantic Layer
12 21 (1.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 20 (1.05%) Azure SQL Database
14 18 (0.94%) MySQL
15 17 (0.89%) Big Data
15 17 (0.89%) Spark SQL
16 15 (0.78%) Amazon Redshift
16 15 (0.78%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 116 (6.06%) JIRA
2 106 (5.54%) Git
3 49 (2.56%) Jenkins
4 43 (2.25%) GitLab
5 32 (1.67%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.15%) Selenium
6 22 (1.15%) Snyk
7 18 (0.94%) Cypress.io
7 18 (0.94%) Postman
8 17 (0.89%) LabVIEW
9 14 (0.73%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.68%) JMeter
11 10 (0.52%) Burp Suite
11 10 (0.52%) Gatling
11 10 (0.52%) IBM UrbanCode
11 10 (0.52%) TeamCity
12 8 (0.42%) Rational Rhapsody
12 8 (0.42%) REST Assured
13 7 (0.37%) Hudson
13 7 (0.37%) MLflow
General
1 628 (32.83%) Social Skills
2 508 (26.56%) Finance
3 477 (24.93%) Analytical Skills
4 179 (9.36%) Aerospace
5 172 (8.99%) Manufacturing
6 169 (8.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 165 (8.63%) Electronics
8 107 (5.59%) Banking
9 105 (5.49%) Law
10 79 (4.13%) Retail
11 78 (4.08%) Public Sector
12 70 (3.66%) Marketing
13 68 (3.55%) Pharmaceutical
14 63 (3.29%) Organisational Skills
15 55 (2.88%) Automotive
16 51 (2.67%) Legal
17 45 (2.35%) Games
18 43 (2.25%) Telecoms
19 37 (1.93%) Influencing Skills
20 34 (1.78%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 350 (18.30%) Senior
2 254 (13.28%) Analyst
3 184 (9.62%) Systems Engineer
4 158 (8.26%) Lead
5 118 (6.17%) Test Engineer
6 105 (5.49%) Architect
7 97 (5.07%) Data Engineer
8 84 (4.39%) Business Analyst
8 84 (4.39%) Developer
9 69 (3.61%) Consultant
9 69 (3.61%) Software Engineer
10 63 (3.29%) Principal Engineer
10 63 (3.29%) Validation Engineer
11 62 (3.24%) Data Analyst
12 49 (2.56%) Support Engineer
13 48 (2.51%) Embedded Engineer
14 47 (2.46%) Data Scientist
15 41 (2.14%) IT Manager
16 40 (2.09%) Network Engineer
17 39 (2.04%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (3.76%) Terraform
2 47 (2.46%) RESTful
3 44 (2.30%) Kafka
4 38 (1.99%) REST
5 36 (1.88%) Node.js
6 35 (1.83%) PySpark
7 29 (1.52%) JSON
8 27 (1.41%) .NET
8 27 (1.41%) LDAP
9 26 (1.36%) XML
10 25 (1.31%) Playwright
11 24 (1.25%) Middleware
12 22 (1.15%) CSS
13 21 (1.10%) HTML
13 21 (1.10%) ModSecurity
14 19 (0.99%) FastAPI
14 19 (0.99%) OAuth
14 19 (0.99%) Pandas
14 19 (0.99%) Regular Expression
14 19 (0.99%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 139 (7.27%) Cloud Native
2 124 (6.48%) Onboarding
3 107 (5.59%) Management Information System
4 72 (3.76%) Data Centre
5 69 (3.61%) Product Ownership
6 56 (2.93%) Enterprise Software
7 55 (2.88%) Data Structures
8 53 (2.77%) Distributed Systems
8 53 (2.77%) Driving Licence
8 53 (2.77%) Embedded Systems
9 47 (2.46%) Low-Code
10 45 (2.35%) Algorithms
11 39 (2.04%) Analytical Mindset
11 39 (2.04%) Life Science
12 35 (1.83%) Video\Live Streaming
13 34 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
14 33 (1.73%) AI Agents
15 32 (1.67%) Robotics
16 27 (1.41%) SCADA
16 27 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 122 (6.38%) Linux
2 90 (4.70%) Windows
3 35 (1.83%) Windows Server
4 19 (0.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 19 (0.99%) Unix
5 9 (0.47%) Android
5 9 (0.47%) Embedded Linux
6 6 (0.31%) FreeRTOS
7 5 (0.26%) Kali Linux
7 5 (0.26%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.21%) Mac OS X
9 2 (0.10%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.10%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.10%) ThreadX
9 2 (0.10%) VMS
9 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.052%) AIX
10 1 (0.052%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 491 (25.67%) Problem-Solving
2 436 (22.79%) Continuous Improvement
3 385 (20.13%) Agile
4 349 (18.24%) AI
5 293 (15.32%) CI/CD
6 266 (13.90%) Verification and Validation
7 251 (13.12%) Stakeholder Management
8 243 (12.70%) Test Automation
9 242 (12.65%) Analytics
10 238 (12.44%) Migration
11 213 (11.13%) Mentoring
12 204 (10.66%) Decision-Making
13 203 (10.61%) Software Engineering
14 183 (9.57%) DevOps
15 179 (9.36%) Business Intelligence
16 173 (9.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 172 (8.99%) Data Analysis
18 169 (8.83%) Machine Learning
19 164 (8.57%) Roadmaps
20 158 (8.26%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 427 (22.32%) Python
2 368 (19.24%) SQL
3 84 (4.39%) C++
4 80 (4.18%) Java
5 76 (3.97%) C
6 58 (3.03%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.88%) Go
8 48 (2.51%) MATLAB
9 44 (2.30%) C#
10 29 (1.52%) Bash
11 28 (1.46%) PowerShell
12 25 (1.31%) Embedded C
13 22 (1.15%) Scala
14 18 (0.94%) Embedded C++
15 17 (0.89%) TypeScript
16 14 (0.73%) R
16 14 (0.73%) T-SQL
17 11 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 8 (0.42%) ABAP
18 8 (0.42%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 402 (21.01%) Degree
2 350 (18.30%) Security Cleared
3 221 (11.55%) SC Cleared
4 115 (6.01%) BPSS Clearance
5 98 (5.12%) DV Cleared
6 83 (4.34%) Master's Degree
7 41 (2.14%) Computer Science Degree
8 38 (1.99%) CISSP
9 31 (1.62%) PhD
10 30 (1.57%) CISM
10 30 (1.57%) PMI Certification
11 29 (1.52%) Chartered Engineer
12 27 (1.41%) HNC
13 24 (1.25%) ACCA
13 24 (1.25%) AWS Certification
13 24 (1.25%) HND
14 23 (1.20%) Azure Certification
14 23 (1.20%) CIMA
15 19 (0.99%) SANS
16 18 (0.94%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 303 (15.84%) Data Quality
2 261 (13.64%) QA
3 64 (3.35%) Accessibility
4 53 (2.77%) GDPR
5 37 (1.93%) GRC
6 25 (1.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 23 (1.20%) IEC 61508
8 21 (1.10%) NIST
9 20 (1.05%) GxP
10 18 (0.94%) PMO
11 16 (0.84%) SLA
12 15 (0.78%) ISO 26262
13 14 (0.73%) GAAP
13 14 (0.73%) IFRS
14 13 (0.68%) WCAG
15 12 (0.63%) ISO 9001
16 11 (0.58%) GMP
16 11 (0.58%) SOC 2
17 9 (0.47%) COBIT
17 9 (0.47%) Def Stans
System Software
1 75 (3.92%) Docker
2 71 (3.71%) Firmware
3 47 (2.46%) Active Directory
4 32 (1.67%) Embedded Firmware
5 28 (1.46%) Virtual Machines
6 21 (1.10%) 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 (3.97%) Kubernetes
2 39 (2.04%) Grafana
3 26 (1.36%) Functional Safety
4 23 (1.20%) Ansible
5 15 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (0.73%) Prometheus
7 10 (0.52%) Cilium
8 7 (0.37%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 7 (0.37%) Kibana
8 7 (0.37%) 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%) Computer Incident Response Team
12 2 (0.10%) Rancher
Vendors
1 259 (13.54%) Microsoft
2 110 (5.75%) SAP
3 101 (5.28%) Oracle
4 54 (2.82%) Salesforce
5 52 (2.72%) Databricks
6 47 (2.46%) ServiceNow
7 44 (2.30%) Cisco
8 37 (1.93%) Google
9 33 (1.73%) Red Hat
10 29 (1.52%) CrowdStrike
10 29 (1.52%) VMware
11 26 (1.36%) EMC
11 26 (1.36%) Palo Alto
12 22 (1.15%) Tenable
13 15 (0.78%) McAfee
13 15 (0.78%) Workday
14 14 (0.73%) Splunk
15 12 (0.63%) ForgeRock
15 12 (0.63%) Okta
15 12 (0.63%) Remedy