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

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 123 79 186
Rank change year-on-year -44 +107 -6
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,269 1,507 1,297
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.56% 3.85% 1.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.11% 4.12% 1.81%
Number of salaries quoted 748 412 714
10th Percentile £34,500 £40,000 £35,825
25th Percentile £43,375 £46,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,490 £55,149 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.87% +0.27% -12.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £85,000
UK median annual salary £57,500 £56,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +2.68% +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 60,033 36,575 71,612
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.81% 93.39% 85.14%
Number of salaries quoted 39,422 20,210 53,694
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £29,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £41,250 £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 £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +9.09% -9.97%

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 16 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 16 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 +72 369 £77,500 +8.77% 309
South East -36 294 £55,000 +7.84% 188
North of England +53 239 £55,000 +15.35% 135
Midlands -79 155 £40,000 -30.43% 93
North West +56 151 £55,000 +15.35% 85
West Midlands -15 100 £44,000 -32.31% 54
East of England -78 98 £60,000 +5.26% 86
South West -45 94 £52,500 -2.78% 104
Yorkshire -21 55 £53,750 +13.16% 36
East Midlands -96 53 £30,000 -42.31% 39
North East -11 33 £52,500 +10.53% 15
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 (3.47%) Apache Airflow
2 28 (2.21%) Apache
3 27 (2.13%) Apache Spark
4 19 (1.50%) Confluence
5 16 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
6 11 (0.87%) Appian
7 9 (0.71%) CMS
7 9 (0.71%) SharePoint
8 6 (0.47%) Kinematics
8 6 (0.47%) SAS
9 4 (0.32%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 2 (0.16%) Artix
11 2 (0.16%) IIS
12 1 (0.079%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.079%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.079%) Headless CMS
12 1 (0.079%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 86 (6.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 54 (4.26%) Microsoft Office
3 17 (1.34%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 11 (0.87%) Microsoft Project
5 11 (0.87%) Simulink
6 6 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.39%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 5 (0.39%) SOLIDWORKS
8 4 (0.32%) AutoCAD
8 4 (0.32%) Fusion 360
9 3 (0.24%) Adobe XD
9 3 (0.24%) Autodesk Inventor
9 3 (0.24%) Sketch
9 3 (0.24%) Solid Edge
10 2 (0.16%) CATIA
10 2 (0.16%) Oracle Smart View
10 2 (0.16%) Productboard
10 2 (0.16%) Stateflow
11 1 (0.079%) Navisworks
Business Applications
1 28 (2.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.81%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.79%) SAP ERP
4 7 (0.55%) SAP MDG
5 6 (0.47%) Loan IQ
6 5 (0.39%) SAP MDG-BP
7 4 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
8 3 (0.24%) iTrent
8 3 (0.24%) Oracle Applications
8 3 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.16%) Oracle Financials
9 2 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 2 (0.16%) Workday HCM
10 1 (0.079%) Magento
10 1 (0.079%) Oracle Payables
10 1 (0.079%) Oracle Receivables
10 1 (0.079%) SAP Business ByDesign
10 1 (0.079%) SAP EHS
10 1 (0.079%) SAP FSCM
10 1 (0.079%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 159 (12.53%) Azure
2 117 (9.22%) Power Platform
3 116 (9.14%) AWS
4 58 (4.57%) SaaS
5 53 (4.18%) GCP
6 41 (3.23%) Azure DevOps
7 37 (2.92%) Serverless
8 33 (2.60%) Microsoft 365
9 29 (2.29%) Amazon S3
10 28 (2.21%) Azure Data Factory
10 28 (2.21%) GitHub
11 27 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
12 26 (2.05%) Snowflake
13 23 (1.81%) Power Automate
14 22 (1.73%) Entra ID
15 19 (1.50%) dbt
16 14 (1.10%) Anthropic Claude
16 14 (1.10%) OpenShift
17 13 (1.02%) Azure AI
18 12 (0.95%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 48 (3.78%) Broadband
2 30 (2.36%) Firewall
3 25 (1.97%) CHAP
4 23 (1.81%) DNS
5 21 (1.65%) WAN
6 17 (1.34%) SD-WAN
7 16 (1.26%) 5G
8 15 (1.18%) Wireless
9 12 (0.95%) TCP/IP
10 11 (0.87%) HTTP
10 11 (0.87%) Network Security
11 10 (0.79%) MQTT
12 9 (0.71%) LAN
12 9 (0.71%) Modbus
12 9 (0.71%) NAS
13 8 (0.63%) VPN
13 8 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
14 7 (0.55%) Ethernet
15 6 (0.47%) Cisco ISE
15 6 (0.47%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (8.98%) Power BI
2 49 (3.86%) SQL Server
3 48 (3.78%) Tableau
4 43 (3.39%) PostgreSQL
5 31 (2.44%) Data Warehouse
6 29 (2.29%) Metadata
6 29 (2.29%) Relational Database
7 24 (1.89%) MongoDB
8 20 (1.58%) Data Lake
9 17 (1.34%) Azure SQL Database
9 17 (1.34%) Spark SQL
10 16 (1.26%) Oracle Reports
11 15 (1.18%) Oracle Database
12 14 (1.10%) BigQuery
12 14 (1.10%) MySQL
12 14 (1.10%) Parquet
13 13 (1.02%) Apache Hive
13 13 (1.02%) Impala
13 13 (1.02%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 11 (0.87%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 66 (5.20%) Git
2 53 (4.18%) JIRA
3 34 (2.68%) Rational DOORS
4 26 (2.05%) Jenkins
5 22 (1.73%) GitLab
5 22 (1.73%) Snyk
6 15 (1.18%) LabVIEW
6 15 (1.18%) MLflow
6 15 (1.18%) Postman
7 13 (1.02%) IBM UrbanCode
7 13 (1.02%) Selenium
8 11 (0.87%) Cucumber
8 11 (0.87%) JMeter
9 10 (0.79%) Eclipse
10 7 (0.55%) LoadRunner
10 7 (0.55%) TeamCity
11 6 (0.47%) TestRail
12 5 (0.39%) Cypress.io
12 5 (0.39%) SonarQube
12 5 (0.39%) SpecFlow
General
1 379 (29.87%) Social Skills
2 319 (25.14%) Finance
3 283 (22.30%) Analytical Skills
4 96 (7.57%) Aerospace
5 94 (7.41%) Electronics
6 92 (7.25%) Manufacturing
7 84 (6.62%) Banking
8 71 (5.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 47 (3.70%) Retail
10 46 (3.62%) Legal
11 45 (3.55%) Law
11 45 (3.55%) Marketing
12 37 (2.92%) Public Sector
13 36 (2.84%) Pharmaceutical
14 35 (2.76%) Financial Institution
15 34 (2.68%) Games
16 29 (2.29%) Organisational Skills
16 29 (2.29%) Presentation Skills
17 23 (1.81%) Automotive
17 23 (1.81%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 215 (16.94%) Senior
2 212 (16.71%) Analyst
3 149 (11.74%) Systems Engineer
4 90 (7.09%) Test Engineer
5 89 (7.01%) Lead
6 87 (6.86%) Architect
7 82 (6.46%) Validation Engineer
8 73 (5.75%) Business Analyst
9 59 (4.65%) Data Analyst
10 50 (3.94%) Data Engineer
11 47 (3.70%) Integration Engineer
12 45 (3.55%) Principal Engineer
13 43 (3.39%) Developer
14 39 (3.07%) Junior
15 37 (2.92%) Senior Systems Engineer
16 36 (2.84%) Systems Integration Engineer
17 34 (2.68%) Verification Engineer
18 32 (2.52%) Consultant
19 30 (2.36%) Principal Systems Engineer
19 30 (2.36%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (3.55%) REST
2 31 (2.44%) Pandas
2 31 (2.44%) RESTful
3 27 (2.13%) JSON
3 27 (2.13%) pytest
4 26 (2.05%) Middleware
5 21 (1.65%) PySpark
6 19 (1.50%) OAuth
6 19 (1.50%) Swagger
7 18 (1.42%) .NET
7 18 (1.42%) XML
8 17 (1.34%) CSS
8 17 (1.34%) JWT
8 17 (1.34%) Kafka
9 16 (1.26%) NumPy
9 16 (1.26%) Playwright
9 16 (1.26%) PyTorch
9 16 (1.26%) TensorFlow
10 14 (1.10%) Hugging Face
10 14 (1.10%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 78 (6.15%) Management Information System
2 56 (4.41%) Onboarding
3 46 (3.62%) Low-Code
4 43 (3.39%) Data Structures
5 39 (3.07%) Cloud Native
6 35 (2.76%) Self-Motivation
7 32 (2.52%) Legacy Systems
8 30 (2.36%) Data Centre
9 29 (2.29%) Product Ownership
10 28 (2.21%) Analytical Mindset
11 26 (2.05%) Life Science
12 25 (1.97%) Algorithms
13 24 (1.89%) Embedded Systems
14 23 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
15 22 (1.73%) Video\Live Streaming
16 20 (1.58%) Distributed Systems
16 20 (1.58%) Driving Licence
17 18 (1.42%) Robotics
18 16 (1.26%) IoT
19 14 (1.10%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 70 (5.52%) Linux
2 55 (4.33%) Windows
3 21 (1.65%) Unix
4 19 (1.50%) Windows Server
5 12 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.87%) Android
7 5 (0.39%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.32%) FreeRTOS
8 4 (0.32%) Mac OS X
9 3 (0.24%) AIX
9 3 (0.24%) Kali Linux
9 3 (0.24%) Robot Operating System
10 2 (0.16%) ThreadX
11 1 (0.079%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.079%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 276 (21.75%) Problem-Solving
2 234 (18.44%) Agile
3 220 (17.34%) Continuous Improvement
4 205 (16.15%) Verification and Validation
5 194 (15.29%) AI
6 186 (14.66%) CI/CD
7 182 (14.34%) Analytics
8 174 (13.71%) Test Automation
9 156 (12.29%) Data Validation
10 136 (10.72%) Business Intelligence
11 130 (10.24%) Decision-Making
12 127 (10.01%) Data Modelling
13 125 (9.85%) Migration
14 123 (9.69%) Data Governance
14 123 (9.69%) Software Engineering
15 117 (9.22%) DevOps
16 113 (8.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 111 (8.75%) Systems Engineering
18 108 (8.51%) Stakeholder Management
19 107 (8.43%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 272 (21.43%) Python
2 261 (20.57%) SQL
3 52 (4.10%) C++
4 48 (3.78%) Java
5 44 (3.47%) C
6 39 (3.07%) Go
7 29 (2.29%) JavaScript
8 27 (2.13%) C#
8 27 (2.13%) PowerShell
9 25 (1.97%) Bash
10 24 (1.89%) MATLAB
11 18 (1.42%) T-SQL
12 13 (1.02%) TypeScript
13 12 (0.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 12 (0.95%) Embedded C
14 9 (0.71%) Embedded C++
14 9 (0.71%) VBA
15 6 (0.47%) ABAP
15 6 (0.47%) PHP
15 6 (0.47%) VB
Qualifications
1 276 (21.75%) Degree
2 144 (11.35%) Security Cleared
3 117 (9.22%) BPSS Clearance
4 65 (5.12%) Master's Degree
5 56 (4.41%) SC Cleared
6 39 (3.07%) DV Cleared
7 36 (2.84%) Chartered Engineer
8 35 (2.76%) CISA
8 35 (2.76%) CISSP
8 35 (2.76%) Computer Science Degree
9 32 (2.52%) CISM
10 31 (2.44%) SANS
11 25 (1.97%) CGEIT
11 25 (1.97%) FFIEC
11 25 (1.97%) HNC
12 22 (1.73%) HND
13 16 (1.26%) PMI Certification
14 13 (1.02%) PMP
15 11 (0.87%) ISTQB
16 8 (0.63%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 189 (14.89%) Data Quality
2 120 (9.46%) QA
3 61 (4.81%) GDPR
4 40 (3.15%) GRC
5 38 (2.99%) Accessibility
6 33 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 27 (2.13%) NIST
8 25 (1.97%) COBIT
9 24 (1.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 20 (1.58%) IFRS
11 16 (1.26%) SLA
12 13 (1.02%) GAAP
12 13 (1.02%) IEC 61508
13 12 (0.95%) PMO
14 11 (0.87%) GMP
15 10 (0.79%) Good Clinical Practice
16 9 (0.71%) ISO 9001
16 9 (0.71%) WCAG
17 8 (0.63%) ISO 13485
17 8 (0.63%) SOC 2
System Software
1 52 (4.10%) Docker
2 33 (2.60%) Firmware
3 31 (2.44%) Active Directory
4 22 (1.73%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (1.10%) vSphere
6 8 (0.63%) Embedded Firmware
6 8 (0.63%) VMware Infrastructure
7 4 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.16%) Terminal Services
8 2 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.079%) iptables
9 1 (0.079%) OpenAM
9 1 (0.079%) OpenDJ
9 1 (0.079%) OpenIDM
Systems Management
1 59 (4.65%) Kubernetes
2 48 (3.78%) Terraform
3 27 (2.13%) Grafana
4 17 (1.34%) Ansible
4 17 (1.34%) Prometheus
5 15 (1.18%) Functional Safety
6 14 (1.10%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 11 (0.87%) SCCM
8 8 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
9 7 (0.55%) Cilium
10 4 (0.32%) Argo
10 4 (0.32%) Rancher
10 4 (0.32%) yum
11 3 (0.24%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.24%) Kibana
11 3 (0.24%) Puppet
12 2 (0.16%) BMC PATROL
12 2 (0.16%) Computer Incident Response Team
12 2 (0.16%) FortiGate
12 2 (0.16%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 170 (13.40%) Microsoft
2 72 (5.67%) Oracle
3 61 (4.81%) SAP
4 43 (3.39%) Salesforce
5 26 (2.05%) Red Hat
6 25 (1.97%) CrowdStrike
7 23 (1.81%) Databricks
8 22 (1.73%) Palo Alto
8 22 (1.73%) Tenable
9 21 (1.65%) ServiceNow
10 20 (1.58%) VMware
11 19 (1.50%) Adobe
11 19 (1.50%) Cisco
12 16 (1.26%) Google
13 15 (1.18%) Foundry
14 14 (1.10%) Citrix
14 14 (1.10%) OpenAI
15 11 (0.87%) Automation Anywhere
15 11 (0.87%) UiPath
16 10 (0.79%) IBM