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

6 months to
27 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 138 166 185
Rank change year-on-year +28 +19 -36
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,022 682 1,247
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.49% 1.88% 1.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.93% 2.01% 1.86%
Number of salaries quoted 599 347 718
10th Percentile £34,900 £39,500 £35,500
25th Percentile £45,000 £46,000 £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 £77,500 £71,250 £72,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £85,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -10.42%

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 53,090 33,986 67,038
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 77.23% 93.60% 86.51%
Number of salaries quoted 33,080 20,170 51,900
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,500 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £44,750 £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 £73,750
90th Percentile £98,750 £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 27 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 27 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% 268
South East +34 241 £55,000 +11.11% 215
North of England +10 157 £59,000 +24.21% 152
Midlands -18 122 £37,500 -31.82% 118
North West +10 101 £60,000 +25.83% 74
East of England -9 90 £58,750 +6.82% 96
West Midlands -4 74 £42,215 -36.28% 77
South West -35 67 £55,000 - 89
East Midlands -40 46 £35,000 -31.37% 41
Yorkshire -41 36 £60,000 +26.32% 51
North East -13 20 £48,500 -14.54% 27
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 41 (4.01%) Apache Airflow
2 27 (2.64%) Apache Spark
3 23 (2.25%) Apache
4 13 (1.27%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (1.17%) Appian
5 12 (1.17%) CMS
5 12 (1.17%) Confluence
6 8 (0.78%) SharePoint
7 5 (0.49%) Kinematics
8 4 (0.39%) Headless CMS
9 2 (0.20%) WordPress
10 1 (0.098%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.098%) IIS
10 1 (0.098%) Jupyter
10 1 (0.098%) SAS
Applications
1 88 (8.61%) Microsoft Excel
2 51 (4.99%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (1.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (1.66%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 5 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.39%) Fusion 360
7 4 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.39%) Simulink
8 2 (0.20%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.20%) Adobe Captivate
8 2 (0.20%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.20%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.20%) Elementor
8 2 (0.20%) Oracle Smart View
8 2 (0.20%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.20%) Solid Edge
8 2 (0.20%) SOLIDWORKS
8 2 (0.20%) Weka
9 1 (0.098%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 21 (2.05%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.49%) Loan IQ
3 5 (0.49%) SAP ERP
4 4 (0.39%) SAP BPC
5 3 (0.29%) 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 (0.098%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.098%) Endur
7 1 (0.098%) Magento
7 1 (0.098%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.098%) Oracle Financials
7 1 (0.098%) Primavera
7 1 (0.098%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.098%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.098%) SAP FSCM
Cloud Services
1 142 (13.89%) Azure
2 99 (9.69%) Power Platform
3 81 (7.93%) AWS
4 54 (5.28%) SaaS
5 39 (3.82%) Azure DevOps
6 38 (3.72%) GCP
7 24 (2.35%) Amazon S3
7 24 (2.35%) Power Automate
7 24 (2.35%) Snowflake
8 23 (2.25%) Azure Data Factory
9 22 (2.15%) dbt
10 21 (2.05%) Dynamics 365
11 19 (1.86%) Entra ID
11 19 (1.86%) GitHub
12 17 (1.66%) Microsoft 365
13 14 (1.37%) Datadog
14 13 (1.27%) Anthropic Claude
14 13 (1.27%) OpenShift
15 12 (1.17%) Azure AI
16 10 (0.98%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 25 (2.45%) CHAP
2 18 (1.76%) Broadband
3 15 (1.47%) WAN
4 13 (1.27%) Firewall
4 13 (1.27%) SD-WAN
5 12 (1.17%) DNS
6 11 (1.08%) 5G
7 9 (0.88%) HTTP
7 9 (0.88%) TCP/IP
8 8 (0.78%) Wireless
9 7 (0.68%) LAN
9 7 (0.68%) MQTT
10 6 (0.59%) Modbus
10 6 (0.59%) NAS
11 5 (0.49%) Cisco IOS
11 5 (0.49%) WAAS
12 4 (0.39%) SMTP
12 4 (0.39%) VoIP
12 4 (0.39%) VPN
13 3 (0.29%) BGP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 98 (9.59%) Power BI
2 43 (4.21%) SQL Server
2 43 (4.21%) Tableau
3 27 (2.64%) Data Warehouse
3 27 (2.64%) Relational Database
4 26 (2.54%) Metadata
5 24 (2.35%) PostgreSQL
6 14 (1.37%) Azure SQL Database
6 14 (1.37%) Oracle Reports
6 14 (1.37%) Spark SQL
7 13 (1.27%) Apache Hive
7 13 (1.27%) Impala
7 13 (1.27%) MySQL
7 13 (1.27%) Oracle Database
7 13 (1.27%) Parquet
8 12 (1.17%) Pinecone
8 12 (1.17%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 10 (0.98%) Amazon Redshift
9 10 (0.98%) Spotfire
10 9 (0.88%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 59 (5.77%) Git
2 49 (4.79%) JIRA
3 34 (3.33%) Rational DOORS
4 17 (1.66%) Jenkins
5 16 (1.57%) Postman
6 14 (1.37%) LabVIEW
6 14 (1.37%) MLflow
7 13 (1.27%) Cucumber
7 13 (1.27%) GitLab
7 13 (1.27%) IBM UrbanCode
8 12 (1.17%) JMeter
8 12 (1.17%) Selenium
9 11 (1.08%) Eclipse
10 10 (0.98%) TestRail
11 8 (0.78%) Locust
12 7 (0.68%) SoapUI
13 6 (0.59%) LoadRunner
13 6 (0.59%) Subversion
14 5 (0.49%) SpecFlow
15 4 (0.39%) Zephyr
General
1 358 (35.03%) Social Skills
2 258 (25.24%) Finance
3 244 (23.87%) Analytical Skills
4 84 (8.22%) Banking
5 59 (5.77%) Manufacturing
6 55 (5.38%) Electronics
7 48 (4.70%) Aerospace
8 46 (4.50%) Marketing
9 41 (4.01%) Financial Institution
9 41 (4.01%) Law
9 41 (4.01%) Legal
10 38 (3.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 35 (3.42%) Retail
12 32 (3.13%) Presentation Skills
13 26 (2.54%) Organisational Skills
13 26 (2.54%) Public Sector
14 23 (2.25%) Telecoms
15 22 (2.15%) Documentation Skills
16 21 (2.05%) Pharmaceutical
17 19 (1.86%) Games
Job Titles
1 181 (17.71%) Analyst
2 158 (15.46%) Senior
3 125 (12.23%) Systems Engineer
4 77 (7.53%) Lead
5 63 (6.16%) Validation Engineer
6 61 (5.97%) Test Engineer
7 58 (5.68%) Business Analyst
8 50 (4.89%) Architect
8 50 (4.89%) Data Analyst
9 48 (4.70%) Integration Engineer
10 38 (3.72%) Principal Engineer
10 38 (3.72%) Systems Integration Engineer
11 37 (3.62%) Developer
12 36 (3.52%) Senior Systems Engineer
13 35 (3.42%) Data Engineer
14 33 (3.23%) Junior
15 30 (2.94%) Software Validation Engineer
16 29 (2.84%) Verification Engineer
17 28 (2.74%) Auditor
17 28 (2.74%) Principal Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (5.09%) REST
2 37 (3.62%) Pandas
3 29 (2.84%) JSON
4 26 (2.54%) pytest
5 25 (2.45%) Middleware
6 22 (2.15%) XML
7 19 (1.86%) OAuth
8 18 (1.76%) JWT
8 18 (1.76%) NumPy
8 18 (1.76%) PySpark
8 18 (1.76%) PyTorch
8 18 (1.76%) Swagger
8 18 (1.76%) TensorFlow
9 16 (1.57%) RESTful
10 15 (1.47%) Kafka
10 15 (1.47%) React
10 15 (1.47%) scikit-learn
10 15 (1.47%) Web Services
11 14 (1.37%) CSS
11 14 (1.37%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 72 (7.05%) Management Information System
2 51 (4.99%) Onboarding
3 41 (4.01%) Data Structures
4 36 (3.52%) Low-Code
5 31 (3.03%) Legacy Systems
6 28 (2.74%) Product Ownership
6 28 (2.74%) Self-Motivation
7 24 (2.35%) Life Science
8 22 (2.15%) Analytical Mindset
9 19 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
10 14 (1.37%) Blockchain
10 14 (1.37%) Robotics
11 13 (1.27%) Algorithms
11 13 (1.27%) Reinsurance
12 12 (1.17%) IoT
13 11 (1.08%) Data Centre
13 11 (1.08%) Embedded Systems
13 11 (1.08%) Hackathon
13 11 (1.08%) Self-Driving Car
14 8 (0.78%) GNSS
Operating Systems
1 49 (4.79%) Linux
2 42 (4.11%) Windows
3 17 (1.66%) Unix
4 11 (1.08%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.98%) Android
6 4 (0.39%) Apple iOS
6 4 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.29%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.20%) AIX
8 2 (0.20%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.20%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.098%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.098%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.098%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 235 (22.99%) Agile
2 225 (22.02%) Problem-Solving
3 178 (17.42%) Verification and Validation
4 172 (16.83%) Continuous Improvement
5 153 (14.97%) Analytics
6 145 (14.19%) Data Validation
7 134 (13.11%) Test Automation
8 124 (12.13%) Business Intelligence
9 120 (11.74%) CI/CD
10 116 (11.35%) AI
11 113 (11.06%) Systems Engineering
12 110 (10.76%) DevOps
13 106 (10.37%) Data Modelling
14 104 (10.18%) Decision-Making
14 104 (10.18%) Migration
15 98 (9.59%) ETL
16 96 (9.39%) User Acceptance Testing
17 95 (9.30%) Mentoring
17 95 (9.30%) Stakeholder Management
18 92 (9.00%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 233 (22.80%) SQL
2 215 (21.04%) Python
3 43 (4.21%) Java
4 30 (2.94%) JavaScript
4 30 (2.94%) PowerShell
5 27 (2.64%) C++
6 25 (2.45%) C
7 21 (2.05%) Bash
8 20 (1.96%) T-SQL
9 17 (1.66%) Go
10 14 (1.37%) C#
10 14 (1.37%) MATLAB
10 14 (1.37%) TypeScript
11 11 (1.08%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 9 (0.88%) R
12 9 (0.88%) VBA
13 7 (0.68%) VB
14 6 (0.59%) PHP
15 5 (0.49%) VBScript
16 4 (0.39%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 228 (22.31%) Degree
2 127 (12.43%) Security Cleared
3 111 (10.86%) BPSS Clearance
4 51 (4.99%) Master's Degree
5 48 (4.70%) SC Cleared
6 36 (3.52%) Computer Science Degree
7 32 (3.13%) CISA
7 32 (3.13%) CISSP
8 31 (3.03%) CISM
9 26 (2.54%) DV Cleared
10 25 (2.45%) CGEIT
10 25 (2.45%) FFIEC
10 25 (2.45%) SANS
11 23 (2.25%) Chartered Engineer
12 18 (1.76%) HNC
13 17 (1.66%) ISTQB
14 15 (1.47%) PMI Certification
14 15 (1.47%) PMP
15 13 (1.27%) HND
16 7 (0.68%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (14.38%) Data Quality
2 112 (10.96%) QA
3 57 (5.58%) GDPR
4 44 (4.31%) Accessibility
5 37 (3.62%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 26 (2.54%) NIST
7 25 (2.45%) COBIT
8 18 (1.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 18 (1.76%) SLA
9 15 (1.47%) IFRS
10 13 (1.27%) WCAG
11 11 (1.08%) GRC
12 10 (0.98%) Good Clinical Practice
12 10 (0.98%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 9 (0.88%) GAAP
14 8 (0.78%) ISO 20022
14 8 (0.78%) ISO 9001
15 7 (0.68%) 21 CFR Part 11
15 7 (0.68%) GxP
16 6 (0.59%) GMP
System Software
1 57 (5.58%) Docker
2 19 (1.86%) Active Directory
2 19 (1.86%) Firmware
3 8 (0.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.68%) vSphere
5 5 (0.49%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.20%) Ceph
7 2 (0.20%) Lustre
7 2 (0.20%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 2 (0.20%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.098%) Embedded Firmware
8 1 (0.098%) iptables
8 1 (0.098%) OpenAM
8 1 (0.098%) OpenDJ
8 1 (0.098%) OpenIDM
8 1 (0.098%) pfSense
8 1 (0.098%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 54 (5.28%) Kubernetes
2 40 (3.91%) Terraform
3 22 (2.15%) Grafana
4 17 (1.66%) Ansible
5 14 (1.37%) Prometheus
6 12 (1.17%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 10 (0.98%) SCCM
8 7 (0.68%) Microsoft Intune
9 5 (0.49%) Argo
9 5 (0.49%) Rancher
9 5 (0.49%) yum
10 2 (0.20%) BMC PATROL
10 2 (0.20%) Functional Safety
10 2 (0.20%) Nessus
10 2 (0.20%) PowerCLI
10 2 (0.20%) Puppet
11 1 (0.098%) Control-M
11 1 (0.098%) FortiGate
11 1 (0.098%) Kibana
11 1 (0.098%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 138 (13.50%) Microsoft
2 53 (5.19%) Oracle
2 53 (5.19%) SAP
3 35 (3.42%) Salesforce
4 17 (1.66%) Cisco
4 17 (1.66%) Red Hat
5 16 (1.57%) Adobe
5 16 (1.57%) Foundry
5 16 (1.57%) ServiceNow
6 15 (1.47%) Databricks
7 14 (1.37%) VMware
8 13 (1.27%) IBM
8 13 (1.27%) OpenAI
9 12 (1.17%) Automation Anywhere
9 12 (1.17%) Google
9 12 (1.17%) Software AG
9 12 (1.17%) UiPath
10 10 (0.98%) Citrix
11 9 (0.88%) Intapp
11 9 (0.88%) Workday