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 15 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 68 86 176
Rank change year-on-year +18 +90 +9
Permanent jobs citing Validation 2,479 1,478 1,001
As % of all permanent jobs in England 2.37% 3.45% 1.57%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.21% 3.88% 1.91%
Number of salaries quoted 1,466 402 369
10th Percentile £36,250 £38,705 £36,750
25th Percentile £42,750 £41,250 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -15.38%
75th Percentile £72,500 £77,500 £75,000
90th Percentile £86,250 £90,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £58,000 £55,000 £57,004
% change year-on-year +5.45% -3.52% -12.30%

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 77,267 38,105 52,509
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.91% 88.91% 82.61%
Number of salaries quoted 54,131 21,889 28,165
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £33,000
25th Percentile £41,500 £36,250 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -1.32%
75th Percentile £80,000 £75,250 £80,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £97,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
% 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 15 October 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 15 October 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 +82 642 £65,000 -18.75% 222
South East -16 512 £62,500 +19.05% 177
North of England +118 498 £51,000 +6.96% 83
Midlands -13 327 £50,000 -9.09% 88
North West +108 301 £55,000 +9.88% 39
South West +28 253 £55,000 +10.00% 101
East of England -42 222 £55,500 -9.39% 85
West Midlands +48 177 £45,000 -18.18% 56
East Midlands -39 150 £50,000 +17.65% 32
Yorkshire +34 103 £42,500 - 26
North East +6 94 £55,000 +57.14% 19
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 54 (2.18%) Apache Spark
2 45 (1.82%) Apache
3 43 (1.73%) Apache Airflow
4 37 (1.49%) SharePoint
5 33 (1.33%) Confluence
6 32 (1.29%) CMS
7 21 (0.85%) Microsoft Exchange
8 19 (0.77%) Jupyter
9 13 (0.52%) SAS
10 10 (0.40%) WinCC
11 6 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 6 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
12 4 (0.16%) Artix
13 3 (0.12%) nginx
13 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 2 (0.081%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.081%) FactoryTalk
15 1 (0.040%) IIS
15 1 (0.040%) WebSphere
Applications
1 165 (6.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 71 (2.86%) Microsoft Office
3 54 (2.18%) Simulink
4 38 (1.53%) Microsoft Project
5 27 (1.09%) Spreadsheet
6 25 (1.01%) AutoCAD
7 19 (0.77%) SOLIDWORKS
8 17 (0.69%) Revit
9 16 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 16 (0.65%) MS Visio
10 13 (0.52%) OrCAD
11 12 (0.48%) Navisworks
12 10 (0.40%) EPLAN
13 9 (0.36%) Notion
14 6 (0.24%) Mathcad
15 5 (0.20%) Chatbot
15 5 (0.20%) Stateflow
16 4 (0.16%) CANalyzer
17 3 (0.12%) Autodesk Inventor
17 3 (0.12%) Productboard
Business Applications
1 40 (1.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (1.49%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.44%) Workday HCM
4 9 (0.36%) SAP MDG
5 8 (0.32%) NetSuite
6 7 (0.28%) Elite 3E
6 7 (0.28%) Infor M3
6 7 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle Applications
7 6 (0.24%) SAP ERP
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Financials
8 5 (0.20%) Sage 200
8 5 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.16%) iTrent
9 4 (0.16%) Maximo
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.16%) Teamcenter
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.12%) SAP MDG-BP
10 3 (0.12%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 339 (13.67%) Azure
2 263 (10.61%) AWS
3 194 (7.83%) Power Platform
4 96 (3.87%) GCP
5 83 (3.35%) GitHub
6 79 (3.19%) Azure DevOps
7 73 (2.94%) SaaS
8 70 (2.82%) Microsoft 365
9 53 (2.14%) Serverless
10 49 (1.98%) Entra ID
11 48 (1.94%) Amazon S3
12 38 (1.53%) GitHub Actions
13 37 (1.49%) Microsoft Copilot
14 33 (1.33%) Dynamics 365
15 32 (1.29%) Microsoft Purview
16 29 (1.17%) Amazon EMR
17 28 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
18 26 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
19 25 (1.01%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 25 (1.01%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 73 (2.94%) DNS
2 70 (2.82%) Firewall
3 55 (2.22%) Broadband
4 51 (2.06%) TCP/IP
5 49 (1.98%) VPN
6 41 (1.65%) Modbus
7 40 (1.61%) VLAN
8 39 (1.57%) Ethernet
8 39 (1.57%) Wireless
9 35 (1.41%) Network Security
9 35 (1.41%) WAN
10 32 (1.29%) OSPF
11 30 (1.21%) LAN
12 29 (1.17%) MQTT
13 26 (1.05%) Wireshark
14 23 (0.93%) SD-WAN
15 22 (0.89%) BGP
16 21 (0.85%) DHCP
17 19 (0.77%) HTTP
18 18 (0.73%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 180 (7.26%) Power BI
2 69 (2.78%) Metadata
3 65 (2.62%) Data Warehouse
4 57 (2.30%) SQL Server
5 47 (1.90%) PostgreSQL
6 46 (1.86%) Data Lake
7 39 (1.57%) Amazon Athena
7 39 (1.57%) Relational Database
8 36 (1.45%) Tableau
9 29 (1.17%) MongoDB
10 27 (1.09%) Big Data
11 26 (1.05%) NoSQL
11 26 (1.05%) Power Query
12 24 (0.97%) BigQuery
13 22 (0.89%) DynamoDB
13 22 (0.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 21 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
15 20 (0.81%) Amazon Redshift
16 19 (0.77%) MySQL
17 18 (0.73%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 136 (5.49%) JIRA
2 130 (5.24%) Git
3 64 (2.58%) GitLab
4 63 (2.54%) Jenkins
5 49 (1.98%) Rational DOORS
6 33 (1.33%) LabVIEW
7 20 (0.81%) Selenium
8 18 (0.73%) Postman
9 17 (0.69%) Cypress.io
10 13 (0.52%) Claude Code
11 11 (0.44%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.44%) Eclipse
11 11 (0.44%) Rational Rhapsody
11 11 (0.44%) Snyk
12 10 (0.40%) Sonatype Nexus
13 9 (0.36%) Cucumber
13 9 (0.36%) JMeter
14 8 (0.32%) Metasploit
14 8 (0.32%) MLflow
14 8 (0.32%) REST Assured
General
1 840 (33.88%) Social Skills
2 626 (25.25%) Finance
3 593 (23.92%) Analytical Skills
4 265 (10.69%) Manufacturing
5 254 (10.25%) Electronics
6 242 (9.76%) Aerospace
7 229 (9.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 125 (5.04%) Law
9 118 (4.76%) Marketing
10 112 (4.52%) Public Sector
11 111 (4.48%) Organisational Skills
12 105 (4.24%) Banking
13 100 (4.03%) Retail
14 93 (3.75%) Telecoms
15 86 (3.47%) Automotive
16 81 (3.27%) Pharmaceutical
17 56 (2.26%) Legal
18 48 (1.94%) Military
19 43 (1.73%) Documentation Skills
20 42 (1.69%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 429 (17.31%) Senior
2 266 (10.73%) Systems Engineer
3 249 (10.04%) Analyst
4 196 (7.91%) Lead
5 124 (5.00%) Data Engineer
5 124 (5.00%) Test Engineer
6 109 (4.40%) Architect
7 103 (4.15%) Developer
8 97 (3.91%) Software Engineer
9 92 (3.71%) Consultant
10 90 (3.63%) Principal Engineer
11 86 (3.47%) Electronics Engineer
12 75 (3.03%) Business Analyst
13 62 (2.50%) Design Engineer
14 61 (2.46%) Data Analyst
15 60 (2.42%) Network Engineer
16 59 (2.38%) Automation Engineer
17 56 (2.26%) Validation Engineer
18 51 (2.06%) Administrator
19 50 (2.02%) Principal Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (3.67%) Terraform
2 69 (2.78%) REST
3 61 (2.46%) Kafka
3 61 (2.46%) RESTful
4 55 (2.22%) .NET
5 51 (2.06%) Node.js
6 38 (1.53%) FastAPI
6 38 (1.53%) JSON
6 38 (1.53%) PySpark
7 36 (1.45%) Playwright
8 33 (1.33%) CSS
8 33 (1.33%) XML
9 32 (1.29%) HTML
10 31 (1.25%) Swagger
11 30 (1.21%) React
12 27 (1.09%) OpenAPI
12 27 (1.09%) RabbitMQ
13 23 (0.93%) LDAP
13 23 (0.93%) Middleware
14 22 (0.89%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 159 (6.41%) Cloud Native
2 157 (6.33%) Onboarding
3 153 (6.17%) Management Information System
4 78 (3.15%) Product Ownership
5 75 (3.03%) Driving Licence
6 72 (2.90%) Data Centre
7 68 (2.74%) Distributed Systems
8 67 (2.70%) Embedded Systems
9 66 (2.66%) Data Structures
10 64 (2.58%) Enterprise Software
11 59 (2.38%) SCADA
12 55 (2.22%) AI Agents
13 51 (2.06%) Life Science
14 47 (1.90%) Algorithms
15 43 (1.73%) Robotics
16 40 (1.61%) Low-Code
17 38 (1.53%) Analogue Electronics
17 38 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
18 37 (1.49%) Analytical Mindset
19 34 (1.37%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 136 (5.49%) Linux
2 94 (3.79%) Windows
3 36 (1.45%) Windows Server
4 26 (1.05%) Unix
5 13 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.44%) Android
7 8 (0.32%) Embedded Linux
8 7 (0.28%) macOS
9 4 (0.16%) Kali Linux
10 3 (0.12%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.12%) FreeRTOS
11 2 (0.081%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.081%) VMS
11 2 (0.081%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.040%) CentOS
12 1 (0.040%) OpenWrt
12 1 (0.040%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 657 (26.50%) Problem-Solving
2 566 (22.83%) Continuous Improvement
3 453 (18.27%) Agile
4 446 (17.99%) AI
5 421 (16.98%) Verification and Validation
6 350 (14.12%) CI/CD
7 338 (13.63%) Stakeholder Management
8 320 (12.91%) Test Automation
9 308 (12.42%) Migration
10 272 (10.97%) Analytics
11 268 (10.81%) Mentoring
12 257 (10.37%) Software Engineering
13 244 (9.84%) Decision-Making
14 237 (9.56%) DevOps
15 220 (8.87%) Business Intelligence
16 212 (8.55%) Data Analysis
17 207 (8.35%) Roadmaps
18 206 (8.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 197 (7.95%) Data Migration
20 194 (7.83%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 522 (21.06%) Python
2 445 (17.95%) SQL
3 97 (3.91%) C++
3 97 (3.91%) Java
4 94 (3.79%) C
5 78 (3.15%) C#
6 72 (2.90%) JavaScript
7 67 (2.70%) MATLAB
8 45 (1.82%) Go
9 39 (1.57%) PowerShell
10 37 (1.49%) Bash
11 31 (1.25%) TypeScript
12 28 (1.13%) Embedded C
13 25 (1.01%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 25 (1.01%) Scala
14 22 (0.89%) R
15 17 (0.69%) Embedded C++
16 14 (0.56%) Shell Script
17 13 (0.52%) T-SQL
18 11 (0.44%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 554 (22.35%) Degree
2 514 (20.73%) Security Cleared
3 376 (15.17%) SC Cleared
4 111 (4.48%) BPSS Clearance
5 106 (4.28%) Master's Degree
6 98 (3.95%) DV Cleared
7 48 (1.94%) PhD
8 46 (1.86%) Computer Science Degree
8 46 (1.86%) HND
9 38 (1.53%) HNC
10 36 (1.45%) Chartered Engineer
11 35 (1.41%) PMI Certification
12 34 (1.37%) Azure Certification
13 31 (1.25%) ACCA
14 30 (1.21%) CISSP
15 28 (1.13%) CIMA
16 27 (1.09%) AWS Certification
17 26 (1.05%) PMP
18 23 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
19 19 (0.77%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 379 (15.29%) Data Quality
2 299 (12.06%) QA
3 80 (3.23%) Accessibility
4 63 (2.54%) GDPR
5 32 (1.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 28 (1.13%) GxP
7 26 (1.05%) GRC
8 22 (0.89%) SLA
9 20 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 19 (0.77%) ISO 19650
11 18 (0.73%) ISO 9001
12 17 (0.69%) NIST
13 16 (0.65%) IEC 61508
14 12 (0.48%) GMP
15 11 (0.44%) ISO 26262
15 11 (0.44%) PMO
15 11 (0.44%) SOC 2
16 9 (0.36%) WCAG
17 8 (0.32%) GAAP
17 8 (0.32%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 116 (4.68%) Docker
2 95 (3.83%) Firmware
3 53 (2.14%) Active Directory
4 43 (1.73%) Embedded Firmware
5 17 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
6 15 (0.61%) vSphere
7 9 (0.36%) VMware Infrastructure
8 6 (0.24%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 2 (0.081%) iptables
10 2 (0.081%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.081%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.081%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.040%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.040%) LXC
Systems Management
1 95 (3.83%) Kubernetes
2 42 (1.69%) Grafana
3 38 (1.53%) Ansible
4 27 (1.09%) Functional Safety
5 18 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
6 17 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (0.61%) Prometheus
8 13 (0.52%) Puppet
9 9 (0.36%) BMC PATROL
10 8 (0.32%) Kibana
10 8 (0.32%) Nessus
10 8 (0.32%) Nmap
11 7 (0.28%) Cilium
12 5 (0.20%) Argo
12 5 (0.20%) Autotask
12 5 (0.20%) Rancher
12 5 (0.20%) SCCM
12 5 (0.20%) WMI
12 5 (0.20%) yum
13 4 (0.16%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 352 (14.20%) Microsoft
2 122 (4.92%) SAP
3 106 (4.28%) Salesforce
4 101 (4.07%) Oracle
5 80 (3.23%) EMC
6 67 (2.70%) Databricks
7 55 (2.22%) ServiceNow
8 54 (2.18%) Cisco
9 39 (1.57%) Adobe
10 36 (1.45%) Google
11 30 (1.21%) Samsung
12 28 (1.13%) TikTok
13 27 (1.09%) Sage
14 25 (1.01%) Thales
15 22 (0.89%) CrowdStrike
15 22 (0.89%) IBM
15 22 (0.89%) Informatica
15 22 (0.89%) VMware
16 20 (0.81%) Autodesk
16 20 (0.81%) Siemens