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

6 months to
2 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 144 184 173
Rank change year-on-year +40 -11 -23
Permanent jobs citing Validation 916 697 1,172
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.48% 1.67% 1.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.88% 1.80% 1.92%
Number of salaries quoted 496 288 720
10th Percentile £35,375 £37,125 £34,975
25th Percentile £45,000 £46,250 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -9.25%
75th Percentile £78,750 £71,250 £73,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £85,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +7.14% +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 48,744 38,824 60,949
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 78.62% 93.20% 87.81%
Number of salaries quoted 29,892 19,866 47,964
10th Percentile £29,250 £33,000 £29,750
25th Percentile £39,625 £46,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £62,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +13.64% -12.00%
75th Percentile £77,500 £82,500 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £103,750 £95,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%

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 2 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 2 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 +71 308 £75,000 +7.14% 240
South East +46 200 £53,500 +1.90% 235
North of England +1 130 £60,000 +26.32% 161
Midlands +3 111 £37,500 -30.23% 135
North West +18 90 £58,000 +21.64% 84
East of England -5 86 £58,750 +6.82% 115
South West -7 68 £62,500 +16.17% 96
West Midlands +4 67 £42,215 -35.05% 91
East Midlands -15 43 £35,000 -32.69% 41
Yorkshire -35 29 £65,000 +42.94% 55
North East -7 11 £46,999 +13.25% 23
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 37 (4.04%) Apache Airflow
2 27 (2.95%) Apache Spark
3 21 (2.29%) Apache
4 13 (1.42%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (1.31%) Appian
5 12 (1.31%) Confluence
6 10 (1.09%) CMS
6 10 (1.09%) SharePoint
7 4 (0.44%) Headless CMS
8 2 (0.22%) Kinematics
8 2 (0.22%) WordPress
9 1 (0.11%) Anypoint
9 1 (0.11%) FileNet
9 1 (0.11%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.11%) SAS
Applications
1 83 (9.06%) Microsoft Excel
2 49 (5.35%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (1.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (1.86%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.76%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 4 (0.44%) Fusion 360
6 4 (0.44%) Simulink
6 4 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.22%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.22%) Adobe Captivate
7 2 (0.22%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.22%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.22%) Elementor
7 2 (0.22%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.22%) Oracle Smart View
7 2 (0.22%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.22%) Weka
8 1 (0.11%) GNU Octave
8 1 (0.11%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.11%) Revit
Business Applications
1 23 (2.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (1.20%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.44%) SAP BPC
3 4 (0.44%) SAP ERP
4 3 (0.33%) SAP CX
4 3 (0.33%) SAP MDG
4 3 (0.33%) Workday HCM
5 2 (0.22%) IBM Planning Analytics
5 2 (0.22%) Loan IQ
5 2 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.22%) Primavera
6 1 (0.11%) Endur
6 1 (0.11%) Magento
6 1 (0.11%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.11%) Oracle Financials
6 1 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.11%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.11%) SAP Business ByDesign
6 1 (0.11%) SAP FSCM
Cloud Services
1 133 (14.52%) Azure
2 83 (9.06%) Power Platform
3 68 (7.42%) AWS
4 47 (5.13%) SaaS
5 38 (4.15%) Azure DevOps
6 33 (3.60%) GCP
7 24 (2.62%) Amazon S3
8 22 (2.40%) Azure Data Factory
8 22 (2.40%) Power Automate
9 21 (2.29%) Snowflake
10 20 (2.18%) Dynamics 365
11 19 (2.07%) dbt
12 18 (1.97%) Entra ID
13 17 (1.86%) GitHub
14 15 (1.64%) Microsoft 365
15 12 (1.31%) Anthropic Claude
15 12 (1.31%) Azure AI
15 12 (1.31%) OpenShift
16 11 (1.20%) Serverless
17 10 (1.09%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 22 (2.40%) CHAP
2 13 (1.42%) WAN
3 12 (1.31%) SD-WAN
4 11 (1.20%) 5G
5 10 (1.09%) Firewall
6 8 (0.87%) Broadband
6 8 (0.87%) DNS
6 8 (0.87%) HTTP
6 8 (0.87%) MQTT
6 8 (0.87%) TCP/IP
7 6 (0.66%) LAN
7 6 (0.66%) Modbus
8 5 (0.55%) Cisco IOS
8 5 (0.55%) VoIP
8 5 (0.55%) WAAS
8 5 (0.55%) Wireless
9 4 (0.44%) NAS
9 4 (0.44%) SMTP
10 3 (0.33%) Ethernet VPN
10 3 (0.33%) IP Telephony
Database & Business Intelligence
1 81 (8.84%) Power BI
2 40 (4.37%) SQL Server
3 32 (3.49%) Tableau
4 25 (2.73%) Relational Database
5 24 (2.62%) Data Warehouse
5 24 (2.62%) Metadata
6 14 (1.53%) PostgreSQL
7 13 (1.42%) Azure SQL Database
7 13 (1.42%) Oracle Reports
7 13 (1.42%) Spark SQL
8 12 (1.31%) Apache Hive
8 12 (1.31%) Impala
8 12 (1.31%) Oracle Database
8 12 (1.31%) Parquet
8 12 (1.31%) Pinecone
9 11 (1.20%) Data Lake
9 11 (1.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 10 (1.09%) Amazon Redshift
10 10 (1.09%) Spotfire
11 9 (0.98%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 52 (5.68%) Git
2 49 (5.35%) JIRA
3 38 (4.15%) Rational DOORS
4 18 (1.97%) Postman
5 17 (1.86%) Jenkins
6 15 (1.64%) GitLab
7 14 (1.53%) LabVIEW
7 14 (1.53%) MLflow
8 12 (1.31%) Cucumber
8 12 (1.31%) IBM UrbanCode
9 11 (1.20%) Eclipse
10 10 (1.09%) JMeter
10 10 (1.09%) TestRail
11 9 (0.98%) Selenium
12 8 (0.87%) SoapUI
13 6 (0.66%) LoadRunner
13 6 (0.66%) Locust
13 6 (0.66%) Subversion
14 5 (0.55%) SpecFlow
15 4 (0.44%) TestDirector
General
1 333 (36.35%) Social Skills
2 250 (27.29%) Finance
3 229 (25.00%) Analytical Skills
4 86 (9.39%) Banking
5 51 (5.57%) Financial Institution
6 45 (4.91%) Marketing
7 44 (4.80%) Manufacturing
8 41 (4.48%) Electronics
9 37 (4.04%) Law
10 36 (3.93%) Aerospace
10 36 (3.93%) Presentation Skills
11 31 (3.38%) Legal
12 29 (3.17%) Organisational Skills
13 28 (3.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 28 (3.06%) Telecoms
14 27 (2.95%) Retail
15 23 (2.51%) Public Sector
16 19 (2.07%) Billing
17 18 (1.97%) Documentation Skills
18 16 (1.75%) Avionics
Job Titles
1 161 (17.58%) Analyst
2 136 (14.85%) Senior
3 118 (12.88%) Systems Engineer
4 66 (7.21%) Lead
5 59 (6.44%) Architect
6 55 (6.00%) Business Analyst
7 53 (5.79%) Validation Engineer
8 52 (5.68%) Test Engineer
9 44 (4.80%) Integration Engineer
10 43 (4.69%) Data Analyst
11 35 (3.82%) Junior
11 35 (3.82%) Systems Integration Engineer
12 33 (3.60%) Principal Engineer
12 33 (3.60%) Senior Systems Engineer
13 32 (3.49%) Data Engineer
14 27 (2.95%) Verification Engineer
15 26 (2.84%) Principal Systems Engineer
15 26 (2.84%) Solutions Architect
16 24 (2.62%) Auditor
16 24 (2.62%) Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (5.35%) REST
2 37 (4.04%) Pandas
3 26 (2.84%) JSON
3 26 (2.84%) Middleware
4 24 (2.62%) pytest
5 22 (2.40%) XML
6 19 (2.07%) PyTorch
6 19 (2.07%) TensorFlow
7 17 (1.86%) NumPy
7 17 (1.86%) OAuth
7 17 (1.86%) PySpark
8 16 (1.75%) JWT
8 16 (1.75%) scikit-learn
8 16 (1.75%) Swagger
8 16 (1.75%) Web Services
9 14 (1.53%) React
10 13 (1.42%) FastAPI
10 13 (1.42%) Hugging Face
10 13 (1.42%) RESTful
11 12 (1.31%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 61 (6.66%) Management Information System
2 46 (5.02%) Onboarding
3 34 (3.71%) Data Structures
4 28 (3.06%) Self-Motivation
5 26 (2.84%) Legacy Systems
6 24 (2.62%) Low-Code
7 21 (2.29%) Product Ownership
8 20 (2.18%) Life Science
9 18 (1.97%) Analytical Mindset
9 18 (1.97%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 16 (1.75%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 15 (1.64%) Enterprise Software
12 13 (1.42%) Blockchain
12 13 (1.42%) Reinsurance
13 11 (1.20%) Algorithms
13 11 (1.20%) Self-Driving Car
14 10 (1.09%) Data Centre
14 10 (1.09%) IoT
15 8 (0.87%) CMDB
15 8 (0.87%) e-Learning
Operating Systems
1 38 (4.15%) Linux
2 37 (4.04%) Windows
3 15 (1.64%) Unix
4 10 (1.09%) Android
5 6 (0.66%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.44%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.33%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.22%) AIX
8 2 (0.22%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.22%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 231 (25.22%) Agile
2 208 (22.71%) Problem-Solving
3 167 (18.23%) Verification and Validation
4 134 (14.63%) Analytics
5 133 (14.52%) Data Validation
6 127 (13.86%) Continuous Improvement
7 108 (11.79%) CI/CD
7 108 (11.79%) Test Automation
8 106 (11.57%) AI
9 103 (11.24%) Business Intelligence
9 103 (11.24%) Systems Engineering
10 102 (11.14%) Migration
11 101 (11.03%) DevOps
12 93 (10.15%) Decision-Making
12 93 (10.15%) Mentoring
13 92 (10.04%) ETL
14 89 (9.72%) Data Modelling
15 88 (9.61%) User Acceptance Testing
16 87 (9.50%) Stakeholder Management
17 86 (9.39%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 219 (23.91%) SQL
2 189 (20.63%) Python
3 39 (4.26%) Java
4 27 (2.95%) C
4 27 (2.95%) PowerShell
5 26 (2.84%) C++
6 24 (2.62%) JavaScript
7 18 (1.97%) MATLAB
8 17 (1.86%) Bash
8 17 (1.86%) T-SQL
9 13 (1.42%) TypeScript
10 10 (1.09%) C#
10 10 (1.09%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 9 (0.98%) R
12 8 (0.87%) VBA
13 7 (0.76%) Go
13 7 (0.76%) VB
14 5 (0.55%) PHP
15 4 (0.44%) VBScript
16 3 (0.33%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 222 (24.24%) Degree
2 118 (12.88%) Security Cleared
3 114 (12.45%) BPSS Clearance
4 46 (5.02%) Master's Degree
4 46 (5.02%) SC Cleared
5 37 (4.04%) Computer Science Degree
6 25 (2.73%) CISA
6 25 (2.73%) CISSP
7 24 (2.62%) CISM
8 22 (2.40%) CGEIT
8 22 (2.40%) FFIEC
8 22 (2.40%) SANS
9 20 (2.18%) DV Cleared
10 16 (1.75%) Chartered Engineer
10 16 (1.75%) HNC
10 16 (1.75%) ISTQB
11 14 (1.53%) PMI Certification
11 14 (1.53%) PMP
12 12 (1.31%) HND
13 7 (0.76%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 131 (14.30%) Data Quality
2 87 (9.50%) QA
3 50 (5.46%) GDPR
4 40 (4.37%) ISO/IEC 15288
5 32 (3.49%) Accessibility
6 22 (2.40%) COBIT
6 22 (2.40%) NIST
7 17 (1.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 17 (1.86%) SLA
8 16 (1.75%) ISO 20022
9 13 (1.42%) SEPA
10 11 (1.20%) GRC
10 11 (1.20%) WCAG
11 10 (1.09%) Good Clinical Practice
12 9 (0.98%) IFRS
12 9 (0.98%) TARGET2
13 8 (0.87%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 8 (0.87%) GxP
13 8 (0.87%) ISO/IEC 12207
14 6 (0.66%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 52 (5.68%) Docker
2 18 (1.97%) Firmware
3 14 (1.53%) Active Directory
4 6 (0.66%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.55%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.33%) vSphere
7 2 (0.22%) Ceph
7 2 (0.22%) Lustre
7 2 (0.22%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.11%) iptables
8 1 (0.11%) OpenAM
8 1 (0.11%) OpenDJ
8 1 (0.11%) OpenIDM
8 1 (0.11%) pfSense
8 1 (0.11%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 46 (5.02%) Kubernetes
2 35 (3.82%) Terraform
3 16 (1.75%) Ansible
3 16 (1.75%) Grafana
4 12 (1.31%) Prometheus
5 9 (0.98%) SCCM
6 8 (0.87%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 7 (0.76%) Microsoft Intune
8 5 (0.55%) Argo
8 5 (0.55%) Rancher
8 5 (0.55%) yum
9 2 (0.22%) BMC PATROL
9 2 (0.22%) Nessus
9 2 (0.22%) PowerCLI
9 2 (0.22%) Puppet
10 1 (0.11%) Control-M
10 1 (0.11%) Kibana
10 1 (0.11%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.11%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 121 (13.21%) Microsoft
2 54 (5.90%) SAP
3 48 (5.24%) Oracle
4 28 (3.06%) Salesforce
5 19 (2.07%) Foundry
6 17 (1.86%) Cisco
7 16 (1.75%) IBM
8 14 (1.53%) OpenAI
8 14 (1.53%) ServiceNow
8 14 (1.53%) Software AG
9 13 (1.42%) Adobe
10 12 (1.31%) Automation Anywhere
10 12 (1.31%) Databricks
10 12 (1.31%) Google
10 12 (1.31%) Red Hat
10 12 (1.31%) UiPath
11 8 (0.87%) Intapp
11 8 (0.87%) VMware
12 7 (0.76%) Citrix
12 7 (0.76%) Guidewire