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 5 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 148 159 186
Rank change year-on-year +11 +27 -48
Permanent jobs citing Validation 836 886 786
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.60% 1.82% 1.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.96% 2.01% 1.85%
Number of salaries quoted 457 326 472
10th Percentile £36,250 £36,250 £36,313
25th Percentile £41,250 £45,000 £47,525
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -4.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £71,250 £76,563
90th Percentile £93,500 £100,000 £90,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -11.35%

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 42,581 44,028 42,509
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 81.75% 90.38% 90.78%
Number of salaries quoted 25,429 21,729 32,838
10th Percentile £28,500 £35,000 £32,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £43,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £76,250 £81,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £96,250 £100,000 £100,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

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 5 January 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 5 January 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 +32 259 £75,000 +20.00% 280
South East +20 209 £49,250 -17.92% 313
North of England -12 124 £55,000 +19.57% 171
Midlands +14 84 £40,500 -20.59% 142
East of England +9 78 £60,000 +9.09% 137
North West -9 78 £54,500 +14.30% 82
South West +23 69 £50,000 -7.06% 140
West Midlands +4 50 £37,500 -28.57% 84
Yorkshire -6 36 £61,250 +63.33% 71
East Midlands +9 34 £42,500 -5.56% 53
North East 0 10 £31,000 -25.30% 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 19 (2.27%) Apache Airflow
1 19 (2.27%) Confluence
2 13 (1.56%) Apache Spark
3 9 (1.08%) CMS
3 9 (1.08%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.08%) SugarCRM
4 8 (0.96%) Apache
4 8 (0.96%) Appian
5 5 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
6 4 (0.48%) Headless CMS
7 3 (0.36%) Jupyter
7 3 (0.36%) SAS
8 2 (0.24%) Kinematics
8 2 (0.24%) WordPress
9 1 (0.12%) Anypoint
9 1 (0.12%) Apache Superset
9 1 (0.12%) FileNet
9 1 (0.12%) Luigi
Applications
1 56 (6.70%) Microsoft Excel
1 56 (6.70%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (1.67%) MS Visio
3 13 (1.56%) Simulink
4 7 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.60%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 4 (0.48%) Fusion 360
7 2 (0.24%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.24%) Adobe Captivate
7 2 (0.24%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.24%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.24%) Elementor
7 2 (0.24%) Mathcad
7 2 (0.24%) Oracle Smart View
7 2 (0.24%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.24%) Weka
8 1 (0.12%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.12%) CATIA
8 1 (0.12%) Doxygen
8 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 20 (2.39%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (0.96%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.48%) Oracle ERP
3 4 (0.48%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 4 (0.48%) SAP BPC
4 3 (0.36%) Oracle Assets
4 3 (0.36%) Oracle Cash Management
4 3 (0.36%) Oracle General Ledger
4 3 (0.36%) Oracle Payables
4 3 (0.36%) Oracle Receivables
4 3 (0.36%) SAP CX
4 3 (0.36%) Workday HCM
5 2 (0.24%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.24%) Endur
5 2 (0.24%) IBM Planning Analytics
5 2 (0.24%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.24%) Primavera
5 2 (0.24%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.12%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.12%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 120 (14.35%) Azure
2 67 (8.01%) Power Platform
3 60 (7.18%) AWS
4 41 (4.90%) SaaS
5 29 (3.47%) Azure DevOps
6 26 (3.11%) GCP
7 17 (2.03%) Snowflake
8 16 (1.91%) Dynamics 365
8 16 (1.91%) Power Automate
9 14 (1.67%) Azure Data Factory
9 14 (1.67%) GitHub
10 13 (1.56%) dbt
10 13 (1.56%) Microsoft 365
11 12 (1.44%) Amazon S3
12 10 (1.20%) Entra ID
12 10 (1.20%) Serverless
13 9 (1.08%) Azure AI
13 9 (1.08%) Figma
14 8 (0.96%) Anthropic Claude
14 8 (0.96%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 14 (1.67%) LAN
2 12 (1.44%) CHAP
2 12 (1.44%) DNS
2 12 (1.44%) Firewall
3 8 (0.96%) HTTP
3 8 (0.96%) TCP/IP
3 8 (0.96%) WAN
4 7 (0.84%) 5G
4 7 (0.84%) MQTT
5 6 (0.72%) SD-WAN
6 5 (0.60%) Cisco IOS
6 5 (0.60%) Modbus
6 5 (0.60%) SMTP
6 5 (0.60%) WAAS
7 4 (0.48%) DHCP
7 4 (0.48%) Ethernet VPN
7 4 (0.48%) Network Security
7 4 (0.48%) VoIP
8 3 (0.36%) NX-OS
8 3 (0.36%) PBX
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (7.78%) Power BI
2 26 (3.11%) Data Warehouse
2 26 (3.11%) SQL Server
2 26 (3.11%) Tableau
3 20 (2.39%) Metadata
3 20 (2.39%) Relational Database
4 18 (2.15%) BigQuery
5 14 (1.67%) Oracle Reports
6 11 (1.32%) Data Lake
7 10 (1.20%) Spotfire
8 9 (1.08%) Big Data
9 8 (0.96%) Amazon Redshift
9 8 (0.96%) Pinecone
10 7 (0.84%) Looker
10 7 (0.84%) NoSQL
10 7 (0.84%) PostgreSQL
11 6 (0.72%) GIS
12 5 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
12 5 (0.60%) Data Vault
12 5 (0.60%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 61 (7.30%) JIRA
2 38 (4.55%) Rational DOORS
3 37 (4.43%) Git
4 22 (2.63%) Postman
5 15 (1.79%) Jenkins
6 14 (1.67%) Selenium
7 11 (1.32%) GitLab
7 11 (1.32%) MLflow
8 10 (1.20%) SoapUI
8 10 (1.20%) TestRail
9 9 (1.08%) Cucumber
9 9 (1.08%) JMeter
10 7 (0.84%) LoadRunner
11 6 (0.72%) LabVIEW
12 5 (0.60%) Charles Proxy
12 5 (0.60%) Eclipse
12 5 (0.60%) Fiddler
12 5 (0.60%) TestNG
12 5 (0.60%) Zephyr
13 4 (0.48%) Locust
General
1 303 (36.24%) Social Skills
2 215 (25.72%) Finance
3 176 (21.05%) Analytical Skills
4 56 (6.70%) Law
5 52 (6.22%) Banking
6 50 (5.98%) Electronics
7 44 (5.26%) Marketing
8 41 (4.90%) Manufacturing
9 40 (4.78%) Documentation Skills
10 39 (4.67%) Presentation Skills
11 36 (4.31%) Financial Institution
12 35 (4.19%) Organisational Skills
13 28 (3.35%) Retail
13 28 (3.35%) Telecoms
14 26 (3.11%) Aerospace
15 25 (2.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 25 (2.99%) Pharmaceutical
15 25 (2.99%) Public Sector
16 20 (2.39%) Influencing Skills
17 17 (2.03%) Legal
Job Titles
1 129 (15.43%) Analyst
2 121 (14.47%) Senior
3 88 (10.53%) Lead
4 84 (10.05%) Systems Engineer
5 47 (5.62%) Architect
6 43 (5.14%) Test Engineer
7 37 (4.43%) Business Analyst
8 36 (4.31%) Data Analyst
9 32 (3.83%) Validation Engineer
10 31 (3.71%) Data Engineer
10 31 (3.71%) Principal Engineer
11 30 (3.59%) Developer
11 30 (3.59%) Junior
12 28 (3.35%) Applications Engineer
12 28 (3.35%) Integration Engineer
13 27 (3.23%) Applications Support
14 23 (2.75%) Solutions Architect
14 23 (2.75%) Support Engineer
14 23 (2.75%) Team Leader
15 22 (2.63%) Applications Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (5.02%) REST
2 27 (3.23%) Middleware
3 23 (2.75%) JSON
3 23 (2.75%) Pandas
4 20 (2.39%) scikit-learn
4 20 (2.39%) XML
5 18 (2.15%) pytest
6 17 (2.03%) TensorFlow
7 16 (1.91%) PyTorch
8 14 (1.67%) NumPy
9 13 (1.56%) FastAPI
10 12 (1.44%) CSS
10 12 (1.44%) HTML
10 12 (1.44%) OAuth
10 12 (1.44%) React
10 12 (1.44%) Web Services
11 11 (1.32%) Flask
11 11 (1.32%) JWT
11 11 (1.32%) Swagger
12 10 (1.20%) Hugging Face
Miscellaneous
1 82 (9.81%) Management Information System
2 40 (4.78%) Life Science
3 35 (4.19%) Onboarding
4 29 (3.47%) Operational Technology
5 25 (2.99%) Product Ownership
6 24 (2.87%) Self-Motivation
7 18 (2.15%) Algorithms
8 16 (1.91%) Legacy Systems
9 15 (1.79%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 15 (1.79%) Low-Code
10 14 (1.67%) Data Structures
11 12 (1.44%) Analytical Mindset
11 12 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
11 12 (1.44%) SCADA
12 11 (1.32%) SWIFT Messaging Network
13 9 (1.08%) Credit Risk
13 9 (1.08%) Data Centre
14 8 (0.96%) CMDB
14 8 (0.96%) e-Learning
14 8 (0.96%) LIMS
Operating Systems
1 40 (4.78%) Windows
2 33 (3.95%) Linux
3 11 (1.32%) Windows Server
4 9 (1.08%) Android
5 6 (0.72%) Unix
6 5 (0.60%) Windows 10
7 3 (0.36%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.24%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.12%) AIX
9 1 (0.12%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.12%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 194 (23.21%) Agile
2 189 (22.61%) Problem-Solving
3 130 (15.55%) Verification and Validation
4 117 (14.00%) Data Validation
5 111 (13.28%) Analytics
6 104 (12.44%) Migration
7 101 (12.08%) Continuous Improvement
8 93 (11.12%) Test Automation
9 84 (10.05%) Systems Engineering
10 82 (9.81%) Decision-Making
10 82 (9.81%) ETL
10 82 (9.81%) Mentoring
11 81 (9.69%) DevOps
12 78 (9.33%) Business Intelligence
13 77 (9.21%) Data Analysis
14 76 (9.09%) Software Engineering
15 74 (8.85%) Roadmaps
16 73 (8.73%) CI/CD
17 72 (8.61%) Data Management
18 67 (8.01%) AI
Programming Languages
1 183 (21.89%) SQL
2 156 (18.66%) Python
3 27 (3.23%) Java
4 26 (3.11%) C
5 25 (2.99%) MATLAB
6 23 (2.75%) C++
6 23 (2.75%) JavaScript
7 18 (2.15%) PowerShell
8 13 (1.56%) Bash
8 13 (1.56%) TypeScript
9 9 (1.08%) R
10 7 (0.84%) C#
10 7 (0.84%) T-SQL
11 6 (0.72%) Bicep
12 5 (0.60%) PL/SQL
13 4 (0.48%) PHP
14 3 (0.36%) Embedded C
14 3 (0.36%) GLSL
14 3 (0.36%) Tcl
14 3 (0.36%) VB
Qualifications
1 258 (30.86%) Degree
2 102 (12.20%) Security Cleared
3 95 (11.36%) BPSS Clearance
4 47 (5.62%) SC Cleared
5 42 (5.02%) Master's Degree
6 38 (4.55%) Computer Science Degree
7 19 (2.27%) Cisco Certification
7 19 (2.27%) HNC
8 16 (1.91%) ISTQB
9 15 (1.79%) Microsoft Certification
10 14 (1.67%) CISA
10 14 (1.67%) CISSP
10 14 (1.67%) DV Cleared
11 13 (1.56%) CGEIT
11 13 (1.56%) CISM
11 13 (1.56%) FFIEC
11 13 (1.56%) SANS
12 12 (1.44%) CCNP
13 11 (1.32%) Chartered Engineer
13 11 (1.32%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (13.40%) Data Quality
2 101 (12.08%) QA
3 35 (4.19%) SLA
4 33 (3.95%) GxP
5 31 (3.71%) GDPR
5 31 (3.71%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 26 (3.11%) Accessibility
7 17 (2.03%) NIST
8 13 (1.56%) COBIT
9 11 (1.32%) ISO 20022
9 11 (1.32%) SEPA
10 10 (1.20%) Good Clinical Practice
10 10 (1.20%) ISO/IEC 12207
10 10 (1.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 9 (1.08%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 8 (0.96%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 8 (0.96%) GRC
13 7 (0.84%) TARGET2
13 7 (0.84%) WCAG
14 5 (0.60%) ARP4761
System Software
1 40 (4.78%) Docker
2 26 (3.11%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (2.15%) Firmware
4 9 (1.08%) Active Directory
5 2 (0.24%) Ceph
5 2 (0.24%) Embedded Firmware
5 2 (0.24%) Lustre
5 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
5 2 (0.24%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 2 (0.24%) vCloud
5 2 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
5 2 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.24%) vSphere
6 1 (0.12%) iptables
6 1 (0.12%) OpenAM
6 1 (0.12%) OpenDJ
6 1 (0.12%) OpenIDM
6 1 (0.12%) pfSense
6 1 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 33 (3.95%) Kubernetes
2 16 (1.91%) Terraform
3 14 (1.67%) Ansible
4 10 (1.20%) Grafana
5 9 (1.08%) Microsoft Intune
6 7 (0.84%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 6 (0.72%) Prometheus
8 5 (0.60%) SCCM
9 3 (0.36%) Argo
9 3 (0.36%) Kubeflow
9 3 (0.36%) Rancher
9 3 (0.36%) yum
10 2 (0.24%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.24%) Functional Safety
10 2 (0.24%) Nessus
10 2 (0.24%) Rundeck
11 1 (0.12%) Control-M
11 1 (0.12%) Kibana
11 1 (0.12%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.12%) Puppet
Vendors
1 104 (12.44%) Microsoft
2 50 (5.98%) SAP
3 31 (3.71%) Oracle
4 30 (3.59%) VMware
5 25 (2.99%) Cisco
6 21 (2.51%) Salesforce
7 15 (1.79%) Foundry
8 12 (1.44%) IBM
8 12 (1.44%) Software AG
9 11 (1.32%) CheckPoint
9 11 (1.32%) F5
10 9 (1.08%) Databricks
10 9 (1.08%) OpenAI
11 8 (0.96%) Adobe
11 8 (0.96%) Automation Anywhere
11 8 (0.96%) Intapp
11 8 (0.96%) UiPath
12 7 (0.84%) ServiceNow
13 6 (0.72%) Guidewire
13 6 (0.72%) Splunk