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

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 138 182 177
Rank change year-on-year +44 -5 -25
Permanent jobs citing Validation 953 715 1,189
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.49% 1.72% 1.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.90% 1.84% 1.90%
Number of salaries quoted 524 306 728
10th Percentile £35,000 £37,625 £35,000
25th Percentile £45,000 £46,250 £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 £78,750 £71,250 £73,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £85,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +5.26% +3.64% -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 50,162 38,910 62,694
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 78.46% 93.52% 87.66%
Number of salaries quoted 30,888 20,514 49,276
10th Percentile £29,750 £32,500 £29,440
25th Percentile £40,000 £45,185 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £61,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.84% +10.91% -12.00%
75th Percentile £77,500 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £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 7 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 7 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 +81 326 £75,000 +7.14% 281
South East +55 203 £53,500 +1.90% 269
North of England +6 138 £60,000 +26.32% 134
Midlands -1 112 £37,500 -28.57% 131
North West +15 95 £58,000 +21.64% 68
East of England +3 88 £58,750 +6.82% 110
South West 0 73 £60,000 +9.09% 102
West Midlands +6 68 £42,215 -35.05% 87
East Midlands -11 43 £35,000 -32.69% 43
Yorkshire -35 30 £65,000 +42.94% 46
North East -13 13 £48,000 +5.49% 20
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 39 (4.09%) Apache Airflow
2 28 (2.94%) Apache Spark
3 23 (2.41%) Apache
4 13 (1.36%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (1.26%) Appian
5 12 (1.26%) Confluence
6 10 (1.05%) CMS
6 10 (1.05%) SharePoint
7 4 (0.42%) Headless CMS
8 3 (0.31%) Kinematics
9 2 (0.21%) WordPress
10 1 (0.10%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.10%) FileNet
10 1 (0.10%) IIS
10 1 (0.10%) Jupyter
10 1 (0.10%) SAS
Applications
1 84 (8.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 49 (5.14%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (1.89%) MS Visio
4 17 (1.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.73%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 4 (0.42%) Fusion 360
6 4 (0.42%) Simulink
6 4 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.21%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.21%) Adobe Captivate
7 2 (0.21%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.21%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.21%) Elementor
7 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.21%) Oracle Smart View
7 2 (0.21%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.21%) Weka
8 1 (0.10%) GNU Octave
8 1 (0.10%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.10%) Revit
Business Applications
1 22 (2.31%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (1.15%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.52%) SAP ERP
4 4 (0.42%) SAP BPC
5 3 (0.31%) Loan IQ
5 3 (0.31%) SAP CX
5 3 (0.31%) SAP MDG
5 3 (0.31%) Workday HCM
6 2 (0.21%) IBM Planning Analytics
6 2 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.21%) Primavera
7 1 (0.10%) Endur
7 1 (0.10%) Magento
7 1 (0.10%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.10%) Oracle Financials
7 1 (0.10%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.10%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.10%) SAP Business ByDesign
7 1 (0.10%) SAP FSCM
Cloud Services
1 137 (14.38%) Azure
2 88 (9.23%) Power Platform
3 73 (7.66%) AWS
4 50 (5.25%) SaaS
5 38 (3.99%) Azure DevOps
6 34 (3.57%) GCP
7 25 (2.62%) Amazon S3
8 24 (2.52%) Power Automate
9 22 (2.31%) Azure Data Factory
9 22 (2.31%) Snowflake
10 21 (2.20%) Dynamics 365
11 19 (1.99%) dbt
12 18 (1.89%) Entra ID
12 18 (1.89%) GitHub
13 15 (1.57%) Microsoft 365
14 13 (1.36%) OpenShift
15 12 (1.26%) Anthropic Claude
15 12 (1.26%) Azure AI
16 11 (1.15%) Serverless
17 10 (1.05%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 22 (2.31%) CHAP
2 13 (1.36%) WAN
3 12 (1.26%) SD-WAN
4 11 (1.15%) 5G
5 10 (1.05%) Broadband
5 10 (1.05%) Firewall
6 9 (0.94%) HTTP
6 9 (0.94%) TCP/IP
7 8 (0.84%) DNS
7 8 (0.84%) MQTT
8 6 (0.63%) LAN
8 6 (0.63%) Modbus
9 5 (0.52%) Cisco IOS
9 5 (0.52%) VoIP
9 5 (0.52%) WAAS
9 5 (0.52%) Wireless
10 4 (0.42%) NAS
10 4 (0.42%) SMTP
11 3 (0.31%) Internet
11 3 (0.31%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 86 (9.02%) Power BI
2 42 (4.41%) SQL Server
3 33 (3.46%) Tableau
4 26 (2.73%) Metadata
5 25 (2.62%) Relational Database
6 24 (2.52%) Data Warehouse
7 15 (1.57%) PostgreSQL
8 14 (1.47%) Spark SQL
9 13 (1.36%) Apache Hive
9 13 (1.36%) Azure SQL Database
9 13 (1.36%) Impala
9 13 (1.36%) Oracle Database
9 13 (1.36%) Oracle Reports
9 13 (1.36%) Parquet
10 12 (1.26%) Pinecone
11 11 (1.15%) Amazon Redshift
11 11 (1.15%) MySQL
11 11 (1.15%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 10 (1.05%) Data Lake
12 10 (1.05%) Spotfire
Development Applications
1 54 (5.67%) Git
2 50 (5.25%) JIRA
3 38 (3.99%) Rational DOORS
4 18 (1.89%) Postman
5 17 (1.78%) Jenkins
6 15 (1.57%) GitLab
7 14 (1.47%) LabVIEW
7 14 (1.47%) MLflow
8 13 (1.36%) IBM UrbanCode
9 12 (1.26%) Cucumber
10 11 (1.15%) Eclipse
10 11 (1.15%) JMeter
11 10 (1.05%) Selenium
11 10 (1.05%) TestRail
12 8 (0.84%) SoapUI
13 7 (0.73%) LoadRunner
14 6 (0.63%) Locust
14 6 (0.63%) Subversion
15 5 (0.52%) SpecFlow
16 4 (0.42%) TestDirector
General
1 343 (35.99%) Social Skills
2 257 (26.97%) Finance
3 241 (25.29%) Analytical Skills
4 89 (9.34%) Banking
5 51 (5.35%) Financial Institution
6 47 (4.93%) Manufacturing
7 46 (4.83%) Marketing
8 42 (4.41%) Electronics
9 37 (3.88%) Law
10 36 (3.78%) Aerospace
11 35 (3.67%) Presentation Skills
12 34 (3.57%) Legal
13 32 (3.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 29 (3.04%) Organisational Skills
14 29 (3.04%) Telecoms
15 28 (2.94%) Retail
16 24 (2.52%) Public Sector
17 20 (2.10%) Documentation Skills
18 19 (1.99%) Billing
19 17 (1.78%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 169 (17.73%) Analyst
2 141 (14.80%) Senior
3 121 (12.70%) Systems Engineer
4 69 (7.24%) Lead
5 59 (6.19%) Architect
6 57 (5.98%) Business Analyst
7 54 (5.67%) Test Engineer
7 54 (5.67%) Validation Engineer
8 45 (4.72%) Data Analyst
8 45 (4.72%) Integration Engineer
9 37 (3.88%) Junior
10 36 (3.78%) Systems Integration Engineer
11 35 (3.67%) Principal Engineer
12 34 (3.57%) Data Engineer
12 34 (3.57%) Senior Systems Engineer
13 27 (2.83%) Developer
13 27 (2.83%) Principal Systems Engineer
13 27 (2.83%) Verification Engineer
14 26 (2.73%) Solutions Architect
15 25 (2.62%) Software Validation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (5.25%) REST
2 38 (3.99%) Pandas
3 27 (2.83%) Middleware
4 26 (2.73%) JSON
5 24 (2.52%) pytest
6 22 (2.31%) XML
7 19 (1.99%) PyTorch
7 19 (1.99%) TensorFlow
8 18 (1.89%) PySpark
9 17 (1.78%) NumPy
9 17 (1.78%) OAuth
10 16 (1.68%) JWT
10 16 (1.68%) scikit-learn
10 16 (1.68%) Swagger
10 16 (1.68%) Web Services
11 15 (1.57%) React
12 14 (1.47%) .NET
13 13 (1.36%) CSS
13 13 (1.36%) FastAPI
13 13 (1.36%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 63 (6.61%) Management Information System
2 49 (5.14%) Onboarding
3 35 (3.67%) Data Structures
4 28 (2.94%) Self-Motivation
5 27 (2.83%) Legacy Systems
6 26 (2.73%) Low-Code
7 22 (2.31%) Product Ownership
8 21 (2.20%) Life Science
9 19 (1.99%) Analytical Mindset
10 18 (1.89%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 16 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
11 16 (1.68%) SWIFT Messaging Network
12 13 (1.36%) Blockchain
12 13 (1.36%) Reinsurance
13 12 (1.26%) Algorithms
14 11 (1.15%) IoT
14 11 (1.15%) Self-Driving Car
15 10 (1.05%) Data Centre
16 8 (0.84%) CMDB
16 8 (0.84%) e-Learning
Operating Systems
1 38 (3.99%) Linux
2 37 (3.88%) Windows
3 15 (1.57%) Unix
4 10 (1.05%) Android
5 6 (0.63%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.42%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.31%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.21%) AIX
8 2 (0.21%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.21%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 238 (24.97%) Agile
2 216 (22.67%) Problem-Solving
3 173 (18.15%) Verification and Validation
4 141 (14.80%) Data Validation
5 140 (14.69%) Continuous Improvement
6 139 (14.59%) Analytics
7 117 (12.28%) Test Automation
8 111 (11.65%) CI/CD
9 110 (11.54%) AI
10 108 (11.33%) Systems Engineering
11 107 (11.23%) Business Intelligence
12 106 (11.12%) Migration
13 104 (10.91%) DevOps
14 99 (10.39%) Decision-Making
15 96 (10.07%) ETL
16 95 (9.97%) Mentoring
17 94 (9.86%) User Acceptance Testing
18 93 (9.76%) Data Modelling
19 88 (9.23%) Roadmaps
19 88 (9.23%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 226 (23.71%) SQL
2 196 (20.57%) Python
3 40 (4.20%) Java
4 29 (3.04%) PowerShell
5 27 (2.83%) JavaScript
6 26 (2.73%) C
6 26 (2.73%) C++
7 18 (1.89%) MATLAB
8 17 (1.78%) Bash
8 17 (1.78%) T-SQL
9 14 (1.47%) TypeScript
10 12 (1.26%) C#
11 11 (1.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 9 (0.94%) R
13 8 (0.84%) Go
13 8 (0.84%) VBA
14 7 (0.73%) VB
15 6 (0.63%) PHP
16 4 (0.42%) VBScript
17 3 (0.31%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 228 (23.92%) Degree
2 124 (13.01%) Security Cleared
3 119 (12.49%) BPSS Clearance
4 49 (5.14%) SC Cleared
5 47 (4.93%) Master's Degree
6 36 (3.78%) Computer Science Degree
7 26 (2.73%) CISA
7 26 (2.73%) CISSP
8 25 (2.62%) CISM
9 22 (2.31%) CGEIT
9 22 (2.31%) FFIEC
9 22 (2.31%) SANS
10 20 (2.10%) DV Cleared
11 18 (1.89%) Chartered Engineer
12 17 (1.78%) HNC
13 16 (1.68%) ISTQB
14 15 (1.57%) PMI Certification
14 15 (1.57%) PMP
15 12 (1.26%) HND
16 7 (0.73%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 137 (14.38%) Data Quality
2 97 (10.18%) QA
3 50 (5.25%) GDPR
4 39 (4.09%) ISO/IEC 15288
5 33 (3.46%) Accessibility
6 23 (2.41%) NIST
7 22 (2.31%) COBIT
8 19 (1.99%) SLA
9 18 (1.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 16 (1.68%) ISO 20022
11 13 (1.36%) SEPA
12 12 (1.26%) GRC
13 11 (1.15%) IFRS
13 11 (1.15%) WCAG
14 10 (1.05%) Good Clinical Practice
15 9 (0.94%) TARGET2
16 8 (0.84%) 21 CFR Part 11
16 8 (0.84%) GxP
17 7 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 12207
17 7 (0.73%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 52 (5.46%) Docker
2 18 (1.89%) Firmware
3 14 (1.47%) Active Directory
4 6 (0.63%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.52%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.31%) vSphere
7 2 (0.21%) Ceph
7 2 (0.21%) Lustre
7 2 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.10%) iptables
8 1 (0.10%) OpenAM
8 1 (0.10%) OpenDJ
8 1 (0.10%) OpenIDM
8 1 (0.10%) pfSense
8 1 (0.10%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.10%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 46 (4.83%) Kubernetes
2 36 (3.78%) Terraform
3 18 (1.89%) Grafana
4 16 (1.68%) Ansible
5 12 (1.26%) Prometheus
6 9 (0.94%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
6 9 (0.94%) SCCM
7 7 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
8 5 (0.52%) Argo
8 5 (0.52%) Rancher
8 5 (0.52%) yum
9 2 (0.21%) BMC PATROL
9 2 (0.21%) Nessus
9 2 (0.21%) PowerCLI
9 2 (0.21%) Puppet
10 1 (0.10%) Control-M
10 1 (0.10%) Kibana
10 1 (0.10%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.10%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 127 (13.33%) Microsoft
2 53 (5.56%) SAP
3 50 (5.25%) Oracle
4 30 (3.15%) Salesforce
5 19 (1.99%) Foundry
6 17 (1.78%) Cisco
7 15 (1.57%) IBM
8 14 (1.47%) OpenAI
8 14 (1.47%) ServiceNow
8 14 (1.47%) Software AG
9 13 (1.36%) Adobe
9 13 (1.36%) Google
9 13 (1.36%) Red Hat
10 12 (1.26%) Automation Anywhere
10 12 (1.26%) Databricks
10 12 (1.26%) UiPath
11 9 (0.94%) Intapp
12 8 (0.84%) VMware
13 7 (0.73%) Citrix
13 7 (0.73%) Guidewire