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 9 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 77 83 172
Rank change year-on-year +6 +89 +29
Permanent jobs citing Validation 2,125 1,545 1,052
As % of all permanent jobs in England 2.14% 3.56% 1.53%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.92% 4.02% 1.88%
Number of salaries quoted 1,298 452 417
10th Percentile £36,250 £38,775 £39,000
25th Percentile £42,750 £41,250 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -4.35% -11.54%
75th Percentile £71,250 £75,225 £73,750
90th Percentile £86,650 £91,350 £95,000
UK median annual salary £57,500 £55,000 £58,033
% change year-on-year +4.55% -5.23% -9.32%

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 72,872 38,466 55,924
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.38% 88.62% 81.15%
Number of salaries quoted 51,860 22,142 32,761
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,750
25th Percentile £42,215 £37,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £76,250 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%

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 9 September 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 9 September 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 +62 538 £70,000 -12.50% 1,555
South East -15 478 £61,250 +13.95% 472
North of England +107 438 £55,000 +15.79% 302
North West +101 269 £55,000 +12.61% 173
Midlands -33 245 £47,500 -13.64% 275
South West +23 222 £55,000 +4.56% 299
East of England -57 171 £55,000 -8.33% 292
West Midlands +33 140 £47,500 -13.64% 197
East Midlands -63 104 £44,424 +4.53% 78
Yorkshire +7 85 £43,000 +1.18% 89
North East +2 84 £55,000 +57.14% 49
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 44 (2.07%) Apache Spark
2 43 (2.02%) Apache Airflow
3 40 (1.88%) Apache
4 33 (1.55%) Confluence
5 32 (1.51%) SharePoint
6 18 (0.85%) Jupyter
7 13 (0.61%) SAS
8 9 (0.42%) Microsoft Exchange
9 7 (0.33%) WinCC
10 5 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 5 (0.24%) CMS
11 3 (0.14%) Artix
11 3 (0.14%) Kinematics
11 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.094%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.094%) IIS
13 1 (0.047%) ArcGIS
13 1 (0.047%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.047%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 120 (5.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 65 (3.06%) Microsoft Office
3 44 (2.07%) Simulink
4 36 (1.69%) Microsoft Project
5 17 (0.80%) SOLIDWORKS
5 17 (0.80%) Spreadsheet
6 15 (0.71%) MS Visio
7 13 (0.61%) AutoCAD
8 11 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 6 (0.28%) Revit
10 5 (0.24%) Mathcad
11 4 (0.19%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.19%) Navisworks
11 4 (0.19%) OrCAD
11 4 (0.19%) Sketch
12 3 (0.14%) Autodesk Inventor
12 3 (0.14%) CANalyzer
12 3 (0.14%) EPLAN
12 3 (0.14%) LaTeX
12 3 (0.14%) Productboard
Business Applications
1 39 (1.84%) Dynamics CRM
2 38 (1.79%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.52%) SAP MDG
4 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.38%) Oracle Applications
6 7 (0.33%) NetSuite
6 7 (0.33%) SAP ERP
6 7 (0.33%) Workday HCM
7 5 (0.24%) Elite 3E
7 5 (0.24%) iTrent
7 5 (0.24%) SAP MDG-BP
8 4 (0.19%) Infor M3
8 4 (0.19%) Oracle Financials
8 4 (0.19%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.14%) Loan IQ
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
9 3 (0.14%) SystmOne
9 3 (0.14%) Teamcenter
10 2 (0.094%) Oracle Payables
10 2 (0.094%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 275 (12.94%) Azure
2 236 (11.11%) AWS
3 168 (7.91%) Power Platform
4 87 (4.09%) GCP
5 66 (3.11%) SaaS
6 64 (3.01%) Azure DevOps
7 63 (2.96%) Microsoft 365
8 55 (2.59%) GitHub
9 46 (2.16%) Serverless
10 38 (1.79%) Amazon S3
11 36 (1.69%) Dynamics 365
12 32 (1.51%) Entra ID
13 30 (1.41%) Microsoft Copilot
14 28 (1.32%) GitHub Actions
15 24 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
16 22 (1.04%) Amazon EMR
16 22 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
16 22 (1.04%) PowerApps
17 21 (0.99%) Microsoft Purview
18 20 (0.94%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 70 (3.29%) DNS
2 65 (3.06%) Firewall
3 60 (2.82%) Broadband
4 37 (1.74%) TCP/IP
5 35 (1.65%) VPN
5 35 (1.65%) WAN
6 34 (1.60%) Network Security
6 34 (1.60%) Wireless
7 27 (1.27%) Ethernet
7 27 (1.27%) LAN
8 23 (1.08%) OSPF
8 23 (1.08%) VLAN
9 22 (1.04%) Modbus
9 22 (1.04%) SD-WAN
10 21 (0.99%) BGP
10 21 (0.99%) Wireshark
11 20 (0.94%) MQTT
12 17 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
13 16 (0.75%) 5G
13 16 (0.75%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (7.34%) Power BI
2 56 (2.64%) Data Warehouse
3 53 (2.49%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.31%) Metadata
5 47 (2.21%) SQL Server
6 46 (2.16%) Data Lake
7 39 (1.84%) Tableau
8 35 (1.65%) MongoDB
9 32 (1.51%) Relational Database
10 31 (1.46%) Amazon Athena
11 25 (1.18%) BigQuery
11 25 (1.18%) DynamoDB
12 22 (1.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 21 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
13 21 (0.99%) Big Data
13 21 (0.99%) Semantic Layer
14 19 (0.89%) MySQL
14 19 (0.89%) NoSQL
15 16 (0.75%) Power Query
16 15 (0.71%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 121 (5.69%) JIRA
2 111 (5.22%) Git
3 55 (2.59%) Jenkins
4 48 (2.26%) GitLab
5 36 (1.69%) Rational DOORS
6 24 (1.13%) LabVIEW
6 24 (1.13%) Selenium
7 22 (1.04%) Snyk
8 18 (0.85%) Cypress.io
8 18 (0.85%) Postman
9 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
9 12 (0.56%) Cucumber
10 10 (0.47%) JMeter
10 10 (0.47%) TeamCity
11 9 (0.42%) Gatling
12 8 (0.38%) Eclipse
12 8 (0.38%) Metasploit
12 8 (0.38%) MLflow
12 8 (0.38%) REST Assured
12 8 (0.38%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 703 (33.08%) Social Skills
2 534 (25.13%) Finance
3 507 (23.86%) Analytical Skills
4 197 (9.27%) Electronics
5 194 (9.13%) Aerospace
6 193 (9.08%) Manufacturing
7 175 (8.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 121 (5.69%) Law
9 97 (4.56%) Banking
10 85 (4.00%) Retail
11 84 (3.95%) Public Sector
12 81 (3.81%) Organisational Skills
13 78 (3.67%) Marketing
14 77 (3.62%) Pharmaceutical
15 69 (3.25%) Telecoms
16 64 (3.01%) Automotive
17 55 (2.59%) Legal
18 43 (2.02%) Games
19 42 (1.98%) Influencing Skills
20 37 (1.74%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 384 (18.07%) Senior
2 249 (11.72%) Analyst
2 249 (11.72%) Systems Engineer
3 174 (8.19%) Lead
4 125 (5.88%) Test Engineer
5 111 (5.22%) Architect
6 102 (4.80%) Data Engineer
7 92 (4.33%) Developer
8 76 (3.58%) Business Analyst
8 76 (3.58%) Consultant
9 72 (3.39%) Software Engineer
10 67 (3.15%) Principal Engineer
10 67 (3.15%) Validation Engineer
11 65 (3.06%) Data Analyst
12 53 (2.49%) Electronics Engineer
13 51 (2.40%) Network Engineer
14 50 (2.35%) Support Engineer
15 48 (2.26%) Data Scientist
15 48 (2.26%) Embedded Engineer
16 42 (1.98%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (3.53%) Terraform
2 52 (2.45%) RESTful
3 51 (2.40%) Kafka
4 49 (2.31%) REST
5 40 (1.88%) Node.js
6 32 (1.51%) JSON
7 30 (1.41%) Playwright
8 29 (1.36%) .NET
8 29 (1.36%) PySpark
8 29 (1.36%) XML
9 27 (1.27%) LDAP
10 26 (1.22%) CSS
11 25 (1.18%) FastAPI
11 25 (1.18%) HTML
12 24 (1.13%) Middleware
13 21 (0.99%) ModSecurity
13 21 (0.99%) React
13 21 (0.99%) Swagger
14 20 (0.94%) XMPP
15 19 (0.89%) Regular Expression
Miscellaneous
1 145 (6.82%) Cloud Native
2 122 (5.74%) Onboarding
3 116 (5.46%) Management Information System
4 79 (3.72%) Data Centre
5 77 (3.62%) Product Ownership
6 59 (2.78%) Data Structures
6 59 (2.78%) Embedded Systems
6 59 (2.78%) Enterprise Software
7 58 (2.73%) Driving Licence
8 54 (2.54%) Distributed Systems
9 49 (2.31%) Algorithms
10 46 (2.16%) Low-Code
11 44 (2.07%) Life Science
12 42 (1.98%) Analytical Mindset
13 39 (1.84%) Robotics
14 38 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
14 38 (1.79%) SCADA
15 37 (1.74%) AI Agents
16 34 (1.60%) Video\Live Streaming
17 30 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 136 (6.40%) Linux
2 92 (4.33%) Windows
3 35 (1.65%) Windows Server
4 24 (1.13%) Unix
5 19 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.47%) Android
7 9 (0.42%) Embedded Linux
8 7 (0.33%) FreeRTOS
8 7 (0.33%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.24%) Kali Linux
10 4 (0.19%) Mac OS X
11 3 (0.14%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.094%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.094%) ThreadX
12 2 (0.094%) VMS
12 2 (0.094%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.047%) AIX
13 1 (0.047%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 543 (25.55%) Problem-Solving
2 471 (22.16%) Continuous Improvement
3 391 (18.40%) Agile
4 362 (17.04%) AI
5 348 (16.38%) Verification and Validation
6 301 (14.16%) CI/CD
7 280 (13.18%) Stakeholder Management
8 266 (12.52%) Migration
9 264 (12.42%) Test Automation
10 239 (11.25%) Analytics
11 224 (10.54%) Mentoring
12 214 (10.07%) Software Engineering
13 209 (9.84%) Decision-Making
14 197 (9.27%) DevOps
15 196 (9.22%) Business Intelligence
16 190 (8.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 187 (8.80%) Data Analysis
18 179 (8.42%) Roadmaps
19 177 (8.33%) Machine Learning
20 175 (8.24%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 444 (20.89%) Python
2 381 (17.93%) SQL
3 89 (4.19%) C++
4 86 (4.05%) Java
5 85 (4.00%) C
6 63 (2.96%) JavaScript
7 57 (2.68%) MATLAB
8 54 (2.54%) Go
9 47 (2.21%) C#
10 33 (1.55%) Bash
11 31 (1.46%) Embedded C
12 28 (1.32%) PowerShell
13 23 (1.08%) Scala
14 20 (0.94%) TypeScript
15 18 (0.85%) Embedded C++
16 16 (0.75%) R
17 13 (0.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 12 (0.56%) T-SQL
19 9 (0.42%) Shell Script
20 8 (0.38%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 448 (21.08%) Degree
2 431 (20.28%) Security Cleared
3 303 (14.26%) SC Cleared
4 113 (5.32%) BPSS Clearance
5 98 (4.61%) DV Cleared
6 88 (4.14%) Master's Degree
7 47 (2.21%) Computer Science Degree
8 36 (1.69%) CISSP
9 35 (1.65%) PhD
10 34 (1.60%) PMI Certification
11 31 (1.46%) Chartered Engineer
11 31 (1.46%) HND
12 30 (1.41%) HNC
13 27 (1.27%) CISM
14 24 (1.13%) ACCA
14 24 (1.13%) AWS Certification
14 24 (1.13%) Azure Certification
15 22 (1.04%) CIMA
16 21 (0.99%) Cisco Certification
16 21 (0.99%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 318 (14.96%) Data Quality
2 279 (13.13%) QA
3 67 (3.15%) Accessibility
4 55 (2.59%) GDPR
5 37 (1.74%) GRC
6 29 (1.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 26 (1.22%) GxP
8 22 (1.04%) IEC 61508
9 20 (0.94%) NIST
10 17 (0.80%) PMO
11 16 (0.75%) SLA
12 15 (0.71%) ISO 26262
13 14 (0.66%) ISO 9001
14 12 (0.56%) GMP
14 12 (0.56%) SOC 2
15 11 (0.52%) GAAP
15 11 (0.52%) IFRS
15 11 (0.52%) WCAG
16 10 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 15288
17 9 (0.42%) Def Stans
System Software
1 83 (3.91%) Firmware
2 82 (3.86%) Docker
3 48 (2.26%) Active Directory
4 38 (1.79%) Embedded Firmware
5 28 (1.32%) Virtual Machines
6 21 (0.99%) vSphere
7 10 (0.47%) VMware Infrastructure
8 4 (0.19%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 2 (0.094%) iptables
10 2 (0.094%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.094%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.047%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.047%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 79 (3.72%) Kubernetes
2 38 (1.79%) Grafana
3 31 (1.46%) Ansible
4 27 (1.27%) Functional Safety
5 17 (0.80%) Prometheus
6 15 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
7 10 (0.47%) Cilium
8 8 (0.38%) Nessus
8 8 (0.38%) Nmap
9 7 (0.33%) Kibana
9 7 (0.33%) Microsoft Intune
9 7 (0.33%) Puppet
10 5 (0.24%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
10 5 (0.24%) FortiGate
10 5 (0.24%) SCCM
10 5 (0.24%) WMI
11 4 (0.19%) BMC PATROL
11 4 (0.19%) HP Fortify
11 4 (0.19%) Kubeflow
12 2 (0.094%) ITRS Geneos
Vendors
1 276 (12.99%) Microsoft
2 117 (5.51%) SAP
3 97 (4.56%) Oracle
4 58 (2.73%) Salesforce
5 53 (2.49%) Cisco
6 52 (2.45%) Databricks
7 51 (2.40%) ServiceNow
8 37 (1.74%) Google
9 32 (1.51%) EMC
10 30 (1.41%) CrowdStrike
11 29 (1.36%) VMware
12 26 (1.22%) Palo Alto
13 23 (1.08%) Red Hat
13 23 (1.08%) Tenable
14 16 (0.75%) Sage
15 15 (0.71%) IBM
15 15 (0.71%) McAfee
15 15 (0.71%) Splunk
16 14 (0.66%) Workday
17 13 (0.61%) Okta