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

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 70 82 178
Rank change year-on-year +12 +96 +23
Permanent jobs citing Validation 2,327 1,506 1,043
As % of all permanent jobs in England 2.25% 3.50% 1.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.06% 3.93% 1.88%
Number of salaries quoted 1,386 411 399
10th Percentile £35,875 £38,750 £38,734
25th Percentile £42,750 £41,250 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,000 £55,000 £56,509
Median % change year-on-year +5.45% -2.67% -13.06%
75th Percentile £71,250 £77,500 £75,000
90th Percentile £86,250 £91,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £59,745 £55,000 £57,767
% change year-on-year +8.63% -4.79% -11.13%

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 75,980 38,286 55,566
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.46% 88.94% 82.21%
Number of salaries quoted 53,569 21,806 30,376
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £42,215 £36,750 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £59,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -7.56% -4.03%
75th Percentile £80,000 £76,250 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £97,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £58,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -5.17% -3.33%

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 28 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 28 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 +84 599 £68,375 -14.53% 1,631
South East -9 493 £62,500 +13.64% 552
North of England +114 469 £54,750 +14.82% 403
North West +108 294 £55,000 +10.00% 225
Midlands -24 285 £50,000 -9.09% 315
South West +23 248 £55,000 +4.66% 295
East of England -41 202 £55,000 -8.33% 293
West Midlands +47 164 £50,000 -9.09% 219
East Midlands -46 121 £50,000 +17.65% 95
Yorkshire +29 89 £42,750 +0.59% 123
North East +3 86 £55,000 +57.14% 57
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 48 (2.06%) Apache Spark
2 41 (1.76%) Apache
2 41 (1.76%) Apache Airflow
3 35 (1.50%) Confluence
4 34 (1.46%) SharePoint
5 18 (0.77%) Jupyter
6 13 (0.56%) SAS
7 11 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
8 10 (0.43%) WinCC
9 6 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.17%) CMS
11 3 (0.13%) Artix
11 3 (0.13%) nginx
11 3 (0.13%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.086%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.086%) IIS
13 1 (0.043%) ArcGIS
13 1 (0.043%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.043%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 144 (6.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 69 (2.97%) Microsoft Office
3 51 (2.19%) Simulink
4 36 (1.55%) Microsoft Project
5 23 (0.99%) Spreadsheet
6 20 (0.86%) SOLIDWORKS
7 19 (0.82%) AutoCAD
8 15 (0.64%) MS Visio
9 12 (0.52%) Revit
10 10 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
11 9 (0.39%) OrCAD
12 7 (0.30%) EPLAN
12 7 (0.30%) Navisworks
13 5 (0.21%) Mathcad
14 4 (0.17%) Stateflow
15 3 (0.13%) Adobe XD
15 3 (0.13%) Autodesk Inventor
15 3 (0.13%) LaTeX
15 3 (0.13%) Productboard
15 3 (0.13%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 41 (1.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (1.68%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.47%) SAP MDG
4 10 (0.43%) Workday HCM
5 9 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.34%) NetSuite
6 8 (0.34%) Oracle Applications
7 7 (0.30%) SAP ERP
8 6 (0.26%) Infor M3
9 5 (0.21%) iTrent
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle Financials
9 5 (0.21%) SAP MDG-BP
10 4 (0.17%) Elite 3E
10 4 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.17%) SAP MM
10 4 (0.17%) Teamcenter
11 3 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
11 3 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
11 3 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
11 3 (0.13%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 303 (13.02%) Azure
2 247 (10.61%) AWS
3 176 (7.56%) Power Platform
4 93 (4.00%) GCP
5 75 (3.22%) Azure DevOps
6 71 (3.05%) GitHub
7 65 (2.79%) SaaS
8 64 (2.75%) Microsoft 365
9 60 (2.58%) Serverless
10 43 (1.85%) Amazon S3
11 38 (1.63%) Dynamics 365
12 37 (1.59%) Entra ID
13 36 (1.55%) Microsoft Copilot
14 35 (1.50%) GitHub Actions
15 30 (1.29%) Microsoft Purview
16 27 (1.16%) Azure Data Factory
17 26 (1.12%) Amazon EMR
17 26 (1.12%) Cloud Computing
18 23 (0.99%) PowerApps
19 22 (0.95%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 68 (2.92%) DNS
2 63 (2.71%) Firewall
3 54 (2.32%) Broadband
4 40 (1.72%) VPN
5 38 (1.63%) Ethernet
6 37 (1.59%) Network Security
6 37 (1.59%) TCP/IP
7 34 (1.46%) Modbus
7 34 (1.46%) WAN
7 34 (1.46%) Wireless
8 30 (1.29%) VLAN
9 29 (1.25%) LAN
10 27 (1.16%) OSPF
11 24 (1.03%) MQTT
11 24 (1.03%) Wireshark
12 22 (0.95%) SD-WAN
13 20 (0.86%) BGP
14 18 (0.77%) 5G
15 17 (0.73%) HTTP
15 17 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (7.00%) Power BI
2 60 (2.58%) Data Warehouse
2 60 (2.58%) Metadata
3 52 (2.23%) SQL Server
4 49 (2.11%) Data Lake
4 49 (2.11%) PostgreSQL
5 37 (1.59%) Amazon Athena
5 37 (1.59%) Relational Database
6 34 (1.46%) Tableau
7 30 (1.29%) MongoDB
8 26 (1.12%) Big Data
9 25 (1.07%) DynamoDB
10 24 (1.03%) BigQuery
10 24 (1.03%) NoSQL
11 23 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
12 22 (0.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 19 (0.82%) Amazon Redshift
13 19 (0.82%) Power Query
13 19 (0.82%) Semantic Layer
14 18 (0.77%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 134 (5.76%) JIRA
2 121 (5.20%) Git
3 59 (2.54%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.28%) GitLab
5 43 (1.85%) Rational DOORS
6 28 (1.20%) LabVIEW
7 23 (0.99%) Selenium
8 22 (0.95%) Snyk
9 19 (0.82%) Postman
10 17 (0.73%) Cypress.io
11 11 (0.47%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.47%) Eclipse
12 10 (0.43%) Claude Code
12 10 (0.43%) JMeter
12 10 (0.43%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.39%) Cucumber
13 9 (0.39%) MLflow
14 8 (0.34%) Gatling
14 8 (0.34%) REST Assured
14 8 (0.34%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 776 (33.35%) Social Skills
2 584 (25.10%) Finance
3 551 (23.68%) Analytical Skills
4 234 (10.06%) Manufacturing
5 226 (9.71%) Electronics
6 219 (9.41%) Aerospace
7 180 (7.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 123 (5.29%) Law
9 104 (4.47%) Organisational Skills
9 104 (4.47%) Public Sector
10 103 (4.43%) Retail
11 102 (4.38%) Banking
12 85 (3.65%) Marketing
13 84 (3.61%) Telecoms
14 83 (3.57%) Pharmaceutical
15 80 (3.44%) Automotive
16 50 (2.15%) Legal
17 43 (1.85%) Military
18 42 (1.80%) Influencing Skills
19 39 (1.68%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 419 (18.01%) Senior
2 267 (11.47%) Systems Engineer
3 257 (11.04%) Analyst
4 189 (8.12%) Lead
5 125 (5.37%) Test Engineer
6 116 (4.98%) Data Engineer
7 115 (4.94%) Architect
8 95 (4.08%) Developer
9 82 (3.52%) Software Engineer
10 81 (3.48%) Business Analyst
11 80 (3.44%) Consultant
12 78 (3.35%) Principal Engineer
13 72 (3.09%) Electronics Engineer
14 64 (2.75%) Validation Engineer
15 62 (2.66%) Data Analyst
16 57 (2.45%) Network Engineer
17 49 (2.11%) Automation Engineer
17 49 (2.11%) Embedded Engineer
18 47 (2.02%) Data Scientist
19 45 (1.93%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (3.70%) Terraform
2 61 (2.62%) REST
3 55 (2.36%) Kafka
3 55 (2.36%) RESTful
4 48 (2.06%) Node.js
5 38 (1.63%) .NET
6 37 (1.59%) PySpark
7 36 (1.55%) Playwright
8 35 (1.50%) JSON
9 32 (1.38%) FastAPI
10 31 (1.33%) CSS
10 31 (1.33%) XML
11 29 (1.25%) HTML
12 27 (1.16%) React
13 25 (1.07%) Middleware
13 25 (1.07%) Swagger
14 24 (1.03%) LDAP
15 22 (0.95%) OAuth
16 21 (0.90%) ModSecurity
16 21 (0.90%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 154 (6.62%) Cloud Native
2 133 (5.72%) Management Information System
3 125 (5.37%) Onboarding
4 79 (3.39%) Data Centre
5 78 (3.35%) Product Ownership
6 63 (2.71%) Driving Licence
6 63 (2.71%) Embedded Systems
7 59 (2.54%) Data Structures
7 59 (2.54%) Distributed Systems
7 59 (2.54%) Enterprise Software
8 51 (2.19%) SCADA
9 47 (2.02%) Algorithms
9 47 (2.02%) Life Science
10 44 (1.89%) AI Agents
11 41 (1.76%) Analytical Mindset
12 38 (1.63%) Low-Code
12 38 (1.63%) Robotics
13 37 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
14 36 (1.55%) Self-Motivation
15 34 (1.46%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 133 (5.72%) Linux
2 90 (3.87%) Windows
3 29 (1.25%) Windows Server
4 26 (1.12%) Unix
5 14 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.43%) Android
7 8 (0.34%) Embedded Linux
8 7 (0.30%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.26%) FreeRTOS
10 4 (0.17%) Kali Linux
10 4 (0.17%) Mac OS X
11 3 (0.13%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.086%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.086%) VMS
12 2 (0.086%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.043%) AIX
13 1 (0.043%) OpenWrt
13 1 (0.043%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 607 (26.09%) Problem-Solving
2 522 (22.43%) Continuous Improvement
3 421 (18.09%) Agile
4 400 (17.19%) Verification and Validation
5 390 (16.76%) AI
6 335 (14.40%) CI/CD
7 321 (13.79%) Stakeholder Management
8 293 (12.59%) Migration
9 289 (12.42%) Test Automation
10 250 (10.74%) Analytics
11 244 (10.49%) Mentoring
12 235 (10.10%) Software Engineering
13 223 (9.58%) Decision-Making
14 218 (9.37%) DevOps
15 206 (8.85%) Data Analysis
15 206 (8.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 203 (8.72%) Business Intelligence
17 198 (8.51%) Roadmaps
18 189 (8.12%) Data Migration
19 183 (7.86%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 474 (20.37%) Python
2 418 (17.96%) SQL
3 93 (4.00%) C++
4 91 (3.91%) Java
5 84 (3.61%) C
6 71 (3.05%) JavaScript
7 66 (2.84%) MATLAB
8 58 (2.49%) C#
9 47 (2.02%) Go
10 35 (1.50%) Bash
11 31 (1.33%) PowerShell
12 30 (1.29%) Embedded C
13 28 (1.20%) TypeScript
14 25 (1.07%) Scala
15 20 (0.86%) R
16 18 (0.77%) Embedded C++
17 16 (0.69%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 12 (0.52%) Shell Script
19 10 (0.43%) Apex Code
20 9 (0.39%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 501 (21.53%) Degree
2 482 (20.71%) Security Cleared
3 353 (15.17%) SC Cleared
4 111 (4.77%) BPSS Clearance
5 96 (4.13%) DV Cleared
6 95 (4.08%) Master's Degree
7 48 (2.06%) Computer Science Degree
8 42 (1.80%) HND
9 38 (1.63%) PhD
10 37 (1.59%) HNC
11 36 (1.55%) PMI Certification
12 34 (1.46%) Chartered Engineer
13 32 (1.38%) CISSP
14 30 (1.29%) ACCA
15 29 (1.25%) Azure Certification
16 27 (1.16%) AWS Certification
16 27 (1.16%) CIMA
17 24 (1.03%) PMP
18 21 (0.90%) Cisco Certification
18 21 (0.90%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 351 (15.08%) Data Quality
2 289 (12.42%) QA
3 65 (2.79%) Accessibility
4 58 (2.49%) GDPR
5 37 (1.59%) GRC
6 32 (1.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 27 (1.16%) GxP
8 21 (0.90%) IEC 61508
9 19 (0.82%) NIST
9 19 (0.82%) SLA
10 15 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 15 (0.64%) PMO
11 14 (0.60%) ISO 9001
12 13 (0.56%) SOC 2
13 12 (0.52%) GMP
13 12 (0.52%) ISO 19650
13 12 (0.52%) ISO 26262
14 10 (0.43%) GAAP
15 9 (0.39%) IFRS
15 9 (0.39%) WCAG
System Software
1 99 (4.25%) Docker
2 93 (4.00%) Firmware
3 44 (1.89%) Active Directory
4 43 (1.85%) Embedded Firmware
5 28 (1.20%) Virtual Machines
6 16 (0.69%) vSphere
7 8 (0.34%) VMware Infrastructure
8 5 (0.21%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.13%) KVM
10 2 (0.086%) iptables
10 2 (0.086%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.086%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.043%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.043%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 86 (3.70%) Kubernetes
2 40 (1.72%) Grafana
3 33 (1.42%) Ansible
4 31 (1.33%) Functional Safety
5 18 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
6 16 (0.69%) Prometheus
7 10 (0.43%) Puppet
8 9 (0.39%) Cilium
8 9 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
9 8 (0.34%) Nessus
9 8 (0.34%) Nmap
10 7 (0.30%) BMC PATROL
10 7 (0.30%) Kibana
11 5 (0.21%) WMI
12 4 (0.17%) Argo
12 4 (0.17%) FortiGate
12 4 (0.17%) Kubeflow
12 4 (0.17%) Rancher
12 4 (0.17%) SCCM
12 4 (0.17%) yum
Vendors
1 313 (13.45%) Microsoft
2 123 (5.29%) SAP
3 103 (4.43%) Oracle
4 66 (2.84%) Salesforce
5 61 (2.62%) Databricks
6 59 (2.54%) EMC
7 53 (2.28%) ServiceNow
8 51 (2.19%) Cisco
9 36 (1.55%) Google
10 32 (1.38%) CrowdStrike
11 26 (1.12%) Palo Alto
12 25 (1.07%) Sage
13 23 (0.99%) Tenable
14 22 (0.95%) VMware
15 21 (0.90%) Informatica
16 20 (0.86%) Thales
17 19 (0.82%) IBM
17 19 (0.82%) Siemens
18 18 (0.77%) Red Hat
18 18 (0.77%) Workday