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

6 months to
28 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 115 80 191
Rank change year-on-year -35 +111 -6
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,420 1,514 1,291
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.67% 3.70% 1.39%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.27% 4.03% 1.69%
Number of salaries quoted 886 427 703
10th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £36,000
25th Percentile £43,000 £46,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.51% +3.64% -12.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £72,500 £72,466
90th Percentile £90,000 £95,000 £85,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £57,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -3.51% +3.64% -11.41%

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 62,507 37,531 76,318
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.63% 91.72% 82.36%
Number of salaries quoted 44,078 20,827 55,158
10th Percentile £31,000 £28,822 £29,500
25th Percentile £41,250 £39,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -12.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £93,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.12%

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 June 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 June 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 +80 401 £76,250 - 303
South East -39 320 £55,000 - 252
North of England +78 287 £55,000 +15.35% 124
North West +80 182 £55,000 +15.35% 61
Midlands -74 166 £40,000 -27.27% 103
South West -41 110 £53,000 -3.64% 106
East of England -67 110 £60,000 +5.26% 63
West Midlands +1 98 £44,000 -29.60% 55
East Midlands -76 66 £30,000 -36.84% 48
Yorkshire 0 61 £44,000 +5.39% 38
North East -9 44 £55,000 +15.79% 25
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 51 (3.59%) Apache Airflow
2 48 (3.38%) Apache Spark
3 46 (3.24%) Apache
4 22 (1.55%) Confluence
5 19 (1.34%) SharePoint
6 14 (0.99%) Microsoft Exchange
7 12 (0.85%) Jupyter
8 10 (0.70%) SAS
9 5 (0.35%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.35%) Appian
10 4 (0.28%) CMS
10 4 (0.28%) Kinematics
11 3 (0.21%) Artix
12 2 (0.14%) IIS
13 1 (0.070%) ArcGIS
13 1 (0.070%) Oracle Workflow
13 1 (0.070%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 83 (5.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (2.96%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (1.69%) Microsoft Project
4 19 (1.34%) MS Visio
5 16 (1.13%) Simulink
6 15 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 8 (0.56%) SOLIDWORKS
7 8 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.35%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.28%) Adobe XD
9 4 (0.28%) Sketch
10 3 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 3 (0.21%) Autodesk Inventor
10 3 (0.21%) Productboard
10 3 (0.21%) Solid Edge
10 3 (0.21%) Stateflow
11 1 (0.070%) Chatbot
11 1 (0.070%) PTC Creo
11 1 (0.070%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.070%) Trello
Business Applications
1 38 (2.68%) Dynamics CRM
2 36 (2.54%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.77%) SAP MDG
4 10 (0.70%) SAP ERP
5 9 (0.63%) Oracle EBS
6 5 (0.35%) iTrent
6 5 (0.35%) Loan IQ
6 5 (0.35%) Oracle Applications
6 5 (0.35%) Oracle Financials
6 5 (0.35%) SAP MDG-BP
7 3 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.14%) FastStats
8 2 (0.14%) NetSuite
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
8 2 (0.14%) SAP Business One
8 2 (0.14%) SAP EWM
8 2 (0.14%) SAP MM
8 2 (0.14%) SAP WM
9 1 (0.070%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 184 (12.96%) Azure
2 160 (11.27%) AWS
3 137 (9.65%) Power Platform
4 76 (5.35%) GCP
5 68 (4.79%) SaaS
6 59 (4.15%) Azure DevOps
7 39 (2.75%) Microsoft 365
7 39 (2.75%) Serverless
8 38 (2.68%) Amazon S3
9 35 (2.46%) GitHub
10 28 (1.97%) Dynamics 365
11 25 (1.76%) Azure Data Factory
12 23 (1.62%) Snowflake
13 19 (1.34%) Entra ID
14 18 (1.27%) GitHub Actions
15 17 (1.20%) Power Automate
16 16 (1.13%) Amazon EC2
16 16 (1.13%) Amazon EMR
16 16 (1.13%) dbt
17 14 (0.99%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 67 (4.72%) Broadband
2 43 (3.03%) Firewall
3 34 (2.39%) DNS
4 19 (1.34%) CHAP
4 19 (1.34%) WAN
5 17 (1.20%) Wireless
6 16 (1.13%) Network Security
6 16 (1.13%) TCP/IP
7 15 (1.06%) SD-WAN
8 14 (0.99%) VPN
9 12 (0.85%) 5G
9 12 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
10 11 (0.77%) Ethernet
10 11 (0.77%) HTTP
10 11 (0.77%) MQTT
11 10 (0.70%) LAN
12 9 (0.63%) NAS
13 7 (0.49%) WebEx
14 6 (0.42%) Cisco ISE
14 6 (0.42%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 135 (9.51%) Power BI
2 56 (3.94%) PostgreSQL
2 56 (3.94%) Tableau
3 51 (3.59%) SQL Server
4 48 (3.38%) Data Warehouse
5 33 (2.32%) Metadata
5 33 (2.32%) MongoDB
6 30 (2.11%) Relational Database
7 27 (1.90%) BigQuery
8 25 (1.76%) Data Lake
9 23 (1.62%) Azure SQL Database
10 20 (1.41%) Semantic Layer
11 19 (1.34%) Spark SQL
12 18 (1.27%) Amazon Athena
12 18 (1.27%) DynamoDB
13 17 (1.20%) MySQL
13 17 (1.20%) Oracle Database
14 16 (1.13%) Parquet
15 14 (0.99%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 13 (0.92%) Apache Hive
Development Applications
1 76 (5.35%) JIRA
2 68 (4.79%) Git
3 46 (3.24%) Jenkins
4 37 (2.61%) GitLab
5 30 (2.11%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.55%) Snyk
7 15 (1.06%) LabVIEW
7 15 (1.06%) Selenium
8 14 (0.99%) Postman
9 13 (0.92%) IBM UrbanCode
10 10 (0.70%) Cucumber
10 10 (0.70%) Cypress.io
10 10 (0.70%) Eclipse
10 10 (0.70%) TeamCity
11 9 (0.63%) JMeter
11 9 (0.63%) MLflow
12 7 (0.49%) Rational Rhapsody
13 5 (0.35%) LoadRunner
13 5 (0.35%) REST Assured
13 5 (0.35%) SonarQube
General
1 433 (30.49%) Social Skills
2 375 (26.41%) Finance
3 333 (23.45%) Analytical Skills
4 107 (7.54%) Aerospace
5 102 (7.18%) Electronics
6 96 (6.76%) Manufacturing
7 95 (6.69%) Banking
8 86 (6.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 55 (3.87%) Retail
10 52 (3.66%) Law
11 48 (3.38%) Public Sector
12 43 (3.03%) Legal
13 42 (2.96%) Marketing
13 42 (2.96%) Pharmaceutical
14 41 (2.89%) Games
15 40 (2.82%) Organisational Skills
16 34 (2.39%) Financial Institution
17 33 (2.32%) Automotive
18 22 (1.55%) Documentation Skills
19 21 (1.48%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 244 (17.18%) Senior
2 229 (16.13%) Analyst
3 128 (9.01%) Systems Engineer
4 109 (7.68%) Lead
5 97 (6.83%) Test Engineer
6 92 (6.48%) Architect
7 82 (5.77%) Validation Engineer
8 76 (5.35%) Data Engineer
9 73 (5.14%) Business Analyst
10 67 (4.72%) Data Analyst
11 65 (4.58%) Developer
12 44 (3.10%) Principal Engineer
13 40 (2.82%) Support Engineer
14 39 (2.75%) Embedded Engineer
14 39 (2.75%) IT Manager
15 37 (2.61%) Consultant
16 35 (2.46%) Integration Engineer
16 35 (2.46%) Security Architect
17 34 (2.39%) Project Manager
17 34 (2.39%) Senior Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (3.03%) RESTful
2 33 (2.32%) PySpark
3 32 (2.25%) REST
4 31 (2.18%) JSON
5 30 (2.11%) Kafka
5 30 (2.11%) Node.js
6 27 (1.90%) XML
7 25 (1.76%) Pandas
8 23 (1.62%) Middleware
9 22 (1.55%) .NET
10 21 (1.48%) pytest
11 19 (1.34%) Playwright
12 18 (1.27%) Regular Expression
12 18 (1.27%) XMPP
13 17 (1.20%) Swagger
14 16 (1.13%) CSS
15 15 (1.06%) HTML
16 14 (0.99%) FastAPI
16 14 (0.99%) LDAP
17 13 (0.92%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 90 (6.34%) Cloud Native
2 74 (5.21%) Onboarding
3 65 (4.58%) Data Structures
4 63 (4.44%) Management Information System
5 48 (3.38%) Low-Code
6 42 (2.96%) Product Ownership
7 40 (2.82%) Algorithms
7 40 (2.82%) Driving Licence
8 38 (2.68%) Embedded Systems
9 36 (2.54%) Self-Motivation
10 35 (2.46%) Distributed Systems
11 34 (2.39%) Data Centre
11 34 (2.39%) Enterprise Software
12 33 (2.32%) Analytical Mindset
13 31 (2.18%) Video\Live Streaming
14 29 (2.04%) Legacy Systems
15 28 (1.97%) Life Science
16 22 (1.55%) Robotics
17 19 (1.34%) PKI
18 18 (1.27%) FPGA
Operating Systems
1 94 (6.62%) Linux
2 69 (4.86%) Windows
3 28 (1.97%) Windows Server
4 24 (1.69%) Unix
5 18 (1.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.42%) Android
7 4 (0.28%) FreeRTOS
7 4 (0.28%) Kali Linux
7 4 (0.28%) Mac OS X
8 3 (0.21%) AIX
8 3 (0.21%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.21%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
9 2 (0.14%) ThreadX
10 1 (0.070%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.070%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 321 (22.61%) Problem-Solving
2 289 (20.35%) Agile
3 277 (19.51%) Continuous Improvement
4 244 (17.18%) AI
5 241 (16.97%) CI/CD
6 202 (14.23%) Test Automation
7 192 (13.52%) Analytics
8 179 (12.61%) Verification and Validation
9 165 (11.62%) Data Validation
10 163 (11.48%) Migration
11 160 (11.27%) Business Intelligence
12 154 (10.85%) DevOps
13 150 (10.56%) Data Modelling
14 146 (10.28%) Stakeholder Management
15 141 (9.93%) Decision-Making
16 139 (9.79%) Software Engineering
17 133 (9.37%) Data Governance
18 131 (9.23%) Mentoring
19 127 (8.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
20 122 (8.59%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 345 (24.30%) Python
2 316 (22.25%) SQL
3 65 (4.58%) C++
4 63 (4.44%) C
5 56 (3.94%) Java
6 50 (3.52%) Go
7 39 (2.75%) C#
8 33 (2.32%) JavaScript
9 30 (2.11%) MATLAB
10 26 (1.83%) Bash
11 24 (1.69%) PowerShell
11 24 (1.69%) T-SQL
12 18 (1.27%) Embedded C
12 18 (1.27%) Embedded C++
13 15 (1.06%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 14 (0.99%) Scala
15 12 (0.85%) TypeScript
16 9 (0.63%) VBA
17 8 (0.56%) ABAP
18 7 (0.49%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 268 (18.87%) Degree
2 159 (11.20%) Security Cleared
3 102 (7.18%) BPSS Clearance
4 74 (5.21%) Master's Degree
4 74 (5.21%) SC Cleared
5 46 (3.24%) DV Cleared
6 37 (2.61%) Computer Science Degree
7 34 (2.39%) Chartered Engineer
8 29 (2.04%) CISA
8 29 (2.04%) CISSP
8 29 (2.04%) SANS
9 26 (1.83%) CISM
10 25 (1.76%) HNC
11 19 (1.34%) CGEIT
11 19 (1.34%) FFIEC
11 19 (1.34%) HND
12 17 (1.20%) ACCA
12 17 (1.20%) CIMA
13 14 (0.99%) PMI Certification
14 13 (0.92%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 246 (17.32%) Data Quality
2 159 (11.20%) QA
3 54 (3.80%) GDPR
4 39 (2.75%) Accessibility
5 36 (2.54%) GRC
6 25 (1.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 23 (1.62%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 23 (1.62%) NIST
8 19 (1.34%) COBIT
9 18 (1.27%) IEC 61508
9 18 (1.27%) IFRS
10 16 (1.13%) PMO
11 14 (0.99%) ISO 9001
12 13 (0.92%) GAAP
12 13 (0.92%) SLA
13 12 (0.85%) ISO 26262
14 11 (0.77%) SOC 2
15 10 (0.70%) GxP
16 9 (0.63%) GMP
17 8 (0.56%) MISRA
System Software
1 64 (4.51%) Docker
2 42 (2.96%) Firmware
3 37 (2.61%) Active Directory
4 22 (1.55%) Virtual Machines
5 21 (1.48%) Embedded Firmware
6 19 (1.34%) vSphere
7 8 (0.56%) VMware Infrastructure
8 5 (0.35%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.14%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.070%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 65 (4.58%) Terraform
2 64 (4.51%) Kubernetes
3 28 (1.97%) Grafana
4 23 (1.62%) Functional Safety
5 16 (1.13%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.99%) Ansible
7 10 (0.70%) Cilium
8 7 (0.49%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 7 (0.49%) Kibana
9 6 (0.42%) Puppet
9 6 (0.42%) SCCM
10 3 (0.21%) Argo
10 3 (0.21%) FortiGate
10 3 (0.21%) HP Fortify
10 3 (0.21%) Rancher
10 3 (0.21%) yum
11 2 (0.14%) BMC PATROL
11 2 (0.14%) Computer Incident Response Team
11 2 (0.14%) Nessus
11 2 (0.14%) Nmap
Vendors
1 185 (13.03%) Microsoft
2 88 (6.20%) SAP
3 85 (5.99%) Oracle
4 47 (3.31%) Salesforce
5 38 (2.68%) Databricks
6 33 (2.32%) ServiceNow
7 32 (2.25%) Red Hat
8 29 (2.04%) CrowdStrike
9 26 (1.83%) VMware
10 22 (1.55%) Palo Alto
10 22 (1.55%) Tenable
11 21 (1.48%) Google
12 20 (1.41%) Adobe
12 20 (1.41%) Cisco
13 14 (0.99%) Citrix
13 14 (0.99%) McAfee
14 13 (0.92%) Foundry
15 9 (0.63%) IBM
15 9 (0.63%) OpenAI
16 8 (0.56%) EMC