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

6 months to
2 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 123 96 192
Rank change year-on-year -27 +96 -10
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,204 1,178 1,296
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.50% 3.12% 1.55%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.01% 3.35% 1.81%
Number of salaries quoted 711 393 718
10th Percentile £33,000 £40,000 £35,925
25th Percentile £43,750 £46,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -12.00%
75th Percentile £77,500 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £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 59,926 35,151 71,432
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 74.82% 93.00% 85.57%
Number of salaries quoted 37,965 20,596 53,814
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,750 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,500 £42,500 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,500 £93,750
UK median annual salary £58,396 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -2.67% +9.09% -10.57%

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 2 May 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 2 May 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 +67 354 £77,500 +8.77% 315
South East -28 283 £55,000 +8.91% 211
North of England +28 216 £55,000 +15.35% 124
Midlands -70 148 £38,750 -29.55% 93
North West +30 132 £58,000 +21.64% 72
West Midlands -9 96 £44,000 -32.31% 58
East of England -64 96 £60,000 +5.26% 79
South West -49 87 £55,000 - 86
Yorkshire -31 53 £59,000 +24.21% 40
East Midlands -90 50 £30,000 -41.18% 35
North East -11 31 £52,500 -7.49% 14
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 46 (3.82%) Apache Airflow
2 27 (2.24%) Apache Spark
3 24 (1.99%) Apache
4 18 (1.50%) Confluence
5 16 (1.33%) Microsoft Exchange
6 12 (1.00%) Appian
7 11 (0.91%) CMS
8 7 (0.58%) SharePoint
9 6 (0.50%) Kinematics
10 3 (0.25%) Headless CMS
10 3 (0.25%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.17%) IIS
12 1 (0.083%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.083%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.083%) Artix
12 1 (0.083%) Palantir Foundry
12 1 (0.083%) SAS
12 1 (0.083%) WordPress
Applications
1 86 (7.14%) Microsoft Excel
2 56 (4.65%) Microsoft Office
3 17 (1.41%) MS Visio
4 14 (1.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.58%) Simulink
6 6 (0.50%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 6 (0.50%) Microsoft Project
6 6 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.33%) Fusion 360
8 3 (0.25%) Solid Edge
8 3 (0.25%) SOLIDWORKS
9 2 (0.17%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.17%) CATIA
9 2 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
10 1 (0.083%) Adobe Illustrator
10 1 (0.083%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.083%) Elementor
10 1 (0.083%) Navisworks
10 1 (0.083%) Photoshop
10 1 (0.083%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 26 (2.16%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (1.50%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.75%) SAP ERP
4 6 (0.50%) Loan IQ
4 6 (0.50%) SAP MDG
5 4 (0.33%) SAP MDG-BP
6 3 (0.25%) iTrent
6 3 (0.25%) Oracle Applications
6 3 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
6 3 (0.25%) Workday HCM
7 2 (0.17%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 1 (0.083%) Magento
8 1 (0.083%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.083%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.083%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.083%) SAP Business ByDesign
8 1 (0.083%) SAP EHS
8 1 (0.083%) SAP FSCM
8 1 (0.083%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 158 (13.12%) Azure
2 110 (9.14%) Power Platform
3 99 (8.22%) AWS
4 50 (4.15%) GCP
5 48 (3.99%) SaaS
6 43 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
7 31 (2.57%) Dynamics 365
8 30 (2.49%) Azure Data Factory
8 30 (2.49%) Serverless
9 27 (2.24%) Microsoft 365
10 26 (2.16%) Amazon S3
10 26 (2.16%) Power Automate
10 26 (2.16%) Snowflake
11 22 (1.83%) Entra ID
12 21 (1.74%) GitHub
13 19 (1.58%) dbt
14 15 (1.25%) Anthropic Claude
15 13 (1.08%) OpenShift
16 12 (1.00%) Azure AI
17 11 (0.91%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 32 (2.66%) Broadband
2 29 (2.41%) CHAP
3 28 (2.33%) Firewall
4 23 (1.91%) DNS
5 19 (1.58%) WAN
6 17 (1.41%) SD-WAN
7 13 (1.08%) Wireless
8 12 (1.00%) TCP/IP
9 11 (0.91%) 5G
9 11 (0.91%) HTTP
10 9 (0.75%) LAN
10 9 (0.75%) NAS
11 8 (0.66%) Modbus
12 7 (0.58%) Ethernet
12 7 (0.58%) MQTT
12 7 (0.58%) Network Security
12 7 (0.58%) VPN
13 6 (0.50%) Cisco ISE
13 6 (0.50%) WebEx
13 6 (0.50%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 108 (8.97%) Power BI
2 47 (3.90%) SQL Server
3 45 (3.74%) Tableau
4 34 (2.82%) PostgreSQL
5 33 (2.74%) Metadata
6 32 (2.66%) Relational Database
7 29 (2.41%) Data Warehouse
8 20 (1.66%) Data Lake
9 17 (1.41%) Spark SQL
10 16 (1.33%) Azure SQL Database
10 16 (1.33%) Oracle Reports
11 15 (1.25%) Oracle Database
12 14 (1.16%) MongoDB
12 14 (1.16%) MySQL
12 14 (1.16%) Parquet
13 13 (1.08%) Apache Hive
13 13 (1.08%) BigQuery
13 13 (1.08%) Impala
13 13 (1.08%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 12 (1.00%) Pinecone
Development Applications
1 62 (5.15%) Git
2 53 (4.40%) JIRA
3 35 (2.91%) Rational DOORS
4 24 (1.99%) Jenkins
5 19 (1.58%) GitLab
6 17 (1.41%) Postman
7 16 (1.33%) Snyk
8 15 (1.25%) LabVIEW
8 15 (1.25%) MLflow
8 15 (1.25%) Selenium
9 13 (1.08%) IBM UrbanCode
10 11 (0.91%) JMeter
11 10 (0.83%) Cucumber
11 10 (0.83%) Eclipse
12 8 (0.66%) TestRail
13 7 (0.58%) LoadRunner
14 5 (0.42%) Cypress.io
14 5 (0.42%) SonarQube
14 5 (0.42%) SpecFlow
14 5 (0.42%) Subversion
General
1 375 (31.15%) Social Skills
2 311 (25.83%) Finance
3 269 (22.34%) Analytical Skills
4 89 (7.39%) Manufacturing
5 88 (7.31%) Aerospace
6 86 (7.14%) Banking
7 84 (6.98%) Electronics
8 63 (5.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 45 (3.74%) Legal
10 43 (3.57%) Law
11 40 (3.32%) Financial Institution
11 40 (3.32%) Marketing
11 40 (3.32%) Retail
12 35 (2.91%) Public Sector
13 34 (2.82%) Pharmaceutical
14 27 (2.24%) Presentation Skills
15 26 (2.16%) Organisational Skills
16 25 (2.08%) Games
17 24 (1.99%) Aviation
18 23 (1.91%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 205 (17.03%) Analyst
2 202 (16.78%) Senior
3 147 (12.21%) Systems Engineer
4 91 (7.56%) Test Engineer
5 82 (6.81%) Lead
6 79 (6.56%) Validation Engineer
7 75 (6.23%) Architect
8 72 (5.98%) Business Analyst
9 57 (4.73%) Data Analyst
10 49 (4.07%) Data Engineer
11 46 (3.82%) Integration Engineer
12 42 (3.49%) Principal Engineer
13 40 (3.32%) Developer
14 38 (3.16%) Junior
14 38 (3.16%) Senior Systems Engineer
15 36 (2.99%) Systems Integration Engineer
15 36 (2.99%) Verification Engineer
16 34 (2.82%) Software Validation Engineer
17 32 (2.66%) Auditor
18 29 (2.41%) Security Auditor
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (4.07%) REST
2 34 (2.82%) Pandas
3 30 (2.49%) JSON
4 27 (2.24%) Middleware
5 26 (2.16%) pytest
6 22 (1.83%) PySpark
6 22 (1.83%) RESTful
6 22 (1.83%) XML
7 20 (1.66%) OAuth
8 19 (1.58%) Swagger
9 18 (1.50%) JWT
9 18 (1.50%) PyTorch
9 18 (1.50%) TensorFlow
10 17 (1.41%) .NET
11 16 (1.33%) Kafka
11 16 (1.33%) NumPy
11 16 (1.33%) Playwright
12 15 (1.25%) React
13 14 (1.16%) scikit-learn
13 14 (1.16%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 77 (6.40%) Management Information System
2 52 (4.32%) Onboarding
3 43 (3.57%) Data Structures
4 39 (3.24%) Low-Code
5 36 (2.99%) Self-Motivation
6 33 (2.74%) Legacy Systems
7 27 (2.24%) Analytical Mindset
7 27 (2.24%) Product Ownership
8 26 (2.16%) Cloud Native
8 26 (2.16%) Life Science
9 24 (1.99%) Data Centre
10 20 (1.66%) Embedded Systems
10 20 (1.66%) Enterprise Software
11 18 (1.50%) Algorithms
12 16 (1.33%) Robotics
13 15 (1.25%) Blockchain
14 14 (1.16%) Driving Licence
14 14 (1.16%) IoT
14 14 (1.16%) Reinsurance
15 12 (1.00%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 67 (5.56%) Linux
2 53 (4.40%) Windows
3 20 (1.66%) Unix
4 19 (1.58%) Windows Server
5 12 (1.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.83%) Android
7 4 (0.33%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.33%) FreeRTOS
7 4 (0.33%) Mac OS X
8 3 (0.25%) AIX
8 3 (0.25%) Kali Linux
8 3 (0.25%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.17%) ThreadX
9 2 (0.17%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.083%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 266 (22.09%) Problem-Solving
2 233 (19.35%) Agile
3 209 (17.36%) Continuous Improvement
4 204 (16.94%) Verification and Validation
5 172 (14.29%) Analytics
6 163 (13.54%) Test Automation
7 162 (13.46%) CI/CD
8 161 (13.37%) AI
9 158 (13.12%) Data Validation
10 129 (10.71%) Business Intelligence
11 126 (10.47%) Data Modelling
12 123 (10.22%) Decision-Making
13 122 (10.13%) Migration
14 120 (9.97%) Data Governance
15 117 (9.72%) Systems Engineering
16 111 (9.22%) User Acceptance Testing
17 109 (9.05%) DevOps
17 109 (9.05%) Mentoring
18 106 (8.80%) Stakeholder Management
19 105 (8.72%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 257 (21.35%) SQL
2 251 (20.85%) Python
3 43 (3.57%) C++
4 41 (3.41%) Java
5 34 (2.82%) C
6 28 (2.33%) PowerShell
7 27 (2.24%) JavaScript
8 26 (2.16%) Go
9 23 (1.91%) Bash
10 21 (1.74%) MATLAB
11 19 (1.58%) C#
12 18 (1.50%) T-SQL
13 14 (1.16%) TypeScript
14 12 (1.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 9 (0.75%) Embedded C
15 9 (0.75%) VBA
16 7 (0.58%) R
16 7 (0.58%) VB
17 6 (0.50%) Embedded C++
17 6 (0.50%) PHP
Qualifications
1 267 (22.18%) Degree
2 140 (11.63%) Security Cleared
3 118 (9.80%) BPSS Clearance
4 61 (5.07%) Master's Degree
5 50 (4.15%) SC Cleared
6 39 (3.24%) CISSP
7 38 (3.16%) CISA
8 36 (2.99%) CISM
9 35 (2.91%) Computer Science Degree
9 35 (2.91%) DV Cleared
10 33 (2.74%) Chartered Engineer
10 33 (2.74%) SANS
11 29 (2.41%) CGEIT
11 29 (2.41%) FFIEC
12 25 (2.08%) HNC
13 21 (1.74%) HND
14 15 (1.25%) PMI Certification
15 12 (1.00%) ISTQB
15 12 (1.00%) PMP
16 8 (0.66%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 181 (15.03%) Data Quality
2 119 (9.88%) QA
3 62 (5.15%) GDPR
4 39 (3.24%) Accessibility
5 36 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 31 (2.57%) GRC
6 31 (2.57%) NIST
7 29 (2.41%) COBIT
8 21 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 18 (1.50%) IFRS
10 15 (1.25%) SLA
11 12 (1.00%) GAAP
11 12 (1.00%) IEC 61508
12 11 (0.91%) GMP
13 10 (0.83%) Good Clinical Practice
13 10 (0.83%) PMO
14 9 (0.75%) ISO 9001
14 9 (0.75%) WCAG
15 8 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 12207
16 7 (0.58%) GxP
System Software
1 53 (4.40%) Docker
2 31 (2.57%) Active Directory
3 25 (2.08%) Firmware
4 17 (1.41%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (1.16%) vSphere
6 8 (0.66%) VMware Infrastructure
7 5 (0.42%) Embedded Firmware
7 5 (0.42%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.17%) Terminal Services
8 2 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.083%) iptables
9 1 (0.083%) OpenAM
9 1 (0.083%) OpenDJ
9 1 (0.083%) OpenIDM
9 1 (0.083%) pfSense
Systems Management
1 55 (4.57%) Kubernetes
2 44 (3.65%) Terraform
3 28 (2.33%) Grafana
4 17 (1.41%) Ansible
4 17 (1.41%) Prometheus
5 14 (1.16%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
5 14 (1.16%) Functional Safety
6 10 (0.83%) SCCM
7 7 (0.58%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (0.33%) Argo
8 4 (0.33%) Cilium
8 4 (0.33%) Puppet
8 4 (0.33%) Rancher
8 4 (0.33%) yum
9 3 (0.25%) HP Fortify
9 3 (0.25%) Kibana
10 2 (0.17%) BMC PATROL
10 2 (0.17%) Computer Incident Response Team
10 2 (0.17%) PowerCLI
11 1 (0.083%) Control-M
Vendors
1 162 (13.46%) Microsoft
2 66 (5.48%) Oracle
3 51 (4.24%) SAP
4 35 (2.91%) Salesforce
5 25 (2.08%) Red Hat
6 24 (1.99%) Databricks
7 21 (1.74%) VMware
8 18 (1.50%) Cisco
8 18 (1.50%) CrowdStrike
9 16 (1.33%) Palo Alto
9 16 (1.33%) ServiceNow
9 16 (1.33%) Tenable
10 15 (1.25%) Adobe
11 14 (1.16%) Citrix
11 14 (1.16%) Foundry
11 14 (1.16%) Google
12 13 (1.08%) IBM
12 13 (1.08%) OpenAI
13 12 (1.00%) Automation Anywhere
13 12 (1.00%) UiPath