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

6 months to
24 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 75 190
Rank change year-on-year -52 +115 -8
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,281 1,484 1,292
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.55% 3.87% 1.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.09% 4.15% 1.79%
Number of salaries quoted 759 390 718
10th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £36,000
25th Percentile £43,000 £46,250 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,000 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.57% +1.82% -12.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £71,250 £72,387
90th Percentile £93,750 £95,000 £85,000
UK median annual salary £57,500 £57,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +0.88% +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 61,148 35,802 72,235
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.84% 93.41% 84.38%
Number of salaries quoted 40,513 19,133 54,000
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £29,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £41,250 £40,000
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 £73,367
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,500 £93,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £59,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +1.69% +7.27% -9.84%

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 24 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 24 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 +66 373 £75,000 +1.69% 323
South East -44 291 £55,000 +4.76% 194
North of England +64 252 £55,000 +15.35% 149
North West +59 159 £55,000 +15.35% 86
Midlands -79 156 £40,000 -33.33% 95
West Midlands -6 99 £43,250 -34.72% 59
South West -55 96 £52,500 -3.67% 98
East of England -89 92 £60,000 +5.26% 89
Yorkshire -13 57 £52,500 +10.53% 42
East Midlands -88 55 £30,000 -42.31% 35
North East -9 36 £53,750 -12.96% 22
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 (3.75%) Apache Airflow
2 34 (2.65%) Apache Spark
3 32 (2.50%) Apache
4 21 (1.64%) Confluence
5 15 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
6 10 (0.78%) Appian
6 10 (0.78%) SharePoint
7 8 (0.62%) CMS
8 7 (0.55%) Jupyter
9 6 (0.47%) Kinematics
9 6 (0.47%) SAS
10 4 (0.31%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.23%) Artix
12 2 (0.16%) IIS
13 1 (0.078%) Anypoint
13 1 (0.078%) ArcGIS
13 1 (0.078%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 84 (6.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 49 (3.83%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (1.41%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.94%) Microsoft Project
5 12 (0.94%) Simulink
6 7 (0.55%) SOLIDWORKS
7 6 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.39%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 5 (0.39%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.31%) Adobe XD
9 4 (0.31%) Fusion 360
9 4 (0.31%) Sketch
10 3 (0.23%) Autodesk Inventor
10 3 (0.23%) Productboard
10 3 (0.23%) Solid Edge
11 2 (0.16%) CATIA
11 2 (0.16%) Stateflow
12 1 (0.078%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.078%) Revit
Business Applications
1 28 (2.19%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.87%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.78%) SAP ERP
4 7 (0.55%) SAP MDG
5 6 (0.47%) Loan IQ
6 5 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
6 5 (0.39%) SAP MDG-BP
7 3 (0.23%) iTrent
7 3 (0.23%) Oracle Applications
7 3 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
7 3 (0.23%) Oracle Financials
8 2 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
8 2 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
8 2 (0.16%) Workday HCM
9 1 (0.078%) Elite 3E
9 1 (0.078%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 1 (0.078%) SAP Business ByDesign
9 1 (0.078%) SAP EHS
9 1 (0.078%) SAP FSCM
9 1 (0.078%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 159 (12.41%) Azure
2 124 (9.68%) AWS
3 118 (9.21%) Power Platform
4 61 (4.76%) GCP
5 56 (4.37%) SaaS
6 46 (3.59%) Azure DevOps
7 38 (2.97%) Serverless
8 34 (2.65%) Microsoft 365
9 33 (2.58%) Amazon S3
10 32 (2.50%) GitHub
11 29 (2.26%) Azure Data Factory
12 27 (2.11%) Snowflake
13 26 (2.03%) Dynamics 365
14 22 (1.72%) Entra ID
14 22 (1.72%) Power Automate
15 19 (1.48%) dbt
16 14 (1.09%) OpenShift
17 13 (1.01%) Anthropic Claude
17 13 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
18 12 (0.94%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 52 (4.06%) Broadband
2 31 (2.42%) Firewall
3 24 (1.87%) DNS
4 23 (1.80%) CHAP
5 21 (1.64%) WAN
6 17 (1.33%) SD-WAN
7 16 (1.25%) 5G
7 16 (1.25%) Wireless
8 13 (1.01%) Network Security
8 13 (1.01%) TCP/IP
9 11 (0.86%) HTTP
10 10 (0.78%) MQTT
11 9 (0.70%) NAS
11 9 (0.70%) VPN
11 9 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
12 8 (0.62%) LAN
13 7 (0.55%) Ethernet
13 7 (0.55%) Modbus
14 6 (0.47%) Cisco ISE
14 6 (0.47%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 116 (9.06%) Power BI
2 53 (4.14%) Tableau
3 50 (3.90%) SQL Server
4 43 (3.36%) PostgreSQL
5 34 (2.65%) Data Warehouse
6 31 (2.42%) Relational Database
7 30 (2.34%) Metadata
8 24 (1.87%) MongoDB
9 20 (1.56%) Data Lake
10 19 (1.48%) Azure SQL Database
10 19 (1.48%) BigQuery
11 18 (1.41%) Spark SQL
12 16 (1.25%) Oracle Database
13 15 (1.17%) Oracle Reports
13 15 (1.17%) Semantic Layer
14 14 (1.09%) MySQL
14 14 (1.09%) Parquet
15 13 (1.01%) Apache Hive
15 13 (1.01%) Impala
15 13 (1.01%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 69 (5.39%) Git
2 54 (4.22%) JIRA
3 34 (2.65%) Jenkins
4 32 (2.50%) Rational DOORS
5 26 (2.03%) GitLab
6 22 (1.72%) Snyk
7 15 (1.17%) LabVIEW
7 15 (1.17%) Postman
8 14 (1.09%) MLflow
9 13 (1.01%) IBM UrbanCode
9 13 (1.01%) Selenium
10 10 (0.78%) Cucumber
10 10 (0.78%) Eclipse
11 9 (0.70%) JMeter
11 9 (0.70%) TeamCity
12 6 (0.47%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.47%) TestRail
13 5 (0.39%) Rational Rhapsody
13 5 (0.39%) SonarQube
13 5 (0.39%) SpecFlow
General
1 380 (29.66%) Social Skills
2 319 (24.90%) Finance
3 292 (22.79%) Analytical Skills
4 98 (7.65%) Electronics
5 97 (7.57%) Aerospace
6 90 (7.03%) Manufacturing
7 84 (6.56%) Banking
8 77 (6.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 50 (3.90%) Retail
10 46 (3.59%) Legal
10 46 (3.59%) Marketing
11 45 (3.51%) Law
12 39 (3.04%) Public Sector
13 36 (2.81%) Pharmaceutical
14 32 (2.50%) Financial Institution
14 32 (2.50%) Games
15 29 (2.26%) Organisational Skills
16 28 (2.19%) Presentation Skills
17 22 (1.72%) Automotive
18 21 (1.64%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 219 (17.10%) Senior
2 216 (16.86%) Analyst
3 143 (11.16%) Systems Engineer
4 90 (7.03%) Lead
4 90 (7.03%) Test Engineer
5 88 (6.87%) Architect
6 81 (6.32%) Validation Engineer
7 73 (5.70%) Business Analyst
8 59 (4.61%) Data Analyst
9 55 (4.29%) Data Engineer
10 46 (3.59%) Principal Engineer
11 45 (3.51%) Developer
11 45 (3.51%) Integration Engineer
12 39 (3.04%) Junior
13 35 (2.73%) Senior Systems Engineer
13 35 (2.73%) Systems Integration Engineer
14 34 (2.65%) Consultant
14 34 (2.65%) Verification Engineer
15 31 (2.42%) Embedded Engineer
16 30 (2.34%) Software Validation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (3.28%) REST
2 31 (2.42%) RESTful
3 29 (2.26%) Pandas
4 28 (2.19%) JSON
5 27 (2.11%) pytest
6 26 (2.03%) PySpark
7 25 (1.95%) Middleware
8 22 (1.72%) Kafka
9 19 (1.48%) .NET
9 19 (1.48%) Node.js
9 19 (1.48%) Swagger
9 19 (1.48%) XML
10 18 (1.41%) CSS
10 18 (1.41%) OAuth
11 17 (1.33%) Playwright
11 17 (1.33%) PyTorch
11 17 (1.33%) TensorFlow
12 16 (1.25%) JWT
13 15 (1.17%) NumPy
14 14 (1.09%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 76 (5.93%) Management Information System
2 61 (4.76%) Onboarding
3 50 (3.90%) Cloud Native
4 47 (3.67%) Data Structures
5 44 (3.43%) Low-Code
6 34 (2.65%) Self-Motivation
7 30 (2.34%) Data Centre
7 30 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
8 29 (2.26%) Analytical Mindset
8 29 (2.26%) Product Ownership
9 27 (2.11%) Embedded Systems
10 26 (2.03%) Algorithms
11 24 (1.87%) Life Science
12 23 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
13 22 (1.72%) Driving Licence
13 22 (1.72%) Video\Live Streaming
14 21 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
15 18 (1.41%) Robotics
16 16 (1.25%) FPGA
16 16 (1.25%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 70 (5.46%) Linux
2 54 (4.22%) Windows
3 23 (1.80%) Unix
4 19 (1.48%) Windows Server
5 12 (0.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.86%) Android
7 5 (0.39%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.31%) FreeRTOS
8 4 (0.31%) Mac OS X
9 3 (0.23%) AIX
9 3 (0.23%) Kali Linux
9 3 (0.23%) Robot Operating System
10 2 (0.16%) ThreadX
11 1 (0.078%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.078%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 283 (22.09%) Problem-Solving
2 238 (18.58%) Agile
3 223 (17.41%) Continuous Improvement
4 202 (15.77%) AI
5 199 (15.53%) CI/CD
6 198 (15.46%) Verification and Validation
7 182 (14.21%) Test Automation
8 179 (13.97%) Analytics
9 152 (11.87%) Data Validation
10 137 (10.69%) Business Intelligence
11 136 (10.62%) Data Modelling
12 131 (10.23%) Decision-Making
13 128 (9.99%) Data Governance
13 128 (9.99%) Migration
14 127 (9.91%) DevOps
15 124 (9.68%) Software Engineering
16 116 (9.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 112 (8.74%) Mentoring
18 108 (8.43%) Stakeholder Management
19 106 (8.27%) Systems Engineering
Programming Languages
1 284 (22.17%) Python
2 272 (21.23%) SQL
3 53 (4.14%) C++
3 53 (4.14%) Java
4 45 (3.51%) C
5 41 (3.20%) Go
6 31 (2.42%) JavaScript
7 30 (2.34%) C#
8 27 (2.11%) Bash
8 27 (2.11%) PowerShell
9 25 (1.95%) MATLAB
10 18 (1.41%) T-SQL
11 13 (1.01%) Embedded C
12 12 (0.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 12 (0.94%) TypeScript
13 11 (0.86%) Embedded C++
14 9 (0.70%) VBA
15 8 (0.62%) Scala
16 7 (0.55%) ABAP
17 6 (0.47%) VB
Qualifications
1 283 (22.09%) Degree
2 151 (11.79%) Security Cleared
3 112 (8.74%) BPSS Clearance
4 66 (5.15%) Master's Degree
5 64 (5.00%) SC Cleared
6 39 (3.04%) DV Cleared
7 36 (2.81%) Chartered Engineer
7 36 (2.81%) Computer Science Degree
8 33 (2.58%) CISA
8 33 (2.58%) CISSP
9 30 (2.34%) CISM
9 30 (2.34%) SANS
10 24 (1.87%) HNC
11 23 (1.80%) CGEIT
11 23 (1.80%) FFIEC
12 22 (1.72%) HND
13 16 (1.25%) PMI Certification
14 13 (1.01%) PMP
15 11 (0.86%) ISTQB
16 9 (0.70%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 197 (15.38%) Data Quality
2 122 (9.52%) QA
3 59 (4.61%) GDPR
4 42 (3.28%) GRC
5 39 (3.04%) Accessibility
6 29 (2.26%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 26 (2.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 25 (1.95%) NIST
9 23 (1.80%) COBIT
10 19 (1.48%) IFRS
11 16 (1.25%) IEC 61508
11 16 (1.25%) SLA
12 13 (1.01%) PMO
13 12 (0.94%) GAAP
14 11 (0.86%) GMP
15 10 (0.78%) Good Clinical Practice
15 10 (0.78%) SOC 2
16 9 (0.70%) ISO 9001
16 9 (0.70%) WCAG
17 8 (0.62%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 59 (4.61%) Docker
2 37 (2.89%) Firmware
3 31 (2.42%) Active Directory
4 22 (1.72%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (1.09%) vSphere
6 10 (0.78%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.62%) VMware Infrastructure
8 4 (0.31%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.16%) Terminal Services
9 2 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.078%) iptables
10 1 (0.078%) OpenAM
10 1 (0.078%) OpenDJ
10 1 (0.078%) OpenIDM
Systems Management
1 64 (5.00%) Kubernetes
2 53 (4.14%) Terraform
3 27 (2.11%) Grafana
4 18 (1.41%) Functional Safety
5 17 (1.33%) Ansible
5 17 (1.33%) Prometheus
6 14 (1.09%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 11 (0.86%) SCCM
8 9 (0.70%) Cilium
9 8 (0.62%) Microsoft Intune
10 4 (0.31%) Argo
10 4 (0.31%) Kibana
10 4 (0.31%) Rancher
10 4 (0.31%) yum
11 3 (0.23%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.23%) Puppet
12 2 (0.16%) BMC PATROL
12 2 (0.16%) Computer Incident Response Team
12 2 (0.16%) FortiGate
12 2 (0.16%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 168 (13.11%) Microsoft
2 75 (5.85%) Oracle
3 62 (4.84%) SAP
4 45 (3.51%) Salesforce
5 26 (2.03%) CrowdStrike
5 26 (2.03%) Databricks
5 26 (2.03%) Red Hat
6 22 (1.72%) Palo Alto
6 22 (1.72%) ServiceNow
6 22 (1.72%) Tenable
7 21 (1.64%) Adobe
8 20 (1.56%) VMware
9 18 (1.41%) Cisco
10 17 (1.33%) Google
11 14 (1.09%) Citrix
12 13 (1.01%) Foundry
12 13 (1.01%) OpenAI
13 10 (0.78%) Automation Anywhere
13 10 (0.78%) IBM
13 10 (0.78%) UiPath