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

6 months to
5 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 67 87 176
Rank change year-on-year +20 +89 +29
Permanent jobs citing Validation 2,376 1,506 1,048
As % of all permanent jobs in England 2.29% 3.48% 1.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.11% 3.90% 1.92%
Number of salaries quoted 1,402 411 390
10th Percentile £36,025 £38,750 £38,636
25th Percentile £42,750 £41,250 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,500
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -0.90% -14.62%
75th Percentile £71,250 £77,500 £75,000
90th Percentile £86,250 £90,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £59,490 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +8.16% -4.35% -11.54%

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 76,425 38,582 54,709
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.55% 89.09% 82.44%
Number of salaries quoted 53,653 21,807 29,545
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £41,875 £36,250 £42,881
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -1.64%
75th Percentile £80,000 £75,246 £78,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £97,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £59,430
% change year-on-year +9.09% -7.45% -0.95%

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 5 October 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 5 October 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 +68 618 £68,750 -14.06% 1,982
South East -15 498 £62,500 +16.28% 717
North of England +124 480 £50,750 +6.64% 509
Midlands -17 301 £50,000 -9.09% 411
North West +108 299 £55,000 +9.94% 267
South West +24 243 £55,000 +4.56% 321
East of England -36 207 £55,000 -10.20% 358
West Midlands +51 170 £47,500 -13.64% 268
East Midlands -43 131 £50,000 +17.65% 143
Yorkshire +21 93 £42,500 - 163
North East +6 88 £55,000 +57.14% 82
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 50 (2.10%) Apache Spark
2 43 (1.81%) Apache
3 42 (1.77%) Apache Airflow
4 35 (1.47%) Confluence
4 35 (1.47%) SharePoint
5 18 (0.76%) CMS
5 18 (0.76%) Jupyter
6 13 (0.55%) SAS
7 11 (0.46%) Microsoft Exchange
8 10 (0.42%) WinCC
9 6 (0.25%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 3 (0.13%) Artix
10 3 (0.13%) nginx
10 3 (0.13%) OpenStack
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
11 2 (0.084%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.084%) IIS
12 1 (0.042%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
12 1 (0.042%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 149 (6.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 68 (2.86%) Microsoft Office
3 52 (2.19%) Simulink
4 37 (1.56%) Microsoft Project
5 26 (1.09%) Spreadsheet
6 20 (0.84%) AutoCAD
7 19 (0.80%) SOLIDWORKS
8 15 (0.63%) MS Visio
9 14 (0.59%) Revit
10 11 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
10 11 (0.46%) OrCAD
11 9 (0.38%) Navisworks
12 7 (0.29%) EPLAN
13 5 (0.21%) Mathcad
13 5 (0.21%) Stateflow
14 4 (0.17%) CANalyzer
14 4 (0.17%) Notion
15 3 (0.13%) Autodesk Inventor
15 3 (0.13%) LaTeX
15 3 (0.13%) Productboard
Business Applications
1 42 (1.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (1.52%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.42%) SAP MDG
3 10 (0.42%) Workday HCM
4 8 (0.34%) NetSuite
4 8 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 7 (0.29%) Infor M3
5 7 (0.29%) Oracle Applications
5 7 (0.29%) SAP ERP
6 5 (0.21%) iTrent
6 5 (0.21%) Oracle Financials
7 4 (0.17%) Elite 3E
7 4 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
7 4 (0.17%) SAP MDG-BP
7 4 (0.17%) SAP MM
7 4 (0.17%) Teamcenter
8 3 (0.13%) Maximo
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
8 3 (0.13%) Sage 200
8 3 (0.13%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 318 (13.38%) Azure
2 254 (10.69%) AWS
3 181 (7.62%) Power Platform
4 95 (4.00%) GCP
5 77 (3.24%) GitHub
6 73 (3.07%) Azure DevOps
7 66 (2.78%) Microsoft 365
8 65 (2.74%) SaaS
9 59 (2.48%) Serverless
10 45 (1.89%) Amazon S3
11 42 (1.77%) Entra ID
12 36 (1.52%) GitHub Actions
13 35 (1.47%) Microsoft Copilot
14 33 (1.39%) Dynamics 365
15 30 (1.26%) Microsoft Purview
16 27 (1.14%) Amazon EMR
16 27 (1.14%) Cloud Computing
17 26 (1.09%) Azure Data Factory
18 22 (0.93%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 22 (0.93%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 70 (2.95%) DNS
2 64 (2.69%) Firewall
3 55 (2.31%) Broadband
4 43 (1.81%) VPN
5 41 (1.73%) TCP/IP
6 37 (1.56%) Ethernet
6 37 (1.56%) Network Security
7 36 (1.52%) Modbus
7 36 (1.52%) Wireless
8 34 (1.43%) WAN
9 33 (1.39%) VLAN
10 29 (1.22%) LAN
10 29 (1.22%) OSPF
11 25 (1.05%) MQTT
11 25 (1.05%) Wireshark
12 22 (0.93%) SD-WAN
13 21 (0.88%) BGP
14 18 (0.76%) 5G
14 18 (0.76%) DHCP
15 17 (0.72%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 169 (7.11%) Power BI
2 63 (2.65%) Metadata
3 60 (2.53%) Data Warehouse
4 54 (2.27%) SQL Server
5 49 (2.06%) PostgreSQL
6 48 (2.02%) Data Lake
7 38 (1.60%) Amazon Athena
8 37 (1.56%) Relational Database
9 34 (1.43%) Tableau
10 30 (1.26%) MongoDB
11 27 (1.14%) Big Data
11 27 (1.14%) NoSQL
12 24 (1.01%) BigQuery
12 24 (1.01%) DynamoDB
13 22 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 21 (0.88%) Azure SQL Database
15 20 (0.84%) Power Query
16 19 (0.80%) Amazon Redshift
16 19 (0.80%) MySQL
17 18 (0.76%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 135 (5.68%) JIRA
2 124 (5.22%) Git
3 60 (2.53%) Jenkins
4 57 (2.40%) GitLab
5 42 (1.77%) Rational DOORS
6 30 (1.26%) LabVIEW
7 20 (0.84%) Selenium
8 19 (0.80%) Snyk
9 18 (0.76%) Postman
10 17 (0.72%) Cypress.io
11 12 (0.51%) Claude Code
12 11 (0.46%) Burp Suite
12 11 (0.46%) Eclipse
12 11 (0.46%) Rational Rhapsody
13 9 (0.38%) Cucumber
13 9 (0.38%) JMeter
13 9 (0.38%) MLflow
13 9 (0.38%) Sonatype Nexus
14 8 (0.34%) Metasploit
14 8 (0.34%) TeamCity
General
1 800 (33.67%) Social Skills
2 604 (25.42%) Finance
3 561 (23.61%) Analytical Skills
4 240 (10.10%) Manufacturing
5 230 (9.68%) Electronics
6 227 (9.55%) Aerospace
7 197 (8.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 123 (5.18%) Law
9 108 (4.55%) Public Sector
10 106 (4.46%) Organisational Skills
11 103 (4.34%) Banking
12 102 (4.29%) Marketing
13 98 (4.12%) Retail
14 87 (3.66%) Telecoms
15 83 (3.49%) Pharmaceutical
16 81 (3.41%) Automotive
17 51 (2.15%) Legal
18 46 (1.94%) Military
19 42 (1.77%) Documentation Skills
20 38 (1.60%) Games
Job Titles
1 430 (18.10%) Senior
2 262 (11.03%) Systems Engineer
3 252 (10.61%) Analyst
4 189 (7.95%) Lead
5 120 (5.05%) Test Engineer
6 118 (4.97%) Data Engineer
7 112 (4.71%) Architect
8 102 (4.29%) Developer
9 88 (3.70%) Software Engineer
10 81 (3.41%) Consultant
10 81 (3.41%) Principal Engineer
11 75 (3.16%) Business Analyst
11 75 (3.16%) Electronics Engineer
12 62 (2.61%) Data Analyst
13 58 (2.44%) Network Engineer
13 58 (2.44%) Validation Engineer
14 52 (2.19%) Automation Engineer
15 47 (1.98%) Administrator
15 47 (1.98%) Data Scientist
16 45 (1.89%) Principal Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (3.62%) Terraform
2 63 (2.65%) REST
3 59 (2.48%) RESTful
4 57 (2.40%) Kafka
5 50 (2.10%) Node.js
6 48 (2.02%) .NET
7 36 (1.52%) JSON
7 36 (1.52%) Playwright
7 36 (1.52%) PySpark
8 34 (1.43%) FastAPI
9 33 (1.39%) CSS
10 31 (1.30%) HTML
11 30 (1.26%) React
12 29 (1.22%) XML
13 26 (1.09%) Swagger
14 23 (0.97%) LDAP
14 23 (0.97%) RabbitMQ
15 22 (0.93%) OAuth
16 21 (0.88%) Middleware
16 21 (0.88%) ModSecurity
Miscellaneous
1 156 (6.57%) Cloud Native
2 141 (5.93%) Onboarding
3 137 (5.77%) Management Information System
4 78 (3.28%) Product Ownership
5 76 (3.20%) Data Centre
6 68 (2.86%) Driving Licence
7 64 (2.69%) Distributed Systems
8 63 (2.65%) Embedded Systems
9 62 (2.61%) Data Structures
10 60 (2.53%) Enterprise Software
11 53 (2.23%) SCADA
12 50 (2.10%) AI Agents
13 49 (2.06%) Algorithms
14 48 (2.02%) Life Science
15 40 (1.68%) Robotics
16 39 (1.64%) Analytical Mindset
17 38 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
18 37 (1.56%) Low-Code
19 35 (1.47%) Self-Motivation
20 33 (1.39%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 131 (5.51%) Linux
2 91 (3.83%) Windows
3 31 (1.30%) Windows Server
4 26 (1.09%) Unix
5 13 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.42%) Android
7 8 (0.34%) Embedded Linux
8 7 (0.29%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.21%) FreeRTOS
10 4 (0.17%) Kali Linux
10 4 (0.17%) Mac OS X
11 3 (0.13%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.084%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.084%) VMS
12 2 (0.084%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.042%) AIX
13 1 (0.042%) OpenWrt
13 1 (0.042%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 624 (26.26%) Problem-Solving
2 533 (22.43%) Continuous Improvement
3 431 (18.14%) Agile
4 411 (17.30%) AI
5 405 (17.05%) Verification and Validation
6 342 (14.39%) CI/CD
7 326 (13.72%) Stakeholder Management
8 302 (12.71%) Test Automation
9 297 (12.50%) Migration
10 254 (10.69%) Analytics
11 250 (10.52%) Mentoring
12 242 (10.19%) Software Engineering
13 226 (9.51%) Decision-Making
14 223 (9.39%) DevOps
15 208 (8.75%) Business Intelligence
15 208 (8.75%) Data Analysis
15 208 (8.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 202 (8.50%) Roadmaps
17 194 (8.16%) Data Migration
18 186 (7.83%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 488 (20.54%) Python
2 429 (18.06%) SQL
3 94 (3.96%) C++
3 94 (3.96%) Java
4 88 (3.70%) C
5 73 (3.07%) JavaScript
6 70 (2.95%) C#
7 66 (2.78%) MATLAB
8 46 (1.94%) Go
9 35 (1.47%) Bash
9 35 (1.47%) PowerShell
10 31 (1.30%) TypeScript
11 29 (1.22%) Embedded C
12 25 (1.05%) Scala
13 22 (0.93%) R
14 20 (0.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 17 (0.72%) Embedded C++
16 12 (0.51%) Shell Script
17 11 (0.46%) Apex Code
18 9 (0.38%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 513 (21.59%) Degree
2 494 (20.79%) Security Cleared
3 364 (15.32%) SC Cleared
4 115 (4.84%) BPSS Clearance
5 96 (4.04%) DV Cleared
5 96 (4.04%) Master's Degree
6 48 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
7 44 (1.85%) HND
8 38 (1.60%) PhD
9 36 (1.52%) HNC
9 36 (1.52%) PMI Certification
10 35 (1.47%) Chartered Engineer
11 32 (1.35%) CISSP
12 31 (1.30%) Azure Certification
13 30 (1.26%) ACCA
14 27 (1.14%) AWS Certification
14 27 (1.14%) CIMA
15 26 (1.09%) PMP
16 22 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
17 21 (0.88%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 360 (15.15%) Data Quality
2 294 (12.37%) QA
3 72 (3.03%) Accessibility
4 59 (2.48%) GDPR
5 33 (1.39%) GRC
6 32 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 27 (1.14%) GxP
8 20 (0.84%) SLA
9 19 (0.80%) IEC 61508
9 19 (0.80%) NIST
10 16 (0.67%) ISO 9001
11 15 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 15288
12 14 (0.59%) ISO 19650
13 13 (0.55%) GMP
14 12 (0.51%) ISO 26262
14 12 (0.51%) SOC 2
15 11 (0.46%) PMO
16 9 (0.38%) GAAP
16 9 (0.38%) WCAG
17 8 (0.34%) IFRS
System Software
1 108 (4.55%) Docker
2 93 (3.91%) Firmware
3 49 (2.06%) Active Directory
4 43 (1.81%) Embedded Firmware
5 25 (1.05%) Virtual Machines
6 15 (0.63%) vSphere
7 8 (0.34%) VMware Infrastructure
8 6 (0.25%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.13%) KVM
10 2 (0.084%) iptables
10 2 (0.084%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.084%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.084%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.042%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 91 (3.83%) Kubernetes
2 40 (1.68%) Grafana
3 34 (1.43%) Ansible
4 28 (1.18%) Functional Safety
5 18 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (0.63%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.51%) Microsoft Intune
8 10 (0.42%) Puppet
9 8 (0.34%) BMC PATROL
9 8 (0.34%) Cilium
9 8 (0.34%) Kibana
9 8 (0.34%) Nessus
9 8 (0.34%) Nmap
10 5 (0.21%) WMI
11 4 (0.17%) Argo
11 4 (0.17%) FortiGate
11 4 (0.17%) Kubeflow
11 4 (0.17%) Rancher
11 4 (0.17%) SCCM
11 4 (0.17%) yum
Vendors
1 325 (13.68%) Microsoft
2 125 (5.26%) SAP
3 102 (4.29%) Oracle
4 82 (3.45%) Salesforce
5 65 (2.74%) EMC
6 60 (2.53%) Databricks
7 54 (2.27%) ServiceNow
8 52 (2.19%) Cisco
9 37 (1.56%) Google
10 29 (1.22%) CrowdStrike
11 25 (1.05%) Adobe
11 25 (1.05%) Sage
12 23 (0.97%) Palo Alto
13 22 (0.93%) Thales
14 21 (0.88%) Informatica
14 21 (0.88%) VMware
15 20 (0.84%) Tenable
16 19 (0.80%) IBM
17 18 (0.76%) Siemens
18 17 (0.72%) Red Hat