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

6 months to
6 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 126 75 189
Rank change year-on-year -51 +114 -10
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,224 1,498 1,297
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.51% 3.85% 1.55%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.02% 4.13% 1.82%
Number of salaries quoted 722 398 718
10th Percentile £33,025 £40,000 £35,925
25th Percentile £43,750 £46,250 £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 £56,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -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 60,661 36,230 71,357
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 74.64% 93.14% 85.49%
Number of salaries quoted 38,592 20,612 53,719
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,580 £29,000
25th Percentile £41,000 £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 £59,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -0.83% +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 6 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 6 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 +53 358 £77,500 +10.71% 302
South East -45 289 £55,000 +7.84% 239
North of England +39 222 £55,000 +15.35% 136
Midlands -90 149 £40,000 -27.27% 99
North West +30 138 £58,000 +21.64% 79
East of England -79 97 £60,000 +5.26% 104
West Midlands -8 96 £44,000 -32.31% 58
South West -52 89 £53,750 -1.38% 101
Yorkshire -21 53 £59,000 +24.21% 43
East Midlands -102 51 £30,000 -41.18% 41
North East -2 31 £52,500 -7.49% 15
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 (3.76%) Apache Airflow
2 28 (2.29%) Apache Spark
3 26 (2.12%) Apache
4 18 (1.47%) Confluence
5 16 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
6 12 (0.98%) Appian
7 11 (0.90%) CMS
8 7 (0.57%) SharePoint
9 6 (0.49%) Kinematics
10 3 (0.25%) Headless CMS
10 3 (0.25%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.16%) Artix
11 2 (0.16%) IIS
12 1 (0.082%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.082%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.082%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.082%) Palantir Foundry
12 1 (0.082%) SAS
Applications
1 86 (7.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 55 (4.49%) Microsoft Office
3 17 (1.39%) MS Visio
4 14 (1.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
6 7 (0.57%) Simulink
7 6 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.41%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 4 (0.33%) Fusion 360
10 3 (0.25%) Solid Edge
10 3 (0.25%) SOLIDWORKS
11 2 (0.16%) Adobe XD
11 2 (0.16%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.16%) CATIA
11 2 (0.16%) Oracle Smart View
11 2 (0.16%) Sketch
12 1 (0.082%) Navisworks
12 1 (0.082%) Productboard
12 1 (0.082%) Revit
12 1 (0.082%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 27 (2.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 20 (1.63%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.82%) SAP ERP
4 6 (0.49%) Loan IQ
4 6 (0.49%) 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 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 1 (0.082%) Elite 3E
8 1 (0.082%) Magento
8 1 (0.082%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.082%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.082%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.082%) SAP Business ByDesign
8 1 (0.082%) SAP CX
8 1 (0.082%) SAP EHS
Cloud Services
1 158 (12.91%) Azure
2 111 (9.07%) Power Platform
3 101 (8.25%) AWS
4 51 (4.17%) GCP
4 51 (4.17%) SaaS
5 43 (3.51%) Azure DevOps
6 32 (2.61%) Serverless
7 30 (2.45%) Azure Data Factory
8 29 (2.37%) Dynamics 365
9 28 (2.29%) Microsoft 365
10 27 (2.21%) Amazon S3
11 26 (2.12%) Snowflake
12 25 (2.04%) Power Automate
13 23 (1.88%) GitHub
14 22 (1.80%) Entra ID
15 19 (1.55%) dbt
16 15 (1.23%) Anthropic Claude
17 13 (1.06%) OpenShift
18 12 (0.98%) Azure AI
19 11 (0.90%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 33 (2.70%) Broadband
2 29 (2.37%) CHAP
2 29 (2.37%) Firewall
3 24 (1.96%) DNS
4 19 (1.55%) WAN
5 17 (1.39%) SD-WAN
6 13 (1.06%) TCP/IP
6 13 (1.06%) Wireless
7 12 (0.98%) HTTP
8 11 (0.90%) 5G
9 9 (0.74%) LAN
9 9 (0.74%) NAS
10 8 (0.65%) Modbus
10 8 (0.65%) VPN
11 7 (0.57%) Ethernet
11 7 (0.57%) MQTT
11 7 (0.57%) Network Security
12 6 (0.49%) Cisco ISE
12 6 (0.49%) WebEx
12 6 (0.49%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 109 (8.91%) Power BI
2 48 (3.92%) SQL Server
3 45 (3.68%) Tableau
4 35 (2.86%) PostgreSQL
5 32 (2.61%) Metadata
6 30 (2.45%) Data Warehouse
6 30 (2.45%) Relational Database
7 20 (1.63%) Data Lake
8 17 (1.39%) Spark SQL
9 16 (1.31%) Azure SQL Database
9 16 (1.31%) Oracle Reports
10 15 (1.23%) MongoDB
10 15 (1.23%) Oracle Database
11 14 (1.14%) BigQuery
11 14 (1.14%) MySQL
11 14 (1.14%) Parquet
12 13 (1.06%) Apache Hive
12 13 (1.06%) Impala
12 13 (1.06%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 12 (0.98%) Pinecone
Development Applications
1 61 (4.98%) Git
2 55 (4.49%) JIRA
3 35 (2.86%) Rational DOORS
4 25 (2.04%) Jenkins
5 19 (1.55%) GitLab
6 17 (1.39%) Postman
6 17 (1.39%) Snyk
7 15 (1.23%) LabVIEW
7 15 (1.23%) MLflow
7 15 (1.23%) Selenium
8 13 (1.06%) IBM UrbanCode
9 11 (0.90%) Cucumber
9 11 (0.90%) JMeter
10 10 (0.82%) Eclipse
11 8 (0.65%) TestRail
12 7 (0.57%) LoadRunner
13 6 (0.49%) Cypress.io
14 5 (0.41%) SonarQube
14 5 (0.41%) SpecFlow
14 5 (0.41%) Subversion
General
1 379 (30.96%) Social Skills
2 315 (25.74%) Finance
3 272 (22.22%) Analytical Skills
4 91 (7.43%) Manufacturing
5 88 (7.19%) Aerospace
6 87 (7.11%) Electronics
7 86 (7.03%) Banking
8 64 (5.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 44 (3.59%) Legal
10 42 (3.43%) Law
10 42 (3.43%) Marketing
10 42 (3.43%) Retail
11 41 (3.35%) Financial Institution
12 35 (2.86%) Pharmaceutical
13 34 (2.78%) Public Sector
14 27 (2.21%) Organisational Skills
14 27 (2.21%) Presentation Skills
15 26 (2.12%) Games
16 24 (1.96%) Automotive
17 22 (1.80%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 205 (16.75%) Analyst
2 204 (16.67%) Senior
3 146 (11.93%) Systems Engineer
4 91 (7.43%) Test Engineer
5 84 (6.86%) Lead
6 81 (6.62%) Validation Engineer
7 77 (6.29%) Architect
8 72 (5.88%) Business Analyst
9 57 (4.66%) Data Analyst
10 50 (4.08%) Data Engineer
11 46 (3.76%) Integration Engineer
12 42 (3.43%) Principal Engineer
13 38 (3.10%) Developer
13 38 (3.10%) Senior Systems Engineer
14 37 (3.02%) Junior
14 37 (3.02%) Verification Engineer
15 36 (2.94%) Systems Integration Engineer
16 34 (2.78%) Software Validation Engineer
17 32 (2.61%) Auditor
18 30 (2.45%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (3.92%) REST
2 34 (2.78%) Pandas
3 29 (2.37%) JSON
4 27 (2.21%) Middleware
5 26 (2.12%) pytest
6 23 (1.88%) RESTful
7 22 (1.80%) PySpark
8 21 (1.72%) XML
9 20 (1.63%) OAuth
10 19 (1.55%) Swagger
11 18 (1.47%) JWT
12 17 (1.39%) .NET
12 17 (1.39%) Kafka
12 17 (1.39%) NumPy
12 17 (1.39%) Playwright
12 17 (1.39%) PyTorch
12 17 (1.39%) TensorFlow
13 15 (1.23%) CSS
13 15 (1.23%) React
14 14 (1.14%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 76 (6.21%) Management Information System
2 52 (4.25%) Onboarding
3 42 (3.43%) Data Structures
4 39 (3.19%) Low-Code
5 36 (2.94%) Self-Motivation
6 33 (2.70%) Legacy Systems
7 28 (2.29%) Analytical Mindset
7 28 (2.29%) Life Science
7 28 (2.29%) Product Ownership
8 27 (2.21%) Cloud Native
9 25 (2.04%) Data Centre
10 22 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
11 20 (1.63%) Embedded Systems
12 17 (1.39%) Algorithms
13 16 (1.31%) Robotics
14 15 (1.23%) Blockchain
14 15 (1.23%) Driving Licence
15 14 (1.14%) IoT
15 14 (1.14%) Reinsurance
16 13 (1.06%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 68 (5.56%) Linux
2 53 (4.33%) Windows
3 20 (1.63%) Unix
4 19 (1.55%) Windows Server
5 12 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.82%) 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 (0.16%) ThreadX
9 2 (0.16%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.082%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 268 (21.90%) Problem-Solving
2 237 (19.36%) Agile
3 212 (17.32%) Continuous Improvement
4 205 (16.75%) Verification and Validation
5 177 (14.46%) Analytics
6 165 (13.48%) AI
6 165 (13.48%) CI/CD
6 165 (13.48%) Test Automation
7 156 (12.75%) Data Validation
8 131 (10.70%) Business Intelligence
9 128 (10.46%) Data Modelling
10 127 (10.38%) Decision-Making
11 125 (10.21%) Migration
12 122 (9.97%) Data Governance
13 117 (9.56%) Systems Engineering
14 112 (9.15%) DevOps
15 110 (8.99%) Stakeholder Management
15 110 (8.99%) User Acceptance Testing
16 108 (8.82%) Mentoring
16 108 (8.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 256 (20.92%) SQL
2 253 (20.67%) Python
3 44 (3.59%) C++
4 42 (3.43%) Java
5 35 (2.86%) C
6 28 (2.29%) JavaScript
7 27 (2.21%) Go
7 27 (2.21%) PowerShell
8 23 (1.88%) Bash
9 21 (1.72%) MATLAB
10 19 (1.55%) C#
11 18 (1.47%) T-SQL
12 14 (1.14%) TypeScript
13 12 (0.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 9 (0.74%) Embedded C
14 9 (0.74%) VBA
15 7 (0.57%) VB
16 6 (0.49%) Embedded C++
16 6 (0.49%) PHP
16 6 (0.49%) R
Qualifications
1 267 (21.81%) Degree
2 140 (11.44%) Security Cleared
3 118 (9.64%) BPSS Clearance
4 61 (4.98%) Master's Degree
5 51 (4.17%) SC Cleared
6 39 (3.19%) CISSP
7 38 (3.10%) CISA
8 36 (2.94%) CISM
9 35 (2.86%) DV Cleared
10 34 (2.78%) SANS
11 33 (2.70%) Chartered Engineer
11 33 (2.70%) Computer Science Degree
12 29 (2.37%) CGEIT
12 29 (2.37%) FFIEC
13 25 (2.04%) HNC
14 21 (1.72%) HND
15 15 (1.23%) PMI Certification
16 12 (0.98%) ISTQB
16 12 (0.98%) PMP
17 8 (0.65%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 185 (15.11%) Data Quality
2 119 (9.72%) QA
3 63 (5.15%) GDPR
4 38 (3.10%) Accessibility
5 36 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 32 (2.61%) GRC
7 31 (2.53%) NIST
8 29 (2.37%) COBIT
9 21 (1.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 20 (1.63%) IFRS
11 15 (1.23%) SLA
12 13 (1.06%) GAAP
12 13 (1.06%) IEC 61508
13 11 (0.90%) GMP
13 11 (0.90%) PMO
14 10 (0.82%) Good Clinical Practice
15 9 (0.74%) ISO 9001
15 9 (0.74%) WCAG
16 8 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 12207
17 7 (0.57%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 51 (4.17%) Docker
2 31 (2.53%) Active Directory
3 26 (2.12%) Firmware
4 18 (1.47%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (1.14%) vSphere
6 8 (0.65%) VMware Infrastructure
7 5 (0.41%) Embedded Firmware
7 5 (0.41%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.16%) Terminal Services
8 2 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.082%) iptables
9 1 (0.082%) OpenAM
9 1 (0.082%) OpenDJ
9 1 (0.082%) OpenIDM
9 1 (0.082%) pfSense
Systems Management
1 56 (4.58%) Kubernetes
2 44 (3.59%) Terraform
3 28 (2.29%) Grafana
4 17 (1.39%) Ansible
4 17 (1.39%) Prometheus
5 15 (1.23%) Functional Safety
6 14 (1.14%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 10 (0.82%) SCCM
8 7 (0.57%) Microsoft Intune
9 4 (0.33%) Argo
9 4 (0.33%) Cilium
9 4 (0.33%) Puppet
9 4 (0.33%) Rancher
9 4 (0.33%) yum
10 3 (0.25%) HP Fortify
10 3 (0.25%) Kibana
11 2 (0.16%) BMC PATROL
11 2 (0.16%) Computer Incident Response Team
11 2 (0.16%) PowerCLI
12 1 (0.082%) Nessus
Vendors
1 164 (13.40%) Microsoft
2 68 (5.56%) Oracle
3 55 (4.49%) SAP
4 38 (3.10%) Salesforce
5 25 (2.04%) Red Hat
6 24 (1.96%) Databricks
7 21 (1.72%) VMware
8 20 (1.63%) CrowdStrike
9 18 (1.47%) Cisco
9 18 (1.47%) ServiceNow
10 17 (1.39%) Palo Alto
10 17 (1.39%) Tenable
11 16 (1.31%) Adobe
11 16 (1.31%) Google
12 14 (1.14%) Citrix
12 14 (1.14%) Foundry
13 13 (1.06%) IBM
13 13 (1.06%) OpenAI
14 12 (0.98%) Automation Anywhere
14 12 (0.98%) UiPath