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

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 143 176 183
Rank change year-on-year +33 +7 -30
Permanent jobs citing Validation 976 688 1,209
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.49% 1.76% 1.63%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.91% 1.88% 1.87%
Number of salaries quoted 558 317 727
10th Percentile £35,000 £38,200 £35,000
25th Percentile £45,000 £46,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +3.64% -9.41%
75th Percentile £78,750 £71,250 £73,086
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £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 51,202 36,655 64,673
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 78.09% 93.66% 87.20%
Number of salaries quoted 31,769 20,174 50,526
10th Percentile £29,750 £32,500 £29,010
25th Percentile £40,000 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £77,500 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.86%

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 14 March 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 14 March 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 +78 333 £75,000 +5.26% 270
South East +47 214 £53,500 +1.90% 215
North of England -5 143 £60,000 +25.83% 140
Midlands -13 118 £37,500 -31.82% 125
North West +18 97 £59,000 +23.73% 71
East of England +3 88 £60,000 +9.09% 83
West Midlands +8 73 £42,215 -35.05% 83
South West -23 68 £55,000 - 96
East Midlands -25 43 £35,000 -32.69% 42
Yorkshire -30 32 £60,000 +26.32% 46
North East -13 14 £48,500 +6.59% 23
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 39 (4.00%) Apache Airflow
2 28 (2.87%) Apache Spark
3 24 (2.46%) Apache
4 13 (1.33%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (1.23%) Appian
6 11 (1.13%) CMS
6 11 (1.13%) Confluence
7 10 (1.02%) SharePoint
8 4 (0.41%) Headless CMS
9 3 (0.31%) Kinematics
10 2 (0.20%) WordPress
11 1 (0.10%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.10%) IIS
11 1 (0.10%) Jupyter
11 1 (0.10%) SAS
Applications
1 88 (9.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 49 (5.02%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (1.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (1.74%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.72%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 5 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.41%) Fusion 360
7 4 (0.41%) Simulink
8 2 (0.20%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.20%) Adobe Captivate
8 2 (0.20%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.20%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.20%) Elementor
8 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.20%) Oracle Smart View
8 2 (0.20%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.20%) Solid Edge
8 2 (0.20%) SOLIDWORKS
8 2 (0.20%) Weka
9 1 (0.10%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 20 (2.05%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.51%) SAP ERP
4 4 (0.41%) SAP BPC
5 3 (0.31%) Loan IQ
5 3 (0.31%) SAP CX
5 3 (0.31%) Workday HCM
6 2 (0.20%) IBM Planning Analytics
6 2 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.20%) SAP MDG
7 1 (0.10%) Endur
7 1 (0.10%) Magento
7 1 (0.10%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.10%) Primavera
7 1 (0.10%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.10%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.10%) SAP Business ByDesign
7 1 (0.10%) SAP FSCM
7 1 (0.10%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 139 (14.24%) Azure
2 91 (9.32%) Power Platform
3 77 (7.89%) AWS
4 52 (5.33%) SaaS
5 38 (3.89%) Azure DevOps
6 35 (3.59%) GCP
7 25 (2.56%) Amazon S3
8 24 (2.46%) Power Automate
9 23 (2.36%) Azure Data Factory
9 23 (2.36%) Dynamics 365
9 23 (2.36%) Snowflake
10 20 (2.05%) dbt
11 18 (1.84%) Entra ID
11 18 (1.84%) GitHub
12 16 (1.64%) Microsoft 365
13 13 (1.33%) OpenShift
14 12 (1.23%) Anthropic Claude
14 12 (1.23%) Azure AI
14 12 (1.23%) Datadog
15 11 (1.13%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 24 (2.46%) CHAP
2 14 (1.43%) WAN
3 12 (1.23%) Broadband
3 12 (1.23%) SD-WAN
4 11 (1.13%) 5G
4 11 (1.13%) Firewall
5 10 (1.02%) DNS
6 9 (0.92%) HTTP
6 9 (0.92%) TCP/IP
7 8 (0.82%) MQTT
8 6 (0.61%) LAN
8 6 (0.61%) Modbus
8 6 (0.61%) NAS
8 6 (0.61%) Wireless
9 5 (0.51%) Cisco IOS
9 5 (0.51%) WAAS
10 4 (0.41%) SMTP
10 4 (0.41%) VoIP
10 4 (0.41%) VPN
11 3 (0.31%) PBX
Database & Business Intelligence
1 89 (9.12%) Power BI
2 43 (4.41%) SQL Server
3 35 (3.59%) Tableau
4 27 (2.77%) Relational Database
5 26 (2.66%) Metadata
6 25 (2.56%) Data Warehouse
7 20 (2.05%) PostgreSQL
8 14 (1.43%) Azure SQL Database
8 14 (1.43%) Oracle Reports
8 14 (1.43%) Spark SQL
9 13 (1.33%) Apache Hive
9 13 (1.33%) Impala
9 13 (1.33%) MySQL
9 13 (1.33%) Oracle Database
9 13 (1.33%) Parquet
10 12 (1.23%) Pinecone
11 11 (1.13%) Amazon Redshift
11 11 (1.13%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 10 (1.02%) Data Lake
12 10 (1.02%) Spotfire
Development Applications
1 55 (5.64%) Git
2 49 (5.02%) JIRA
3 36 (3.69%) Rational DOORS
4 17 (1.74%) Jenkins
4 17 (1.74%) Postman
5 15 (1.54%) GitLab
6 14 (1.43%) LabVIEW
6 14 (1.43%) MLflow
7 13 (1.33%) Cucumber
7 13 (1.33%) IBM UrbanCode
8 12 (1.23%) JMeter
9 11 (1.13%) Eclipse
10 10 (1.02%) Selenium
10 10 (1.02%) TestRail
11 7 (0.72%) LoadRunner
11 7 (0.72%) Locust
11 7 (0.72%) SoapUI
12 6 (0.61%) Subversion
13 5 (0.51%) SpecFlow
14 4 (0.41%) Zephyr
General
1 354 (36.27%) Social Skills
2 257 (26.33%) Finance
3 242 (24.80%) Analytical Skills
4 92 (9.43%) Banking
5 52 (5.33%) Manufacturing
6 49 (5.02%) Financial Institution
7 46 (4.71%) Electronics
8 45 (4.61%) Marketing
9 37 (3.79%) Law
10 36 (3.69%) Legal
11 35 (3.59%) Aerospace
11 35 (3.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 34 (3.48%) Presentation Skills
13 29 (2.97%) Retail
14 28 (2.87%) Organisational Skills
15 24 (2.46%) Public Sector
16 23 (2.36%) Telecoms
17 20 (2.05%) Documentation Skills
18 17 (1.74%) Pharmaceutical
19 16 (1.64%) Billing
Job Titles
1 172 (17.62%) Analyst
2 147 (15.06%) Senior
3 117 (11.99%) Systems Engineer
4 70 (7.17%) Lead
5 59 (6.05%) Architect
6 58 (5.94%) Business Analyst
7 57 (5.84%) Validation Engineer
8 54 (5.53%) Test Engineer
9 46 (4.71%) Data Analyst
9 46 (4.71%) Integration Engineer
10 36 (3.69%) Systems Integration Engineer
11 35 (3.59%) Data Engineer
11 35 (3.59%) Principal Engineer
11 35 (3.59%) Senior Systems Engineer
12 34 (3.48%) Junior
13 32 (3.28%) Developer
14 27 (2.77%) Principal Systems Engineer
14 27 (2.77%) Verification Engineer
15 26 (2.66%) Auditor
15 26 (2.66%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (5.33%) REST
2 38 (3.89%) Pandas
3 28 (2.87%) JSON
3 28 (2.87%) Middleware
4 24 (2.46%) pytest
5 22 (2.25%) XML
6 19 (1.95%) OAuth
7 18 (1.84%) JWT
7 18 (1.84%) NumPy
7 18 (1.84%) PySpark
7 18 (1.84%) PyTorch
7 18 (1.84%) Swagger
7 18 (1.84%) TensorFlow
8 16 (1.64%) Web Services
9 15 (1.54%) React
9 15 (1.54%) RESTful
9 15 (1.54%) scikit-learn
10 14 (1.43%) .NET
10 14 (1.43%) Kafka
10 14 (1.43%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 70 (7.17%) Management Information System
2 51 (5.23%) Onboarding
3 38 (3.89%) Data Structures
4 30 (3.07%) Low-Code
5 29 (2.97%) Legacy Systems
5 29 (2.97%) Self-Motivation
6 26 (2.66%) Product Ownership
7 23 (2.36%) Life Science
8 21 (2.15%) Analytical Mindset
9 17 (1.74%) Enterprise Software
10 15 (1.54%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 14 (1.43%) Blockchain
12 13 (1.33%) Reinsurance
12 13 (1.33%) SWIFT Messaging Network
13 12 (1.23%) IoT
14 11 (1.13%) Algorithms
14 11 (1.13%) Self-Driving Car
15 10 (1.02%) Data Centre
16 9 (0.92%) Hackathon
17 8 (0.82%) Embedded Systems
Operating Systems
1 43 (4.41%) Linux
2 40 (4.10%) Windows
3 17 (1.74%) Unix
4 10 (1.02%) Android
5 9 (0.92%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.41%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.31%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.20%) AIX
8 2 (0.20%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.20%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.10%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.10%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.10%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 242 (24.80%) Agile
2 223 (22.85%) Problem-Solving
3 167 (17.11%) Verification and Validation
4 157 (16.09%) Continuous Improvement
5 143 (14.65%) Data Validation
6 141 (14.45%) Analytics
7 124 (12.70%) Test Automation
8 116 (11.89%) CI/CD
9 111 (11.37%) Business Intelligence
10 109 (11.17%) AI
10 109 (11.17%) Systems Engineering
11 107 (10.96%) DevOps
12 106 (10.86%) Decision-Making
13 105 (10.76%) Migration
14 99 (10.14%) User Acceptance Testing
15 98 (10.04%) ETL
16 96 (9.84%) Data Modelling
16 96 (9.84%) Mentoring
17 92 (9.43%) Stakeholder Management
18 89 (9.12%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 227 (23.26%) SQL
2 199 (20.39%) Python
3 42 (4.30%) Java
4 30 (3.07%) PowerShell
5 27 (2.77%) JavaScript
6 26 (2.66%) C++
7 25 (2.56%) C
8 18 (1.84%) Bash
8 18 (1.84%) T-SQL
9 15 (1.54%) MATLAB
10 14 (1.43%) TypeScript
11 12 (1.23%) C#
12 11 (1.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 11 (1.13%) Go
13 9 (0.92%) R
13 9 (0.92%) VBA
14 7 (0.72%) VB
15 6 (0.61%) PHP
16 5 (0.51%) VBScript
17 3 (0.31%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 223 (22.85%) Degree
2 119 (12.19%) Security Cleared
3 111 (11.37%) BPSS Clearance
4 48 (4.92%) Master's Degree
5 46 (4.71%) SC Cleared
6 37 (3.79%) Computer Science Degree
7 29 (2.97%) CISA
7 29 (2.97%) CISSP
8 28 (2.87%) CISM
9 24 (2.46%) CGEIT
9 24 (2.46%) FFIEC
9 24 (2.46%) SANS
10 22 (2.25%) DV Cleared
11 19 (1.95%) Chartered Engineer
12 18 (1.84%) HNC
13 17 (1.74%) ISTQB
14 15 (1.54%) PMI Certification
14 15 (1.54%) PMP
15 14 (1.43%) HND
16 7 (0.72%) RIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 139 (14.24%) Data Quality
2 101 (10.35%) QA
3 54 (5.53%) GDPR
4 39 (4.00%) ISO/IEC 15288
5 36 (3.69%) Accessibility
6 25 (2.56%) NIST
7 24 (2.46%) COBIT
8 19 (1.95%) SLA
9 18 (1.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 15 (1.54%) IFRS
11 14 (1.43%) ISO 20022
12 12 (1.23%) GRC
12 12 (1.23%) WCAG
13 10 (1.02%) Good Clinical Practice
13 10 (1.02%) SEPA
14 9 (0.92%) GAAP
14 9 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 8 (0.82%) 21 CFR Part 11
15 8 (0.82%) GxP
16 7 (0.72%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 56 (5.74%) Docker
2 19 (1.95%) Firmware
3 16 (1.64%) Active Directory
4 8 (0.82%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.51%) Hyper-V
5 5 (0.51%) vSphere
6 3 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.20%) Ceph
7 2 (0.20%) Lustre
7 2 (0.20%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 2 (0.20%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.10%) Embedded Firmware
8 1 (0.10%) iptables
8 1 (0.10%) OpenAM
8 1 (0.10%) OpenDJ
8 1 (0.10%) OpenIDM
8 1 (0.10%) pfSense
8 1 (0.10%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 51 (5.23%) Kubernetes
2 38 (3.89%) Terraform
3 19 (1.95%) Grafana
4 16 (1.64%) Ansible
5 12 (1.23%) Prometheus
6 11 (1.13%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 10 (1.02%) SCCM
8 7 (0.72%) Microsoft Intune
9 5 (0.51%) Argo
9 5 (0.51%) Rancher
9 5 (0.51%) yum
10 2 (0.20%) BMC PATROL
10 2 (0.20%) Nessus
10 2 (0.20%) PowerCLI
10 2 (0.20%) Puppet
11 1 (0.10%) Control-M
11 1 (0.10%) FortiGate
11 1 (0.10%) Kibana
11 1 (0.10%) SQL Sentry
11 1 (0.10%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 135 (13.83%) Microsoft
2 52 (5.33%) Oracle
3 51 (5.23%) SAP
4 35 (3.59%) Salesforce
5 18 (1.84%) Foundry
6 17 (1.74%) Cisco
7 15 (1.54%) IBM
7 15 (1.54%) Red Hat
8 14 (1.43%) Adobe
8 14 (1.43%) OpenAI
8 14 (1.43%) ServiceNow
8 14 (1.43%) Software AG
9 13 (1.33%) Databricks
10 12 (1.23%) Automation Anywhere
10 12 (1.23%) UiPath
10 12 (1.23%) VMware
11 11 (1.13%) Google
12 10 (1.02%) Citrix
13 9 (0.92%) Intapp
13 9 (0.92%) Workday