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 10 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 170 187
Rank change year-on-year +35 +17 -26
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,123 709 1,241
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.52% 1.94% 1.55%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.99% 2.08% 1.80%
Number of salaries quoted 667 369 727
10th Percentile £33,550 £40,000 £35,900
25th Percentile £44,972 £46,000 £43,125
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £71,250 £72,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,250 £85,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -9.41%

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 56,409 34,008 69,006
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 76.20% 93.07% 85.98%
Number of salaries quoted 35,591 20,482 53,043
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £43,227 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £78,750 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £103,750 £93,750
UK median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% +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 10 April 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 10 April 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 +60 346 £75,000 +9.09% 268
South East +36 259 £55,000 +10.00% 215
North of England +6 185 £58,500 +22.92% 152
Midlands -29 141 £37,500 -31.82% 118
North West +15 116 £59,000 +23.73% 74
East of England -10 94 £57,500 +4.55% 96
West Midlands -4 88 £44,000 -32.31% 77
South West -36 83 £55,000 - 89
East Midlands -46 51 £34,000 -33.33% 41
Yorkshire -29 47 £60,000 +26.32% 51
North East -12 22 £50,000 -11.89% 27
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 42 (3.74%) Apache Airflow
2 27 (2.40%) Apache Spark
3 23 (2.05%) Apache
4 19 (1.69%) Confluence
5 16 (1.42%) Microsoft Exchange
6 12 (1.07%) Appian
6 12 (1.07%) CMS
7 9 (0.80%) SharePoint
8 6 (0.53%) Kinematics
9 4 (0.36%) Headless CMS
10 2 (0.18%) WordPress
11 1 (0.089%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.089%) IIS
11 1 (0.089%) Jupyter
11 1 (0.089%) Palantir Foundry
11 1 (0.089%) SAS
Applications
1 87 (7.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 54 (4.81%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (1.60%) MS Visio
4 15 (1.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.62%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 5 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.45%) Simulink
6 5 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.36%) Fusion 360
8 3 (0.27%) Solid Edge
8 3 (0.27%) SOLIDWORKS
9 2 (0.18%) Adobe After Effects
9 2 (0.18%) Adobe Captivate
9 2 (0.18%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.18%) Adobe Premiere
9 2 (0.18%) CATIA
9 2 (0.18%) Elementor
9 2 (0.18%) Oracle Smart View
9 2 (0.18%) Photoshop
9 2 (0.18%) Weka
Business Applications
1 17 (1.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (1.42%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.45%) Loan IQ
3 5 (0.45%) SAP ERP
4 4 (0.36%) SAP MDG
5 3 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
5 3 (0.27%) Workday HCM
6 2 (0.18%) IBM Planning Analytics
6 2 (0.18%) Oracle Applications
6 2 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.18%) SAP BPC
6 2 (0.18%) SAP CX
6 2 (0.18%) SAP MDG-BP
7 1 (0.089%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.089%) iTrent
7 1 (0.089%) Magento
7 1 (0.089%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.089%) SAP BRIM
7 1 (0.089%) SAP FSCM
Cloud Services
1 146 (13.00%) Azure
2 103 (9.17%) Power Platform
3 89 (7.93%) AWS
4 53 (4.72%) SaaS
5 42 (3.74%) GCP
6 41 (3.65%) Azure DevOps
7 29 (2.58%) Power Automate
8 27 (2.40%) Dynamics 365
9 25 (2.23%) Azure Data Factory
9 25 (2.23%) Snowflake
10 24 (2.14%) Amazon S3
11 23 (2.05%) dbt
11 23 (2.05%) Microsoft 365
12 21 (1.87%) Entra ID
13 20 (1.78%) Serverless
14 19 (1.69%) GitHub
15 14 (1.25%) Anthropic Claude
15 14 (1.25%) Datadog
16 13 (1.16%) OpenShift
17 12 (1.07%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 26 (2.32%) CHAP
2 19 (1.69%) Broadband
3 17 (1.51%) Firewall
4 16 (1.42%) WAN
5 15 (1.34%) DNS
6 14 (1.25%) SD-WAN
7 11 (0.98%) 5G
7 11 (0.98%) Wireless
8 10 (0.89%) TCP/IP
9 9 (0.80%) HTTP
10 8 (0.71%) Modbus
11 7 (0.62%) LAN
11 7 (0.62%) MQTT
12 6 (0.53%) NAS
12 6 (0.53%) Wi-Fi
13 5 (0.45%) Cisco IOS
13 5 (0.45%) Ethernet
13 5 (0.45%) VPN
13 5 (0.45%) WAAS
14 4 (0.36%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 101 (8.99%) Power BI
2 43 (3.83%) SQL Server
2 43 (3.83%) Tableau
3 30 (2.67%) Relational Database
4 28 (2.49%) Metadata
4 28 (2.49%) PostgreSQL
5 26 (2.32%) Data Warehouse
6 16 (1.42%) Oracle Reports
7 15 (1.34%) Azure SQL Database
7 15 (1.34%) Oracle Database
7 15 (1.34%) Spark SQL
8 14 (1.25%) Parquet
9 13 (1.16%) Apache Hive
9 13 (1.16%) Impala
9 13 (1.16%) MySQL
9 13 (1.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 12 (1.07%) Pinecone
11 11 (0.98%) Amazon Redshift
11 11 (0.98%) Data Lake
12 10 (0.89%) Spotfire
Development Applications
1 63 (5.61%) Git
2 59 (5.25%) JIRA
3 36 (3.21%) Rational DOORS
4 18 (1.60%) Jenkins
5 17 (1.51%) Postman
6 15 (1.34%) GitLab
6 15 (1.34%) Selenium
7 14 (1.25%) JMeter
7 14 (1.25%) LabVIEW
7 14 (1.25%) MLflow
8 13 (1.16%) Cucumber
8 13 (1.16%) IBM UrbanCode
9 11 (0.98%) Eclipse
9 11 (0.98%) TestRail
10 8 (0.71%) Locust
11 7 (0.62%) Snyk
12 6 (0.53%) LoadRunner
12 6 (0.53%) SoapUI
12 6 (0.53%) Subversion
13 5 (0.45%) SpecFlow
General
1 378 (33.66%) Social Skills
2 284 (25.29%) Finance
3 261 (23.24%) Analytical Skills
4 85 (7.57%) Banking
5 74 (6.59%) Manufacturing
6 71 (6.32%) Electronics
7 64 (5.70%) Aerospace
8 50 (4.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 46 (4.10%) Law
9 46 (4.10%) Legal
10 41 (3.65%) Retail
11 40 (3.56%) Financial Institution
11 40 (3.56%) Marketing
12 31 (2.76%) Public Sector
13 30 (2.67%) Presentation Skills
14 25 (2.23%) Organisational Skills
15 24 (2.14%) Pharmaceutical
16 23 (2.05%) Documentation Skills
16 23 (2.05%) Telecoms
17 22 (1.96%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 199 (17.72%) Analyst
2 181 (16.12%) Senior
3 142 (12.64%) Systems Engineer
4 81 (7.21%) Lead
5 74 (6.59%) Validation Engineer
6 71 (6.32%) Business Analyst
7 70 (6.23%) Test Engineer
8 60 (5.34%) Architect
9 54 (4.81%) Data Analyst
10 51 (4.54%) Integration Engineer
11 43 (3.83%) Principal Engineer
12 41 (3.65%) Systems Integration Engineer
13 40 (3.56%) Developer
14 39 (3.47%) Data Engineer
15 38 (3.38%) Senior Systems Engineer
16 37 (3.29%) Junior
17 35 (3.12%) Verification Engineer
18 33 (2.94%) Software Validation Engineer
19 31 (2.76%) Principal Systems Engineer
20 29 (2.58%) Auditor
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (4.90%) REST
2 37 (3.29%) Pandas
3 31 (2.76%) JSON
4 27 (2.40%) Middleware
5 26 (2.32%) pytest
6 24 (2.14%) XML
7 20 (1.78%) OAuth
7 20 (1.78%) PySpark
8 19 (1.69%) JWT
8 19 (1.69%) Swagger
9 18 (1.60%) NumPy
9 18 (1.60%) PyTorch
9 18 (1.60%) TensorFlow
10 17 (1.51%) RESTful
11 16 (1.42%) .NET
11 16 (1.42%) React
12 15 (1.34%) CSS
12 15 (1.34%) Kafka
12 15 (1.34%) scikit-learn
12 15 (1.34%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 72 (6.41%) Management Information System
2 52 (4.63%) Onboarding
3 41 (3.65%) Data Structures
4 37 (3.29%) Low-Code
5 33 (2.94%) Legacy Systems
5 33 (2.94%) Self-Motivation
6 27 (2.40%) Product Ownership
7 26 (2.32%) Analytical Mindset
8 24 (2.14%) Life Science
9 19 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
10 17 (1.51%) Algorithms
10 17 (1.51%) Data Centre
11 16 (1.42%) Embedded Systems
11 16 (1.42%) Robotics
12 15 (1.34%) IoT
13 14 (1.25%) Blockchain
14 13 (1.16%) Reinsurance
15 11 (0.98%) Cloud Native
15 11 (0.98%) Hackathon
15 11 (0.98%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 56 (4.99%) Linux
2 45 (4.01%) Windows
3 17 (1.51%) Unix
4 13 (1.16%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.89%) Android
6 6 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (0.36%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.36%) Mac OS X
8 3 (0.27%) FreeRTOS
8 3 (0.27%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.18%) AIX
9 2 (0.18%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.18%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.089%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.089%) Kali Linux
10 1 (0.089%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 253 (22.53%) Problem-Solving
2 235 (20.93%) Agile
3 201 (17.90%) Verification and Validation
4 200 (17.81%) Continuous Improvement
5 165 (14.69%) Analytics
6 152 (13.54%) Data Validation
7 140 (12.47%) AI
8 139 (12.38%) Test Automation
9 134 (11.93%) CI/CD
10 127 (11.31%) Systems Engineering
11 126 (11.22%) Business Intelligence
12 114 (10.15%) Data Modelling
13 113 (10.06%) Migration
14 112 (9.97%) Decision-Making
14 112 (9.97%) DevOps
15 108 (9.62%) Stakeholder Management
16 105 (9.35%) User Acceptance Testing
17 104 (9.26%) Data Governance
17 104 (9.26%) Mentoring
18 99 (8.82%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 246 (21.91%) SQL
2 230 (20.48%) Python
3 44 (3.92%) Java
4 33 (2.94%) C++
4 33 (2.94%) JavaScript
5 29 (2.58%) C
5 29 (2.58%) PowerShell
6 22 (1.96%) Bash
7 19 (1.69%) Go
7 19 (1.69%) T-SQL
8 17 (1.51%) MATLAB
9 16 (1.42%) C#
10 15 (1.34%) TypeScript
11 11 (0.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 9 (0.80%) R
12 9 (0.80%) VBA
13 7 (0.62%) VB
14 6 (0.53%) Embedded C
14 6 (0.53%) PHP
15 5 (0.45%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 252 (22.44%) Degree
2 132 (11.75%) Security Cleared
3 119 (10.60%) BPSS Clearance
4 53 (4.72%) Master's Degree
5 50 (4.45%) SC Cleared
6 36 (3.21%) Computer Science Degree
7 33 (2.94%) CISA
7 33 (2.94%) CISSP
8 32 (2.85%) CISM
9 29 (2.58%) DV Cleared
10 26 (2.32%) CGEIT
10 26 (2.32%) FFIEC
10 26 (2.32%) SANS
11 25 (2.23%) Chartered Engineer
12 23 (2.05%) HNC
13 17 (1.51%) HND
13 17 (1.51%) ISTQB
14 15 (1.34%) PMI Certification
15 12 (1.07%) PMP
16 8 (0.71%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 158 (14.07%) Data Quality
2 117 (10.42%) QA
3 61 (5.43%) GDPR
4 40 (3.56%) Accessibility
5 38 (3.38%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 27 (2.40%) NIST
7 26 (2.32%) COBIT
8 20 (1.78%) GRC
9 19 (1.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 18 (1.60%) SLA
11 17 (1.51%) IFRS
12 13 (1.16%) WCAG
13 11 (0.98%) GAAP
14 10 (0.89%) Good Clinical Practice
15 9 (0.80%) ISO 9001
15 9 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 8 (0.71%) PMO
17 7 (0.62%) GxP
17 7 (0.62%) ISO 20022
17 7 (0.62%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 59 (5.25%) Docker
2 23 (2.05%) Active Directory
2 23 (2.05%) Firmware
3 8 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
3 8 (0.71%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (0.71%) vSphere
4 5 (0.45%) Hyper-V
5 4 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
6 2 (0.18%) Ceph
6 2 (0.18%) Lustre
6 2 (0.18%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 2 (0.18%) Terminal Services
6 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.089%) iptables
7 1 (0.089%) OpenAM
7 1 (0.089%) OpenDJ
7 1 (0.089%) OpenIDM
7 1 (0.089%) pfSense
Systems Management
1 58 (5.16%) Kubernetes
2 44 (3.92%) Terraform
3 26 (2.32%) Grafana
4 17 (1.51%) Ansible
5 15 (1.34%) Prometheus
6 12 (1.07%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 10 (0.89%) SCCM
8 9 (0.80%) Functional Safety
9 7 (0.62%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.45%) Argo
10 5 (0.45%) Rancher
10 5 (0.45%) yum
11 2 (0.18%) BMC PATROL
11 2 (0.18%) Cilium
11 2 (0.18%) Nessus
11 2 (0.18%) PowerCLI
11 2 (0.18%) Puppet
12 1 (0.089%) Control-M
12 1 (0.089%) FortiGate
12 1 (0.089%) Kibana
Vendors
1 149 (13.27%) Microsoft
2 61 (5.43%) Oracle
3 46 (4.10%) SAP
4 38 (3.38%) Salesforce
5 19 (1.69%) Databricks
5 19 (1.69%) Red Hat
6 17 (1.51%) Cisco
7 16 (1.42%) Adobe
7 16 (1.42%) ServiceNow
8 15 (1.34%) Foundry
8 15 (1.34%) VMware
9 13 (1.16%) IBM
9 13 (1.16%) OpenAI
10 12 (1.07%) Automation Anywhere
10 12 (1.07%) Google
10 12 (1.07%) UiPath
11 10 (0.89%) Citrix
11 10 (0.89%) Intapp
11 10 (0.89%) Software AG
12 9 (0.80%) Workday