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 16 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 115 77 191
Rank change year-on-year -38 +114 -10
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,358 1,524 1,322
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.64% 3.85% 1.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.24% 4.16% 1.70%
Number of salaries quoted 825 423 714
10th Percentile £36,250 £40,000 £36,000
25th Percentile £43,500 £46,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.51% +3.64% -12.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £71,875 £72,433
90th Percentile £90,000 £95,000 £85,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -11.41%

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 60,608 36,668 77,654
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.00% 92.69% 82.00%
Number of salaries quoted 42,635 20,028 56,336
10th Percentile £30,750 £29,000 £29,266
25th Percentile £41,250 £40,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -12.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £78,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.54%

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 16 June 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 16 June 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 +68 389 £75,000 - 319
South East -41 304 £55,000 - 356
North of England +80 278 £55,000 +15.35% 258
North West +80 178 £55,000 +15.35% 114
Midlands -67 162 £40,000 -30.43% 194
East of England -73 110 £60,000 +5.26% 169
West Midlands -7 95 £44,000 -29.60% 95
South West -46 95 £53,000 -3.64% 166
East Midlands -81 65 £30,000 -39.70% 99
Yorkshire -3 59 £50,000 +18.69% 91
North East -9 41 £55,000 +15.79% 56
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 51 (3.76%) Apache Airflow
2 45 (3.31%) Apache Spark
3 43 (3.17%) Apache
4 20 (1.47%) Confluence
5 14 (1.03%) Microsoft Exchange
5 14 (1.03%) SharePoint
6 11 (0.81%) Jupyter
7 7 (0.52%) Appian
7 7 (0.52%) SAS
8 5 (0.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 5 (0.37%) CMS
8 5 (0.37%) Kinematics
9 3 (0.22%) Artix
10 2 (0.15%) IIS
11 1 (0.074%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.074%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.074%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.074%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 84 (6.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (3.09%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (1.69%) Microsoft Project
4 18 (1.33%) MS Visio
5 15 (1.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 14 (1.03%) Simulink
7 8 (0.59%) SOLIDWORKS
7 8 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.37%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.29%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 4 (0.29%) Adobe XD
9 4 (0.29%) Sketch
10 3 (0.22%) Autodesk Inventor
10 3 (0.22%) Productboard
10 3 (0.22%) Solid Edge
10 3 (0.22%) Stateflow
11 2 (0.15%) Fusion 360
12 1 (0.074%) Chatbot
12 1 (0.074%) Navisworks
12 1 (0.074%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 35 (2.58%) Dynamics CRM
2 33 (2.43%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (0.74%) SAP ERP
3 10 (0.74%) SAP MDG
4 8 (0.59%) Oracle EBS
5 5 (0.37%) iTrent
5 5 (0.37%) Loan IQ
5 5 (0.37%) Oracle Financials
5 5 (0.37%) SAP MDG-BP
6 4 (0.29%) Oracle Applications
7 2 (0.15%) FastStats
7 2 (0.15%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
7 2 (0.15%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.15%) SAP EWM
7 2 (0.15%) SAP MM
7 2 (0.15%) SAP WM
8 1 (0.074%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 1 (0.074%) SAP FSCM
8 1 (0.074%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 178 (13.11%) Azure
2 149 (10.97%) AWS
3 129 (9.50%) Power Platform
4 72 (5.30%) GCP
5 60 (4.42%) SaaS
6 53 (3.90%) Azure DevOps
7 38 (2.80%) Microsoft 365
8 37 (2.72%) Serverless
9 36 (2.65%) Amazon S3
10 35 (2.58%) GitHub
11 27 (1.99%) Azure Data Factory
11 27 (1.99%) Dynamics 365
12 25 (1.84%) Snowflake
13 20 (1.47%) Entra ID
14 19 (1.40%) Power Automate
15 17 (1.25%) dbt
15 17 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
16 14 (1.03%) Amazon EC2
16 14 (1.03%) OpenShift
17 13 (0.96%) Amazon EMR
Communications & Networking
1 67 (4.93%) Broadband
2 42 (3.09%) Firewall
3 34 (2.50%) DNS
4 22 (1.62%) CHAP
5 21 (1.55%) WAN
6 17 (1.25%) SD-WAN
6 17 (1.25%) Wireless
7 16 (1.18%) Network Security
8 14 (1.03%) 5G
8 14 (1.03%) TCP/IP
8 14 (1.03%) VPN
9 12 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
10 11 (0.81%) MQTT
11 10 (0.74%) HTTP
11 10 (0.74%) LAN
12 9 (0.66%) Ethernet
12 9 (0.66%) NAS
13 7 (0.52%) WebEx
14 6 (0.44%) Cisco ISE
15 5 (0.37%) Modbus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 127 (9.35%) Power BI
2 56 (4.12%) Tableau
3 53 (3.90%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (3.61%) SQL Server
5 43 (3.17%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (2.43%) MongoDB
7 31 (2.28%) Relational Database
8 29 (2.14%) Metadata
9 25 (1.84%) BigQuery
10 22 (1.62%) Azure SQL Database
10 22 (1.62%) Data Lake
11 20 (1.47%) Semantic Layer
12 19 (1.40%) Spark SQL
13 17 (1.25%) Oracle Database
14 15 (1.10%) Amazon Athena
14 15 (1.10%) DynamoDB
14 15 (1.10%) MySQL
15 14 (1.03%) Parquet
15 14 (1.03%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 13 (0.96%) Impala
Development Applications
1 67 (4.93%) JIRA
2 65 (4.79%) Git
3 44 (3.24%) Jenkins
4 33 (2.43%) GitLab
5 31 (2.28%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.62%) Snyk
7 15 (1.10%) Postman
8 14 (1.03%) Selenium
9 13 (0.96%) IBM UrbanCode
10 12 (0.88%) LabVIEW
11 11 (0.81%) MLflow
12 10 (0.74%) Cucumber
12 10 (0.74%) Eclipse
12 10 (0.74%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.66%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.66%) JMeter
14 6 (0.44%) Rational Rhapsody
15 5 (0.37%) LoadRunner
15 5 (0.37%) REST Assured
15 5 (0.37%) SonarQube
General
1 405 (29.82%) Social Skills
2 354 (26.07%) Finance
3 307 (22.61%) Analytical Skills
4 106 (7.81%) Aerospace
5 98 (7.22%) Electronics
6 94 (6.92%) Banking
7 93 (6.85%) Manufacturing
8 82 (6.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 52 (3.83%) Law
10 49 (3.61%) Retail
11 45 (3.31%) Legal
12 43 (3.17%) Marketing
13 41 (3.02%) Public Sector
14 40 (2.95%) Games
15 37 (2.72%) Pharmaceutical
16 33 (2.43%) Financial Institution
17 32 (2.36%) Organisational Skills
18 30 (2.21%) Automotive
19 26 (1.91%) Presentation Skills
20 22 (1.62%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 231 (17.01%) Senior
2 219 (16.13%) Analyst
3 133 (9.79%) Systems Engineer
4 98 (7.22%) Lead
5 97 (7.14%) Test Engineer
6 92 (6.77%) Architect
7 85 (6.26%) Validation Engineer
8 74 (5.45%) Business Analyst
9 72 (5.30%) Data Engineer
10 65 (4.79%) Developer
11 62 (4.57%) Data Analyst
12 47 (3.46%) Principal Engineer
13 40 (2.95%) Integration Engineer
14 37 (2.72%) Embedded Engineer
15 36 (2.65%) IT Manager
16 34 (2.50%) Consultant
16 34 (2.50%) Security Architect
17 32 (2.36%) Project Manager
17 32 (2.36%) Support Engineer
18 31 (2.28%) Cloud Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (3.09%) RESTful
2 35 (2.58%) REST
3 30 (2.21%) PySpark
4 29 (2.14%) JSON
5 28 (2.06%) Kafka
6 26 (1.91%) Pandas
7 25 (1.84%) Node.js
7 25 (1.84%) pytest
8 24 (1.77%) Middleware
8 24 (1.77%) XML
9 20 (1.47%) .NET
10 19 (1.40%) Swagger
11 18 (1.33%) Playwright
11 18 (1.33%) Regular Expression
11 18 (1.33%) XMPP
12 15 (1.10%) CSS
12 15 (1.10%) LDAP
12 15 (1.10%) OAuth
12 15 (1.10%) PyTorch
12 15 (1.10%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 81 (5.96%) Cloud Native
2 68 (5.01%) Management Information System
3 67 (4.93%) Onboarding
4 56 (4.12%) Data Structures
5 50 (3.68%) Low-Code
6 35 (2.58%) Self-Motivation
7 34 (2.50%) Driving Licence
7 34 (2.50%) Embedded Systems
8 32 (2.36%) Distributed Systems
8 32 (2.36%) Enterprise Software
8 32 (2.36%) Product Ownership
9 31 (2.28%) Algorithms
9 31 (2.28%) Analytical Mindset
9 31 (2.28%) Data Centre
9 31 (2.28%) Video\Live Streaming
10 30 (2.21%) Legacy Systems
11 28 (2.06%) Life Science
12 21 (1.55%) Robotics
13 18 (1.33%) PKI
14 17 (1.25%) FPGA
Operating Systems
1 81 (5.96%) Linux
2 61 (4.49%) Windows
3 25 (1.84%) Windows Server
4 24 (1.77%) Unix
5 18 (1.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 7 (0.52%) Android
7 4 (0.29%) FreeRTOS
7 4 (0.29%) Mac OS X
8 3 (0.22%) AIX
8 3 (0.22%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.22%) Kali Linux
9 2 (0.15%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.15%) ThreadX
10 1 (0.074%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.074%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 302 (22.24%) Problem-Solving
2 268 (19.73%) Agile
3 260 (19.15%) Continuous Improvement
4 231 (17.01%) AI
5 230 (16.94%) CI/CD
6 202 (14.87%) Test Automation
7 185 (13.62%) Verification and Validation
8 184 (13.55%) Analytics
9 158 (11.63%) Data Validation
10 150 (11.05%) Business Intelligence
11 148 (10.90%) Data Modelling
12 146 (10.75%) DevOps
13 144 (10.60%) Migration
14 139 (10.24%) Decision-Making
15 136 (10.01%) Software Engineering
16 129 (9.50%) Data Governance
17 125 (9.20%) Stakeholder Management
18 124 (9.13%) Mentoring
18 124 (9.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 121 (8.91%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 325 (23.93%) Python
2 297 (21.87%) SQL
3 58 (4.27%) C++
4 56 (4.12%) Java
5 54 (3.98%) C
6 49 (3.61%) Go
7 35 (2.58%) C#
8 31 (2.28%) JavaScript
9 25 (1.84%) MATLAB
9 25 (1.84%) PowerShell
10 24 (1.77%) Bash
11 21 (1.55%) T-SQL
12 16 (1.18%) Embedded C
12 16 (1.18%) Embedded C++
13 13 (0.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 13 (0.96%) Scala
14 12 (0.88%) TypeScript
15 9 (0.66%) VBA
16 8 (0.59%) ABAP
17 7 (0.52%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 265 (19.51%) Degree
2 156 (11.49%) Security Cleared
3 103 (7.58%) BPSS Clearance
4 73 (5.38%) SC Cleared
5 70 (5.15%) Master's Degree
6 43 (3.17%) DV Cleared
7 36 (2.65%) Chartered Engineer
7 36 (2.65%) Computer Science Degree
8 32 (2.36%) CISA
8 32 (2.36%) CISSP
8 32 (2.36%) SANS
9 29 (2.14%) CISM
10 24 (1.77%) HNC
11 22 (1.62%) CGEIT
11 22 (1.62%) FFIEC
12 20 (1.47%) HND
13 15 (1.10%) ACCA
13 15 (1.10%) CIMA
13 15 (1.10%) PMI Certification
14 12 (0.88%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 230 (16.94%) Data Quality
2 133 (9.79%) QA
3 57 (4.20%) GDPR
4 39 (2.87%) GRC
5 38 (2.80%) Accessibility
6 28 (2.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 25 (1.84%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 25 (1.84%) NIST
8 22 (1.62%) COBIT
9 18 (1.33%) IEC 61508
9 18 (1.33%) IFRS
10 15 (1.10%) PMO
10 15 (1.10%) SLA
11 12 (0.88%) GAAP
11 12 (0.88%) ISO 9001
12 11 (0.81%) SOC 2
13 10 (0.74%) ISO 26262
14 9 (0.66%) GMP
15 8 (0.59%) GxP
15 8 (0.59%) WCAG
System Software
1 62 (4.57%) Docker
2 40 (2.95%) Firmware
3 37 (2.72%) Active Directory
4 22 (1.62%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (1.40%) vSphere
6 16 (1.18%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.59%) VMware Infrastructure
8 5 (0.37%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.15%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.074%) OpenAM
10 1 (0.074%) OpenDJ
10 1 (0.074%) OpenIDM
10 1 (0.074%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 63 (4.64%) Kubernetes
2 61 (4.49%) Terraform
3 26 (1.91%) Grafana
4 23 (1.69%) Functional Safety
5 15 (1.10%) Prometheus
6 13 (0.96%) Ansible
7 10 (0.74%) Cilium
7 10 (0.74%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 9 (0.66%) SCCM
9 7 (0.52%) Kibana
10 4 (0.29%) Microsoft Intune
11 3 (0.22%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.22%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.22%) Puppet
12 2 (0.15%) Argo
12 2 (0.15%) BMC PATROL
12 2 (0.15%) Computer Incident Response Team
12 2 (0.15%) Rancher
12 2 (0.15%) yum
13 1 (0.074%) MOM
Vendors
1 179 (13.18%) Microsoft
2 86 (6.33%) Oracle
3 81 (5.96%) SAP
4 45 (3.31%) Salesforce
5 37 (2.72%) Databricks
6 33 (2.43%) ServiceNow
7 32 (2.36%) Red Hat
8 29 (2.14%) CrowdStrike
9 26 (1.91%) VMware
10 22 (1.62%) Palo Alto
10 22 (1.62%) Tenable
11 21 (1.55%) Adobe
12 19 (1.40%) Cisco
13 17 (1.25%) Google
14 14 (1.03%) Citrix
14 14 (1.03%) McAfee
15 12 (0.88%) Foundry
16 10 (0.74%) OpenAI
17 9 (0.66%) IBM
17 9 (0.66%) Splunk