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

6 months to
12 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 114 74 192
Rank change year-on-year -40 +118 -11
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,350 1,527 1,315
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.64% 3.88% 1.41%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.24% 4.19% 1.71%
Number of salaries quoted 811 414 715
10th Percentile £36,250 £40,000 £36,000
25th Percentile £43,500 £46,438 £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 £71,250 £72,466
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 60,140 36,455 77,015
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 72.96% 92.71% 82.38%
Number of salaries quoted 42,197 19,854 56,054
10th Percentile £30,580 £29,000 £29,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £40,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £58,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% +5.45% -12.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £78,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £101,250 £92,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.69%

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 12 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 12 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 +72 390 £75,000 - 249
South East -38 305 £55,000 - 227
North of England +85 273 £55,000 +15.35% 141
North West +82 172 £55,000 +15.35% 72
Midlands -66 161 £40,000 -30.43% 115
East of England -75 107 £60,000 +5.26% 76
West Midlands -8 97 £44,000 -32.31% 69
South West -54 94 £53,000 -3.64% 101
East Midlands -84 62 £30,000 -42.31% 46
Yorkshire -3 60 £50,000 +11.11% 50
North East -4 41 £55,000 +15.79% 22
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 (3.70%) Apache Airflow
2 42 (3.11%) Apache Spark
3 41 (3.04%) Apache
4 20 (1.48%) Confluence
5 14 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
6 13 (0.96%) SharePoint
7 10 (0.74%) Jupyter
8 8 (0.59%) Appian
9 7 (0.52%) SAS
10 5 (0.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 5 (0.37%) CMS
10 5 (0.37%) Kinematics
11 3 (0.22%) Artix
12 2 (0.15%) IIS
13 1 (0.074%) Anypoint
13 1 (0.074%) ArcGIS
13 1 (0.074%) Oracle Workflow
13 1 (0.074%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 88 (6.52%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (3.33%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (1.70%) Microsoft Project
4 18 (1.33%) MS Visio
5 15 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 13 (0.96%) Simulink
7 8 (0.59%) SOLIDWORKS
7 8 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.37%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 5 (0.37%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.30%) Adobe XD
9 4 (0.30%) 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%) PTC Creo
12 1 (0.074%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 33 (2.44%) Dynamics CRM
1 33 (2.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.74%) SAP ERP
3 9 (0.67%) 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 (0.30%) Oracle Applications
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 Business ByDesign
8 1 (0.074%) SAP Business One
8 1 (0.074%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 175 (12.96%) Azure
2 146 (10.81%) AWS
3 126 (9.33%) Power Platform
4 69 (5.11%) GCP
5 59 (4.37%) SaaS
6 53 (3.93%) Azure DevOps
7 38 (2.81%) Serverless
8 37 (2.74%) Microsoft 365
9 36 (2.67%) Amazon S3
10 35 (2.59%) GitHub
11 27 (2.00%) Azure Data Factory
12 25 (1.85%) Dynamics 365
12 25 (1.85%) Snowflake
13 20 (1.48%) Entra ID
13 20 (1.48%) Power Automate
14 17 (1.26%) dbt
14 17 (1.26%) GitHub Actions
15 14 (1.04%) OpenShift
16 13 (0.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 13 (0.96%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 65 (4.81%) Broadband
2 41 (3.04%) Firewall
3 33 (2.44%) DNS
4 22 (1.63%) CHAP
5 20 (1.48%) WAN
6 17 (1.26%) Wireless
7 16 (1.19%) SD-WAN
8 15 (1.11%) Network Security
9 14 (1.04%) 5G
10 13 (0.96%) TCP/IP
10 13 (0.96%) VPN
11 11 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
12 10 (0.74%) HTTP
12 10 (0.74%) MQTT
13 9 (0.67%) Ethernet
13 9 (0.67%) LAN
13 9 (0.67%) NAS
14 7 (0.52%) WebEx
15 6 (0.44%) Cisco ISE
16 5 (0.37%) Modbus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (9.19%) Power BI
2 55 (4.07%) Tableau
3 53 (3.93%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (3.63%) SQL Server
5 40 (2.96%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (2.44%) MongoDB
7 30 (2.22%) Relational Database
8 28 (2.07%) Metadata
9 23 (1.70%) BigQuery
10 22 (1.63%) Data Lake
11 21 (1.56%) Azure SQL Database
12 18 (1.33%) Semantic Layer
12 18 (1.33%) Spark SQL
13 17 (1.26%) Oracle Database
14 15 (1.11%) MySQL
15 14 (1.04%) Amazon Athena
15 14 (1.04%) DynamoDB
15 14 (1.04%) Parquet
15 14 (1.04%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 13 (0.96%) Impala
Development Applications
1 67 (4.96%) JIRA
2 65 (4.81%) Git
3 43 (3.19%) Jenkins
4 33 (2.44%) GitLab
5 31 (2.30%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.63%) Snyk
7 14 (1.04%) Postman
7 14 (1.04%) Selenium
8 13 (0.96%) IBM UrbanCode
9 12 (0.89%) LabVIEW
9 12 (0.89%) MLflow
10 10 (0.74%) Cucumber
10 10 (0.74%) Eclipse
10 10 (0.74%) TeamCity
11 9 (0.67%) Cypress.io
11 9 (0.67%) JMeter
12 6 (0.44%) Rational Rhapsody
13 5 (0.37%) LoadRunner
13 5 (0.37%) REST Assured
13 5 (0.37%) SonarQube
General
1 395 (29.26%) Social Skills
2 353 (26.15%) Finance
3 305 (22.59%) Analytical Skills
4 105 (7.78%) Aerospace
5 96 (7.11%) Electronics
6 93 (6.89%) Banking
7 92 (6.81%) Manufacturing
8 80 (5.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 53 (3.93%) Law
10 49 (3.63%) Retail
11 46 (3.41%) Legal
12 42 (3.11%) Marketing
13 40 (2.96%) Public Sector
14 39 (2.89%) Games
14 39 (2.89%) Pharmaceutical
15 33 (2.44%) Financial Institution
16 30 (2.22%) Organisational Skills
17 28 (2.07%) Automotive
18 26 (1.93%) Presentation Skills
19 22 (1.63%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 225 (16.67%) Senior
2 221 (16.37%) Analyst
3 133 (9.85%) Systems Engineer
4 96 (7.11%) Lead
4 96 (7.11%) Test Engineer
5 90 (6.67%) Architect
6 86 (6.37%) Validation Engineer
7 73 (5.41%) Business Analyst
8 69 (5.11%) Data Engineer
9 62 (4.59%) Data Analyst
9 62 (4.59%) Developer
10 47 (3.48%) Principal Engineer
11 39 (2.89%) Integration Engineer
12 38 (2.81%) Embedded Engineer
12 38 (2.81%) IT Manager
13 35 (2.59%) Consultant
14 34 (2.52%) Security Architect
15 33 (2.44%) Junior
16 32 (2.37%) Project Manager
17 31 (2.30%) Software Validation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (3.11%) RESTful
2 36 (2.67%) REST
3 29 (2.15%) PySpark
4 28 (2.07%) JSON
4 28 (2.07%) Pandas
5 26 (1.93%) Kafka
5 26 (1.93%) pytest
6 23 (1.70%) Middleware
6 23 (1.70%) Node.js
6 23 (1.70%) XML
7 20 (1.48%) .NET
8 18 (1.33%) Playwright
8 18 (1.33%) Swagger
9 17 (1.26%) Regular Expression
9 17 (1.26%) XMPP
10 16 (1.19%) CSS
10 16 (1.19%) OAuth
11 15 (1.11%) PyTorch
11 15 (1.11%) TensorFlow
12 14 (1.04%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 77 (5.70%) Cloud Native
2 73 (5.41%) Management Information System
3 66 (4.89%) Onboarding
4 52 (3.85%) Data Structures
5 51 (3.78%) Low-Code
6 33 (2.44%) Driving Licence
6 33 (2.44%) Embedded Systems
6 33 (2.44%) Self-Motivation
7 32 (2.37%) Analytical Mindset
7 32 (2.37%) Distributed Systems
8 31 (2.30%) Enterprise Software
8 31 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
8 31 (2.30%) Product Ownership
8 31 (2.30%) Video\Live Streaming
9 30 (2.22%) Algorithms
9 30 (2.22%) Data Centre
10 27 (2.00%) Life Science
11 21 (1.56%) Robotics
12 17 (1.26%) FPGA
13 16 (1.19%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 81 (6.00%) Linux
2 58 (4.30%) Windows
3 24 (1.78%) Unix
4 23 (1.70%) Windows Server
5 17 (1.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 7 (0.52%) Android
7 4 (0.30%) FreeRTOS
7 4 (0.30%) 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
1 296 (21.93%) Problem-Solving
2 264 (19.56%) Agile
3 253 (18.74%) Continuous Improvement
4 228 (16.89%) AI
5 226 (16.74%) CI/CD
6 198 (14.67%) Test Automation
7 185 (13.70%) Verification and Validation
8 182 (13.48%) Analytics
9 157 (11.63%) Data Validation
10 147 (10.89%) Business Intelligence
10 147 (10.89%) DevOps
11 144 (10.67%) Data Modelling
12 142 (10.52%) Migration
13 137 (10.15%) Decision-Making
14 134 (9.93%) Software Engineering
15 127 (9.41%) Data Governance
16 123 (9.11%) Machine Learning
16 123 (9.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 122 (9.04%) Stakeholder Management
18 118 (8.74%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 321 (23.78%) Python
2 290 (21.48%) SQL
3 57 (4.22%) Java
4 56 (4.15%) C++
5 52 (3.85%) C
6 50 (3.70%) Go
7 34 (2.52%) C#
8 31 (2.30%) JavaScript
9 27 (2.00%) Bash
10 26 (1.93%) PowerShell
11 24 (1.78%) MATLAB
12 19 (1.41%) T-SQL
13 15 (1.11%) Embedded C
13 15 (1.11%) Embedded C++
14 13 (0.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.89%) Scala
16 11 (0.81%) TypeScript
17 9 (0.67%) VBA
18 8 (0.59%) ABAP
19 7 (0.52%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 266 (19.70%) Degree
2 153 (11.33%) Security Cleared
3 100 (7.41%) BPSS Clearance
4 71 (5.26%) SC Cleared
5 69 (5.11%) Master's Degree
6 43 (3.19%) DV Cleared
7 36 (2.67%) Chartered Engineer
7 36 (2.67%) Computer Science Degree
8 32 (2.37%) CISA
8 32 (2.37%) CISSP
8 32 (2.37%) SANS
9 29 (2.15%) CISM
10 24 (1.78%) HNC
11 22 (1.63%) CGEIT
11 22 (1.63%) FFIEC
12 20 (1.48%) HND
13 15 (1.11%) PMI Certification
14 14 (1.04%) ACCA
14 14 (1.04%) CIMA
15 12 (0.89%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 224 (16.59%) Data Quality
2 131 (9.70%) QA
3 56 (4.15%) GDPR
4 41 (3.04%) Accessibility
5 39 (2.89%) GRC
6 27 (2.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 25 (1.85%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 24 (1.78%) NIST
9 22 (1.63%) COBIT
10 19 (1.41%) IFRS
11 16 (1.19%) IEC 61508
12 15 (1.11%) PMO
13 14 (1.04%) SLA
14 12 (0.89%) GAAP
14 12 (0.89%) ISO 9001
15 11 (0.81%) GMP
15 11 (0.81%) SOC 2
16 9 (0.67%) ISO 26262
16 9 (0.67%) WCAG
17 8 (0.59%) GxP
System Software
1 62 (4.59%) Docker
2 40 (2.96%) Firmware
3 36 (2.67%) Active Directory
4 22 (1.63%) Virtual Machines
5 18 (1.33%) vSphere
6 16 (1.19%) 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 65 (4.81%) Kubernetes
2 61 (4.52%) Terraform
3 26 (1.93%) Grafana
4 19 (1.41%) Functional Safety
5 16 (1.19%) Prometheus
6 15 (1.11%) Ansible
7 10 (0.74%) Cilium
7 10 (0.74%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 9 (0.67%) SCCM
9 7 (0.52%) Kibana
10 4 (0.30%) Microsoft Intune
11 3 (0.22%) Argo
11 3 (0.22%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.22%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.22%) Puppet
11 3 (0.22%) Rancher
11 3 (0.22%) yum
12 2 (0.15%) BMC PATROL
12 2 (0.15%) Computer Incident Response Team
13 1 (0.074%) MOM
Vendors
1 180 (13.33%) Microsoft
2 88 (6.52%) Oracle
3 81 (6.00%) SAP
4 46 (3.41%) Salesforce
5 36 (2.67%) Databricks
6 33 (2.44%) ServiceNow
7 31 (2.30%) Red Hat
8 29 (2.15%) CrowdStrike
9 25 (1.85%) VMware
10 22 (1.63%) Adobe
10 22 (1.63%) Palo Alto
10 22 (1.63%) Tenable
11 18 (1.33%) Cisco
12 17 (1.26%) Google
13 14 (1.04%) Citrix
14 13 (0.96%) McAfee
15 12 (0.89%) Foundry
16 11 (0.81%) OpenAI
17 10 (0.74%) Splunk
18 8 (0.59%) IBM