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 24 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 155 164 195
Rank change year-on-year +9 +31 -55
Permanent jobs citing Validation 850 866 943
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.55% 1.81% 1.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.92% 1.99% 1.83%
Number of salaries quoted 465 317 566
10th Percentile £36,250 £37,000 £36,250
25th Percentile £43,062 £46,250 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -14.60%
75th Percentile £77,500 £72,500 £73,750
90th Percentile £91,250 £100,000 £85,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -15.38%

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 44,281 43,623 51,630
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 80.50% 91.27% 88.89%
Number of salaries quoted 26,723 21,246 40,559
10th Percentile £28,750 £35,000 £30,750
25th Percentile £38,393 £46,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £76,750 £81,250 £77,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £101,250 £97,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -8.00%

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 24 January 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 24 January 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 +48 289 £75,000 +11.11% 200
South East +26 189 £50,000 -13.04% 398
North of England -15 125 £55,117 +19.27% 231
Midlands 0 85 £38,750 -25.48% 202
North West +2 81 £54,500 +14.30% 92
East of England +11 78 £59,000 +7.27% 221
South West +20 72 £57,500 +9.32% 206
West Midlands +15 54 £37,500 -28.57% 100
Yorkshire -18 35 £61,250 +51.33% 107
East Midlands +5 31 £41,750 -18.14% 100
North East -8 9 £41,000 -1.20% 33
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 19 (2.24%) Confluence
2 18 (2.12%) Apache Airflow
3 12 (1.41%) Apache Spark
4 11 (1.29%) Appian
5 9 (1.06%) CMS
5 9 (1.06%) SharePoint
6 7 (0.82%) Apache
7 6 (0.71%) Microsoft Exchange
8 5 (0.59%) SugarCRM
9 4 (0.47%) Headless CMS
10 3 (0.35%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.35%) SAS
11 2 (0.24%) Kinematics
11 2 (0.24%) WordPress
12 1 (0.12%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.12%) Apache Superset
12 1 (0.12%) FileNet
Applications
1 61 (7.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 57 (6.71%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.41%) MS Visio
4 10 (1.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (1.06%) Simulink
6 7 (0.82%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 4 (0.47%) Fusion 360
8 2 (0.24%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.24%) Adobe Captivate
8 2 (0.24%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.24%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.24%) Elementor
8 2 (0.24%) Oracle Smart View
8 2 (0.24%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.24%) Weka
9 1 (0.12%) Doxygen
9 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
9 1 (0.12%) Revit
9 1 (0.12%) Solid Edge
9 1 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 19 (2.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.18%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.47%) SAP BPC
4 3 (0.35%) SAP CX
4 3 (0.35%) Workday HCM
5 2 (0.24%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.24%) Endur
5 2 (0.24%) IBM Planning Analytics
5 2 (0.24%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.24%) Primavera
5 2 (0.24%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.12%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.12%) Magento
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.12%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.12%) SAP Business ByDesign
6 1 (0.12%) SAP Business One
6 1 (0.12%) SAP EWM
6 1 (0.12%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 127 (14.94%) Azure
2 69 (8.12%) Power Platform
3 57 (6.71%) AWS
4 40 (4.71%) SaaS
5 35 (4.12%) Azure DevOps
6 28 (3.29%) GCP
7 19 (2.24%) Azure Data Factory
7 19 (2.24%) Snowflake
8 18 (2.12%) Dynamics 365
8 18 (2.12%) Power Automate
9 16 (1.88%) GitHub
10 14 (1.65%) dbt
11 13 (1.53%) Microsoft 365
12 11 (1.29%) Amazon S3
12 11 (1.29%) Anthropic Claude
12 11 (1.29%) Azure AI
12 11 (1.29%) Entra ID
12 11 (1.29%) Figma
13 9 (1.06%) Datadog
13 9 (1.06%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 17 (2.00%) CHAP
2 13 (1.53%) WAN
3 12 (1.41%) Firewall
3 12 (1.41%) LAN
4 11 (1.29%) SD-WAN
5 10 (1.18%) 5G
6 9 (1.06%) DNS
7 8 (0.94%) HTTP
7 8 (0.94%) MQTT
8 7 (0.82%) TCP/IP
9 6 (0.71%) Modbus
10 5 (0.59%) Cisco IOS
10 5 (0.59%) Ethernet VPN
10 5 (0.59%) VoIP
10 5 (0.59%) WAAS
10 5 (0.59%) Wireless
11 4 (0.47%) BGP
11 4 (0.47%) OSPF
11 4 (0.47%) SMTP
12 3 (0.35%) PBX
Database & Business Intelligence
1 67 (7.88%) Power BI
2 31 (3.65%) SQL Server
3 26 (3.06%) Data Warehouse
4 23 (2.71%) Metadata
5 19 (2.24%) Relational Database
6 18 (2.12%) Tableau
7 14 (1.65%) Oracle Reports
8 11 (1.29%) BigQuery
8 11 (1.29%) Pinecone
9 10 (1.18%) Data Lake
9 10 (1.18%) Spotfire
10 8 (0.94%) Amazon Redshift
10 8 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
10 8 (0.94%) Big Data
11 7 (0.82%) Looker
12 6 (0.71%) Data Vault
12 6 (0.71%) GIS
12 6 (0.71%) NoSQL
12 6 (0.71%) PostgreSQL
13 5 (0.59%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 59 (6.94%) JIRA
2 39 (4.59%) Git
2 39 (4.59%) Rational DOORS
3 23 (2.71%) Postman
4 16 (1.88%) Jenkins
5 13 (1.53%) MLflow
5 13 (1.53%) Selenium
6 11 (1.29%) GitLab
6 11 (1.29%) LabVIEW
7 10 (1.18%) Cucumber
7 10 (1.18%) TestRail
8 9 (1.06%) Eclipse
8 9 (1.06%) JMeter
8 9 (1.06%) SoapUI
9 7 (0.82%) LoadRunner
10 6 (0.71%) Zephyr
11 5 (0.59%) Charles Proxy
11 5 (0.59%) Fiddler
11 5 (0.59%) SpecFlow
11 5 (0.59%) TestNG
General
1 311 (36.59%) Social Skills
2 238 (28.00%) Finance
3 189 (22.24%) Analytical Skills
4 63 (7.41%) Banking
5 53 (6.24%) Electronics
6 48 (5.65%) Marketing
7 46 (5.41%) Financial Institution
8 41 (4.82%) Manufacturing
9 39 (4.59%) Presentation Skills
10 32 (3.76%) Law
11 30 (3.53%) Organisational Skills
11 30 (3.53%) Telecoms
12 29 (3.41%) Aerospace
12 29 (3.41%) Documentation Skills
13 26 (3.06%) Retail
14 25 (2.94%) Public Sector
15 23 (2.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 23 (2.71%) Legal
16 20 (2.35%) Pharmaceutical
17 19 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 129 (15.18%) Analyst
2 125 (14.71%) Senior
3 98 (11.53%) Systems Engineer
4 65 (7.65%) Lead
5 52 (6.12%) Architect
6 49 (5.76%) Test Engineer
7 42 (4.94%) Business Analyst
8 40 (4.71%) Validation Engineer
9 36 (4.24%) Integration Engineer
10 31 (3.65%) Data Analyst
10 31 (3.65%) Data Engineer
10 31 (3.65%) Principal Engineer
11 30 (3.53%) Developer
12 29 (3.41%) Applications Support
12 29 (3.41%) Junior
13 27 (3.18%) Systems Integration Engineer
14 26 (3.06%) Solutions Architect
15 25 (2.94%) Applications Engineer
16 24 (2.82%) Support Engineer
17 23 (2.71%) Applications Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (5.76%) REST
2 30 (3.53%) Middleware
3 26 (3.06%) Pandas
3 26 (3.06%) pytest
4 24 (2.82%) JSON
5 21 (2.47%) scikit-learn
6 19 (2.24%) PyTorch
6 19 (2.24%) TensorFlow
7 18 (2.12%) XML
8 17 (2.00%) NumPy
9 16 (1.88%) OAuth
10 15 (1.76%) FastAPI
10 15 (1.76%) JWT
10 15 (1.76%) Swagger
10 15 (1.76%) Web Services
11 14 (1.65%) CSS
11 14 (1.65%) Flask
12 13 (1.53%) HTML
12 13 (1.53%) React
13 12 (1.41%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 59 (6.94%) Management Information System
2 35 (4.12%) Onboarding
3 30 (3.53%) Self-Motivation
4 24 (2.82%) Product Ownership
5 23 (2.71%) Legacy Systems
6 21 (2.47%) Low-Code
7 20 (2.35%) Data Structures
8 19 (2.24%) Life Science
9 16 (1.88%) Algorithms
10 15 (1.76%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 14 (1.65%) Analytical Mindset
12 13 (1.53%) Enterprise Software
13 11 (1.29%) SWIFT Messaging Network
14 10 (1.18%) Blockchain
14 10 (1.18%) Data Centre
14 10 (1.18%) Self-Driving Car
15 9 (1.06%) Credit Risk
15 9 (1.06%) IoT
15 9 (1.06%) Reinsurance
15 9 (1.06%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 40 (4.71%) Windows
2 34 (4.00%) Linux
3 12 (1.41%) Unix
4 10 (1.18%) Android
5 9 (1.06%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.47%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.35%) Windows 10
8 2 (0.24%) AIX
8 2 (0.24%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.24%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.24%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.12%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 206 (24.24%) Agile
2 193 (22.71%) Problem-Solving
3 142 (16.71%) Verification and Validation
4 121 (14.24%) Analytics
5 117 (13.76%) Data Validation
6 108 (12.71%) Continuous Improvement
7 105 (12.35%) Test Automation
8 101 (11.88%) Migration
9 94 (11.06%) DevOps
10 89 (10.47%) Systems Engineering
11 87 (10.24%) Business Intelligence
11 87 (10.24%) CI/CD
12 86 (10.12%) ETL
13 84 (9.88%) Mentoring
14 81 (9.53%) Software Engineering
15 80 (9.41%) Decision-Making
16 79 (9.29%) AI
17 78 (9.18%) Roadmaps
18 76 (8.94%) Data Analysis
18 76 (8.94%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 189 (22.24%) SQL
2 158 (18.59%) Python
3 31 (3.65%) Java
4 29 (3.41%) C
5 26 (3.06%) C++
6 24 (2.82%) JavaScript
6 24 (2.82%) MATLAB
7 19 (2.24%) PowerShell
8 15 (1.76%) Bash
9 12 (1.41%) TypeScript
10 10 (1.18%) C#
11 8 (0.94%) R
12 7 (0.82%) T-SQL
13 6 (0.71%) Bicep
13 6 (0.71%) PL/SQL
14 5 (0.59%) PHP
15 4 (0.47%) Go
15 4 (0.47%) VB
16 3 (0.35%) Embedded C
16 3 (0.35%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 240 (28.24%) Degree
2 107 (12.59%) Security Cleared
3 100 (11.76%) BPSS Clearance
4 48 (5.65%) Master's Degree
5 44 (5.18%) SC Cleared
6 37 (4.35%) Computer Science Degree
7 19 (2.24%) CISA
7 19 (2.24%) CISSP
8 18 (2.12%) CGEIT
8 18 (2.12%) CISM
8 18 (2.12%) DV Cleared
8 18 (2.12%) FFIEC
8 18 (2.12%) SANS
9 16 (1.88%) HNC
9 16 (1.88%) ISTQB
10 15 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
11 14 (1.65%) Chartered Engineer
12 12 (1.41%) HND
13 11 (1.29%) CCNP
13 11 (1.29%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 105 (12.35%) QA
2 104 (12.24%) Data Quality
3 38 (4.47%) GDPR
4 36 (4.24%) ISO/IEC 15288
5 31 (3.65%) SLA
6 30 (3.53%) Accessibility
7 19 (2.24%) NIST
8 18 (2.12%) COBIT
9 11 (1.29%) ISO 20022
9 11 (1.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 11 (1.29%) SEPA
10 10 (1.18%) Good Clinical Practice
10 10 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 12207
11 9 (1.06%) WCAG
12 8 (0.94%) GRC
12 8 (0.94%) GxP
13 7 (0.82%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 7 (0.82%) IFRS
13 7 (0.82%) TARGET2
14 6 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 43 (5.06%) Docker
2 16 (1.88%) Firmware
3 8 (0.94%) Active Directory
4 3 (0.35%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.24%) Ceph
5 2 (0.24%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.24%) Lustre
5 2 (0.24%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 2 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.24%) vSphere
6 1 (0.12%) iptables
6 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 1 (0.12%) OpenAM
6 1 (0.12%) OpenDJ
6 1 (0.12%) OpenIDM
6 1 (0.12%) pfSense
6 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 36 (4.24%) Kubernetes
2 21 (2.47%) Terraform
3 12 (1.41%) Ansible
4 10 (1.18%) Grafana
5 8 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
6 7 (0.82%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
6 7 (0.82%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.71%) SCCM
8 4 (0.47%) Argo
8 4 (0.47%) Rancher
8 4 (0.47%) yum
9 2 (0.24%) BMC PATROL
9 2 (0.24%) Functional Safety
9 2 (0.24%) Kubeflow
9 2 (0.24%) Nessus
9 2 (0.24%) Puppet
10 1 (0.12%) Control-M
10 1 (0.12%) Kibana
10 1 (0.12%) PowerCLI
10 1 (0.12%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 110 (12.94%) Microsoft
2 53 (6.24%) SAP
3 33 (3.88%) Oracle
4 26 (3.06%) Cisco
5 24 (2.82%) Salesforce
6 17 (2.00%) Foundry
7 14 (1.65%) IBM
7 14 (1.65%) Software AG
8 13 (1.53%) Adobe
9 12 (1.41%) OpenAI
9 12 (1.41%) ServiceNow
10 11 (1.29%) Automation Anywhere
10 11 (1.29%) F5
10 11 (1.29%) UiPath
11 10 (1.18%) CheckPoint
12 8 (0.94%) Databricks
12 8 (0.94%) Intapp
13 7 (0.82%) Google
13 7 (0.82%) Guidewire
14 6 (0.71%) MuleSoft