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

6 months to
6 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 140 168 184
Rank change year-on-year +28 +16 -28
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,075 686 1,269
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.48% 1.87% 1.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.94% 2.01% 1.86%
Number of salaries quoted 641 359 718
10th Percentile £33,750 £40,000 £35,925
25th Percentile £44,972 £46,000 £43,750
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 £97,000 £85,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -9.09%

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 55,362 34,133 68,175
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 76.33% 93.17% 86.17%
Number of salaries quoted 34,854 20,495 52,447
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £43,750 £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 £77,500 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £99,116 £103,750 £93,750
UK median annual salary £55,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -7.50% +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 6 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 6 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 +67 331 £75,000 +7.14% 268
South East +37 251 £55,000 +7.32% 215
North of England +9 175 £59,500 +25.02% 152
Midlands -19 133 £37,500 -31.82% 118
North West +15 112 £60,000 +25.83% 74
East of England -6 93 £57,500 +4.55% 96
West Midlands -2 81 £44,000 -32.31% 77
South West -39 78 £53,750 -2.27% 89
East Midlands -37 50 £34,500 -32.35% 41
Yorkshire -31 42 £60,000 +26.32% 51
North East -10 21 £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 (3.91%) Apache Airflow
2 27 (2.51%) Apache Spark
3 23 (2.14%) Apache
4 16 (1.49%) Confluence
4 16 (1.49%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (1.12%) Appian
5 12 (1.12%) CMS
6 8 (0.74%) SharePoint
7 6 (0.56%) Kinematics
8 4 (0.37%) Headless CMS
9 2 (0.19%) WordPress
10 1 (0.093%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.093%) IIS
10 1 (0.093%) Jupyter
10 1 (0.093%) Palantir Foundry
10 1 (0.093%) SAS
Applications
1 85 (7.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 54 (5.02%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (1.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 16 (1.49%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.65%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 5 (0.47%) Simulink
5 5 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.37%) Fusion 360
6 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.28%) Solid Edge
7 3 (0.28%) SOLIDWORKS
8 2 (0.19%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.19%) Adobe Captivate
8 2 (0.19%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.19%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.19%) CATIA
8 2 (0.19%) Elementor
8 2 (0.19%) Oracle Smart View
8 2 (0.19%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.19%) Weka
Business Applications
1 15 (1.40%) Dynamics CRM
1 15 (1.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.47%) Loan IQ
3 4 (0.37%) SAP ERP
4 3 (0.28%) SAP BPC
4 3 (0.28%) SAP MDG
4 3 (0.28%) Workday HCM
5 2 (0.19%) IBM Planning Analytics
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.19%) SAP CX
6 1 (0.093%) Endur
6 1 (0.093%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.093%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.093%) Oracle Financials
6 1 (0.093%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.093%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.093%) Primavera
6 1 (0.093%) SAP Business ByDesign
6 1 (0.093%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 141 (13.12%) Azure
2 102 (9.49%) Power Platform
3 86 (8.00%) AWS
4 51 (4.74%) SaaS
5 41 (3.81%) GCP
6 39 (3.63%) Azure DevOps
7 29 (2.70%) Power Automate
8 26 (2.42%) Dynamics 365
9 25 (2.33%) Azure Data Factory
9 25 (2.33%) Snowflake
10 24 (2.23%) Amazon S3
11 23 (2.14%) dbt
12 20 (1.86%) Entra ID
12 20 (1.86%) Microsoft 365
13 18 (1.67%) GitHub
13 18 (1.67%) Serverless
14 14 (1.30%) Datadog
15 13 (1.21%) Anthropic Claude
15 13 (1.21%) OpenShift
16 12 (1.12%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 25 (2.33%) CHAP
2 18 (1.67%) Broadband
3 16 (1.49%) Firewall
3 16 (1.49%) WAN
4 14 (1.30%) DNS
4 14 (1.30%) SD-WAN
5 11 (1.02%) 5G
6 10 (0.93%) Wireless
7 9 (0.84%) HTTP
7 9 (0.84%) TCP/IP
8 7 (0.65%) LAN
8 7 (0.65%) Modbus
8 7 (0.65%) MQTT
9 6 (0.56%) NAS
10 5 (0.47%) Cisco IOS
10 5 (0.47%) VPN
10 5 (0.47%) WAAS
11 4 (0.37%) SMTP
11 4 (0.37%) VoIP
12 3 (0.28%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 100 (9.30%) Power BI
2 43 (4.00%) SQL Server
2 43 (4.00%) Tableau
3 29 (2.70%) Relational Database
4 26 (2.42%) Data Warehouse
4 26 (2.42%) PostgreSQL
5 25 (2.33%) Metadata
6 15 (1.40%) Azure SQL Database
6 15 (1.40%) Oracle Reports
6 15 (1.40%) Spark SQL
7 14 (1.30%) Oracle Database
8 13 (1.21%) Apache Hive
8 13 (1.21%) Impala
8 13 (1.21%) MySQL
8 13 (1.21%) Parquet
8 13 (1.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 12 (1.12%) Pinecone
10 11 (1.02%) Amazon Redshift
10 11 (1.02%) Data Lake
11 10 (0.93%) Spotfire
Development Applications
1 61 (5.67%) Git
2 55 (5.12%) JIRA
3 36 (3.35%) Rational DOORS
4 18 (1.67%) Jenkins
5 17 (1.58%) Postman
6 14 (1.30%) GitLab
6 14 (1.30%) JMeter
6 14 (1.30%) LabVIEW
6 14 (1.30%) MLflow
6 14 (1.30%) Selenium
7 13 (1.21%) Cucumber
7 13 (1.21%) IBM UrbanCode
8 11 (1.02%) Eclipse
8 11 (1.02%) TestRail
9 8 (0.74%) Locust
10 7 (0.65%) SoapUI
11 6 (0.56%) LoadRunner
11 6 (0.56%) Snyk
11 6 (0.56%) Subversion
12 5 (0.47%) SpecFlow
General
1 360 (33.49%) Social Skills
2 267 (24.84%) Finance
3 253 (23.53%) Analytical Skills
4 84 (7.81%) Banking
5 67 (6.23%) Electronics
6 65 (6.05%) Manufacturing
7 59 (5.49%) Aerospace
8 48 (4.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 44 (4.09%) Legal
10 43 (4.00%) Law
11 41 (3.81%) Marketing
11 41 (3.81%) Retail
12 40 (3.72%) Financial Institution
13 30 (2.79%) Presentation Skills
14 29 (2.70%) Public Sector
15 25 (2.33%) Organisational Skills
16 23 (2.14%) Pharmaceutical
16 23 (2.14%) Telecoms
17 22 (2.05%) Documentation Skills
18 21 (1.95%) Games
Job Titles
1 191 (17.77%) Analyst
2 173 (16.09%) Senior
3 137 (12.74%) Systems Engineer
4 78 (7.26%) Lead
5 73 (6.79%) Validation Engineer
6 68 (6.33%) Test Engineer
7 67 (6.23%) Business Analyst
8 59 (5.49%) Architect
9 52 (4.84%) Data Analyst
10 50 (4.65%) Integration Engineer
11 42 (3.91%) Principal Engineer
12 40 (3.72%) Systems Integration Engineer
13 38 (3.53%) Data Engineer
13 38 (3.53%) Developer
14 37 (3.44%) Senior Systems Engineer
15 35 (3.26%) Junior
15 35 (3.26%) Verification Engineer
16 33 (3.07%) Software Validation Engineer
17 31 (2.88%) Principal Systems Engineer
18 28 (2.60%) Auditor
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (5.02%) REST
2 37 (3.44%) Pandas
3 29 (2.70%) JSON
4 27 (2.51%) Middleware
5 25 (2.33%) pytest
6 24 (2.23%) XML
7 20 (1.86%) PySpark
8 19 (1.77%) OAuth
9 18 (1.67%) JWT
9 18 (1.67%) NumPy
9 18 (1.67%) PyTorch
9 18 (1.67%) Swagger
9 18 (1.67%) TensorFlow
10 16 (1.49%) .NET
10 16 (1.49%) RESTful
11 15 (1.40%) Kafka
11 15 (1.40%) React
11 15 (1.40%) scikit-learn
11 15 (1.40%) Web Services
12 14 (1.30%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 68 (6.33%) Management Information System
2 51 (4.74%) Onboarding
3 41 (3.81%) Data Structures
4 37 (3.44%) Low-Code
5 32 (2.98%) Legacy Systems
6 29 (2.70%) Self-Motivation
7 25 (2.33%) Analytical Mindset
7 25 (2.33%) Product Ownership
8 24 (2.23%) Life Science
9 18 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
10 16 (1.49%) Data Centre
11 15 (1.40%) Robotics
12 14 (1.30%) Blockchain
12 14 (1.30%) Embedded Systems
12 14 (1.30%) IoT
13 13 (1.21%) Algorithms
13 13 (1.21%) Reinsurance
14 11 (1.02%) Hackathon
15 10 (0.93%) Cloud Native
15 10 (0.93%) Self-Driving Car
Operating Systems
1 53 (4.93%) Linux
2 44 (4.09%) Windows
3 17 (1.58%) Unix
4 13 (1.21%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.93%) Android
6 6 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (0.37%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.28%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.19%) AIX
9 2 (0.19%) FreeRTOS
9 2 (0.19%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.19%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.093%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.093%) Kali Linux
10 1 (0.093%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 230 (21.40%) Agile
1 230 (21.40%) Problem-Solving
2 194 (18.05%) Verification and Validation
3 189 (17.58%) Continuous Improvement
4 158 (14.70%) Analytics
5 148 (13.77%) Data Validation
6 134 (12.47%) Test Automation
7 131 (12.19%) AI
8 128 (11.91%) CI/CD
9 125 (11.63%) Business Intelligence
10 121 (11.26%) Systems Engineering
11 111 (10.33%) Data Modelling
12 108 (10.05%) Decision-Making
12 108 (10.05%) DevOps
13 104 (9.67%) Migration
14 100 (9.30%) Stakeholder Management
15 99 (9.21%) Data Governance
15 99 (9.21%) Mentoring
16 98 (9.12%) ETL
17 96 (8.93%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 236 (21.95%) SQL
2 224 (20.84%) Python
3 43 (4.00%) Java
4 31 (2.88%) C++
5 30 (2.79%) JavaScript
6 28 (2.60%) PowerShell
7 27 (2.51%) C
8 21 (1.95%) Bash
9 19 (1.77%) T-SQL
10 18 (1.67%) Go
11 16 (1.49%) C#
11 16 (1.49%) MATLAB
12 14 (1.30%) TypeScript
13 11 (1.02%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 9 (0.84%) R
14 9 (0.84%) VBA
15 7 (0.65%) VB
16 6 (0.56%) PHP
17 5 (0.47%) Embedded C
17 5 (0.47%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 241 (22.42%) Degree
2 128 (11.91%) Security Cleared
3 116 (10.79%) BPSS Clearance
4 50 (4.65%) Master's Degree
5 47 (4.37%) SC Cleared
6 34 (3.16%) Computer Science Degree
7 32 (2.98%) CISA
7 32 (2.98%) CISSP
8 31 (2.88%) CISM
9 28 (2.60%) DV Cleared
10 26 (2.42%) Chartered Engineer
11 25 (2.33%) CGEIT
11 25 (2.33%) FFIEC
11 25 (2.33%) SANS
12 23 (2.14%) HNC
13 17 (1.58%) HND
13 17 (1.58%) ISTQB
14 13 (1.21%) PMI Certification
15 12 (1.12%) PMP
16 8 (0.74%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 152 (14.14%) Data Quality
2 112 (10.42%) QA
3 60 (5.58%) GDPR
4 40 (3.72%) Accessibility
5 38 (3.53%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 26 (2.42%) NIST
7 25 (2.33%) COBIT
8 19 (1.77%) GRC
8 19 (1.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 18 (1.67%) SLA
10 16 (1.49%) IFRS
11 13 (1.21%) WCAG
12 10 (0.93%) GAAP
12 10 (0.93%) Good Clinical Practice
12 10 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 9 (0.84%) ISO 9001
14 8 (0.74%) PMO
15 7 (0.65%) 21 CFR Part 11
15 7 (0.65%) GxP
15 7 (0.65%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 58 (5.40%) Docker
2 22 (2.05%) Active Directory
3 21 (1.95%) Firmware
4 8 (0.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.74%) vSphere
5 7 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
6 5 (0.47%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.19%) Ceph
7 2 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
7 2 (0.19%) Lustre
7 2 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 2 (0.19%) Terminal Services
7 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.093%) iptables
8 1 (0.093%) OpenAM
8 1 (0.093%) OpenDJ
8 1 (0.093%) OpenIDM
8 1 (0.093%) pfSense
Systems Management
1 57 (5.30%) Kubernetes
2 44 (4.09%) Terraform
3 26 (2.42%) Grafana
4 17 (1.58%) Ansible
5 15 (1.40%) Prometheus
6 12 (1.12%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 10 (0.93%) SCCM
8 7 (0.65%) Functional Safety
8 7 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
9 5 (0.47%) Argo
9 5 (0.47%) Rancher
9 5 (0.47%) yum
10 2 (0.19%) BMC PATROL
10 2 (0.19%) Cilium
10 2 (0.19%) Nessus
10 2 (0.19%) PowerCLI
10 2 (0.19%) Puppet
11 1 (0.093%) Istio
11 1 (0.093%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.093%) SQL Sentry
Vendors
1 144 (13.40%) Microsoft
2 56 (5.21%) Oracle
3 42 (3.91%) SAP
4 38 (3.53%) Salesforce
5 19 (1.77%) Databricks
5 19 (1.77%) Red Hat
6 17 (1.58%) Cisco
6 17 (1.58%) Foundry
7 16 (1.49%) Adobe
8 15 (1.40%) ServiceNow
8 15 (1.40%) VMware
9 13 (1.21%) IBM
9 13 (1.21%) OpenAI
10 12 (1.12%) Automation Anywhere
10 12 (1.12%) Google
10 12 (1.12%) UiPath
11 10 (0.93%) Citrix
11 10 (0.93%) Software AG
12 9 (0.84%) Intapp
12 9 (0.84%) Workday