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 3 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 79 177
Rank change year-on-year -4 +98 +28
Permanent jobs citing Validation 2,003 1,561 1,055
As % of all permanent jobs in England 2.06% 3.58% 1.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.81% 4.04% 1.83%
Number of salaries quoted 1,217 472 432
10th Percentile £36,250 £38,775 £39,000
25th Percentile £43,000 £41,250 £47,375
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £72,500 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £87,200 £90,000 £93,750
UK median annual salary £57,500 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +4.55% -8.33% -6.25%

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 71,365 38,632 57,618
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.35% 88.65% 81.19%
Number of salaries quoted 50,813 22,409 35,446
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £42,250 £37,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £76,250 £76,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £56,341
% change year-on-year +9.09% -2.38% -6.10%

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 3 September 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 3 September 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 +64 518 £70,000 -11.39% 1,688
South East -15 457 £60,000 +11.63% 525
North of England +102 405 £55,000 +15.79% 322
North West +88 241 £55,000 +15.35% 193
Midlands -43 226 £47,500 -13.64% 269
South West +19 206 £55,000 +4.56% 323
East of England -59 158 £56,250 +1.81% 316
West Midlands +25 127 £47,500 -13.64% 180
East Midlands -60 98 £46,743 +9.98% 89
North East +4 82 £55,000 +57.14% 60
Yorkshire -1 82 £43,000 +1.18% 77
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 44 (2.20%) Apache Airflow
2 43 (2.15%) Apache Spark
3 41 (2.05%) Apache
4 32 (1.60%) Confluence
5 31 (1.55%) SharePoint
6 18 (0.90%) Jupyter
7 13 (0.65%) SAS
8 9 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
9 7 (0.35%) WinCC
10 5 (0.25%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 5 (0.25%) CMS
11 3 (0.15%) Artix
11 3 (0.15%) Kinematics
11 3 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.100%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.100%) IIS
13 1 (0.050%) ArcGIS
13 1 (0.050%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.050%) Oracle Workflow
13 1 (0.050%) WebSphere
Applications
1 113 (5.64%) Microsoft Excel
2 60 (3.00%) Microsoft Office
3 39 (1.95%) Simulink
4 35 (1.75%) Microsoft Project
5 17 (0.85%) SOLIDWORKS
6 16 (0.80%) Spreadsheet
7 15 (0.75%) MS Visio
8 11 (0.55%) AutoCAD
8 11 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 5 (0.25%) Mathcad
9 5 (0.25%) Revit
10 4 (0.20%) Adobe XD
10 4 (0.20%) OrCAD
10 4 (0.20%) Sketch
11 3 (0.15%) Autodesk Inventor
11 3 (0.15%) LaTeX
11 3 (0.15%) Navisworks
11 3 (0.15%) Productboard
11 3 (0.15%) Stateflow
12 2 (0.100%) Solid Edge
Business Applications
1 38 (1.90%) Dynamics CRM
2 35 (1.75%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (0.50%) SAP MDG
4 9 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.40%) Oracle Applications
6 7 (0.35%) NetSuite
6 7 (0.35%) SAP ERP
7 6 (0.30%) Workday HCM
8 5 (0.25%) Elite 3E
8 5 (0.25%) iTrent
8 5 (0.25%) SAP MDG-BP
9 4 (0.20%) Oracle Financials
9 4 (0.20%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.15%) Infor M3
10 3 (0.15%) Loan IQ
10 3 (0.15%) Oracle ERP
10 3 (0.15%) SystmOne
10 3 (0.15%) Teamcenter
11 2 (0.100%) Oracle Payables
11 2 (0.100%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 267 (13.33%) Azure
2 234 (11.68%) AWS
3 159 (7.94%) Power Platform
4 86 (4.29%) GCP
5 65 (3.25%) SaaS
6 62 (3.10%) Microsoft 365
7 61 (3.05%) Azure DevOps
8 53 (2.65%) GitHub
9 43 (2.15%) Serverless
10 36 (1.80%) Amazon S3
11 35 (1.75%) Dynamics 365
12 31 (1.55%) Entra ID
13 28 (1.40%) Microsoft Copilot
14 27 (1.35%) GitHub Actions
15 22 (1.10%) Amazon EMR
15 22 (1.10%) Cloud Computing
16 20 (1.00%) Amazon EC2
16 20 (1.00%) PowerApps
17 19 (0.95%) Azure Data Factory
17 19 (0.95%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 64 (3.20%) DNS
2 61 (3.05%) Firewall
3 60 (3.00%) Broadband
4 34 (1.70%) Wireless
5 33 (1.65%) Network Security
5 33 (1.65%) VPN
5 33 (1.65%) WAN
6 31 (1.55%) TCP/IP
7 26 (1.30%) Ethernet
8 25 (1.25%) LAN
9 22 (1.10%) SD-WAN
10 20 (1.00%) MQTT
10 20 (1.00%) OSPF
10 20 (1.00%) VLAN
11 19 (0.95%) BGP
11 19 (0.95%) Modbus
12 17 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
12 17 (0.85%) Wireshark
13 14 (0.70%) 5G
14 13 (0.65%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 147 (7.34%) Power BI
2 56 (2.80%) Data Warehouse
3 51 (2.55%) PostgreSQL
4 46 (2.30%) Metadata
5 44 (2.20%) SQL Server
6 43 (2.15%) Data Lake
7 37 (1.85%) Tableau
8 33 (1.65%) MongoDB
9 29 (1.45%) Relational Database
10 28 (1.40%) Amazon Athena
11 25 (1.25%) BigQuery
12 24 (1.20%) DynamoDB
13 21 (1.05%) Semantic Layer
13 21 (1.05%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 19 (0.95%) Azure SQL Database
14 19 (0.95%) Big Data
15 18 (0.90%) MySQL
16 16 (0.80%) NoSQL
17 15 (0.75%) Power Query
18 13 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 119 (5.94%) JIRA
2 104 (5.19%) Git
3 52 (2.60%) Jenkins
4 46 (2.30%) GitLab
5 33 (1.65%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.10%) Selenium
6 22 (1.10%) Snyk
7 21 (1.05%) LabVIEW
8 18 (0.90%) Cypress.io
8 18 (0.90%) Postman
9 12 (0.60%) Cucumber
10 11 (0.55%) Burp Suite
11 10 (0.50%) JMeter
11 10 (0.50%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.45%) Gatling
13 8 (0.40%) Rational Rhapsody
13 8 (0.40%) REST Assured
14 7 (0.35%) Hudson
14 7 (0.35%) Metasploit
14 7 (0.35%) MLflow
General
1 653 (32.60%) Social Skills
2 507 (25.31%) Finance
3 484 (24.16%) Analytical Skills
4 184 (9.19%) Aerospace
5 180 (8.99%) Manufacturing
6 177 (8.84%) Electronics
7 174 (8.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 110 (5.49%) Law
9 95 (4.74%) Banking
10 81 (4.04%) Public Sector
11 80 (3.99%) Retail
12 73 (3.64%) Marketing
13 72 (3.59%) Pharmaceutical
14 68 (3.39%) Organisational Skills
15 58 (2.90%) Automotive
16 54 (2.70%) Legal
17 50 (2.50%) Telecoms
18 43 (2.15%) Games
19 42 (2.10%) Influencing Skills
20 36 (1.80%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 367 (18.32%) Senior
2 247 (12.33%) Analyst
3 221 (11.03%) Systems Engineer
4 165 (8.24%) Lead
5 123 (6.14%) Test Engineer
6 110 (5.49%) Architect
7 97 (4.84%) Data Engineer
8 88 (4.39%) Developer
9 75 (3.74%) Business Analyst
10 71 (3.54%) Software Engineer
11 69 (3.44%) Consultant
12 65 (3.25%) Principal Engineer
12 65 (3.25%) Validation Engineer
13 62 (3.10%) Data Analyst
14 49 (2.45%) Support Engineer
15 48 (2.40%) Data Scientist
15 48 (2.40%) Embedded Engineer
15 48 (2.40%) Network Engineer
16 42 (2.10%) Electronics Engineer
17 41 (2.05%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (3.54%) Terraform
2 50 (2.50%) RESTful
3 48 (2.40%) Kafka
4 43 (2.15%) REST
5 38 (1.90%) Node.js
6 30 (1.50%) JSON
7 29 (1.45%) .NET
8 28 (1.40%) XML
9 27 (1.35%) LDAP
10 26 (1.30%) Playwright
10 26 (1.30%) PySpark
11 25 (1.25%) Middleware
12 24 (1.20%) CSS
13 23 (1.15%) HTML
14 22 (1.10%) FastAPI
15 21 (1.05%) ModSecurity
15 21 (1.05%) Swagger
16 20 (1.00%) React
17 19 (0.95%) Regular Expression
17 19 (0.95%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 142 (7.09%) Cloud Native
2 122 (6.09%) Onboarding
3 112 (5.59%) Management Information System
4 77 (3.84%) Data Centre
5 75 (3.74%) Product Ownership
6 57 (2.85%) Embedded Systems
6 57 (2.85%) Enterprise Software
7 56 (2.80%) Data Structures
7 56 (2.80%) Driving Licence
8 54 (2.70%) Distributed Systems
9 48 (2.40%) Low-Code
10 47 (2.35%) Algorithms
11 43 (2.15%) Life Science
12 40 (2.00%) Analytical Mindset
13 38 (1.90%) Robotics
14 37 (1.85%) AI Agents
15 34 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
15 34 (1.70%) SCADA
15 34 (1.70%) Video\Live Streaming
16 30 (1.50%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 128 (6.39%) Linux
2 90 (4.49%) Windows
3 35 (1.75%) Windows Server
4 23 (1.15%) Unix
5 19 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.50%) Android
7 9 (0.45%) Embedded Linux
8 6 (0.30%) FreeRTOS
8 6 (0.30%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.25%) Kali Linux
10 4 (0.20%) Mac OS X
11 3 (0.15%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.100%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.100%) ThreadX
12 2 (0.100%) VMS
12 2 (0.100%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.050%) AIX
13 1 (0.050%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 505 (25.21%) Problem-Solving
2 454 (22.67%) Continuous Improvement
3 382 (19.07%) Agile
4 353 (17.62%) AI
5 311 (15.53%) Verification and Validation
6 294 (14.68%) CI/CD
7 264 (13.18%) Stakeholder Management
8 252 (12.58%) Test Automation
9 242 (12.08%) Migration
10 233 (11.63%) Analytics
11 223 (11.13%) Mentoring
12 206 (10.28%) Software Engineering
13 202 (10.08%) Decision-Making
14 189 (9.44%) DevOps
15 184 (9.19%) Business Intelligence
16 175 (8.74%) Machine Learning
17 172 (8.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 171 (8.54%) Roadmaps
19 168 (8.39%) Data Analysis
20 158 (7.89%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 430 (21.47%) Python
2 364 (18.17%) SQL
3 87 (4.34%) C++
4 81 (4.04%) Java
5 80 (3.99%) C
6 60 (3.00%) JavaScript
7 54 (2.70%) Go
8 52 (2.60%) MATLAB
9 46 (2.30%) C#
10 31 (1.55%) Bash
11 27 (1.35%) PowerShell
12 26 (1.30%) Embedded C
13 22 (1.10%) Scala
14 20 (1.00%) TypeScript
15 18 (0.90%) Embedded C++
16 15 (0.75%) R
17 12 (0.60%) T-SQL
18 10 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 8 (0.40%) ABAP
19 8 (0.40%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 424 (21.17%) Degree
2 390 (19.47%) Security Cleared
3 265 (13.23%) SC Cleared
4 111 (5.54%) BPSS Clearance
5 98 (4.89%) DV Cleared
6 85 (4.24%) Master's Degree
7 45 (2.25%) Computer Science Degree
8 35 (1.75%) CISSP
9 32 (1.60%) PhD
9 32 (1.60%) PMI Certification
10 31 (1.55%) Chartered Engineer
11 29 (1.45%) HNC
12 28 (1.40%) HND
13 27 (1.35%) CISM
14 24 (1.20%) AWS Certification
15 23 (1.15%) ACCA
15 23 (1.15%) Azure Certification
16 22 (1.10%) CIMA
17 20 (1.00%) Cisco Certification
18 19 (0.95%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 300 (14.98%) Data Quality
2 271 (13.53%) QA
3 66 (3.30%) Accessibility
4 53 (2.65%) GDPR
5 36 (1.80%) GRC
6 26 (1.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 24 (1.20%) GxP
8 22 (1.10%) IEC 61508
9 18 (0.90%) NIST
10 17 (0.85%) PMO
11 15 (0.75%) ISO 26262
12 14 (0.70%) ISO 9001
12 14 (0.70%) SLA
13 11 (0.55%) GAAP
13 11 (0.55%) GMP
13 11 (0.55%) IFRS
13 11 (0.55%) WCAG
14 10 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 15288
14 10 (0.50%) SOC 2
15 9 (0.45%) Def Stans
System Software
1 77 (3.84%) Docker
2 76 (3.79%) Firmware
3 47 (2.35%) Active Directory
4 35 (1.75%) Embedded Firmware
5 28 (1.40%) Virtual Machines
6 21 (1.05%) vSphere
7 10 (0.50%) VMware Infrastructure
8 4 (0.20%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.15%) KVM
10 2 (0.100%) iptables
10 2 (0.100%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.100%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.050%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.050%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 77 (3.84%) Kubernetes
2 36 (1.80%) Grafana
3 28 (1.40%) Ansible
4 26 (1.30%) Functional Safety
5 15 (0.75%) Prometheus
5 15 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (0.50%) Cilium
7 7 (0.35%) Kibana
7 7 (0.35%) Microsoft Intune
7 7 (0.35%) Nessus
7 7 (0.35%) Nmap
7 7 (0.35%) Puppet
8 5 (0.25%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 5 (0.25%) FortiGate
8 5 (0.25%) SCCM
8 5 (0.25%) WMI
9 4 (0.20%) BMC PATROL
9 4 (0.20%) HP Fortify
9 4 (0.20%) Kubeflow
10 2 (0.100%) WSUS
Vendors
1 258 (12.88%) Microsoft
2 110 (5.49%) SAP
3 94 (4.69%) Oracle
4 57 (2.85%) Salesforce
5 51 (2.55%) Databricks
6 50 (2.50%) ServiceNow
7 49 (2.45%) Cisco
8 36 (1.80%) Google
9 29 (1.45%) CrowdStrike
9 29 (1.45%) VMware
10 27 (1.35%) EMC
11 26 (1.30%) Palo Alto
12 24 (1.20%) Red Hat
13 22 (1.10%) Tenable
14 15 (0.75%) McAfee
15 14 (0.70%) IBM
15 14 (0.70%) Splunk
16 13 (0.65%) Workday
17 12 (0.60%) ForgeRock
17 12 (0.60%) Okta