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

6 months to
12 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 67 86 175
Rank change year-on-year +19 +89 +20
Permanent jobs citing Validation 2,448 1,470 1,012
As % of all permanent jobs in England 2.36% 3.43% 1.57%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.20% 3.86% 1.90%
Number of salaries quoted 1,442 395 374
10th Percentile £36,250 £38,720 £37,138
25th Percentile £42,750 £41,250 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -15.38%
75th Percentile £72,500 £77,500 £75,000
90th Percentile £86,250 £90,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £58,500 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +6.36% -4.35% -11.54%

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 76,552 38,090 53,382
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.78% 88.90% 82.72%
Number of salaries quoted 53,565 21,805 28,465
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,250 £32,750
25th Percentile £41,750 £36,250 £44,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -1.32%
75th Percentile £80,000 £75,000 £78,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £97,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -

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 October 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 October 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 +80 633 £67,500 -15.63% 1,289
South East -12 506 £64,500 +17.27% 336
North of England +120 498 £51,000 +6.96% 248
Midlands -12 321 £50,000 -9.09% 174
North West +111 307 £54,875 +9.63% 133
South West +29 249 £55,000 +7.32% 162
East of England -39 217 £55,000 -10.20% 167
West Midlands +48 176 £47,500 -13.64% 117
East Midlands -34 145 £50,000 +17.65% 56
Yorkshire +23 100 £42,500 - 83
North East 0 91 £55,000 +57.14% 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 53 (2.17%) Apache Spark
2 45 (1.84%) Apache
3 43 (1.76%) Apache Airflow
4 35 (1.43%) SharePoint
5 33 (1.35%) Confluence
6 32 (1.31%) CMS
7 19 (0.78%) Jupyter
7 19 (0.78%) Microsoft Exchange
8 13 (0.53%) SAS
9 10 (0.41%) WinCC
10 6 (0.25%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 6 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
11 4 (0.16%) Artix
12 3 (0.12%) nginx
12 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.082%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.082%) FactoryTalk
14 1 (0.041%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.041%) WebSphere
Applications
1 159 (6.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 68 (2.78%) Microsoft Office
3 54 (2.21%) Simulink
4 38 (1.55%) Microsoft Project
5 27 (1.10%) Spreadsheet
6 22 (0.90%) AutoCAD
7 19 (0.78%) SOLIDWORKS
8 15 (0.61%) Revit
9 14 (0.57%) MS Visio
10 13 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
11 12 (0.49%) OrCAD
12 10 (0.41%) EPLAN
12 10 (0.41%) Navisworks
13 7 (0.29%) Notion
14 6 (0.25%) Mathcad
15 5 (0.20%) Stateflow
16 4 (0.16%) CANalyzer
16 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
17 3 (0.12%) Autodesk Inventor
17 3 (0.12%) Productboard
Business Applications
1 39 (1.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (1.51%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.41%) Workday HCM
4 9 (0.37%) SAP MDG
5 8 (0.33%) NetSuite
6 7 (0.29%) Elite 3E
6 7 (0.29%) Infor M3
6 7 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.25%) Oracle Applications
7 6 (0.25%) SAP ERP
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Financials
9 4 (0.16%) iTrent
9 4 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.16%) Teamcenter
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.12%) Maximo
10 3 (0.12%) Sage 200
10 3 (0.12%) SAP MDG-BP
10 3 (0.12%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 333 (13.60%) Azure
2 258 (10.54%) AWS
3 191 (7.80%) Power Platform
4 96 (3.92%) GCP
5 84 (3.43%) GitHub
6 78 (3.19%) Azure DevOps
7 74 (3.02%) SaaS
8 69 (2.82%) Microsoft 365
9 55 (2.25%) Serverless
10 48 (1.96%) Entra ID
11 47 (1.92%) Amazon S3
12 39 (1.59%) GitHub Actions
13 36 (1.47%) Microsoft Copilot
14 33 (1.35%) Dynamics 365
15 31 (1.27%) Microsoft Purview
16 29 (1.18%) Amazon EMR
17 28 (1.14%) Cloud Computing
18 27 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
19 24 (0.98%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 24 (0.98%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 73 (2.98%) DNS
2 70 (2.86%) Firewall
3 56 (2.29%) Broadband
4 51 (2.08%) TCP/IP
5 49 (2.00%) VPN
6 41 (1.67%) Modbus
7 40 (1.63%) VLAN
8 39 (1.59%) Ethernet
8 39 (1.59%) Wireless
9 36 (1.47%) WAN
10 35 (1.43%) Network Security
11 32 (1.31%) OSPF
12 31 (1.27%) LAN
13 28 (1.14%) MQTT
14 26 (1.06%) Wireshark
15 24 (0.98%) SD-WAN
16 22 (0.90%) BGP
17 21 (0.86%) DHCP
18 18 (0.74%) 5G
18 18 (0.74%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 178 (7.27%) Power BI
2 67 (2.74%) Metadata
3 66 (2.70%) Data Warehouse
4 57 (2.33%) SQL Server
5 47 (1.92%) Data Lake
6 46 (1.88%) PostgreSQL
7 39 (1.59%) Amazon Athena
8 35 (1.43%) Relational Database
8 35 (1.43%) Tableau
9 29 (1.18%) MongoDB
10 27 (1.10%) Big Data
11 26 (1.06%) NoSQL
11 26 (1.06%) Power Query
12 24 (0.98%) BigQuery
13 22 (0.90%) DynamoDB
13 22 (0.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 21 (0.86%) Azure SQL Database
15 20 (0.82%) Amazon Redshift
16 19 (0.78%) MySQL
17 18 (0.74%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 134 (5.47%) JIRA
2 128 (5.23%) Git
3 62 (2.53%) GitLab
3 62 (2.53%) Jenkins
4 46 (1.88%) Rational DOORS
5 33 (1.35%) LabVIEW
6 20 (0.82%) Selenium
7 17 (0.69%) Cypress.io
7 17 (0.69%) Postman
8 15 (0.61%) Snyk
9 13 (0.53%) Claude Code
10 12 (0.49%) Eclipse
11 11 (0.45%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.45%) Rational Rhapsody
12 10 (0.41%) Sonatype Nexus
13 9 (0.37%) Cucumber
13 9 (0.37%) JMeter
14 8 (0.33%) Gatling
14 8 (0.33%) Metasploit
14 8 (0.33%) MLflow
General
1 828 (33.82%) Social Skills
2 621 (25.37%) Finance
3 584 (23.86%) Analytical Skills
4 251 (10.25%) Manufacturing
5 246 (10.05%) Electronics
6 236 (9.64%) Aerospace
7 228 (9.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 126 (5.15%) Law
9 115 (4.70%) Marketing
10 112 (4.58%) Public Sector
11 107 (4.37%) Organisational Skills
12 106 (4.33%) Banking
13 99 (4.04%) Retail
14 92 (3.76%) Telecoms
15 84 (3.43%) Pharmaceutical
16 83 (3.39%) Automotive
17 54 (2.21%) Legal
18 48 (1.96%) Military
19 43 (1.76%) Documentation Skills
20 41 (1.67%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 434 (17.73%) Senior
2 266 (10.87%) Systems Engineer
3 250 (10.21%) Analyst
4 193 (7.88%) Lead
5 123 (5.02%) Data Engineer
6 122 (4.98%) Test Engineer
7 112 (4.58%) Architect
8 103 (4.21%) Developer
9 92 (3.76%) Software Engineer
10 90 (3.68%) Consultant
11 87 (3.55%) Principal Engineer
12 80 (3.27%) Electronics Engineer
13 74 (3.02%) Business Analyst
14 61 (2.49%) Data Analyst
15 60 (2.45%) Network Engineer
16 58 (2.37%) Automation Engineer
17 55 (2.25%) Validation Engineer
18 53 (2.17%) Design Engineer
19 50 (2.04%) Data Scientist
19 50 (2.04%) Principal Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (3.68%) Terraform
2 69 (2.82%) REST
3 60 (2.45%) Kafka
3 60 (2.45%) RESTful
4 54 (2.21%) .NET
5 51 (2.08%) Node.js
6 38 (1.55%) PySpark
7 37 (1.51%) FastAPI
7 37 (1.51%) JSON
8 36 (1.47%) Playwright
9 33 (1.35%) CSS
10 32 (1.31%) HTML
10 32 (1.31%) XML
11 30 (1.23%) React
12 29 (1.18%) Swagger
13 26 (1.06%) RabbitMQ
14 25 (1.02%) Middleware
14 25 (1.02%) OpenAPI
15 23 (0.94%) LDAP
16 22 (0.90%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 158 (6.45%) Cloud Native
1 158 (6.45%) Onboarding
2 151 (6.17%) Management Information System
3 78 (3.19%) Product Ownership
4 74 (3.02%) Data Centre
4 74 (3.02%) Driving Licence
5 68 (2.78%) Distributed Systems
6 66 (2.70%) Embedded Systems
7 65 (2.66%) Data Structures
8 64 (2.61%) Enterprise Software
9 59 (2.41%) SCADA
10 53 (2.17%) AI Agents
11 49 (2.00%) Life Science
12 47 (1.92%) Algorithms
13 42 (1.72%) Robotics
14 38 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
14 38 (1.55%) Low-Code
15 37 (1.51%) Analytical Mindset
16 34 (1.39%) Analogue Electronics
17 32 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 135 (5.51%) Linux
2 95 (3.88%) Windows
3 36 (1.47%) Windows Server
4 27 (1.10%) Unix
5 13 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.41%) Android
7 8 (0.33%) Embedded Linux
8 7 (0.29%) macOS
9 4 (0.16%) FreeRTOS
9 4 (0.16%) Kali Linux
10 3 (0.12%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.082%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.082%) VMS
11 2 (0.082%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.041%) AIX
12 1 (0.041%) CentOS
12 1 (0.041%) OpenWrt
12 1 (0.041%) ThreadX
12 1 (0.041%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 638 (26.06%) Problem-Solving
2 558 (22.79%) Continuous Improvement
3 447 (18.26%) Agile
3 447 (18.26%) AI
4 415 (16.95%) Verification and Validation
5 350 (14.30%) CI/CD
6 332 (13.56%) Stakeholder Management
7 320 (13.07%) Test Automation
8 304 (12.42%) Migration
9 271 (11.07%) Analytics
10 260 (10.62%) Mentoring
11 250 (10.21%) Software Engineering
12 242 (9.89%) Decision-Making
13 234 (9.56%) DevOps
14 218 (8.91%) Business Intelligence
15 211 (8.62%) Data Analysis
16 208 (8.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 203 (8.29%) Roadmaps
18 194 (7.92%) Data Migration
19 191 (7.80%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 516 (21.08%) Python
2 439 (17.93%) SQL
3 98 (4.00%) C++
4 96 (3.92%) Java
5 94 (3.84%) C
6 77 (3.15%) C#
7 72 (2.94%) JavaScript
8 67 (2.74%) MATLAB
9 45 (1.84%) Go
10 39 (1.59%) PowerShell
11 37 (1.51%) Bash
12 31 (1.27%) TypeScript
13 29 (1.18%) Embedded C
14 25 (1.02%) Scala
15 24 (0.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 22 (0.90%) R
17 17 (0.69%) Embedded C++
18 13 (0.53%) Shell Script
18 13 (0.53%) T-SQL
19 11 (0.45%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 547 (22.34%) Degree
2 508 (20.75%) Security Cleared
3 371 (15.16%) SC Cleared
4 112 (4.58%) BPSS Clearance
5 108 (4.41%) Master's Degree
6 97 (3.96%) DV Cleared
7 48 (1.96%) PhD
8 47 (1.92%) Computer Science Degree
9 42 (1.72%) HND
10 36 (1.47%) Chartered Engineer
11 35 (1.43%) HNC
12 34 (1.39%) PMI Certification
13 33 (1.35%) Azure Certification
14 31 (1.27%) ACCA
14 31 (1.27%) CISSP
15 28 (1.14%) CIMA
16 27 (1.10%) AWS Certification
17 26 (1.06%) PMP
18 23 (0.94%) Cisco Certification
19 20 (0.82%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 375 (15.32%) Data Quality
2 296 (12.09%) QA
3 80 (3.27%) Accessibility
4 62 (2.53%) GDPR
5 32 (1.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 29 (1.18%) GRC
7 28 (1.14%) GxP
8 22 (0.90%) SLA
9 20 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 18 (0.74%) IEC 61508
10 18 (0.74%) NIST
11 17 (0.69%) ISO 9001
12 16 (0.65%) ISO 19650
13 14 (0.57%) GMP
14 11 (0.45%) ISO 26262
14 11 (0.45%) PMO
14 11 (0.45%) SOC 2
15 9 (0.37%) WCAG
16 8 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
16 8 (0.33%) GAAP
System Software
1 114 (4.66%) Docker
2 94 (3.84%) Firmware
3 53 (2.17%) Active Directory
4 43 (1.76%) Embedded Firmware
5 21 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
6 15 (0.61%) vSphere
7 9 (0.37%) VMware Infrastructure
8 6 (0.25%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 2 (0.082%) iptables
10 2 (0.082%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.082%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.082%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.041%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.041%) LXC
Systems Management
1 94 (3.84%) Kubernetes
2 42 (1.72%) Grafana
3 38 (1.55%) Ansible
4 28 (1.14%) Functional Safety
5 18 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
6 16 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (0.61%) Prometheus
8 13 (0.53%) Puppet
9 9 (0.37%) BMC PATROL
10 8 (0.33%) Kibana
10 8 (0.33%) Nessus
10 8 (0.33%) Nmap
11 7 (0.29%) Cilium
12 5 (0.20%) Argo
12 5 (0.20%) Autotask
12 5 (0.20%) Rancher
12 5 (0.20%) SCCM
12 5 (0.20%) WMI
12 5 (0.20%) yum
13 4 (0.16%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 346 (14.13%) Microsoft
2 122 (4.98%) SAP
3 101 (4.13%) Salesforce
4 99 (4.04%) Oracle
5 73 (2.98%) EMC
6 66 (2.70%) Databricks
7 55 (2.25%) Cisco
7 55 (2.25%) ServiceNow
8 39 (1.59%) Adobe
9 37 (1.51%) Google
10 30 (1.23%) Samsung
11 28 (1.14%) TikTok
12 26 (1.06%) CrowdStrike
13 25 (1.02%) Sage
14 24 (0.98%) Thales
15 22 (0.90%) Informatica
15 22 (0.90%) VMware
16 21 (0.86%) IBM
17 20 (0.82%) Foundry
17 20 (0.82%) Siemens