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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 79 172
Rank change year-on-year +8 +93 +29
Permanent jobs citing Validation 2,204 1,549 1,066
As % of all permanent jobs in England 2.19% 3.59% 1.55%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.99% 4.04% 1.90%
Number of salaries quoted 1,331 432 410
10th Percentile £35,750 £38,750 £38,973
25th Percentile £42,750 £41,250 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £57,004
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -3.52% -11.62%
75th Percentile £71,000 £75,900 £72,500
90th Percentile £86,250 £90,000 £93,875
UK median annual salary £59,000 £55,000 £57,767
% change year-on-year +7.27% -4.79% -9.74%

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 73,754 38,333 56,057
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.28% 88.82% 81.58%
Number of salaries quoted 52,343 22,038 32,065
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £32,000
25th Percentile £42,500 £37,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -7.26%
75th Percentile £80,000 £76,250 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £96,250
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%

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 16 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 16 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 +71 550 £68,375 -14.53% 2,356
South East -15 488 £62,500 +16.28% 659
North of England +101 458 £52,726 +17.17% 457
North West +108 283 £55,000 +12.61% 280
Midlands -29 260 £50,000 -9.09% 391
South West +19 231 £58,750 +14.63% 381
East of England -46 183 £55,000 -8.33% 425
West Midlands +40 147 £50,000 -9.09% 276
East Midlands -47 113 £48,372 +13.82% 114
North East +5 88 £55,000 +57.14% 67
Yorkshire +24 87 £42,750 +0.59% 120
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 46 (2.09%) Apache Spark
2 42 (1.91%) Apache Airflow
3 39 (1.77%) Apache
4 35 (1.59%) Confluence
5 32 (1.45%) SharePoint
6 18 (0.82%) Jupyter
7 13 (0.59%) SAS
8 8 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
8 8 (0.36%) WinCC
9 5 (0.23%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.18%) CMS
11 3 (0.14%) Artix
11 3 (0.14%) Kinematics
11 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.091%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.091%) IIS
12 2 (0.091%) nginx
13 1 (0.045%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.045%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 129 (5.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 67 (3.04%) Microsoft Office
3 47 (2.13%) Simulink
4 37 (1.68%) Microsoft Project
5 21 (0.95%) Spreadsheet
6 18 (0.82%) SOLIDWORKS
7 15 (0.68%) AutoCAD
7 15 (0.68%) MS Visio
8 9 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 7 (0.32%) Revit
10 6 (0.27%) EPLAN
11 5 (0.23%) Mathcad
11 5 (0.23%) Navisworks
11 5 (0.23%) OrCAD
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.14%) Autodesk Inventor
12 3 (0.14%) CANalyzer
12 3 (0.14%) LaTeX
12 3 (0.14%) Productboard
12 3 (0.14%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 40 (1.81%) Dynamics CRM
2 39 (1.77%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.50%) SAP MDG
4 9 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.36%) NetSuite
5 8 (0.36%) Oracle Applications
5 8 (0.36%) Workday HCM
6 7 (0.32%) SAP ERP
7 5 (0.23%) Elite 3E
7 5 (0.23%) Infor M3
7 5 (0.23%) iTrent
7 5 (0.23%) Oracle Financials
7 5 (0.23%) SAP MDG-BP
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
8 4 (0.18%) Teamcenter
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.14%) SystmOne
10 2 (0.091%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 281 (12.75%) Azure
2 239 (10.84%) AWS
3 169 (7.67%) Power Platform
4 88 (3.99%) GCP
5 65 (2.95%) Azure DevOps
6 63 (2.86%) SaaS
7 62 (2.81%) Microsoft 365
8 61 (2.77%) GitHub
9 54 (2.45%) Serverless
10 42 (1.91%) Amazon S3
11 35 (1.59%) Dynamics 365
12 32 (1.45%) Entra ID
12 32 (1.45%) GitHub Actions
13 31 (1.41%) Microsoft Copilot
14 25 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
14 25 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
15 24 (1.09%) Amazon EMR
15 24 (1.09%) Microsoft Purview
16 22 (1.00%) PowerApps
17 21 (0.95%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 70 (3.18%) DNS
2 63 (2.86%) Firewall
3 55 (2.50%) Broadband
4 37 (1.68%) TCP/IP
5 36 (1.63%) VPN
6 34 (1.54%) Network Security
7 33 (1.50%) WAN
8 31 (1.41%) Wireless
9 30 (1.36%) Ethernet
10 28 (1.27%) Modbus
11 26 (1.18%) LAN
11 26 (1.18%) VLAN
12 25 (1.13%) OSPF
13 22 (1.00%) MQTT
14 21 (0.95%) BGP
14 21 (0.95%) SD-WAN
14 21 (0.95%) Wireshark
15 17 (0.77%) 5G
15 17 (0.77%) HTTP
15 17 (0.77%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (7.12%) Power BI
2 57 (2.59%) Data Warehouse
3 52 (2.36%) Metadata
4 49 (2.22%) Data Lake
5 48 (2.18%) SQL Server
6 46 (2.09%) PostgreSQL
7 38 (1.72%) Tableau
8 35 (1.59%) Amazon Athena
9 31 (1.41%) Relational Database
10 30 (1.36%) MongoDB
11 25 (1.13%) Big Data
11 25 (1.13%) BigQuery
11 25 (1.13%) DynamoDB
12 22 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 21 (0.95%) Azure SQL Database
13 21 (0.95%) NoSQL
13 21 (0.95%) Semantic Layer
14 18 (0.82%) Amazon Redshift
14 18 (0.82%) MySQL
15 16 (0.73%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 129 (5.85%) JIRA
2 116 (5.26%) Git
3 58 (2.63%) Jenkins
4 50 (2.27%) GitLab
5 39 (1.77%) Rational DOORS
6 27 (1.23%) LabVIEW
7 26 (1.18%) Selenium
8 22 (1.00%) Snyk
9 20 (0.91%) Postman
10 18 (0.82%) Cypress.io
11 12 (0.54%) Burp Suite
12 11 (0.50%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.50%) JMeter
13 10 (0.45%) TeamCity
14 9 (0.41%) Eclipse
14 9 (0.41%) Gatling
14 9 (0.41%) MLflow
14 9 (0.41%) REST Assured
15 8 (0.36%) Rational Rhapsody
15 8 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 726 (32.94%) Social Skills
2 553 (25.09%) Finance
3 528 (23.96%) Analytical Skills
4 213 (9.66%) Aerospace
5 204 (9.26%) Electronics
6 203 (9.21%) Manufacturing
7 175 (7.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 123 (5.58%) Law
9 97 (4.40%) Banking
10 96 (4.36%) Retail
11 93 (4.22%) Organisational Skills
12 89 (4.04%) Public Sector
13 81 (3.68%) Marketing
13 81 (3.68%) Pharmaceutical
14 79 (3.58%) Telecoms
15 70 (3.18%) Automotive
16 53 (2.40%) Legal
17 42 (1.91%) Military
18 40 (1.81%) Influencing Skills
19 38 (1.72%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 389 (17.65%) Senior
2 270 (12.25%) Systems Engineer
3 251 (11.39%) Analyst
4 179 (8.12%) Lead
5 126 (5.72%) Test Engineer
6 111 (5.04%) Architect
7 106 (4.81%) Data Engineer
8 91 (4.13%) Developer
9 78 (3.54%) Business Analyst
10 75 (3.40%) Consultant
11 74 (3.36%) Software Engineer
12 73 (3.31%) Principal Engineer
13 63 (2.86%) Data Analyst
13 63 (2.86%) Validation Engineer
14 59 (2.68%) Electronics Engineer
15 53 (2.40%) Network Engineer
16 49 (2.22%) Embedded Engineer
17 48 (2.18%) Data Scientist
17 48 (2.18%) Support Engineer
18 43 (1.95%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (3.54%) Terraform
2 52 (2.36%) Kafka
2 52 (2.36%) RESTful
3 48 (2.18%) REST
4 42 (1.91%) Node.js
5 34 (1.54%) PySpark
6 33 (1.50%) Playwright
7 32 (1.45%) JSON
8 31 (1.41%) .NET
9 30 (1.36%) XML
10 28 (1.27%) FastAPI
11 26 (1.18%) CSS
11 26 (1.18%) LDAP
12 24 (1.09%) HTML
12 24 (1.09%) Middleware
13 23 (1.04%) React
14 22 (1.00%) Swagger
15 21 (0.95%) ModSecurity
16 18 (0.82%) pytest
16 18 (0.82%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 149 (6.76%) Cloud Native
2 120 (5.44%) Management Information System
2 120 (5.44%) Onboarding
3 80 (3.63%) Data Centre
4 73 (3.31%) Product Ownership
5 61 (2.77%) Driving Licence
6 60 (2.72%) Embedded Systems
6 60 (2.72%) Enterprise Software
7 57 (2.59%) Data Structures
8 55 (2.50%) Distributed Systems
9 46 (2.09%) Algorithms
9 46 (2.09%) Life Science
10 44 (2.00%) SCADA
11 42 (1.91%) Analytical Mindset
12 40 (1.81%) AI Agents
12 40 (1.81%) Low-Code
13 39 (1.77%) Robotics
14 35 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
15 31 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
16 30 (1.36%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 133 (6.03%) Linux
2 89 (4.04%) Windows
3 32 (1.45%) Windows Server
4 24 (1.09%) Unix
5 17 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.45%) Android
7 8 (0.36%) Embedded Linux
8 7 (0.32%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.27%) FreeRTOS
10 5 (0.23%) Kali Linux
11 4 (0.18%) Mac OS X
12 3 (0.14%) Apple iOS
13 2 (0.091%) Robot Operating System
13 2 (0.091%) VMS
13 2 (0.091%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.045%) AIX
14 1 (0.045%) OpenWrt
14 1 (0.045%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 561 (25.45%) Problem-Solving
2 482 (21.87%) Continuous Improvement
3 399 (18.10%) Agile
4 382 (17.33%) Verification and Validation
5 372 (16.88%) AI
6 312 (14.16%) CI/CD
7 290 (13.16%) Stakeholder Management
8 277 (12.57%) Migration
9 271 (12.30%) Test Automation
10 238 (10.80%) Analytics
11 231 (10.48%) Mentoring
12 220 (9.98%) Software Engineering
13 210 (9.53%) Decision-Making
14 204 (9.26%) DevOps
15 201 (9.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 199 (9.03%) Data Analysis
17 196 (8.89%) Business Intelligence
18 184 (8.35%) Data Migration
18 184 (8.35%) Roadmaps
19 180 (8.17%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 451 (20.46%) Python
2 396 (17.97%) SQL
3 90 (4.08%) Java
4 89 (4.04%) C++
5 81 (3.68%) C
6 65 (2.95%) JavaScript
7 61 (2.77%) MATLAB
8 50 (2.27%) C#
9 49 (2.22%) Go
10 35 (1.59%) Bash
11 30 (1.36%) Embedded C
12 27 (1.23%) PowerShell
13 24 (1.09%) Scala
14 23 (1.04%) TypeScript
15 18 (0.82%) Embedded C++
15 18 (0.82%) R
16 13 (0.59%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.50%) Shell Script
17 11 (0.50%) T-SQL
18 9 (0.41%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 470 (21.32%) Degree
2 466 (21.14%) Security Cleared
3 336 (15.25%) SC Cleared
4 115 (5.22%) BPSS Clearance
5 97 (4.40%) DV Cleared
6 94 (4.26%) Master's Degree
7 48 (2.18%) Computer Science Degree
8 36 (1.63%) Chartered Engineer
8 36 (1.63%) PhD
9 35 (1.59%) PMI Certification
10 34 (1.54%) HND
11 32 (1.45%) CISSP
12 29 (1.32%) HNC
13 26 (1.18%) ACCA
14 25 (1.13%) Azure Certification
15 24 (1.09%) AWS Certification
16 23 (1.04%) CIMA
16 23 (1.04%) CISM
17 22 (1.00%) PMP
18 21 (0.95%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 334 (15.15%) Data Quality
2 283 (12.84%) QA
3 67 (3.04%) Accessibility
4 54 (2.45%) GDPR
5 37 (1.68%) GRC
6 29 (1.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 27 (1.23%) GxP
8 22 (1.00%) IEC 61508
9 18 (0.82%) NIST
9 18 (0.82%) SLA
10 16 (0.73%) PMO
11 15 (0.68%) ISO 26262
12 14 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 15288
13 13 (0.59%) ISO 9001
14 12 (0.54%) SOC 2
15 11 (0.50%) GMP
16 10 (0.45%) WCAG
17 9 (0.41%) Def Stans
17 9 (0.41%) GAAP
17 9 (0.41%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 86 (3.90%) Docker
2 84 (3.81%) Firmware
3 46 (2.09%) Active Directory
4 40 (1.81%) Embedded Firmware
5 28 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
6 19 (0.86%) vSphere
7 8 (0.36%) VMware Infrastructure
8 4 (0.18%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 2 (0.091%) iptables
10 2 (0.091%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.091%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.045%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 80 (3.63%) Kubernetes
2 37 (1.68%) Grafana
3 32 (1.45%) Ansible
4 28 (1.27%) Functional Safety
5 17 (0.77%) Prometheus
6 15 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
7 10 (0.45%) Cilium
8 8 (0.36%) Nessus
8 8 (0.36%) Nmap
8 8 (0.36%) Puppet
9 7 (0.32%) BMC PATROL
9 7 (0.32%) Kibana
9 7 (0.32%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.23%) WMI
11 4 (0.18%) FortiGate
11 4 (0.18%) HP Fortify
11 4 (0.18%) Kubeflow
11 4 (0.18%) SCCM
12 3 (0.14%) Argo
12 3 (0.14%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
Vendors
1 281 (12.75%) Microsoft
2 122 (5.54%) SAP
3 100 (4.54%) Oracle
4 58 (2.63%) Salesforce
5 55 (2.50%) ServiceNow
6 54 (2.45%) Databricks
7 50 (2.27%) Cisco
8 42 (1.91%) EMC
9 37 (1.68%) Google
10 30 (1.36%) CrowdStrike
11 26 (1.18%) Palo Alto
12 25 (1.13%) VMware
13 23 (1.04%) Sage
13 23 (1.04%) Tenable
14 21 (0.95%) Red Hat
15 16 (0.73%) Civica
15 16 (0.73%) IBM
15 16 (0.73%) Thales
16 15 (0.68%) Siemens
16 15 (0.68%) Splunk