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

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 145 180 178
Rank change year-on-year +35 -2 -26
Permanent jobs citing Validation 975 674 1,201
As % of all permanent jobs in England 1.47% 1.76% 1.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.89% 1.88% 1.85%
Number of salaries quoted 564 328 716
10th Percentile £35,000 £38,275 £35,375
25th Percentile £45,000 £45,000 £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 £78,538 £71,250 £73,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,723 £85,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +5.26% +3.64% -11.41%

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 51,545 35,897 65,042
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 77.85% 93.55% 87.04%
Number of salaries quoted 31,924 20,241 50,770
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,000 £29,007
25th Percentile £40,000 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £77,500 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.29%

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 18 March 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 18 March 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 +64 324 £75,000 +7.14% 267
South East +62 223 £53,500 +1.90% 224
North of England -3 146 £60,000 +26.07% 145
Midlands -10 117 £37,500 -31.82% 122
North West +11 100 £60,000 +25.83% 70
East of England -15 87 £60,000 +9.09% 98
West Midlands +4 73 £42,215 -35.05% 82
South West -23 65 £55,000 - 98
East Midlands -31 42 £35,000 -31.37% 39
Yorkshire -31 32 £60,000 +26.32% 49
North East -12 14 £48,500 +6.59% 26
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 39 (4.00%) Apache Airflow
2 27 (2.77%) Apache Spark
3 23 (2.36%) Apache
4 13 (1.33%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (1.23%) Appian
6 11 (1.13%) CMS
7 10 (1.03%) Confluence
7 10 (1.03%) SharePoint
8 4 (0.41%) Headless CMS
9 3 (0.31%) Kinematics
10 2 (0.21%) WordPress
11 1 (0.10%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.10%) IIS
11 1 (0.10%) Jupyter
11 1 (0.10%) SAS
Applications
1 88 (9.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 50 (5.13%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (1.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (1.74%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.72%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 5 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.41%) Fusion 360
7 4 (0.41%) Simulink
8 2 (0.21%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.21%) Adobe Captivate
8 2 (0.21%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.21%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.21%) Elementor
8 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle Smart View
8 2 (0.21%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.21%) Solid Edge
8 2 (0.21%) SOLIDWORKS
8 2 (0.21%) Weka
9 1 (0.10%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 20 (2.05%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.51%) SAP ERP
4 4 (0.41%) Loan IQ
4 4 (0.41%) SAP BPC
5 3 (0.31%) Workday HCM
6 2 (0.21%) IBM Planning Analytics
6 2 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.21%) SAP CX
6 2 (0.21%) SAP MDG
7 1 (0.10%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.10%) Endur
7 1 (0.10%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.10%) Oracle Financials
7 1 (0.10%) Primavera
7 1 (0.10%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.10%) SAP Business ByDesign
7 1 (0.10%) SAP FSCM
7 1 (0.10%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 139 (14.26%) Azure
2 92 (9.44%) Power Platform
3 79 (8.10%) AWS
4 53 (5.44%) SaaS
5 38 (3.90%) Azure DevOps
6 35 (3.59%) GCP
7 24 (2.46%) Amazon S3
7 24 (2.46%) Power Automate
8 23 (2.36%) Azure Data Factory
8 23 (2.36%) Dynamics 365
8 23 (2.36%) Snowflake
9 19 (1.95%) dbt
10 18 (1.85%) Entra ID
11 17 (1.74%) GitHub
12 16 (1.64%) Microsoft 365
13 13 (1.33%) OpenShift
14 12 (1.23%) Anthropic Claude
14 12 (1.23%) Azure AI
14 12 (1.23%) Datadog
15 10 (1.03%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 25 (2.56%) CHAP
2 16 (1.64%) Broadband
3 15 (1.54%) WAN
4 13 (1.33%) SD-WAN
5 12 (1.23%) Firewall
6 11 (1.13%) 5G
6 11 (1.13%) DNS
7 9 (0.92%) HTTP
7 9 (0.92%) TCP/IP
8 8 (0.82%) MQTT
9 7 (0.72%) LAN
9 7 (0.72%) Wireless
10 6 (0.62%) Modbus
10 6 (0.62%) NAS
11 5 (0.51%) Cisco IOS
11 5 (0.51%) WAAS
12 4 (0.41%) SMTP
12 4 (0.41%) VPN
13 3 (0.31%) VoIP
13 3 (0.31%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 90 (9.23%) Power BI
2 42 (4.31%) SQL Server
3 36 (3.69%) Tableau
4 27 (2.77%) Relational Database
5 25 (2.56%) Metadata
6 23 (2.36%) Data Warehouse
6 23 (2.36%) PostgreSQL
7 14 (1.44%) Azure SQL Database
7 14 (1.44%) Oracle Reports
7 14 (1.44%) Spark SQL
8 13 (1.33%) Apache Hive
8 13 (1.33%) Impala
8 13 (1.33%) MySQL
8 13 (1.33%) Oracle Database
8 13 (1.33%) Parquet
9 12 (1.23%) Pinecone
10 11 (1.13%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 10 (1.03%) Amazon Redshift
11 10 (1.03%) Spotfire
12 9 (0.92%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 56 (5.74%) Git
2 46 (4.72%) JIRA
3 35 (3.59%) Rational DOORS
4 16 (1.64%) Jenkins
4 16 (1.64%) Postman
5 14 (1.44%) GitLab
5 14 (1.44%) LabVIEW
5 14 (1.44%) MLflow
6 13 (1.33%) IBM UrbanCode
7 12 (1.23%) Cucumber
8 11 (1.13%) Eclipse
8 11 (1.13%) JMeter
9 10 (1.03%) TestRail
10 9 (0.92%) Selenium
11 7 (0.72%) Locust
12 6 (0.62%) LoadRunner
12 6 (0.62%) SoapUI
12 6 (0.62%) Subversion
13 5 (0.51%) SpecFlow
14 4 (0.41%) Zephyr
General
1 346 (35.49%) Social Skills
2 251 (25.74%) Finance
3 234 (24.00%) Analytical Skills
4 89 (9.13%) Banking
5 55 (5.64%) Manufacturing
6 47 (4.82%) Electronics
7 45 (4.62%) Financial Institution
8 44 (4.51%) Marketing
9 39 (4.00%) Law
10 37 (3.79%) Legal
11 36 (3.69%) Aerospace
12 35 (3.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 33 (3.38%) Presentation Skills
14 29 (2.97%) Retail
15 27 (2.77%) Organisational Skills
16 25 (2.56%) Public Sector
17 21 (2.15%) Documentation Skills
18 20 (2.05%) Telecoms
19 18 (1.85%) Pharmaceutical
20 16 (1.64%) Games
Job Titles
1 171 (17.54%) Analyst
2 151 (15.49%) Senior
3 117 (12.00%) Systems Engineer
4 69 (7.08%) Lead
5 61 (6.26%) Validation Engineer
6 57 (5.85%) Architect
7 56 (5.74%) Business Analyst
8 55 (5.64%) Test Engineer
9 48 (4.92%) Integration Engineer
10 45 (4.62%) Data Analyst
11 38 (3.90%) Systems Integration Engineer
12 36 (3.69%) Senior Systems Engineer
13 35 (3.59%) Data Engineer
13 35 (3.59%) Principal Engineer
14 34 (3.49%) Developer
15 32 (3.28%) Junior
16 29 (2.97%) Verification Engineer
17 28 (2.87%) Software Validation Engineer
18 27 (2.77%) Auditor
18 27 (2.77%) Principal Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (5.44%) REST
2 37 (3.79%) Pandas
3 29 (2.97%) JSON
4 27 (2.77%) Middleware
5 24 (2.46%) pytest
6 22 (2.26%) XML
7 19 (1.95%) OAuth
8 18 (1.85%) JWT
8 18 (1.85%) NumPy
8 18 (1.85%) PySpark
8 18 (1.85%) PyTorch
8 18 (1.85%) Swagger
8 18 (1.85%) TensorFlow
9 16 (1.64%) RESTful
10 15 (1.54%) React
10 15 (1.54%) scikit-learn
10 15 (1.54%) Web Services
11 14 (1.44%) .NET
11 14 (1.44%) CSS
11 14 (1.44%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 70 (7.18%) Management Information System
2 50 (5.13%) Onboarding
3 39 (4.00%) Data Structures
4 34 (3.49%) Low-Code
5 30 (3.08%) Legacy Systems
6 28 (2.87%) Product Ownership
6 28 (2.87%) Self-Motivation
7 24 (2.46%) Life Science
8 21 (2.15%) Analytical Mindset
9 17 (1.74%) Enterprise Software
10 14 (1.44%) Blockchain
11 13 (1.33%) Reinsurance
12 12 (1.23%) Algorithms
12 12 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 12 (1.23%) IoT
13 11 (1.13%) Self-Driving Car
14 10 (1.03%) Data Centre
14 10 (1.03%) Hackathon
14 10 (1.03%) SWIFT Messaging Network
15 8 (0.82%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 44 (4.51%) Linux
2 41 (4.21%) Windows
3 17 (1.74%) Unix
4 10 (1.03%) Android
4 10 (1.03%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.41%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.31%) Robot Operating System
7 2 (0.21%) AIX
7 2 (0.21%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.21%) VxWorks
8 1 (0.10%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.10%) FreeRTOS
8 1 (0.10%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 237 (24.31%) Agile
2 218 (22.36%) Problem-Solving
3 169 (17.33%) Verification and Validation
4 161 (16.51%) Continuous Improvement
5 144 (14.77%) Analytics
6 143 (14.67%) Data Validation
7 127 (13.03%) Test Automation
8 115 (11.79%) CI/CD
9 113 (11.59%) Business Intelligence
10 110 (11.28%) Systems Engineering
11 108 (11.08%) AI
12 106 (10.87%) DevOps
13 101 (10.36%) Decision-Making
13 101 (10.36%) Migration
14 98 (10.05%) Data Modelling
14 98 (10.05%) User Acceptance Testing
15 96 (9.85%) ETL
16 94 (9.64%) Mentoring
17 89 (9.13%) Stakeholder Management
18 88 (9.03%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 225 (23.08%) SQL
2 201 (20.62%) Python
3 42 (4.31%) Java
4 30 (3.08%) PowerShell
5 28 (2.87%) JavaScript
6 25 (2.56%) C++
7 23 (2.36%) C
8 18 (1.85%) Bash
8 18 (1.85%) T-SQL
9 14 (1.44%) Go
9 14 (1.44%) MATLAB
9 14 (1.44%) TypeScript
10 12 (1.23%) C#
11 11 (1.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 9 (0.92%) R
12 9 (0.92%) VBA
13 7 (0.72%) VB
14 6 (0.62%) PHP
15 5 (0.51%) VBScript
16 3 (0.31%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 218 (22.36%) Degree
2 121 (12.41%) Security Cleared
3 109 (11.18%) BPSS Clearance
4 49 (5.03%) Master's Degree
5 45 (4.62%) SC Cleared
6 37 (3.79%) Computer Science Degree
7 31 (3.18%) CISA
7 31 (3.18%) CISSP
8 30 (3.08%) CISM
9 25 (2.56%) CGEIT
9 25 (2.56%) FFIEC
9 25 (2.56%) SANS
10 24 (2.46%) DV Cleared
11 20 (2.05%) HNC
12 19 (1.95%) Chartered Engineer
13 17 (1.74%) ISTQB
14 15 (1.54%) HND
14 15 (1.54%) PMI Certification
14 15 (1.54%) PMP
15 7 (0.72%) RIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 136 (13.95%) Data Quality
2 104 (10.67%) QA
3 56 (5.74%) GDPR
4 39 (4.00%) Accessibility
5 38 (3.90%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 26 (2.67%) NIST
7 25 (2.56%) COBIT
8 18 (1.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 18 (1.85%) SLA
9 15 (1.54%) IFRS
10 12 (1.23%) WCAG
11 11 (1.13%) GRC
11 11 (1.13%) ISO 20022
12 10 (1.03%) Good Clinical Practice
13 9 (0.92%) GAAP
13 9 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 8 (0.82%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 8 (0.82%) GxP
15 7 (0.72%) ISO 9001
15 7 (0.72%) SEPA
System Software
1 55 (5.64%) Docker
2 18 (1.85%) Firmware
3 17 (1.74%) Active Directory
4 8 (0.82%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.62%) vSphere
6 5 (0.51%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.21%) Ceph
8 2 (0.21%) Lustre
8 2 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 2 (0.21%) Terminal Services
9 1 (0.10%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.10%) iptables
9 1 (0.10%) OpenAM
9 1 (0.10%) OpenDJ
9 1 (0.10%) OpenIDM
9 1 (0.10%) pfSense
9 1 (0.10%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 51 (5.23%) Kubernetes
2 38 (3.90%) Terraform
3 19 (1.95%) Grafana
4 16 (1.64%) Ansible
5 12 (1.23%) Prometheus
6 11 (1.13%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 10 (1.03%) SCCM
8 7 (0.72%) Microsoft Intune
9 5 (0.51%) Argo
9 5 (0.51%) Rancher
9 5 (0.51%) yum
10 2 (0.21%) BMC PATROL
10 2 (0.21%) Nessus
10 2 (0.21%) PowerCLI
10 2 (0.21%) Puppet
11 1 (0.10%) Control-M
11 1 (0.10%) FortiGate
11 1 (0.10%) Kibana
11 1 (0.10%) SQL Sentry
11 1 (0.10%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 137 (14.05%) Microsoft
2 52 (5.33%) Oracle
3 50 (5.13%) SAP
4 34 (3.49%) Salesforce
5 17 (1.74%) Cisco
6 16 (1.64%) Foundry
6 16 (1.64%) Red Hat
7 15 (1.54%) Adobe
8 14 (1.44%) IBM
8 14 (1.44%) OpenAI
8 14 (1.44%) ServiceNow
8 14 (1.44%) Software AG
9 13 (1.33%) Databricks
9 13 (1.33%) VMware
10 12 (1.23%) Automation Anywhere
10 12 (1.23%) UiPath
11 10 (1.03%) Citrix
11 10 (1.03%) Google
12 9 (0.92%) Intapp
12 9 (0.92%) Workday