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

6 months to
13 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 68 85 171
Rank change year-on-year +17 +86 +19
Permanent jobs citing Validation 2,462 1,470 1,004
As % of all permanent jobs in England 2.36% 3.44% 1.57%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.20% 3.87% 1.90%
Number of salaries quoted 1,456 395 368
10th Percentile £36,250 £38,720 £37,488
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 76,889 38,006 52,896
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.85% 88.89% 82.67%
Number of salaries quoted 53,783 21,806 28,108
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,250 £32,750
25th Percentile £41,750 £36,250 £44,738
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 £79,225
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 13 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 13 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 +87 637 £65,000 -18.75% 1,289
South East -10 511 £64,500 +17.27% 325
North of England +127 496 £50,500 +5.91% 243
Midlands -13 323 £50,000 -9.09% 163
North West +104 304 £54,750 +9.38% 131
South West +28 252 £55,000 +7.32% 165
East of England -40 219 £56,750 -7.35% 168
West Midlands +49 174 £47,500 -13.64% 107
East Midlands -34 149 £50,000 +17.65% 56
Yorkshire +32 101 £42,500 - 79
North East 0 91 £55,000 +57.14% 34
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 (2.15%) Apache Spark
2 45 (1.83%) Apache
3 43 (1.75%) Apache Airflow
4 36 (1.46%) SharePoint
5 33 (1.34%) Confluence
6 32 (1.30%) CMS
7 20 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
8 19 (0.77%) Jupyter
9 13 (0.53%) SAS
10 10 (0.41%) WinCC
11 6 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 6 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
12 4 (0.16%) Artix
13 3 (0.12%) nginx
13 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 2 (0.081%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.081%) FactoryTalk
15 1 (0.041%) Oracle Workflow
15 1 (0.041%) WebSphere
Applications
1 159 (6.46%) Microsoft Excel
2 68 (2.76%) Microsoft Office
3 54 (2.19%) Simulink
4 38 (1.54%) Microsoft Project
5 27 (1.10%) Spreadsheet
6 23 (0.93%) AutoCAD
7 19 (0.77%) SOLIDWORKS
8 16 (0.65%) Revit
9 14 (0.57%) MS Visio
10 13 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
11 12 (0.49%) OrCAD
12 11 (0.45%) Navisworks
13 10 (0.41%) EPLAN
14 9 (0.37%) Notion
15 6 (0.24%) Mathcad
16 5 (0.20%) Stateflow
17 4 (0.16%) CANalyzer
17 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
18 3 (0.12%) Autodesk Inventor
18 3 (0.12%) Productboard
Business Applications
1 39 (1.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (1.50%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.41%) Workday HCM
4 9 (0.37%) SAP MDG
5 8 (0.32%) NetSuite
6 7 (0.28%) Elite 3E
6 7 (0.28%) Infor M3
6 7 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle Applications
7 6 (0.24%) SAP ERP
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Financials
9 4 (0.16%) iTrent
9 4 (0.16%) Maximo
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%) Sage 200
10 3 (0.12%) SAP MDG-BP
10 3 (0.12%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 337 (13.69%) Azure
2 260 (10.56%) AWS
3 191 (7.76%) Power Platform
4 96 (3.90%) GCP
5 84 (3.41%) GitHub
6 78 (3.17%) Azure DevOps
7 74 (3.01%) SaaS
8 70 (2.84%) Microsoft 365
9 52 (2.11%) Serverless
10 50 (2.03%) Entra ID
11 47 (1.91%) Amazon S3
12 39 (1.58%) GitHub Actions
13 36 (1.46%) Microsoft Copilot
14 33 (1.34%) Dynamics 365
15 32 (1.30%) Microsoft Purview
16 29 (1.18%) Amazon EMR
17 28 (1.14%) Cloud Computing
18 26 (1.06%) Azure Data Factory
19 25 (1.02%) Azure Service Bus
20 24 (0.97%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 73 (2.97%) DNS
2 70 (2.84%) Firewall
3 55 (2.23%) Broadband
4 51 (2.07%) TCP/IP
5 49 (1.99%) VPN
6 41 (1.67%) Modbus
7 40 (1.62%) VLAN
8 39 (1.58%) Ethernet
8 39 (1.58%) Wireless
9 35 (1.42%) Network Security
9 35 (1.42%) WAN
10 32 (1.30%) OSPF
11 30 (1.22%) LAN
12 29 (1.18%) MQTT
13 26 (1.06%) Wireshark
14 23 (0.93%) SD-WAN
15 22 (0.89%) BGP
16 21 (0.85%) DHCP
17 18 (0.73%) 5G
17 18 (0.73%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 178 (7.23%) Power BI
2 67 (2.72%) Metadata
3 65 (2.64%) Data Warehouse
4 57 (2.32%) SQL Server
5 46 (1.87%) Data Lake
5 46 (1.87%) PostgreSQL
6 39 (1.58%) Amazon Athena
7 37 (1.50%) Relational Database
8 35 (1.42%) 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 (0.97%) BigQuery
13 22 (0.89%) DynamoDB
13 22 (0.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 21 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
15 20 (0.81%) Amazon Redshift
16 19 (0.77%) MySQL
17 18 (0.73%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 134 (5.44%) JIRA
2 128 (5.20%) Git
3 62 (2.52%) GitLab
3 62 (2.52%) Jenkins
4 47 (1.91%) Rational DOORS
5 33 (1.34%) LabVIEW
6 20 (0.81%) Selenium
7 17 (0.69%) Cypress.io
7 17 (0.69%) Postman
8 13 (0.53%) Claude Code
9 12 (0.49%) Eclipse
10 11 (0.45%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.45%) Rational Rhapsody
10 11 (0.45%) Snyk
11 10 (0.41%) Sonatype Nexus
12 9 (0.37%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.37%) JMeter
13 8 (0.32%) Gatling
13 8 (0.32%) Metasploit
13 8 (0.32%) REST Assured
General
1 832 (33.79%) Social Skills
2 625 (25.39%) Finance
3 589 (23.92%) Analytical Skills
4 257 (10.44%) Manufacturing
5 252 (10.24%) Electronics
6 242 (9.83%) Aerospace
7 227 (9.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 126 (5.12%) Law
9 115 (4.67%) Marketing
10 111 (4.51%) Public Sector
11 107 (4.35%) Organisational Skills
12 106 (4.31%) Banking
13 99 (4.02%) Retail
14 93 (3.78%) Telecoms
15 84 (3.41%) Automotive
16 82 (3.33%) Pharmaceutical
17 54 (2.19%) Legal
18 48 (1.95%) Military
19 44 (1.79%) Documentation Skills
20 42 (1.71%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 429 (17.42%) Senior
2 265 (10.76%) Systems Engineer
3 248 (10.07%) Analyst
4 193 (7.84%) Lead
5 123 (5.00%) Data Engineer
5 123 (5.00%) Test Engineer
6 109 (4.43%) Architect
7 103 (4.18%) Developer
8 95 (3.86%) Software Engineer
9 91 (3.70%) Consultant
10 90 (3.66%) Principal Engineer
11 85 (3.45%) Electronics Engineer
12 74 (3.01%) Business Analyst
13 61 (2.48%) Data Analyst
13 61 (2.48%) Design Engineer
14 60 (2.44%) Network Engineer
15 58 (2.36%) Automation Engineer
16 57 (2.32%) Validation Engineer
17 50 (2.03%) Data Scientist
17 50 (2.03%) Principal Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (3.66%) Terraform
2 69 (2.80%) REST
3 61 (2.48%) Kafka
3 61 (2.48%) RESTful
4 54 (2.19%) .NET
5 51 (2.07%) Node.js
6 38 (1.54%) FastAPI
6 38 (1.54%) PySpark
7 37 (1.50%) JSON
8 36 (1.46%) Playwright
9 33 (1.34%) CSS
10 32 (1.30%) HTML
10 32 (1.30%) XML
11 30 (1.22%) React
11 30 (1.22%) Swagger
12 27 (1.10%) RabbitMQ
13 26 (1.06%) OpenAPI
14 25 (1.02%) Middleware
15 23 (0.93%) LDAP
16 22 (0.89%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 159 (6.46%) Cloud Native
2 158 (6.42%) Onboarding
3 151 (6.13%) Management Information System
4 78 (3.17%) Product Ownership
5 74 (3.01%) Driving Licence
6 70 (2.84%) Data Centre
7 68 (2.76%) Distributed Systems
8 67 (2.72%) Embedded Systems
9 65 (2.64%) Data Structures
10 64 (2.60%) Enterprise Software
11 59 (2.40%) SCADA
12 53 (2.15%) AI Agents
13 50 (2.03%) Life Science
14 47 (1.91%) Algorithms
15 42 (1.71%) Robotics
16 38 (1.54%) Analogue Electronics
16 38 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
16 38 (1.54%) Low-Code
17 37 (1.50%) Analytical Mindset
18 33 (1.34%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 135 (5.48%) Linux
2 95 (3.86%) Windows
3 36 (1.46%) Windows Server
4 27 (1.10%) Unix
5 13 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.41%) Android
7 8 (0.32%) Embedded Linux
8 7 (0.28%) macOS
9 4 (0.16%) FreeRTOS
9 4 (0.16%) Kali Linux
10 3 (0.12%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.081%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.081%) VMS
11 2 (0.081%) 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
1 647 (26.28%) Problem-Solving
2 562 (22.83%) Continuous Improvement
3 448 (18.20%) Agile
4 444 (18.03%) AI
5 419 (17.02%) Verification and Validation
6 348 (14.13%) CI/CD
7 331 (13.44%) Stakeholder Management
8 320 (13.00%) Test Automation
9 306 (12.43%) Migration
10 271 (11.01%) Analytics
11 264 (10.72%) Mentoring
12 253 (10.28%) Software Engineering
13 243 (9.87%) Decision-Making
14 235 (9.55%) DevOps
15 218 (8.85%) Business Intelligence
16 211 (8.57%) Data Analysis
17 208 (8.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 205 (8.33%) Roadmaps
19 195 (7.92%) Data Migration
20 193 (7.84%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 520 (21.12%) Python
2 442 (17.95%) SQL
3 98 (3.98%) C++
4 96 (3.90%) Java
5 95 (3.86%) C
6 77 (3.13%) C#
7 72 (2.92%) JavaScript
8 67 (2.72%) MATLAB
9 45 (1.83%) Go
10 39 (1.58%) PowerShell
11 37 (1.50%) Bash
12 31 (1.26%) TypeScript
13 29 (1.18%) Embedded C
14 25 (1.02%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 25 (1.02%) Scala
15 22 (0.89%) R
16 17 (0.69%) Embedded C++
17 13 (0.53%) Shell Script
17 13 (0.53%) T-SQL
18 11 (0.45%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 553 (22.46%) Degree
2 511 (20.76%) Security Cleared
3 374 (15.19%) SC Cleared
4 112 (4.55%) BPSS Clearance
5 108 (4.39%) Master's Degree
6 97 (3.94%) DV Cleared
7 48 (1.95%) PhD
8 47 (1.91%) Computer Science Degree
9 44 (1.79%) HND
10 36 (1.46%) Chartered Engineer
10 36 (1.46%) HNC
11 35 (1.42%) PMI Certification
12 33 (1.34%) Azure Certification
13 31 (1.26%) ACCA
13 31 (1.26%) CISSP
14 28 (1.14%) CIMA
15 27 (1.10%) AWS Certification
16 26 (1.06%) PMP
17 23 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
18 20 (0.81%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 378 (15.35%) Data Quality
2 295 (11.98%) QA
3 80 (3.25%) Accessibility
4 63 (2.56%) GDPR
5 32 (1.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 28 (1.14%) GxP
7 25 (1.02%) GRC
8 22 (0.89%) SLA
9 20 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 18 (0.73%) IEC 61508
10 18 (0.73%) NIST
11 17 (0.69%) ISO 19650
11 17 (0.69%) ISO 9001
12 12 (0.49%) GMP
13 11 (0.45%) ISO 26262
13 11 (0.45%) PMO
13 11 (0.45%) SOC 2
14 9 (0.37%) WCAG
15 8 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
15 8 (0.32%) GAAP
System Software
1 115 (4.67%) Docker
2 96 (3.90%) Firmware
3 54 (2.19%) Active Directory
4 44 (1.79%) Embedded Firmware
5 17 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
6 15 (0.61%) vSphere
7 9 (0.37%) VMware Infrastructure
8 6 (0.24%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 2 (0.081%) iptables
10 2 (0.081%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.081%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.081%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.041%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.041%) LXC
Systems Management
1 95 (3.86%) Kubernetes
2 42 (1.71%) Grafana
3 38 (1.54%) Ansible
4 28 (1.14%) Functional Safety
5 18 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
6 17 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (0.61%) Prometheus
8 13 (0.53%) Puppet
9 9 (0.37%) BMC PATROL
10 8 (0.32%) Kibana
10 8 (0.32%) Nessus
10 8 (0.32%) Nmap
11 7 (0.28%) 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
1 347 (14.09%) Microsoft
2 121 (4.91%) SAP
3 102 (4.14%) Salesforce
4 100 (4.06%) Oracle
5 78 (3.17%) EMC
6 66 (2.68%) Databricks
7 55 (2.23%) ServiceNow
8 54 (2.19%) Cisco
9 39 (1.58%) Adobe
10 37 (1.50%) Google
11 30 (1.22%) Samsung
12 28 (1.14%) TikTok
13 25 (1.02%) Sage
13 25 (1.02%) Thales
14 22 (0.89%) CrowdStrike
14 22 (0.89%) Informatica
14 22 (0.89%) VMware
15 21 (0.85%) IBM
16 20 (0.81%) Foundry
16 20 (0.81%) Siemens