Validation Job Trends in the South East

Validation
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South East requiring Validation skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 4 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 100 123 125
Rank change year-on-year +23 +2 -41
Permanent jobs citing Validation 209 203 174
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 2.03% 2.22% 2.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.52% 2.53% 2.42%
Number of salaries quoted 88 65 74
10th Percentile £36,250 £40,000 £35,563
25th Percentile £39,625 £43,750 £49,994
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £49,250 £57,500 £61,250
Median % change year-on-year -14.35% -6.12% +11.36%
75th Percentile £64,238 £75,000 £73,438
90th Percentile £75,900 £102,500 £82,750
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -4.00%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South East

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 the South East.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 8,305 8,027 7,194
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 80.68% 87.78% 89.36%
Number of salaries quoted 4,907 3,901 5,063
10th Percentile £27,750 £33,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £34,000 £44,910 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -13.04% +9.52% -4.55%
75th Percentile £65,000 £75,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £85,000 £81,250
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

Validation
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Validation relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Validation job vacancy trend in the South East

Validation
Salary Trend in the South East

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Validation.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Validation

Validation
Salary Histogram in the South East

Salary distribution for jobs citing Validation in the South East over the 6 months to 4 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Validation in the South East

Validation
Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Validation within the South East region over the 6 months to 4 January 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
Thames Valley +65 107 £55,000 +10.00% 96
Berkshire +37 65 £48,750 -32.76% 56
Hampshire +23 42 £41,250 -54.17% 62
Buckinghamshire +25 29 £50,000 -16.67% 17
Surrey -22 22 £40,000 -1.84% 27
West Sussex +18 17 £57,500 +82.54% 10
Kent -34 14 £53,500 -23.57% 22
Oxfordshire +23 13 £78,750 +65.79% 23
Isle of Wight -10 5 £61,575 +2.63% 6
Sussex - 2 £60,000 - 4
Validation
England

Validation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 9 (4.31%) SugarCRM
2 2 (0.96%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (0.96%) CMS
2 2 (0.96%) Confluence
2 2 (0.96%) WordPress
3 1 (0.48%) Apache
3 1 (0.48%) Kinematics
3 1 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.48%) SharePoint
Applications
1 21 (10.05%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (7.18%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (1.44%) Simulink
4 2 (0.96%) Adobe After Effects
4 2 (0.96%) Adobe Captivate
4 2 (0.96%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 2 (0.96%) Adobe Illustrator
4 2 (0.96%) Adobe Premiere
4 2 (0.96%) Elementor
4 2 (0.96%) Photoshop
5 1 (0.48%) GNU Octave
5 1 (0.48%) Mathcad
5 1 (0.48%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.48%) OrCAD
5 1 (0.48%) Weka
Business Applications
1 7 (3.35%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (1.91%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (1.91%) SAP BPC
Cloud Services
1 25 (11.96%) Azure
2 21 (10.05%) Power Platform
3 8 (3.83%) SaaS
4 6 (2.87%) AWS
4 6 (2.87%) Dynamics 365
5 4 (1.91%) Azure DevOps
5 4 (1.91%) Microsoft Purview
6 3 (1.44%) Collibra
7 2 (0.96%) Adobe Creative Cloud
7 2 (0.96%) AWS CloudFormation
7 2 (0.96%) Azure Data Factory
7 2 (0.96%) Entra ID
7 2 (0.96%) GCP
7 2 (0.96%) Veeva
8 1 (0.48%) Azure AI
8 1 (0.48%) Azure Cosmos DB
8 1 (0.48%) Azure Service Bus
8 1 (0.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 1 (0.48%) Google Workspace
8 1 (0.48%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 7 (3.35%) MQTT
2 5 (2.39%) Modbus
3 3 (1.44%) TCP/IP
4 2 (0.96%) 5G
4 2 (0.96%) GSM
4 2 (0.96%) HTTP
4 2 (0.96%) LTE
4 2 (0.96%) Wireless
5 1 (0.48%) Ethernet
5 1 (0.48%) Firewall
5 1 (0.48%) InfiniBand
5 1 (0.48%) Intranet
5 1 (0.48%) MIMO
5 1 (0.48%) NGN
5 1 (0.48%) Radio Access Network
5 1 (0.48%) RS-232
5 1 (0.48%) RS-485
5 1 (0.48%) Software-Defined Radio
5 1 (0.48%) SpaceWire
5 1 (0.48%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (9.57%) Power BI
2 10 (4.78%) Spotfire
3 7 (3.35%) Data Warehouse
4 6 (2.87%) Metadata
5 4 (1.91%) SQL Server
6 3 (1.44%) Data Mining
6 3 (1.44%) SAP BW
6 3 (1.44%) SAP HANA
7 2 (0.96%) Data Lake
7 2 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (0.96%) Tableau
8 1 (0.48%) Apache Cassandra
8 1 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.48%) BigQuery
8 1 (0.48%) BusinessObjects
8 1 (0.48%) Crystal Reports
8 1 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
8 1 (0.48%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 13 (6.22%) Rational DOORS
2 10 (4.78%) JIRA
3 5 (2.39%) Git
3 5 (2.39%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.91%) TestRail
5 3 (1.44%) ERwin
5 3 (1.44%) GitLab
5 3 (1.44%) Postman
5 3 (1.44%) PowerDesigner
5 3 (1.44%) Selenium
6 2 (0.96%) Charles Proxy
6 2 (0.96%) Fiddler
6 2 (0.96%) Robot Framework
6 2 (0.96%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.48%) Appium
7 1 (0.48%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.48%) Katalon Studio
7 1 (0.48%) SpecFlow
7 1 (0.48%) TestNG
7 1 (0.48%) WebDriver
General
1 55 (26.32%) Social Skills
2 23 (11.00%) Finance
2 23 (11.00%) Law
3 19 (9.09%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (7.66%) Pharmaceutical
5 14 (6.70%) Aerospace
5 14 (6.70%) Electronics
6 13 (6.22%) Presentation Skills
7 12 (5.74%) Manufacturing
8 10 (4.78%) Aviation
9 8 (3.83%) Marketing
10 7 (3.35%) Avionics
10 7 (3.35%) Retail
11 6 (2.87%) Documentation Skills
12 5 (2.39%) Automotive
12 5 (2.39%) Organisational Skills
13 4 (1.91%) Games
14 3 (1.44%) Publishing
15 2 (0.96%) Back Office
15 2 (0.96%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 45 (21.53%) Lead
2 28 (13.40%) Senior
2 28 (13.40%) Systems Engineer
3 25 (11.96%) Applications Engineer
4 22 (10.53%) Team Leader
5 21 (10.05%) Applications Support
5 21 (10.05%) Applications Support Engineer
5 21 (10.05%) Support Engineer
6 16 (7.66%) Analyst
7 15 (7.18%) Test Engineer
8 13 (6.22%) Data Manager
9 12 (5.74%) Junior
10 10 (4.78%) Principal Engineer
11 9 (4.31%) Systems Test Engineer
12 7 (3.35%) Hardware Engineer
12 7 (3.35%) Principal Systems Engineer
12 7 (3.35%) Test Leader
13 6 (2.87%) Senior Hardware Engineer
13 6 (2.87%) Senior Manager
14 5 (2.39%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (3.35%) OLE
2 5 (2.39%) Middleware
2 5 (2.39%) REST
3 3 (1.44%) HTML
3 3 (1.44%) SOAP
4 2 (0.96%) Bootstrap
4 2 (0.96%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (0.96%) Oracle Fusion
4 2 (0.96%) PySpark
5 1 (0.48%) .NET
5 1 (0.48%) CSS
5 1 (0.48%) Hugging Face
5 1 (0.48%) Playwright
5 1 (0.48%) Qt
5 1 (0.48%) RESTful
5 1 (0.48%) scikit-learn
5 1 (0.48%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 46 (22.01%) Management Information System
2 34 (16.27%) Life Science
3 25 (11.96%) Operational Technology
4 8 (3.83%) Product Ownership
5 6 (2.87%) IoT
6 4 (1.91%) Embedded Systems
6 4 (1.91%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 4 (1.91%) Manufacturing Execution System
6 4 (1.91%) Onboarding
6 4 (1.91%) SCADA
7 3 (1.44%) Algorithms
7 3 (1.44%) Analytical Mindset
7 3 (1.44%) Hackathon
7 3 (1.44%) LIMS
7 3 (1.44%) Low-Code
8 2 (0.96%) Cloud Native
8 2 (0.96%) Driving Licence
8 2 (0.96%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (0.96%) Learning Management System
8 2 (0.96%) Over-the-Top Content
Operating Systems
1 7 (3.35%) Linux
2 3 (1.44%) Android
2 3 (1.44%) Windows
3 2 (0.96%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.48%) Robot Operating System
4 1 (0.48%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (18.66%) Data Analysis
2 38 (18.18%) Verification and Validation
3 36 (17.22%) Agile
3 36 (17.22%) Problem-Solving
4 31 (14.83%) Data Management
5 29 (13.88%) Analytics
6 27 (12.92%) Business Continuity
7 26 (12.44%) Continuous Improvement
7 26 (12.44%) Incident Management
7 26 (12.44%) Task Automation
8 25 (11.96%) Problem Management
9 24 (11.48%) Business Intelligence
9 24 (11.48%) Digital Transformation Programme
10 23 (11.00%) Systems Engineering
11 22 (10.53%) Enterprise Architecture
12 21 (10.05%) Computer Science
13 19 (9.09%) Test Automation
14 17 (8.13%) Decision-Making
15 16 (7.66%) Collaborative Working
15 16 (7.66%) Data Validation
Programming Languages
1 23 (11.00%) Python
1 23 (11.00%) SQL
2 5 (2.39%) MATLAB
3 4 (1.91%) C
3 4 (1.91%) C++
4 3 (1.44%) Bash
4 3 (1.44%) Java
5 2 (0.96%) Embedded C
6 1 (0.48%) C#
6 1 (0.48%) JavaScript
6 1 (0.48%) PowerShell
6 1 (0.48%) Shell Script
6 1 (0.48%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.48%) VB
Qualifications
1 85 (40.67%) Degree
2 28 (13.40%) BPSS Clearance
3 15 (7.18%) HNC
4 13 (6.22%) Computer Science Degree
4 13 (6.22%) Security Cleared
5 12 (5.74%) Master's Degree
6 7 (3.35%) Chartered Engineer
7 5 (2.39%) DV Cleared
7 5 (2.39%) Numerate Degree
7 5 (2.39%) SC Cleared
8 4 (1.91%) ACCA
8 4 (1.91%) CIMA
8 4 (1.91%) ISTQB
9 3 (1.44%) PMI Certification
9 3 (1.44%) PMP
9 3 (1.44%) SAP Certification
10 2 (0.96%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 2 (0.96%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 1 (0.48%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 1 (0.48%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (19.14%) QA
2 25 (11.96%) GxP
2 25 (11.96%) SLA
3 20 (9.57%) Data Quality
4 11 (5.26%) Accessibility
4 11 (5.26%) ISO/IEC 15288
5 10 (4.78%) Good Clinical Practice
6 5 (2.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 4 (1.91%) ISO/IEC 12207
8 3 (1.44%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 2 (0.96%) AUTOSAR
9 2 (0.96%) GDPR
9 2 (0.96%) ISO 26262
9 2 (0.96%) ISO 9000
9 2 (0.96%) JTAG
10 1 (0.48%) ECSS
10 1 (0.48%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 22 (10.53%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (2.87%) Docker
3 4 (1.91%) Firmware
4 2 (0.96%) vCloud
5 1 (0.48%) Ceph
5 1 (0.48%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.48%) Lustre
5 1 (0.48%) pfSense
5 1 (0.48%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 1 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.48%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 5 (2.39%) Ansible
1 5 (2.39%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.91%) Terraform
3 3 (1.44%) Grafana
4 2 (0.96%) Docker Swarm
4 2 (0.96%) Functional Safety
4 2 (0.96%) Nessus
4 2 (0.96%) Prometheus
4 2 (0.96%) Rundeck
5 1 (0.48%) Control-M
5 1 (0.48%) Kibana
5 1 (0.48%) Puppet
5 1 (0.48%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 26 (12.44%) Microsoft
1 26 (12.44%) VMware
2 16 (7.66%) SAP
3 5 (2.39%) Salesforce
4 4 (1.91%) IBM
4 4 (1.91%) MuleSoft
5 3 (1.44%) Agilent
5 3 (1.44%) Databricks
5 3 (1.44%) ServiceNow
6 2 (0.96%) Adobe
6 2 (0.96%) EMC
6 2 (0.96%) Oracle
6 2 (0.96%) Roku
6 2 (0.96%) Siemens
6 2 (0.96%) Workday
7 1 (0.48%) Dynatrace
7 1 (0.48%) Foundry
7 1 (0.48%) Keysight
7 1 (0.48%) NVIDIA
7 1 (0.48%) Palantir