Validation Job Trends in the South West

Validation
England > South West

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

6 months to
6 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 113 136 98
Rank change year-on-year +23 -38 -11
Permanent jobs citing Validation 69 55 132
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 1.37% 1.29% 2.91%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.90% 1.52% 3.21%
Number of salaries quoted 27 30 45
10th Percentile £34,000 £43,991 £36,875
25th Percentile £38,065 £47,813 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £53,800 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.06% -2.18% +63.20%
75th Percentile £75,625 £69,375 £65,000
90th Percentile £86,250 £73,886 £78,076
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 West

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 West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 3,629 3,610 4,107
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South West 72.06% 84.88% 90.40%
Number of salaries quoted 2,472 1,833 3,117
10th Percentile £27,750 £30,000 £30,500
25th Percentile £34,000 £40,000 £40,619
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +4.76% +3.36%
75th Percentile £66,250 £68,750 £67,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £81,250 £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 West

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

Validation job vacancy trend in the South West

Validation
Salary Trend in the South West

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

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Validation

Validation
Salary Histogram in the South West

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

Salary histogram for Validation in the South West

Validation
Job Locations in the South West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Validation within the South West region over the 6 months to 6 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
Bristol +28 34 £67,500 +28.33% 59
Devon +7 10 £42,215 -39.69% 7
Gloucestershire +17 9 - - 14
Wiltshire +13 6 £36,000 +3.14% 14
Somerset - 4 - - 14
Cornwall - 4 £43,250 -
Dorset -4 2 £87,441 +68.15% 9
Validation
England

Validation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West 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 2 (2.90%) Confluence
2 1 (1.45%) Apache
2 1 (1.45%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (1.45%) Apache Spark
2 1 (1.45%) Apache Superset
Applications
1 5 (7.25%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (5.80%) Fusion 360
3 2 (2.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (2.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (2.90%) Simulink
4 1 (1.45%) Doxygen
4 1 (1.45%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (1.45%) MS Visio
4 1 (1.45%) Oracle Smart View
4 1 (1.45%) Weka
Business Applications
1 1 (1.45%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
1 1 (1.45%) Primavera
1 1 (1.45%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 6 (8.70%) Power Platform
2 5 (7.25%) AWS
2 5 (7.25%) Azure
2 5 (7.25%) GitHub
3 3 (4.35%) Google Workspace
4 2 (2.90%) Snowflake
5 1 (1.45%) Amazon S3
5 1 (1.45%) AWS Lambda
5 1 (1.45%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (1.45%) GCP
5 1 (1.45%) Lucidchart
5 1 (1.45%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 6 (8.70%) SD-WAN
1 6 (8.70%) WAN
2 5 (7.25%) 5G
2 5 (7.25%) DNS
2 5 (7.25%) TCP/IP
3 4 (5.80%) HTTP
3 4 (5.80%) SMTP
4 2 (2.90%) Internet
5 1 (1.45%) DHCP
5 1 (1.45%) Firewall
5 1 (1.45%) InfiniBand
5 1 (1.45%) Intrusion Detection
5 1 (1.45%) LAN
5 1 (1.45%) Network Security
5 1 (1.45%) VLAN
5 1 (1.45%) VPN
5 1 (1.45%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (8.70%) Power BI
2 4 (5.80%) MySQL
2 4 (5.80%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (4.35%) Big Data
4 2 (2.90%) GIS
5 1 (1.45%) Amazon Athena
5 1 (1.45%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (1.45%) DynamoDB
5 1 (1.45%) Geospatial Data
5 1 (1.45%) Looker
5 1 (1.45%) Metadata
5 1 (1.45%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 1 (1.45%) Oracle Reports
5 1 (1.45%) Spark SQL
5 1 (1.45%) SQL Server
5 1 (1.45%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 1 (1.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 14 (20.29%) Git
2 5 (7.25%) LabVIEW
3 4 (5.80%) Rational DOORS
4 3 (4.35%) Subversion
5 2 (2.90%) Jenkins
5 2 (2.90%) JIRA
6 1 (1.45%) GitLab
General
1 27 (39.13%) Social Skills
2 13 (18.84%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (17.39%) Electronics
4 8 (11.59%) Finance
4 8 (11.59%) Presentation Skills
5 6 (8.70%) Avionics
6 4 (5.80%) Manufacturing
6 4 (5.80%) Organisational Skills
6 4 (5.80%) Telecoms
7 3 (4.35%) Aeronautics
7 3 (4.35%) Aerospace
8 2 (2.90%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (2.90%) Local Government
8 2 (2.90%) Public Sector
9 1 (1.45%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (1.45%) Legal
9 1 (1.45%) Marketing
9 1 (1.45%) Military
Job Titles
1 14 (20.29%) Test Engineer
2 10 (14.49%) Systems Engineer
3 7 (10.14%) Architect
3 7 (10.14%) Solutions Architect
4 6 (8.70%) Coordinator
4 6 (8.70%) Verification Engineer
5 5 (7.25%) Analyst
5 5 (7.25%) Junior
5 5 (7.25%) Junior Systems Engineer
5 5 (7.25%) Product Engineer
5 5 (7.25%) Product Test Engineer
5 5 (7.25%) Reliability Engineer
5 5 (7.25%) Safety Engineer
5 5 (7.25%) Systems Safety Engineer
6 4 (5.80%) Business Analyst
6 4 (5.80%) C++ Software Engineer
6 4 (5.80%) Project Coordinator
6 4 (5.80%) Python Engineer
6 4 (5.80%) Software Engineer
6 4 (5.80%) Support Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (7.25%) pytest
2 2 (2.90%) Kafka
2 2 (2.90%) PySpark
3 1 (1.45%) EDI
3 1 (1.45%) JSON
3 1 (1.45%) Middleware
3 1 (1.45%) Oracle Fusion
3 1 (1.45%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 12 (17.39%) Self-Motivation
2 5 (7.25%) Self-Driving Car
3 4 (5.80%) Algorithms
3 4 (5.80%) e-Learning
3 4 (5.80%) GNSS
3 4 (5.80%) Life Science
3 4 (5.80%) Onboarding
3 4 (5.80%) Satnav
4 2 (2.90%) Fibre Optics
4 2 (2.90%) Legacy Systems
4 2 (2.90%) Management Information System
5 1 (1.45%) Cyber Threat
5 1 (1.45%) Data Centre
5 1 (1.45%) Data Fabric
5 1 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (1.45%) Driving Licence
5 1 (1.45%) Embedded Systems
5 1 (1.45%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 9 (13.04%) Windows
2 8 (11.59%) Linux
3 5 (7.25%) Unix
4 1 (1.45%) FreeRTOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (40.58%) Problem-Solving
2 27 (39.13%) Verification and Validation
3 18 (26.09%) Agile
4 15 (21.74%) Test Automation
5 14 (20.29%) Innovative Thinking
6 11 (15.94%) Collaborative Working
6 11 (15.94%) Matrix Organization
6 11 (15.94%) Requirements Management
7 10 (14.49%) Project Management
8 9 (13.04%) Analytics
8 9 (13.04%) B2B
8 9 (13.04%) DevOps
8 9 (13.04%) Software Engineering
9 8 (11.59%) Customer-Centricity
9 8 (11.59%) Cybersecurity
9 8 (11.59%) Risk Analysis
10 7 (10.14%) AI
10 7 (10.14%) ETL
10 7 (10.14%) Migration
11 6 (8.70%) Statistics
Programming Languages
1 23 (33.33%) Python
2 10 (14.49%) MATLAB
3 8 (11.59%) SQL
4 6 (8.70%) C++
5 5 (7.25%) C
6 4 (5.80%) Bash
6 4 (5.80%) C#
7 3 (4.35%) Go
7 3 (4.35%) Google Apps Script
7 3 (4.35%) Java
7 3 (4.35%) Tcl
8 1 (1.45%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 28 (40.58%) Degree
2 21 (30.43%) Security Cleared
3 8 (11.59%) BPSS Clearance
4 7 (10.14%) DV Cleared
4 7 (10.14%) SC Cleared
5 5 (7.25%) HND
6 1 (1.45%) AWS Certification
6 1 (1.45%) Azure Certification
6 1 (1.45%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (1.45%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (7.25%) ARP4761
2 4 (5.80%) ISO 13485
3 3 (4.35%) QA
4 2 (2.90%) Data Quality
4 2 (2.90%) Def Stans
5 1 (1.45%) IEC 62304
5 1 (1.45%) Solvency II
System Software
1 3 (4.35%) Docker
2 2 (2.90%) Embedded Firmware
2 2 (2.90%) Firmware
3 1 (1.45%) Ceph
3 1 (1.45%) Lustre
3 1 (1.45%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 5 (7.25%) Kubernetes
2 3 (4.35%) Argo
2 3 (4.35%) Rancher
2 3 (4.35%) yum
3 1 (1.45%) Ansible
3 1 (1.45%) Terraform
Vendors
1 3 (4.35%) Google
2 2 (2.90%) BT
2 2 (2.90%) Microsoft
2 2 (2.90%) Openreach
2 2 (2.90%) Oracle
3 1 (1.45%) Databricks
3 1 (1.45%) Sparx