Validation Job Trends

Validation
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Validation skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 170 169 197
Rank change year-on-year -1 +28 -64
Permanent jobs citing Validation 841 1,059 885
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.55% 1.63% 1.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.85% 1.91% 1.86%
Number of salaries quoted 461 408 502
10th Percentile £36,250 £36,688 £36,914
25th Percentile £41,250 £46,250 £47,506
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -
75th Percentile £80,000 £75,000 £79,875
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £92,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £52,600 £55,000
% change year-on-year -0.19% -4.36% +10.00%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

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.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 45,446 55,486 47,554
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 83.93% 85.56% 93.75%
Number of salaries quoted 27,712 28,853 36,694
10th Percentile £28,250 £34,750 £32,500
25th Percentile £36,250 £45,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £98,474 £98,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -13.64% +4.76% -0.94%

Validation
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Validation job vacancy trend in the UK

Validation
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Validation.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Validation

Validation
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Validation over the 6 months to 1 December 2025.

Salary histogram for Validation in the UK

Validation
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Validation within the UK over the 6 months to 1 December 2025. 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
England +8 764 £60,000 +9.09% 652
UK excluding London +2 552 £52,500 -0.19% 584
London +20 238 £80,000 +18.52% 151
Work from Home +60 195 £60,625 +5.43% 330
South East +16 193 £50,750 -15.42% 235
North of England -25 116 £52,500 +15.38% 84
Midlands +51 79 £42,500 -15.00% 71
South West +23 71 £50,000 -16.67% 93
North West -6 71 £52,750 +14.15% 46
East of England -11 57 £58,250 +5.91% 125
West Midlands +46 50 £42,500 -15.00% 51
Yorkshire -6 33 £60,000 +50.00% 27
East Midlands +33 29 £42,500 -10.53% 18
Scotland -9 25 £72,989 +29.17% 18
North East +6 12 £35,000 -26.70% 12
Wales +17 10 £61,250 +24.74% 8
Northern Ireland -13 2 - - 1

Validation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 23 (2.73%) Confluence
2 19 (2.26%) Apache Airflow
3 17 (2.02%) Apache Spark
4 10 (1.19%) Apache
4 10 (1.19%) SugarCRM
5 8 (0.95%) CMS
5 8 (0.95%) SharePoint
6 5 (0.59%) SAS
7 4 (0.48%) Headless CMS
8 3 (0.36%) Appian
8 3 (0.36%) Jupyter
8 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.24%) WordPress
10 1 (0.12%) Apache Superset
10 1 (0.12%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.12%) FileNet
10 1 (0.12%) Luigi
Applications
1 55 (6.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 49 (5.83%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (2.14%) Simulink
4 17 (2.02%) MS Visio
5 8 (0.95%) Mathcad
5 8 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.59%) AutoCAD
7 4 (0.48%) Revit
8 3 (0.36%) Adobe Illustrator
8 3 (0.36%) Blender
8 3 (0.36%) Oracle Smart View
8 3 (0.36%) Photoshop
9 2 (0.24%) Adobe After Effects
9 2 (0.24%) Adobe Captivate
9 2 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 2 (0.24%) Adobe Premiere
9 2 (0.24%) Elementor
9 2 (0.24%) Weka
10 1 (0.12%) CANalyzer
10 1 (0.12%) Fusion 360
Business Applications
1 27 (3.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (0.95%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.83%) Workday HCM
4 5 (0.59%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 4 (0.48%) SAP BPC
6 3 (0.36%) Oracle Assets
6 3 (0.36%) Oracle Cash Management
6 3 (0.36%) Oracle General Ledger
6 3 (0.36%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.36%) Oracle Receivables
6 3 (0.36%) SAP CX
7 2 (0.24%) Aladdin
7 2 (0.24%) Endur
7 2 (0.24%) IBM Planning Analytics
7 2 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.24%) Primavera
7 2 (0.24%) SAP ERP
7 2 (0.24%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 114 (13.56%) Azure
2 82 (9.75%) Power Platform
3 76 (9.04%) AWS
4 40 (4.76%) SaaS
5 29 (3.45%) Azure DevOps
6 24 (2.85%) GCP
7 20 (2.38%) Dynamics 365
8 18 (2.14%) Snowflake
9 15 (1.78%) dbt
9 15 (1.78%) GitHub
10 14 (1.66%) Amazon S3
11 13 (1.55%) Serverless
12 12 (1.43%) Datadog
13 11 (1.31%) AWS Lambda
13 11 (1.31%) Power Automate
14 10 (1.19%) Azure Data Factory
15 8 (0.95%) Amazon SageMaker
15 8 (0.95%) AWS CloudFormation
15 8 (0.95%) AWS Step Functions
15 8 (0.95%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 17 (2.02%) LAN
2 12 (1.43%) Firewall
3 10 (1.19%) Ethernet
3 10 (1.19%) Modbus
4 9 (1.07%) DNS
5 8 (0.95%) WAN
6 7 (0.83%) TCP/IP
7 6 (0.71%) 5G
7 6 (0.71%) CHAP
7 6 (0.71%) Ethernet VPN
7 6 (0.71%) Profibus
8 5 (0.59%) BGP
8 5 (0.59%) DHCP
8 5 (0.59%) Network Security
8 5 (0.59%) NX-OS
8 5 (0.59%) OSPF
8 5 (0.59%) SD-WAN
9 4 (0.48%) 3GPP
9 4 (0.48%) HTTP
9 4 (0.48%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 76 (9.04%) Power BI
2 41 (4.88%) Tableau
3 34 (4.04%) Data Warehouse
4 25 (2.97%) Metadata
5 24 (2.85%) SQL Server
6 20 (2.38%) BigQuery
7 17 (2.02%) Relational Database
8 13 (1.55%) Big Data
9 11 (1.31%) Data Lake
9 11 (1.31%) NoSQL
10 10 (1.19%) PostgreSQL
11 8 (0.95%) Amazon Redshift
12 7 (0.83%) Looker
12 7 (0.83%) MongoDB
13 6 (0.71%) Amazon Athena
13 6 (0.71%) Amazon Aurora
13 6 (0.71%) GIS
13 6 (0.71%) MySQL
13 6 (0.71%) Oracle Reports
13 6 (0.71%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 77 (9.16%) JIRA
2 47 (5.59%) Git
3 42 (4.99%) Rational DOORS
4 23 (2.73%) Jenkins
5 20 (2.38%) Postman
6 16 (1.90%) Selenium
7 12 (1.43%) GitLab
7 12 (1.43%) JMeter
8 11 (1.31%) Cucumber
9 10 (1.19%) SoapUI
10 8 (0.95%) MLflow
10 8 (0.95%) TestRail
11 7 (0.83%) LoadRunner
11 7 (0.83%) Locust
12 5 (0.59%) Cypress.io
12 5 (0.59%) TestNG
12 5 (0.59%) Zephyr
13 4 (0.48%) Browser DevTools
13 4 (0.48%) SonarQube
13 4 (0.48%) WebDriver
General
1 313 (37.22%) Social Skills
2 239 (28.42%) Finance
3 168 (19.98%) Analytical Skills
4 55 (6.54%) Law
5 54 (6.42%) Manufacturing
6 50 (5.95%) Electronics
7 48 (5.71%) Documentation Skills
8 47 (5.59%) Marketing
9 42 (4.99%) Banking
10 39 (4.64%) Presentation Skills
11 38 (4.52%) Aerospace
12 32 (3.80%) Organisational Skills
12 32 (3.80%) Retail
13 31 (3.69%) Financial Institution
14 28 (3.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 27 (3.21%) Telecoms
16 25 (2.97%) Influencing Skills
16 25 (2.97%) Public Sector
17 23 (2.73%) Pharmaceutical
18 20 (2.38%) Billing
Job Titles
1 120 (14.27%) Analyst
2 119 (14.15%) Senior
3 100 (11.89%) Lead
4 66 (7.85%) Systems Engineer
5 43 (5.11%) Data Analyst
6 38 (4.52%) Business Analyst
7 37 (4.40%) Architect
8 34 (4.04%) Test Engineer
9 31 (3.69%) Data Engineer
10 30 (3.57%) Support Engineer
11 29 (3.45%) Applications Engineer
12 27 (3.21%) Applications Support
13 26 (3.09%) Administrator
13 26 (3.09%) Developer
13 26 (3.09%) Principal Engineer
14 23 (2.73%) Applications Support Engineer
14 23 (2.73%) Team Leader
15 22 (2.62%) Data Quality Analyst
15 22 (2.62%) Quality Analyst
16 20 (2.38%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (3.33%) REST
2 23 (2.73%) Middleware
3 21 (2.50%) JSON
4 20 (2.38%) XML
5 18 (2.14%) scikit-learn
6 17 (2.02%) Pandas
7 16 (1.90%) PyTorch
7 16 (1.90%) TensorFlow
8 15 (1.78%) Kafka
9 14 (1.66%) React
10 10 (1.19%) HTML
11 8 (0.95%) NumPy
11 8 (0.95%) PySpark
11 8 (0.95%) pytest
12 7 (0.83%) FastAPI
12 7 (0.83%) Gherkin
12 7 (0.83%) Hugging Face
12 7 (0.83%) Playwright
12 7 (0.83%) Web Services
12 7 (0.83%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 70 (8.32%) Management Information System
2 39 (4.64%) Onboarding
3 38 (4.52%) Life Science
4 34 (4.04%) Self-Motivation
5 32 (3.80%) Product Ownership
6 27 (3.21%) Algorithms
7 26 (3.09%) Operational Technology
8 18 (2.14%) SCADA
9 16 (1.90%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 13 (1.55%) Data Structures
10 13 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
11 12 (1.43%) Analytical Mindset
11 12 (1.43%) Data Centre
11 12 (1.43%) FPGA
12 11 (1.31%) Credit Risk
12 11 (1.31%) Embedded Systems
12 11 (1.31%) SWIFT Messaging Network
13 9 (1.07%) Low-Code
13 9 (1.07%) Virtual Team
14 8 (0.95%) Cloud Native
Operating Systems
1 37 (4.40%) Linux
2 35 (4.16%) Windows
3 13 (1.55%) Windows Server
4 7 (0.83%) Windows Server 2016
5 5 (0.59%) Windows 10
5 5 (0.59%) Windows Server 2019
6 3 (0.36%) Unix
7 2 (0.24%) FreeRTOS
7 2 (0.24%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.12%) AIX
8 1 (0.12%) Android
8 1 (0.12%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.12%) CentOS
8 1 (0.12%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 225 (26.75%) Agile
2 204 (24.26%) Problem-Solving
3 124 (14.74%) Verification and Validation
4 120 (14.27%) Data Validation
5 118 (14.03%) Migration
6 117 (13.91%) Continuous Improvement
7 102 (12.13%) Analytics
8 95 (11.30%) Test Automation
9 89 (10.58%) Decision-Making
10 88 (10.46%) Systems Engineering
11 85 (10.11%) Business Intelligence
12 84 (9.99%) Data Analysis
12 84 (9.99%) Software Engineering
13 82 (9.75%) CI/CD
13 82 (9.75%) Mentoring
14 81 (9.63%) DevOps
15 80 (9.51%) ETL
16 79 (9.39%) Data Management
17 75 (8.92%) Stakeholder Management
18 74 (8.80%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 172 (20.45%) SQL
2 170 (20.21%) Python
3 37 (4.40%) Java
4 36 (4.28%) C
4 36 (4.28%) C++
5 29 (3.45%) MATLAB
6 19 (2.26%) JavaScript
7 18 (2.14%) PowerShell
8 13 (1.55%) Bash
8 13 (1.55%) R
9 10 (1.19%) T-SQL
9 10 (1.19%) TypeScript
10 6 (0.71%) C#
10 6 (0.71%) Ladder Logic
11 3 (0.36%) Bicep
11 3 (0.36%) Embedded C
11 3 (0.36%) Go
11 3 (0.36%) PL/SQL
11 3 (0.36%) Shell Script
11 3 (0.36%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 268 (31.87%) Degree
2 91 (10.82%) BPSS Clearance
3 88 (10.46%) Security Cleared
4 57 (6.78%) Master's Degree
5 48 (5.71%) SC Cleared
6 39 (4.64%) Computer Science Degree
7 26 (3.09%) Cisco Certification
8 20 (2.38%) HNC
9 17 (2.02%) DV Cleared
10 15 (1.78%) Microsoft Certification
11 14 (1.66%) CCNA
11 14 (1.66%) CCNP
12 12 (1.43%) CCIE
12 12 (1.43%) ISTQB
12 12 (1.43%) Numerate Degree
13 11 (1.31%) ACCA
14 10 (1.19%) Network+ Certification
15 9 (1.07%) Chartered Engineer
15 9 (1.07%) CISA
15 9 (1.07%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (13.44%) Data Quality
2 110 (13.08%) QA
3 38 (4.52%) GxP
4 34 (4.04%) ISO/IEC 15288
5 30 (3.57%) SLA
6 27 (3.21%) GDPR
7 25 (2.97%) Accessibility
8 16 (1.90%) ISO/IEC 12207
9 11 (1.31%) ISO 20022
9 11 (1.31%) NIST
9 11 (1.31%) SEPA
10 9 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 7 (0.83%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 7 (0.83%) COBIT
11 7 (0.83%) TARGET2
11 7 (0.83%) WCAG
12 5 (0.59%) ARP4761
13 4 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
13 4 (0.48%) NCSC
14 3 (0.36%) AUTOSAR
System Software
1 41 (4.88%) Docker
2 31 (3.69%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (2.85%) Firmware
4 13 (1.55%) Active Directory
5 11 (1.31%) Embedded Firmware
6 7 (0.83%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (0.83%) vSphere
7 6 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.59%) vCloud
9 2 (0.24%) Apache Flume
9 2 (0.24%) Ceph
9 2 (0.24%) HDFS
9 2 (0.24%) Lustre
9 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 2 (0.24%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 2 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.12%) Dovecot
10 1 (0.12%) iptables
10 1 (0.12%) pfSense
10 1 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 31 (3.69%) Kubernetes
2 19 (2.26%) Grafana
2 19 (2.26%) Terraform
3 16 (1.90%) Ansible
4 9 (1.07%) Prometheus
5 5 (0.59%) Docker Swarm
5 5 (0.59%) Kubeflow
5 5 (0.59%) vCenter Server
6 4 (0.48%) Rundeck
7 3 (0.36%) Kibana
8 2 (0.24%) Argo
8 2 (0.24%) Functional Safety
8 2 (0.24%) logstash
8 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (0.24%) Nessus
8 2 (0.24%) Oozie
8 2 (0.24%) Progress Chef
8 2 (0.24%) Rancher
8 2 (0.24%) yum
9 1 (0.12%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 92 (10.94%) Microsoft
2 57 (6.78%) SAP
3 37 (4.40%) VMware
4 27 (3.21%) Cisco
5 24 (2.85%) Salesforce
6 23 (2.73%) Oracle
7 22 (2.62%) IBM
8 15 (1.78%) Foundry
9 13 (1.55%) CheckPoint
9 13 (1.55%) F5
10 12 (1.43%) Siemens
11 10 (1.19%) Workday
12 9 (1.07%) Allen-Bradley
12 9 (1.07%) Databricks
12 9 (1.07%) Software AG
13 8 (0.95%) Intapp
13 8 (0.95%) MathWorks
14 7 (0.83%) Splunk
15 6 (0.71%) EMC
15 6 (0.71%) Informatica