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 25 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 118 87 210
Rank change year-on-year -31 +123 -22
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,544 1,616 1,409
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.63% 3.57% 1.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.22% 3.87% 1.60%
Number of salaries quoted 927 459 768
10th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £35,425
25th Percentile £42,500 £46,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -11.41%
75th Percentile £75,000 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £90,000 £95,000 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,750 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -4.09% +4.76% -4.62%

All Process & 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 69,638 41,796 87,970
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.33% 92.22% 82.12%
Number of salaries quoted 48,019 22,539 62,354
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,750 £29,750
25th Percentile £41,250 £38,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.54%
75th Percentile £78,750 £77,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,679 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.36% - -9.09%

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 25 June 2026.

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 25 June 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
England -37 1,399 £55,000 -3.51% 798
UK excluding London -50 1,041 £52,750 -4.09% 654
Work from Home +126 499 £55,000 -8.33% 314
London +66 394 £77,500 +3.33% 279
South East -38 316 £55,000 - 243
North of England +85 287 £55,000 +15.35% 122
North West +74 182 £55,000 +15.35% 57
Midlands -71 162 £42,500 -22.73% 114
East of England -72 110 £60,000 +5.26% 69
South West -46 107 £53,000 -3.64% 89
West Midlands -1 95 £44,000 -29.60% 58
East Midlands -84 65 £30,000 -36.84% 56
Yorkshire +5 61 £44,000 +4.45% 38
North East -9 44 £55,000 +15.79% 28
Scotland -8 40 £44,250 -23.75% 29
Wales -34 19 £47,500 -20.83% 11
Northern Ireland -34 2 - - 3

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 51 (3.30%) Apache Airflow
2 48 (3.11%) Apache Spark
3 46 (2.98%) Apache
4 26 (1.68%) Confluence
5 21 (1.36%) ArcGIS
6 20 (1.30%) SharePoint
7 15 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
8 12 (0.78%) Jupyter
9 10 (0.65%) SAS
10 6 (0.39%) Appian
11 5 (0.32%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.26%) CMS
12 4 (0.26%) Kinematics
13 3 (0.19%) Artix
14 2 (0.13%) IIS
15 1 (0.065%) Oracle Workflow
15 1 (0.065%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 85 (5.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 44 (2.85%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (1.55%) Microsoft Project
4 20 (1.30%) MS Visio
5 16 (1.04%) Simulink
6 15 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 8 (0.52%) SOLIDWORKS
7 8 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.32%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.26%) Adobe XD
9 4 (0.26%) CANalyzer
9 4 (0.26%) Sketch
10 3 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 3 (0.19%) Autodesk Inventor
10 3 (0.19%) Productboard
10 3 (0.19%) Solid Edge
10 3 (0.19%) Stateflow
11 1 (0.065%) Chatbot
11 1 (0.065%) PTC Creo
11 1 (0.065%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 44 (2.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (2.66%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.71%) SAP MDG
4 10 (0.65%) SAP ERP
5 8 (0.52%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.52%) Oracle ERP
6 7 (0.45%) iTrent
7 6 (0.39%) Elite 3E
8 5 (0.32%) Loan IQ
8 5 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
8 5 (0.32%) SAP MDG-BP
9 4 (0.26%) Oracle Applications
10 2 (0.13%) FastStats
10 2 (0.13%) NetSuite
10 2 (0.13%) SAP Business One
10 2 (0.13%) SAP EWM
10 2 (0.13%) SAP FSCM
10 2 (0.13%) SAP MM
10 2 (0.13%) SAP PSCD
10 2 (0.13%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 223 (14.44%) Azure
2 193 (12.50%) AWS
3 143 (9.26%) Power Platform
4 82 (5.31%) GCP
5 75 (4.86%) SaaS
6 60 (3.89%) Azure DevOps
7 42 (2.72%) Serverless
8 41 (2.66%) GitHub
8 41 (2.66%) Microsoft 365
9 37 (2.40%) Amazon S3
10 36 (2.33%) Dynamics 365
11 27 (1.75%) Azure Data Factory
12 22 (1.42%) Snowflake
13 21 (1.36%) Entra ID
14 20 (1.30%) GitHub Actions
15 18 (1.17%) Power Automate
16 17 (1.10%) dbt
17 16 (1.04%) Amazon EMR
18 15 (0.97%) Amazon EC2
18 15 (0.97%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 71 (4.60%) Broadband
2 45 (2.91%) Firewall
3 34 (2.20%) DNS
4 22 (1.42%) TCP/IP
4 22 (1.42%) Wireless
5 21 (1.36%) WAN
6 19 (1.23%) CHAP
7 16 (1.04%) Network Security
8 15 (0.97%) SD-WAN
8 15 (0.97%) VPN
9 13 (0.84%) 5G
10 12 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
11 11 (0.71%) Ethernet
11 11 (0.71%) HTTP
11 11 (0.71%) MQTT
12 10 (0.65%) LAN
12 10 (0.65%) Wireshark
13 9 (0.58%) NAS
14 7 (0.45%) Multicast
14 7 (0.45%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 136 (8.81%) Power BI
2 55 (3.56%) PostgreSQL
2 55 (3.56%) Tableau
3 50 (3.24%) SQL Server
4 47 (3.04%) Data Warehouse
5 34 (2.20%) MongoDB
6 33 (2.14%) Metadata
7 30 (1.94%) Relational Database
8 27 (1.75%) BigQuery
9 25 (1.62%) Data Lake
9 25 (1.62%) QGIS
10 24 (1.55%) Semantic Layer
11 23 (1.49%) Azure SQL Database
11 23 (1.49%) GIS
12 20 (1.30%) Spatial Data
13 19 (1.23%) Spark SQL
14 18 (1.17%) Amazon Athena
15 17 (1.10%) DynamoDB
15 17 (1.10%) Oracle Database
16 16 (1.04%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 82 (5.31%) JIRA
2 70 (4.53%) Git
3 49 (3.17%) Jenkins
4 38 (2.46%) GitLab
5 31 (2.01%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.42%) Snyk
7 17 (1.10%) Postman
7 17 (1.10%) Selenium
8 14 (0.91%) LabVIEW
9 13 (0.84%) IBM UrbanCode
10 12 (0.78%) Cypress.io
11 11 (0.71%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.71%) JMeter
12 10 (0.65%) MLflow
12 10 (0.65%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.58%) Eclipse
14 7 (0.45%) Rational Rhapsody
14 7 (0.45%) REST Assured
15 6 (0.39%) Zephyr
16 5 (0.32%) Burp Suite
General
1 493 (31.93%) Social Skills
2 414 (26.81%) Finance
3 336 (21.76%) Analytical Skills
4 116 (7.51%) Aerospace
5 115 (7.45%) Manufacturing
6 103 (6.67%) Electronics
7 93 (6.02%) Banking
8 91 (5.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 60 (3.89%) Public Sector
10 59 (3.82%) Retail
11 55 (3.56%) Legal
12 54 (3.50%) Law
13 45 (2.91%) Pharmaceutical
14 43 (2.78%) Organisational Skills
15 42 (2.72%) Marketing
16 41 (2.66%) Games
17 38 (2.46%) Automotive
18 32 (2.07%) Financial Institution
19 26 (1.68%) Documentation Skills
20 25 (1.62%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 262 (16.97%) Senior
2 238 (15.41%) Analyst
3 133 (8.61%) Systems Engineer
4 120 (7.77%) Lead
5 102 (6.61%) Architect
5 102 (6.61%) Test Engineer
6 84 (5.44%) Validation Engineer
7 81 (5.25%) Business Analyst
8 77 (4.99%) Data Engineer
9 70 (4.53%) Consultant
9 70 (4.53%) Developer
10 66 (4.27%) Data Analyst
11 45 (2.91%) Principal Engineer
12 43 (2.78%) Embedded Engineer
13 42 (2.72%) Integration Engineer
14 39 (2.53%) Support Engineer
15 38 (2.46%) IT Manager
16 36 (2.33%) Senior Systems Engineer
17 35 (2.27%) Security Architect
18 34 (2.20%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (2.85%) RESTful
2 39 (2.53%) REST
3 36 (2.33%) JSON
4 35 (2.27%) PySpark
5 34 (2.20%) PyTorch
6 32 (2.07%) Node.js
7 30 (1.94%) Kafka
8 27 (1.75%) XML
9 26 (1.68%) Pandas
10 25 (1.62%) Middleware
11 23 (1.49%) .NET
12 22 (1.42%) pytest
13 21 (1.36%) Playwright
14 19 (1.23%) Swagger
15 18 (1.17%) Regular Expression
15 18 (1.17%) XMPP
16 15 (0.97%) CSS
16 15 (0.97%) LDAP
17 14 (0.91%) HTML
17 14 (0.91%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 96 (6.22%) Cloud Native
2 76 (4.92%) Onboarding
3 72 (4.66%) Data Structures
4 67 (4.34%) Management Information System
5 59 (3.82%) Algorithms
6 49 (3.17%) Low-Code
7 44 (2.85%) Product Ownership
8 42 (2.72%) Embedded Systems
9 41 (2.66%) Driving Licence
10 35 (2.27%) Data Centre
11 34 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
11 34 (2.20%) Self-Motivation
12 33 (2.14%) Distributed Systems
12 33 (2.14%) Enterprise Software
13 32 (2.07%) Analytical Mindset
14 31 (2.01%) Video\Live Streaming
15 28 (1.81%) Life Science
16 24 (1.55%) FPGA
17 23 (1.49%) Robotics
18 19 (1.23%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 99 (6.41%) Linux
2 70 (4.53%) Windows
3 28 (1.81%) Windows Server
4 25 (1.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (1.49%) Unix
6 7 (0.45%) Android
7 4 (0.26%) FreeRTOS
7 4 (0.26%) Kali Linux
7 4 (0.26%) Mac OS X
8 3 (0.19%) AIX
8 3 (0.19%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.19%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.13%) CentOS
9 2 (0.13%) Embedded Linux
9 2 (0.13%) ThreadX
10 1 (0.065%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.065%) Rocky
10 1 (0.065%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.065%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.065%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 337 (21.83%) Problem-Solving
2 325 (21.05%) Continuous Improvement
3 322 (20.85%) Agile
4 274 (17.75%) AI
5 245 (15.87%) CI/CD
6 221 (14.31%) Analytics
7 218 (14.12%) Test Automation
8 186 (12.05%) Migration
9 183 (11.85%) Verification and Validation
10 171 (11.08%) Data Validation
11 165 (10.69%) Business Intelligence
12 164 (10.62%) Stakeholder Management
13 161 (10.43%) DevOps
14 159 (10.30%) Data Modelling
15 153 (9.91%) Mentoring
16 151 (9.78%) Software Engineering
17 150 (9.72%) Decision-Making
18 147 (9.52%) Data Analysis
19 146 (9.46%) Collaborative Working
19 146 (9.46%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 389 (25.19%) Python
2 317 (20.53%) SQL
3 69 (4.47%) C++
4 65 (4.21%) C
4 65 (4.21%) Java
5 49 (3.17%) Go
6 43 (2.78%) C#
7 34 (2.20%) JavaScript
8 28 (1.81%) MATLAB
9 25 (1.62%) Bash
10 24 (1.55%) PowerShell
11 23 (1.49%) T-SQL
12 20 (1.30%) Embedded C
13 18 (1.17%) Embedded C++
14 15 (0.97%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 14 (0.91%) Scala
16 13 (0.84%) TypeScript
17 10 (0.65%) ABAP
18 9 (0.58%) VBA
19 7 (0.45%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 294 (19.04%) Degree
2 172 (11.14%) Security Cleared
3 111 (7.19%) BPSS Clearance
4 80 (5.18%) SC Cleared
5 74 (4.79%) Master's Degree
6 46 (2.98%) DV Cleared
7 41 (2.66%) Computer Science Degree
8 35 (2.27%) Chartered Engineer
9 29 (1.88%) CISA
9 29 (1.88%) CISSP
9 29 (1.88%) SANS
10 28 (1.81%) HNC
11 26 (1.68%) CISM
12 22 (1.42%) HND
13 20 (1.30%) ACCA
13 20 (1.30%) CIMA
14 19 (1.23%) CGEIT
14 19 (1.23%) FFIEC
14 19 (1.23%) PMI Certification
15 16 (1.04%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 252 (16.32%) Data Quality
2 183 (11.85%) QA
3 63 (4.08%) Accessibility
4 57 (3.69%) GDPR
5 40 (2.59%) GRC
6 27 (1.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 23 (1.49%) NIST
8 22 (1.42%) IEC 61508
8 22 (1.42%) ISO/IEC 15288
9 19 (1.23%) COBIT
10 18 (1.17%) IFRS
11 16 (1.04%) ISO 9001
11 16 (1.04%) PMO
12 14 (0.91%) SLA
13 13 (0.84%) GAAP
14 12 (0.78%) ISO 26262
15 11 (0.71%) SOC 2
15 11 (0.71%) WCAG
16 10 (0.65%) GxP
17 9 (0.58%) GMP
System Software
1 73 (4.73%) Docker
2 44 (2.85%) Firmware
3 37 (2.40%) Active Directory
4 22 (1.42%) Virtual Machines
5 20 (1.30%) Embedded Firmware
5 20 (1.30%) vSphere
6 15 (0.97%) VMware Infrastructure
7 6 (0.39%) KVM
8 5 (0.32%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.13%) Terminal Services
9 2 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.065%) OpenAM
10 1 (0.065%) OpenDJ
10 1 (0.065%) OpenIDM
Systems Management
1 72 (4.66%) Kubernetes
2 65 (4.21%) Terraform
3 31 (2.01%) Grafana
4 23 (1.49%) Functional Safety
5 20 (1.30%) Ansible
6 15 (0.97%) Prometheus
7 10 (0.65%) Cilium
7 10 (0.65%) Puppet
8 8 (0.52%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 7 (0.45%) Kibana
9 7 (0.45%) SCCM
10 3 (0.19%) FortiGate
10 3 (0.19%) HP Fortify
11 2 (0.13%) Argo
11 2 (0.13%) BMC PATROL
11 2 (0.13%) Computer Incident Response Team
11 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Intune
11 2 (0.13%) Rancher
11 2 (0.13%) yum
12 1 (0.065%) Nessus
Vendors
1 193 (12.50%) Microsoft
2 99 (6.41%) SAP
3 91 (5.89%) Oracle
4 53 (3.43%) Salesforce
5 39 (2.53%) Databricks
6 34 (2.20%) Red Hat
6 34 (2.20%) ServiceNow
7 33 (2.14%) VMware
8 29 (1.88%) CrowdStrike
9 26 (1.68%) Google
10 23 (1.49%) Cisco
10 23 (1.49%) Palo Alto
11 22 (1.42%) Tenable
12 20 (1.30%) Adobe
13 16 (1.04%) Foundry
14 14 (0.91%) Citrix
14 14 (0.91%) McAfee
15 13 (0.84%) OpenAI
16 9 (0.58%) EMC
16 9 (0.58%) IBM