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

6 months to
13 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 120 82 204
Rank change year-on-year -38 +122 -14
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,494 1,629 1,437
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.61% 3.67% 1.34%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.21% 3.96% 1.63%
Number of salaries quoted 868 450 774
10th Percentile £36,250 £40,000 £35,500
25th Percentile £42,500 £46,813 £42,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -12.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £90,000 £95,000 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -4.55% +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 67,552 41,143 88,287
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 72.85% 92.63% 82.27%
Number of salaries quoted 46,362 21,911 62,510
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,000 £29,556
25th Percentile £41,250 £39,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.69%
75th Percentile £78,750 £77,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -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 13 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 13 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 -41 1,352 £55,000 -3.51% 846
UK excluding London -55 1,000 £52,500 -4.55% 699
Work from Home +125 481 £55,000 -9.84% 340
London +69 386 £75,000 - 273
South East -36 307 £55,000 - 227
North of England +79 276 £55,000 +15.35% 139
North West +77 175 £55,000 +15.35% 69
Midlands -65 162 £40,000 -30.43% 117
East of England -74 107 £60,000 +5.26% 81
West Midlands -4 97 £44,000 -32.31% 67
South West -48 94 £53,000 -3.64% 100
East Midlands -76 63 £30,000 -42.31% 50
Yorkshire -6 60 £50,000 +18.69% 51
North East -4 41 £55,000 +15.79% 22
Scotland -2 39 £42,500 -26.77% 35
Wales -37 15 £45,750 -23.75% 13
Northern Ireland -30 2 - - 12

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 (3.41%) Apache Airflow
2 44 (2.95%) Apache Spark
3 42 (2.81%) Apache
4 24 (1.61%) Confluence
5 21 (1.41%) ArcGIS
6 15 (1.00%) Microsoft Exchange
6 15 (1.00%) SharePoint
7 11 (0.74%) Jupyter
8 7 (0.47%) Appian
8 7 (0.47%) SAS
9 5 (0.33%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.33%) CMS
9 5 (0.33%) Kinematics
10 3 (0.20%) Artix
11 2 (0.13%) IIS
12 1 (0.067%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.067%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.067%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 91 (6.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 50 (3.35%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (1.54%) Microsoft Project
4 19 (1.27%) MS Visio
5 15 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 14 (0.94%) Simulink
7 8 (0.54%) SOLIDWORKS
7 8 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.33%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.27%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 4 (0.27%) Adobe XD
9 4 (0.27%) CANalyzer
9 4 (0.27%) Sketch
10 3 (0.20%) Autodesk Inventor
10 3 (0.20%) Productboard
10 3 (0.20%) Solid Edge
10 3 (0.20%) Stateflow
11 2 (0.13%) Fusion 360
12 1 (0.067%) CATIA
12 1 (0.067%) Navisworks
Business Applications
1 41 (2.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (2.28%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.67%) SAP ERP
4 9 (0.60%) SAP MDG
5 8 (0.54%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.54%) Oracle ERP
6 6 (0.40%) Elite 3E
7 5 (0.33%) iTrent
7 5 (0.33%) Loan IQ
7 5 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
7 5 (0.33%) SAP MDG-BP
8 4 (0.27%) Oracle Applications
9 2 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
9 2 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
9 2 (0.13%) SAP EWM
9 2 (0.13%) SAP FSCM
9 2 (0.13%) SAP MM
9 2 (0.13%) SAP PSCD
9 2 (0.13%) SAP WM
10 1 (0.067%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 218 (14.59%) Azure
2 183 (12.25%) AWS
3 137 (9.17%) Power Platform
4 75 (5.02%) GCP
5 66 (4.42%) SaaS
6 56 (3.75%) Azure DevOps
7 41 (2.74%) GitHub
8 39 (2.61%) Microsoft 365
8 39 (2.61%) Serverless
9 37 (2.48%) Amazon S3
10 30 (2.01%) Dynamics 365
11 29 (1.94%) Azure Data Factory
12 26 (1.74%) Snowflake
13 23 (1.54%) Entra ID
14 19 (1.27%) dbt
14 19 (1.27%) Power Automate
15 18 (1.20%) GitHub Actions
16 15 (1.00%) OpenShift
17 14 (0.94%) Amazon EC2
18 13 (0.87%) Amazon EMR
Communications & Networking
1 69 (4.62%) Broadband
2 46 (3.08%) Firewall
3 34 (2.28%) DNS
4 23 (1.54%) WAN
5 22 (1.47%) CHAP
5 22 (1.47%) Wireless
6 20 (1.34%) TCP/IP
7 17 (1.14%) SD-WAN
8 16 (1.07%) Network Security
9 15 (1.00%) 5G
9 15 (1.00%) VPN
10 12 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
11 10 (0.67%) HTTP
11 10 (0.67%) LAN
11 10 (0.67%) MQTT
11 10 (0.67%) Wireshark
12 9 (0.60%) Ethernet
12 9 (0.60%) NAS
13 7 (0.47%) ATM
13 7 (0.47%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 130 (8.70%) Power BI
2 56 (3.75%) Tableau
3 53 (3.55%) PostgreSQL
4 48 (3.21%) SQL Server
5 43 (2.88%) Data Warehouse
6 34 (2.28%) MongoDB
7 31 (2.07%) Metadata
8 30 (2.01%) Relational Database
9 25 (1.67%) QGIS
10 24 (1.61%) BigQuery
10 24 (1.61%) Data Lake
11 23 (1.54%) GIS
12 22 (1.47%) Azure SQL Database
12 22 (1.47%) Semantic Layer
13 20 (1.34%) Spatial Data
14 19 (1.27%) Spark SQL
15 17 (1.14%) Oracle Database
16 15 (1.00%) Amazon Athena
16 15 (1.00%) DynamoDB
16 15 (1.00%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 73 (4.89%) JIRA
2 69 (4.62%) Git
3 45 (3.01%) Jenkins
4 35 (2.34%) GitLab
5 32 (2.14%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.47%) Snyk
7 16 (1.07%) Postman
8 15 (1.00%) Selenium
9 14 (0.94%) LabVIEW
10 13 (0.87%) IBM UrbanCode
11 11 (0.74%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.74%) JMeter
11 11 (0.74%) MLflow
12 10 (0.67%) Cypress.io
12 10 (0.67%) Eclipse
12 10 (0.67%) TeamCity
13 6 (0.40%) Rational Rhapsody
13 6 (0.40%) REST Assured
14 5 (0.33%) Locust
14 5 (0.33%) Robot Framework
General
1 468 (31.33%) Social Skills
2 400 (26.77%) Finance
3 323 (21.62%) Analytical Skills
4 116 (7.76%) Aerospace
5 111 (7.43%) Manufacturing
6 101 (6.76%) Electronics
7 95 (6.36%) Banking
8 88 (5.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 59 (3.95%) Legal
10 54 (3.61%) Public Sector
10 54 (3.61%) Retail
11 53 (3.55%) Law
12 44 (2.95%) Pharmaceutical
13 42 (2.81%) Marketing
14 39 (2.61%) Games
15 38 (2.54%) Organisational Skills
16 34 (2.28%) Automotive
17 33 (2.21%) Financial Institution
18 30 (2.01%) Presentation Skills
19 24 (1.61%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 252 (16.87%) Senior
2 235 (15.73%) Analyst
3 139 (9.30%) Systems Engineer
4 108 (7.23%) Lead
5 102 (6.83%) Test Engineer
6 100 (6.69%) Architect
7 87 (5.82%) Validation Engineer
8 83 (5.56%) Business Analyst
9 73 (4.89%) Data Engineer
10 69 (4.62%) Consultant
11 67 (4.48%) Developer
12 63 (4.22%) Data Analyst
13 48 (3.21%) Principal Engineer
14 46 (3.08%) Integration Engineer
15 40 (2.68%) Embedded Engineer
16 37 (2.48%) IT Manager
17 36 (2.41%) Junior
18 34 (2.28%) Security Architect
18 34 (2.28%) Senior Systems Engineer
19 32 (2.14%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (2.81%) RESTful
2 40 (2.68%) REST
3 34 (2.28%) PyTorch
4 33 (2.21%) JSON
4 33 (2.21%) PySpark
5 27 (1.81%) Kafka
5 27 (1.81%) Pandas
6 25 (1.67%) Middleware
6 25 (1.67%) Node.js
6 25 (1.67%) pytest
7 24 (1.61%) XML
8 22 (1.47%) .NET
9 19 (1.27%) Playwright
10 18 (1.20%) Regular Expression
10 18 (1.20%) Swagger
10 18 (1.20%) XMPP
11 15 (1.00%) CSS
11 15 (1.00%) LDAP
11 15 (1.00%) OAuth
12 14 (0.94%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 85 (5.69%) Cloud Native
2 78 (5.22%) Management Information System
3 71 (4.75%) Onboarding
4 61 (4.08%) Data Structures
5 50 (3.35%) Algorithms
5 50 (3.35%) Low-Code
6 40 (2.68%) Product Ownership
7 36 (2.41%) Driving Licence
7 36 (2.41%) Embedded Systems
8 35 (2.34%) Self-Motivation
9 32 (2.14%) Data Centre
9 32 (2.14%) Distributed Systems
9 32 (2.14%) Legacy Systems
10 31 (2.07%) Analytical Mindset
10 31 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
10 31 (2.07%) Video\Live Streaming
11 27 (1.81%) Life Science
12 23 (1.54%) FPGA
13 22 (1.47%) Robotics
14 18 (1.20%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 89 (5.96%) Linux
2 66 (4.42%) Windows
3 27 (1.81%) Windows Server
4 25 (1.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 24 (1.61%) Unix
6 9 (0.60%) Android
7 4 (0.27%) FreeRTOS
7 4 (0.27%) Mac OS X
8 3 (0.20%) AIX
8 3 (0.20%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.20%) Kali Linux
9 2 (0.13%) CentOS
9 2 (0.13%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.13%) ThreadX
10 1 (0.067%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.067%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.067%) Rocky
10 1 (0.067%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.067%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.067%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 325 (21.75%) Problem-Solving
2 308 (20.62%) Agile
3 306 (20.48%) Continuous Improvement
4 261 (17.47%) AI
5 235 (15.73%) CI/CD
6 216 (14.46%) Analytics
7 213 (14.26%) Test Automation
8 188 (12.58%) Verification and Validation
9 167 (11.18%) Migration
10 165 (11.04%) Data Validation
11 158 (10.58%) Business Intelligence
12 155 (10.37%) DevOps
13 154 (10.31%) Data Modelling
14 150 (10.04%) Stakeholder Management
15 147 (9.84%) Software Engineering
16 146 (9.77%) Decision-Making
16 146 (9.77%) Machine Learning
17 143 (9.57%) Mentoring
18 138 (9.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 136 (9.10%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 370 (24.77%) Python
2 305 (20.41%) SQL
3 64 (4.28%) Java
4 61 (4.08%) C++
5 57 (3.82%) C
6 49 (3.28%) Go
7 39 (2.61%) C#
8 31 (2.07%) JavaScript
9 26 (1.74%) PowerShell
10 25 (1.67%) Bash
10 25 (1.67%) MATLAB
11 19 (1.27%) T-SQL
12 18 (1.20%) Embedded C
13 15 (1.00%) Embedded C++
14 13 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.80%) Scala
16 11 (0.74%) TypeScript
17 10 (0.67%) ABAP
18 9 (0.60%) VBA
19 8 (0.54%) R
Qualifications
1 302 (20.21%) Degree
2 170 (11.38%) Security Cleared
3 112 (7.50%) BPSS Clearance
4 80 (5.35%) SC Cleared
5 72 (4.82%) Master's Degree
6 44 (2.95%) DV Cleared
7 42 (2.81%) Computer Science Degree
8 37 (2.48%) Chartered Engineer
9 32 (2.14%) CISA
9 32 (2.14%) CISSP
9 32 (2.14%) SANS
10 29 (1.94%) CISM
11 27 (1.81%) HNC
12 23 (1.54%) HND
13 22 (1.47%) CGEIT
13 22 (1.47%) FFIEC
14 21 (1.41%) PMI Certification
15 18 (1.20%) PMP
16 17 (1.14%) ACCA
16 17 (1.14%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 235 (15.73%) Data Quality
2 163 (10.91%) QA
3 62 (4.15%) Accessibility
4 59 (3.95%) GDPR
5 42 (2.81%) GRC
6 29 (1.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 25 (1.67%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 25 (1.67%) NIST
8 22 (1.47%) COBIT
8 22 (1.47%) IEC 61508
9 19 (1.27%) IFRS
10 16 (1.07%) ISO 9001
10 16 (1.07%) SLA
11 15 (1.00%) PMO
12 12 (0.80%) GAAP
13 11 (0.74%) GMP
13 11 (0.74%) SOC 2
14 10 (0.67%) WCAG
15 9 (0.60%) ISO 13485
15 9 (0.60%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 70 (4.69%) Docker
2 43 (2.88%) Firmware
3 39 (2.61%) Active Directory
4 22 (1.47%) Virtual Machines
5 20 (1.34%) vSphere
6 16 (1.07%) Embedded Firmware
7 15 (1.00%) VMware Infrastructure
8 6 (0.40%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.40%) KVM
9 2 (0.13%) Terminal Services
9 2 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.067%) OpenAM
10 1 (0.067%) OpenDJ
10 1 (0.067%) OpenIDM
Systems Management
1 71 (4.75%) Kubernetes
2 63 (4.22%) Terraform
3 30 (2.01%) Grafana
4 21 (1.41%) Functional Safety
5 20 (1.34%) Ansible
6 15 (1.00%) Prometheus
7 10 (0.67%) Cilium
7 10 (0.67%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 9 (0.60%) Puppet
8 9 (0.60%) SCCM
9 7 (0.47%) Kibana
10 4 (0.27%) Microsoft Intune
11 3 (0.20%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.20%) HP Fortify
12 2 (0.13%) Argo
12 2 (0.13%) BMC PATROL
12 2 (0.13%) Computer Incident Response Team
12 2 (0.13%) Rancher
12 2 (0.13%) yum
13 1 (0.067%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 194 (12.99%) Microsoft
2 95 (6.36%) Oracle
3 92 (6.16%) SAP
4 50 (3.35%) Salesforce
5 38 (2.54%) Databricks
6 34 (2.28%) Red Hat
6 34 (2.28%) ServiceNow
6 34 (2.28%) VMware
7 29 (1.94%) CrowdStrike
8 23 (1.54%) Palo Alto
9 22 (1.47%) Cisco
9 22 (1.47%) Google
9 22 (1.47%) Tenable
10 21 (1.41%) Adobe
11 15 (1.00%) Foundry
12 14 (0.94%) Citrix
12 14 (0.94%) McAfee
13 13 (0.87%) OpenAI
14 10 (0.67%) Splunk
15 9 (0.60%) IBM