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 20 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 137 181 184
Rank change year-on-year +44 +3 -26
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,149 753 1,384
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.52% 1.78% 1.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.96% 1.90% 1.86%
Number of salaries quoted 627 349 783
10th Percentile £35,750 £38,700 £35,000
25th Percentile £43,750 £44,956 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -11.41%
75th Percentile £77,500 £71,250 £72,466
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £53,500 £52,600 £52,067
% change year-on-year +1.71% +1.02% -5.33%

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 58,555 39,559 74,495
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 77.69% 93.50% 87.13%
Number of salaries quoted 35,503 22,222 56,291
10th Percentile £29,750 £31,750 £29,035
25th Percentile £40,000 £43,910 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.29%
75th Percentile £77,500 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,410 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -8.90%

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 20 March 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 20 March 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 +33 991 £60,000 +7.14% 881
UK excluding London +19 712 £53,500 +1.71% 715
London +67 330 £75,000 +7.14% 273
Work from Home +87 329 £57,500 +0.88% 361
South East +48 230 £53,500 +7.00% 220
North of England -1 146 £60,000 +26.32% 149
Midlands -14 119 £37,500 -31.82% 114
North West +8 99 £60,000 +25.83% 77
East of England -9 89 £60,000 +9.09% 105
West Midlands +10 74 £40,000 -38.46% 74
South West -25 65 £55,000 - 86
Scotland -10 48 £42,000 -27.63% 40
East Midlands -46 43 £35,000 -31.37% 40
Yorkshire -33 32 £60,000 +26.32% 49
North East -16 15 £48,000 +5.49% 23
Wales -15 14 £56,685 +15.44% 15
Northern Ireland -33 3 - - 4

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 39 (3.39%) Apache Airflow
2 27 (2.35%) Apache Spark
3 23 (2.00%) Apache
4 21 (1.83%) ArcGIS
5 18 (1.57%) Confluence
6 13 (1.13%) Microsoft Exchange
7 12 (1.04%) Appian
8 11 (0.96%) CMS
8 11 (0.96%) SharePoint
9 4 (0.35%) Headless CMS
9 4 (0.35%) Kinematics
10 2 (0.17%) WordPress
11 1 (0.087%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.087%) IIS
11 1 (0.087%) Jupyter
11 1 (0.087%) SAS
Applications
1 95 (8.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 60 (5.22%) Microsoft Office
3 20 (1.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 19 (1.65%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.61%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 5 (0.44%) Simulink
6 5 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.35%) Fusion 360
8 2 (0.17%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.17%) Adobe Captivate
8 2 (0.17%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.17%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.17%) CANalyzer
8 2 (0.17%) Elementor
8 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
8 2 (0.17%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.17%) Solid Edge
8 2 (0.17%) SOLIDWORKS
8 2 (0.17%) Weka
Business Applications
1 26 (2.26%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.70%) Oracle ERP
4 7 (0.61%) Workday HCM
5 5 (0.44%) SAP ERP
6 4 (0.35%) Elite 3E
6 4 (0.35%) Loan IQ
6 4 (0.35%) Markit EDM
6 4 (0.35%) SAP BPC
7 2 (0.17%) IBM Planning Analytics
7 2 (0.17%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.17%) SAP CX
7 2 (0.17%) SAP FSCM
7 2 (0.17%) SAP MDG
8 1 (0.087%) Magento
8 1 (0.087%) NetSuite
8 1 (0.087%) Raiser’s Edge
8 1 (0.087%) Remedy ITSM
8 1 (0.087%) Salesforce CRM
8 1 (0.087%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 186 (16.19%) Azure
2 116 (10.10%) AWS
3 109 (9.49%) Power Platform
4 61 (5.31%) SaaS
5 43 (3.74%) Azure DevOps
6 40 (3.48%) GCP
7 30 (2.61%) Snowflake
8 29 (2.52%) Dynamics 365
9 28 (2.44%) Azure Data Factory
10 27 (2.35%) dbt
11 25 (2.18%) Amazon S3
12 24 (2.09%) Power Automate
13 23 (2.00%) GitHub
14 20 (1.74%) Entra ID
15 17 (1.48%) Datadog
15 17 (1.48%) Microsoft 365
16 16 (1.39%) OpenShift
17 15 (1.31%) Azure AI
18 12 (1.04%) Anthropic Claude
19 11 (0.96%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 25 (2.18%) CHAP
2 20 (1.74%) Broadband
3 16 (1.39%) WAN
4 15 (1.31%) TCP/IP
5 14 (1.22%) Firewall
6 13 (1.13%) SD-WAN
7 12 (1.04%) 5G
8 11 (0.96%) DNS
8 11 (0.96%) Wireless
9 9 (0.78%) HTTP
10 8 (0.70%) MQTT
10 8 (0.70%) Multicast
11 7 (0.61%) LAN
11 7 (0.61%) Modbus
11 7 (0.61%) Wireshark
12 6 (0.52%) ATM
12 6 (0.52%) NAS
12 6 (0.52%) tcpdump
13 5 (0.44%) Cisco IOS
13 5 (0.44%) WAAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 102 (8.88%) Power BI
2 43 (3.74%) SQL Server
3 40 (3.48%) Tableau
4 31 (2.70%) Data Warehouse
5 29 (2.52%) Metadata
6 28 (2.44%) Relational Database
7 27 (2.35%) GIS
8 25 (2.18%) PostgreSQL
9 20 (1.74%) QGIS
9 20 (1.74%) Spatial Data
10 16 (1.39%) Oracle Reports
11 14 (1.22%) Azure SQL Database
11 14 (1.22%) Parquet
11 14 (1.22%) Spark SQL
12 13 (1.13%) Apache Hive
12 13 (1.13%) Impala
12 13 (1.13%) MySQL
12 13 (1.13%) Oracle Database
13 12 (1.04%) Pinecone
14 11 (0.96%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 65 (5.66%) Git
2 61 (5.31%) JIRA
3 43 (3.74%) Rational DOORS
4 20 (1.74%) Jenkins
5 18 (1.57%) Postman
6 16 (1.39%) Cucumber
6 16 (1.39%) LabVIEW
7 15 (1.31%) GitLab
7 15 (1.31%) JMeter
8 14 (1.22%) MLflow
9 13 (1.13%) IBM UrbanCode
9 13 (1.13%) TestRail
10 11 (0.96%) Eclipse
10 11 (0.96%) Locust
11 10 (0.87%) Selenium
12 7 (0.61%) SoapUI
13 6 (0.52%) LoadRunner
13 6 (0.52%) Subversion
14 5 (0.44%) SpecFlow
14 5 (0.44%) Visual Studio
General
1 425 (36.99%) Social Skills
2 311 (27.07%) Finance
3 263 (22.89%) Analytical Skills
4 89 (7.75%) Banking
5 72 (6.27%) Manufacturing
6 59 (5.13%) Electronics
7 53 (4.61%) Aerospace
8 51 (4.44%) Legal
9 45 (3.92%) Financial Institution
10 44 (3.83%) Marketing
11 43 (3.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 42 (3.66%) Presentation Skills
13 40 (3.48%) Law
13 40 (3.48%) Public Sector
14 37 (3.22%) Retail
15 31 (2.70%) Organisational Skills
16 23 (2.00%) Pharmaceutical
17 22 (1.91%) Documentation Skills
17 22 (1.91%) Telecoms
18 20 (1.74%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 192 (16.71%) Analyst
2 174 (15.14%) Senior
3 128 (11.14%) Systems Engineer
4 88 (7.66%) Lead
5 69 (6.01%) Business Analyst
6 63 (5.48%) Validation Engineer
7 61 (5.31%) Architect
8 56 (4.87%) Test Engineer
9 54 (4.70%) Integration Engineer
10 53 (4.61%) Consultant
11 46 (4.00%) Data Analyst
12 43 (3.74%) Developer
13 40 (3.48%) Junior
13 40 (3.48%) Senior Systems Engineer
14 38 (3.31%) Systems Integration Engineer
15 36 (3.13%) Principal Engineer
16 35 (3.05%) Data Engineer
17 31 (2.70%) Verification Engineer
18 30 (2.61%) Software Validation Engineer
19 28 (2.44%) Principal Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (5.13%) REST
2 39 (3.39%) PyTorch
3 37 (3.22%) Pandas
4 35 (3.05%) JSON
5 29 (2.52%) Middleware
6 24 (2.09%) pytest
7 23 (2.00%) XML
8 19 (1.65%) OAuth
9 18 (1.57%) JWT
9 18 (1.57%) NumPy
9 18 (1.57%) PySpark
9 18 (1.57%) Swagger
9 18 (1.57%) TensorFlow
10 16 (1.39%) .NET
10 16 (1.39%) RESTful
11 15 (1.31%) React
11 15 (1.31%) scikit-learn
11 15 (1.31%) Web Services
12 14 (1.22%) CSS
12 14 (1.22%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 75 (6.53%) Management Information System
2 57 (4.96%) Onboarding
3 46 (4.00%) Data Structures
4 40 (3.48%) Product Ownership
5 35 (3.05%) Low-Code
6 33 (2.87%) Algorithms
7 32 (2.79%) Legacy Systems
8 29 (2.52%) Self-Motivation
9 26 (2.26%) Life Science
10 21 (1.83%) Analytical Mindset
11 18 (1.57%) Enterprise Software
12 16 (1.39%) Cloud Native
13 14 (1.22%) Blockchain
13 14 (1.22%) Embedded Systems
13 14 (1.22%) SCADA
14 13 (1.13%) FPGA
14 13 (1.13%) Reinsurance
15 12 (1.04%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 12 (1.04%) IoT
16 11 (0.96%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 58 (5.05%) Linux
2 54 (4.70%) Windows
3 17 (1.48%) Unix
4 13 (1.13%) Windows Server
5 12 (1.04%) Android
5 12 (1.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (0.35%) Apple iOS
6 4 (0.35%) CentOS
7 3 (0.26%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.17%) AIX
8 2 (0.17%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.17%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.087%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.087%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.087%) Rocky
9 1 (0.087%) ThreadX
9 1 (0.087%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.087%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 300 (26.11%) Agile
2 261 (22.72%) Problem-Solving
3 217 (18.89%) Continuous Improvement
4 181 (15.75%) Analytics
5 180 (15.67%) Verification and Validation
6 155 (13.49%) Data Validation
7 148 (12.88%) Test Automation
8 143 (12.45%) AI
9 134 (11.66%) CI/CD
10 129 (11.23%) Business Intelligence
10 129 (11.23%) Migration
11 127 (11.05%) Systems Engineering
12 122 (10.62%) DevOps
13 119 (10.36%) Stakeholder Management
14 115 (10.01%) User Acceptance Testing
15 114 (9.92%) Mentoring
16 113 (9.83%) Data Modelling
17 112 (9.75%) Decision-Making
18 110 (9.57%) ETL
19 103 (8.96%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 255 (22.19%) Python
2 244 (21.24%) SQL
3 50 (4.35%) Java
4 40 (3.48%) PowerShell
5 35 (3.05%) C++
6 33 (2.87%) C
7 29 (2.52%) JavaScript
8 22 (1.91%) Bash
9 18 (1.57%) T-SQL
10 16 (1.39%) C#
11 15 (1.31%) Go
11 15 (1.31%) MATLAB
12 14 (1.22%) TypeScript
13 12 (1.04%) R
14 11 (0.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 9 (0.78%) VBA
16 7 (0.61%) Apex Code
16 7 (0.61%) VB
17 6 (0.52%) PHP
18 5 (0.44%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 259 (22.54%) Degree
2 151 (13.14%) Security Cleared
3 124 (10.79%) BPSS Clearance
4 58 (5.05%) SC Cleared
5 55 (4.79%) Master's Degree
6 42 (3.66%) Computer Science Degree
7 31 (2.70%) CISA
7 31 (2.70%) CISSP
8 30 (2.61%) CISM
9 29 (2.52%) DV Cleared
10 25 (2.18%) CGEIT
10 25 (2.18%) FFIEC
10 25 (2.18%) SANS
11 23 (2.00%) Chartered Engineer
11 23 (2.00%) PMI Certification
11 23 (2.00%) PMP
12 19 (1.65%) HNC
13 17 (1.48%) ISTQB
14 14 (1.22%) HND
15 9 (0.78%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (12.62%) Data Quality
2 140 (12.18%) QA
3 64 (5.57%) Accessibility
4 63 (5.48%) GDPR
5 42 (3.66%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 26 (2.26%) NIST
7 25 (2.18%) COBIT
8 18 (1.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 18 (1.57%) SLA
9 16 (1.39%) WCAG
10 15 (1.31%) IFRS
11 14 (1.22%) GRC
12 11 (0.96%) ISO 20022
12 11 (0.96%) ISO 9001
13 10 (0.87%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 10 (0.87%) Good Clinical Practice
13 10 (0.87%) ISO/IEC 12207
14 9 (0.78%) GAAP
14 9 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 8 (0.70%) GxP
System Software
1 69 (6.01%) Docker
2 26 (2.26%) Firmware
3 23 (2.00%) Active Directory
4 15 (1.31%) VMware Infrastructure
5 7 (0.61%) vSphere
6 6 (0.52%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.52%) KVM
7 5 (0.44%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.17%) Ceph
9 2 (0.17%) Lustre
9 2 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 2 (0.17%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.087%) iptables
10 1 (0.087%) OpenAM
10 1 (0.087%) OpenDJ
10 1 (0.087%) OpenIDM
10 1 (0.087%) pfSense
10 1 (0.087%) vCloud
10 1 (0.087%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 64 (5.57%) Kubernetes
2 43 (3.74%) Terraform
3 27 (2.35%) Grafana
4 24 (2.09%) Ansible
5 13 (1.13%) Prometheus
6 12 (1.04%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 10 (0.87%) SCCM
8 8 (0.70%) Puppet
9 7 (0.61%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.44%) Argo
10 5 (0.44%) Rancher
10 5 (0.44%) yum
11 2 (0.17%) BMC PATROL
11 2 (0.17%) Nessus
11 2 (0.17%) PowerCLI
12 1 (0.087%) Control-M
12 1 (0.087%) Docker Swarm
12 1 (0.087%) FortiGate
12 1 (0.087%) Kibana
12 1 (0.087%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 155 (13.49%) Microsoft
2 60 (5.22%) SAP
3 58 (5.05%) Oracle
4 45 (3.92%) Salesforce
5 22 (1.91%) IBM
6 21 (1.83%) VMware
7 20 (1.74%) Red Hat
8 19 (1.65%) Cisco
8 19 (1.65%) Foundry
9 17 (1.48%) OpenAI
10 15 (1.31%) Adobe
11 14 (1.22%) Google
11 14 (1.22%) ServiceNow
11 14 (1.22%) Software AG
12 13 (1.13%) Databricks
12 13 (1.13%) Workday
13 12 (1.04%) Automation Anywhere
13 12 (1.04%) UiPath
14 10 (0.87%) Citrix
15 9 (0.78%) Siemens