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 31 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 87 90 195
Rank change year-on-year +3 +105 +10
Permanent jobs citing Validation 2,149 1,667 1,141
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.95% 3.33% 1.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.67% 3.75% 1.73%
Number of salaries quoted 1,287 518 473
10th Percentile £35,600 £38,925 £39,000
25th Percentile £42,500 £41,250 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -8.33% -5.88%
75th Percentile £71,250 £75,000 £76,250
90th Percentile £86,700 £90,450 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £52,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.76% -4.55% -0.76%

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 80,366 44,460 65,769
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.09% 88.73% 80.84%
Number of salaries quoted 55,743 25,365 40,240
10th Percentile £31,125 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £56,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -1.79% -6.67%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £51,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -6.86% -7.07%

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 31 August 2026.

Salary histogram for Validation in the UK

Validation
Top 18 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 31 August 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 -7 1,990 £57,500 +4.55% 1,817
UK excluding London -26 1,549 £55,000 +4.76% 1,222
Work from Home +114 605 £56,000 -6.67% 733
London +69 521 £70,000 -12.50% 856
South East -19 456 £59,745 +8.63% 358
North of England +92 404 £55,000 +15.79% 218
North West +98 239 £55,000 +15.35% 120
Midlands -38 225 £47,500 -13.64% 164
South West +7 198 £55,000 +4.56% 201
East of England -60 153 £57,500 +4.07% 168
West Midlands +26 126 £47,500 -13.64% 113
East Midlands -64 98 £46,743 +9.98% 51
North East +5 83 £55,000 +57.14% 49
Yorkshire +12 82 £43,000 +1.18% 51
Scotland +27 75 £70,000 +20.62% 108
Wales -42 33 £60,000 +11.63% 27
Isle of Man - 4 £38,500 - 3
Northern Ireland -82 2 - - 13

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 47 (2.19%) Apache Airflow
2 44 (2.05%) Apache Spark
3 43 (2.00%) Apache
4 35 (1.63%) Confluence
5 32 (1.49%) SharePoint
6 20 (0.93%) Jupyter
7 13 (0.60%) SAS
8 10 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
9 6 (0.28%) WinCC
10 5 (0.23%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 5 (0.23%) CMS
11 4 (0.19%) Kinematics
12 3 (0.14%) Artix
12 3 (0.14%) IIS
12 3 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.093%) Cloud Foundry
14 1 (0.047%) FactoryTalk
14 1 (0.047%) OpenStack
14 1 (0.047%) Palantir Foundry
14 1 (0.047%) WebSphere
Applications
1 115 (5.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 62 (2.89%) Microsoft Office
3 41 (1.91%) Simulink
4 35 (1.63%) Microsoft Project
5 17 (0.79%) SOLIDWORKS
5 17 (0.79%) Spreadsheet
6 16 (0.74%) MS Visio
7 11 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
8 10 (0.47%) AutoCAD
9 5 (0.23%) LaTeX
9 5 (0.23%) Mathcad
10 4 (0.19%) Adobe XD
10 4 (0.19%) CANalyzer
10 4 (0.19%) OrCAD
10 4 (0.19%) Revit
10 4 (0.19%) Sketch
11 3 (0.14%) Autodesk Inventor
11 3 (0.14%) Productboard
11 3 (0.14%) Stateflow
12 2 (0.093%) Navisworks
Business Applications
1 41 (1.91%) Dynamics CRM
2 40 (1.86%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (0.47%) SAP MDG
4 9 (0.42%) iTrent
4 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.37%) Oracle Applications
5 8 (0.37%) SAP ERP
6 7 (0.33%) Elite 3E
6 7 (0.33%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.28%) Teamcenter
7 6 (0.28%) Workday HCM
8 5 (0.23%) SAP MDG-BP
9 4 (0.19%) Loan IQ
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle Financials
9 4 (0.19%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.14%) Infor M3
10 3 (0.14%) Maximo
10 3 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
10 3 (0.14%) SystmOne
11 2 (0.093%) Refinitiv Enterprise Platform
Cloud Services
1 290 (13.49%) Azure
2 253 (11.77%) AWS
3 160 (7.45%) Power Platform
4 92 (4.28%) GCP
5 75 (3.49%) SaaS
6 69 (3.21%) Azure DevOps
7 63 (2.93%) Microsoft 365
8 60 (2.79%) GitHub
9 50 (2.33%) Serverless
10 37 (1.72%) Amazon S3
11 35 (1.63%) Dynamics 365
12 33 (1.54%) Entra ID
13 30 (1.40%) GitHub Actions
14 28 (1.30%) Microsoft Copilot
15 22 (1.02%) Amazon EMR
16 21 (0.98%) Amazon EC2
16 21 (0.98%) Cloud Computing
17 19 (0.88%) Microsoft Purview
17 19 (0.88%) PowerApps
17 19 (0.88%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 66 (3.07%) Broadband
2 64 (2.98%) Firewall
3 62 (2.89%) DNS
4 41 (1.91%) Wireless
5 35 (1.63%) WAN
6 34 (1.58%) Network Security
7 33 (1.54%) TCP/IP
7 33 (1.54%) VPN
8 25 (1.16%) Ethernet
8 25 (1.16%) LAN
9 22 (1.02%) SD-WAN
10 21 (0.98%) VLAN
11 20 (0.93%) OSPF
12 19 (0.88%) BGP
12 19 (0.88%) Modbus
12 19 (0.88%) MQTT
13 18 (0.84%) Wireshark
14 17 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
15 15 (0.70%) 5G
15 15 (0.70%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 146 (6.79%) Power BI
2 57 (2.65%) Data Warehouse
3 53 (2.47%) PostgreSQL
4 50 (2.33%) Metadata
5 46 (2.14%) Data Lake
6 45 (2.09%) SQL Server
7 42 (1.95%) Tableau
8 35 (1.63%) MongoDB
9 29 (1.35%) Relational Database
10 28 (1.30%) Amazon Athena
11 27 (1.26%) BigQuery
12 25 (1.16%) DynamoDB
13 23 (1.07%) Semantic Layer
14 21 (0.98%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 19 (0.88%) Azure SQL Database
15 19 (0.88%) Big Data
15 19 (0.88%) MySQL
16 17 (0.79%) NoSQL
17 14 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
17 14 (0.65%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 130 (6.05%) JIRA
2 108 (5.03%) Git
3 55 (2.56%) Jenkins
4 49 (2.28%) GitLab
5 38 (1.77%) Rational DOORS
6 29 (1.35%) Selenium
7 24 (1.12%) Postman
8 22 (1.02%) Snyk
9 21 (0.98%) Cypress.io
9 21 (0.98%) LabVIEW
10 13 (0.60%) JMeter
11 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
11 12 (0.56%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.51%) REST Assured
13 10 (0.47%) Gatling
13 10 (0.47%) TeamCity
14 9 (0.42%) Zephyr
15 8 (0.37%) Rational Rhapsody
16 7 (0.33%) Hudson
16 7 (0.33%) MLflow
General
1 721 (33.55%) Social Skills
2 567 (26.38%) Finance
3 510 (23.73%) Analytical Skills
4 204 (9.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 202 (9.40%) Aerospace
6 194 (9.03%) Manufacturing
7 186 (8.66%) Electronics
8 125 (5.82%) Law
9 102 (4.75%) Banking
10 88 (4.09%) Public Sector
11 81 (3.77%) Marketing
11 81 (3.77%) Retail
12 74 (3.44%) Pharmaceutical
13 73 (3.40%) Organisational Skills
14 61 (2.84%) Automotive
15 58 (2.70%) Legal
16 56 (2.61%) Telecoms
17 45 (2.09%) Games
17 45 (2.09%) Influencing Skills
18 42 (1.95%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 388 (18.05%) Senior
2 264 (12.28%) Analyst
3 243 (11.31%) Systems Engineer
4 193 (8.98%) Lead
5 129 (6.00%) Test Engineer
6 117 (5.44%) Architect
7 104 (4.84%) Data Engineer
8 93 (4.33%) Developer
9 82 (3.82%) Consultant
10 80 (3.72%) Business Analyst
11 78 (3.63%) Software Engineer
12 69 (3.21%) Principal Engineer
13 68 (3.16%) Data Analyst
14 63 (2.93%) Validation Engineer
15 50 (2.33%) Embedded Engineer
15 50 (2.33%) Support Engineer
16 48 (2.23%) Electronics Engineer
17 47 (2.19%) Data Scientist
17 47 (2.19%) Network Engineer
18 44 (2.05%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (3.35%) Terraform
2 51 (2.37%) RESTful
3 48 (2.23%) Kafka
4 47 (2.19%) REST
5 41 (1.91%) Node.js
6 33 (1.54%) JSON
7 32 (1.49%) .NET
7 32 (1.49%) Playwright
7 32 (1.49%) XML
8 29 (1.35%) PySpark
9 27 (1.26%) LDAP
10 26 (1.21%) Middleware
11 23 (1.07%) CSS
11 23 (1.07%) React
12 22 (1.02%) HTML
13 21 (0.98%) FastAPI
13 21 (0.98%) ModSecurity
14 20 (0.93%) Swagger
15 19 (0.88%) Regular Expression
15 19 (0.88%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 155 (7.21%) Cloud Native
2 126 (5.86%) Onboarding
3 116 (5.40%) Management Information System
4 83 (3.86%) Product Ownership
5 77 (3.58%) Data Centre
6 62 (2.89%) Embedded Systems
7 60 (2.79%) Data Structures
8 57 (2.65%) Enterprise Software
9 56 (2.61%) Driving Licence
10 55 (2.56%) Distributed Systems
11 53 (2.47%) Algorithms
12 47 (2.19%) Low-Code
13 43 (2.00%) AI Agents
14 41 (1.91%) Life Science
15 40 (1.86%) Analytical Mindset
16 39 (1.81%) Robotics
17 38 (1.77%) Legacy Systems
18 36 (1.68%) IoT
19 35 (1.63%) SCADA
19 35 (1.63%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 129 (6.00%) Linux
2 92 (4.28%) Windows
3 35 (1.63%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 21 (0.98%) Unix
5 10 (0.47%) Android
6 9 (0.42%) Embedded Linux
7 6 (0.28%) FreeRTOS
7 6 (0.28%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.23%) Kali Linux
9 4 (0.19%) Mac OS X
10 3 (0.14%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.093%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.093%) ThreadX
11 2 (0.093%) VMS
11 2 (0.093%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.047%) AIX
12 1 (0.047%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 543 (25.27%) Problem-Solving
2 511 (23.78%) Continuous Improvement
3 424 (19.73%) Agile
4 378 (17.59%) AI
5 344 (16.01%) Verification and Validation
6 304 (14.15%) CI/CD
7 280 (13.03%) Test Automation
8 275 (12.80%) Stakeholder Management
9 255 (11.87%) Migration
10 252 (11.73%) Analytics
11 243 (11.31%) Mentoring
12 225 (10.47%) Decision-Making
13 222 (10.33%) Software Engineering
14 203 (9.45%) DevOps
15 187 (8.70%) Data Analysis
15 187 (8.70%) Machine Learning
16 186 (8.66%) Business Intelligence
17 184 (8.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 175 (8.14%) Roadmaps
19 166 (7.72%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 468 (21.78%) Python
2 388 (18.05%) SQL
3 96 (4.47%) Java
4 90 (4.19%) C++
5 82 (3.82%) C
6 63 (2.93%) JavaScript
7 56 (2.61%) MATLAB
8 55 (2.56%) Go
9 54 (2.51%) C#
10 31 (1.44%) Bash
11 29 (1.35%) Embedded C
12 28 (1.30%) PowerShell
13 23 (1.07%) TypeScript
14 22 (1.02%) Scala
15 19 (0.88%) R
16 18 (0.84%) Embedded C++
17 12 (0.56%) T-SQL
18 11 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 9 (0.42%) ABAP
20 8 (0.37%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 467 (21.73%) Degree
2 432 (20.10%) Security Cleared
3 298 (13.87%) SC Cleared
4 126 (5.86%) BPSS Clearance
5 108 (5.03%) DV Cleared
6 86 (4.00%) Master's Degree
7 48 (2.23%) Computer Science Degree
8 38 (1.77%) PhD
9 36 (1.68%) Chartered Engineer
9 36 (1.68%) CISSP
10 31 (1.44%) HNC
10 31 (1.44%) PMI Certification
11 29 (1.35%) HND
12 28 (1.30%) CISM
13 24 (1.12%) ACCA
13 24 (1.12%) AWS Certification
14 23 (1.07%) Azure Certification
14 23 (1.07%) CIMA
15 19 (0.88%) Cisco Certification
15 19 (0.88%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 312 (14.52%) Data Quality
2 287 (13.36%) QA
3 76 (3.54%) Accessibility
4 50 (2.33%) GDPR
5 37 (1.72%) GRC
6 27 (1.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 23 (1.07%) IEC 61508
7 23 (1.07%) NIST
8 22 (1.02%) GxP
9 20 (0.93%) SLA
10 17 (0.79%) PMO
11 15 (0.70%) ISO 26262
12 14 (0.65%) GMP
12 14 (0.65%) ISO 9001
12 14 (0.65%) WCAG
13 12 (0.56%) GAAP
13 12 (0.56%) IFRS
14 11 (0.51%) SOC 2
15 10 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 15288
16 9 (0.42%) Def Stans
System Software
1 84 (3.91%) Firmware
2 77 (3.58%) Docker
3 47 (2.19%) Active Directory
4 37 (1.72%) Embedded Firmware
5 28 (1.30%) Virtual Machines
6 21 (0.98%) vSphere
7 12 (0.56%) VMware Infrastructure
8 5 (0.23%) KVM
9 4 (0.19%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.093%) iptables
10 2 (0.093%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.093%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.047%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.047%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 77 (3.58%) Kubernetes
2 42 (1.95%) Grafana
3 29 (1.35%) Ansible
4 27 (1.26%) Functional Safety
5 15 (0.70%) Prometheus
5 15 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (0.47%) Cilium
7 8 (0.37%) Puppet
8 7 (0.33%) Kibana
8 7 (0.33%) Microsoft Intune
9 6 (0.28%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 6 (0.28%) Nessus
9 6 (0.28%) Nmap
10 5 (0.23%) FortiGate
10 5 (0.23%) SCCM
10 5 (0.23%) WMI
11 4 (0.19%) BMC PATROL
11 4 (0.19%) HP Fortify
11 4 (0.19%) Kubeflow
12 3 (0.14%) Argo
Vendors
1 269 (12.52%) Microsoft
2 117 (5.44%) SAP
3 95 (4.42%) Oracle
4 59 (2.75%) Salesforce
5 56 (2.61%) Databricks
6 51 (2.37%) Cisco
7 50 (2.33%) ServiceNow
8 43 (2.00%) Google
9 31 (1.44%) EMC
9 31 (1.44%) VMware
10 29 (1.35%) CrowdStrike
11 28 (1.30%) Palo Alto
12 24 (1.12%) Red Hat
13 22 (1.02%) Tenable
14 18 (0.84%) IBM
15 17 (0.79%) Splunk
16 15 (0.70%) McAfee
17 14 (0.65%) Foundry
17 14 (0.65%) Workday
18 13 (0.60%) Siemens