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 27 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 92 181
Rank change year-on-year +16 +89 +22
Permanent jobs citing Validation 2,526 1,600 1,129
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.15% 3.22% 1.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.94% 3.63% 1.82%
Number of salaries quoted 1,488 447 433
10th Percentile £35,350 £38,750 £38,734
25th Percentile £42,750 £41,250 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,490 £55,000 £58,033
Median % change year-on-year +8.16% -5.23% -10.72%
75th Percentile £71,000 £76,250 £76,250
90th Percentile £86,250 £90,000 £94,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £52,600 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.56% -4.36% -4.35%

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 85,859 44,048 62,135
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.06% 88.76% 81.73%
Number of salaries quoted 59,233 24,687 33,999
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £41,500 £36,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £58,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -5.17% -3.33%
75th Percentile £80,000 £75,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,250 £95,090
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +15.79% -9.52% -2.78%

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 27 September 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 27 September 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 +16 2,329 £58,000 +5.45% 3,861
UK excluding London -5 1,839 £55,000 +4.56% 2,438
Work from Home +130 661 £60,000 -2.24% 1,430
London +80 594 £68,750 -14.06% 1,748
South East -14 497 £62,500 +13.64% 659
North of England +122 470 £52,951 +11.05% 427
North West +105 293 £55,000 +10.00% 242
Midlands -26 286 £50,000 -9.09% 343
South West +18 249 £55,000 +4.66% 317
East of England -44 201 £55,000 -8.33% 312
West Midlands +48 165 £50,000 -9.09% 235
East Midlands -51 121 £50,000 +17.65% 107
Yorkshire +26 91 £42,750 +0.59% 126
Scotland +50 88 £70,000 +18.61% 292
North East +4 86 £55,000 +57.14% 61
Wales -37 42 £70,000 +16.67% 51
Northern Ireland -84 5 - - 71
Isle of Man - 5 £38,500 - 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 49 (1.94%) Apache Spark
2 45 (1.78%) Apache Airflow
3 43 (1.70%) Apache
4 38 (1.50%) Confluence
5 36 (1.43%) SharePoint
6 20 (0.79%) Jupyter
7 13 (0.51%) Microsoft Exchange
7 13 (0.51%) SAS
8 10 (0.40%) WinCC
9 6 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.16%) CMS
11 3 (0.12%) Artix
11 3 (0.12%) nginx
11 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.079%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.079%) IIS
13 1 (0.040%) FactoryTalk
13 1 (0.040%) Kinematics
13 1 (0.040%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 146 (5.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 71 (2.81%) Microsoft Office
3 54 (2.14%) Simulink
4 36 (1.43%) Microsoft Project
5 25 (0.99%) Spreadsheet
6 20 (0.79%) AutoCAD
6 20 (0.79%) SOLIDWORKS
7 16 (0.63%) MS Visio
8 13 (0.51%) Revit
9 10 (0.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
10 9 (0.36%) OrCAD
11 8 (0.32%) EPLAN
11 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
12 5 (0.20%) LaTeX
12 5 (0.20%) Mathcad
13 4 (0.16%) CANalyzer
13 4 (0.16%) Stateflow
14 3 (0.12%) Adobe XD
14 3 (0.12%) Autodesk Inventor
14 3 (0.12%) Productboard
Business Applications
1 44 (1.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (1.66%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.44%) SAP MDG
4 10 (0.40%) Workday HCM
5 9 (0.36%) iTrent
5 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.32%) NetSuite
6 8 (0.32%) Oracle Applications
7 7 (0.28%) SAP ERP
7 7 (0.28%) Teamcenter
8 6 (0.24%) Elite 3E
8 6 (0.24%) Infor M3
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle Financials
9 5 (0.20%) SAP MDG-BP
10 4 (0.16%) Maximo
10 4 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
11 3 (0.12%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 330 (13.06%) Azure
2 269 (10.65%) AWS
3 183 (7.24%) Power Platform
4 101 (4.00%) GCP
5 87 (3.44%) Azure DevOps
6 76 (3.01%) GitHub
7 72 (2.85%) SaaS
8 68 (2.69%) Serverless
9 67 (2.65%) Microsoft 365
10 45 (1.78%) Amazon S3
11 41 (1.62%) Dynamics 365
11 41 (1.62%) Entra ID
12 38 (1.50%) GitHub Actions
13 35 (1.39%) Microsoft Copilot
14 30 (1.19%) Microsoft Purview
15 29 (1.15%) Azure Data Factory
16 26 (1.03%) Amazon EMR
16 26 (1.03%) Cloud Computing
17 25 (0.99%) Azure Service Bus
18 24 (0.95%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 69 (2.73%) DNS
1 69 (2.73%) Firewall
2 55 (2.18%) Broadband
3 43 (1.70%) Wireless
4 41 (1.62%) VPN
5 39 (1.54%) Ethernet
6 38 (1.50%) Network Security
7 37 (1.46%) TCP/IP
7 37 (1.46%) WAN
8 34 (1.35%) Modbus
9 31 (1.23%) VLAN
10 30 (1.19%) LAN
11 28 (1.11%) OSPF
12 24 (0.95%) MQTT
12 24 (0.95%) Wireshark
13 23 (0.91%) SD-WAN
14 21 (0.83%) BGP
15 19 (0.75%) 5G
16 17 (0.67%) HTTP
16 17 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 167 (6.61%) Power BI
2 70 (2.77%) Metadata
3 62 (2.45%) Data Warehouse
4 55 (2.18%) Data Lake
5 52 (2.06%) SQL Server
6 49 (1.94%) PostgreSQL
7 39 (1.54%) Amazon Athena
8 38 (1.50%) Relational Database
8 38 (1.50%) Tableau
9 31 (1.23%) MongoDB
10 28 (1.11%) BigQuery
11 27 (1.07%) Big Data
12 25 (0.99%) DynamoDB
12 25 (0.99%) NoSQL
13 23 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
14 22 (0.87%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 21 (0.83%) Amazon Redshift
16 20 (0.79%) Power Query
16 20 (0.79%) Semantic Layer
17 19 (0.75%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 143 (5.66%) JIRA
2 128 (5.07%) Git
3 64 (2.53%) Jenkins
4 58 (2.30%) GitLab
5 47 (1.86%) Rational DOORS
6 31 (1.23%) Selenium
7 29 (1.15%) LabVIEW
8 26 (1.03%) Postman
9 22 (0.87%) Snyk
10 21 (0.83%) Cypress.io
11 14 (0.55%) Burp Suite
12 13 (0.51%) JMeter
13 12 (0.48%) REST Assured
14 11 (0.44%) Claude Code
14 11 (0.44%) Eclipse
15 10 (0.40%) Cucumber
15 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
16 9 (0.36%) Gatling
16 9 (0.36%) MLflow
16 9 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 846 (33.49%) Social Skills
2 650 (25.73%) Finance
3 595 (23.56%) Analytical Skills
4 249 (9.86%) Manufacturing
5 246 (9.74%) Aerospace
6 241 (9.54%) Electronics
7 207 (8.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 142 (5.62%) Law
9 114 (4.51%) Organisational Skills
10 113 (4.47%) Public Sector
11 108 (4.28%) Banking
11 108 (4.28%) Retail
12 94 (3.72%) Marketing
12 94 (3.72%) Telecoms
13 85 (3.37%) Pharmaceutical
14 82 (3.25%) Automotive
15 60 (2.38%) Legal
16 49 (1.94%) Influencing Skills
17 47 (1.86%) Documentation Skills
18 44 (1.74%) Military
Job Titles
1 449 (17.78%) Senior
2 313 (12.39%) Systems Engineer
3 279 (11.05%) Analyst
4 216 (8.55%) Lead
5 132 (5.23%) Test Engineer
6 127 (5.03%) Data Engineer
7 126 (4.99%) Architect
8 102 (4.04%) Developer
9 95 (3.76%) Consultant
10 88 (3.48%) Business Analyst
11 87 (3.44%) Software Engineer
12 80 (3.17%) Electronics Engineer
12 80 (3.17%) Principal Engineer
13 67 (2.65%) Validation Engineer
14 66 (2.61%) Data Analyst
15 58 (2.30%) Network Engineer
16 50 (1.98%) Automation Engineer
16 50 (1.98%) Embedded Engineer
17 49 (1.94%) Design Engineer
18 47 (1.86%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.48%) Terraform
2 61 (2.41%) REST
3 57 (2.26%) RESTful
4 56 (2.22%) Kafka
5 52 (2.06%) Node.js
6 44 (1.74%) Playwright
6 44 (1.74%) PySpark
7 41 (1.62%) .NET
8 37 (1.46%) JSON
9 36 (1.43%) XML
10 32 (1.27%) FastAPI
11 31 (1.23%) CSS
12 30 (1.19%) React
13 29 (1.15%) HTML
14 25 (0.99%) LDAP
14 25 (0.99%) Middleware
14 25 (0.99%) Swagger
15 22 (0.87%) OAuth
16 21 (0.83%) ModSecurity
16 21 (0.83%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 167 (6.61%) Cloud Native
2 141 (5.58%) Management Information System
3 127 (5.03%) Onboarding
4 86 (3.40%) Product Ownership
5 81 (3.21%) Data Centre
6 71 (2.81%) Embedded Systems
7 68 (2.69%) Driving Licence
8 61 (2.41%) Data Structures
9 60 (2.38%) Distributed Systems
10 59 (2.34%) Enterprise Software
11 54 (2.14%) Algorithms
12 53 (2.10%) SCADA
13 52 (2.06%) AI Agents
14 47 (1.86%) Life Science
15 43 (1.70%) IoT
16 42 (1.66%) Analytical Mindset
17 39 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
18 38 (1.50%) Low-Code
18 38 (1.50%) Robotics
19 37 (1.46%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 135 (5.34%) Linux
2 93 (3.68%) Windows
3 30 (1.19%) Windows Server
4 26 (1.03%) Unix
5 15 (0.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.40%) Android
7 8 (0.32%) Embedded Linux
7 8 (0.32%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.24%) FreeRTOS
9 5 (0.20%) Kali Linux
10 4 (0.16%) Mac OS X
11 3 (0.12%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.079%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.079%) VMS
12 2 (0.079%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.040%) AIX
13 1 (0.040%) OpenWrt
13 1 (0.040%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 660 (26.13%) Problem-Solving
2 574 (22.72%) Continuous Improvement
3 463 (18.33%) Verification and Validation
4 458 (18.13%) Agile
5 419 (16.59%) AI
6 352 (13.94%) CI/CD
7 342 (13.54%) Stakeholder Management
8 314 (12.43%) Test Automation
9 313 (12.39%) Migration
10 267 (10.57%) Analytics
10 267 (10.57%) Mentoring
11 250 (9.90%) Software Engineering
12 242 (9.58%) Decision-Making
13 236 (9.34%) DevOps
14 225 (8.91%) Data Analysis
15 224 (8.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 210 (8.31%) Business Intelligence
17 204 (8.08%) Roadmaps
18 195 (7.72%) Machine Learning
19 194 (7.68%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 513 (20.31%) Python
2 443 (17.54%) SQL
3 106 (4.20%) Java
4 94 (3.72%) C++
5 85 (3.37%) C
6 76 (3.01%) JavaScript
7 71 (2.81%) MATLAB
8 65 (2.57%) C#
9 48 (1.90%) Go
10 36 (1.43%) Bash
11 32 (1.27%) TypeScript
12 31 (1.23%) Embedded C
12 31 (1.23%) PowerShell
13 27 (1.07%) R
14 25 (0.99%) Scala
15 18 (0.71%) Embedded C++
16 16 (0.63%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.48%) Shell Script
18 10 (0.40%) Apex Code
19 9 (0.36%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 550 (21.77%) Security Cleared
2 548 (21.69%) Degree
3 413 (16.35%) SC Cleared
4 123 (4.87%) BPSS Clearance
5 107 (4.24%) DV Cleared
6 94 (3.72%) Master's Degree
7 54 (2.14%) Computer Science Degree
8 46 (1.82%) HND
9 41 (1.62%) PhD
10 40 (1.58%) HNC
11 38 (1.50%) Chartered Engineer
12 36 (1.43%) PMI Certification
13 32 (1.27%) CISSP
14 30 (1.19%) ACCA
15 29 (1.15%) Azure Certification
16 27 (1.07%) AWS Certification
16 27 (1.07%) CIMA
17 24 (0.95%) PMP
18 21 (0.83%) Cisco Certification
18 21 (0.83%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 372 (14.73%) Data Quality
2 309 (12.23%) QA
3 79 (3.13%) Accessibility
4 62 (2.45%) GDPR
5 37 (1.46%) GRC
6 33 (1.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 28 (1.11%) GxP
8 24 (0.95%) SLA
9 23 (0.91%) NIST
10 21 (0.83%) IEC 61508
11 16 (0.63%) ISO 9001
12 15 (0.59%) GMP
12 15 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 15288
12 15 (0.59%) PMO
13 13 (0.51%) ISO 19650
13 13 (0.51%) ISO 26262
13 13 (0.51%) SOC 2
14 12 (0.48%) WCAG
15 10 (0.40%) GAAP
16 9 (0.36%) JTAG
System Software
1 102 (4.04%) Firmware
2 101 (4.00%) Docker
3 46 (1.82%) Active Directory
4 45 (1.78%) Embedded Firmware
5 28 (1.11%) Virtual Machines
6 17 (0.67%) vSphere
7 8 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
8 5 (0.20%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 2 (0.079%) iptables
10 2 (0.079%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.079%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.040%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.040%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 87 (3.44%) Kubernetes
2 46 (1.82%) Grafana
3 34 (1.35%) Ansible
4 33 (1.31%) Functional Safety
5 18 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
6 17 (0.67%) Prometheus
7 10 (0.40%) Puppet
8 9 (0.36%) Cilium
8 9 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
9 8 (0.32%) Nessus
9 8 (0.32%) Nmap
10 7 (0.28%) BMC PATROL
10 7 (0.28%) Kibana
11 5 (0.20%) Argo
11 5 (0.20%) WMI
12 4 (0.16%) FortiGate
12 4 (0.16%) HP Fortify
12 4 (0.16%) Kubeflow
12 4 (0.16%) Rancher
12 4 (0.16%) yum
Vendors
1 326 (12.91%) Microsoft
2 130 (5.15%) SAP
3 104 (4.12%) Oracle
4 67 (2.65%) Salesforce
5 66 (2.61%) Databricks
6 64 (2.53%) EMC
7 54 (2.14%) Cisco
7 54 (2.14%) ServiceNow
8 42 (1.66%) Google
9 32 (1.27%) CrowdStrike
10 28 (1.11%) Palo Alto
11 27 (1.07%) Thales
12 25 (0.99%) Sage
13 23 (0.91%) IBM
13 23 (0.91%) Tenable
13 23 (0.91%) VMware
14 22 (0.87%) Siemens
15 20 (0.79%) Informatica
16 19 (0.75%) Red Hat
17 18 (0.71%) Autodesk