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

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 77 87 185
Rank change year-on-year +10 +98 +22
Permanent jobs citing Validation 2,467 1,606 1,119
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.12% 3.28% 1.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.91% 3.70% 1.81%
Number of salaries quoted 1,460 455 438
10th Percentile £35,725 £38,750 £39,000
25th Percentile £42,750 £41,250 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,490 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.16% -8.33% -6.25%
75th Percentile £71,000 £75,900 £76,250
90th Percentile £86,250 £89,500 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £52,600 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.56% -4.36% -2.22%

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 84,843 43,391 61,954
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.02% 88.66% 81.33%
Number of salaries quoted 58,659 24,441 34,825
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £32,250
25th Percentile £41,969 £36,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £80,000 £75,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,250 £95,000
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 22 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 22 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 +14 2,276 £57,750 +5.00% 3,466
UK excluding London -10 1,801 £55,000 +4.56% 2,113
Work from Home +119 646 £60,000 -1.64% 1,328
London +73 575 £70,000 -12.50% 1,622
South East -14 495 £61,250 +11.36% 579
North of England +109 470 £52,726 +10.79% 367
North West +98 288 £55,000 +10.00% 211
Midlands -28 273 £50,000 -9.09% 311
South West +16 240 £56,250 +7.14% 283
East of England -46 190 £55,000 -8.33% 277
West Midlands +36 156 £50,000 -9.09% 218
East Midlands -49 117 £48,372 +13.82% 92
Yorkshire +19 93 £42,750 +0.59% 100
North East +4 89 £55,000 +57.14% 57
Scotland +41 83 £70,000 +20.62% 222
Wales -39 43 £70,000 +27.27% 46
Northern Ireland -77 5 - - 54
Isle of Man - 5 £38,500 -

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 48 (1.95%) Apache Spark
2 46 (1.86%) Apache Airflow
3 42 (1.70%) Apache
4 40 (1.62%) Confluence
5 35 (1.42%) SharePoint
6 20 (0.81%) Jupyter
7 13 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
7 13 (0.53%) SAS
8 9 (0.36%) WinCC
9 5 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.16%) CMS
11 3 (0.12%) Artix
11 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.081%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.081%) IIS
12 2 (0.081%) Kinematics
12 2 (0.081%) nginx
13 1 (0.041%) Oracle Workflow
13 1 (0.041%) WebSphere
Applications
1 141 (5.72%) Microsoft Excel
2 71 (2.88%) Microsoft Office
3 53 (2.15%) Simulink
4 37 (1.50%) Microsoft Project
5 22 (0.89%) Spreadsheet
6 20 (0.81%) SOLIDWORKS
7 19 (0.77%) AutoCAD
8 16 (0.65%) MS Visio
9 11 (0.45%) Revit
10 10 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
11 7 (0.28%) EPLAN
11 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
11 7 (0.28%) OrCAD
12 5 (0.20%) CANalyzer
12 5 (0.20%) LaTeX
12 5 (0.20%) Mathcad
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe XD
13 3 (0.12%) Autodesk Inventor
13 3 (0.12%) Productboard
13 3 (0.12%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 44 (1.78%) SAP S/4HANA
2 43 (1.74%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.45%) SAP MDG
4 9 (0.36%) iTrent
4 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
4 9 (0.36%) Workday HCM
5 8 (0.32%) NetSuite
5 8 (0.32%) Oracle Applications
6 7 (0.28%) SAP ERP
6 7 (0.28%) Teamcenter
7 6 (0.24%) Elite 3E
7 6 (0.24%) Infor M3
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Financials
8 5 (0.20%) SAP MDG-BP
9 4 (0.16%) Maximo
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 323 (13.09%) Azure
2 267 (10.82%) AWS
3 181 (7.34%) Power Platform
4 99 (4.01%) GCP
5 87 (3.53%) Azure DevOps
6 74 (3.00%) SaaS
7 73 (2.96%) GitHub
8 67 (2.72%) Serverless
9 65 (2.63%) Microsoft 365
10 44 (1.78%) Amazon S3
11 40 (1.62%) Dynamics 365
12 39 (1.58%) Entra ID
13 35 (1.42%) GitHub Actions
14 34 (1.38%) Microsoft Copilot
15 29 (1.18%) Azure Data Factory
16 28 (1.13%) Microsoft Purview
17 26 (1.05%) Cloud Computing
18 25 (1.01%) Amazon EMR
19 24 (0.97%) PowerApps
20 23 (0.93%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 70 (2.84%) DNS
2 69 (2.80%) Firewall
3 56 (2.27%) Broadband
4 41 (1.66%) Wireless
5 38 (1.54%) VPN
6 37 (1.50%) Network Security
6 37 (1.50%) TCP/IP
6 37 (1.50%) WAN
7 35 (1.42%) Ethernet
8 30 (1.22%) Modbus
9 29 (1.18%) LAN
10 28 (1.13%) VLAN
11 26 (1.05%) OSPF
12 23 (0.93%) SD-WAN
12 23 (0.93%) Wireshark
13 22 (0.89%) MQTT
14 21 (0.85%) BGP
15 19 (0.77%) 5G
16 17 (0.69%) HTTP
16 17 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 165 (6.69%) Power BI
2 68 (2.76%) Metadata
3 61 (2.47%) Data Warehouse
4 55 (2.23%) Data Lake
5 51 (2.07%) SQL Server
6 47 (1.91%) PostgreSQL
7 42 (1.70%) Tableau
8 38 (1.54%) Amazon Athena
9 37 (1.50%) Relational Database
10 30 (1.22%) MongoDB
11 28 (1.13%) Big Data
11 28 (1.13%) BigQuery
12 25 (1.01%) DynamoDB
13 24 (0.97%) NoSQL
14 23 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
15 22 (0.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 21 (0.85%) Semantic Layer
17 20 (0.81%) Amazon Redshift
18 19 (0.77%) Delta Lake
18 19 (0.77%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 143 (5.80%) JIRA
2 126 (5.11%) Git
3 64 (2.59%) Jenkins
4 55 (2.23%) GitLab
5 44 (1.78%) Rational DOORS
6 33 (1.34%) Selenium
7 29 (1.18%) LabVIEW
8 26 (1.05%) Postman
9 22 (0.89%) Snyk
10 21 (0.85%) Cypress.io
11 14 (0.57%) Burp Suite
11 14 (0.57%) JMeter
12 12 (0.49%) REST Assured
13 11 (0.45%) Claude Code
13 11 (0.45%) Cucumber
13 11 (0.45%) Eclipse
14 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
15 9 (0.36%) Gatling
15 9 (0.36%) MLflow
15 9 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 827 (33.52%) Social Skills
2 634 (25.70%) Finance
3 586 (23.75%) Analytical Skills
4 239 (9.69%) Aerospace
5 235 (9.53%) Manufacturing
6 225 (9.12%) Electronics
7 203 (8.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 142 (5.76%) Law
9 110 (4.46%) Organisational Skills
10 108 (4.38%) Public Sector
11 107 (4.34%) Banking
12 104 (4.22%) Retail
13 91 (3.69%) Marketing
14 90 (3.65%) Telecoms
15 85 (3.45%) Pharmaceutical
16 77 (3.12%) Automotive
17 62 (2.51%) Legal
18 48 (1.95%) Influencing Skills
19 46 (1.86%) Documentation Skills
20 44 (1.78%) Military
Job Titles
1 435 (17.63%) Senior
2 312 (12.65%) Systems Engineer
3 278 (11.27%) Analyst
4 213 (8.63%) Lead
5 136 (5.51%) Test Engineer
6 125 (5.07%) Architect
7 123 (4.99%) Data Engineer
8 99 (4.01%) Developer
9 97 (3.93%) Consultant
10 89 (3.61%) Business Analyst
11 83 (3.36%) Software Engineer
12 75 (3.04%) Principal Engineer
13 72 (2.92%) Electronics Engineer
14 70 (2.84%) Data Analyst
15 63 (2.55%) Validation Engineer
16 57 (2.31%) Network Engineer
17 50 (2.03%) Embedded Engineer
18 48 (1.95%) Data Scientist
19 47 (1.91%) Support Engineer
20 46 (1.86%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (3.49%) Terraform
2 55 (2.23%) RESTful
3 54 (2.19%) REST
4 53 (2.15%) Kafka
5 49 (1.99%) Node.js
6 44 (1.78%) PySpark
7 43 (1.74%) Playwright
8 38 (1.54%) .NET
9 36 (1.46%) JSON
9 36 (1.46%) XML
10 29 (1.18%) CSS
11 28 (1.13%) FastAPI
11 28 (1.13%) React
12 27 (1.09%) HTML
13 26 (1.05%) LDAP
13 26 (1.05%) Middleware
14 23 (0.93%) Swagger
15 22 (0.89%) OAuth
16 21 (0.85%) ModSecurity
17 20 (0.81%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 164 (6.65%) Cloud Native
2 137 (5.55%) Management Information System
3 124 (5.03%) Onboarding
4 86 (3.49%) Product Ownership
5 81 (3.28%) Data Centre
6 70 (2.84%) Embedded Systems
7 65 (2.63%) Driving Licence
8 61 (2.47%) Data Structures
9 60 (2.43%) Enterprise Software
10 58 (2.35%) Distributed Systems
11 54 (2.19%) Algorithms
12 50 (2.03%) AI Agents
13 48 (1.95%) Life Science
13 48 (1.95%) SCADA
14 42 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
15 40 (1.62%) IoT
16 39 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
16 39 (1.58%) Low-Code
17 37 (1.50%) Robotics
18 34 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 135 (5.47%) Linux
2 93 (3.77%) Windows
3 31 (1.26%) Windows Server
4 26 (1.05%) Unix
5 16 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.41%) 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 (0.081%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.081%) VMS
12 2 (0.081%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.041%) AIX
13 1 (0.041%) OpenWrt
13 1 (0.041%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 635 (25.74%) Problem-Solving
2 559 (22.66%) Continuous Improvement
3 459 (18.61%) Agile
4 447 (18.12%) Verification and Validation
5 417 (16.90%) AI
6 349 (14.15%) CI/CD
7 331 (13.42%) Stakeholder Management
8 308 (12.48%) Migration
9 307 (12.44%) Test Automation
10 265 (10.74%) Analytics
11 258 (10.46%) Mentoring
12 243 (9.85%) Software Engineering
13 238 (9.65%) Decision-Making
14 237 (9.61%) DevOps
15 223 (9.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 222 (9.00%) Data Analysis
17 208 (8.43%) Business Intelligence
18 201 (8.15%) Roadmaps
19 197 (7.99%) Machine Learning
20 194 (7.86%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 505 (20.47%) Python
2 436 (17.67%) SQL
3 107 (4.34%) Java
4 94 (3.81%) C++
5 84 (3.40%) C
6 74 (3.00%) JavaScript
7 69 (2.80%) MATLAB
8 63 (2.55%) C#
9 48 (1.95%) Go
10 37 (1.50%) Bash
11 32 (1.30%) Embedded C
12 30 (1.22%) TypeScript
13 29 (1.18%) PowerShell
14 25 (1.01%) R
14 25 (1.01%) Scala
15 18 (0.73%) Embedded C++
16 14 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.49%) Shell Script
18 10 (0.41%) T-SQL
19 9 (0.36%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 542 (21.97%) Security Cleared
2 536 (21.73%) Degree
3 405 (16.42%) SC Cleared
4 122 (4.95%) BPSS Clearance
5 108 (4.38%) DV Cleared
6 95 (3.85%) Master's Degree
7 55 (2.23%) Computer Science Degree
8 43 (1.74%) HND
9 42 (1.70%) PhD
10 37 (1.50%) Chartered Engineer
10 37 (1.50%) HNC
11 36 (1.46%) PMI Certification
12 31 (1.26%) CISSP
13 30 (1.22%) Azure Certification
14 28 (1.13%) ACCA
15 26 (1.05%) AWS Certification
16 25 (1.01%) CIMA
17 23 (0.93%) PMP
18 21 (0.85%) Cisco Certification
18 21 (0.85%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 365 (14.80%) Data Quality
2 309 (12.53%) QA
3 81 (3.28%) Accessibility
4 59 (2.39%) GDPR
5 37 (1.50%) GRC
6 32 (1.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 28 (1.13%) GxP
8 23 (0.93%) IEC 61508
8 23 (0.93%) SLA
9 22 (0.89%) NIST
10 15 (0.61%) GMP
10 15 (0.61%) ISO 26262
10 15 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 15 (0.61%) PMO
11 14 (0.57%) ISO 9001
12 13 (0.53%) SOC 2
12 13 (0.53%) WCAG
13 11 (0.45%) ISO 19650
14 9 (0.36%) Def Stans
14 9 (0.36%) GAAP
System Software
1 97 (3.93%) Firmware
2 92 (3.73%) Docker
3 46 (1.86%) Active Directory
4 44 (1.78%) Embedded Firmware
5 28 (1.13%) Virtual Machines
6 18 (0.73%) vSphere
7 8 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
8 5 (0.20%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 2 (0.081%) iptables
10 2 (0.081%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.081%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.041%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.041%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 83 (3.36%) Kubernetes
2 45 (1.82%) Grafana
3 33 (1.34%) Ansible
3 33 (1.34%) Functional Safety
4 18 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
5 17 (0.69%) Prometheus
6 10 (0.41%) Puppet
7 9 (0.36%) Cilium
8 8 (0.32%) Microsoft Intune
8 8 (0.32%) Nessus
8 8 (0.32%) Nmap
9 7 (0.28%) BMC PATROL
9 7 (0.28%) Kibana
10 5 (0.20%) Argo
10 5 (0.20%) WMI
11 4 (0.16%) FortiGate
11 4 (0.16%) Kubeflow
11 4 (0.16%) Rancher
11 4 (0.16%) SCCM
11 4 (0.16%) yum
Vendors
1 315 (12.77%) Microsoft
2 131 (5.31%) SAP
3 104 (4.22%) Oracle
4 67 (2.72%) Databricks
5 63 (2.55%) Salesforce
6 55 (2.23%) ServiceNow
7 54 (2.19%) Cisco
7 54 (2.19%) EMC
8 42 (1.70%) Google
9 31 (1.26%) CrowdStrike
10 28 (1.13%) Palo Alto
11 24 (0.97%) Sage
11 24 (0.97%) VMware
12 23 (0.93%) Tenable
12 23 (0.93%) Thales
13 22 (0.89%) IBM
14 20 (0.81%) Red Hat
15 19 (0.77%) Siemens
16 18 (0.73%) Informatica
16 18 (0.73%) Splunk