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 24 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 147 193 176
Rank change year-on-year +46 -17 -23
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,043 763 1,288
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.51% 1.61% 1.71%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.91% 1.74% 1.93%
Number of salaries quoted 539 302 762
10th Percentile £36,250 £37,825 £34,750
25th Percentile £44,972 £47,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -12.00%
75th Percentile £78,750 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £91,250 £97,500 £84,875
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £51,528
% change year-on-year - +6.74% -6.31%

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 54,747 43,918 66,767
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 79.09% 92.80% 88.41%
Number of salaries quoted 32,789 21,812 51,500
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,750 £29,500
25th Percentile £38,000 £45,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £76,250 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £95,000
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 24 February 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 24 February 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 +50 909 £60,000 +7.14% 715
UK excluding London +20 643 £55,000 - 615
London +62 304 £75,000 +7.14% 195
Work from Home +118 301 £57,500 +2.68% 312
South East +51 198 £53,500 +1.90% 190
North of England 0 128 £60,000 +26.32% 130
Midlands +8 110 £37,500 -28.57% 121
North West +14 88 £58,000 +21.64% 83
East of England +2 85 £59,000 +7.27% 80
South West +1 71 £62,500 +18.82% 77
West Midlands +3 66 £41,108 -31.49% 84
East Midlands -4 43 £35,000 -32.69% 36
Scotland -22 38 £42,000 -27.63% 24
Yorkshire -27 29 £65,000 +42.94% 38
Wales 0 11 £61,250 +24.74% 8
North East -9 11 £45,497 +9.63% 10
Northern Ireland -33 3 - - 3

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 26 (2.49%) Apache Airflow
2 20 (1.92%) Confluence
3 19 (1.82%) ArcGIS
4 17 (1.63%) Apache Spark
5 13 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
6 12 (1.15%) Appian
6 12 (1.15%) SharePoint
7 11 (1.05%) Apache
8 10 (0.96%) CMS
9 4 (0.38%) Headless CMS
10 2 (0.19%) Kinematics
10 2 (0.19%) WordPress
11 1 (0.096%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.096%) FileNet
11 1 (0.096%) Jupyter
11 1 (0.096%) SAS
11 1 (0.096%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 91 (8.72%) Microsoft Excel
2 60 (5.75%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (1.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (1.15%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.67%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 5 (0.48%) Simulink
7 4 (0.38%) Fusion 360
7 4 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.19%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.19%) Adobe Captivate
8 2 (0.19%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.19%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.19%) Elementor
8 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.19%) Oracle Smart View
8 2 (0.19%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.19%) Weka
9 1 (0.096%) CATIA
9 1 (0.096%) GNU Octave
9 1 (0.096%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 25 (2.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.25%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.67%) Oracle ERP
3 7 (0.67%) Workday HCM
4 4 (0.38%) Markit EDM
4 4 (0.38%) SAP BPC
5 3 (0.29%) Elite 3E
5 3 (0.29%) SAP CX
5 3 (0.29%) SAP ERP
5 3 (0.29%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.19%) IBM Planning Analytics
6 2 (0.19%) Primavera
6 2 (0.19%) SAP FSCM
7 1 (0.096%) Endur
7 1 (0.096%) Loan IQ
7 1 (0.096%) Magento
7 1 (0.096%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.096%) Oracle Financials
7 1 (0.096%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.096%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 173 (16.59%) Azure
2 99 (9.49%) Power Platform
3 86 (8.25%) AWS
4 50 (4.79%) SaaS
5 44 (4.22%) Azure DevOps
6 36 (3.45%) GCP
7 28 (2.68%) Snowflake
8 26 (2.49%) Dynamics 365
9 25 (2.40%) Azure Data Factory
10 23 (2.21%) dbt
11 21 (2.01%) Power Automate
12 19 (1.82%) Entra ID
12 19 (1.82%) GitHub
13 18 (1.73%) Microsoft 365
14 15 (1.44%) Amazon S3
15 12 (1.15%) Anthropic Claude
15 12 (1.15%) Azure AI
16 11 (1.05%) Figma
17 10 (0.96%) Datadog
18 9 (0.86%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 20 (1.92%) CHAP
2 14 (1.34%) WAN
3 12 (1.15%) 5G
3 12 (1.15%) Firewall
3 12 (1.15%) SD-WAN
4 11 (1.05%) TCP/IP
5 8 (0.77%) Broadband
5 8 (0.77%) DNS
5 8 (0.77%) HTTP
5 8 (0.77%) MQTT
5 8 (0.77%) Wireless
6 7 (0.67%) LAN
6 7 (0.67%) Modbus
7 5 (0.48%) Cisco IOS
7 5 (0.48%) Multicast
7 5 (0.48%) VoIP
7 5 (0.48%) WAAS
8 4 (0.38%) Internet
8 4 (0.38%) NAS
8 4 (0.38%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 92 (8.82%) Power BI
2 40 (3.84%) SQL Server
3 33 (3.16%) Data Warehouse
4 28 (2.68%) Metadata
5 27 (2.59%) Tableau
6 26 (2.49%) GIS
7 25 (2.40%) Relational Database
8 18 (1.73%) QGIS
8 18 (1.73%) Spatial Data
9 14 (1.34%) Oracle Reports
9 14 (1.34%) PostgreSQL
10 12 (1.15%) Azure SQL Database
10 12 (1.15%) Data Lake
10 12 (1.15%) Pinecone
11 11 (1.05%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 10 (0.96%) Spotfire
13 9 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
13 9 (0.86%) MySQL
14 8 (0.77%) BigQuery
14 8 (0.77%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 64 (6.14%) JIRA
2 50 (4.79%) Git
3 47 (4.51%) Rational DOORS
4 21 (2.01%) Jenkins
5 20 (1.92%) Postman
6 16 (1.53%) LabVIEW
7 15 (1.44%) GitLab
8 14 (1.34%) MLflow
9 13 (1.25%) Cucumber
9 13 (1.25%) TestRail
10 11 (1.05%) Eclipse
10 11 (1.05%) JMeter
11 9 (0.86%) Selenium
11 9 (0.86%) SoapUI
12 7 (0.67%) Locust
13 6 (0.58%) LoadRunner
13 6 (0.58%) Subversion
14 5 (0.48%) Robot Framework
14 5 (0.48%) SpecFlow
14 5 (0.48%) Visual Studio
General
1 381 (36.53%) Social Skills
2 294 (28.19%) Finance
3 244 (23.39%) Analytical Skills
4 73 (7.00%) Banking
5 55 (5.27%) Electronics
6 54 (5.18%) Manufacturing
7 48 (4.60%) Aerospace
7 48 (4.60%) Financial Institution
8 47 (4.51%) Marketing
9 46 (4.41%) Presentation Skills
10 44 (4.22%) Legal
11 37 (3.55%) Law
11 37 (3.55%) Public Sector
12 36 (3.45%) Organisational Skills
13 33 (3.16%) Retail
14 29 (2.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 29 (2.78%) Telecoms
15 20 (1.92%) Billing
15 20 (1.92%) Documentation Skills
16 19 (1.82%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 172 (16.49%) Analyst
2 157 (15.05%) Senior
3 123 (11.79%) Systems Engineer
4 79 (7.57%) Lead
5 67 (6.42%) Architect
6 63 (6.04%) Business Analyst
7 53 (5.08%) Validation Engineer
8 51 (4.89%) Test Engineer
9 47 (4.51%) Integration Engineer
10 46 (4.41%) Consultant
11 45 (4.31%) Data Analyst
12 40 (3.84%) Junior
13 37 (3.55%) Senior Systems Engineer
14 35 (3.36%) Systems Integration Engineer
15 33 (3.16%) Principal Engineer
16 31 (2.97%) Data Engineer
17 29 (2.78%) Developer
17 29 (2.78%) Solutions Architect
18 28 (2.68%) Verification Engineer
19 26 (2.49%) Principal Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (4.79%) REST
2 38 (3.64%) PyTorch
3 30 (2.88%) JSON
4 29 (2.78%) Middleware
4 29 (2.78%) Pandas
5 25 (2.40%) pytest
6 24 (2.30%) XML
7 19 (1.82%) TensorFlow
8 18 (1.73%) NumPy
9 17 (1.63%) OAuth
9 17 (1.63%) scikit-learn
10 16 (1.53%) JWT
10 16 (1.53%) Swagger
10 16 (1.53%) Web Services
11 14 (1.34%) .NET
11 14 (1.34%) FastAPI
11 14 (1.34%) React
12 13 (1.25%) Flask
12 13 (1.25%) Hugging Face
12 13 (1.25%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 65 (6.23%) Management Information System
2 47 (4.51%) Onboarding
3 37 (3.55%) Data Structures
4 33 (3.16%) Product Ownership
5 32 (3.07%) Self-Motivation
6 30 (2.88%) Algorithms
7 27 (2.59%) Legacy Systems
8 24 (2.30%) Low-Code
9 22 (2.11%) Life Science
10 18 (1.73%) Analytical Mindset
10 18 (1.73%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 15 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
11 15 (1.44%) SWIFT Messaging Network
12 13 (1.25%) Reinsurance
13 12 (1.15%) Blockchain
13 12 (1.15%) FPGA
14 11 (1.05%) Data Centre
14 11 (1.05%) Embedded Systems
14 11 (1.05%) Self-Driving Car
15 10 (0.96%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 50 (4.79%) Windows
2 48 (4.60%) Linux
3 15 (1.44%) Unix
4 12 (1.15%) Android
5 9 (0.86%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (0.38%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.38%) CentOS
8 3 (0.29%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.19%) AIX
9 2 (0.19%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.19%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.096%) Rocky
10 1 (0.096%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.096%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 275 (26.37%) Agile
2 241 (23.11%) Problem-Solving
3 176 (16.87%) Verification and Validation
4 161 (15.44%) Continuous Improvement
5 146 (14.00%) Analytics
6 129 (12.37%) Data Validation
6 129 (12.37%) Migration
7 125 (11.98%) AI
8 118 (11.31%) Systems Engineering
9 116 (11.12%) DevOps
9 116 (11.12%) Test Automation
10 115 (11.03%) Business Intelligence
11 113 (10.83%) CI/CD
12 112 (10.74%) Stakeholder Management
13 105 (10.07%) Mentoring
14 96 (9.20%) Project Management
15 95 (9.11%) Decision-Making
16 94 (9.01%) Data Modelling
17 93 (8.92%) ETL
17 93 (8.92%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 222 (21.28%) SQL
2 214 (20.52%) Python
3 40 (3.84%) Java
4 37 (3.55%) C
4 37 (3.55%) C++
4 37 (3.55%) PowerShell
5 24 (2.30%) JavaScript
6 21 (2.01%) Bash
7 20 (1.92%) MATLAB
8 15 (1.44%) T-SQL
9 13 (1.25%) C#
9 13 (1.25%) TypeScript
10 12 (1.15%) R
11 9 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 8 (0.77%) VBA
13 7 (0.67%) Go
13 7 (0.67%) VB
14 5 (0.48%) PHP
15 4 (0.38%) PL/SQL
15 4 (0.38%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 262 (25.12%) Degree
2 143 (13.71%) Security Cleared
3 125 (11.98%) BPSS Clearance
4 57 (5.47%) SC Cleared
5 53 (5.08%) Master's Degree
6 42 (4.03%) Computer Science Degree
7 24 (2.30%) CISA
7 24 (2.30%) CISSP
8 23 (2.21%) CISM
9 22 (2.11%) DV Cleared
9 22 (2.11%) PMI Certification
9 22 (2.11%) PMP
10 21 (2.01%) CGEIT
10 21 (2.01%) SANS
11 20 (1.92%) FFIEC
12 19 (1.82%) Chartered Engineer
13 17 (1.63%) HNC
14 16 (1.53%) ISTQB
15 12 (1.15%) HND
16 9 (0.86%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 125 (11.98%) Data Quality
2 115 (11.03%) QA
3 53 (5.08%) GDPR
4 51 (4.89%) Accessibility
5 45 (4.31%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 20 (1.92%) COBIT
6 20 (1.92%) NIST
7 17 (1.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 17 (1.63%) SLA
8 15 (1.44%) ISO 20022
9 14 (1.34%) GRC
9 14 (1.34%) ISO/IEC 12207
10 13 (1.25%) SEPA
11 12 (1.15%) WCAG
12 10 (0.96%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 10 (0.96%) Good Clinical Practice
13 9 (0.86%) ISO 9001
13 9 (0.86%) TARGET2
14 8 (0.77%) GxP
14 8 (0.77%) IFRS
System Software
1 59 (5.66%) Docker
2 24 (2.30%) Firmware
3 19 (1.82%) Active Directory
4 10 (0.96%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.58%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.48%) Embedded Firmware
7 4 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.38%) vSphere
8 3 (0.29%) KVM
9 2 (0.19%) Ceph
9 2 (0.19%) Lustre
9 2 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.096%) iptables
10 1 (0.096%) OpenAM
10 1 (0.096%) OpenDJ
10 1 (0.096%) OpenIDM
10 1 (0.096%) pfSense
10 1 (0.096%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.096%) vCloud
10 1 (0.096%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 52 (4.99%) Kubernetes
2 35 (3.36%) Terraform
3 21 (2.01%) Ansible
3 21 (2.01%) Grafana
4 12 (1.15%) Prometheus
5 9 (0.86%) SCCM
6 7 (0.67%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
6 7 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
7 5 (0.48%) Argo
7 5 (0.48%) Puppet
7 5 (0.48%) Rancher
7 5 (0.48%) yum
8 2 (0.19%) BMC PATROL
8 2 (0.19%) Nessus
8 2 (0.19%) PowerCLI
9 1 (0.096%) Control-M
9 1 (0.096%) Docker Swarm
9 1 (0.096%) Kibana
9 1 (0.096%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.096%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 139 (13.33%) Microsoft
2 61 (5.85%) SAP
3 45 (4.31%) Oracle
4 36 (3.45%) Salesforce
5 26 (2.49%) IBM
6 20 (1.92%) Cisco
7 19 (1.82%) Foundry
8 17 (1.63%) OpenAI
9 14 (1.34%) ServiceNow
9 14 (1.34%) Software AG
10 13 (1.25%) Adobe
10 13 (1.25%) VMware
11 12 (1.15%) Automation Anywhere
11 12 (1.15%) Google
11 12 (1.15%) UiPath
12 11 (1.05%) Databricks
13 9 (0.86%) Workday
14 8 (0.77%) Intapp
14 8 (0.77%) Splunk
15 7 (0.67%) Siemens