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

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 114 87 202
Rank change year-on-year -27 +115 -7
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,679 1,666 1,244
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.68% 3.39% 1.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.28% 3.77% 1.62%
Number of salaries quoted 1,016 499 651
10th Percentile £35,000 £39,000 £35,500
25th Percentile £42,500 £45,750 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -12.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £71,250 £72,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £95,000 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £53,250 £54,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -1.39% +2.86% -4.62%

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 73,727 44,243 76,601
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.60% 89.97% 81.83%
Number of salaries quoted 51,045 24,911 52,533
10th Percentile £30,500 £28,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -8.73%
75th Percentile £78,750 £76,250 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £98,474 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%

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 July 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 22 July 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 -30 1,521 £55,000 - 1,075
UK excluding London -49 1,132 £53,250 -1.39% 715
Work from Home +121 535 £55,000 -8.33% 451
London +74 431 £75,000 -6.25% 463
South East -42 335 £56,000 +1.82% 233
North of England +96 317 £55,000 +15.79% 148
North West +80 192 £55,000 +15.35% 88
Midlands -55 184 £42,500 -22.73% 113
South West -41 113 £50,000 -4.94% 85
East of England -74 109 £62,500 +9.17% 89
West Midlands +15 102 £44,000 -29.60% 62
East Midlands -73 80 £41,000 -3.53% 51
Yorkshire +1 66 £44,000 +3.53% 37
North East -3 59 £55,000 +29.41% 23
Scotland +13 46 £50,000 -13.84% 43
Wales -39 28 £47,500 -11.63% 14
Northern Ireland -64 2 - - 5

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 56 (3.34%) Apache Airflow
2 52 (3.10%) Apache Spark
3 50 (2.98%) Apache
4 29 (1.73%) SharePoint
5 28 (1.67%) Confluence
6 21 (1.25%) ArcGIS
7 18 (1.07%) Jupyter
8 16 (0.95%) Microsoft Exchange
9 12 (0.71%) SAS
10 5 (0.30%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 5 (0.30%) CMS
11 4 (0.24%) Kinematics
12 3 (0.18%) Artix
13 2 (0.12%) Appian
13 2 (0.12%) IIS
13 2 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 1 (0.060%) Oracle Workflow
14 1 (0.060%) Palantir Foundry
14 1 (0.060%) WebSphere
Applications
1 93 (5.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 53 (3.16%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (1.55%) Microsoft Project
4 22 (1.31%) MS Visio
5 20 (1.19%) Simulink
6 16 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 12 (0.71%) Spreadsheet
8 8 (0.48%) SOLIDWORKS
9 5 (0.30%) AutoCAD
9 5 (0.30%) LaTeX
10 4 (0.24%) Adobe XD
10 4 (0.24%) CANalyzer
10 4 (0.24%) Sketch
11 3 (0.18%) Autodesk Inventor
11 3 (0.18%) Productboard
11 3 (0.18%) Stateflow
12 2 (0.12%) Solid Edge
13 1 (0.060%) CATIA
13 1 (0.060%) Trello
13 1 (0.060%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 47 (2.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (2.50%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.66%) SAP MDG
4 10 (0.60%) SAP ERP
5 9 (0.54%) iTrent
5 9 (0.54%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.48%) Oracle ERP
7 7 (0.42%) Oracle Applications
8 6 (0.36%) Elite 3E
9 5 (0.30%) Loan IQ
9 5 (0.30%) SAP MDG-BP
10 4 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
10 4 (0.24%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.18%) NetSuite
12 2 (0.12%) FastStats
12 2 (0.12%) SAP Business One
12 2 (0.12%) SAP EWM
12 2 (0.12%) SAP FSCM
12 2 (0.12%) SAP PSCD
12 2 (0.12%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 250 (14.89%) Azure
2 224 (13.34%) AWS
3 167 (9.95%) Power Platform
4 82 (4.88%) SaaS
5 79 (4.71%) GCP
6 63 (3.75%) Azure DevOps
7 50 (2.98%) Serverless
8 49 (2.92%) Microsoft 365
9 41 (2.44%) Amazon S3
10 40 (2.38%) GitHub
11 37 (2.20%) Dynamics 365
12 24 (1.43%) Entra ID
13 23 (1.37%) Azure Data Factory
14 22 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
14 22 (1.31%) Snowflake
15 21 (1.25%) Cloud Computing
16 20 (1.19%) Amazon EC2
17 18 (1.07%) Amazon EMR
17 18 (1.07%) Power Automate
17 18 (1.07%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 71 (4.23%) Broadband
2 50 (2.98%) Firewall
3 37 (2.20%) DNS
4 27 (1.61%) Wireless
5 26 (1.55%) TCP/IP
6 20 (1.19%) WAN
7 19 (1.13%) VPN
8 18 (1.07%) Network Security
9 16 (0.95%) Ethernet
10 14 (0.83%) Internet
10 14 (0.83%) MQTT
10 14 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
10 14 (0.83%) Wireshark
11 12 (0.71%) CHAP
11 12 (0.71%) SD-WAN
12 11 (0.66%) HTTP
12 11 (0.66%) LAN
13 9 (0.54%) BGP
13 9 (0.54%) NAS
13 9 (0.54%) NGN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 152 (9.05%) Power BI
2 61 (3.63%) PostgreSQL
3 60 (3.57%) Tableau
4 54 (3.22%) Data Warehouse
5 53 (3.16%) SQL Server
6 40 (2.38%) Metadata
7 34 (2.03%) MongoDB
8 32 (1.91%) Data Lake
9 29 (1.73%) Relational Database
10 26 (1.55%) BigQuery
11 25 (1.49%) QGIS
11 25 (1.49%) Semantic Layer
12 23 (1.37%) GIS
13 22 (1.31%) Azure SQL Database
13 22 (1.31%) MySQL
14 21 (1.25%) DynamoDB
15 20 (1.19%) Amazon Athena
15 20 (1.19%) Spark SQL
15 20 (1.19%) Spatial Data
16 17 (1.01%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 102 (6.08%) JIRA
2 86 (5.12%) Git
3 51 (3.04%) Jenkins
4 45 (2.68%) GitLab
5 30 (1.79%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.31%) Snyk
7 20 (1.19%) Selenium
8 17 (1.01%) Postman
9 14 (0.83%) LabVIEW
10 13 (0.77%) Cypress.io
10 13 (0.77%) IBM UrbanCode
10 13 (0.77%) JMeter
11 11 (0.66%) Cucumber
12 10 (0.60%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.54%) Burp Suite
14 8 (0.48%) REST Assured
15 7 (0.42%) MLflow
15 7 (0.42%) Rational Rhapsody
16 6 (0.36%) GDB
16 6 (0.36%) Zephyr
General
1 557 (33.17%) Social Skills
2 446 (26.56%) Finance
3 390 (23.23%) Analytical Skills
4 137 (8.16%) Manufacturing
5 124 (7.39%) Aerospace
6 120 (7.15%) Electronics
7 110 (6.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 89 (5.30%) Banking
9 70 (4.17%) Retail
10 66 (3.93%) Public Sector
11 62 (3.69%) Law
12 56 (3.34%) Pharmaceutical
13 55 (3.28%) Organisational Skills
14 54 (3.22%) Legal
15 48 (2.86%) Marketing
16 43 (2.56%) Games
17 41 (2.44%) Automotive
18 30 (1.79%) Documentation Skills
19 28 (1.67%) Financial Institution
20 27 (1.61%) Billing
Job Titles
1 304 (18.11%) Senior
2 254 (15.13%) Analyst
3 136 (8.10%) Lead
4 121 (7.21%) Systems Engineer
5 104 (6.19%) Test Engineer
6 103 (6.13%) Architect
7 92 (5.48%) Consultant
8 91 (5.42%) Data Engineer
9 80 (4.76%) Business Analyst
10 78 (4.65%) Developer
11 74 (4.41%) Data Analyst
12 72 (4.29%) Validation Engineer
13 44 (2.62%) Embedded Engineer
13 44 (2.62%) Support Engineer
14 42 (2.50%) Principal Engineer
15 41 (2.44%) Software Engineer
16 40 (2.38%) IT Manager
17 39 (2.32%) Senior Systems Engineer
18 36 (2.14%) Project Manager
19 35 (2.08%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (2.80%) RESTful
2 37 (2.20%) Node.js
2 37 (2.20%) PySpark
3 34 (2.03%) Kafka
4 33 (1.97%) JSON
5 32 (1.91%) PyTorch
5 32 (1.91%) XML
6 30 (1.79%) REST
7 26 (1.55%) Pandas
8 22 (1.31%) .NET
8 22 (1.31%) Middleware
9 20 (1.19%) Playwright
10 19 (1.13%) Regular Expression
10 19 (1.13%) XMPP
11 18 (1.07%) CSS
12 17 (1.01%) FastAPI
12 17 (1.01%) HTML
13 16 (0.95%) LDAP
13 16 (0.95%) React
14 15 (0.89%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 112 (6.67%) Cloud Native
2 107 (6.37%) Onboarding
3 74 (4.41%) Management Information System
4 71 (4.23%) Data Structures
5 64 (3.81%) Algorithms
6 56 (3.34%) Product Ownership
7 50 (2.98%) Data Centre
8 48 (2.86%) Embedded Systems
9 46 (2.74%) Low-Code
10 45 (2.68%) Distributed Systems
10 45 (2.68%) Driving Licence
11 42 (2.50%) Enterprise Software
12 37 (2.20%) Analytical Mindset
13 32 (1.91%) Self-Motivation
14 31 (1.85%) Life Science
14 31 (1.85%) Video\Live Streaming
15 30 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
16 26 (1.55%) IoT
17 25 (1.49%) AI Agents
18 24 (1.43%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 114 (6.79%) Linux
2 83 (4.94%) Windows
3 31 (1.85%) Windows Server
4 25 (1.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 19 (1.13%) Unix
6 6 (0.36%) Android
6 6 (0.36%) FreeRTOS
7 5 (0.30%) Embedded Linux
8 4 (0.24%) Kali Linux
8 4 (0.24%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.24%) Mac OS X
9 3 (0.18%) Robot Operating System
10 2 (0.12%) AIX
10 2 (0.12%) ThreadX
10 2 (0.12%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.060%) Apple iOS
11 1 (0.060%) CentOS
11 1 (0.060%) Rocky
11 1 (0.060%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 396 (23.59%) Problem-Solving
2 383 (22.81%) Continuous Improvement
3 349 (20.79%) Agile
4 316 (18.82%) AI
5 263 (15.66%) CI/CD
6 237 (14.12%) Analytics
7 219 (13.04%) Migration
8 218 (12.98%) Test Automation
9 201 (11.97%) Stakeholder Management
10 191 (11.38%) Mentoring
11 178 (10.60%) Business Intelligence
12 176 (10.48%) Decision-Making
13 170 (10.13%) Data Validation
14 169 (10.07%) Data Analysis
15 166 (9.89%) DevOps
15 166 (9.89%) Verification and Validation
16 162 (9.65%) Data Modelling
17 156 (9.29%) Software Engineering
18 155 (9.23%) Machine Learning
19 152 (9.05%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 438 (26.09%) Python
2 356 (21.20%) SQL
3 73 (4.35%) C++
4 69 (4.11%) C
4 69 (4.11%) Java
5 50 (2.98%) Go
6 46 (2.74%) C#
7 42 (2.50%) JavaScript
8 33 (1.97%) MATLAB
9 29 (1.73%) PowerShell
10 26 (1.55%) Bash
11 24 (1.43%) T-SQL
12 21 (1.25%) Embedded C
13 18 (1.07%) Embedded C++
14 16 (0.95%) Scala
14 16 (0.95%) TypeScript
15 15 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 10 (0.60%) ABAP
16 10 (0.60%) R
17 9 (0.54%) VBA
Qualifications
1 329 (19.59%) Degree
2 190 (11.32%) Security Cleared
3 105 (6.25%) BPSS Clearance
4 94 (5.60%) SC Cleared
5 74 (4.41%) Master's Degree
6 51 (3.04%) DV Cleared
7 38 (2.26%) Computer Science Degree
8 30 (1.79%) Chartered Engineer
9 29 (1.73%) HNC
10 23 (1.37%) CISSP
10 23 (1.37%) PhD
11 22 (1.31%) CISA
11 22 (1.31%) SANS
12 20 (1.19%) ACCA
12 20 (1.19%) CIMA
12 20 (1.19%) CISM
13 19 (1.13%) AWS Certification
13 19 (1.13%) HND
14 18 (1.07%) PMI Certification
15 16 (0.95%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 290 (17.27%) Data Quality
2 223 (13.28%) QA
3 62 (3.69%) Accessibility
4 57 (3.39%) GDPR
5 37 (2.20%) GRC
6 26 (1.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 22 (1.31%) IEC 61508
8 18 (1.07%) NIST
9 17 (1.01%) SLA
10 16 (0.95%) PMO
11 15 (0.89%) IFRS
11 15 (0.89%) ISO 9001
12 13 (0.77%) GAAP
12 13 (0.77%) GxP
12 13 (0.77%) ISO 26262
12 13 (0.77%) ISO/IEC 15288
13 12 (0.71%) COBIT
13 12 (0.71%) WCAG
14 11 (0.66%) SOC 2
15 9 (0.54%) MISRA
System Software
1 70 (4.17%) Docker
2 58 (3.45%) Firmware
3 42 (2.50%) Active Directory
4 26 (1.55%) Embedded Firmware
4 26 (1.55%) Virtual Machines
5 21 (1.25%) vSphere
6 15 (0.89%) VMware Infrastructure
7 6 (0.36%) KVM
8 5 (0.30%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.12%) Terminal Services
9 2 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.060%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 70 (4.17%) Terraform
2 69 (4.11%) Kubernetes
3 38 (2.26%) Grafana
4 25 (1.49%) Ansible
5 23 (1.37%) Functional Safety
6 15 (0.89%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.71%) Puppet
8 10 (0.60%) Cilium
9 7 (0.42%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 7 (0.42%) Kibana
9 7 (0.42%) SCCM
10 4 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
10 4 (0.24%) Nessus
10 4 (0.24%) Nmap
10 4 (0.24%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.18%) Argo
11 3 (0.18%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.18%) Rancher
11 3 (0.18%) WMI
11 3 (0.18%) yum
Vendors
1 232 (13.82%) Microsoft
2 105 (6.25%) SAP
3 97 (5.78%) Oracle
4 55 (3.28%) Salesforce
5 45 (2.68%) Databricks
6 34 (2.03%) Red Hat
6 34 (2.03%) ServiceNow
6 34 (2.03%) VMware
7 29 (1.73%) Cisco
7 29 (1.73%) CrowdStrike
8 27 (1.61%) Google
9 23 (1.37%) Palo Alto
10 22 (1.31%) Tenable
11 17 (1.01%) Adobe
11 17 (1.01%) IBM
12 16 (0.95%) Foundry
13 15 (0.89%) McAfee
14 14 (0.83%) Citrix
15 13 (0.77%) EMC
16 11 (0.66%) Informatica