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

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 148 189 181
Rank change year-on-year +41 -8 -30
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,032 786 1,276
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.50% 1.62% 1.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.89% 1.75% 1.92%
Number of salaries quoted 539 310 758
10th Percentile £36,250 £38,425 £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% -13.39%
75th Percentile £78,750 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £91,250 £97,750 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £53,800 £51,528
% change year-on-year +2.23% +4.41% -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 54,494 44,927 66,578
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 79.19% 92.59% 88.37%
Number of salaries quoted 32,685 22,191 51,489
10th Percentile £29,000 £34,000 £29,448
25th Percentile £38,000 £46,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,001 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £76,000 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £96,250 £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 21 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 21 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 +48 904 £60,000 +7.14% 735
UK excluding London +23 639 £55,000 +2.23% 633
London +71 303 £75,000 +9.09% 201
Work from Home +108 297 £60,000 +7.14% 324
South East +35 197 £53,500 +1.90% 204
North of England -11 128 £60,000 +25.83% 121
Midlands +14 107 £36,250 -30.95% 123
North West +5 88 £59,000 +23.73% 80
East of England +5 85 £59,000 +7.27% 82
South West +9 71 £62,500 +18.82% 83
West Midlands 0 66 £41,108 -28.51% 82
East Midlands -8 40 £35,000 -32.69% 39
Scotland -7 39 £42,000 -27.63% 25
Yorkshire -23 29 £65,000 +49.61% 33
North East -15 11 £45,497 +9.63% 8
Wales 0 10 £65,000 +32.37% 12
Northern Ireland -31 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 24 (2.33%) Apache Airflow
2 20 (1.94%) Confluence
3 16 (1.55%) ArcGIS
4 15 (1.45%) Apache Spark
5 13 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
6 12 (1.16%) Appian
6 12 (1.16%) SharePoint
7 10 (0.97%) CMS
8 9 (0.87%) Apache
9 4 (0.39%) Headless CMS
10 2 (0.19%) Kinematics
10 2 (0.19%) WordPress
11 1 (0.097%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.097%) FileNet
11 1 (0.097%) Jupyter
11 1 (0.097%) SAS
11 1 (0.097%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 92 (8.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 63 (6.10%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (1.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.97%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 4 (0.39%) Fusion 360
6 4 (0.39%) Simulink
7 3 (0.29%) 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%) Oracle Smart View
8 2 (0.19%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.19%) Revit
8 2 (0.19%) Weka
9 1 (0.097%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.097%) Microsoft Project
9 1 (0.097%) Navisworks
Business Applications
1 25 (2.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.26%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.68%) Workday HCM
4 6 (0.58%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.39%) Markit EDM
5 4 (0.39%) SAP BPC
6 3 (0.29%) SAP CX
6 3 (0.29%) SAP ERP
6 3 (0.29%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.19%) Elite 3E
7 2 (0.19%) IBM Planning Analytics
7 2 (0.19%) Primavera
7 2 (0.19%) SAP FSCM
8 1 (0.097%) Loan IQ
8 1 (0.097%) Magento
8 1 (0.097%) NetSuite
8 1 (0.097%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 1 (0.097%) Raiser’s Edge
8 1 (0.097%) Remedy ITSM
8 1 (0.097%) SAP Business ByDesign
Cloud Services
1 170 (16.47%) Azure
2 99 (9.59%) Power Platform
3 81 (7.85%) AWS
4 50 (4.84%) SaaS
5 44 (4.26%) Azure DevOps
6 34 (3.29%) GCP
7 28 (2.71%) Snowflake
8 26 (2.52%) Azure Data Factory
9 25 (2.42%) Dynamics 365
10 24 (2.33%) dbt
11 21 (2.03%) Power Automate
12 20 (1.94%) Microsoft 365
13 19 (1.84%) Entra ID
13 19 (1.84%) GitHub
14 13 (1.26%) Amazon S3
15 12 (1.16%) Anthropic Claude
15 12 (1.16%) Azure AI
16 11 (1.07%) Datadog
16 11 (1.07%) Figma
17 10 (0.97%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 20 (1.94%) CHAP
2 13 (1.26%) WAN
3 12 (1.16%) 5G
4 11 (1.07%) Firewall
4 11 (1.07%) SD-WAN
5 10 (0.97%) TCP/IP
6 8 (0.78%) DNS
6 8 (0.78%) HTTP
6 8 (0.78%) MQTT
6 8 (0.78%) Wireless
7 7 (0.68%) Modbus
8 6 (0.58%) Broadband
8 6 (0.58%) LAN
9 5 (0.48%) Cisco IOS
9 5 (0.48%) Multicast
9 5 (0.48%) VoIP
9 5 (0.48%) WAAS
10 4 (0.39%) Ethernet VPN
10 4 (0.39%) Internet
10 4 (0.39%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 93 (9.01%) Power BI
2 39 (3.78%) SQL Server
3 33 (3.20%) Data Warehouse
4 27 (2.62%) Metadata
5 25 (2.42%) Relational Database
5 25 (2.42%) Tableau
6 23 (2.23%) GIS
7 15 (1.45%) QGIS
7 15 (1.45%) Spatial Data
8 14 (1.36%) Oracle Reports
9 13 (1.26%) PostgreSQL
10 12 (1.16%) Azure SQL Database
10 12 (1.16%) Pinecone
11 11 (1.07%) Data Lake
11 11 (1.07%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 10 (0.97%) Spotfire
13 9 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
14 8 (0.78%) BigQuery
14 8 (0.78%) MySQL
15 7 (0.68%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 65 (6.30%) JIRA
2 49 (4.75%) Git
3 48 (4.65%) Rational DOORS
4 21 (2.03%) Jenkins
4 21 (2.03%) Postman
5 16 (1.55%) LabVIEW
6 15 (1.45%) GitLab
7 14 (1.36%) MLflow
8 13 (1.26%) Cucumber
8 13 (1.26%) TestRail
9 11 (1.07%) Eclipse
9 11 (1.07%) JMeter
10 10 (0.97%) Selenium
11 9 (0.87%) SoapUI
12 7 (0.68%) 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
1 377 (36.53%) Social Skills
2 292 (28.29%) Finance
3 240 (23.26%) Analytical Skills
4 70 (6.78%) Banking
5 55 (5.33%) Electronics
6 52 (5.04%) Manufacturing
7 48 (4.65%) Aerospace
7 48 (4.65%) Financial Institution
8 46 (4.46%) Marketing
9 45 (4.36%) Presentation Skills
10 42 (4.07%) Legal
11 38 (3.68%) Law
12 36 (3.49%) Public Sector
13 35 (3.39%) Organisational Skills
14 31 (3.00%) Retail
15 29 (2.81%) Telecoms
16 28 (2.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 20 (1.94%) Billing
17 20 (1.94%) Documentation Skills
18 19 (1.84%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 169 (16.38%) Analyst
2 155 (15.02%) Senior
3 122 (11.82%) Systems Engineer
4 80 (7.75%) Lead
5 65 (6.30%) Architect
6 62 (6.01%) Business Analyst
7 52 (5.04%) Validation Engineer
8 51 (4.94%) Test Engineer
9 46 (4.46%) Data Analyst
9 46 (4.46%) Integration Engineer
10 41 (3.97%) Consultant
11 40 (3.88%) Junior
12 36 (3.49%) Senior Systems Engineer
13 34 (3.29%) Systems Integration Engineer
14 33 (3.20%) Principal Engineer
15 32 (3.10%) Data Engineer
16 29 (2.81%) Developer
16 29 (2.81%) Solutions Architect
17 28 (2.71%) Verification Engineer
18 26 (2.52%) Principal Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (4.75%) REST
2 35 (3.39%) PyTorch
3 31 (3.00%) Middleware
4 30 (2.91%) JSON
5 27 (2.62%) Pandas
6 25 (2.42%) pytest
7 23 (2.23%) XML
8 19 (1.84%) TensorFlow
9 18 (1.74%) NumPy
10 17 (1.65%) OAuth
10 17 (1.65%) scikit-learn
11 16 (1.55%) JWT
11 16 (1.55%) Swagger
11 16 (1.55%) Web Services
12 14 (1.36%) .NET
12 14 (1.36%) FastAPI
12 14 (1.36%) React
13 13 (1.26%) Flask
13 13 (1.26%) Hugging Face
13 13 (1.26%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 65 (6.30%) Management Information System
2 46 (4.46%) Onboarding
3 34 (3.29%) Data Structures
3 34 (3.29%) Product Ownership
4 32 (3.10%) Self-Motivation
5 27 (2.62%) Algorithms
5 27 (2.62%) Legacy Systems
6 24 (2.33%) Low-Code
7 22 (2.13%) Life Science
8 18 (1.74%) Analytical Mindset
8 18 (1.74%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 15 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
10 14 (1.36%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 13 (1.26%) Reinsurance
12 12 (1.16%) Blockchain
12 12 (1.16%) FPGA
13 11 (1.07%) Data Centre
13 11 (1.07%) Embedded Systems
13 11 (1.07%) Self-Driving Car
14 10 (0.97%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 50 (4.84%) Windows
2 48 (4.65%) Linux
3 15 (1.45%) Unix
4 12 (1.16%) Android
5 9 (0.87%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (0.39%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.39%) 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 (0.097%) Rocky
10 1 (0.097%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.097%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 270 (26.16%) Agile
2 238 (23.06%) Problem-Solving
3 175 (16.96%) Verification and Validation
4 163 (15.79%) Continuous Improvement
5 143 (13.86%) Analytics
6 128 (12.40%) Data Validation
7 126 (12.21%) Migration
8 120 (11.63%) AI
9 118 (11.43%) Systems Engineering
10 117 (11.34%) Test Automation
11 116 (11.24%) DevOps
12 113 (10.95%) Business Intelligence
12 113 (10.95%) CI/CD
13 106 (10.27%) Stakeholder Management
14 103 (9.98%) Mentoring
15 94 (9.11%) Decision-Making
16 93 (9.01%) Data Modelling
16 93 (9.01%) Project Management
17 90 (8.72%) ETL
18 89 (8.62%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 221 (21.41%) SQL
2 210 (20.35%) Python
3 40 (3.88%) Java
4 37 (3.59%) C
4 37 (3.59%) C++
4 37 (3.59%) PowerShell
5 24 (2.33%) JavaScript
6 21 (2.03%) Bash
7 19 (1.84%) MATLAB
8 16 (1.55%) T-SQL
9 13 (1.26%) C#
9 13 (1.26%) TypeScript
10 12 (1.16%) R
11 9 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 7 (0.68%) Go
12 7 (0.68%) VB
12 7 (0.68%) VBA
13 5 (0.48%) PHP
14 4 (0.39%) PL/SQL
14 4 (0.39%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 263 (25.48%) Degree
2 141 (13.66%) Security Cleared
3 125 (12.11%) BPSS Clearance
4 55 (5.33%) SC Cleared
5 54 (5.23%) Master's Degree
6 42 (4.07%) Computer Science Degree
7 24 (2.33%) CISA
7 24 (2.33%) CISSP
8 23 (2.23%) CISM
9 22 (2.13%) DV Cleared
10 21 (2.03%) CGEIT
10 21 (2.03%) PMI Certification
10 21 (2.03%) PMP
10 21 (2.03%) SANS
11 20 (1.94%) FFIEC
12 19 (1.84%) Chartered Engineer
13 16 (1.55%) HNC
13 16 (1.55%) ISTQB
14 12 (1.16%) HND
15 9 (0.87%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 123 (11.92%) Data Quality
2 113 (10.95%) QA
3 52 (5.04%) GDPR
4 48 (4.65%) Accessibility
5 46 (4.46%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 20 (1.94%) COBIT
6 20 (1.94%) NIST
7 17 (1.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 16 (1.55%) SLA
9 15 (1.45%) ISO/IEC 12207
10 14 (1.36%) GRC
10 14 (1.36%) ISO 20022
11 13 (1.26%) SEPA
12 12 (1.16%) WCAG
13 10 (0.97%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 10 (0.97%) Good Clinical Practice
14 9 (0.87%) ISO 9001
14 9 (0.87%) TARGET2
15 8 (0.78%) GxP
15 8 (0.78%) IFRS
System Software
1 59 (5.72%) Docker
2 24 (2.33%) Firmware
3 19 (1.84%) Active Directory
4 10 (0.97%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.58%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.48%) Embedded Firmware
7 4 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.39%) 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 (0.097%) iptables
10 1 (0.097%) OpenAM
10 1 (0.097%) OpenDJ
10 1 (0.097%) OpenIDM
10 1 (0.097%) pfSense
10 1 (0.097%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.097%) vCloud
10 1 (0.097%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 52 (5.04%) Kubernetes
2 35 (3.39%) Terraform
3 21 (2.03%) Ansible
3 21 (2.03%) Grafana
4 12 (1.16%) Prometheus
5 9 (0.87%) SCCM
6 7 (0.68%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
6 7 (0.68%) 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 (0.097%) Control-M
9 1 (0.097%) Docker Swarm
9 1 (0.097%) Kibana
9 1 (0.097%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.097%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 137 (13.28%) Microsoft
2 60 (5.81%) SAP
3 41 (3.97%) Oracle
4 35 (3.39%) Salesforce
5 27 (2.62%) IBM
6 20 (1.94%) Cisco
7 18 (1.74%) Foundry
8 17 (1.65%) OpenAI
9 14 (1.36%) Adobe
9 14 (1.36%) ServiceNow
9 14 (1.36%) Software AG
10 13 (1.26%) VMware
11 12 (1.16%) Automation Anywhere
11 12 (1.16%) Databricks
11 12 (1.16%) UiPath
12 11 (1.07%) Google
13 9 (0.87%) Workday
14 8 (0.78%) Intapp
14 8 (0.78%) Splunk
15 7 (0.68%) Citrix