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

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 101 87 208
Rank change year-on-year -14 +121 -19
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,900 1,679 1,090
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.81% 3.39% 1.31%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.46% 3.79% 1.61%
Number of salaries quoted 1,096 512 531
10th Percentile £34,875 £38,750 £36,250
25th Percentile £42,215 £42,375 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year - -8.33% -4.00%
75th Percentile £73,750 £71,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £89,875 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £53,000 £52,600 £54,500
% change year-on-year +0.76% -3.49% -0.99%

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 77,301 44,356 67,625
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.63% 89.43% 81.01%
Number of salaries quoted 53,282 25,229 44,135
10th Percentile £30,750 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.71%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £48,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +13.40% -3.00% -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 7 August 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 7 August 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 1,734 £55,000 - 1,736
UK excluding London -35 1,299 £53,000 +0.76% 1,120
Work from Home +117 588 £56,000 -6.67% 609
London +77 489 £72,500 -6.45% 734
South East -30 392 £56,000 +1.82% 319
North of England +104 362 £53,625 +12.89% 220
North West +91 210 £55,000 +15.35% 126
Midlands -48 197 £44,000 -20.00% 179
South West -18 142 £52,500 -0.19% 169
East of England -80 121 £62,500 +9.65% 144
West Midlands +4 107 £44,720 -25.47% 111
East Midlands -68 89 £42,500 - 68
North East +9 77 £55,000 +57.14% 43
Yorkshire +19 75 £43,000 +1.18% 54
Scotland +25 57 £55,000 -5.23% 83
Wales -42 28 £47,500 -11.63% 21
Northern Ireland -72 2 - - 6

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 60 (3.16%) Apache Airflow
2 56 (2.95%) Apache Spark
3 54 (2.84%) Apache
4 34 (1.79%) Confluence
5 32 (1.68%) SharePoint
6 21 (1.11%) ArcGIS
7 20 (1.05%) Jupyter
8 12 (0.63%) Microsoft Exchange
8 12 (0.63%) SAS
9 5 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.26%) CMS
10 4 (0.21%) Kinematics
10 4 (0.21%) WinCC
11 3 (0.16%) Artix
11 3 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.11%) IIS
13 1 (0.053%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.053%) Oracle Workflow
13 1 (0.053%) WebSphere
Applications
1 118 (6.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 68 (3.58%) Microsoft Office
3 32 (1.68%) Microsoft Project
4 28 (1.47%) Simulink
5 27 (1.42%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.89%) Spreadsheet
7 15 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
8 11 (0.58%) SOLIDWORKS
9 6 (0.32%) AutoCAD
10 5 (0.26%) LaTeX
10 5 (0.26%) Mathcad
11 4 (0.21%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.21%) CANalyzer
11 4 (0.21%) Sketch
12 3 (0.16%) Autodesk Inventor
12 3 (0.16%) Productboard
12 3 (0.16%) Stateflow
13 2 (0.11%) EPLAN
13 2 (0.11%) OrCAD
13 2 (0.11%) Solid Edge
Business Applications
1 49 (2.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (2.21%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.58%) SAP MDG
4 10 (0.53%) Elite 3E
4 10 (0.53%) SAP ERP
5 9 (0.47%) iTrent
5 9 (0.47%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.42%) Oracle Applications
6 8 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.32%) NetSuite
8 5 (0.26%) Loan IQ
8 5 (0.26%) SAP MDG-BP
8 5 (0.26%) Teamcenter
9 4 (0.21%) Oracle Financials
9 4 (0.21%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.21%) Workday HCM
10 2 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
10 2 (0.11%) SAP FI
10 2 (0.11%) SAP FI/CO
10 2 (0.11%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 289 (15.21%) Azure
2 267 (14.05%) AWS
3 167 (8.79%) Power Platform
4 90 (4.74%) GCP
5 80 (4.21%) SaaS
6 67 (3.53%) Azure DevOps
7 56 (2.95%) GitHub
8 55 (2.89%) Microsoft 365
9 49 (2.58%) Serverless
10 44 (2.32%) Amazon S3
11 40 (2.11%) Dynamics 365
12 28 (1.47%) Microsoft Copilot
13 27 (1.42%) Entra ID
13 27 (1.42%) GitHub Actions
14 21 (1.11%) Amazon EC2
14 21 (1.11%) Amazon EMR
14 21 (1.11%) Cloud Computing
15 20 (1.05%) PowerApps
15 20 (1.05%) Snowflake
16 19 (1.00%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 70 (3.68%) Broadband
2 54 (2.84%) Firewall
3 47 (2.47%) DNS
4 33 (1.74%) Wireless
5 31 (1.63%) TCP/IP
6 29 (1.53%) Network Security
7 26 (1.37%) WAN
8 25 (1.32%) VPN
9 18 (0.95%) Ethernet
9 18 (0.95%) SD-WAN
10 16 (0.84%) MQTT
10 16 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
11 15 (0.79%) Internet
11 15 (0.79%) LAN
11 15 (0.79%) Wireshark
12 13 (0.68%) HTTP
13 12 (0.63%) BGP
14 11 (0.58%) 5G
14 11 (0.58%) NGN
14 11 (0.58%) RS-232
Database & Business Intelligence
1 151 (7.95%) Power BI
2 58 (3.05%) Tableau
3 57 (3.00%) Data Warehouse
4 54 (2.84%) PostgreSQL
5 50 (2.63%) SQL Server
6 48 (2.53%) Metadata
7 40 (2.11%) Data Lake
8 34 (1.79%) MongoDB
9 29 (1.53%) Relational Database
10 27 (1.42%) BigQuery
11 25 (1.32%) QGIS
12 23 (1.21%) Amazon Athena
12 23 (1.21%) GIS
12 23 (1.21%) Semantic Layer
13 22 (1.16%) DynamoDB
14 21 (1.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 20 (1.05%) Azure SQL Database
15 20 (1.05%) Power Query
15 20 (1.05%) Spark SQL
15 20 (1.05%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 122 (6.42%) JIRA
2 108 (5.68%) Git
3 51 (2.68%) Jenkins
4 46 (2.42%) GitLab
5 35 (1.84%) Rational DOORS
6 24 (1.26%) Selenium
7 22 (1.16%) Snyk
8 21 (1.11%) Postman
9 17 (0.89%) Cypress.io
9 17 (0.89%) LabVIEW
10 14 (0.74%) JMeter
11 13 (0.68%) Cucumber
11 13 (0.68%) IBM UrbanCode
12 10 (0.53%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.53%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.47%) Burp Suite
14 8 (0.42%) MLflow
14 8 (0.42%) Rational Rhapsody
15 7 (0.37%) Zephyr
16 6 (0.32%) Hudson
General
1 648 (34.11%) Social Skills
2 539 (28.37%) Finance
3 466 (24.53%) Analytical Skills
4 183 (9.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 180 (9.47%) Aerospace
6 168 (8.84%) Manufacturing
7 146 (7.68%) Electronics
8 106 (5.58%) Banking
9 104 (5.47%) Law
10 75 (3.95%) Public Sector
11 73 (3.84%) Retail
12 66 (3.47%) Organisational Skills
12 66 (3.47%) Pharmaceutical
13 65 (3.42%) Marketing
14 60 (3.16%) Legal
15 50 (2.63%) Automotive
16 46 (2.42%) Games
17 37 (1.95%) Telecoms
18 34 (1.79%) Documentation Skills
19 33 (1.74%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 345 (18.16%) Senior
2 266 (14.00%) Analyst
3 172 (9.05%) Lead
4 138 (7.26%) Systems Engineer
5 113 (5.95%) Test Engineer
6 111 (5.84%) Architect
7 104 (5.47%) Consultant
8 98 (5.16%) Data Engineer
9 86 (4.53%) Developer
10 84 (4.42%) Business Analyst
11 69 (3.63%) Software Engineer
12 67 (3.53%) Data Analyst
12 67 (3.53%) Validation Engineer
13 60 (3.16%) Principal Engineer
14 46 (2.42%) Embedded Engineer
15 45 (2.37%) Support Engineer
16 44 (2.32%) Data Scientist
17 40 (2.11%) IT Manager
18 38 (2.00%) Project Manager
19 37 (1.95%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (2.47%) RESTful
2 43 (2.26%) Kafka
3 39 (2.05%) Node.js
3 39 (2.05%) PySpark
4 38 (2.00%) REST
5 32 (1.68%) PyTorch
6 31 (1.63%) JSON
7 30 (1.58%) .NET
8 29 (1.53%) XML
9 26 (1.37%) Middleware
9 26 (1.37%) Playwright
10 24 (1.26%) Pandas
11 22 (1.16%) LDAP
12 21 (1.11%) CSS
13 20 (1.05%) HTML
13 20 (1.05%) React
14 19 (1.00%) Regular Expression
14 19 (1.00%) XMPP
15 17 (0.89%) FastAPI
15 17 (0.89%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 137 (7.21%) Cloud Native
2 131 (6.89%) Onboarding
3 100 (5.26%) Management Information System
4 71 (3.74%) Algorithms
4 71 (3.74%) Product Ownership
5 65 (3.42%) Data Centre
6 62 (3.26%) Data Structures
7 52 (2.74%) Embedded Systems
8 51 (2.68%) Enterprise Software
9 49 (2.58%) Distributed Systems
9 49 (2.58%) Driving Licence
10 45 (2.37%) Low-Code
11 38 (2.00%) Analytical Mindset
12 37 (1.95%) AI Agents
13 35 (1.84%) Legacy Systems
13 35 (1.84%) Life Science
14 33 (1.74%) Video\Live Streaming
15 31 (1.63%) Robotics
16 29 (1.53%) Self-Motivation
17 28 (1.47%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 120 (6.32%) Linux
2 88 (4.63%) Windows
3 34 (1.79%) Windows Server
4 24 (1.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 19 (1.00%) Unix
6 6 (0.32%) Android
6 6 (0.32%) Embedded Linux
6 6 (0.32%) FreeRTOS
7 4 (0.21%) Kali Linux
7 4 (0.21%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.21%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.11%) AIX
8 2 (0.11%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.11%) ThreadX
8 2 (0.11%) VMS
8 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.053%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 490 (25.79%) Problem-Solving
2 471 (24.79%) Continuous Improvement
3 410 (21.58%) Agile
4 370 (19.47%) AI
5 299 (15.74%) CI/CD
6 268 (14.11%) Analytics
7 253 (13.32%) Stakeholder Management
8 242 (12.74%) Test Automation
9 241 (12.68%) Migration
10 229 (12.05%) Mentoring
11 217 (11.42%) Decision-Making
12 203 (10.68%) Verification and Validation
13 200 (10.53%) Data Analysis
13 200 (10.53%) Software Engineering
14 194 (10.21%) Machine Learning
15 188 (9.89%) DevOps
16 181 (9.53%) Business Intelligence
17 174 (9.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 172 (9.05%) ERP
19 170 (8.95%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 479 (25.21%) Python
2 381 (20.05%) SQL
3 87 (4.58%) Java
4 85 (4.47%) C++
5 75 (3.95%) C
6 57 (3.00%) JavaScript
7 56 (2.95%) Go
8 52 (2.74%) C#
9 43 (2.26%) MATLAB
10 29 (1.53%) PowerShell
11 28 (1.47%) Bash
12 23 (1.21%) Embedded C
13 20 (1.05%) Scala
13 20 (1.05%) TypeScript
14 19 (1.00%) T-SQL
15 18 (0.95%) Embedded C++
16 15 (0.79%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.63%) R
18 10 (0.53%) ABAP
18 10 (0.53%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 397 (20.89%) Degree
2 272 (14.32%) Security Cleared
3 152 (8.00%) SC Cleared
4 133 (7.00%) BPSS Clearance
5 95 (5.00%) DV Cleared
6 76 (4.00%) Master's Degree
7 43 (2.26%) Computer Science Degree
8 33 (1.74%) Chartered Engineer
9 32 (1.68%) CISSP
10 31 (1.63%) PhD
11 28 (1.47%) HNC
12 27 (1.42%) PMI Certification
13 26 (1.37%) ACCA
13 26 (1.37%) CIMA
14 25 (1.32%) CISM
15 23 (1.21%) AWS Certification
16 22 (1.16%) HND
17 20 (1.05%) SANS
18 19 (1.00%) CISA
19 18 (0.95%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 311 (16.37%) Data Quality
2 265 (13.95%) QA
3 86 (4.53%) Accessibility
4 57 (3.00%) GDPR
5 38 (2.00%) GRC
6 25 (1.32%) IEC 61508
6 25 (1.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 22 (1.16%) NIST
8 21 (1.11%) SLA
9 18 (0.95%) PMO
10 16 (0.84%) GxP
11 15 (0.79%) GAAP
11 15 (0.79%) IFRS
11 15 (0.79%) ISO 26262
11 15 (0.79%) WCAG
12 13 (0.68%) GMP
12 13 (0.68%) ISO 9001
13 11 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 15288
13 11 (0.58%) SOC 2
14 10 (0.53%) COBIT
System Software
1 78 (4.11%) Docker
2 72 (3.79%) Firmware
3 42 (2.21%) Active Directory
4 29 (1.53%) Embedded Firmware
5 28 (1.47%) Virtual Machines
6 22 (1.16%) vSphere
7 19 (1.00%) VMware Infrastructure
8 8 (0.42%) KVM
9 5 (0.26%) Hyper-V
10 3 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.11%) ProxySG
12 1 (0.053%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.053%) iptables
12 1 (0.053%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 80 (4.21%) Kubernetes
2 75 (3.95%) Terraform
3 40 (2.11%) Grafana
4 27 (1.42%) Ansible
5 25 (1.32%) Functional Safety
6 16 (0.84%) Prometheus
7 11 (0.58%) Puppet
8 10 (0.53%) Cilium
8 10 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.42%) SCCM
10 7 (0.37%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
10 7 (0.37%) Kibana
11 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
12 4 (0.21%) Argo
12 4 (0.21%) FortiGate
12 4 (0.21%) Kubeflow
12 4 (0.21%) Nessus
12 4 (0.21%) Nmap
12 4 (0.21%) WMI
13 3 (0.16%) HP Fortify
Vendors
1 269 (14.16%) Microsoft
2 123 (6.47%) SAP
3 105 (5.53%) Oracle
4 59 (3.11%) Salesforce
5 50 (2.63%) Databricks
6 43 (2.26%) ServiceNow
7 42 (2.21%) Google
8 38 (2.00%) VMware
9 37 (1.95%) Cisco
10 35 (1.84%) Red Hat
11 29 (1.53%) CrowdStrike
12 26 (1.37%) Palo Alto
13 22 (1.16%) Tenable
14 19 (1.00%) EMC
15 16 (0.84%) Foundry
15 16 (0.84%) IBM
16 15 (0.79%) McAfee
17 14 (0.74%) Adobe
17 14 (0.74%) Splunk
18 13 (0.68%) Workday