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

6 months to
25 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 154 166 194
Rank change year-on-year +12 +28 -49
Permanent jobs citing Validation 944 946 1,094
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.51% 1.79% 1.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.87% 1.96% 1.84%
Number of salaries quoted 499 335 635
10th Percentile £36,250 £37,500 £35,406
25th Percentile £43,000 £46,250 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -15.38%
75th Percentile £77,500 £72,500 £73,500
90th Percentile £90,250 £100,000 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £54,500 £52,600 £52,500
% change year-on-year +3.61% +0.19% -4.55%

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 50,353 48,156 59,526
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 80.28% 91.19% 88.97%
Number of salaries quoted 29,725 23,186 46,025
10th Percentile £28,675 £35,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £76,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +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 25 January 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 25 January 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 +13 850 £60,000 +9.09% 1,201
UK excluding London 0 594 £54,500 +3.61% 1,133
London +39 289 £75,000 +11.11% 200
Work from Home +87 251 £60,000 +7.14% 454
South East +23 190 £50,000 -16.67% 349
North of England -12 126 £55,233 +19.79% 197
Midlands -2 83 £37,500 -27.88% 176
North West -2 82 £54,750 +14.82% 78
East of England +11 78 £59,000 +7.27% 191
South West +12 72 £57,500 +6.88% 175
West Midlands +5 54 £37,500 -28.57% 93
Yorkshire -17 35 £61,250 +51.33% 93
Scotland -25 35 £42,000 -27.63% 37
East Midlands +3 29 £38,000 -25.49% 82
North East -7 9 £41,000 -1.20% 27
Wales +7 7 £65,000 +32.37% 42
Northern Ireland -19 3 - - 18

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 (2.54%) Confluence
2 18 (1.91%) Apache Airflow
3 12 (1.27%) Apache Spark
4 11 (1.17%) Appian
4 11 (1.17%) SharePoint
5 9 (0.95%) CMS
6 7 (0.74%) Apache
6 7 (0.74%) Microsoft Exchange
7 5 (0.53%) SugarCRM
8 4 (0.42%) Headless CMS
9 3 (0.32%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.32%) SAS
10 2 (0.21%) Kinematics
10 2 (0.21%) WordPress
11 1 (0.11%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.11%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.11%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.11%) FileNet
Applications
1 68 (7.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 64 (6.78%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (1.48%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.27%) Simulink
5 11 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 7 (0.74%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 4 (0.42%) Fusion 360
7 4 (0.42%) Mathcad
8 3 (0.32%) Revit
9 2 (0.21%) Adobe After Effects
9 2 (0.21%) Adobe Captivate
9 2 (0.21%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.21%) Adobe Premiere
9 2 (0.21%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.21%) Elementor
9 2 (0.21%) Oracle Smart View
9 2 (0.21%) Photoshop
9 2 (0.21%) Weka
10 1 (0.11%) Navisworks
10 1 (0.11%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 19 (2.01%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (1.27%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.74%) Workday HCM
4 4 (0.42%) Markit EDM
4 4 (0.42%) SAP BPC
5 3 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
5 3 (0.32%) SAP CX
6 2 (0.21%) Aladdin
6 2 (0.21%) Endur
6 2 (0.21%) IBM Planning Analytics
6 2 (0.21%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.21%) Primavera
6 2 (0.21%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.11%) Magento
7 1 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.11%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.11%) SAP Business ByDesign
7 1 (0.11%) SAP EWM
7 1 (0.11%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 142 (15.04%) Azure
2 79 (8.37%) Power Platform
3 68 (7.20%) AWS
4 43 (4.56%) SaaS
5 41 (4.34%) Azure DevOps
6 30 (3.18%) GCP
7 26 (2.75%) Snowflake
8 23 (2.44%) Azure Data Factory
9 20 (2.12%) Dynamics 365
10 19 (2.01%) dbt
11 18 (1.91%) Power Automate
12 17 (1.80%) GitHub
13 15 (1.59%) Microsoft 365
14 13 (1.38%) Entra ID
15 12 (1.27%) Amazon S3
15 12 (1.27%) Datadog
16 11 (1.17%) Anthropic Claude
16 11 (1.17%) Azure AI
16 11 (1.17%) Figma
17 9 (0.95%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.80%) CHAP
2 14 (1.48%) WAN
3 13 (1.38%) Firewall
4 12 (1.27%) LAN
5 11 (1.17%) 5G
5 11 (1.17%) SD-WAN
6 9 (0.95%) DNS
7 8 (0.85%) HTTP
7 8 (0.85%) MQTT
8 7 (0.74%) Modbus
8 7 (0.74%) TCP/IP
8 7 (0.74%) Wireless
9 6 (0.64%) Ethernet VPN
10 5 (0.53%) BGP
10 5 (0.53%) Cisco IOS
10 5 (0.53%) OSPF
10 5 (0.53%) VoIP
10 5 (0.53%) WAAS
11 4 (0.42%) SMTP
12 3 (0.32%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 76 (8.05%) Power BI
2 34 (3.60%) SQL Server
3 32 (3.39%) Data Warehouse
4 27 (2.86%) Metadata
5 23 (2.44%) Tableau
6 21 (2.22%) Relational Database
7 14 (1.48%) Oracle Reports
8 11 (1.17%) BigQuery
8 11 (1.17%) Pinecone
9 10 (1.06%) Data Lake
9 10 (1.06%) Spotfire
10 8 (0.85%) Amazon Redshift
10 8 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
10 8 (0.85%) Big Data
10 8 (0.85%) PostgreSQL
11 7 (0.74%) Looker
12 6 (0.64%) Data Vault
12 6 (0.64%) GIS
12 6 (0.64%) NoSQL
12 6 (0.64%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 72 (7.63%) JIRA
2 50 (5.30%) Rational DOORS
3 45 (4.77%) Git
4 24 (2.54%) Postman
5 20 (2.12%) Jenkins
6 13 (1.38%) Cucumber
6 13 (1.38%) LabVIEW
6 13 (1.38%) MLflow
6 13 (1.38%) Selenium
6 13 (1.38%) TestRail
7 12 (1.27%) JMeter
8 11 (1.17%) GitLab
9 9 (0.95%) Eclipse
9 9 (0.95%) SoapUI
10 7 (0.74%) LoadRunner
10 7 (0.74%) Locust
11 6 (0.64%) Zephyr
12 5 (0.53%) Charles Proxy
12 5 (0.53%) Robot Framework
12 5 (0.53%) SpecFlow
General
1 345 (36.55%) Social Skills
2 276 (29.24%) Finance
3 209 (22.14%) Analytical Skills
4 63 (6.67%) Banking
5 60 (6.36%) Electronics
6 48 (5.08%) Marketing
7 46 (4.87%) Financial Institution
8 45 (4.77%) Manufacturing
9 44 (4.66%) Presentation Skills
10 40 (4.24%) Aerospace
11 34 (3.60%) Public Sector
12 33 (3.50%) Law
13 31 (3.28%) Organisational Skills
13 31 (3.28%) Telecoms
14 30 (3.18%) Legal
15 29 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
16 28 (2.97%) Retail
17 24 (2.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 21 (2.22%) Pharmaceutical
19 19 (2.01%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 148 (15.68%) Analyst
2 135 (14.30%) Senior
3 104 (11.02%) Systems Engineer
4 72 (7.63%) Lead
5 56 (5.93%) Architect
5 56 (5.93%) Business Analyst
6 50 (5.30%) Test Engineer
7 42 (4.45%) Validation Engineer
8 36 (3.81%) Integration Engineer
9 34 (3.60%) Developer
9 34 (3.60%) Junior
10 33 (3.50%) Applications Support
10 33 (3.50%) Data Analyst
11 32 (3.39%) Principal Engineer
12 31 (3.28%) Data Engineer
13 29 (3.07%) Applications Engineer
13 29 (3.07%) Support Engineer
14 27 (2.86%) Applications Support Engineer
14 27 (2.86%) Solutions Architect
14 27 (2.86%) Systems Integration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (5.19%) REST
2 30 (3.18%) Middleware
3 27 (2.86%) JSON
4 26 (2.75%) Pandas
4 26 (2.75%) pytest
5 21 (2.22%) scikit-learn
6 20 (2.12%) PyTorch
6 20 (2.12%) XML
7 19 (2.01%) TensorFlow
8 17 (1.80%) NumPy
9 16 (1.69%) OAuth
10 15 (1.59%) FastAPI
10 15 (1.59%) JWT
10 15 (1.59%) Swagger
10 15 (1.59%) Web Services
11 14 (1.48%) CSS
11 14 (1.48%) Flask
12 13 (1.38%) HTML
12 13 (1.38%) React
13 12 (1.27%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 63 (6.67%) Management Information System
2 39 (4.13%) Onboarding
3 36 (3.81%) Product Ownership
4 32 (3.39%) Self-Motivation
5 23 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
6 21 (2.22%) Data Structures
6 21 (2.22%) Life Science
6 21 (2.22%) Low-Code
7 17 (1.80%) Algorithms
8 15 (1.59%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 14 (1.48%) Analytical Mindset
10 13 (1.38%) Data Centre
10 13 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
11 12 (1.27%) Embedded Systems
12 11 (1.17%) SCADA
12 11 (1.17%) SWIFT Messaging Network
13 10 (1.06%) Blockchain
13 10 (1.06%) Cloud Native
13 10 (1.06%) Self-Driving Car
14 9 (0.95%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 52 (5.51%) Windows
2 39 (4.13%) Linux
3 12 (1.27%) Android
3 12 (1.27%) Unix
4 11 (1.17%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.42%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.32%) CentOS
6 3 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.32%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.21%) AIX
7 2 (0.21%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.21%) Robot Operating System
7 2 (0.21%) VxWorks
8 1 (0.11%) FreeRTOS
8 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 248 (26.27%) Agile
2 224 (23.73%) Problem-Solving
3 156 (16.53%) Verification and Validation
4 134 (14.19%) Continuous Improvement
5 123 (13.03%) Analytics
6 120 (12.71%) Data Validation
7 117 (12.39%) Migration
8 114 (12.08%) Test Automation
9 108 (11.44%) DevOps
9 108 (11.44%) Systems Engineering
10 102 (10.81%) CI/CD
11 97 (10.28%) Business Intelligence
12 92 (9.75%) ETL
13 89 (9.43%) Mentoring
14 88 (9.32%) AI
15 86 (9.11%) Decision-Making
16 84 (8.90%) Software Engineering
17 82 (8.69%) Roadmaps
18 80 (8.47%) Stakeholder Management
19 79 (8.37%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 203 (21.50%) SQL
2 177 (18.75%) Python
3 37 (3.92%) C
4 35 (3.71%) C++
4 35 (3.71%) Java
5 30 (3.18%) PowerShell
6 28 (2.97%) MATLAB
7 24 (2.54%) JavaScript
8 19 (2.01%) Bash
9 13 (1.38%) C#
10 12 (1.27%) TypeScript
11 9 (0.95%) R
12 8 (0.85%) T-SQL
13 6 (0.64%) Bicep
13 6 (0.64%) PL/SQL
14 5 (0.53%) Apex Code
14 5 (0.53%) PHP
15 4 (0.42%) Go
15 4 (0.42%) Shell Script
15 4 (0.42%) VB
Qualifications
1 270 (28.60%) Degree
2 130 (13.77%) Security Cleared
3 113 (11.97%) BPSS Clearance
4 54 (5.72%) Master's Degree
4 54 (5.72%) SC Cleared
5 41 (4.34%) Computer Science Degree
6 21 (2.22%) DV Cleared
7 19 (2.01%) CISA
7 19 (2.01%) CISSP
8 18 (1.91%) CGEIT
8 18 (1.91%) CISM
8 18 (1.91%) FFIEC
8 18 (1.91%) SANS
9 17 (1.80%) Chartered Engineer
10 16 (1.69%) HNC
10 16 (1.69%) ISTQB
10 16 (1.69%) PMI Certification
10 16 (1.69%) PMP
11 15 (1.59%) Cisco Certification
12 12 (1.27%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (11.97%) QA
2 106 (11.23%) Data Quality
3 47 (4.98%) ISO/IEC 15288
4 43 (4.56%) GDPR
5 33 (3.50%) Accessibility
6 31 (3.28%) SLA
7 19 (2.01%) NIST
8 18 (1.91%) COBIT
9 17 (1.80%) ISO/IEC 12207
10 12 (1.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 12 (1.27%) WCAG
11 11 (1.17%) ISO 20022
11 11 (1.17%) SEPA
12 10 (1.06%) Good Clinical Practice
12 10 (1.06%) GRC
13 8 (0.85%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 8 (0.85%) GxP
14 7 (0.74%) IFRS
14 7 (0.74%) TARGET2
15 6 (0.64%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 50 (5.30%) Docker
2 23 (2.44%) Firmware
3 14 (1.48%) Active Directory
4 5 (0.53%) Embedded Firmware
5 3 (0.32%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
6 2 (0.21%) Ceph
6 2 (0.21%) Lustre
6 2 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 2 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.21%) vSphere
7 1 (0.11%) iptables
7 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 1 (0.11%) OpenAM
7 1 (0.11%) OpenDJ
7 1 (0.11%) OpenIDM
7 1 (0.11%) pfSense
7 1 (0.11%) vCloud
7 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 42 (4.45%) Kubernetes
2 25 (2.65%) Terraform
3 17 (1.80%) Grafana
4 14 (1.48%) Ansible
5 8 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
5 8 (0.85%) Prometheus
6 7 (0.74%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 6 (0.64%) SCCM
8 4 (0.42%) Argo
8 4 (0.42%) Rancher
8 4 (0.42%) yum
9 2 (0.21%) BMC PATROL
9 2 (0.21%) Functional Safety
9 2 (0.21%) Kubeflow
9 2 (0.21%) Nessus
9 2 (0.21%) Puppet
10 1 (0.11%) Control-M
10 1 (0.11%) PowerCLI
10 1 (0.11%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.11%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 119 (12.61%) Microsoft
2 54 (5.72%) SAP
3 37 (3.92%) Oracle
4 31 (3.28%) Salesforce
5 27 (2.86%) Cisco
6 26 (2.75%) IBM
7 17 (1.80%) Foundry
8 14 (1.48%) OpenAI
8 14 (1.48%) Software AG
9 13 (1.38%) Adobe
10 12 (1.27%) ServiceNow
11 11 (1.17%) Automation Anywhere
11 11 (1.17%) F5
11 11 (1.17%) UiPath
12 10 (1.06%) CheckPoint
13 9 (0.95%) Workday
14 8 (0.85%) Databricks
14 8 (0.85%) Intapp
14 8 (0.85%) Splunk
15 7 (0.74%) Guidewire