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

6 months to
12 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 116 77 207
Rank change year-on-year -39 +130 -20
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,494 1,625 1,426
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.61% 3.67% 1.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.21% 3.96% 1.62%
Number of salaries quoted 864 445 771
10th Percentile £36,250 £40,000 £35,500
25th Percentile £42,500 £47,000 £42,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -11.41%
75th Percentile £75,000 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £90,000 £94,000 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -4.55% +4.76% -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 67,454 41,012 87,985
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 72.86% 92.64% 82.31%
Number of salaries quoted 46,240 21,844 62,402
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,000 £29,500
25th Percentile £41,250 £40,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.69%
75th Percentile £78,750 £77,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -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 12 June 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 12 June 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 -40 1,350 £55,000 -3.51% 813
UK excluding London -55 994 £52,500 -4.55% 691
Work from Home +128 482 £55,000 -9.84% 321
London +72 390 £75,000 - 251
South East -38 305 £55,000 - 227
North of England +85 273 £55,000 +15.35% 140
North West +82 172 £55,000 +15.35% 71
Midlands -66 161 £40,000 -30.43% 114
East of England -75 107 £60,000 +5.26% 77
West Midlands -8 97 £44,000 -32.31% 68
South West -54 94 £53,000 -3.64% 101
East Midlands -84 62 £30,000 -42.31% 46
Yorkshire -3 60 £50,000 +11.11% 50
North East -4 41 £55,000 +15.79% 22
Scotland -7 39 £42,500 -26.77% 33
Wales -32 15 £45,750 -23.75% 12
Northern Ireland -33 2 - - 12

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 50 (3.35%) Apache Airflow
2 42 (2.81%) Apache Spark
3 41 (2.74%) Apache
4 24 (1.61%) Confluence
5 21 (1.41%) ArcGIS
6 15 (1.00%) Microsoft Exchange
7 14 (0.94%) SharePoint
8 10 (0.67%) Jupyter
9 8 (0.54%) Appian
10 7 (0.47%) SAS
11 5 (0.33%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 5 (0.33%) CMS
11 5 (0.33%) Kinematics
12 3 (0.20%) Artix
13 2 (0.13%) IIS
14 1 (0.067%) Anypoint
14 1 (0.067%) Oracle Workflow
14 1 (0.067%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 91 (6.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 49 (3.28%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (1.54%) Microsoft Project
4 19 (1.27%) MS Visio
5 15 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 14 (0.94%) Simulink
7 8 (0.54%) SOLIDWORKS
7 8 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.33%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 5 (0.33%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.27%) Adobe XD
9 4 (0.27%) CANalyzer
9 4 (0.27%) Sketch
10 3 (0.20%) Autodesk Inventor
10 3 (0.20%) Productboard
10 3 (0.20%) Solid Edge
10 3 (0.20%) Stateflow
11 2 (0.13%) Fusion 360
12 1 (0.067%) Navisworks
12 1 (0.067%) Trello
Business Applications
1 41 (2.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (2.28%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.67%) SAP ERP
4 9 (0.60%) SAP MDG
5 8 (0.54%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.54%) Oracle ERP
6 6 (0.40%) Elite 3E
7 5 (0.33%) iTrent
7 5 (0.33%) Loan IQ
7 5 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
7 5 (0.33%) SAP MDG-BP
8 4 (0.27%) Oracle Applications
9 2 (0.13%) Markit EDM
9 2 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
9 2 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
9 2 (0.13%) SAP EWM
9 2 (0.13%) SAP FSCM
9 2 (0.13%) SAP MM
9 2 (0.13%) SAP PSCD
9 2 (0.13%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 219 (14.66%) Azure
2 183 (12.25%) AWS
3 136 (9.10%) Power Platform
4 76 (5.09%) GCP
5 65 (4.35%) SaaS
6 56 (3.75%) Azure DevOps
7 41 (2.74%) GitHub
8 39 (2.61%) Serverless
9 38 (2.54%) Microsoft 365
10 36 (2.41%) Amazon S3
11 30 (2.01%) Azure Data Factory
11 30 (2.01%) Dynamics 365
12 27 (1.81%) Snowflake
13 23 (1.54%) Entra ID
14 20 (1.34%) dbt
14 20 (1.34%) Power Automate
15 18 (1.20%) GitHub Actions
16 16 (1.07%) OpenShift
17 13 (0.87%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 13 (0.87%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 69 (4.62%) Broadband
2 45 (3.01%) Firewall
3 33 (2.21%) DNS
4 22 (1.47%) CHAP
4 22 (1.47%) WAN
4 22 (1.47%) Wireless
5 19 (1.27%) TCP/IP
6 16 (1.07%) SD-WAN
7 15 (1.00%) 5G
7 15 (1.00%) Network Security
8 14 (0.94%) VPN
9 11 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
10 10 (0.67%) HTTP
10 10 (0.67%) MQTT
10 10 (0.67%) Wireshark
11 9 (0.60%) Ethernet
11 9 (0.60%) LAN
11 9 (0.60%) NAS
12 7 (0.47%) ATM
12 7 (0.47%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 129 (8.63%) Power BI
2 55 (3.68%) Tableau
3 53 (3.55%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (3.28%) SQL Server
5 43 (2.88%) Data Warehouse
6 34 (2.28%) MongoDB
7 30 (2.01%) Metadata
7 30 (2.01%) Relational Database
8 25 (1.67%) QGIS
9 24 (1.61%) BigQuery
10 23 (1.54%) Data Lake
10 23 (1.54%) GIS
11 22 (1.47%) Semantic Layer
12 21 (1.41%) Azure SQL Database
13 20 (1.34%) Spatial Data
14 18 (1.20%) Spark SQL
15 17 (1.14%) Oracle Database
16 15 (1.00%) MySQL
17 14 (0.94%) DynamoDB
17 14 (0.94%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 73 (4.89%) JIRA
2 69 (4.62%) Git
3 47 (3.15%) Jenkins
4 35 (2.34%) GitLab
5 32 (2.14%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.47%) Snyk
7 15 (1.00%) Postman
7 15 (1.00%) Selenium
8 14 (0.94%) LabVIEW
9 13 (0.87%) IBM UrbanCode
10 12 (0.80%) MLflow
11 11 (0.74%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.74%) JMeter
12 10 (0.67%) Cypress.io
12 10 (0.67%) Eclipse
12 10 (0.67%) TeamCity
13 6 (0.40%) Rational Rhapsody
13 6 (0.40%) REST Assured
13 6 (0.40%) Robot Framework
14 5 (0.33%) SonarQube
General
1 464 (31.06%) Social Skills
2 402 (26.91%) Finance
3 322 (21.55%) Analytical Skills
4 115 (7.70%) Aerospace
5 110 (7.36%) Manufacturing
6 101 (6.76%) Electronics
7 94 (6.29%) Banking
8 87 (5.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 59 (3.95%) Legal
10 54 (3.61%) Law
10 54 (3.61%) Public Sector
10 54 (3.61%) Retail
11 44 (2.95%) Pharmaceutical
12 42 (2.81%) Marketing
13 39 (2.61%) Games
14 37 (2.48%) Organisational Skills
15 34 (2.28%) Automotive
16 33 (2.21%) Financial Institution
17 30 (2.01%) Presentation Skills
18 24 (1.61%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 249 (16.67%) Senior
2 235 (15.73%) Analyst
3 139 (9.30%) Systems Engineer
4 107 (7.16%) Lead
5 101 (6.76%) Test Engineer
6 99 (6.63%) Architect
7 88 (5.89%) Validation Engineer
8 82 (5.49%) Business Analyst
9 72 (4.82%) Data Engineer
10 69 (4.62%) Consultant
11 68 (4.55%) Developer
12 64 (4.28%) Data Analyst
13 48 (3.21%) Principal Engineer
14 45 (3.01%) Integration Engineer
15 41 (2.74%) Embedded Engineer
16 39 (2.61%) IT Manager
17 37 (2.48%) Junior
18 34 (2.28%) Security Architect
18 34 (2.28%) Senior Systems Engineer
19 33 (2.21%) Software Validation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (2.88%) RESTful
2 41 (2.74%) REST
3 35 (2.34%) PyTorch
4 32 (2.14%) JSON
5 31 (2.07%) PySpark
6 28 (1.87%) Pandas
7 26 (1.74%) Kafka
7 26 (1.74%) pytest
8 25 (1.67%) Middleware
8 25 (1.67%) Node.js
9 23 (1.54%) XML
10 22 (1.47%) .NET
11 19 (1.27%) Playwright
12 18 (1.20%) Swagger
13 17 (1.14%) Regular Expression
13 17 (1.14%) XMPP
14 16 (1.07%) CSS
14 16 (1.07%) OAuth
15 15 (1.00%) TensorFlow
16 14 (0.94%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 86 (5.76%) Cloud Native
2 78 (5.22%) Management Information System
3 70 (4.69%) Onboarding
4 60 (4.02%) Data Structures
5 51 (3.41%) Low-Code
6 50 (3.35%) Algorithms
7 39 (2.61%) Product Ownership
8 36 (2.41%) Embedded Systems
9 35 (2.34%) Driving Licence
10 33 (2.21%) Legacy Systems
10 33 (2.21%) Self-Motivation
11 32 (2.14%) Analytical Mindset
11 32 (2.14%) Distributed Systems
12 31 (2.07%) Data Centre
12 31 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
12 31 (2.07%) Video\Live Streaming
13 27 (1.81%) Life Science
14 23 (1.54%) FPGA
15 22 (1.47%) Robotics
16 17 (1.14%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 91 (6.09%) Linux
2 66 (4.42%) Windows
3 25 (1.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 25 (1.67%) Windows Server
4 24 (1.61%) Unix
5 9 (0.60%) Android
6 4 (0.27%) FreeRTOS
6 4 (0.27%) Mac OS X
7 3 (0.20%) AIX
7 3 (0.20%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.20%) CentOS
7 3 (0.20%) Kali Linux
8 2 (0.13%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.13%) ThreadX
9 1 (0.067%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.067%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.067%) Rocky
9 1 (0.067%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.067%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.067%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 324 (21.69%) Problem-Solving
2 308 (20.62%) Agile
3 304 (20.35%) Continuous Improvement
4 260 (17.40%) AI
5 237 (15.86%) CI/CD
6 215 (14.39%) Analytics
6 215 (14.39%) Test Automation
7 189 (12.65%) Verification and Validation
8 166 (11.11%) Migration
9 165 (11.04%) Data Validation
10 158 (10.58%) Business Intelligence
11 157 (10.51%) DevOps
12 155 (10.37%) Data Modelling
13 149 (9.97%) Stakeholder Management
14 147 (9.84%) Decision-Making
14 147 (9.84%) Software Engineering
15 146 (9.77%) Machine Learning
16 141 (9.44%) Mentoring
17 138 (9.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 136 (9.10%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 372 (24.90%) Python
2 304 (20.35%) SQL
3 65 (4.35%) Java
4 61 (4.08%) C++
5 57 (3.82%) C
6 50 (3.35%) Go
7 39 (2.61%) C#
8 31 (2.07%) JavaScript
9 30 (2.01%) PowerShell
10 29 (1.94%) Bash
11 25 (1.67%) MATLAB
12 19 (1.27%) T-SQL
13 18 (1.20%) Embedded C
14 15 (1.00%) Embedded C++
15 13 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.80%) Scala
17 11 (0.74%) TypeScript
18 10 (0.67%) ABAP
19 9 (0.60%) VBA
20 8 (0.54%) R
Qualifications
1 297 (19.88%) Degree
2 171 (11.45%) Security Cleared
3 110 (7.36%) BPSS Clearance
4 78 (5.22%) SC Cleared
5 70 (4.69%) Master's Degree
6 45 (3.01%) DV Cleared
7 41 (2.74%) Computer Science Degree
8 37 (2.48%) Chartered Engineer
9 32 (2.14%) CISA
9 32 (2.14%) CISSP
9 32 (2.14%) SANS
10 29 (1.94%) CISM
11 27 (1.81%) HNC
12 23 (1.54%) HND
13 22 (1.47%) CGEIT
13 22 (1.47%) FFIEC
14 21 (1.41%) PMI Certification
15 18 (1.20%) PMP
16 17 (1.14%) ACCA
16 17 (1.14%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 234 (15.66%) Data Quality
2 163 (10.91%) QA
3 63 (4.22%) Accessibility
4 59 (3.95%) GDPR
5 42 (2.81%) GRC
6 28 (1.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 25 (1.67%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 24 (1.61%) NIST
9 22 (1.47%) COBIT
10 20 (1.34%) IEC 61508
11 19 (1.27%) IFRS
12 16 (1.07%) ISO 9001
13 15 (1.00%) PMO
13 15 (1.00%) SLA
14 12 (0.80%) GAAP
15 11 (0.74%) GMP
15 11 (0.74%) SOC 2
15 11 (0.74%) WCAG
16 9 (0.60%) ISO 13485
16 9 (0.60%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 71 (4.75%) Docker
2 43 (2.88%) Firmware
3 39 (2.61%) Active Directory
4 22 (1.47%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (1.27%) vSphere
6 16 (1.07%) Embedded Firmware
7 15 (1.00%) VMware Infrastructure
8 6 (0.40%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.40%) KVM
9 2 (0.13%) Terminal Services
9 2 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.067%) OpenAM
10 1 (0.067%) OpenDJ
10 1 (0.067%) OpenIDM
Systems Management
1 74 (4.95%) Kubernetes
2 63 (4.22%) Terraform
3 31 (2.07%) Grafana
4 22 (1.47%) Ansible
5 19 (1.27%) Functional Safety
6 16 (1.07%) Prometheus
7 10 (0.67%) Cilium
7 10 (0.67%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 9 (0.60%) Puppet
8 9 (0.60%) SCCM
9 7 (0.47%) Kibana
10 4 (0.27%) Microsoft Intune
11 3 (0.20%) Argo
11 3 (0.20%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.20%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.20%) Rancher
11 3 (0.20%) yum
12 2 (0.13%) BMC PATROL
12 2 (0.13%) Computer Incident Response Team
13 1 (0.067%) MOM
Vendors
1 195 (13.05%) Microsoft
2 95 (6.36%) Oracle
3 93 (6.22%) SAP
4 52 (3.48%) Salesforce
5 37 (2.48%) Databricks
6 34 (2.28%) Red Hat
6 34 (2.28%) ServiceNow
7 33 (2.21%) VMware
8 29 (1.94%) CrowdStrike
9 23 (1.54%) Palo Alto
10 22 (1.47%) Adobe
10 22 (1.47%) Google
10 22 (1.47%) Tenable
11 21 (1.41%) Cisco
12 15 (1.00%) Foundry
13 14 (0.94%) Citrix
13 14 (0.94%) OpenAI
14 13 (0.87%) McAfee
15 12 (0.80%) Splunk
16 10 (0.67%) IBM