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

6 months to
31 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 134 165 191
Rank change year-on-year +31 +26 -35
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,195 755 1,425
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.51% 1.84% 1.59%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.97% 1.98% 1.84%
Number of salaries quoted 667 372 787
10th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £35,000
25th Percentile £43,500 £46,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £95,000 £96,125 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,750 £52,600 £52,500
% change year-on-year +0.29% +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 60,590 38,104 77,432
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 76.71% 93.07% 86.51%
Number of salaries quoted 37,239 22,363 57,730
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £43,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -10.57%
75th Percentile £77,500 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -7.83%

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 31 March 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 31 March 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 +35 1,037 £60,000 +7.14% 872
UK excluding London +7 760 £52,750 +0.29% 714
Work from Home +90 341 £57,500 +2.68% 341
London +59 326 £75,000 +7.14% 268
South East +42 249 £55,000 +10.00% 215
North of England 0 163 £58,000 +22.11% 152
Midlands -17 125 £37,500 -31.82% 118
North West +12 103 £58,000 +21.64% 74
East of England -12 91 £58,750 +6.82% 96
West Midlands -4 76 £44,000 -33.58% 77
South West -36 69 £60,000 +9.09% 89
East Midlands -40 47 £35,000 -31.37% 41
Scotland -21 46 £42,000 -27.63% 42
Yorkshire -24 40 £60,000 +26.32% 51
North East -3 20 £48,500 -14.54% 27
Wales -20 15 £55,000 +12.01% 16
Northern Ireland -36 4 - - 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 41 (3.43%) Apache Airflow
2 27 (2.26%) Apache Spark
3 23 (1.92%) Apache
4 20 (1.67%) ArcGIS
5 18 (1.51%) Confluence
6 13 (1.09%) Microsoft Exchange
7 12 (1.00%) Appian
7 12 (1.00%) CMS
8 9 (0.75%) SharePoint
9 5 (0.42%) Kinematics
10 4 (0.33%) Headless CMS
11 2 (0.17%) WordPress
12 1 (0.084%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.084%) IIS
12 1 (0.084%) Jupyter
12 1 (0.084%) SAS
Applications
1 91 (7.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 60 (5.02%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (1.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 18 (1.51%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.59%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 5 (0.42%) Simulink
5 5 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.33%) CANalyzer
6 4 (0.33%) Fusion 360
6 4 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.17%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.17%) Adobe Captivate
7 2 (0.17%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.17%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.17%) Elementor
7 2 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
7 2 (0.17%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.17%) Solid Edge
7 2 (0.17%) SOLIDWORKS
7 2 (0.17%) Weka
Business Applications
1 24 (2.01%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.67%) Oracle ERP
4 7 (0.59%) Workday HCM
5 5 (0.42%) Loan IQ
5 5 (0.42%) SAP ERP
6 4 (0.33%) Elite 3E
6 4 (0.33%) Markit EDM
6 4 (0.33%) SAP BPC
7 2 (0.17%) IBM Planning Analytics
7 2 (0.17%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.17%) SAP CX
7 2 (0.17%) SAP FSCM
7 2 (0.17%) SAP MDG
8 1 (0.084%) Endur
8 1 (0.084%) Oracle Financials
8 1 (0.084%) Primavera
8 1 (0.084%) Raiser’s Edge
8 1 (0.084%) Remedy ITSM
8 1 (0.084%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 186 (15.56%) Azure
2 117 (9.79%) AWS
3 108 (9.04%) Power Platform
4 60 (5.02%) SaaS
5 41 (3.43%) Azure DevOps
5 41 (3.43%) GCP
6 30 (2.51%) dbt
7 29 (2.43%) Snowflake
8 28 (2.34%) Azure Data Factory
9 27 (2.26%) Dynamics 365
10 25 (2.09%) Amazon S3
11 24 (2.01%) Power Automate
12 22 (1.84%) Entra ID
12 22 (1.84%) GitHub
13 18 (1.51%) Datadog
13 18 (1.51%) Microsoft 365
14 16 (1.34%) OpenShift
15 15 (1.26%) Azure AI
16 13 (1.09%) Anthropic Claude
16 13 (1.09%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 25 (2.09%) CHAP
2 21 (1.76%) Broadband
3 16 (1.34%) Firewall
3 16 (1.34%) WAN
4 15 (1.26%) TCP/IP
5 14 (1.17%) DNS
6 13 (1.09%) SD-WAN
7 12 (1.00%) 5G
7 12 (1.00%) Wireless
8 9 (0.75%) HTTP
9 8 (0.67%) Modbus
9 8 (0.67%) Multicast
10 7 (0.59%) MQTT
10 7 (0.59%) Wireshark
11 6 (0.50%) ATM
11 6 (0.50%) LAN
11 6 (0.50%) NAS
11 6 (0.50%) tcpdump
12 5 (0.42%) VPN
12 5 (0.42%) WAAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 102 (8.54%) Power BI
2 44 (3.68%) Tableau
3 42 (3.51%) SQL Server
4 33 (2.76%) Data Warehouse
5 30 (2.51%) Metadata
6 28 (2.34%) Relational Database
7 25 (2.09%) GIS
7 25 (2.09%) PostgreSQL
8 20 (1.67%) QGIS
8 20 (1.67%) Spatial Data
9 17 (1.42%) Oracle Reports
10 14 (1.17%) Parquet
10 14 (1.17%) Spark SQL
11 13 (1.09%) Apache Hive
11 13 (1.09%) Impala
11 13 (1.09%) MySQL
11 13 (1.09%) Oracle Database
12 12 (1.00%) Azure SQL Database
12 12 (1.00%) Pinecone
12 12 (1.00%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 68 (5.69%) Git
2 61 (5.10%) JIRA
3 40 (3.35%) Rational DOORS
4 22 (1.84%) Jenkins
5 18 (1.51%) Cucumber
5 18 (1.51%) Postman
6 17 (1.42%) JMeter
7 16 (1.34%) LabVIEW
8 15 (1.26%) GitLab
9 14 (1.17%) MLflow
10 13 (1.09%) IBM UrbanCode
10 13 (1.09%) Selenium
10 13 (1.09%) TestRail
11 12 (1.00%) Locust
12 11 (0.92%) Eclipse
13 7 (0.59%) LoadRunner
13 7 (0.59%) SoapUI
14 6 (0.50%) Subversion
15 5 (0.42%) Robot Framework
15 5 (0.42%) Visual Studio
General
1 431 (36.07%) Social Skills
2 312 (26.11%) Finance
3 268 (22.43%) Analytical Skills
4 83 (6.95%) Banking
5 76 (6.36%) Manufacturing
6 69 (5.77%) Electronics
7 68 (5.69%) Aerospace
8 56 (4.69%) Legal
9 45 (3.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 43 (3.60%) Law
10 43 (3.60%) Marketing
11 41 (3.43%) Financial Institution
11 41 (3.43%) Public Sector
11 41 (3.43%) Retail
12 40 (3.35%) Presentation Skills
13 30 (2.51%) Organisational Skills
14 27 (2.26%) Pharmaceutical
15 24 (2.01%) Telecoms
16 23 (1.92%) Automotive
17 22 (1.84%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 200 (16.74%) Analyst
2 185 (15.48%) Senior
3 137 (11.46%) Systems Engineer
4 96 (8.03%) Lead
5 71 (5.94%) Business Analyst
6 70 (5.86%) Validation Engineer
7 64 (5.36%) Test Engineer
8 59 (4.94%) Architect
9 56 (4.69%) Consultant
10 55 (4.60%) Integration Engineer
11 50 (4.18%) Data Analyst
12 45 (3.77%) Developer
13 42 (3.51%) Senior Systems Engineer
14 41 (3.43%) Junior
15 39 (3.26%) Systems Integration Engineer
16 38 (3.18%) Principal Engineer
17 35 (2.93%) Data Engineer
18 34 (2.85%) Software Validation Engineer
18 34 (2.85%) Verification Engineer
19 28 (2.34%) Principal Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (4.77%) REST
2 39 (3.26%) PyTorch
3 37 (3.10%) Pandas
4 36 (3.01%) JSON
5 26 (2.18%) Middleware
5 26 (2.18%) pytest
6 25 (2.09%) XML
7 19 (1.59%) OAuth
8 18 (1.51%) JWT
8 18 (1.51%) NumPy
8 18 (1.51%) PySpark
8 18 (1.51%) Swagger
8 18 (1.51%) TensorFlow
9 16 (1.34%) .NET
9 16 (1.34%) RESTful
10 15 (1.26%) Kafka
10 15 (1.26%) React
10 15 (1.26%) scikit-learn
10 15 (1.26%) Web Services
11 14 (1.17%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 75 (6.28%) Management Information System
2 56 (4.69%) Onboarding
3 47 (3.93%) Data Structures
4 38 (3.18%) Product Ownership
5 36 (3.01%) Low-Code
6 33 (2.76%) Algorithms
7 32 (2.68%) Legacy Systems
8 28 (2.34%) Self-Motivation
9 25 (2.09%) Life Science
10 23 (1.92%) Analytical Mindset
11 19 (1.59%) Enterprise Software
12 17 (1.42%) Cloud Native
12 17 (1.42%) Embedded Systems
13 16 (1.34%) Robotics
14 14 (1.17%) Blockchain
14 14 (1.17%) SCADA
15 13 (1.09%) Reinsurance
16 12 (1.00%) FPGA
16 12 (1.00%) IoT
17 11 (0.92%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 64 (5.36%) Linux
2 57 (4.77%) Windows
3 17 (1.42%) Unix
4 16 (1.34%) Windows Server
5 15 (1.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (1.00%) Android
7 4 (0.33%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.33%) CentOS
8 3 (0.25%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.17%) AIX
9 2 (0.17%) FreeRTOS
9 2 (0.17%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.17%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.084%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.084%) Kali Linux
10 1 (0.084%) Rocky
10 1 (0.084%) ThreadX
10 1 (0.084%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.084%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 290 (24.27%) Agile
2 265 (22.18%) Problem-Solving
3 229 (19.16%) Continuous Improvement
4 193 (16.15%) Verification and Validation
5 187 (15.65%) Analytics
6 156 (13.05%) Data Validation
7 152 (12.72%) AI
8 150 (12.55%) Test Automation
9 138 (11.55%) CI/CD
10 134 (11.21%) Business Intelligence
11 132 (11.05%) Systems Engineering
12 127 (10.63%) Migration
13 122 (10.21%) DevOps
13 122 (10.21%) Stakeholder Management
14 120 (10.04%) Data Modelling
15 116 (9.71%) Mentoring
16 114 (9.54%) Decision-Making
17 112 (9.37%) ETL
18 111 (9.29%) User Acceptance Testing
19 102 (8.54%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 268 (22.43%) Python
2 249 (20.84%) SQL
3 52 (4.35%) Java
4 38 (3.18%) C++
4 38 (3.18%) PowerShell
5 36 (3.01%) C
6 30 (2.51%) JavaScript
7 25 (2.09%) Bash
8 18 (1.51%) C#
8 18 (1.51%) T-SQL
9 17 (1.42%) Go
10 16 (1.34%) MATLAB
11 14 (1.17%) TypeScript
12 11 (0.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 11 (0.92%) R
13 9 (0.75%) VBA
14 8 (0.67%) Embedded C
15 7 (0.59%) Apex Code
15 7 (0.59%) VB
16 6 (0.50%) PHP
Qualifications
1 270 (22.59%) Degree
2 156 (13.05%) Security Cleared
3 128 (10.71%) BPSS Clearance
4 60 (5.02%) SC Cleared
5 57 (4.77%) Master's Degree
6 41 (3.43%) Computer Science Degree
7 32 (2.68%) CISA
7 32 (2.68%) CISSP
8 31 (2.59%) CISM
8 31 (2.59%) DV Cleared
9 26 (2.18%) Chartered Engineer
10 25 (2.09%) CGEIT
10 25 (2.09%) FFIEC
10 25 (2.09%) SANS
11 23 (1.92%) HNC
11 23 (1.92%) PMI Certification
11 23 (1.92%) PMP
12 18 (1.51%) HND
13 17 (1.42%) ISTQB
14 10 (0.84%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 151 (12.64%) Data Quality
2 145 (12.13%) QA
3 68 (5.69%) Accessibility
4 63 (5.27%) GDPR
5 40 (3.35%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 26 (2.18%) NIST
7 25 (2.09%) COBIT
8 18 (1.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 18 (1.51%) SLA
9 17 (1.42%) WCAG
10 15 (1.26%) IFRS
11 14 (1.17%) GRC
12 13 (1.09%) ISO 9001
13 11 (0.92%) IEC 61508
14 10 (0.84%) Good Clinical Practice
14 10 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 9 (0.75%) 21 CFR Part 11
15 9 (0.75%) GAAP
16 8 (0.67%) ISO 20022
16 8 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 12207
System Software
1 71 (5.94%) Docker
2 27 (2.26%) Active Directory
3 26 (2.18%) Firmware
4 15 (1.26%) VMware Infrastructure
5 10 (0.84%) vSphere
6 6 (0.50%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.50%) KVM
7 5 (0.42%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.17%) Ceph
9 2 (0.17%) Lustre
9 2 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 2 (0.17%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.084%) iptables
10 1 (0.084%) OpenAM
10 1 (0.084%) OpenDJ
10 1 (0.084%) OpenIDM
10 1 (0.084%) pfSense
10 1 (0.084%) vCloud
10 1 (0.084%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 67 (5.61%) Kubernetes
2 46 (3.85%) Terraform
3 31 (2.59%) Grafana
4 25 (2.09%) Ansible
5 15 (1.26%) Prometheus
6 12 (1.00%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 10 (0.84%) SCCM
8 8 (0.67%) Puppet
9 7 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.42%) Argo
10 5 (0.42%) Functional Safety
10 5 (0.42%) Rancher
10 5 (0.42%) yum
11 2 (0.17%) BMC PATROL
11 2 (0.17%) Nessus
11 2 (0.17%) PowerCLI
12 1 (0.084%) Control-M
12 1 (0.084%) FortiGate
12 1 (0.084%) Kibana
12 1 (0.084%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 153 (12.80%) Microsoft
2 62 (5.19%) Oracle
3 60 (5.02%) SAP
4 46 (3.85%) Salesforce
5 24 (2.01%) VMware
6 23 (1.92%) Red Hat
7 20 (1.67%) IBM
8 19 (1.59%) Foundry
9 18 (1.51%) Cisco
10 16 (1.34%) Adobe
10 16 (1.34%) Databricks
10 16 (1.34%) OpenAI
10 16 (1.34%) ServiceNow
11 15 (1.26%) Google
12 13 (1.09%) Workday
13 12 (1.00%) Automation Anywhere
13 12 (1.00%) UiPath
14 11 (0.92%) Software AG
15 10 (0.84%) Citrix
16 9 (0.75%) Siemens