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 4 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 117 92 206
Rank change year-on-year -25 +114 -9
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,583 1,625 1,385
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.64% 3.41% 1.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.22% 3.75% 1.61%
Number of salaries quoted 951 471 747
10th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £35,500
25th Percentile £42,500 £46,250 £42,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.51% +3.64% -12.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £71,250 £72,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £95,000 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £53,250 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -3.18% +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 71,201 43,352 86,215
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.63% 91.03% 82.05%
Number of salaries quoted 49,187 23,974 60,816
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,822 £29,750
25th Percentile £41,250 £38,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.09%
75th Percentile £78,750 £77,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £53,738 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +7.48% - -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 4 July 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 4 July 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 1,433 £55,000 -3.09% 1,127
UK excluding London -50 1,062 £53,250 -3.18% 801
Work from Home +120 516 £55,000 -8.33% 478
London +73 409 £77,500 +1.64% 441
South East -42 320 £55,500 +0.91% 266
North of England +92 292 £55,000 +15.35% 163
North West +71 183 £55,000 +15.35% 87
Midlands -70 167 £42,500 -22.73% 125
South West -44 112 £53,000 -3.64% 115
East of England -79 107 £60,000 +5.26% 91
West Midlands -5 97 £44,000 -29.60% 64
East Midlands -76 68 £30,000 -36.84% 61
Yorkshire +10 62 £44,000 +5.39% 49
North East -5 47 £55,000 +22.22% 27
Scotland +2 43 £48,750 -16.00% 45
Wales -32 21 £47,500 -17.39% 10
Northern Ireland -47 2 - - 7

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 52 (3.28%) Apache Airflow
2 48 (3.03%) Apache Spark
3 46 (2.91%) Apache
4 26 (1.64%) Confluence
5 21 (1.33%) ArcGIS
5 21 (1.33%) SharePoint
6 15 (0.95%) Microsoft Exchange
7 12 (0.76%) Jupyter
8 10 (0.63%) SAS
9 5 (0.32%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.25%) Appian
10 4 (0.25%) CMS
10 4 (0.25%) Kinematics
11 3 (0.19%) Artix
12 2 (0.13%) IIS
13 1 (0.063%) Oracle Workflow
13 1 (0.063%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 87 (5.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (2.97%) Microsoft Office
3 25 (1.58%) Microsoft Project
4 20 (1.26%) MS Visio
5 18 (1.14%) Simulink
6 15 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 8 (0.51%) SOLIDWORKS
7 8 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.32%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.25%) Adobe XD
9 4 (0.25%) CANalyzer
9 4 (0.25%) Sketch
10 3 (0.19%) Autodesk Inventor
10 3 (0.19%) Productboard
10 3 (0.19%) Solid Edge
10 3 (0.19%) Stateflow
11 2 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 1 (0.063%) PTC Creo
12 1 (0.063%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.063%) Trello
Business Applications
1 45 (2.84%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (2.59%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.69%) SAP MDG
4 10 (0.63%) SAP ERP
5 9 (0.57%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.51%) iTrent
6 8 (0.51%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.38%) Elite 3E
8 5 (0.32%) Loan IQ
8 5 (0.32%) Oracle Applications
8 5 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
8 5 (0.32%) SAP MDG-BP
9 3 (0.19%) SAP MM
10 2 (0.13%) FastStats
10 2 (0.13%) NetSuite
10 2 (0.13%) SAP Business One
10 2 (0.13%) SAP EWM
10 2 (0.13%) SAP FSCM
10 2 (0.13%) SAP PSCD
10 2 (0.13%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 232 (14.66%) Azure
2 204 (12.89%) AWS
3 150 (9.48%) Power Platform
4 80 (5.05%) GCP
5 77 (4.86%) SaaS
6 63 (3.98%) Azure DevOps
7 44 (2.78%) Serverless
8 42 (2.65%) GitHub
8 42 (2.65%) Microsoft 365
9 38 (2.40%) Amazon S3
10 33 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
11 25 (1.58%) Azure Data Factory
12 22 (1.39%) Snowflake
13 21 (1.33%) Entra ID
13 21 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
14 17 (1.07%) Amazon EC2
14 17 (1.07%) dbt
14 17 (1.07%) Power Automate
15 16 (1.01%) Amazon EMR
16 15 (0.95%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 71 (4.49%) Broadband
2 47 (2.97%) Firewall
3 33 (2.08%) DNS
4 24 (1.52%) Wireless
5 23 (1.45%) TCP/IP
6 21 (1.33%) WAN
7 17 (1.07%) CHAP
8 16 (1.01%) Network Security
9 15 (0.95%) SD-WAN
9 15 (0.95%) VPN
10 13 (0.82%) Wireshark
11 12 (0.76%) 5G
11 12 (0.76%) Ethernet
11 12 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
12 11 (0.69%) HTTP
12 11 (0.69%) MQTT
13 10 (0.63%) LAN
14 9 (0.57%) NAS
15 7 (0.44%) ATM
15 7 (0.44%) BGP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 141 (8.91%) Power BI
2 57 (3.60%) PostgreSQL
3 56 (3.54%) Tableau
4 52 (3.28%) SQL Server
5 51 (3.22%) Data Warehouse
6 36 (2.27%) Metadata
7 34 (2.15%) MongoDB
8 30 (1.90%) Relational Database
9 27 (1.71%) BigQuery
9 27 (1.71%) Data Lake
10 25 (1.58%) QGIS
11 24 (1.52%) Semantic Layer
12 23 (1.45%) Azure SQL Database
12 23 (1.45%) GIS
13 20 (1.26%) Spatial Data
14 19 (1.20%) DynamoDB
14 19 (1.20%) Spark SQL
15 18 (1.14%) Amazon Athena
15 18 (1.14%) MySQL
16 17 (1.07%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 88 (5.56%) JIRA
2 79 (4.99%) Git
3 50 (3.16%) Jenkins
4 40 (2.53%) GitLab
5 29 (1.83%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.39%) Snyk
7 17 (1.07%) Selenium
8 16 (1.01%) LabVIEW
9 15 (0.95%) Postman
10 13 (0.82%) IBM UrbanCode
11 12 (0.76%) Cucumber
11 12 (0.76%) Cypress.io
11 12 (0.76%) JMeter
12 10 (0.63%) TeamCity
13 8 (0.51%) Burp Suite
13 8 (0.51%) Eclipse
13 8 (0.51%) MLflow
14 7 (0.44%) Rational Rhapsody
14 7 (0.44%) REST Assured
15 6 (0.38%) Zephyr
General
1 508 (32.09%) Social Skills
2 427 (26.97%) Finance
3 349 (22.05%) Analytical Skills
4 119 (7.52%) Aerospace
5 118 (7.45%) Manufacturing
6 111 (7.01%) Electronics
7 96 (6.06%) Banking
8 95 (6.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 63 (3.98%) Retail
10 61 (3.85%) Public Sector
11 53 (3.35%) Legal
12 51 (3.22%) Law
13 50 (3.16%) Organisational Skills
14 48 (3.03%) Pharmaceutical
15 42 (2.65%) Games
15 42 (2.65%) Marketing
16 41 (2.59%) Automotive
17 33 (2.08%) Financial Institution
18 30 (1.90%) Documentation Skills
19 23 (1.45%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 274 (17.31%) Senior
2 244 (15.41%) Analyst
3 126 (7.96%) Lead
3 126 (7.96%) Systems Engineer
4 103 (6.51%) Test Engineer
5 101 (6.38%) Architect
6 83 (5.24%) Data Engineer
7 81 (5.12%) Business Analyst
8 79 (4.99%) Validation Engineer
9 73 (4.61%) Consultant
9 73 (4.61%) Developer
10 70 (4.42%) Data Analyst
11 43 (2.72%) Embedded Engineer
12 42 (2.65%) Principal Engineer
13 41 (2.59%) IT Manager
13 41 (2.59%) Support Engineer
14 39 (2.46%) Senior Systems Engineer
15 38 (2.40%) Integration Engineer
15 38 (2.40%) Software Engineer
16 35 (2.21%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (2.84%) RESTful
2 35 (2.21%) PySpark
2 35 (2.21%) REST
3 34 (2.15%) JSON
3 34 (2.15%) Node.js
4 32 (2.02%) PyTorch
5 30 (1.90%) Kafka
6 28 (1.77%) XML
7 26 (1.64%) Pandas
8 25 (1.58%) .NET
9 24 (1.52%) Middleware
10 21 (1.33%) Playwright
11 20 (1.26%) pytest
12 18 (1.14%) Regular Expression
12 18 (1.14%) XMPP
13 16 (1.01%) CSS
13 16 (1.01%) React
14 15 (0.95%) HTML
14 15 (0.95%) Swagger
15 14 (0.88%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 100 (6.32%) Cloud Native
2 85 (5.37%) Onboarding
3 72 (4.55%) Data Structures
4 68 (4.30%) Management Information System
5 62 (3.92%) Algorithms
6 50 (3.16%) Product Ownership
7 48 (3.03%) Low-Code
8 45 (2.84%) Embedded Systems
9 42 (2.65%) Driving Licence
10 39 (2.46%) Distributed Systems
11 38 (2.40%) Data Centre
12 36 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
13 35 (2.21%) Self-Motivation
14 34 (2.15%) Analytical Mindset
15 31 (1.96%) Legacy Systems
15 31 (1.96%) Video\Live Streaming
16 28 (1.77%) Life Science
17 24 (1.52%) FPGA
17 24 (1.52%) Robotics
18 19 (1.20%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 107 (6.76%) Linux
2 76 (4.80%) Windows
3 29 (1.83%) Windows Server
4 25 (1.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (1.45%) Unix
6 6 (0.38%) Android
7 5 (0.32%) FreeRTOS
8 4 (0.25%) Kali Linux
8 4 (0.25%) Mac OS X
8 4 (0.25%) Robot Operating System
9 3 (0.19%) AIX
9 3 (0.19%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.19%) Embedded Linux
9 3 (0.19%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.13%) CentOS
10 2 (0.13%) ThreadX
11 1 (0.063%) Rocky
11 1 (0.063%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.063%) VxWorks
11 1 (0.063%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 345 (21.79%) Problem-Solving
2 335 (21.16%) Continuous Improvement
3 333 (21.04%) Agile
4 288 (18.19%) AI
5 251 (15.86%) CI/CD
6 227 (14.34%) Analytics
7 220 (13.90%) Test Automation
8 196 (12.38%) Migration
9 178 (11.24%) Stakeholder Management
10 174 (10.99%) Verification and Validation
11 172 (10.87%) Business Intelligence
12 170 (10.74%) Data Validation
13 162 (10.23%) DevOps
14 158 (9.98%) Data Modelling
15 157 (9.92%) Decision-Making
15 157 (9.92%) Mentoring
15 157 (9.92%) Software Engineering
16 154 (9.73%) Data Analysis
17 147 (9.29%) Machine Learning
18 145 (9.16%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 407 (25.71%) Python
2 331 (20.91%) SQL
3 72 (4.55%) C++
4 70 (4.42%) C
5 66 (4.17%) Java
6 50 (3.16%) Go
7 45 (2.84%) C#
8 35 (2.21%) JavaScript
9 32 (2.02%) MATLAB
10 27 (1.71%) Bash
11 24 (1.52%) PowerShell
11 24 (1.52%) T-SQL
12 21 (1.33%) Embedded C
13 18 (1.14%) Embedded C++
14 16 (1.01%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 15 (0.95%) TypeScript
16 14 (0.88%) Scala
17 10 (0.63%) ABAP
18 9 (0.57%) VBA
19 7 (0.44%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 302 (19.08%) Degree
2 174 (10.99%) Security Cleared
3 109 (6.89%) BPSS Clearance
4 80 (5.05%) SC Cleared
5 75 (4.74%) Master's Degree
6 48 (3.03%) DV Cleared
7 40 (2.53%) Computer Science Degree
8 33 (2.08%) Chartered Engineer
9 28 (1.77%) HNC
10 27 (1.71%) CISA
10 27 (1.71%) CISSP
10 27 (1.71%) SANS
11 24 (1.52%) CISM
12 21 (1.33%) HND
13 20 (1.26%) ACCA
13 20 (1.26%) CIMA
14 17 (1.07%) CGEIT
14 17 (1.07%) FFIEC
14 17 (1.07%) PMI Certification
15 14 (0.88%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 264 (16.68%) Data Quality
2 199 (12.57%) QA
3 61 (3.85%) Accessibility
4 56 (3.54%) GDPR
5 39 (2.46%) GRC
6 26 (1.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 22 (1.39%) IEC 61508
8 21 (1.33%) NIST
9 19 (1.20%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 18 (1.14%) IFRS
11 17 (1.07%) COBIT
12 16 (1.01%) ISO 9001
12 16 (1.01%) PMO
13 14 (0.88%) SLA
14 13 (0.82%) GAAP
14 13 (0.82%) ISO 26262
15 11 (0.69%) SOC 2
15 11 (0.69%) WCAG
16 10 (0.63%) GxP
17 9 (0.57%) GMP
System Software
1 70 (4.42%) Docker
2 49 (3.10%) Firmware
3 37 (2.34%) Active Directory
4 23 (1.45%) Embedded Firmware
4 23 (1.45%) Virtual Machines
5 20 (1.26%) vSphere
6 15 (0.95%) VMware Infrastructure
7 6 (0.38%) KVM
8 5 (0.32%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.13%) Terminal Services
9 2 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 70 (4.42%) Kubernetes
2 69 (4.36%) Terraform
3 35 (2.21%) Grafana
4 23 (1.45%) Functional Safety
5 22 (1.39%) Ansible
6 16 (1.01%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.76%) Puppet
8 10 (0.63%) Cilium
9 7 (0.44%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 7 (0.44%) Kibana
10 6 (0.38%) SCCM
11 3 (0.19%) Argo
11 3 (0.19%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.19%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.19%) Nessus
11 3 (0.19%) Nmap
11 3 (0.19%) Rancher
11 3 (0.19%) yum
12 2 (0.13%) BMC PATROL
12 2 (0.13%) Computer Incident Response Team
Vendors
1 199 (12.57%) Microsoft
2 102 (6.44%) SAP
3 89 (5.62%) Oracle
4 48 (3.03%) Salesforce
5 41 (2.59%) Databricks
6 34 (2.15%) Red Hat
7 33 (2.08%) ServiceNow
7 33 (2.08%) VMware
8 29 (1.83%) CrowdStrike
9 25 (1.58%) Cisco
9 25 (1.58%) Google
10 23 (1.45%) Palo Alto
11 22 (1.39%) Tenable
12 19 (1.20%) Adobe
13 16 (1.01%) Foundry
14 14 (0.88%) Citrix
14 14 (0.88%) McAfee
15 12 (0.76%) EMC
16 11 (0.69%) IBM
16 11 (0.69%) OpenAI