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

6 months to
27 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 136 169 188
Rank change year-on-year +33 +19 -31
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,178 754 1,416
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.52% 1.86% 1.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.97% 1.99% 1.84%
Number of salaries quoted 653 370 785
10th Percentile £35,250 £40,000 £35,000
25th Percentile £43,750 £46,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -10.42%
75th Percentile £77,500 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £95,000 £96,250 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £53,500 £52,600 £52,500
% change year-on-year +1.71% +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 59,873 37,939 76,774
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 77.17% 93.46% 86.66%
Number of salaries quoted 36,505 22,139 57,454
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,079
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% -11.29%
75th Percentile £77,500 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,410 £93,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -8.41%

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 27 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 27 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 +28 1,022 £60,000 +7.14% 872
UK excluding London +11 738 £53,500 +1.71% 714
Work from Home +81 338 £57,500 +2.68% 341
London +67 331 £75,000 +7.14% 268
South East +34 241 £55,000 +11.11% 215
North of England +10 157 £59,000 +24.21% 152
Midlands -18 122 £37,500 -31.82% 118
North West +10 101 £60,000 +25.83% 74
East of England -9 90 £58,750 +6.82% 96
West Midlands -4 74 £42,215 -36.28% 77
South West -35 67 £55,000 - 89
Scotland -14 46 £42,000 -27.63% 42
East Midlands -40 46 £35,000 -31.37% 41
Yorkshire -41 36 £60,000 +26.32% 51
North East -13 20 £48,500 -14.54% 27
Wales -19 14 £55,435 +12.89% 16
Northern Ireland -37 3 - - 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 (3.48%) Apache Airflow
2 27 (2.29%) Apache Spark
3 23 (1.95%) Apache
4 20 (1.70%) ArcGIS
5 17 (1.44%) Confluence
6 13 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
7 12 (1.02%) Appian
7 12 (1.02%) CMS
8 9 (0.76%) SharePoint
9 5 (0.42%) Kinematics
10 4 (0.34%) Headless CMS
11 2 (0.17%) WordPress
12 1 (0.085%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.085%) IIS
12 1 (0.085%) Jupyter
12 1 (0.085%) SAS
Applications
1 92 (7.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 59 (5.01%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (1.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 19 (1.61%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.59%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 5 (0.42%) Simulink
5 5 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.34%) Fusion 360
6 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.25%) CANalyzer
8 2 (0.17%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.17%) Adobe Captivate
8 2 (0.17%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.17%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.17%) Elementor
8 2 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
8 2 (0.17%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.17%) Solid Edge
8 2 (0.17%) SOLIDWORKS
8 2 (0.17%) Weka
Business Applications
1 27 (2.29%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.10%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.68%) Oracle ERP
4 7 (0.59%) Workday HCM
5 5 (0.42%) Loan IQ
5 5 (0.42%) SAP ERP
6 4 (0.34%) Elite 3E
6 4 (0.34%) Markit EDM
6 4 (0.34%) 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 (0.085%) Endur
8 1 (0.085%) NetSuite
8 1 (0.085%) Oracle Financials
8 1 (0.085%) Primavera
8 1 (0.085%) Salesforce CRM
8 1 (0.085%) SAP Business ByDesign
Cloud Services
1 185 (15.70%) Azure
2 117 (9.93%) AWS
3 110 (9.34%) Power Platform
4 61 (5.18%) SaaS
5 42 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
6 41 (3.48%) GCP
7 30 (2.55%) dbt
8 29 (2.46%) Snowflake
9 28 (2.38%) Azure Data Factory
10 27 (2.29%) Dynamics 365
11 25 (2.12%) Amazon S3
12 24 (2.04%) GitHub
12 24 (2.04%) Power Automate
13 20 (1.70%) Entra ID
14 18 (1.53%) Datadog
15 17 (1.44%) Microsoft 365
16 16 (1.36%) OpenShift
17 15 (1.27%) Azure AI
18 13 (1.10%) Anthropic Claude
19 12 (1.02%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 25 (2.12%) CHAP
2 21 (1.78%) Broadband
3 16 (1.36%) WAN
4 15 (1.27%) Firewall
4 15 (1.27%) TCP/IP
5 13 (1.10%) SD-WAN
6 12 (1.02%) 5G
6 12 (1.02%) DNS
7 11 (0.93%) Wireless
8 9 (0.76%) HTTP
9 8 (0.68%) Multicast
10 7 (0.59%) LAN
10 7 (0.59%) Modbus
10 7 (0.59%) MQTT
10 7 (0.59%) Wireshark
11 6 (0.51%) ATM
11 6 (0.51%) NAS
11 6 (0.51%) tcpdump
12 5 (0.42%) Cisco IOS
12 5 (0.42%) WAAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 104 (8.83%) Power BI
2 44 (3.74%) SQL Server
2 44 (3.74%) Tableau
3 33 (2.80%) Data Warehouse
4 28 (2.38%) Metadata
4 28 (2.38%) Relational Database
5 27 (2.29%) GIS
6 25 (2.12%) PostgreSQL
7 20 (1.70%) QGIS
7 20 (1.70%) Spatial Data
8 16 (1.36%) Oracle Reports
9 14 (1.19%) Azure SQL Database
9 14 (1.19%) Parquet
9 14 (1.19%) Spark SQL
10 13 (1.10%) Apache Hive
10 13 (1.10%) Impala
10 13 (1.10%) MySQL
10 13 (1.10%) Oracle Database
11 12 (1.02%) Pinecone
11 12 (1.02%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 67 (5.69%) Git
2 60 (5.09%) JIRA
3 40 (3.40%) Rational DOORS
4 21 (1.78%) Jenkins
5 17 (1.44%) Cucumber
5 17 (1.44%) Postman
6 16 (1.36%) JMeter
6 16 (1.36%) LabVIEW
7 14 (1.19%) GitLab
7 14 (1.19%) MLflow
8 13 (1.10%) IBM UrbanCode
8 13 (1.10%) TestRail
9 12 (1.02%) Locust
9 12 (1.02%) Selenium
10 11 (0.93%) Eclipse
11 7 (0.59%) SoapUI
12 6 (0.51%) LoadRunner
12 6 (0.51%) Subversion
13 5 (0.42%) SpecFlow
13 5 (0.42%) Visual Studio
General
1 428 (36.33%) Social Skills
2 312 (26.49%) Finance
3 267 (22.67%) Analytical Skills
4 84 (7.13%) Banking
5 75 (6.37%) Manufacturing
6 62 (5.26%) Aerospace
6 62 (5.26%) Electronics
7 54 (4.58%) Legal
8 46 (3.90%) Marketing
9 44 (3.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 41 (3.48%) Financial Institution
10 41 (3.48%) Law
10 41 (3.48%) Presentation Skills
11 40 (3.40%) Public Sector
11 40 (3.40%) Retail
12 30 (2.55%) Organisational Skills
13 26 (2.21%) Pharmaceutical
14 24 (2.04%) Telecoms
15 22 (1.87%) Documentation Skills
16 21 (1.78%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 198 (16.81%) Analyst
2 180 (15.28%) Senior
3 135 (11.46%) Systems Engineer
4 94 (7.98%) Lead
5 70 (5.94%) Business Analyst
6 65 (5.52%) Validation Engineer
7 61 (5.18%) Test Engineer
8 57 (4.84%) Consultant
9 55 (4.67%) Architect
10 54 (4.58%) Integration Engineer
11 51 (4.33%) Data Analyst
12 44 (3.74%) Developer
13 42 (3.57%) Senior Systems Engineer
14 40 (3.40%) Junior
15 38 (3.23%) Principal Engineer
15 38 (3.23%) Systems Integration Engineer
16 35 (2.97%) Data Engineer
17 32 (2.72%) Software Validation Engineer
18 31 (2.63%) Verification Engineer
19 28 (2.38%) Principal Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (4.84%) REST
2 39 (3.31%) PyTorch
3 37 (3.14%) Pandas
4 35 (2.97%) JSON
5 27 (2.29%) Middleware
6 26 (2.21%) pytest
7 23 (1.95%) XML
8 19 (1.61%) OAuth
9 18 (1.53%) JWT
9 18 (1.53%) NumPy
9 18 (1.53%) PySpark
9 18 (1.53%) Swagger
9 18 (1.53%) TensorFlow
10 16 (1.36%) .NET
10 16 (1.36%) RESTful
11 15 (1.27%) Kafka
11 15 (1.27%) React
11 15 (1.27%) scikit-learn
11 15 (1.27%) Web Services
12 14 (1.19%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 76 (6.45%) Management Information System
2 56 (4.75%) Onboarding
3 47 (3.99%) Data Structures
4 38 (3.23%) Product Ownership
5 36 (3.06%) Low-Code
6 33 (2.80%) Algorithms
7 32 (2.72%) Legacy Systems
8 28 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
9 25 (2.12%) Life Science
10 22 (1.87%) Analytical Mindset
11 19 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
12 16 (1.36%) Cloud Native
12 16 (1.36%) Embedded Systems
13 15 (1.27%) Robotics
14 14 (1.19%) Blockchain
14 14 (1.19%) SCADA
15 13 (1.10%) Reinsurance
16 12 (1.02%) Data Centre
16 12 (1.02%) FPGA
16 12 (1.02%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 61 (5.18%) Linux
2 55 (4.67%) Windows
3 17 (1.44%) Unix
4 14 (1.19%) Windows Server
5 13 (1.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (1.02%) Android
7 4 (0.34%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.34%) CentOS
8 3 (0.25%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.17%) AIX
9 2 (0.17%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.17%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.085%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.085%) FreeRTOS
10 1 (0.085%) Rocky
10 1 (0.085%) ThreadX
10 1 (0.085%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.085%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 294 (24.96%) Agile
2 264 (22.41%) Problem-Solving
3 222 (18.85%) Continuous Improvement
4 187 (15.87%) Verification and Validation
5 185 (15.70%) Analytics
6 155 (13.16%) Data Validation
7 152 (12.90%) Test Automation
8 149 (12.65%) AI
9 138 (11.71%) CI/CD
10 134 (11.38%) Business Intelligence
11 131 (11.12%) Migration
12 129 (10.95%) Systems Engineering
13 124 (10.53%) DevOps
14 123 (10.44%) Stakeholder Management
15 118 (10.02%) Data Modelling
16 114 (9.68%) Mentoring
17 113 (9.59%) Decision-Making
17 113 (9.59%) User Acceptance Testing
18 112 (9.51%) ETL
19 102 (8.66%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 265 (22.50%) Python
2 248 (21.05%) SQL
3 51 (4.33%) Java
4 40 (3.40%) PowerShell
5 36 (3.06%) C++
6 33 (2.80%) C
7 30 (2.55%) JavaScript
8 25 (2.12%) Bash
9 20 (1.70%) T-SQL
10 18 (1.53%) C#
11 17 (1.44%) Go
12 15 (1.27%) MATLAB
13 14 (1.19%) TypeScript
14 11 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 11 (0.93%) R
15 9 (0.76%) VBA
16 7 (0.59%) Apex Code
16 7 (0.59%) VB
17 6 (0.51%) Embedded C
17 6 (0.51%) PHP
Qualifications
1 265 (22.50%) Degree
2 154 (13.07%) Security Cleared
3 126 (10.70%) BPSS Clearance
4 59 (5.01%) SC Cleared
5 55 (4.67%) Master's Degree
6 41 (3.48%) Computer Science Degree
7 32 (2.72%) CISA
7 32 (2.72%) CISSP
8 31 (2.63%) CISM
9 29 (2.46%) DV Cleared
10 26 (2.21%) Chartered Engineer
11 25 (2.12%) CGEIT
11 25 (2.12%) FFIEC
11 25 (2.12%) SANS
12 23 (1.95%) PMI Certification
12 23 (1.95%) PMP
13 20 (1.70%) HNC
14 17 (1.44%) ISTQB
15 15 (1.27%) HND
16 10 (0.85%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 151 (12.82%) Data Quality
2 145 (12.31%) QA
3 68 (5.77%) Accessibility
4 63 (5.35%) GDPR
5 40 (3.40%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 26 (2.21%) NIST
7 25 (2.12%) COBIT
8 18 (1.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 18 (1.53%) SLA
9 17 (1.44%) WCAG
10 15 (1.27%) IFRS
11 14 (1.19%) GRC
12 12 (1.02%) ISO 9001
13 10 (0.85%) Good Clinical Practice
13 10 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 9 (0.76%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 9 (0.76%) GAAP
14 9 (0.76%) IEC 61508
15 8 (0.68%) ISO 20022
15 8 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 12207
System Software
1 71 (6.03%) Docker
2 25 (2.12%) Firmware
3 24 (2.04%) Active Directory
4 15 (1.27%) VMware Infrastructure
5 8 (0.68%) vSphere
6 6 (0.51%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.51%) KVM
7 4 (0.34%) Embedded Firmware
7 4 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.17%) Ceph
8 2 (0.17%) Lustre
8 2 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 2 (0.17%) Terminal Services
9 1 (0.085%) iptables
9 1 (0.085%) OpenAM
9 1 (0.085%) OpenDJ
9 1 (0.085%) OpenIDM
9 1 (0.085%) pfSense
9 1 (0.085%) vCloud
9 1 (0.085%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 67 (5.69%) Kubernetes
2 45 (3.82%) Terraform
3 30 (2.55%) Grafana
4 25 (2.12%) Ansible
5 15 (1.27%) Prometheus
6 12 (1.02%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 10 (0.85%) SCCM
8 8 (0.68%) Puppet
9 7 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.42%) Argo
10 5 (0.42%) Rancher
10 5 (0.42%) yum
11 2 (0.17%) BMC PATROL
11 2 (0.17%) Functional Safety
11 2 (0.17%) Nessus
11 2 (0.17%) PowerCLI
12 1 (0.085%) Cilium
12 1 (0.085%) Docker Swarm
12 1 (0.085%) FortiGate
12 1 (0.085%) Kibana
Vendors
1 152 (12.90%) Microsoft
2 63 (5.35%) SAP
3 60 (5.09%) Oracle
4 45 (3.82%) Salesforce
5 22 (1.87%) VMware
6 21 (1.78%) Red Hat
7 20 (1.70%) IBM
8 19 (1.61%) Cisco
8 19 (1.61%) Foundry
9 16 (1.36%) Adobe
9 16 (1.36%) OpenAI
9 16 (1.36%) ServiceNow
10 15 (1.27%) Databricks
10 15 (1.27%) Google
11 13 (1.10%) Workday
12 12 (1.02%) Automation Anywhere
12 12 (1.02%) Software AG
12 12 (1.02%) UiPath
13 10 (0.85%) Citrix
14 9 (0.76%) Siemens