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 13 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 125 82 198
Rank change year-on-year -43 +116 -7
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,398 1,600 1,415
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.55% 3.68% 1.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.10% 3.95% 1.72%
Number of salaries quoted 791 441 776
10th Percentile £34,500 £40,000 £35,375
25th Percentile £42,500 £46,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,000 £57,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +1.75% +3.64% -12.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £71,250 £72,108
90th Percentile £93,750 £95,000 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -4.55% +4.76% -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 66,447 40,520 82,162
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.89% 93.32% 85.21%
Number of salaries quoted 42,708 22,234 59,552
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - +9.09% -9.84%
75th Percentile £78,750 £78,938 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £101,250 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £52,500 £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 13 May 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 13 May 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 -50 1,245 £59,490 +6.23% 852
UK excluding London -71 915 £52,500 -4.55% 627
Work from Home +131 441 £56,500 -5.83% 390
London +66 365 £77,500 +8.77% 315
South East -47 284 £55,000 +7.84% 187
North of England +62 232 £55,000 +15.35% 135
Midlands -89 156 £40,000 -27.27% 92
North West +53 145 £55,000 +15.35% 84
West Midlands -7 101 £44,000 -32.31% 52
East of England -81 95 £60,000 +5.26% 80
South West -41 94 £52,500 -3.67% 93
Yorkshire -29 54 £55,000 +15.79% 40
East Midlands -91 53 £30,000 -42.31% 40
Scotland -5 42 £42,000 -27.63% 35
North East -9 33 £52,500 -7.49% 12
Wales -32 12 £44,000 -23.48% 18
Northern Ireland -39 2 - - 8

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 45 (3.22%) Apache Airflow
2 28 (2.00%) Apache
2 28 (2.00%) Apache Spark
3 24 (1.72%) Confluence
4 21 (1.50%) ArcGIS
5 16 (1.14%) Microsoft Exchange
6 11 (0.79%) Appian
7 10 (0.72%) SharePoint
8 9 (0.64%) CMS
9 6 (0.43%) Kinematics
9 6 (0.43%) SAS
10 4 (0.29%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 2 (0.14%) Artix
11 2 (0.14%) IIS
12 1 (0.072%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.072%) Headless CMS
12 1 (0.072%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 91 (6.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 61 (4.36%) Microsoft Office
3 20 (1.43%) MS Visio
4 14 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 10 (0.72%) Microsoft Project
5 10 (0.72%) Simulink
6 6 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 5 (0.36%) SOLIDWORKS
8 4 (0.29%) CANalyzer
8 4 (0.29%) Fusion 360
9 3 (0.21%) Adobe XD
9 3 (0.21%) AutoCAD
9 3 (0.21%) Sketch
9 3 (0.21%) Solid Edge
10 2 (0.14%) Autodesk Inventor
10 2 (0.14%) CATIA
10 2 (0.14%) Oracle Smart View
10 2 (0.14%) Productboard
11 1 (0.072%) Navisworks
Business Applications
1 36 (2.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.65%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.72%) SAP ERP
4 9 (0.64%) Oracle ERP
5 7 (0.50%) SAP MDG
6 6 (0.43%) Elite 3E
6 6 (0.43%) Loan IQ
7 5 (0.36%) SAP MDG-BP
7 5 (0.36%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.29%) Markit EDM
9 3 (0.21%) iTrent
9 3 (0.21%) Oracle Applications
9 3 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
10 2 (0.14%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 2 (0.14%) SAP FSCM
10 2 (0.14%) SAP PSCD
11 1 (0.072%) Oracle Receivables
11 1 (0.072%) SAP BRIM
11 1 (0.072%) SAP MDG-F
11 1 (0.072%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 203 (14.52%) Azure
2 145 (10.37%) AWS
3 126 (9.01%) Power Platform
4 64 (4.58%) SaaS
5 54 (3.86%) GCP
6 42 (3.00%) Azure DevOps
7 37 (2.65%) Serverless
8 33 (2.36%) Azure Data Factory
8 33 (2.36%) Dynamics 365
8 33 (2.36%) Microsoft 365
9 30 (2.15%) Snowflake
10 29 (2.07%) GitHub
11 28 (2.00%) Amazon S3
12 24 (1.72%) dbt
12 24 (1.72%) Entra ID
12 24 (1.72%) Power Automate
13 17 (1.22%) OpenShift
14 16 (1.14%) Azure AI
15 14 (1.00%) Anthropic Claude
16 12 (0.86%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 51 (3.65%) Broadband
2 33 (2.36%) Firewall
3 25 (1.79%) CHAP
4 23 (1.65%) DNS
4 23 (1.65%) WAN
5 20 (1.43%) Wireless
6 18 (1.29%) 5G
6 18 (1.29%) TCP/IP
7 17 (1.22%) SD-WAN
8 11 (0.79%) HTTP
9 10 (0.72%) Wireshark
10 9 (0.64%) LAN
10 9 (0.64%) MQTT
10 9 (0.64%) NAS
10 9 (0.64%) VPN
11 8 (0.57%) Modbus
11 8 (0.57%) Multicast
11 8 (0.57%) Network Security
11 8 (0.57%) Wi-Fi
12 7 (0.50%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (8.44%) Power BI
2 48 (3.43%) SQL Server
2 48 (3.43%) Tableau
3 43 (3.08%) PostgreSQL
4 35 (2.50%) Data Warehouse
5 32 (2.29%) Metadata
6 29 (2.07%) Relational Database
7 25 (1.79%) QGIS
8 24 (1.72%) MongoDB
9 23 (1.65%) GIS
10 21 (1.50%) Data Lake
11 20 (1.43%) Spatial Data
12 18 (1.29%) Oracle Reports
13 17 (1.22%) Azure SQL Database
13 17 (1.22%) Spark SQL
14 15 (1.07%) Oracle Database
15 14 (1.00%) BigQuery
15 14 (1.00%) MySQL
15 14 (1.00%) Parquet
15 14 (1.00%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 69 (4.94%) Git
2 61 (4.36%) JIRA
3 37 (2.65%) Rational DOORS
4 29 (2.07%) Jenkins
5 23 (1.65%) GitLab
6 22 (1.57%) Snyk
7 17 (1.22%) LabVIEW
8 15 (1.07%) MLflow
8 15 (1.07%) Postman
9 13 (0.93%) IBM UrbanCode
9 13 (0.93%) Selenium
10 12 (0.86%) Cucumber
10 12 (0.86%) JMeter
11 10 (0.72%) Eclipse
12 9 (0.64%) TestRail
13 7 (0.50%) LoadRunner
14 5 (0.36%) Cypress.io
14 5 (0.36%) SpecFlow
14 5 (0.36%) Subversion
14 5 (0.36%) Visual Studio
General
1 447 (31.97%) Social Skills
2 366 (26.18%) Finance
3 300 (21.46%) Analytical Skills
4 109 (7.80%) Manufacturing
5 102 (7.30%) Aerospace
6 97 (6.94%) Electronics
7 81 (5.79%) Banking
8 77 (5.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 61 (4.36%) Legal
10 52 (3.72%) Public Sector
11 47 (3.36%) Retail
12 45 (3.22%) Law
13 43 (3.08%) Marketing
14 40 (2.86%) Pharmaceutical
15 36 (2.58%) Organisational Skills
15 36 (2.58%) Presentation Skills
16 35 (2.50%) Financial Institution
17 34 (2.43%) Games
18 30 (2.15%) Automotive
19 23 (1.65%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 229 (16.38%) Senior
2 224 (16.02%) Analyst
3 156 (11.16%) Systems Engineer
4 100 (7.15%) Lead
5 96 (6.87%) Architect
6 91 (6.51%) Test Engineer
7 84 (6.01%) Business Analyst
8 80 (5.72%) Validation Engineer
9 68 (4.86%) Consultant
10 60 (4.29%) Data Analyst
11 50 (3.58%) Data Engineer
11 50 (3.58%) Integration Engineer
12 49 (3.51%) Developer
13 44 (3.15%) Junior
13 44 (3.15%) Principal Engineer
14 42 (3.00%) Senior Systems Engineer
15 36 (2.58%) Systems Integration Engineer
15 36 (2.58%) Verification Engineer
16 32 (2.29%) Embedded Engineer
16 32 (2.29%) Software Validation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (3.58%) REST
2 37 (2.65%) PyTorch
3 33 (2.36%) Pandas
4 32 (2.29%) JSON
5 31 (2.22%) RESTful
6 28 (2.00%) Middleware
7 27 (1.93%) pytest
8 21 (1.50%) PySpark
9 20 (1.43%) .NET
10 19 (1.36%) OAuth
10 19 (1.36%) Swagger
10 19 (1.36%) XML
11 17 (1.22%) JWT
11 17 (1.22%) Kafka
11 17 (1.22%) TensorFlow
12 16 (1.14%) CSS
12 16 (1.14%) NumPy
12 16 (1.14%) Playwright
13 14 (1.00%) Hugging Face
13 14 (1.00%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 83 (5.94%) Management Information System
2 60 (4.29%) Onboarding
3 51 (3.65%) Data Structures
4 46 (3.29%) Low-Code
5 45 (3.22%) Cloud Native
6 44 (3.15%) Algorithms
7 37 (2.65%) Product Ownership
8 35 (2.50%) Self-Motivation
9 33 (2.36%) Legacy Systems
10 32 (2.29%) Data Centre
11 29 (2.07%) Analytical Mindset
12 27 (1.93%) Embedded Systems
13 25 (1.79%) Life Science
14 22 (1.57%) Enterprise Software
14 22 (1.57%) Video\Live Streaming
15 20 (1.43%) Distributed Systems
15 20 (1.43%) Driving Licence
16 18 (1.29%) Robotics
17 17 (1.22%) SCADA
18 16 (1.14%) FPGA
Operating Systems
1 79 (5.65%) Linux
2 66 (4.72%) Windows
3 21 (1.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 21 (1.50%) Unix
3 21 (1.50%) Windows Server
4 13 (0.93%) Android
5 5 (0.36%) Apple iOS
6 4 (0.29%) CentOS
6 4 (0.29%) FreeRTOS
6 4 (0.29%) Mac OS X
7 3 (0.21%) AIX
7 3 (0.21%) Kali Linux
7 3 (0.21%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.14%) ThreadX
9 1 (0.072%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.072%) Rocky
9 1 (0.072%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.072%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.072%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 310 (22.17%) Problem-Solving
2 281 (20.10%) Agile
3 268 (19.17%) Continuous Improvement
4 225 (16.09%) AI
5 216 (15.45%) Analytics
6 206 (14.74%) Verification and Validation
7 194 (13.88%) CI/CD
8 186 (13.30%) Test Automation
9 164 (11.73%) Data Validation
10 152 (10.87%) Migration
11 146 (10.44%) Business Intelligence
12 138 (9.87%) Data Modelling
12 138 (9.87%) Decision-Making
13 133 (9.51%) Stakeholder Management
14 130 (9.30%) User Acceptance Testing
15 129 (9.23%) Data Governance
15 129 (9.23%) Software Engineering
16 128 (9.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 124 (8.87%) DevOps
17 124 (8.87%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 321 (22.96%) Python
2 273 (19.53%) SQL
3 53 (3.79%) C++
4 52 (3.72%) Java
5 46 (3.29%) C
6 37 (2.65%) PowerShell
7 36 (2.58%) Go
8 30 (2.15%) C#
9 28 (2.00%) Bash
9 28 (2.00%) JavaScript
10 23 (1.65%) MATLAB
11 18 (1.29%) T-SQL
12 14 (1.00%) Embedded C
13 13 (0.93%) TypeScript
14 12 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 9 (0.64%) VBA
16 8 (0.57%) ABAP
16 8 (0.57%) Embedded C++
17 7 (0.50%) R
18 6 (0.43%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 307 (21.96%) Degree
2 167 (11.95%) Security Cleared
3 127 (9.08%) BPSS Clearance
4 66 (4.72%) SC Cleared
5 64 (4.58%) Master's Degree
6 41 (2.93%) DV Cleared
7 40 (2.86%) Computer Science Degree
8 37 (2.65%) Chartered Engineer
9 35 (2.50%) CISA
9 35 (2.50%) CISSP
10 32 (2.29%) CISM
11 31 (2.22%) SANS
12 27 (1.93%) HNC
13 25 (1.79%) CGEIT
13 25 (1.79%) FFIEC
14 24 (1.72%) HND
15 23 (1.65%) PMI Certification
16 20 (1.43%) PMP
17 11 (0.79%) ACCA
17 11 (0.79%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 194 (13.88%) Data Quality
2 149 (10.66%) QA
3 64 (4.58%) GDPR
4 59 (4.22%) Accessibility
5 40 (2.86%) GRC
6 35 (2.50%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 27 (1.93%) NIST
8 25 (1.79%) COBIT
9 21 (1.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 20 (1.43%) IFRS
11 18 (1.29%) IEC 61508
12 16 (1.14%) SLA
13 13 (0.93%) GAAP
13 13 (0.93%) ISO 9001
14 11 (0.79%) GMP
14 11 (0.79%) PMO
15 10 (0.72%) Good Clinical Practice
15 10 (0.72%) WCAG
16 9 (0.64%) 21 CFR Part 11
16 9 (0.64%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 61 (4.36%) Docker
2 36 (2.58%) Active Directory
3 34 (2.43%) Firmware
4 22 (1.57%) Virtual Machines
5 15 (1.07%) VMware Infrastructure
5 15 (1.07%) vSphere
6 8 (0.57%) Embedded Firmware
7 6 (0.43%) KVM
8 5 (0.36%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.14%) Terminal Services
11 1 (0.072%) iptables
11 1 (0.072%) OpenAM
11 1 (0.072%) OpenDJ
11 1 (0.072%) OpenIDM
Systems Management
1 65 (4.65%) Kubernetes
2 46 (3.29%) Terraform
3 30 (2.15%) Grafana
4 24 (1.72%) Ansible
5 16 (1.14%) Prometheus
6 15 (1.07%) Functional Safety
7 14 (1.00%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 11 (0.79%) SCCM
9 9 (0.64%) Puppet
10 8 (0.57%) Microsoft Intune
11 4 (0.29%) Argo
11 4 (0.29%) Cilium
11 4 (0.29%) Rancher
11 4 (0.29%) yum
12 3 (0.21%) HP Fortify
12 3 (0.21%) Kibana
13 2 (0.14%) BMC PATROL
13 2 (0.14%) Computer Incident Response Team
13 2 (0.14%) FortiGate
13 2 (0.14%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 186 (13.30%) Microsoft
2 77 (5.51%) Oracle
3 71 (5.08%) SAP
4 49 (3.51%) Salesforce
5 30 (2.15%) Red Hat
6 28 (2.00%) VMware
7 25 (1.79%) CrowdStrike
8 24 (1.72%) Databricks
8 24 (1.72%) Palo Alto
9 22 (1.57%) Cisco
9 22 (1.57%) Tenable
10 21 (1.50%) ServiceNow
11 19 (1.36%) Google
12 18 (1.29%) Adobe
13 17 (1.22%) OpenAI
14 16 (1.14%) IBM
15 14 (1.00%) Citrix
16 13 (0.93%) Foundry
17 11 (0.79%) Automation Anywhere
17 11 (0.79%) UiPath