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

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 93 178
Rank change year-on-year +22 +85 +24
Permanent jobs citing Validation 2,584 1,594 1,133
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.19% 3.20% 1.53%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.99% 3.60% 1.86%
Number of salaries quoted 1,508 449 425
10th Percentile £35,925 £38,740 £38,734
25th Percentile £42,750 £41,250 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,490 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +8.16% -4.35% -11.54%
75th Percentile £71,250 £76,250 £77,500
90th Percentile £86,250 £89,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £52,600 £54,500
% change year-on-year +4.56% -3.49% -5.22%

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 86,432 44,324 60,758
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.12% 89.10% 81.90%
Number of salaries quoted 59,358 24,582 33,017
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,250 £32,500
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £59,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -6.78% -1.67%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £96,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +15.79% -9.52% -2.78%

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 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Validation in the UK

Validation
Top 18 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 October 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 +15 2,380 £57,750 +5.00% 4,954
UK excluding London -5 1,868 £55,000 +4.56% 3,176
Work from Home +132 681 £60,000 -3.23% 1,943
London +69 618 £70,000 -12.50% 2,238
South East -14 496 £62,500 +13.64% 809
North of England +119 481 £51,000 +6.96% 533
Midlands -12 305 £50,000 -9.09% 439
North West +114 301 £55,000 +9.88% 273
South West +26 244 £55,000 +4.56% 413
East of England -38 207 £55,000 -8.33% 429
West Midlands +51 171 £47,500 -13.64% 274
East Midlands -45 134 £50,000 +17.65% 165
Yorkshire +20 92 £42,500 - 172
Scotland +37 91 £70,000 +18.61% 420
North East +7 88 £55,000 +57.14% 90
Wales -37 43 £70,000 +12.00% 90
Isle of Man - 5 £38,500 - 4
Northern Ireland -77 4 - - 79

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 (2.01%) Apache Spark
2 47 (1.82%) Apache Airflow
3 45 (1.74%) Apache
4 38 (1.47%) Confluence
5 37 (1.43%) SharePoint
6 20 (0.77%) Jupyter
7 18 (0.70%) CMS
8 14 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
9 13 (0.50%) SAS
10 10 (0.39%) WinCC
11 6 (0.23%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Artix
12 3 (0.12%) nginx
12 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.12%) Palantir Foundry
13 2 (0.077%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.077%) IIS
14 1 (0.039%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.039%) Kinematics
Applications
1 152 (5.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 70 (2.71%) Microsoft Office
3 55 (2.13%) Simulink
4 37 (1.43%) Microsoft Project
5 29 (1.12%) Spreadsheet
6 21 (0.81%) AutoCAD
7 19 (0.74%) SOLIDWORKS
8 16 (0.62%) MS Visio
9 14 (0.54%) Revit
10 11 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
10 11 (0.43%) OrCAD
11 9 (0.35%) Navisworks
12 8 (0.31%) EPLAN
13 6 (0.23%) Notion
14 5 (0.19%) LaTeX
14 5 (0.19%) Mathcad
14 5 (0.19%) Stateflow
15 4 (0.15%) CANalyzer
16 3 (0.12%) Autodesk Inventor
16 3 (0.12%) Productboard
Business Applications
1 45 (1.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (1.55%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.39%) SAP MDG
3 10 (0.39%) Workday HCM
4 9 (0.35%) iTrent
4 9 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.31%) NetSuite
6 7 (0.27%) Infor M3
6 7 (0.27%) Oracle Applications
6 7 (0.27%) SAP ERP
6 7 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 5 (0.19%) Elite 3E
7 5 (0.19%) Maximo
7 5 (0.19%) Oracle Financials
8 4 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.15%) SAP MDG-BP
8 4 (0.15%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.12%) Sage 200
Cloud Services
1 344 (13.31%) Azure
2 280 (10.84%) AWS
3 190 (7.35%) Power Platform
4 104 (4.02%) GCP
5 84 (3.25%) Azure DevOps
6 82 (3.17%) GitHub
7 75 (2.90%) SaaS
8 69 (2.67%) Serverless
9 68 (2.63%) Microsoft 365
10 48 (1.86%) Amazon S3
11 44 (1.70%) Entra ID
12 39 (1.51%) GitHub Actions
13 37 (1.43%) Dynamics 365
14 35 (1.35%) Microsoft Copilot
15 31 (1.20%) Microsoft Purview
16 28 (1.08%) Amazon EMR
16 28 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
17 26 (1.01%) AWS Lambda
17 26 (1.01%) Cloud Computing
18 25 (0.97%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 70 (2.71%) DNS
1 70 (2.71%) Firewall
2 56 (2.17%) Broadband
3 44 (1.70%) Wireless
4 43 (1.66%) VPN
5 42 (1.63%) TCP/IP
6 39 (1.51%) Ethernet
7 38 (1.47%) Network Security
8 37 (1.43%) WAN
9 36 (1.39%) Modbus
10 34 (1.32%) VLAN
11 31 (1.20%) OSPF
12 30 (1.16%) LAN
13 26 (1.01%) Wireshark
14 25 (0.97%) MQTT
15 23 (0.89%) BGP
15 23 (0.89%) SD-WAN
16 19 (0.74%) 5G
17 18 (0.70%) DHCP
18 17 (0.66%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 175 (6.77%) Power BI
2 74 (2.86%) Metadata
3 63 (2.44%) Data Warehouse
4 56 (2.17%) Data Lake
5 55 (2.13%) SQL Server
6 50 (1.93%) PostgreSQL
7 41 (1.59%) Amazon Athena
8 39 (1.51%) Relational Database
8 39 (1.51%) Tableau
9 32 (1.24%) MongoDB
10 29 (1.12%) NoSQL
11 28 (1.08%) BigQuery
12 27 (1.04%) Big Data
13 25 (0.97%) DynamoDB
14 22 (0.85%) Amazon Redshift
14 22 (0.85%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 21 (0.81%) Azure SQL Database
15 21 (0.81%) Power Query
16 20 (0.77%) Semantic Layer
17 19 (0.74%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 144 (5.57%) JIRA
2 132 (5.11%) Git
3 64 (2.48%) Jenkins
4 61 (2.36%) GitLab
5 46 (1.78%) Rational DOORS
6 31 (1.20%) LabVIEW
7 28 (1.08%) Selenium
8 24 (0.93%) Postman
9 20 (0.77%) Cypress.io
9 20 (0.77%) Snyk
10 13 (0.50%) Burp Suite
10 13 (0.50%) Claude Code
11 11 (0.43%) Eclipse
11 11 (0.43%) JMeter
11 11 (0.43%) Rational Rhapsody
11 11 (0.43%) REST Assured
11 11 (0.43%) Sonatype Nexus
12 9 (0.35%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.35%) MLflow
13 8 (0.31%) Zephyr
General
1 870 (33.67%) Social Skills
2 670 (25.93%) Finance
3 610 (23.61%) Analytical Skills
4 258 (9.98%) Manufacturing
5 252 (9.75%) Aerospace
6 244 (9.44%) Electronics
7 227 (8.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 141 (5.46%) Law
9 118 (4.57%) Public Sector
10 116 (4.49%) Organisational Skills
11 110 (4.26%) Banking
11 110 (4.26%) Marketing
12 104 (4.02%) Retail
13 98 (3.79%) Telecoms
14 85 (3.29%) Pharmaceutical
15 83 (3.21%) Automotive
16 58 (2.24%) Legal
17 49 (1.90%) Documentation Skills
18 47 (1.82%) Military
19 43 (1.66%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 465 (18.00%) Senior
2 307 (11.88%) Systems Engineer
3 276 (10.68%) Analyst
4 218 (8.44%) Lead
5 133 (5.15%) Data Engineer
6 127 (4.91%) Test Engineer
7 121 (4.68%) Architect
8 108 (4.18%) Developer
9 96 (3.72%) Consultant
10 93 (3.60%) Software Engineer
11 84 (3.25%) Electronics Engineer
12 82 (3.17%) Business Analyst
12 82 (3.17%) Principal Engineer
13 69 (2.67%) Data Analyst
14 61 (2.36%) Validation Engineer
15 60 (2.32%) Network Engineer
16 54 (2.09%) Design Engineer
17 52 (2.01%) Automation Engineer
18 48 (1.86%) Administrator
19 47 (1.82%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.41%) Terraform
2 64 (2.48%) REST
3 61 (2.36%) RESTful
4 60 (2.32%) Kafka
5 54 (2.09%) Node.js
6 51 (1.97%) .NET
7 43 (1.66%) Playwright
7 43 (1.66%) PySpark
8 38 (1.47%) JSON
9 34 (1.32%) FastAPI
9 34 (1.32%) XML
10 33 (1.28%) CSS
10 33 (1.28%) React
11 31 (1.20%) HTML
12 26 (1.01%) Swagger
13 23 (0.89%) LDAP
13 23 (0.89%) RabbitMQ
14 22 (0.85%) Middleware
14 22 (0.85%) OAuth
15 21 (0.81%) ModSecurity
Miscellaneous
1 171 (6.62%) Cloud Native
2 149 (5.77%) Management Information System
3 144 (5.57%) Onboarding
4 86 (3.33%) Product Ownership
5 80 (3.10%) Data Centre
6 72 (2.79%) Driving Licence
6 72 (2.79%) Embedded Systems
7 65 (2.52%) Distributed Systems
8 62 (2.40%) Data Structures
9 60 (2.32%) Enterprise Software
10 58 (2.24%) AI Agents
11 56 (2.17%) SCADA
12 55 (2.13%) Algorithms
13 48 (1.86%) Life Science
14 42 (1.63%) IoT
15 41 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
15 41 (1.59%) Robotics
16 39 (1.51%) Analytical Mindset
17 37 (1.43%) Analogue Electronics
17 37 (1.43%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 132 (5.11%) Linux
2 94 (3.64%) Windows
3 31 (1.20%) Windows Server
4 26 (1.01%) Unix
5 13 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.39%) Android
7 8 (0.31%) Embedded Linux
7 8 (0.31%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.19%) FreeRTOS
9 4 (0.15%) Kali Linux
9 4 (0.15%) Mac OS X
10 3 (0.12%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.077%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.077%) VMS
11 2 (0.077%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.039%) AIX
12 1 (0.039%) OpenWrt
12 1 (0.039%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 678 (26.24%) Problem-Solving
2 587 (22.72%) Continuous Improvement
3 470 (18.19%) Agile
4 467 (18.07%) Verification and Validation
5 448 (17.34%) AI
6 359 (13.89%) CI/CD
7 349 (13.51%) Stakeholder Management
8 330 (12.77%) Test Automation
9 321 (12.42%) Migration
10 274 (10.60%) Analytics
10 274 (10.60%) Mentoring
11 257 (9.95%) Software Engineering
12 245 (9.48%) Decision-Making
13 240 (9.29%) DevOps
14 228 (8.82%) Data Analysis
15 226 (8.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 215 (8.32%) Business Intelligence
17 208 (8.05%) Roadmaps
18 201 (7.78%) Data Migration
18 201 (7.78%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 532 (20.59%) Python
2 458 (17.72%) SQL
3 107 (4.14%) Java
4 96 (3.72%) C++
5 88 (3.41%) C
6 78 (3.02%) JavaScript
7 76 (2.94%) C#
8 71 (2.75%) MATLAB
9 47 (1.82%) Go
10 36 (1.39%) Bash
11 35 (1.35%) PowerShell
11 35 (1.35%) TypeScript
12 29 (1.12%) Embedded C
12 29 (1.12%) R
13 25 (0.97%) Scala
14 20 (0.77%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 17 (0.66%) Embedded C++
16 12 (0.46%) Shell Script
17 11 (0.43%) Apex Code
18 9 (0.35%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 561 (21.71%) Security Cleared
2 558 (21.59%) Degree
3 424 (16.41%) SC Cleared
4 126 (4.88%) BPSS Clearance
5 106 (4.10%) DV Cleared
6 96 (3.72%) Master's Degree
7 53 (2.05%) Computer Science Degree
8 46 (1.78%) HND
9 44 (1.70%) PhD
10 39 (1.51%) Chartered Engineer
11 38 (1.47%) HNC
12 36 (1.39%) PMI Certification
13 32 (1.24%) CISSP
14 31 (1.20%) Azure Certification
15 30 (1.16%) ACCA
16 28 (1.08%) AWS Certification
17 27 (1.04%) CIMA
18 26 (1.01%) PMP
19 23 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
20 21 (0.81%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 385 (14.90%) Data Quality
2 314 (12.15%) QA
3 86 (3.33%) Accessibility
4 64 (2.48%) GDPR
5 34 (1.32%) GRC
6 33 (1.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 28 (1.08%) GxP
8 25 (0.97%) SLA
9 23 (0.89%) NIST
10 19 (0.74%) IEC 61508
11 17 (0.66%) ISO 9001
12 16 (0.62%) GMP
13 15 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 15288
14 14 (0.54%) ISO 19650
15 12 (0.46%) ISO 26262
15 12 (0.46%) PMO
15 12 (0.46%) SOC 2
15 12 (0.46%) WCAG
16 9 (0.35%) GAAP
16 9 (0.35%) JTAG
System Software
1 110 (4.26%) Docker
2 103 (3.99%) Firmware
3 49 (1.90%) Active Directory
4 46 (1.78%) Embedded Firmware
5 26 (1.01%) Virtual Machines
6 15 (0.58%) vSphere
7 8 (0.31%) VMware Infrastructure
8 6 (0.23%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 2 (0.077%) iptables
10 2 (0.077%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.077%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.077%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.039%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 92 (3.56%) Kubernetes
2 46 (1.78%) Grafana
3 36 (1.39%) Ansible
4 30 (1.16%) Functional Safety
5 18 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
6 17 (0.66%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
8 10 (0.39%) Puppet
9 8 (0.31%) BMC PATROL
9 8 (0.31%) Cilium
9 8 (0.31%) Kibana
9 8 (0.31%) Nessus
9 8 (0.31%) Nmap
10 5 (0.19%) Argo
10 5 (0.19%) WMI
11 4 (0.15%) FortiGate
11 4 (0.15%) Kubeflow
11 4 (0.15%) Rancher
11 4 (0.15%) SCCM
11 4 (0.15%) yum
Vendors
1 340 (13.16%) Microsoft
2 131 (5.07%) SAP
3 105 (4.06%) Oracle
4 83 (3.21%) Salesforce
5 70 (2.71%) EMC
6 67 (2.59%) Databricks
7 56 (2.17%) Cisco
8 55 (2.13%) ServiceNow
9 44 (1.70%) Google
10 30 (1.16%) CrowdStrike
11 29 (1.12%) Thales
12 26 (1.01%) Palo Alto
13 25 (0.97%) Adobe
13 25 (0.97%) Sage
14 23 (0.89%) IBM
15 22 (0.85%) Siemens
16 21 (0.81%) Informatica
16 21 (0.81%) Tenable
16 21 (0.81%) VMware
17 18 (0.70%) Autodesk