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

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 94 85 193
Rank change year-on-year -9 +108 +6
Permanent jobs citing Validation 2,038 1,700 1,163
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.90% 3.40% 1.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.59% 3.82% 1.74%
Number of salaries quoted 1,188 527 521
10th Percentile £35,000 £38,750 £36,250
25th Percentile £42,500 £41,250 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year - -8.33% -5.88%
75th Percentile £73,188 £71,250 £76,250
90th Percentile £87,750 £90,000 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £52,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.76% -4.55% -4.35%

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 78,793 44,552 66,983
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.35% 89.17% 80.87%
Number of salaries quoted 54,339 25,245 43,003
10th Percentile £31,000 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,750 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.71%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,650 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -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 18 August 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 18 August 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 -8 1,869 £56,000 +1.82% 1,085
UK excluding London -30 1,435 £55,000 +4.76% 917
Work from Home +120 599 £56,000 -6.67% 413
London +73 510 £71,750 -7.42% 328
South East -25 422 £57,000 +6.05% 285
North of England +106 394 £55,000 +15.79% 160
North West +101 228 £55,000 +15.35% 88
Midlands -50 203 £44,720 -18.69% 159
South West -5 170 £53,500 +1.71% 142
East of England -67 139 £58,750 +3.07% 110
West Midlands +11 111 £44,720 -18.69% 102
East Midlands -66 91 £45,675 +7.47% 57
North East +5 84 £55,000 +57.14% 35
Yorkshire +17 82 £43,000 +1.18% 40
Scotland +22 72 £58,750 +1.24% 47
Wales -41 31 £48,750 -9.30% 23
Isle of Man - 3 £38,500 - 4
Northern Ireland -78 2 - - 13

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 61 (2.99%) Apache Airflow
2 58 (2.85%) Apache Spark
3 56 (2.75%) Apache
4 34 (1.67%) Confluence
5 32 (1.57%) SharePoint
6 21 (1.03%) Jupyter
7 12 (0.59%) SAS
8 10 (0.49%) Microsoft Exchange
9 9 (0.44%) ArcGIS
10 5 (0.25%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 5 (0.25%) CMS
10 5 (0.25%) WinCC
11 4 (0.20%) Kinematics
12 3 (0.15%) Artix
12 3 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.098%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.098%) IIS
14 1 (0.049%) FactoryTalk
14 1 (0.049%) Palantir Foundry
14 1 (0.049%) WebSphere
Applications
1 120 (5.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 66 (3.24%) Microsoft Office
3 37 (1.82%) Simulink
4 36 (1.77%) Microsoft Project
5 27 (1.32%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.83%) Spreadsheet
7 15 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
8 13 (0.64%) SOLIDWORKS
9 8 (0.39%) AutoCAD
10 5 (0.25%) LaTeX
10 5 (0.25%) Mathcad
11 4 (0.20%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.20%) CANalyzer
11 4 (0.20%) Sketch
12 3 (0.15%) Autodesk Inventor
12 3 (0.15%) OrCAD
12 3 (0.15%) Productboard
12 3 (0.15%) Stateflow
13 2 (0.098%) Revit
13 2 (0.098%) Solid Edge
Business Applications
1 45 (2.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (2.01%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.49%) SAP ERP
4 9 (0.44%) iTrent
4 9 (0.44%) Oracle EBS
4 9 (0.44%) SAP MDG
5 8 (0.39%) Elite 3E
5 8 (0.39%) Oracle Applications
6 7 (0.34%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.29%) Teamcenter
8 5 (0.25%) Loan IQ
8 5 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.25%) SAP MDG-BP
8 5 (0.25%) Workday HCM
9 4 (0.20%) Oracle Financials
9 4 (0.20%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.15%) SystmOne
11 2 (0.098%) Oracle Payables
11 2 (0.098%) Refinitiv Enterprise Platform
11 2 (0.098%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 293 (14.38%) Azure
2 267 (13.10%) AWS
3 157 (7.70%) Power Platform
4 92 (4.51%) GCP
5 79 (3.88%) SaaS
6 67 (3.29%) Azure DevOps
7 63 (3.09%) Microsoft 365
8 57 (2.80%) GitHub
9 51 (2.50%) Serverless
10 47 (2.31%) Amazon S3
11 37 (1.82%) Dynamics 365
12 33 (1.62%) Entra ID
13 29 (1.42%) GitHub Actions
13 29 (1.42%) Microsoft Copilot
14 22 (1.08%) Amazon EC2
14 22 (1.08%) Amazon EMR
14 22 (1.08%) Snowflake
15 20 (0.98%) Cloud Computing
16 19 (0.93%) Azure Data Factory
16 19 (0.93%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 68 (3.34%) Broadband
2 58 (2.85%) Firewall
3 53 (2.60%) DNS
4 36 (1.77%) Wireless
5 34 (1.67%) Network Security
6 32 (1.57%) WAN
7 30 (1.47%) TCP/IP
8 28 (1.37%) VPN
9 22 (1.08%) Ethernet
10 21 (1.03%) LAN
10 21 (1.03%) SD-WAN
11 17 (0.83%) MQTT
11 17 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
12 16 (0.79%) BGP
12 16 (0.79%) Wireshark
13 15 (0.74%) Internet
13 15 (0.74%) OSPF
14 14 (0.69%) VLAN
15 13 (0.64%) HTTP
15 13 (0.64%) Modbus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (7.02%) Power BI
2 58 (2.85%) Data Warehouse
3 56 (2.75%) Tableau
4 53 (2.60%) PostgreSQL
5 48 (2.36%) Metadata
5 48 (2.36%) SQL Server
6 46 (2.26%) Data Lake
7 34 (1.67%) MongoDB
8 30 (1.47%) Relational Database
9 26 (1.28%) Amazon Athena
9 26 (1.28%) BigQuery
10 24 (1.18%) DynamoDB
11 23 (1.13%) Semantic Layer
12 21 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 20 (0.98%) Azure SQL Database
14 19 (0.93%) MySQL
14 19 (0.93%) Spark SQL
15 18 (0.88%) Big Data
16 16 (0.79%) NoSQL
16 16 (0.79%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 127 (6.23%) JIRA
2 110 (5.40%) Git
3 53 (2.60%) Jenkins
4 47 (2.31%) GitLab
5 36 (1.77%) Rational DOORS
6 27 (1.32%) Selenium
7 23 (1.13%) Postman
8 22 (1.08%) Snyk
9 20 (0.98%) Cypress.io
10 17 (0.83%) LabVIEW
11 16 (0.79%) JMeter
12 15 (0.74%) Cucumber
13 12 (0.59%) IBM UrbanCode
14 11 (0.54%) Burp Suite
14 11 (0.54%) REST Assured
15 10 (0.49%) TeamCity
16 9 (0.44%) Gatling
17 8 (0.39%) Rational Rhapsody
17 8 (0.39%) Zephyr
18 7 (0.34%) Hudson
General
1 691 (33.91%) Social Skills
2 563 (27.63%) Finance
3 498 (24.44%) Analytical Skills
4 202 (9.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 198 (9.72%) Aerospace
6 183 (8.98%) Manufacturing
7 169 (8.29%) Electronics
8 116 (5.69%) Law
9 112 (5.50%) Banking
10 84 (4.12%) Public Sector
11 81 (3.97%) Retail
12 76 (3.73%) Marketing
13 71 (3.48%) Pharmaceutical
14 70 (3.43%) Organisational Skills
15 58 (2.85%) Legal
16 56 (2.75%) Automotive
17 47 (2.31%) Games
17 47 (2.31%) Telecoms
18 40 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
19 36 (1.77%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 374 (18.35%) Senior
2 272 (13.35%) Analyst
3 184 (9.03%) Systems Engineer
4 182 (8.93%) Lead
5 123 (6.04%) Test Engineer
6 116 (5.69%) Architect
7 103 (5.05%) Data Engineer
8 93 (4.56%) Consultant
9 89 (4.37%) Developer
10 87 (4.27%) Business Analyst
11 74 (3.63%) Software Engineer
12 66 (3.24%) Data Analyst
12 66 (3.24%) Validation Engineer
13 64 (3.14%) Principal Engineer
14 49 (2.40%) Embedded Engineer
15 47 (2.31%) Data Scientist
15 47 (2.31%) Support Engineer
16 43 (2.11%) Electronics Engineer
17 42 (2.06%) IT Manager
18 40 (1.96%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (2.36%) RESTful
2 44 (2.16%) Kafka
3 40 (1.96%) Node.js
3 40 (1.96%) PySpark
4 39 (1.91%) REST
5 32 (1.57%) JSON
6 31 (1.52%) .NET
6 31 (1.52%) Playwright
7 30 (1.47%) XML
8 27 (1.32%) LDAP
9 25 (1.23%) Middleware
10 22 (1.08%) CSS
10 22 (1.08%) Pandas
11 21 (1.03%) HTML
11 21 (1.03%) ModSecurity
11 21 (1.03%) React
12 20 (0.98%) PyTorch
13 19 (0.93%) OAuth
13 19 (0.93%) Regular Expression
13 19 (0.93%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 150 (7.36%) Cloud Native
2 132 (6.48%) Onboarding
3 111 (5.45%) Management Information System
4 74 (3.63%) Product Ownership
5 73 (3.58%) Data Centre
6 60 (2.94%) Algorithms
6 60 (2.94%) Data Structures
7 57 (2.80%) Embedded Systems
8 55 (2.70%) Enterprise Software
9 53 (2.60%) Driving Licence
10 51 (2.50%) Distributed Systems
11 45 (2.21%) Low-Code
12 38 (1.86%) AI Agents
12 38 (1.86%) Analytical Mindset
13 37 (1.82%) Legacy Systems
13 37 (1.82%) Life Science
14 34 (1.67%) Video\Live Streaming
15 33 (1.62%) Robotics
16 31 (1.52%) IoT
17 29 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 124 (6.08%) Linux
2 90 (4.42%) Windows
3 34 (1.67%) Windows Server
4 22 (1.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 20 (0.98%) Unix
6 8 (0.39%) Android
6 8 (0.39%) Embedded Linux
7 6 (0.29%) FreeRTOS
8 5 (0.25%) Kali Linux
8 5 (0.25%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.20%) Mac OS X
10 2 (0.098%) Robot Operating System
10 2 (0.098%) ThreadX
10 2 (0.098%) VMS
10 2 (0.098%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.049%) AIX
11 1 (0.049%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 530 (26.01%) Problem-Solving
2 492 (24.14%) Continuous Improvement
3 425 (20.85%) Agile
4 380 (18.65%) AI
5 308 (15.11%) CI/CD
6 271 (13.30%) Analytics
7 269 (13.20%) Verification and Validation
8 265 (13.00%) Test Automation
9 262 (12.86%) Stakeholder Management
10 246 (12.07%) Migration
11 242 (11.87%) Mentoring
12 226 (11.09%) Decision-Making
13 215 (10.55%) Software Engineering
14 202 (9.91%) Data Analysis
15 194 (9.52%) DevOps
16 192 (9.42%) Machine Learning
17 180 (8.83%) Business Intelligence
18 178 (8.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 173 (8.49%) Roadmaps
20 169 (8.29%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 484 (23.75%) Python
2 392 (19.23%) SQL
3 95 (4.66%) Java
4 87 (4.27%) C++
5 78 (3.83%) C
6 63 (3.09%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.70%) Go
8 53 (2.60%) C#
9 52 (2.55%) MATLAB
10 29 (1.42%) Bash
11 27 (1.32%) Embedded C
11 27 (1.32%) PowerShell
12 22 (1.08%) Scala
13 21 (1.03%) TypeScript
14 18 (0.88%) Embedded C++
15 16 (0.79%) R
16 14 (0.69%) T-SQL
17 11 (0.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 10 (0.49%) ABAP
19 9 (0.44%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 440 (21.59%) Degree
2 360 (17.66%) Security Cleared
3 226 (11.09%) SC Cleared
4 134 (6.58%) BPSS Clearance
5 108 (5.30%) DV Cleared
6 83 (4.07%) Master's Degree
7 45 (2.21%) Computer Science Degree
8 38 (1.86%) CISSP
9 36 (1.77%) PhD
10 32 (1.57%) Chartered Engineer
11 31 (1.52%) HNC
12 30 (1.47%) CISM
13 28 (1.37%) PMI Certification
14 26 (1.28%) HND
15 25 (1.23%) ACCA
15 25 (1.23%) CIMA
16 24 (1.18%) AWS Certification
17 23 (1.13%) Azure Certification
18 19 (0.93%) SANS
19 18 (0.88%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 315 (15.46%) Data Quality
2 280 (13.74%) QA
3 84 (4.12%) Accessibility
4 55 (2.70%) GDPR
5 38 (1.86%) GRC
6 26 (1.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 25 (1.23%) IEC 61508
7 25 (1.23%) NIST
8 22 (1.08%) SLA
9 19 (0.93%) GxP
10 18 (0.88%) PMO
11 16 (0.79%) WCAG
12 15 (0.74%) GAAP
12 15 (0.74%) IFRS
12 15 (0.74%) ISO 26262
13 13 (0.64%) GMP
14 12 (0.59%) ISO 9001
15 11 (0.54%) SOC 2
16 9 (0.44%) COBIT
17 8 (0.39%) JTAG
System Software
1 80 (3.93%) Docker
2 77 (3.78%) Firmware
3 46 (2.26%) Active Directory
4 32 (1.57%) Embedded Firmware
5 28 (1.37%) Virtual Machines
6 21 (1.03%) vSphere
7 15 (0.74%) VMware Infrastructure
8 6 (0.29%) KVM
9 4 (0.20%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.098%) iptables
10 2 (0.098%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.098%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.049%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.049%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 80 (3.93%) Kubernetes
2 73 (3.58%) Terraform
3 45 (2.21%) Grafana
4 26 (1.28%) Functional Safety
5 24 (1.18%) Ansible
6 16 (0.79%) Prometheus
7 15 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.49%) Cilium
9 9 (0.44%) Puppet
10 7 (0.34%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
10 7 (0.34%) Kibana
10 7 (0.34%) Microsoft Intune
10 7 (0.34%) SCCM
11 5 (0.25%) FortiGate
11 5 (0.25%) Nessus
11 5 (0.25%) Nmap
11 5 (0.25%) WMI
12 4 (0.20%) HP Fortify
12 4 (0.20%) Kubeflow
13 3 (0.15%) Argo
Vendors
1 275 (13.49%) Microsoft
2 119 (5.84%) SAP
3 107 (5.25%) Oracle
4 57 (2.80%) Databricks
4 57 (2.80%) Salesforce
5 47 (2.31%) ServiceNow
6 46 (2.26%) Cisco
7 44 (2.16%) Google
8 35 (1.72%) Red Hat
9 34 (1.67%) VMware
10 29 (1.42%) CrowdStrike
11 28 (1.37%) Palo Alto
12 27 (1.32%) EMC
13 22 (1.08%) Tenable
14 17 (0.83%) IBM
14 17 (0.83%) Splunk
15 16 (0.79%) Foundry
16 15 (0.74%) McAfee
17 14 (0.69%) Workday
18 13 (0.64%) Siemens