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

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 88 194
Rank change year-on-year +2 +106 +8
Permanent jobs citing Validation 2,134 1,678 1,162
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.95% 3.36% 1.39%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.67% 3.78% 1.73%
Number of salaries quoted 1,278 520 490
10th Percentile £35,000 £38,750 £36,863
25th Percentile £42,500 £41,250 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £71,250 £73,125 £76,250
90th Percentile £86,650 £90,150 £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 79,979 44,380 67,332
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.09% 88.78% 80.65%
Number of salaries quoted 55,459 25,207 42,110
10th Percentile £31,000 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £50,055
% change year-on-year +15.79% -5.10% -8.99%

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 28 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 28 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 -5 1,971 £57,500 +4.55% 3,075
UK excluding London -21 1,533 £55,000 +4.76% 1,949
Work from Home +112 604 £56,000 -6.67% 1,296
London +69 519 £70,000 -12.50% 1,535
South East -16 449 £59,490 +8.16% 492
North of England +103 404 £55,000 +15.79% 332
North West +87 239 £55,000 +15.35% 186
Midlands -38 219 £47,500 -13.64% 249
South West -4 196 £55,000 +4.56% 313
East of England -60 151 £57,500 +13.30% 287
West Midlands +22 122 £47,500 -13.64% 162
East Midlands -61 96 £48,372 +13.82% 87
North East +10 83 £55,000 +57.14% 62
Yorkshire +10 82 £43,000 +1.18% 91
Scotland +31 76 £70,000 +20.62% 225
Wales -48 33 £60,000 +11.63% 49
Isle of Man - 4 £38,500 - 3
Northern Ireland -80 2 - - 40

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 47 (2.20%) Apache Airflow
2 44 (2.06%) Apache Spark
3 43 (2.01%) Apache
4 36 (1.69%) Confluence
5 32 (1.50%) SharePoint
6 20 (0.94%) Jupyter
7 13 (0.61%) SAS
8 10 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
9 6 (0.28%) WinCC
10 5 (0.23%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 5 (0.23%) CMS
11 4 (0.19%) Kinematics
12 3 (0.14%) Artix
12 3 (0.14%) IIS
12 3 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.094%) Cloud Foundry
14 1 (0.047%) FactoryTalk
14 1 (0.047%) OpenStack
14 1 (0.047%) Palantir Foundry
14 1 (0.047%) WebSphere
Applications
1 118 (5.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 62 (2.91%) Microsoft Office
3 39 (1.83%) Simulink
4 35 (1.64%) Microsoft Project
5 17 (0.80%) SOLIDWORKS
5 17 (0.80%) Spreadsheet
6 16 (0.75%) MS Visio
7 11 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
8 10 (0.47%) AutoCAD
9 5 (0.23%) LaTeX
9 5 (0.23%) Mathcad
10 4 (0.19%) Adobe XD
10 4 (0.19%) CANalyzer
10 4 (0.19%) OrCAD
10 4 (0.19%) Revit
10 4 (0.19%) Sketch
11 3 (0.14%) Autodesk Inventor
11 3 (0.14%) Productboard
11 3 (0.14%) Stateflow
12 2 (0.094%) Navisworks
Business Applications
1 41 (1.92%) Dynamics CRM
1 41 (1.92%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.47%) SAP MDG
3 9 (0.42%) iTrent
3 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
4 8 (0.37%) Oracle Applications
4 8 (0.37%) SAP ERP
5 7 (0.33%) Elite 3E
5 7 (0.33%) NetSuite
6 6 (0.28%) Teamcenter
6 6 (0.28%) Workday HCM
7 5 (0.23%) Loan IQ
7 5 (0.23%) SAP MDG-BP
8 4 (0.19%) Oracle Financials
8 4 (0.19%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.14%) Maximo
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
9 3 (0.14%) SystmOne
10 2 (0.094%) Oracle Payables
10 2 (0.094%) Refinitiv Enterprise Platform
Cloud Services
1 290 (13.59%) Azure
2 251 (11.76%) AWS
3 162 (7.59%) Power Platform
4 92 (4.31%) GCP
5 78 (3.66%) SaaS
6 68 (3.19%) Azure DevOps
7 63 (2.95%) Microsoft 365
8 59 (2.76%) GitHub
9 50 (2.34%) Serverless
10 37 (1.73%) Amazon S3
11 36 (1.69%) Dynamics 365
12 33 (1.55%) Entra ID
13 30 (1.41%) GitHub Actions
14 28 (1.31%) Microsoft Copilot
15 22 (1.03%) Amazon EMR
16 21 (0.98%) Amazon EC2
16 21 (0.98%) Cloud Computing
17 20 (0.94%) PowerApps
17 20 (0.94%) Snowflake
18 19 (0.89%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 66 (3.09%) Broadband
2 64 (3.00%) Firewall
3 61 (2.86%) DNS
4 41 (1.92%) Wireless
5 35 (1.64%) WAN
6 34 (1.59%) Network Security
7 33 (1.55%) TCP/IP
8 32 (1.50%) VPN
9 25 (1.17%) LAN
10 24 (1.12%) Ethernet
11 22 (1.03%) SD-WAN
12 20 (0.94%) VLAN
13 19 (0.89%) BGP
13 19 (0.89%) MQTT
13 19 (0.89%) OSPF
14 17 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
14 17 (0.80%) Wireshark
15 16 (0.75%) Modbus
16 15 (0.70%) 5G
16 15 (0.70%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 148 (6.94%) Power BI
2 57 (2.67%) Data Warehouse
3 53 (2.48%) PostgreSQL
4 50 (2.34%) Metadata
5 45 (2.11%) SQL Server
6 44 (2.06%) Data Lake
7 42 (1.97%) Tableau
8 35 (1.64%) MongoDB
9 29 (1.36%) Relational Database
10 28 (1.31%) Amazon Athena
11 27 (1.27%) BigQuery
12 25 (1.17%) DynamoDB
13 23 (1.08%) Semantic Layer
14 21 (0.98%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 19 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
15 19 (0.89%) Big Data
15 19 (0.89%) MySQL
16 17 (0.80%) NoSQL
17 14 (0.66%) Amazon Redshift
17 14 (0.66%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 131 (6.14%) JIRA
2 107 (5.01%) Git
3 55 (2.58%) Jenkins
4 49 (2.30%) GitLab
5 38 (1.78%) Rational DOORS
6 29 (1.36%) Selenium
7 24 (1.12%) Postman
8 22 (1.03%) Snyk
9 21 (0.98%) Cypress.io
10 18 (0.84%) LabVIEW
11 13 (0.61%) JMeter
12 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
12 12 (0.56%) Cucumber
13 11 (0.52%) REST Assured
14 10 (0.47%) Gatling
14 10 (0.47%) TeamCity
15 9 (0.42%) Zephyr
16 8 (0.37%) Rational Rhapsody
17 7 (0.33%) Hudson
17 7 (0.33%) MLflow
General
1 717 (33.60%) Social Skills
2 565 (26.48%) Finance
3 509 (23.85%) Analytical Skills
4 203 (9.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 202 (9.47%) Aerospace
6 190 (8.90%) Manufacturing
7 181 (8.48%) Electronics
8 125 (5.86%) Law
9 102 (4.78%) Banking
10 87 (4.08%) Public Sector
11 81 (3.80%) Marketing
11 81 (3.80%) Retail
12 74 (3.47%) Pharmaceutical
13 72 (3.37%) Organisational Skills
14 61 (2.86%) Automotive
15 59 (2.76%) Legal
16 56 (2.62%) Telecoms
17 46 (2.16%) Games
18 44 (2.06%) Influencing Skills
19 42 (1.97%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 389 (18.23%) Senior
2 265 (12.42%) Analyst
3 233 (10.92%) Systems Engineer
4 190 (8.90%) Lead
5 127 (5.95%) Test Engineer
6 117 (5.48%) Architect
7 102 (4.78%) Data Engineer
8 94 (4.40%) Developer
9 81 (3.80%) Consultant
10 80 (3.75%) Business Analyst
11 77 (3.61%) Software Engineer
12 68 (3.19%) Data Analyst
12 68 (3.19%) Principal Engineer
13 63 (2.95%) Validation Engineer
14 50 (2.34%) Embedded Engineer
15 49 (2.30%) Support Engineer
16 47 (2.20%) Data Scientist
16 47 (2.20%) Electronics Engineer
17 46 (2.16%) Network Engineer
18 44 (2.06%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (3.37%) Terraform
2 51 (2.39%) RESTful
3 49 (2.30%) REST
4 48 (2.25%) Kafka
5 40 (1.87%) Node.js
6 34 (1.59%) JSON
7 32 (1.50%) .NET
7 32 (1.50%) Playwright
8 31 (1.45%) XML
9 28 (1.31%) PySpark
10 27 (1.27%) LDAP
10 27 (1.27%) Middleware
11 23 (1.08%) CSS
12 22 (1.03%) HTML
12 22 (1.03%) React
13 21 (0.98%) FastAPI
13 21 (0.98%) ModSecurity
14 20 (0.94%) Swagger
15 19 (0.89%) Regular Expression
15 19 (0.89%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 154 (7.22%) Cloud Native
2 126 (5.90%) Onboarding
3 116 (5.44%) Management Information System
4 82 (3.84%) Product Ownership
5 77 (3.61%) Data Centre
6 61 (2.86%) Embedded Systems
7 59 (2.76%) Data Structures
8 58 (2.72%) Enterprise Software
9 56 (2.62%) Driving Licence
10 55 (2.58%) Distributed Systems
11 53 (2.48%) Algorithms
12 48 (2.25%) Low-Code
13 42 (1.97%) AI Agents
14 41 (1.92%) Life Science
15 39 (1.83%) Analytical Mindset
15 39 (1.83%) Robotics
16 38 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
17 36 (1.69%) IoT
18 35 (1.64%) Video\Live Streaming
19 31 (1.45%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 128 (6.00%) Linux
2 92 (4.31%) Windows
3 35 (1.64%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 20 (0.94%) Unix
6 10 (0.47%) Android
7 9 (0.42%) Embedded Linux
8 6 (0.28%) FreeRTOS
8 6 (0.28%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.23%) Kali Linux
10 4 (0.19%) Mac OS X
11 3 (0.14%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.094%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.094%) ThreadX
12 2 (0.094%) VMS
12 2 (0.094%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.047%) AIX
13 1 (0.047%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 544 (25.49%) Problem-Solving
2 511 (23.95%) Continuous Improvement
3 426 (19.96%) Agile
4 377 (17.67%) AI
5 333 (15.60%) Verification and Validation
6 303 (14.20%) CI/CD
7 277 (12.98%) Test Automation
8 274 (12.84%) Stakeholder Management
9 252 (11.81%) Analytics
9 252 (11.81%) Migration
10 245 (11.48%) Mentoring
11 222 (10.40%) Decision-Making
12 221 (10.36%) Software Engineering
13 202 (9.47%) DevOps
14 188 (8.81%) Machine Learning
15 187 (8.76%) Business Intelligence
15 187 (8.76%) Data Analysis
16 185 (8.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 173 (8.11%) Roadmaps
18 165 (7.73%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 466 (21.84%) Python
2 387 (18.13%) SQL
3 95 (4.45%) Java
4 89 (4.17%) C++
5 81 (3.80%) C
6 64 (3.00%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.58%) Go
8 54 (2.53%) C#
8 54 (2.53%) MATLAB
9 31 (1.45%) Bash
10 29 (1.36%) PowerShell
11 28 (1.31%) Embedded C
12 22 (1.03%) Scala
12 22 (1.03%) TypeScript
13 19 (0.89%) R
14 18 (0.84%) Embedded C++
15 12 (0.56%) T-SQL
16 11 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 9 (0.42%) ABAP
17 9 (0.42%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 467 (21.88%) Degree
2 421 (19.73%) Security Cleared
3 287 (13.45%) SC Cleared
4 130 (6.09%) BPSS Clearance
5 108 (5.06%) DV Cleared
6 86 (4.03%) Master's Degree
7 47 (2.20%) Computer Science Degree
8 38 (1.78%) PhD
9 36 (1.69%) Chartered Engineer
9 36 (1.69%) CISSP
10 31 (1.45%) HNC
10 31 (1.45%) PMI Certification
11 29 (1.36%) HND
12 28 (1.31%) CISM
13 26 (1.22%) ACCA
14 25 (1.17%) CIMA
15 24 (1.12%) AWS Certification
16 23 (1.08%) Azure Certification
17 19 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
17 19 (0.89%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 308 (14.43%) Data Quality
2 288 (13.50%) QA
3 77 (3.61%) Accessibility
4 52 (2.44%) GDPR
5 37 (1.73%) GRC
6 27 (1.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 23 (1.08%) IEC 61508
7 23 (1.08%) NIST
8 21 (0.98%) GxP
8 21 (0.98%) SLA
9 18 (0.84%) PMO
10 15 (0.70%) ISO 26262
11 14 (0.66%) GMP
11 14 (0.66%) ISO 9001
11 14 (0.66%) WCAG
12 13 (0.61%) GAAP
12 13 (0.61%) IFRS
13 11 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 15288
13 11 (0.52%) SOC 2
14 9 (0.42%) Def Stans
System Software
1 82 (3.84%) Firmware
2 77 (3.61%) Docker
3 47 (2.20%) Active Directory
4 36 (1.69%) Embedded Firmware
5 28 (1.31%) Virtual Machines
6 21 (0.98%) vSphere
7 12 (0.56%) VMware Infrastructure
8 5 (0.23%) KVM
9 4 (0.19%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.094%) iptables
10 2 (0.094%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.094%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.047%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.047%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 77 (3.61%) Kubernetes
2 42 (1.97%) Grafana
3 29 (1.36%) Ansible
4 27 (1.27%) Functional Safety
5 15 (0.70%) Prometheus
5 15 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (0.47%) Cilium
7 8 (0.37%) Puppet
8 7 (0.33%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 7 (0.33%) Kibana
8 7 (0.33%) Microsoft Intune
9 6 (0.28%) Nessus
9 6 (0.28%) Nmap
10 5 (0.23%) FortiGate
10 5 (0.23%) SCCM
10 5 (0.23%) WMI
11 4 (0.19%) BMC PATROL
11 4 (0.19%) HP Fortify
11 4 (0.19%) Kubeflow
12 3 (0.14%) Argo
Vendors
1 271 (12.70%) Microsoft
2 118 (5.53%) SAP
3 94 (4.40%) Oracle
4 60 (2.81%) Salesforce
5 56 (2.62%) Databricks
6 51 (2.39%) Cisco
7 50 (2.34%) ServiceNow
8 43 (2.01%) Google
9 31 (1.45%) EMC
9 31 (1.45%) VMware
10 29 (1.36%) CrowdStrike
11 28 (1.31%) Palo Alto
12 24 (1.12%) Red Hat
13 22 (1.03%) Tenable
14 18 (0.84%) IBM
15 17 (0.80%) Splunk
16 15 (0.70%) McAfee
17 14 (0.66%) Foundry
17 14 (0.66%) Workday
18 13 (0.61%) Siemens