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

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 137 176 186
Rank change year-on-year +39 +10 -31
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,162 746 1,408
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.51% 1.80% 1.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.95% 1.93% 1.85%
Number of salaries quoted 637 355 786
10th Percentile £35,000 £39,250 £35,000
25th Percentile £43,750 £45,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -9.25%
75th Percentile £77,500 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £95,000 £98,500 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,750 £52,600 £52,283
% change year-on-year +0.29% +0.61% -4.94%

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 59,482 38,652 75,963
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 77.48% 93.43% 86.89%
Number of salaries quoted 36,105 22,218 57,058
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,000
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 £102,500 £93,750
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 24 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 24 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 +39 1,004 £60,000 +7.14% 876
UK excluding London +7 725 £52,750 +0.29% 718
Work from Home +72 333 £57,500 +0.88% 344
London +76 329 £75,000 +7.14% 264
South East +38 236 £55,000 +10.55% 223
North of England +7 149 £59,000 +24.21% 143
Midlands -16 121 £37,500 -31.82% 121
North West +10 100 £59,000 +23.73% 73
East of England -10 90 £60,000 +9.09% 99
West Midlands -2 74 £40,000 -40.74% 79
South West -25 65 £55,000 - 89
Scotland -8 49 £42,000 -27.63% 41
East Midlands -33 45 £35,000 -31.37% 42
Yorkshire -32 33 £60,000 +26.32% 49
North East -10 16 £47,500 -16.30% 21
Wales -10 14 £55,435 +12.89% 14
Northern Ireland -36 3 - - 6

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 39 (3.36%) Apache Airflow
2 27 (2.32%) Apache Spark
3 23 (1.98%) Apache
4 20 (1.72%) ArcGIS
5 17 (1.46%) Confluence
6 13 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
7 12 (1.03%) Appian
8 11 (0.95%) CMS
8 11 (0.95%) SharePoint
9 4 (0.34%) Headless CMS
9 4 (0.34%) Kinematics
10 2 (0.17%) WordPress
11 1 (0.086%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.086%) IIS
11 1 (0.086%) Jupyter
11 1 (0.086%) SAS
Applications
1 95 (8.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 61 (5.25%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (1.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 19 (1.64%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.60%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 5 (0.43%) Simulink
5 5 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.34%) Fusion 360
7 3 (0.26%) CANalyzer
7 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
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 26 (2.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.69%) Oracle ERP
4 7 (0.60%) Workday HCM
5 5 (0.43%) Loan IQ
5 5 (0.43%) 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 (0.086%) Endur
8 1 (0.086%) Magento
8 1 (0.086%) NetSuite
8 1 (0.086%) Oracle Financials
8 1 (0.086%) Primavera
8 1 (0.086%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 185 (15.92%) Azure
2 115 (9.90%) AWS
3 110 (9.47%) Power Platform
4 58 (4.99%) SaaS
5 43 (3.70%) Azure DevOps
6 40 (3.44%) GCP
7 30 (2.58%) Snowflake
8 29 (2.50%) Dynamics 365
9 28 (2.41%) Azure Data Factory
10 27 (2.32%) dbt
11 25 (2.15%) Amazon S3
12 24 (2.07%) Power Automate
13 23 (1.98%) GitHub
14 20 (1.72%) Entra ID
15 17 (1.46%) Datadog
15 17 (1.46%) Microsoft 365
16 16 (1.38%) OpenShift
17 15 (1.29%) Azure AI
18 13 (1.12%) Anthropic Claude
19 11 (0.95%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 25 (2.15%) CHAP
2 21 (1.81%) Broadband
3 16 (1.38%) WAN
4 15 (1.29%) Firewall
4 15 (1.29%) TCP/IP
5 13 (1.12%) SD-WAN
6 12 (1.03%) 5G
6 12 (1.03%) DNS
7 11 (0.95%) Wireless
8 9 (0.77%) HTTP
9 8 (0.69%) Multicast
10 7 (0.60%) LAN
10 7 (0.60%) Modbus
10 7 (0.60%) MQTT
10 7 (0.60%) Wireshark
11 6 (0.52%) ATM
11 6 (0.52%) NAS
11 6 (0.52%) tcpdump
12 5 (0.43%) Cisco IOS
12 5 (0.43%) WAAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 103 (8.86%) Power BI
2 43 (3.70%) SQL Server
3 41 (3.53%) Tableau
4 31 (2.67%) Data Warehouse
5 29 (2.50%) Metadata
6 28 (2.41%) Relational Database
7 27 (2.32%) GIS
8 25 (2.15%) PostgreSQL
9 20 (1.72%) QGIS
9 20 (1.72%) Spatial Data
10 16 (1.38%) Oracle Reports
11 14 (1.20%) Azure SQL Database
11 14 (1.20%) Parquet
11 14 (1.20%) Spark SQL
12 13 (1.12%) Apache Hive
12 13 (1.12%) Impala
12 13 (1.12%) MySQL
12 13 (1.12%) Oracle Database
13 12 (1.03%) Pinecone
13 12 (1.03%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 65 (5.59%) Git
2 60 (5.16%) JIRA
3 41 (3.53%) Rational DOORS
4 20 (1.72%) Jenkins
5 18 (1.55%) Postman
6 16 (1.38%) Cucumber
6 16 (1.38%) LabVIEW
7 15 (1.29%) GitLab
7 15 (1.29%) JMeter
8 14 (1.20%) MLflow
9 13 (1.12%) IBM UrbanCode
9 13 (1.12%) TestRail
10 11 (0.95%) Eclipse
10 11 (0.95%) Locust
11 10 (0.86%) Selenium
12 7 (0.60%) SoapUI
13 6 (0.52%) LoadRunner
13 6 (0.52%) Subversion
14 5 (0.43%) SpecFlow
14 5 (0.43%) Visual Studio
General
1 423 (36.40%) Social Skills
2 309 (26.59%) Finance
3 266 (22.89%) Analytical Skills
4 84 (7.23%) Banking
5 75 (6.45%) Manufacturing
6 60 (5.16%) Electronics
7 58 (4.99%) Aerospace
8 52 (4.48%) Legal
9 45 (3.87%) Marketing
10 43 (3.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 42 (3.61%) Financial Institution
12 40 (3.44%) Law
12 40 (3.44%) Presentation Skills
12 40 (3.44%) Public Sector
13 39 (3.36%) Retail
14 31 (2.67%) Organisational Skills
15 25 (2.15%) Pharmaceutical
16 24 (2.07%) Telecoms
17 22 (1.89%) Documentation Skills
18 19 (1.64%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 194 (16.70%) Analyst
2 178 (15.32%) Senior
3 132 (11.36%) Systems Engineer
4 90 (7.75%) Lead
5 68 (5.85%) Business Analyst
6 65 (5.59%) Validation Engineer
7 57 (4.91%) Architect
7 57 (4.91%) Test Engineer
8 54 (4.65%) Consultant
8 54 (4.65%) Integration Engineer
9 47 (4.04%) Data Analyst
10 43 (3.70%) Developer
11 42 (3.61%) Senior Systems Engineer
12 41 (3.53%) Junior
13 38 (3.27%) Systems Integration Engineer
14 37 (3.18%) Principal Engineer
15 35 (3.01%) Data Engineer
16 32 (2.75%) Software Validation Engineer
17 31 (2.67%) Verification Engineer
18 28 (2.41%) Principal Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 58 (4.99%) REST
2 39 (3.36%) PyTorch
3 37 (3.18%) Pandas
4 35 (3.01%) JSON
5 26 (2.24%) Middleware
6 25 (2.15%) pytest
7 23 (1.98%) XML
8 19 (1.64%) OAuth
9 18 (1.55%) JWT
9 18 (1.55%) NumPy
9 18 (1.55%) PySpark
9 18 (1.55%) Swagger
9 18 (1.55%) TensorFlow
10 16 (1.38%) .NET
10 16 (1.38%) RESTful
11 15 (1.29%) Kafka
11 15 (1.29%) React
11 15 (1.29%) scikit-learn
11 15 (1.29%) Web Services
12 14 (1.20%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 77 (6.63%) Management Information System
2 55 (4.73%) Onboarding
3 46 (3.96%) Data Structures
4 39 (3.36%) Product Ownership
5 36 (3.10%) Low-Code
6 33 (2.84%) Algorithms
7 32 (2.75%) Legacy Systems
8 28 (2.41%) Self-Motivation
9 26 (2.24%) Life Science
10 22 (1.89%) Analytical Mindset
11 19 (1.64%) Enterprise Software
12 16 (1.38%) Cloud Native
13 14 (1.20%) Blockchain
13 14 (1.20%) Embedded Systems
13 14 (1.20%) SCADA
14 13 (1.12%) Reinsurance
15 12 (1.03%) Data Centre
15 12 (1.03%) FPGA
15 12 (1.03%) IoT
15 12 (1.03%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 60 (5.16%) Linux
2 55 (4.73%) Windows
3 17 (1.46%) Unix
4 14 (1.20%) Windows Server
5 13 (1.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (1.03%) Android
7 4 (0.34%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.34%) CentOS
8 3 (0.26%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.17%) AIX
9 2 (0.17%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.17%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.086%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.086%) FreeRTOS
10 1 (0.086%) Rocky
10 1 (0.086%) ThreadX
10 1 (0.086%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.086%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 294 (25.30%) Agile
2 261 (22.46%) Problem-Solving
3 222 (19.10%) Continuous Improvement
4 183 (15.75%) Verification and Validation
5 182 (15.66%) Analytics
6 152 (13.08%) Data Validation
7 149 (12.82%) Test Automation
8 144 (12.39%) AI
9 134 (11.53%) CI/CD
10 131 (11.27%) Business Intelligence
11 129 (11.10%) Migration
11 129 (11.10%) Systems Engineering
12 121 (10.41%) DevOps
12 121 (10.41%) Stakeholder Management
13 115 (9.90%) Data Modelling
14 114 (9.81%) Mentoring
15 113 (9.72%) Decision-Making
15 113 (9.72%) User Acceptance Testing
16 112 (9.64%) ETL
17 101 (8.69%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 259 (22.29%) Python
2 242 (20.83%) SQL
3 50 (4.30%) Java
4 40 (3.44%) PowerShell
5 35 (3.01%) C++
6 33 (2.84%) C
7 29 (2.50%) JavaScript
8 23 (1.98%) Bash
9 19 (1.64%) T-SQL
10 17 (1.46%) C#
10 17 (1.46%) Go
11 15 (1.29%) MATLAB
12 14 (1.20%) TypeScript
13 11 (0.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 11 (0.95%) R
14 9 (0.77%) VBA
15 7 (0.60%) Apex Code
15 7 (0.60%) VB
16 6 (0.52%) Embedded C
16 6 (0.52%) PHP
Qualifications
1 258 (22.20%) Degree
2 151 (12.99%) Security Cleared
3 127 (10.93%) BPSS Clearance
4 58 (4.99%) SC Cleared
5 54 (4.65%) Master's Degree
6 39 (3.36%) Computer Science Degree
7 32 (2.75%) CISA
7 32 (2.75%) CISSP
8 31 (2.67%) CISM
9 29 (2.50%) DV Cleared
10 26 (2.24%) Chartered Engineer
11 25 (2.15%) CGEIT
11 25 (2.15%) FFIEC
11 25 (2.15%) SANS
12 23 (1.98%) PMI Certification
12 23 (1.98%) PMP
13 20 (1.72%) HNC
14 17 (1.46%) ISTQB
15 15 (1.29%) HND
16 9 (0.77%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 148 (12.74%) Data Quality
2 141 (12.13%) QA
3 67 (5.77%) Accessibility
4 63 (5.42%) GDPR
5 41 (3.53%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 26 (2.24%) NIST
7 25 (2.15%) COBIT
8 18 (1.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 18 (1.55%) SLA
9 16 (1.38%) WCAG
10 15 (1.29%) IFRS
11 14 (1.20%) GRC
12 12 (1.03%) ISO 9001
13 10 (0.86%) Good Clinical Practice
14 9 (0.77%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 9 (0.77%) GAAP
14 9 (0.77%) ISO/IEC 12207
14 9 (0.77%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 8 (0.69%) ISO 20022
16 7 (0.60%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 70 (6.02%) Docker
2 25 (2.15%) Firmware
3 24 (2.07%) Active Directory
4 15 (1.29%) VMware Infrastructure
5 8 (0.69%) vSphere
6 6 (0.52%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.52%) 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 (0.086%) iptables
9 1 (0.086%) OpenAM
9 1 (0.086%) OpenDJ
9 1 (0.086%) OpenIDM
9 1 (0.086%) pfSense
9 1 (0.086%) vCloud
9 1 (0.086%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 66 (5.68%) Kubernetes
2 44 (3.79%) Terraform
3 29 (2.50%) Grafana
4 25 (2.15%) Ansible
5 15 (1.29%) Prometheus
6 12 (1.03%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 10 (0.86%) SCCM
8 8 (0.69%) Puppet
9 7 (0.60%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.43%) Argo
10 5 (0.43%) Rancher
10 5 (0.43%) yum
11 2 (0.17%) BMC PATROL
11 2 (0.17%) Nessus
11 2 (0.17%) PowerCLI
12 1 (0.086%) Cilium
12 1 (0.086%) Control-M
12 1 (0.086%) FortiGate
12 1 (0.086%) Kibana
12 1 (0.086%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 154 (13.25%) Microsoft
2 61 (5.25%) SAP
3 59 (5.08%) Oracle
4 45 (3.87%) Salesforce
5 22 (1.89%) VMware
6 21 (1.81%) IBM
6 21 (1.81%) Red Hat
7 19 (1.64%) Cisco
7 19 (1.64%) Foundry
8 17 (1.46%) OpenAI
9 16 (1.38%) Adobe
10 15 (1.29%) Google
10 15 (1.29%) ServiceNow
11 13 (1.12%) Databricks
11 13 (1.12%) Workday
12 12 (1.03%) Automation Anywhere
12 12 (1.03%) Software AG
12 12 (1.03%) UiPath
13 10 (0.86%) Citrix
14 9 (0.77%) Siemens