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

6 months to
19 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 83 198
Rank change year-on-year -44 +115 -9
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,423 1,601 1,420
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.55% 3.63% 1.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.10% 3.90% 1.72%
Number of salaries quoted 804 445 776
10th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £35,125
25th Percentile £42,500 £46,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.68% +1.82% -12.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £71,250 £72,250
90th Percentile £90,000 £95,000 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,000 £54,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -3.70% +2.86% -8.70%

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 67,796 41,102 82,489
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.66% 93.28% 84.85%
Number of salaries quoted 43,826 22,293 59,720
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,500 £41,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £58,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% +6.36% -10.10%
75th Percentile £78,750 £78,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £52,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +0.96% +4.00% -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 19 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 19 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 -46 1,268 £58,500 +6.36% 883
UK excluding London -68 936 £52,000 -3.70% 662
Work from Home +144 449 £55,000 -8.33% 450
London +65 366 £77,500 +10.71% 313
South East -41 289 £55,000 +7.84% 193
North of England +62 244 £55,000 +15.35% 138
Midlands -75 158 £40,000 -30.43% 93
North West +59 153 £55,000 +15.35% 83
West Midlands -1 100 £44,000 -32.31% 55
East of England -82 98 £60,000 +5.26% 98
South West -50 93 £52,500 -2.78% 103
Yorkshire -15 58 £52,500 +10.53% 41
East Midlands -88 56 £30,000 -42.31% 38
Scotland -13 42 £42,000 -27.63% 34
North East -10 33 £52,500 +10.53% 15
Wales -33 12 £44,000 -23.48% 18
Northern Ireland -40 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 (3.16%) Apache Airflow
2 29 (2.04%) Apache
3 27 (1.90%) Apache Spark
4 24 (1.69%) Confluence
5 21 (1.48%) ArcGIS
6 15 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
7 10 (0.70%) Appian
7 10 (0.70%) SharePoint
8 9 (0.63%) CMS
9 6 (0.42%) Kinematics
9 6 (0.42%) SAS
10 4 (0.28%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.21%) Artix
12 2 (0.14%) IIS
13 1 (0.070%) Anypoint
13 1 (0.070%) Headless CMS
13 1 (0.070%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 89 (6.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 57 (4.01%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (1.34%) MS Visio
4 14 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.84%) Simulink
6 11 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
7 6 (0.42%) SOLIDWORKS
7 6 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.35%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 4 (0.28%) Adobe XD
9 4 (0.28%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.28%) CANalyzer
9 4 (0.28%) Fusion 360
9 4 (0.28%) Sketch
10 3 (0.21%) Autodesk Inventor
10 3 (0.21%) Productboard
10 3 (0.21%) Solid Edge
11 2 (0.14%) CATIA
11 2 (0.14%) Oracle Smart View
11 2 (0.14%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 37 (2.60%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.69%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.70%) SAP ERP
4 9 (0.63%) Oracle ERP
5 7 (0.49%) SAP MDG
6 6 (0.42%) Elite 3E
6 6 (0.42%) Loan IQ
7 5 (0.35%) SAP MDG-BP
7 5 (0.35%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.28%) Markit EDM
8 4 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
9 3 (0.21%) iTrent
9 3 (0.21%) Oracle Applications
10 2 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
10 2 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
10 2 (0.14%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 2 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
10 2 (0.14%) SAP FSCM
10 2 (0.14%) SAP PSCD
11 1 (0.070%) SAP BRIM
Cloud Services
1 198 (13.91%) Azure
2 150 (10.54%) AWS
3 126 (8.85%) Power Platform
4 64 (4.50%) SaaS
5 61 (4.29%) GCP
6 42 (2.95%) Azure DevOps
7 37 (2.60%) Serverless
8 33 (2.32%) GitHub
8 33 (2.32%) Microsoft 365
9 32 (2.25%) Azure Data Factory
10 30 (2.11%) Dynamics 365
10 30 (2.11%) Snowflake
11 29 (2.04%) Amazon S3
12 24 (1.69%) dbt
12 24 (1.69%) Entra ID
13 22 (1.55%) Power Automate
14 17 (1.19%) OpenShift
15 15 (1.05%) Azure AI
16 13 (0.91%) Anthropic Claude
17 12 (0.84%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 54 (3.79%) Broadband
2 33 (2.32%) Firewall
3 23 (1.62%) CHAP
3 23 (1.62%) WAN
4 22 (1.55%) DNS
5 21 (1.48%) Wireless
6 18 (1.26%) 5G
6 18 (1.26%) TCP/IP
7 17 (1.19%) SD-WAN
8 11 (0.77%) Network Security
9 10 (0.70%) HTTP
9 10 (0.70%) Wireshark
10 9 (0.63%) MQTT
10 9 (0.63%) NAS
10 9 (0.63%) VPN
10 9 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
11 8 (0.56%) LAN
12 7 (0.49%) Ethernet
12 7 (0.49%) Modbus
12 7 (0.49%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (8.29%) Power BI
2 49 (3.44%) SQL Server
2 49 (3.44%) Tableau
3 43 (3.02%) PostgreSQL
4 36 (2.53%) Data Warehouse
5 31 (2.18%) Metadata
6 28 (1.97%) Relational Database
7 25 (1.76%) QGIS
8 24 (1.69%) MongoDB
9 23 (1.62%) GIS
10 21 (1.48%) Data Lake
11 20 (1.41%) Spatial Data
12 18 (1.26%) BigQuery
12 18 (1.26%) Oracle Reports
13 17 (1.19%) Azure SQL Database
13 17 (1.19%) Semantic Layer
13 17 (1.19%) Spark SQL
14 16 (1.12%) Oracle Database
15 14 (0.98%) MySQL
15 14 (0.98%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 71 (4.99%) Git
2 60 (4.22%) JIRA
3 37 (2.60%) Rational DOORS
4 32 (2.25%) Jenkins
5 23 (1.62%) GitLab
6 22 (1.55%) Snyk
7 17 (1.19%) LabVIEW
8 14 (0.98%) MLflow
8 14 (0.98%) Postman
9 13 (0.91%) IBM UrbanCode
10 12 (0.84%) Selenium
11 11 (0.77%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.77%) JMeter
12 10 (0.70%) Eclipse
13 9 (0.63%) TestRail
14 7 (0.49%) TeamCity
15 6 (0.42%) LoadRunner
15 6 (0.42%) Robot Framework
16 5 (0.35%) Locust
16 5 (0.35%) SonarQube
General
1 448 (31.48%) Social Skills
2 374 (26.28%) Finance
3 302 (21.22%) Analytical Skills
4 107 (7.52%) Aerospace
4 107 (7.52%) Manufacturing
5 103 (7.24%) Electronics
6 83 (5.83%) Banking
7 80 (5.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 61 (4.29%) Legal
9 54 (3.79%) Public Sector
10 52 (3.65%) Retail
11 46 (3.23%) Marketing
12 45 (3.16%) Law
13 41 (2.88%) Pharmaceutical
14 37 (2.60%) Presentation Skills
15 34 (2.39%) Organisational Skills
16 33 (2.32%) Games
17 32 (2.25%) Financial Institution
18 29 (2.04%) Automotive
19 23 (1.62%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 240 (16.87%) Senior
2 227 (15.95%) Analyst
3 154 (10.82%) Systems Engineer
4 101 (7.10%) Lead
5 97 (6.82%) Architect
6 89 (6.25%) Test Engineer
7 85 (5.97%) Business Analyst
8 84 (5.90%) Validation Engineer
9 70 (4.92%) Consultant
10 61 (4.29%) Data Analyst
11 53 (3.72%) Integration Engineer
12 52 (3.65%) Data Engineer
13 51 (3.58%) Developer
14 47 (3.30%) Principal Engineer
15 45 (3.16%) Junior
16 42 (2.95%) Senior Systems Engineer
17 36 (2.53%) Systems Integration Engineer
17 36 (2.53%) Verification Engineer
18 35 (2.46%) Embedded Engineer
19 32 (2.25%) Software Validation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (3.37%) REST
2 35 (2.46%) PyTorch
3 31 (2.18%) JSON
4 30 (2.11%) Pandas
4 30 (2.11%) RESTful
5 27 (1.90%) Middleware
5 27 (1.90%) pytest
6 22 (1.55%) PySpark
7 21 (1.48%) .NET
8 18 (1.26%) OAuth
8 18 (1.26%) Swagger
8 18 (1.26%) XML
9 17 (1.19%) CSS
9 17 (1.19%) Kafka
9 17 (1.19%) Node.js
10 16 (1.12%) JWT
10 16 (1.12%) Playwright
11 15 (1.05%) NumPy
11 15 (1.05%) TensorFlow
12 14 (0.98%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 83 (5.83%) Management Information System
2 60 (4.22%) Onboarding
3 51 (3.58%) Cloud Native
3 51 (3.58%) Data Structures
4 45 (3.16%) Algorithms
5 44 (3.09%) Low-Code
6 38 (2.67%) Product Ownership
7 34 (2.39%) Self-Motivation
8 32 (2.25%) Data Centre
8 32 (2.25%) Legacy Systems
9 30 (2.11%) Embedded Systems
10 28 (1.97%) Analytical Mindset
11 24 (1.69%) Life Science
12 23 (1.62%) Enterprise Software
13 22 (1.55%) Driving Licence
13 22 (1.55%) Video\Live Streaming
14 20 (1.41%) Distributed Systems
14 20 (1.41%) FPGA
15 19 (1.34%) Robotics
16 16 (1.12%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 80 (5.62%) Linux
2 65 (4.57%) Windows
3 22 (1.55%) Unix
4 21 (1.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 21 (1.48%) Windows Server
5 13 (0.91%) Android
6 5 (0.35%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.28%) CentOS
7 4 (0.28%) FreeRTOS
7 4 (0.28%) Mac OS X
8 3 (0.21%) AIX
8 3 (0.21%) Kali Linux
8 3 (0.21%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.14%) ThreadX
10 1 (0.070%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.070%) Rocky
10 1 (0.070%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.070%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.070%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 309 (21.71%) Problem-Solving
2 281 (19.75%) Agile
3 265 (18.62%) Continuous Improvement
4 230 (16.16%) AI
5 212 (14.90%) Analytics
6 210 (14.76%) Verification and Validation
7 201 (14.13%) CI/CD
8 189 (13.28%) Test Automation
9 164 (11.52%) Data Validation
10 151 (10.61%) Migration
11 146 (10.26%) Business Intelligence
12 142 (9.98%) Data Modelling
13 138 (9.70%) Decision-Making
14 135 (9.49%) Software Engineering
14 135 (9.49%) Stakeholder Management
15 130 (9.14%) Data Governance
15 130 (9.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 129 (9.07%) Collaborative Working
17 128 (9.00%) DevOps
17 128 (9.00%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 325 (22.84%) Python
2 275 (19.33%) SQL
3 58 (4.08%) C++
4 55 (3.87%) Java
5 51 (3.58%) C
6 39 (2.74%) Go
7 36 (2.53%) PowerShell
8 33 (2.32%) C#
9 29 (2.04%) Bash
9 29 (2.04%) JavaScript
10 25 (1.76%) MATLAB
11 18 (1.26%) T-SQL
12 16 (1.12%) Embedded C
13 13 (0.91%) TypeScript
14 12 (0.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 10 (0.70%) Embedded C++
16 9 (0.63%) ABAP
16 9 (0.63%) VBA
17 7 (0.49%) R
18 6 (0.42%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 316 (22.21%) Degree
2 169 (11.88%) Security Cleared
3 130 (9.14%) BPSS Clearance
4 70 (4.92%) Master's Degree
5 68 (4.78%) SC Cleared
6 43 (3.02%) DV Cleared
7 41 (2.88%) Computer Science Degree
8 38 (2.67%) Chartered Engineer
9 33 (2.32%) CISA
9 33 (2.32%) CISSP
10 30 (2.11%) CISM
11 29 (2.04%) SANS
12 28 (1.97%) HNC
13 25 (1.76%) HND
14 24 (1.69%) PMI Certification
15 23 (1.62%) CGEIT
15 23 (1.62%) FFIEC
16 21 (1.48%) PMP
17 11 (0.77%) ACCA
17 11 (0.77%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 199 (13.98%) Data Quality
2 151 (10.61%) QA
3 62 (4.36%) GDPR
4 59 (4.15%) Accessibility
5 43 (3.02%) GRC
6 34 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 25 (1.76%) NIST
8 24 (1.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 23 (1.62%) COBIT
10 20 (1.41%) IEC 61508
11 19 (1.34%) IFRS
12 17 (1.19%) SLA
13 13 (0.91%) ISO 9001
14 12 (0.84%) GAAP
14 12 (0.84%) PMO
15 11 (0.77%) GMP
16 10 (0.70%) Good Clinical Practice
16 10 (0.70%) ISO 13485
16 10 (0.70%) WCAG
17 9 (0.63%) 21 CFR Part 11
System Software
1 62 (4.36%) Docker
2 39 (2.74%) Firmware
3 36 (2.53%) Active Directory
4 22 (1.55%) Virtual Machines
5 15 (1.05%) VMware Infrastructure
5 15 (1.05%) vSphere
6 10 (0.70%) Embedded Firmware
7 6 (0.42%) KVM
8 5 (0.35%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.14%) Terminal Services
11 1 (0.070%) iptables
11 1 (0.070%) OpenAM
11 1 (0.070%) OpenDJ
11 1 (0.070%) OpenIDM
Systems Management
1 68 (4.78%) Kubernetes
2 50 (3.51%) Terraform
3 31 (2.18%) Grafana
4 25 (1.76%) Ansible
5 17 (1.19%) Functional Safety
5 17 (1.19%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.98%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 11 (0.77%) SCCM
8 9 (0.63%) Puppet
9 8 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
10 7 (0.49%) Cilium
11 4 (0.28%) Argo
11 4 (0.28%) Rancher
11 4 (0.28%) 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
1 180 (12.65%) Microsoft
2 80 (5.62%) Oracle
3 73 (5.13%) SAP
4 51 (3.58%) Salesforce
5 30 (2.11%) Red Hat
6 28 (1.97%) VMware
7 25 (1.76%) CrowdStrike
8 24 (1.69%) Databricks
8 24 (1.69%) Palo Alto
9 22 (1.55%) ServiceNow
9 22 (1.55%) Tenable
10 21 (1.48%) Cisco
10 21 (1.48%) Google
11 20 (1.41%) Adobe
12 16 (1.12%) Foundry
12 16 (1.12%) OpenAI
13 15 (1.05%) IBM
14 14 (0.98%) Citrix
15 10 (0.70%) Automation Anywhere
15 10 (0.70%) UiPath