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

6 months to
3 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 131 88 192
Rank change year-on-year -43 +104 -1
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,362 1,416 1,461
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.51% 3.33% 1.52%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.02% 3.59% 1.78%
Number of salaries quoted 769 429 785
10th Percentile £34,500 £40,000 £35,500
25th Percentile £43,000 £46,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -12.00%
75th Percentile £77,500 £71,250 £72,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £53,000 £54,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -1.85% +2.86% -4.55%

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 67,443 39,485 82,053
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 74.64% 92.88% 85.58%
Number of salaries quoted 41,986 22,655 59,675
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,668 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,599 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -2.34% +9.09% -10.57%
75th Percentile £78,750 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,001 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +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 3 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 3 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 -42 1,211 £60,000 +7.14% 861
UK excluding London -66 888 £53,000 -1.85% 651
Work from Home +106 411 £60,000 +4.35% 393
London +70 357 £77,500 +10.71% 321
South East -35 285 £55,000 +7.84% 207
North of England +29 219 £55,000 +15.35% 129
Midlands -83 148 £38,750 -29.55% 96
North West +32 135 £58,000 +21.64% 74
West Midlands -7 96 £44,000 -32.31% 58
East of England -78 96 £60,000 +5.26% 86
South West -53 86 £55,000 +0.92% 93
Yorkshire -29 53 £59,000 +24.21% 41
East Midlands -97 50 £30,000 -41.18% 38
Scotland -27 41 £42,000 -27.63% 35
North East -6 31 £52,500 -7.49% 16
Wales -27 13 £44,000 -15.47% 16
Northern Ireland -35 2 - - 14

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 46 (3.38%) Apache Airflow
2 27 (1.98%) Apache Spark
3 24 (1.76%) Apache
4 23 (1.69%) Confluence
5 21 (1.54%) ArcGIS
6 16 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
7 12 (0.88%) Appian
8 11 (0.81%) CMS
9 8 (0.59%) SharePoint
10 6 (0.44%) Kinematics
11 3 (0.22%) Headless CMS
11 3 (0.22%) Jupyter
12 2 (0.15%) IIS
13 1 (0.073%) Anypoint
13 1 (0.073%) Artix
13 1 (0.073%) Palantir Foundry
13 1 (0.073%) SAS
13 1 (0.073%) WordPress
Applications
1 90 (6.61%) Microsoft Excel
2 63 (4.63%) Microsoft Office
3 20 (1.47%) MS Visio
4 15 (1.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.59%) Simulink
6 6 (0.44%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 6 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
6 6 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.29%) CANalyzer
7 4 (0.29%) Fusion 360
8 3 (0.22%) Solid Edge
8 3 (0.22%) SOLIDWORKS
9 2 (0.15%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.15%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.15%) CATIA
9 2 (0.15%) Oracle Smart View
9 2 (0.15%) Sketch
10 1 (0.073%) Elementor
10 1 (0.073%) Navisworks
10 1 (0.073%) Productboard
Business Applications
1 35 (2.57%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (1.40%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.73%) SAP ERP
4 9 (0.66%) Oracle ERP
5 7 (0.51%) Workday HCM
6 6 (0.44%) Elite 3E
6 6 (0.44%) Loan IQ
6 6 (0.44%) SAP MDG
7 4 (0.29%) Markit EDM
7 4 (0.29%) SAP MDG-BP
8 3 (0.22%) iTrent
8 3 (0.22%) Oracle Applications
8 3 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
9 2 (0.15%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 2 (0.15%) SAP FSCM
9 2 (0.15%) SAP PSCD
10 1 (0.073%) Magento
10 1 (0.073%) SAP Business ByDesign
10 1 (0.073%) SAP EHS
10 1 (0.073%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 201 (14.76%) Azure
2 134 (9.84%) AWS
3 118 (8.66%) Power Platform
4 55 (4.04%) SaaS
5 53 (3.89%) GCP
6 44 (3.23%) Azure DevOps
7 36 (2.64%) Dynamics 365
8 35 (2.57%) Azure Data Factory
9 31 (2.28%) Serverless
10 30 (2.20%) Snowflake
11 27 (1.98%) Microsoft 365
12 26 (1.91%) Amazon S3
12 26 (1.91%) GitHub
12 26 (1.91%) Power Automate
13 24 (1.76%) dbt
13 24 (1.76%) Entra ID
14 16 (1.17%) OpenShift
15 15 (1.10%) Anthropic Claude
15 15 (1.10%) Azure AI
16 12 (0.88%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 36 (2.64%) Broadband
2 31 (2.28%) Firewall
3 29 (2.13%) CHAP
4 23 (1.69%) DNS
5 21 (1.54%) WAN
6 18 (1.32%) TCP/IP
6 18 (1.32%) Wireless
7 17 (1.25%) SD-WAN
8 13 (0.95%) 5G
9 11 (0.81%) HTTP
10 10 (0.73%) Wireshark
11 9 (0.66%) LAN
11 9 (0.66%) Modbus
11 9 (0.66%) NAS
12 8 (0.59%) Multicast
12 8 (0.59%) VPN
13 7 (0.51%) Ethernet
13 7 (0.51%) MQTT
13 7 (0.51%) Network Security
14 6 (0.44%) ATM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 111 (8.15%) Power BI
2 48 (3.52%) SQL Server
3 45 (3.30%) Tableau
4 35 (2.57%) PostgreSQL
5 34 (2.50%) Data Warehouse
5 34 (2.50%) Metadata
6 33 (2.42%) Relational Database
7 25 (1.84%) QGIS
8 23 (1.69%) GIS
9 21 (1.54%) Data Lake
10 20 (1.47%) Spatial Data
11 18 (1.32%) Oracle Reports
12 17 (1.25%) Spark SQL
13 16 (1.17%) Azure SQL Database
14 15 (1.10%) MongoDB
14 15 (1.10%) Oracle Database
15 14 (1.03%) MySQL
15 14 (1.03%) Parquet
15 14 (1.03%) Semantic Layer
16 13 (0.95%) Impala
Development Applications
1 66 (4.85%) Git
2 61 (4.48%) JIRA
3 39 (2.86%) Rational DOORS
4 27 (1.98%) Jenkins
5 20 (1.47%) GitLab
6 17 (1.25%) LabVIEW
6 17 (1.25%) Postman
6 17 (1.25%) Snyk
7 15 (1.10%) MLflow
7 15 (1.10%) Selenium
8 13 (0.95%) IBM UrbanCode
9 12 (0.88%) JMeter
10 11 (0.81%) Cucumber
10 11 (0.81%) TestRail
11 10 (0.73%) Eclipse
12 7 (0.51%) LoadRunner
13 5 (0.37%) Cypress.io
13 5 (0.37%) SpecFlow
13 5 (0.37%) Subversion
13 5 (0.37%) Visual Studio
General
1 447 (32.82%) Social Skills
2 370 (27.17%) Finance
3 291 (21.37%) Analytical Skills
4 107 (7.86%) Manufacturing
5 99 (7.27%) Aerospace
6 88 (6.46%) Electronics
7 86 (6.31%) Banking
8 70 (5.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 60 (4.41%) Legal
10 51 (3.74%) Public Sector
11 45 (3.30%) Retail
12 43 (3.16%) Law
13 42 (3.08%) Marketing
14 40 (2.94%) Financial Institution
15 39 (2.86%) Pharmaceutical
16 36 (2.64%) Presentation Skills
17 30 (2.20%) Organisational Skills
18 29 (2.13%) Automotive
19 26 (1.91%) Games
20 24 (1.76%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 224 (16.45%) Senior
2 220 (16.15%) Analyst
3 157 (11.53%) Systems Engineer
4 95 (6.98%) Lead
5 92 (6.75%) Test Engineer
6 86 (6.31%) Architect
7 83 (6.09%) Business Analyst
8 82 (6.02%) Validation Engineer
9 65 (4.77%) Consultant
10 58 (4.26%) Data Analyst
11 52 (3.82%) Integration Engineer
12 49 (3.60%) Data Engineer
13 47 (3.45%) Developer
14 45 (3.30%) Junior
15 44 (3.23%) Senior Systems Engineer
16 42 (3.08%) Principal Engineer
17 38 (2.79%) Verification Engineer
18 36 (2.64%) Software Validation Engineer
18 36 (2.64%) Systems Integration Engineer
19 32 (2.35%) Auditor
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (3.96%) REST
2 38 (2.79%) PyTorch
3 35 (2.57%) JSON
4 34 (2.50%) Pandas
5 29 (2.13%) Middleware
6 26 (1.91%) pytest
7 23 (1.69%) RESTful
7 23 (1.69%) XML
8 22 (1.62%) PySpark
9 20 (1.47%) OAuth
10 19 (1.40%) .NET
10 19 (1.40%) Swagger
11 18 (1.32%) JWT
11 18 (1.32%) TensorFlow
12 17 (1.25%) NumPy
13 16 (1.17%) Kafka
13 16 (1.17%) Playwright
14 15 (1.10%) React
15 14 (1.03%) OpenAPI
15 14 (1.03%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 81 (5.95%) Management Information System
2 56 (4.11%) Onboarding
3 51 (3.74%) Data Structures
4 40 (2.94%) Low-Code
5 38 (2.79%) Algorithms
6 36 (2.64%) Cloud Native
6 36 (2.64%) Product Ownership
6 36 (2.64%) Self-Motivation
7 34 (2.50%) Legacy Systems
8 27 (1.98%) Analytical Mindset
8 27 (1.98%) Data Centre
8 27 (1.98%) Life Science
9 23 (1.69%) Embedded Systems
10 20 (1.47%) Enterprise Software
11 18 (1.32%) SCADA
12 17 (1.25%) Robotics
13 16 (1.17%) Driving Licence
14 15 (1.10%) Blockchain
15 14 (1.03%) IoT
15 14 (1.03%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 78 (5.73%) Linux
2 65 (4.77%) Windows
3 21 (1.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 21 (1.54%) Windows Server
4 20 (1.47%) Unix
5 12 (0.88%) Android
6 4 (0.29%) Apple iOS
6 4 (0.29%) CentOS
6 4 (0.29%) FreeRTOS
6 4 (0.29%) Mac OS X
7 3 (0.22%) AIX
7 3 (0.22%) Kali Linux
7 3 (0.22%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.15%) ThreadX
8 2 (0.15%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.073%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.073%) Rocky
9 1 (0.073%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.073%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 304 (22.32%) Problem-Solving
2 284 (20.85%) Agile
3 256 (18.80%) Continuous Improvement
4 210 (15.42%) Verification and Validation
5 207 (15.20%) Analytics
6 199 (14.61%) AI
7 177 (13.00%) Test Automation
8 176 (12.92%) CI/CD
9 166 (12.19%) Data Validation
10 150 (11.01%) Migration
11 140 (10.28%) Business Intelligence
12 138 (10.13%) Data Modelling
13 134 (9.84%) Stakeholder Management
14 133 (9.77%) User Acceptance Testing
15 132 (9.69%) Decision-Making
16 130 (9.54%) Systems Engineering
17 127 (9.32%) Data Governance
17 127 (9.32%) Mentoring
18 122 (8.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 119 (8.74%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 300 (22.03%) Python
2 270 (19.82%) SQL
3 49 (3.60%) C++
4 47 (3.45%) Java
5 40 (2.94%) C
6 37 (2.72%) PowerShell
7 27 (1.98%) Go
7 27 (1.98%) JavaScript
8 26 (1.91%) Bash
9 24 (1.76%) C#
10 22 (1.62%) MATLAB
11 18 (1.32%) T-SQL
12 14 (1.03%) TypeScript
13 12 (0.88%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 12 (0.88%) Embedded C
14 9 (0.66%) R
14 9 (0.66%) VBA
15 7 (0.51%) ABAP
15 7 (0.51%) Apex Code
15 7 (0.51%) VB
Qualifications
1 304 (22.32%) Degree
2 166 (12.19%) Security Cleared
3 131 (9.62%) BPSS Clearance
4 64 (4.70%) Master's Degree
5 61 (4.48%) SC Cleared
6 40 (2.94%) Computer Science Degree
7 39 (2.86%) CISSP
8 38 (2.79%) CISA
8 38 (2.79%) DV Cleared
9 36 (2.64%) Chartered Engineer
9 36 (2.64%) CISM
10 33 (2.42%) SANS
11 29 (2.13%) CGEIT
11 29 (2.13%) FFIEC
12 28 (2.06%) HNC
13 24 (1.76%) HND
14 23 (1.69%) PMI Certification
15 20 (1.47%) PMP
16 12 (0.88%) ISTQB
17 10 (0.73%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 187 (13.73%) Data Quality
2 147 (10.79%) QA
3 66 (4.85%) GDPR
4 60 (4.41%) Accessibility
5 37 (2.72%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 35 (2.57%) GRC
7 31 (2.28%) NIST
8 29 (2.13%) COBIT
9 21 (1.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 18 (1.32%) IEC 61508
10 18 (1.32%) IFRS
11 15 (1.10%) SLA
12 13 (0.95%) ISO 9001
13 12 (0.88%) GAAP
14 11 (0.81%) GMP
15 10 (0.73%) Good Clinical Practice
15 10 (0.73%) PMO
15 10 (0.73%) WCAG
16 9 (0.66%) 21 CFR Part 11
16 9 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 12207
System Software
1 63 (4.63%) Docker
2 36 (2.64%) Active Directory
3 28 (2.06%) Firmware
4 18 (1.32%) Virtual Machines
5 15 (1.10%) VMware Infrastructure
5 15 (1.10%) vSphere
6 6 (0.44%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.44%) KVM
7 5 (0.37%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.15%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.073%) iptables
10 1 (0.073%) OpenAM
10 1 (0.073%) OpenDJ
10 1 (0.073%) OpenIDM
10 1 (0.073%) pfSense
Systems Management
1 65 (4.77%) Kubernetes
2 46 (3.38%) Terraform
3 32 (2.35%) Grafana
4 25 (1.84%) Ansible
5 17 (1.25%) Prometheus
6 14 (1.03%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
6 14 (1.03%) Functional Safety
7 10 (0.73%) Puppet
7 10 (0.73%) SCCM
8 7 (0.51%) Microsoft Intune
9 4 (0.29%) Argo
9 4 (0.29%) Cilium
9 4 (0.29%) Rancher
9 4 (0.29%) yum
10 3 (0.22%) HP Fortify
10 3 (0.22%) Kibana
11 2 (0.15%) BMC PATROL
11 2 (0.15%) Computer Incident Response Team
11 2 (0.15%) PowerCLI
12 1 (0.073%) SQL Sentry
Vendors
1 176 (12.92%) Microsoft
2 74 (5.43%) Oracle
3 64 (4.70%) SAP
4 44 (3.23%) Salesforce
5 29 (2.13%) Red Hat
5 29 (2.13%) VMware
6 24 (1.76%) Databricks
7 21 (1.54%) Cisco
8 19 (1.40%) CrowdStrike
8 19 (1.40%) Palo Alto
9 18 (1.32%) Google
9 18 (1.32%) IBM
10 17 (1.25%) Foundry
10 17 (1.25%) Tenable
11 16 (1.17%) Adobe
11 16 (1.17%) OpenAI
11 16 (1.17%) ServiceNow
12 14 (1.03%) Citrix
13 12 (0.88%) Automation Anywhere
13 12 (0.88%) Workday