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 1 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 152 161 195
Rank change year-on-year +9 +34 -57
Permanent jobs citing Validation 916 1,005 894
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.55% 1.82% 1.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.89% 2.02% 1.90%
Number of salaries quoted 490 369 511
10th Percentile £36,250 £37,500 £37,402
25th Percentile £41,250 £45,000 £48,945
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -4.00%
75th Percentile £78,438 £71,250 £76,250
90th Percentile £92,750 £97,500 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £52,500 £54,995
% change year-on-year - -4.54% -0.01%

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 48,455 49,716 46,950
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 81.91% 90.02% 91.47%
Number of salaries quoted 28,359 24,660 35,854
10th Percentile £28,500 £35,000 £31,552
25th Percentile £36,500 £45,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £49,000 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -10.91% +4.76% -4.50%

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 1 January 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 1 January 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 +12 833 £60,000 +9.09% 834
UK excluding London +9 605 £52,500 - 653
London +9 256 £75,000 +19.05% 261
Work from Home +73 221 £60,000 +9.09% 368
South East +27 208 £46,000 -21.70% 255
North of England -14 127 £54,500 +18.48% 125
Midlands +10 85 £41,608 -16.79% 63
North West -9 80 £53,375 +11.94% 77
South West +24 73 £50,000 -4.94% 102
East of England -3 71 £60,000 +9.09% 100
West Midlands -2 52 £37,500 -28.57% 44
Yorkshire -3 36 £61,250 +63.33% 35
East Midlands +5 33 £42,500 -10.53% 19
Scotland -7 29 £70,079 +20.76% 29
North East +2 11 £31,000 -25.30% 13
Wales +8 9 £65,000 +32.37% 13
Northern Ireland -16 3 - - 3

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 25 (2.73%) Confluence
2 19 (2.07%) Apache Airflow
3 13 (1.42%) Apache Spark
4 11 (1.20%) SharePoint
5 10 (1.09%) CMS
5 10 (1.09%) SugarCRM
6 8 (0.87%) Apache
7 7 (0.76%) Appian
8 5 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
9 4 (0.44%) Headless CMS
10 3 (0.33%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.33%) SAS
11 2 (0.22%) Kinematics
11 2 (0.22%) WordPress
12 1 (0.11%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.11%) Apache Superset
12 1 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.11%) FileNet
12 1 (0.11%) Luigi
Applications
1 63 (6.88%) Microsoft Excel
1 63 (6.88%) Microsoft Office
2 17 (1.86%) Simulink
3 16 (1.75%) MS Visio
4 8 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.55%) Mathcad
6 4 (0.44%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 4 (0.44%) Fusion 360
7 3 (0.33%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.33%) Oracle Smart View
7 3 (0.33%) Revit
8 2 (0.22%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.22%) Adobe Captivate
8 2 (0.22%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.22%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.22%) Elementor
8 2 (0.22%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.22%) Weka
9 1 (0.11%) GNU Octave
9 1 (0.11%) Navisworks
Business Applications
1 21 (2.29%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.76%) Workday HCM
4 5 (0.55%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.44%) Markit EDM
5 4 (0.44%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 4 (0.44%) SAP BPC
6 3 (0.33%) Oracle Assets
6 3 (0.33%) Oracle Cash Management
6 3 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
6 3 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.33%) Oracle Receivables
6 3 (0.33%) SAP CX
7 2 (0.22%) Aladdin
7 2 (0.22%) Endur
7 2 (0.22%) IBM Planning Analytics
7 2 (0.22%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.22%) Primavera
7 2 (0.22%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.11%) Oracle Financials
Cloud Services
1 130 (14.19%) Azure
2 75 (8.19%) Power Platform
3 68 (7.42%) AWS
4 44 (4.80%) SaaS
5 35 (3.82%) Azure DevOps
6 25 (2.73%) GCP
6 25 (2.73%) Snowflake
7 20 (2.18%) dbt
8 18 (1.97%) Dynamics 365
9 17 (1.86%) Azure Data Factory
10 16 (1.75%) GitHub
11 15 (1.64%) Power Automate
12 14 (1.53%) Microsoft 365
13 13 (1.42%) Amazon S3
14 11 (1.20%) Datadog
14 11 (1.20%) Entra ID
15 10 (1.09%) Serverless
16 8 (0.87%) Azure AI
17 7 (0.76%) Anthropic Claude
17 7 (0.76%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 14 (1.53%) LAN
2 13 (1.42%) Firewall
3 12 (1.31%) CHAP
3 12 (1.31%) DNS
4 9 (0.98%) WAN
5 8 (0.87%) 5G
5 8 (0.87%) HTTP
5 8 (0.87%) TCP/IP
6 7 (0.76%) MQTT
7 6 (0.66%) Modbus
7 6 (0.66%) SD-WAN
8 5 (0.55%) Cisco IOS
8 5 (0.55%) Ethernet VPN
8 5 (0.55%) SMTP
8 5 (0.55%) WAAS
9 4 (0.44%) BGP
9 4 (0.44%) DHCP
9 4 (0.44%) Internet
9 4 (0.44%) OSPF
9 4 (0.44%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (7.86%) Power BI
2 34 (3.71%) Data Warehouse
3 33 (3.60%) Tableau
4 26 (2.84%) SQL Server
5 24 (2.62%) Metadata
6 21 (2.29%) Relational Database
7 20 (2.18%) BigQuery
8 13 (1.42%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (1.20%) Data Lake
10 10 (1.09%) Spotfire
11 9 (0.98%) Big Data
12 8 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
12 8 (0.87%) PostgreSQL
13 7 (0.76%) Looker
13 7 (0.76%) NoSQL
13 7 (0.76%) Pinecone
14 6 (0.66%) GIS
15 5 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
15 5 (0.55%) SAP HANA
15 5 (0.55%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 77 (8.41%) JIRA
2 48 (5.24%) Rational DOORS
3 46 (5.02%) Git
4 23 (2.51%) Postman
5 19 (2.07%) Jenkins
6 15 (1.64%) Selenium
7 12 (1.31%) Cucumber
7 12 (1.31%) GitLab
7 12 (1.31%) JMeter
7 12 (1.31%) TestRail
8 10 (1.09%) MLflow
8 10 (1.09%) SoapUI
9 7 (0.76%) LabVIEW
9 7 (0.76%) LoadRunner
9 7 (0.76%) Locust
10 5 (0.55%) Charles Proxy
10 5 (0.55%) Fiddler
10 5 (0.55%) TestNG
10 5 (0.55%) Zephyr
11 4 (0.44%) Robot Framework
General
1 326 (35.59%) Social Skills
2 246 (26.86%) Finance
3 194 (21.18%) Analytical Skills
4 57 (6.22%) Electronics
5 56 (6.11%) Law
6 53 (5.79%) Banking
7 46 (5.02%) Manufacturing
8 45 (4.91%) Presentation Skills
9 44 (4.80%) Marketing
10 42 (4.59%) Documentation Skills
11 37 (4.04%) Aerospace
12 36 (3.93%) Financial Institution
13 35 (3.82%) Organisational Skills
14 32 (3.49%) Public Sector
15 31 (3.38%) Retail
16 29 (3.17%) Telecoms
17 27 (2.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 26 (2.84%) Pharmaceutical
19 22 (2.40%) Legal
20 20 (2.18%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 147 (16.05%) Analyst
2 131 (14.30%) Senior
3 100 (10.92%) Lead
4 84 (9.17%) Systems Engineer
5 48 (5.24%) Business Analyst
6 47 (5.13%) Architect
7 42 (4.59%) Data Analyst
7 42 (4.59%) Test Engineer
8 33 (3.60%) Developer
8 33 (3.60%) Junior
8 33 (3.60%) Principal Engineer
9 32 (3.49%) Applications Engineer
10 31 (3.38%) Applications Support
10 31 (3.38%) Data Engineer
11 29 (3.17%) Support Engineer
11 29 (3.17%) Validation Engineer
12 26 (2.84%) Applications Support Engineer
13 25 (2.73%) Integration Engineer
14 24 (2.62%) Solutions Architect
15 23 (2.51%) Team Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (4.37%) REST
2 27 (2.95%) Middleware
3 24 (2.62%) JSON
4 22 (2.40%) Pandas
5 21 (2.29%) XML
6 19 (2.07%) scikit-learn
7 17 (1.86%) pytest
8 16 (1.75%) PyTorch
8 16 (1.75%) TensorFlow
9 13 (1.42%) NumPy
10 12 (1.31%) FastAPI
10 12 (1.31%) React
11 11 (1.20%) CSS
11 11 (1.20%) HTML
11 11 (1.20%) Web Services
12 10 (1.09%) Flask
12 10 (1.09%) OAuth
13 9 (0.98%) Hugging Face
13 9 (0.98%) JWT
13 9 (0.98%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 89 (9.72%) Management Information System
2 42 (4.59%) Life Science
3 38 (4.15%) Onboarding
4 34 (3.71%) Product Ownership
5 29 (3.17%) Operational Technology
6 26 (2.84%) Self-Motivation
7 19 (2.07%) Algorithms
8 17 (1.86%) Legacy Systems
9 16 (1.75%) Data Structures
10 15 (1.64%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 14 (1.53%) Low-Code
11 14 (1.53%) SCADA
12 12 (1.31%) Analytical Mindset
12 12 (1.31%) Data Centre
12 12 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
13 11 (1.20%) Cloud Native
13 11 (1.20%) FPGA
13 11 (1.20%) SWIFT Messaging Network
14 10 (1.09%) Embedded Systems
15 9 (0.98%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 52 (5.68%) Windows
2 38 (4.15%) Linux
3 14 (1.53%) Windows Server
4 10 (1.09%) Android
5 6 (0.66%) Unix
6 5 (0.55%) Windows 10
7 3 (0.33%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (0.22%) CentOS
8 2 (0.22%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.11%) AIX
9 1 (0.11%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.11%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.11%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 237 (25.87%) Agile
2 214 (23.36%) Problem-Solving
3 142 (15.50%) Verification and Validation
4 130 (14.19%) Continuous Improvement
5 124 (13.54%) Data Validation
6 118 (12.88%) Migration
7 115 (12.55%) Analytics
8 104 (11.35%) Test Automation
9 102 (11.14%) Systems Engineering
10 92 (10.04%) DevOps
11 90 (9.83%) CI/CD
12 88 (9.61%) Decision-Making
12 88 (9.61%) ETL
13 86 (9.39%) Business Intelligence
13 86 (9.39%) Mentoring
14 81 (8.84%) Data Analysis
14 81 (8.84%) Data Management
15 78 (8.52%) Roadmaps
16 77 (8.41%) Software Engineering
17 73 (7.97%) AI
Programming Languages
1 198 (21.62%) SQL
2 172 (18.78%) Python
3 36 (3.93%) C
4 34 (3.71%) C++
5 30 (3.28%) MATLAB
6 29 (3.17%) Java
6 29 (3.17%) PowerShell
7 22 (2.40%) JavaScript
8 16 (1.75%) Bash
9 13 (1.42%) TypeScript
10 10 (1.09%) R
11 9 (0.98%) T-SQL
12 8 (0.87%) C#
13 6 (0.66%) Bicep
14 5 (0.55%) PL/SQL
15 4 (0.44%) Apex Code
16 3 (0.33%) Embedded C
16 3 (0.33%) PHP
16 3 (0.33%) Tcl
16 3 (0.33%) VB
Qualifications
1 287 (31.33%) Degree
2 114 (12.45%) Security Cleared
3 108 (11.79%) BPSS Clearance
4 55 (6.00%) SC Cleared
5 47 (5.13%) Master's Degree
6 42 (4.59%) Computer Science Degree
7 20 (2.18%) Cisco Certification
7 20 (2.18%) HNC
8 17 (1.86%) ISTQB
9 16 (1.75%) DV Cleared
9 16 (1.75%) Microsoft Certification
10 14 (1.53%) CISA
10 14 (1.53%) CISSP
10 14 (1.53%) PMI Certification
10 14 (1.53%) PMP
11 13 (1.42%) CGEIT
11 13 (1.42%) Chartered Engineer
11 13 (1.42%) CISM
11 13 (1.42%) FFIEC
11 13 (1.42%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (12.45%) Data Quality
2 113 (12.34%) QA
3 42 (4.59%) ISO/IEC 15288
4 36 (3.93%) GDPR
5 35 (3.82%) SLA
6 33 (3.60%) GxP
7 27 (2.95%) Accessibility
8 17 (1.86%) ISO/IEC 12207
8 17 (1.86%) NIST
9 13 (1.42%) COBIT
10 11 (1.20%) ISO 20022
10 11 (1.20%) SEPA
11 10 (1.09%) Good Clinical Practice
11 10 (1.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 9 (0.98%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 9 (0.98%) WCAG
13 8 (0.87%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 8 (0.87%) GRC
14 7 (0.76%) TARGET2
15 5 (0.55%) ARP4761
System Software
1 44 (4.80%) Docker
2 27 (2.95%) Firmware
2 27 (2.95%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (1.64%) Active Directory
4 10 (1.09%) Embedded Firmware
5 3 (0.33%) vCloud
5 3 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.33%) vSphere
6 2 (0.22%) Ceph
6 2 (0.22%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.22%) Lustre
6 2 (0.22%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 2 (0.22%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 2 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.22%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.11%) Dovecot
7 1 (0.11%) iptables
7 1 (0.11%) OpenDJ
7 1 (0.11%) Postfix
7 1 (0.11%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 36 (3.93%) Kubernetes
2 20 (2.18%) Terraform
3 17 (1.86%) Ansible
3 17 (1.86%) Grafana
4 9 (0.98%) Microsoft Intune
5 7 (0.76%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
5 7 (0.76%) Prometheus
6 5 (0.55%) SCCM
7 3 (0.33%) Argo
7 3 (0.33%) Docker Swarm
7 3 (0.33%) Kubeflow
7 3 (0.33%) Rancher
7 3 (0.33%) yum
8 2 (0.22%) Functional Safety
8 2 (0.22%) Nessus
8 2 (0.22%) Progress Chef
8 2 (0.22%) Rundeck
9 1 (0.11%) Control-M
9 1 (0.11%) Puppet
9 1 (0.11%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 114 (12.45%) Microsoft
2 51 (5.57%) SAP
3 34 (3.71%) Oracle
4 32 (3.49%) VMware
5 27 (2.95%) Cisco
6 24 (2.62%) IBM
6 24 (2.62%) Salesforce
7 15 (1.64%) Foundry
8 12 (1.31%) Software AG
9 11 (1.20%) CheckPoint
9 11 (1.20%) F5
10 9 (0.98%) Databricks
10 9 (0.98%) Splunk
10 9 (0.98%) Workday
11 8 (0.87%) Intapp
11 8 (0.87%) OpenAI
12 7 (0.76%) Adobe
12 7 (0.76%) Automation Anywhere
12 7 (0.76%) UiPath
13 6 (0.66%) Arista