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 16 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 120 83 205
Rank change year-on-year -37 +122 -18
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,501 1,622 1,434
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.61% 3.64% 1.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.21% 3.93% 1.62%
Number of salaries quoted 878 455 771
10th Percentile £36,250 £40,000 £35,500
25th Percentile £42,500 £46,250 £42,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -11.41%
75th Percentile £75,000 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £90,000 £95,000 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -4.55% +4.76% -4.62%

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 67,964 41,274 88,698
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 72.85% 92.59% 81.93%
Number of salaries quoted 46,731 22,044 62,765
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,822 £29,525
25th Percentile £41,250 £39,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.54%
75th Percentile £78,750 £77,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £91,991
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +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 16 June 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 16 June 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 -38 1,358 £55,000 -3.51% 1,136
UK excluding London -52 1,005 £52,500 -4.55% 870
Work from Home +123 485 £55,000 -9.84% 428
London +68 389 £75,000 - 401
South East -41 304 £55,000 - 265
North of England +80 278 £55,000 +15.35% 172
North West +80 178 £55,000 +15.35% 84
Midlands -67 162 £40,000 -30.43% 137
East of England -73 110 £60,000 +5.26% 101
West Midlands -7 95 £44,000 -29.60% 76
South West -46 95 £53,000 -3.64% 136
East Midlands -81 65 £30,000 -39.70% 61
Yorkshire -3 59 £50,000 +18.69% 60
North East -9 41 £55,000 +15.79% 31
Scotland -13 40 £42,500 -26.77% 49
Wales -35 16 £45,750 -23.75% 15
Northern Ireland -31 2 - - 16

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 51 (3.40%) Apache Airflow
2 45 (3.00%) Apache Spark
3 43 (2.86%) Apache
4 24 (1.60%) Confluence
5 21 (1.40%) ArcGIS
6 15 (1.00%) Microsoft Exchange
6 15 (1.00%) SharePoint
7 11 (0.73%) Jupyter
8 7 (0.47%) Appian
8 7 (0.47%) SAS
9 5 (0.33%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.33%) CMS
9 5 (0.33%) Kinematics
10 3 (0.20%) Artix
11 2 (0.13%) IIS
12 1 (0.067%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.067%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.067%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 87 (5.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (3.06%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (1.53%) Microsoft Project
4 19 (1.27%) MS Visio
5 15 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 15 (1.00%) Simulink
6 8 (0.53%) SOLIDWORKS
6 8 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.33%) AutoCAD
8 4 (0.27%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 4 (0.27%) Adobe XD
8 4 (0.27%) CANalyzer
8 4 (0.27%) Sketch
9 3 (0.20%) Autodesk Inventor
9 3 (0.20%) Productboard
9 3 (0.20%) Solid Edge
9 3 (0.20%) Stateflow
10 2 (0.13%) Fusion 360
11 1 (0.067%) CATIA
11 1 (0.067%) Navisworks
Business Applications
1 41 (2.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (2.40%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.67%) SAP ERP
3 10 (0.67%) SAP MDG
4 8 (0.53%) Oracle EBS
4 8 (0.53%) Oracle ERP
5 6 (0.40%) Elite 3E
5 6 (0.40%) iTrent
6 5 (0.33%) Loan IQ
6 5 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
6 5 (0.33%) SAP MDG-BP
7 4 (0.27%) Oracle Applications
8 2 (0.13%) FastStats
8 2 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
8 2 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
8 2 (0.13%) SAP EWM
8 2 (0.13%) SAP FSCM
8 2 (0.13%) SAP MM
8 2 (0.13%) SAP PSCD
8 2 (0.13%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 220 (14.66%) Azure
2 185 (12.33%) AWS
3 138 (9.19%) Power Platform
4 79 (5.26%) GCP
5 67 (4.46%) SaaS
6 55 (3.66%) Azure DevOps
7 40 (2.66%) GitHub
8 39 (2.60%) Microsoft 365
9 38 (2.53%) Serverless
10 36 (2.40%) Amazon S3
11 32 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
12 29 (1.93%) Azure Data Factory
13 26 (1.73%) Snowflake
14 22 (1.47%) Entra ID
15 19 (1.27%) dbt
15 19 (1.27%) Power Automate
16 18 (1.20%) GitHub Actions
17 15 (1.00%) OpenShift
18 14 (0.93%) Amazon EC2
19 13 (0.87%) Amazon EMR
Communications & Networking
1 71 (4.73%) Broadband
2 46 (3.06%) Firewall
3 34 (2.27%) DNS
4 23 (1.53%) WAN
5 22 (1.47%) CHAP
5 22 (1.47%) Wireless
6 20 (1.33%) TCP/IP
7 17 (1.13%) SD-WAN
8 16 (1.07%) Network Security
9 15 (1.00%) 5G
9 15 (1.00%) VPN
10 12 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
11 11 (0.73%) MQTT
12 10 (0.67%) HTTP
12 10 (0.67%) LAN
12 10 (0.67%) Wireshark
13 9 (0.60%) Ethernet
13 9 (0.60%) NAS
14 7 (0.47%) Multicast
14 7 (0.47%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 132 (8.79%) Power BI
2 56 (3.73%) Tableau
3 53 (3.53%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (3.26%) SQL Server
5 45 (3.00%) Data Warehouse
6 34 (2.27%) MongoDB
7 31 (2.07%) Metadata
7 31 (2.07%) Relational Database
8 26 (1.73%) BigQuery
9 25 (1.67%) QGIS
10 24 (1.60%) Semantic Layer
11 23 (1.53%) Data Lake
11 23 (1.53%) GIS
12 22 (1.47%) Azure SQL Database
13 20 (1.33%) Spatial Data
14 19 (1.27%) Spark SQL
15 17 (1.13%) Oracle Database
16 15 (1.00%) Amazon Athena
16 15 (1.00%) DynamoDB
16 15 (1.00%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 73 (4.86%) JIRA
2 69 (4.60%) Git
3 47 (3.13%) Jenkins
4 35 (2.33%) GitLab
5 32 (2.13%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.47%) Snyk
7 16 (1.07%) Postman
8 15 (1.00%) Selenium
9 14 (0.93%) LabVIEW
10 13 (0.87%) IBM UrbanCode
11 11 (0.73%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.73%) JMeter
11 11 (0.73%) MLflow
12 10 (0.67%) Cypress.io
12 10 (0.67%) Eclipse
12 10 (0.67%) TeamCity
13 6 (0.40%) Rational Rhapsody
13 6 (0.40%) REST Assured
14 5 (0.33%) Locust
14 5 (0.33%) Robot Framework
General
1 475 (31.65%) Social Skills
2 402 (26.78%) Finance
3 323 (21.52%) Analytical Skills
4 116 (7.73%) Aerospace
5 111 (7.40%) Manufacturing
6 103 (6.86%) Electronics
7 95 (6.33%) Banking
8 89 (5.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 58 (3.86%) Legal
10 55 (3.66%) Public Sector
11 54 (3.60%) Retail
12 53 (3.53%) Law
13 43 (2.86%) Marketing
14 42 (2.80%) Pharmaceutical
15 40 (2.66%) Games
16 39 (2.60%) Organisational Skills
17 36 (2.40%) Automotive
18 33 (2.20%) Financial Institution
19 30 (2.00%) Presentation Skills
20 24 (1.60%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 255 (16.99%) Senior
2 234 (15.59%) Analyst
3 139 (9.26%) Systems Engineer
4 110 (7.33%) Lead
5 102 (6.80%) Test Engineer
6 101 (6.73%) Architect
7 87 (5.80%) Validation Engineer
8 83 (5.53%) Business Analyst
9 75 (5.00%) Data Engineer
10 70 (4.66%) Developer
11 68 (4.53%) Consultant
12 64 (4.26%) Data Analyst
13 48 (3.20%) Principal Engineer
14 46 (3.06%) Integration Engineer
15 40 (2.66%) Embedded Engineer
16 37 (2.47%) IT Manager
17 34 (2.27%) Security Architect
17 34 (2.27%) Senior Systems Engineer
18 33 (2.20%) Support Engineer
19 32 (2.13%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (2.86%) RESTful
2 40 (2.66%) REST
3 35 (2.33%) PyTorch
4 33 (2.20%) JSON
5 32 (2.13%) PySpark
6 28 (1.87%) Kafka
7 27 (1.80%) Node.js
8 26 (1.73%) Middleware
8 26 (1.73%) Pandas
9 25 (1.67%) pytest
10 24 (1.60%) XML
11 22 (1.47%) .NET
12 19 (1.27%) Playwright
12 19 (1.27%) Swagger
13 18 (1.20%) Regular Expression
13 18 (1.20%) XMPP
14 15 (1.00%) CSS
14 15 (1.00%) LDAP
14 15 (1.00%) OAuth
14 15 (1.00%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 89 (5.93%) Cloud Native
2 73 (4.86%) Management Information System
3 71 (4.73%) Onboarding
4 64 (4.26%) Data Structures
5 51 (3.40%) Algorithms
6 50 (3.33%) Low-Code
7 40 (2.66%) Product Ownership
8 37 (2.47%) Embedded Systems
9 36 (2.40%) Driving Licence
10 35 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
11 32 (2.13%) Data Centre
11 32 (2.13%) Distributed Systems
11 32 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
11 32 (2.13%) Legacy Systems
12 31 (2.07%) Analytical Mindset
12 31 (2.07%) Video\Live Streaming
13 28 (1.87%) Life Science
14 23 (1.53%) FPGA
15 22 (1.47%) Robotics
16 18 (1.20%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 90 (6.00%) Linux
2 66 (4.40%) Windows
3 26 (1.73%) Windows Server
4 25 (1.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 24 (1.60%) Unix
6 9 (0.60%) Android
7 4 (0.27%) FreeRTOS
7 4 (0.27%) Mac OS X
8 3 (0.20%) AIX
8 3 (0.20%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.20%) Kali Linux
9 2 (0.13%) CentOS
9 2 (0.13%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.13%) ThreadX
10 1 (0.067%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.067%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.067%) Rocky
10 1 (0.067%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.067%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.067%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 328 (21.85%) Problem-Solving
2 313 (20.85%) Continuous Improvement
3 309 (20.59%) Agile
4 263 (17.52%) AI
5 238 (15.86%) CI/CD
6 218 (14.52%) Test Automation
7 216 (14.39%) Analytics
8 189 (12.59%) Verification and Validation
9 168 (11.19%) Migration
10 166 (11.06%) Data Validation
11 160 (10.66%) Business Intelligence
12 158 (10.53%) Data Modelling
13 154 (10.26%) DevOps
14 152 (10.13%) Stakeholder Management
15 149 (9.93%) Decision-Making
15 149 (9.93%) Software Engineering
16 147 (9.79%) Mentoring
17 145 (9.66%) Machine Learning
18 140 (9.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 139 (9.26%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 376 (25.05%) Python
2 310 (20.65%) SQL
3 64 (4.26%) Java
4 63 (4.20%) C++
5 59 (3.93%) C
6 49 (3.26%) Go
7 40 (2.66%) C#
8 31 (2.07%) JavaScript
9 27 (1.80%) PowerShell
10 26 (1.73%) MATLAB
11 25 (1.67%) Bash
12 21 (1.40%) T-SQL
13 19 (1.27%) Embedded C
14 16 (1.07%) Embedded C++
15 13 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 13 (0.87%) Scala
16 12 (0.80%) TypeScript
17 10 (0.67%) ABAP
18 9 (0.60%) VBA
19 7 (0.47%) R
Qualifications
1 297 (19.79%) Degree
2 172 (11.46%) Security Cleared
3 113 (7.53%) BPSS Clearance
4 80 (5.33%) SC Cleared
5 71 (4.73%) Master's Degree
6 44 (2.93%) DV Cleared
7 41 (2.73%) Computer Science Degree
8 37 (2.47%) Chartered Engineer
9 32 (2.13%) CISA
9 32 (2.13%) CISSP
9 32 (2.13%) SANS
10 29 (1.93%) CISM
11 27 (1.80%) HNC
12 23 (1.53%) HND
13 22 (1.47%) CGEIT
13 22 (1.47%) FFIEC
14 21 (1.40%) PMI Certification
15 18 (1.20%) ACCA
15 18 (1.20%) CIMA
15 18 (1.20%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 240 (15.99%) Data Quality
2 165 (10.99%) QA
3 60 (4.00%) Accessibility
3 60 (4.00%) GDPR
4 42 (2.80%) GRC
5 29 (1.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 25 (1.67%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 25 (1.67%) NIST
7 22 (1.47%) COBIT
7 22 (1.47%) IEC 61508
8 18 (1.20%) IFRS
9 16 (1.07%) ISO 9001
9 16 (1.07%) SLA
10 15 (1.00%) PMO
11 12 (0.80%) GAAP
12 11 (0.73%) SOC 2
13 10 (0.67%) ISO 26262
13 10 (0.67%) WCAG
14 9 (0.60%) GMP
14 9 (0.60%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 70 (4.66%) Docker
2 43 (2.86%) Firmware
3 38 (2.53%) Active Directory
4 22 (1.47%) Virtual Machines
5 20 (1.33%) vSphere
6 16 (1.07%) Embedded Firmware
7 15 (1.00%) VMware Infrastructure
8 6 (0.40%) KVM
9 5 (0.33%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.13%) Terminal Services
10 2 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.067%) OpenAM
11 1 (0.067%) OpenDJ
11 1 (0.067%) OpenIDM
Systems Management
1 71 (4.73%) Kubernetes
2 63 (4.20%) Terraform
3 30 (2.00%) Grafana
4 23 (1.53%) Functional Safety
5 20 (1.33%) Ansible
6 15 (1.00%) Prometheus
7 10 (0.67%) Cilium
7 10 (0.67%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 9 (0.60%) Puppet
8 9 (0.60%) SCCM
9 7 (0.47%) Kibana
10 4 (0.27%) Microsoft Intune
11 3 (0.20%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.20%) HP Fortify
12 2 (0.13%) Argo
12 2 (0.13%) BMC PATROL
12 2 (0.13%) Computer Incident Response Team
12 2 (0.13%) Rancher
12 2 (0.13%) yum
13 1 (0.067%) MOM
Vendors
1 192 (12.79%) Microsoft
2 93 (6.20%) Oracle
2 93 (6.20%) SAP
3 50 (3.33%) Salesforce
4 38 (2.53%) Databricks
5 34 (2.27%) Red Hat
5 34 (2.27%) ServiceNow
6 33 (2.20%) VMware
7 29 (1.93%) CrowdStrike
8 23 (1.53%) Palo Alto
9 22 (1.47%) Cisco
9 22 (1.47%) Google
9 22 (1.47%) Tenable
10 21 (1.40%) Adobe
11 15 (1.00%) Foundry
12 14 (0.93%) Citrix
12 14 (0.93%) McAfee
13 13 (0.87%) OpenAI
14 10 (0.67%) IBM
14 10 (0.67%) Splunk